Jim Holt Why Does The Universe Exist

[Asdrubal Dagreat]

Icame across this Ted Talk by philosopher and author Jim Holt which raised the question as to why the universe, as we know it, exists at all as opposed to existence. The viewpoints discussed in the video are all modern and none of them speak in the context of Indian metaphysical treatises and philosophies like the Gita, Advaita, Dvaita, Buddhism etc. Just out of sheer curiosity, I wanted to know the standpoint of various Indian philosophies and treatises when it comes to the question "why does the world exist at all as opposed to nothingness".

One answer would be if the world was eternal : The world would exist because it had always existed. However in the Pāli Canon, Gautama Buddha declares this undeclared, e.g. Majjhima Nikaya 63, Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta:

"So, Malunkyaputta, remember what is undeclared by me as undeclared,and what is declared by me as declared. And what is undeclared by me?'The cosmos is eternal,' is undeclared by me. 'The cosmos is noteternal,' is undeclared by me. 'The cosmos is finite'... 'The cosmosis infinite,' ... is undeclared by me.

Mahāmati, it is like the city of the Gandharvas which the unwittedtake for a real city, though it is not so in fact. This city appearsin essence owing to their attachment to the memory of a city preservedin seed from beginningless time. This city is thus neither existentnor non-existent. In the same way, Mahāmati, clinging to the memory(vāsanā) of erroneous speculations and doctrines since beginninglesstime, they hold fast to ideas such as oneness and otherness, being andnon-being, and their thoughts are not at all clear about what is seenof Mind-only.

This leads somewhere interesting though. Putting the question of the eternity of the cosmos aside in the manner of Kant's unresolvable antimonies, or as a Derridean 'transcendental signified', in an interesting lecture by Zheng Li: What Is the Meaning of Beginningless? eternity is found in the eighth consciousness tathāgatagarbha, (which seems to be potentiality).

Because of the existence of the eighth consciousness tathāgatagarbha,the five aggregates and eighteen elements of all sentient beings, thetwelve links of dependent arising, and all other dharmas cansubsequently be produced and created. Based on the sequential arisingand ordering of all these dharmas, the concept of "time" is thenestablished. What is "time"? Time is a construct based on themomentary change between consecutive moments in the mind of sentientbeings.

As pure self-affection, time is not an acting affection that strikes aself which is at hand (vorhandenes Selbst). Instead, as pure itforms the essence (Wesen) of something like self-activating(Sich-selbst-angehen as self-relating, to relate to self,angegangen werden zu knnen). However, if it belongs to the essence of the finite subject to be able to be activated as a self,then timeas pure self-affection forms the essential structure of subjectivity.Only on the grounds of this self-hood can the finite creature be whatit must be: dependent upon taking things in stride (angewiesen aufHinnahme). (Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, 132) [GA 3, 1929]

So this now is subjective time originating with the self. Inevitably this self exists if it is now reading, and would not be thinking anything if it did not exist. Returning to the the question "why does the world exist at all as opposed to nothingness". Why do I exist? (Why does my world exist?) Did it always exist in the potentiality of its eighth consciousness tathāgatagarbha? On the possibility of ascertaining this I would return to The Kantbook, p. 200

Again a closed avenue. But returning to the question, now modified, why does one exist rather than not? One can imagine a few of the myriad reasons and causes, (e.g. supernovae, parental romance etc.), and the astronomically minute probability of one's existence. For a more traditional Indian perspective one direction of inquiry points to the eighth consciousness tathāgatagarbha.

The seven Edges of knowledge du Sautoy discusses are the following: Chaos Theory, the indivisibility of subatomic particles, quantum mechanics, the limits of the universe, the nature of time, black holes, and what came before the Big Bang, the problem of human consciousness, and the troubling mathematical paradoxes surrounding infinity. Typically du Sautoy devotes two chapters to each Edge, with one being a summary of the relevant scientific history leading up to the present, the the second being an exploration of the possibilities for expanding our current knowledge.

