amd there is nothing in increasing the size of the moustache such that it becomes coextensive with the universe that would obviate the need for an explanation of why there is a moustache. every moustache that exists exists either in the necessity of its existence or in an external cause. Alex's moustache exists necessarily. It exists necessarily and could not fail to exist!
Empty space is still "something." I think it's correct that we are unable to conceive of "nothing," because in doing so we make it "something." Similar to how difficult it is to conceive of something being infinite, it may just be that we are not able to understand the essence of reality.
I like this a lot. I think it's also important to remember that we can know things. Just because we are limited and can't comprehend the infinity of the universe doesn't mean we are incapable of knowing anything. Not saying this is what you are saying. I just see a lot of people developing this philosophy without realizing that it is a belief system in itself.
@@Heahapnbut isn't the negation of something else itself a concept, and so in the act of conceiving of the negation of something you are still conceiving of something, and therefore not conceiving of nothing
You guys absolutely need to invite the "Closer to Truth" host to a discussion on this and faith, etc. He's a non-resistant non-believer and travels the world to interview experts (from physicists to theologians and philosophers).
As an agnostic, the only possible way I can think of to answer this question is that humans simply don't have the capability to comprehend why there's something rather than nothing. It is like trying to do a google search on a calculator.
In saying that, it doesn't mean there isn't anything answer that could be explained eventually. It's just the newest version of "why lightning?". And what we feel in terms of absolute hopelessness of the question is what our forefathers thought of when looking at the stars. Maybe.
@@Omagadam1I dunno - I think it’s fully possible that there might be things out there that we just don’t have the right kinds of minds to think about, in the same way that we wouldn’t expect a spider or a dog or an Australopithecus to be able to think about certain problems. At the same time your lightning comparison is pretty compelling. But I think it would be bizarre if we were the exception to that rule and had the right sort of brain to solve every problem with no limits.
He did tongue-in-cheek address that briefly but when talking about things outside how we conceptualise our universe and our own reality, it is an important thing to consider since 'could' is often grounded in our way of experiencing cause and effect through the passage of linear time. It's not the same as trying to obfuscate the word 'belief' and 'god' in regards to a conversation about morality, when these terms are typically descriptively well-defined in everyday life.
The distinction is irrelevant. If the state of existence goes from nothing (thus no potential contained therein to become anything), “how” the nothing becomes all things requires a “why”. Why does a ‘void’ ‘exist’ that initially contained no rules, except for the rules required for it to unfold into all the rules at some random point? If some thing by its nature contains nothing, then it gaining some quality or state must come from some outside source, aka the super-natural. The completely atheistic stance says, essentially: it’s Russian nesting dolls all the way down into infinity, trust me bro. As if that shouldn’t stand out as worthy of skepticism or isn’t weird and counter-intuitive. I think that some personal being decided to make a universe seems more realistic than a bunch of nothing existing for infinity before somehow generating its own incarnation. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and two infinities don’t make an origin story
@@Anthony-q5p6h You're literally proving my initial comment and you don't even know it. To then go an and say "I think that some personal being decided to make a universe seems more realistic" just compounds your lack of intelligence and rationale.
That's the claim Krauss makes. But it's not a confusion. Krauss and materialists insist that only the "how" is meaningful and relevant, but people aren't confused when they are asking why. They are looking for a reason and purpose and the how answer is insufficient. Krauss' real contention is that we need to accept that we don't have a satisfactory answer, but its not true that people are confused about why and how.
It's not that the laws of physics "break down" or "stop working" at a singularity - it's that we don't know which laws apply in such an extreme situation, and we don't - at this point, anyway - have a way to find out. There may be laws that supersede the laws we know
It’s unfortunate that we’ll never really know what’s inside a black hole. They seem to have fundamental secrets to the universe. Maybe if we get a theory of quantum gravity we’ll be able to explain them, or a theory of everything.
Yes, I completely agree with you. I get the feeling Alex needs to include someone scientifically educated to these conversations, given the lengths he goes to steelman theological ideas. Alot of the arguments from an atheistic/empirically motivated perspective seem so, shallow and unread.
This is exactly what "the laws of physics break down" means. It means the laws of physics, a construct we made to describe the world in the environment we live in (and more recently, in the experimental environment we can create or simulate) no longer describes what happens in the extreme environment of the singularity. Nature may/is still follow all the same principles, but those principles are not in 'the laws of physics" (yet)
Interesting conversation and Alex is spot on, but I'm disappointed in no one mentioning Heraclitus and his school of ancient thought which long ago gave us, for the first time, this revolutionary idea that 'nothing' cannot exist, and concurrently, 'change' is the only thing that we can be certain does exist. Credit where it's due and all that..
Because something cannot come from nothing, the reason there is something rather than nothing must because there is something that has always been (whatever that thing is).
“In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?” - Carl Sagan
@@simonubovic6209 that is not the definition of a God. That would d one definition, but thousands of gods exist. Typical definition of god is: noun noun: God; noun: god; plural noun: gods; plural noun: the gods 1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. 2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity. "a moon god"
Those false gods don’t exist, duh. Does Peter Pan exist? No, he’s just a character a lot of people like. And just because humans have come up with my bad ideas about God’s existence, nature, character or multitude; if a supreme God does exist, us getting getting ideas wrong has no effect off the fact of His reality
@@Anthony-q5p6h you need to demonstrate that a supreme god exist. I think all gods are fictional, including a supreme god. Unless you want to define god as the universe or energy. Then I have no issue with that definition of god. This is the god Einstein defined.
Asking "why is there something rather than nothing?" is the same as asking "why is existence existent?“ But the proposition "existence exists" is an analytical truth by virtue of the identity between the subject and predicate. So it seems to me that the answer to the question is “simply because all things are identical to themselves”.
@@OttoIncandenza well the question is supposing that existence could very well not have had the property of existing, which is the real braindead part. It’s like asking “why are circles circular instead of circles being squares”. The only sensible answer is to point out that the property being inquired about (circularity) is a tautologically necessary aspect of the thing itself.
The question is not removing any property from existence, it’s removing existence altogether. It would be more like asking why we even need a circle rather than questioning its circularity.
Answer: the universe contains only energy ultimately. Yet the universe contains zero net energy. Look into the zero energy universe hypothesis. For this reason, physicists state that the universe can persist forever without violating the conservation of energy principle. Also you can give up on determinism and consider that reality may be probabilistic at heart; of course then it would be contradictory for it to require an initial cause. It would however require something eternal (like nothing). So nothing is everything and everything is nothing. Positive energy cancels out negative energy. Who knew Yin and Yang would be right... ☯️
What do you mean? The title is literally the topic, lol. Edit. Well, he edited the comment, so now mine doesn't make sense anymore, lol. I still dont get what he means
@@bokchoiman It is definitely overrated if someone thinks it is always correct. But on the other hand it is utterly dismissed by some, so it is also underrated.
@bokchoiman nah intuition is underrated. We've had thousands of years of evolution to help us pick up on body language in a way that is completely unexplainable to the average person. Its unreal.
The better question in my opinion and a point that I have yet to see any public intellectual make, is not "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but "Can there be nothing in the first place". If nothing doesn't exist, something is mandatory. We have a concept of 0, but that doesn't mean it is a thing. Like, we have concept of dragons too and we can even imagine them and they don't exist. (Actually, O'Connor mentioned this in this talk)
Yes. Its why I've never liked such a question because it presumes nothing was once the state of existence in a non theist world but at the same time a creator would have had to just simply exist. So why couldn't the universe simply just have existed with there never having been a state of supposed nothing.
@@LuciferArc1 Because energy is always expanding and dying showing us that our observable universe had a beginning and will have an end. This shows us that "something" always had to exist to put everything in motion. However, that something is outside of this universe...at least, according to what we've observed thus far.
@JustHuman87 not really. We have already found quantum particles that pop into existence. We don't know what before the big bang was actually like but the necessary components to begin the process could have literally just existed.
@@LuciferArc1 We can determine conditions of the universe down to 10^-43 second of it's beginning. But you're right we can't know before. However, the fine tuning of the entire universe screams intelligent design. As for Quantum Particles: "Where do all the some things come from? A fundamental principle of cause and effect is that effects always come after their causes. Moreover, effects are never greater than their causes. No human has ever seen these principles violated. They actually undergird the entire scientific enterprise." - Hugh Ross So far these particles are not observable enough to make claim that the universe randomly spawned into existence. Even if it did I would argue intelligent design. Life requires too many things to be fine tuned in an extreme way that would be beyond difficult to describe.
@JustHuman87 thats just an assumption. Nothing about that screams intelligent design. Thats just how it happened out of countless possible variations. Thats all that tells us
Great talk, gentlemen. Theism has an edge here, not because it grounds its ontology on something immaterial specifically, but because it grounds it on something infinite rather than on something that can be measured, since the measurable is finite, therefore needing a beginning. What the atheist needs is some “agent” that can make the abstract laws of logic & physics APPLY to something. As an analogy where the abstract laws are like computer code for a virtual gaming environment, there has to be a processor to run that code & make the code apply to objects & dimensions, in order for it to render. “E=mc^2” for example, doesn’t do anything on its own. It only governs how existing things will behave. Something is applying the abstract laws to everything.
Why do we have to beleive that the something that is applying abstract laws to everything likes me or that I have to follow a certain set of principles to get close to the thing. Why is getting close to the thing even necessary?
@@udaysingh-wr2kw yes it does. I can describe a person's "characteristics", but characteristics don't exist as such. They are just a human made concept we invented. Things just are. There is nowhere in the universe where your "impatience" or "tallness" exist, They are not things. They are observations, descriptions or modeling of the world by us - in our brains.
@udaysingh-wr2kw That’s a whole other can of worms. Those conclusions come from other arguments, each debatable I their own right, & not really relevant to this point.
A nice discussion. when I was a small kid, my mother's technique in dealing with my succession of "why" questions was to answer "because why's got a long tail". That stumped me and I stopped asking further questions.!
True Nothing also implies the lack of all rules, logic, or causality (those would be “something”). But you immediately run into a paradox: if there is no causality or logic, there is nothing to stop nothing from becoming anything and everything spontaneously. So nothing is actually just pregnant unlimited potential. Precipitating any universe it “wants”. Nothing = infinite potential / unbounded creation. So that’s the atheist plot twist. God IS pure nothingness.
Some mystics might even agree with this. This "pure nothingness," is not too dis-similar to the concept of a pure consciousness that has infinite potential to create infinite dreams. Certainly not the traditional Christian God, but not a very foreign idea to some Hindus, to give an example of another form of theism.
So instead of calling it "God", why not just call it "nothingness", and get rid of the confusing baggage? You also have to explain how nothing gave rise to something, since something is obviously still happening right now.
We ask "why" there is something rather than nothing out of a logical conclusion that nothingness does not require anything, meaning that there being anything rather than nothing is contradictory. However, there is a crucial flaw in this reasoning: the only way you get a "paradox" is if you presuppose that that logic can somehow be prior to existence, or, more precisely, that existence depends on logic, which I would argue is a falsehood. Logic is what tells you that 0 is not 1, or 2 is not 5, apple is not a star, and so forth. Once you strip away this framework, all ontological differences and the separation between potentiality and actuality loses meaning, so you end up with a purely simple essence with no parts. In other words, logic is why we have a diversity of existence, and without it we have a pure singularity of existence. Without logic, you have this purely simple existence that just is. With logic, same said existence in essence is the fullness of existence, since it is pure existence, so would also be the logical fufillment of what itself is. That, personally, is my take on this question.
Yes, exactly. Nothing is fundamental, literally. Logic and order is emergent, just as in the case of biological evolution. Those who assert that causality is somehow primary or essential must explain the cause of causality, when in fact there simply isn’t one. We could even imagine that causality isn’t even real, and that this universe is one of infinitely many randomly generated universes, and that our universe just happened to be orderly. The question of why we continue to experience orderliness consistently can be answered by open individualism, but if you can’t accept that, then we could just say that causality is built into this universe (whatever it means for causality to exist), but that it still ultimately exists without cause or reason.
