Why is there something instead of nothing?

Question

A simple but fundamental question.

The "something" means the whole Universe (known and unknown), it could be represented as the reality version of the set of all sets, which is itself debated. It includes all the Multiverses and such.

A better version of the whole Universe could be described with a Grothendieck universe.

The "nothing" means an absence of the whole Universe, not a particular void or emptiness in the whole Universe but a nonexistent whole Universe.

Answer 1

Before anything else one should be aware of the instrument used to answer questions. That instrument is human language. While there is no guarantee that such a system of patterns is powerful and expressive enough to reason about the necessity of all that is, we can still examine what can we reasonably say and understand about this.

Let us begin by finding out the difference between Something and Nothing.

Obviously they are opposites - first word denotes the present state of affairs of all that is and the other one its negation. We can be fairly confident that right now Something is and Nothing is not.

So why is it this way? Could there be Nothing instead of Something? Turns out the answer is surprisingly simple and straightforward: if Nothing could be, then it would inevitably be Something - giving us a contradiction with our initial premises, thus demonstrating that Nothing cannot be.

In other words, there is Something because it cannot be otherwise - it is an inevitability that arises from the complete, utter and total incapacity of Nothing to exist as such.

A more formal version of the same argument can be found from @anon's answer.

In short: Something is because Nothing is not.

Or to quote "The Way Of Truth" by Parmenides: For never shall this prevail, that things that are not are.

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• An update in response to comment by OP

This is not circular reasoning. You are missing the point that we reason only through language which is a limited system of rules. Breaking a rule results in error.

The above question makes the error of assuming that non-being can be. It is self-contradictory. In the same way one can ask why is there no darkness in light or why is there no silence in sound.

Apparently you presume that if there is a word ("nothing"), then it must have an object, i.e. a correspondence with something beyond your own imagination. Not true!

Nothing is the opposite of Something, it does not and can not be.

Answer 2

What do you mean by "why"?

Do you mean "how did 'things' come to be?". That is a scientific question, and can be attacked by gathering and interpreting data (like what the physicists do).

If you mean, "what is a justification (a proof) that there is something (and not nothing)?", then the justification is that if there were nothing, you wouldn't be able to formulate such a question.

I think such a question is more figuratively motivated, a searching for psychological satisfaction in the consciousness of one's own consciousness, the existence of one's own thoughts. The answer to that, of resolving that tension, is to just get used to it.

Answer 3

Definition: We say X is logically impossible if it entails a contradiction, and logically possible otherwise.

Definition: Given a set of assumptions, a sufficient explanation for X is a demonstration that not-X is logically impossible within those assumptions.

Lemma: If not-X is logically possible within a set of assumptions, then there does not exist a sufficient explanation for X (via reductio ad absurdum).

Assumption: An absence of affairs is logically possible.

Conclusion: There is no sufficient explanation for why there is something rather than nothing.

Answer 4

We don't know.

There are some very valiant attempts to engage the question here, and many of them even explore concepts well worth exploring. But just because we live in such a complex, information-packed age doesn't mean we need to pretend we know things we don't. The oracle at Delphi said that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens simply because he realised that he knew nothing, and supposedly that one statement is responsible for the existence of Western philosophy in the first place. She had a pretty good point.

I've never heard a good reason offered for why there is a universe/multiverse instead of there not being one. I may one day hear such a reason, but I couldn't begin to imagine how it might proceed. Nor can I think of an ultimate reason why "me" began. This is contrast, of course, to the scientific observations and models I can build of how a big bang might have lead to stars, galaxies and planets, a human being might have evolved on one of them, how physics could give rise to consciousness, and so on. But as to why that entire business is busily, well, businessing--a complete mystery. Sometimes the most honest thing you can do is admit that. Is it really so hard to do?

Answer 5

I think a typical answer to that question is the Anthropic Principle: if there was nothing instead of something, then we wouldn't be here to ask the question. So, even if the odds of something to nothing is one in a trillion, we're always going to be in the universe with something rather than the one with nothing. (This still leaves open the question as to why the odds wouldn't be zero in a trillion, however.)

Additional answers to this question (none of which are particularly satisfying), include:

• An argument by Leibniz involving something similar to the Anthropic Principle combined with reductio ad absurdum
• Why not?

