No effect can transcend its cause.

No effect can transcend its cause means that nothing can be the effect of its absence.

 

There is always something.

 

Something transcends something else if the latter has the potential to be the effect of the former.

 

Something trancends something else if the former can effect the absence of the latter.

 

Person transcends non-person because person has no potential to be the effect of its absence.
Only nothing has the potential to be the effect of its own absence.

 

the absence or the existence

 

Agreed.

 

Absent nothing, everything remains. Yet less than with nothing.

If everything with nothing trancends everything without nothing, nothing trancends its absence.

Nothing exists nowhere but as a concept. As a concept it is something. Eliminate the concept of nothing and less exists.

 

The absence of nothing is no absence at all. The loss of nothing is no loss at all. The gain of nothing is no gain at all.
Nothing has the potential to be the effect of its own absence or the cause of its own existence.
Nothing exists, as a concept, but its existence cannot be actualized. It cannot actually-exist. Nothing cannot be.