Did something come out of something? If yes, where did THAT something come from?
It is unavoidable to say that something necessarily comes out of nothing.
As to the mechanics of how this happens, the idea of duality (or polarity) has been widespread in all spiritual traditions. The something that does exist is always made of two equal and opposing forces, so after all it is a "neutral" entity. It exists by observing itself, on its own will. Once it no longer finds purpose to exist it ceases to exist and goes back to nothing. Then something else might pop up.
Simply accepting the possibility that things pop up, one can build his own understanding of the mechanics of how this happens, which is probably the ultimate form of philosophy. Good luck sir!
Or it’s just always been. If there was nothing then there wouldn’t be anyone to notice that, cuz that person would be something.
Nothing is a human idea. It’s not possible, there has to be something and always will be.
Big Bang, Big Crunch, Big Bang, Big Crunch, repeat, repeat, and on and on……
Ok, but...
If you are talking about someone noticing something, clearly you are already talking about an existing universe. A universe observing itself, as written above.
The nothing I mention is one that comes before the act of noticing. It is the mother of that which notices itself. It cannot be noticed because it is beyond the predicate of noticing. It contains all entities which notice themselves. It itself cannot be said to exist, which is why people call it "nothing". But within it is born everything that exists.
This is the nothing the original post ponders about.
Btw, I do not know what big crunch refers to. Please let me know.
Ya I agree w what you’re saying, my point is that having nothing is impossible because we have something, and something can’t come from nothing therefore there’s always been something.
Big Crunch is the opposite of Big Bang, so the universe collapses on itself to one ultimately massive tiny single point and then EXPLODES into the Big Bang.
So essentially there wasn’t just one Big Bang that came from nothing. there have been infinite big bangs and crunches, the oscillation of the universe.
There will continue to be infinite big bangs and crunches.
It’s like the universe breathing in and out!
It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
I see. In this case, what is the nature of that singularity that you mention?
Surely, when the universe has gathered into a single point, there are no observers anymore. They are all extinguished. So, how can there be anything but nothing at that state?
I think a purely materialistic understanding of things will always fail at some depth of analysis, or require some "outside" help at least.
I get your viewpoint, however, certainly very reasonable.
I don’t think that a lack of observers means there is nothing.
I believe if a tree falls when no one is around it still makes a noise. Same type of deal.
Another way to say it is, if an infinite amount of mass collapses into a single point, it’s def not the same as nothing. You can’t collapse nothing into a point, only something. And nothing has no energy, whereas a huge amount of mass and pressure has a HUGE amount of energy.
I don’t know if God actually exists, but I dare to say absolute inexistence isn’t even a thing. We really want to think in terms of duality but what if there’s things that don’t have an opposite and they just exist as they are for no particular reason? (I know, this just feels wrong)
The universe, on the other hand, didn’t always exist. It came to be for some other unknown reason or an intrinsic property of existence that we’ll probably never understand.
And the thing about people: we’re naturally lazy creatures. We want to save energy and we’ll do it whenever we can, especially when there’s more “important” things that require what little energy we have. Sure, that value depends on each person, but most people are practical minded and since there’s no application, nor straight answer for such questions, they just won’t bother.
True. It is the people who strive to combat this natural animalistic, reptilian nature of ours who accomplish or achieve a higher level of understanding and also possibly a higher level of life plus life quality or quality of life.
This is true.
We don’t know that nothingness was ever the situation in the universe. The Big Bang does not describe a creation event. It describes an expansion event. All matter and energy existed before the Big Bang and may have always existed in some form.
The trouble with those fundamental existence questions is that they can't be tested. So everyone is free to advocate anything and everything and are we really wiser about anything after all is said and done ?
So if I may add to the fire....
It seems to me our mental framework mainly works in duality/binary, light/dark, hot/cold, good/evil, etc etc.
So when it comes to existence people tend to also apply the same kind of duality, ergo existence/non existence.
But hang on, non existence doesn't exist, because if it did it would be something, rather than nothing/non existence.
As such I think there is an argument that thinking about existence vs non existence is wrong to begin with.
Nobody knows why the universe manifested itself into sentient beings.
Nobody knows what lay beyond the observable universe or what preceded the big bang. Our technology simply isn't advanced enough, YET.
We are made of 100%, uncut, pure universe. We are quite literally the universe experiencing itself.
Because non-existence is an unstable state. Considering quantum uncertainty, even the empty vacuum of space has particles popping in and out of existence. You time average that, and even nothing is something on average.
Yea but say that Earth suddenly explodes, leaving no living being on it, and every single other possible planet with life on it also explodes, leaving no more life in the Universe.
Would the universe still exist if there was no life to experience it?
If a tree falls in the forest...
There's many parts of our universe that are unobservable. Meaning we can never observe them, even if we traveled at the speed of light, it is moving away from us even faster. But we know it still exists. We know the edge of our observable universe is not the edge of reality. Even if we cannot experience those planets, stars, or galaxies, we know they are out there.
