Why is there anything at all?

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This question has been written about by philosophers since at least the ancient Parmenides (c. 515 BC). Sanzio 01 Parmenides.jpg
This question has been written about by philosophers since at least the ancient Parmenides (c. 515 BC).

"Why is there anything at all?" or "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is a question about the reason for basic existence which has been raised or commented on by a range of philosophers and physicists, including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, [3] Ludwig Wittgenstein, [4] and Martin Heidegger, [5] who called it "the fundamental question of metaphysics". [6] [7] [8]

Contents

Introductory points

There is something

No experiment could support the hypothesis "There is nothing" because any observation obviously implies the existence of an observer. [9]

Defining the question

The question is usually taken as concerning practical causality (rather than a moral reason for), and posed totally and comprehensively, rather than concerning the existence of anything specific, such as the universe or multiverse, the Big Bang, God, mathematical and physical laws, time or consciousness. It can be seen as an open metaphysical question, rather than a search for an exact answer. [10] [11] [12] [13]

The circled dot was used by the Pythagoreans and later Greeks to represent the first metaphysical being and the metaphysical life, the Monad or the Absolute. Monad.svg
The circled dot was used by the Pythagoreans and later Greeks to represent the first metaphysical being and the metaphysical life, the Monad or the Absolute.

On timescales

The question does not include the timing of when anything came to exist.

Some have suggested the possibility of an infinite regress, where, if an entity can't come from nothing and this concept is mutually exclusive from something, there must have always been something that caused the previous effect, with this causal chain (either deterministic or probabilistic) extending infinitely back in time. [14] [15] [16]

Arguments against attempting to answer the question

The question is outside our experience

Philosopher Stephen Law has said the question may not need answering, as it is attempting to answer a question that is outside a spatio-temporal setting, from within a spatio-temporal setting. He compares the question to asking "what is north of the North Pole?" [17]

Causation may not apply

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that everything in the universe must have a cause, culminating in an ultimate uncaused cause. (See Four causes)

However, David Hume argued that a cause may not be necessary in the case of the formation of the universe. Whilst we expect that everything has a cause because of our experience of the necessity of causes, the formation of the universe is outside our experience and may be subject to different rules. [18] [19] Kant supports [20] and extends this argument. [21]

We may only say the question because of the nature of our minds

Kant argues that the nature of our mind may lead us to ask some questions (rather than asking because of the validity of those questions). [22] [ clarification needed ]

The brute fact approach

In philosophy, the brute fact approach proposes that some facts cannot be explained in terms of a deeper, more "fundamental" fact. [23] [24] It is in opposition to the principle of sufficient reason approach. [25]

On this question, Bertrand Russell took a brute fact position when he said, "I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all." [26] [27] Sean Carroll similarly concluded that "any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation." [28] [29] : 25 

The question may be impossible to answer

Roy Sorensen has discussed that the question may have an impossible explanatory demand, if there are no existential premises.[ clarification needed ] [30]

Explanations

Something may exist necessarily

Philosopher Brian Leftow has argued that the question cannot have a causal explanation (as any cause must itself have a cause) or a contingent explanation (as the factors giving the contingency must pre-exist), and that if there is an answer, it must be something that exists necessarily (i.e., something that just exists, rather than is caused). [31]

Natural laws may necessarily exist, and may enable the emergence of matter

Philosopher of physics Dean Rickles has argued that numbers and mathematics (or their underlying laws) may necessarily exist. [32] [33] If we accept that mathematics is an extension of logic, as philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead did, then mathematical structures like numbers and shapes must be necessarily true propositions in all possible worlds. [34] [35] [36]

Physicists, including popular physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss, have offered explanations (of at least the first particle coming into existence aspect of cosmogony) that rely on quantum mechanics, saying that in a quantum vacuum state, virtual particles and spacetime bubbles will spontaneously come into existence. [37] The actual mathematical demonstration of quantum fluctuations of the hypothetical false vacuum state spontaneously causing an expanding bubble of true vacuum was shown by quantum cosmologists in 2014 at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. [38]

A necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz attributed to God as being the necessary sufficient reason for everything that exists (see: Cosmological argument). He wrote:

"Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason... is found in a substance which... is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself." [39]

A state of nothing may be impossible

The pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides was one of the first Western thinkers to question the possibility of nothing, and commentary on this has continued. [9] Some have argued that by definition, nothingness is the absence of any property or possibility; thus, it would be a logical contradiction for something to be created from the lack of possibility of creation. [40] [41] [42] [43] [44]

A state of nothing may be unstable

Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek is credited with the aphorism that "nothing is unstable." Physicist Sean Carroll argues that this accounts merely for the existence of matter, but not the existence of quantum states, space-time, or the universe as a whole. [28] [29]

Other explanations

Robert Nozick proposed some possible explanations. [45]

  1. Self-Subsumption: "a law that applies to itself, and hence explains its own truth."
  2. The Nothingness Force: "the nothingness force acts on itself, it sucks nothingness into nothingness and produces something..."

Humour

Philosophical wit Sidney Morgenbesser answered the question with an apothegm: "If there were nothing, you'd still be complaining!", [46] [47] or "Even if there was nothing, you still wouldn't be satisfied!" [29] : 17 

See also

Related Research Articles

In the philosophy of religion, a cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of God based upon observational and factual statements concerning the universe typically in the context of causation, change, contingency or finitude. In referring to reason and observation alone for its premises, and precluding revelation, this category of argument falls within the domain of natural theology. A cosmological argument can also sometimes be referred to as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument or the prime mover argument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Existence</span> State of being real

Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does not know whether the entity exists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nominalism</span> Philosophy emphasizing names and labels

In metaphysics, nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. There are at least two main versions of nominalism. One version denies the existence of universals – things that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. The other version specifically denies the existence of abstract objects – objects that do not exist in space and time.

Neutral monism is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind, concerning the relation of mind to matter. These theories take the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other words it is "neutral".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Problem of universals</span> Philosophical question of whether properties exist and, if so, what they are

The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes: "Should the properties an object has in common with other objects, such as color and shape, be considered to exist beyond those objects? And if a property exists separately from objects, what is the nature of that existence?"

Moral relativism or ethical relativism is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. An advocate of such ideas is often referred to as a relativist.

Nothing, no-thing, or no thing, is the complete absence of anything as the opposite of something and an antithesis of everything. The concept of nothing has been a matter of philosophical debate since at least the 5th century BC. Early Greek philosophers argued that it was impossible for nothing to exist. The atomists allowed nothing but only in the spaces between the invisibly small atoms. For them, all space was filled with atoms. Aristotle took the view that there exists matter and there exists space, a receptacle into which matter objects can be placed. This became the paradigm for classical scientists of the modern age like Newton. Nevertheless, some philosophers, like Descartes, continued to argue against the existence of empty space until the scientific discovery of a physical vacuum.

<i>Meditations on First Philosophy</i> 1641 book by Descartes

Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated, often called simply the Meditations, is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641. The French translation was published in 1647 as Méditations Métaphysiques. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking animae immortalitas for animae immaterialitas, as suspected by A. Baillet.

The Eleatics were a group of pre-Socratic philosophers and school of thought in the 5th century BC centered around the ancient Greek colony of Elea, located around 80 miles south-east of Naples in southern Italy, then known as Magna Graecia.

The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause. The principle was articulated and made prominent by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, with many antecedents, and was further used and developed by Arthur Schopenhauer and William Hamilton.

In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a fact that cannot be explained in terms of a deeper, more "fundamental" fact. There are two main ways to explain something: say what "brought it about", or describe it at a more "fundamental" level. For example, a cat displayed on a computer screen can be explained, more "fundamentally", in terms of certain voltages in bits of metal in the screen, which in turn can be explained, more "fundamentally", in terms of certain subatomic particles moving in a certain manner. If one were to keep explaining the world in this way and reach a point at which no more "deeper" explanations can be given, then one would have found some facts which are brute or inexplicable, in the sense that we cannot give them an ontological explanation. As it might be put, there may exist some things that just are.

