The DWR Sunday Religious Disservice – Why is there Something, Rather than Nothing?

Good video. I’m neither an atheist nor a theist but am an agnostic. My view on “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is as follows. It’s a little long (about 2.5 pages), so sorry about that. It’s a copy of my website at

sites.google.com/site/whydoesanythingexist

Thanks.

Roger

A solution to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is proposed that also entails a proposed solution to the question “Why do things exist?”. In brief, I propose that “something” and “nothing” are just two different words, derived from two different ways of thinking, for describing the same underlying thing: what we’ve traditionally, and, as will be shown, incorrectly, thought of as the “absolute lack-of-all” or “non-existence”. I put these phrases in quotes because I try to show by my argument that when we’ve gotten rid of everything that is traditionally thought to exist, the supposed “absolute lack-of-all” or “non-existence” that’s left actually meets the definition proposed here of what it means to exist.

How can this be? To answer that, I first discuss the question “Why do things exist?” and use the example of a pile of dirt. Why does a pile of dirt exist?. Three choices for places that might give existence to the pile of dirt are the stuff inside the pile (e.g., the molecules of dirt), the surface or edge of the pile which defines what is contained within the pile, and something outside the pile. I argue that it is the surface or edge which gives existence to the pile of dirt. More generally, what I mean by the surface/edge argument is that a thing exists if it is a grouping or relationship that defines what is contained within. This grouping/relationship is equivalent to a surface, edge or boundary defining what is contained within and giving “substance” and existence to the thing as a unit whole that’s a different existent entity than whatever is contained within. Some evidence against the first and third choices and for the second choice include:

1.) Try to imagine a thing like a pile of dirt existing that does not have an outermost edge or surface. Even if you say I can remove the outer layer of the pile and still visualize the pile, then remove the outermost layer of what’s left, and remove the outermost layer of what’s left after that. Eventually, to avoid an infinite regress and to still have anything exist at all, there must be some smallest, most fundamental existent entity that has an outermost surface and nothing further inside.

2.) A thing like a pile of dirt is not just a bunch of dirt molecules considered individually. It’s the grouping together of these molecules into a new unit whole called a pile. The pile is a different existent entity than the individual dirt molecules considered on their own, and it is the grouping/relationship/surface defining exactly is contained within that is responsible for the pile being a different existent entity than the dirt molecules considered individually.

3.) The stuff-inside and stuff-outside arguments both succumb to infinite regress problems. For instance, with the stuff-inside argument, one might ask: what’s inside the molecules of dirt, what’s inside the atoms in the molecule of dirt, what’s inside the protons and electrons in the atoms in the molecule of dirt, etc. At some point, to avoid an infinite regress and to still have anything existing at all, there must be some smallest, most fundamental existent entity that exists that has nothing at all inside. An existent entity with absolutely nothing inside would seem to be just a surface. What else would it be?

In sum, I propose that a thing exists if it is a grouping or relationship present defining what is contained within. This grouping/relationship is equivalent to a surface, edge or boundary defining what is contained within and giving “substance” and existence to the thing.

Some examples of existent entities and their groupings defining what is contained within are as follows. First, consider a book. Try to imagine a book that has no surface defining what is contained within. Even if you remove the cover, the collection of pages that’s left still has a surface. How do you even touch or see something without a surface? You can’t because it wouldn’t exist. The surface is what makes the book exist. Second, think about a set of all the positive integers. If it were unknown what numbers were contained in the set, would that set exist? No. Even for the null set, it’s known exactly what is contained within: the lack of all elements. The grouping defining what elements are contained within is essential for a set to exist. The grouping is shown by the curly braces, or surface/edge, around the elements of the set and is what gives existence to the set.

