Why is there something rather than nothing at all?

[sarahb]

Questions like "Where does space end and what's beyond it?" and "How did everything in existence form...from nothing?" have always gotten the best of me. My only logical answer is that it's an infinite loop of existence, meaning that when space ends, a new space starts, or it ends at the beginning, therefore, creating an infinite circle of space. Just like space, when "something" ends, it loops back around and starts a new something, therefore, creating an infinite loop of something. Don't ask me how, but that's my take on it.

Sarah

[Fer]

Who says that there is something?  perhaps it would be better described as a state of no-nothingness that we perceive as something. This is because we assume we are part of it and the only thing we can say about ourselves for sure is that we are, after all all the rest could be illusion. It would be more helpfully to see ourselves as no nothingness not no-perceiving itself.

Imagine that the universe at the moment of creation had no dimensions but instead of expanding as we conventionally perceive it to do its contents started shrinking a witness such as us within the universe would believe it to was expanding. They would also have to deal with the seeming paradox that it has no exterior dimensions.
What is mass? it is just huge spaces with a multitude of tiny subatomic particles held in a complex interrelation, and these are really just composed of energy. What is energy? well you need it to move mass. Cant you see the whole illusion is paper thin, something cant exist nor can nothing. We are in a paradox that we can call no-nothingness for want of a better word.

[The Middle Way]

I have to just quote this with emphases

Who says that there is something?  perhaps it would be better described as a state of no-nothingness that we perceive as something. This is because we assume we are part of it and the only thing we can say about ourselves for sure is that we are, after all all the rest could be illusion. It would be more helpfully to see ourselves as no nothingness not no-perceiving itself.

Imagine that the universe at the moment of creation had no dimensions but instead of expanding as we conventionally perceive it to do its contents started shrinking a witness such as us within the universe would believe it to was expanding. They would also have to deal with the seeming paradox that it has no exterior dimensions.
What is mass? it is just huge spaces with a multitude of tiny subatomic particles held in a complex interrelation, and these are really just composed of energy. What is energy? well you need it to move mass. Cant you see the whole illusion is paper thin, something cant exist nor can nothing. We are in a paradox that we can call no-nothingness for want of a better word.

YOW! are we having fun yet! Brilliant.

Questions like "Where does space end and what's beyond it?" and "How did everything in existence form...from nothing?" have always gotten the best of me. My only logical answer is that it's an infinite loop of existence, meaning that when space ends, a new space starts, or it ends at the beginning, therefore, creating an infinite circle of space. Just like space, when "something" ends, it loops back around and starts a new something, therefore, creating an infinite loop of something. Don't ask me how, but that's my take on it.

Sarah

A fair amount of cosmologists think that when a universe 'ends', a new one 'begins', like that... The Vedic sages said that the whole thing (thing/not-thing, when you get to Sakyamuni's take on it) is an infinite feedback loop where origin and individuation meet...

[Pica Pica]

Now listen up childrens,

   According to my self professed theory;      It is totally entirely impossible for nothing to exist. I have no proof and no stats to show ye on this. Ya gots to take my word for it. Ya just gots to.   No.  You don't understand. Ya gots to take my word.

   Actually, I came to the conclusion that it's impossible for nothing to exist using my superhuman power of intuition.  It's what separates me from the grapes.

just cos it makes us differnt from grapes, don't mean we're better. can any of us be nicer than a good wine?

[RebeccaFog]

Now listen up childrens,

   According to my self professed theory;      It is totally entirely impossible for nothing to exist. I have no proof and no stats to show ye on this. Ya gots to take my word for it. Ya just gots to.   No.  You don't understand. Ya gots to take my word.

   Actually, I came to the conclusion that it's impossible for nothing to exist using my superhuman power of intuition.  It's what separates me from the grapes.

just cos it makes us differnt from grapes, don't mean we're better. can any of us be nicer than a good wine?

   I would prefer to be a nonalcoholic drink.  Maybe Grape juice or some other non carbonated drink.  I just don't see the attraction with wine.

