Why is there something rather than nothing?

[Willamena]

Can you provide an example of nothing? Do we have reason to believe that it's even possible for nothing to exist? Maybe there is something because it's not possible for there to be nothing.

Aye, the real question is why is there nothing in addition to something?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Not addressed to me but:



Yes, if it's not a anthropomorphic sky fairy.

What's the difference between God and an "anthropomorphic sky fairy?"

BTW on your use of "fairy:" I always find it interesting when religious people use older religious beliefs that have fallen out of popularity (e.g. fairies) as their go-to examples of ridiculous ideas.

Describe a 'typical church'.

Well, Catholic and mainstream Protestant churches account for ~90% of Christians, so I'd say they make up a fair starting point for what's typical.

As far as Christianity goes, there are diverse philosophical and ideological positions within that religion. Broad strokes aren't going to achieve anything.

@Musing Bassist described a vague, immaterial god-concept as "classical theism." I'd say that this label has been misapplied if it doesn't reflect solidly mainstream beliefs.

If someone wants to argue that some claim about mainstream theistic belief doesn't apply to their unique fringe brand of theism, they can go right ahead; that's not the situation we have here.

You're misrepresenting the history, theology and teachings of many religions here.

I don't think this is the case at all. I'm not representing any religion in the slightest to point out that mainstream theism as long as there has been belief in gods has been focused on things like:

- past actions of gods (e.g. creation)
- intents, plans, and feelings of gods
- gods responding to communication from humans (e.g. intercessory prayer)
- gods' accommodation of people after they die (e.g. Heaven and Hell)

None of this is about an "all-pervading reality" or "a conscious source of all being and existence, which is timeless, transcendent and completely devoid of all parts and material components."

Gods are anthropomorphisms. That's the whole point of them. A god is a device that humans use to relate to the otherwise unrelatable.

Quite a large majority of religions (even including many people of a so-called "agnostic" affiliation) including my own religion, believe in The all-pervading Reality. It's is not some later tacked on idea but for those who don't realize this, it takes re-evaluating their understanding of texts and words.

Funny - "it was there the whole time even if the religion didn't realize it."

There are exceptions, sure. Some Christians take their theology too word-for-word literal, others way too symbolic (there's a balance).

So these religious people don't count because they're doing their religion wrong?

It's hard to really know where your analogy fits in at all, even polytheists these days have a way more sophisticated view of their well-loved deities than to simply state "my deity lives in the clouds".

Do you think "cosmic" means "lives in the clouds?" You're setting up a caricature.

 

[Audie]

I don't feel a need to guess why there is something. It's not knowable to humans anyway.

I wonder.

Sometimes, I think these questions are beyond
the capacity of the human brain, something
like that greatest philosophical question that
cats ask each other: "Whence catfood?"

 

[Windwalker]

At the idea that there is so much more than we fully understand, why not?

When I stand underneath the night sky and feel my soul lift out of my body as I embrace the Splendor of creation, it's not my lack of head knowledge I am in rapt awe of. Does your own ignorance inspire art in you? Granted, the response may be the humbling realization of our own ignorance, as a response to awe, but the awe is not at how stupid we are. "Gosh, I am so inspired by my lack of understanding!". Those words don't go together.

What Einstein meant is irrelevant anyway. I'm still not seeing anything but ignorance (often inspiring and interesting, but ignorance nevertheless) and no reason to worship anything.

Why on earth would you say what Einstein meant is irrelevant? It is completely relevant to what we are discussing. And nobody said anything about worship.

 

[Windwalker]

What's the difference between God and an "anthropomorphic sky fairy?"

The person's level of maturity. Not all images of God are equal. A 3rd grader's Sunday School picture-book image of God, versus that of a mystic is as far apart as spelling blocks in a crib, versus a great work of literary genius.

 

[We Never Know]

That is different though, is it not. The thrust of the previous, quoted question still goes unanswered.

Regardless of whether theories that hypothesize something always existing, is there any reason to believe that an unequivocated nothing, relative to the OPs use, can exist?

