Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

[alt]

I have some good news for you - since nothing cannot be, it follows that non-existence cannot be as well. We are all eternal!

So, why anything at all ?

 

[Maui]

So, why anything at all ?

Why anything exists at all is a somewhat religious question and i am afraid can only be 'answered' within the bounds of religion, i.e. not here.

 

[apeiron]

My view is that the concepts "Nothing" and "Something" are primitive.

Rather than something, Hegel suggests that a better primitive is being.

That works for me too as it is a proper generalisation - a universal category rather than some local particular. And as such, it quite directly invokes its dichotomistic "other". Which is what makes it a well-formed idea in metaphysics.

So to even want to have a word that denotes the general state or condition of being, there must be the antithetical possibility of non-being.

Hegel then unites the two in the third category of becoming in this fashion...

“Being” seems to be both “immediate” and simple, but reflection reveals that it itself is, in fact, only meaningful in opposition to another concept, “nothing.” In fact, the attempt to think “being” as immediate, and so as not mediated by its opposing concept “nothing,” has so deprived it of any determinacy or meaning at all that it effectively becomes nothing. That is, on reflection it is grasped as having passed over into its “negation” .

Thus, while “being” and “nothing” seem both absolutely distinct and opposed, from another point of view they appear the same as no criterion can be invoked which differentiates them. The only way out of this paradox is to posit a third category, “becoming,” which seems to save thinking from paralysis because it accommodates both concepts:
“becoming” contains “being” and “nothing” since when something “becomes” it passes, as it were, between nothingness and being.

That is, when something becomes it seems to possesses aspects of both being and nothingness, and it is in this sense that the third category of such triads can be understood as containing the first two as sublated “moments.”

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/

There is a clever idea in there.

In this view, nothingness comes into definite existence along with being. So being is whatever becomes, and in so doing, what it did not become also now distinctly "exists" as non-being.

In this fashion, non-being gets granted an absolute kind of non-existence. It is not just defined by an absence of things (like the empty set approach), but by the now demonstrable absence of a generalised thingness (ie: being).

And you need there to actually be being for this to happen. If there was no something, there would also be no true nothingness!

So you can see how the usual forms of logical argument such as syllogistic reasoning do not work at the highest levels of metaphysics.

Like Hegel, Peirce and others, we need to step up a level to logic capable of self-referentiality - one where there is a further dimension of becoming or development, and where the law of the excluded middle does not (yet) apply.

So to be clear, the conclusion here is that rather than the existence of something excluding even the possibility of nothing, it is the existence of something that guarantees non-existence is also in fact quite actual - that is, actually and demonstrably non-existent.

Equally, before being became actual, non-being was not actual either. Both shared equal status as mere possiblia - inhabitants of the realm of vagueness, the general ground of becoming.

 

[alt]

Why anything exists at all is a somewhat religious question and i am afraid can only be 'answered' within the bounds of religion, i.e. not here.

I don't recall having seen a palitable answer within the bounds of any religion, either.

But it is interesting to see that scientists don't proffer a view either. Nor for that matter, have the best philosophers, the deepest thinkers, come up with a hint of an answer, no matter the the complexity of material offered.

I don't think any progress has been made on this question in the last 2,500 years.

No critisism intended of course - I don't have a clue either.

But it certainly IS the ultimate question.

 

[steve watson]

Looking for an answer to the question "why there is anything rather than nothing" is, in the strictest sense, a nonsensical question. Observe that merely asking the question "why there is anything" always perceive (recognizes) there is something to begin with. Except for sentient beings of whom "why" questions can be asked, only "what" and "how" questions are relevant to things (and processes) that exist in the universe.

 

[apeiron]

Looking for an answer to the question "why there is anything rather than nothing" is, in the strictest sense, a nonsensical question. Observe that merely asking the question "why there is anything" always perceive (recognizes) there is something to begin with. Except for sentient beings of whom "why" questions can be asked, only "what" and "how" questions are relevant to things (and processes) that exist in the universe.

You may not have read the thread yet.

In the broad view taken by metaphysics, and holistic modelling in science, there are four "why" questions when it comes to causality. And one of these is final cause - for what pupose, for what ultimate goal?

