Why Are There Things Instead Of Nothing

Why should I do something instead of nothing?

There’s a lot you can do by doing nothing. And there’s often nothing you can do to do nothing. The root of morality is nestled in behavior and judgements of behavior. As hypothetical the behavior may be, what I get from the question case is that morality is inherently nonexistent. What matters not is the action but what matters is the intent. If it makes no difference to others, why wouldn’t you bother to follow the decisions of your own intent? The regret of your behavior will only follow afterwards which will lead you to have a different behavior in the future. This is while following the perspective, you could also regret doing nothing. Whether or not you do, it matters not what, it matters why. If there is simply no reason to reason on morality, then you might as well not wonder about the consequences of behavior anyway.For the case of splitting Marxists and conservatives (which is strange an sich), why would you classify these as the cornerstones of the base of “default” morality? What matters is the intent you carry. If you have the desire to contribute to society, it is up to you to fill in how you do that, but mind you the rest of society will still judge you for that regardless. If you have the desire to not contribute to society, there is no one to judge you for that on how you do that.

If there is no God, why is there something instead of nothing?

Nothing is a concept. Like a number. It is an abstract idea.It requires several complex abstract components:First it requires the abstract notion of a thing (non-specific entity). This notion itself is abstract. It signifies nothing about an object other than that it exists.Second it requires logic, specifically the concept of “not”. We know what a pig is. So it’s easy to now label something “not a pig”. Logic is another linguistic abstraction that helps us identify the set of things not in another set of things.Third it requires their combination: “not a thing”, or “no things”. ‘Nothing’ is a complex linguistic construct. You cannot meaningfully talk about it outside of that context. When we say not a pig we mean everything else in the possible universe of things that isn’t a pig, but what could we possibly mean when we say “not a thing”.Let’s say [math]A \cup B[/math] here was all the things that exist. Then [math]U[/math] here would have to be equivalent to [math]A \cup B[/math]. Or expressed another way [math]\neg(A \cup B) [/math]would not exist. There is nothing outside of existent things.This is actually apparent in the question itself if your willing to play with it, and untangle it a bit:There is something instead of nothing. [math]\iff [/math]There is not nothingThere is not nothing [math]\iff [/math]Nothingness does not existNothingness does not exist [math]\iff [/math]Only things that exist existDoes the question still seem convincing when untangled in this way?“If there is no god, why do only things that exist exist?”It’s a tautological non-question wrapped in some grammatical knots. Untie the knots, and the question dissolves on it’s own. We can’t define nothing as that which does not exist, and then marvel that it doesn’t exist.This question was asked to Neil Degrasse Tyson by Stephen Colbert and he was jokingly compelled to answer it in 10 words. His response:Words that make questions may not be questions at all.

Why was there something instead of nothing before the universe was created?

Why was there something instead of nothing before the universe was created?First of all, let’s address the phrasing of the question itself.‘Universe’, by many astronomers, is defined as ‘all that exists’. So there can’t have been a ‘before the universe’, because if there was, it’d be part of the universe.Second, ‘was created’ suggests that some outside cause might have been instrumental, but again, if the universe is all that exists, any ‘outside cause’ is part of all that exists, and therefore part of the universe.But if we change the definition of ‘universe’ and take it to mean ‘the observable universe’, how do we then distinguish between those parts of existence that are simply extensions of the observable universe beyond the bit that we can see (ie. normal space and time and matter and energy, but so far away from us that we can never see it), and parts of existence that are hypothetically, metaphysically, beyond the limits of ‘the universe’, and parts of some other ‘level’ of existence? Where is that boundary? What is the nature of that boundary? What defines it?This is a tangle of terminology and concepts, isn’t it?To cut through all this, perhaps it’s easier to say that, if ‘the universe’ is defined as anything and everything that exists or has ever existed, then nothing never existed. There was always, every time and everywhere, the universe, no matter what shape or state it was in. That means it was never ‘created’, it never came to be: it always existed.

Could we ever answer why is there something instead of nothing?

Could we ever answer why is there something instead of nothing?Good question!I've been asking the same question for somewhat more than five decades now. I've never gotten a satisfactory answer. But I have encountered many that thought me insane merely for suggesting it.To me, stating things like "the universe had no choice but to exist", "nature abhors a vacuum", and the most common, "god did it", are not at all satisfactory. Even if one believes in a god, they still have to question how that god came to be.I really think that it might have been that nothing existed forever. My best hypothesis is that there must always have existed some form of energy, which from time to time (whatever that might mean) causes a big bang from what cosmologists call a quantum fluctuation. Likely most of the universes contain no life. And of course, since we can question existence, we must live in a universe that does support life. Nothing else seems to makes sense to me.The simple answer: We got lucky (whether you believe in a god or not).