Answer 6

Nothing is a word. That something exists can be verified by observation. Taking a word like existence (as in existence of everything), and then negating it, does not necessarily produce a meaningful concept. There is no meaning to the nonexistence of everything. In this case, it really makes no sense outside the context of our language's grammar and lexicon. It's just a word that refers to no observable facts (to NULL in a certain respect).

If you limit the context of the original concept of existence to a certain thing, or collection of things, then it becomes a statement of fact. That statement necessarily must have an inverse. If I state I wear a purple shirt, then either there is a purple shirt on my torso or there is not. So to say there does not exist that shirt is still a meaningful statement. One or the other statement is true, but not both. I cannot disentangle the word existence from meaningful facts without delving into absurdity. The moment you do that with any words, you end up with ridiculous statements that, though they may sound deep or illuminating, lack all meaning. They are just statements without any connection to the world outside of our own thoughts.

Answer 7

Douglas Adams said:

A guy said to me, 'yes, but the whole theory of evolution is based on a tautology: that which survives, survives' This is tautological, therefore it doesn't mean anything.

I thought about that for a while and it finally occurred to me that a tautology is something that if it means nothing, not only that no information has gone into it but that no consequence has come out of it.

So, we may have accidentally stumbled upon the ultimate answer; it's the only thing, the only force, arguably the most powerful of which we are aware, which requires no other input, no other support from any other place, is self evident, hence tautological, but nevertheless astonishingly powerful in its effects. It's hard to find anything that corresponds to that and I therefore put it at the beginning of one of my books. I reduced it to what I thought were the bare essentials, which are very similar to the ones you came up with earlier, which were:

• anything that happens, happens
• anything that in happening causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen
• anything that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again

In fact you don't even need the second two because they flow from the first one, which is self-evident and there's nothing else you need to say; everything else flows from that.

So, I think we have in our grasp here a fundamental, ultimate truth, against which there is no gain-saying. It was spotted by the guy who said this is a tautology. Yes, it is, but it's a unique tautology in that it requires no information to go in but an infinite amount of information comes out of it. So I think that it is arguably therefore the prime cause of everything in the Universe. Big claim, but I feel I'm talking to a sympathetic audience.

To my mind what D.A. was getting at is that the origin-of-life question is the same as the origin-of-everything question: in both cases it seems counter-intuitive that stable systems can bootstrap themselves into existence. And that maybe these questions have the same answer: natural selection. Lee Smolin discussed his evolving universes idea with Richard Dawkins (who was a good friend of D.A.) here.

Answer 8

This sort of question reminds me of an article I read about Einstein's theories on light (sorry, can't re-find the source). Back in early 19s, there were serious debates on light in order to understand if it was matter of if it was waves.

Newton's experimentations show light has matter-like properties but Max Planck's show wave-like properties. Who's right ? ... no-one known until Einstein came up with the hypothesis of light being both wave and matter.

Perhaps this situation is similare and the answer is : there are both present. Maybe there is a duality of both somethingness and emptyness whithin the same univers (or multivers). Our current model of reality tells us there is somthingness, but since human have a tendency to develop model-dependent realities (Stephen Hawking - The Grand Design), probabilities of "being right" with our current model of somethingness are very low, almost impossible.

In Breif, my answer to "why there is somethingness instead of nothing?" is "because somethingness fits better with our current understanding of univers" ... It will fit until a new model of reality comes up and enlarge our understanding to introduce emptyness in it. Those new models of reality are normally brought by fundamental scientific discoveries.

Answer 9

It seems to me that the term nothingness can't even be defined. So, how can you say something is not nothing if you don't even know what nothing is.

But, as soon as you define nothing as a subset of U or partition any part of U to make room for nothing, then you have thereby defined nothing and defined it as separate from U. You then know what nothing is.

Answer 10

Because nothing is a state of void being. This is an unnatural and unstable state. If you release something into a void it attempts to quickly disperse filling the void as much as possible. Similarly upon creation objects try to disperse. In a strange coincodence or maybe design things also attract each other. So while nature wants voids filled, matter wants to be together. As a result you end up with collections of particles scattered through out the universe.

