Why is there something instead of nothing?

[The Wrath]

This is a question I've asked myself before, but I don't think I've ever bothered to ask on here...and I haven't seen other people try to explain it either. Why does existence exist? Is this question even answerable? Or is it simply irrelevant?

[Nate T.]

This is a question I've asked myself before, but I don't think I've ever bothered to ask on here...and I haven't seen other people try to explain it either. Why does existence exist? Is this question even answerable? Or is it simply irrelevant?

I think this question is unanswerable. The reason I say that is because when one asks "why?", one is looking for an explanation based on other facts and principles for something. Since explanations must involve things which exist, there's no way to "step outside of existence" in an attempt to explain existence.

[The Wrath]

That's kind of what I was thinking too...but then, I can't imagine that anything in existence (including existence itself) is exempt from requiring an explanation. Perhaps the explanation is beyond our own primitive cognitive abilities?

[BrassDragon]

"Existence exists" is an axiom.

An axiom identifies a base of knowledge and is necessarily contained in all other statements of knowledge. You can't deny an axiom without accepting it first, so they're pointless to argue about.

Edited March 15, 2007 by BrassDragon

[The Wrath]

I guess that's true, but it's an axiom about something that is physically observable. The other axioms (i.e. A=A) aren't physical...they're abstract. Don't all physical entities need an explanation?

[BrassDragon]

I don't think "existence exists" is different from other axioms. They're all physically observable, but they're also all presupposed in all knowledge.

To answer your question - I suppose everything needs an explanation, but "Existence exists" is all the explanation there is for the existence of the universe.

[Nate T.]

Positing that there is an answer to the question "Why does existence exists?" implies things outside existence that cause existence to exist, somehow. Taking this kind of thing literally, any such existence-causing things do exist, so they are in existence and outside of existence simultaneously, a contradiction. Not surprisingly, this kind of thing tends to come from people trying to show that there is a "lower" existence (the world around us) and a "higher" existence which causes the lower existence by ineffable means (but I don't think you hold this).

Also, maybe someone could shed light on this idea of things "needing" an explanation-- I don't know in what sense something could "require" an explanation.

[mrocktor]

Don't all physical entities need an explanation?

No. You are trying to apply causality to the whole of existence (the question "why" is an inquiry about a causal link). Causality, however, is a consequence of existence - it is applicable within existence. There can be no causation outside of existence (a cause has to exist!), existence itself can have no cause.

[LaszloWalrus]

That's kind of what I was thinking too...but then, I can't imagine that anything in existence (including existence itself) is exempt from requiring an explanation. Perhaps the explanation is beyond our own primitive cognitive abilities?

I think you're misusing the concept "explanation." One explains things in terms of existence, so existence can only be explained in terms of itself.

[Whoisjohngalt]

This is a question I've asked myself before, but I don't think I've ever bothered to ask on here...and I haven't seen other people try to explain it either. Why does existence exist? Is this question even answerable? Or is it simply irrelevant?

The one who asks the question "Why is there something instead of nothing?" is presupposing that "nothing" (which is simply the negation of "something") can "exist". However, the questioner himself exists. He cannot deny his own existence and his own consciousness (because of which he is asking this question). So I think that the question itself is flawed.

Not surprisingly, this kind of thing tends to come from people trying to show that there is a "lower" existence (the world around us) and a "higher" existence which causes the lower existence by ineffable means

Thats true as I have known such people.

[aleph_0]

No. You are trying to apply causality to the whole of existence (the question "why" is an inquiry about a causal link). Causality, however, is a consequence of existence - it is applicable within existence. There can be no causation outside of existence (a cause has to exist!), existence itself can have no cause.

This is the best expression of the correct answer. To ask a "why" question implies an answer outside of the thing under investigation. For instance, if you ask why the Earth is small and rocky while Jupiter is large and gaseous, you seek an answer that is something other than the fact that the Earth is small and rocky while Jupiter is large and gaseous. That would be the height of circularity. Instead, you look for facts outside of these which stand in a relevant relationship.

