Why Does Anything Exist? - Part I - AlwaysAsking.com
Why does anything exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Wouldn’t nothing have been so much easier?
Every society in every time has wrestled with this dilemma. It’s our most enduring question. For we all seek to know: why we are here?
In this episode we will review the latest answers and use the best available evidence in an attempt to settle this ageless question. With an answer to this question we can orientate ourselves in reality, and understand the reason behind it all.
An answer to this question would tell us not only why we exist, but also what else exists, both within the universe we see and beyond.
Beginning: 00:00
Episode start: 00:25
Two Paths to Existence: 04:42
Something From Nothing?: 06:04
Defining Nothing: 07:16
Kinds of Nothing: 09:30
Rules for Nothing: 11:02
The Trouble with Nothing: 12:30
Properties of Nothing: 13:20
Properties of Zero: 15:18
An Explosion of Entities: 17:55
A True Nothing: 21:18
Unsculpted Marble: 23:24
An Unsent E-mail: 24:51
The Library of Babel: 26:02
Everything From Nothing?: 32:59
Less Information, More Reality: 33:39
Necessary Existence: 39:50
A Self-Existent Thing?: 42:22
Existing without Cause: 44:18
First Cause: 45:51
Infinite Regression: 47:00
Causal Loop: 49:29
The Nature of Uncaused Things: 53:24
Candidates for Self-Existence: 55:53
Logic: 56:51
Truth: 1:00:53
Numbers: 1:05:08
Possibility: 1:10:38
The Universe: 1:16:24
A Higher Plane: 1:22:32
Consciousness: 1:25:32
Reviewing Answers: 1:30:58
Abstract Entities: 1:31:30
Possibility and Consistency: 1:32:40
The Physical: 1:33:46
Higher Planes: 1:34:43
The Mental: 1:36:04
A Causeless Cause: 1:36:44
Three Modes of Existence: 1:38:18
Math, Matter, Mind: 1:40:15
Materialism: 1:41:36
Idealism: 1:43:19
Platonism: 1:45:24
What Came First?: 1:47:14
Are They One?: 1:48:46
Mind and Matter as One?: 1:48:57
Math and Matter as One?: 1:50:24
All as One?: 1:52:19
A Path to Reality: 01:53:07
20th Century Mathematics: 01:54:35
See Part 2: • Why Does Anything Exis...
Other formats:
Podcast: podcast.alwaysasking.com/
Article: alwaysasking.com/why-does-any...
eBook: alwaysasking.com/member-content/
This is just amazing. So much information. I can't praise this enough!
Thanks Silver1! Don't forget to check out Part II!
When I try and contemplate that nothing exists, even nothing itself, I have to stop myself in case I suddenly understand the meaning of such a state and existence blinks out, along with me.
Be careful!
Cover one of your eye that is the best example of “nothing” which isn’t pure blackness
Every person on earth should be required to watch this video. This is a truly heroic work. I have only made it twenty minutes through, and I already cannot wait to watch it again.
Thank you Michael! I'm glad you enjoy it. Don't miss part 2: kzhead.info/sun/n718pdBsanyJq6c/bejne.html
I agree 🙂 and besides maybe we had a life before maybe we could be repeated our life’s before 😳it may seem like trash 😑but it could be possible 😐after all how would we know eaeth would formed in the first place ?😐if we only had one life we would be long dead by now 😑it’s very complicated 😓but very interesting 🤔
yes ... make them watch... open their ears and MAKE THEM LISTEN... yes.... make them drink boiling lead,,,, MAKE THEM MAKE THEM !!!
This is amazing. I always thought about nothingness. No time no space no laws ... just nothing. Why is there something? Edit: its a little bit sad that everyone around me dont care about things like nothingness and why everything is.
Thanks Johannes, glad you like it!
I agree with you. In my life it’s like I am the only one concerned with stuff like this?
I agree, I find metaphysical questions fascinating. It has led me into a lot of satisfying studies.
Life and existence in general really doesn't make any sense if you think about it. The default condition is nothingness, and something has to happen for that something to turn into something. As for life, it demands extremely complecated processes that have no reason to happen unless there's a purpose and a cause behind them. From my POV I see no other reason why anything exists other than for the purpose of a higher being that has to be eternal and uncreated, that is, God.
@@ashley_brown6106 For me the reason and the meaning behind it all is the pursuit of entropy. Perhaps the chaos that surrounds us is the best state that needs the least amount of energy. If there is a state that allows absolutely nothing, there is also nothing in that state that prevents "something" from existing. Maybe at some point everything (matter, time, space) will be torn apart (Big Rip) until we have reached a kind of state again in which the absolute nothing is reached and everything starts all over again. Lots of "maybe" but that's an idea that at least makes a lot of sense to me.
I want to say thank you so much for the content you produce. I can honestly say you have introduced me to new ideas with every video. The last person who was able to do this for me was Jim Al Khalili, his documentary "everything and nothing" on the nature of the vacuum was mind-blowing to me. Your ability to attack these issues with philosophy, logic, interesting historical figures and long form content is so mentally stimulating, much needed during this period of lockdown due to covid. Keep going!
Hi Steviefyre, thank you for your kind words. I am happy to hear it has exposed you to new ideas! I will check out that documentary you mentioned, it sounds fascinating. 😁
I found you through your video on Jupiter brains, after a KZhead search of "computronium", after being introduced to the term through an Isaac Arthur video. Yours seems to be one of the few videos on KZhead which even mentions the topic at all. This is one of the most impressive channels I've ever seen. I wish there were more creators like you. I don't agree with *every* idea you present, but I learn so much regardless. You are a master of stringing together ideas/quotes/etc in useful ways. I don't normally put up with "artificial narration" but in this case I'm starving for more content. Great job, I'm sure I'll listen to all of your videos and I hope you continue to write articles like this for years to come!
Hi Ryan! What a wonderful compliment, I'm glad to hear that you enjoy hearing and learning about new ideas. Regarding computronium, I am planning an indepth video on this topic (the physical limits of technological growth) in the video after the next one (which will be on consciousness). I am also planning to get setup with recording soon, so I will experiment with non-generated narration. Thanks for your feedback, it's always appreciated. :-)
Another beautifully crafted and presented video that makes your brain work! I love it 😉 Thank you for the time and effort making and uploading this mate! AlwaysAsking is definitely my kind of 'AA' 😁
Hi Matt, thank you! You're welcome and I will do my best to keep uploading content of similar quality. Glad to hear it is your type of AA 😂
I was hoping this was a long upload and it looks better then expected, so excited for this one!