Final cause usually gets subsumbed (concealed?) in natural laws or qualitative concepts. For example, the second law of thermodynamics. Or the principle of adaptive fit in evolutionary theory. These allow us to answer why things are as they are in a teleological sense.

Of course, the logical positivist approach to philosophy of science leads people to claim that there is only teleology as epistemology, not teleology as ontology. But that is just a useful belief to simplify modelling IMO.

The "why anything" question serves to return us to the fundamentals of causation and its modelling. So we need to be willing to challenge our "simple and convenient" causal or logical beliefs. Not just reassert them.

As for your general argument - there is always going to be something, never nothing - well I agree. And that is what then leads to a metaphysics that proposes a further fundamental dimension of development, the trajectory from the vague to the crisp.

As Hegel says, nothingness is a crisp concept so can only exist in emergent, contingent, fashion. It is the "everything that is not". And so it cannot itself "be" until there is also the "everything that is".

 

[steve watson]

But regardless of what others say, or have said, and regardless of how chic it may be to salley forth into the unknowable, it is still nonesensical, because the answer to the "final cause" is unknowable. But not because it is beyond that which is capable of being "known", but only because it is a nonsensical endeavor.
I hope my response does not sound flippant, I simply wante to make my retort crisp.

Also, Hegel confuses "nothing" with "something". "Nothing" is not and never can be "something".

 

[apeiron]

But regardless of what others say, or have said, and regardless of how chic it may be to salley forth into the unknowable, it is still nonesensical, because the answer to the "final cause" is unknowable.

That is your claim. I don't see any argument supporting it.

From what little you have said so far, you seem to have a deep misunderstanding about knowledge anyway. The mainstream view of epistemology is that we only model reality, we never know it in any direct or true fashion.

As Einstein (with Infeld, in their book, The Evolution of Physics) said: "Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world."

But what makes the difference between sense and nonsense in science (and, in the long run, metaphysics) is that our freely invented models are constrained by the act of measurement. So to be reasonable, a belief needs to be testable, confirmable.

So you could attack approaches to the "why anything" question on those grounds. That would be an epistemically valid approach.

But to attack something as "chic" shows that you are not really suggesting anything so serious here.

Also, Hegel confuses "nothing" with "something". "Nothing" is not and never can be "something".

Err, no, that's not what he said.

 

[steve watson]

Well, I only used the word "chic" to point out that lots of theories and/or notions have been in vogue and then repudiated.
I am not so concerned about "the mainstream view" of epistemology or metaphysics (those branches of philosophy have been in their graves decades).
My point focued on the notion of asking the questions "why 'something' exists rather than "nothing". If those words have any meaning, then unless your a mystic looking for mystical answers, the question is nonesensical. Call me any names you may please, but it is a fruitless and irrational question to ask, save your fancy theories and mathematics.

 

[Paulibus]

"Why anything at all?" The answer to this question is so simple: because Nothing ain't perfect. Anybody here ever heard of topological imperfections?

 

[Maui]

If those words have any meaning, then unless your a mystic looking for mystical answers, the question is nonesensical. Call me any names you may please, but it is a fruitless and irrational question to ask, save your fancy theories and mathematics.

The beginning is nonsensical, not the question. These are 2 different things. Philosphers and philosophers of science however aren't tied to what seems to make general sense to the wider audiences. The question is valid, even if you cannot answer it.

 

[Nano-Passion]

"Why anything at all?" The answer to this question is so simple: because Nothing ain't perfect. Anybody here ever heard of topological imperfections?

No, go on.

 

[Paulibus]

I’ll do just that, assuming you were serious, Nano-Passion!

In physics, “Nothing” is synonymous with the Vacuum (of Quantum Mechanics) and
perfection is often associated with exact, unbroken, symmetries. One might therefore start to model an ideal, perfect Nothing by describing its exact symmetries. Rather like describing an ideal, perfect crystal by noting its symmetries — translational, rotational etc. But there’s no such thing as a perfect crystal. Real crystals are finite., with boundaries. And they’re often crammed with one, two and three dimensional topological defects (vacancies, dislocations, disclinations, stacking faults etc.) To an extent that they present an almost biological complexity.

