Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

[bohm2]

“Why is there Something rather than Nothing” is “just the kind of question that we will be stuck with when we have a final theory [of physics]. … We will be left facing the irreducible mystery because whatever our theory is, no matter how mathematically consistent and logically consistent the theory is, there will always be the alternative that, well, perhaps there could have been nothing at all.” In modern physics, Weinberg explains, “the idea of empty space without anything at all, without fields, is inconsistent with the principles of quantum mechanics—[because] the [Heisenberg] uncertainty principle doesn’t allow a condition of empty space where fields are zero and unchanging.” But why, then, do we have quantum mechanics in the first place, with its fields and probabilities and ways of making things happen? “Exactly!” Weinberg says. “[Quantum mechanics] doesn’t answer the question, ‘Why do we live in a world governed by these laws?’… And we will never have an answer to that.” “Does that bother you?” I ask. “Yes,” Weinberg says wistfully. “I would like to have an answer to everything, but I’ve gotten used to the fact that I won’t.” Here’s how I see it: The primary questions people pose—Why the universe? Does God exist?—are important, sure, but they are not bedrock fundamental. “Why anything at all?” is the ultimate question.

Why there is something rather than nothing?

Think of all the possible ways that the world might be, down to every detail. There are infinitely many such possible ways. All these ways seem to be equally probable—which means that the probability of anyone of these infinite possibilities actually occurring seems to be zero, and yet one of them happened. “Now, there’s only one way for there to be Nothing, right?” There are no variants in Nothing; there being Nothing at all is a single state of affairs. And it’s a total state of affairs; that is, it settles everything—every possible proposition has its truth value settled, true or false, usually false, by there being Nothing. So if Nothing is one way for reality to be, and if the total number of ways for reality to be are infinite, and if all such infinite ways are equally probable so that the probability of anyone of them is [essentially] zero, then the probability of ‘there being Nothing’ is also [essentially] zero.” Because there are an infinite number of potential worlds, each specific world would have a zero probability of existing, and because Nothing is only one of these potential worlds—there can be only one kind of Nothing—the probabilily of Nothing existing is zero.

http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2009/06/05/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/

So he is arguing that if you have a lottery with an infinite number of combinations , there is only 1 number that corresponds to nothingness (the empty set). The chances of picking that number among all the others is essentially 0, so that isn't going to happen. I guess he's trying to say that the universe exists because existence is far more probable than non-existence.

"We can use the axiom of extensionality to show that there is only one empty set. Since it is unique we can name it. It is called the empty set (denoted by { } or ∅)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_the_empty_set

Does the argument sound persuasive?

 

[MarcoD]

Does the argument sound persuasive?

No. By similar reasoning, the number 3 cannot exist since on a scale of real numbers, it has probability 0 of existing.

 

[apeiron]

Because there are an infinite number of potential worlds, each specific world would have a zero probability of existing, and because Nothing is only one of these potential worlds—there can be only one kind of Nothing—the probabilily of Nothing existing is zero.

My favourite question!

Inwagen's argument is also made in more formal detail in a good review paper by Leo Apostel, Why Not Nothing?.

He more correctly argues that the probability of nothing is 1/n, or infinitesimal rather than zero.

And he even deals cleverly with the argument where it is granted that the probability of nothing must be much larger - naively, a 50/50 choice.

Apostel's paper looks at a wide range of other answers too, but sadly seems only available online in pages-missing form via google books. And of course the relevant page (p28) is one of those missing.

I myself take a Peircean tack on the question, as outlined in an older thread.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=301514

 

[wuliheron]

Tools
Thirty spokes meet at a nave;
Because of the hole we may use the wheel.
Clay is moulded into a vessel;
Because of the hollow we may use the cup.
Walls are built around a hearth;
Because of the doors we may use the house.
Thus tools come from what exists,
But use from what does not.

This is a popular poem that predates the Tao Te Ching and illustrates the viewpoint that the whole concept of "something" and "nothing" are relative and have no meaning outside a specific context. The same can be said for other concepts such as God, infinity, etc. Without clear definitions of the terms and clear contexts you might as well be dividing by zero.

 

[Evo]

“Why is there Something rather than Nothing”

This is the kind of question that makes me bang my head on my desk. Why do people spend time on such useless questions? Oh, I know, philosophy asks the questions that don't need to be asked. <bangs head on desk>

Carry on.

