Why is there anything?

My guess is the universe is like software in the sense that only information exists and substance is more or less an illusion.

Interesting…I like it AYKM.

There will always be unanswered questions in science. Whatever the laws are at a given time there will always be the question of why those laws are true. I prefer that bit of mystery to the religious view that in some way, known only to the creator, this is the best of all possible worlds.

It wasn’t a matter of there being nothing, then “BANG,” and now there’s something. The Great Void has always contained all the matter there is and , in my opinion, there could have been countless Big Bangs.

Kritiper, Do you mean countless as in one that plays itself out then is ‘concluded,’ and starts a new? Or can there be multiple ‘big bangs’ in the same universe /time? It seems to me that another big bang would reshape /destroy our known universe. Do you mean that the ‘great void ’ always contained all the matter/antimatter and that for some reason it gathered or concentrated to the point where it had some sort of reaction?
By the ‘great void’ you mean what was before the ‘big bang?’ Or uh , just empty space?

I think he is talking about the big bang/ big crunch scenario. It’s also been described as the heartbeat of the universe.

I think modern cosmologists, like most/all cosmologists with a theory that tries to include an answer to most everything, greatly overstate the certainty of their knowledge. I’d say we continue not to know, and happily, the answer is largely (astronomically immensely) irrelevant.

Some people even suggest we’re in a computer simulation…

or other theories…

I remain unconvinced, but as you say, assuming there was a big bang event, I’d say we certainly don’t know what came before that or caused it, or what the scope of existence is outside what we can observe. So yeah, we can make up interesting ideas…

A big bang could have been just part of a bang/crunch, but I don’t think that’s currently popularly thought to be supported by astronomer/cosmologists due to math/physics reasons (e.g. entropy, escape velocity, etc).

Or perhaps there is a reality outside what we observe, which we have no information about besides our view from a speck flying out from this one big bang, where in fact there are many or infinite such universes which we simply have no way of seeing, sort of like how an amoeba has no way of knowing about distant galaxies or the big bang.

I think that last idea is essentially it, but the level at which we don’t know what we don’t know extends to even the type of thing we don’t know that we don’t know.

That’s the question that gave rise to religion and science. Only science says, “Don’t know yet. But we’re working on it.”

@MrGrimm888 Countless, as in never beginning, never ending.
The Great Void that is endless space. Never beginning, never ending.
Many more than one “Big Bang.” Countless. Numbers beyond our ability to comprehend. One after another and/or others occurring in far different places from others, at different, or even the same, times.
The Big Bang is merely a theory and susceptible to one’s own logical imagination.
The “known universe” is one thing, the unknown universe is quite another, and endlessly larger.

There is so much that we do not yet know about the universe – including, in some cases, even how to know – that a workable analogy might be comparing humans to ants in an ant farm wondering from time to time “Where does the food come from?” They could – in their ant councils and religions – attempt to explain The Foodgiver and The Farm, but there is so much lacking in their ability to get out, to comprehend the bounds of their world (and then knowingly break those bounds), examine first causes (starting with the first causes in the room where the ant farm is located, to even kick off the process) ... It might be a discouraging concept to imagine that our understanding of the universe is comparable to an ant’s understanding of an ant farm, but I don’t think it’s a bad concept just because it’s somewhat pessimistic.

How could you explain the most rudimentary concepts of physics… to an ant? How could you possibly explain an ant farm, or the child who manages it, to an any? How could an omniscient and all-powerful God explain what It knows to us? It’s not so different, I think.

Obviously, we’re not ants. But we really don’t know how much of the universe is even accessible to our current level of understanding.

However, knowing atomic structure as we do (or at least knowing what we believe and what we can observe) the electrons that orbit an atom’s nucleus are so far removed from the nucleus spatially (in terms of their relative size), that I’m not the first person to have compared atoms on their size and scale to our or other solar systems and galaxies. And we think that we understand the concept of “absolute zero”, the temperature at which all motion stops (and where electrons would apparently cease moving in a “cloud” around their nuclei, the idea of that kind of “shrinkage” is not ridiculously far-fetched. So what about the possibility that you and I are subatomic particles on a galactic scale, or that what we think of as subatomic particles – in the atoms that we think we understand – are their own worlds filled with people and Fluther and their own points of view about such questions? And that analogy could go upwards or downwards. Given how crazy the universe appears every time we learn something new, how about if it goes both ways?

That is, imagine that subatomic particles (in our world) are people, animals, planets and so forth in their solar systems, and/or that the galaxies that appear so colossally massive to us are a kind of subatomic particle that we just don’t understand yet.

What if the universe we think we observe and know was a single atom in an analogous state of absolute zero, and which expanded when heated to produce what we now see? And can we even imagine the other atoms that might combine with “our atom” and how that might keep going upward in size to… who knows where?