Thank you M- Nice!
It would have been 4 hours too, but I decided to split it. I think 4 hours might be too much to take in at once!
Nothing is dreaming of something. Something from nothing.
You summarized a 4 hour video in 8 words. :-)
Sorry i missed premier... Just got home and watching now!! Best new content on KZhead!!!
Thank you Joe Y! Perhaps you can make it for Part 2? kzhead.info/sun/n718pdBsanyJq6c/bejne.html Is later better for you?
Excellent video. The voice is listenable. Information is given at the rate in which realization can occur while incurring new thoughts that progress. I subscribed.
Found "Always Asking" a week ago...i can not get enough...keep them comming
I will! Thank you Michael!
@@AlwaysAsking agreed!
check the one about afterlives - it changed my life.
@@dreamonion6558 Thank you Dream & Onion! That's an amazing endorsement!
Such a underrated channel I feel lucky to have found this channel so early as we get to watch it grow.
Set reminder, make popcorn 🍿 and a nice iced tea 🫖. Can hardly wait.
Great idea!
Set reminder for what!? I want popcorn too (you can hold the Ice Tea though thanks)
Outstanding, thank you AlwaysAsking. My question is why isn’t this page more popular??
Thank you ekwfan! Great question, maybe I should have tried to answer that one first ;-)
Welcome back after a long break
Thanks short! It's good to be publishing again!
Amazing videos......I love them!! Thank you thank you thank you!!
You're so very welcome Gavin!
The urge to feel and experience is what made the universe explode into existence
As Sagan said, "We are the way for the universe to know itself."
I feel that man.. profound way of putting it
The urge for what exactly to feel and experience? Nothing had the urge? Hmmm... interesting
I'm sticking with the "nothing is everything" folks. The reality of absolute emptiness necessitates the creation of all possible reality. Or, as Yogi Berra said "it ain't over 'til it's over."
I like ur thinking. Desire is key, as a Buddhist understands. Since each of us is de facto a hologram of existence it is ours to choose whether exist or not exist. Ending desire must end existence. That is a personal choice, an ''anti-desire''. People imagine ''thing'' as ''solid'' just because it can crush their bones, another ''solid'' when in fact all that ''solid'' is no more than desire made manifest and no ''more'' than nothing. So the question ''something from nothing?'' is a misnomer, there is no such question, There is only nothing+desire. Take away desire and it's not even turtles.
The music in this video: "Birth of a Hero" by bensound.com "New Dawn" by bensound.com "November" by bensound.com "Of Elias Dream" by bensound.com "Goldberg variations, Aria" composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka "Opus 55 No. 1 in F Minor" composed by Frédéric Chopin, performed by Willem Ibes digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/music_recordings/8/ "Gnossienne No.1" composed by Erik Satie, performed by Elisabetta Cavaleri imslp.org/wiki/Gnossiennes_(Satie,_Erik) "Symphony No. 7: II. Allegretto" composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia www.yourclassical.org/story/2017/12/05/daily-download-ludwig-van-beethoven--symphony-no-7-ii-allegretto "Canon in D Major" composed by Johann Pachelbel, performed by Kevin MacLeod "Gymnopedie No 1" composed by Erik Satie, performed by Kevin MacLeod
Oh THANKS you see we are all total fkn morons incapable of assimilating ANYTHING without a nice schlokky ''television'' soundtrack of pop-classical brayneshite muzak.
53:30 "Given that reality exists, we know that there must be an entity that is causeless." That a causeless entity exists proves FSM is the Prime, unmoved mover! Primavera speaks directly to and emboldens this unassailable Truth. All hail FSM and His noodly goodness. Ramen. All other gods must bow before FSM.
May you be blessed by his noodly appendage. 🍝
Such excellent content, thank you for this
Thank you, I am glad you enjoyed it!
Absolutely awesome! Thank you 🙌 You say see some other episodes in some of your episodes but I can not find them. Like are we living in simulation. Where do I find them? Thx
Hi Joseph, you're most welcome 🙂. I'm still working on the simulation one, it will probably be episode 12. Here's a list of the future planned topics: alwaysasking.com/questions/ Feel free to suggest your own questions on that page as well!
Thank you for this amazing content.
Hi Alexander, thank you! You're most welcome 👍
This is an absolute gem. Been listening to this simce 3 years
Glad you're back!
Thanks Explesis! In truth I never left, this video just took much longer than I thought it would. 😂
@@AlwaysAsking well it is very good. So I'm happy I waited
Damn, came back watched this viedo again, and wow thank you for work in compiling all these pionts together.
Thank you Aaron! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :-) You've seen the second part right?
@TBallard I am not 100% sure, but it may be that if you have the notification bell set you are notified of premieres.
This morning I was dreaming about how the universe begun, I saw dark vast space then it became so hot, and that heat made matter and then it exploded. When I asked where did the heat come from my brain just literally exploded and I woke up terrified. Then I went back to sleep and asked again where did the heat came from and my brain exploded again. I was really scared
Is that what brought you to this video? In any case I hope it might help you to get better sleep. 🙂 Now you've got me wondering: where did the energy come from to make your head explode. 🤔 🤯
The urge to feel and experience is what made the universe explode into existence
that's just Exploding Brain Syndrome and if you are stupid anyway it does on harm. But best keep a moist mop, bucket and roll of bandages handy, just for the mess.
I forgot to mention.. things exist that have no physical properties, but that doesn't prevent them from existing. Things can exist as something or nothing, and yet they are both something. Just because it's hard comprehend that nothing is something makes no difference at all. But if you try to describe or Invision nothing using the method that you describe something as, that will never work. When you have something, that doesn't mean you have all other possible things. You only have that something. Actually nothing and something are the same thing, but only appear to be totally different. That's the reason no one has been able to solve the mystery of how can you get something out of nothing
That theory is discussed in the video. It's the basis of Russell Standish's free ebook "Theory of Nothing"
Agreed. The question itself is fallacious. It is like the question ''why existence?'' when you are God there is no question why, since why presumes the existence of higher authority. Those like Dawkins who ask the question ''so who made God'?' are just being infantile and trying to pass it off as clever. So there is no such question as ''something from nothing'' There is only the assertion that ''something'' is all there can be and that there can be no ''nothing'' until you choose fully not to exist any further and cease from rebirth, ie, like the Buddha. It is all just a personal matter, not in the hands of anything beyond yourself. You choose.