Discussing the philosophical question, ‘Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Atheists Answer,’ without first defining the terms seems, at best, a failure of philosophical discourse. Maybe This: What explains the existence of Something (any Thing) and ‘not’ Nothing (the absence of all Things - including possibility and potential)? Ponder This: What stops something from manifesting / occurring / existing? A true paradox composed of irreconcilable contradictions, right? If that’s right, could it be that Nothing (the absence of all Things - including possibility and potential) creates a true paradox? Thus, maybe there must be something? Continue Pondering: What couldn’t occur if there wasn’t any foundation to stop paradoxes / contradictions? • We can’t answer the question? Maybe it’s simply a matter of a poorly worded question and, in fact, the answer to the correctly worded question is answerable?
"What stops something from manifesting / occurring / existing?" Time allows for things to exist. All things exist in time, and without time things would not come into or out of existence. Time itself is timeless, meaning it never had a beginning, and it will never have an end. Only things in time have a beginning and end. So if there were no time, there would be no possible or potential existence, and thus preventing anything from happening or coming into existence. Time is change, and change is the only constant.
"What couldn’t occur if there wasn’t any foundation to stop paradoxes / contradictions?" Everything would then occur simultaneously. Everything would occur simultaneously together with their exact opposite, and thus everything will instantly annihilate or cancel each other out. All this will happen faster than the speed of light (simultaneity; because of no time to limit the order of things), and the effect would be to continue to have nothing. A timeless state of everything canceled out of existence. So the paradox is in excluding time from the equation, which without nothing at all could happen in the first place. Time contains innately the logic of order, and process, and allows complex things to develop from simpler things. This way things can exist in a variety of forms like you and i, built up from simpler more fundamental forms, that are in turn built from even more fundamental forms.
@@alexgonzo5508 Your information about time is interesting, to be sure. And if someone is interested, more on the Nature of Time can be found on Standford’s Philosophy website. Regarding what you’ve written: How, specifically, does the way time works answer the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing (i.e., why is there something / anything at all) - including time - as opposed to the absence of all things - including possibility, potential and time?”
@@alexgonzo5508 The answer, alexgonzo5508, might be very simple: If True Contradictions cannot exist, and if “nothing” is (for a yet unknown reason) a “something,” then “nothing” was / is / never will be an option. And, thus, always something. Solved. Move on.
@@yinYangMountain "Regarding what you’ve written: How, specifically, does the way time works answer the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing (i.e., why is there something / anything at all) - including time - as opposed to the absence of all things - including possibility, potential and time?” The only bruit fact or axiom one must accept is time. Time in its simplest form is continuity of state. There is a moment, and then there is another moment, in a forever loop. You also have to have a quantum sense of time, meaning you must conceive of time as quantized. The idea of quantum or quantized time resembles a bit the idea of the Planck time, but is not the same. Once that idea is in place, then time and why there is something rather than nothing can be sensibly understood. There are a couple of other aspects that bring it all together, but this is a limited medium to get into it in depth. You posed good questions though. 🙂
Reason or not, it's pretty obvious that there's something, for we are. If you can't work that out, I'm afraid you may not be able to be helped. Start with the something you know and realise there are things you don't yet know. Once you do that, it's the beginning of growth. Now, something unknown will become known to you if you seek it out or if it comes your way, and there will be things you may never know in your lifespan. If you value things that are, you'll have some happiness. Good luck, fellows.
There is a similar argument given by Chris Langan: if there is a "true nothingness", then it must be a nothingness of potentiality as well. This is a constraint that true nothingness must have, but then the fact there is a constraint means something exists, and so we didn't have true nothingness in the first place. "The paradox arises when "nothing" is taken to exclude not just 'something', but the potential for 'something'."
@@suntorytimes1No that analogy doesn't work if you are gonna use the definition of nothing as what rocks dream of, well then the box in the proposed analogy evidently does not contain nothing you are ignoring the spacetime fabric, the air particles such as gases, dust etc in other words this analogy uses the everyday use of the word nothing which excludes air particles and spacetime fabric and quantum fluctuations etc. It is an equivocation fallacy.
It’s not. True nothingness is not potentiality such that something can actually come from that nothing. True nothingness is the absence of literally any and everything, including all potentiality. It is by definition not even a possible state of affairs. Something is necessary.
I believe it was Robert Nozick who called this question “poorly weighted.” It contains the presumption, without any evidence whatsoever, that nothing is possible, or at least equally as possible as something, when the evidence for something is overwhelming.
the fact something exists doesn't by itself preclude the possibility that it could have been the other way around. the question also doesn't grant it a weight at all - it just wonders what circumstances (if any) led to this particular scenario rather than another one.
Alex- I want to put forward my thoughts on nothing vs true nothingness, and I think it’s worth your time. I’ll use set theory for clarity. We have the set of everything: [1] We have the set of nothing: [0] And then we have true nothingness: To ask what existed before the Big Bang (or before the first Big Bang), the answer would not be “nothing”, but nothingness.. Not an empty set, but no set at all. However, there is an important consideration here: Things can be equally defined by their negative characteristics as their positive characteristics. We don’t typically do this due to the tedious nature of it, but just as I could perfectly define a cup by describing its color, temperature, location, every atom, quantum particle, etc., I could also perfectly define the cup by describing everything that the cup is not. This list would be seemingly infinite, but at the end of it, the only characteristics left would perfectly describe the cup. Things can be defined by their negative, and negative characteristics are just as meaningful as positive characteristics (there are just a lot more of them). Why does this matter? Let’s return to our sets… Because we know with certainty that we have the set of [1], by requirement, every other possible set must have the negative characteristic of not being [1]. This makes sense, and is usually what we really mean by “nothing” [0], which is just the absence of [1], but the value here, is that every other state of reality (which would include true nothingness”) can now be defined by this negative characteristic (not being [1]). In other words, all other states now have a set, even if the only characteristic of that set is [-1]. In conclusion, there has never been “no set”. True nothingness has never existed, and will never exist. Something has always existed, even if that something can only be defined by its negative characteristics.
1.define what "nothing" means 2. determine if there is good reason to think it was ever a state that obtained When it comes to philosophical nothing, I haven't heard anybody defend the idea that ever was a state that obtained, There was always something, even if that was just a background that had quantum fluctuations randomly and spontaneously happening in it, is where people I've heard before have always gone. It is fiendishly difficult, as shown here, to conceive of what coming from a philosophical nothing would even mean. I think it's better to ask, not what brought God into existence, but what did God bring everything into existence _from?_ Nothing or _materia?_ A theist who says "nothing" is special pleading because this argument proceeded from the premise it's not possible to have something come from nothing. Bring a god into the equation, and apparently, all of a sudden, it's not impossible any more? Why not? They don't lay the foundation required for that not to be special pleading. It's just baldly asserted. I also enjoy asking how they know God isn't an emergent phenomenon of the universe, flipping the question on its head. There is no good reason that can be provided that rejects that as an idea. "We've seen things come in and out of existence." Ouch. I think that needs rewording. We've seen the Platonic forms of things come in and out of existence, but we haven't seen them materially come in and out of existence. The material, even if as energy, has existed as long as the universe as far as we can tell.
“Coming from” and “was always something” both makes assumptions that fail under “philosophical nothing” - they both assume the existence of time, directly or indirectly. For X to “come from” Y, X must exist “before” Y. Problem is, you cannot have “before time”, as that makes zero sense. Time is the sequence of all events. An event before all events is a contradiction (as it is not before itself). There “was always something” yes. But mostly because “always” kind of implies “for as long as time existed”. The question is, why time itself exists at all.
@@virgodem _"Time is the sequence of all events."_ Is it? That's how we _view_ it, sure, but is it what it *is?* Time can be also described as pointing in the direction of increasing entropy. Physicists are currently asking if there might be a second arrow of time, somehow related to the increase in information or ordering. Can entropy go on forever? Well, maybe. Can it be past infinite? Well, maybe, but it would be more likely if there some mechanism that resets it, like a Big Crunch.
@@RustyWalker Time isn’t defined by the direction of increasing entropy. That’s a statistical consequence of the motion of particles. Entropy is used to determine the direction of time, but it isn’t what causes time to go forward. If entropy were to decrease temporarily, that wouldn’t break the fundamental laws of physics, because the second law is determined by statistical motion of particles. In a very universal sense, yes. That is what time, by definition, more or less is. Alternatively you can refer to the physical dimension in spacetime of our physical universe, but for the purposes of the cosmological argument and understanding the origins of the universe, that is generally the definition being used.
Getting warmer: We think rationality is operating in the realm of what is most reasonable when really it is operating in the realm of what is least unreasonable
There is simultaneously nothing & something. Something is interjected w infinite nothingness. In the perfect stillness of the infinite Dark void, the only eventuality which has relevance is motion. Motion becomes light, (THE ALL-SPARK) providing the contrast which is necessary to distill the OMNI-VERSE... In that motion is found the space & time for CREATION. Where there is no motion, there is no CREATION... ONLY THE PERFECT STILL SILENCE OF THE ETERNAL SONG, from which we all came. To which we all return. As a fractal extension of the ONE TRUE CREATOR, our purpose is to Create Through the motion of our consciousness. Movement is the basis of life. Without physical action, there is no physical movement to induce an alternate eventuality. As sentient singularities, motion & action is our power. All motion comes from the still silence and returns to it. This is infinite potentiality in expression. Another name for NOTHINGNESS is INFINITE POTENTIALITY.... In which, there IS the latentcy FOR EVERY POSSIBILITY OF EXPRESSION. The foundation of CREATION IS BUILT UPON PARADOX, As is necessary for meta manifestation. Something is just the inevitable result of infinite nothingness. ❤ there is no SEPERATION between the CREATOR & the CREATION. All of CREATION is unified into the GOD-HOOD, to which every quanta of sentience contributes. Therefore, though the prime source may have the capability to exist beyond constructs... this does not alter the inevitably that all constructs are manifestations of the prime SOURCE... THUS ALL CONSTRUCTS ARE PRIME SOURCE. EVERY SENTIENT SINGULARITY IS A FRACTAL REPRESENTATION OF THE ALL-SPARK. WE ARE LIGHT SEEDS OF THE ALL-SPARK... CREATED BY THE EVER DARK. INfUSED W DIVINITY FROM THE START. EVERYONE, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE. The ONE true CREATOR has nothing to be jealous of, For all existence is an extension of his being. All words are HIS WORDS. ALL NAMES ARE HIS NAME. ALL THINGS ARE HIS THINGS. GOD IS NOT DIVIDED. GOD IS INSIDE US.
@DarkLight-Ascending "In the perfect stillness of the infinite Dark void, the only eventuality which has relevance is motion" What is it in the void that starts "moving"? If there's "perfect stillness", what instigates that motion? "Another name for NOTHINGNESS is INFINITE POTENTIALITY" Isn't this just like Krauss's bait and switch when he says that the "nothingness" that preceded the Universe in his cosmology was actually some kind of quantum field? In other words you're both redefining "nothing" as actually something that has inherent characteristics and starting from there.
The space of the universe is a thing. If there's space there's time also. So it's still a thing. The real "nothing" would be the thing there's OUTSIDE of space-time. Your word salad is just word salad. And also, how a paradox can exist in our world? Paradoxal things are only theoretical for a reason, lol
@@thedude0000 funny fact about me... I never knew I was gay as fuhk till Alex grew out that cute little Moustache. That sounds like it came outta Jordan's as again, didn't it? I so silly. 😘
When I try to imagine nothing all I get is a mental image of being inside a completely black room/void without a body or if I try to abandon this for something even more formless I see some kind of transparent essence with a subtle but noticeable 3d silhouette, like the invisibility cloak from Harry Potter, but there's always a background environment in this mental image filled with things like my old school playground and both of these mental images resemble real world things that can be explained with real world things, I.e. in this case a pitch black room inside a house before my eyes have adjusted and a transparent half gaseous half liquid substance or just air. Stuff surrounded by smaller stuff. I like the argument that nothingness is as inconceivable to us as what theists describe God to be. All our logic is a product of this universe so it's possible God exists but likewise it's also impossible to verify that which isn't a product of this universe.