Presentism is the view of time which states that only present entities exist and what is present changes as time passes. According to presentism, there are no past or future entities at all, though some entities have existed and other entities will exist. In a sense, the past and the future do not exist for presentists—past events have happened and future events will happen, but neither exist at all since they do not exist now. Presentism is a view about temporal ontology, i.e., a view about what exists in time, that contrasts with eternalism—the view that past, present and future entities exist —and with no-futurism—the view that only past and present entities exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infinite regress</span> Philosophical problem

An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor.

In metaphysics, the A series and the B series are two different descriptions of the temporal ordering relation among events. The two series differ principally in their use of tense to describe the temporal relation between events and the resulting ontological implications regarding time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Five Ways (Aquinas)</span> Aquinas arguments that there is a real God

The Quinque viæ are five logical arguments for the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. They are:

  1. the argument from "first mover";
  2. the argument from universal causation;
  3. the argument from contingency;
  4. the argument from degree;
  5. the argument from final cause or ends.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quietism (philosophy)</span> View on the purpose of philosophy

Quietism in philosophy sees the role of philosophy as broadly therapeutic or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute; rather, it defuses confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects, including non-quietist philosophy. For quietists, advancing knowledge or settling debates is not the job of philosophy, rather philosophy should liberate the mind by diagnosing confusing concepts.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathematical object</span> Anything with which mathematical reasoning is possible

A mathematical object is an abstract concept arising in mathematics. Typically, a mathematical object can be a value that can be assigned to a symbol, and therefore can be involved in formulas. Commonly encountered mathematical objects include numbers, expressions, shapes, functions, and sets. Mathematical objects can be very complex; for example, theorems, proofs, and even theories are considered as mathematical objects in proof theory.

In philosophy and specifically metaphysics, the theory of Forms, theory of Ideas, Platonic idealism, or Platonic realism is a theory widely credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. The theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as "Forms". According to this theory, Forms—conventionally capitalized and also commonly translated as "Ideas"—are the non-physical, timeless, absolute, and unchangeable essences of all things, which objects and matter in the physical world merely imitate, resemble, or participate in. Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters in his dialogues who sometimes suggest that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge.

Philosophy of motion is a branch of philosophy concerned with exploring questions on the existence and nature of motion. The central questions of this study concern the epistemology and ontology of motion, whether motion exists as we perceive it, what is it, and, if it exists, how does it occur. The philosophy of motion is important in the study of theories of change in natural systems and is closely connected to studies of space and time in philosophy.

