The wikipedia entry for this question, titled “Problem of why there is anything at all”, tells us that this “open metaphysical question” has been dealt with by philosophers like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger. These three and many others have worked across different domains of Mathematics, Physics, Language, Phenomenology, Ontology and so on.

It seems Philosophers, Mathematicians, Physicists and others are looking at the question from different angles and no single domain may have the “complete view”.

Formally, the question “Why anything exists at all” comes under Metaphysics – a branch of Philosophy – let us take a quick look at Metaphysics. The online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy makes a few frank statements about Metaphysics:

  • It is not easy to say what metaphysics is.
  • The word ‘metaphysics’ is notoriously hard to define.
  • Aristotle himself did not know the word. (He had four names for the branch of philosophy that is the subject-matter of Metaphysics: ‘first philosophy’, ‘first science’, ‘wisdom’, and ‘theology’.)

The simplest definition of Metaphysics on Standford archives is:

On a traditional conception, metaphysics aims to answer, in a suitably abstract and fully general manner, two questions: What is there? What is it (that is, whatever it is that there is) like?

This seems to be a step ahead. We are looking at why anything is there at all.

Martin Heidegger (famous for works like Introduction to Metaphysics , Being and Time) – called “Why is there anything at all?” as the fundamental question of metaphysics.

Interestingly, there have been emotional responses to Heidegger proclaiming this as the fundamental question. Some excerpts from Arthur Witherall’s note on this:

  • Many philosophers have expressed a feeling of awe when they come to address what Martin Heidegger has called the fundamental question of metaphysics: “why is there something instead of nothing?”
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein’s response is a complex one, for he both rejects the verbal expression of awe as a piece of nonsense, but insists that the feeling itself has an absolute significance.
  • It is arguable that if the fundamental question has no meaning, then it can invoke no feelings.

Work to be done: This can be a good question for a survey: What do you feel when you come across the question, “why is there something instead of nothing?”?

In this piece “Does the Universe Exist if We’re Not Looking?”, Tim Fogler shares about John Wheeler (1911 – 2008 ) the scientist who popularized the term “Black Hole”. This is a 2002 article where Wheeler shares that he has had a heart attack recently and goes on to say:

“That’s a signal. I only have a limited amount of time left, so I’ll concentrate on one question: How come existence?'”

There! We have one more vote on why this is the most important question and why our map “should” begin with this question.

Let us hold our horses. What exactly are we taking about? As soon as we say “Existence”, people start using a variety of different and sometimes overlapping terms:

  1. Existence
  2. Universe
  3. World
  4. Life
  5. Being
  6. Matter
  7. Energy

Let us resolve this in this section called “OUR UNIVERSE, ALL MULTIVERSES OR THE ENTIRE EXISTENCE?”

Interestingly, American philosopher David Kellogg Lewis (1941 – 2001) worked on a view called modal realism that may be summarized (by Dr Peter J. King) as:

  1. Possible worlds exist – they are just as real as our world;
  2. Possible worlds are the same sort of things as our world – they differ in content, not in kind;
  3. Possible worlds cannot be reduced to something more basic – they are irreducible entities in their own right.
  4. ‘Actual’ is indexical. When we distinguish our world from other possible worlds by claiming that it alone is actual, we mean only that it is our world.
  5. Possible worlds are unified by the spatiotemporal interrelations of their parts; every world is spatiotemporally isolated from every other world.
  6. Possible worlds are causally isolated from each other.

Conclusion: When we ask “Why ANYTHING exists”, then it is imperative to know as to WHAT exactly we mean by “ANYTHING”.

For example, if someone makes an statement like “God created the Universe” then does this answer our question? Professor Roy Sorensen whose interests include “vagueness, lying, and perception” states in his article at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

For instance, if we answer ‘There is something because the Universal Designer wanted there to be something’, then our explanation takes for granted the existence of the Universal Designer. Someone who poses the question in a comprehensive way will not grant the existence of the Universal Designer as a starting point.

Note the emphasis on “comprehensive way” – that is what we are aiming to work towards – comprehensive and complete answers.

Work to be done: The question “why anything exists at all” needs a lot more rigor than how we have discussed here so far. Which sets of previous or contemporary work does justice to this question? We need to find out.

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