So
far, I have explored a range of responses to the question: Why is there
something rather than nothing? It's been an examination of how the quandary
has perturbed scientists and philosophers, along with a tour of various
responses they have. It's obvious that no one has yet offered a decisive
answer... and maybe never will. I find it fascinating, because the range of
responses touches on some of the many interesting aspects of theories of the
cosmos.
But
there's another dimension to the question—a very personal one, that many of us
may have contemplated. Bringing the big question on this fifth and last blog down
to the individual level, one might ask: What about me? Why do I exist? Could I
just as easily not have existed? What is meant by my nonexistence? Could
I have been nothing?
If
we think about it, it is quite astonishing that each of us exists at all. Am I
not incredibly lucky simply to exist? Certainly it's not inevitable that I was
born. There is an unimaginably long line of coincidences that led to my being
here. Since Homo sapiens has been a separate species (for some 200,000
years or so), some 7,000 generations of parents have successfully brought forth
babies... all the way down the line to me. It's all about me! Had any pair of
them failed to procreate, I would not be here. Had any one of another of the
millions of my dad's sperms united with Mom's available egg on that romantic
night long ago, I'd not be here.
But
I am here, and it's quite impossible for me to imagine my not existing.
What does that even mean? On the one hand I know that the world could have
managed just fine without me... and will, after I'm gone. Yet for each one of
us, we naturally feel that we are the center of the world. This is my
world, and to imagine what it means for me not to have existed, is rather like
trying to imagine that the universe might never have existed. This life
is all I know! I'm all I know!
We
humans are probably the only critters on the planet who are aware that death is
inevitable. Someday each of us will die... be gone... essentially becoming
nothing. I was nothing before I was born and might well become nothing after my
demise. We humans most likely originated the belief in an afterlife, because we
can't bear the thought of becoming nothing.
While
alive, I can be quite confident that I exist. Here I am! In fact, Descartes
felt he solved the riddle of existence through sheer contemplation: “I think,
therefore I am.” Yet why am I me? Could I have been a dog or a mosquito?
These questions appear to be meaningless, or at the least utterly unanswerable.
How many of these questions about our personal nothingness stem from our being
uncomfortable with death? Death can seem to be the ultimate loss of beingness.
Buddhism
claims that the universe is neither something nor nothing... it's empty. This
is another conundrum that people struggle with. Empty of what? Without a
lengthy dive here into Buddhist teachings, it pretty much means empty or void of any
fixed, permanent nature. We tend to view the fluid and flowing happenings in
our world and try to create something solid and fixed from them. I am the same
person I was many years ago, right?
But
Buddhism says it's an illusion that something (at least something unchanging
and stable) exists. So could nothingness just be the other side of the coin;
the negative of that something? Am I back to Descartes' declaration that my
existence simply depends on my thinking? So, when I'm not thinking, do I not
exist? When I'm asleep, I'm unconscious. Do I exist then? When I am dead, do I
become nobody? Endless questions. Nothing for answers.
[Note:
A number of ideas in these five blogs stem from a fascinating book by Jim Holt:
Why Does the World Exist? (2012)]
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