# Why is there something instead of nothing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351 "2018-05-17T15:17:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/21 "2018-05-17T18:23:08Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Is there any particular reason to believe that something can’t come from nothing? I was under the impression that at the subatomic level something came from nothing all the time - that paired positive and negative particles spring into existence and then (usually) promptly annihilate each other and disappear again. (Though I admit I could be completely wrong about this; I’m far from well-read on the subject.) > > If that is in fact happening, then perhaps this universe is just the same thing writ large. Then the laws governing such things nonetheless existed pre-existence. _True_ nothingness would not only involve no matter, no particles, but also no laws of any sort. You basically just added another elephant underneath the 1st one, and pronounced the paradox solved. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/22 "2018-05-17T18:27:07Z")
\*\* > [@](#): > > Why is there something instead of nothing? \*\*Because in the immortal words of Gilda Radner, “It’s always something.” ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/23 "2018-05-17T18:32:18Z")
> [@Corner\_Case](#): > > Similarly, if there was nothing, there wouldn’t be anything around to say there’s nothing. So there has to be something to ask why! You can’t have nothing, because that would be something that you had, so you have to be there to have it! Clever, and philosophically valid. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/24 "2018-05-17T19:18:37Z")
You know the inhabitants of Mercury spend all their time considering why the conditions there preclude intelligent life? Maybe there are plenty of universes with nothing. Ask their inhabitants how it is. But unless there is some reason why there can’t be something (and we know there cannot be) the only answers you get will be from those in universes with something. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/25 "2018-05-17T19:22:10Z")
No idea. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/26 "2018-05-17T19:29:43Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **Because if there were Nothing Instead of Something, you wouldn’t be able to ask the Question** > > Same Anthropic Principle response as **Buck Godot** ’s, but I like the phrasing better. Right, the (weak) anthropic principle is sufficient to answer the “why” part. There may be universes created all the time containing nothing, but there wouldn’t be any beings in them to remark on it. The “how” part can be addressed by various physical, metaphysical, and mathematical theories and hypotheses that support the notion of creating something from nothing, or of a static hyper-universe in which this one is contained and in which time is an artifact of our perception. That’s probably as far as one can usefully take it without engaging in philosophy or religion. > [@octopus](#): > > So the laws of physics don’t allow a nothing state? That’s an interesting idea. Keeping in mind that “the laws of physics” apply only to the known natural universe, yes. But they don’t address conditions outside the universe from which this universe may have arisen. But within the universe, that’s indeed the case. For example, if you had absolutely nothing in some arbitrary volume of deep space that was a perfect vacuum, then at any instant in time you could know that its energy was precisely zero. But energy and time are conjugate variables governed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, just like position and momentum, so both cannot be simultaneously knowable with arbitrary precision, such as “precisely zero”. This is reflected in uncertainty in energy at any instant in time, which causes energy ripples called vacuum fluctuations (quantum fluctuations) whereby virtual particles – particle-antiparticle pairs – are constantly appearing out of nowhere and annihilating each other. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/27 "2018-05-17T19:30:29Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Not to be a Debbie Downer, but you will never hear a satisfactory answer to this question. There is a satisfactory answer. It’s called the Anthropic Principle and it is something philosophers have been kicking around for centuries. As a result it is pretty well refined. > [@](#): > > The principle was formulated as a response to a series of observations that the laws of nature and parameters of the universe take on values that are consistent with conditions for life as we know it rather than a set of values that would not be consistent with life on Earth. The anthropic principle states that this is a necessity, because if life were impossible, no living entity would be there to observe it, and thus would not be known. That is, it must be possible to observe some universe, and hence, the laws and constants of any such universe must accommodate that possibility." [SOURCE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle) There is loads of reading to be had on the subject and it can get quite involved but this is the answer to the OP (or at least as good a one as can be had without getting a PhD in philosophy). ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/28 "2018-05-17T19:31:38Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Then the laws governing such things nonetheless existed pre-existence. _True_ nothingness would not only involve no matter, no particles, but also no laws of any sort. > > You basically just added another elephant underneath the 1st one, and pronounced the paradox solved. I didn’t pronounce _jack_ solved - I asked a question and then said that _if_ a theory applied, then _perhaps_ we had an answer. That is not how I pronounce things solved; if you want to see that go to one of the theism threads. 