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

The question Heidegger raised was, 'Why is there anything rather than nothing?' (Being German, he probably asked something more like 'Warum es alles eher als nichts gibt'; but alles can be translated as either anything or everything.

Many of the comments to the piece either intentionally or unintentionally get sidetracked from Heidegger's issue.

The comments to this piece range from, 'why not', 'God', 'we don't need no stinkin' answers', 'it needs no precondition', 'there is something because we percieve time', it's a Zen thing, '42', it exists because organic life exists, 'we and our Universe bring each other into existence' (the anthropic principle), and 'how do we know that anything is in fact there'.

Most philosophy is considered obtruse by most people, but the real essence of philosophy is that it must all extend from logic. We start with first principles (I think, therefore I am), and proceed along a logical route of discovery. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the question is that it could not be asked if there was nothing; yet, the question itself would still be valid even if it becomes reversed to 'Why is there nothing rather than anything?' and never actually asked.

So, starting with the assumption that 'I exist, because I think and believe myself to exist', we proceed to knowing only what we know because of the brain interpreted input from our senses. This smacks of solopcism, to be sure, but our senses have provento us that they are 'right' and 'true' - most of the time - by not allowing us to walk through solid objects; consistently getting burned by high heat; understand that wetness is okay, but submersion can lead to drowning and the lack of the ability to think we exist; and enough dead bodies strewn around to understand that when someone stops thinking, they do not stop existing.

But, we can be certain that he universe is not anthropically produced, or we would look out and see what we expected to see rather than, as is much more often the case, completely flummoxed by what we find. If the univers could, and were to, look at us, it would have a far more universal view on the subject of existence (having nearly 14 million earth years more experience) and likely say, 'Oh, well yeah, that makes sense.'

So we must assume our existence and that of the universe, because failing to give it the benefit of the doubt too often ends in pain, losing bits of our bodies, or some of the more permanent kinds of death which we cannot completely avoid in any case.

With, and from, that assumption was formed the question (and, I assure you, Heidegger was not the first to ask) 'Warum es alles eher als nichts gibt'.

Logic, and therefore philosophy, dictates that we use what we feel that we do know, and draw conclusions from it.

If we know that we exist and, by extension, we know the universe exists, we must trust our senses and those tools that we've used to extend the use of our senses. Given that, we have pretty much ascertained that the universe had a cataclysmic sort of beginning X million years ago. That beginning is why our universe exists, and why there is 'anything rather than nothing'. We can then turn our thoughts to the related question, 'Well then, why did THAT happen?'

As we understand the universe, all is cause and effect. Nothing happens else there was a reason for it happening. Many of the most perplexing processes we've discovered have all, eventually, had their mechanisms understood. Although there are other questions that remain to be answered, few scientists feel that there is a significant number of macro processes that are not fathomable given sufficient information, time, and study.

Although several interesting theories are being studied that are purported to allow existence to develop from non-existence, we have no satisfactory and verifiable reason (in our existence and universe) to believe that such a thing is possible. We know matter and we know energy. We can even convert either to the other, demonstrating that they are all essentially the same stuff. In our closed system, neither can be created or destroyed. When we have found discrepencies, we have generally found answers that support the closed system theory of the universe.

So, if nothing comes in or goes out, and we're left only with what the 'big bang' hath wrought, why did it start in the first place?
Initially, there are very few possibilities:
1) It didn't happen.
Unfortunately, we have far too much proof that it did.
2) It's cyclical, and is likely to happen again.
The problem with this theory is that we perceive the universe to be expanding at an increasing rate, not being slowed by gravity and brought back to a single point.
3) It's a one-time event.
At the moment, the most likely seeming candidate.

Now, if there was the singularity that went '~*~' (there's no bang sound in a vacuuum), there are three possibilities there:
1) It always existed, in which case:
It was eternally stable and could never have gone '~*~'.
Something acted on it to make it unstable.
2) It was brought into existence, already unstable.

Either way, of the two remaining possibilities, logic demands that some force or entity, external to the singularity (and therefore external to our universe and our existence) was responsible for the '~*~'.

Speculate all you want on who, what, how, and why, but we know the when and the result. We have a very old (by human standards) universe that existed quite well without us for millions of years, and probably doesn't even care that it raises these questions for us.

Feel free to call that event god-inspired, if it helps you to cope.

Very interesting stuff, Ford's Towel. But:

'That beginning is why our universe exists' is the nub of where you're leading yourself astray. Read the article again, and it will be clear to you. The section calling for (though not in these words - it is a popular not a philosophical piece) what H. refers to as 'thinking poetically', meditating on the question rather than seeking an easy answer, (the Can There Be Any Sort of Answer section). The 'big bang', although it now has strong theoretical competition, is not WHY our universe exists. It is HOW the universe began, it's not the answer to any sort of WHY question.

Science does not set out to answer WHY but HOW. Why was there a big bang? Science has no answer, nor should it be expected to. If we already knew all the hows, we still won't necessarily have a clue as to why. That calls for humility and seeking, both of which terms figure frequently in Heidegger. There is no quick answer. There may be no answer at all at our level of understanding; the answer may lie beyond language; the question might be faulty.

Don't take this as a put-down. I really did find your contribution very interesting and thought-provoking. Thank you for that.

Jabs