I sometimes speculate about Nothing, bearing in mind that:

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment in fact.

My (amateur philosophical?) speculations run along the following lines: Now that we know that gravity is but Riemannian deviations from the (perfection?) of Euclidean geometry, one might guess that there’s no such thing as a perfect Nothing (spacetime with perfect geometry), and that the Something we live in is just REAL Nothing, crammed with tiny topological defects in the geometry of space-time that we describe as various particles and waves. Like real crystalline stuff but , as far as we can tell, continuous rather than discrete.

Which brings to me to a remark of the cosmologist, John Peacock, who said:

It is perhaps just as well that the average taxpayer, who funds research in physics, is unaware of the trouble we have in understanding even nothing at all.

 

[G.S.RAMYA]

Why anything at all, why the universe is the way it is...? If the universe is not the way it is we would have not been here to ask why!

 

[wuliheron]

Why anything at all, why the universe is the way it is...? If the universe is not the way it is we would have not been here to ask why!

Or if it were different someone else might be asking the same question. In fact, for all I know there are an infinite number of universes with an infinite variety of sentient beings all asking the same stupid question at this very moment.

 

[alt]

Or if it were different someone else might be asking the same question. In fact, for all I know there are an infinite number of universes with an infinite variety of sentient beings all asking the same stupid question at this very moment.

If an infinite (or thereabouts) number of sentient beings were asking the same question, would it, they, be stupid ?

And even if stupid, it is still a valid question to ask. Many questions are stupid, but legitimate.

 

[alt]

The beginning is nonsensical, not the question. These are 2 different things. Philosphers and philosophers of science however aren't tied to what seems to make general sense to the wider audiences. The question is valid, even if you cannot answer it.

Agree entirely. One things for sure, if you never ask it, there's no chance of an answer. At least this way, you try.

 

[apeiron]

Some have criticized this argument because it's not a "causal" explannation. Elliot Sober, however, argues that scientists do accept other "equilibrium explanations":

Returning to this earlier comment, Sober's actual paper - http://fitelson.org/woodward/sober_ee.pdf - is worth reading as another example of the argument for downwards-acting global constraints causation.

Sober uses as his example Fisher's evolutionary explanation for why sex ratios would tend to a 1:1 equilbrium regardless of initial conditions. So his point is that there are "why" explanations that are in general impervious to the micro-causal history. As a dynamical attractor, the system just ends up at the equilibrium point when released from any point in a phase space.

...when the equilibrium is a global one - an event can be explained in the face of considerable ignorance of the actual forces and initial conditions that in fact caused the system to be in its equilibrium state. In this circumstance, we are, in one natural sense, ignorant of the event's cause, but explanation is possible nonetheless.

So applying this to worlds as a whole - the why anything? question here - they could be causally explained in terms of the global constraints that they satisfy. The particular history of local effective causes becomes irrelevant. It is not going to change the outcome. And Sober argues that even if you had exact knowledge of the path taken, you would still know less than if you could see the general reasons why some particular equilbrium outcome had to be!

 

[Nano-Passion]

I’ll do just that, assuming you were serious, Nano-Passion!

In physics, “Nothing” is synonymous with the Vacuum (of Quantum Mechanics) and
perfection is often associated with exact, unbroken, symmetries. One might therefore start to model an ideal, perfect Nothing by describing its exact symmetries. Rather like describing an ideal, perfect crystal by noting its symmetries — translational, rotational etc. But there’s no such thing as a perfect crystal. Real crystals are finite., with boundaries. And they’re often crammed with one, two and three dimensional topological defects (vacancies, dislocations, disclinations, stacking faults etc.) To an extent that they present an almost biological complexity.

I sometimes speculate about Nothing, bearing in mind that: My (amateur philosophical?) speculations run along the following lines: Now that we know that gravity is but Riemannian deviations from the (perfection?) of Euclidean geometry, one might guess that there’s no such thing as a perfect Nothing (spacetime with perfect geometry), and that the Something we live in is just REAL Nothing, crammed with tiny topological defects in the geometry of space-time that we describe as various particles and waves. Like real crystalline stuff but , as far as we can tell, continuous rather than discrete.