[King Malachite]

Because something is easier to work with than nothing at all.

[Jenna Stannis]

Why How is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
http://iai.tv/video/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing

Hm, this is probably a good companion piece to the above video:
A Universe From Nothing?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/04/28/a-universe-from-nothing/#.Us-eprTcD-I

[amZo]

What is mass? it is just huge spaces with a multitude of tiny subatomic particles held in a complex interrelation, and these are really just composed of energy. What is energy? well you need it to move mass. Cant you see the whole illusion is paper thin, something cant exist nor can nothing. We are in a paradox that we can call no-nothingness for want of a better word.

It's weird knowing my house is made up of just a spec of 'solid matter', the rest is energy. The weight of my house is the weight of this tiny spec.

Just weird. 

[Anatta]

Kia Ora

The question 'is' the answer... It's 'something to think about

Metta Zenda

[ath]

I think maybe nothing and something - or existence and nonexistence - might be the same thing.

It's interesting to think of this: at the earliest stages of the universe, the universe was extremely orderly - and what is more orderly than a void that is completely static? It is the same everywhere. Just like it might have been at the start of the universe - the same everywhere. How might you define extremely orderly? Maybe by describing it as "the same everywhere." So what if the 'death' of a universe, by entropy causing it to be completely equalized and the same everywhere, was actually the start of another universe, quite possibly completely different from the first?

So, what is 'nothing', or a 'blank void' to those of us in our universe, might actually be the moment of creation of another universe - and what we see as our beginning, our 'big bang', might have been perceived as 'nothingness' or a 'blank void' to the inhabitants of the previous universe, if such a universe did exist.

Maybe 'nothing' is actually just another type of 'something' which is beyond our level of understanding or clashing with our laws of physics, yet emerges from them.

[Servalan]

I don't know.

The best answer I've heard is that 'nothing' is too unstable.

[Ev]

Well, I'll leave an excerpt from a book I wrote once on this very subject.  I got a headache writing this particular point in the story...see if you can keep up.  I know I couldn't.  It is about a "higher being" trying to explain the nature of Something and Nothing to a group of "lesser" beings:

6.  Looking not at it, hearing not it speak, Ray still knew before him and his companions stood a being that existed just as any other creature in this Sphere.
7.  Who was this?  This being answered in accordance as if it knew their curiosity firsthand:
8.  "(I) says (I) am, always has (I) been!  (I) says you are not (I).  (I) knows you are you alone...understand?  (I) is the only (I): no one else is (I), this is true."
9.  Duvall diligently tries to scratch the itch of confusion that was the bothersome crawling of curiosity across his brow, now tickling his scalp.  He steps forward, eyes straining and lips cocked.  In his awkwardness, Duvall asks:
10.  "I am confused, noble one, as to why one would be so obsessed with a name?"
11.  The creature laughs without laughing:
12.  "(I) smiles as (I) likes to do when (I) finds pleasure in simple Something humor.
13.  You Somethings place much value in the highest on titles and references to call unto yourselves.  Is that not right, Simon?  Or is it Duvall?
14.  King this and Lord that, God Be and God Be-Not.  You have quarreled: spilled blood, strangled wealth from others in the name of what?
15.  A name.  And a name alone!  Then why, oh why, (I) asks (I), does this simple Something or Another question (I)'s desire to retain (I)'s own soon-to-be identity?  Shall (I) be misunderstood always and forevermore because none shall accept that there is only one (I) in this universe?  Does (I) even care?"
16.  Simon dared not ask more... but does anyway, biting his lip:
17.  "If (I) is (I), that must make Simon, Simon?  Simon clearly is not (I).  Yet I...I mean...Simon means Simon wants to ask (I): what is a Something?
18.  Is not everything a 'something' in some way or another?"
19.  (I) answers without answering from the Beyond beyond the Beyond:
20.  "Exactly, says (I).  It is this way because it has been made into Something, by another Something, that was made by another Something.
21.  Life is a Something, so is Death.  You be skin and bone: solid and tangible is every bit a Something as an untouchable thought or ideal.  Even the hollowness of the Void in all its emptiness is a Something.  Even Nothing is a Something."
22.  Ciphera ponders the meaning of it all aloud:
23.  "Then what, if Ciphera may ask of (I): what was the first Something to place value upon Something?  Was it a Creator, the source of Life?  Was that not-being not a Something itself?"
24.  (I) continues:
25.  "(I) cannot tell you of this source, for even (I) is below it if it even exists.  (I) pretends not to know this answer like all Somethings do.  All (I) knows is, it is the Source of the Source of Creation: greater than Creation and Creator Itself.  For the Creator has a Creator who has a Creator, you see.
26.  Would one believe that even the Creating Source has to even be a Something within Itself?  Does it really?  No, this Source does not create Somethings: It has no need to!  Somethings form from it, little thieves!

