Paul Davies - Why There is ‘Something’ Rather than ‘Nothing’?

We know that there is not Nothing. There is Something. It is not the case that there is no world, nothing at all, a blank. It is the case that there is a world. Nothing did not obtain. But why? Why hasn’t Nothing obtained? Is this ‘ultimate question’ a legitimate question? What can science contribute? What can philosophy?




Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist. 


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.

[Mike-dysj]

This question haunts me everyday. And I've been doing this since I was a child. What's funny is im almost 40 and never in my life has anyone brought up this question to me. People just assume existence is normal. Being a human being is normal. And the point of life is to make as much money as you can buy as much stuff as possible. This should be the most important question on earth.

[Brajgamer]

This is actually the mother of all questions.

[johndzwon]

Every time I think about this conundrum, it makes my brain bubble, because, in my mind, there should be nothing, and, in my opinion, the theory that you can have something spontaneously erupt out of nothing, means that it can't really be nothing, otherwise, nothing would come of it. So, in other words, a nothing that can produce something, is not truly nothing.

Sometimes, while sitting in my room, I'll look around and have this really profound sensation that this should not exist, and yet it does, so what the hell is going on? The implications are mind-bending and overwhelming.

[miniroundaboutinbrum]

That was the most succinct explanation of the delayed slit experiment and it’s implications I’ve heard so far

[tuneandsmash]

Paul Davies did as good a job riding the rocket as anyone I've seen on this program. And that, my friends, brings me closer to truth.

[suecondon]

I once had a general anaesthetic. I woke with the bizarre feeling that it was as if I'd died. No sensations, no memories, no thoughts, no pain... it was the most peculiar feeling, because during that period 'I' was literally 'nothing' and yet life was going on all round me, everywhere all over the world, it was just me that was absent from it. I think of that often, and that must be what it's like when we die.

[jffryh]

Let's have a full list of all of Robert's obsessions

[liberty-matrix]

Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.” ~ Karl R. Popper

[QuestingNeurons]

I'm on binge watching of all the videos related to this particular question of Robert Kuhn "Why there is something rather than nothing" and Paul Davies's version is the most fascinating one among all the Physicist to whom he has enquired this question. The problem is we are imagining Nothingness always in term of absence of something. We can't have other way around. IMO Absolute Nothingness is impossible to imagine or comprehend until we are stuck in the duality of something and nothing.

[seejayfrujay]

His books are great BTW. His work was my first deep immersion in particle physics and cosmology.

[rebeccab]

The one that really annoys me is that we cannot conceive of "nothing" or what that might look like. Even observing the vacuum in the dead of space, zero particle interactions, we see fluctuations at random in the quantum fields which underlie the universe. Even essentially TRYING TO FIND NOTHING, we get something. We find interacting quantum fields which underlie literally everything else happening in the universe, chattering away on levels that appear to be fundamentally random, without cause but with the effect being literally everything.

[stuartporter]

I am grateful for Paul Davis's books written for the layman.
I read "Other Worlds" nearly 40 years ago and it it had a profound impact on the way I saw things.

[HeavenlyWarrior]

The answer is surprisingly simple: because there is something. If there is something then nothing can't be and that's the whole reason why nothing is merely an abstract concept, like zero. Zero doesn't exist, we made it up, same thing for negative numbers, they mean absolutely nothing in reality, we just made them up. There's not a single natural example where negative numbers can be applied.
This to say that nothing is just an abstract concept like many others, they only exist in the conceptual form, they have no reality besides the concept itself.

[richardfurness]

It's quite hard to envisage 'nothing'. Laypeople like myself tend to think of 'nothing' as an empty. timeless void, but of course that wouldn't exist if there was nothing at all that existed. I've thought about this for some time, and my view is that 'nothing' precludes its own existence simply because the concept of existence itself wouldn't exist.
Bloody hell, that sounds like something you'd hear on a bad episode of Doctor Who.

[chicojcf]

This is such an interesting topic. Thanks!

[liamcelt]

I have no idea what he just said, but bloody hell it was interesting.

[rcollins]

A topic that has fascinated me for about 60 years (I’m 66!). The thought that lingers after watching this interview is that it seems to imply we humans may have this cosmic playground to ourselves. If observations can influence the past as well as the here and now, if another sentient life form 90bn light years away made an observation that changed the understanding of the energy levels of a particle, I know it’s reduction ad absurdo, but that might preclude the formation of nuclear fusion, then the sun would cease to exist and our heating bills would rise quite sharply! So to have two “observers” could surely create paradoxes that may have deep and unexpected consequences?

[borderm]

Wheelers Delayed Choice was one of my favorites!

[marksevel]

we chase material luxury, but it's nothing compared to the cosmic luxury we have

[francesco]

"something" and "working" are two very different things. And if there is no "intelligent push" is not only already strange that there is something but that is almost impossible that there is something that works on a complex level. Was really an option that a no complex reality was possible ? 2 electrons bumping into each other for eternity ? a cloud of hydrogen standing there forever ? Was that an option ? I think this is a good proof of a somewhat intelligent design...