Thinking about the possibility of something coming out of nothing is an endless loop that makes me sick to my stomach. I found this video in a desire to clarify the answer.
Master piece for free unbelievable
Wow thank you for saying so. :-) I am glad you like it.
AA is platforming here the most fundamental idea a person can conceive. I am so happy that his voice sounds exactly like that of the self right authoritarian nerd who screams about 100 times ''this vehicle is reversing´´ at 1000db every morning at 0800 outside my gaff. Glad am i too that he decided to acompany every one of his thoughts with some pop-classical muzak soundtrack because I like he am totally stupid in my senti-mental bubble of saccharine shite and require enormous amounts of sugar even just to help my lovely cup of PG tips go down of a morning. Great work!
Thanks Jonnie. I am upgrading the voice in future videos. AI voice synthesis has improved impressively and I can even use it to clone my own voice. If you dislike the music, you can listen to the podcast audio ( podcast.alwaysasking.com/ ) which is music free, and also read the text at alwaysasking.com which also has many references for further reading.
@@AlwaysAsking never be nice to a troll .. he will only suicide in your dinner
@@HABLA_GUIRRRI Sorry I wasn't sure if that was what you were or not. 🙂
Such a great video
Thank you Phil!
This is awesome
Thank you darryl! Have you finished this one and the second part?
Wow this video is a masterpiece -I've never thought so deeply about nothingness and existence before!
Hi Matina, thank you so much for that compliment. I am happy it inspired you to think about nothing. :-)
@@AlwaysAsking haha it sounds funny when you say it like that🤣🤣
Since matter is a form of energy Math, Mind, and Energy are all abstract concepts We are all knots and kinks in Spacetime 🙃
Let's hope no one works them out. :-)
but not if you are a mere thought from the centre of a neutron star
I really enjoyed this video, thanks so much. If you happen to see this comment I have a couple of questions: Why did it start at Chapter 9 when title said part 1? And I didn’t notice any credits, like for a narrator or writer. Is this original material? I’m just curious, no disrespect intended.
Hi Adam, no disrespect taken! This is episode 9 of a larger series that covers different big questions. The credits are at the end of part 2, which had to be split because this episode was almost 4 hours. The content is based on articles at the site: alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/
@@AlwaysAsking Cool, thanks for answering. You have a new subscriber.
@@YogSoth Thank you! I hope you enjoy future content! 😃
For some reason, it is always absent in such considerations "Nothing also means No objective observer". Either nothing erases an (even virtual) observer or an observer erases nothing. Only nothing can watch an other nothing. We only exist conditionally in illusions created by ambiguity of nothing .
This is a loaded question. It supposes that there is a reason that 'things' exist. You would have to first demonstrate that there is a reason for existence before asking someone to explain _why_ anything exists.
The reason could be a rational or logical one, rather than reason in the sense of some implied intention. In the end, this video aims to find an explanation, rather than a reason. Let me know if you think it succeeds in doing so once part 2 comes out this Friday. :-)
You miss the point of the question. A reason is a separate issue and is not necessary to want to understand how anything came into existence at all. If one was able to go through the layers at some point you would have to arrive at the "Source" who is the first cause and whose existence is eternal.
@@TheBruces56 No. You would not have to arrive _there._
Thanks!
Thank you so much!
eComing back since I''ve listened to this many times; it has touched me, although it also leaves behind a kind of "indifferent" aftertaste, Anyways... Even though everything in this model is completely logical and can stand on its own, the one big mystery that remains is consciousness. You wrote at some point that in the vastness of infinity, there will be universes in which people on our earth write books about the mysteriousness of consciousness, thus making it "real" in a sense. But... in essence that would just be Library of Babel noise that has to exist, making sense to us humans, but the experience itself (qualia) does NOT have to exist for descriptions of it to exist. To me, all that is and can possibly be only includes like physical arrangements of stuff. An indifferent state of everything - it wouldn't be dead because it's not being observed - it would just.... be. But there is something to it: experience. I think even if the origin of everything can be explained, consciousness will forever be a mystery or at the very least never completely solved. Is it an algorithm with 10 to the 100 or even infinite variables in its equation? Probably not but what else would it be? And how could we say "yes with exactly that x subscript 10 trillion we have achieved consciousness of a house cat"? Is my consciousness immortal? Applying something like the simulation argument makes it... apparently more likely that I am in fact experiencing someting from the POV of an immortal consciousness rather than something that's pops in randomly and ceases to exist after some time which is completely irrelevant compared to infinity. Is solipsism maybe actually a valid scientific theory? That each universe has one consciousness and experiences every point of view sequentially and in order even though it's a 4 dimensional construct that's completely static as a whole?
Dang it! Cliffhanger at the end! Can't wait for part 2.
Hi Brian! Sorry for the cliffhanger! The next part will be out this Friday: kzhead.info/sun/n718pdBsanyJq6c/bejne.html I hope you can join us live!
@@AlwaysAsking Yes, can't wait! Thanks ❤🙏
Hey hope you are doing well. Thanks for all the great videos ❤🙏 would love to get some new ones some day.