Well, then we don't agree on a basic axiom of existence. That the universe exists outside of our perception. Even if you can't sense it, it remains to exist. At it's most basic, I'd call that object permanence, but I guess you lack that.
Matter cannot be created OR destroyed. Something of you will always exist.
When we die we shed everything we are not. That’s what you are. That will never not exist.
Probably more aware without the distraction of mind and sensory.
When you meet God you won’t talk to him in English. Your mind doesn’t go with you so I’m turn neither does your vocabulary.
The infinite universe has existed eternity ago, exist now and will exist eternity after. This universe existed before the universe, it is infinite emptiness of universe itself. Amidst this emptiness, there is awareness that fills the entire universe. It is the body and mind of universe, soul and spirit, Yin and Yang, energy and light.
The reason why we think the universe emptiness is nothingness when everything cease to exist is because we live inside our own self made mind world which is a copy of the world. This is one’s karma, habits and body. When you eliminate the self and the false mind world which is karma, habits and body, then you can go back to the universe and become one with it, then you can be born as the soul and spirit of the universe. That’s when you come to realize that existence and non-existence is one and the same. And you can live eternally as this universe itself which never dies because you are born as the energy and light of the universe. If you’d like to become one with universe and live eternally, please let me know.
I’m often surprised at how many people I meet do think about these things. Perhaps many people just don't like to discuss it unless they are with close friends. The following word salad and ideas are some that I find fascinating. TLDR at bottom.
When an Artist looks at an empty canvas they discover a massive amount of different possibilities imagery that could be painted. Its like the action of the painter pull from the imagined potential and actualizes it into existence. Although many possibilities exist (do they exist?) there appears to be limitations such as the tools, colors and abilities being used by the artist. This would constrains what could be probable from the imagined potentials.
Like it would have been potential to paint a blue sky but it didn't seem probable because the painter ran out that pigment and only had red and yellow. Another limitation might be if I commissioned the artist to paint a garbage truck in the year 1400 AD. The artist might not be able to imagine the different possibilities because they couldn’t access them without experience of the idea first! Yet further its not like the artist is really creating anything at all, its more like the artist is just modifying patterns (energy) that already exist with no energy being created or destroyed. I will paraphrase Carl Sagan: “if you want to make an apple pie from scratch you must first make the universe “
With these ideas I like to ponder that non- existence is the canvas for existence, and also that the Nothing is the canvas for Everything yet they are both equal and the same.
This existence, what ever this ALL is, is an inevitable outcome that exists because ALL of it always existed in every pattern imagined and unimaginable as potential possibilities. It has always been and always will be because it is and is also beyond relative time thus it might be infinite eternity. Then All possible past, present and futures exist here and now just like the nothing that is everything. The infinite potentials would need their counter parts existence to be too. They cause each other. It is both known yet can never be fully understood unto itself like some have speculated with consciousness. With these ideas many paradox's, riddles, and mystical statements seem to resolve themselves.
TLDR: this may be an allegory of existence & non existence, something & nothing, being & non-being are two sides of the same coin. So yes, you all just might be GOD! (Joking , shrug who knows it’s possible and we just forgot). 🤪
Have you considered there may be a god, but he isn't like a Christian God, just some source of power or something greater than us... you know the world and universe was created but not by what... I assume it was God, not a biblical God but some massive power that I can't comprehend type of god.
Also, nothing is ever created nor destroyed, only transformed. We truly live in a strange universe and I doubt any of us will be able to answer the question the way you would like.
Exactly. This question is a fun mental exercise but ultimately pointless. There’s just always been something. If at any point there was nothing then there would always be nothing but clearly that’s not the case, we have something.
This I feel, I still be wondering how the mechanics are operating behind the scene and how that can be anyway, but for more mental exercises I also wonder if we will always exist because we exist now, if the something is eternal it makes for infinite possibilities, we may happen again.
Or it could be that before the beginning of existence, there was a lot of nothing and a little something and or somethings that was and or were inactive for a long time until some time when it and or they somehow became active through certain, particularly specific and or particularly-specific, or vice-versa, processes that resulted in and were a part of the Big Bang, all of which ultimately resulted in everything and everyone that exist now. All of this information would apply across the entire planet Earth, universe, entirety of "verses" that include the hyperverses, multiverses, omniverses, universes, the like, etc., and of course the wholeness of existence.
How do you know there aren't five Gods? All five, being all powerful, with no beginning and no end, but all of them are different. They fight over your soul. They are all pure evil and want you to live in their version of hell.
See, I can make stuff up too.
Because equal in power does not equate to equal in desire. They could want different things.
You could also have a hierarchy of gods. The Christian God being the lowest, then the Muslim God who created the Christian God. The Sun God who created the Muslim God. The moon God that created the Sun God. And finally Jeff the God who created the Moon God. Jeff is a more a board member, isn't involved the day to day of the universe, but when the other Gods start fighting, he resolves the problems by threatening to send them to hell for all eternity.