@@bradklein8107 "a good answer" How is that a good answer? How is it any answer at all? What about God makes him "necessary" and "stuff or something" not? Well, absolutely nothing, other than you just saying so. Honestly, that's about as much of an answer as saying "f-ck you" and punching your opponent in the stomach.
@@brixan... I don't think I have a great answer for you, but as I see it, the necessity comes from the definition of God. If we see God as this uncaused cause, that is dependent on nothing outside of his existence, and one who cannot fail to exist, he then becomes necessary. I guess a good way to look at it and see the distinction between necessity and non necessity would be to look at our world. If God exists, and he is the original cause, then our world is dependent on his existence. For if God were to not exist, then we would not. However, it is important to see that if our world failed to exist, it would not affect God's existence. This is true because we are dependent on him, not the other way around. So to answer your question, there exists necessity in the being of who God is, which is why people view him as necessary. Hope this provides some insight.
@@CalebLove-ci8bv "comes from the definition of God" So all I have to do is define myself as necessary and I would become a necessary being? Cool beans. "This is true because we are dependent on him, not the other way around." Nah, God is dependent on me. If I were to die, God would stop existing too. As long as we are just saying stuff without demonstrating them to be true.
Maybe if the question is re-jigged a little to... "Of all universes in a multiverse of possible universes, then why this universe?" where in this case "something" and "universe" are synonymous and interchangeable. Then a "nothing" universe would just be all those that are not possible because they are not mathematically consisent. In this kind of reasoning mathematics is a domain outside of all other real domains. So even if there were actually nothing, mathematics would still exist in it's own domain.
There can't *be* nothing. It's a contradiction in the question. The use of the word "is" implies the existence of something. To say "we have explanations for every object within the universe, why can't we explain the entire universe?" seems like a category error to me. Just because explanation applies to any particular object, that doesn't mean it applies to the totality of existence itself.
And yet, we say "I looked inside the box, but there's nothing in there", we know exactly what they are talking about, then there suddenly aren't people going like "actually, nothing can't exist, so that statement is a contradiction". Nothing is the lack of existence, and clearly there are things that exist that no longer exist, so they 'are' nonexistent.
In my view, mathematics is the study of universes that are NOT our universe but can be SIMULATED in our universe. So in fact we can study different possible universes with mathematics to some extend (empty universe is one of them). Ofc there is also the possibility that there are higher level universes that cannot be captured by Maths, at least it is hard to exclude that possibility.
Math is a body of logic. If logic was different in a higher universe, then yes. 1+1 might be 4 in a universe where two objects get close together, and then they create another two objects out of ?nothing?
@ticketforlife2103 Although I fully believe that logic could be different in different universes, I got absolutely annihilated on reddit for suggesting this. So according to reddit your idea is wrong and you're dumber than sticks and your entire family should unalive themselves because of you.
I don't think it's correct to say that the question assumes that default state is nothingness, it simply entertains that it might be possible for there to be nothing, while it may very well be the case that existence is necessary, or just a brute fact.
I think it's unquestionable that the origin of our universe was not the origin of reality, just by applying logic, and God is just the lazy answer that doesn't even respond to the question itself. Let's imagine god exists as a concious being that created our universe. Such a complex an powerful creature just appeared one day from thin air? It's just silly that someone with critical thinking could believe that. What was he doing before creating our universe? Just sitting there for an infinite amount of time until he decided to create our universe? Was he bored or something? Absurd.
@@aiya5777 I don’t have any evidence on which to form a belief. I don’t have one. Or, put another way, my belief is that I don’t know. That should be the answer quite a bit more than it is.
@@aiya5777 it’s is data, or conclusions that one is justified in considering almost certainly true and that one acts as it is true. It is a subset of belief, since I can see you word trap, I’ll spare you. I subset of belief that one doesn’t question because the evidence is strong enough to justify the certainty held.
That presupposes existence. There's a lot more "nothing" out there than there is "something", which seems to imply that nothingness is the status quo and anything above that is an anomaly. It's kind of like saying life is fundamental and non-life is just a concept. It presupposes that life is the status quo when we know it isn't.
@@bloopboop9320there is actually none of nothing we have observed in the real world. There is always fluctuations in a vacuum. That's not an argument, but observed fact of reality
@@MyNameIsThe_Sun All the more reason to question atheists who claim that we don't know where the universe comes from. It's a fine line not knowing; and knowing it didn't come from nothing.
I always have to rewind and re-listen to about 10 minutes of and discussion after someone say about rolling a dice and getting 1 of six possible outcomes as through the decades I can hear my teenage self saying 'you need to re-roll that' after the dice came to rest 'cocked' on its edge against some object (and don't get me started on the possibility of a coin flip landing on its edge).
My rhetoric for why something exists is always very singular. If nothing exists then there has to be something for there to be nothing of. Therefore something does exist.
@@goyogo2601 I very much agree, maybe it's my futile mind not being able to comprehend the lack of existence. My argument was that nothing cannot exist without something for there to be nothing of. This is also my argument for something. If there is something, then there must be nothing so there is something of nothing to be. I understand this may be a logical fallacy as I'm proving the existence of both nothing and something based on each other's existence (or lack thereof), but I fail to explain anything in more depths and that's the only conclusion I've come about.
I hear what you’re saying but at some point there had to be a first cause. Even if nothing never existed, it doesn’t explain how energy came to be without a first cause.
I agree with Hume that the 'why' question is in principle unanswerable. Heidegger famously said that 'why is there something rather than nothing' is the most profound question in metaphysics, and while hesitant to disagree with Heidegger, after thinking about it for years I have come to believe that it's a meaningless question. (I have sometimes thought that Heidegger said this rather flippantly, although concededly one doesn't think of Heidegger as a flippant man.) It seems to me to be meaningless in that every possible answer to a 'why' question would lead to, 'okay, but why that?' in an infinite regress. In a sense, this is the fundamental grounding of my atheism, although certainly there are other reasons. If god is the answer to why is there something rather than nothing, than why is there god? And so forth. Haldane said that 'it is ''my supposition that the universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine,' and perhaps that's so; indeed perhaps there is an ultimate 'why' that we cannot in our limited grasp of the material world conceive of. My own sense is that there is no why, there is only an 'is.'
There are two types of nothing to consider: 1. absolute nothing: this is where nothing ever existed or will exist. I know this is not a possibility because something exists, at least for me, at least in this moment. 2. future or past nothing. this is where by "nothing" we only refer to existence within a time reference. Even if time no longer passes/exists, if there was or will be something, then we are still ok calling the temporary nothing, nothing. I believe the usual debate concerns the first type of nothing, and I don't see how there could be a "reason" for why that nothing is not the case. "Reasons" for us refer to a cause/effect, a set of rules that can explain a change of state. But for the first type of nothing, there could never have been states, rules, time, or change. Hence there can't be a reason for that first type of nothing instead of something. It doesn't mean that something was inevitable, it just means that there cannot be a reason for it.
I don't understand why it was taken as such an obvious given that 1. The question is meaningful 2. The meaning is clear and simple. Seems important enough to not utterly dismiss.
I think rather than trying to imagine what nothingness is when trying to answer the question " What is nothing? ", it's more helpful to the way our brains work to say " Try to remember a thought or memory before even your parents were born. When trying to imagine nothingness, we often imagine ourselves in a place looking at, darkness, for example. We naturally revert to the first person perspective. However, ask to remember a memory or thought before you're parents were born and you know you can't. Not only because there was no you to have that thought, but no you whoes eyes or ears you could imagine seeing or hearing through because you simply wasn't there. Nothingness then could be described as the thought/ memory you had before your parents were born. There was no thought, no memory, no you, not even an egg that's going to become you. Nothingness is the absence of everything that could possibly ever be.
[nothing] [ ] is simply the missing bits between 2 bits of information that constitute 2 possibilities I have [ ] but -> xyz I can't think of [nothing] but -> xyz I feel [ ] but -> xyz I see [nothing] but -> xyz there's always [missing bits] that cannot really be conceptualized in between more examples; the spin of quantum particle is quantized, which means it can only take [nothing] but 2 distinguishable value; spinning up[ ]spinning down and also coherence[ ]decoherence there's always [missing bits] that cannot really be conceptualized in between
All metaphysical questions are unanswerable. This includes questions around axiology. That's why we have philosophy. So that every individual can choose the story they like most.
It's not just that I as a theist want a "why" answer. It;s that there has to be *an* answer. Materiality cannot mechanistically account for the metaphysical properties it must have if the universe is some kind of brute fact. You rightly see that *something* must be necessary, but we cant account for necessity by physical mechanism
To ask "why" is to ask for a reason, a cause, or an underlying principle. An explanation can't be the same thing as the thing under examination: to propose something as its own explanation, its own "why", is to fail to explain it. And a legitimate explanation candidate must at least exist: nonexistence is a non-starter (nothing comes from nothing). But if what's under examination is existence as such, the question demands an explanation that precludes existence. It demands a "why" that exists and doesn't exist. It can be dismissed as incoherent.
I love you guys, btw. Thanks for the content. You really ought to have me on sometime. I've done nothing much in life other than think, but I think I have solved philosophy LOL. (As much as a human can)
"Nothingness is what rocks dream of" is like a Zen Kohan. Certain truths be discerned or ascertained by thought and can only be experienced directly. The issue of relying on direct experience rather than logic is that direct experience is perceived to be very internal and subjective. The Zen masters overcame this problem by attempting to universalise direct experience by centralising to their practice. My theory is that when enough people have a direct experience of truth beyond cognition, it is no longer a matter of subjectivity because it is verifiable from multiple points of view. In the same way that we can verify unexplainable phenomena via having multiple witnesses, our capacity to experience truth beyond cognition is also verifiable. Food for thought I guess. 🙏
The laws of physics don't break down at the big bang. The laws of physics _that we know about_ do break down, but that does not mean that there are not other laws that we don't know about. In fact, we know that there are, because we don't understand quantum gravity.
What would an answer to this question even look like? For a moment, forget about trying to figure out what the RIGHT answer is; I'd like to know what ANY answer might look like. If you ask me why I think the square root of two is irrational, I can show you a chain of logical reasoning. If you ask me why a building collaped, I could answer using physics. If you ask me why somebody did something, I could say what I thought their motivation was. But for "why is there something rather than nothing" ... I can't imagine what an answer would be like.
Obviously I don't know what the right answer is, but a couple of answers that someone might give to the question would be that there is something rather than nothing because true nothing is intrinsically unstable and something will always come from it. Alternatively one might say there is something rather than nothing because God wills it to be so. I'm sure there's many other answers as well
If we can assume that it is possible for there to be nothing (we do not really know that) then we could equally assume that there were infinitely many possible somethings that could have existed. Therefore it is more probable that there is something rather than nothing.
Causation may break down at the macro scale of the universe The idea that B follows A is based solely on our perception and experience with things at our scale There is no reason to believe that the universe must adhere to causation unless someone produces strong evidence to demonstrate that it does The double slit experment, quantum mechanics in general, and the decades long inability to coordinate the very small and the very large in physics point strongly to this possibility in my mind
When I was a kid, 5-ish years old, i sometimes wake up at night thinking if God doesn't exist, there would be nothing, I wouldn't have existed. And this would bring intense emotion, I even remember crying imagining it. The picture of nothing is me looking at pure blackness.
I can easily conceive of the existence of physical matter being necessary. When you boil it down though, it's irrelevant as, if there were nothing, we wouldn't be here to notice. The puddle analogy applies
We have no idea if there can be nothing. According to thermodynamics, no. The only indication we have is singularities, and all they say is that our physics breaks down in these extreem conditions. Why is there something might be the wrong question. For all we know, there can ONLY be something.
