Anthony A.C. Grayling - Why Not Nothing?

[@rustycalvera977]

this discussion of nothing is really something

[@snpActn]

I can only read this with Jerry Seinfelds voice

[@robertm3561]

LOL!😂

[@prismaticsignal5607]

I really like Robert Kuhn. The thing that amazes me the most about this man is his deep sense of curiosity.

[@nicokarsen6131]

For a narcissist, he is not bad. He needs to say I more often.

[@friendlybanjoatheist5464]

"What gives questions their meaning is the capacity we have for answering them." Graying's final comment. I have not really heard that theory of meaning before. Interesting.

[@MGBetts1]

It's a bit like the Emperor's new clothes. It's actually a load of rubbish, but people seem too frightened of him to say it.

[@zenbanjo2533]

MGBetts1 could you say more? I have a strong intuition that Grayling is right about this. Our capacity for answering may not be a sufficient condition for “meaning“ but it seems a necessary one. No?

[@MGBetts1]

@@zenbanjo2533 - I actually think Professor Grayling is talking rubbish. The trouble is that it's dressed up to sound academic so no-one dares to call him out for it.

[@zenbanjo2533]

MGBetts1 Yes, I get that you think that. I’m asking you why are you think that. I am interested.

[@MGBetts1]

@@zenbanjo2533 AC Grayling has an extreme dislike for anything religious and can be quite offensive when confronted about it. I just feel that he pulls the question to pieces (or tries to) because he doesn't want to be confronted with it. Perhaps in truth he is frightened of that "something bigger."

[@thetruthoutside8423]

The interviewer is very well read and very smart in asking these questions and digging in deeper in the core of the problem.

[@tufail1823]

he's been talking to world class philosophers and scientists on the channel for so long so

[@dreyestud123]

When he says he can imagine there being nothing. His imagination of nothing is something. Therefore he can not truly say he can imagine there is nothing.

[@anonsurfer]

As I understand it, A.C. Grayling is saying that the only meaningful or relevant questions are ones that available technology can help answer. If the math or technology doesn't exist to validate an assertion then that assertion is not worth pursuing. There is an inherent flaw with this thought process, IMHO.

[@dreyestud123]

Best response to RLK's question is by Christopher Isham. He pushed back against Kuhn and asked what kind of answer would possibly satisfy him and Kuhn's response was honest and irrational. www.closertotruth.com/interviews/2461

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

@@dreyestud123 That wasn't an impressive response at all and his conclusion was pretty much the same as Grayling's, for different reasons - it's unanswerable.

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

You have actually mischaracterised or at least misunderstood what Grayling said. His focus was neither on maths nor technology but on logic. Quite how you glossed over that is beyond me. I mean, if he said it once, he said it half a dozen times.

[@dreyestud123]

dancheyne I don’t waste time on unanswerable questions. I’m simply pointing out the foolishness in RLK DEMANDING that there be an answer.

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

@@dreyestud123 Except that isn't what you did at all.

[@audiodead7302]

This whole discussion got lost in semantics. It would make more sense to ask "did something ever come from nothing?" or "is it possible to start from initial conditions of nothingness and end with something?". We still don't know the answer, but the question is logical.

[@ewqdsacxz765]

Maybe there has never been a nothing.

[@sethganz]

That’s not the point. The point is why are there these conditions for existence? What is the explanation of a-ny-thing existing, without the details about how or from where it comes? Why is there math, concepts, logic, any substrate within which we exist and inquire?

[@RobertWF42]

​@@sethganzRobert Kuhn asked Max Tegmark this question and he's gotten the closest to a solid answer. Even if space, matter, energy, time didn't exist, the concept of a circle's circumference divided by its diameter = pi would still be true, no matter how you fiddle with the laws of physics or invoke different dimensions. 1 + 1 = 2 would still be true. Perhaps, somehow, mathematics is the reason something exists, the fundamental building block of reality.

[@TheBookofBeasts]

We always ask the question before we have the answer. Some are never answered, this doesn’t leave them without meaning in the greater since of the word. The greatest questions take the longest to answer. However long it takes them to be answered, or however hard they are to answer, has nothing to to do with their meaning; the meaning can be as simple as having the ability to ask the question in the first place.

