I think the question may be asked without the presupposition that "nothingness" is the natural state. If I ask "why do I have an apple in my hand, instead of an orange?" I'm not implying that I'm supposed to have an orange. I'm just identifying that other possibilities are present.

Of course, if your refutation is completely valid, then you assume that "somethingness" is the natural state. Is it? What is the "natural state"?

If the "natural state" implies "original state", well jesus, I can honestly say I have no clue.

I think that Nothing got bored of Nothing so it decided to get off its butt and create Something. Eventually, Something will be come too tiring so it will go back to Nothing, until it gets bored again. Something like the Sleep/Awake cycle.

Rich

Well, if nothing is bore. Don` t you think he would go rent a movie?

According to Nozick. The prior question is "why is there something"?

"Why is there something?" implies "there might have been nothing". But the word "there" implies a frame of reference, which is something. So I think the question "why is there something?" is incoherent. The question should be: "Why is the universe the way it is?"

It is difficult to understand the question, why is there something, since I wonder what else there should be? The answer to your question is, of course, that if the universe were a different way, you would be complaining about that, too. Some people are never satisfied. After all, why wouldn't the universe be the way it is?

It is not about being satisfied. Exploration is about searching for something new. The early European explorers could have sat on their butts and made shoes, and that would have been fine. But instead, they wanted to explore. To find new things. To discover more about where they live. Either choice is fine. Captain Kirk could have chosen a nice soft job on staff at Starfleet but it wanted to go where no (wo)man has gone before. It is a simple matter of curiosity.

Rich

Thanks for the interesting post Vectortube! Quite an explanation there and I'd like to bring up a few questions and contentions.

I think it'd be helpful to start with why I think that, ironically, this answer is a bit loaded.

If Nozick has asserted that a 'natural state' is one of which there is no explanation, it seems he has concluded the arguement from its beginning. This is because the question (why is there everything rather than nothing) calls into question nature itself. Subsumed in the question is 'why is there a naturality at all?' or 'why is there a nature?' To say that these questions aren't actually asking (or saying) anything (which it would) already implies the answer. The question is searching for the enigmatic explanation of existence itself.

"Why is there something?" implies "there might have been nothing".

It is difficult to understand the question, why is there something, since I wonder what else there should be? The answer to your question is, of course, that if the universe were a different way, you would be complaining about that, too. Some people are never satisfied. After all, why wouldn't the universe be the way it is?

Remember that natural state is a state that requires no explanation. This idea has an intuitive appeal, and also form the bases of all types of explanaton. In general, the use of explanation is reducing what is unfamilar to what is familar. What is familar becomes the nature state which requires no explanation. If there is no natural state, then it amounts to the situation where a child asks "why?" again and again without end. In fact, you would have an infinite chain of explanations.

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Can you explain this to me? I don` t see it as a strict implication for i can imagine the answer "It is good there is something". As crazy as it sound, the answer is actually from the canadian philosopher john leslia.

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There could be jelly monsters. There seems to be an intuitive appeal to the ways "the world could be", and possibilities that fail to obtain. Likewise, there seems to things that could not fail to be what it is. E.g the set of 3 elements cannot fail to have the power set of 9 elements. Similarly, we can imagine a world without any deep sense of order we find in this universe. The universe "could be" structureless, but not. Similarly, It is a logically possible world with 3 fundamental particles, goven dynamics laws L1, L2. There is nothing wrong with such a world. These are all possible state of affair that do not obtain, but yet nothing prevents them from obtaining. To deny these possibilities is to show the actual world cannot be from what it is. How do you do this, and what is the bases of this uniqueness?


The notation of "could be" is a primitive, unanalyzable modal notion tha has it` s root in pre-theoritical minds.

It has always seemed to me that if there had been nothing, that would have been quite something!

Remember that natural state is a state that requires no explanation. This idea has an intuitive appeal, and also form the bases of all types of explanaton. In general, the use of explanation is reducing what is unfamilar to what is familar. What is familar becomes the nature state which requires no explanation. If there is no natural state, then it amounts to the situation where a child asks "why?" again and again without end. In fact, you would have an infinite chain of explanations.

Not at all. In fact, the modern philosopher quentin smith defines nothing as the abserce of everything(Profile | Why is There "Something" Rather than "Nothing"? (Quentin Smith) | Closer to Truth)

Yes but my problem with that was the difference in the idea of 'no explanation' between them. With one (nothing) the idea itself is obvious, there would be nothing to explain: this conclusion would be implicated by it's definition.

However, with everything it would become something like a 'just-so' story and it's almost counter-intuitive to say that 'everything' itself is it's own explanation (a natural state.)

This also rules out contingency which, for me, is problematic. If everything is a 'natural state', actually, the only conclusion that seems logical is the infinite regress, the "why" ad infinitum.

Why, do you think, does Quentin Smith place quote marks around the terms, nothing and something?.Could it be that he is saying that he is using those terms in a very peculiar way? He certainly is. Can the word "nothing" be the name of something? Not in any ordinary use of that term. The absence of something is not something. I do not say that there are two things in my drawer, a pair of dirty old socks, and the absence of a pair of clean socks. How can the absence of a pair of clean socks be something additional in my drawer? The term "nothing" is not the name of some item which might or might not exist, as Smith (and you, and Inwagen) seem to believe.

Explain this again. I don` t see why there is nothing to explain if there is nothing. There would still be why nothing, and not something. Thus, giving privilage to something.



I don` t completely understand what you are saying here. I think you are saying there is something counterintuitive with the notion of a natural state. A state that do not need any explanation.




Nozick wrote about it. One possibility is that no state is natural. He propose the principle of fecundity( denote by L), and limited fecundity( denote by LF). He conclude that LF is reflexive. In very very technical language. Everthing can be concluded into three sentence:

1) LF is not a brute fact, because of self-subsumption.

2)LF is not arbitrary, because it satisfy invarience property I.

3). L and LF has a refexive explanation structure.

His argument is very technical, and i had to read it couple of times. Now, the above list is not understandable, but just a motivation for you to read the book, because the solution is in there.




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'Nothing' might not refer to anything, but it is still a state of affair,or a possible world. A possible world with nothing whatsoever.

'Nothing' might not refer to anything, but it is still a state of affair,or a possible world. A possible world with nothing whatsoever.

He puts quotes around words that might not refer to anything? Would he, do you think, put quotes around the term, extra-terrestrials.

That term might not refer to anything too. I doubt that the word, nothing refers to a state of affairs, since there is no such state of affairs.

And it doesn't really help to say that the term nothing refers to "a possible world with nothing whatever" since, that would be circular.

If I don't understand the term nothing

I don't think that nothing is a referential term. I think it is about equivalent to the logical particle, not, or, it is not the case that, as in the sentence, "There is nothing in the drawer", which simply means, "It is not the case that there is anything in my drawer".

A possible world with nothing whatsoever could not exist, for there would be nothing (no frame of reference) to make it a world.

I suspect that you are visualizing an empty space, which of course is a thing.

A possible world with nothing whatsoever could not exist, for there would be nothing (no frame of reference) to make it a world.