I next apply this definition of an existent entity to the question of “Why is there something rather than nothing?”. To start, “absolute nothing”, or “non-existence”, is first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think about this absolute lack-of-all. This absolute lack-of-all itself, and not our mind’s conception of the absolute lack-of-all, is the entirety, or whole amount, of all that is present. It is the entirety, or the all, of what is present (e.g. “absolute nothing”). An entirety/whole amount is a relationship defining what is contained within and is therefore a grouping, an edge, and an existent entity. In other words, because the “absolute lack-of-all” is the entirety of all that is present, it functions as its own grouping/edge, defining what is contained within. It defines itself and is, therefore, the beginning point in the chain of being able to define existent entities in terms of other existent entities. The grouping/edge of the absolute lack-of-all is not some separate thing; it is just the absolute lack-of-all itself because this absolute lack-of-all itself is a grouping or relationship defining what is contained within in that it is the “entirety of all that is present” and “the all”. This reasoning for why the “absolute lack-of-all” is actually an existent entity is the counterpoint to argument 1, above, for why a thing exists. Both come to the same conclusion but from different directions: that there is a most fundamental existent entity that is a surface with “absolutely nothing” inside. What this reasoning means is that 1.) our traditional definition of the “absolute lack-of-all” as the lack of all existent entities is incorrect because even after we’ve gotten rid of all things thought to exist, the “absolute lack-of-all” itself can be seen to be an existent entity if thought of in this different way; 2.) our traditional view of “nothing” as the opposite of “something” is incorrect because “nothing” and “something” are really two words for the same thing; 3.) “something” or “existence” is necessary, or non-contingent, because even what we’ve traditionally thought of as “nothing” is actually an existent entity, or “something”; and 4.) the fundamental building block of existence is the existent entity previously, and incorrectly, thought of as “non-existence”.

An additional argument that comes to the same conclusion that “something” and “nothing” are really two different ways of thinking about the same underlying thing is as follows. Consider the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?”. Two choices for addressing this question are:

A. “Something” has always been here.

B. “Something” has not always been here.

Choice A is possible but does not explain anything. Therefore, choice B is the only choice with any explanatory power. So, let’s explore this choice to see where it leads. With choice B, if “something” has not always been here, then “nothing” must have been here before it. By “nothing”, I mean the same “absolute lack-of-all” (no energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc., and no minds to consider this complete “lack-of-all”) described above. In this “absolute nothing”, there would be no mechanism present to change this “nothingness” into the “something” that is here now. Because we can see that “something” is here now, the only possible choice then is that “nothing” and “something” are one and the same thing. This is logically required if we go with choice B.

Two notes on visualizing “non-existence” are 1.) It’s very easy to confuse the mind’s conception of “non-existence” with “non-existence” itself, in which neither the mind nor anything else is present. Because our minds exist, our mind’s conception of “non-existence” is dependent on existence; that is, we must define “non-existence” as the lack of existence (this is why, to the mind, non-existence just looks like nothing at all). But, “non-existence” itself, and not our mind’s conception of “non-existence”, does not have this requirement; it is independent of our mind, and of existence, and of being defined as the lack of existence. “Non-existence” is on its own and, on its own, completely describes the entirety of what is there and is thus an existent entity; and 2.) It’s very difficult to visualize “non-existence” because it entails visualizing, with our mind, what it would look like if everything, including the mind, were gone. But, only once everything is gone, including the mind, does “non-existence” become the all, the entirety of all that is present, and thus an existent entity.

So, two arguments have been presented that support the idea that “something” and “nothing” are just two different ways of thinking about the same underlying thing: what was previously, and incorrectly, thought of as the lack of all existent entities. What is all of this good for? Like all proposed solutions to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?”, I can never prove the above hypothesis because I can never actually directly see whether the “absolute lack-of-all” is an existent entity, but what I can do is to use the above thinking to develop a model of the universe and eventually make testable predictions. This assertion is based on the thinking that because the hypothesis proposed here is about the most fundamental of existent entities, because the universe exists and seems to be composed of existent entities, and because physics is the study of how the universe works, then the laws of physics and of the universe should be derivable from the properties of the fundamental existent entity proposed here. I refer to this type of thinking as a metaphysics-to-physics approach or philosophical engineering. I believe that using this type of thinking, physicists and philosophers would be able to make faster progress towards a deeper understanding of the universe than by using the more top-down approach they currently use.

A more detailed explanation of the thinking behind all this along with its use in building a primitive but physically realistic model of the universe is at:

https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/

(click on third link).

LikeLike