 

[apeiron]

This is a popular poem that predates the Tao Te Ching and illustrates the viewpoint that the whole concept of "something" and "nothing" are relative and have no meaning outside a specific context. The same can be said for other concepts such as God, infinity, etc. Without clear definitions of the terms and clear contexts you might as well be dividing by zero.

This is where the Greek and Chinese traditions really differ. The Greek's realized that this very fact could be used to create metaphysical clarity.

If you have one thing, you always have also its other - everything that it is not. And so nature always separates into dichotomous alternatives. Philosophy then becomes about approaching this systematically. If you have the one, you have the many. If stasis, then flux. If chance, then necessity. If substance, then form. Etc.

So if we have something, we have to clarify our notions about it by seeking the foundational dichotomy. The simple opposite to nothing in fact seems to be everything (rather than merely something). So zero or infinity. And you can continue from there.

Each part of a dichotomy is defined by its other as the crisp context . So there is actually no methodological problem standing in our way here.

 

[disregardthat]

Where are we drawing these probabilities from? 0 chance of Nothing existing? That doesn't make any sense at all. I see this as a faulty attempt at "resolving" a genuinely unanswerable question. "Why does anything exist?" It sets your mind in a whirl, no answer can be given.

 

[Willowz]

I have a better question. It's the ultimate of any kind.

If everything is possible. Is it possible for something to be impossible?

 

[apeiron]

I have a better question. It's the ultimate of any kind.

If everything is possible. Is it possible for something to be impossible?

If everything is possible, it seems certain that at least some of those things (and more likely many of those things) are contradictory and would cancel each other out. Therefore it would be impossible for every possibility to become an actuality.

This would be a sum-over-histories view of the possible. A quantum system takes every avenue as a probability, but most of those trajectories cancel away to nothing.

Of course, you have other arguments like Tegmark's assertion that infinity is large enough so that every possibility is also an actuality.

Which is why you have to go back a step to answer the more fundamental question about the nature of existence.

Does reality just exist in infinite variety as Tegmark would require (in which case the fundamental question becomes "why is there an everything rather than a nothing, or even just a something")?

Or if you think that existence must have a cause, then you need to be able to talk about the process by which it might have developed. So again, why anything? How did it occur?

And a self-cancelling sum of histories over infinite possibility seems the best bootstrap story anyone has come up with so far.

 

[wuliheron]

Each part of a dichotomy is defined by its other as the crisp context . So there is actually no methodological problem standing in our way here.

If there is no methodological problem standing in our way, then there is no dichotomy.

 

[apeiron]

If there is no methodological problem standing in our way, then there is no dichotomy.

That makes no sense. A dichotomy does not mean an impossibility to decide, it means a crisp metaphysical choice. Binary options that are mutually exclusive as demanded by the law of the excluded middle.

 

[Evo]

That makes no sense. A dichotomy does not mean an impossibility to decide, it means a crisp metaphysical choice. Binary options that are mutually exclusive as demanded by the law of the excluded middle.

Please post where you are getting this definition.

 

[apeiron]

Please post where you are getting this definition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichotomy:rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

[cueball B]

I have a better question. It's the ultimate of any kind.

If everything is possible. Is it possible for something to be impossible?

That is more of a paradox than anything else. Almost the same thing as the god paradox. "If god is omnipotent, can he create a rock that he himself can not lift?"

And the OP makes sense to me. Existence in one form or the other is more likely than nothing at all. The existence we are experiencing right now however, (this earth, this life, this universe) is almost as likely as nothing.

Chance of no existence what so ever: 1 in an infinite amount of numbers
Chance of existence some in one form or the other: infinite chances - 1
Chance of the existence we enjoy: 1 in an infinite amount of numbers

 

[Evo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichotomy:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Nothing there. As a matter of fact I did a search on your definition, and the only place it appears is in this thread. Please post a link to it, so we can see if you put your own interpretation on a definition. Or if you found some obscure sentence that's not being found. I'm referring to where you said "crisp metaphysical choice".

 

[JordanL]

Any ontological answer to the question "why is there something instead of nothing" almost certainly has to include that idea that existence is the why of existence.

