Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?

The publication of Stephen Hawking's latest book The Grand Design has stirred some new fire into the old embers of metaphysical speculation. Specifically, the discussion centres on one of the perennial Big Questions; why is there something rather than nothing?

Tough question that, probably impossible for the human mind to definitively answer. I haven't read Hawking's latest book yet, but from reviews I've noted on-line it would seem his answer is that the laws of the universe are such that it didn't require any outside force to initiate the manifestation  of a new universe. Which begs the question, where did these laws come from? Isn't the very concept of a "law" rather anthropomorphic? ("Your Honour, my client violated Planck's Constant by reason of temporary insanity.")

On the other side are the theists whose answer is that a transcendent, pre-existing entity, being or force willed the creation and set out the laws. This answer seems more complete but still doesn't offer a final solution because of course it begs the question, why is there a God anyway? Again, why is there something, even a transcendent something or someone, rather than nothing?

The Buddha's position was that such questions are fundamentally impossible to answer and useless to speculate about. His teaching was meant to be practical; what is our existential dilemma, how did we get ourselves into this mess, is there a way out and how do we manage to get there? Knowledge about the original manifestation or creation of the universe, even if it could be had, would not be useful in answering any of these practical questions.

Instead of a creation theory, the Buddha taught the dependent origination which has the more limited and practical purpose of describing how we find ourselves in this state of cyclic suffering known as samsara. It is a teaching that is entirely oriented toward the immediate human experience and does not attempt to push the question back to ultimate origins.

Without forgetting these original Buddhist principles, it may be interesting to think about how a Buddhist would position himself in the current debate.

For one thing, we should not assume that the universe needed to have a point of origin at all. While the Buddha, as noted above, refused to speculate on the matter, the later Buddhist tradition definitely leaned toward the idea that universe was both beginingless and endless, infinite in both directions and fundamentally cyclical in nature. This was in line with the general trend of Indian thought which is in stark contrast to the linear, eschatological view of Zoroastrian Persia and the monotheistic religions of the west, (whose cosmology may have roots in Zoroastrianism.)

Nowadays, the linear view has found some support in the Big Bang theory. But we should be careful not to take this as definitively proven. There is some contrary evidence that would support a "steady-state" or eternally existing universe. Most probably, the Buddha was right in that this is a question which can never be finally answered.

If we allow for the sake of argument that the universe may not have a single moment of origin, while this doesn't put to rest the question of why there is something rather than nothing, it does shift the emphasis somewhat and would tend against the idea of a creator. Schopenhauer addressed this from a philosophical perspective and said that there is no logical necessity for a first origin and that such an original moment would be a fundamental break in the chain of causality.

Another question raised by this debate is the reality of a transcendent element. Here, the Buddhist shares some ground with the theistic thinker but there are important differences in their understanding of the transcendent. The Unconditioned in Buddhism (the experience of which is called Nibbana or Nirvana) is completely ineffable, which means that it cannot be described in words or grasped in thought. This makes sense because words and thought are products of the conditioned realm. When the Buddha spoke about Nibbana it was always either in poetic similes or in negations; telling us what it is not. However, without forgetting its' ineffable nature we may venture on some approximations; it is outside time-and-space, it is neither physical not mental but sui generis in a category of its' own, it is not subject to change, suffering or cause-and-effect. In Christian theological language, the Nibbana-element is both trascendent (wholly other, "not-this") and immanent (present here-and-now.) Close Pali analogues would be lokuttara (lit. "Beyond the World") and sanditthiko (lit. "Able to be Seen Now").

In line with the practical nature of the Buddha's teaching, the only real argument for the reality of this transcendent element is experiential. "If there were no Unconditioned, there would be no escape from the Conditioned, but since there is an escape, there is an Unconditioned." In colloquial terms, you have to have been there.

This transcendent element seems to have some parallels with the concept of God but is different in that the Unconditioned is never conceived of as a person, being or entity that can through the power of its' will intervene in the Conditioned realm. For it to do so would be a violation of its' fundamental nature as outside of cause-and-effect. The closest approach to the Buddhist idea of the transendental found within theistic thought might be the apophatic view of the God-head held by the Eastern Orthodox or perhaps the Unmanifest in Jewish Kabbalah.

Perhaps a fair summary of the Buddhist position would be that while the question of why there is something rather than nothing is unanswerable (abhyakata) we can refer to the dependent origination to understand how this particular something we are caught up in comes about. Furthermore, we can venture that there are indeed two different modes of Something; samsaric and nibbanic, manifest and non-manifest, conditioned and unconditioned. So, once again, we take a Middle Path sharing some ground with both the theist and the atheist, but not agreeing completely with either pole.

LINKS

The theist argument against Hawking - The Curious Metaphysics of Dr. Stephen Hawking
An argument against the "Big Bang" - Religion Disguised as Science
What all the fuss is about anyway - Hubble Looks at Nothing, finds Something

Chandrayana

India has successfully hit the moon with an impact probe, called Chandrayana - Sanskrit for "Moon Vehicle." The space race appears to be on again. Beside the old players, Russia and the USA, the new players are China, Japan, India, the European Union and even South Korea. Japan says its goal is a manned base on the moon by 2030, and 2031 is currently set as the US target for a manned Mars mission. These are probably the two "prestige" goals and other players, notably China, may beat them to it.

