h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The answer to this question is very difficult to understand. This is not because it is, in itself, difficult to think. But the process of extricating oneself from the idea that there is something "technical" in the question, and that a "technical" answer must be available somehow, is long and complicated.
Once released from this view of the question, one may arrive at the conception that existence is a gift. It is a gift because it is spontaneous and gratuitous. The existence of something instead of nothing is given to us, to all of us beings, by Being itself (or the transcendent, that which lies beyond). There is no reason for the gift, and nothing is expected in return. For if we are here to do anything at all, we are here to marvel and rejoice at this gift, and thus at the world as a whole.
I am about to publish a book which answers the question. I also have an article on the web (which doesn't give an answer, but talks about the question itself):

http://www.hedweb.com/witherall/existence.htm

Cheers
Arthur

Hello Arthur.
BTW, if you click on the preferences button at the top of the h2g2 page you can give yourself a nickname, which is a bit more personal than being known by your number, and will enable other researchers to remember you more easily. Also (if you haven't done so already) if you write yourself an introduction on your space (however brief) a friendly ACE (Assistant Community Editor} will be able to pop round and welcome you to the site, and give you some handy tips for getting about.

As to the question... most of us have probably experienced the 'oddity' of our existence at some point, but the question itself is actually meaningless. Anything that could count as an answer must be something that exists, and therefore does not count as an answer.
Catch 22 with a vengeance.

If you're interested in philosophy we'll probably meet again.

Noggin

I disagree.
It is not clear why you say that somehing which exists cannot itself be part of the answer. In fact, the traditional theistic answer is a case in point. Why is there something instead of nothing? Because there is a God, and God's existence is logically necessary.
You may dispute the truth of this answer, but that is not the point. It is at least a possible answer.
It seems to me that the question is meaningful. It has enough meaning to prompt our feelings of depth, wonder and awe, and to initiate philosophical discussions. As such, it must have some meaning.

Arthur

So does God count as something or nothing?
If the first, the question hasn't been answered.
If the second, the question still hasn't been answered.

To exist is to be a cause, and vice versa.

Perhaps meaningless is not the right word. Intrinsically unanswerable would probably be better.

This does not render the question valueless. In seeing why a question is intrinsically unanswerable we learn something about the nature of things.

Noggin

Hi, Noggin.

You said that "Anything that could count as an answer must be something that exists, and therefore does not count as the answer."

I disagree. The answer is of course thought, or rather imagination, which is not a 'thing' that could be said to exist. I believe that the question only begged a look at physical reality as the joke that it is by conventional sciences, the trick that has everyone (at least in western society) believing at a fundamental leval that this reality described in the classroom is the only one that exists, that it even exists at all. Some eastern philosophies teach the student (eventually) to stop believing what is percieved to be real is actually there, thus attaining the nothing that is everything. Essentally what I'm trying to say is why anything exists at all is simply because you, I, and everybody else participating in this reality creats it out of nothing by believing that it is.

Or maybe the solipsists have it right after all.

-s-