Space is not truely empty. There are an effectively infintite number of atoms and particles out there. They are mostly dispersed so as to have an effective pressure approaching 0 through out the majority of the universe. But there are particles there. When they get close enough together and have enough attraction they couple. Eventually that couple collects more or becomes part of a larger collection.

So there is something because that is a more stable state. There are theories that there is antimatter collections in the universe that would cancel out most matter but the dispersal of matter/antimatter sometimes happens before the 2 can cancel each other out.

-- Edit addressing some Ben Hockings concerns

I propose that you can not sum space time. Thus there can be no totality of spacetime. That it may be infinite and immeasurable. That we indeed exist because that is a more natural state. That the universe as you have defined it expands to fill a limitless nothing because that is a more natural state than containing nothing.

Limitless is not the same as being infinitely large. It is nothing thus it has no size, and is not defined by our space time. No displacement is neccessary as there is nothing to displace. The universe expands to fill something that has no volume, or capacity thus can not be filled.

In some ways we agree that the void does not exist as part of our space time. But I deny that our spacetime contains the totality of all that is. The scientist in me would love to limit everything to the limits that transcribe. That would imply that the potential is there to understand everything even if the reality of that approaches the impossible. But logically that makes no sense. I can accept that we exist as statistical anomaly. But if we exist as a statisical anomoly of a cycle of creation/annialation what is the chance that that anomaly only exists once?

Answer 11

I'll be mostly repeating other good answers, but I'll be using different words, semantics and concepts.

It's only a matter of grouping.

Let's suppose you meant time (or space time) itself greater than the universe. Then it might make sense asking that question, because then nothing could have existed outside the "universe group" at sometime. Though it may also be the case that nothing never existed. If we define universe as everything that can possibly affect us somehow, it doesn't matter what exists outside of it.

But then we have two different groups, which seem to be the premise of your question, the nothing and the something (the universe defined above). If we were at the nothing group, we couldn't possibly be reasoning about it, by definition. So we are in the something group. It's that simple. There is something right now, there was, there will or there might be nothing at a place and time out of our universe - it can't matter.

Now let's go to the other possibility and assume your grouping is of universe greater than time, for whatever that mean. Then the universe includes everything, that is nothing and something. All of it. In such a universe, nothing does exist regardless of something, somewhere at sometime. Thankfully the question isn't asking when or where, but this definition does make the question invalid and automatically contraditory.

We can go on and reason about the question in so many different ways. What I'm actually trying to do here is randomly and luckily connect a synapse in the OP's brain that makes sense to him. Because, in all truth, there is just nothing (instead of something) that can be said to answer the question whole! :-)

Answer 12

My answer to the question of "Why is there something rather than nothing involves first providing a reason for why anything exists and then showing that what has traditionally been called "nothing" meets this reasoning and therefore really isn't "nothing" but actually exists.

In regard to the question of "Why do things exist?", I suggest that a thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are completely defined. A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or boundary defining what is contained within and giving "substance" and existence to the thing.

In regard to the question of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", "nothing", or "non-existence" is first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think about this lack-of-all. Next, I propose that this "non-existence" itself, and not our mind's conception of non-existence, in and of itself completely describes or defines the entirety of all that is present. Therefore, as a complete definition of what is present, what has traditionally been called "nothing", or "non-existence", is actually an existent state. That is, what has traditionally been called "nothing" is, when seen from a different perspective, an existent state or "something".

Another way to reach this same conclusion is by saying that in regard to the question of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", there are two choices for answering this question:

A. "Something" has always been here.

B. "Something" has not always been here.

Choice A is possible but does not explain anything. Therefore, choice B is the only choice with any explanatory power. With choice B, if "something" has not always been here, then "nothing" must have been here before it. "Nothing" is defined as above. But, in this complete "nothing, there would be no mechanism present to change this "nothingness" into the "something" that is here now. Because we can see that "something" is here now, the only possible choice then is that "nothing" and "something" are one and the same thing. This is logically required if we go with choice B.

Now, instead of saying "That can't be. Something and nothing are not the same", it's better to try and figure out how these two logically-required equivalent things can really be the same. The reason, I believe, is as described above that what has traditionally been called "nothing" completely describes, or defines, the entirety of what is present, and is therefore actually not "nothing", but is really an existent state.