😃 But regarding this “no laws” thing - wouldn’t that mean that in true nothingness, there would be no law saying that “something” couldn’t spontaneously appear? “Why not?” becomes a pretty decent answer then, perhaps even escalating to “There cannot possibly have been a reason for it not to happen.” Oh, and for the record, I don’t consider the anthropic principle to answer jack. That’s like saying that the answer for “why is the earth in the orbit it’s in” is “because we’re living on it, and if earth was in a different orbit we’d probably be dead.” ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/29 "2018-05-17T19:50:06Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > The greatest metaphysical question. I have yet to hear any satisfactory answer. > > It makes sense to me anyway that a state of “Nothing” is a state with the fewest contingencies and thus most expected. For ‘Nothing’ to ‘exist’, there is no pre-existing requirement to be met. For ‘something’ to exist, not to be trite, but something must exist. It requires at some point (I’m not sure we can call it a point in time since time may be specific to this universe, but in some way) either an act of creation (whether intelligent or random) or an infinite existence. And I’m not just talking about our particular universe, but rather that which precedes it and perhaps exists outside of it. The pre-quantum soup or however you envision it. Doesn’t it make more sense that rather than an eternal ‘soup’ or a created ‘soup’ there should just be nothing? > > Anyway, it’s just an opening to a discussion, so discuss. Because for every 1 billion antimatter particles there was a billion and 1 matter particles, so matter won. Why were there a fraction of a fraction more matter than antimatter particles? Because in this version of the simulation they didn’t want things to be too boring. 😉 That’s really the answer, in a nut shell…if this didn’t happen, and there was a balance in matter verse antimatter then we (collectively as life in this universe) wouldn’t be around to notice. There were a lot of low probability events that made this discussion possible, such that some would say this proves that a God or gods exist. However, if those low probability events didn’t happen then simply we wouldn’t be here to discuss it. Myself, I’m quite taken with the simulation theory these days, so I like to think that those running the Matrix just wanted an interesting simulation to play in. Or, if you like the multi-worlds/universe theory, consider the myriad universes that didn’t make it for a whole variety of reasons, including those where there wasn’t any matter (or antimatter) at all in the end. This is just one where things worked out, thus allowing us to discuss. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/30 "2018-05-17T19:51:45Z")
The problem is that we can only think about the world in terms that are essentially computational—i.e. we start from some information, process it, and return different information. This is just the way modeling works; understanding stuff is, roughly, just creating a sort of computational simulation of it. But that doesn’t mean it’s the way the world works. Indeed, in order to ground the computation our minds perform, we need non-computational processes, as otherwise, we land squarely in an infinite regress (computations grounded in computations grounded in computations…). The problem is, within a computational model, it always makes sense to ask for some fundamental set of facts, say a system of axioms, from which every property of the model can be derived. Thus, for a computational model, something always comes from something; and since that’s the only way we can reason about things, it seems to us that something always must come from something, period. There must be some base facts, some axioms, such that no further question is possible, and those must determine all that goes on. But for each such set of base facts, we can ask: but why? This is essentially the question of why there is something, and not nothing. Why are there fundamental facts at all? Why not none? The usual answer is that those facts must be necessary—i.e. they could not possibly be different. I don’t think that’s really sufficient. Rather, I believe that the question itself is just mistaking the map for the territory: it simply doesn’t follow that because there is some set of fundamental facts to all our models of the world, and to every way we can reason about the world, then there must be some fundamental facts to the world as such, period. That conclusion simply isn’t warranted. So the problem of why there is something instead of nothing may be a pseudo-problem, imposed simply by our way of reasoning about the world. If we could apprehend the world directly, without some form of mental model, the question simply wouldn’t occur to us; but since we can’t, since we’re caught up looking at the world through a computational looking glass, there seems to be a necessity for final facts. Thus, the question cannot be answered; but that’s OK, since it also doesn’t point to an actual problem. It’s often claimed that information might, in some way or another, foundational to the world. But it’s exactly the other way around: information only exists in the world as it is being modeled. Take the set of all numbers: it has very little information content—as can be seen that I’ve just described it using just a couple of words. But subsets of that set can have near-arbitrarily large information content: basically, the information content there is equal to a formula, or computer program, that picks out every element of that subset, and those can be quite complex. Moreover, the subset’s complement has the same information content: if I’ve picked out the subset, I can just as well pick out its complement. So we split the set of natural numbers, which has very little information, in two, each of which has a huge information content. It’s like ripping a piece of