Why Is There Something, Rather Than Nothing?--Sean M. Carroll

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BidenPresident

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It was Leibniz, in the eighteenth century, who first explicitly asked “Why is there something rather than nothing?” in the context of discussing his Principle of Sufficient Reason (“nothing is without a ground or reason why it is”) [5]. By way of an answer, Leibniz appealed to what has become a popular strategy: God is the reason the universe exists, but God’s existence is its own reason, since God exists necessarily. (There is a parallel with Aristotle’s much earlier invocation of an unmoved mover, responsible for motion in the universe without itself being moved by anything else.)

https://authors.library.caltech.edu/84903/1/1802.02231.pdf

Carroll concludes that the universe is just a brute fact. Have to agree. Leibniz tried to use God as a necessary cause, but this fails.
 
"It seems natural to ask why the universe exists at all. Modern physics suggests
that the universe can exist all by itself as a self-contained system, without anything external to create or sustain it. But there might not be an absolute answer
to why it exists. I argue that any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the
universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation."
 
BidenPresident said:
It was Leibniz, in the eighteenth century, who first explicitly asked “Why is there something rather than nothing?” in the context of discussing his Principle of Sufficient Reason (“nothing is without a ground or reason why it is”) [5]. By way of an answer, Leibniz appealed to what has become a popular strategy: God is the reason the universe exists, but God’s existence is its own reason, since God exists necessarily. (There is a parallel with Aristotle’s much earlier invocation of an unmoved mover, responsible for motion in the universe without itself being moved by anything else.)

https://authors.library.caltech.edu/84903/1/1802.02231.pdf

Carroll concludes that the universe is just a brute fact. Have to agree. Leibniz tried to use God as a necessary cause, but this fails.
Click to expand...

It fails for one reason, the purpose of making people believe in speculation of God rather than everyone completely understanding the systematic eternal separation of biological results occupying space here now in ever changing form defined cradle to grave socially, not ancestrally configured conceived to decomposed in plain sight each reproduction is limited to adapting as timed apart since conceived to replace those added the conception.

Simple compounding DNA.
 
Being part of the existence it is impossible to apprehend non-existence. I can fathom existence, the part I cannot wrap my head around
is complete absence of all. I can conceive of everything collapsing into a point of infinite mass, I can think of all that is spread infinitely
throughout spacetime. I cannot begin to think about nothingness. It's my human condition.

Since I concede my failing in this regard, I cannot even get to the OP question about why one and not the other.

I am going to proceed on the assumption there is no great deceiver and not wonder why, but to do and die,
as Lord Tennyson instructed is our fate.
 
I have no problem conceiving nothingness, seems pretty straightforward.

The argument by Leibniz is that God had a choice whether to create a world or not. That nothingness is inferior to something is why God made the universe lo.
Some would argue that it logically impossible for there to be just nothingness--I don't agree.
 
BidenPresident said:
I have no problem conceiving nothingness, seems pretty straightforward.

The argument by Leibniz is that God had a choice whether to create a world or not. That nothingness is inferior to something is why God made the universe lo.
Some would argue that it logically impossible for there to be just nothingness--I don't agree.
Click to expand...

Leibniz- isn't that the same asshole who made that calculus notation we had to learn in AP math class? :|
 
BidenPresident said:
I have no problem conceiving nothingness, seems pretty straightforward.

The argument by Leibniz is that God had a choice whether to create a world or not. That nothingness is inferior to something is why God made the universe lo.
Some would argue that it logically impossible for there to be just nothingness--I don't agree.
Click to expand...

It's not possible to conceive of nothingness except in an abstract sense. Even empty space is still something.
 
BidenPresident said:
"It seems natural to ask why the universe exists at all. Modern physics suggests
that the universe can exist all by itself as a self-contained system, without anything external to create or sustain it. But there might not be an absolute answer
to why it exists. I argue that any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the
universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation."
Click to expand...

Agreed, obviously, that the Universe exists and is, for all practical purposes, stable. In the long run, it is dying like all of us.
 
American Man said:
It's not possible to conceive of nothingness except in an abstract sense. Even empty space is still something.
Click to expand...

The Universe is mostly space. Emptiness. There's nothing to measure, nothing to touch. Can't breathe it, eat it or feel it. It's deadly by the fact there's nothing there; no heat, no air, no gravity. A living human tossed into it without protection would exist in form but quickly die due to the lack of anything lie sustaining

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-long-human-survive-outer-space-without-spacesuit-2017-5
What would happen if you went to space without a spacesuit? Whatever you do, don't hold your breath! The vacuum of space will pull the air from your body. So if there's air left in your lungs, they will rupture.

Oxygen in the rest of your body will also expand. You'll balloon up to twice your normal size, but you won't explode. Your skin is elastic enough to hold you together.

Any exposed liquid on your body will begin to vaporize. So the surfaces of your tongue and eyes will boil. Without air in your lungs, blood will stop sending oxygen to your brain.

You'll pass out after about 15 seconds. 90 seconds after exposure, you'll die from asphyxiation. It's also very cold in space. You'll eventually freeze solid.

Depending on where you are in space, this will take 12-26 hours, but if you're close to a star, you'll be burnt to a crisp instead. Either way, your body will remain that way for a long time.

Gut bacteria will start to eat you from the inside out, but not for long, so you will decompose very slowly. You could be floating in space, unchanged, for millions of years. Who knows, maybe an advanced alien race will discover you!
 
BidenPresident said:
If the universe started out as big bang and billions of years later there is our galaxy and life--how is that stable?
Click to expand...

Unfolding in a predictable way = stable.

Current theories show the Universe is both expanding and accelerating in that expansion. If this is a true perception, then the Universe will die of heat death in about 22 Billion years. That's stable.

Do you believe the Universe is truly random or does it only appear to be random because there are so many variables?

Besides the fruitcakes and assorted nuts on JPP, who here really believes the Earth could suddenly spin off from the Sun or that the Sun would nova? The laws of physics are stable. Unchanging.
 
BidenPresident said:
The occurrence of life was random. Otherwise there would be life all over the universe.
Click to expand...

Disagreed. Life can only exist in specific circumstances with specific materials. It doesn't spontaneously or magically appear in space.

By observation, it appears life is very rare in the universe. It's also very rare in our own solar system except on one planet.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Disagreed. Life can only exist in specific circumstances with specific materials. It doesn't spontaneously or magically appear in space.

By observation, it appears life is very rare in the universe. It's also very rare in our own solar system except on one planet.
Click to expand...

Randomly appears. Not magic.
 
BidenPresident said:
Randomly appears. Not magic.
Click to expand...

Agreed not magic. Randomness is an appearance, not a fact.

Consider the balls in a Bingo Ball machine. Given a powerful enough computer and sensors capable of reading the mass, velocity and position of each ball do you think the next Bingo number to emerge could be accurately predicted? I do. Ergo, not as random as it appears.

Would an impact event on the Earth be random or could it be predicted?
 
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