The 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.
The question (as normally stated) doesn’t make much sense because the attribute “is” (existence) is already presumed in “something”. Nothingness does not exist, by definition. Therefore, there cannot “be” nothingness. So logically, nothingness is unstable. Physically, perhaps it is as well. Virtual particles appear from nowhere, don’t they? An entropy-like probability argument might also say that “something” has many more states than “nothing”.
Reading this post I was suddenly reminded of Leibniz and his “best of all possible worlds”. The modern reenactment of this principle in the form of anthropic science (the latter word in optional quotes) would be a great dissertation topic for some physically-inclined philosopher. Or a post by Sean Carroll.
You know, this reminds me of one of the questions of consciousness. “Why am I in this body and not another body?” Another meaningless question.
I think the existential dilemma is a motivator in my chosen field as well.
But as a side note, you have to admit, Rule 110 is an amazing automata.
Perhaps you should combine this point into your ongoing series and argue: “There is nothing, rather than something”. Haven’t your forays into the arrow of time shown that really there is just Minkowski space, but that it looks rather complicated to its residents as it sits there? You’re halfway there!
Ah, the fear of nothing.
When we die do we not return to nothing? Is death a natural state? The duality of something and nothing is just how things are as unsatisfying as that may be to some, I find it quite refreshing. There is no competition between the two, one does not seek to overcome the other. If you see it that way then you miss the point. It is also quite rational to substitute the “universe” for “me” and the same questions hold and even more profound ones emerge.
Science will provide no answers here as they would be what a Buddhist would call “Mu”, questions which have no answers in such context.
Eastern philosophies have no problem with the idea of nothingness. It is actually quite central to their framework and core to their metaphors. This discomfort is a likely product of our Western bias.
Sean, you write:
Nozick, in his article on the question, had a direct retort:
He goes on to suggest that an explanation is indeed possible and outlines the forms it might take, most famously the principle of fecundity, which addresses your point about the multiverse by extending the concept to other possible laws of physics.
In denying that an answer might ever be found, you give religious believers a big crate of intellectual ammunition. One of their complaints about science is that it just chalks the universe up to brute fact. It may well be a brute fact, but that shouldn’t close off rational inquiry into the question.
George
Interesting post. Though I find the dismissal of the question as senseless rather…”hand wavish”, same with Grunbaum’s discussion. It seems that if this question keeps coming up in the human psyche, as evidenced by the question being posed (not for the first time) by Liebniz and subsequently coming up even in Seans’ childhood here that either the question has some inherent sense to it, or it points to an interesting defect in the human conciousness, perhaps both?
Sean, check out Gruenbaum’s paper on the conventionality of simultaneity in special relativity: Phil. Sci. 36 pp 5-43 (1969). This should be right up your street.
I like the idea of nothing. By this I just mean that the universe we think of being physical is nothing more than an abstract mathematical object.
By postulating another type of existence, i.e. a physical existence which is supposed to be more than just mathematical existence, we create a lot of philosphical problems. This is similar to first postulating a God and then wondering about who created God etc. etc.
The question, as it is stated, and as it is discussed, e.g., at the Encyclopedia of Philosophy site, is meaningless and pointless, and so is your treatment of it. I must say that I am very disappointed by your post, since here, unlike elsewhere, you discuss the question not as a scientist, but as an armchair philosopher, and it appears that you are entirely comfortable with all the philosophical non-scientific bullshit.
How are multiple universes etc. are even relevant? Isn’t it plain obvious that the real, and very hard question, is how is it possible for anything physical to exist? In other words, what is the nature of the physical universe? Is it some abstraction come to life? How, what is the process, and is it inevitable? Can it be shown to be inevitable using a mathematical model? What is then the nature of our prejudice which causes us to ask a question such as PEQ?
You sir, did not even attempt to answer these questions. In this, you are no different from religious obscurantists.
And pardon my English.
The anthropic relevance is our evolutionary leap.
This increased our ability to *efficiently* increase entropy, which is the same thing that a “low-entropy” expanding universe does that a wide-open expanding universe cannot… it conserves more energy and better maximizes work.
So the false assumption is that our expanding universe is not heading for another leap/bang, and the erroneous conclusion is, therefore, that “nothing” is or was ever a natural state.
The philosophical problem arises from physics that’s derived from non-evidenced projections, instead of the face value of the second law, which notes that the entropy of the universe ***always*** increases.
Simple-stupid, stoopid.
I probably wasn’t very clear in the original post. The argument is that we can only talk about the “likeliness” of one thing or another when we have an ensemble and some sort of measure defined thereon. Which, when it comes to ways that the universe could or could not exist, we don’t. There is no entropy-like argument (since there is no phase space), and there is no “principle of fecundity.” You could make up something like that out of your own imagination, but if I choose not to go along there’s no evidence you can point to that would change my mind.
The argument “that leaves a brute fact without explanation” seems utterly misguided to me. There is no way to do away with a certain number of brute facts, if you believe that there is more than one conceivable universe (and I do). If you were able to show that our universe maximizes some certain property, than the claim that universes should maximize that property would be a brute fact. Invoking God just changes the nature of the brute.
The real question is: why is there some nothing rather than no something?
Answer me THAT, my good man!
Z
Edward Remler used the PEQ (which he terms the FQP) recently to purportedly establish that atheism is not rational: Do science and rationality support atheism?
His reasoning gets ripped apart in the comments, which Remler blithely ignores in his summing up just before comments were closed.
As a child, the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” also occured to me. (I wrote a little about this in the “inspiration series” over at Backreaction blog).
Many people will not agree with me and say that the question does not make any sense at all, etc. I do not concur with the arguments that I know of.
I think that question is by far the most fundamental one there is to be made. Any other question made by our intellect ultimately ends on that one.
