The Ultimate Question - Why is there something rather than nothing?

I'll repeat here what I said in the other thread."Why is there something instead of nothing?"Because there is/was a creative intelligence as a prime mover.I think that is the most reasonable answer because IMHO it is unreasonable to conclude that intelligence can evolve from a non-intelligent source.I think that is the most reasonable answer because IMHO it is unreasonable to conclude that love and altruism can evolve from a non-loving, non-altruistic source.I think that is the most reasonable answer because a living cell is an incredibly complex thing and is IMHO highly unlikely to have come into existence without prior wisdom and creativity.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

OK.
Does consciousness count as something?
Does intelligence or wisdom count as something?

How do you know that?

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Thanks for laying out the ground rules. Very helpfulWe all know that I am not going to be able to explain God. What I can do is speculate on an answer to your question.It seems to me that we function in a world in a way that is dependent on our 5 senses. We have no idea what we might perceive with different senses.Science talks about other universes, (Scientific American recently led up an article with the headline - "An entire universe may be silently interwoven with our own)Brian Greene writes in "The Fabric of the Cosmos" page 145 the following:

quote:

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...not only do the laws fail to tell us why we see events unfold in only one order, they also tell us that, in theory, events can unfold in reverse order.

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So just maybe there is a whole lot more around us than we are able to perceive. And just maybe in the part that we can’t perceive the laws of physics as stated by Greene actually apply, and there is another time dimension that allows us to experience time in 2 dimensions, (backward and forward), or maybe even 3 dimensions, (backward, forward or through). Maybe in that universe or the whole of this universe we would be able to move around in time the way that we move around in space in this one. From a theistic point of view this could be God’s dimension/universe.If this is bears any resemblance to reality it could answer the question. Why is there something instead of nothing — because something is infinite or has always existed meaning there never has been nothing.I again point out that this is wildly speculative and I have the shields up in preparation for the ridicule to come.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

True but I also pointed out that when we ask the big question it has to involve time because it kinda suggests the same question as what was before the BB. As has been explained elsewhere that question is meaningless in that it is like asking what is north of the North Pole.It seems to me that the major problem areas concern human conception of time and infinity. Our minds that are being fed with information from our 5 senses are unable to cope with the ideas.Time is how we perceive change but we don't know how else we might be able to perceive change. I pointed out that some scientists speculate that there might be another universe woven within our own. Maybe it is possible that in another universe or one that is truly interwoven with our own that we might find that we can move around in time.As far as infinity is concerned I found this quote in Brian Greene's book, "The Fabric of the Cosmos" very interesting.

quote:

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In practice, the incompatibility between general relativity and quantum mechanics rears its head in a very specific way. If you use the combined equations of general relativity and quantum mechanics, they almost always yield one answer: infinity.

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He goes on to say that this can't be correct so they have to find a way to get rid of the infinities. However maybe it is correct. I have read where many scientists believe that the key to our broadening our understanding involves time and that time is actually an illusion, and for that matter some have gone on to say that so is space.That's all miles over my head but my point would be that something instead of nothing is a meaningless question until we can truly understand time and infinity, which I don't think is going to happen any time soon. In the end, all we can do is speculate.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I get that, but we might then at least have a better idea how to actually frame the question. I guess my contention is that there is a greater reality, regardless of whether our existence is theistic or atheistic, than we are able to perceive.As it stands I don't think we can fully understand the question let alone the answer.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Either that or the most brilliant, but I have no idea which one it is.

If all conscious life were to cease to exist, meaning that there was no means of observing or measuring anything, would anything continue to exist? If not, then it would follow that everything is nothing, which also means as others have written, that nothing is everything?Hope that clears it all up. I think I'll go to bed and ponder that for a decade or two.

In a way yes. If a tree falls it sets up ripples in the air, which then is sensed within your ear, which sends a signal to the brain which we then perceive as sound. At what point is it a sound? Prior to it interacting with your ear drum there is nothing but the ripples in the air. Is that sound?With the bigger picture, (with my absolutely minimal understanding of QM), it seems to have been shown empirically that a particle does not become something that we can perceive until it is actually observed or measured. Without a conscious being to observe or measure is it something? I suppose the way the OP asks the question it would be something but maybe not. Beats me.