Question #2: How Did That Something Come Into Being?

In the previous post I mainly addressed the philosophical issues surrounding the existence of the universe, so in this post I'll try to address the question from a more scientific angle. Let's start with what science can tell us about a question that seems, at first, largely ineffable.

With their current mathematical models, cosmologists can confidently trace the evolution of the universe back to within the first fraction of a second of its existence (known as Planck Time - effectively the smallest unit of time over which any meaningful physical event can occur). After this point, they can reliably trace the expansion of the universe over a series of evolutionary stages, beginning with an incomprehensibly hot "plasma" stage, where temperatures were hot enough to prevent even the basic building-blocks of matter from forming and ending with the cool, lumpy universe of stars and planets that we live in today. The big bang can say nothing of what happened prior to the hypothesised "singularity" from which everything came into existence*, but the rest of the predictions made by this model are confirmed by empirical observations such as Cosmic Background Radiation (the afterglow of the big bang), the uniform expansion of the galaxies and Hubble's deep field observations. In other words, regardless of your theological disposition, the big bang theory (or at least something very similar to it) is the only available explanation for the present shape and structure of the universe.

But the original question goes a bit deeper than that. We aren't so much interested in what happened after the singularity, but rather what happened before it: in other words, what conditions preceding the big bang allowed the singularity to come into existence in the first place? The simplest and most honest answer to that question is that the cosmologists don't know**, but that's not to say that science doesn't have some very important things to say on the issue.

Firstly, it has to be noted that due to the conflation of time and space in the (empirically proven) theory of General Relativity, time itself did not actually come into existence until the moment of the big bang***. Therefore, to talk of a "time" that existed before the big bang is as meaningless as talking of a "place" that exists south of the south pole: by definition, both are impossible. Now it is true that there are speculative theories concerning the sort of conditions that may have predicated the big-bang singularity (M Theory and the Multiverse Theory most prominently), but at present the only hypothesis concerning the origin of the universe that is supported by available evidence suggests - unequivocally - that time did not exist and could not have existed prior to the big bang, and to talk of what preceded the big bang is therefore meaningless.

But the failure of the question doesn't end there. As with the question in the previous post, this question carries a hidden assumption for which there is simply no evidence: that - in the absense of some external force - "nothingness" is the fixed, default state of nature. While we have to be careful about presuming our universal laws to be "absolute" (such that they must hold "beyond" our universe as well), the findings of quantum physics can only be seen to completely undermine this assumption. As I have already said, "'nothingness' (i.e. a quantum state that is both unchanging and certain) represents an unstable and - above all - impossible state of nature" - i.e. "something" coming into being is inevitable. In posing the question, Williams also seems to presume that a quantum singularity (such as that which gave rise to the universe) cannot emerge ex nihilo without the intercession of some kind of powerful, creative agency, but fails to acknowledge that such particles do manage flash in and out of existence all the time in our universe without any sign of a cosmic creator. In fact, such "fluctuations" are not especially mysterious at all and are actually mandated by the inexorably indeterminate nature of quantum fields.

However, I do not want to give the impression that questions concerning the origin of the universe can be so effortlessly waved away. I have pointed out that particles in a vacuum seem to pop in and out of existence of their own accord, but neglected to mention that these particles are far smaller than the singularity required to account for the present amount of energy contained within our universe. If we were to presume that it is meaningful to talk of a time and place beyond the universe, the properties of which led causally to the creation of our universe, and presume that the laws which operate here are roughly the same as those found in our universe (a presumption made by string theory, but not necessarily by other multiverse theories), then an extremely unlikely (but not impossible) fluctuation of sufficient size within an inflaton field could theoretically generate the energy needed to create our entire universe. As Brian Greene notes:

"[A] tiny nugget, on the order of 10^-26cm across, filled with a uniform inflaton field - and weighing a mere twenty pounds - would, through the ensuing inflationary expansion, acquire enough energy to account for all that we see in the universe today." (Fabric of the Cosmos, p.313).

Now as I said, such a fluctuation is certainly possible (remember, such fluctuations - though almost always on a much smaller scale - are actually necessitated by the laws of quantum physics) but the odds are incomprehensibly small. The energy that the Greene mentions would have to be packed into an area approximately 300 trillion times smaller than and 100 million billion billion times heavier than a helium atom - needless to say, that'd have to be one hell of a fluctuation! In cosmology, answers that rely on an element of exreme luck tend not to last very long. The flatness of the universe, for instance, was once chalked up to luck but we now know that there is a good reason for the shape of the universe, and it has to do with the manner in which the early universe expanded (a topic I may breach in my next post). In any case, while this theory on the origins of the universe may rely on an extremely improbable event and doesn't completely answer the question posed at the top of this post, such theories do - at least - help in reducing the mystery involved, by breaking the problems down into smaller and less insurmountable ones. To again quote Greene:

"By no means does this [theory] answer Leibniz's question of why there is something rather than nothing, since we've yet to explain why there is an inflaton or even the space it occupies. But the something in need of explanation weighs a whole lot less than my dog Rocky, and that's certainly a very different starting point than invisaged in the standard big bang [model]." (Ibid.)

