Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

Why is there something rather than nothing? Why/how did our universe emerge? What are we? Where do we come from? Who? What? Where? Why? Feel free to post your opinions, theories, beliefs, discoveries etc. B-)

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I can see that some of you have voted! Thank you! :mrgreen:

I'm going to express my view in depth now. (I picked the first option.) :ugeek:

The universe emerged out of nothing because nothing is highly unstable. Naturally, there had to be something emerging from quantum fluctuations and no need for a deity to help. In fact, it would have taken a supernatural agency to prevent the Big Bang expansion and preserve the state of nothingness. But there is nothing to preserve in a highly entropic singularity that needs to expand! Hence, the energies of the universe add up to zero and order inevitably emerges from the chaos for entropy is no longer confined to planck dimensions in a superlative state - it has more room to disperse which increases the chances of order emerging in certain parts of the cosmos. Simplicity begets complexity.

I'd like to append the following analogy regarding cosmic expansion: 8-)

*"The simplest way to see this is with a (literally) homey example. Suppose that whenever you clean your house, you empty the collected rubbish by tossing it out of the window into your yard. Eventually the yard would be filled with rubbish. However, you can continue doing this with a simple expedient. Just keep buying up the land around your house and you will always have more room to toss the rubbish. You are able to maintain localized order - in your house - at the expense of increased disorder in the rest of the universe." *

• Victor Stenger

I do not subscribe to existentialism. For me, it is quite clear that consciousness comes much later (after the natural conception of the universe) as an emergent by-product of heavier elements such as carbon arranged in phenomenal complexity. Also, the creationist's brain remains uncreated because their god's supernatural intervention prevents its emergence and preserves the scarcity of their intellect. :mrgreen:

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Can we post our theories of the how the universe works, or how it is as well as why it exists?

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I avoided this question for a while because I didn't want to fracture my skull and have to sop up the blood and brain matter dripping from my ears after the inevitable brain explosion...

But, now, I feel calm and collected and had a good hypnopompic daydream this morning and have some insight and a radical idea. I've got a lot of great questions to be answered about specific atoms and if they are, or are not, identical. For example a hydrogen atom, the simplest, if the electron of each one in the universe is at the same point in relation to the nuclei. If so, that would help my theory, if not, it debunks it, but listen to this idea.

There is only one thing. Even smaller than an atom, but you can parse it down to one thing, and one thing only, no matter what the name is for it.

The rest are just copies and iterations of the same thing in different combinations we call 'atoms'. The first universe is only the one, the second 2, the third becomes 4 of it, than 8, 16, 32, it grows exponentially. We are living in a universe with an unimaginable number of 'atoms', 'elements', and that deeper singular thing which is quantum and may not have been detected yet or even could be, but it still works. We only experience more than one because of a 'kaleidoscope effect'. It's more than just refracting, and reflecting the same light, it's the fabric of all reality as we know it. I didn't say 'perceive', I said, 'experience'. And we are composed of atoms too, our eye ball, composed of matter views matter. We are the universe perceiving itself.... (need a belt for my head... it's starting to distend!)

That explains why two atoms can never occupy the same space at the same time. I'm still confused about energy, but think that all matter and energy are the same thing ultimately. (Tightens belt....)

So what is that one thing? It's not matter. It's not energy. Is it possibly... consciousness?! (Belt tightens and the buckle is about to break.)

I have no proof, and just using my dreams, and especially hypnopompic ones, to get far out ideas. Perhaps I'm eccentric, but I'm not insane. (Not a crime and something I relish 8-) )

I voted for pre-existing consciousness. I didn't expect to see it there, and was planning to go with 'none of the above', but I must say it actually makes more sense to me. Truthfully, the one thing that makes the most sense is that there would be nothing at all! Or just a singularity and that's it. Why is there anything at all!???!

(Dammit, the belt snapped and my head went and exploded again..... I'll get the mop.)

Fire away with your expressions, Jackson. And Hagart, you are certainly not alone. You might like Kierkegaard's existentialism (we exist prior to matter). From my point of view, I daresay that if quantum mechanics plays an important role in consciousness, then it must produce a certain ingredient that would have to be considered as "proto-consciousness" which would then come to frution as a fairly developed consciousness with the evolutionary manifestation of a complex, classical organism with a brain involving a Tonomian system of integrated information. It is, in effect, the best rebuttal I can come up with against your hypothesis. Allow me to append: a pre-existent, eternal, and uncreated consciousness (whatever the nature of such proposed quintessence) is as hard to imagine as a non-state such as true nothingness, is it not?

Whatever the truth, there is still a lot to learn about the quantum realm before we can say that some consciousness willed forms into being. Perhaps Scott Adam's is right in "God's Debris" - In the search for absolute knowledge, and to see what self-destruction would incur, He was a suicide bomber to begin with, and we are pieces of Him assembling (He is learning the answer to His question...

Oddly enough, I seemed to have salvaged the second option in an interesting anti-atheistic twist. It's not even Deism if it began with destruction and He cares, it is a weird kind of pantheism - and when the old man in the story is asked if God is conscious, the old man replies: through me and you, as we speak...

