Why does anything exist?
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Why does anything exist?
1–10 of 233 posts
Re: Why does anything exist?
#2Survivor bias. If nothing existed [1], we wouldn't be here to ask the question.
It's like asking what is P(A|A).
The question "Why do I not exist" has never and will never be (seriously) asked.
[1] To be clear, if only nothing existed, and there existed nothing other than nothingness. [2]
[2] I sense epistemologists warming their guns here, asking if the "existence" of "nothing" counts as the existence of "something". I.e. is "nothing" something?
Re: Why does anything exist?
#3I liked the table comparing many disciplines' default instance of nothing:
Physics: No energy: the vacuum
Geometry: No dimensionality: a point
Set theory: No elements: the empty set
Arithmetic: No magnitude: zero
Information theory: No information: zero bits
Then they ask: "There is an unlimited number of possible theoretical systems. Does this mean there are also unlimited conceptions of nothing?"
Re: Why does anything exist?
#4Because everything else exist
Re: Why does anything exist?
#5I had a shower thought the other day: clearly conservation of energy is just a guideline and not a fundamental law. Otherwise, how could anything exist?
Re: Why does anything exist?
#6I had a shower thought the other day: clearly conservation of energy is just a guideline and not a fundamental law. Otherwise, how could anything exist?
A former physics professor of mine said that energy was not in fact conserved in the Universe because the expansion of the Universe consumed the energy. The total available mass-energy in the Universe is decreasing over time.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#7Survivor bias. If nothing existed [1], we wouldn't be here to ask the question. It's like asking what is P(A|A). The question "Why do I not exist" has never and will never be (seriously) asked. [1] To be clear, if only nothing existed, and there existed nothing other than nothingness. [2] [2] I sense epistemologists warming their guns here, asking if the "existence" of "nothing" counts as the existence of "something"…
It is still possible that nothing exists. For example, if physics rules are an algebra where you start with nothingness, and nothingness is then combined with nothingness in various ways. Then, from the inside it appears as if things exist, but from the outside it seems that nothing exists. Somewhat similar to a computer game which may look like an entire world from the inside, but you see only a bunch of computer chips from the outside.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#8To generate value for the shareholders, silly.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#9[deleted]
Re: Why does anything exist?
#10If you like questions like this, you'll probably enjoy the Closer to Truth series. All of its episodes since 1999 are on YouTube.
With regards to "why something rather than nothing", here's an article on the "levels of nothing". Even if there were to be no universe, no laws, etc ... could mathematics still exist?
https://www.closertotruth.com/articles/levels-nothing-robert...