Exciting stuff, but the question inevitably arises, why do it? The Buddha already noted the ultimate futility of such travel in the Rohitissa Sutta;

"In times past, I was a seer, Rohitassa by name, ... gifted so, that I could fly through the air. And so swift, was my speed that I could fly just as quickly as a master of archery, .. armed with a strong bow could, without difficulty, send a light shaft .... And so great was my stride that I could step from the eastern to the western sea.

"In me, arose such a wish as this: 'I will arrive at the end of the world by walking.' And though such was my speed, and such my stride, and though, with a life-span of a century, living for hundred years I walked continuously for a hundred years, save the while I spent in eating, drinking, chewing or tasting, or in answering calls of nature, save the while I gave way to sleep or fatigue, yet I died on the way without reaching the end of the world.

"But neither do I say, friend, that without having reached the end of the world there could be an ending of ill. It is in this very fathom-long physical frame with its perceptions and mind, that, I declare, lies the world, and the arising of the world, and the cessation of the world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world.

In other words, the end of suffering is here-and-now and we will not move any closer to that goal even by crossing the galaxy.

However, the same could be said for all mundane pursuits. The affairs and doings of samsara are ultimately futile; "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" as someone said. Space missions are no more, and no less, valid than any other karma.

Leaving the ultimate question of spiritual transcendence aside, even within the strictly conventional plane of conditionality, space exploration may seem useless or a waste of resources better used elsewhere. Certainly, from a strict economic view-point, it is very hard to see how any space travel beyond earth orbit could ever repay the investment, at least for a very long time.
(Unless you buy the Helium-3 hype)

Sometimes the argument against space exploration is framed in terms of how the money could better be used to deal with poverty and disease on earth. But it's really a false argument. It would be valid if that's where the resources really would go, but there would already be plenty available to help the poor and sick if that were a priority. Sadly, it isn't. There are trillions to spend on war, and hundreds of billions to give to the financiers to help them out of their folly, but thousands still sleep on the streets of our cities.

Realistically, nations will compete, one way or the other. Human beings are territorial primates. I would much rather see money and research go into a vigorous competition to be the first on Mars than to see the same resources go into building warships and bombs. Besides, aren't we all curious?

I say good on the Indians, the Chinese, the Yanks and the rest of them. First one there wins. Ready, steady, go!

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Nerdy note - Assuming the air-speed velocity of an arrow to be about 200 feet per second, and allowing Rohitissa twelve hours of travel a day, in one hundred years he would have gotten about 60 million miles, somewhat more than the closest approach of Mars to Earth.

Where have I heard this stuff before?

A new theory is challenging the Big Bang cosmology. It is called Null Physics. (Terrence Witt)

From a Wikibin page about Null Physics;

In short, existence is composed of nonexistence. Our universe is the internal substructure of nothingness. In Null Physics this premise is called the Null Axiom.

And

6. Eternal equilibrium. The universe has existed forever, so any cosmic process that produces byproducts must have a complementary process that reverses this production. The universe’s predominant cosmic process is fusion, which uses hydrogen and produces light and compound atomic nuclei, such as helium and carbon. This means that mechanisms have to exist to capture this light energy and use it to disassociate compound nuclei back into hydrogen for an infinitely renewable supply. The first step of this process is intergalactic redshift, which converts light energy into microwave energy. The next step is to transfer this energy to an environment where it can be applied to break compound nuclei back down into hydrogen, to provide an eternal source of universal fuel. This process requires the existence of galaxies, specific galactic motion profiles, galactic banding, massive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and it is why jets of hydrogen have been observed leaving the core regions of galaxies.

So, let me get this straight. The universe is empty and beginingless. Where have I heard this stuff before?

LINKS

Null Physics website
Forum discussion, during which Terrence Witt joins in.

Rahu strikes again!

Last night there was a full eclipse of the moon. A very eerie sight; as the shadow of the Earth moves across the face of the moon it doesn't disappear, but turns a dull melancholy red. One can well understand how this sight must have been regarded as a bad omen before the astronomy was understood.

In Thailand, the traditional belief, derived like much of Thai culture originally from India, was that in primeval times the monster Rahu swallowed the sun and moon, depriving the world of light. Vishnu saved the universe by slaying the monster, cutting off it's head. Or not quite slaying, because Rahu is an immortal and his severed head wanders around in space, being the eighth planet in Thai astrology. Occasionally it swallows the sun or moon and we experience an eclipse, but happily the luminous orb in a short while emerges from the monster's neck.

Three questions about lunar eclipses occur to me. Two I think I can answer from first principles. One; is a lunar eclipse visible from the whole night side of the planet Earth? I would think yes; it's different from a solar eclipse in that it is essentially the shadow of the Earth moving across the moon, whereas a solar eclipse is when the moon blocks the line of sight of the sun from the Earth, and given the astronomically close position of the moon, parallax makes a significant difference from different localities. Two; how would it look if you were standing on the surface of the moon? I think the Earth would eclipse the sun totally, but I imagine one would see some kind of diffuse "halo" around the rim due to atmospheric diffusion.

Three is not so easy to answer; what was the scientific explanation for eclipses given before the emergence of the heliocentric model? I mean in learned western thought. How did the Aristotelians with their spheres and epicycles explain that? How did Tycho Brahe with his mixed model (sun and moon orbit the Earth, all other planets orbit the sun)? I have no idea.