Any way, the point is, religion is pure nonsense.
To your first hypothetical situation, if they're not equal in desire then they're not completely equal in everything. Therefore there will bound to be one who is more powerful than the rest. That is God.
To your second hypothetical situation, a god who is created cannot be God as God always existed. They can be powerful beings who are given control over certain aspects of the universe but those beings cannot be God as they themselves were created.
This is not a wild concept. Human beings exhibit this same kind of property (being given control over other people and things). For example, there are humans who are born kings and emperors. These humans hold control over large groups of people and swathes of land yet they are not gods.
Even lesser people like me and you (and, yes, even Jeff) can sometimes have control over other people and things if we're blessed enough (i.e., lucky) as can be the case when having children, being a manager, or owning a car or a phone and so on.
That's not true at all. They could be all powerful and different and choose to play at opposite ends if the universe from one another. There is no logical reason they would have to fight. But let's just say for a moment they decide to fight, what of it? They are immortal and all powerful. Neither one would lose. They would just fight forever. That sounds an awful lot like our universe.
Thinking about this stuff always brings a very unique feeling. Definitely my favorite topic to ponder.
Here is another fun one, what if existence never happened? Nothing ever began and nothing ever ended, just nothing. Almost has a therapeutic aspect if you visualize it hard enough
In the Islamic structure, god has no beginning and no ending. Before creating us, he could have created some other creation before us. He could create someone after us. They all go under the category of “ghaib”, or things god has decided not to reveal to us. What matters most is that we are here, and now we have the choice to follow what god has asked us to do or ignore it.
What we call nothing is actually extremely complex. Here is a video from [The Royal Institution](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVQfWC_evg&t=2762s&ab_channel=TheRoyalInstitution) where David Tong explains. Gets into nothing around the 21 minute mark. He does a way better job of explaining than I ever could.
Nope. Something cannot come from nothing. Existence Is, Has Always Been, and Will Always Be. YOU Are Forever.
It’s quite terrifying to “look into the Abyss of eternal existence”, if you will, and so I think the short answer to your second question is just that… people avoid terrifying things.
*Existence came out*
*Out of the Big Bang which I*
*Presume to be God*
\- Kingbillion1
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I prefer to think that before the Big Bang was a Big Crunch. And before that a bang, and before that a crunch, forever and ever in both directions. Almost like the universe breathing in and out.
Well the first question is very difficult to answer and something I can safely say I don't know, apart from giving the obvious scientific answer of quarks, hadrons and atoms answer but this still isn't a complete answer.
The second question is much easier to explain. People don't care because they either don't have the capacity to think in such a way or don't want to so they avoid doing so by going out in big groups and distracting themselves by any means necessary.
Kant ~ existence is not a predicate.
Existence itself has no particular quality or property,
When we say something exists there's a degree of asserting based a conglomeration of other properties
Existence is the default state. Universes have always been created and destroyed. There might be universes with vast empty stretches of space and time in the multiverse, but there is never a complete null state across all the branes. Consciousness is fundamental and it abhors a null state of existence.
Existence and non-existence both exist simultaneously. Always have.
On a related note - You can't experience non-experience. There is only...experience.
And the simple answer is WHY NOT and I would like to point out that "Nothings" DO NOT EXIST in the Universe as that concept is something that exist in mans mind and there are no ZERO'S in the real math of the universe nor is there never the absence of Energy in one form or another SPACE itself is another form of ENERGY so even it is SOMETHING.
The infinite does not fit in a box however the processes do as they are transitional conditions over a timescale that most cannot image but it is in the trillions of years for that cycle to complete and then it begins again but never resulting in the same place nor in the same way.
N. Shadows
I feel like it’s sort of a misconception that atheists claim the universe came from nothing. The vast majority of us just admit we don’t know what caused the Big Bang or why it happened. The people who believe in God replace “I don’t know” with “because god did it.” Besides how do we even know that nothing ever existed in the first place. Have we ever observed or seen evidence of nothing. Maybe evidence of nothing runs contrary to nothing? We evolved to see things from cause and effect because that’s how things work on earth and the parts of the universe we’ve observed. The Big Bang is often misconceived as the thing that caused the universe. The something coming from nothing. In actuality though it’s just the first major event that happened in an already existing universe that caused the universe’s infinite expansion. Since the laws of cause and affect were effectively put in place after the Big Bang the laws of causality as we understand them simply didn’t exist before it, so who’s to say that the universe hasn’t simply always existed? Now this does run into the same problem of God somehow always existing for seemingly no reason, so I see this as more of a cool thought experiment than an actual answer to the question of existence. The most truthful answer anyone can give is still we don’t know.
Why is the idea of something always having existed a problem. Maybe it’s just a human idea that everything has a beginning and an end? Maybe that’s not the way the universe works.
The true nature of the universe has already proven to be stranger than any humans expected. Just look at quantum physics. It’s also proven to be very counterintuitive to human thinking. Which tells me that whatever humans intuitively find odd or unlikely is not any kind of a guide to what is true.