Well, even if there are brute facts, it’d be nice to pinpoint exactly what they are. We should never settle for saying that such-and-such is a brute fact so let’s go home now. Lots of things that people used to consider brute facts aren’t. More precisely, they can be traced to a smaller number of such facts. The entire physical world can be reduced to the free parameters aka brute facts of cosmology and the Standard Model. I suspect the question of “why is there something rather than nothing” opens up so many avenues that it probably reduces to some other, more sophisticated brute fact.
My point is simply that we don’t profit by saying that the question is meaningless. And you DEFINITELY don’t want to walk down that road if you see yourself as a public advocate for atheism. Your goal should be to put forward a metaphysics more compelling than those of religion, not to surrender the metaphysics playing field altogether.
George
Jeff, quantum mechanics and the concept of entropy are both something and hence don’t exist if nothing exists. Infact would nothing exist mean no universe and not an empty or nonexisting universe(whatever that would mean). In fact no concept could exist since they are things, meaning that “not existing” would have no meaning as would “meaning,” “concept” and “thing.” Or in other words the set of all allowed concepts being the null set implies that a null set is not a valid concept and hence contradicts itself.
Of course some people might maintain that abstract ideas have some existential existance seperate from reality. However all of the abstract ideas we know are capable of being described within reallity.
In any case lets assume there is some simplist universe that comes closest to the concept of nothing. Even if we think this state is preferred a god does not explain why this universe exists instead since god would also not exist in that state.
Surely there is evidence for a “fecundity principle” if particle creation from vacuum energy affects the gravity and expansion of the universe, where “low-entropy” structuring is necessary to produce far-from-equilibrium dissipative structures, like, black holes, supernovae, and us, that are capable of making these particles.
George Musser: My point is simply that we don’t profit by saying that the question is meaningless. And you DEFINITELY don’t want to walk down that road if you see yourself as a public advocate for atheism. Your goal should be to put forward a metaphysics more compelling than those of religion, not to surrender the metaphysics playing field altogether.
Say what? Does religion offer an answer to the question? Suppose you propose (with no supporting evidence) that a god created the universe. The PEQ then changes from “Why is there something rather than nothing?” to “Why is there God instead of nothing?” This is hardly progress. Acknowledging that the PEQ does not currently have an answer, and perhaps may never have an answer, does not damage atheism, and leaves only a “god of the gaps” for the theist.
You know, this reminds me of one of the questions of consciousness. “Why am I in this body and not another body?” Another meaningless question
Ah, but “meaning” is such a personal thing, is it not? The meaning of these deep existential questions can also depend a great deal on the precise diction and phrasing used when they are asked, to constrain meaning properly. The above question could be rephrased as, “why is reality being experienced as me and not as someone or something else”? Personally, I think it’s one of the most profound questions that can be asked (unless of course, you’re a solipsist).
“the question can be traced at least back to Leibniz in his 1697 essay”
Surely Parmenides answer to the question implies that the question was asked?
If mathematicians can construct entire real numbers using only nothing i.e. empty set and sets why can’t we build something out of nothing? Can we prove that once we have nothing we have everything?
Jeff, quantum mechanics and the concept of entropy are both something and hence don’t exist if nothing exists
Well in my (partial) defense, I was not assuming entropy or QM, which is why I said “entropy-like”. Still though, I see your (and Sean’s) point - there is no “something space” to select from.
Some attempt to investigate the nature of existence through “introspection” (maybe this is not the right word) rather than thought. Since I exist, maybe I can understand my existence directly.
“So in one sense, my entire career as a physical cosmologist has just been one giant defense mechanism.”
I think all us do that. All of us try to rationalize, create a defense mechanism, to stop us from worrying or to at least ignore such existential questions. Science is a body that has evolved from the combination of defense mechanisms of many people over the centuries. So is religion or any belief system. And that is because, as you rightly say, there can be no answer to this question.
Comment #15 Christine: “I think that question is by far the most fundamental one there is to be made. Any other question made by our intellect ultimately ends on that one.”
It is definitely the most fundamental one and if one tries to seek an answer to any question (be it scientific/physical or philosophical) and not be satisfied with any intermediate answers (all of the scientific theories and religious beliefs are definitely intermediate), i.e. you keep asking why to every answer, you finally end up with the basic existential question. And precisely because it is the most fundamental question, it cannot be answered.
Comment #17 Scott: “In fact no concept could exist since they are things…”
Concepts are not things. They don’t exist as you and I exist. And even assuming so, “a null set is not a valid concept and hence contradicts itself.” the conclusion is incorrect. Suppose I modify it to: null set is a valid concept, then in that case it is no longer null because the set has been defined to be that of all concepts, and then there is a contradiction. If however, null set is not a valid concept, then there is no problem, there are no concepts - including the concept of existence of no concepts.
Somebody with an extra $45 and a few hours (days? weeks?) to spend, could invest in this:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=2081
I don’t think it’s a meaningless question.
Nor do I think the mind/body question is meaningless; I just read Hofstadter’s “I Am A Strange Loop,” which answered the question/riddle to my satisfaction.
Is it meaningless to ask why things fall down, or why things have mass? Lots of people probably think so (I imagine because they have no idea how to find the answer, they realize this, and they are unsatisfied saying “I don’t know”).
As you answer questions, those answers prompt new questions. I imagine if you start with any question, and follow the correct answers to the next question(s), you would eventually arrive at the PEQ. So why would this chain of questions and answers suddenly become meaningless if you go all the way along this chain to the answer right before PEQ, and then move that one last step, and ask the PEQ itself?
Well, the argument that we can’t decide whether nothing is more likely than something or not is unsatisfying to me. It still seems that given the fact that something [i]does[/i] exist, there must be a fundamental reason for it.