[@DeusExAstra]

I basically agree with him, I just dont see what it even means for there to be nothing. As much as I try to think about it, I cant conceive of it... even though it's easy to think that "nothing" is a concept we can conceive of and reason about. Like the interviewer says, he can conceive of "nothing", but I think ultimately that's probably not a real conception of it. People mostly think of nothing as empty space, which is not actually nothing. Even the question "what does it mean for there to be nothing" shows how unanswerable this is, because the question implies that "nothing" is something that can exist.

[@traja9001]

Question: is it the same as thinking of it like infinity? We can think of infinity conceptually in the same way as zero. Conceptually "nothing" is the absence of everything. We can't imagine it. In the same way pi is infinite but we can't imagine an infinite number of numbers. Also, I disagree, just cause we can't get an answer doesnt make the question meaninglessness. How would you know what you do or don't know if you didn't ask the question first.

[@tufail1823]

@@traja9001 exactly, was gonna type that.

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

@@traja9001 'just cause we can't get an answer doesnt make the question meaninglessness' But in this case, and others he gives examples of, it does. For the reasons he explained.

[@springinfialta106]

The statement "I am here" is a tautology. So the question "Can I ever be wrong when I say 'I am here'?" always has the answer 'No'. That question is completely different from the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[@zaidsyed8187]

What about his other example: "Why is everything not bigger than it is?"

[@springinfialta106]

@@zaidsyed8187 Eveeything IS bigger. It all just looks smaller cuz we're looking at it in the rearview mirror. 😉

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

The question isn't completely different, though. It's different in some ways but not in the way he references it. It's similar insofar as it immediately produces a logical dead end.

[@springinfialta106]

@@MissBlennerhassett876 It only produces a logical dead end if you assume materialism. If you assume there is a necessary being that created the universe then you have a rational reason why there is something rather than nothing. When someone asks "Why is there something rather than nothing?" he/she is really asking "Why is there matter/energy/space-time rather than no matter/energy/space-time? " They are not asking "Why is there something (including a necessary being who created the universe) rather than nothing at all not even a necessary being who created the universe?"

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

@@springinfialta106 Exactly 🤷

[@StevenTorrey]

The question -“Why is there something instead of nothing”- turns existence into a metaphysical question. In Planck time, matter & antimatter clashed and annihilated each element; but when done, there must have been one more particle of “matter” remaning. Stephen Hawkins asserts that given science, life would be inevitalbe; that is nonsense. One need only look at sister planets Mars or Venus and find that life is not inevitable. One may resist the urge to cite the “Divinity that shapes our ends”-but there it is. A miracle of life is just that. Another part of the answer is that “nothingness” becomes a force just as death becomes a force-the state of being dead, or the state of being nothing. And remember, in due time the universe will eventually revert to “nothingness”. Like so many questions that cannot be readily anwered, it is no less real a question. “Why God?” one might ask in the face of onerous tragedy falls into that same cateqory of apparently meaningless qustions.

[@brud1729]

It's the "why" part of the question that's the problem. It assumes that there can be an answer, and in fact a correct and of course a provable answer. But, as Richard Feynman pointed out, there can be no demonstrably true answer to any why question. Any possible answer prompts another "why" question and on and on.

[@orver1]

Imagining nothing is the equivalent of imaging everything. Both are infinite.

[@scrumpymanjack]

The question is not “why” is there something rather than nothing, but “how”. The “why” is unanswerable; the “how” explains the process of how the something came into being.

[@larrycarter3765]

because if there was nothing we wouldn't be here to ask the question.

[@djacob7]

No thing can exist unless it exists "surrounded" by nothing. Nothing defines the boundary of a thing. And the only thing in existence is everything. All subdivisions of everything are conceptual (like half a Quark). As vjnt1star implied below, it's not either something or nothing, but both. Nothing exists just as much as everything exists.

[@SuperBooboohaha]

The concept of ' nothing ' emerges from logical continuity i.e ''if there is something there must have been nothing at some point in time''. This logical continuity or necessity is a creation of our own mind.There is/was no 'nothing'.Things just evolve or change.Something is the brute and the only reality.If I am not wrong, Plato, was the first person who said that the universe is eternal, today we can say that energy is eternal.We can obviously think about 'nothing ', like the absence of all matter, energy and dimensions, but this 'nothing' is a mere cognitive artwork.

[@Stejarulpufos70]

Parmenide

[@alanbird7781]

I would say “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is meaningless question because whatever answer you give to the question immediately becomes “something” and then you are back to where you started “Why is there that something rather than nothing?”

