The first of the two answers is that something emerged from nothing. If we seek an answer to this question we have to be willing to accept an idea contrary to our commonsense understanding of the world.īut which of these paths leads to the correct answer? Something from Nothing? There’s no other way to reach “ something exists” without either starting with something at the beginning, or starting with nothing and having something emerge from nothing.

How could anything create itself, or exist without some creative act?Īnd yet, that one of these answers must be right seems inescapable. Everything we know appears to have a preceding cause. The idea that there exist self-existent things, is contrary to experience. How can nothingness do, nevermind create, anything? The idea that something came out of nothing is contrary to reason. One reason we find “Why does anything exist?” so difficult is that there are only two possible answers - both are repugnant to our intuition as each contradicts our commonsense understanding of the world.ĭid something come from nothing, or are there self-existent things?

Higher Planes: God, Multiverse, Simulation.

The Physical: The Universe, Physical Law.

Abstract Entities: Logic, Truth, Numbers.

Let us retrace humanity’s steps in finding this answer, and see what this answer reveals about the nature of reality and our place in it.

So far, observations are in agreement with this answer. The answer we have is more than an idle philosophical speculation - it can be observationally tested and thereby be confirmed or falsified. We can now say, with some confidence, why we exist. In the past decades, results from physics, cosmology, mathematics, and computer science, have coordinated at last to solve this timeless question. But we live in a most-exciting point in time: one where this question has fallen to the progress of human knowledge. 1500 B.C.)įor most of history, the question remained beyond the possibility of being answered. Surely he knows, or perhaps he knows not. Who, then, knows whence it has come into being? Whence this creation has come into being whether it was made or not he in the highest heaven is its surveyor. Who knows truly? Who here will declare whence it arose, whence this creation? The gods are subsequent to the creation of this. Some have suggested the answer is unknowable. An answer to this question would tell us not only why we exist, but also what else exists, both within the universe we see and beyond. We would know our place in reality, and understand the reason behind it all. With an answer to this question we could orientate ourselves. Robert Nozick in “ Philosophical Explanations” (1981)

How can we know why something is (or should be) a certain way if we don’t know why there is anything at all? Surely this is the first philosophical question that has to be answered. It is possible to think that one cannot answer any question if one cannot answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Some say without an answer to this question, we can’t know anything: Our ignorance on this question makes us like an amnesiac who awakens in a dark and strange place - knowing neither where we are, nor how we got here. Lacking an answer, we are like a ship adrift. For we all seek to know: why we are here? Where does it all come from? Why is there anything at all?Įvery society in every time has wrestled with this dilemma. Martin Heidegger called this question the “fundamental question of metaphysics.” But it might as well be the fundamental question for any being - our existence poses a mystery that demands an answer. Derek Parfit in “ Why Anything? Why This?” (2008) No question is more sublime than why there is a Universe: why there is something rather than nothing. Ludwig Wittgenstein in “ Treatise on Logic and Philosophy” (1921) Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is. The first question which we have a right to ask will be, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in “ The Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason” (1714) This question has awed and mystified people throughout time. Why does anything exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Wouldn’t nothing have been so much easier?

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