For those who are analytical minded and interested in the cutting edge developments of science and math, What We Cannot Know is a great book to get you started or broaden your base of knowledge. For others who prefer a more speculative, and focused journey into the philosophical history of the investigation of existence, Why Does the World Exist? is probably the best overall summary you will find on the subject.

David James served as a Fire Support Officer in the 173d Airborne in Afghanistan from 2005-2006 and 2007-2008. He now teaches History in Italy where he lives with his wife and twin daughters. His hobbies include reading, writing, and rock climbing. He agrees with Borges that "reading is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual".

Philosopher and writer Jim Holt skips right past the dumb quibbling questions and right to the heart of the great existential mystery: Why something, instead of nothing? Why does the universe exist? And why are we in it? The super-ultimate why question.

One might think, then, that a genuinely complete explanation of the world's existence would have to be infinite, since each explaining element would itself need to be explained by something else, something prior. The Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick suggested that the key to ending the regress was to find a principle that did double duty, one that explained the universe's existence and, at the same time, justified itself. His proposal was the so-called "principle of fecundity," which states that "all possible worlds are real." Since the principle of fecundity was itself possible, it would imply its own truth. (If all possible worlds are real, then the possible world or worlds in which the principle of fecundity holds is real.) So it wouldn't need anything else to justify it; it would justify itself. And it would explain why there was stuff in the universe, since stuff is possible, and all possibilities are (somewhere) actualized.

Nozick's proposal is clever, but as Holt observes, it doesn't work. After all, it is not logically possible that all possibilities obtain: some possibilities exclude others. If any possibility that includes the existence of some material object obtains, for instance, then the possibility that there are no material objects anywhere in the multiverse does not obtain. Nozick tried to finesse this by holding that different possibilities obtain "in independent noninteracting realms." But this won't work, because in order to justify itself the principle of fecundity needs to hold across all realms. "Even if all possible planets are realized," Holt explains, "there is no planet where all possibilities are realized. So fecundity is not self-subsuming after all. It's a cruel dilemma for Nozick: either his ultimate explanatory principle leads to contradiction, or it fails to be self-subsuming."

No one has yet succeeded, then, in explaining how something could literally come out of nothing: in every case some sort of prior condition needs to be presupposed. Perhaps, though, it is the very idea of "something coming out of nothing" that is at fault. Why not just say, as David Hume suggested, that the universe has always been around, and that the existence of the universe at each moment in time is explained by its existence in the previous moment? Accepting this as the final explanation, of course, involves giving up on the idea that the existence of the universe as a whole can be explained; rather, we would have to accept its existence as a kind of brute fact. But should this bother us?

The first thing to say is that Lovejoy is making at least one error of logic here, by confusing the question of how (and whether) the universe began with the question of what the universe is like. That the universe's existence is irrational (in the sense that it has no ultimate explanation) does not entail that the universe must behave irrationally. The idea that a logical and predictable universe has simply always existed is no more mystifying and no less probable than the idea that a chaotic and fundamentally unpredictable universe might simply always have existed. To think otherwise is to commit the error of thinking that we can use pure reason, unguided by empirical evidence, to determine what a universe is likely to be like.

"The question Why is there something rather than nothing?sometimes seems vacuous to me," Holt admits at one point. "But in other moods it seems very profound." The latter mood, one guesses, afflicts Holt more frequently. (Why else would "Why Does the World Exist?" exist?) Those who share this mood with Holt, at least from time to time, will almost certainly find this to be an entertaining and thought-provoking book. I must confess, though, that none of the proffered answers to the title question were quite as satisfying to me as the one Holt attributes to the late Sydney Morgenbesser, a professor of philosophy at Columbia University. When a student asked him, "Professor Morgenbesser, why is there something rather than nothing?" Morgenbesser responded, "Oh, even if there was nothing, you still wouldn't be satisfied!"

Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.

All scientists and most philosophers agree that an actual physical universe exists despite the fact that its many manifestations are channeled through sensory neural networks that convert physical forms of energy into homo-centric transforms (or qualia, if you prefer) to allow for perception, and thus survival within the universe.

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