A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
Palestinians deserve their own state without religious oppression within or without.
Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? | Cosmic Variance | Discover MagazineThe best talk I heard at the International Congress of Logic Methodology and Philosophy of Science in Beijing was, somewhat to my surprise, the Presidential Address by Adolf Grünbaum. I wasn’t expecting much, as the genre of Presidential Addresses by Octogenarian Philosophers is not one noted for its moments of soaring rhetoric. I recognized Grünbaum’s name as a philosopher of science, but didn’t really know anything about his work. Had I known that he has recently been specializing in critiques of theism from a scientific viewpoint (with titles like “The Poverty of Theistic Cosmology“), I might have been more optimistic.
Grünbaum addressed a famous and simple question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” He called it the Primordial Existential Question, or PEQ for short. (Philosophers are up there with NASA officials when it comes to a weakness for acronyms.) Stated in that form, the question can be traced at least back to Leibniz in his 1697 essay “On the Ultimate Origin of Things,” although it’s been recently championed by Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne.
The correct answer to this question is stated right off the bat in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Well, why not?” But we have to dress it up to make it a bit more philosophical. First, we would only even consider this an interesting question if there were some reasonable argument in favor of nothingness over existence. As Grünbaum traces it out, Leibniz’s original claim was that nothingness was “spontaneous,” whereas an existing universe required a bit of work to achieve. Swinburne has sharpened this a bit, claiming that nothingness is uniquely “natural,” because it is necessarily simpler than any particular universe. Both of them use this sort of logic to undergird an argument for the existence of God: if nothingness is somehow more natural or likely than existence, and yet here we are, it must be because God willed it to be so.
I can’t do justice to Grünbaum’s takedown of this position, which was quite careful and well-informed. But the basic idea is straightforward enough. When we talk about things being “natural” or “spontaneous,” we do so on the basis of our experience in this world. This experience equips us with a certain notion of natural — theories are naturally if they are simple and not finely-tuned, configurations are natural if they aren’t inexplicably low-entropy.
But our experience with the world in which we actually live tells us nothing whatsoever about whether certain possible universes are “natural” or not. In particular, nothing in science, logic, or philosophy provides any evidence for the claim that simple universes are “preferred” (whatever that could possibly mean). We only have experience with one universe; there is no ensemble from which it is chosen, on which we could define a measure to quantify degrees of probability. Who is to say whether a universe described by the non-perturbative completion of superstring theory is likelier or less likely than, for example, a universe described by a Rule 110 cellular automaton?
It’s easy to get tricked into thinking that simplicity is somehow preferable. After all, Occam’s Razor exhorts us to stick to simple explanations. But that’s a way to compare different explanations that equivalently account for the same sets of facts; comparing different sets of possible underlying rules for the universe is a different kettle of fish entirely. And, to be honest, it’s true that most working physicists have a hope (or a prejudice) that the principles underlying our universe are in fact pretty simple. But that’s simply an expression of our selfish desire, not a philosophical precondition on the space of possible universes. When it comes to the actual universe, ultimately we’ll just have to take what we get.
Finally, we physicists sometimes muddy the waters by talking about “multiple universes” or “the multiverse.” These days, the vast majority of such mentions refer not to actual other universes, but to different parts of our universe, causally inaccessible from ours and perhaps governed by different low-energy laws of physics (but the same deep-down ones). In that case there may actually be an ensemble of local regions, and perhaps even some sensibly-defined measure on them. But they’re all part of one big happy universe. Comparing the single multiverse in which we live to a universe with completely different deep-down laws of physics, or with different values for such basic attributes as “existence,” is something on which string theory and cosmology are utterly silent.
Ultimately, the problem is that the question — “Why is there something rather than nothing?” — doesn’t make any sense. What kind of answer could possibly count as satisfying? What could a claim like “The most natural universe is one that doesn’t exist” possibly mean? As often happens, we are led astray by imagining that we can apply the kinds of language we use in talking about contingent pieces of the world around us to the universe as a whole. It makes sense to ask why this blog exists, rather than some other blog; but there is no external vantage point from which we can compare the relatively likelihood of different modes of existence for the universe.
So the universe exists, and we know of no good reason to be surprised by that fact. I will hereby admit that, when I was a kid (maybe about ten or twelve years old? don’t remember precisely) I actually used to worry about the Primordial Existential Question. That was when I had first started reading about physics and cosmology, and knew enough about the Big Bang to contemplate how amazing it was that we knew anything about the early universe. But then I would eventually hit upon the question of “What if they universe didn’t exist at all?”, and I would get legitimately frightened. (Some kids are scared by clowns, some by existential questions.) So in one sense, my entire career as a physical cosmologist has just been one giant defense mechanism.
