'Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?': Is This Question Meaningful?

It's often called the "biggest question" of philosophy. A question that's reverberated through history since the time of ancient civilisations. It's a question that still receives considerable attention today, and can lead to intense debates.

Some theists think that the question exposes a flaw in the atheist's worldview. Theists have an answer to the question: "God did it". The fact that atheists don't have a conclusive answer is seen as evidence that atheism is incoherent, or deficient in some way.

But are theist's giving this question too much attention? Some philosophers have begun to query whether this question is as meaningful as has been claimed. Could it be the case that "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is a question as confused as "What's North of the North Pole?"

I argue that there's a good case to be made that the question is meaningless, but even if there is a meaningful answer, there's no obvious reason to think that this question is important at all. An atheist's current inability to provide an answer is a sign of the intellectual humility of atheism, not of an incoherency of atheism.

[nahumcm]

Phisically debunked trying to debunk philosophy, *goes wrong*

[blackhaze]

I don’t find the argument convincing. If I was dragged before a firing squad of 100 trained marksmen to be executed. However, I’m expecting to survive the execution. So, the command is given to fire upon me and I hear the roar of gunfire. And then I observe that I’m still alive, that all the 100 trained marksmen missed. If I understand your argument correctly, to even ask the question “why am I not dead?” is a nonsensical question because I was already expecting to be alive?

[quad]

Suppose the question is reformulated to be 'How is it that there are things that could've not been?' Would that be equally meaningless?

[LouisGedo]

I've been thoroughly enjoying your content and I'm sharing some on Social media.

You deserve way more subs than you have.

[lapislazuli]

Awesome channel man (from secular roundtable )

[joelgunderson]

"why" is not a meaningful question because it presupposes intention, which requires an intender. "How" is the appropriate question regarding existence

[Achrononmaster]

The question is meaningful to me. But I do not require mere mortals to find a definitive answer. That's superior humility imo ;-) The atheists are not being humble, they deny, as a philosophical stance, that there could be a unique universal uncaused cause of all things (UUUC). However, using pretty plausible general causality postulates (which are not dependent upon physical notions of time evolution) there is a straight forward logical proof that a Unique UUC "exists" (is logically consistent with causality postulates). Whether you accept the postulates or not is your prerogative. I find agnosticism much more defensible and humble, sure it sounds like a cop-out, but is that not what you mean by being humble... to admit we just do not know the answer to a very meaningful and sensible question? When I press them on this, most atheists admit they are actually merely agnostic, but have strong biases towards non-existence of a UUUC for almost no explicable reason (usually just being they hate religions, it's almost always such an emotional thing with atheists, although they always pretend they are being "rational", it's like a kind of pseudo-intellectual bravado, "I'm more rational than you bruh!" ... yeah... right.).
Theists, by the way, do not know what they are talking about, literally, since any putative UUUC they label "God" is (pretty clearly I would argue) completely unknowable. Why so? I can give you a quick heuristic: taking a mathematical Platonist position for arguments sake, we know there are numbers (even finite numbers) that cannot be finitely named or described (see the work of Greg Chaitin). So given the logical proof from causality that a UUUC exists, the UUUC "causes" such numbers (in the general abstract sense of causation, not the physical sense), it follows that if some entity causes unknowable or indescribable phenomena that entity itself is finitely unknowable and indescribable, for to describe It along with It's causal powers, one would have described the unknowable numbers. I'll leave it to readers to figure out whether a typical theist has a finite mind or not, if not, then the proof is more complicated and requires transfinite number theory, but the result is the same, you cannot know or comprehend or describe your "God".

[geordiedog]

Thanks mate! That well really helpful. Although my brain hurts a bit now….

[AbrarManzoor]

I think you want to say everything is necessary and doesnt need explanation outside it and that is why some philosphers had argued that universe is composite and therefore is generated because everything made up of parts is generated.I prefer you to watch mohammed hijabs contingency argument.

[JerryPenna]

Have you heard Tracy Harris, former atheist experience host, speak of nothing? It’s very interesting.

Just trying to explain nothing is almost possible, yet the timeless-spaceless-immaterial god sounds close to nothing.

[Max_Doubt]

The answer is obvious! Some mysterious being using some unknown method created the universe out of nothing! :-)

[TheWorldTeacher]

Something IS nothing, both in quantum physics and in spirituality.

Ask me for my EXPLANATION of this seemingly-paradoxical assertion.

[nishijochiro]

I disagree, it doesn't seem silly at all, if you genuinely don't know why milk is being delivered to your door and always just expected it. Much like you don't expect things to fly away instead of fall when you drop them, is it silly to question why things fall?

There can't be actually nothing because by definition it's not a thing nor is it able to exist.
But if it doesn't exist what do we know as nothing? What we actually experience isn't nothing but absence of something. The absence of something first requires there be something to be absent. This is why there cannot be only nothing nor the absence of everything. The state of affairs could not possibly be any other way.

[Achrononmaster]

That was a nice finale.
But I don't think you hit home the point about once you think of an answer, then you typically have more interesting further questions to explore, such as why your favoured answer is reasonable or not. The "Why is there something rather than nothing?" question is probably better framed not as meaningless but as stupid. But I would say, it's not really even stupid, it is just a launching pad for more serious answerable questions. Because before you can even get a grasp on that initial naive question, you might want to think about the more based, "Why is there this something we observe rather than not something different?" That sets up some nice explorations in philosophy of physics. And before you answer them you probably have no grounds for returning to that first naive innocent question of something vs nothing.

[fanboy]

if there is nothing than "why nothing exist" is not a good question.But since something exist so why something exist needs explanation

[dominiks]

I mean... the video isn't bad, it's clearly more rigorous than most of the atheistic content on YouTube, but how can you talk about the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" without even once addressing the PSR? Even if it were true that there are more possible states of not-nothingness than states of nothingness, then the question would still arise WHY the particular not-nothingness that we live in arose and not a completely different state of not-nothingness.
I really don't see how a naturalist can give a sufficient answer to that question, it seems almost impossible *in principle*. The most plausible response that a naturalist can offer is "Well, it's just a brute fact!" But WHY should we assume that this is a brute fact when we COULD explain it if we assume that a metaphysically necessary being created universe? It's generally agreed that a theory should stipulate as few brute facts as possible and that a theory with less brute facts should - all else being equal - preferred. I don't think you've presented a convincing argument against this.

I also think that your comparison with numbers misses the mark - there's an obvious answer why there are numbers rather than nothing: because they are metaphysically necessary! Necessary things either don't need an explanation or they explain themselves*. Whereas the universe seems to be contingent, so the analogy fails.

* that's why the PSR is usually formulated as "Every CONTINGENT being needs an explanation for its existence"

[Achrononmaster]

Are you are biting off more than the average person can chew? It is more meaningful to bring the metaphysics down notch to just the physical: why is there a physical universe rather than no physical universe or some other physical universe? That is meaningful, because pretty much everyone can grasp how it might have worked out differently... many world theory and all that.

[buridah]

11 minutes to say 3 words - I don’t know.