What is the usage of 物 here?

Question

From Daodejing 25:

有物混成，先天地生。寂兮寥兮，獨立不改，周行而不殆，可以為天下母。

I have seen this translated as both:

"There is a being, wonderful, perfect; It existed before heaven and earth. How quiet it is! How spiritual it is! It stands alone and it does not change. It moves around and around, but does not on this account suffer. All life comes from it."

and

"There was something undefined and complete, coming into existence before Heaven and Earth. How still it was and formless, standing alone, and undergoing no change, reaching everywhere and in no danger (of being exhausted)! It may be regarded as the Mother of all things."

What is 物 here precisely? And what does 混成 mean in relation to 物?

Answer 1

I think that "the thing" can't be explianted precisely. We can't give it a name because"名可名，非常名".
When it comes to the relationship between "混成" and"物".It's naturally to say that "混成" is the adverbial of "物".
"混成" have several meanings at the same time.
1： 混杂而成：Everything is contained in "the thing".
2： 混然一体：However,"the thing" can't be separated as it makes no sense—— just like "ok" is not a part of "book" although "o" and "k" is 2 letters of the word "book".
3： 自然形成："自然" is more suitable to be explained as"by itself" than "naturally" here. The orign and reason of "the thing" is itself so it's a perfect thing.

Answer 2

It can be described as an abstract being, or, colloquially, just a "thing". According to the Taoism philosophy, this "thing" is the root of everything of the present day. Because of this, it must be a mix of everything, and should be a perfect being.
混 and 成 should be two attributes of the "thing": 混 means "mixed", and 成 should be "perfect/complete". Since it's a mix of Everything and it's a perfect, omnipotent existence, it becomes the root of everything in the world.
BTW, I think both translations are very straightforward and clear. Perhaps the only difficulty for you is that you can't understand the philosophy of Taoism.