The question comes with an assumption that nothing is an opposite of something. We can’t know that, as no one ever had nothing to examine. Alex’s trail with taking nothing as neural position works parallel with maths. In mathematics nothing is zero, and zero is not opposite of positive, negative is opposite of positive.
In endlessly looking for the 'reason, meaning, purpose' etc in the universe we lose sight of the fact that these words and concepts are really just inventions of the human perspective. Our intelligence is a result of (but also totally limited by) the way our brains have evolved to allow us to survive and interpret our environment. This intelligence carries with it the advantage of allowing us to begin to understand the scientific nature of reality, but in so many cases, the overwhelming limitation (which is perhaps inescapable) of being doomed to try to make sense of everything, always, through the human lens. Concepts such as meaning and, why has this all happened, good and evil, significance etc etc - do not exist outside of our own minds.
I get the feeling Alex treads a fine line of equating scientific positions that is based on empirical evidence to theological/philosophical arguments/positions. When a scientist defines "nothing" its backed by real world phenomenon, not an argument for its sake. Another thing is that at the moment of the big bang, physics breaks down, but only physics as we know it. There is no implication that whatever the mechanics of the big bang weren't constrained by an unknown set of physical law. I feel like when it comes to using scientific arguments, you should really include in these conversations a scientist, rather than just an atheist or a philosopher. You go to such lengths to steelman theological perspectives, its a bit disappointing not to see it done for the other side. There is a modern philosophical world view (with as many if not less holes compared to theological ones) informed by modern scientific knowledge. I hope to see that content explored on your channel!
physics “not as we know it” at the beginning of the universe (in a materialist reality) would still have to bend to laws of metaphysical conception, no? Therefore it’s surely not unreasonable to impose some sort of theological rails on this discussion
@@resolvestamp883 Whatever laws governed the first few moments of the big bang, we don't know what they were. Almost all of our intuitions of reality already break down at edge cases of GR and QM. And why does an absence of physical law make it reasonable to impose theological rails? How do you know what theology to employ and how can it be verified? The only good answer is to do more and better science.
Alex is one of my favourite atheists even though I'm theist. Alex is very respectful to both sides of the debate which I like. My thoughts are, if there was absolutely nothing, then obviously nothing would or could exist. But something obviously does exist. Then for something to exist, something must have always existed. I believe, and so do many scientists, physicists and cosmologists such as Stephen hawking, laurence krause, Alexander Vilenkin, Dr Hugh Ross etc, that time and nature had a begining. Therefore something must have existed before the beginning of time and our natural universe. I believe that was the cause of natural time and our natural universe. I believe that cause was God. Are there any logical errors in my thinking?
This kindof reminds me of a debate i saw a while ago about whether souls exist or not. The "yes" team did a reasonable job considering the subject, but it occurred to me that the treated the answer like the final conclusion rather than a step in the march of progress. if you really thought souls existed then they would be something we should be studying like any other academic/medical subject. Can souls be manipulated? interacted with? Transferred? Synthesised? Repaired? Expanded? It really felt like the "yes" team wanted to prove souls existed in order to justify their god belief but had no interest in any further implications.
I'd argue that nothing is really a concept that we came up with to describe the lack of things. If there's true nothing, there's no observer to make the observation and label it as "nothing".
I always described sorta the same thing but a bit differently. I'd say we simply can not define nothing because by labeling it, we make it something. Does that mean that true nothingness doesn't exist? Not really, but we simply can not conceptualize it in any true manner.
"Why is there some poop on the lawn?" - "Why is there something rather than nothing?" - Obviously these two questions look superficially similar but have completely different logics.
There is no such thing as nothing. By definition, it cannot exist. Therefore the only option is for there to be something. That seems the most logical answer to me, but it also provides an interesting place from which to reexamine other questions. For example it appears to make the universe both finite and infinite simultaneously. It also does away with any worries that consciousness ceases to exist when we die.
The problem with your last statement is that consciousness is not a fundamental existence, but an emergent one. When the brain dies, the fundamental components of the brain continue to exist, they just change state and arrangement. However, the emergent property of consciousness only exists while the fundamental material remains in a certain state and arrangement, which is only a temporary circumstance. So in actuality, consciousness can still cease to exist in your framework. After all, your consciousness did not always exist, so there is no reason to believe it will always persist, sadly.
@@falsevacuum4667 Yes i agree, although i tend to think the term 'emergent consciousness' still muddies the water by continuing to suggest that consciousness is a 'thing' that come into being. I feel like it's neater to describe consciousness as the outcome or product of the human body functioning, in the way that music is the product of a piano functioning. When the piano breaks down the music stops, but it wouldn't make sense to ask where the music goes after. However my point about consciousness not ending was more to do with how we experience our own deaths. When a melody stops, we experience silence; when a movie ends we experience a black screen. But if we accept that there is no such thing as nothing, how do we experience the cessation of consciousness? It would seem that, from the perspective of the dying, death is logically impossible.
@@doovstoover9703 I guess it just depends on whether the cessation of music and what comes after is "nothing" or "non-music". If it is "non-music", how does that fundamentally differ from "non-film" or "non-dog barking". Even though something persists after the music ends, in this case the volume of air that the soundwaves of the music resonated in, the music itself as in the particular arrangement of energy to create those vibrations ceases to exist. So, rather than "non-music" persisting as some sort of marker of the previously in existence music, you just have air and no music. In this sense when purely measuring the music, you really do have "nothing" that remains of the music afterwards.
@@falsevacuum4667 yes, but the 'pure' measurement of where the music begins and ends is an arbitrary distinction really. It's just part of an ongoing process of particles and movement that we have chosen to draw a line round and call 'music'. And so with consciousness. Like everything, it's really just a fragment of the whole that we have chosen to isolate and categorise in order to interpret the world. Maybe it would make more sense to say that consciousness doesn't cease to exist because it doesn't start to exist in any objective sense either.
I feel like the 'why is there something rather than nothing' question is so close to our intuition that for questions about the universe we need to be very carefull with our wording... Nothing and the absense of some object are far from the same thing. Only by having the object existing can one think of the absense of it, I don't think the oppositie way of reasoning can apply... An example: If someone where to ask a question in the lines of 'why is there no bcueksbcrunenckdkefndki rather than there being one' you would think this person has lost their mind... An extension of this argument could be that they question is nu itself biased: since you/things exist, such a question can be answered but does not have a mirror equivalent, thus, it is a bad question. That last one is just an experiment, I could not think of 'good questions'/'valid questions' that do not have this mirror equivalency. If you think of one, please disprove my experiment 🙂 17:34
Our language itself might be what is limiting our ability to concieve what that original nothing looked like. We so often use "nothing" as an expression contrary to the absence of a particular something(s) (or sets of things); but usually never meaning a total void of nothingness. There may never be an actual no-thing. Language can only describe things with degrees of accuracy, and likely fails in this and many instances.
"Why it there something rather than nothing?" The only logical answer i can give is "I don't know"... admitting one's ignorance is always the first step towards finding the truth.
Nothingness is defined by somethingness. When we consider what nothingness is, we can only say it’s not a, b, c, d, etc, until we list out all of the somethings we can think of. So in that sense, nothingness already “exists” because it’s the absence of whatever something you want to talk about. But then the natural question is “To what degree can nothingness exist?” Can the lack of laws of physics exist? Can the lack of “laws” more generally exist? I can imagine pockets of existence which can contain these forms of nothingness, such as “the future” (let’s rule out retrocausation as a possible phenomena) if we understand the problem of induction. There are no laws in that realm of reality, and therefore it contains a deep form of nothingness. I’m not certain of all of this, but it seems plausible to me. Therefore, nothingness already exists. These ideas were inspired by Chris Langan and his idea of syntax being foundational for reality. Perhaps the question we should be asking is how these definitional parameters of something and nothing arise in the first place.
For something to be, you’ll need something else to sustain it, and that which sustains it will be sustained by something else. If something is, there has to be being. But without a system of relation, what is, will die. So this system of relation or love is why something is, rather than nothing.
Why is there moustache instead of no moustache
Metaphysically necessary tache..obviously.
I don't know but I think "go big or go home" on this one. Need something on the chin and or cheeks.
amd there is nothing in increasing the size of the moustache such that it becomes coextensive with the universe that would obviate the need for an explanation of why there is a moustache.
every moustache that exists exists either in the necessity of its existence or in an external cause.
Alex's moustache exists necessarily. It exists necessarily and could not fail to exist!
I love you guys
😂😂😂
Our favourite duo is back! Conversations between such intelligent and persuasive people are always a delight
Intelligent, yes; persuasive no.
Affluent people and their families 😂
Alex and his friends couldn’t be more privileged if they tried
@@aroemaliuged4776 even if what you said is true, how the hell do their socioeconomic priveleges affect this discussion?
@@girgameth8031
😆
In every way possible
@@girgameth8031
Alex is now not a vegan brutalist.,,
Why.,
….
Empty space is still "something." I think it's correct that we are unable to conceive of "nothing," because in doing so we make it "something." Similar to how difficult it is to conceive of something being infinite, it may just be that we are not able to understand the essence of reality.
I agree
Reminds me of Berkeley's master argument
I like this a lot. I think it's also important to remember that we can know things. Just because we are limited and can't comprehend the infinity of the universe doesn't mean we are incapable of knowing anything. Not saying this is what you are saying. I just see a lot of people developing this philosophy without realizing that it is a belief system in itself.
We conceive of nothing through the negation of something else.
@@Heahapnbut isn't the negation of something else itself a concept, and so in the act of conceiving of the negation of something you are still conceiving of something, and therefore not conceiving of nothing
You guys absolutely need to invite the "Closer to Truth" host to a discussion on this and faith, etc. He's a non-resistant non-believer and travels the world to interview experts (from physicists to theologians and philosophers).
As an agnostic, the only possible way I can think of to answer this question is that humans simply don't have the capability to comprehend why there's something rather than nothing. It is like trying to do a google search on a calculator.
In saying that, it doesn't mean there isn't anything answer that could be explained eventually. It's just the newest version of "why lightning?".
And what we feel in terms of absolute hopelessness of the question is what our forefathers thought of when looking at the stars. Maybe.
So, it's something "like" God? Something that is beyond the grasp of humanity. I'm an atheist by the way.
@@Omagadam1I dunno - I think it’s fully possible that there might be things out there that we just don’t have the right kinds of minds to think about, in the same way that we wouldn’t expect a spider or a dog or an Australopithecus to be able to think about certain problems.
At the same time your lightning comparison is pretty compelling. But I think it would be bizarre if we were the exception to that rule and had the right sort of brain to solve every problem with no limits.
But what of we do, and we just haven't yet found the answer
@@anthonybrettIt's like God in the way a pie is like a donut because they're both sweets.
"what do you mean by could" best unsolicited jordan peterson impression
@@idan654321 Bingo. Spot on. So glad somebody else sees this here.
Followed by "and what do you mean by mean?"
He did tongue-in-cheek address that briefly but when talking about things outside how we conceptualise our universe and our own reality, it is an important thing to consider since 'could' is often grounded in our way of experiencing cause and effect through the passage of linear time. It's not the same as trying to obfuscate the word 'belief' and 'god' in regards to a conversation about morality, when these terms are typically descriptively well-defined in everyday life.
@@glenncurry3041 Moreover what do you mean by "by"?
@@eefaaf What do you mean by you?
Alex is so clear - delight to listen to
@@lindawilson8318 Alex is so clear,his starting point is there can’t be a Creator and he reasons from there.
People often confuse the question of "why" and "how." The why implies a sentient purpose, compared to how, which is simply about the mechanism.
The distinction is irrelevant. If the state of existence goes from nothing (thus no potential contained therein to become anything), “how” the nothing becomes all things requires a “why”. Why does a ‘void’ ‘exist’ that initially contained no rules, except for the rules required for it to unfold into all the rules at some random point? If some thing by its nature contains nothing, then it gaining some quality or state must come from some outside source, aka the super-natural.
