I guess I'm not cut out for metaphysics. Either I'm not sufficiently
sophisticated to understand metaphysical arguments, which generally fly over my
head, or I'm especially allergic to the sophistry that I detect in most of
them.
I'm particularly puzzled by metaphysical discourses on the
age-old question of why there is something rather than nothing—that is, why the
universe actually exists—which William James called the darkest question in all
philosophy. There are many recent
writings about this conundrum, two of which underlie my musings today. The
first, A
Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing by cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss, attempts to give a
scientific answer. The second, Why
Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story by science writer Jim Holt, explores various physical
and metaphysical answers that have emerged over the eons.
I discussed Krauss' book in a previous
posting. Although its title
may sound metaphysical, it is not, but rather is based on sound science as far
as our understanding of the cosmos can now take us. Krauss adduces theoretical and experimental evidence to
assert that our universe was spawned from an eternal multiverse, which
continually gives birth to universes like ours in big bangs. Each new universe arises as a
spontaneous eruption of particle-antiparticle pairs from the quantum froth that
is known to pervade space; and each might develop its own set of physical laws
as it unfolds from its primal fireball.
I refer you to the latter half of my previous posting for additional
details.
This cosmology, mind-blowing as it may
seem, satisfies my senses of simplicity, order and coherence. An
eternal, steady-state multiverse that continually
engenders new universes removes the perennial bafflers: "What happened
before our big bang?" and "What first cause started it
all?". Before our own big
bang, the multiverse had always been starting new universes. And a first cause isn't needed for a
process that has been going on eternally, because there is no first instant.
But "it has
always been and will always be" is not as entrancing to some of my readers
as it is to me. They ask, "Why does the multiverse exist at all?" In answer, most scientists throughout
the ages have agreed with Bertrand Russell's dictum, "I should say that
the universe is just there, and that is all." Adolf Grünbaum, a professor of the philosophy of science at
the University of Pittsburgh, goes deeper by pointing to unstated premises
behind the question: not only that everything needs an explanation, but that
a priori the
preferred state of the multiverse is its nonexistence, not its existence, so
that an explanation is needed to explain why it indeed exists. But why should not the preferred state
be its actual state of existence, no explanation needed?
Despite my
satisfaction with the cosmology Krauss describes, I decided to read Holt's
book, which explores sundry other physical and metaphysical models proposed
throughout history, most of them metaphysical. It starts annoyingly, however, with a prologue that plunges one into the fuzzy
argumentation that I associate with all of metaphysics. I reproduce it here in its entirety:
A Quick Proof That There
Must Be Something Rather Than Nothing, for Modern People Who Lead Busy Lives
Suppose there were
nothing. Then there would be no
laws; for laws, after all, are something.
If there were no laws, then everything would be permitted. If everything were permitted, nothing
would be forbidden. So if there
were nothing, nothing would be forbidden.
Thus nothing is self-forbidding.
Therefore, there must be
something. QED.
This argument is
at best semantic confusion, at worst casuistry. The verbal shenanigans arise
from the conflation of two meanings of the word "nothing": the antonym
of the word everything, i.e., no thing; and the state of nothingness, i.e., the
nonexistence of the universe, which is a thing. In the fourth sentence, then, if "everything were
permitted," so too would a nonexistent universe be permitted; it is one possibility
among all possibilities (every thing) for the universe. Likewise, if "nothing would be
forbidden," then a nonexistent universe couldn't be forbidden as a
possibility. The paradox that Holt
seeks thus vanishes.
Even if Holt was
not purposefully being sophistic here, but was just poking a bit a fun at the
fogginess of some metaphysical argumentation, he still has done a disservice to
his readers, who will either swallow the paradox uncritically, or have to spend
time resolving it, as I did. He
compounds the offense by using "nothing" in both meanings
indiscriminately until some 45 pages later in the book, when he finally
distinguishes them in the context of the sentence "Nothing is greater than
God." (Try reading that
sentence using each of the two meanings—totally opposite statements!) Not a good introduction to his tome.
The book proper
starts by summarizing various answers to Why is there something rather than
nothing?
given by savants over the centuries.
To me, most of them partake of the sort of fuzziness that disqualifies
me as a metaphysicist. For
example: Something exists because it is on the whole better than
nothingness. Something exists because
it was created out of nothingness by an omnipotent creator, which because of
its omnipotence created itself.
Nothingness can't exist because it is literally unthinkable—for, after
trying to imagine a universe with nothing in it, space itself, a thing, would
be left—so nothingness must be impossible. Something exists because the single nothingness state counts
as an infinitesimal fraction of all the possible somethingness states; so,
probabilistically speaking, the nothingness state has no real chance of
occurring. This summary provides a
backdrop for the rest of the book, which explores current thinking about the
question.
To my mind, most
of the current thinking Holt presents is metaphysical blather. For instance: "Math creates
Matter, Matter creates Mind, and Mind creates Math—the three worlds mutually
support one another, hovering in midair over the abyss of
Nothingness." Or "The
world is nothing but a flux of pure differences, without any underlying
substance." Or it "consists
of an infinite number of infinite minds." The exegeses of these assertions and others like it
don't add any clarity to them.
To be sure, Holt
doesn't avoid scientific explanations, including the very cosmology that Krauss
describes. But he is largely
unconvinced by them, saying, "The universe comprises everything that
physically exists. A scientific explanation
must involve some sort of physical cause.
But any physical cause is part of the universe to be explained. Thus any purely scientific explanation
… is doomed to be circular."
Thus, Holt isn't
satisfied, as I am, with Krauss' eternal, causeless multiverse. He indeed asks, "Why this eternal, causeless
multiverse rather than another?"
I imagine a dialog with him: I would suggest that the multiverse we
actually live in is what probability theorists call ergodic—a time-shifted
version of every other instantiation of the multiverse except the nonexistent
one—so we are reduced to a simple dichotomy between the one existent multiverse
and a posited nonexistent one (and hence to Russell's and Grünbaum's comments). He would then ask, "Why this time shift and not
another?" Exasperatedly, I
would be forced to use a response he attributes to Sidney Morgenbesser, the
late Columbia University philosopher:
"Oh, even if there was nothing, you still wouldn't be
satisfied!"
I'm afraid my
prejudice against metaphysics won out in assessing Holt's book. I learned nothing that diverted me from
Krauss' cosmology. Taking my lead
from Grünbaum, I have to dismiss his fundamental question Why is there
something rather than nothing? as a Scheinproblem, a pseudo-problem.