[@FarnhamJ07]

Yeah, I think that's right. It's the ultimate case of infinite regress, and akin to asking "what is the last natural number?" We can (and should!) always ask what comes next in the series, but it's simply not a valid construction to ask what the last step is.

[@jaydunstan1618]

Yes. He is extremely uncomfortable with the fact that he does not know. This is his ego reacting. The question is valid.

[@HyzersGR]

This might be the best answer I’ve heard to this question.

[@tufail1823]

still unconvincing though

[@geshtu1760]

Can nothing produce something? If yes, then there's no mystery. If no, then there must always have been something, because there is something now. Logical necessity. Boom.

[@pippipster6767]

雨Jacob雨 You are confusing a linguistic proposition with physical reality.

[@eckhartmaister4404]

If contingency, then yes,

[@stephenlawrence4821]

Well, assuming a beginning of time there has always been something since the beginning of time.

[@TheIllerX]

Yes, I feel like the answer must be something like that. An answer of the type "First there was nothing and then something happened to create something" can never be correct since it suppose some can happen if there is nothing, which is cannot (since it then has to contain the possibility of that something event to happen). So there has never been a state of nothing. Something exists now and has therefors always existed.

[@pontifrancesco439]

Yea but he Just stipulated that It was a wrong question, without giving any reason...

[@dreyestud123]

Grayling didn't say it was wrong, he just said it was a pointless question.

[@greyeyed123]

"Why" presupposes everything in existence is the result of cause and effect, which presupposes absolute time, which presupposes an Aristotelian Prime Mover, which (for most asking this question) presupposes a creator God of some type...which also presupposes the God is NOT a result of cause and effect and yet exists (contradicting the first presupposition) and is also the explanation for the mystery of why anything exists (while not answering anything and presupposing several things that are wrong--not everything in existence is the result of cause and effect, and absolute time was disproven 100 years ago). Is that helpful to you? The grammar of the "why" question is meaningless even when granting it its own presupposed logic.

[@JoeGamer81]

So let me see if I get this right: the guest is saying that the universe exisiting is not necessarily inexplicable, and that we may one day know why and how it came to be. The problem with the question of "why is there something instead of nothing" is that it could be no other way, which is not the same as being inexplicable. You can know how something came to be without there being some alternative outcome. Is that right? He seems to really hit on the logical aspect of the question rather than the factual, meaning he isn't saying "we'll never find out," he's saying "there is nothing to find out."

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

No, you've misunderstood it.

[@10002One]

so then, that is nothing. which answers the original question. well done.

[@osip7315]

“ why is there something rather than nothing ? ” "nothing" actually in common use is always in the context of something so i think to make sense of this question is you have to have the complete universal absence of anything which would include the question so basically this complete universal absence can only be seen from outside of it which would imply a contradiction to it being a complete universal absence so you can say the question is not meaningful or self-contradictory, but what does that mean ? it can’t quite be quite meaningless since that implies an opposite of meaning, it breaks up the ontological world so i think what it is saying is the "ontological world" is itself a reification of something, there are deeper levels of abstraction and what does this mean ? well there’s an abstraction deeper than "meaning", like is lewis carroll tapping into that with his "hunting of the snark" what does that work mean or is there no fixed meaning, but one that changes with the looking ? the asking of the question thwarts the answer ?

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

'Nothing' is not an existential state of being. 'Nothing' is a concept of consciousness that is used to denote an absence. 'Nothing' is meaningless except in contradistinction to 'something'. Therefore 'something' is primary to 'nothing'.

[@MGBetts1]

Why is there something rather than nothing? If you try to abolish the question, you don't need to answer it, according to the Professor. Which still leaves the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing." This is Philosophy?

[@baldrbraa]

Not really, no. The enlightenment killed philosophy and this is the result.

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

My goodness, you're dumb.

[@ashtonadair6520]

Thank you for this video. Mr. Grayling is resistant to use the term "brute fact," but that must be the logical conclusion to "Why does anything exist at all." The First Thing in the Universe, whether it was God or matter either always existed or spontaneously appeared. Either way, there is no cause for the First Thing or First Cause. The question, "Why does anything exist at all" has never been answered because the answer is "No Reason" and therefore there really can not be an answer to this question. People are therefore free to employ their own purpose for the Universe where where it may have been purposeless before.