The completely atheistic stance says, essentially: it’s Russian nesting dolls all the way down into infinity, trust me bro. As if that shouldn’t stand out as worthy of skepticism or isn’t weird and counter-intuitive. I think that some personal being decided to make a universe seems more realistic than a bunch of nothing existing for infinity before somehow generating its own incarnation. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and two infinities don’t make an origin story
@@Anthony-q5p6h You're literally proving my initial comment and you don't even know it.
To then go an and say "I think that some personal being decided to make a universe seems more realistic" just compounds your lack of intelligence and rationale.
@@Anthony-q5p6hBut this is also assuming that there was a nothing from which everything sprang forth.
That's the claim Krauss makes. But it's not a confusion. Krauss and materialists insist that only the "how" is meaningful and relevant, but people aren't confused when they are asking why. They are looking for a reason and purpose and the how answer is insufficient. Krauss' real contention is that we need to accept that we don't have a satisfactory answer, but its not true that people are confused about why and how.
Why would "why" imply sentient purpose? Its just asking for a cause, be it sentient or not.
It's not that the laws of physics "break down" or "stop working" at a singularity - it's that we don't know which laws apply in such an extreme situation, and we don't - at this point, anyway - have a way to find out. There may be laws that supersede the laws we know
It’s unfortunate that we’ll never really know what’s inside a black hole. They seem to have fundamental secrets to the universe. Maybe if we get a theory of quantum gravity we’ll be able to explain them, or a theory of everything.
Yes, I completely agree with you. I get the feeling Alex needs to include someone scientifically educated to these conversations, given the lengths he goes to steelman theological ideas. Alot of the arguments from an atheistic/empirically motivated perspective seem so, shallow and unread.
This is exactly what "the laws of physics break down" means.
It means the laws of physics, a construct we made to describe the world in the environment we live in (and more recently, in the experimental environment we can create or simulate) no longer describes what happens in the extreme environment of the singularity.
Nature may/is still follow all the same principles, but those principles are not in 'the laws of physics" (yet)
@@oscargr_ We aren’t 100% certain singularities exist.
Yes God's laws.
Interesting conversation and Alex is spot on, but I'm disappointed in no one mentioning Heraclitus and his school of ancient thought which long ago gave us, for the first time, this revolutionary idea that 'nothing' cannot exist, and concurrently, 'change' is the only thing that we can be certain does exist. Credit where it's due and all that..
Because something cannot come from nothing, the reason there is something rather than nothing must because there is something that has always been (whatever that thing is).
This is what I think
Or everything has always been.
“In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?”
- Carl Sagan
God is by definition uncreated. He is the solution to an infinite regress
@@simonubovic6209 that is not the definition of a God. That would d one definition, but thousands of gods exist.
Typical definition of god is:
noun
noun: God; noun: god; plural noun: gods; plural noun: the gods
1.
(in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
2.
(in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
"a moon god"
Those false gods don’t exist, duh. Does Peter Pan exist? No, he’s just a character a lot of people like.
And just because humans have come up with my bad ideas about God’s existence, nature, character or multitude; if a supreme God does exist, us getting getting ideas wrong has no effect off the fact of His reality
@@Anthony-q5p6h you need to demonstrate that a supreme god exist.
I think all gods are fictional, including a supreme god.
Unless you want to define god as the universe or energy. Then I have no issue with that definition of god. This is the god Einstein defined.
@@simonubovic6209with the same logic the universe could have existed forever so no need for a god
Asking "why is there something rather than nothing?" is the same as asking "why is existence existent?“ But the proposition "existence exists" is an analytical truth by virtue of the identity between the subject and predicate. So it seems to me that the answer to the question is “simply because all things are identical to themselves”.
This explains nothing.
@@OttoIncandenza what kind of explanation are you expecting?
@@hihello-sx1sx a non-tautological one. Saying things exist because things exist is braindead.
@@OttoIncandenza well the question is supposing that existence could very well not have had the property of existing, which is the real braindead part. It’s like asking “why are circles circular instead of circles being squares”. The only sensible answer is to point out that the property being inquired about (circularity) is a tautologically necessary aspect of the thing itself.
The question is not removing any property from existence, it’s removing existence altogether.
It would be more like asking why we even need a circle rather than questioning its circularity.
Answer: the universe contains only energy ultimately. Yet the universe contains zero net energy. Look into the zero energy universe hypothesis. For this reason, physicists state that the universe can persist forever without violating the conservation of energy principle.
Also you can give up on determinism and consider that reality may be probabilistic at heart; of course then it would be contradictory for it to require an initial cause. It would however require something eternal (like nothing). So nothing is everything and everything is nothing. Positive energy cancels out negative energy. Who knew Yin and Yang would be right... ☯️
Creation is built upon the infinite scaffold of nothingness.
What do you mean? The title is literally the topic, lol.
Edit. Well, he edited the comment, so now mine doesn't make sense anymore, lol. I still dont get what he means
Love this
Like modern money mechanics
Reworded,, "Everything is built on nothing..."
There is no sense to the statement, it is logically incoherent
It's turtles all the way down innit
I think intuition is overrated. The brain is easily fooled by magic tricks
Your intuition let's you predict outcomes based on pattern recognition. Its a huge aspect of how your brain functions
@@LuciferArc1 Doesn't mean it's always correct.
@@bokchoiman It is definitely overrated if someone thinks it is always correct. But on the other hand it is utterly dismissed by some, so it is also underrated.
Intuition is such a bitch when you are trying to prove things in Math
@bokchoiman nah intuition is underrated. We've had thousands of years of evolution to help us pick up on body language in a way that is completely unexplainable to the average person. Its unreal.
In addition to these guys being incredibly intelligent, they are adorable.
sounds gay.
I'm in.
The better question in my opinion and a point that I have yet to see any public intellectual make, is not "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but "Can there be nothing in the first place".
If nothing doesn't exist, something is mandatory. We have a concept of 0, but that doesn't mean it is a thing. Like, we have concept of dragons too and we can even imagine them and they don't exist.
(Actually, O'Connor mentioned this in this talk)
Yes. Its why I've never liked such a question because it presumes nothing was once the state of existence in a non theist world but at the same time a creator would have had to just simply exist. So why couldn't the universe simply just have existed with there never having been a state of supposed nothing.
@@LuciferArc1 Because energy is always expanding and dying showing us that our observable universe had a beginning and will have an end. This shows us that "something" always had to exist to put everything in motion. However, that something is outside of this universe...at least, according to what we've observed thus far.
@JustHuman87 not really. We have already found quantum particles that pop into existence. We don't know what before the big bang was actually like but the necessary components to begin the process could have literally just existed.
@@LuciferArc1
We can determine conditions of the universe down to 10^-43 second of it's beginning. But you're right we can't know before. However, the fine tuning of the entire universe screams intelligent design.
As for Quantum Particles:
"Where do all the some things come from? A fundamental principle of cause and effect is that effects always come after their causes. Moreover, effects are never greater than their causes. No human has ever seen these principles violated. They actually undergird the entire scientific enterprise." - Hugh Ross
So far these particles are not observable enough to make claim that the universe randomly spawned into existence. Even if it did I would argue intelligent design. Life requires too many things to be fine tuned in an extreme way that would be beyond difficult to describe.
@JustHuman87 thats just an assumption. Nothing about that screams intelligent design. Thats just how it happened out of countless possible variations. Thats all that tells us
Great talk, gentlemen.
Theism has an edge here, not because it grounds its ontology on something immaterial specifically, but because it grounds it on something infinite rather than on something that can be measured, since the measurable is finite, therefore needing a beginning.
What the atheist needs is some “agent” that can make the abstract laws of logic & physics APPLY to something. As an analogy where the abstract laws are like computer code for a virtual gaming environment, there has to be a processor to run that code & make the code apply to objects & dimensions, in order for it to render.
“E=mc^2” for example, doesn’t do anything on its own. It only governs how existing things will behave. Something is applying the abstract laws to everything.
laws don't actually exist. laws are OUR attempt to describe the universe by modelling it. the universe has no laws, it simply is.
Why do we have to beleive that the something that is applying abstract laws to everything likes me or that I have to follow a certain set of principles to get close to the thing. Why is getting close to the thing even necessary?
@@Klayhamn just because we are describing the laws does not mean they don't exist.
@@udaysingh-wr2kw yes it does. I can describe a person's "characteristics", but characteristics don't exist as such. They are just a human made concept we invented.
Things just are.
There is nowhere in the universe where your "impatience" or "tallness" exist, They are not things. They are observations, descriptions or modeling of the world by us - in our brains.
@udaysingh-wr2kw That’s a whole other can of worms. Those conclusions come from other arguments, each debatable I their own right, & not really relevant to this point.
As soon as there was somthing. Nothing no longer existed.
Nothing is empty. --Taoist saying
A nice discussion. when I was a small kid, my mother's technique in dealing with my succession of "why" questions was to answer "because why's got a long tail". That stumped me and I stopped asking further questions.!
I think at one point saying I don't know and asking the kid to think about it themselves can be better for their philosophical curiosity.
True Nothing also implies the lack of all rules, logic, or causality (those would be “something”). But you immediately run into a paradox: if there is no causality or logic, there is nothing to stop nothing from becoming anything and everything spontaneously. So nothing is actually just pregnant unlimited potential. Precipitating any universe it “wants”. Nothing = infinite potential / unbounded creation.
So that’s the atheist plot twist. God IS pure nothingness.
Some mystics might even agree with this. This "pure nothingness," is not too dis-similar to the concept of a pure consciousness that has infinite potential to create infinite dreams. Certainly not the traditional Christian God, but not a very foreign idea to some Hindus, to give an example of another form of theism.
So instead of calling it "God", why not just call it "nothingness", and get rid of the confusing baggage? You also have to explain how nothing gave rise to something, since something is obviously still happening right now.
We ask "why" there is something rather than nothing out of a logical conclusion that nothingness does not require anything, meaning that there being anything rather than nothing is contradictory.
However, there is a crucial flaw in this reasoning: the only way you get a "paradox" is if you presuppose that that logic can somehow be prior to existence, or, more precisely, that existence depends on logic, which I would argue is a falsehood.
Logic is what tells you that 0 is not 1, or 2 is not 5, apple is not a star, and so forth. Once you strip away this framework, all ontological differences and the separation between potentiality and actuality loses meaning, so you end up with a purely simple essence with no parts.
In other words, logic is why we have a diversity of existence, and without it we have a pure singularity of existence.
Without logic, you have this purely simple existence that just is. With logic, same said existence in essence is the fullness of existence, since it is pure existence, so would also be the logical fufillment of what itself is.
That, personally, is my take on this question.
I loved how you wrote everything
Yes, exactly. Nothing is fundamental, literally. Logic and order is emergent, just as in the case of biological evolution. Those who assert that causality is somehow primary or essential must explain the cause of causality, when in fact there simply isn’t one. We could even imagine that causality isn’t even real, and that this universe is one of infinitely many randomly generated universes, and that our universe just happened to be orderly. The question of why we continue to experience orderliness consistently can be answered by open individualism, but if you can’t accept that, then we could just say that causality is built into this universe (whatever it means for causality to exist), but that it still ultimately exists without cause or reason.
Discussing the philosophical question, ‘Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Atheists Answer,’ without first defining the terms seems, at best, a failure of philosophical discourse.
Maybe This:
What explains the existence of Something (any Thing) and ‘not’ Nothing (the absence of all Things - including possibility and potential)?
Ponder This:
What stops something from manifesting / occurring / existing? A true paradox composed of irreconcilable contradictions, right? If that’s right, could it be that Nothing (the absence of all Things - including possibility and potential) creates a true paradox? Thus, maybe there must be something?
Continue Pondering:
What couldn’t occur if there wasn’t any foundation to stop paradoxes / contradictions?
• We can’t answer the question? Maybe it’s simply a matter of a poorly worded question and, in fact, the answer to the correctly worded question is answerable?
"What stops something from manifesting / occurring / existing?"
