Why is there something rather than nothing?

Everything exists!!! Nothing has never been. You are the center of the universe, ... for now.

You're not the first to ask this question...

blogs.discovermagazine.com...

Grünbaum addressed a famous and simple question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” He called it the Primordial Existential Question, or PEQ for short. (Philosophers are up there with NASA officials when it comes to a weakness for acronyms.) Stated in that form, the question can be traced at least back to Leibniz in his 1697 essay “On the Ultimate Origin of Things,” although it’s been recently championed by Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne.

I'm sure ya knew that though.

The correct answer to this question is stated right off the bat in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Reply to post by madnessinmysoul

Because Jesus is coming Madness.

lol


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reply to post by Wut?!?


yes, its all about perspective.

If nothing existed nothing would question its nothingness and become something.

Originally posted by clever024
nothing, nothingness cannot be percieved. its void, empty. everywhere you look there is "something" wether it be a molecule or a planet something exists.

Wrong.

No one has ever seen what "nothing" looks like. But a lot of people knows what nothingness looks like.

You might not know nothing. But you can't observe it.

Isn't "nothingness" something? I mean, you have to be conscious to experience even "nothingness". It's been speculated that this "nothingness" is really the consciousness itself. Why the universe manifests as it does, nobody knows. But to think about it, science says that the universe is basically infinite. Now, it's been studied that there may be basically infinite amount of dimensions.

So, if there is an infinite amount of everything and basically infinite amount of time, "everything" must exist at some point.

But get this.. from where all the materia comes from?

I don't remember who was the physicist who said that the the order in the universe is like balancing a plate on a needletip. Now, why doesn't everything fall into chaos? What upkeeps the order?

So... what I'm saying (could be speculation) that the consciousness rises from the "nothingness" and is for that reason limitless/infinite because there is nothing to limit "it". The "existence" is the nature of this "nothingness"/consciousness, and these different dimensions are just other sides/aspects of "it". So that would basically mean that everything is part of this consciousness.

And because everything is constantly changing, the would mean that the consciousness is also dynamic. The only static thing is the "core" or the infinitely small point, non-existent, nothingness, and around "it" everything moves and evolves. So, this "nothingness" is pure energy, and the reason for itself to exist, because "nothingness" cannot really exist. It's a paradox, and this paradox "becomes" the consciousness.

So, the existence of everything is (depends how you view it) pure magic and miracles, but in a way completely logical and explainable by "science". That is why I don't really believe in supernatural in that way, sometimes things just appear magical.

I also feel that sometimes it's more comfortable to explain things by theological terms, and things just seem that way, because scientific terms do not always make justice to the actual phenomenon, or how we experience them. I mean, you can explain things by math etc. but it doesn't usually make justice to the majestic experience.

I've been also thinking about that the "holy spirit" is this "void", or pure, limitless energy. That is one aspect I don't quite yet understand.. when I "meditate" (or I don't know, I could call it focusing), I just simply think about this void or "nothingness", and that actually seems to activate my frontal lobe.

reply to post by Tryptych


Yes, nothingness is something. But nothing is nothing. It cant be something if it is nothing.

Nothing is used to describe something you dont know, don't have or can't see " like something specific".

O.k.

If you have +5 in one hand and - 5 in the other.... Does that mean you have nothing?

Simple enough question, this is quite litrally how the universe came from a zero value.

Korg.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


How can you have -5 of something in your hand?

Originally posted by spy66

Yes, nothingness is something. But nothing is nothing. It cant be something if it is nothing.

Nothing is used to describe something you dont know, don't have or can't see " like something specific".

This is getting funny..

Nothingness is something, because it's impossible for "nothingness" to exist. We have to be conscious to experience this nothingness/isness. So that would mean that the consciousness itself must rise from this void.

Nothing means non-existent. And that, by itself, is a paradox. 0=1. The void itself is an unit. A concept. Some"thing". That is, of course, if we have the consciousness to experience it.

Originally posted by 547000
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

How can you have -5 of something in your hand?

You’re thinking too literally.

On a graph plot there is a +5 peak and a -5 peak in a wave like manor. The total value we are working with is Zero. Yet there are points where a value of +5 exists.

This is the nature of reality.

In effect Zero can never exist due to quantum fluctuations at the most fundamental levels of reality. It is this random chaos that forms order and what we perceive as something.

Do you follow?

Korg.