And I’ve often wondered if a corollary to quantum vacuum fluctuations might be the answer here. That is, when we examine quantum mechanics, we find that if a particular field is capable of existing within a region of space, then the particles that make up that field will necessarily pop in and out of the vacuum within the space.
By corollary, let’s take the fact that our observable region of the universe exists, and propose that perhaps it exists within something else which we can’t appropriately describe, but might as well call “nothing”. Whatever this “nothing” is that our universe exists within, it must necessarily be possible for such entities as universes to exist there. So might not there be quantum vacuum fluctuations that ensure existence, given that we know it’s possible? Granted, this is vague and may be nonsense, but I have a feeling that if this could be well-described, something like this might provide a possible answer to why there is something instead of nothing, because it would show that nothing existing is a logical contradiction.
For me the PEQ is a reason to be interested in fundamental physics. Knowing the architecture of a creation (the universe) might reveal the plans of the creator (God). Of course, we can never know in advance, how successful we will be in finding out something about the fundamental design of our universe and even less, what (if anything) this might reveal about the plans of the creator. What counts for me, is the heroic attempt to try to go this stony path as far as possible and for this I admire fundamental physicists. Smolin writes beautifully about different ways of humans to tackle the fundamental questions of our existence in the introduction to his trouble with physics. I would also say, that our incomplete physical and biological knowledge today influences our philosophical reasoning about the fundamental questions and it has never been different since Newton.
Hey Sean,
I agree with Grunbaum - that our idea of what is ‘natural’ or ’simple’ is based on experience. So it makes little sense to worry about why the universe exists rather than not. But doesn’t the same argument apply to a question you’ve spent some time investigating: why did the universe began with such low entropy? (or if you like why were the low entropy initial conditions required for inflation realized?)
After all, we have only one universe to look at - and it seems to have had a low entropy beginning. On what grounds can we then claim that a high entropy beginning would be more natural? Though it’s tempting, we can’t point to the relative sizes of the volume in phase space occupied by low and high entropy states, because what is in question is why we should take a uniform measure over phase space as natural rather than some other measure. Fine tuning is only fine tuning relative to a choice of measure. While we have a well confirmed measure which we apply successfully to things like melting cubes of ice, why should that measure be natural for the very different question of how the universe began?
I don’t know if I agree with this conclusion, but doesn’t Grunbaum’s argument imply that there’s no reason to find a low entropy beginning of the universe particularly surprising?
Simon
[…] More here. […]
Simon, that’s a perfectly reasonable question. And when I talk about the arrow of time, I always emphasize that people are welcome to say “that’s just the way it is” and stop thinking about the question. That’s a perfectly consistent position. It would, however, then become inconsistent to treat the horizon and flatness problems as empirical issues that are worth solving; those are naturalness problems on exactly the same footing as the low entropy beginning.
But I nevertheless think that there is a crucial difference between configurations of the degrees of freedom in our observable universe and the space of all possible universes. The former does have a well-defined phase space (or approximately so, anyway), whereas the latter simply does not. It’s true that we only ever observe a single trajectory through that phase space — the one the universe actually takes — rather than many different instantiations of the evolution. But it still seems reasonable to ask why the trajectory we seem to be taking is so apparently finely-tuned.
As to the measure, keep in mind that the universe seems to be evolving toward a future state that is high-entropy, with (as far as we can tell) equal probability in phase space for all states in a uniform measure. So I think that it’s reasonable to wonder why the past is so different.
It might be that there’s no good answer; that’s always a possibility. But we’re looking for clues that will help us understand bits of physics and cosmology that are currently beyond our grasp. The fact that our universe as a whole behaves in a way that would be thermodynamically bizarre when applied to any of its individual parts might very well be such a clue, and it makes sense (to me) to follow it up.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for the quick reply. I wasn’t firmly advocating either of the attitudes you mention - to paraphrase: ‘that’s just the way it is, stop thinking’ on the one hand and ‘low entropy initial conditions ought to have an explanation’ on the other.
I agree that it’s an interesting question: ‘why does the universe have low entropy at early times?’ And I don’t know whether there is an answer. My point was that following Grunbaum, one should not start off from the position that a low entropy state is unlikely. I’d say the same about the question of why there are 3 generations - it’s clearly something we would like to explain and investigate if possible, but not a priori unlikely. So I agree with the spirit of your comment.
I didn’t mean to imply that there was no point to the investigation, and I certainly think that low entropy initial conditions, as well as flatness and homogeneity, are “empirical issues that are worth solving” (or at least worth trying to solve). Aren’t the latter two though are perhaps the historical, rather than most defensible, motivations for an inflationary episode? I’m not sure if the target of your rejoinder was inflation as a whole - but I think seeding of large scale structure is an important achievement of inflation even if the homogeneity and flatness are just brute facts about the universe (or are dealt with by pre-inflationary physics).
Simon
The fascination of the question has something to do with a more existential question about my own existence and non existence and therefore with the little glitch that has, so I presume, kept lots of people awake at night: the fact that I can readily understand my nonexistence, but I am quite incapable of imaging it.
There is nothing thermodynamically bizarre about it if yo don’t assume that you can rip huge chunks from the rarefied structure of a negaitve pressure vacuum to make positive mass particles without increasing negative pressure proportionally, because this resolves the flatnesss and horizon problems very simply, without inflationary bandaids being added to our most natural projections of GR.
It isn’t that the answer isn’t simple… it’s that “I believe” junk that’s the problem.
Sorry, let me try it this way, or I’ll be checking my email and blog for a long awaited explanation:
There is nothing thermodynamically bizarre about it if you don’t assume that you can rip huge chunks from the rarefied structure of a negaitve pressure vacuum to make positive mass particles without increasing negative pressure proportionally, because this resolves the flatnesss and horizon problems very simply, without inflationary bandaids being added to our most natural projections of GR.
I am very sorry, I thought that my post had been removed, so I modified it and tried again.