One could say that in the vast sea of possible imagined ideas, our existence represents a small portion. I feel that is a reasonable statement to make. Following that, our existence represents a manifestation of a subset of ideas, that is part of the superset of all things that can be imagined.

Manifestation of an idea refers, in the context I am using it, of the ability of idea to persist without conscious imagining, as things within our Universe appear to do.

In that sense, what you are describing is a justification or reasoning for nihilism, as the discussion about "something vs. nothing" eventually leads towards existential nihilism in the form of a logical conclusion of the argument being presented: if everything is nothing, no thing can have inherent meaning.

It is ultimately, from my perspective, a discussion about what the difference is between ideas and reality.

 

[bohm2]

Existence in one form or the other is more likely than nothing at all. The existence we are experiencing right now however, (this earth, this life, this universe) is almost as likely as nothing.

Chance of no existence what so ever: 1 in an infinite amount of numbers
Chance of existence some in one form or the other: infinite chances - 1
Chance of the existence we enjoy: 1 in an infinite amount of numbers

Some have criticized this argument because it's not a "causal" explannation. Elliot Sober, however, argues that scientists do accept other "equilibrium explanations":

These explain the actual situation as the outcome of most or all of the possible initial states. There is no attempt to trace the path by which the actual initial state developed into the present situation. It suffices that the result is invariant. Why do I have enough oxygen to breathe even though all the oxygen molecules could have congregated in one corner my room? The physicist explains that while this specific arrangement is just as likely as any other, the overwhelming majority of arrangements do not segregate oxygen.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/

I'm not sure how convincing this is?

 

[apeiron]

Nothing there. As a matter of fact I did a search on your definition, and the only place it appears is in this thread. Please post a link to it, so we can see if you put your own interpretation on a definition. Or if you found some obscure sentence that's not being found. I'm referring to where you said "crisp metaphysical choice".

You are kidding right? Crisp means definite. Metaphysical means fundamental. Choice means options. Where is your difficulty?

Are you saying that you believe the philosophical definition of a dichotomy is the inability to decide?

I said this:

This is where the Greek and Chinese traditions really differ. The Greek's realized that this very fact could be used to create metaphysical clarity.

If you have one thing, you always have also its other - everything that it is not. And so nature always separates into dichotomous alternatives. Philosophy then becomes about approaching this systematically. If you have the one, you have the many. If stasis, then flux. If chance, then necessity. If substance, then form. Etc.

So if we have something, we have to clarify our notions about it by seeking the foundational dichotomy. The simple opposite to nothing in fact seems to be everything (rather than merely something). So zero or infinity. And you can continue from there.

Each part of a dichotomy is defined by its other as the crisp context . So there is actually no methodological problem standing in our way here.

So you are trying to say that this is not:

It is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets) that are:
jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and
mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts.
The two parts thus formed are complements. In logic, the partitions are opposites if there exists a proposition such that it holds over one and not the other.

Jeez, books are written about this stuff:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10684&ttype=2

It is so basic to human thought that perhaps, like water for fish, it goes unremarked yet is everywhere in philosophy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis,_antithesis,_synthesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism

 

[MarcoD]

Any ontological answer to the question "why is there something instead of nothing" almost certainly has to include that idea that existence is the why of existence.

One could say that in the vast sea of possible imagined ideas, our existence represents a small portion. I feel that is a reasonable statement to make. Following that, our existence represents a manifestation of a subset of ideas, that is part of the superset of all things that can be imagined.

Manifestation of an idea refers, in the context I am using it, of the ability of idea to persist without conscious imagining, as things within our Universe appear to do.

In that sense, what you are describing is a justification or reasoning for nihilism, as the discussion about "something vs. nothing" eventually leads towards existential nihilism in the form of a logical conclusion of the argument being presented: if everything is nothing, no thing can have inherent meaning.

It is ultimately, from my perspective, a discussion about what the difference is between ideas and reality.

The problem of the initial argument is that it relies on probabilism. Whereas we have no idea why several universes would exist, or why there would be any manner of assigning probabilistic quantities to different versions, or why there could, or should, be any mathematical underpinning for the existence of this, or multiple, universes.

The argument therefore fails immediately, for me, since there is no rational underpinning for the probabilistic, or mathematical, postulate. And even if I follow the postulates of the argument for a large part, I would rather assign to the idea that the relation between universes, if any, should be nondeterministic. Our one experienced universe simply exists for the reason that it can exist.