[Elsa Delyth]

Fallacy of misplaced concreteness... "nothingness" isn't a positivity, it is an absence. To say that there is "nothing in the fridge" is to say that what I would like to be in there, is absent -- it isn't however the case that "lack of ketchup" exists in my fridge...

Composition fallacy... now it makes sense to talk about nothing as absence of particulars, but not of the totality of things, or of anything at all. Empty void is a something, and has a baseline of fluctuating energy -- total and complete absence is nonsensical, because it lacks context, place, time, and relation to thing that is absent.

[Elsa Delyth]

Where does space end, and what is beyond it is a nonsense as well, space is the prerequisite for locationality, there are no places outside of space, space is what makes places possible. There is nothing beyond it, without there being some kind of hyperspace that further defines locationality beyond our space time manifold. Space also curves, so if you were to head off in one direction, you'd just eventually end up where you started.

[stephaniec]

simple answer: because you can't eat a rutabaga pi
if there's nothing to stand on

[Peebles]

I am existent, therefore the universe must exist to facilitate my existence.

[King Malachite]

Because something is easier to work with than nothing at all.

This is my answer now:

"Because life sucks."

[Jenny07]

Ok to make people feel better let me put it this way

Simple mathematics tells us that the population of the Universe must be zero. Why?
Well given that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is as close to zero as makes no odds, therefore we can round the average population of the Universe to zero, and so the total population must be zero. Although you might see people from time to time, they are most likely products of your imagination.

Everyone feel better?

[Mai]

Ok to make people feel better let me put it this way

Simple mathematics tells us that the population of the Universe must be zero. Why?
Well given that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is as close to zero as makes no odds, therefore we can round the average population of the Universe to zero, and so the total population must be zero. Although you might see people from time to time, they are most likely products of your imagination.

Everyone feel better?

well, seeing as we dont know how many habitable planets there are, then the total universe population is undetermined.  if the universe is truely infinite, then the population would also be infinite.  assuming 0.000000000001% of planets have life,  that % times infinity is still infinity.

y
how can there be a finite number of planets with life. if there is an infinite nmber of planets. both sets of numbers would just grow till they were bth so large it wouldnt matter.

[Elsa Delyth]

Ok to make people feel better let me put it this way

Simple mathematics tells us that the population of the Universe must be zero. Why?
Well given that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is as close to zero as makes no odds, therefore we can round the average population of the Universe to zero, and so the total population must be zero. Although you might see people from time to time, they are most likely products of your imagination.

Everyone feel better?

Lol, Krauss argues that all of the matter and energy in the universe, when divided against itself equals zero, and says something like "the universe is a whole lot of chaotic, and ordered nothing", but this requires arbitrarily assigning positive and negative values to certain forces. Like gravitation for some reason being considered a negative value. It also can't be anything other than metaphorical speak, for the reasons I gave.

Stenger argues that "nothingness" is inherently unstable, and "something" thus is always inevitable, but this is counting a void with a baseline of fluctuating energy as "nothing", when it isn't.