What more do you want than the awesome wonder of the material world?
Is it not richer to know that the flowers beauty is a lure for insects and the colours we see formed to help our tree climbing ancestors find ripe fruit.
A scientific worldview which demonstrates how unlikely we are makes the world much more engaging than the parochial stories of iron age tribes.
A scientific worldview which demonstrates how unlikely we are makes the world much more engaging than the parochial stories of iron age tribes.
You fool I'm obviously a Muslim.
i'm not an atheist, i'm an agnostic. but i'll try to quickly tell you how i got there.
let's put aside organized religion. i'm really not all that upset or betrayed by the Catholic (i am a baptized and confirmed Catholic) Church's teachings. obviously, i think they're wrong, to put it mildly, but i also know that it's a human institution -- so, whatever, i think. i absolutely reject the rules of organized religion as having any sort of divine approval. certainly the 10 Commandments have lots of great suggestions, and certainly there's much that's beautiful about most of what Jesus taught, many people have made their own lives (and the lives of others) better because of these rules and the inspiration. but not me. maybe when i was a child, but no longer. i don't place any more credibility in those above and beyond my own lived-in experience.
so, rules aside, and getting to the real meat of the issue -- is there a deity, is there something beyond this, is there something within me that will continue after my body dies. that's the real issue, isn't it? that's what's at stake?
well, for me, through a combination of experience and learning more and more both intellectually and emotionally, it really does seem to me that there isn't a God. it's all so explainable -- religion -- and the big question is: why does there have to be a God? the universe could continue just fine without one. it seems entirely irrelevant to existence. we obviously don't need God to live and function. isn't it more logical that existence simply is, that it's not willed into being, that it's not designed and crafted, and that there isn't a love and logic behind it all. i think we can create all that for ourselves, and that's powerful and beautiful, but i really do think, deep down, in creeping moments, and it almost fills me with dread, that there's no there there, there's only what we put there.
let me talk about that dread. that dread, to me, feels awful, but it also feels like it's where religion comes from. that it's brutal, but yet honest, to actually face the dread -- that we are alone, that we are big bags of water on a rock floating through space, that none of this means anything *beyond what we allow it to mean* -- and process it for what it means: there is no God. it seems to me that the dread is so unbearable, that it makes you wake up in the middle of the night feeling as if you are drowning, that the thought of blankness, of nonexistence, of nothingness, is so terrifying, that religion gets us through the night, but that it is, ultimately, comfort. and it feels, i don't know, brave to stare the dread in the face and call it what it is.
that's where i am.
however, i do want there to be a God. a God could logically exist (though it seems that this position is more complex than that he doesn't, and therefore is less likely to be true). and i do find other people's experiences compelling. it's certainly not for me to tell them that what they experience isn't true, even if i can easily explain it at least in my mind. i also find it compelling the stories of being in a room when someone actually does die. i have not experienced this, but i'm told that it does feel as if something has left the room, and when you see an actual dead person, there's such a remarkable, tangible difference that it does feel as if the body is inhabited by something. but what?
so that's why i come down as an agnostic. because i can't absolutely rule it out.
I don't doubt for a second that religion can be (and has been) used to exploit fear in the populace. From my experience, however, I can't relate to the dread you're talking about -- mostly because I think that, while fear can be used to motivate people in the short term, genuine, reflective people can't be kept there. And some of the most genuine and reflective people I've met -- regardless of their denomination or religious affiliation -- have been those who have decided that there is something more there -- not out of fear, but out of genuine curiosity. It's that curiosity that fueled the discoveries of some of the world's foremost artists, scientists and mathematicians, many of whom were also deeply, profoundly religious people.
I find that artistry and spirituality have a great deal in common. I'm part of a faith community that believes that creativity is the natural result of spirituality. There is a phrase in Latin, "ex nihilo" -- out of nothing. Art is created from nothing -- the same way that, at least according to myth, the world was created. Most of the artists I know who have endured -- and whose work has endured -- have tended to create not out of terror, or even necessarily out of a desire to arrange chaos into order, or out of a desire to process personal trauma (though all those things may have something to do with it) -- but because, at their core, they had to. Created in order to create.