Which brings to me to a remark of the cosmologist, John Peacock, who said:

Hm, I always thought that physicists state that empty space isn't empty at all, and therefore is something. Space, having properties and all, can't really be named "nothing."

I always think of nothing as something that would hypothetically exist outside of space. But since nothing can exist outside of space, I don't know if there can even be "nothing." Though, there is a theory that says that the universe started from the collision of two branes. So I guess some posit that there is space outside of our universe. So then, where is nothing??

 

[sigurdW]

So then, where is nothing??

Nowhere, and nowhen.

 

[sigurdW]

My point focued on the notion of asking the question "why 'something' exists rather than nothing" have any meaning, then ... the question is non sensical.

No! The Question has an answer!

As you yourself pointed out:

"Nothing" is not and never can be "something".

Therefore the answer is: Because something had to be!

 

[sigurdW]

The mainstream view of epistemology is that we only model reality, we never know it in any direct or true fashion.

Interesting! How is this mainstream view proven or shown to be true?

Must there not be something we know in a direct fashion in our looking at the model of ourselves looking at the model of reality?

 

[alt]

Hm, I always thought that physicists state that empty space isn't empty at all, and therefore is something. Space, having properties and all, can't really be named "nothing."

I always think of nothing as something that would hypothetically exist outside of space. But since nothing can exist outside of space, I don't know if there can even be "nothing." Though, there is a theory that says that the universe started from the collision of two branes. So I guess some posit that there is space outside of our universe. So then, where is nothing??

That ' collision of two branes' being the start of the universe, has always seemed rather flawed to me, for the natural question then, is where did the two branes come from ? They must have been something, therefore, not the beginning.

'Space outside our universe' is also just playing with the word imo (not saying YOU are playing with the word) for the immediate retort would be ALL space is the universe.

 

[chiro]

That ' collision of two branes' being the start of the universe, has always seemed rather flawed to me, for the natural question then, is where did the two branes come from ? They must have been something, therefore, not the beginning.

'Space outside our universe' is also just playing with the word imo (not saying YOU are playing with the word) for the immediate retort would be ALL space is the universe.

Personally I see this as more of a limitation of our ability to comprehend than anything else.

Mathematically we can use time to represent a form of a pattern or an attribute that gives constraints for something to evolve, but in terms of describing something whether it is structure, evolution of structure or any other relationships it's not required.

Could it be possible that everything existed simultaneously and that time is simply one way to organize what we are exposed to that constrains us to see the rest of the picture?

Mathematically in terms of describing any system, time does not only have to be linear but it doesn't need to be taken into account if we get knowledge of the state-space.

In order to explain the patterns that occur in our experience of the physical world (whether the experience is through us or some other apparatus) we introduce the concept of time to help make sense of things because it aids us in our goal.

But if you constrain yourself to think in terms of that constraint, then by that constraint you will be bound by and with your hammer, everything will look like a nail.

 

[bohm2]

I always think of nothing as something that would hypothetically exist outside of space. But since nothing can exist outside of space, I don't know if there can even be "nothing." Though, there is a theory that says that the universe started from the collision of two branes. So I guess some posit that there is space outside of our universe. So then, where is nothing??

Gisin who has done experiments confirming Bell's has argued that in a sense quantum entaglement/correlations do suggest something like that:

To put the tension in other words: no story in space-time can tell us how non-local correlations happen, hence quantum correlations seem to emerge, somehow from outside space-time.

Quantum nonlocalityow does nature perform the trick?
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0912.1475.pdf

Yet, amazingly, quantum physics predicts entirely different kinds of correlations, called non-local correlations for reasons described below. Physics has a word for the cause of these non-local correlations: entanglement. But physics offers no story in space and time to explain or describe how these correlations happen. Hence, somehow, nonlocal correlations emerge from outside space-time (for an explanation of this provocative terminology see appendix A).

