The Notion of Nothingness—Part 5: A Personal Viewpoint

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)]

The Notion of Nothingness—Part 4: Some Additional Responses (12/21/19)

The responses I will describe in this post to the question Why is there something, rather than nothing? delve a little deeper into the issue, in the context of the previous posting's consideration of the definition of nothing. Now that we're potentially on the same page, we might better critically analyze some of these replies. I will attempt to present them from a common perspective.

These responses may also be thought of as the kind of answer or conclusion that a philosopher or scientist may settle upon, after listening to the earlier, immediate reactions... after further pondering the various alternative explanations offered by others.

One argument in this area of questioning of why anything exists—rather than a simpler nothing—is that the question actually rests upon certain hidden presuppositions. For example, our question presupposes that there must be an explanation, and even that we need an explanation. Why are we concerned at all about why the world exists? Why do we posit nothingness as the opposite of existence… the opposite of somethingness?

Furthermore, the question presupposes that nothingness even could exist. But how do we know that? We saw in the previous posting that it's hard to define nothingness, let alone demonstrate that it exists. This response also presupposes that nothingness could be the natural state of affairs of the cosmos. Why would anyone think that? There are those who argue that the existence of the universe is very much to be expected. Why would a nothingness state even be considered? In fact, there are some physicists who claim that the laws of Nature—which we humans been relentlessly discovering the last few centuries (but have yet much further to go)—might dictate that there has to be something. Nothing may simply not be allowed!

One appealing theory of some cosmologists is the possibility that the universe we know may be only one of countless others. Some mathematical derivations in quantum mechanics seem to suggest that a “multiverse” exists. String theory also leans in this direction—despite the fact that, to date, we have no evidence to support the reality of jillions of other universes… they just are a byproduct of the equations. If they do exist (maybe we'll find out some day), the answer to our question of why there is something rather than nothing becomes even more baffling and difficult, because if we are struggling to explain the existence of the one universe we know, isn't the problem ever so much harder, when we consider all those jillions of additional universes? Why do they exist?

Some scholars argue that the task is not to try to explain why the cosmos exists, but, more fundamentally, to describe what we mean by matter—that solid “something” that we're convinced is real. Here's another definition conundrum, it seems. Over 150 years ago the English practical physicist Michael Faraday argued that the only reason we have to suppose that matter truly exists, is because we can detect and measure the forces acting on it. If he’s right, we're compelled to describe reality by describing the forces and reactions on material things—not the things themselves. So what does this tell us about defining or detecting nothingness? Can nothing act on nothing? Isn't this getting overly complicated? My head is hurting.

Finally, some philosophers answer our question by saying it's not an either/or question of something or nothing... it's both. Is that a case of having your cake and also wanting to eat it? Doesn’t it maybe just raise another question: How can we have something in the presence of nothing? Yikes!

Will we have an answer some day, as science progresses? Maybe, maybe not. It may simply remain beyond us, kind of like the true nature of a television to a dog.

Next time (the last entry) we'll look at the question from a personal perspective...