I fail to see why this discussion would lead to existential nihilism, or even the conclusion: everything is nothing, ... .

 

[Evo]

You are kidding right?

No, I'm trying to get you to use standard, well known definitions as required by our guidelines.

 

[JordanL]

The problem of the initial argument is that it relies on probabilism. Whereas we have no idea why several universes would exist, or why there would be any manner of assigning probabilistic quantities to different versions, or why there could, or should, be any mathematical underpinning for the existence of this, or multiple, universes.

The argument therefore fails immediately, for me, since there is no rational underpinning for the probabilistic, or mathematical, postulate. And even if I follow the postulates of the argument for a large part, I would rather assign to the idea that the relation between universes, if any, should be nondeterministic. Our one experienced universe simply exists for the reason that it can exist.

I fail to see why this discussion would lead to existential nihilism, or even the conclusion: everything is nothing, ... .

This is actually the point I was making. I was rephrasing the original argument presented in a way that I knew how to address it.

My rejection of the original idea comes from my belief that the universe exists so that it can exist, as you also stated. Nihilism is the idea that fundamentally conflicts with this concept, and it is the nihilistic underpinnings of the original post that lead to my rejection of it as an explanation for the "ultimate question", as the OP posed it.

 

[apeiron]

No, I'm trying to get you to use standard, well known definitions as required by our guidelines.

Well what was non-standard there? I mean really? And what was not supported by the context of what I had just written?

Here is what you singled out:

That makes no sense. A dichotomy does not mean an impossibility to decide, it means a crisp metaphysical choice. Binary options that are mutually exclusive as demanded by the law of the excluded middle.

So I said a dichotomy is not correctly defined in metaphysics as an inability to chose (Wuliheron may have mistakenly been thinking of a false dichotomy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy).

It is correctly defined as a pair of choices which have the basic logical properties of being jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive.

So now do you want to keep quarrelling about that definition or do you accept it?

If you want to keep on, then please supply your understanding of the standard definition so I can see what the heck is bothering you here.

 

[Willowz]

But, Evo is right. A dichotomy does not mean an impossibility to decide. Or I haven't encountered that definition.

 

[Willowz]

But, with topics like these semantics will always get in the way. Its all mathematics.

 

[apeiron]

The problem of the initial argument is that it relies on probabilism. Whereas we have no idea why several universes would exist, or why there would be any manner of assigning probabilistic quantities to different versions, or why there could, or should, be any mathematical underpinning for the existence of this, or multiple, universes.

If you dig into this, there is a decision to be made about whether things are interacting or non-interacting.

An infinity of possibilities that don't interact will have a different equilibrium behaviour than an infinity that does.

There would be two clear extremal cases, and hence probability spaces.

With non-interaction, you would have a Tegmarkian ensemble in which every possibility could also be an actuality (there would be nothing to stop it, and so it would logically happen).

With total interaction, you would instead expect just one actuality to emerge from any host of possibilities. One outcome would out-compete all the rest as the persisting equilibrium state.

You could of course have every result inbetween, if interaction was in some degree strong or weak.

But I think there are good arguments for total interaction and therefore the emergence of some total balance of constraints, which in turn says even from an infinity of possibilities, only the one thing will become actual.

This of course seems to rule out nothingness as one of those possibilities though. But we are now taking a developmental perspective on existence. It has to come into being via a process (a competition amongst possibilities that finds its probablistic equilbrium). And it is pretty logical that nothing can come from nothiing, and because there is now patently at least one something, then nothing was never actually a possibility.

But that may not completely vanquish the notion of nothingness. A developmental process happens "in time". In some sense (not the usual sense as we are beyond particular spacetime in this discussion) there is a beginning state and an end state.

So it could be said that in the beginning was everything (an infinity of possibility, an unlimited potential) and that in evolving into a concrete one-ness, it will end up creating as near to nothing as possible.

Sound like the Big Bang where all possible dimensionality and materiality gets cooled and expanded to an empty heat-death void? The end state of the universe would still be a something, but it would also be nothing much.

But anyway, you can build a stochastic treatment on either an interacting or non-interacting basis. And one would appear to predict an infinite ensemble of actualised worlds a la Tegmark. The other would appear to predict the opposite - all possibility boiling away to leave only the one actuality. And we can say a lot about that because we live in it.

