A Meditation on the Question "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?"

Today the thought came to me, as it sometimes does, that I exist and a universe exists and that seems amazing to me. This was an existential, experiential kind of thing for me rather than an evidentialist argumentative thing. Yet the experience usually leads to a reasoning about it.

I consider it a fact that I exist. I find such a fact outrageous. Improbable. Astounding. This is the old "Why is there something rather than nothing?" question. I read it in Heidegger many years ago, and it stays with me. (Yes, Heidegger's definition of "Nothing" would here need to be more thoroughly explained.)

Something exists. Why? Why... not nothing? It does not seem illogical that nothing might be the case. But nothing is not the case. Again, I exist. And, a universe exists. And this "I" that exists can self-reflexively note my existence and reflect on it, and this seems to me at times absurd in the sense of being rationally inexplicable. To me, scientific and philosophical explanations do not resolve this absurdity for me. Two such examples are given by Victor Stenger (who defines nothingness as a simpler form of somethingness) and Bede Rundle (who argues that somethingness is far more probable than nothingness).

Stenger's answer to the question is that "nothing" actually is a simple state of "something." He writes: "Then why is there something rather than nothing? Because something is the more natural state of affairs and is thus more likely than nothing-more than twice as likely according to one calculation. We can infer this from the processes of nature where simple systems tend to be unstable and often spontaneously transform into more complex ones. Theoretical models such as the inflationary model of the early universe bear this out." Stenger seems to beg the question, arguing that: 1) "something" is a more natural state of affairs than "nothing"; 2) Thus "something is more likely than "nothing." But of course, if "nothing" is a "state of affairs."

Stenger defines "nothing" as follows: "This suggests a more precise definition of nothing. Nothing is a state that is the simplest of all conceivable states. It has no mass, no energy, no space, no time, no spin, no bosons, no fermions-nothing... As Nobel Laureate physicist Frank Wilczek has put it, "The answer to the ancient question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' would then be that 'nothing' is unstable."

But that's not what I mean by "nothing." "Nothing" could not be unstable; only "something" could be unstable. By defining "nothing" as "the simplest of all conceivable states" with an inherent instability Stenger declares that such nothingness could not be the case. He defines nothingness as the simplest form of somethingness. But that is not what has fascinated people about the question. I am interested in the possibility, even the probability, that no state of affairs could be the case. Rundle addresses this in Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, and finds it not improbable but logically impossible that nothingness should be the case.

Commenting on Rundle, Eric Lund writes:

"How does Rundle defend his central claim that nothingness is not a genuine possibility? The general idea is that the expression "There is nothing" fails to express a genuine claim unless something more is added that completes it but that any such completion leaves us with something. One way of completing the expression is by specifying where there is nothing, as in "There is nothing in the cupboard". But as soon as we say where there is nothing, we thereby also grant that there is something, namely, the place in physical space which is claimed to be unoccupied. One might think that "There is nothing at all" would do the job, but this statement, too, raises the question of where the state-of-affairs that is described obtains (where there is nothing at all), at least this is what I think Rundle would say in response."

To this Lund responds that "perhaps it is true that the logical grammar of ordinary language does not allow us to express complete nothingness and that everything we can say is relative to a presupposed non-empty domain, but it is not clear to me why this linguistic fact must be taken as an indication of a fundamental conceptual barrier or, indeed, as a constraint on reality itself. To some extent at least Rundle solves one mystery by introducing another."

It seems true that ordinary language cannot get away from existence presumptions. But philosophically I can conceive of my own nothingness when I begin to think of what it was like for me to live in medieval Europe. I did not exist during that time. My non-existence was actual. I can thus, it seems to me, philosophically conceive of all things and all contexts as nonexistent. I may be grammatically constricted, but there seems to be no inherent logical contradiction in the idea of absolute nothingness.

Is it that I am amazed that something rather than nothing exists because I am ignorant of philsophical and/or scientific arguments re. nothingness's implausibility? Surely this is possible. In that case I would be like the man in "The Gods Must Be Crazy" who was amazed that the coke bottle fell from the sky. Yet I personally cannot seem to get away from the idea that nothingness seems prima facie more plausible than somethingness. It is this thought that causes me to be more than intellectually interested that something exists; indeed, that I exist.

(By the way, I am not using this an an argument for the existence of God. In this regard I am interested to see if J.P. Moreland addresses this issue in his forthcoming Consciousness and the Existence of God.)

Is it that I am amazed that something rather than nothing exists because I am ignorant of philsophical and/or scientific arguments re. nothingness's implausibility? Surely this is possible. In that case I would be like the man in "The Gods Must Be Crazy" who was amazed that the coke bottle fell from the sky.