[@lukeabbott3591]

When we ask the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" we are really asking the question "why is there something in the universe rather than nothing in the universe." When a scientist responds by saying that the laws of nature explain why there is something in the universe rather than nothing in it, he has failed to answer the question because the laws of physics are something in the universe. He can appeal to "brute factuality," but this only means that he's "justified" his ideas by claiming they don't have to make sense, which is lazy and absurd. When a theist responds by saying that God explains why there is something in the universe rather than nothing in it, he avoids this difficulty because (as any theologian will tell you) God is not a being in the universe but is, as Thomas Aquinas says, that through which all being subsists: God does not fall into the category of existing things because He provides the foundation for that category itself, and therefore cannot be an item within it.

[@albert6157]

@@lukeabbott3591 i agree, i think the best answer is "nobody knows yet"

[@michaelmonteforte2485]

Dr. Kuhn has said in past videos that by " nothing" he means: no matter, no subatomic particles, no forces, no quantum fields, no space, no time, no consciousness, no laws of math or physics, no possibility, no logic, no necessity, no anything else you could come up with. So when he casually says that he "can conceive of nothing", I would ask " what exactly are you conceiving?" It would, to me, be like saying " I can conceive of my not being sentient" or " I can imagine not having consciousness ". " Nothing " is a relative term; in the absolute sense that Dr. Kuhn seems to be after, it is incoherent.

[@CopelandMeister]

What gives a question meaning is its capacity to be answered? A perfect formula for exaggerating the scope of human cognition depriving your life of wonder!

[@0i0l0o]

Well said.

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

You've misunderstood the entire point.

[@anwarulmamoon4299]

As we are already existing ,so 'nothing' is not possible at all.'Nothing' can not produce 'something'.There fore question of "nothing" is a meaning less question.

[@zamoth73]

Grayling doesn't give any reasons why the question is meaningless. He just says it falls into the category of meaningless questions. The next best thing to finding the answer to the question would be to know why it doesn't have an answer.

[@RicardoErick1]

In short, Grayling answered in a wittgensteinian way, saing "it´s just a futile semantic trap". But in this case I suspect it isn´t and feel that´s Kuhn´s curiosity it absolutely useful. Grayling could just say "I don´t know".

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

Why would he answer 'I don't know' when he thinks it's a semantic trap? He's by no means alone in that opinion, by the way.

[@alexmagor7538]

“Why is there something rather than nothing?”: Whatever answer you give has to be something. That something is not nothing. Therefore you can never get nothing. And that is why there is something rather than nothing.

[@yarngod]

-Egg or a chick first? -Egg! -But where did it come from? -From dinosour! 😠thats ENOUGH!!!

[@mattthn]

One ultimate truth comes out is this question of nothing is no matter what universe and beyond, there is always something. There is nothing as a beginning or end.

[@billyoumans1784]

Science can’t answer a question, therefore declares the question invalid.

[@Paine137]

Science can’t answer a question, therefore sky dictator.

[@Paine137]

@stonearecool2645 You worship a manmade fictional character. Grow up and accept reality as it is.

[@latenightlogic]

He’s been asking that same question over and over to the smartest people in the world for years and years.

[@dhireshyadav1783]

When you don't have an answer to a question, you define it meaningless? A trait of getting older. If same was done for quantum phenomenon back in the days, we would not have such an amazing theory. And imagine the same approach being taken for TOE.

[@ramaraksha01]

It is meaningless because the question starts off with there was nothing first and then something came up - ie blank space and then we have matter. What the answer is saying that there was no such time when there was nothing - it has always been this way

[@springinfialta106]

@@ramaraksha01 Most theologians don't posit that there was nothing before there was something. They are very happy assuming that there was always something. The question still remains: Why is there something rather than nothing?

[@ramaraksha01]

@@springinfialta106 yes but plugging in a magic being with incredible powers doesn't solve anything - all it does is making us ask where did he come from? Where did he get all those magic powers? The presence of a God is a clear indication that we live in a simulation - a "God" who came out of nowhere with incredible powers must be living inside a Computer - some guy made "God" and made him think that he has all these powers Science does answer why there is something instead of nothing - the multiverse. In some Universes there is nothing, in ours there is something

[@pierre-luc8400]

@@ramaraksha01 i agree but the question is WHY? i remember asking myself the same question when i was a kid and it scared me but i guess ill find the answer once dead

[@ramaraksha01]

@@pierre-luc8400 lol why is death the answer to everything? You won't have a body eyes, ears or a brain - how will you know anything?