The body stops a cell at a time, but the brain keeps firing those neurons. Little lightning bolts, like fireworks inside, and I thought I’d despair or feel afraid, but I don’t feel any of that. None of it. Because I’m too busy. I’m too busy in this moment. Remembering. Of course. I remember that every atom in my body was forged in a star. This matter, this body is mostly just empty space after all, and solid matter? It’s just energy vibrating very slowly and there is no me. There never was. The electrons of my body mingle and dance with the electrons of the ground below me and the air I’m no longer breathing. And I remember there is no point where any of that ends and I begin. I remember I am energy. Not memory. Not self. My name, my personality, my choices, all came after me. I was before them and I will be after, and everything else is pictures, picked up along the way. Fleeting little dreamlets printed on the tissue of my dying brain. And I am the lightning that jumps between. I am the energy firing the neurons, and I’m returning. Just by remembering, I’m returning home. And it’s like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, of which it’s always been a part. All things… a part. All of us… a part. You, me and my little girl, and my mother and my father, everyone who’s ever been, every plant, every animal, every atom, every star, every galaxy, all of it. More galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the beach. And that’s what we’re talking about when we say “God.” The one. The cosmos and its infinite dreams. We are the cosmos dreaming of itself. It’s simply a dream that I think is my life, every time. But I’ll forget this. I always do. I always forget my dreams. But now, in this split-second, in the moment I remember, the instant I remember, I comprehend everything at once. There is no time. There is no death. Life is a dream. It’s a wish. Made again and again and again and again and again and again and on into eternity. And I am all of it. I am everything. I am all. I am that I am.
Too beautiful to remain only a KZhead comment. This should be published somewhere.
@@AlwaysAsking Don't worry, it's already published. This is an excerpt from a new Netflix show "Midnight Mass". I found it on the pantheism subreddit. :) I absolutely adore your videos, I was totally gushing over them when I first found them. Are you familiar with Andrés Gómez Emilsson? I can recommend his channel, he deals with a lot of similar topics, with a focus on consciousness research, and he's just an all around jolly and fascinating character :D
@@LoVeLoVe-bi2rq Thank you for sharing that and for your kind comment! I was not familiar with Andrés Gómez Emilsson but will check out his channel. My next video, which has taken me many months of research, will be on the topic of consciousness. I hope you enjoy it. Have a happy new year!
@@LoVeLoVe-bi2rq Wow Andrés Gómez Emilsson's channel is great. So many topics and thoughts and interests that seem aligned with my own, I definitely need to explore more, I've queued up many of his videos to watch.
@@AlwaysAsking Glad I was able to introduce you to something new. I thought there was a small chance you might've heard of him since if I remember correctly I think he's a former student of David Pearce, whose zero ontology you mentioned in your videos, or at the very least the two are friends and associated and are influenced by each other to some degree. I am looking forward to your upcoming video on consciousness, I'll definitely be watching. By the way, don't be turned off by Andres slightly goofy attitude, the guy is an absolute treasure trove of interesting thoughts if you stay past that and listen to what he's saying. Your videos are a treasure too. Wishing you a good start into the New Year as well :)
My favorite channel on youtube
Thank you Jayson A! 😀
" Nothing is Absolute. Then is Something. Everything is Eternal in Allthings, is There...Only in Total."- Azure Brown and that is an example of a concept that explains every everything in 15 words. "If i had to cast Conceptualization at[ ]or Nothing/ Something. No things are Absolute. And Something is Supreme. For an Existence, Concept of Nothing due to its Nothing it starts Everything. But Nothing is Absolute, inturn Everything has Aspects that are.Eternal. These Realizations allow Everthing to encompass(from our logic piont) or Internalize(from the piont of Everything) Allthings in Being. Inso Nothing to Be Blank and Birth in Being, Creating in Concept and Continuing in Conception. Anti-Absolute in Aspects and Neutral in Actualization." -Azure Brown
Good one to fell asleep on 😴😴
Nothing exists. We only think it does
In a way that's true.
the question might involve the semantics of mathematics. If there was "a void" before anything came to be in it, what is the definition of the statement "there was a void"? If you have a cat, you have one cat...if you have a void, you by logical inference, you have one (1) void. This is the beginning seed of information, in that, a "one" in quantity can be attached as a primary identifier, therefore the first digit of math is a default setting on that void concept. You cannot have half a void, or two voids, separated by a less than void region in a logical sense. How math evolved beyond that point to describe the universe is quite another story, but at least this gets the thing off the ground.
Right, I think it is very difficult, if not impossible to have a consistent definition of nothing which does not, at least in some abstract sense, introduce numbers and their infinite properties. Part two of this episode shows a possible mechanism by which numbers, once they get off the ground, leads to the rest of perceived reality.
I have a cat -- ex Schroedinger --- which I bought at a jumble sale. The creature is in fact just over half void with white paws but interprets ''zero'' as ''nil'' and will not be preturbed in this respect. I tried feeding it ''nothing'' and it burped all day, all kinds of numbers which didn't add up to infinity. The vet has now suicided and I am thoroughly discombobulated. Can a cat get buddhism and stop getting reincarnated? It would at least help. '
From CTMU wiki: Questions like "why and how does reality exist?" and "why does this reality exist instead of some other reality?" are typically answered in one of two ways: Reality "just exists", and no further explanation is needed or can be given. Reality exists due to the influence of something outside of it, an external creator. Langan opposes both views, arguing that were reality to lack an explanation, it would lack the structure needed to enforce its own consistency, whereas for an external creator to create reality, the creator itself would have to be real, and therefore inside reality by definition, contradicting the premise.[32] The CTMU treats the origin of reality in the context of freedom and constraint. Concepts are defined by constraints specifying their structure, and structure requires explanation. Consequently, Langan argues, every concept requires explanation except the "terminal concept" with no constraints, and no structure to explain. In the CTMU, this terminal concept or "ontological groundstate" is called "unbound telesis" or UBT.[33] Because UBT is a medium of pure potential, everything is possible within it. This means that anything which is able to "recognize itself" as existing, will in fact exist from its own vantage. However, the requirements for doing so are, asserts Langan, more stringent than is normally supposed. Because UBT is unstructured, the only possibilities which can actualize from it are those with sufficient internal structure to create and configure themselves. So in the CTMU, reality, rather than being uncaused or externally caused, is self-caused, and constrained by the structure it needs to create and configure itself, that of SCSPL. The above reasoning, holds Langan, resolves the ex nihilo or "something-from-nothing" paradox. The paradox arises when "nothing" is taken to exclude not just "something", but the potential for "something". Because exclusion of potential is a constraint, "nothing" in this sense requires its own explanation, and cannot serve as an ontological groundstate. But when "nothing" is viewed as unconstrained potential or UBT,[34] asserts Langan, reality arises inevitably from it.
