Why does something exist instead of nothing?

Question

If your answer is 'God', answer me this: Is god 'something'? So the question remains

"Why does 'something' exist instead of nothing?"

And no, 'nothing' is not 'something'.

Answer 1

Well, with our current understanding of Physics, there is no rational way to explain this. This is where my religious beliefs come from...to fill this void. Now, some may argue that fluffy pink unicorns can also explain this apparent void,and they would be correct. Personally, I like to use religion to rationalize this, but fluffy pink unicorns are just as valid a theory. Anything is possible, and religion is no more or no less rational than atheism.

Answer 2

The concept of nothing cannot even be expressed in many languages. It is a arbitrarily constructed concept and rather foolish if you think about.

A 'thing' by definition is an object, a concept, an idea, etc. It is commonplace in English to simply negate a concept with a prefix. We do this with the root word 'thing' to which we now have 'something' and 'nothing'.

Many English and German philosophiers have puzzled over a concept which is nothing more than a linguistic oddity. For example, the opposite of hot is not unhot, but cold. The opposite of a thing though, is somehow a nothing. The inverse proposition or premise of night is not unnight, disnight, nonnight, etc. It is day.

If we had to discuss day and unday, we could clearly find that "day" has a meaning and that "unday" was merely used to define the opposing state or concept.

What do delusions of gods have to do with nothing or something?

Answer 3

First, there is certainly such a thing as nothing. Mathematically, it is expressed as zero.

The universe, as pointed out in the June, 2007 issue of Discover Magazine is 74 percent nothing, called "dark energy" by phsyicists.

Atoms, the magazine points out, are mainly nothing--empty space.

The amount of nothing is growing--dark energy is pushing the universe apart.

So, grammatically, your question is a bit problematic. It suggests that the "something" of existence has pushed out the "nothing." This is not true. Something exists alongside nothing.

A materialist would argue that matter is the only substance; it is all that exists and it exists because of materialist interactions.

There are certain obvious problems with this.

Regarding your question, "Is God something?" you might be interested in looking at mathematician Kurt Godel's ontological proof for the existence of God.

In it he formalizes Saint Anselm's ontological argument for God's existence. This can be stated as:

By definition, God is that which cannot be exceeded.

God exists in the understanding. (God exists even in the understanding of an atheist, because an atheist cannot argue against the existence of God without having a concept of God.)

If He exists in the understanding--and he does--than we can imagine Him to be greater if he existed not only in the understanding, but in reality. Since God, by definition, is that which cannot be exceeded, then He cannot be limited to a concept in our understanding; he must exist in reality.

Therefore, God exists.

Godel provided a proof using the means of logic, and concluded that logically, God's existence is possible, that there are possible worlds in which God exists.

Answer 4

Because. Think about it. If there is nothing, then there is still something, because in whatever reality we are in we have given a name for the nothing-nothing! So it can't be nothing anymore, because nothing can be named!

Don't worry. I thought of all of this a long time ago, when I first had insomnia.

Answer 5

"Something" exists instead of "nothing" because nothing is the absence of something. If there can be none of something, there must also be some of it, or that something would not exist. In other word, by there being a "nothing", it is saying that a "something" must exist.

Answer 6

the very definition of existence requires there be matter or energy or what ever to "exist".... as nothing the the lack of "substance" then it quite literally cannot exist....

Answer 7

If you have nothing better to do, why not ask me something different?

Answer 8

everything is "something".
"nothing" is a relatively new humanmade concept.
"nothing" is its own something whether we like it or not.

Answer 9

God is beyond all reasoning. He is not something, nor is he nothing. he just is. As for why there is something, he needed someone to talk to.

Answer 10

your mind would die if it failed to perceive "something." and without you around, who would care about something or nothing?