Correct my post doesn't answer why because we don't know why there is something rather than nothing. I was referring to some think the universe or universe's( the something) have always existed repeatedly expanding and collapsing.
To just state there has always been something is no different than saying God did it.

 

[ratiocinator]

Why on earth would you say what Einstein meant is irrelevant? It is completely relevant to what we are discussing.

Neither of us are obliged to agree with him, no matter what he meant.

And nobody said anything about worship.

They did actually, @Unveiled Artist in #5, that was the point I was originally responding to. I think we may now be talking at cross purposes.

 

[We Never Know]

Such a weird question. For a very long time, my response to it has been "humans cannot comprehend true nothingness; this is not a valid question and is entirely outside the scope of our abilities."

Agreed. Can we comprehend nothing? Human minds have a hard time comprehending a teaspoon full of neutron star would weigh about 10 million tons.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Neither of us are obliged to agree with him, no matter what he meant.



They did actually, @Unveiled Artist in #5, that was the point I was originally responding to. I think we may now be talking at cross purposes.

Have you had an "awe" moment before?

 

[Curious George]

Correct my post doesn't answer why because we don't know why there is something rather than nothing. I was referring to some think the universe or universe's( the something) have always existed repeatedly expanding and collapsing.
To just state there has always been something is no different than saying God did it.

I wasn't referring to the question in the OP. I was referring to the question which you quoted and left unanswered.

Nothing is the negation of an abstract concept. It is a fanciful idea that owes its existence to perhaps the broadest abstraction with utility. That asserting there has always been something is, in fact, very different to suggesting a god did it. The opposite is closer to the truth. We have no reason to suppose a god just as we have no reason to suppose nothing. Yet, many do.

The question is "do we have reason to believe that nothing can exist?" Before you answer, consider that once nothing exists, it can no longer be a nothing as used in the OP.

While I see how you might think that suggesting something always existed is similar to saying a god did it, this is only true when one invokes abstract concepts for a god. The OP has already indicated why complex entities fail to answer the question why something as opposed to nothing.

The post that you quoted was one of the few that actually tried to answer the OP.

 

[We Never Know]

I wasn't referring to the question in the OP. I was referring to the question which you quoted and left unanswered.

Nothing is the negation of an abstract concept. It is a fanciful idea that owes its existence to perhaps the broadest abstraction with utility. That asserting there has always been something is, in fact, very different to suggesting a god did it. The opposite is closer to the truth. We have no reason to suppose a god just as we have no reason to suppose nothing. Yet, many do.

The question is "do we have reason to believe that nothing can exist?" Before you answer, consider that once nothing exists, it can no longer be a nothing as used in the OP.

While I see how you might think that suggesting something always existed is similar to saying a god did it, this is only true when one invokes abstract concepts for a god. The OP has already indicated why complex entities fail to answer the question why something as opposed to nothing.

The post that you quoted was one of the few that actually tried to answer the OP.

Maybe nothingness can exist is not an answer.
If nothing exists that makes it something so nothing cannot exist. Circular argument.
Or
If nothing is something is something nothing?
Or
If something always existed even if it was nothing, did it really exist.

 

[Curious George]

Maybe nothingness can exist is not an answer.
If nothing exists that makes it something so nothing cannot exist. Circular argument.
Or
If nothing is something is something nothing?
Or
If something always existed even if it was nothing, did it really exist.

The answer was not maybe nothingness can exist. The poster even said, maybe there is something because it is not possible for there to be nothing."

The question posed was is there a reason to believe nothingness can exist? And as you seem to have worked out, asserting nothingness is circular just as asserting a god to the OP question is an infinite regression. Both are examples of bad reasoning.

 

[Jumi]

I wonder.

Sometimes, I think these questions are beyond
the capacity of the human brain, something
like that greatest philosophical question that
cats ask each other: "Whence catfood?"

The home cat philosopher says, "the human food automat make catfood appear by magic, when we push their legs hard enough"
A cat in natural environment just gets that food by following instincts and biting it...

For us the questions are as problematic, are we even asking the right questions?

