"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]
No experiment could support the hypothesis "There is nothing" because any observation obviously implies the existence of an observer. [9]
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 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]
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]
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]
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]
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
Roy Sorensen has discussed that the question may have an impossible explanatory demand, if there are no existential premises.[ clarification needed ] [30]
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]
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]
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." [38]
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. [39] [40] [41] [42] [43]
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]
Robert Nozick proposed some possible explanations. [44]
Philosophical wit Sidney Morgenbesser answered the question with an apothegm: "If there were nothing, you'd still be complaining!", [45] [46] or "Even if there was nothing, you still wouldn't be satisfied!" [29] : 17
In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is the position that the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality. In anti-realism, this external reality is hypothetical and is not assumed.
A cosmological argument, in natural theology and the philosophy of religion, is an argument which asserts that the existence of God can be inferred from facts concerning causation, explanation, change, motion, contingency, dependency, or finitude with respect to the universe or some totality of objects. 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. Whichever term is employed, there are two basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: in esse (essentiality), and in fieri (becoming).
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.
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".
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?"
Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical movement that arose in the second half of the 20th century as a critical response to assumptions allegedly present in modernist philosophical ideas regarding culture, identity, history, or language that were developed during the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment. Postmodernist thinkers developed concepts like différance, repetition, trace, and hyperreality to subvert "grand narratives", univocity of being, and epistemic certainty. Postmodern philosophy questions the importance of power relationships, personalization, and discourse in the "construction" of truth and world views. Many postmodernists appear to deny that an objective reality exists, and appear to deny that there are objective moral values.
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.
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.
Philosophical presentism is the view that only present entities exist. According to presentism, there are no past or future entities. 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 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.
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.
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:
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.
A mathematical object is an abstract concept arising in mathematics. In the usual language of mathematics, an object is anything that has been formally defined, and with which one may do deductive reasoning and mathematical proofs. Typically, a mathematical object can be a value that can be assigned to a variable, and therefore can be involved in formulas. Commonly encountered mathematical objects include numbers, sets, functions, expressions, geometric objects, transformations of other mathematical objects, and spaces. Mathematical objects can be very complex; for example, theorems, proofs, and even theories are considered as mathematical objects in proof theory.
In the philosophy of religion, an ontological argument is a deductive philosophical argument, made from an ontological basis, that is advanced in support of the existence of God. Such arguments tend to refer to the state of being or existing. More specifically, ontological arguments are commonly conceived a priori in regard to the organization of the universe, whereby, if such organizational structure is true, God must exist.
The concept of "The Void" in philosophy encompasses the ideas of nothingness and emptiness, a notion that has been interpreted and debated across various schools of metaphysics. In ancient Greek philosophy, the Void was discussed by thinkers like Democritus, who saw it as a necessary space for atoms to move, thereby enabling the existence of matter. Contrasting this, Aristotle famously denied the existence of a true Void, arguing that nature inherently avoids a vacuum.
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.
"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.
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!"