"Why is there anything at all?" or "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is a question about the reason for basic
existence
Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does ...
which has been raised or commented on by a range of
philosopher
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
s and
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
s, including
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...
,
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.
From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
, and
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...
, who called it "the fundamental question of
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
".
Introductory points
There is something
No experiment could support the hypothesis "There is nothing" because any observation obviously implies the existence of an observer.
Defining the question
The question is usually taken as concerning practical causality (rather than a moral reason for), and posed totally and comprehensively, rather than concerning the existence of anything specific, such as the universe or
multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of all universes. Together, these universes are presumed to comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describ ...
, the
Big Bang
The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...
,
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
,
mathematical
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
and
physical law
Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) ...
s,
time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
or
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...
. It can be seen as an open
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...
question, rather than a search for an exact answer.
On timescales
The question does not include the timing of when anything came to exist.
Some have suggested the possibility of an
infinite regress
Infinite regress is a philosophical concept to describe a series of entities. Each entity in the series depends on its predecessor, following a recursive principle. For example, the epistemic regress is a series of beliefs in which the justi ...
, where, if an entity cannot come from
nothing
Nothing, no-thing, or no thing is the complete absence of ''anything'', as the opposite of ''something'' and an antithesis of everything. The concept of nothing has been a matter of philosophical debate since at least the 5th century BCE. Ea ...
and this concept is
mutually exclusive
In logic and probability theory, two events (or propositions) are mutually exclusive or disjoint if they cannot both occur at the same time. A clear example is the set of outcomes of a single coin toss, which can result in either heads or tails ...
from ''something'', there must have always been ''something'' that caused the previous effect, with this causal chain (either
deterministic
Determinism is the metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping mo ...
or
probabilistic
Probability is a branch of mathematics and statistics concerning events and numerical descriptions of how likely they are to occur. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1; the larger the probability, the more likely an e ...
) extending infinitely back in
time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
.
Arguments against attempting to answer the question
The question is outside our experience
Philosopher
Stephen Law
Stephen Law (born 1960) is an English philosopher. He is currently Director of the Certificate of Higher Education and Director of Philosophy at The Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford. Law was previously Reader in Philos ...
has said the question may not need answering, as it is attempting to answer a question that is outside a
spacetime
In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetime diagrams are useful in visualiz ...
setting while being within a spacetime setting. He compares the question to asking "what is north of the
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
?"
Causation may not apply
The ancient Greek philosopher
Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
argued that everything in the universe must have a cause, culminating in an ultimate
uncaused cause
The unmoved mover () or prime mover () is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause (or first uncaused cause) or " mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the moves other things, but is not itself moved by ...
. (See
Four causes
The four causes or four explanations are, in Aristotelianism, Aristotelian thought, categories of questions that explain "the why's" of something that exists or changes in nature. The four causes are the: #Material, material cause, the #Formal, f ...
.)
However,
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beg ...
argued that a cause may not be necessary in the case of the formation of the universe. Whilst we expect that everything has a cause because of our experience of the
necessity
Necessary or necessity may refer to:
Concept of necessity
* Need
** An action somebody may feel they must do
** An important task or essential thing to do at a particular time or by a particular moment
* Necessary and sufficient condition, in l ...
of causes, the formation of the universe is outside our experience and may be subject to different rules.
Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, et ...
supports and extends this argument.
We may only say the question because of the nature of our minds
Kant argues that the nature of our mind may lead us to ask some questions (rather than asking because of the validity of those questions).
The brute fact approach
In philosophy, the
brute fact
In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a fact that cannot be explained in terms of a deeper, more "fundamental" fact. There are two main ways to explain something: say what "brought it about", or describe it at a more "fundamental" level. For ...
approach proposes that some facts cannot be explained in terms of a deeper, more "fundamental" fact.
It is in opposition to the
principle of sufficient reason
The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a Reason (argument), reason or a cause. The principle was articulated and made prominent by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, with many antecedents, and was further used and developed by ...
approach.
On this question,
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
took a brute fact position when he said, "I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all." Sean Carroll similarly concluded that "any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation."
The question may be impossible to answer
Roy Sorensen has discussed that the question may have an impossible explanatory demand, if there are no existential premises.
Explanations
Something may exist necessarily
Philosopher
Brian Leftow has argued that the question cannot have a
causal
Causality is an influence by which one Event (philosophy), event, process, state, or Object (philosophy), object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is at l ...
explanation (as any cause must itself have a cause) or a
contingent explanation (as the factors giving the contingency must pre-exist), and that if there is an answer, it must be something that exists necessarily (i.e., something that just exists, rather than is caused).