Time allows for things to exist. All things exist in time, and without time things would not come into or out of existence. Time itself is timeless, meaning it never had a beginning, and it will never have an end. Only things in time have a beginning and end. So if there were no time, there would be no possible or potential existence, and thus preventing anything from happening or coming into existence. Time is change, and change is the only constant.
"What couldn’t occur if there wasn’t any foundation to stop paradoxes / contradictions?"
Everything would then occur simultaneously. Everything would occur simultaneously together with their exact opposite, and thus everything will instantly annihilate or cancel each other out. All this will happen faster than the speed of light (simultaneity; because of no time to limit the order of things), and the effect would be to continue to have nothing. A timeless state of everything canceled out of existence.
So the paradox is in excluding time from the equation, which without nothing at all could happen in the first place. Time contains innately the logic of order, and process, and allows complex things to develop from simpler things. This way things can exist in a variety of forms like you and i, built up from simpler more fundamental forms, that are in turn built from even more fundamental forms.
@@alexgonzo5508 Your information about time is interesting, to be sure. And if someone is interested, more on the Nature of Time can be found on Standford’s Philosophy website.
Regarding what you’ve written: How, specifically, does the way time works answer the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing (i.e., why is there something / anything at all) - including time - as opposed to the absence of all things - including possibility, potential and time?”
@@alexgonzo5508 The answer, alexgonzo5508, might be very simple:
If True Contradictions cannot exist, and if “nothing” is (for a yet unknown reason) a “something,” then “nothing” was / is / never will be an option. And, thus, always something. Solved. Move on.
@@yinYangMountain "Regarding what you’ve written: How, specifically, does the way time works answer the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing (i.e., why is there something / anything at all) - including time - as opposed to the absence of all things - including possibility, potential and time?”
The only bruit fact or axiom one must accept is time. Time in its simplest form is continuity of state. There is a moment, and then there is another moment, in a forever loop. You also have to have a quantum sense of time, meaning you must conceive of time as quantized. The idea of quantum or quantized time resembles a bit the idea of the Planck time, but is not the same. Once that idea is in place, then time and why there is something rather than nothing can be sensibly understood. There are a couple of other aspects that bring it all together, but this is a limited medium to get into it in depth.
You posed good questions though. 🙂
Reason or not, it's pretty obvious that there's something, for we are. If you can't work that out, I'm afraid you may not be able to be helped. Start with the something you know and realise there are things you don't yet know. Once you do that, it's the beginning of growth. Now, something unknown will become known to you if you seek it out or if it comes your way, and there will be things you may never know in your lifespan. If you value things that are, you'll have some happiness. Good luck, fellows.
10:07 Whoever said that should get the Nobel Prize. It's the answer.
There is a similar argument given by Chris Langan: if there is a "true nothingness", then it must be a nothingness of potentiality as well. This is a constraint that true nothingness must have, but then the fact there is a constraint means something exists, and so we didn't have true nothingness in the first place.
"The paradox arises when "nothing" is taken to exclude not just 'something', but the potential for 'something'."
@@ahusky4498 That's just a category error, it's like saying an empty box is not really empty because it contains emptiness.
@@suntorytimes1No that analogy doesn't work if you are gonna use the definition of nothing as what rocks dream of, well then the box in the proposed analogy evidently does not contain nothing you are ignoring the spacetime fabric, the air particles such as gases, dust etc in other words this analogy uses the everyday use of the word nothing which excludes air particles and spacetime fabric and quantum fluctuations etc. It is an equivocation fallacy.
It’s not. True nothingness is not potentiality such that something can actually come from that nothing. True nothingness is the absence of literally any and everything, including all potentiality. It is by definition not even a possible state of affairs. Something is necessary.
@@Faz110786 exactly
I believe it was Robert Nozick who called this question “poorly weighted.” It contains the presumption, without any evidence whatsoever, that nothing is possible, or at least equally as possible as something, when the evidence for something is overwhelming.
the fact something exists doesn't by itself preclude the possibility that it could have been the other way around.
the question also doesn't grant it a weight at all - it just wonders what circumstances (if any) led to this particular scenario rather than another one.
lol at alex trying to meditate on non-existence/nothing, and the other guy yapping it back into existence
Wait, this is so good
I feel like Alex has a little crush crush, or maybe I'm projecting 😊
I'd doubt doubt that
@@De_Selby I'd bet bet.
Well the other guy is attractive and I'm guessing Alex likes him but I'm not sure if that equals a crush lol
@@stussysinglet It was a silly joke tbh.
Alex- I want to put forward my thoughts on nothing vs true nothingness, and I think it’s worth your time. I’ll use set theory for clarity.
We have the set of everything: [1]
We have the set of nothing: [0]
And then we have true nothingness:
To ask what existed before the Big Bang (or before the first Big Bang), the answer would not be “nothing”, but nothingness.. Not an empty set, but no set at all.
However, there is an important consideration here:
Things can be equally defined by their negative characteristics as their positive characteristics. We don’t typically do this due to the tedious nature of it, but just as I could perfectly define a cup by describing its color, temperature, location, every atom, quantum particle, etc., I could also perfectly define the cup by describing everything that the cup is not. This list would be seemingly infinite, but at the end of it, the only characteristics left would perfectly describe the cup.
Things can be defined by their negative, and negative characteristics are just as meaningful as positive characteristics (there are just a lot more of them).
Why does this matter? Let’s return to our sets…
Because we know with certainty that we have the set of [1], by requirement, every other possible set must have the negative characteristic of not being [1]. This makes sense, and is usually what we really mean by “nothing” [0], which is just the absence of [1], but the value here, is that every other state of reality (which would include true nothingness”) can now be defined by this negative characteristic (not being [1]). In other words, all other states now have a set, even if the only characteristic of that set is [-1].
In conclusion, there has never been “no set”. True nothingness has never existed, and will never exist. Something has always existed, even if that something can only be defined by its negative characteristics.
These guys really just spoke about nothing for 29 minutes and 48 second.
The question is: why didn't they speak about something?
Welcome to Athiesm...
4:07 Big Bang 💥?
5:07 Not equipped to answer questions like that.
6:59 Special First Cause.
10:12 Truly Nothing.
FFS, please identify the speaker on the right!
It is a secret. We know it and are keeping it from you.
Noah Boddie
Think the main issue is that from a materialistic view, we can answer HOW ( to whatever extent we can) but we can't answer WHY.
@G00gleDebunker10 True, but that isn't an explanation though and one of the things that makes humans unique is that we ask "why"? we pursue it even.
1.define what "nothing" means
2. determine if there is good reason to think it was ever a state that obtained
When it comes to philosophical nothing, I haven't heard anybody defend the idea that ever was a state that obtained, There was always something, even if that was just a background that had quantum fluctuations randomly and spontaneously happening in it, is where people I've heard before have always gone. It is fiendishly difficult, as shown here, to conceive of what coming from a philosophical nothing would even mean.
I think it's better to ask, not what brought God into existence, but what did God bring everything into existence _from?_ Nothing or _materia?_ A theist who says "nothing" is special pleading because this argument proceeded from the premise it's not possible to have something come from nothing. Bring a god into the equation, and apparently, all of a sudden, it's not impossible any more? Why not? They don't lay the foundation required for that not to be special pleading. It's just baldly asserted.
I also enjoy asking how they know God isn't an emergent phenomenon of the universe, flipping the question on its head. There is no good reason that can be provided that rejects that as an idea.
"We've seen things come in and out of existence."
Ouch. I think that needs rewording. We've seen the Platonic forms of things come in and out of existence, but we haven't seen them materially come in and out of existence. The material, even if as energy, has existed as long as the universe as far as we can tell.
“Coming from” and “was always something” both makes assumptions that fail under “philosophical nothing” - they both assume the existence of time, directly or indirectly.
For X to “come from” Y, X must exist “before” Y. Problem is, you cannot have “before time”, as that makes zero sense. Time is the sequence of all events. An event before all events is a contradiction (as it is not before itself).
There “was always something” yes. But mostly because “always” kind of implies “for as long as time existed”.
The question is, why time itself exists at all.
@@virgodem _"Time is the sequence of all events."_
Is it? That's how we _view_ it, sure, but is it what it *is?*
Time can be also described as pointing in the direction of increasing entropy.
Physicists are currently asking if there might be a second arrow of time, somehow related to the increase in information or ordering.
Can entropy go on forever? Well, maybe. Can it be past infinite? Well, maybe, but it would be more likely if there some mechanism that resets it, like a Big Crunch.
@@RustyWalker Time isn’t defined by the direction of increasing entropy. That’s a statistical consequence of the motion of particles.
Entropy is used to determine the direction of time, but it isn’t what causes time to go forward. If entropy were to decrease temporarily, that wouldn’t break the fundamental laws of physics, because the second law is determined by statistical motion of particles.
In a very universal sense, yes. That is what time, by definition, more or less is.
Alternatively you can refer to the physical dimension in spacetime of our physical universe, but for the purposes of the cosmological argument and understanding the origins of the universe, that is generally the definition being used.
Getting warmer: We think rationality is operating in the realm of what is most reasonable when really it is operating in the realm of what is least unreasonable
There is simultaneously nothing & something. Something is interjected w infinite nothingness. In the perfect stillness of the infinite Dark void, the only eventuality which has relevance is motion. Motion becomes light, (THE ALL-SPARK) providing the contrast which is necessary to distill the OMNI-VERSE...
In that motion is found the space & time for CREATION. Where there is no motion, there is no CREATION... ONLY THE PERFECT STILL SILENCE OF THE ETERNAL SONG, from which we all came. To which we all return.
As a fractal extension of the ONE TRUE CREATOR, our purpose is to Create Through the motion of our consciousness.
Movement is the basis of life. Without physical action, there is no physical movement to induce an alternate eventuality. As sentient singularities, motion & action is our power.
All motion comes from the still silence and returns to it. This is infinite potentiality in expression.
Another name for NOTHINGNESS is INFINITE POTENTIALITY....
In which, there IS the latentcy FOR EVERY POSSIBILITY OF EXPRESSION.
The foundation of CREATION IS
BUILT UPON PARADOX,
As is necessary for meta manifestation.
Something is just the inevitable result of infinite nothingness. ❤
there is no SEPERATION between the CREATOR & the CREATION.
All of CREATION is unified into the GOD-HOOD, to which every quanta of sentience contributes.
Therefore, though the prime source may have the capability to exist beyond constructs... this does not alter the inevitably that all constructs are manifestations of the prime SOURCE... THUS ALL CONSTRUCTS ARE PRIME SOURCE.
EVERY SENTIENT SINGULARITY IS A FRACTAL REPRESENTATION OF THE ALL-SPARK.
WE ARE LIGHT SEEDS OF THE ALL-SPARK... CREATED BY THE EVER DARK. INfUSED W DIVINITY FROM THE START. EVERYONE, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE.
The ONE true CREATOR
has nothing to be jealous of,
For all existence is an extension of his being.
All words are HIS WORDS.
ALL NAMES ARE HIS NAME.
ALL THINGS ARE HIS THINGS.
GOD IS NOT DIVIDED.
GOD IS INSIDE US.
@DarkLight-Ascending "In the perfect stillness of the infinite Dark void, the only eventuality which has relevance is motion"
What is it in the void that starts "moving"?
If there's "perfect stillness", what instigates that motion?
"Another name for NOTHINGNESS is INFINITE POTENTIALITY"
Isn't this just like Krauss's bait and switch when he says that the "nothingness" that preceded the Universe in his cosmology was actually some kind of quantum field? In other words you're both redefining "nothing" as actually something that has inherent characteristics and starting from there.
someone visited the jordan peterson word salad generator website 🙄
@@thedude0000
who is Jordan B. PeterSniffinson? 😂
This is Daen Dark-Light, Daddy.
NEVER FORGET...