The question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" then, asks you to explain existence by some means other than a reference to existence. To explain existence in terms of non-existence is existentialism. In essence, you can ask "Why...?" about every single subject imaginable, except that subject which includes everything--for there is no escaping such a subject in order to give a non-circular account of it.

Likewise, one cannot ask, "Why is existence the way that it is, and not some other way? Why does it have the identity that it has, rather than some other identity?" To ask this would be to request that your instructor explain existence and identity from outside the domain of existence and identity.

[The Wrath]

Good answers in here. I'm perfectly satisfied with them, and I can't see any reason to disagree.

[DragonMaci]

This is a question I've asked myself before, but I don't think I've ever bothered to ask on here...and I haven't seen other people try to explain it either. Why does existence exist? Is this question even answerable? Or is it simply irrelevant?

I would say unanswerable and irrelevant. I don't care why there is existence, I just care that there is. However, I do care why I exist, which is for the sake of my own life and happiness. Why is a motive or causality question. What motive or cause can existence have? It can't have any.

I think this question is unanswerable. The reason I say that is because when one asks "why?", one is looking for an explanation based on other facts and principles for something. Since explanations must involve things which exist, there's no way to "step outside of existence" in an attempt to explain existence.

I agree with that.

"Existence exists" is an axiom.

Which explains why there is no "why". Axioms don't have a "why", they have only an "is".

No. You are trying to apply causality to the whole of existence (the question "why" is an inquiry about a causal link). Causality, however, is a consequence of existence - it is applicable within existence. There can be no causation outside of existence (a cause has to exist!), existence itself can have no cause.

Indeed. It is reversing cause and effect to effect and cause.

[MikeJoyous]

Why is there existence instead of nothing?

Really folks. This is one time I just feel like having fun. It has already been answered anyway somewhere around here.

My answer: Because.

PS: Often questions having to do with religion seem so absurd, that I can't bring myself to take them seriously--as some of my previous posts will attest:)

PPS: Yes, I know, this question was a "perfectly good" question of metaphysics:( Really guys and gals, if there were nothing, we wouldn't be around asking questions. Existence implies prior existence, and that's as much of an answer as you can get. To assume that once there was "nothing" (=the absence of any something) and now there is "something" is to talk about sumpn in the 5th dimension or wherever Who caused the sumpn to somehow come into existence. Feels to me like "How many angels on the head of a pin?"

[DMR]

Why does existence exist?

For the lulz.

[Bagpipe]

It is easier for people who do exist to prove that they don't than it is for people who don't exist to prove that they do. Or don't. (RB)

Also the easiest way to pass a camel through the eye of a needle is to put him through the blender first. (Lex Barker).

This question is equivalent to asking Nothing why all of a sudden it created Something, instead of relaxing and continuing to do the same Nothing as usual. But Nothing does not exist, it is only imaginary, provided some kind of mind is imagining something that ain’t so. So what is “in” it, what does it “consist of ”? Lies, mistakes, nonsense, impossibility and fiction: all the notions that contradict the facts of reality.

You may be outraged by the cavalier fashion with which I insert fiction into this otherwise odious register of arraignment. In that case, I invite you to tell me where you are putting the Empire State Building to make room for my latest crocodile farm on the block between 5th and 6th and 33rd and 34th.

The real headache is the Present Tense, which is the only thing that exists, even though it disappears into the Past the very instant it arrives from the Future. Even so, may I also invite you to make the most of it while it lasts, if you want to call that living. RB

Edited February 2, 2008 by softwareNerd

[DavidV]

To rephrase what others have already said, I remember Branden answering this in his course on Objectivism. His reply is that the question “why is there not nothing” uses a stolen concept. The meaning of “nothing” is “the absence of entities.” The concept cannot be formed without first being conscious of the existence of entities. Likewise, the concept of “existence” relies on the evidence of existence. Thus, one cannot question existence without being conscious of it. In other words, “nothing” is not possible without “something.”