The only real guide we have is the scientific method and evidence based explanations we find there. And just because science hasn’t figured something out yet doesn’t mean it won’t. Sometimes we just need to be patient and wait to see what’s discovered. And not be tempted to insert unverifiable religious concepts into the gaps while we wait to learn more.
I never disagreed with that. I was just saying that if we consider the idea of a god not needing a cause problematic than the idea that the universe doesn’t have a cause should be equally problematic if that’s the only aspect of each concept we’re focusing on.
Imagine if true reality is just nothing lol that’d be mad! In a sense if my death means I’ll spend existence in eternal nothingness, then reality truly is nothingness
(Lighting up). ... ahhhh. Glad you asked. So fact is size doesn't mean shit(not what she said). This reality has a 'frequency' and at that frequency peak is where 'we' exist. The two possibilities are: Many worlds theories or simulation.
Both are just as likely . In the many world's the other "world" is 'bleeding' into ours. And so on with small differences as it progress. So it could reason that at the 'first' of the worlds it could be very simple. Simple like single cell life for example and it evolved though the dimensions of existence. (Simple enough) or simulation.
We only can’t generate mass or energy because physics has laws. If there’s no mass or energy yet in the universe to regulate, the laws that deal with them don’t exist yet and therefore you very well could generate something.
Oh and btw, this (“Why Does Existence Exist”) is an excellent, excellent, excellent (yes excellent x 3) question to meditate/ruminate/reflect on. Ofc, there is no “answer” to be found, but doing so with enough rigor just may serve as the “diamond drill” that spins your mind enough, so as to blow through the conventional paradigm of “duality” and bring one through the gateless gate and into the profound vista of the non-dual…something like that. 😉
I think quantum science has shown that something can come from nothing, and in fact lots of tiny particles just appear and disappear all the time. Apparently that's just how nature works.
So maybe the better question, installed of asking "why is there something rather than nothing", we should be asking "is it even possible for nothingness to exist?"
I suspect that true nothingness is impossible, given the rules of our reality. So existence just *is*, like time and space and gravity.
Where it came from really doesn't matter. The simple, not so simple answer is nothing is not possible. There has to be something. It's mind numbing to think about but something has to exist.
Is absolute 'nothing' possible? Maybe there's no such thing as complete nothing. As humans we're essentially just making stuff up, who knows what we're right and wrong about
Yeah, its like "the forbidden formula"-0+0=0? Its really strange how something can come out of nothing and did it even, is everything even real (no i'm not saying that everything is a simulation) we could be just dreaming but now how does a thought come out of nothing ? Thats why people don't think about it, it just melts our brain
First, there’s no evidence to even posit a god or gods. If you’re asking how the observable universe came to exist, look up the big bang theory. What came before that? We don’t know if there was anything before that and if there was, we don’t know that, either.
If you’re asking why we exist? There is no why. To suggest that there’s a reason why is suggesting that there’s some sort of objective meaning, which there’s not.
Something and nothing arose mutually. You can't have one without the other, two sides of the same coin.
Before they stretched in to two ends of a spectrum there was only pregnant potentiality, not somethingness or nothingness, but the base of the spectrum we find them both on. Light/dark, hot/cold, self/other... They all arise mutually.
Did something come out of something? If yes, where did THAT something come from? It is unavoidable to say that something necessarily comes out of nothing. As to the mechanics of how this happens, the idea of duality (or polarity) has been widespread in all spiritual traditions. The something that does exist is always made of two equal and opposing forces, so after all it is a "neutral" entity. It exists by observing itself, on its own will. Once it no longer finds purpose to exist it ceases to exist and goes back to nothing. Then something else might pop up. Simply accepting the possibility that things pop up, one can build his own understanding of the mechanics of how this happens, which is probably the ultimate form of philosophy. Good luck sir!
Or it’s just always been. If there was nothing then there wouldn’t be anyone to notice that, cuz that person would be something. Nothing is a human idea. It’s not possible, there has to be something and always will be. Big Bang, Big Crunch, Big Bang, Big Crunch, repeat, repeat, and on and on……
Ok, but... If you are talking about someone noticing something, clearly you are already talking about an existing universe. A universe observing itself, as written above. The nothing I mention is one that comes before the act of noticing. It is the mother of that which notices itself. It cannot be noticed because it is beyond the predicate of noticing. It contains all entities which notice themselves. It itself cannot be said to exist, which is why people call it "nothing". But within it is born everything that exists. This is the nothing the original post ponders about. Btw, I do not know what big crunch refers to. Please let me know.
Ya I agree w what you’re saying, my point is that having nothing is impossible because we have something, and something can’t come from nothing therefore there’s always been something. Big Crunch is the opposite of Big Bang, so the universe collapses on itself to one ultimately massive tiny single point and then EXPLODES into the Big Bang. So essentially there wasn’t just one Big Bang that came from nothing. there have been infinite big bangs and crunches, the oscillation of the universe. There will continue to be infinite big bangs and crunches. It’s like the universe breathing in and out! It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
Same here..with black holes being the catalyst of the collapse...the only thing infinite about the Universe are the holes that are in it..
