> This vacuum, then, is not nothing. Nothingness does not seethe with activity, it does bugger all.

Still, if quantum fluctuation particles are not created from nothing, surely they must be created from something. What is this something?

My somewhat long-winded point here was that there are a lot of intuitive concept we take for granted that turn out to simply not be the case, once you really look at how the world works. Your concept of "nothingness" is one. Another is "simultaneity", and related to that, the idea that space and time are unconnected.