Are There Quantum Effects Coming from Outside Space-time? Nonlocality, free will and "no many-worlds"
http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1011/1011.3440v1.pdf

Interestingly the philosopher Mcginn (as I posted before) has argued/speculated something similar with respect to the "non-spatiality" of mind/consciousness. It's very speculative but I do think he's arguing that there's something about spatiality that breaks down at some level but again this would still not be "nothing":

We need a conceptual breakthrough in the way we think about the medium in which material objects exist, and hence in our conception of material objects themselves. That is the region in which our ignorance is focused: not in the details of neurophysiological activity but, more fundamentally, in how space is structured or constituted. That which we refer to when we use the word 'space' has a nature that is quite different from how we standardly conceive it to be; so different, indeed, that it is capable of 'containing' the non-spatial (as we now conceive it) phenomenon of consciousness. Things in space can generate consciousness only because those things are not, at some level, just how we conceive them to be; they harbour some hidden aspect or principle.

We might be reminded at this point of the big bang. That notable occurrence can be regarded as presenting an inverse space problem. For, on received views, it was at the moment of the big bang that space itself came into existence, there being nothing spatial antecedently to that. But how does space come from non-space? What kind of 'explosion' could create space ab initio? And this problem offers an even closer structural parallel to the consciousness problem if we assume, as I would argue is plausible, that the big bang was not the beginning (temporally or explanatorily) of all existence. Some prior independent state of things must have led to that early cataclysm, and this sequence of events itself must have some intelligible explanation - just as there must be an explanation for the sequence that led from matter-in-space to consciousness. The brain puts into reverse, as it were, what the big bang initiated: it erases spatial dimensions rather than creating them. It undoes the work of creating space, swallowing down matter and spitting out consciousness. So, taking the very long view, the universe has gone through phases of space generation and (local) space annihilation; or at least, with respect to the latter, there have been operations on space that have generated a non-spatial being. This suggests the following heady speculation: that the origin of consciousness somehow draws upon those properties of the universe that antedate and explain the occurrence of the big bang. If we need a pre-spatial level of reality in order to account for the big bang, then it may be this very level that is exploited in the generation of consciousness. That is, assuming that remnants of the pre-big bang universe have persisted, it may be that these features of the universe are somehow involved in engineering the non-spatial phenomenon of consciousness. If so, consciousness turns out to be older than matter in space, at least as to its raw materials.

Consciousness and Space
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness97/papers/ConsciousnessSpace.html

 

[Xeeg]

To consider "Why anything at all?", start with the opposite! "What if nothing?"

Let's start at a time, let's call it t(0) = 0s

If, at this time, nothing at all exists.
Then there is no reason for anything to exist after this time.

We are here now (evident), therefore this is an impossible condition. This statement also shows that there has never been a time = 0 where nothing exists.

Now let's consider a piece of space where nothing exists... The boundary around this "nothing" could be defined, giving "nothing" an attribute, like volume. Once it has an attribute, is it still nothing?

If not, this shows that "nothing" is not only an impossible scenario to the start of the universe, but also cannot exist.

 

[alt]

Personally I see this as more of a limitation of our ability to comprehend than anything else.

Yes .. Why, are you aware of anyone that can comprehend without limitation ?

Mathematically we can use time to represent a form of a pattern or an attribute that gives constraints for something to evolve, but in terms of describing something whether it is structure, evolution of structure or any other relationships it's not required.

Not sure what you are saying here.

Could it be possible that everything existed simultaneously and that time is simply one way to organize what we are exposed to that constrains us to see the rest of the picture?

Mathematically in terms of describing any system, time does not only have to be linear but it doesn't need to be taken into account if we get knowledge of the state-space.

OK .. point to this thread ?

In order to explain the patterns that occur in our experience of the physical world (whether the experience is through us or some other apparatus) we introduce the concept of time to help make sense of things because it aids us in our goal.

Who introduces the concept of time ? We as intelligent, educated beings ? My dog has a concept of time (I'm sure she does). I don't think we make a choice and say "Aha - let's introduce time" if that's what you mean. Else, I'm not sure what you are saying here, either.

But if you constrain yourself to think in terms of that constraint, then by that constraint you will be bound by and with your hammer, everything will look like a nail.

Very true. But whether by choice or make up, we are constrained to some degree nonetheless, aren't we ? Or are you saying that there is the ability to think without any constaint whatsover ? In which case, you would be omnipotence - or close to it.

 

[sigurdW]

To consider "Why anything at all?", start with the opposite! "What if nothing?"