It makes me wonder if the impulse to create is connected to the impulse to believe. If one takes a coldly clinical approach to life, art and spirituality could be seen as two sides of the same coin -- they serve no objective, functional purpose in day to day life, they are fairly subjective and experiential by nature, and they frequently are ultimately futile attempts to make the invisible, visible. However, it may well be that art and religion give voice to the soul and fill in the canvas of the human experience.
I don't think genuine, reflective people are moved by art out of fear. Rather, they are moved because somehow, against the odds, someone created a piece of work that expressed what they felt, or experienced. I think religion -- at least, the best kinds -- serves much the same purpose. Having been a part of ecstatic worship experiences, I can say that there's little fear in the room when the Spirit's in the house -- just an ecstatic sense of wonder.
This is one thing that I find that those who do not believe have a hard time relating to--they don't seem to realize how real and how experiential God is to at least some of us who came to believe.
could you please explain the experiential part. this makes me very curious.
I like how you accidently included the lol--kinda changed the tone of my post.
i think you might have misunderstood what i meant by "the dread." religion doesn't make people fearful, it's what is used to combat the dread and the fear that we're cursed with by being aware of the fact that one day we are going to cease to exist. and the world will once again be like what it was before you were born.
it seems entirely logical, to me, that "God" was conjured up to combat the curse of self-awareness.
or they create in order to combat the void and imbue their lives and the world with meaning, because there is no objective, independent-of-us meaning?
religion is claiming an objective truth, often via subjective experience.
could you please explain the experiential part. this makes me very curious.
i'm not an atheist, i'm an agnostic. but i'll try to quickly tell you how i got there.
let's put aside organized religion. i'm really not all that upset or betrayed by the Catholic (i am a baptized and confirmed Catholic) Church's teachings. obviously, i think they're wrong, to put it mildly, but i also know that it's a human institution -- so, whatever, i think. i absolutely reject the rules of organized religion as having any sort of divine approval. certainly the 10 Commandments have lots of great suggestions, and certainly there's much that's beautiful about most of what Jesus taught, many people have made their own lives (and the lives of others) better because of these rules and the inspiration. but not me. maybe when i was a child, but no longer. i don't place any more credibility in those above and beyond my own lived-in experience.
so, rules aside, and getting to the real meat of the issue -- is there a deity, is there something beyond this, is there something within me that will continue after my body dies. that's the real issue, isn't it? that's what's at stake?
well, for me, through a combination of experience and learning more and more both intellectually and emotionally, it really does seem to me that there isn't a God. it's all so explainable -- religion -- and the big question is: why does there have to be a God? the universe could continue just fine without one. it seems entirely irrelevant to existence. we obviously don't need God to live and function. isn't it more logical that existence simply is, that it's not willed into being, that it's not designed and crafted, and that there isn't a love and logic behind it all. i think we can create all that for ourselves, and that's powerful and beautiful, but i really do think, deep down, in creeping moments, and it almost fills me with dread, that there's no there there, there's only what we put there.
let me talk about that dread. that dread, to me, feels awful, but it also feels like it's where religion comes from. that it's brutal, but yet honest, to actually face the dread -- that we are alone, that we are big bags of water on a rock floating through space, that none of this means anything *beyond what we allow it to mean* -- and process it for what it means: there is no God. it seems to me that the dread is so unbearable, that it makes you wake up in the middle of the night feeling as if you are drowning, that the thought of blankness, of nonexistence, of nothingness, is so terrifying, that religion gets us through the night, but that it is, ultimately, comfort. and it feels, i don't know, brave to stare the dread in the face and call it what it is.
that's where i am.
however, i do want there to be a God. a God could logically exist (though it seems that this position is more complex than that he doesn't, and therefore is less likely to be true). and i do find other people's experiences compelling. it's certainly not for me to tell them that what they experience isn't true, even if i can easily explain it at least in my mind. i also find it compelling the stories of being in a room when someone actually does die. i have not experienced this, but i'm told that it does feel as if something has left the room, and when you see an actual dead person, there's such a remarkable, tangible difference that it does feel as if the body is inhabited by something. but what?
so that's why i come down as an agnostic. because i can't absolutely rule it out.
Suffering hurts, but I think it's part of life - It makes it complete. Without suffering we would only be content and we wouldn't want to make our lives better. Likewise, if there was only suffering, life itself would just suck. But a mix between suffering and contentment is just.
.But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
--C.S. Lewis