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I went and did my classic... EDIT WHILE OTHERS ARE READING ROUTINE... (I'm such a perfectionist, and with something like this you can't blame me for trying to get my words right!) I'm still not sure what I'm trying to say, but added some more humor and cleared a few things up with a second reading.

*I edited this one too a few times, but can never get it right. I wanted to get deep about the universe and lack that in my social life so went here to do it! :D Can't blame me for not getting all my thoughts together on the first go and just speaking freely. We're just having fun! But it's worth the good ideas. *

Now for another deep-thought experiment about existence, consciousness and this thing we dub 'the universe'. I do feel that to understand the universe, we must understand perception. It is linked. Or at least has no relevance or interest to us humans otherwise.

I'm going to go in the opposite direction of quantum and consider the 'macro' for lack of a better word, the larger scale.

Here's my thought experiment: You sit inside a Mech-Warrior, a Mobile-Suite-Gundam, an Evangelian (Pick anime of your choosing, and just look it up if you don't know). These become extensions of your body and linked to your brain (In the EVA case for anime fans reading), so for all intense and purposes you are now a giant, and feel what it feels. (I've gone deep and wondered who the pilot of my own body, Hagart-the-mobile-suite, is... but that's another philosophical story and goes smaller to the quantum which I am not talking about right now.)

I have something far more interesting! What if we were to get inside an absolutely humongous extension of our body the size of a planet? Why stop there? Imagine being the size of a galaxy? Can you go bigger... and bigger and bigger.... now look back at the universe and what do you see?

I imagine a dot of all light and matter in a void of nothing. (But what is 'nothing', and why is there 'something'?) Back to the same question :o . (Bare with me, my head is intact...)

(If we shrink down to quantum levels, I bet we would only detect a single dot as well).

ONE THING! (whatever you want to call it)

Why is that? It's just a fractal of the same thing reiterating itself forever deeper and deeper, but when you zoom out of all fractals they become a single point...... fractals is another topic (I can explain my single-point-fractal-when-you-zoom-out idea if others are curious.)

I heard of Richard Feynman and George Carlin talking about the shared electron, or single electron theory and I agree. (I haven't actually read about it, and I'm just a dreamer here, but it actually makes sense why there is anything at all.) We just see it the way we do like a kaleidoscope for some reason.

I have a Richard Feynman book which I'm yet to read, which is about QED. I'll have to imbibe his knowledge and get back to you on that one,Hagart. The fractals is interesting. So is the multiverse theory. Let us also remind ourselves that nothingness is headed our way. The universe expands indefinitely and its stars will die out.

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What better topic of discussion can there be than the origin of everything?

Then, I think, perhaps we can never know. Perhaps all the philosophy and the physics is futile. At some point, one explanation is just as believable as the next and we are too far away to remotely validate either.

Then I get excited and terrified at once just thinking about the possibilities and it becomes awesome to think about again.

....feeling fickle.... :D

I found a short clip that illustrates what I was trying to say using far less words. This is my current view on what reality is and I'll let it speak for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rbO8JxP4hg&index=5&list=PLuz7RUvtFdHKi4BiJTyvCS1pFgBsfHlLI

To my mind, the existence of a god is more feasible than the sort of aimless, rambling ideas suggested by that video. Great video, though! :mrgreen:

LoL! Yeah. Maybe the Deist approach is correct.

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I beg to differ.

deschainXIX wrote: ...aimless, rambling ideas suggested....

I could say the same about literature pushing the Deity proposal. ;)

Anyway, that video is my current view. (We are the universe perceiving itself). Although it still doesn't answer why there is something and not nothing, it makes the most sense to me, as crazy as it sounds. If a Deity created it, I would ask the same question to it. Who are you? What are you're theories on reality? How did you, (something), come from nothing?

I doubt they themselves would be able to answer it either! 8-)

EDIT: I'm gullible, DeschainXIX. I actually didn't notice any sarcasm in your reply and my response is exactly as I left it. I thought you were actually, seriously pious. But realize now after reading other replies from you, and of course that one about how sarcasm can be hard to detect in forums because there is no tone, cadence, or body language, that I was wrong. D'oh! (But it goes to show how I actually use very polite language and my own sarcasm too when trying to point out how my 'belief' is more valid than an other's 'belief'.

It's a very good question, one I haven't thought about for a long time but would captivate me deeply.

Based on what I know about our universe, I believe that our universe didn't simply pop into being from nothing, that doesn't entirely make sense for me. Unless, we start getting Platonic, and the universe arose out of a war, a war of concepts that clash and contradict with each other until a form of some sort exists, but needs other forms and matter to support change, and the big bang sorta just happens.

....see what I did there? What is the difference between abstraction, and reality? Is there even such a thing as abstraction or platonism? In our view this is meerly a discussion, it is either right or wrong or some shit.