Overall, I come to the conclusion that many others have come to which is that having true non-existence is not possible because even what we have traditionally thought of as true non-existence is really an existent state when seen from a different angle. Non-existence is basically a misnomer that has come about because we've been thinking of non-existence in our minds, which exist. Next to our existent minds, nothing just looks like nothing. But, nothing, or non-existence, itself, and not our mind's conception of non-existence, isn't dependent on being defined as the lack of existence. It's on its own and, on its own, completely describes the entirety of what is there and is thus really an existent state. In this (and all) areas, it's very important to distinguish between our mind's conception of non-existence and non-existence itself in which all minds along with everything else are gone.

This may all seem to be a waste of time, but the above reasoning provides a reason for why things exist and by trying to figure out the properties of the particular existent state previously referred to as non-existence allows one to build a model of the universe that is based on these properties via what I call "philosophical engineering". This model has symmetry breaking, a natural reason for why energy exists and a big bang like expansion of space.

A more thorough discussion of the above idea along with some responses to critiques is at my website at: https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-things-exist-something-nothing

Also, some discussion of this has also taken place recently at google.com/groups in the epistemology and everything-list groups and many years ago at a digital philosophy group.

Answer 13

No matter how one will want to answer this question, one would have to appeal, at least implicitly, to that which exists (or to what supposedly exists). Otherwise, one would put himself in the dubious position of assuming that the appeal to non-existence somehow explains existence. (The trend in philosophy since Plato, and perhaps long before him, is to posit some form of consciousness as the “answer” to such questions, even though this tactic is irrescindably incoherent.)

Thus, by posing this question and assuming that it is valid, you implicitly (but unavoidably) commits yourself to the fallacy of the stolen concept. If we ask why something is, but simply turn around and posit that something in our explanation of that something, what mileage have we gained? Indeed, we’re back to where we started, yet we don’t admit it to ourselves. This is what you do in assuming that the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (or “Why does existence exist?”) is a valid question. One will have to assume the fact of existence in order to answer the question. But in so doing, he will have to deny the fact of existence in order to validate his assumption that there must be a reason why there is something rather than nothing. He must assume the very concept his argument wants to deny, thus ‘stealing’ it from the objective hierarchy of knowledge, and rendering invalid any conclusion he hopes to draw from his argument.

Existence exists. We must start somewhere. The theist wants to start with a form of consciousness. He wants to posit a mind (albeit supernatural) which is responsible for creating all its objects. This is called metaphysical subjectivism, a view which holds that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness.

Some may object to my characterization of the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” as fallacious, contesting that there is no such thing as a fallacious question. However, it is true when we examine issues in epistemology and logic, that there is a such thing as an invalid question. The fallacy known as ‘complex question‘, for instance, is a species of invalid question. It is a question which operates on a false assumption and expects the reader to accept that false assumption in order to answer it. The typical example is the question “Have you stopped beating your wife?” The question assumes that one is a married man and that he beats or has beaten his wife; indeed, it implies such beatings are a regular occurrence. Contrary to these assumptions, however, it could be the case a) that he is not married, or b) that he is married but has never beaten his wife. Since the question is asked in a manner in which a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response can be the only appropriate reply, one cannot answer it on its own terms and avoid affirming its erroneous premises. One would implicate himself simply by answering. The question is fallacious because it leads one to accept a false premise, assuming either a) or b) are the actual case, if he should choose to take it seriously.

Likewise, a question which leads one to commit a fallacy in order to answer it is also invalid. If taken seriously, the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” will lead one to commit the fallacy of the stolen concept; indeed, the fallacy of the stolen concept is unavoidable on the question’s own terms, as we saw above. One would have both to assume and deny existence in order to address the question. If Martin Heidegger ,who originally asked this question, did not recognize this, it was principally because he was not operating on a fully rational philosophy. Yet, today we have theists assuming this question is valid all the time in the construction of their apologetic ruses. What is it that theists want to posit in response to their invalid questions so as to appear to satisfy them? Of course, they assume that the only logical answer is to assert a universe-creating, reality-ruling form of consciousness, which they call God, and delight themselves with this as their answer, never allowing themselves to recognize that the question leads them to accepting a stolen concept, and assuming that their arguments justifying this illicit move make it valid.

