Why there is anything at all


The question "Why is there anything at all?", or, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" has been raised or commented on by philosophers including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Martin Heidegger – who called it the fundamental question of metaphysics.

Overview

The question is posed comprehensively, rather than concerning the existence of anything specific such as the universe or multiverse, the Big Bang, mathematical laws, physical laws, time, consciousness or God. It can be seen as an open metaphysical question.
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On causation

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that everything must have a cause, culminating in an ultimate uncaused cause.
David Hume argued that, while we expect everything to have a cause because of our experience of the necessity of causes, a cause may not be necessary in the case of the formation of the universe, which is outside our experience.
Bertrand Russell took a "brute fact" position when he said "I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all."
Philosopher Brian Leftow has argued that the question cannot have a causal explanation or a contingent explanation, and that if there is an answer it must be something that exists necessarily.

Explanations

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Philosopher of physics Dean Rickles has argued that numbers and mathematics may necessarily exist.

Criticism of the question

Philosopher Stephen Law has said the question may not need answering, as it is attempting to answer a question that is outside a spatio-temporal setting, from within a spatio-temporal setting. He compares the question to asking "what is north of the North Pole?" Noted philosophical wit Sidney Morgenbesser reportedly answered the question with an apothegm: "If there were nothing you'd still be complaining!", or "Even if there was nothing, you still wouldn't be satisfied!"

Physics is not enough

Physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss have offered explanations that rely on quantum mechanics, saying that in a quantum vacuum state particles will spontaneously come into existence. Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek is credited with the aphorism that "nothing is unstable." However, this answer has not satisfied physicist Sean Carroll who argues that Wilczek's aphorism accounts merely for the existence of matter, but not the existence of quantum states, space-time or the universe as a whole.

God is not enough

Philosopher Roy Sorensen writes in the Stanford Encyclopedia that to many philosophers the question is intrinsically impossible to answer, like squaring a circle, and even God does not sufficiently answer it:

Argument that "nothing" is impossible

The pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides was one of the first Western thinkers to question the possibility of nothing. Many other thinkers, such as Bede Rundle, have questioned whether nothing is an ontological possibility. Nothing might be a human concept that is only a construct and inappropriate for a description of a possible state, or absence of state.