Science and philosophy both say that something can be better than bare zero. If life is worth living than there is a reason 1 is greater than 0

I see an evolution, a progression, perhaps a regression if you really look at it, from scientific and philosophiical ignorance on the question, through subsequent bewilderment, via pragmatic postponement of the inquiry till such a time as real progress can be made, to eventually, humor as an interim measure to soften the blow of not knowing.

The old-age metaphysical question: Why is there anything at all? — Wheatley

(because)

• Stupid questions like this can't be asked unless there are fools to ask or answer them. (o___0)

• There is nothing to stop "anything at all" from coming-to-be, etc. ~Atomism (metaphysics)

• "Nothing is unstable." ~F. Wilczek, et al (physics)

I am not able to understand how anyone would be able to approach this question, from any direction or in any way. I voted bewilderment.

by analogy:
a boy asks his mother: why is the sky blue?
mother gives long discourse on the properties of light, cones, optic nerve, frequency of electro-magnetic blah blah blah.
the boy says: but that only explains how the sky is blue, it doesn't say why the sky is blue.

does the form of the question, "why x" imply that the answer has to be a logical or rational reason, and if so what would count as logic or rational in this context, which type of logic would need to be satisfied, is rational just a fancy word for "the answer I prefer"? I refer to these as exposed questions, and they are generally of more interest to me than the question that exposed them.


Kaarlo Tuomi

Why is there something rather than nothing? Because if there were nothing at all you wouldn't be able to ask the question.

Stupid questions like this can't be asked unless there are fools to ask or answer them — 180 Proof

Why is it a stupid question? I see no contradiction. Perhaps it's impossible to answer but that doesn't seem to make it stupid for one needs a reason to pronounce the question as unanswerable. Just curious.

Why is there something rather than everything?

(Ie: What convinces you that you have started at the right end of the question?)

It's a "with humor" response, as per the OP. Taken literally misses the joke.

It's a "with humor" response, as per the OP. Taken literally misses the joke. — 180 Proof

Then you think the question is significant? How might we answer this question?

I gave the only reasonable, two-part (complementary) "answer" I've found to date:

(because)

• There is nothing to stop "anything at all" from coming-to-be, etc. ~Atomism (metaphysics)

• "Nothing is unstable."
~F. Wilczek, et al (physics) — 180 Proof

And nobody stops to ask just what "nothing" it is in question.

KT!

Very nice. You are one of the few who grasp the basic understanding of existential and metaphysical questioning (another good example is your follow-up posts in the 'unanswerable question' thread).

Much like the PAP theory in physics, it is what you ask that leads to revelation. Or in pop culture, it's all how you google it LOL.

Anyway, I would agree, either bewilderment or none of the above, seems more appropriate than not.

The old-age metaphysical question: Why is there anything at all? — Wheatley(because)

• Stupid questions like this can't be asked unless there are fools to ask or answer them. (o___0)

• There is nothing to stop "anything at all" from coming-to-be, etc. ~Atomism (metaphysics)

• "Nothing is unstable." ~F. Wilczek, et al (physics) — 180 Proof

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be another irony there. If the question is stupid, why are you replying to it?

Not to be terse, but the only ignorant thing about the question is the denial that it's a metaphysical one. It's central to the question. Or better yet, just ask physicist Paul Davies LOL.

Actually, your "there is nothing to stop anything at all" is a metaphysical proposition, is it not? And so I'm confused as to why you would cross out metaphysical questioning, and suggesting that there are only fools who ask and answer same.

I'm confused as to why you would cross out metaphysical questioning, — 3017amen

It's a pseudo-question, in effect, posing as - impersonating so to speak - a metaphysical question. Categorical "why"-questions presuppose intentional-agency, which begs the question 'Why there is something rather than nothing?' in so far as 'something' also includes this presupposed intentional-agency. Reformulated, however, as 'Why is there anything at all?', dropping the literally vacuous term "nothing", allows us to translate this categorical "why" into a hypothetical (though fundamental) "how"-question which presupposes physical causation instead.

↪TheMadFool
It's a "with humor" response, as per the OP. Taken literally misses the joke. — 180 Proof

↪TheMadFool
I gave the only reasonable, two-part (complementary) "answer" I've found to date:

(because)

• There is nothing to stop "anything at all" from coming-to-be, etc. ~Atomism (metaphysics)

• "Nothing is unstable."
~F. Wilczek, et al (physics)
— 180 Proof — 180 Proof

So, 3017amen, do you have any questions that haven't been asked of me by TheMadFool and already answered?

So, 3017amen, do you have any questions that haven't been asked of me by TheMadFool and already answered — 180 Proof

Sure, try some of these (they certainly relate to something/nothing viz self-aware conscious Beings ):

What method best explains my will to live or die?

What method can best explain the reason I choose to love or not love?

What method can best explain the nature of my sense of wonder ?

What method can best explain the nature of causation ? (Why should we believe that all events must have a cause.)

What method can best explain the nature of my reaction to seeing the color red, and/or my reaction to music that I love?

Why do I have the ability to perform gravitational calculations when dodging falling objects do not require those mathematical skills for survival?

180, why do we have those something's? Couldn't there be other possible world's without human consciousness/self-awareness?

Sure, try some of these (they certainly relate to something/nothing viz self-aware conscious Beings ):

What method best explains my will to live or die? — 3017amen

Cognitive Neuroscience.

What method can best explain the reason I choose to love or not love?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

What method can best explain the nature of my sense of wonder ?

Cultural Anthropology. Ethnolinguistics. Sociology of Religion. Embodied Cognition.