[@springinfialta106]

Grayling either doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand what Kuhn is saying about the brute factness of the universe for those unwilling to ask the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

About the only sensible thing you said on this thread.

[@TLMS654]

Perhaps it would be better to ask the question ‘why the order of things is intelligible?’

[@dreyestud123]

The word nothing exists to describe an absence of something and implies that something could/should exist. Nothing on its own is meaningless. Kuhn is either the densest person in the world or is arguing for the sake of arguing. Someone should ask Kuhn what would a nothing universe look like?

[@bannaubrycheiniog1329]

There couldn't have ever been nothing, because there is something.

[@Malcolm701]

Over very long periods of time there are periods of 'nothing' where everything shuts down and nothing is.

[@rupesh_sahebrao_dhote]

When we ask why something rather than nothing?....We are assuming nothing to be an alternative to something. It all depends on what one understands by nothing. Something means which has form or dimension. So nothing would be formless. Empty dark space is not nothing. Then what can be nothing ? OR What can be formless ? Now you see the mistake in question when we ask what can be formless ?. Formless cannot exist...if it does exist then it becomes form or something. It's like asking the question why tree has branches? This is incorrect question because we have already defined or have knowledge that tree as some object that has branches. Similarly why something rather than nothing? is incorrect question because we have already defined or have knowledge that nothing or formless which cannot exists. If nothing has to exist then it becomes something and then the question to that something is why will occur and wil go on for infinite regress. 😮

[@rupesh_sahebrao_dhote]

😅

[@michaelp3122]

Really Mr Grayling. Don't reject the question. Just admit that it cannot be answered by humans at this time.

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

It's Professor Grayling and he provided reasons why the question has no answer.

[@zebonautsmith1541]

When nothing separates into opposites; it gives the appearance of something

[@curiousSloth92]

Exactly. Why should there be nothing? It's just 50/50. As it's shown by two principles: 1-entropy, when there is too much of something, it spreads and evens out . 2-Casimir vacuum and virtual particles, there can't be "too much nothing" , if there is, particles, energy, pop up into existence.

[@jameshudson169]

nothing can't separate. nothing doesn't exist. and the grammarians are in on this hoax too! "i don't got nothing" is no double negative. nothing is not negative. nothing doesn't exist thus i can't have it. i have nothing. is an illogical sentence. absurd at it's root!

[@tonydarcy1606]

Why is the speed of light in a vacuum the same for all observers ? I don't know but it corresponds with observation. "Nothing" doesn't appear to exist, why assume it a priori ?

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

To ask the question Why not nothing? is to assume that the universe is just another thing in the universe. "Oh I'm not assuming that." The assumption is intrinsic in the question whether or not one wishes to acknowledge it. 'Why not this jar someplace else than this table?' Perfectly sensible question, the jar being in the universe. If you think 'Why not the universe?' and 'Why not the jar?' are equally valid questions, then you are fooled by the sound of proper syntax to the point of disregarding proper meaning.

[@Dazzletoad]

Some will see the American as irritating, his pushing is a welcomed neccessity for understanding. Great vid 😬

[@mackdmara]

That was the biggest Dodge of a question I have heard in a while. He was moving so fast there was a vacuum in his wake. Why we exist at all is a very pertinent question. Just because it is hard to answer, does not deny its validity. Second, you *can* get somewhere logically with asking this question. Thus, even by his own criteria, it is valid. This is not, 'What flavor is the color purple?'. They are simply not the same kind of question. He did use a bunch of big words in his bluff though.

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

It's neither a dodge nor a bluff. And it's not hard to answer, it's unanswerable. Asking "why" we exist presupposes agency, purpose, reason, logic. Stuff like that. The one point in this conversation where I think Grayling and Kuhn have misunderstood each other is the definition of "brute fact".

