Is it possible to default the list view on a record to not show anything but the

What is the use case for this? From an end-user perspective, I would think there was something wrong with the list view or the record if I opened it and didn't see any entries initially.

This is because our users always go into the record with the intention of searching for a particular record out of the 30000 that we have.

You could try using default filters where there is an impossible condition to pass:
forum.appian.com/.../Record_Design.html

In 7.5 you can use an expression based record. If you read through the examples it shows you how to interrogate rsp!query for the search criteria. In your instance you could return an empty datasubset if the users hasn't performed a direct search.

I have used the above approach to return a single row in the record list, when the user clicks on it they go to a SAIL record dashboard which is actually a complex search form that returns results in a grid with a!recordLink components which then link back to this same record type but because I can find search criteria in rsp!query I can display a traditional SAIL dashboard.