Brute Facts: Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?

Why is there something rather than nothing? This teleological question has frustrated philosophers since Aristotle. The answer to the question is, "No good reason." Let me explain.

Reasons have to end somewhere. Eventually, explanation reaches its terminal point. There cannot be "turtles all the way down," as Russell put it. Let's look at two examples from the sciences of biology and physics, respectively.

Why does a stone fall towards the earth? Well, because of gravity, that's why? But what is gravity? Physics has no metaphysically satisfying answer here, but can only appeal to the phenomena. Physicists do not claim to understand the root cause of gravity. Instead, bodies in free fall follow paths of least resistance along geodesics - at least, that's what Einstein said. But why does the stone follow that path? Because it is the path of least resistance, that's why! But what makes the path of least resistance so special?

Now look at biology. I take it as granted that Darwin solved the problem of speciation. There are no fixed, natural kinds, created by God's special creation. Defeated here, ID theorists push the problem back: How did the first living organism originate. Darwin claimed to have no answer to this and ID theorists think it as improbable as a tornado assembling a functional jumbo-jet in a junk-yark. What is the reason behind life on earth? Like physicists on gravity, biologists have no metaphysically satisfying answer.

Science cannot find a metaphysically satisfying answer to these problems because the only acceptable answer is, "There is no good reason." Gravity and the origins of life are "brute facts," facts for which there is simply no metaphysical explanation. We can predict the phenomena caused by gravity and speciation, but we are necessarily ignorant of their roots, their grounds.

A psychological desire for metaphysical satisfaction leads some to postulate a God as the cause of it all, but this motive is illusory. Their reasoning leads all the way back, from biology and physics, to the question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Their psychology deceives them into postulating a God, but the real answer is this: "No good reason."

 

actually physics identifies gravity as a force. an actually weaker one, for all its dramatic effects, then the strong, weak, or electromagnetic forces.

what it doesn't identify if what, if any medium it is acting through, though the implication, as i read it, is that there doesn't need to be one, even though it is still popular to conceive there would have to be one for light to be a wave phenominon, thus appearently requiring the photon, which i sort of half way question. the need for there to be photons, rather then light as simply a higher freequency then radio waves on the electromagnetic spectrum.

i aggree with the no good or bad reason precisely though. whatever god or gods there are, exist because they feel like existing. not because anything requires them to exist in order to do so also. nothing has to nor has not to. simply some things observably are. or rather what is observable is observable. probabilities exist and are measurable. and probabalistic causalities are. and then there are things we can feel without knowing. which what gets unreal is what people pretend to know about them, even when large numbers of them do, for no other reason then each other is doing so.

that's why i don't claim there HAS to be a god, only that i feel invisible hugs once in a while. and the sources of those don't HAVE to be either what anyone thinks a god is, OR my imagination only, but quite possibly, even probably, something quite different from either.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Of course, but what is a force? Einstein's acheivement was to link electromagnetism to dynamics, with predictable results. But he came no closer to identifying the root cause or grounds of gravity than did Newton.

That is right, there is no medium. The Michelson-Morely experiment led the way in proving that there is none.

I am arguing that the world exists for no good reason because there is no God, or at least no God that interacts with the physical world (which is something we typically look for in a God).

Here is the best way I can explain it, and it comes from the history of philosophy:

Leibniz had an idea called "the principle of sufficient reason," which meant that for event or existence, there must be a sufficient reason, or else God would not have created it, as he always acts for the best. The explanations went all the way down to the metaphysical level.

Later, Schopenhauer came along and agreed with the principle of sufficient reason, to an extent. He believed that we could push the explanation back only as far as to the phenomena. Sufficient reason stops at metaphysics. Without going into the details of Schopenhauer's metaphysics, he believed the world at root, on a metaphysical level was devoid of meaning or purpose. He thought (rightly!) that this fact was revealed in science - in the physics of his day and in the evolutionism he anticipated. The chain of explanation ends at metaphysics, and beyond that, there is no sufficient (i.e. good) reason.