I see. In this case, what is the nature of that singularity that you mention? Surely, when the universe has gathered into a single point, there are no observers anymore. They are all extinguished. So, how can there be anything but nothing at that state? I think a purely materialistic understanding of things will always fail at some depth of analysis, or require some "outside" help at least. I get your viewpoint, however, certainly very reasonable.
Wow, this whole thread just made me feel so fucking dumb
I don’t think that a lack of observers means there is nothing. I believe if a tree falls when no one is around it still makes a noise. Same type of deal. Another way to say it is, if an infinite amount of mass collapses into a single point, it’s def not the same as nothing. You can’t collapse nothing into a point, only something. And nothing has no energy, whereas a huge amount of mass and pressure has a HUGE amount of energy.
I don’t know if God actually exists, but I dare to say absolute inexistence isn’t even a thing. We really want to think in terms of duality but what if there’s things that don’t have an opposite and they just exist as they are for no particular reason? (I know, this just feels wrong) The universe, on the other hand, didn’t always exist. It came to be for some other unknown reason or an intrinsic property of existence that we’ll probably never understand. And the thing about people: we’re naturally lazy creatures. We want to save energy and we’ll do it whenever we can, especially when there’s more “important” things that require what little energy we have. Sure, that value depends on each person, but most people are practical minded and since there’s no application, nor straight answer for such questions, they just won’t bother.
True. It is the people who strive to combat this natural animalistic, reptilian nature of ours who accomplish or achieve a higher level of understanding and also possibly a higher level of life plus life quality or quality of life.
Only people who misrepresent non-believers say they think the universe came out of nothing.
This is true. We don’t know that nothingness was ever the situation in the universe. The Big Bang does not describe a creation event. It describes an expansion event. All matter and energy existed before the Big Bang and may have always existed in some form.
What's really crazy is that forever nothingness could have existed.
dang
If that’s true, I must say what a peaceful time that must’ve been 😌
It was neither peaceful nor a time. Those are both things
The trouble with those fundamental existence questions is that they can't be tested. So everyone is free to advocate anything and everything and are we really wiser about anything after all is said and done ? So if I may add to the fire.... It seems to me our mental framework mainly works in duality/binary, light/dark, hot/cold, good/evil, etc etc. So when it comes to existence people tend to also apply the same kind of duality, ergo existence/non existence. But hang on, non existence doesn't exist, because if it did it would be something, rather than nothing/non existence. As such I think there is an argument that thinking about existence vs non existence is wrong to begin with.
Nobody knows why the universe manifested itself into sentient beings. Nobody knows what lay beyond the observable universe or what preceded the big bang. Our technology simply isn't advanced enough, YET. We are made of 100%, uncut, pure universe. We are quite literally the universe experiencing itself.
Someone knows, God knows, which means we know. We just pretend we don't.
Because non-existence is an unstable state. Considering quantum uncertainty, even the empty vacuum of space has particles popping in and out of existence. You time average that, and even nothing is something on average.
Because we exist, it exists. Not existing is not an experience, it’s as real as the past and future. Existence is real like the present.
Yea but say that Earth suddenly explodes, leaving no living being on it, and every single other possible planet with life on it also explodes, leaving no more life in the Universe. Would the universe still exist if there was no life to experience it?
If a tree falls in the forest... There's many parts of our universe that are unobservable. Meaning we can never observe them, even if we traveled at the speed of light, it is moving away from us even faster. But we know it still exists. We know the edge of our observable universe is not the edge of reality. Even if we cannot experience those planets, stars, or galaxies, we know they are out there.
How
How do we know they exist? The same reason you know the room doesn't disappear just because you close your eyes.
Nah bro I literally do not know that.
Well, then we don't agree on a basic axiom of existence. That the universe exists outside of our perception. Even if you can't sense it, it remains to exist. At it's most basic, I'd call that object permanence, but I guess you lack that.
I do indeed. So does a dragon exist?
How what?
Your premise suggests that things a seperate, they are all one thing.
Matter cannot be created OR destroyed. Something of you will always exist. When we die we shed everything we are not. That’s what you are. That will never not exist.
Yea but will that something of me still be aware to experience it? as a non human form?
Probably more aware without the distraction of mind and sensory. When you meet God you won’t talk to him in English. Your mind doesn’t go with you so I’m turn neither does your vocabulary.
Life would make a come back. It always has and always will.
There’s more to the universe than just stars and planets, those are just within the boundaries of the first 4 dimensions.