 

[Audie]

The home cat philosopher says, "the human food automat make catfood appear by magic, when we push their legs hard enough"
A cat in natural environment just gets that food by following instincts and biting it...

For us the questions are as problematic, are we even asking the right questions?

The right questions..had not thought about that.
Probably not.

For lo, it is said that one must know most of
the answer before one can ask a good question.

 

[We Never Know]

The answer was not maybe nothingness can exist. The poster even said, maybe there is something because it is not possible for there to be nothing."

The question posed was is there a reason to believe nothingness can exist? And as you seem to have worked out, asserting nothingness is circular just as asserting a god to the OP question is an infinite regression. Both are examples of bad reasoning.

Without evidence, God done it or Something always existed are faith based statements. An honest answer is we don't know but the answer of we don't know leaves no room for argument, so sides are chosen, claims are made, and arguments become entertainment.

 

[Curious George]

Without evidence, God done it or Something always existed are faith based statements. An honest answer is we don't know but the answer of we don't know leaves no room for argument, so sides are chosen, claims are made, and arguments become entertainment.

Somehow, I don't think you actually believe all beliefs are equal.

You are still missing the point. There is no reason to believe contradictory claims.

 

[We Never Know]

Somehow, I don't think you actually believe all beliefs are equal.

You are still missing the point. There is no reason to believe contradictory claims.

In reality the God of the bible contradicts science (evolution, the big bang, abiogenesis, etc) yet in reality millions of people accept both because they tailor them to fit the believe they want such as "God started it and gave it to nature" or "God created evolution" as well as others.

Edit. Sure all beliefs are equal. Each is equally important to the one holding that belief.

 

[sealchan]

So, why is there something rather than nothing? "God" is of course not an answer to the question, since asserting the existence of God only raises the same question (where did God come from?). As it turns out, the question produces a paradox, since any attempted explanation produces the same problem. As for me, I am content to say that there does not have to be a reason anything exists. I would assert that the universe exists, and that's all we can know. Any attempted explanation only raises the same questions again.

A long time ago, in the measure of my own life experience, I found it profoundly spiritually useful to make use of the space created by the mysterious. One can have science for the experiential and defer to it where possible, but for personal and artistic matters of the fullest range of the human experience of meaning, our imagination (one of Spongebob's great teachings) can freely live in the mysterious, create imaginary beings and stories and beliefs which can liberate us from whatsoever we feel the need to be liberated from.

Currently that includes such ideas as free will, consciousness, soul and individual human rights. So I guess the imaginal space which opens up to us through mystery, the realm of fiction, is pretty useful. So long as we keep one foot in both the experiential-practical and the imaginal-spiritual.

 

[sealchan]

Somehow, I don't think you actually believe all beliefs are equal.

You are still missing the point. There is no reason to believe contradictory claims.

You are thinking in terms of what I call mono-modal truth...namely all truth can be incorporated into a single, rational system.

This simply isnt what nature does even at the level of human cognotion.

Our brains "publish" the experience of truth from more than "way of knowing". A failure to recognize in a deep way the fact that the human brain freely entertains conflicting truths frequently is to miss this important aspect of reality.

All truths are framed in a context in which that truth is substantiated. Just as two observers in two different inertial frames of reference can experience conflicting truths about the physical characteristic of a given object, we can do the same in our own, more complex reality. The trick is to identify the frame and translate between the two frames.

This is how human binocular vision works.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

A long time ago, in the measure of my own life experience, I found it profoundly spiritually useful to make use of the space created by the mysterious. One can have science for the experiential and defer to it where possible, but for personal and artistic matters of the fullest range of the human experience of meaning, our imagination (one of Spongebob's great teachings) can freely live in the mysterious, create imaginary beings and stories and beliefs which can liberate us from whatsoever we feel the need to be liberated from.

Currently that includes such ideas as free will, consciousness, soul and individual human rights. So I guess the imaginal space which opens up to us through mystery, the realm of fiction, is pretty useful. So long as we keep one foot in both the experiential-practical and the imaginal-spiritual.

Interesting idea. Are you holding to the position that God is an imaginary construct then?