 

well i don't see that as an argument for there having to not be a god, only for there not having to be one. which is fine. i don't see a god or gods as something that has to exist in order to.

i see the brute honest answer as to why there is something rather then nothing being that simply we don't know. i have no problem accepting the possibility that we, any we, might never know.

i'll bet just about anything that if there is a god, (and see no reason why there couldn't be, any more then there would have to) it loves athiests and agnostics a hell of a lot more then it does fanatics of any stripe. i know i damd sure would.

if it had wanted yes men, it would have stuck to little furry creatures, or plants.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Gravity is not really a force. The gravity well produces a gradient where time flows at different rates and space is curved. This produces the illusion of a force it's not a true force. Objects in orbit follow a free-fall trajectory along a geodesic that happens to be curved. People floating in an orbiting spacecraft feel no force. It is only when an object is deviated from this free fall trajectory (such as when a person is standing on the ground) that it feels a force. And that is because it is being accelerated away from a free-fall trajectory.

Why does a stone follow that path? Why is it so special? Because of conservation of energy. Conservation of energy is the preferred path of anything because anything other than that would create or destroy energy. Where would the energy come from? or go to? If energy is not conserved, that's when things get bizar and require explanations.

As for science not finding a metaphysically satisfying answer - that's not what science is for. Science tells me how gravity works and I think it's pretty intellectually satisfying to know how it works, and I'll take intellectually satisfied over an Intelligent Theory of Falling any day.

BTW, I too would love to know why there is something rather than nothing. It would be an intelectual orgasm to know the answer to that one.

 

Standard answer - Well, why not?

This link has more answers http://www.csicop.org/sb/2006-06/reality-check.html

Non-standard answer - Novelty

 

From your link:

But it doesn't have properties. When we are defining 'nothing', we are defining a concept in our minds. Usually this concept describes what 'nothing' is not, or what attributes it does not have. Getting back to the real 'nothing', not what 'nothing' is not, not a conceptual picture of 'nothing', but actual nothingness. There is (not coincidentally) nothing to say about it.

Because of the first correction. There is nothing to say about 'nothing', and nothing to explain. If there is 'something' then there are a miriad of parameters and properties whose existance must be accounted for.

I do not accept this. Space & time have properties that exist without the presence of matter. In fact it's these properties that the article uses later on to show there should be something. But nothingness has no properties.

 

something and nothing are terms we came up with to describe reality, something being all that exists in our consciousness, and nothing being the lack thereof. the only reason that these 2 conditions are considered to be different from one another is because there are 2 separate terms used to describe them. think about it... what do you know of "nothingness" ? there is always something/nothing, and consciousness makes you aware of it. there is no beginning or end, only a state of being, and if you want to call something "God," that thing should probably be consciousness, but I personally think that God is a grossly misused term.

 

yes yes! nothing/something only exist in the terms we use it with.

if your life is pointless and you look towards death. there is nothingness.
but if you need to sustain yourself and your family or friends, life is filled with something.

with nothing, we wouldn't have something? with something we wouldn't have nothing?

...whoa...

 

Why is there something rather than nothing? is there really something? I know its nothing to worry about but it might be something to concider..

 

I think therefore there is something.

 

that's a bit old school.

 

Old school but true, our consciousness is proof to each of us that there is something. Of course there is no answer to why there is something but proof that there is no such thing as nothing.

 

again, these are just words... who's to say there's actually a difference between something and nothing at all? our consciousness is proof to me only that i am conscious and that i know nothing other than the reality i am experiencing.

 

the one brute fact as to why there is something rather then nothing is that no one friggin knows. neither science nor religeon, no matter how much religeous fanatics may try to pretend to.

god or gods there may be. it or they may or may not have anything to do with it.

the brute fact answer is still that no one friggin knows.

(and really, isn't it a hell of a lot more important for all of us, to avoid screwing everything up for each other? whatever anyone believes or doesn't.)

=^^=
.../\...

 

Agreed...

One step farther...

All that you are is a result of what you have thought.

All that is is a result of what we have thought.

If all that is can be traced back to what we think, then why can we think of things that defy the laws of the physical world?

The only logical solution is that there is something alive in us that is above the physical world other wise we would not be able to have such thoughts.

~Namaste~

 

because otherwise we wouldn't be around wondering why there is nothing.

 

why does anyone CARE why there is something rather then nothing?

where is the objective evidence of any connection between that, and, anything?

=^^=
.../\...

(i happen to believe there IS something big, friendly and invissible. patially due to my personal subjective experiences with it, and partially due to knowing of no good reason for there to not be. but i also believe in there being an excellent probability of it's not bearing the slightest resemblence to what ANYone thinks they know about it.)

=^^=
.../\...

 

Imagination, creativity...

 

Haha, there was a guy once upon a time who said that "the truth doesn't have to make sense because it has the luxury of being true". Basically he was warning against apparently "perfect" theories, because they tended to be wrong.