Hi drybean, thank you for providing this exposition on CTMU. It is rather similar to the conclusion reached in part II of this episode, in my opinion. In so far as reality emerges from consistent constraints between cognition and observed reality, which ultimately can be traced to logical self-consistency/rational laws (or logos).
Your post above claims that the idea of an external creator God is contradicting premise[32], but on the CMTU wiki it is claimed that CMTU proves the existence of God. So, what position is held then by the CMTU, God exists, but is not the (external) creator of the universe?
@@robheusd Yes, God exists, but is not the external creator of the universe.
@@drybeanburrito So what role then does God play in the universe in the point of view of CMTU, since the role of external creator of the universe was no longer necessary or already taken by something/someone else. Maybe something like internal decorator?
@@robheusd I’m still studying the CTMU and don’t fully understand it, but from what I understand, the CTMU is a panentheistic theory where God is both immanent (within the universe or is the universe) and transcendent (beyond the universe) in contrast with pantheism in which the universe and God are one and the same. There’s a principle of the CTMU called the Reality Principle, which states that reality contains all and only that which is real, which implies that anything real enough to affect reality must be part of it, both by dint of being real and by dint of affecting reality. Which means that if God is real and affects reality or the universe, they must both be part of the same reality. There is another principle which goes even further called the Multiplex Unity Principle, which essentially states that everything reduces to a common medium if two things are related at all. If they do not reduce to a common medium, they would essentially not be part of the same reality, reality itself being the most basic medium of all. This, in effect, means that everything is one, and we are one with God. So God, rather than being an external creator outside of reality, is inside reality and creates the universe by self-restriction of ontological potential, being that God is UBT (UnBound Telesis, telesis being the raw material of existence), UBT being unconstrained potential - which results when there is nothing to dictate what exists, there being no causes, and so reality takes on all possible states.
The angel in the marble
Nothing cannot exist because for the simple fact that it's not the absence of something that defines it but rather that in order to define it as nothing it has to be compared to it's opposite which happens to be something. Neither one can exist without the other.. nothing without something to call that nothing nothing is not possible. Therefore everything that exists is nothing and something. It's not either one and it's both.
Its interesting to ask if numbers are even real in nature. Numbers are just an abstract thing we use to identify how many birds we see on a fence. . On the other hand they seem to be imbeded in nature as constants, like Pi, and the Golden Mean.
What is the proper definition that draws the line between abstract and concrete? Are other universes we can't see abstract or concrete? What about equivalent mathematical structures? What if they contain observers? It gets quite hard.
Awesome site..... thanx
Thank you Kris!
@@AlwaysAsking most welcome..... an Australian chick here..... = )
Does hurt my brain however, but asks the same questions l have always asked myself. WHY
@@Kris-dy9yc Welcome to the channel! I'm glad you found it.
@@Kris-dy9yc it's important to ask big questions. Regarding the headache, there's a ton of information packed in the video, I too feel mentally drained after watching it. Some prefer the article, which gives the opportunity to step back and think on something for a while before continuing on: alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/
The answer to this question is self answering.the answer is BECAUSE it does. That's why lookiing for an alternative answer leads you to infinite regressions and paradoxes. It's like saying the question is the answer, the ONLY answer
Existence is not subject to the question; the question is subject to existence.
I agree that to ask a question one must exist, but I am not sure that existence is not subject to questioning.
hermeticism seems to answer most questions using sound logic and reason in a simple and intuitive way with no nonsense.
The question of something rather than nothing is self explanatory.. The very fact that you are able to ask that question HAS to mean that nothing is NOT possible !!! That is why when you try to imagine true nothing, it cannot be done. But how can that be !!!! Then you are left with 2 choices as far as I can understand it. One choice is that existence has ALWAYS been. It's not possible to really be able to understand or imagine ALWAYS and eternity. You will go crazy trying to do it !! The other choice is that existence had a beginning, but that brings around the idea of something out of nothing, which is equally a concept that can make you go crazy. So 2 choices, and neither of them are logical in any way at all !! And I can say with confidence that this question will never be answered in a way that says this is the answer. The concept of something having always existed even if time is taken out, leaves you with the impossible task of imagining something that exists, but exists in no time at all !! Time seems to be a necessary thing in order for anything to exist. Here we are again with another mind wrecker !! Inspite of all this, we keep on trying to reach an answer, but subconsciously knowing we will never get one
I think things can exist without and outside of time. Something like the number 3 exists outside if time, for example. There's evidence that even our universe is timeless, in the sense that the flow of time isn't an objective property of the universe, but a subjective illusion. See the episode "What is time?" for more on this.
@@AlwaysAsking ok but before you say that, what do YOU define time as being ? That has to be established first
@@richardnelson4112 Time is a dimension, as explained here: kzhead.info/sun/hKduYtqKpKaHoo0/bejne.html
@@AlwaysAsking I'm sorry always asking.. I don't base my understanding and comprehension on someone else's idea of it or formulas originating from their mind for a number of reasons. In that case rather than using reasoning you can understand at a fundamental level, everything is reduced to some formula.. formulas can be nice, but certainly they fall short of actually explaining anything. That requires higher levels of thinking. And formulas are not the instruments that can explain abstract concepts.. formulas work ok with the material world as we experience it, but not for existence that is outside of this realm.
@@richardnelson4112 If you watch the full video you will see that this approach is able to account for many otherwise unexplainable aspects of our physical reality. Therefore you might say it's our only scientifically confirmed theory for why anything exists.
I disagree about zero being neither positive or negative. In fact negative does not exist. If you have a number line with 0 at the center and I add 3 to it, now we are at the third position to the right of the 0 on the number line. I cannot go into negative territory by subtracting 4, because all I have is 3 or less to subtract, but certainly not more than the 3. Same thing applied with the temperature scale. If I say it is negative 10 degrees outside that is also false because the center line 0 is placed in the wrong place. The 0 has to be as far left as possible, otherwise the reading is leading to non existent readings. Negative things means they don't exist. So doing calculations with non existent and existing things is setting yourself up for failure. If it exists it is positive. If it doesn't it is negative. Electrons and protons have no - or +, but do have a difference in potential. That difference is what gives them their identifying properties when compared to each other.. if I say 0 is neither negative or positive, that holds true for all other numbers as well. Any number existing alone has no properties at all
There is a sense in which negative and real numbers, etc. may not be as "real" as the natural or whole numbers. Some people also deny the existence of infinity, and say there is a greatest number.
