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

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That explains a lot, but doesn't in itself make me wrong, does it?

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Well, yes it does. The fact that my view doesn't have the problems that your view does pretty clearly indicates that the problem is at your end, not mine.

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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.

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I'd say that the fact that he doesn't see a logical contradiction is pretty clear evidence that his view is close to mine rather than yours.

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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.

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I'm pretty sure that finding a way to call a state where no concrete entities exist "something" rather than "nothing" is not the point of the question at all. So far as I can see your arguments are nothing more than the trivial playing of semantic games which go nowhere.

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The O.P. question is problematic for everyone. But there's no point in the thread if no-one even attempts to find a more satisfactory answer than "brute fact".

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But misconstruing the question is not a way to get an answer.

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"Nothing" being internally consistent just means we can't find an easy answer to the question on that basis. It would have to be internally consistent if a logical contradiction is a thing. Adequate's point was that it's impossible for nothing to contain to contradictory "things".

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Given that you are misconstruing the question in order to create a logical contradiction, it's highly unlikely that he agrees with you.

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Remember, by my definition of things, it's you who's turning nothing into something by filling it with things.

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Of course that isn't true, since I am not adding any "things" at all. All the "adding" comes from your definitions, therefore it's you doing it.

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And what is the point of the question, by the way?

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To find out where explanation stops, the most basic level of existence.

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Why isn't it a "semantic game" to have to exclude some things from "everything" in order to make your point?

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Because it is honestly understanding the question rather than twisting it to dismiss it with a trivial "answer" that tells us nothing of any interest.

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I agree entirely.

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THen it follows that you would also agree that any interpretation of the question that leaves it trivially answerable - both in the sense that the answer is obvious, and in the sense that the answer itself is trivial and tells us nothing - should be regarded as highly suspect.

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Disagreeing with you on the definitions of something and nothing is not misconstruing the question. And I'll ask you to demonstrate your powers of telepathy if you keep attributing motives to me.

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Of course it is NOT a matter of simple disagreement over definitions, it is a disagreement over the definitions to be used in understanding the question. And since your interpretation is highly suspect (see above) there are good grounds for thinking that you do misconstrue the question, and it is certain that your interpretation does lead to a non-productive logical contradiction.

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Please don't fantasize about "my" definitions. I didn't invent the commonly understood meaning of the words involved, and I didn't write the O.E.D.

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I am certainly not fantasising when I point out that those are the definitions you chose to use.

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It's from physics, not philosophy, that such things might be found out. You don't find out things by selecting definitions from one subculture.

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Certainly I expect physics to provide the most plausible basis for reality, however I am far from certain that physics will succeed in explaining everything. It is too easy to ask "why" questions and logical necessity is too hard to establish (and likely false as discussed here).However, that is a rather odd statement coming from someone who has been using philosophical arguments - and not even good ones - in this discussion.

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Like "brute fact" you mean?

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Simply appealing to "brute fact" without reason would be similar, yes. But pointing out that the only plausible answer is to appeal to brute fact - however much we might wish it otherwise, with reasons why, is quite different.

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I think you've got me wrong in some ways, and I'm sure the confusion's largely my fault. The fact that I can literally and correctly answer the O.P. question "because only something can be", does not mean I think I've solved the problem of existence, and actually demonstrated the necessity of "something". I'd be famous had I done that! It's just a shot across the bows, and highlights the difficulty of language in relation to discussing "nothing" as much as anything else.

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I don't think that pointing out the complexities is important - at least not compared with understanding the question correctly and trying to figure out as much as we can about the answer. I think I've done that and not seen much in the way of response.

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The definitions certainly shouldn't be arbitrary, and we both seem to be claiming each other's are. In order to decide what a "thing" is, the best method is to test against the concept of absolute nothing.

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NO! NO! NO!The choice of definitions should be about understanding the question as it was meant, not going off into confusing philosophy that misses the point entirely.

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I don't see a line between science and philosophy. Anything concerning reality (and its possible absence as in this case) is the province of science (and philosophy).

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But you're the one who said that we should look to science rather than philosophy.

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Is your idea of good philosophy sticking things into nothing?

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No, that's why I kept on telling you that you shouldn't be doing it.

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Non-existence can't be a reality, not anywhere, and not for a split second.

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Only if you choose definitions to make it self-contradictory, which is really only a trivial semantic game.

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BTW, if someone describes another "something" reality, "a world where there's a golden ocean stretching to near infinity" for example, and asks why that doesn't exist rather than this one, we wouldn't be able to answer the question, and you'd presumably end up with "brute fact".

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ONLY if it was taken to the lowest possible level of explanation, and maybe not even then. If you think otherwise, then you really, really, fail to understand my position. Appealing to brute fact is the last resort, and I argue that in the end we will be FORCED into it to explain the most basic level of reality,because there is no viable alternative.

