Why does anything exist?

Well? I mean, it's not like anything actually needs to exist. Why isn't there just nothing?

i've thought of that before.
and i really don't know...

who says this is all real or exists? it could just be a figment of your imagination.

Ah... I think therefore I am. Imagination suggests some level of existence, even if our experiences are an illusion.

That would still mean that you who has the imagination exists though, so that would still be something in existence.

I don't really know, I have often wondered it myself. Maybe nothingness is a human construct though and only came to be used to describe the lack of something that should be there. If nothing existed then we wouldn't say it was nothingness as to be nothingness it would have first had to be something. That's how I see it anyway, I've probably confused myself somewhere.

A very good point, I've never looked at it that way. Still, it's difficult to see how nothingness is impossible - of course, we have never actually encountered nothingness, and have no reason to think that it "exists". But it is intuitively true that certain things do not exist, for example unicorns. So isn't it possible that the universe and all 'real' things could also not exist?

today is friday, i didn't think i was going be having to think this much!

Think dammit! Think like you've never thought before!
Hnnnnrrh!

I always was under the impression that although things like unicorns do not exist, the basic concepts that beings like unicorns are made from (tail, mane, whatever) are in existence, which allows us to create these things out of existing components.

I suppose you're right though, if something exists then it also has the potential to not exist.




Know what you mean! I'm in a very philosophical mood today.

This quote makes me think:

"The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" by John Barrow and Frank Tipler, I quote:

"In a randomly infinite Universe, any event occurring here and now with finite probability must be occurring simultaneously at an infinite number of other sites in the Universe. It is hard to evaluate this idea any further, but one thing is certain: if it is true then it is certainly not original!"

the only issue with this is that we have to assume there are an infinite number of universes

I'm not sure that applies to this problem. It's like saying, in an infinite number of universes there must be one universe where a universe exists. Why do any universes exist at all?

If there's really just nothing, does that mean that I can stay home from work today?



Dog bless you.

woof!

snot ....snot just your imagination, you or the universe. Pinch yourself, if you feel it, you're real,
that's why. If you're real, the universe has to exist for you to be on it (or 'in' it). :0

that might snot be true but you could be right also. 8)