Well for the universe or how we got here from whatever even if it was just protons 😐their are many other factors then just protons we have to consider dark matter dark energy gravity radiation quantum mechanics quantum Physics etc 😳
Consciousness can't help being just itself.
The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that nothing is aware it exists as nothing, and is not happy with this thought and also existing with nothing else therefore created something, so that now it doesn't exist alone, but still it exists as nothing, but now has a companion named something, and now can exist as a happy nothing. Something is the creation of nothing. I don't know how this process works, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't. What this says is that consciousness does not need anything to exist in order for it to be self aware. Therefore true consciousness=nothing, and if this statement is true, then something can always exist as something or nothing, it makes no difference. What is impossible is no consciousness at all and no existence at all in either state
I think consciousness offers key clues to the fundamental nature of reality.
@@AlwaysAsking I think nothing offers key clues to the nature of existence
@@AlwaysAsking yes you are right. But then you have to accept that consciousness is nothing since it came from nothing. So nothing equals consciousness, and once you have consciousness, something exists and that's how something came out of nothing. I also want to say something to you about zero being neither positive or negative. That is correct, but negative existing is not correct. So it could never be negative. At the same time it isn't positive, so that statement is true overall. But imagine this. A guy knowing you have $3 and only $3 and says to you "I'm going to take $4 from you" and you say to him that's not possible since I only have 3. He has 2 choices. 1st choice he has is to take the 3 that you do have, but the 4th one he wants doesn't exist. So in that 1st choice he will only end up getting 3. The other choice is that he gets $3 and also a -$1 .But mathematics says you can subtract 4 from 3, and end up with a negative number, which in this case would be -1 ...that doesn't seem possible at all. What that's really saying is that mathematics is now trying to invent magic. There is no such thing as a negative number, because a negative number suggests itself that it doesn't exist. Negative numbers are part of the abstract world, but not of the world you live in. Ask me to give you negative $20. I'll see how I can do that. Then once you get it, go down to the store and see if they accept negative currency, and let me know the result
@@richardnelson4112 That's what debt is, isn't it?
@@AlwaysAsking well I rest my case. You see what negative numbers have done. Now you have someone at your door threatening that if you don't pay that negative amount, that they will put you in prison. I warned you !!!!🤭
Nothing exists. Its just an appearance. This moment is all there is, but the moment cant be grasped. Once it begins, it ends, and the beginning and end happens simultaniously. This is nothing appearing to be something. THIS is unknowable.
This is mind boggling thought, and it shows how one of the oldest(Hindu) civilizations pondered over such a profound question.
It is remarkable how long people have had such profound ideas, and it is also quite incredible how often they turn out to be right.
So zero and infinite are opposite polarities of the same thing like heat and cold or light and darkness. something and nothing would be two opposing sides of one thing?
Hi Rex, in a sense, yes. For example, In information theory, all information has an information complexity of zero, and so is equivalent to no information. In mathematics, the number zero has an infinite number of properties, which reference all other numbers.
The problem is not to find the answer to the proposed question but to admit that the human mind does not have the capacity to understand the nature of reality but reality still exists! We all necessarily live by heuristic driven existential premises, what in the religious realm is called FAITH. That is the most powerful argument I have ever found for the existence of the transcendent. Reason is indeed necessary for sanity but it is not a panacea, it is not sufficient to produce existential meaning. Maybe that is why Sir Isaac Newton was an alchemist.
Hi Otávio, There are problems that are provably unsolvable by the human mind, but I would not conclude too early that the question of existence falls into that category. Surely, there were problems that seemed equally daunting at one point in human history: what are the stars made of, how does life reproduce itself, etc. but eventually those problems fell to human reason. Time will tell whether any of the proposed answers presented in this video will be a correct interpretation for why anything exists. If you have seen 'part 2' of this video, there is already an inkling of confirmatory evidence for one of these theories.
@@AlwaysAsking It is an honor to have a comment answered by ‘AlwaysAsking’ himself (or herself). I admire the material in the channel, it is clearly the result of intelligence and hard work. I watched part II of the video as you suggested. What I can say is that the 'infinite regression' thought perplexity and the rationale on how to handle it is as ancient as humanity and stirs up even the children. The multicultural ouroboros image is an expression of that deep perplexity and, to me, the video ‘Why Does Anything Exist? part II’ is nothing but a sophisticated representation of the ouroboros structure in rhetorical form. My point is that the nature of existence and especially the nature of consciousness is ‘ununderstandable’ with the human mind because it can not be modeled, it is ‘unimaginable’, we can go no further than the uroboros representation. How could we model the mechanism of the experience of feeling for example? We can not even imagine such a mechanism. We can make models about the mechanism of the stars and of life reproduction but we can not do it with the nature of existence, we always fall in the uroboros representation even if it is a sophisticated one.
@@otaviopmartins I think the analogy of the ouroboros is quite fitting. The recursion between the snake eating its tail is much like the circularity that exists between the conscious mind looking at the universe that supports it. Without the conscious mind the universe containing it would not be seen and would in a sense not exist, and without the substrate of the reality supporting the conscious mind, the mind would not exist. Both are forever locked in relation of mutual self-support. While daunting, the topic of "consciousness" is the main subject of my next planned episode. It is quite difficult to try to unpack the subject, but I think some progress can be made. I hope to hear your comments on it when it comes out. 🙂
@@AlwaysAsking for sure I will comment it. Thank you.
remember, when you laugh, you are with God, especially when God is illegal
I'd love to see, hear or read some new content, I hope you are well!!!
This video is crazy i'm crying rn
So many quotes that i must add a quote from my cat : "miao" . I think this quote is the answer for everything .
Cats do seem to have everything figured out.
Part II is set to premiere on Friday. You can sign up here: kzhead.info/sun/n718pdBsanyJq6c/bejne.html
What songs do you use??
