Wow! Existence has always existed.

I've done a lot of pondering about the primal mystery of existence.

As noted in the essay I wrote this month for the Spiritual Naturalist Society, I've gone from being blown away by the classic question Why is there something rather than nothing? to being awestruck at the amazing affirmation, There is something rather than nothing.

Read on...

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Wow! Existence has always existed.

Awe-inspiring. Spine-tingling. Vertigo-inducing. Something frequently produces these feelings in me.

It isn’t a theme park ride. In fact, it isn’t even a thing. It is everything.

Existence. Just typing that word produced a chill up my spine — a familiar sensation, because I’ve done a lot of grokking about existence.

The usual way of approaching this primal enigma is with a question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” I used to resonate with the why.

I thought that just as the things in the world we’re familiar with can be traced to a cause, so can the everything of existence. But this doesn’t make sense to me now.

There’s a difference between things that come into being, and being itself, a.k.a. existence. Positing a cause for a specific entity entails no philosophical quandary, even if that thing is the entire universe.

This caused that. No problem.

Science says, “The Big Bang created the universe.” Religion says, “God created the universe.” We can argue about the plausibility of rival explanations, but not with the logic of seeking a why for a what.

At some point, though, the chain of why reaches an end. Why the Big Bang? Why God? Why, why, why.

We can come up with possible explanations until… we can’t. Then we’re into mind-blowing territory. Terra firma not only turns into terra incognita, seemingly the very possibility of cognizing an answer vanishes.

In “The Mystery of Existence: Why is There Anything At All?,” a collection of essays edited by John Leslie and Robert-Lawrence Kuhn, Kuhn speaks to this in his own contribution, Why Not Nothing?

The question would become my life partner, and even as I learned the rich philosophical legacy of Nothing, I do not pass a day without its disquieting presence.

I am haunted. Here we are, human beings, conscious and abruptly self-aware, with lives fleetingly short, engulfed by a vast, seemingly oblivious cosmos of unimaginable enormousness.

…Now for my secret. No matter how sensible and controlled I may seem to be, Why Not Nothing still drives me nuts. Every time I revisit the stupefying question, I want to scream. Why this Universe? Does God Exist? In comparison, both questions are small beer. Why is there anything at all? That’s the magisterial Question.

…Why is there Something Rather than Nothing? Why Not Nothing? If you don’t get dizzy, you really don’t get it.

I agree. However, I feel equally dizzy pondering a statement rather than a question: There is something rather than nothing.

Wow. The cosmos is. Always has been. Always will be. Probably.

I need that caveat, “probably,” because there’s no way to know whether the human mind is capable of coming to grips with the is’ness of existence. Most of us visualize existence as, well, existing.

In space and time, as a sort of thing. But how could existence be a thing? It’s what makes things possible. No existence, no things.

In Kuhn’s essay, he lists nine levels of Nothings. Which, in reverse, implies nine levels of Somethings. Here’s #1 and #9, the alpha and omega of nothingness.

(1) Nothing as existing space and time that just happens to be totally empty of all visible objects (particles and energy are permitted — an utterly simplistic view).

(9) Nothing where not only there are none of the above (so that, as in Nothing 8, there are no abstract objects), but also there are no possibilities of any kind (recognizing that possibilities and abstract objects overlap, though allowing that they can be distinguished).

No possibilities of any kind. Now, that is really nothing. So much so, I can’t imagine this ultimate Nothing could exist.

Of course, that’s an absurd word to use for it: exist. Level 9 Nothing is the absolute absence of existence. There is no way it (of course, it isn’t an “it”) could have preceded existence, since that Nothing has no possibility of being other than what it is.

Or rather, isn’t.

Thus I’ve lost interest in the why of existence. Why is there something rather than nothing? is a meaningless question. As Kuhn points out, absolute nothing contains no way for existence to exist.

So while religious believers are awestruck at the supposed existence of God, I find an equal or greater measure of awe in the fact of existence itself.

This isn’t a feeling of being in the presence of something greater than myself. After all, I exist. A grain of sand exists. A subatomic particle exists. We all are on the same basic ontological level; we exist.

For me it’s more like looking into a bottomless pit. I feel like I’ve reached the end of my knowing. And not only that: anyone’s knowing.