You can't truly perceive nothingness. The closest i can get, is to visualize the cosmos, then remove everything so there is only empty space, now the hard bit; try to visualize empty space collapsing in on itself so that not even empty space exists. This is true nothing. From a reductionist logical perspective this is how it should be. But it isn't like this. There is empty space. Why is there empty space ? Why has creation sprung from it? Theory; Conciousness was there already, unborn, eternally there, and the physical universe is what this conciousness, or God, has imagined. So the physical universe is a "crystallized" thought.

reply to post by bargoose


Indeed. But.. what I'm suggesting is that maybe the "nothingness" is the consciousness itself. That would also mean in a way, there is no "god" in that sense. That the perfect mind was born out of this chaos/nothingness because it is it's nature to do so.

On the other hand, it's very hard for me to understand that there wouldn't be some kind of "god" with identity. I mean, everything here has character, every particle has order. Everything is like "constructed". On the other hand, the nothingness/consciousness-thing would suggest that (like Hawking said) there really is no need for "god" for the universe to exist.

reply to post by Mr_Awesome


"Because I said so" is not philosophy. Try again

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


Well, there is nothing as a concept. Nothing exists at least in that basic form, thus we can argue why there is something rather than nothing. In fact the question isn't: why is there something in the universe rather than nothing?
The Universe would count as something.

reply to post by earth2


I can imagine nothing. Nothing exists at the very least on a conceptual level. It's like asking 'why are there dogs instead of jetpack laser books with lavalamp heads'? The thing I'm asking about may not exist, but why doesn't it exist?

Also, emptiness isn't black. We perceive it as black. "Blackness" is merely an absence of light, something our eyes register as black.

reply to post by Three_moons


...considering that the philosophy I'm working on is actually entirely unrelated to all of this (I'm minoring in aesthetics)....you aren't.


reply to post by Wut?!?

Originally posted by Wut?!?
Mr_Awesome beat me to it, but here is my take on it anyway:

The verb to be, "is", implies existence. "This is nothing" or "Nothing is" makes no sense: it should be "This isn't".

It's just a linguistic turn. Nothing = no thing. Quite literally.

Take an example of Aristotle's logical square. There are four positions in it.

Let's take an example: All men are wise.

A: All men are wise
E: No man is wise
I: Some man is wise
O: Some man is not wise.

This is an E statement: No man is wise = All men are not wise. It's just linguistically tossing things around to make them sound nicer.

So "Nothing is" = Everything is not.

If "it" is, then "it" exists. But "it" can't be nothing. Therefore "it" is something.

The question is false, because it implies existence, therefore it excludes "nothing".

But if "nothing isn't" than "everything is"
I don't see dinosaurs in top hats playing electric guitars made of bacon.

The phrase "Nothing is" = Everything is not
The phrase "Nothing isn't" = Nothing is not = Everything is not not = Everything is (the negatives cancel each other out)

reply to post by operation mindcrime


...well, if the universe were infinite you'd have a point. But the Universe is finite. It's about 14.5 trillionish light years across.

Originally posted by Korg Trinity

Originally posted by 547000
reply to post by Korg Trinity

 

How can you have -5 of something in your hand?

You’re thinking too literally.

On a graph plot there is a +5 peak and a -5 peak in a wave like manor. The total value we are working with is Zero. Yet there are points where a value of +5 exists.

This is the nature of reality.

In effect Zero can never exist due to quantum fluctuations at the most fundamental levels of reality. It is this random chaos that forms order and what we perceive as something.

Do you follow?

Korg.

edit on 9-9-2010 by Korg Trinity because: Spelling

Negative quantities don't exist in reality either. That is why positive integers are called natural numbers. You can associate directions with vector or something like that but neither zero of a quantity or negative quantities actually exist. Think about what quantity means. This is why math took so long to develop up to complex numbers. It was only by accepting these abstractions that the theory of numbers progressed.

Originally posted by 547000
Negative quantities don't exist in reality either. That is why positive integers are called natural numbers. You can associate directions with vector or something like that but neither zero of a quantity or negative quantities actually exist. Think about what quantity means. This is why math took so long to develop up to complex numbers. It was only by accepting these abstractions that the theory of numbers progressed.

You are missing the point and only considering what reality is like at our level.

Check out my other posts... I'm a little bored to go over the same topic over and over.

Korg.

Okay, I will. I still don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying there are antiuniverses? If so, how did nothing divide itself if there's nothing to divide?

Nothingness has no positive properties.
Whatever exists has, and must have positive properties.
Therefore, nothingness cannot exist.
Something must exist, necessarily (its absence is impossible).

The word nothing is a human concept that has no real reference in nature.
It only exists as a word and a way to think. In reality there are always things going in on some level.

They way I see it, if you are not Nothing than you cannot perceive what Nothing is, it would be a paradox for Something to know what Nothing is, like Light and Dark existing in the same place, since we are Something, all we will ever know is Something, Nothing doesn't exist to us, because we are Something.

Why is there Something rather than Nothing? Because we are Something.