paper in two: the piece itself is easily described, but it takes a quite complex description to describe the precise shape of the tear. This information yields the ‘fundamental facts’ of each piece. Now, every model only ever grasps a subset of the things in the world—in fact, by necessity: since models are computational, while the world isn’t (in order to ground the computations going on), every model only ever models a part of the world. Every model thus has a certain non-zero information content, a certain set of fundamental facts. But the world doesn’t: it’s like the white piece of paper, only more so. ‘Everything’ and ‘nothing’, being complements of one another, have the same information content: zero. So the ‘world’ as we talk about it exists as a computational entity with a nonzero information content in necessarily incomplete models of the world as it is in itself. The former necessitates the fundamental question: why those fundamental facts? Why any? The latter, however, don’t, and so long we don’t confuse the two, we’re good. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/31 "2018-05-17T19:52:43Z")
Out of all the hypothetical realities in which something either does or does not exist, the ones in which nothing _does_ exist are realities in which there’s no meaningful distinction between the hypothetical reality and the real reality. That leaves the ones in which something does in fact exist. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/32 "2018-05-17T20:27:44Z")
Consider this: Would you be asking the same question if the situation was reversed? When you can answer that question, it will be time for you to leave this place, Grasshopper. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/33 "2018-05-17T20:29:53Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Oh, and for the record, I don’t consider the anthropic principle to answer jack. That’s like saying that the answer for “why is the earth in the orbit it’s in” is “because we’re living on it, and if earth was in a different orbit we’d probably be dead.” There are several variants of the anthropic principle and I don’t think that’s a good description of what any of them assert. A more appropriate analogy would be to ask questions like: how come the earth’s orbit and its consequent temperature range is exactly right for liquid water to exist and exactly the kind of temperature range we need; how come the atmosphere contains exactly the oxygen we need to breathe and metabolize; how come the flora and fauna are just what we need to eat; how come the earth’s axis is tilted in just such a way as to produce seasons and therefore a broad diversity of life, and so on. Amazing, isn’t it, how everything is exactly right? Obviously part of the answer is that we evolved and adapted to the environment we were in. But it turns out that life as we know it, at least carbon-based life, can only exist in a relatively narrow range of environmental conditions, and life formed and flourished here because earth had the right conditions, and here we are. That’s far from being a trite observation as you claim. It is _ **the** _ core of the explanation for how we came to be here, it offers insights into the probabilities of intelligent life on other planets, and it’s not only a valid illustration of the anthropic principle but it’s somewhat analogous to the _ **strong** _ anthropic principle which, applied to the universe, says that we observe certain specific physical laws and constants because these are necessary for intelligent life to develop. One might note, for example, that if certain physical constants were just slightly different, stars would never have formed, or would have different lifecycles that wouldn’t produce the heavier elements; in either case, or a million other permutations of these, life in the universe would be impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/34 "2018-05-17T20:31:11Z")
If it helps, there isn’t really that much something anyway. Atoms are mostly empty space, space is mostly empty space; really, taking the universe overall you might as well round down to zero. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/35 "2018-05-17T20:40:44Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > There are several variants of the anthropic principle and I don’t think that’s a good description of what any of them assert. A more appropriate analogy would be to ask questions like: how come the earth’s orbit and its consequent temperature range is exactly right for liquid water to exist and exactly the kind of temperature range we need; how come the atmosphere contains exactly the oxygen we need to breathe and metabolize; how come the flora and fauna are just what we need to eat; how come the earth’s axis is tilted in just such a way as to produce seasons and therefore a broad diversity of life, and so on. Amazing, isn’t it, how everything is exactly right? > > Obviously part of the answer is that we evolved and adapted to the environment we were in. But it turns out that life as we know it, at least carbon-based life, can only exist in a relatively narrow range of environmental conditions, and life formed and flourished here because earth had the right conditions, and here we are. That’s far from being a trite observation as you claim. It is _ **the** _ core of the explanation for how we came to be here, it offers insights into the probabilities of intelligent life on other planets, and it’s not only a valid illustration of the anthropic principle but it’s somewhat analogous to the _ **strong** _ anthropic principle which, applied to the universe, says that we observe certain specific physical laws and constants because these are necessary for intelligent life to develop. One might note, for example, that if certain physical constants were just slightly different, stars would never have formed, or would have different lifecycles that wouldn’t produce the heavier elements; in either case, or