By Morris Dean
As far as I can remember, I didn't wonder as a child why there was something rather than nothing, and I don't remember hearing anyone voice the question. I believe I came upon it for the first time at age 19, in a book by German philosopher Martin Heidegger –Introduction to Metaphysics (from a 1935 lecture).
I'll go into the reason I may have thought of today's question further down, but, first, here are a few responses that have been offered to the question:
Why is there something rather than nothing? At this very moment, were God not causing the cosmos to exist, there would be nothing rather than something. [–Dominicans of the Province of St. Joseph, in "Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" on the Strange Notions website]
Why is there something rather than nothing? It is impossible for "nothing" to exist. All attempts to define or describe nothing lead us to something. [–Article in Conservapedia]
Why is there something rather than nothing? There just is. The is-ness of the universe is one of its interesting features. Sorry if that isn’t satisfactory. It is because it is. Let’s move on. [–Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, May 14, 2013]
Why is there something rather than nothing? Well, why not? Why expect nothing rather than something? No experiment could support the hypothesis "There is nothing" because any observation obviously implies the existence of an observer. [–Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on "Nothingness"]
Why is there something rather than nothing? All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word "no." To "no" there is only one answer and that is "yes." Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread. [–Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, 1862, pt. 2, bk. 7, ch. 6; quoted in the same entry of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
Why is there something rather than nothing? Invoking God is not necessary to explain the origins of the universe. The Big Bang is a consequence of the laws of physics alone. "One can't prove that God doesn't exist, but science makes God unnecessary." [–Stephen Hawking, in his 2010 book, The Grand Design, summarized in Wikipedia; I have not read the book]
Consider the title of Barnes's book: death is Nothing to Be Frightened Of. One of the rationales for not being frightened of death comes from the Greek philosopher Epicurus, as Wikipedia summarizes it nicely:
Or, as the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer put it (and he too got if from Epicurus, according to existential psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom, in his 2008 book, Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death), "After our death we will be what we were before our birth."He also believed, contrary to Aristotle, that death was not to be feared. When a man dies, he does not feel the pain of death because he no longer is and therefore feels nothing. Therefore, as Epicurus famously said, "death is nothing to us." When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the belief that in death, there is awareness.
As a cosmologist might point out, as far as you and I individually are concerned, "before our birth" lasted for over 14,000,000,000 years (that's 14 million millennia, or 140 million centuries). During all that time we were nothing and, after we die, we'll be nothing for as many more years as time goes on. In our cases, that is, our "something" is relatively infinitesimal. Yet, to us, it seems presently forever and, if we're wise, we cherish it for the little time we actually have it.
But, all that aside, I think it's obvious why there is something rather than nothing: There has to be something, otherwise we couldn't be asking the question.
| Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean |
Oh mon, you been in the ganja again. Should never put thoughts to print when you are high. Pass it on my brother----
ReplyDeleteanonymous, thanks for the lol, but its not the eternal nothing that frightens me, and certainly not my own, its the frequently icky something and sometimes for years that tends to precede death,...and the more one dwells on that, the sicker one can make oneself....oh well, not here yet...time to run out and have more fun...
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