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

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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.

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Your answer doesn't make sense.

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You mean that you don't understand it. Let's try again. The question does not deny - even by implication - that it might be the case that it is necessary that something exists.

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No. I meant what I said.

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Then you're wrong.

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I know. Look up the word possibility.

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Then you know that the answer makes sense - and answers the question as written.If the problem is that your question is ambiguous then it is up to you to clarify.

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The question is clear. You say that you disagree, then make a statement that doesn't contradict mine.

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Since I gave a perfectly valid answer to the question as written, and since you reject it as not making sense then either you don't understand the answer or your question was ambiguous and the answer does not fit the meaning you intended. It has to be one or the other.So tell me precisely what sense of "possible" is intended in your question.

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You answer that you disagree. You then state (correctly) that the "question as asked does not rule out necessity as a possible explanation, even by implication".

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Ok, so I disagree and I'm right to disagree. What's the problem ?

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That doesn't explain "no I don't", which was why I said you weren't making sense. From the perspective of the questioner, the two statements are compatible

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I would say that the falsehood of the claim is a good reason for disagreeing with it. And if you really understood my answer then you've just agreed that your claim WAS false.Not sure what two statements you're referring to so I'll pass on that bit until you explain.

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What I was thinking was that, as the questioner doesn't know the answer to his question, then both "the possibility of nothingness" and "the necessity of something" could be answers from his point of view.

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That doesn't make a lot of sense. If you had been suggesting something as trivial as "the questioner doesn't know that it is necessary that something exist" then what's the point ? Any non-rhetorical question implies (not assumes !) that the questioner doesn't know the answer.

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But the question itself may not be answerable by "necessity", although it would be nice to be able to do so. Even if we appeared to have a good case for necessity on one level (from future physics, perhaps), the questioner can always say "But why are we in a reality in which something is necessary?"

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You know, I already dealt with this way back at the start of the thread...

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In this abstract, the author calls the Leibniz version of the question the "Primordial Existential Question" (PEQ). Do you think that he's reading the question in the wrong way?

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That's a DIFFERENT question.

Wrong again. Leibniz's question is about why contingent entities exist, which is different in subtle but important ways.Also, the problem with your attack is that it obscures the importance of the actual question, which does not rely on the assumption that nothingness is more likely or even possible.

Again, their answer is great for defusing the claim that we must assume some additional cause, but it really doesn't answer the question.And in the abstract you linked to, Grunbaum is very clear that the question is about contingent entities, which is, as I said, different (because it sweeps the important issue of if and how necessary entities exist under the carpet)

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Have a read of the pdf that I linked to, and you'll see what I mean about Liebniz asking three questions, including the O.P. one, and how Grunbaum's answer applies to that very question. (That seems to be the very same lecture that Carroll's blogging about, BTW).

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I've now read it and Grunbaum is really clear that Lebniz was talking about contingent entities.

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It makes the case that there is no reason to believe that "somethingness" itself requires a cause or explanation.

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What's the difference between saying that there is no explanation and taking it as a brute fact, which is the answer I actually argued for way back at the start of the thread ?

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When you mentioned OOL as a comparison, it seems that you might be thinking of the question as "how did our particular 'something' come about?" - whether life, the known universe as it is or whatever else. Such questions are significantly different.

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No, I had in mind looking for explanation rather than simply sticking with conventional wisdom or ignoring the question. WHich was the context in which I raised the point.

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Yes, in that essay he's addressing the "contingent" version, which is what theists always come up with when they realise that the more general one (our O.P. question) cannot be answered by "God", because god's something.

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So it is a different question.

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But that's not why I linked to the article. It's because the line that Grunbaum takes towards the "null world" applies to both questions. The "null worlds" aren't quite the same, but the same arguments work for both.

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That depends on what you mean by "work". It doesn't "work" to provide a real explanation,merely hinting that the "brute fact" explanation is quite possibly correct. Grunbaum is only interested in defusing the question as an argument for God, not in finding the answer.