References

  1. ↑ "Poem of Parmenides : on nature". philoctetes.free.fr. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
  2. ↑ "Parmenides". World History Encyclopedia . Retrieved 2 May 2017.
  3. ↑ "Principles of Nature and Grace", 1714, Article 7.
  4. ↑ "Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is", Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.44
  5. ↑ "Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing? That is the question." What is Metaphysics? (1929), p. 110, Heidegger.
  6. ↑ Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics , Yale University Press, New Haven and London (1959), pp. 7–8.
  7. ↑ "The Fundamental Question". www.hedweb.com. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  8. ↑ Geier, Manfred (2017). Wittgenstein und Heidegger: Die letzten Philosophen (in German). Rowohlt Verlag. p. 166. ISBN   978-3644045118.
  9. 1 2 Sorensen, Roy (November 28, 2023). "Nothingness". In Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  10. ↑ "Metaphysics special: Why is there something rather than nothing?". New Scientist. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  11. ↑ Sorensen, Roy (2015). "Nothingness". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  12. ↑ Dascal, Marcelo (2008). Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist?. Springer. p. 452. ISBN   978-1402086687.
  13. ↑ Goldschmidt, Tyron (2014). The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?. Routledge. ISBN   978-1136249228.
  14. ↑ Brown, Patterson (1969), Kenny, Anthony (ed.), "Infinite Causal Regression", Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays, Modern Studies in Philosophy, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 214–236, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-15356-5_9, ISBN   978-1-349-15356-5 , retrieved 2023-10-22
  15. ↑ Cameron, Ross (2022), "Infinite Regress Arguments", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-10-22
  16. ↑ Brown, Patterson (1966). "Infinite Causal Regression". The Philosophical Review. 75 (4): 510–525. doi:10.2307/2183226. ISSN   0031-8108. JSTOR   2183226.
  17. ↑ "WHY IS THERE ANYTHING AT ALL? (PART 3)". Closer to Truth.
  18. ↑ Gutting, Gary (2016). Talking God: Philosophers on Belief. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN   978-0393352825.[ page needed ]
  19. ↑ David Hume argues that our demand that things have causes "is not from knowledge or any scientific reasoning," but from "observation and experience". Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Part III, Section III, "Why a cause is always necessary", p. 82. It may be that what we observe in our own experience may not apply in some other situations.
  20. ↑ "First cause | God, Creation, Universe | Britannica". www.britannica.com.
  21. ↑ Kant seems to perhaps argue that expecting the laws of nature to apply to this question is misguided, because they cause our experience, rather than are derived from it. "rescues the a priori origin of the pure concepts of the understanding and the validity of the general laws of nature as laws of the understanding, in such a way that their use is limited only to experience, because their possibility has its ground merely in the relation of the understanding to experience, however, not in such a way that they are derived from experience, but that experience is derived from them, a completely reversed kind of connection which never occurred to Hume. (ibid.)" https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-hume-causality/
  22. ↑ Brook, Andrew; Wuerth, Julian (August 30, 2023). "Kant's View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self". In Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  23. ↑ Ludwig Fahrbach. "Understanding brute facts," Synthese 145 (3):449 - 466 (2005).
  24. ↑ Mulligan, Kevin; Correia, Fabrice (November 28, 2021). "Facts". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  25. ↑ Melamed, Yitzhak Y.; Lin, Martin (November 28, 2023). "Principle of Sufficient Reason". In Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  26. ↑ "5 Reasons Why the Universe Can't Be Merely a Brute Fact : Strange Notions". 12 July 2016.
  27. ↑ "Transcript of the Russell/Copleston radio debate". Philosophy of Religion.
  28. 1 2 Carroll, Sean M. (2018-02-06). "Why Is There Something, Rather Than Nothing?". arXiv: 1802.02231v2 [physics.hist-ph].
  29. 1 2 3 Holt, Jim (2012). Why Does The World Exist. New York: Liveright. ISBN   978-0-87140-409-1.
  30. ↑ Sorensen writes in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that to many philosophers the question is intrinsically impossible to answer, like squaring a circle, and even God does not sufficiently answer it:
    "To explain why something exists, we standardly appeal to the existence of something else... For instance, if we answer 'There is something because the Universal Designer wanted there to be something', then our explanation takes for granted the existence of the Universal Designer. Someone who poses the question in a comprehensive way will not grant the existence of the Universal Designer as a starting point. If the explanation cannot begin with some entity, then it is hard to see how any explanation is feasible. Some philosophers conclude 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' is unanswerable. They think the question stumps us by imposing an impossible explanatory demand, namely, 'Deduce the existence of something without using any existential premises'. Logicians should feel no more ashamed of their inability to perform this deduction than geometers should feel ashamed at being unable to square the circle."