What method can best explain the nature of causation ?

Scientific materialism.

(Why should we believe that all events must have a cause.)

By definition, all effects "must have a cause"; but "all events" are not effects. With respect to how things are, what we know (i.e. have 'testable good explanations' for) matters regardless of whatever "we believe".

What method can best explain the nature of my reaction to seeing the color red, and/or my:reaction to music that I love?

Cultural Anthropology. Ethnolinguistics. Sociology of Religion. Embodied Cognition.

Why do I have the ability to perform gravitational calculations when dodging falling objects do not require those mathematical skills for survival?

'Hierarchical syntactic generalizability' (algorithms) as a spandral - an accidental, emergent, by-product (cultural acquistion e.g. education, etc) - of a very large forebrain adapted to making better predictions of (heuristics for) dynamic environments usually without sufficient information or time.

180, why do we have those something's?

Blame or thank the 'evolutionary history of our species'.

Couldn't there be other possible world's without human consciousness/self-awareness?

Well, up until about two hundred fifty millennia ago this roughly 13.8 billion year old universe was a "possible world without human consciousness", so yeah, of course, and it will be so again for many hundreds of billions of years more after we go extinct. The pre-human past and the extinct-human future are "other possible worlds" just like the epochs before and epoches after your "self-awareness", 3017amen, or mine have come and gone. "Human consciousness", in the vast cosmic scheme of things, is - there are no significant, intelligible, grounds (thus far) to doubt - a vanishingly brief anomaly.

I respond to it by asking "What is nothing?"

As far as I can see, we derive a concept of "nothing" in three ways. First, as a limit of reduction: keep taking away half of something and eventually we call what remains nothing. But this is a sort of Zeno's paradox where we could go on doing it forever, so it doesn't show that "nothing" is an actual thing, just a helpful concept we invent. Second, by logical exclusion or math: anything logically impossible is nothing, 2-2 is nothing... again, just useful placeholder concepts that act as scaffolding for our thoughts, and not things we actually encounter. Third, to mean the lack of a particular object or objects: "nothing in the fridge" doesn't really mean every particle and even the quantum foam disappears in there.

In summary, we have something rather than nothing because nothing doesn't exist. (Could've figured that out by the definition, I suppose.)

What method best explains my will to live or die? — 3017amenCognitive Neuroscience. — 180 Proof

Let's parse each one carefully. This is a philosophy site last I checked. Therefore, what is it about the Will that is not metaphysical?

The old-age metaphysical question: Why is there anything at all?

We first need to know how to approach such a question. — Wheatley

A good place to start is with a deeper question: Is there something instead of nothing?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

You can't have one without the other.

Unless... there is nothing when there is no point of view. How many non-points of view are there between blinks?

Show me something that I cannot call nothing and believe it as such.

For that matter, show me nothing that I cannot call something.

A non-reply could be a shunning and carry greater message then many replies could.

... what is it about the Will that is not metaphysical? — 3017amen

Who said it isn't?

(Besides, only statements (or concepts) are or are not "metaphysical" so the question doesn't make (much) sense.)

I voted “with philosophy” but the philosophy is pretty pragmatic and also kinda humorous: because nothing can’t exist, for there is no possible world at which there is no world.

:up:

Who said it isn't?

(Besides, only statements (or concepts) are or are not "metaphysical" so the question doesn't make (much) sense.) — 180 Proof

Hey 180, I thought you were an atheist who was an-in-the closet materilist!!?? LOL

Seriously, can you not answer the question? What is it about the Will are you having issues with as to avoid answering the question?

The point is, saying that one's own will and volitional existence allows for you to actually live and not die, supercedes the human instinct to live (& survive), no? In other words, what is it about your self-awareness that allows you to survive when you can easily choose to kill yourself?

That's an important metaphysical question about existence, yes? The Will.

Your question (1) isn't relevant to our exchange - I never claimed or implied anything about "the Will" - and (2) it also doesn't make sense to me for reasons given (in parenthesis).

Your question (1) isn't relevant to our exchange - I never claimed or implied anything about "the Will" - and (2) it also doesn't make sense to me for reasons given (in parenthesis). — 180 Proof

Is it not relevant because you said so? Hogwash. The Will, is something, not nothing. Please explain why it's not germane to the OP?

In the alternative, consider the relevancy associated with cosmology. Why must all events have a cause?

Is it not relevant because you said so? — 3017amen

You asked me "what about the Will is not metaphysical" and I replied I've never claimed or implied anything about "the Will", so why did you ask in the first place and keep on asking? If you have anything intelligent to say that's not a non sequitur vis-à-vis anything I've said, then now's the time to say it, 3017. Otherwise, move along; I've done you the courtesy of posting clear answers to a list of arbitrary questions, so make your tendentious point - apparently you don't agree with something I wrote in this post - or go diddle yourself somewhere - with someone - else.

:fire: :sparkle: :cool: :victory:

The question: Why is there something, rather than nothing? presupposes, uncritically, that the Principle of Sufficient Reason, according to which my intellect operates, must also necessarily be applicable, without exception, to everything that exists, including myself.

In other words, my intellect is compelled to assume that there must be a reason that explains why anything, including myself, exists.

Which may not be so. The Why may simply be an expression of the ultimate in anthropocentrism.

Also, one could argue that there IS nothing; that the question presupposes what is not the case, and that experiences which involve nothing (negatites) are quite common occurrences, as Sartre has shown.

Along these lines, Sartre states: "... the total disappearance of being would not be the advent of the reign of non-being, but on the contrary the concomitant disappearance of nothingness."