Peter van Inwagen - The Mystery of Existence

If all that exists—everything imaginable, physical and nonphysical—is ‘something’. Why is there ‘something’ rather than ‘nothing’? Wouldn’t ‘nothing’ be simpler than any sort of ‘something’? It’s a haunting wonderment. It’s the biggest possible question. Why is there anything at all? There must be an answer. But who can know it?

Peter van Inwagen is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O’Hara Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[RangerN]

As a child, I was constantly losing sleep as I couldn’t wrap my head around the beginning/end of time and space. Nobody seemed interested in discussing it. It felt lonely. As an adult, I’m grateful for this channel, and for these great minds. Thank you Robert! You are the man!

[metsrus]

I've always felt existence is some kind of paradox, something that you can't use reason and logic to get to the bottom of. And Robert's mission to understand the "truth" is similar to Sisyphus' task of rolling that huge boulder up the hill for all of eternity.

[zenmite]

Like Robert and many others, I too had an existential crisis as a young teen. My terror wasn't only of 'nothingness' but of somethingness. Existence itself seemed strange and unlikely. This feeling was tied to several questions at the time; Who am I? What is reality? Where did the universe come from? And, why is there anything at all (something)? Unlike Robert, my own terror did not go away in a few weeks. It persisted, and drove me on to devour every philosophical and cosmology book I could get my hands on. (I suspect Robert is still plagued by this fear on some subconscious level, that's why he regularly brings this question to Closer to Truth.) What I felt was sheer terror of existence. I studied all the major religions and their holy books, but found no relief in belief or faith. It was only by directly confronting my inner terror that eventually resolved those questions.

Fifty-odd years after first asking them, here's my view now. Those of us raised in any of the western Abrahamic
faiths are taught that God created the universe ex-nihilo, literally out of nothing. Thus, we begin with the idea that God might have chosen not to create the universe--- as if nothing was an option. Absolute nothingness is an abstract creation of the human mind, and has no basis in reality itself. Nothing, in its common usage, just means that particular set, container, designated area, etc. is empty. This is a valid, relative nothing and exists over and against something. We extrapolate this relative concept to imagine that an absolute nothing might also have existed. Existence itself seemed terrifying because I saw myself as somehow outside it. When I was a child of about eight, I woke up one morning to find a hand hovering over my face. I was frightened for a few moments as I was awakening because I briefly thought the hand over me belonged to someone else. Once I woke up further, I could see it was just my own hand, and the fear left immediately...leaving me feeling a little silly for being fearful of my own hand. Many decades later, I realized something similar about existence...the same existence that terrified and haunted me for years was just me.

[rikard]

One of my absolute favorite channels on Youtube. Much love from Sweden.

[BobBatian-io]

One of the great benefits of seriously asking the question “why is there anything, rather than nothing at all”, is in the confronting of the ever present mystery that envelopes everything. Keep alive that yearning to know that is so strong that it must ask such questions, and also keep alive that sense of doubt that cannot be quieted by the drive for tying things up neatly—truly seeing is a high wire act!

[angelomiguelhandpan]

If there would be nothing we still wouldn't be satisfied...

[cmvamerica]

If something can’t come from nothing, then something always had to be here.

[georgegrubbs]

I look at these questions differently now that I have matured to eighty-three years of age and have studied them all my adult life. I don't see these questions as mysteries. Sure, we may not know all the answers to all the questions, but we know a lot.

We know enough to realize that we live in a natural physical world without spirits, gods, angels, demons, (divine) miracles, or the like. We know there is no heaven and no hell, no reincarnation, and no talking to the dead. There are events and personal experiences that are unusual, and in the final analysis, they will be seen to have a physical basis.

We know how humans and other life forms came to be. We probably will never know the exact way that life began on our planet, since we do not know the exact environment in which it began, but we have quite reasonable theories. I'm satisfied that we know that life formed by physical means around 3.8 to 4.0 billion years ago. Once life began, evolution by natural selection took over.

My tentative belief regarding the larger Universe is that it is "infinite" and "eternal." I put those words in quotes because they have no concrete meaning in our finite existence. Suffice it to say that the larger Universe has alway existed and always will exist; there was no "first cause." If someone wants to put a tag on it and label it "God, " that's fine with me as long as they realize that Nature or the larger Universe is not a being or a mind, and doesn't intervene on anyone's behalf. It proceeds according to natural laws.


What is this "larger Universe"? It is the energy substrate from which all else emerges. Perhaps "dark energy" is evidence of the larger Universe. "Our" observable universe emerged from the energy substrate. Call it the "Big Bang, " but I believe that is a misnomer. I prefer "Big Inflation." Additional knowledge about the observable universe is discovered almost daily, and I feel confident that solid evidence for the larger Universe will be found and confirmed.

So, continue the great scientific journey to discover Nature's nature.

[percentSNAFU]

Quite simply nothing doesn't exist, just like cold and dark don't exist in the absolute sense. You can't add cold or dark to something you can only take away heat or light, which are concrete items. Nothing is the same thing. You can't add nothing. You can only take away something. Cold, dark, and nothing are only relative terms and are not concrete or absolute.

[landspide]

People throw around infinity without a full appreciation, infinity is everything, including nothing.

[raisingawarenesslovepower]

Why is there something rather than nothing? There is something rather than nothing because something precedes nothing.

[Paraselene_Tao]

The question of, "How come there's anything rather than nothing?" has bothered me for a while, too, and my quickest answer is that without us being here to ask the question, then there wouldn't be anything asking the question. It is this tight, almost dizzying, or perhaps vertigo feeling of a tautological statement: we are here to witness Ourself—the universe itself.

[RexRichardson-xj]

The answers he and all of us who watch this are wanting to know, will never be known. And that's a crying shame because the reason for all of this is far....far more fantastic than any of us could possibly imagine.

[offtheradarsomewhere.]

We are the universe we are not separated from it we are made from the same fabrics, we our conscious and to think we our separated from the rest of it, is like saying your head is not part of your body.

[brendangreeves]

It depends upon what you mean by "nothing".
Nothing, in an absolute sense, is impossible.
The purely abstract, dynamical, relative state is fundamental, in which ever - changing patterns manifest as what we call nature.
It has to be that way. The alternative is impossible.
To put it another way, nothing is the negation of something, but since the absolute state is impossible, it’s negation is meaningless.

[Appleblade]

Brilliant! I hadn't heard the probability argument before... it's very nice. It's anchored in the presumption that there is a realm of essences (probabilities / possibilities...real, not just epistemic ones) that are necessary and productive of concrete existence(s). Plato & followers seemed to have that view... so... good pedigree.

[picksalot]

Looking at that question from the standpoint of Cause and Effect is useful. If the "Something" is an Effect, then there must have been a Cause sufficient enough to produce it. If it is not an Effect, then it is self-existent.

[halleuz]

Van Inwagen never ceases to provide arguments I find unconvincing. What does "probability" even mean in this context? Of course you can mathematically construct some number here, 0 or more plausibly an infinitesimal value. But who conducts the dart throwing experiments and provides actual frequencies to compare? (Compare the videos on fine-tuning, e.g. Maudlin) And anyway, whatever the metaphorical dart throw stands for, that is something outside and above the 'possible' state of nothingness. So 'absolutely nothing' is still impossible in this scenario, or thought experiment or metaphor, or whatever it is.

[darkknightsds]

Look at all the comments that have been posted without watching the whole video first. People just out there living to their own expectation instead of trying to learn something.

[andrashorvath]

Wow, fantastically holding the ground!