Cwotus, you seem to kind of have my view point. We don’t know much probably. Lots of theories, that are ever changing in complexity as our scientific knowledge advances. I’m afraid you nay be right. In short , we may lack the ability to even comprehend the correct questions to ask to learn more about our existence. Let alone answer them…

Here is an excerpt from the writings of Richard Feynman where he talks about living with uncertainty

“Why is there anything?”

The question is flawed by first assuming there is.

Life lesson should confirm that “things” are’t always as they appear.

Turtles all the way down the rabbit hole.

Perception is reality. This question assumes that what we perceive is ‘real.’ It’s definitely worth noting though, the possibilities of what’s ‘really’ going on seem as infinite as the universe itself….Makes me feel pretty insignificant.

Perception isn’t always reality. In fact, that’s the cause of some much anger and hurt in the world. Misunderstandings and misperceptions.

Can you define what you mean by the “thing” in “anything”?

RERRL, I wasn’t sure how to articulate the question. It was meant to be vague though. Why is there a universe and it’s contents? If there was a ,as Kritiper described it, ‘great void’ , absent any physical matter, or even light, how could something, like the ball in the big bang which contained (in theory) all the matter that would someday come to form the entire universe exist?
My understanding is that the origin of the big bang theory is essentially an attempt to make sense of several things we think we know. We think there is a cosmic radiation that must have been the lingering after effect of a unimaginable explosion. That coupled with the appearance that all galaxies and space debris seem to be expanding, from possibly a common starting point. So they (scientific researchers ) think they have an idea of the workings of this ‘clock set in motion ’ but for our understanding of these observations to work or make sense, it possibly all came from one condensed little super ball consisting of all the matter in the universe. If that ball existed, que massive explosion, billions of years later we are some by product, or accident of a massive chain reaction that is the universe unfolding. Seems to conflict with my view of how the universe works. Most every ‘thing’ has a beginning and an end. What goes up must come down. But somehow our universe and everything in it ie celestial bodies, chickens and eggs, life and death, all following the ‘rules’ of physics and life and death, originated in a way that doesn’t seem to comply with our understanding of how things work or behave.
As mentioned before, maybe it is beyond our comprehension and always will be. But there’s a saying that I like, ‘What man can contemplate, man can achieve. ’

In other words, if we think about it and observe whatever the problem is, we will eventually or inevitability come up with the correct answer. Well , I’ve been chewing on this since I first learned about it and I’m baffled. (Worth noting that I’m not Earth’s greatest mind, so guess it’s not up to me.)

It is a strange universe. Perhaps if we find out ‘how’ we got here, we’ll find out ‘why’ along the way…

@MrGrimm888 Finding out “how” is ongoing. But there is no “why.” We, just like everything else, just are.

We have the potential to explore and expand into space, and other planets.. We may change the universe at some point by mastering it’s secrets. (If we can get past killing each other. )

Perhaps a normal universe has beings that move through it and change it like beavers change a river’s flow. Maybe we are here because it’s our ‘program ’ to mess with the universe the same way we messed with Earth and it’s environment. Maybe we were supposed to protect this planet, or some day figure out a way to save the entire universe….It would be a cold dark universe to me if we didn’t have a purpose , like most species on our planet have…

You keep describing “things”. But can you define… what exactly is a “thing”?

“What man can contemplate, man can achieve.”

Is contemplation, or achievement… are those… “things”?

If not, then are they real?

And if they are not “things”, and they are real… then what exactly are they?

…

And if contemplation, and achievement… ARE real “things”...

… then could you please show me one?

There is stuff because if there wasn’t we would’nt be here talking about it.

Why is it here? It’s the end result of 14½ billion years of chemical reactions.

Can it happen at another time/place? That’s a nonsensical question, since the very concept of space and time functions only within the universe.

In the construct of your question, if the question is “why is everything here?”, the answer is quite clear, for nothing. The why would allude to some purpose, and if somehow something became nothing, then for no reason or purpose the newly formed something organized into more complex something for no reason, rhyme or purpose and so on, it does it all for nothing, it was just happenstance and accident. That would be to say thousands of years for no reason at all it could go in any direction. Alzheimer’s could be the next great developmental path, and in spite man’s attempts to thwart it might be for naught and future generations are supposed to be, for no apparent reason, destined to roam the planet not knowing what time of day or year it is.

so we have something to compare nothingness too.

RERRL, I’m afraid I’m not articulate enough to give a definition to things. I kinda just meant everything, yes , like thoughts, grass, light, pudding etc. Because I can’t grasp the concept of ‘nothing’ being here where there is so much now…

“Nothing… It’s what rocks dream about”.

Plato

@Hypocrisy_Central “Time, day, year” are man made concepts. That knowledge isn’t something we are born with. The only reason we “know” that time or day or year it is, is because some ancients created that system of prediction based on the scientific observance of the cycles of the sun, the planets, and the overall, predictable star patterns.
It wasn’t “known,” for hundreds of thousands of years prior to the first invention of the calendar, about 6000 years ago. And the only reason you, or I, or anyone “knows” it today, is because it’s been passed down, from human to human, for millennia.