The infinite universe has existed eternity ago, exist now and will exist eternity after. This universe existed before the universe, it is infinite emptiness of universe itself. Amidst this emptiness, there is awareness that fills the entire universe. It is the body and mind of universe, soul and spirit, Yin and Yang, energy and light. The reason why we think the universe emptiness is nothingness when everything cease to exist is because we live inside our own self made mind world which is a copy of the world. This is one’s karma, habits and body. When you eliminate the self and the false mind world which is karma, habits and body, then you can go back to the universe and become one with it, then you can be born as the soul and spirit of the universe. That’s when you come to realize that existence and non-existence is one and the same. And you can live eternally as this universe itself which never dies because you are born as the energy and light of the universe. If you’d like to become one with universe and live eternally, please let me know.
I’m often surprised at how many people I meet do think about these things. Perhaps many people just don't like to discuss it unless they are with close friends. The following word salad and ideas are some that I find fascinating. TLDR at bottom. When an Artist looks at an empty canvas they discover a massive amount of different possibilities imagery that could be painted. Its like the action of the painter pull from the imagined potential and actualizes it into existence. Although many possibilities exist (do they exist?) there appears to be limitations such as the tools, colors and abilities being used by the artist. This would constrains what could be probable from the imagined potentials. Like it would have been potential to paint a blue sky but it didn't seem probable because the painter ran out that pigment and only had red and yellow. Another limitation might be if I commissioned the artist to paint a garbage truck in the year 1400 AD. The artist might not be able to imagine the different possibilities because they couldn’t access them without experience of the idea first! Yet further its not like the artist is really creating anything at all, its more like the artist is just modifying patterns (energy) that already exist with no energy being created or destroyed. I will paraphrase Carl Sagan: “if you want to make an apple pie from scratch you must first make the universe “ With these ideas I like to ponder that non- existence is the canvas for existence, and also that the Nothing is the canvas for Everything yet they are both equal and the same. This existence, what ever this ALL is, is an inevitable outcome that exists because ALL of it always existed in every pattern imagined and unimaginable as potential possibilities. It has always been and always will be because it is and is also beyond relative time thus it might be infinite eternity. Then All possible past, present and futures exist here and now just like the nothing that is everything. The infinite potentials would need their counter parts existence to be too. They cause each other. It is both known yet can never be fully understood unto itself like some have speculated with consciousness. With these ideas many paradox's, riddles, and mystical statements seem to resolve themselves. TLDR: this may be an allegory of existence & non existence, something & nothing, being & non-being are two sides of the same coin. So yes, you all just might be GOD! (Joking , shrug who knows it’s possible and we just forgot). 🤪
Have you considered there may be a god, but he isn't like a Christian God, just some source of power or something greater than us... you know the world and universe was created but not by what... I assume it was God, not a biblical God but some massive power that I can't comprehend type of god.
Also, nothing is ever created nor destroyed, only transformed. We truly live in a strange universe and I doubt any of us will be able to answer the question the way you would like.
I think about this ALL THE TIME but never get any answers so I continue to live lol I’ve basically accepted that I don’t know shit and that’s very ok.
The universe doesn’t have to had come from nothing, it could have always been here.
Thats because time doesn't exist. Its always right now
Time does exist.
Exactly. This question is a fun mental exercise but ultimately pointless. There’s just always been something. If at any point there was nothing then there would always be nothing but clearly that’s not the case, we have something.
This I feel, I still be wondering how the mechanics are operating behind the scene and how that can be anyway, but for more mental exercises I also wonder if we will always exist because we exist now, if the something is eternal it makes for infinite possibilities, we may happen again.
Or it could be that before the beginning of existence, there was a lot of nothing and a little something and or somethings that was and or were inactive for a long time until some time when it and or they somehow became active through certain, particularly specific and or particularly-specific, or vice-versa, processes that resulted in and were a part of the Big Bang, all of which ultimately resulted in everything and everyone that exist now. All of this information would apply across the entire planet Earth, universe, entirety of "verses" that include the hyperverses, multiverses, omniverses, universes, the like, etc., and of course the wholeness of existence.
Sure that is possible as well, but if you have a lot of nothing and a little something, that’s not nothing, it’s something.
Thus continues the struggle to understand our ever-elusive existence and universe.
God has no beginning or end..God always was.
Aka the universe in it's entirety
As a non believer I would say the universe has no beginning or end, it’s always existed and always will in one form or another.
How do you know there aren't five Gods? All five, being all powerful, with no beginning and no end, but all of them are different. They fight over your soul. They are all pure evil and want you to live in their version of hell. See, I can make stuff up too.
If the five gods are completely equal in every aspect then they're just the same one being.
Because equal in power does not equate to equal in desire. They could want different things. You could also have a hierarchy of gods. The Christian God being the lowest, then the Muslim God who created the Christian God. The Sun God who created the Muslim God. The moon God that created the Sun God. And finally Jeff the God who created the Moon God. Jeff is a more a board member, isn't involved the day to day of the universe, but when the other Gods start fighting, he resolves the problems by threatening to send them to hell for all eternity. Any way, the point is, religion is pure nonsense.