Hi Bossman, here is the list: "Birth of a Hero" by bensound.com "New Dawn" by bensound.com "November" by bensound.com "Of Elias Dream" by bensound.com "Goldberg variations, Aria" composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka "Opus 55 No. 1 in F Minor" composed by Frédéric Chopin, performed by Willem Ibes digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/music_recordings/8/ "Gnossienne No.1" composed by Erik Satie, performed by Elisabetta Cavaleri imslp.org/wiki/Gnossiennes_(Satie,_Erik) "Symphony No. 7: II. Allegretto" composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia www.yourclassical.org/story/2017/12/05/daily-download-ludwig-van-beethoven--symphony-no-7-ii-allegretto "Canon in D Major" composed by Johann Pachelbel, performed by Kevin MacLeod "Gymnopedie No 1" composed by Erik Satie, performed by Kevin MacLeod
@@AlwaysAsking cheers
I made a playlist: kzhead.info/sun/idFmeMeej3aZhok/bejne.html
Nothingness is easy to contemplate. I was nothingness, now I am something, I believe I will become nothing once more
when i think of this i always think like this. “nothing” is automatically implying the existence of “something” the 2 are inseparable and coexist.
if we managed to create nothingness , then nothingness will cease to exist.
Hi Uncle T, that's an interesting thought, could you elaborate on it?
I think I know how to do that 🙂when we die as our bodies break down we loose anything all of our sences we will be in a void in fact we all will be in the same place as if we were not ever born in the first place 😐after all what do you remember before you were born?🤔
It at least begins to look like asking whether Mind, Math or Matter is primary is like unto asking whether water, steam, or ice is primary. They are aspects of the same thing.
Hi Ernest, that is a very interesting thought, to paint these three modes of existence as "different phases" of what is ultimately the same thing. Thank you for sharing it. :-)
you forget plasma and light.. the transcendent
END QUOTE! 😂
Zero only exists because we are here to give it a value. No we no zero...
But if we were not here, and nothing else existed, would zero still exist to give meaning to the number of things that exist?
I have been thinking about consciousness because if the theory is correct that the world you are experiencing originates from your consciousness, then it seems to me that you should be able to experience any existence you want unless this consciousness does not belong to you. And if it doesn't belong to you, that also means that whatever you are experiencing leaves you with no free will, which really seems to be the case, unless people like experiencing things that are let's say not very nice. True free will would mean you choose whatever it is you want, but not necessarily choose from a set of choices made available to you that has to be from this set of choices. So consciousness may create reality, but who's reality are you actually experiencing ? My idea of reality the way it would truely be reality, would be that I could have anything I dream of, or instantly want. So it really does also look like this reality we are experiencing is nothing more than a simulation, in which characters exist and must follow rules that they have no choice except to follow them.
You mention a lot of interesting questions which I hope to cover in future videos.
Ok , you win , , Because , stupid choices beget stupid prizes
@@gregjames3001 I win what ? Didn't know there was a contest. So when do I get paid mr. James ?
I have also spend time thinking about similar ideas. In always amazes me how we will never find the answer to these questions. It appears that these thoughts it transcends our abilities. As if we reached the limit of our consciousness. Like we are unable to imagine a new color that is not already included in our existing color spectrum. We can only imagine colors that our eyes can see. We seem hardwired by our existence in this universe to not be able so even think what non-existence is like. Lets say there is an artifical intelligence in a virtual world, generated by algorithms that the progammer coded. The artificial intelligence has the abilities to study and analyze the virtual world eventually figuring out the rules and laws the virtual world is obeying. But would it ever became self-conscious and figure out that it is just a program, consisting of codes and it was created by an outer-simulation being?
@@QuinnTheTailor Very insightful. There are indeed limits to knowledge, many of which reduce to limits of knowledge about oneself as a conscious entity. We, like the AI, can never be in a position to surveil our ultimate substrate. However, if you see part 2, there are some clues which might inform us as to the nature (or at least the scope) of what that ultimate substrate is.
I think we are an eternal mind and each time we die we live as something or someone else and don’t remember our past lives. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Our “being” isn’t limited to our brains and body. We have a mind which is different (psychedelics showed me this) and we are all the imagination of ourselves if you will, we are “god.” Might be true might not be but I wouldn’t doubt it
at odd times you might get a memory from a past life but it is hard to tell, it just has a taste of something from o u t s i d e, in a relative sense. From psychedelics one recalls the strong feeling of knowledge that there is o n l y existence and that nothing, the absence of existence is simply not a possibility. But this may just be a clue to a further knowledge that existence may be ceased by the ending of desire, available to each ''individual''.
You will really like the next episode. It explores these ideas in depth.
@@AlwaysAsking great news,, will look for it
Math = Soul, Mind = Consciousness, Matter = Sensory perceptions. True for God & true for us.
The issue with defining nothing is that an absolute nothing would also require no potential, which means you cannot have something out of nothing, because this would mean that there was potential which is not nothing.
Western Philosophy today is unfortunatly not much more than adding footnotes to Pluto with eloberate and sometimes contrived and increasingly complex and almost esoteric terminologies, that appeal only to a professional class rather than the common folk. The Logos of Pluto that includes Mathematics may or may not exist beyond Time and Space. Kant made it more fashionable by coining the term a priori. Both believed that logos existed perhaps eternally and independent of human mind. I personally think that speculating about the Cosmos of Nothing from a perspective of a cosmos of Something is a kind of fallacy. We are embedded in a universe of Something and as such can never access anything that is completely independent from it.
The Greeks were very advanced for their time, and I think in many ways we're still catching up to some of their discoveries. The second part of this video further reinforces this.
@@AlwaysAsking Looking forward!
Note how few of the geniuses here in the comments make any mention of the Buddha. They think Nirvana is a rock band and that sperm is a drink.
It's description that is the bottom line. That is the thing that you cannot get rid of otherwise it cannot exist if it does not have a description to describe its nature. And since it is something and it is the only thing that exists that means it is awful everything and since it is everything that means it is infinite yin and yang. The nothing is itself is bigger than the infinite because it contains it that's why the mother is larger than the father
oh.. to be beyond grammar... and logos.. oh precious ME!!
Part II: OMG, there's another two hours of this stuff?