Natural laws may necessarily exist, and may enable the emergence of matter
Philosopher of physics
Dean Rickles
Dean Rickles (born July 17, 1977) is Professor of History and Philosophy of Modern Physics at the University of Sydney and a Director of the Sydney Centre for Time.
Life
Dean Rickles was born in Hull, Yorkshire. He briefly trained as a concert ...
has argued that numbers and mathematics (or their underlying laws) may necessarily exist. If we accept that
mathematics is an extension of logic, as philosophers such as
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
and
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, inclu ...
did, then mathematical structures like
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
s and
shapes
A shape is a graphical representation of an object's form or its external boundary, outline, or external surface. It is distinct from other object properties, such as color, texture, or material type.
In geometry, ''shape'' excludes informatio ...
must be ''
necessarily true propositions'' in all
possible world
A possible world is a complete and consistent way the world is or could have been. Possible worlds are widely used as a formal device in logic, philosophy, and linguistics in order to provide a semantics for intensional and modal logic. Their met ...
s.
Physicists, including popular physicists such as
Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...
and
Lawrence Krauss
Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who taught at Arizona State University (ASU), Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project in ...
, have offered explanations (of at least the first particle coming into existence aspect of
cosmogony
Cosmogony is any model concerning the origin of the cosmos or the universe.
Overview
Scientific theories
In astronomy, cosmogony is the study of the origin of particular astrophysical objects or systems, and is most commonly used in ref ...
) that rely on
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...
, saying that in a
quantum vacuum state
In quantum field theory, the quantum vacuum state (also called the quantum vacuum or vacuum state) is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy. Generally, it contains no physical particles. However, the quantum vacuum is not a simple ...
,
virtual particles
A virtual particle is a theoretical transient particle that exhibits some of the characteristics of an ordinary particle, while having its existence limited by the uncertainty principle, which allows the virtual particles to spontaneously emer ...
and
spacetime bubbles will spontaneously come into existence. The actual mathematical demonstration of
quantum fluctuation
In quantum physics, a quantum fluctuation (also known as a vacuum state fluctuation or vacuum fluctuation) is the temporary random change in the amount of energy in a point in space,
as prescribed by Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. ...
s of the hypothetical
false vacuum
In quantum field theory, a false vacuum is a hypothetical vacuum state that is locally stable but does not occupy the most stable possible ground state. In this condition it is called metastable. It may last for a very long time in this stat ...
state spontaneously
causing an expanding bubble of true vacuum was done by
quantum cosmologists in 2014 at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...
.
A necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...
attributed to
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
as being the necessary
sufficient reason
The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause. The principle was articulated and made prominent by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, with many antecedents, and was further used and developed by Arthur Schopenhaue ...
for everything that exists (see:
Cosmological argument
In the philosophy of religion, a cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of God based upon observational and factual statements concerning the universe (or some general category of its natural contents) typically in the context of ...
). He wrote:
"Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason... is found in a substance which... is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself."
A state of nothing may be impossible
The
pre-Socratic philosopher
Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of the ...
Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea (; ; fl. late sixth or early fifth century BC) was a Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic ancient Greece, Greek philosopher from Velia, Elea in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy).
Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Veli ...
was one of the first
Western thinkers to question the possibility of nothing, and commentary on this has continued.
A state of nothing may be unstable
Nobel Laureate
Frank Wilczek
Frank Anthony Wilczek ( or ; born May 15, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and Nobel laureate. He is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Director ...
is credited with the
aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...
that "nothing is unstable." Physicist
Sean Carroll argues that this accounts merely for the existence of matter, but not the existence of
quantum state
In quantum physics, a quantum state is a mathematical entity that embodies the knowledge of a quantum system. Quantum mechanics specifies the construction, evolution, and measurement of a quantum state. The result is a prediction for the system ...
s,
space-time
In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three-dimensional space, three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum (measurement), continu ...
, or the universe as a whole.
It is possible for something to come from nothing
Some
cosmologist
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wor ...
s believe it to be possible that something (e.g., the
universe
The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...
) may come to exist spontaneously from nothing. Some mathematical models support this idea, and it is growing to become a more prevalent explanation among the scientific community for why the
Big Bang
The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...
occurred.
Other explanations