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

True, and I didn't mean to imply that you were doing any deliberately devious goalpost moving. The views are reasonably in keeping with what you were saying early in the thread. It's the question (both versions) that suggests that the abstract concept of absolutely nothing could be the abstract concept of an alternative reality.I agree that it's a genuinely interesting question for scientists and everyone else. But I think it also relates to something in human psychology, and, as I mentioned before, a hangover from ancient cultural traditions.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. If we looked at it scientifically, we can say that we've got absolutely no evidence to support the idea that there could actually have been nothing rather than something. But that, almost inevitably, would be the case at present.Normally, if there's zero evidence to support a proposition, it's not taken seriously, which is why some people's attitude toward the "could have been nothing" hypothesis is a bit strange. Especially religious people.I suspect, but can't prove it, that pure nothing might be impossible.Kraus, above, said that there's no longer any "nothing" in modern physics. Even if you think you're looking at it, there'll be a seething mass of virtual particles popping in and out of existence. It doesn't surprise me that Cavediver has made some pretty dismissive comments on it as well.It's always worth remembering that the concept is our invention, and it wasn't based on evidence.

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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.

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.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.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.But we cannot really know that to be the case, and it doesn't really tell us why things are this way.The best we get (and it's very interesting) is from the physicists.

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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.

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?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.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.I'm certainly not minimising the importance of cosmology, and OOL hypotheses are something very important and interesting to me personally. Of course we ask ourselves every conceivable question about everything. Why are we here? What exactly is the universe, and how did it come about? Even "is reality an illusion?"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.Now, speaking of serious, did you understand my forest/not forest analogy? It is, in a sense, your "brute fact", but I wanted to discuss the way we see "something" and "nothing", and particularly, as we're on EvC, the way creationists perceive them.Picture a conceptual creator god sitting on a line with absolute nothing on one side of him, and something on the other, and ask yourself "which of the two has he created"? The best answer would be that he has created the nothing area.Our modern perception should be that "nothing" is difficult to get, not something, and it might well actually be true that only a supernatural being could achieve it.Genesis is the wrong way around.**That might make a good topic title. Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

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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.

If think I would rephrase the OP to question to something like.... Why are there possible alternatives to nothing rather than absolutely nothing at all?....In order to best reflect my own rather all-encompassing interpretation of it.And God himself would surely be asking himself that question.

Do you not agree that "nothingness" as an alternative reality is necessarily a human fantasy? Do you consider it to be evidence based? If you haven't yet understood that the O.P. question drags abstracts into it, I doubt if you ever will.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. Do you regard my "Kansas/Oz" point as invalid? And if so, why?

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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 ?

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.This might help clear up some confusion.Busy now but I'll answer a couple of points in your last post later.

I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find an academic article on the O.P. subject that discusses this point in relation to the question, and considers it very relevant. Of course it's relevant. The possibility of the existence of nothing as an alternative to something is implied in the question. Don't you agree? Irrelevant???!!! Irrelevant again! "Why does Kansas exist, rather than the Land of Oz". The analogy turns the general concepts into specifics, but I don't see any basic reframing. Strong words, indeed.....

I'd like to examine a straight "Can nothing be an alternative without being?"

Well given that there certainly is something rather than nothing your question is very arguably more pertinent than mine.But my question (I think) is closer to the all inclusive and god stumping question that I think the OP was aiming at.The more I think about the stuff the more I conclude that anything beyond the physics of the whole matter is nothing more than semantic jiggery pokery.

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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.

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The possibility of the existence of nothing as an alternative to something is implied in the question. Don't you agree?

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No, I don't. The question as asked does not rule out necessity as a possible explanation, even by implication.

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Irrelevant???!!!

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Yes. The point of comparison is that other important questions can be reformulated in much the same way and also dismissed on the basis of the reformulation. And that is it. Any difference which does not touch on that is irrelevant.

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"Why does Kansas exist, rather than the Land of Oz". The analogy turns the general concepts into specifics, but I don't see any basic reframing.

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And that is one of the reasons WHY it is irrelevant. Your question is equivalent only to your misleading reframing - NOT to the actual question that you chose to reframe.

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Strong words, indeed.....

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Which you've just helped justify.