But from an objective view, the particles don't care about our definition of abstraction. The space is relative. Its almost imaginary, but trapped within its own imagination. Which is why I believe there are non-intersecting, independent universes of every single possible formation that is conceptually possible. Those that aren't conceptually possible and contradict sorta cease to exist, or exist briefly in their own space.

Ok, I don't actually believe anything that I just wrote, it sorta just flowed on as a consequence of what I first started writing and you can sometimes get away with saying this shit in stoner/acid conversations :D

I'm guilty of rambling too, at the beginning of this thread, and there is no way to express it is there! Why?

It's like trying to think about thought itself. It's a paradox. It is so contradictory all the time and loops around like somersaults in your head.

Read back a bit and I shared a link to YouTube that expresses everything and although it doesn't answer the question, i feel sane after watching it. 8-)

Jack Reacher wrote: Based on what I know about our universe, I believe that our universe didn't simply pop into being from nothing, that doesn't entirely make sense for me.

Something doesn't have to make sense to you to be real or true. I think you were already aware of this when you said: "But from an objective view, the particles don't care about our definition of abstraction." What we discover about nature is often counterintuitive. Take quantum theory, for example: it works but we don't fully understand it. :geek:

I have a commendable book by Lawrence Krauss on this subject. "A Universe from Nothing." Although Krauss doesn't claim with absolute certainty that such was the case in the beginning, he eloquently explains why it is plausible and likely in tandem with scientific observations. The latest elucidations from physics and cosmology appear to point to a universe that did come from nothing and that nothing isn't exactly what we thought it was. Brian Cox also pointed out that in quantum mechanics nothing is something and simple beginnings beget complexity because the potential for expansion is great.

If we observe our universe today, what do we see? Expansion that appears to get faster and faster the further you look. There is this mysterious dark energy that repels everything, overpowering gravity, and it's not even stretching space, it appears that new space is constantly being generated.

I wouldn't be so rash as to rule out the "something-from-nothing" theory just because it appears counterintuitive. The question can also be rephrased like this: How is there something rather than nothing? And a simple answer to that would be: because, in quantum physics, nothing is highly unstable. :shock:

And then there is the anthropic principle reply: there is something because if there was nothing we wouldn't be here to ask the question in the first place... :mrgreen:

Yeah the anthropic principle has saved my sanity many times.

And yeah im not using my lack of understanding of how something can come from nothing as an argument, just showing my position of where my mind is on the matter.

So why is it that in quantum physics "nothing" is highly unstable? In a way it makes sense, I can see how a state of nothing can exist, but only in its own universe so to speak. A state where nothing exists, time is pointless. There is nothing to measure time in, so nothing only exists momentarily. Once you add time, you need things to measure that time, so things sorta fluctuate in and out of existence.

Thats sorta my intuitive understanding.

Also the anthropic principle you posed shows how there is something, but doesn't say anything about whether something came from nothing. For all we know, the amount of energy and matter and whatnot has always been constant... forever.

Also I really like your quote/analogy on the person cleaning their house and how the universe expands and such, its really quite interesting.

Why is there SOMETHING in a lucid dream and not NOTHING.

(think about that...)

It has something to do with the perspective of existence. I can't put my finger on it now, but I feel it's a good open ended question for us lucid dreamers to ponder 8-)

HAGART wrote: Why is there SOMETHING in a lucid dream and not NOTHING.

Oh, good one!

Yea, it trumps this original question and really gets to the root of it all.

I like to watch others mentally squirm.

I'll let you guys writhe for a while... :D

HAGART wrote: (Short clip about why we perceive 3 dimensions) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceM_0yxSv-4&list=PLuz7RUvtFdHKi4BiJTyvCS1pFgBsfHlLI&index=9

Cool clip, HAGART, seems very relevant to this discussion, for us 'question asking monkeys' (to quote that clip)! :lol:

Jack Reacher wrote: Maybe there is no such thing as something, and everything is just theoretical.

I shared another clip earlier in this thread which explains how all of reality is really just mathematics. A concept in our minds.

I realize that sometimes we sleep and don't dream which is complete sensory deprivation and no time and no thought, and other times people report being lucid in a void space with no up or down, light or sound. (I had a few periods like that myself in lucid dreams). So I was wrong, we can dream of nothing after all. Ignore what I said. I'm back to square one again!

Despite the scarcity of sensory input during sleep, dreams don't really arise from nothing. They do, in actual fact, arise from the following something: memories and imagination (the latter often stemming from all sorts of associations between concepts and schemas that the brain has already been exposed to).

So I don't really see how the analogy fits. In fact, genetic information even precedes the individual by millions of years. As for answering the "how" version of the question, at the moment, we can only come up with plausible quantum mechanical theories - you better believe quantum fluctuations were involved at the beginning anyway - and a better grasp of the way the quantum realm behaves will help to reduce uncertainty.

There was definitely something like a Big Bang (there is solid evidence for this) but it might also have been a Big Bounce in a multiverse. It is possible, as I've mentioned before, that the real beginning happened so long ago that all traces of it are long gone. We may never know the real answer to the question or in the least I have a funny feeling that it may elude us for longer than the mystery of consciousness.

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