a million other permutations of these, life in the universe would be impossible. Right - the anthropic principle is an erroneous or trite way of saying “the conditions on the planet are strongly correlated with the properties of the residents of the planet.” And based on this fact we can draw inferences on the likelihood of other planets having life that resembles ours. But the error is presuming that correlation equals causation. The planet earth is not livable _because_ we live on it. (And if we continue to ignore global warming and such we might see that demonstrated in an extremely inarguable way.) And, similarly, it’s invalid to say that the universe exists _because_ we exist within it. Sure, we can infer that the universe _does_ exist based on the fact we exist in it, and we can infer that our chances of finding life in other universes is greatly increased when those universe in fact exist. But to presume that our existence somehow _causes_ the universe to exist is, again, a fallacious argument confusing correlation with causation. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/36 "2018-05-17T20:46:45Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Oh, and for the record, I don’t consider the anthropic principle to answer jack. That’s like saying that the answer for “why is the earth in the orbit it’s in” is “because we’re living on it, and if earth was in a different orbit we’d probably be dead.” That is actually a perfect example of times to invoke the anthropic principle. For years, astronomers and mathematicians tried to come up with a reason for the Earth orbiting the distance that it was. There were some pretty complex mathematical formulas to try to show why the planets were in the orbits they were in. At a certain point, we realized that the planets are in pretty much random orbits, and the “reason” that the Earth is in the orbit that it is, is because if it were not, then we wouldn’t be here. For this to happen, we had to realize that other stars had planets around them, as well, and that there are countless numbers of planets out there. There is no reason for the earth being in the orbit it is, but there is a reason for us being on a planet that is in the orbit that it is in. Same thing with multi-verse concepts. If there is only one universe, then it makes sense to ask why the laws of the universe are the way they are in order to promote life. If there are an infinite number of universes, it doesn’t make any sense to try to figure out why the laws are the way they are, if they are different i other universes, then it shows that there is no reason that they are the way they are, but the reason for us being here is because the laws are as they are. Without either knowing for sure what “lies beyond our universe”, or pinning down the reason for the laws being the way they are, we cannot say whether or not the anthropic principle is “jack”, or whether it really is the only answer you are going to get. For instance, do you actually have a better explanation as to why the earth is in the orbit that it is in? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/37 "2018-05-17T20:51:46Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > For instance, do you actually have a better explanation as to why the earth is in the orbit that it is in? “Why not?” ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/38 "2018-05-17T20:52:41Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Obviously part of the answer is that we evolved and adapted to the environment we were in. But it turns out that life as we know it, at least carbon-based life, can only exist in a relatively narrow range of environmental conditions, and life formed and flourished here because earth had the right conditions, and here we are. And that’s why the anthropic principle doesn’t help at all in trying to answer the question of why there is anything at all: it can select something from a range of conditions, but we’re asking about why that range of conditions exists in the first place. So anthropic reasoning makes matters worse, not better: if it’s the case that we exist in this universe because out of the entire multiverse, this is the one supporting life like ours, then this not only doesn’t tell us anything about how this universe came about, it infinitely multiplies the question by postulating an entire multiverse of universes that we don’t know how they came about. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/39 "2018-05-17T21:02:28Z")
How could a “nothing” universe exist? If a universe is all of time and space and its contents, and you take away all the contents, that leaves you time and space. Is it possible to have a universe without time and/or space and, if not, isn’t there some sort of energy involved when time and space interact? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351/40 "2018-05-17T21:09:57Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > “Why not?” That’s actually not an answer. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > And that’s why the anthropic principle doesn’t help at all in trying to answer the question of why there is anything at all: it can select something from a range of conditions, but we’re asking about why that range of conditions exists in the first place. So anthropic reasoning makes matters worse, not better: if it’s the case that we exist in this universe because out of the entire multiverse, this is the one supporting life like ours, then this not only doesn’t tell us anything about how this universe came about, it infinitely multiplies the question by postulating an entire multiverse of universes that we don’t know how they came about. Well, and that is why the AP isn’t meant to answer questions as to why something is the way it is, but rather to explain why we cannot have an answer as to why something is the way it is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-something-instead-of-nothing/814351.md?page=3)