Something | The Armchair Antichrist

Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing (Part 2)

On February 6, 2010, In Cosmology, Philosophy, By The Armchair Antichrist

This is of course a continuation of Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing.

For this I will turn to one of my favourite pre-Socratics, Parmenides. I will present his arguments which will hopefully help answer this ultimate question.

P1: If you can think about nothingness, then it has at least two attributes: it is knowable and thinkable.
P2: If ‘nothingness’ has attributes, then it isn’t nothingness; it is ‘something’ knowable and thinkable.
P3: It is absurd to claim that nothingness is something.
Conclusion: You cannot think about ‘nothingness’.

P1: If the cosmos comes to be it must come to be from what is not (nothingness) or from what is (something).
P2: The cosmos cannot come to be from not being/nothingness.
P3: The cosmos cannot come to be from something/what is because it already is.
Conclusion: The cosmos cannot come to be.

P1: If the cosmos is perishable it perishes into something or nothing.
P2: It cannot perish into something because that is still the cosmos.
P3: It cannot perish into nothing.
Conclusion: The cosmos cannot perish.

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Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

On December 29, 2009, In Cosmology, Philosophy, Science, By The Armchair Antichrist

To answer this question we first have to inquire into what “Nothing” is. Heidegger believed it to be something. For example, he saw the desire for Nothing as different from having no desires. But, this treatment of Nothing as something leads to a logical absurdity.

Premise 1: Nothing is better than great sex.
Premise 2: Pizza is better than Nothing.
Conclusion: Pizza is better than great sex.

Nothing is not prior to the Not. Rather, the Not is prior to Nothing. The Not reverses the truth value of statements from true to false and vice versa like a switch. Heidegger wrongly treated Nothing like a substance or a name just because it was a noun in language.

Therefore, Nothing cannot be a state of affairs unless it is compared to something (i.e. Not something). So, logically something has always existed which renders this question meaningless.

This leads us to the next question which is why is this “something” the way it is? Why is the universe ordered in this way? For the answer to this question I turn to the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle basically states that we see the universe the way it is because we exist.

The reason why the Big Bang occurred about 10 billion years ago is because the universe needed to be old enough so that some stars will have completed their evolution to produce the elements out of which living things are made, and young enough so that some stars would still be able to provide energy to sustain life. If this was not the case we would not be here to ask the question.

For better explanations you should turn to the work of cosmologists and physicists who are tirelessly working towards a better understanding of the universe.