I could be wrong, an ever-present possibility.

Perhaps some human with a consciousness far different than mine, or an alien being with abilities beyond my capacity to fathom, would be able to look upon the mystery of existence and see it as…

Words fail me. Unsurprisingly.

I simply am open to the idea that however dizzying I find the notion of ever-existing existence, the necessity of existence having always existed, the blunt facticity of the cosmos that is at odds with my experience of everything else having a why, a cause — my mind could be as incapable of grasping the essence of reality as a chimpanzee’s is incapable of grasping calculus.

There’s another possibility: the mystery of existence is a non-existent problem.

“It is nonsense to say that I wonder at the existence of the world, because I cannot imagine it not existing.”
— Ludwig Wittgenstein

“I should say that the universe is just there, and that is all.”
— Bertrand Russell

Well, it’s hard to argue with these perspectives. But being more wonder-filled than Wittgenstein, I’ll end by quoting myself (one of my favorite activities):

My mind gets boggled when I try to envision existence existing eternally, outside of time. This is the far side of the mystery of existence. Endlessness. Eternity. Being without becoming. Effect absent cause. Yet I’m equally boggled by the near side of the mystery of existence.

This present moment. What’s right here, right now. The fact that I’m experiencing what I am, given how much is’ness there is in the cosmos.

Mystery doesn’t only lie beyond the horizon of my consciousness. Mystery is immediately before me. In fact, is me. Because I exist, and no one knows why anything exists, nor if “why?” is even a valid question when asked of the entirety of existence.

In between the near and far sides of the mystery of existence, knowledge can be known. Science guides us. Explorations of causes and effects can steadily enlighten the darkness of what it is possible to know, yet presently isn’t. This illuminating has no end.

Except at the near side and far side of the mystery of existence.

Here, I believe, all we can do is WOW! And that one word is, for me, all the religion, spirituality, and mysticism I need in my current churchlessness.

Comments

[David]

Brian, I don't want to pour cold water on your sense of wonder - I'm just baffled. Having acknowledged 'the necessity of existence having always existed' and the meaninglessness of nothingness as an alternative, can you explain why you are still boggled by the fact of existence?

Like you I did, for a time, reflect seriously on the old question 'Why is there something rather than nothing' and like you came to the conclusion that it was nonsensical. The more interesting question seemed to me to be the presumption that nothing should be more likely than something, especially in view of the rather obvious fact that there is something!

[Brian Hines]

David, explanations aren't really applicable to a sense of wonder. Like love or any other emotion/feeling, it is either there, or not. I don't think we have much control over feeling a sense of wonder.

That said, maybe my boggling at existence always existing is related to a recent blog post about the seemingly innate human propensity to assume causation and design, even in nature.

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2015/06/belief-in-design-of-the-natural-world-runs-deep-in-human-brain.html

I can intellectually accept that the cosmos has always existed. However, my everyday experience of causes and effects leads to mind-boggling when I ponder the cosmos always existing -- an "is" without a cause.

[777]

Perfect Brian,

So, . . again, . . . the 256 million Dollar question :
What would an ever existing Powerful Being's desire ?
and can't get enough of It

777

[observer]

"There is something rather than nothing" - really cool insight Brian...

Wisdom of do nothing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELTiD7L_nU8

(Thanks to chris johns' comment which led me to investigate Adyashanti)

Some of the comments on the video make me laugh...
"urinate goodness"?
Reply: "your innate" lol

[TonyM]

I'm with Brian, and got there through a different route.

I was trying to imagine the beginning of time. If there are multiple universes, then the beginning of the first universe, the first creation, 'moment zero'.

But if there is a 'Moment zero' on the grand timeline of existence, that would mean we could we could point to period before 'moment zero' where there was no time.

But there can't be a period before time because, well, it's a 'period'... It's a timeframe.

So we can't ever get rid of 'time'.

Therefore, time has always existed.

But what is 'time'? It is just change. If nothing changes relative to something else, then we cannot say any time has passed.

So when I say time has always existed, that means change has always existed.

And if change has always existed, it means there must have always been something which changes.

Therefore there has always been a 'something' in existence which changes.

Therefore existence has always existed.

That hurt my brain.