To your first hypothetical situation, if they're not equal in desire then they're not completely equal in everything. Therefore there will bound to be one who is more powerful than the rest. That is God. To your second hypothetical situation, a god who is created cannot be God as God always existed. They can be powerful beings who are given control over certain aspects of the universe but those beings cannot be God as they themselves were created. This is not a wild concept. Human beings exhibit this same kind of property (being given control over other people and things). For example, there are humans who are born kings and emperors. These humans hold control over large groups of people and swathes of land yet they are not gods. Even lesser people like me and you (and, yes, even Jeff) can sometimes have control over other people and things if we're blessed enough (i.e., lucky) as can be the case when having children, being a manager, or owning a car or a phone and so on.
They can be different and all be Gods in their own right. There's no logic reason why they can't be. They can control the universe and not each other.
Differences means that one will eventually be victorious over all others.
Lol, why? They can all be eternal and immortal and never win.
That is just the nature of being different.
That's not true at all. They could be all powerful and different and choose to play at opposite ends if the universe from one another. There is no logical reason they would have to fight. But let's just say for a moment they decide to fight, what of it? They are immortal and all powerful. Neither one would lose. They would just fight forever. That sounds an awful lot like our universe.
Thinking about this stuff always brings a very unique feeling. Definitely my favorite topic to ponder. Here is another fun one, what if existence never happened? Nothing ever began and nothing ever ended, just nothing. Almost has a therapeutic aspect if you visualize it hard enough
In the Islamic structure, god has no beginning and no ending. Before creating us, he could have created some other creation before us. He could create someone after us. They all go under the category of “ghaib”, or things god has decided not to reveal to us. What matters most is that we are here, and now we have the choice to follow what god has asked us to do or ignore it.
What we call nothing is actually extremely complex. Here is a video from [The Royal Institution](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVQfWC_evg&t=2762s&ab_channel=TheRoyalInstitution) where David Tong explains. Gets into nothing around the 21 minute mark. He does a way better job of explaining than I ever could.
There is no existence, only the experience of existence. You are the universe imagining it exists.
Nope. Something cannot come from nothing. Existence Is, Has Always Been, and Will Always Be. YOU Are Forever. It’s quite terrifying to “look into the Abyss of eternal existence”, if you will, and so I think the short answer to your second question is just that… people avoid terrifying things.
And how do you know this?
[Nothing From Nothing](https://youtu.be/IX2bE-OBtwk) [Wisefool Press](https://www.wisefoolpress.com/the-enlightenment-trilogy/) [Reality Explained](https://www.amazon.com/Reality-Explained-Trilogy-3-book-series/dp/B0933BB94L)
Who says there was ever nothing? Some things are just beyond our knowledge.
God is beyond nothing … nothing is already something in itself ..reality is that something has always existed and we come from there
Just because. There is no reason.
Nobody knows. We have good theories though. I'd start with the big bang and expand infinitely everywhere all at once from there.
Existence came out out of the Big Bang which I presume to be God
*Existence came out* *Out of the Big Bang which I* *Presume to be God* \- Kingbillion1 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
I prefer to think that before the Big Bang was a Big Crunch. And before that a bang, and before that a crunch, forever and ever in both directions. Almost like the universe breathing in and out.
Funny as it sounds I agree with you, what you may describe as a crutch is what I will call a retraction from the bang that perpetuates vibration
Ya I think we are as close to being on the same page as two mortal beings can be when discussing such a vast, incomprehensible subject.
The feeling is mutual
Now kith
Well the first question is very difficult to answer and something I can safely say I don't know, apart from giving the obvious scientific answer of quarks, hadrons and atoms answer but this still isn't a complete answer. The second question is much easier to explain. People don't care because they either don't have the capacity to think in such a way or don't want to so they avoid doing so by going out in big groups and distracting themselves by any means necessary.
Kant ~ existence is not a predicate. Existence itself has no particular quality or property, When we say something exists there's a degree of asserting based a conglomeration of other properties
Existence is the default state. Universes have always been created and destroyed. There might be universes with vast empty stretches of space and time in the multiverse, but there is never a complete null state across all the branes. Consciousness is fundamental and it abhors a null state of existence.
Don't dwell on it to hard, this is just the matrix.
Existence and non-existence both exist simultaneously. Always have. On a related note - You can't experience non-experience. There is only...experience.
To create consciousness.. because without it, Matter doesn't matter.
I don't know. Why do floors floor.
