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

Everywhere is somewhere (or lots of somewheres), and somewhere is something. Space (and any place) is something. So: Only nowhere can there be an absence of everything.Time is something, so, even better: Only nowhere and never can there be an absence of everything.Can we make a case for "necessity" as the answer to the O.P. question?I think it's beginning to look like it.

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

Carry that thinking through, and it would also be true to say in those hypothetical circumstances "everywhere and at all times there is everything". So, in nothingness, if nowhere becomes everywhere, and no time becomes all times, no-things become everything.Perhaps the problem is that you phrased the O.P. question in space-time language, where things "be", so we have to contemplate the paradox of the being/existence of no-things. I think that the same problems would exist in all languages, but that you'd have a good point if you said that human languages come from beings in space-time, and we may automatically have a problem in discussing true nothingness.Nowhere men (all the men who exist in nothingness) would have all the necessary words (all the words there) to describe all of it, of course, and all the time necessary to contemplate everything that's there.And all the unicorns would be pink (as well non-pink) as you point out.

Right. So wouldn't "why existence" be a better unanswerable question than the one in the O.P. which seems to imply that nothing could "be"?

I forgot an earlier question you asked about reality, because someone had said something like "nothing would be the state of reality". I'd say that all adjectives, including real, would have to be irrelevant to true nothingness.

Spontaneous creation is something.

I don't see how the first sentence follows from what I said. But anyway, reality and truth are things. Circumstances are things; a state of affairs is a thing.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.Surely the absence of everything requires the absence of all possible realities. Nothing, therefore, seems impossible because it cannot be a possibility.The idea that nothing (rather than something) could have been an alternative reality doesn't work. The absence of everything can't be anything.It may be that the reason we always end up describing nothing as something is because we're in a something reality and that's all our brains and language can do. But it could also be because it's nonsensical concept.I saw one dictionary definition of nothing that read: "Something that doesn't exist".Talk about getting something out of nothing.

There's a distinct possibility that I'm not really saying anything at all, because that problem is inherent on a thread on which we're literally trying to talk about nothing. But instead of: "Why does any form of reality exist rather than absolutely nothing at all?Maybe I'm asking: How can absolutely nothing ever be an alternative reality to this "something reality" when an any alternative reality is itself something, not nothing.

Which is pretty much what I was saying in the post further up that you replied to. The absence of everything includes the absence of all possible realities. I was saying to Paul that describing nothing as a state of reality is describing nothing as something.{Sorry, BlackCat, that was meant to be a reply to a Straggler post}Nothing also excludes all possibilities, because they are things. So, if "no reality" is a possibility, it gets excluded.So, nothing is impossible. Edited by bluegenes, : Replied to wrong post

Nothingness also excludes doubt.

Sure. And place and time and its own existence/being and all possible realities, and itself as a state, and itself as an alternative to something.No doubt about all that.

One of the qualifications of nothingness.Mind you, the absence of everything includes the absence of qualifications. The absence of the possibility of being an alternative to something is one that's interesting, because the O.P. question is:"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

This may be why we seem to be talking at cross purposes. Reality is definitely a thing, and so are states. The first definition in my O.E.D.:thing - a material or non-material entity, idea, action etc., that is or may be thought about or perceived."Nothing" is the only concept excluded from that (by its own definition). No. I pointed out in the last post that you are. The nothing state of reality turns nothing into something; hence my second sentence. Did I say property or state? 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.

Don't be shy about explaining why.

That explains a lot, but doesn't in itself make me wrong, does it? I'd suggest we ask the O.P. writer for his definition of "things" for the purpose of this discussion. The only example Doc A gives in the O.P is god, so we know that both existence and being clearly defined are irrelevant to his definition.But it's clear that our disagreement is due to the fact that the O.P. question "why is there something rather than nothing" means something different to each of us.Let's see how Adequate and other participants define "thing".