Let's start at a time, let's call it t(0) = 0s

If, at this time, nothing at all exists.
Then there is no reason for anything to exist after this time.

We are here now (evident), therefore this is an impossible condition. This statement also shows that there has never been a time = 0 where nothing exists.

Now let's consider a piece of space where nothing exists... The boundary around this "nothing" could be defined, giving "nothing" an attribute, like volume. Once it has an attribute, is it still nothing?

If not, this shows that "nothing" is not only an impossible scenario to the start of the universe, but also cannot exist.

Yes...The argument is old...Parmenides was first to point out that nothing isn't something.

 

[chiro]

Very true. But whether by choice or make up, we are constrained to some degree nonetheless, aren't we ? Or are you saying that there is the ability to think without any constaint whatsover ? In which case, you would be omnipotence - or close to it.

I think I added a bit too much fluff to my post, but the main point I was trying to express is that the constraints we put as human beings on analyzing things is often very limited because it's hard to think in terms of constraints that are not manageable in an ability to analyze something in a way that is useful.

It reminds me of the changes that have taken place since GR and QM have come about: it's forcing the physicist and to some extent the layman to greatly expland the constraints we used to have for analyzing the world and when we don't do that, it means that we will be looking at the world as a nail and using our old hammer instead of perhaps treating it like a screw and using a screwdriver.

The idea I think we will move towards is not just remove constraints per se altogether, but to go to the constraints that are the most flexible and make sense. We as human beings currently need constraints to make things manageable in terms of proper comprehension and at least for the near future, I just don't see that changing.

But consider the developments in all of the areas of mathematics and the introduction of statistics: logic is showing us ways to find systems that make sense in terms of consistency, statistics can show us properties for general stochastic processes that don't blow up and make sense, analysis does the same thing but for systems that are deterministic (with convergence) and so on.

What I see happening (and it is starting to happen right now) is that all of these ideas will come together and the constraints will do two things: they will allow more flexibility and also that flexibility will be tamed by conditions that come from all areas of mathematics.

As an example it's like us going from analyzing rational numbers to real numbers however in doing so we also introduce the idea that we only want to deal with real numbers that are computable. By doing this we are increasing our flexibility, but we are taming this flexibility with something else.

So yeah I agree that we are always going to be constrained, but the key thing is to realize how these constraints will change and how we deal with removal of constraints in one aspect and an increase of constraints in another.

 

[bohm2]

I'm not sure if this really confronts the question but I found it interesting:

In a deep sense, theories of causal responsibility start from perplexity that changes occur (why did something happen?), and their driving metaphysical question is the ancient question: Why is there something rather than nothing?...In contrast, the core concept behind causal significance is not production. Because production requires one thing to in some sense come “out of” another, production is asymmetric, directed, and naturally limited to local connection. If the deep structure of the natural world is a structure of natural constraint, then the logic of constraint leads to a focus on selective inclusion and exclusion rather than production.

Conceptualizing the world as the ultimate clique directs questioning toward the discovery of the secret character by which the world denies existence to so many things that could have been. The humble truth is that, for all we know, existence might be something toward which all things tend. If so, what requires metaphysical explanation might be why some things aren’t rather than why some things are. Perhaps the fact that new things can come into being is part of the noncontingent nature of the world, and perplexity should start at observation of how restrained these facts are in reality. Most possibilities do not occur...

One billiard ball hitting another is a paradigm case of one event causally producing another, and so “billiard ball causation” is not necessarily the best paradigm case of causal significance. A better paradigm case might be two entangled quantum particles. Two entangled particles are similar to two coins that must always be flipped together and that share a special constraint. Although each coin could land either heads up or tails up if it could be flipped separately, making for four possible joint states between them, because the two coins are entangled they share a constrained joint state in which each can land heads or tails only if the other one also does. So they could both be heads, or both be tails, but they could not come up one tails and the other heads. In this sense, the state of each has causal significance for the other, and their mutual causal significance excludes two possibilities. “Causal significance” names the presence of constraint between them, while not necessarily explaining the state of one by assigning responsibility or temporal precedence to the other.

A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World
http://www.sentimentaltoday.net/OUP...p.Structure.of.the.Natural.World.Nov.2004.pdf