Answer 14

Since the empty set is also a set and therefore you have the whole set theory and nearly everthing logic requires. {} is the null statement and the empty set. Therefore there is a set and there is something. Here are more empty sets {<>,<>,<>} in fact 3 sets and there exists 3 things actually 4 things since the set of 3 sets is also a set and so on.

Answer 15

This is ultimately a meaningless question in light of logical positivism. One cannot ask questions which have no translation to observations, and in this case, one cannot ask "what would it be like if there were nothing?" Nor can we ask "what is the relative probability of something rather than nothing?" other than in the trivial sense of 100% certainty of something, because here it is.

It is very easy to fool your brain into asking nonsense questions. These are question which cannot be translated into sense impressions, whose answers have no bearing on the observations. Examples of these questions:

• Do the He atoms in the sun support the Republican or Democratic candidate for US president?
• Where is the number 7 located?
• How much does Mac OSX software weigh?

Questions of this sort come up in physics all the time, and physicists have become exceptionally good at smelling when a question is nonsense:

• What is the precise position of an electron in the ground state of an H atom?
• Does the object thrown into a black hole really cross the horizon, or just get smeared out on the surface?
• Are quarks actually particles, or do the hadrons simply appear as if they are made out of quarks?
• Which is the true value of the photon propagator Feynman's or Landau's ( $g_{\mu\nu}\over k^2$ or ${g_{\mu\nu} - {k_\mu k_\nu\over k^2} \over k^2$)?

These questions are completely ridiculous, physics doesn't answer them and doesn't admit that they need an answer. There are tons more, and you find as many as you like the more you delve into physics. This comes up right at the start, with the question "where is the coordinate zero in the Cartesian coordinates of the world located, really?" But these questions can fool the brain into thinking they are real questions, so physicists, starting with Ernst Mach, developed positivism to deal with them.

Positivism says, whenever you ask a question, ask yourself the following:

• Assuming the answer is this ot that, is there any effect on empirical observation? Do any sensory impressions change depending on the answer?
• Does any chain of reasoning depend on the assumption of the answer? Can this reasoning always be translated to another assumption?

If the answer is no and yes respectively, then the question is meaningless.

The principle of positivism moots many questions, including that of "existence". If I have an cup, and it keeps all its attributes (visibility, water-holding, hardness,etc) but loses the property of "existence", how does it change? It obviously doesn't. So I can imagine that the cup is winking in and out of existence, and this does nothing to the empirical relations, so it does nothing at all to sense impression, and the question of existence is meaningless.

Carnap noted that the positivism has the effect of culling away many traditional philosophical questions:

• If the world is deterministic, how can we have free will?
• Where did the universe come from?
• Why is there something rather than nothing?

These and many others, essentially all of classical philosophy, are mooted or answered by applying logical positivist principles. This is codified in Carnap's book on the nonsensical nature of metaphysics. In the 1950s this was considered revolutionary, but by the 1970s, philosopers missed the old questions, so they quietly killed positivism and buried Carnap.

The notion of positivism is alive and well in physics, past quantum mecanics at least, but going back much further. The positivism is the source of all the influential philosophy and most of the influential physics of the 20th century, and it really is impossible to go back.

Your question is meaningless in light of positivism, and has no answer, nor does it need an answer.

Answer 16

There is no equality at all in between "something" and "nothingness", and it asserts absolute differentiation (there is no the sameness at all) in between "something" and "nothingness".

Absolute differentiation in between "something" and "nothingness, it asserts essential differentiation (it’s not “i am different than you but we have the sameness a little bit”, but it’s strictly “there is nothing on me that exist within you”), therefore there is consequence:

• If "something" has dimensional, then there will be no dimensional at all on another “nothingness”, and another “nothingness” is equal to “not exist” (we can ignore it, we consider it as “not exist”, since it requires no basic dimensional at all), and vice versa,

• Whichever we choose, eventually it asserts there is only "dimensional", which asserts there is only "something" rather than "nothingness"

Why is there something instead of nothing?

• Both "something" Versus "nothingness" asserts (consequence that there is) only "dimensional" (which left behind) that must be related to "something".

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It may be considered incomparable in between "something" Versus "nothingness" (whether it maybe considered "doesn't make sense", contradiction in between both or whatever), but it can be considered as our trial to push our logical to the farthest extent and see where is it going to? And eventually it asserts there is only "dimensional" which assert "something".