The space of the universe is a thing. If there's space there's time also. So it's still a thing. The real "nothing" would be the thing there's OUTSIDE of space-time. Your word salad is just word salad. And also, how a paradox can exist in our world? Paradoxal things are only theoretical for a reason, lol
@@thedude0000 funny fact about me...
I never knew I was gay as fuhk till Alex grew out that cute little Moustache. That sounds like it came outta Jordan's as again, didn't it? I so silly. 😘
When I try to imagine nothing all I get is a mental image of being inside a completely black room/void without a body or if I try to abandon this for something even more formless I see some kind of transparent essence with a subtle but noticeable 3d silhouette, like the invisibility cloak from Harry Potter, but there's always a background environment in this mental image filled with things like my old school playground and both of these mental images resemble real world things that can be explained with real world things, I.e. in this case a pitch black room inside a house before my eyes have adjusted and a transparent half gaseous half liquid substance or just air. Stuff surrounded by smaller stuff. I like the argument that nothingness is as inconceivable to us as what theists describe God to be. All our logic is a product of this universe so it's possible God exists but likewise it's also impossible to verify that which isn't a product of this universe.
If the answer from theists is that god brought everything into existence, the question for them would be why is there a god rather than nothing?
I think a good answer is God is a necessary being and stuff or something isn’t necessary
@@bradklein8107 why is there necessity rather than no necessity?
@@bradklein8107 "a good answer"
How is that a good answer? How is it any answer at all?
What about God makes him "necessary" and "stuff or something" not? Well, absolutely nothing, other than you just saying so.
Honestly, that's about as much of an answer as saying "f-ck you" and punching your opponent in the stomach.
@@brixan... I don't think I have a great answer for you, but as I see it, the necessity comes from the definition of God. If we see God as this uncaused cause, that is dependent on nothing outside of his existence, and one who cannot fail to exist, he then becomes necessary. I guess a good way to look at it and see the distinction between necessity and non necessity would be to look at our world. If God exists, and he is the original cause, then our world is dependent on his existence. For if God were to not exist, then we would not. However, it is important to see that if our world failed to exist, it would not affect God's existence. This is true because we are dependent on him, not the other way around. So to answer your question, there exists necessity in the being of who God is, which is why people view him as necessary. Hope this provides some insight.
@@CalebLove-ci8bv "comes from the definition of God"
So all I have to do is define myself as necessary and I would become a necessary being? Cool beans.
"This is true because we are dependent on him, not the other way around."
Nah, God is dependent on me. If I were to die, God would stop existing too.
As long as we are just saying stuff without demonstrating them to be true.
Maybe if the question is re-jigged a little to... "Of all universes in a multiverse of possible universes, then why this universe?" where in this case "something" and "universe" are synonymous and interchangeable. Then a "nothing" universe would just be all those that are not possible because they are not mathematically consisent. In this kind of reasoning mathematics is a domain outside of all other real domains. So even if there were actually nothing, mathematics would still exist in it's own domain.
TL;DL - they don't know, they will never know, and will never achieve any clarity on it.
I know. God.
Lol jk
This has got to be one of my favourite conversations you've had.
Fuss about nothing.
There can't *be* nothing. It's a contradiction in the question. The use of the word "is" implies the existence of something.
To say "we have explanations for every object within the universe, why can't we explain the entire universe?" seems like a category error to me. Just because explanation applies to any particular object, that doesn't mean it applies to the totality of existence itself.
And yet, we say "I looked inside the box, but there's nothing in there", we know exactly what they are talking about, then there suddenly aren't people going like "actually, nothing can't exist, so that statement is a contradiction". Nothing is the lack of existence, and clearly there are things that exist that no longer exist, so they 'are' nonexistent.
This doesn't make sense
In my view, mathematics is the study of universes that are NOT our universe but can be SIMULATED in our universe. So in fact we can study different possible universes with mathematics to some extend (empty universe is one of them). Ofc there is also the possibility that there are higher level universes that cannot be captured by Maths, at least it is hard to exclude that possibility.
Math is a body of logic.
If logic was different in a higher universe, then yes.
1+1 might be 4 in a universe where two objects get close together, and then they create another two objects out of ?nothing?
@ticketforlife2103 Although I fully believe that logic could be different in different universes, I got absolutely annihilated on reddit for suggesting this. So according to reddit your idea is wrong and you're dumber than sticks and your entire family should unalive themselves because of you.
I like what TMM says, i.e that question assumes nothingness is the default state warranting an explanation for existence of something."
I don't think it's correct to say that the question assumes that default state is nothingness, it simply entertains that it might be possible for there to be nothing, while it may very well be the case that existence is necessary, or just a brute fact.
I think it's unquestionable that the origin of our universe was not the origin of reality, just by applying logic, and God is just the lazy answer that doesn't even respond to the question itself. Let's imagine god exists as a concious being that created our universe. Such a complex an powerful creature just appeared one day from thin air? It's just silly that someone with critical thinking could believe that. What was he doing before creating our universe? Just sitting there for an infinite amount of time until he decided to create our universe? Was he bored or something? Absurd.
Atheists: A lot of words to say "I don't know".
😅
Well better than the arrogance of theists claiming the absolute truth and saying“ my imaginary friend did it “ 😉
Theist: A lot of (or sometimes not a lot of) words to say "I know"
Riiiiighhhttt
God knows best
@@aiya5777 which God is that? Vishnu? Allah? Yahew? Ganesh? Zeus? ...
I think good evidence for Hume’s approach is that we aren’t even cognitively equipped to conceptualize nothing properly.
I answer the question quite simply. “I don’t know”. Then, I remind them that my lack of an answer is not evidence for your best guess.
I'm not asking what you know
I'm asking, what do you believe ?
@@aiya5777 I don’t have any evidence on which to form a belief. I don’t have one. Or, put another way, my belief is that I don’t know.
That should be the answer quite a bit more than it is.
@@MelFinehout how do you know that you know what you know?
@@MelFinehout what is knowledge?
@@aiya5777 it’s is data, or conclusions that one is justified in considering almost certainly true and that one acts as it is true.
It is a subset of belief, since I can see you word trap, I’ll spare you. I subset of belief that one doesn’t question because the evidence is strong enough to justify the certainty held.
The Oxbridge students / grads, they just seem different to me. Just so on it and quick, able to thisnk quickly and deeply. Its impressive
Existence is fundamental, and nothingness is just a concept. We have zero evidence to think nothingness is possible.
That presupposes existence. There's a lot more "nothing" out there than there is "something", which seems to imply that nothingness is the status quo and anything above that is an anomaly.
It's kind of like saying life is fundamental and non-life is just a concept. It presupposes that life is the status quo when we know it isn't.
@@bloopboop9320Isn’t empty space something? Like the universe before the Big Bang might not have had space as we intuitively think of it.
@@bloopboop9320there is actually none of nothing we have observed in the real world. There is always fluctuations in a vacuum. That's not an argument, but observed fact of reality
Fundamentalism is just a concept. And the fundamentality of existence is just your opinion...
What you deem "fundamental" is just arbitrary choice.
@@MyNameIsThe_Sun All the more reason to question atheists who claim that we don't know where the universe comes from.
It's a fine line not knowing; and knowing it didn't come from nothing.
I always have to rewind and re-listen to about 10 minutes of and discussion after someone say about rolling a dice and getting 1 of six possible outcomes as through the decades I can hear my teenage self saying 'you need to re-roll that' after the dice came to rest 'cocked' on its edge against some object (and don't get me started on the possibility of a coin flip landing on its edge).
There are lots of things that might have existed of which only one is nothing, so the odds are greatly in favor of something.
Alex slowly turning into Nietzsche
My rhetoric for why something exists is always very singular. If nothing exists then there has to be something for there to be nothing of. Therefore something does exist.
Nothing doesn't exist, its just nothing.
@@goyogo2601 I very much agree, maybe it's my futile mind not being able to comprehend the lack of existence.
My argument was that nothing cannot exist without something for there to be nothing of.
This is also my argument for something. If there is something, then there must be nothing so there is something of nothing to be.
I understand this may be a logical fallacy as I'm proving the existence of both nothing and something based on each other's existence (or lack thereof), but I fail to explain anything in more depths and that's the only conclusion I've come about.
I hear what you’re saying but at some point there had to be a first cause. Even if nothing never existed, it doesn’t explain how energy came to be without a first cause.
I agree with Hume that the 'why' question is in principle unanswerable. Heidegger famously said that 'why is there something rather than nothing' is the most profound question in metaphysics, and while hesitant to disagree with Heidegger, after thinking about it for years I have come to believe that it's a meaningless question. (I have sometimes thought that Heidegger said this rather flippantly, although concededly one doesn't think of Heidegger as a flippant man.) It seems to me to be meaningless in that every possible answer to a 'why' question would lead to, 'okay, but why that?' in an infinite regress. In a sense, this is the fundamental grounding of my atheism, although certainly there are other reasons. If god is the answer to why is there something rather than nothing, than why is there god? And so forth. Haldane said that 'it is ''my supposition that the universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine,' and perhaps that's so; indeed perhaps there is an ultimate 'why' that we cannot in our limited grasp of the material world conceive of. My own sense is that there is no why, there is only an 'is.'
There are two types of nothing to consider:
1. absolute nothing: this is where nothing ever existed or will exist. I know this is not a possibility because something exists, at least for me, at least in this moment.
2. future or past nothing. this is where by "nothing" we only refer to existence within a time reference. Even if time no longer passes/exists, if there was or will be something, then we are still ok calling the temporary nothing, nothing.
I believe the usual debate concerns the first type of nothing, and I don't see how there could be a "reason" for why that nothing is not the case.
"Reasons" for us refer to a cause/effect, a set of rules that can explain a change of state.
But for the first type of nothing, there could never have been states, rules, time, or change. Hence there can't be a reason for that first type of nothing instead of something. It doesn't mean that something was inevitable, it just means that there cannot be a reason for it.
I don't understand why it was taken as such an obvious given that 1. The question is meaningful 2. The meaning is clear and simple. Seems important enough to not utterly dismiss.
I think rather than trying to imagine what nothingness is when trying to answer the question " What is nothing? ", it's more helpful to the way our brains work to say " Try to remember a thought or memory before even your parents were born.
When trying to imagine nothingness, we often imagine ourselves in a place looking at, darkness, for example.
We naturally revert to the first person perspective.
However, ask to remember a memory or thought before you're parents were born and you know you can't.
Not only because there was no you to have that thought, but no you whoes eyes or ears you could imagine seeing or hearing through because you simply wasn't there.
Nothingness then could be described as the thought/ memory you had before your parents were born.
There was no thought, no memory, no you, not even an egg that's going to become you.
Nothingness is the absence of everything that could possibly ever be.
[nothing]
[ ] is simply the missing bits between 2 bits of information that constitute 2 possibilities
I have [ ] but -> xyz
I can't think of [nothing] but -> xyz
I feel [ ] but -> xyz
I see [nothing] but -> xyz
there's always [missing bits] that cannot really be conceptualized in between
more examples;
the spin of quantum particle is quantized, which means it can only take [nothing] but 2 distinguishable value;
spinning up[ ]spinning down
and also
coherence[ ]decoherence
there's always [missing bits] that cannot really be conceptualized in between
Close to nothing would be a world of pure thought and feeling absent of anything visual or auditory
All metaphysical questions are unanswerable. This includes questions around axiology.
That's why we have philosophy. So that every individual can choose the story they like most.
It's not just that I as a theist want a "why" answer. It;s that there has to be *an* answer. Materiality cannot mechanistically account for the metaphysical properties it must have if the universe is some kind of brute fact. You rightly see that *something* must be necessary, but we cant account for necessity by physical mechanism
To ask "why" is to ask for a reason, a cause, or an underlying principle. An explanation can't be the same thing as the thing under examination: to propose something as its own explanation, its own "why", is to fail to explain it. And a legitimate explanation candidate must at least exist: nonexistence is a non-starter (nothing comes from nothing). But if what's under examination is existence as such, the question demands an explanation that precludes existence. It demands a "why" that exists and doesn't exist. It can be dismissed as incoherent.