 

[MarcoD]

Our one experienced universe exists for the reason that it can exist.

The universe exists so that it can exist.

I am not great on philosophical discourse, at some point they boil down to irrelevant word games. But I'll indulge myself. There is a slight difference between the above two statements.

Do you assign will to the universe? Or do you belief it has self-moving, self-creationary, autonomic attributes?

 

[apeiron]

But, Evo is right. A dichotomy does not mean an impossibility to decide. Or I haven't encountered that definition.

No, I wuz right because I said that is what it does not mean.

 

[MarcoD]

If you dig into this, there is a decision to be made about whether things are interacting or non-interacting.

...

But anyway, you can build a stochastic treatment on either an interacting or non-interacting basis. And one would appear to predict an infinite ensemble of actualised worlds a la Tegmark. The other would appear to predict the opposite - all possibility boiling away to leave only the one actuality. And we can say a lot about that because we live in it.

The problem is that I denied, or questioned, the relevance, or even validity, of a mathematical underpinning of this, or any, universe. To go from the idea, a universe exists, therefor multiple universes do/might exist, is a leap of faith, but somewhat plausible. To go from the idea multiple universes exist towards universes have a probability of existing, or there is a probabilistic relation between them, is a tremendous leap of faith which I find implausible.

I can't comment on the rest since I don't know enough of it, and don't believe in the rational basis of it.

 

[Willowz]

No, I wuz right because I said that is what it does not mean.

I stand by my previous post.

 

[JordanL]

I am not great on philosophical discourse, at some point they boil down to irrelevant word games. But I'll indulge myself. There is a slight difference between the above two statements.

Do you assign will to the universe? Or do you belief it has self-moving, self-creationary, autonomic attributes?

I believe that the concept of will itself is irrelevant. Will implies acceptance of something and rejection of its opposite, and a Universe is by definition the set of things which the accepted and rejected must both exist, thus the concept of will is a concept which applies to a lower level of understanding than the Universe or any interpretation of it.

 

[apeiron]

To go from the idea multiple universes exist towards universes have a probability of existing, or there is a probabilistic relation between them, is a tremendous leap of faith which I find implausible.

But just by leaping to an acceptance of multiple universes requires that there must be some lack of interaction between them (or how do they stay apart?). So you have already taken one of the two possible routes (and in doing so, dichotomistically ) you have created the clear idea of the other choice.

Now we exist in a world in which there appears to be both interaction and non-interaction - or perhaps more accurately, both integration and differentiation. So we do have a legitimate basis for speculating about what might be the larger case concerning our world.

Our experience of our world also gives weight to the idea that things develop - they have causal histories, they roll down entropic gradients. Our reality is not a static existence but a dynamic process.

So again, that seems a legitimate basis for speculating about the larger case. We would be more right to think that the same applies outside our world than not - on Bayesian reasoning at least.

There is no need for leaps of faith here. Just the usual philosophical story of starting where you are and then seeing how that may constrain what could be.

 

[apeiron]

I stand by my previous post.

So where did Evo say that a dichotomy is not an impossibility to decide? I haven't seen those words anywhere yet. Can you back up your claim by quoting from her post?

 

[Willowz]

So where did Evo say that a dichotomy is not an impossibility to decide? I haven't seen those words anywhere yet. Can you back up your claim by quoting from her post?

Evo was pointing out this part from your https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3477808&postcount=11":

A dichotomy [...] means a crisp metaphysical choice.

 

[MarcoD]

I believe that the concept of will itself is irrelevant. Will implies acceptance of something and rejection of its opposite, and a Universe is by definition the set of things [in] which the accepted and rejected must both exist, thus the concept of will is a concept which applies to a lower level of understanding than the Universe or any interpretation of it.

So you subscribe to a believe that things exist which are accepted or rejected. Are these things atomic, undividable, entities? [What is the nature of these things?]

The universe exists so that it can exist.

The second part of the question. My original claim was: 'The universe can exist, therefor it exists.' That is substantially different from 'The universe exists so that it can exist,' which to me (unless it was a typo), looks like it implies it has self-moving/self-creationary/autonomic attributes. Does it?

 

[Evo]

No, I wuz right because I said that is what it does not mean.

You don't get to make up your own words. Stick the the dictionary defintions.