I must be seeing nothing…
jeff, I see the ensemble problem too. But a nothingness is an idealized concept, or at least seems to work like that.
It feels somewhat like adding points at infinity - not quite real numbers, but not unrelated either.
So I would consider limits. (Of scarce sets perhaps.)
Another similar idea as yours would be to consider symmetries, which seems good to have many of. (In the “natural” sense of course.)
Wouldn’t it be rational here to call on a modification of the anthropic principle, and suggest that all you really need to something existing rather than nothing is for the existence of something to be possible? So then you have to ask why something rather than nothing is possible. This doesn’t solve the question, but merely reforms it in a way that might be more interesting–this is why it makes sense to take some time to think abut the question.
Perhaps many people don’t like the anthropic principle, but as a biologist where many of my assays involve the selection of very rare events through systems in which only the rare events can be detected, it seems quite rational, and the majority of the counter-arguments sum up to “I don’t like it.”
I’ve been wondering for quite a few years now but never had an opportunity to ask… is the nothingness that preceded the universe (or that will eventually serve as the state where it will return) and the nothingness that preceded our birth the same type of nothingness? Is it possible for there to be different modes of nothingness?
Basically, can my non-existence be tantamount to the non-existence of the entire universe?
Hold it - isn’t the total energy of the Universe zero. Didn’t Einstein stop dead in his tracks in the middle of the road when it was pointed out to him by, I have forgotten who, on his way home from IAS. So maybe we should ask why there is nothing rather than something.
I once struggled my way through Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness”. It didn’t really enlighten me on the current topic, but then again neither have the posts on this thread.
The philosopher Milton Munitz wrote a whole book on this question a few decades back called _The Mystery of Existence_. It’s old but still worth reading.
[…] Variance, Sean offers a nice piece on one of those annoying questions that keeps on popping up: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Many religious thinkers have tried to weave this into an argument for the existence of God (or at […]
I myself am perfectly happy with the anthropic answer “If there were nothing, we wouldn’t notice”. But I do disagree with your argument. You write
But our experience with the world in which we actually live tells us nothing whatsoever about whether certain possible universes are “natural” or not.
I think there might be more (or less) to induction than that sentence (and the subsequent paragraph) seem to imply. In particular, we regularly develop some ideas and suggestions in one domain — about what’s natural, say, or about what’s healthy or useful or alive — and transfer that notion to a new domain. This is a form of scientific induction, and a priori it is no less reasonable than any other form of induction.
Of course, induction is itself highly suspect. Just because something tends to be one way in the past is no conclusive proof that it will continue to be. An Aristotelian logician would say that “our experience with the world … tells us nothing whatsoever about whether certain possible outcomes will happen or not.” But, of course, you and I know that this is not true. Induction does work: it has worked like a charm in the past.
Perhaps inducting across domains is more suspect than within domains. But it is certainly no more a fallacy than any other form of generalization and induction. There are indeed good reasons to believe that the kind of scientific argument that works in one field or on one problem might reasonably be applicable to some other question.
Simon Says: “Though it’s tempting, we can’t point to the relative sizes of the volume in phase space occupied by low and high entropy states, because what is in question is why we should take a uniform measure over phase space as natural rather than some other measure”.
People often say this, but I don’t understand it. If someone claims to have a non-uniform measure, then he is proposing a new law of nature. Which is fine if it can be justified. But the point is that, if you do *not* wish to propose a new law of nature [like say Penrose’s Weyl Curvature Condition] then you are going to use the uniform measure *by definition*. In other words, sure, the special initial conditions are not mysterious if you have a law of nature dictating that they should be just so. What is that law, by the way?
if you can’t answer the question, you call the question meaningless. Pretty cheap.
There are two sorts of people, those who think there are two sorts of people and those who do not!
Here in answer to the question “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” there are two sorts of people, those who think this is the most important question of all and those who think it is no question at all.
The question has been famously restated by Stephen Hawking’s as: “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”
The answer is beyond physics, i.e. metaphysics, and therefore whether you think it is a meaningless or meaningful question depends on whether you limit your understanding of the world to mere physical descriptions or not.
Garth
“This experience equips us with a certain notion of natural — theories are natural if they are simple and not finely-tuned, configurations are natural if they aren’t inexplicably low-entropy.”
“finely-tuned” = A Subjective View
“inexplicably low-entropy” = An Admission of Ignorance
Unnatural = Man Made Natural = Everything Else
It sounds as though the word “natural” is being broadly defined to describe that which makes intuitive sense versus that which appears paradoxical. A broad definition is problematic in science.
Seems to me that using “natural” in a scientific sense is meaningless, unless you are explicitly making a distinction regarding human activity. What has ever been discovered and shown to be “unnatural” that wasn’t man made?
As far as Grünbaum’s thesis goes, it just sounds like more tail chasing. Regarding theism, isn’t he simple implying that by definition the existence of God cannot be proven scientifically? Certainly if a question cannot be answered scientifically it is meaningless to science.
Well, I was also really frightened by the question of existence, on a smaller scale. Everytime I think of “why I exist” & “why I am me”, I get confused and scared by the fact that I feel a bit “alone” being the only one who asks these questions. It’s hard to explain here, but these questions make me feel very “lonely” for some unknown reasons. It’s just like those “why the universe exists” questions.
This is the fundamental question of existentialism and metaphysics. Within the question is encapsulated the “is-there” or da-sein discussed in Heidegger’s “Being and Time” as well as the opposition of something (Being) and nothingness, the touchstone of Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness”. It seems to me an odd cosmological leap to take this question as the starting point for discussing the origin of the natural universe. Metaphysics is something other than physics - yes?
Anyway the question is in essence the first sentence in Heidegger’s “Introduction to Metaphysics”:
.