    Sorensen, Roy. "Nothingness". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford. Retrieved 20 April 2019.
  31. ↑ "Brian Leftow – Closer To Truth".
  32. ↑ "Dean Rickles – Closer To Truth".
  33. ↑ "Michael Kuhn (to Christopher Ishaam) – Closer To Truth".
  34. ↑ Tennant, Neil (2017), "Logicism and Neologicism", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-10-22
  35. ↑ "Logicism - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy". www.rep.routledge.com. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  36. ↑ Physicist Max Tegmark's speculative mathematical universe hypothesis states that all mathematical structures exist physically, and the physical universe is one of these structures. Tegmark, Max (2008). "The Mathematical Universe". Foundations of Physics. 38 (2): 101–150. arXiv: 0704.0646 . Bibcode:2008FoPh...38..101T. doi:10.1007/s10701-007-9186-9. S2CID   9890455.
  37. ↑ Theories of the events at the earliest stages of universes existence continue to develop, including the Big Bang, initial singularity, big bounce and associated possible distortions of cessations of time. "What was there before the Big Bang?". www.skyatnightmagazine.com.
  38. ↑ He, Dongshan; Gao, Dongfeng; Cai, Qing-yu (2014-04-03). "Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing". Physical Review D. 89 (8). arXiv: 1404.1207 . doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.89.083510. ISSN   1550-7998.
  39. ↑ Monadologie (1714). Nicholas Rescher, trans., 1991. The Monadology: An Edition for Students. Uni. of Pittsburgh Press. Jonathan Bennett's translation. Latta's translation. Archived 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine
  40. ↑ "Nothingness | philosophy | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  41. ↑ "Parmenides - Nothing comes from nothing". www.parmenides.me. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  42. ↑ Sorensen, Roy (2023), "Nothingness", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-10-22
  43. ↑ Roy Sorensen has argued that curiosity about the impossibility of nothingness is valid, even if it is the case. He has said that curiosity is possible "even when the proposition is known to be a necessary truth." For instance, a " reductio ad absurdum proof that 1 − 1/3 + 1/5 − 1/7 + … converges to π/4" demonstrates that not converging to π/4 is impossible. However, it provides no insight into why not converging to π/4 is impossible. Similarly, it's legitimate to ask why non-existence or "nothingness" is impossible, even if that is the case. Sorensen, Roy (2020). "Nothingness". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  44. ↑ Bede Rundle (Kanterian, Edward (31 October 2011). "Bede Rundle obituary". The Guardian.) and others have questioned whether nothing is an impossibility, but in the context of there already being an existence, such as God." "Bede Rundle" (Video). Closer to Truth. Retrieved 16 December 2019. "Why there's something rather than nothing". Washington Post. "Levels of Nothing by Robert Lawrence Kuhn – Closer To Truth".
  45. ↑ Nozick outlined several possible answers to the question:Nozick, Robert (1981). Philosophical Explanations. Harvard University Press. ISBN   978-0-674-66479-1 . Retrieved 2022-06-07.
    1. Self-Subsumption: "a law that applies to itself, and hence explains its own truth."
    2. The Nothingness Force: "the nothingness force acts on itself, it sucks nothingness into nothingness and produces something."
    "Imagine this force as a vacuum force, sucking things into nonexistence or keeping them there. If this force acts upon itself, it sucks nothingness into nothingness, producing something or, perhaps, everything, every possibility. If we introduced the verb “to nothing” to denote what this nothingness force does to things as it makes or keeps them nonexistent, then (we would say) the nothingness nothings itself." Philosophical Explanations, Robert Nozick
    1. The Principle of Indifference : establishes that nothing is a possibility among the n possibilities of having something. Then "the probability that there is something is n/(n +1) if n is finite and 1 if n is infinite."
    2. Fecundity: "Every possibility—including the possibility that there is nothing—exists in its own independent noninteracting realm."
    Also discussed here; Berker, Selim (February 28, 2019). "Phil. 169: Nozick's Philosophical Explanations. Meeting 4: Chapter 2 (Nozick on Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing)" (PDF). Harvard University.
  46. ↑ There are two errors in the the title of this book: A sourcebook of philosophical puzzles, paradoxes and problems, Robert M. Martin, p. 4, ISBN   1-55111-493-3
  47. ↑ Goldstein, Rebecca (2011). 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. Vintage Contemporaries. p. 349. ISBN   978-0307456717. The Cosmological Argument, like The Argument from the Big Bang and The Argument from the Intelligibility of the Universe, is an expression of our cosmic befuddlement at the question, why is there something rather than nothing? The late philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser had a classic response to this question: "And if there were nothing? You'd still be complaining!"

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