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Do you understand why I see people making up alternatives to this world, and then asking why they're not there as rather silly?

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Not really. Is science silly ? Because science is all about finding out why things are this way and not some other. Why does taxonomy lead us to classify life as a nested tree, rather than some other structure? Why do we find so many unique species on remote islands rather than the same species found in similar environments elsewhere ? Why does the fossil record show dramatic changes in the fauna and flora of this planet rather than the same species we find today ? That's the thinking that lead Darwin and Wallace to evolution. Do you find that silly?

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Why not state the question as you think it was meant? When I asked this before, you preferred to leave it as it is. Fine. Then it will be taken as written, because no-one can mind read PaulK, and tell what he thinks it means.

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If you did, I missed it, although I think the intent is obvious. The question is about the existence of concrete entities, about the ultimate explanation of why such things exist. As I remember it, the question was asked by a scientist originally, and I certainly don't think it was about the complex and confused question of the existence of abstract entities. Which science is never going to answer, anyway.

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That doesn't forbid philosophers from following along behind and doing whatever it is they usually do, does it?

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You could at least try to be consistent. If the problem is only going to be answered by science, then taking a purely philosophical approach and asking purely philosophical questions, outside of science is not going to be much help.

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No. Seriously asking why Kansas exists rather than Oz is, though. I was talking about people fantasizing and expecting to be taken seriously. Note my comment that you're probably taking the O.P. question as a serious philosophical one, and that that's fine. I was thinking of when creationists ask such things, without realising what they're really doing.

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Then really, it's a strawman. There really is a serious question here, not a fantasy.

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So you disagree with Adequate's dismissal of god as an answer on the basis that he's something (given that some gods have purely abstract descriptions)?

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No. Abstract entities can't cause anything, therefore it would be silly to propose an abstract entity as an explanation of why anything exists. And to be perfectly honest in my view anyone who describes an abstract entity as God is an atheist trying not to admit to it.

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And what point is there in trying to suggest that abstract entities can somehow exist in the absence of concrete entities anyway?

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Maybe you should answer that one yourself, since it seems to be central to your argument.

So I did answer the question you actually asked. So why the unnecessary nastiness over it?

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??? It's central to your argument. That's why you've gone to great lengths to separate the concrete from the abstract. You're the one who's supporting the possible existence of a state of nothingness.

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You are really, really wrong here. If abstract entities couldn't exist without concrete entities I wouldn't HAVE to make the distinction! The absence of concrete entities would entail the non-existence of abstracts, too. You're the one appealing to abstracts like "reality", "states" or "existence"

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We're both accusing each other of the same thing, and I'll explain why. You, and the O.P. question, are inadvertently plying "nothing" with abstracts. If you left it alone, as its non-existent self, a mere negative abstract concept in our minds, it would be happy. But when you suggest it as an alternative to this reality, you turn it into something. An alternative is something, not nothing.

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But there's no reason why there at all. You just do it again and try to claim that I'm doing it. Remember that my understanding of the question just ignores the question of abstracts, and I have given very good reasons for doing just that. That is why the existence of abstracts isn't relevant to my position but it is VERY relevant to yours - you drag up all these abstracta just so that you can say that nothing is something.

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Nothing doesn't exist. It couldn't exist. That's its definition. If people use phrases like "state of nothingness" they are giving poor nothing something to live up to, and it has to become a state, which is something, and belongs with your concrete things.

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States are abstract, not concrete, so there you just have it again. All you are doing is appealing to the existence of abstractions to try to deny the possibility of nothingness. But it doesn't help you because you are misunderstanding the question.Look back to the definition of "thing" I provided earlier - you will see that your "state" does not come close to fitting it at all.

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That's because I include all things in my something. You chose your definition after I made my point, not before. Like GDR at the beginning of the thread, when he wanted the abstracts he attributed to his god (intelligence etc.) exempted. But they are things, and could not be used to explain the existence of something.

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That's somewhat exaggerating. You don't really know what was going on in my thinking before I replied to you. But again, your chosen definitions cause problems, making the question incoherent, while my understanding avoids those problems and leaves us with an interesting and relevant question, that a scientist might appreciate.

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I understand both the question and your version of it, except for one question. Are space, time, and virtual particles "things" for you. Are they concrete?

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IMHO the idea of spacetime as a concrete thing is one of the areas where science has outpaced philosophy that Cavediver referred to. Perhaps the prime example. Virtual particles, while they exist, are particles and thus clearly concrete.

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I know that. I know you've excluded abstract things. But that doesn't make it the standard of the thread, does it?

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But it does show that you are the one who keeps invoking abstracta, which was the point.