Sean,
One does not need an ensemble of things in order to speak of “likeliness” of one thing or another. It depends on one’s idea of “likeliness”: the bayesians can talk about the likeliness of our universe, to them the entropy of our universe is a valid idea and not based on phase space of universe or multiverse etc.
Robert L. Kuhn wrote an article in the most recent issue of Skeptic Magazine addressing the “Why not nothing” question. Ha! just found out that its online now, you can read it here: http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/skeptic13-2_Kuhn.pdf
(.9999999999…) does not equal 1!!!!
/snark
If it looks like a question is unanswerable, even in principle, is it cheap to call it meaningless?
I think so, because the honest answer is “I don’t know.”
I think the attempt to answer the question might be pointless, but I don’t think the question itself is meaningless.
If it looks like a question is unanswerable, even in principle, is it cheap to call it meaningless?
You could replace “a question is unanswerable” with “string theory is unfalsifiable”, but some might find that objectionable
That fact that a question has the power to induce existential terror in a young child is significant (ten years is awfully young for that). It’s a question that will keep coming up again and again, so if can’t be answered, at least it deserves some kind of explanation, elaboration, deconstruction, or mutation into a question that can be dealt with. Maybe this thread is a small step in that direction.
Nature abhors a “nothing”, or the absence of something defines the need for it…
You could replace “a question is unanswerable” with “string theory is unfalsifiable”, but some might find that objectionable
Only because your statement is false. The multiverse is unfalsifiable, but it too can still be justified IF you could prove that it is necessary to a valid tested theory of quantum gravity, or the ToE.
There should be a time limit on that tho!
Sean, I am surprised that you didn’t bring up the issue of whether “something” versus “nothing” even makes sense apart from logical description. Seriously, you just can’t logically explain the distinction between substantive existence and logical existence, because “existence” is not a describable property except for mathematical concepts like roots of equations, which numbers are prime etc. Not that I think it really is meaningless, just that it is in strictly logical terms (I mean, you can appeal to conscious experience or some non-logical, ironically mystical distinction.) Even if you somehow can make substantive existence coherent, there’s then the issue of why what existed would be like this and not otherwise. So, the basic choices are:
A. “Existing” (in some special, substantive sense over and above logical description) is meaningless and therefore “everything exists” (modal realism, which my readers tire of, but right here it is spot-on relevant.) That creates a huge mess, with there being no expectation of our being in an orderly world. (Even if we don’t have a specific idea of measure, we can come to some conclusions about what is generally likely in crude terms, especially about some conditions being “very unlikely.”
B. If substantive existing is taking as meaningful, then it is a logically peculiar brute fact for this possible world with its properties (even given the supposed rules of variation from place to place) to “exist” and others not to (aside from the simplicity issue.)
C. There is some organizing principle etc. behind what exists and what it is like, and what does not. That can’t be just the background platonics or logic per se, as I explained.
BTW, for those who like to critique on the basis of “falsifiability:
Statements like “Things continue to exist even while not being observed” are not strictly falsifiable. If you don’t like such major dislocations, consider that the specifics of what you said to someone yesterday aren’t either, unless it was recorded etc. Also, probability claims are not falsifiable: Consider the long-term frequentist perspective. Any particular run of potentially falsifying results (10,000 heads in a row, one billion heads in a row etc. during the flipping of a coin with alleged 50/50 chances) will eventually happen, which is self-contradictory. Food for thought and humbleness.
There is no such thing as existence or non-existence, only observable reality.
There is no such thing as time or space, there are only interacting extended objects.
[…] via Cosmia Variance […]
Thomas: “Observable” implies observers and/or experience, or in what sense would it mean more than the tautology that what exists is what exists? Making a special deal out of the sort of activities by complex “entities” that are interacting with other things, and not just the “simple”actions by themselves? Those activities are part of the describable model universes (possible worlds) too. It is easy to imagine too that observing is not really a matter of inferring from experience, if you have been beguiled by naive realism and the sophistry of ordinary language philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilbert Ryle, etc. But any intelligent and candid person who plays with optical magnification, focus, distorting optical media etc, realizes that the visual scene is a representation, a mental construct, not the world out there just given before us.
Another problem with defining reality in terms of the “observable,” which cannot be taken for granted: is a field really observable, or just a way of talking about how the (pretended to be) “directly observable objects” like charges etc. behave? We know there are rules about how they behave, but what does it mean to say “fields actually exist?” This gets back to the modal realism issue, but in segmented form (ie, different categories in the universe, instead of whether the universe as a whole exists apart from logical description.)
Sean wrote:
There is no way to do away with a certain number of brute facts, if you believe that there is more than one conceivable universe (and I do).
Sure there is a way to do away with brute facts: deny the existence of any contingent facts. If every fact is a necessary one, then none of them are brute.
And that is why the question of why there is something is rather than nothing is a meaningful question: it’s really asking, why are there any contingent facts? A contingent fact is a fact that could have been otherwise, right? But if it could have been otherwise, then it is certainly meaningful to ask why isn’t it otherwise.
If, as it turns out, there are no contingent facts, however, then we have a rather elegant answer to the original question: The reason why things are the way they are, is because this is the only possible way for them to be.
Your cosmologist colleague Max Tegmark has a theory that asserts this. As does David Lewis’s Modal Realism, as was mentioned by Neil B. above.
Douglas, that’s why I wrote “if you believe that there is more than one conceivable universe (and I do).” To me it’s pretty obvious that there are contingent facts. Why couldn’t the universe be a Rule 110 automaton? And how do you know? And if every possible universe exists, that itself is a contingent fact. Certainly didn’t have to be that way.