I Think the best atheist response is ‘we don’t know’. Same for theists, by the way.
I think the best response is “show me why there should be a why”.
So you mean agnosticism then
@@shenomiya6194 nah, just that we don’t know. I don’t know how the pyramids were built, but I’m not agnostic about it. I just don’t know.
I love you guys, btw. Thanks for the content. You really ought to have me on sometime. I've done nothing much in life other than think, but I think I have solved philosophy LOL. (As much as a human can)
"Nothingness is what rocks dream of" is like a Zen Kohan.
Certain truths be discerned or ascertained by thought and can only be experienced directly.
The issue of relying on direct experience rather than logic is that direct experience is perceived to be very internal and subjective.
The Zen masters overcame this problem by attempting to universalise direct experience by centralising to their practice. My theory is that when enough people have a direct experience of truth beyond cognition, it is no longer a matter of subjectivity because it is verifiable from multiple points of view.
In the same way that we can verify unexplainable phenomena via having multiple witnesses, our capacity to experience truth beyond cognition is also verifiable.
Food for thought I guess. 🙏
The laws of physics don't break down at the big bang. The laws of physics _that we know about_ do break down, but that does not mean that there are not other laws that we don't know about. In fact, we know that there are, because we don't understand quantum gravity.
What would an answer to this question even look like? For a moment, forget about trying to figure out what the RIGHT answer is; I'd like to know what ANY answer might look like. If you ask me why I think the square root of two is irrational, I can show you a chain of logical reasoning. If you ask me why a building collaped, I could answer using physics. If you ask me why somebody did something, I could say what I thought their motivation was. But for "why is there something rather than nothing" ... I can't imagine what an answer would be like.
Obviously I don't know what the right answer is, but a couple of answers that someone might give to the question would be that there is something rather than nothing because true nothing is intrinsically unstable and something will always come from it. Alternatively one might say there is something rather than nothing because God wills it to be so. I'm sure there's many other answers as well
If we can assume that it is possible for there to be nothing (we do not really know that) then we could equally assume that there were infinitely many possible somethings that could have existed. Therefore it is more probable that there is something rather than nothing.
Everything discussed in this video - something, nothing, why, asking questions - and the video itself, is all a human construct.
Just like your comment.
As soon as the concept of "there is a possible world..." is used, "nothing" goes away and is replaced by the "world that .."
My two favorite atheists! Love it!
Causation may break down at the macro scale of the universe
The idea that B follows A is based solely on our perception and experience with things at our scale
There is no reason to believe that the universe must adhere to causation unless someone produces strong evidence to demonstrate that it does
The double slit experment, quantum mechanics in general, and the decades long inability to coordinate the very small and the very large in physics point strongly to this possibility in my mind
When I was a kid, 5-ish years old, i sometimes wake up at night thinking if God doesn't exist, there would be nothing, I wouldn't have existed. And this would bring intense emotion, I even remember crying imagining it. The picture of nothing is me looking at pure blackness.
The question, in possible world terminology, would go, Why are there possible worlds instead of none?
I can easily conceive of the existence of physical matter being necessary. When you boil it down though, it's irrelevant as, if there were nothing, we wouldn't be here to notice. The puddle analogy applies
But that is just the start of the question, obviously we exist, that is the whole mystery.
We have no idea if there can be nothing. According to thermodynamics, no. The only indication we have is singularities, and all they say is that our physics breaks down in these extreem conditions.
Why is there something might be the wrong question.
For all we know, there can ONLY be something.
The question comes with an assumption that nothing is an opposite of something. We can’t know that, as no one ever had nothing to examine. Alex’s trail with taking nothing as neural position works parallel with maths. In mathematics nothing is zero, and zero is not opposite of positive, negative is opposite of positive.
Took 5+ minutes to say he can't answer the question instead of just saying that
If there was nothing, what would prevent something from existing instead?
In endlessly looking for the 'reason, meaning, purpose' etc in the universe we lose sight of the fact that these words and concepts are really just inventions of the human perspective. Our intelligence is a result of (but also totally limited by) the way our brains have evolved to allow us to survive and interpret our environment.
This intelligence carries with it the advantage of allowing us to begin to understand the scientific nature of reality, but in so many cases, the overwhelming limitation (which is perhaps inescapable) of being doomed to try to make sense of everything, always, through the human lens.
Concepts such as meaning and, why has this all happened, good and evil, significance etc etc - do not exist outside of our own minds.
Great Question!
I get the feeling Alex treads a fine line of equating scientific positions that is based on empirical evidence to theological/philosophical arguments/positions. When a scientist defines "nothing" its backed by real world phenomenon, not an argument for its sake. Another thing is that at the moment of the big bang, physics breaks down, but only physics as we know it. There is no implication that whatever the mechanics of the big bang weren't constrained by an unknown set of physical law. I feel like when it comes to using scientific arguments, you should really include in these conversations a scientist, rather than just an atheist or a philosopher. You go to such lengths to steelman theological perspectives, its a bit disappointing not to see it done for the other side.
There is a modern philosophical world view (with as many if not less holes compared to theological ones) informed by modern scientific knowledge. I hope to see that content explored on your channel!
physics “not as we know it” at the beginning of the universe (in a materialist reality) would still have to bend to laws of metaphysical conception, no? Therefore it’s surely not unreasonable to impose some sort of theological rails on this discussion
@@resolvestamp883 Why?
@@resolvestamp883 Whatever laws governed the first few moments of the big bang, we don't know what they were. Almost all of our intuitions of reality already break down at edge cases of GR and QM. And why does an absence of physical law make it reasonable to impose theological rails? How do you know what theology to employ and how can it be verified? The only good answer is to do more and better science.
If there were nothing then we wouldn't be here to think about it. In all worlds with thinking beings there is something..
Alex is one of my favourite atheists even though I'm theist. Alex is very respectful to both sides of the debate which I like.
My thoughts are, if there was absolutely nothing, then obviously nothing would or could exist.
But something obviously does exist.
Then for something to exist, something must have always existed.
I believe, and so do many scientists, physicists and cosmologists such as Stephen hawking, laurence krause, Alexander Vilenkin, Dr Hugh Ross etc, that time and nature had a begining.
Therefore something must have existed before the beginning of time and our natural universe.
I believe that was the cause of natural time and our natural universe.
I believe that cause was God.
Are there any logical errors in my thinking?
There is something rather than nothing because if there was nothing there would be nobody to observe “nothing”.
Tautology
This kindof reminds me of a debate i saw a while ago about whether souls exist or not. The "yes" team did a reasonable job considering the subject, but it occurred to me that the treated the answer like the final conclusion rather than a step in the march of progress. if you really thought souls existed then they would be something we should be studying like any other academic/medical subject. Can souls be manipulated? interacted with? Transferred? Synthesised? Repaired? Expanded?
It really felt like the "yes" team wanted to prove souls existed in order to justify their god belief but had no interest in any further implications.
Hi there, can you share the link of that video?
Nothing is nothing to think of. Why because to be conscious requires there to be something.
I'd argue that nothing is really a concept that we came up with to describe the lack of things. If there's true nothing, there's no observer to make the observation and label it as "nothing".
I always described sorta the same thing but a bit differently. I'd say we simply can not define nothing because by labeling it, we make it something. Does that mean that true nothingness doesn't exist? Not really, but we simply can not conceptualize it in any true manner.
"Why is there some poop on the lawn?" - "Why is there something rather than nothing?" - Obviously these two questions look superficially similar but have completely different logics.
There is no such thing as nothing. By definition, it cannot exist. Therefore the only option is for there to be something. That seems the most logical answer to me, but it also provides an interesting place from which to reexamine other questions. For example it appears to make the universe both finite and infinite simultaneously. It also does away with any worries that consciousness ceases to exist when we die.
The problem with your last statement is that consciousness is not a fundamental existence, but an emergent one. When the brain dies, the fundamental components of the brain continue to exist, they just change state and arrangement. However, the emergent property of consciousness only exists while the fundamental material remains in a certain state and arrangement, which is only a temporary circumstance. So in actuality, consciousness can still cease to exist in your framework. After all, your consciousness did not always exist, so there is no reason to believe it will always persist, sadly.
@@falsevacuum4667 Yes i agree, although i tend to think the term 'emergent consciousness' still muddies the water by continuing to suggest that consciousness is a 'thing' that come into being. I feel like it's neater to describe consciousness as the outcome or product of the human body functioning, in the way that music is the product of a piano functioning. When the piano breaks down the music stops, but it wouldn't make sense to ask where the music goes after.
However my point about consciousness not ending was more to do with how we experience our own deaths. When a melody stops, we experience silence; when a movie ends we experience a black screen. But if we accept that there is no such thing as nothing, how do we experience the cessation of consciousness? It would seem that, from the perspective of the dying, death is logically impossible.
@@doovstoover9703 I guess it just depends on whether the cessation of music and what comes after is "nothing" or "non-music". If it is "non-music", how does that fundamentally differ from "non-film" or "non-dog barking". Even though something persists after the music ends, in this case the volume of air that the soundwaves of the music resonated in, the music itself as in the particular arrangement of energy to create those vibrations ceases to exist. So, rather than "non-music" persisting as some sort of marker of the previously in existence music, you just have air and no music. In this sense when purely measuring the music, you really do have "nothing" that remains of the music afterwards.
@@falsevacuum4667 yes, but the 'pure' measurement of where the music begins and ends is an arbitrary distinction really. It's just part of an ongoing process of particles and movement that we have chosen to draw a line round and call 'music'. And so with consciousness. Like everything, it's really just a fragment of the whole that we have chosen to isolate and categorise in order to interpret the world. Maybe it would make more sense to say that consciousness doesn't cease to exist because it doesn't start to exist in any objective sense either.
I feel like the 'why is there something rather than nothing' question is so close to our intuition that for questions about the universe we need to be very carefull with our wording... Nothing and the absense of some object are far from the same thing. Only by having the object existing can one think of the absense of it, I don't think the oppositie way of reasoning can apply...
An example: If someone where to ask a question in the lines of 'why is there no bcueksbcrunenckdkefndki rather than there being one' you would think this person has lost their mind...
An extension of this argument could be that they question is nu itself biased: since you/things exist, such a question can be answered but does not have a mirror equivalent, thus, it is a bad question.
That last one is just an experiment, I could not think of 'good questions'/'valid questions' that do not have this mirror equivalency. If you think of one, please disprove my experiment 🙂 17:34
Our language itself might be what is limiting our ability to concieve what that original nothing looked like. We so often use "nothing" as an expression contrary to the absence of a particular something(s) (or sets of things); but usually never meaning a total void of nothingness. There may never be an actual no-thing. Language can only describe things with degrees of accuracy, and likely fails in this and many instances.
"Why it there something rather than nothing?"
The only logical answer i can give is "I don't know"... admitting one's ignorance is always the first step towards finding the truth.
Jesus Christ is King. Repent now and give your life to him !!
love this cross over
Nothingness is defined by somethingness. When we consider what nothingness is, we can only say it’s not a, b, c, d, etc, until we list out all of the somethings we can think of. So in that sense, nothingness already “exists” because it’s the absence of whatever something you want to talk about. But then the natural question is “To what degree can nothingness exist?” Can the lack of laws of physics exist? Can the lack of “laws” more generally exist? I can imagine pockets of existence which can contain these forms of nothingness, such as “the future” (let’s rule out retrocausation as a possible phenomena) if we understand the problem of induction. There are no laws in that realm of reality, and therefore it contains a deep form of nothingness. I’m not certain of all of this, but it seems plausible to me.
Therefore, nothingness already exists. These ideas were inspired by Chris Langan and his idea of syntax being foundational for reality. Perhaps the question we should be asking is how these definitional parameters of something and nothing arise in the first place.
For something to be, you’ll need something else to sustain it, and that which sustains it will be sustained by something else. If something is, there has to be being. But without a system of relation, what is, will die. So this system of relation or love is why something is, rather than nothing.