Brian Leftow - Why is There Anything at All?

Why is there a world, a cosmos, something, anything instead of absolutely nothing at all? If nothing existed, there would be nothing to explain. That anything exists demands some kind of explanation. Of all the big questions, this is the biggest. Why anything? Why not nothing? What can we learn from the absence of nothing?

Brian Leftow is the William P. Alston Professor for the Philosophy of Religion at Rutgers University. He was formerly the Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oriel College, Oxford.

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.

[duytdl]

I just love the host. He seems to know all the jargon. After the guests give a long articulate answer, he just throws "oh you mean x", where "x" is a seemingly well-known jargon term given to whatever the guest was talking about. It really speeds up the process of extracting every last bit of knowledge the guests have on the subject.

[DrJanpha]

Listening to this dialog in the morning is enchanting nonetheless, more so with coffee

[jonathanspruance]

This was one of the best answers to this question that I've seen so far on this show. I agree that ultimately the answer has to bottom out in a brute fact (but not 'god'). I think that either 1) 'nothingness' is an ontological impossibility and therefore 'something', in it's most primary form has to be the brute fact underlying reality or 2) 'something' and 'nothing' are ultimately non-different at the lowest level of reality. I'm sure the answer is much more complex and elegant than we can ever imagine.

[bazyt]

The ultimate tough question, but they offer a good way to tackle it -- what form must the answer take or not take. Interesting discussion.

[DavidTraynier]

I appreciate his point about eliminating causal and contingent explanations, but I find necessity unsatisfying too. Necessity is surely a relational characteristic. If reality was born of an egg, what would it mean to say that egg was necessary? Necessary to what and why? How would one explain the necessity? How would one even know it was necessary?

My own view on this is that, with this question, we have reached the limit of our understanding. We are creatures born in a tiny aspect of a fundamentally casual universe. We simply can't conceptualise a reality beyond.

[docdaytona]

Getting a strong sense that the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” theme is playing in Robert’s head after about one minute of this topic discussion.

[Tom_Quixote]

It seems to me that he starts out by saying the answer can't be causal, but then he claims that there must be a necessary being that caused the universe to exist. That's causal.

Even if he just claims there are some things that are necessary, then where did that necessity come from?

[PEM-ztrd]

Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the host of all hosts. The quality of Closer to Truth and the quality of his questions together with the caliber of guests... makes this a show considered to be one of the GOATs. Yes... of all time... and space.

[francesco]

Brute fact does not explain "complexity" too (as Kuhn rightfully notice) ...would be a bit too much of a lucky chance. SO is something that exist necessarily, in a no-time environment ... most probably a kind of consciousness.

[ItsEverythingElse]

I'm starting to agree with the notion that the universe is indeed just a brute fact. Perhaps somehow arising from Platonic abstractions. The universe just has to necessarily exist.

[zenmite]

The question seems like a real question...even a deep question. As others have said, absolute nothing doesn't exist. It is a concept, an abstraction of the mind with no corresponding reality. "Why is a mouse when it spins?" At first glance, this seems like a real question, too. When I was 13, I started to think and experience that uncanny question as well. The fact that anything existed suddenly became weird. Existence itself seemed unlikely. I thought I was going insane. Like a zen koan, the only way to answer that question is by changing your perspective. You have to see the absurdity of the question itself. Existence doesn't have a cause, because that cause too would exist. Rules that apply to items within a set do not necessarily apply to the set itself. Just my 2 cents.

[Jinxed]

"Nothing" only exists as the opposite of something, as "something" only exists as the opposite of nothing. In both cases, "something" and "nothing" are required to make sense of either idea. The even more interesting reality is that there is not one square inch of any part of our reality where you'll find absolute nothing. "Nothing" is merely a concept provided for understanding a multitude of other ideas regarding reality. So not only can't there be nothing, but nothing isn't even a thing. It can't exist. OK, now I need an aspirin.

[TH-nxvf]

There is something rather than nothing so that nothing can know itself.

[HyzersGR]

Absolute nothing is impossible. Because the fact that something exists at all means you can never eliminate possibilities.

[georgegrubbs]

The answer is straightforward. There is something rather than nothing because there always has been something; it is the basis of all that comes from it.

[woofie]

The fault is in the question itself. Our language allows us to ask questions that do not have an answer within our current understanding of "reality", whatever that turns out to be. We need to better understand reality and consciousness before asking "why" and "how" the universe is what it is. Our language is not up to the challenge because neither are our brains.

[cCHIN]

As an organism, like all organisms, we have senses of things, including time and space in our case as people, and as people we have our own sense of time and space in reality, realized naturally as well as artificially. Truth, however is not reality. Truth is not for organisms. Only Awareness, which is more like intuition than knowledge, can realize Truth. In Truth, as much as there is something, there is also nothing. As much as there is space and time, there is also non-space and time-less. (Namaste❤️🙏)

[rc]

5:39 very hard question for any guest to answer :)... but since something requires something else as a source then the nature of the 'source' something has to be considered as being at least as complex as to enable the existence of the something we observe... everything, we observe, is following specific patterns that can be calculated mathematically, to a certain degree of precision... so, in order to enable existence of something, the 'source something' requires at least the ability to control and arrange the "element/s" of existence in a specific way as to enable their interaction among them... unless the element/s have these properties to begin with... even though, we still don't know if we're dealing with a limit space, energy, and time, erything derived from the source seems to be very attracted to these basic elements as without their possession their existence would not be possible... but to me it seems as everything without a structure/identify, or even when deformed out of its intended purpose will loose its structure/identify and cease to exist... 🤔

[kalewintermute]

Saying something necessarily exists is a lot different from saying there is a necessary 'being'. That aside, I liked this chap a lot more than most of the guests that come at the question with a religious background.

[levimatthewmorris]

The question presupposes a fundamental difference between something and nothing and a reason or purpose for the universe. I feel the answer combines something/everything/nothing and does away with the notion of why in favor of how.