“A physicist’s speculations do not morph, as if by cosmological alchemy or professional courtesy, from metaphysics into established physics.” — Robert Lawrence Kuhn, host of PBS’ Closer to Truth series
Why is there something rather than nothing? A flurry of new scientific papers has recently appeared in response to this decades-old question. “Scientific” here means “written by folks with a Ph.D. after their names,” not that the question has any more legitimacy than, for instance, “What’s north of the North Pole?” I’ve tackled what psychologist William James claimed as “the darkest [question] in all philosophy” previously in this column (“Much Ado about Nothing,” May 16, 2013), but here I’m proposing that the question is entirely meaningless, and should be unasked.
Here’s the problem: It’s absurd — a logical fallacy — to claim that there’s a dichotomy between “something” and “nothing.” The notion that “nothing” is an option implies that the statement,”There is nothing” is a possibility. As soon as you say, “There is,” no matter what follows, means that something is. And there’s the contradiction: The nothing that we’re setting up as “not something” is now “something.” Sigh.
Having got that out the way — the question is nonsensical! — let’s revisit it anyway, asking, “Which is more likely, nothing or something?” The original question implies that “nothing” is more likely and that “something” demands an explanation, else why would we be posing it? It presupposes that “nothing” is easy, that it’s simpler than any “something” you can conceive. Except that there’s only one type of “nothing,” but a zillion versions of “something.” A gambler faced with a roulette wheel having just one slot labeled “nothing,” the rest of the slots being labeled “somethings” (Something 1,” “Something 2,” etc.), isn’t going to bet the farm on “nothing.” That is, a “something” universe is infinitely likelier than a “nothing” universe because there are an infinite number of the former.
But why this particular universe? A universe so (apparently) fine-tuned as to allow us both to be here — me writing, you reading — when a tiny change in any of the so-called “constants of physics” would have upset the delicate balance. (For instance, an absurdly tiny change in the constant that governs the rate of expansion of the universe would have resulted in an empty universe devoid of matter.) Obviously, we’re in this universe because we’re here, right? That’s Brandon Carter’s 1973 “Anthropic Principle,” that the universe has to be the way we observe it because of us. More formally (if it’s possible to formalize a logical “duh”), what we can expect to observe is completely determined by our presence as observers.
So where do we go from here? Books have been written, papers published and podcasts podded, tackling the “Why not nothing?” question, none of which, in my humble opinion, come close to offering a satisfactory answer. Maybe the problem is that our brainpower is limited (100 billion neurons just won’t do the job) so AI, the really — infinitely? — smart AI that’s coming down the pike, will figure it out. Perhaps the best we can come up with is the Brute Fact of Our Existence, formulated by philosopher Robert Nozick as, “There is no hint of necessity to reduce this arbitrariness.”
Or, as the old song (to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne”) goes, “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.” You can tip me on the way out.
Barry Evans (he/him, barryevans9@yahoo.com) wonders why this question wasn’t seriously considered until the 1970s — by Socrates, for example.
This article appears in Combating the Barred Owl Invasion.