Yes. Walk from the sofa to the window and your nostrils go with you. Their openings change position relative to the room, just as your nose does. Nobody needs to go back and collect two abandoned holes from the sofa.
The answer becomes interesting when we ask what, exactly, has moved. The nose is made of matter. What should we say about its openings?
An opening can have an address
We already describe holes as having locations. A hole near the heel of a sock stays near the heel when you carry the sock upstairs, while its position in the house changes. Those descriptions fit together because they use different reference points.
The same goes for a nostril. Relative to your face, it remains in its familiar place. Relative to the window, it gets closer as you approach. Calling that movement is ordinary, useful language. It does not require imagining a small parcel of nothing being transported inside your nose.
Try a finger ring over a table
Touch your thumb to your index finger to make a ring. Hold it flat above a table and look down through the opening at a mark on the tabletop. Now move your hand sideways, keeping the ring closed.
The opening follows your hand. The mark stays where it was. Once your hand has moved far enough, you can no longer see the mark through the ring.
Three things are worth keeping separate: the opening formed by your fingers, a location fixed relative to the table, and the air occupying the opening. Tracking the opening means following the ring. Tracking the original location means continuing to look above the mark. Tracking the air would require paying attention to particular bits of matter.
The first two descriptions do not compete. A changing position relative to the table is precisely how we describe the ring's movement. The fact that the opening occupies different positions does not, by itself, show that the opening cannot move.
Empty of what?
A hole need not be a vacuum. There is usually air in the opening of your finger ring, and air is matter. There could also be a pencil passing through it. We would still understand someone saying, “Put the pencil through that hole.”
In this example, calling the opening empty draws attention to the absence of finger material across it. It need not mean an absence of everything.
“Structured absence” can be a helpful image: what is missing matters because of what surrounds it. But that phrase is a way to think about an opening, not a definition that settles what every hole really is.
Would it still be the same hole?
Gently change your finger ring from a circle into an oval. It is easy to keep calling this the same opening, even though its shape has changed. Now separate your fingers, then join them again. Has the same hole returned, or have you made a new one?
A simple ring made from modelling clay gives another version of the puzzle. Slip a removable plug into its opening, then pull it out. You might say you have uncovered the original hole. Press matching clay into the gap and smooth it into a solid disc, then make an opening again. You might instead call that a new hole.
These examples invite different ways of keeping count. Shape, location, an uninterrupted history, or the purpose of the description may matter. Saying “same hole” for a practical task does not establish one rule that answers every possible case.
Your nose can carry on regardless
Philosophers offer several accounts of what holes are. We do not have to choose among them before describing a walk across the room.
For that task, treating a nostril as an opening that belongs to the nose works well. It lets us follow the opening as the nose changes position. It also leaves a further question open: what kind of thing are we tracking?
So yes, your nostrils move when you walk. The little surprise is how quickly a sensible answer can lead to a question about what counts as a thing. Philosophy has found a rather unlikely front door.
