The question is usually taken as concerning practical causality (rather than a moral reason for), and posed totally and comprehensively, rather than concerning the existence of anything specific, such as the universe or multiverse, the Big Bang, God, mathematical and physical laws, timeorconsciousness. It can be seen as an open metaphysical question, rather than a search for an exact answer.[10][11][12][13]
The circled dot was used by the Pythagoreans and later Greeks to represent the first metaphysical being and the metaphysical life, the Monadorthe Absolute.
The question does not include the timing of when anything came to exist.
Some have suggested the possibility of an infinite regress, where, if an entity can't come from nothing and this concept is mutually exclusive from something, there must have always been something that caused the previous effect, with this causal chain (either deterministicorprobabilistic) extending infinitely back in time.[14][15][16]
Arguments against attempting to answer the question
Philosopher Stephen Law has said the question may not need answering, as it is attempting to answer a question that is outside a spatio-temporal setting, from within a spatio-temporal setting. He compares the question to asking "what is north of the North Pole?"[17]
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that everything in the universe must have a cause, culminating in an ultimate uncaused cause. (See Four causes)
However, David Hume argued that a cause may not be necessary in the case of the formation of the universe. Whilst we demand that everything have a cause because of our experience of the necessity of causes, the formation of the universe is outside our experience and may be subject to different rules.[18][19]
In philosophy, the brute fact approach proposes that some facts cannot be explained in terms of a deeper, more "fundamental" fact.[20][21]
It is in opposition to the principle of sufficient reason approach.[22]
On this question, Bertrand Russell took a brute fact position when he said, "I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all."[23][24] Sean Carroll similarly concluded 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."[25][26]: 25
Roy Sorensen has discussed that the question may have an impossible explanatory demand, if there are no existential premises.[clarification needed][27]
Philosopher Brian Leftow has argued that the question cannot have a causal explanation (as any cause must itself have a cause) or a contingent explanation (as the factors giving the contingency must pre-exist), and that if there is an answer, it must be something that exists necessarily (i.e., something that just exists, rather than is caused).[28]
Natural laws may necessarily exist, and may enable the emergence of matter
"Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason... is found in a substance which... is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself."[35]
However, why whatever is necessary is a singular being, presumably with agency, has never been answered.
Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek is credited with the aphorism that "nothing is unstable." Physicist Sean Carroll argues that this accounts merely for the existence of matter, but not the existence of quantum states, space-time, or the universe as a whole.[25][26]
Philosophical wit Sidney Morgenbesser answered the question with an apothegm: "If there were nothing, you'd still be complaining!",[42][43] or "Even if there was nothing, you still wouldn't be satisfied!"[26]: 17
^ abSorensen, Roy (November 28, 2023). "Nothingness". In Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
^Cameron, Ross (2022), "Infinite Regress Arguments", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-10-22
^David Hume argues that our demand that things have causes "is not from knowledge or any scientific reasoning," but from "observation and experience". Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Part III, Section III, "Why a cause is always necessary", p. 82. It may be that what we observe in our own experience may not apply in some other situations.
^Mulligan, Kevin; Correia, Fabrice (November 28, 2021). "Facts". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
^Melamed, Yitzhak Y.; Lin, Martin (November 28, 2023). "Principle of Sufficient Reason". In Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"To explain why something exists, we standardly appeal to the existence of something else... For instance, if we answer 'There is something because the Universal Designer wanted there to be something', then our explanation takes for granted the existence of the Universal Designer. Someone who poses the question in a comprehensive way will not grant the existence of the Universal Designer as a starting point. If the explanation cannot begin with some entity, then it is hard to see how any explanation is feasible. Some philosophers conclude 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' is unanswerable. They think the question stumps us by imposing an impossible explanatory demand, namely, 'Deduce the existence of something without using any existential premises'. Logicians should feel no more ashamed of their inability to perform this deduction than geometers should feel ashamed at being unable to square the circle."
Sorensen, Roy. "Nothingness". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford. Retrieved 20 April 2019.
^Tennant, Neil (2017), "Logicism and Neologicism", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-10-22
^Sorensen, Roy (2023), "Nothingness", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-10-22
^Roy Sorensen has argued that curiosity about the impossibility of nothingness is valid, even if it is the case. He has said that curiosity is possible "even when the proposition is known to be a necessary truth." For instance, a "reductio ad absurdum proof that 1 − 1/3 + 1/5 − 1/7 + … converges to π/4" demonstrates that not converging to π/4 is impossible. However, it provides no insight into why not converging to π/4 is impossible. Similarly, it's legitimate to ask why non-existence or "nothingness" is impossible, even if that is the case. Sorensen, Roy (2020). "Nothingness". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
Self-Subsumption: "a law that applies to itself, and hence explains its own truth."
The Nothingness Force: "the nothingness force acts on itself, it sucks nothingness into nothingness and produces something."
"Imagine this force as a vacuum force, sucking things into nonexistence
or keeping them there. If this force acts upon itself,
it sucks nothingness into nothingness, producing something or,
perhaps, everything, every possibility. If we introduced the verb
“to nothing” to denote what this nothingness force does to
things as it makes or keeps them nonexistent, then (we would
say) the nothingness nothings itself."
Philosophical Explanations,
Robert Nozick
The Principle of Indifference: establishes that nothing is a possibility among the n possibilities of having something. Then "the probability that there is something is n/(n +1) if n is finite and 1 if n is infinite."
Fecundity: "Every possibility—including the possibility that there is nothing—exists in its own independent noninteracting realm."
^There are two errors in the the title of this book: A sourcebook of philosophical puzzles, paradoxes and problems, Robert M. Martin, p. 4, ISBN1-55111-493-3
^Goldstein, Rebecca (2011). 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. Vintage Contemporaries. p. 349. ISBN978-0307456717. The Cosmological Argument, like The Argument from the Big Bang and The Argument from the Intelligibility of the Universe, is an expression of our cosmic befuddlement at the question, why is there something rather than nothing? The late philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser had a classic response to this question: "And if there were nothing? You'd still be complaining!"