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

I'm going to consider some possible answers.1) logical necessity.
As Dr. A. rightly points out, there is no obvious contradiction in a state of nothingness. So this is something that must be argued for, as logical necessity is a very strong claim and demands very strong support. While this would be a very desirable conclusion, desirability is not a good guide to truth.2) metaphysical necessity
This, I think is a non-starter. Nothing can be metaphysically necessary solely through it's own properties, because if it did not exist it would not have these properties (i.e.such claims contain a vicious circularity, existence would be a prerequisite for necessity). Therefore metaphysical necessity must depend on something external, which in William Lane Craig's formulation, would be logically prior. We may eliminate this possibility, altogether.3) brute fact
While the least appealing option, this seems to be the one most likely to be true. There is something or things which just exist. If we cannot appeal to any cause, nor to necessity there is no other option.Considering these as arguments for God, logical necessity is theologically appealing, but even harder to establish than the necessary existence of something. And if God were shown to be logically necessary, there would be no need to appeal to the question of why there is something, so this is a non-starter.The considerations above, make metaphysical necessity far less appealing theologically, and it would still need to be shown that God was metaphysically necessary - and, again, successfully doing so would be a strong argument for the existence of God in itself.The appeal to brute fact may be convenient, but there is no good reason to assume that God exists as a brute fact. Considerations of parsimony should lead us to propose only the most minimal brute facts necessary - the opposite of God. Yet again we would need strong arguments for the existence of God before even considering God as an answer.

Since we really are considering the question of "why is there something rather than nothing" here it is reasonable to point put that your preferred "answer" is NOT an answer to that question.

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

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Even if you discount abstract entities as counting as "something" it is hard to say that intelligence, wisdom or consciousness existing without some concrete entity that is in some way intelligent, wise or conscious.

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How do you know that?

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By carefully considering the issue. How can intelligence be said to exist without something that is intelligent?(And what point is there in trying to suggest that abstract entities can somehow exist in the absence of concrete entities anyway ?)

While it wasn't as clearly written as it might be I think you are basically right. Nothing isn't a thing (by definition). If it were it would be self-contradictory. Any argument that does treat nothing as a thing to conclude a contradiction is, therefore, begging the question.

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Isn't reality a thing?

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What do you mean by "reality"? If you mean "all the things that are real" then it obviously only has a referential if at least one thing exists. If you ,dan something more abstract, why would you think that it is a "thing"?

I'd ask you to explain what you mean, but it does look as if you are begging the question in exactly the way I suggest. Nothing is not a thing, therefore to talk about it existing or not, as a thing - as you seem to be doing - is obviously wrong.

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The O.P. question asks about nothing's existence. So, doesn't your point apply to the question, and doesn't my answer agree with you?

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I would suggest that you are being overly pedantic here and misinterpreting the question as a result. We can only make sense of the question if we accept that nothing is not a thing. Therefore my point does not apply to the question if it is properly understood.

Sure, I have. Aside from the attempts to show that it is logically impossible that no things exist (which seem to generally rely on the error of treating nothing as a thing) the only possible answer seems to be to appeal to a brute fact. As I explained right back at the start of the thread.

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I'll certainly agree that nothing, by definition, is not a thing, but no-thing. I've been treating "existence" as a state of things. So there doesn't seem to be a need to treat "nothing" as a thing. Quite the opposite.

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Nothing is not a thing, and therefore cannot have the state of existence by definition. Something is necessary.

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Treating existence as a property is another mistake, which allows defining things into existence. Worse, your argument is self-contradictory, because it explicitly denies that nothing is a thing while implicitly assuming that it is. If nothing is not a thing then there is no need for it to exist as such. This is the point of the post starting this subthread.

I'd say that "why existence?" is worse because it is even harder to understand. "Why do things exist?" is better than that. There are two things that tilt me in favour of the original formulation. Firstly, it is explicit about the possibility of nothingness, secondly it is already well-known.

Then you cannot consider reality to be a thing. "Reality" would be abstract, akin to " truth".

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I don't see how the first sentence follows from what I said.

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If "reality" exists when no concrete objects exist, then reality must be an abstract entity. Unless you intended your position to be self-contradictory, in which case you have a more serious problem than my making a charitable assumption.

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I understand what you're saying when you point out that people on the thread are falling into the trap of describing nothing as something, and also what you mean when you say that nothing itself doesn't have to exist (Tubby's point, which was well attempted). The trouble is that he then went on to describe it as something. The state of reality in which everything is absent.

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Seems to me that you are assuming a contradiction here, rather than actually finding a genuine problem. If reality isn't a thing then I don't see how it's states can be things either.

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The idea that nothing (rather than something) could have been an alternative reality doesn't work. The absence of everything can't be anything.

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ANd you're back to assuming that nothing is a thing. It seems that all you are doing is playing semantic games (which I find rather worrying in someone who wants to claim that existence is a property, since that enables all sorts of semantic games).

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This may be why we seem to be talking at cross purposes. Reality is definitely a thing, and so are states.

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Then obviously you are using definitions that cause problems. Maybe you should refine your definitions to come up with a coherent viewpoint.

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No. I pointed out in the last post that you are. The nothing state of reality turns nothing into something; hence my second sentence.

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And you were wrong then, and you are still wrong now.

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Did I say property or state?

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I could look but it doesn't matter. Either produces the same problem.

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No semantic games, really. I think that the problem is that you're including lots of things in nothing, which should be the absence of everything.

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No, the problem is that you are playing semantic games to put words into my mouth.

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Don't be shy about explaining why.

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Because I don't count abstract entities as "things" for the purposes of this discussion. Which I do because I am more interested in dealing with the actual question than in twisting it with semantic games to invent artificial contradictions. Also because the question of whether abstract entities exist at all, how they exist, and whether they can exist in the absence of concrete entities is still open.Consider the common philosophical usage: Oxford Companion to Philosophy p871This is more in line with the definition of "thing" that we need to use to gain a coherent viewpoint. Abstract entities do not change, even if some (numbers) may be held to fulfil the other two parts of the definition.