Douglas:
I think you are confused about Modal Realism/Tegmark’s idea (which is essentially the same, perhaps more logically well-ordered, and BTW MR is really an old idea in essence. I don’t really agree with MT, but Wow was his Sci. Am. article about parallel (multiple) universes in 5/03 cool as heck - “good to read stoned.”) The idea of MR is not at all that “this” is the only logically possible way for things to be, but the polar opposite: There is every possible way for things to be, and no reason in logical principle to select some or one, and not others, with a special magic wand of substantialization, “making real” etc. Max believes that “everything” exists (in a platonic multiverse, some universes do literally have flying spaghetti monsters or any other configuration possible….) It is like the principle of sufficient reason applied to existing itself. Take another look at my previous discussion and I think you’ll at least get the point, whether you want to agree. I just can’t accept either a suspiciously singled-out logical possibility made manifest, or the mess of “everything goes, and does,” so that turned me into an abstract philosophical theologian who thinks that some management, “God only knows what”, is keeping order in some sense (not to be confused with being omnipotent etc, over instances: this is more like a high-class Deism.)
[…] - Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? “The correct answer to this question is stated right off the bat in the Stanford Encyclopedia […]
Neil B.
Max Tegmark’s papers have convinced me but then I am only a chemist suffering from “physics envy”. I have been following them on and off right back to his original 1997 ? TOE paper.
It seems to me you either have to accept a multiverse/modal realist position or be some sort of deist/theist. Of course you have the interesting position of Max’s colleague Martin Rees (the British Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society) who on the one hand is a practicing Anglican (Episcopalian to you US’ians) for family and community reasons, but on the other hand is a declared atheist and who seems to use the multiverse concept in his work as part of an atheist agenda for cosmology.
Douglas
The view you falsely attribute to MT is close to the position Einstein held.
Finally as an atheist I think it really really cool that MT is managing to extract money from the Templeton Foundation.
Excelent article friends, congratulations, you have clarified a question that i have had since my childhood, thanks.
So Martin has the choice on the one hand to believe in a ‘God’, which he cannot observe, or an ensemble of other universes that cannot be observed…..
Garth
The opposite of a great truth is also a great truth - T. Mann
for example, the opposite of empty set {} is a non-empty set, such as the set of integers, or the finite sets we experience in our mundane lives.
also a lesser context can define the greater context, and vice versa. that is, each is defined by what it is not i.e. its antithesis; for example, the antithesis of quanta and spacetime manifold.
so what if our universe, or a divergent cyclical set of universes (hence non-empty set with 1:1 correspondence to integers), has a greater context of the simplest case i.e. empty set? Could this be indirectly inferred; of course without perturbing such alleged greater context? Such as if there were multiple ‘universes’.
Well you can definitely get nothing from something (just ask my broker)as well as something from nothing (just look at my baby boy) but you can’t not get nothing from nothing, though if you could, wouldn’t that be something?
Finn
Again, you can’t ask the question of why not “nothing” if you have no presidence that “nothing” is even relevent.
Leibniz, in his 1697 essay “On the Ultimate Origin of Things”
What “origin of things”… ?
First, we would only even consider this an interesting question if there were some reasonable argument in favor of nothingness over existence.
What “nothingness”… ?
It is only valid to speak of something else, not “nothing”, unless you can prove that “nothing” is even relevant.
What am I missing?
Nothing.
Why do I set myself up like that… ?
… might be the best question…
Folks:
It is better not to think in terms of “nothingness” as the alternative to there being something. Take the statement, “Santa Claus does not exist.” We are not supposed to think of “exist” as a property (like fat, wearing a red suit etc.) of someone who “exists,” but that there is not a Santa Claus. If “nothing existed”, that is supposed to mean, no existing entities could be listed in a true statement, not that a “nothingness” would be around instead. Modal Realists aren’t confused about the point made about Santa Claus thing, rather: they challenge the idea of “existing” as being able to refer to “stuffs” that embody some structural descriptions and not others - that not only is there no reason to justify why some descriptions would be “incarnated” and not others, but the difference can’t even be explained and isn’t real anyway. In other words, that there is only structure, no substrate. “Go figure” heh.
But even without going into that deep end, we still have problems of what exists in physical context (like I said about fields versus the direct observables), whether the wave function is something “real” that leaves an atom and then collapses everywhere else when detected etc. (BTW, I do not buy decoherence as a dodge, how could it even explain the simple collapse for one photon when it is geared to interference of many waves? Also, it utilizes as explanation (the irreversible coupling) something that wouldn’t necessarily happen unless waves did collapse in the first place, can’t deal with Renninger negative result experiments (says Penrose and I see the point) etc.
The ’something’, which we are made of, cannot answer this question until we fully understand ‘nothing’.
In the meantime, the leading expert of this question is Bush#2, as he turns something into nothing, based on nothing appearing as something.
This ties into the deep issue of “Imaginary Logic” in the sense developed in Russia, and less known (except via Spencer-Brown and Kauffman in the Anglo-American world). Is there ontological validity to worlds with not merely different physical laws, but different Logic?
The solipsist and co-solipsist or antisolipsist (you exist, I don’t) differ in the zeroth order in whether or not they assert their own existence, but agree at the first order, and hence the antisolipsist agrees with the solipsist. In the solipsist’s model, there is only one being, and so for the solipsist to agree with the antisolipsist ismodeled by the solipsist as his agreeing with himself.
The solipsist insists that the symmetry mapping the
solipsist to the anisolpisist and vice versa is a
trivial symmetry, having one element.
What A in universe A believes in Logic A about B in
universe B with Logic B can be consistently modeled by a C in universe C with Logic C, using the proper
construction of “imaginary logic” – which generalizes Kripke using Model Theory.
This is relevant in the context of you assigning zero
probability to the existence of someone who might very well assign the same probability to you.
Don Quixote met someone who claimed to be Cervantes. Robert Heinlein, in the under-rated The Number of the Beast (6^(6^6)) has a bar at which different versions of the protagonist argue with each other.