😂
Another way to answer this question is by saying that the fact the question exists, that there CANNOT BE AN ANSWER. THE QUESTION IS THE ANSWER, ANF THE ANSWER IS THE QUESTION
Are philosophers aware that sometimes the concepts they struggle with are nothing but the consequences of human bias and language, and that nature is not bound by these things??? "Why" is a human construct. It is a human word. It assumes there must be meaning in things. It is not a fundamental part of nature. It's not unknowable - it's unimportant to anyone but humans who have decided such things should be important, whether or not the universe agrees with us. I think (and feel), therefore I am. That is my evidence that something exists. "Why" is not a part of anything in the universe except human thought. A more relevant question might be "What causes anything to exist," which addresses the arrow of time and cause/effect relationships, but asking why that cause exists feels arrogant, as if the universe is expected to answer to human ideas. This is nothing but defining a paradox into existence with our biased language and worldview. We might as well ask whether something deserves to exist. As Albert Ellis was fond of saying, there is no universal desert. Things happen, and they don't need to answer to human expectations. Philosophers seem constantly engaged in the act of redefining things until they have something they can argue, oblivious to the fact that their definitions reflect the bias of human experience, not the fundamentals of nature. We can't define "nothing", therefore nothing can't exist, and therefore something must exist? We can't use human language and bias to define real things into existence. (St. Anselm and Thomas Aquinas did that to "prove" the existence of God.) I'm sorry to say that I only made it 14 minutes into this video. I don't like giving up on a video because I have philosophical disagreements with it, but the drivel presented in the first 1/8 of this video is not enough to make me want to spend several hours listening to more. No thumbs down because I didn't watch the whole thing, and I don't think that would be fair, just disappointment.
Hi Beenaplumber, I greatly appreciate your insight on this problem, and I largely agree that "why" is more about us, in that it requires building some explanatory bridge to our existing framework for understanding. All that said, I wonder if your opinion might change after you finish this video and part 2. As this video explores more than philosophy but also scientific evidence in the form of making testable predictions and having confirmed them through observations. This has only become possible with advances in math that happened in the past 50-60 years. I would say that prior to this, the question of existence remained entirely in philosophy.
It's not a "why" question only a "how" one. "Why" implies purpose or agency. It's the entirely wrong way to go about this.
I agree that though people frame the question as a Why, they would be most satisfied with an explanation that explains How. An answer for how will be presented in part two which premieres tonight. I hope you can join us for that!
We cant delete nothing.. as nothing never existed ... and there can be nothing that does not exists
Both answers are true
Which two?
I fell asleep and this came on. I dreamt that everything my friend said to start with “QUOTE...”’ 🤦♂️
😂
Oh. I wanted to ask you what intuition is Jason
Hi MissFrisco, intuition in what sense?
If you mean human intuition, like when we get the strange sense that something isn't right, one theory is that it stems from parts of our brains noticing something that otherwise wouldn't rise to the level of our conscious awareness where we could pinpoint the clue or signal that is off. Split brain experiments show there are parts of our brains that are non-linguistic, but somehow they still communicate with the other parts of our brain and body. See this video for an example: kzhead.info/sun/jbGFqrRpjXV3gac/bejne.html
I always just had this feeling that I knew what intuition is without being told....
@@AntoinMhicArtain ☺️
But the notion of nothing is already something. If nothing exist so is already something because has existence
Hi Hugo, Yes I believe the notion of a "pure nothing" is likely logically inconsistent/undefinable.
you cannot define nothing because it has definition whic is a property. therefore it is not nothing. also you cannot image nothing only something.
I agree, definitions of absolute nothingness always have some property, some information content, some theory of things, and some notion of zero and other numbers.
I am at the 11 minute 42 second mark. It's an amazing video about nothing. So my wife just walked past me and asked me what am I watching.😮 nothing
we just dont know
This is not the thing I need to be listening to while trying to get work done.
😆
Nothingness can in fact create, Nothingness is where all possibilities resides expressed in what we call existence ... Life is the experience of nothingness beeing itself. Nothingness just is and cannot be created and without it nothing can be. Nothingness is self sufficient and yet can sustain all and cannot be measured. "When we remove existence we get nothingness " Nothingness is beyond our limited comprehension thats why it cannot be justly defined . We can only speculate. By DD
Well said DD. :-)
Sorry.....but all that is simply playing around with language . No doubt it has a meaning for you personally but the rest of us may not share your definitions of those words ?
Nothingness is non-existence, ergo, to ask why existence exists rather non-existence exists is an absurdity, a contradiction, meaninglessness.
Hi USABarsa, I think when people ask that question, they seek an explanation for: "Why anything?" and given there is something we further wonder: "Why this?" (rather than some other form of existence). I don't think they are meaningless questions, though complete nothingness may itself be self-contradictory, and thus an impossibility.
We must accept that some questions, as per Godel, are undecidable. Some undecidables are so at fundamental level: why the universe exist? Answers to this are not falsifiable. Some undecidables are at operational level: is the universe deterministic? We can't answer this because we can't measure the state of entire universe at a given time.
Hi Narayan Mahale. You are correct that some questions are undecidable. However, I am not sure that the question of existence falls into this category, as in Part II of this episode, (in particular the "Confirming Evidence" section), reveals that there is a theory for existence that is falsifiable. And moreover, this section shows this theory is not only falsifiable, but thus far it is confirmed by physical observations.
@@AlwaysAsking what does that it mean if a universe is failsfable? or not I’m confused 😐is it a bad thing?😓
But you can choose not to exist.. just do it
Zero does not necessarily constrain the emergence of one provided it satisfies the equation of zero = plus one minus one or , 0 = +1 - 1 . So reality is generated against a liability. The cosmos was borrowed into existence.
Yes this is a great insight. It appears it may be true physically, in the sense of all matter and energy in our universe being borrowed from the gravitational field, but at a more fundamental level it may also be true, which was the inspiration for David Pearce's "Zero Ontology". See: www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
nice
Thanks Code Slayer!
The universe exists because it can. It can because nothing stopped it. Nothing stopped it because nothing could stop it.
That's a good summary. At the point it becomes inevitable, though, what's the difference between can and must?
But in what confinement does the universe exist in? I'm sure it has an stopping point? Or An wall or is it just infinte space that literally never ends??
Robert White: words have many uses (meanings); don't put them in semantic straight jackets.The word 'why' does not necessarily imply purpose. WHY did the pipes break? Answer: because the water froze. No purpose here, just basic physics.