So as you can see, much work remains to be done by the sciences on this issue, but I hope that I've been able to convey the idea that the question as to how the universe came into being is not quite so mysterious or unsolvable as we might be inclined to think at first glance. The human mind is not well equipped to comprehend the deeply counter-intuitive nature of the universe on the smallest levels (i.e. quantum theory) and the largest levels (i.e. the age of the universe) and is therefore naturally drawn to supernatural explanations that invoke beings of far greater complexity and inexplicability than the very things they are invoked to explain in the first place. For that reason, perhaps the best thing we can say in response to this question - as with the one before it - is nobody knows, but that in itself does not make the existence of gods any more likely.

-----------------

* The big bang is not a theory as to how the universe came into existence, but rather a theory as to the universe evolved: it can no more account for the existence of the initial singularity than evolution can account for the Earth's first self-replicators. Also, the term "big bang" is also something of a misnomer, as it details not the explosion of matter into space (as the name would seem to suggest), but rather the extremely rapid expansion of space-time itself.

** Which is not cause in itself, of course, to invoke a metaphysical explanation to account for the origins of the universe. Gaps in our scientific knowledge cannot automatically be construed as positive evidence for the existence of gods: that is a non-sequitur. If the cosmologists don't know what preceded the singularity, then the theologians certainly don't know. (See also final paragraph.)

*** Cosmological conceptions of time are deeply counter-intuitive and there is a strong temptation to reject the idea that there could not have been a "time" before the moment of the big bang. How, afterall, could a timeless particle (i.e. the initial singularity) give rise to a universe that is not itself timeless? The question is mindbending, but don't mistake its mindbending nature for scientific ambiguity: we know that the universe was caused by the temporal expansion of a potentially non-temporal particle and that simply isn't up for debate.

While positing the existence of such an "eternal" particle may sound like a case of metaphysical pleading, keep in mind that such particles are hardly rare. If, as Wittgenstein put it, "we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness" (Tracatus 6.4311) then such eternal particles already exist in the form of photons and other massless particles, which travel through space-time for potentially many billions of years and yet do not age a single second the entire time.

How to Talk to a Climate Change Skeptic

Not that they're likely to listen, but useful nonetheless:

How to Talk to a Climate Change Skeptic

Question #1: Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

So far as philosophical questions go, surely none are as capable of warping the boundaries of the mind as this one. I've quite literally lost sleep pondering this question over the years and I'm not sure that this lost sleep has brought me any closer to providing a definitive answer. I was planning on leaving this question for later on, hoping that my writing would - with practice - develop the scope and precision necessary to do a question like this justice, but then I figured that such is a day is unlikely to arrive any time soon, so why not just jump right in?

Okay then. Here we go.

First, a word on the nature of the question itself. In a theological debate, any question involving the word "why" has to be treated with a careful dose of skepticism as it can be used to imply the need for a teleological answer where such a need may not actually exist. For the atheist - who necessarily denies teleological agency as a quality of the universe - it's difficult to interpret a statement like "why is there something rather than nothing?" as anything other than an example of begging the question. By forming the question that way, the theist could be seen to be assuming a priori the existence of the very thing (teleological causality) that the debate requires him to prove a posteriori: in other words, the theist is implicitly assuming that there must necessarily be a "why" at all. For that reason, if such a theological question can be rephrased as a "how" question (i.e. "how is it that there something rather than nothing?") it is generally prudent to do so, as it permits the atheist and the theist to debate on something approaching a common epistemological ground.

Having said that, I still think that this question in its current form warrants a response and given that Williams poses a very similar "how" question next-up ("how did that something come into being?") I'll save the scientific issues for the next post, and focus on the philosophy here.

This question, needless to say, is an old one, dating all the way back to Plato and almost certainly much earlier. In the context of Christian theology, the question has been most famously framed by Aquinas (who posited that the chain of causes that is our universe must have been set in motion by some "uncaused cause") and Leibniz (who speaks of a "necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself"): both, of course, are here making reference to "God". I'm not going to address these arguments directly*, but I will use them as a means of demonstrating why such intuitions about the nature of existence are misguided and - ultimately - fallacious.

