"The primary questions people pose—Why the universe? Does God exist?—are important, sure, but they are not bedrock fundamental. “Why anything at all?” is the ultimate question."
-- Robert Lawrence Kuhn, "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?"
Religion and Science Today
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Someone try and explain how I'm wrong on this one:
I contend 'why is there something instead of nothing' is a trick question. It cannot possibly be answered without having to be re-asked. If you found out 'the existence of this universe is due to principle X / agent Y / event Z', the principle / agent / event would not be nothing. It would be some-thing. So you would have to ask why the principle/agent/event instead of no principle/agent/event. Repeat ad infinitum.
For me, the most interesting answer I got out of watching the episode on "Why Not Nothing" was that once there is something (us, the universe) it is impossible that there be nothing. For example, if the entire universe were to be evaporated, there still would have been something, the place where the universe was. So it is impossible to conceive of there having been nothing, once something exists. It is my understanding (although I am no logician), that the logic from the show went something like this: since there is something, it is impossible that there would have ever been nothing, because once something exists, the possiblity of nothing no longer exists. Although, I believe that the role of human consciousness must also be added into the equation. Reference my blog, "The Shape of the Universe" http://www.daviddelbourgo.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=27
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