Why does Anything Exist?

We have talked a lot on this blog about the nature of reality, about how real things exist objectively, and have natures by the mere fact of their existence. But there is a question we have yet to touch upon, and that is why there is a reality in the first place. Why is there a Universe and people and furry critters and chocolate fondues, instead of nothing at all?

When we speak of “nothing,” there are three definitions we have to keep track of. The first refers to the lack of something expected, such as when a parent asks their child, “what are you doing,” and the child replies, “nothing.” We are not interested in this type of nothing today. The second type of nothing people think of is empty space. There is no air or other matter, just the void. Those who are thorough in their thinking will say that it does not count unless no light is passing through it either.

We, however, will go a step even beyond that. To get a true State of Nothing, we must eliminate even time and space. No matter, no energy, no particles, no space, and no time. When we ask, “why does anything exist rather than Nothing?” this is what we mean.

Figure 1: This is an empty rectangle. It is not Nothing.








Figure 2: This is not even an empty rectangle. It is Nothing.

One possible reason reality exists is because there is an eternal God who has the ability to will things into existence. With this kind of God, creatio ex nihilo, or “creation from nothing,” is possible. If you look carefully though, this does not answer the question, but shifts it to “why is there a God rather than nothing?” A common response to this is that God is exempt because he is eternal, whereas the Universe had a beginning. This is unsatisfactory on two accounts, the first being that the claim that something exists eternally does not, in fact, explain why it exists in the first place. Secondly, we don’t know for sure that the Universe is not eternal. Perhaps a parent universe gave birth to our universe, in which case the Greater Universe might have an infinite sequence of past events. There is also the issue that time behaves in ways not well-understood in extreme cases like the big bang, and future scientific discoveries might reveal that concepts like “beginning of time” and “past-eternal” are naive, like the belief that all matter is made of air, water, fire, and earth. Alternatively, it may be that God is ontologically necessary, that is, it is impossible for him not to exist. But the justifications for this claim, the Ontological Arguments, are circular in their logic.

Another common response to the question of why anything exists is to reverse it and ask, “why should we expect there to be Nothing rather than a Universe?” It is a fair question, but not an answer in itself, and we have to be careful not to use it as an excuse to stop thinking about the topic.

Two common philosophical ideas about Nothing are of interest to us. The first, is ex nihilo, nihil fit, which means, “from nothing, nothing comes,” or, “nothing comes from nothing.” It seems like common sense that if nothing exists, nothing can come from it. After all, we don’t see random things popping into existence out of nowhere. However, “out of nowhere” is an example of the first kind of “nothing” that we said at the beginning of the discussion that we were not talking about. It is different from out State of Nothing, because in our everyday experience the Universe is already there, and the Universe is not Nothing. Still, it may not seem a stretch to assume that nothing can come from a State of Nothing either.

The second philosophical idea about Nothing is that in order to be a true State of Nothing, not only must it have no matter or energy or space or time, but no laws of physics may apply to it either. In this view, a law of physics would count as something, and such a law would itself need an explanation as to why it exists.

Let’s take a look at what happens when we try to apply ex nihilo, nihil fit and “no laws of physics may apply” at the same time. As we talked about last time in the Nature of Reality series, a law of physics is a representation, often written as a mathematical equation, of a physical state’s nature. If Nothing’s nature is that nothing comes from it, we can write that as a mathematical equation, dQ = 0, where Q is a vector of all possible quantities that can change, and d represents any change that happens to those quantities. Translated into English, the equation means, “the change in anything that can be changed is zero,” or, “nothing changes.” Thus, if nothing comes from Nothing, then that in itself is a law of physics that applies to a State of Nothing.

What we have just shown is that the claims, “nothing comes from nothing,” and “no laws of physics apply to a State of Nothing” contradict each other. This means that at least one of them is not true. Either at least some law of physics applies to a State of Nothing, or a State of Nothing would be unstable, and instantly create something.

If we accept that at least some law of physics applies to a State of Nothing, we cannot yet answer why anything exists, because that law could easily be “nothing comes from nothing.” However, it could also be something like String Theory or some as yet unknown Theory of Everything, which would predict universes coming into existence. Either way, we run into the question of why that law of physics exists rather than Nothing. The only solution I can think of is that, since mathematics and logic are transcendentally true, there is something buried deep within their uncharted depths that makes the ultimate law of physics ontologically necessary.

On the other hand, if we accept that Nothing has no laws of physics that apply to it, then something must come from it. As there is no limitation on what pops into being from this state, we might expect not only to get the Universe from it, but an infinite number of universes, where everything that is logically possible happens. These universes would be completely separate spacetime continua, so we would never be able to observe them, and it does not make sense to think of them as being in any direction from us, or before our universe or after.

Ultimately, I cannot answer the question of why anything exists rather than Nothing. We can, however, propose some possibilities. Perhaps, emergent from pure logic and mathematics, there is a law of physics which, when acting upon a State of Nothing, causes a universe to be created. Perhaps Nothing is not bound by any law, and so from it all things that are logically and mathematically possible spring forth into existence, each in its own universe. Perhaps there is a middle-man, like a God or a Force or a cosmic automated factory that is brought into eternal being by pure logic, and from which universes are created. Or perhaps the Universe merely exists because it exists, and the State of Nothing is a meaningless construct. Regardless, the Universe does exist, so let’s get out there and make the most of it.