So let's return to the question itself. In asking why there should be "something" rather than "nothing", there is a hidden assumption: that we should expect "nothing" to be the default state of nature. That is, that without some "uncaused cause" or "sufficient reason", "nothing" would necessarily exist and "something" necessarily wouldn't. Beyond the fact that, by definition, nothingness cannot ever be said to "exist", in reality there is nothing to support this assertion, and all the available evidence actually points to the contrary conclusion.

On the quantum scale, particles in a vacuum (i.e. an "empty" part of the universe) flash in and out of existence all the time without any discernable physical cause and these particles themselves can only be said to exist probabilistically rather than as determinate points of "existence". The only absolute "law" operating at this scale is that any existent state (including "nothingness") must be completely and inviolably indeterminate and therefore, over any meaningful period of time, inherently untenable. I'll address this more thoroughly in the next post, but for now I will simply point out that "nothingness" (i.e. a quantum state that is both unchanging and certain) represents an unstable and - above all - impossible state of nature.**

But let us presume, nonetheless, that the existence of "something" must be dependent on the existence of some prior "something": that is to say, let us presume that all existence is inherently contingent. Let us then presume that the chain of contingency must terminate somewhere: that is to say, let us presume that the chain of causality cannot be infinite and there must be an ultimate "cause" to have originated the chain in the first place. Let us then presume - a la Aqunias, Leibniz and any number of theologians - that this ultimate origin could best be described as "God". Are we any closer to answering the original question?

In the first place, by positing the existence of a god (even one for whom existence is a predicate) we are still no closer to answering why there should be "something" (i.e. a god) as opposed to "nothing" (i.e. no god) and the arguments of Aquinas, Leibniz and others surely offer no solution in this regard. If it is permissible to pull a semantic sleight of hand and suggest that "God" must exist as an uncaused cause (Aquinas) by virtue of its very necessity (Liebniz), could we not with similar effortlessness invoke Ockham's Razor and render any such "god" superfluous by suggesting that the universe itself must exist as an uncaused cause by virtue of its very necessity? Is it really more reasonable to terminate the contingent chain of existence at some god, rather than with existence (i.e. the universe: the sum-total of every "something") itself?

In the second place, even if it could be cogently argued that the uncaused cause cannot be "the universe itself" and must, rather, be some "god", is that any reason to infer that this god must possess anything like the attributes assigned to him by modern theology? That a "god" must exist as an uncaused cause - and the foundation of all existence - is not to say that this god must necessarily be rational, or purposeful, or loving, or even - by any meaningful definition of the term - conscious. Such a "god" could just as naturally be mechanical, incapable of purpose, amoral and completely unaware of its own existence: what clause within Aquinas' and Liebniz' reasoning logically precludes such a conclusion***?

You'll note, as this post becomes more and more difficult to follow, that ontological discussions such as this one speed very rapidly towards the point where our imaginations and capacity to express ourselves cogently are strained to breaking point. While this inevitably leads to frustration and the desire to invoke - quite literally - some deus ex machina into existence as a means of alleviating the existential angst that such a line of questioning will inevitably provoke, I would proffer a more honest summation: we just don't know. That is to say, I don't know "why" there is something rather than nothing, the cosmologists don't know "why" there is something rather than nothing and the theologians don't know "why" there is something rather than nothing. This uncertainty, however, is nothing to fear or to run from: I think it's simply one of those beautiful and inescapable realites of human existence.

So, in answer to the original question (I think this is about as equivocal an answer as I'm likely to give to any of these questions), the most generous conclusion is that no-one knows "why" there is something rather than nothing, the least generous conclusion is that one is just begging the question by posing such a question in the first place. I don't think it's an argument that makes the need for gods any more real, but I will agree that it's "fun" (or "complete torture" - the terms are largely interchangable when it comes to philosophy) to think about.

-----------

* Immanuel Kant's succinct response to the ontological argument will suffice for now: "Existence is not a predicate."

** One could then, I suppose, modify the ontological argument to say, "why are quantum fields in a constant state of flux rather than fixed unchangingly at zero?" but that still betrays the unfounded assumption that a mandated fixed state represents a far more likely reality than a mandated unfixed state. In any case, as Einstein sardonically noted, a god that finds itself the creator of such a reality could not be the prescient, teleological god of Christianity, as such a god is reduced to "playing dice" where no specific outcome - including the emergence of human beings in need of a saviour - could possibly be planned from the beginning.

*** Paul Davies (in "The Mind of God") argues that such a necessary being must be rational in constitution, but his reasoning for this conclusion was rather opaque and I've got no inclination to retrieve it from my bookshelf and recapitulate his argument here.