Borges, in “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” points out the
dangers of mapping what you a priori believe to be the nonexistent, when the level of existence is subject to on-the-fly revision.
This all cries out for n-categorization, as does the
theory of recursive narrative. One can, for inistance,
have a twisted structure of mutually referential
narratives…
Certain ur-stories are the fixed points of
story-transformations. Myths may be chaotic attractors in the space of iteratively mapped narratives. Greg Egan and Ursula K Le Guin emphasize the dynamic role of the narrator. The roll of adding machine paper of the original manuscript of “On the Road” [published 50 years ago] becomes a Mobius strip in “Finnegan’s Wake.” This, of course, makes Greg Egan’s existence suspect, since his last
name is the last 4 letters of “Finnegan.”
OK - you can always retreat into operationalism if you like it.
OK - you can always retreat into operationalism if you like it. It doesn’t however answer the question why is the Universe we live in so finely tuned for life?. Or put another way, why is the fine structure constant 1/137 not 1 or 10^6 ore even 10^-6 and many similar questions.
Currently there seems to be only two possible answers to these questions, either they were selected from an ensemble of Universes by the anthropic principle or they were set by God. Yer pays yer money and yer makes yer choice
Well, if any universe might be finely tuned for some type of life, is it surprising that one is?
Or, if we look at some type of life that does exist, do we need to find some way to force the universe into a justification of that particular life, or do we instead look at the universe and see that this particular life, perhaps, incidentally came about from it?
In some ways this reminds me of the problems facing science as it studies the human mind, e.g., can the mind gain the necessary abstraction from itself to make objective conclusions?
From a practical sense, as for the “nothing” — perhaps there is, or was, or will be. But “something” is what we have mostly in our faces all the time, most likely.
I’m curious what role our notions of Time might play in this.
See if you can think of any form of life that can exist in a Universe with alpha=1.
Very slightly off topic: every time I hear the expression “fine tuning” used to refer to the supposition that life as we know it depends upon natural constants having very specific values I’m moved to remind everybody that speaking about fine tuning is cheating. We might possibly come to know that the relevant values do have to be thus and so, but that is very far from establishing that the values are the result of a choice. That would be a second and far more difficult leap. So far as I know, nobody has ever suggested a physical or, for that matter, metaphysical means by which constants could be set, but this fine tuning language suggests that there is nothing problematic about the image of God fiddling with the dials of his Creat-o-matic 77. Just how does a Creat-o-matic work?
To be fair, I’m a humorless character and also wonder to whom or what God was giving permission when he said “Let there be light.”
Why is existence the universe?
Excellent post! Thank you for clearing up those muddy waters where a lot of nonsense speculation is sold as proper philosophical inquiry. My position is the same as yours on the matter, something I’ve come to think after having considered the implications of positivism, phenomenology and various other philosophical movements. I even recall having similar thoughts as as you Sean as a kid. Those thoughts found a void to roam when I discovered science fiction at the age of ten and I’ve been a skeptic with a love for science ever since.
“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.” - Einstein I guess is asking the same question.
So the universe exists, and we know of no good reason to be surprised by that fact.
The universe exists and we are not surprised.
The universe exists and we are surprised.
The universe does not exist and we are surprised.
The universe does not exist and we are not surprised.
Each is a Zen Koan.
Sorry Jakob, Sean did not clear up anything, although I understand the difficulty of getting a handle on this question.
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.
No, we don’t have to talk about what’s logically natural, which is not the same as “natural” qua Nature, on the basis of our experience in this world. We can think abstractly, including at the highest levels, about that issue and others. Otherwise, we couldn’t think about infinite sets, all the Aleph and omega categories and orders of cardinal and ordinal infinity. It is really silly in my opinion to just take this particular way of things for granted, and pretend we can’t make a logical critique of why it should be here, or the way it is, etc. The most basic point: an abstract distinction like “existing” just cannot be connected to a particular way for a universe to be. For this world to be natural to “exist,” and not other kinds we can imagine, is like the number 23 just being embodied as brass numerals somewhere, not any other numbers. You folks are trying to avoid the high-level abstract thinking that is the cream of philosophy.
In the interest of humbleness, and perhaps a fitting close to this discussion (of course, anyone is welcome to pitch in), I say: None of us can really “clear up” the question “Why is there something rather than nothing” (except maybe to say, a better formed question is just “Why is there something?) It is the primal mystery …
“Why is there something rather than nothing?” As it happens I think I found the answer not so long ago. And it’s rather simple.
Consider first the two possible situations:
1. There is nothing
2. There is something
We know that situation 2 corresponds to reality, but what determines that there is something rather than nothing?. Well, it goes without saying that the factor that “decides” existence of something cannot involve anything existing (not without using circular logic at least..).
So the “deciding” factor must be nothing. Everthing that exist (universe(s)) must have been created from nothing.
Now, how is this possible? Easy:
1. When there is nothing, there are no hinders for something to be created from nothing.
The proof is obvious.
2. When there is nothing there are no conditions that need to be fullfilled (f . ex. conservation laws) for somthing to be created from nothing.
Again the proof is obvious.
So there is an answer to the question of course.
There are a lot of other interesting logical conclusions that can be drawn from this as well. Maybe later..
Keep in mind: Except for what exists there is nothing.
Sorry about the English.
If there are no conditions to be fulfilled, i.e. no conservation laws etc., then why was an ordered universe complete with propitious laws “created from nothing” ?
Perhaps the proof is not so easy?
Garth
Garth,
The conservation laws of this universe has nothing(!) to do with the lack of conservation laws “in” nothing.
Our universe is one of an infinite number of universes created from nothing. All with random properties since there are no rules for the creation. Ours just happened to end up with properties so that humans could exist (and arue about these things).
For the obvious proofs: We reach a contradiction by supposing there exists conditions (rules, conservation laws etc.) “in” nothing.
