Originally posted by Eyesee
Every "something" can be said to have a cause. "Nothing" otoh is not something, therefore, it doesn't need a cause. But not needing a cause doesn't logically exclude it from being the cause of something other than itself. The only way you can stop the question of origin from slipping into an ad infinitum is with the answer : Everything came from nothing. That's the final answer.
I see two problems with your proposal, but before describing them let me be sure I understand you what you mean by nothing. To say “nothing” I assume you mean absolutely no sort of existence. Nothing could mean no “thing” and a thing might be defined as that which has form. If you defined “thing” that way, then some existent essence which is formless might still fit your definition of no-thing. So, my rebuttals to your points assumes you mean by “nothing” the absence of both form and formless existence – that is, "nothing" is absolutely devoid of existence.
My first objection to your hypothesis all existence stems from nothing is a contradiction that is built into your statement. That logical inconsistency is: nothing is not truly an existential void if it contains
potential.
Logically, all that exists is preceded by the potential to exist. That is irrefutable. If you want to call potential nothing, then you have to ignore the incredible emissions of potential that we observe in our universe. Out of potential has burst the entire universe, light, forces, matter, life, and consciousness. All that was present in potential before it ever came to exist or it could not possibly exist. I can't see how anyone can refer to such potential as “nothing.” Contemplating what this potential might be like is a segue to my second rebuttal point.
By saying “Every ‘something’ can be said to have a cause,” you’ve assumed a fact about existence which isn’t necessarily true. Why couldn’t there be some most elementary “existential stuff” which was never caused or created, which has always existed, which will always exist and, in fact, which cannot
not exist? Possibly this
existential stuff is a luminescent vibrancy that some set of circumstances lift from its base condition into the light and vibratory manifestations so ubiquitous in our universe. (The relatively recent points made about zero point energy, for instance, rather than representing “nothing,” could instead represent a state of counterbalanced polar forces, which are themselves expressed potentials of vibrancy.)
It seems to me that the argument of nothing becoming something can only be made through sophistry. How else does one circumvent the illogic and contradictions of the hypothesis, disregard potential and the possibility of some absolute
existential stuff, and the especially ignore the observed and substantive presence of existence?