[William Nelson]

I'm not sure what universe you live in, but by all accounts it should be obvious that the universe is both something and nothing, with a bit of something embedded in nothing and nothing embedded in something (think of the atom which is more than 99.999999999% vacuum plus a few elementary particles, namely quarks (protons and neutrons) and leptons (electrons).

[Brian Hines]

William, the "nothing" of the vacuum you speak of clearly isn't really nothing. One of the links in this post is to another blog post I wrote that contains nine levels of nothing. Interesting analysis. It shows that what seems to be nothing, like empty space, actually is very much something.

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2013/08/robert-kuhns-nine-levels-of-nothing-mind-blowing.html
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(1) Nothing as existing space and time that just happened to be totally empty of all visible objects (particles and energy are permitted) -- an utterly simplistic, pre-scientific view.

(2) Nothing as existing space and time that just happens to be totally empty of all matter (no particles, but energy is permitted -- flouting the law of mass-energy equivalence).

(3) Nothing as existing space and time that just happens to be totally empty of all matter and energy.

(4) Nothing as existing space and time that is by necessity -- irremediably and permanently in all directions, temporal as well as spatial -- totally empty of all matter and energy.

(5) Nothing of the kind found in some theoretical formulations by physicists, where, although space-time (unified) as well as mass-energy (unified) do not exist, pre-existing laws, particularly laws of quantum mechanics, do exist. And it is these laws that make it the case that universes can and do, from time to time, pop into existence from “Nothing,” creating space-time as well as mass-energy. (It is standard physics to assume that empty space must seethe with virtual particles, reflecting the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, where particle-antiparticle pairs come into being and then, almost always, in a fleetingly brief moment, annihilate one another.)

(6) Nothing where not only is there no space-time and no mass-energy, but also there are no pre-existing laws of physics that could generate space-time or mass-energy (universes).

(7) Nothing where not only is there are no space-time, no mass-energy, and no pre-existing laws of physics, but also there are no non-physical things or kinds that are concrete (rather than abstract) --no God, no gods, and no consciousness (cosmic or otherwise). This means that there are no physical or non-physical beings or existents of any kind -- nothing, whether natural or supernatural, that is concrete (rather than abstract).

(8) Nothing where not only is there none of the above (so that, as in Nothing 7, there are no concrete existing things, physical or non-physical), but also there are no abstract objects of any kind -- no numbers, no sets, no logic, no general propositions, no universals, no Platonic forms (e.g., no value).

(9) Nothing where not only is there none of the above (so that, as in Nothing 8, there are no abstract objects), but also there are no possibilities of any kind (recognizing that possibilities and abstract objects overlap, though allowing that they can be distinguished).

[777]

The days and nights of brahma
Quite good for some centuries BC

And that happens in the very near 1/7 , the first of seven time_space space_time spheres, ¨¨ which entrance is by death
or
Meditation with the semantics of totally not thinking while being awake

777

[William Nelson]

Brian,

I appreciate your rejoinder, which I fully expected since "modern" theoretical physics seems to have the last word on everything these days (including even the "God" particle, the Higgs boson). I am scientist by "trade" (a chemist), and while I follow all the new developments in Science carefully because I enjoy the intellectual adventure I do not take the Scientific "Story" to be the whole picture of the Universe (as even suggested by the nine levels of "Nothingness" conveyed in your comment). Our knowledge about the Universe (from a Scientific point of view) is not about it's "isness" or "nothingness" but rather about how it is conceived and perceived by us humans. Essentially things (and even no-things or nothings) do not exist the way our grasping self supposes they do (recall Kant's "thing-in-itself" argument).

So my point with mentioning the so-called vacuum in the atom was just to prod your thinking a bit and allow you to reflect on the fact that biasing the Universe into being something rather than nothing or alternatively both nothing and something (my biased choice!) is simply a human-based guessing game.

[AV]

The quote, in its entirety, is taken from The Origin of Species, Chapter 6, "Organs of extreme perfection and complication".

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.
What do you have to say ??

[TheAncientGeek]

"(2) Nothing as existing space and time that just happens to be totally empty of all matter (no particles, but energy is permitted -- flouting the law of mass-energy equivalence). "

Using the Fermionic definition of matter, that could be cashed out as an all Boson universe, without braking any laws.