Carl
CarlN:
Sorry, but Nothing (not a “-ness” but it being the case that no thing of any kind exists…) has to stay Nothing. You said:
1. When there is nothing, there are no hinders for something to be created from nothing.
That reminds me of Isaac Asimov’s “Four-leaf clover” idea of positive and negative matter and antimatter. However, if there’s “nothing” then there is no time and therefore that situation, however you imagine it, must stay that way. Think: How could for example there be a chance, like for radioactive decay, for our universe to emerge “from nothing” unless there was a process already there to mark time? You can try to “cheat” (as I see it) by imagining the time as part of a bubble that’s just self-contained, but that still doesn’t answet the points listed below.
It is ironic that despite the appeal of traditional materialism and uncaused matter to many scientists and philosophers:
1. The very idea of substantive versus logical-description “existing” is questionable.
2. Aside from whether you accept #1, for this particular world to have special existential status is an irrational loose end. Then you have a mad-house, untamed omni-multiverse or “management” to keep order somehow.
Seems we cannot answer WHY
or WHEN or WHERE or WHAT
except of a Universe of something (inside of nothing?)
But tell me Sean, since there is something (at least the ‘evidence’ around us would have us believe that there is and that we are) does that mean there can never be ‘nothing’ - there will always be something.
Neil B,
Sorry, but Nothing is always Nothing despite how many things that comes from nothing. Apart from what exists there is “still” nothing. No matter how many “things” are created from nothing.
But of course there is no time in nothing. Nothing can’t “feel” when something breaks away from nothing. “Seen” from nothing nothing ever happens.
Anyway, there is only one way of giving a logical answer to existence. And that is that all is created from nothing.
Remember, “Nothing comes from nothing” is a statement that never has been proven. In fact, it is impossible to prove it. Because it is false.
–
1. The very idea of substantive versus logical-description “existing” is questionable.
–
What is this? Is seems you are actively seeking irrationality. There are logicial answers to all reasonable questions. Whether you like it or not.
–
2. Aside from whether you accept #1, for this particular world to have special existential status is an irrational loose end. Then you have a mad-house, untamed omni-multiverse or “management” to keep order somehow.
—
I can’t see any logical way you can reach these conclusions. Please show how you do this.
Let me just add: There is only one logical way of explaining the “fine-tuned” properties of our universe. And that is that there are an infinite number of universes.
And it is possible to prove that an infinite number of universes are created “all the time” from nothing. It can be proven that these are all independent and can’t
“feel” each others existence. So it’s like there is only one universe.
The first fact of a quantity deemed “nothing”, is itself a immpossibility notion. One cannot get nothing, from something? Can one reduce something down to a degree of zero, I think not.
You can always get something out of “nothing”, because nothing does not actually equate to anything, there will always be a finite remnant “something” left.
The physical notion of the term nothing, is a human concept based on a discriptive value that is not quite true.
Paul,
I can’t imagine how you think about nothing. Very strange..
Nothing is what’s left when you exclude everything that exists. Nothing is simpler than nothing. Nothing is actually the only concept that does not require an explanation.
Everything else requires an explanation, but “Nothing” does not.
And “Nothing” is the only way to explain existence without circular logic. Any other attempt will fail.
I don’t see the logic when you require that it should be possible to reduce something to nothing. Why on earth should that be possible?
Regards,
Carl
I like the perfectly ambiguous, “Nothing is impossible”.
Sean,
Maybe I should have addressed this first:
—-
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?
—-
Well, I saw some other comments that also held that this question is not meaningless.
It actually requires a leap of faith to declare a straightforward question as meaningless. Unless you can offer some proof that it is meaningless of course.
Maybe this also indicates that you will choose to view any answer to the question as “unsatisfying”. Maybe even if you can’t prove such an answer as wrong?
Carl
Crap, I was working on an essay on just this subject, and it sounds like Grünbaum’s already taken all the fun out of it by making all of the same points that intrigued me.
CarlN: did you somehow miss all the points about why the question is meaningless? It’s because such questions are category errors: they apply concepts and terminology derived from a particular context TO that context. How can anyone possibly go about answering a question about what is likely for possible universes when they only have the one example to work with?
The universe exists, instead of not existing. If you think that reality is surprising, then YOU need to explain why it is.
Sorry CarlN, but your talk about nothing doesn’t make sense. Why do you speak of things coming from nothing, breaking away as you say? That implies a flow of time, which can only happen when there’s something already there to have changes in it. As for why I challenge the idea of existence: OK, you tell me, what does it mean to “exist,” in a non-circular way which doesn’t just reference what could be a model mathematical description? If there’s a multiverse, does that include cartoon and fictional worlds?
Bad: Just calling something a category error doesn’t make it so. And pre-emptively announcing that there couldn’t be a satisfying answer is presumptuous.
It’s because such questions are category errors: they apply concepts and terminology derived from a particular context TO that context.
No, people aren’t applying concepts and terminology derived from that particular context, they are using their powers of abstraction. We have only one example to literally handle, but we can “work with” more than that - like think about 2, 4, 6 dimensional universes etc., or even the abstraction of what it means for them to exist etc. It’s just a capability of the human mind.
And, whether I am surprised by this being here is not supposed to be a circular reinforcement of what is the case, but based on my ability to consider what could be the case, or not. I and some others did in fact explain in various ways why we should consider the fact of the universe “existing” (what does that mean, anyway?) and especially, it’s having these properties, to be surprising. (So, even if “existence” is not surprising, why is it like this? Can an astute thinker really tell me with a straight face, that you can imagine that this particular set of laws and content, and not others, just happen to match up to a fully abstract condition like “existing”? Why? If not, then what limits how much can and does exist?
I really tire of hearing that we can’t do this or that with our minds. If you think we can’t, then don’t, fine, but I am not limited thereby.