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The question (both forms) accepts the fact of there being something rather than nothing, so what is "brute fact" actually saying?

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That the most basic level of reality exists, not out of necessity, nor because it is caused by something else (impossible, of course) - it just exists.

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Did you miss the bit in which he dismisses the O.P. version as an invalid question? If a question is unanswerable, it can still be examined.

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His claim that it is invalid seems to be dealing with the argument for God, not with the question considered more generally. In fact it really only seems to be saying that even if God were a good answer the argument would not have much force. Which is a valid point, but very far from being a valid criticism of the question considered without the religious apologetic baggage piled around it.

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No. He suggests that the broad O.P. version is essentially circular. It will ask itself of any answer given.

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I don't remember Grunbaum saying anything THAT wrong. It's not true of any answer based on logical necessity or brute fact.

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I think it's important when considering the question to keep at the front of our minds the point that "nothingness" is necessarily a human invention, and not one based on observation.

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You haven't offered any valid reason to think it that important - it's implicit in the question, which is asking why a counterfactual is not the case. It really seems only an excuse to dismiss the question, and one that might easily backfire when arguing against religious apologists.

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Why is it a brute fact that there is something rather than nothing?

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Now THAT is an invalid question. There is no reason why a brute fact is true, it just is.

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How can "x" be regarded as necessary if there could be nothing?

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And that is even worse. If it is necessary that something exist then there cannot be nothing. The question is already answered -unless you are the one assuming the possibility of nothing, despite the answer denying it.

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But, unlike "why is there land right here, rather than sea?" the counterfactual is something we have no knowledge of. The concept of "absolute nothingness" is invented.

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But the same can still be said of other questions which are worth asking. For instance why does our universe have 3 "usable" spatial dimensions? We don't know of any other universes at all, but the question still makes sense, and scientists still want to know the answer.

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Yet the declaration of brute fact fails to eliminate the possibility of "nothingness", so the question can be applied. It recognises the fact that there is something, but asks why "nothingness" couldn't have been the case instead.

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However, the declaration of brute fact, as you put it, has already answered that question. There is no reason, and if you want to argue that there MUST you'll be arguing against yourself and Grunbaum.

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"Necessity" could only be demonstrated in the context of "something world".

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False. Since we are talking about logical necessity we CAN'T rely on the assumption of something existing without begging the question.

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I think you fail to see that the question says; "Why isn't there reality "y" rather than reality "x". How is it possible to demonstrate that "x" is "necessary" from inside it? How could you demonstrate that "y" couldn't have been?

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If it is possible to demonstrate logical necessity (and remember that I argue it is not ) it is sufficient to show that "reality y" is logically inconsistent as Dr. A pointed out back in the OP.

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"There is no reason" is just another way of saying that the question (O.P. version) is unanswerable. No thing can be evoked to answer it, unlike the "contingent things" version, which can accept a theoretical necessary being.

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Giving an answer rather disproves the claim that the question is unanswerable. Aside from that you're really only repeating points that I've already made.

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Grnbaum isn't proposing that the question can be properly answered. He's questioning the question. He's claiming that it poses a "pseudo problem". (That's both versions of the question).

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As I understand it Grunbaum is only arguing against the assumption that we should expect nothingness to exist, in the absence of a necessary entity or entities causing contingent entities to exist. That is reasonable, but doesn't establish that the question is silly without the apologetic baggage that Grunbaum is answering.

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Well, exactly. That's another way of saying the same thing

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Only in the same sense as "you are dead wrong and here's proof" is saying the same thing as "you're right"

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Absolute nothingness (the "null world" of the O.P. version) forbids logical inconsistency, just as it forbids anything else (including "necessity").

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Only given both your dubious reading of the question and the assumption that abstracts exist.

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Whether or not the O.P. version has built in unanswerability (I think it does - unless taken completely literally as I did earlier in the thread), Grnbaum's "pseudo-problem" point applies to both versions.

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Your assertion that the question is unanswerable has been disproven, and Grunbaum's point seems limited to attempts to argue that some necessary entity must exist.