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There seems to be a tendency to get it the wrong way round. We naturally tend to think that it's something that's difficult to get, and nothing would be easy. We will look at something complicated, like a great forest with all its flora and fora, and our ancestors might think "Wow, this requires a lot of work - must have needed a creator." In fact, the forest will be in exactly the right circumstances to produce a forest, and the difficult thing in those circumstances would be "not forest". That would require a creator.

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I see it very differently. The question is not on the lines of "could things actually have been different", but "why are things this way ?", a quite different question. In fact by taking the question the way you are, you are stepping rather closer to writing off the question with "brute fact" then I ever did.

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Both. Yes, it's about why are things this way, but the best way to ask that is "why are things this way?" Which is what scientists are always asking and finding answers for things. And sure, we could examine the possibility of other speculative alternative ways that things might have been, but there would be far more alternative "something" realities than just the one "nothing" one.

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But surely you can see that by focussing on the "alternative realities" formulation you are trying to minimise the importance of a very important question. It's a bit like saying that the origin of life isn't an important question because it's just postulating a case where life doesn't exist, but life does exist and there are many different alternative lifeforms that could exist - and many places where life could form.

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You seemed to compare it to hypothesis testing in an earlier post, but it isn't that. It does give us quite a good thought exercise - several people mentioned getting headaches - which will happen when we examine the realities of nothing.

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No, I didn't. I compared it to the urge to go out and find out more, rather than being content with conventional wisdom which offered no real explanation.

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One of the traditional answers is based on probabilities. With an infinite number of something worlds against one nothing world, the chances of getting a something world are effectively 1.

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It might be traditional (although I haven't seen it), but it is better said to be based on guessing since there's no way to estimate the probabilities that's worth anything.

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Think about it. What discipline did I suggest was the appropriate one for possibly getting an answer to the question? Why did I post the Krauss video? Those questions aren't just important, they're automatic. If you want to ask "why are there concrete things", where else could you look for an answer?

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So you're inconsistent. Physics can't deal with your abstractions and you're just admitting that your attempt to write off the problem as simply fantasising an alternative reality doesn't work.

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In your OOL example, we're allowed to evoke something as the explanation if we can find that something. With the O.P. question, we can't. We can say "brute fact", which is correct, but unsatisfying, so that's why I was examining the proposed alternative. Nothing. In the absence of a technical answer, if that's ever possible, examining "nothing" is the only way to go. Even if it ends up nowhere.

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But you weren't really, were you ? Instead you went and dragged the problem of abstract entities into it, ending up with just a mess.

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Think up one level. A question can be important and silly and humorous, depending on how it's considered. Looking at a question from an angle that makes it appear ridiculous is not necessarily unproductive. When I compared the O.P. question to someone going to Kansas and asking "why is there Kansas rather than the Land of Oz", it's not just another way of saying "brute fact", but serves to emphasise that the concept of absolute nothing, like Oz, is our invention.

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When the only effect is to make an important question look unimportant, so it can be dismissed it is hardly productive.

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The current problem in relation to the O.P. question is sociological. When it's asked by and examined by people who are genuinely interested in examining reality, then it's fine, and I'm certain that includes you. But it has become widely abused by people who are definitely not interested in that. They ask it in an attempt to support beliefs that they already have. Because (unless taken very literally) it's (at least currently) unanswerable, some religious people seem to see this as a "god of the gaps" opportunity.

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I'll grant you that religious apologists (Creationists or not) will try to abuse the question, but that's hardly unique. Witness GDR's abuse of Dark Matter to try to "support" the idea of God based on no more than a weak similarity. The OP does not go into any sort of analysis of the sociology - it's firmly based on looking at the question and considering the issue of whether the real answer is helpful to religion.

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Do you not agree that "nothingness" as an alternative reality is necessarily a human fantasy? Do you consider it to be evidence based?

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That's irrelevant.

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If you haven't yet understood that the O.P. question drags abstracts into it, I doubt if you ever will.

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As I have argued, that is your misunderstanding of the question.

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And speaking of a mess, why did you make the comparison of the OOL to the O.P. question, when it should have been obvious that one can be answered by "something", while the other by its nature can't? A massive difference.

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Because it is an irrelevant difference, in a comparison I did not claim to be exact.

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Do you regard my "Kansas/Oz" point as invalid? And if so, why?

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I don't see it as relevant. So far as I can tell it was just dragged in to support your dismissal of the question, based on your reframing of the question. Since I regard that reframing as dishonest spin, why should I care about any argument that relies on it ?

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Have a quick read of this short article, when you've got time, Paul, and see what you agree and disagree with. Q1 is the O.P. question. Q2 seems more like what you have in mind, and the author's way of separating them is interesting.

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I think it's pretty poor. Like you he reformulates the question, and in his case his main point (everything is contingent) is present in his formulation but NOT in the original question ! So his big difference is based on a misrepresentation.