Why is there something rather than nothing?

[Polymath257]

OK, it is possible that this universe is all that ever was, is or ever will be?

Yes. It is possible, even if you have a restricted definition of 'this universe'.

Again, language is an issue. Some, for example, talk about a multiverse, which would be a multitude of 'universes'. If you define the universe to be 'everything physical', this is rather nonsense. On the other hand, in such models there is limited interaction between the different 'universes', so this means it can make sense to talk about a 'universe' as being a causally independent (or nearly so) subsystem.

Do you think there can ever be such a thing as nothing?

No. To say there is nothing means literally that nothing exists there; even time and space. The word 'ever' already suggests the existence of time.

Do you believe in the eternal cyclic universe model?

I withhold judgement pending better data. I'm more inclined to either a multiverse with 'budding' universes or a universe that is finite in time.

 

[ChristineM]

It's just hard for me to think that there could be a 'nothing'. As was said earlier, the very ontology of nothing undercuts its own meaning, that I don't think it would even be possible for it to make sense to say that there ever was nothing. But who knows, maybe you're right and there actually was nothing at some point, as contradictory as that may sound.

I guess its hard for anyone to consider absolute nothing considering the fundymental laws of this universe have been around for almost as long as the universe itself. Absolute nothing is counter intuitive to all that we know.

And thats the thing, we dont know, (at this stage) cannot know what conditions existed before our universe existed.

 

[Willamena]

Things exist; nothing doesn't, ontologically speaking (it exists symbolically as the placeholder for a lack or insufficiency of something). The argument rests in what it means to be a "thing," the word referring to any generic existent. To exist is to be a thing, and to be a thing is to exist. Ergo, "something" refers explicitly to things, but "nothing" only implies a lack of something.