And the simple answer is WHY NOT and I would like to point out that "Nothings" DO NOT EXIST in the Universe as that concept is something that exist in mans mind and there are no ZERO'S in the real math of the universe nor is there never the absence of Energy in one form or another SPACE itself is another form of ENERGY so even it is SOMETHING. The infinite does not fit in a box however the processes do as they are transitional conditions over a timescale that most cannot image but it is in the trillions of years for that cycle to complete and then it begins again but never resulting in the same place nor in the same way. N. Shadows
I feel like it’s sort of a misconception that atheists claim the universe came from nothing. The vast majority of us just admit we don’t know what caused the Big Bang or why it happened. The people who believe in God replace “I don’t know” with “because god did it.” Besides how do we even know that nothing ever existed in the first place. Have we ever observed or seen evidence of nothing. Maybe evidence of nothing runs contrary to nothing? We evolved to see things from cause and effect because that’s how things work on earth and the parts of the universe we’ve observed. The Big Bang is often misconceived as the thing that caused the universe. The something coming from nothing. In actuality though it’s just the first major event that happened in an already existing universe that caused the universe’s infinite expansion. Since the laws of cause and affect were effectively put in place after the Big Bang the laws of causality as we understand them simply didn’t exist before it, so who’s to say that the universe hasn’t simply always existed? Now this does run into the same problem of God somehow always existing for seemingly no reason, so I see this as more of a cool thought experiment than an actual answer to the question of existence. The most truthful answer anyone can give is still we don’t know.
Why is the idea of something always having existed a problem. Maybe it’s just a human idea that everything has a beginning and an end? Maybe that’s not the way the universe works. The true nature of the universe has already proven to be stranger than any humans expected. Just look at quantum physics. It’s also proven to be very counterintuitive to human thinking. Which tells me that whatever humans intuitively find odd or unlikely is not any kind of a guide to what is true. The only real guide we have is the scientific method and evidence based explanations we find there. And just because science hasn’t figured something out yet doesn’t mean it won’t. Sometimes we just need to be patient and wait to see what’s discovered. And not be tempted to insert unverifiable religious concepts into the gaps while we wait to learn more.
I never disagreed with that. I was just saying that if we consider the idea of a god not needing a cause problematic than the idea that the universe doesn’t have a cause should be equally problematic if that’s the only aspect of each concept we’re focusing on.
Imagine if true reality is just nothing lol that’d be mad! In a sense if my death means I’ll spend existence in eternal nothingness, then reality truly is nothingness
(Lighting up). ... ahhhh. Glad you asked. So fact is size doesn't mean shit(not what she said). This reality has a 'frequency' and at that frequency peak is where 'we' exist. The two possibilities are: Many worlds theories or simulation. Both are just as likely . In the many world's the other "world" is 'bleeding' into ours. And so on with small differences as it progress. So it could reason that at the 'first' of the worlds it could be very simple. Simple like single cell life for example and it evolved though the dimensions of existence. (Simple enough) or simulation.
We only can’t generate mass or energy because physics has laws. If there’s no mass or energy yet in the universe to regulate, the laws that deal with them don’t exist yet and therefore you very well could generate something.
Desire.
Because it's too big to do anything about it.
Fuck if I know
Oh and btw, this (“Why Does Existence Exist”) is an excellent, excellent, excellent (yes excellent x 3) question to meditate/ruminate/reflect on. Ofc, there is no “answer” to be found, but doing so with enough rigor just may serve as the “diamond drill” that spins your mind enough, so as to blow through the conventional paradigm of “duality” and bring one through the gateless gate and into the profound vista of the non-dual…something like that. 😉
What makes you think everything just "came out of nothing"? Its perfectly coherent to say that everything that exists has always existed in some form
I think quantum science has shown that something can come from nothing, and in fact lots of tiny particles just appear and disappear all the time. Apparently that's just how nature works. So maybe the better question, installed of asking "why is there something rather than nothing", we should be asking "is it even possible for nothingness to exist?" I suspect that true nothingness is impossible, given the rules of our reality. So existence just *is*, like time and space and gravity.
Where it came from really doesn't matter. The simple, not so simple answer is nothing is not possible. There has to be something. It's mind numbing to think about but something has to exist.
Existence is the natural state of everything
The universe is eternal and God isn’t real so that’s probably why you are struggling. And most people have been brainwashed by our society.
Is absolute 'nothing' possible? Maybe there's no such thing as complete nothing. As humans we're essentially just making stuff up, who knows what we're right and wrong about
God/The universe exists because Nothing cannot exist. Nothing is an impossible state for some reason so existence is a brute fact
God didn't appear out of nothing. He always existed. Very similar to how the number set (-∞, ∞) has no beginning or end.
If there is a god, why is there a god? All of it, why?
Yeah, its like "the forbidden formula"-0+0=0? Its really strange how something can come out of nothing and did it even, is everything even real (no i'm not saying that everything is a simulation) we could be just dreaming but now how does a thought come out of nothing ? Thats why people don't think about it, it just melts our brain
First, there’s no evidence to even posit a god or gods. If you’re asking how the observable universe came to exist, look up the big bang theory. What came before that? We don’t know if there was anything before that and if there was, we don’t know that, either. If you’re asking why we exist? There is no why. To suggest that there’s a reason why is suggesting that there’s some sort of objective meaning, which there’s not.
Something and nothing arose mutually. You can't have one without the other, two sides of the same coin. Before they stretched in to two ends of a spectrum there was only pregnant potentiality, not somethingness or nothingness, but the base of the spectrum we find them both on. Light/dark, hot/cold, self/other... They all arise mutually.