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Un-named concepts -> Given a name or identity (could be language, symbol, sound, etc), -> With an attached meaning -> And maybe other meanings depending upon context, -> And possibly even those same meanings having different names or identities. Our human senses are physically limited and even our technologies are physically limited. "Concepts" like "God" and "nothingness" might actually exist but they are beyond our capabilities to comprehend, even with our technologies. How would we ever know for 100% certainty that they don't actually exist? Likewise, life itself is ultimately meaningless in the grandest scheme of things (or so it currently appears), or is it in actual reality, whatever actual reality actually is? What exactly might exist beyond our limits of comprehension? Nothingness or somethingness? And if it's nothingness, then it is nothingness in name only as perceived by a conscious somethingness existing in somethingness. Of which then, nothingness only exists in somethingness, otherwise it's nothingness and does not exist at all in any shape or form. Nothingness can never ever contain somethingness, otherwise it wouldn't be nothingness. (At least as utilizing our language with it's attached associated meanings.) But is even that 100% correct? How would we ever truly know one way or another for 100% certainty? Then we either die one day from something or we don't. Then we either truly have an actual eternal conscious existence throughout all of future eternity, somehow, someway, somewhere, in some state of existence, or we don't. Currently it appears that the substance that makes us up goes back to from whence it came, eternally existent energy that makes up this universe itself. Our consciousness after we physically die appears it will be like before it existed, a state of nothingness, from whence it came from inside of eternally existent somethingness. Nothingness came from somethingness, somethingness did not come from nothingness. Hence also though, only eternally existent somethingness can actually exist, nothingness cannot ever actually exist, otherwise, it would be somethingness. Or then again, maybe it's truly beyond our current comprehension in actual reality.

[@JonSebastianF]

Grayling's main point is his very last sentence (9:00): _"What gives meaning to questions is the capacity we have for answering them."_

[@milliern]

So a Stone Age civilization, like that of North Sentinel Island, coming into contact with an iPhone, would have to say, "How this thing works?" is a meaningless question.

[@SirThomasJames]

@@milliern Yea right? It's a total cop-out

[@MissBlennerhassett876]

@@milliern You weren't listening to the whole "logic" part of what he was saying, were you...

[@springinfialta106]

But the question was answered by Plato and Aristotle and Averroes and Aquinas and ...

[@pokerandphilosophy8328]

@@MissBlennerhassett876 Indeed, that's the whole point. The capacity that Grayling is stressing isn't our actual technical ability to settle the question now or in the future. It's the ability to make sense of it through elucidating its logical grammar, such that we can at least say something regarding what might count as a sensible answer to the question.

[@brentbb0]

The host said he can imagine "nothing," but you can't really imagine nothing, because in the imagining of that, Mind is still present (whether there is awareness of that fact or not.) The "imagining" needs Mind to exist, and with no mind, there is no imagining of anything. On another level, the question, "Why is there something, rather than nothing?" is a flat-earth question. (See "The Grand Delusion" by Steve Hagen.) Its makes no sense, because there is no such thing as "Nothing" (particles are coming into, and going out of existence all the time, in this "nothingness." See the book for the argument that there isn't really any "Something," either. In the end, you can't really say that there is something or nothing; but, nor can you say that there isn't! Its a great book!

[@indricotherium4802]

There can be something and there can be nothing but not something and nothing in the same place at the same time.

[@bocckoka]

you can't approach this question assuming QM. QM is a part of the something we're questioning here

[@brodygreene5918]

So essentially, Grayling is saying that we are faulty in assuming an unanswerable question has any meaning. I have to disagree with that conclusion. We as humans have many questions that we don’t know the answer to in life, but I don’t agree that makes it foolish and meaningless to ponder.

[@rickwyant]

I don't think anyone can conceive of nothing. Thinking of nothing is thinking of something.

[@acidparanoia]

Not really, we can all grasp the idea of nothingness.

[@acelyasummer422]

No question we desire an answer for is meaningless.

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

You have decided this, implicitly or explicitly; A, B, or C. A: Existences is an ontological primary and nonexistence ( I. e., nothing ) is a dependent concept of exclusion. B: Nonexistence is an ontological primary and existence ( i. e., the universe) is dependent and derivitive. C: This distinction is not relevant to anything important.

[@sirgerbilmacintosh9101]

This one almost devolved into a fistfight.

[@RealRobotZer0]

Nothing is right there we just can't see it.

[@paulbrocklehurst3639]

The very question *Why is there something rather than nothing?* makes no sense because there _can't_ *be* 'nothing' i.e. no thing since that's not anything by definition but a lot of people don't seem to appreciate that problem because they think empty space represents nothing but as Einstein proved it's not because it's a dimension of spacetime. In fact it's _three_ dimensions of it!

[@SemiPerfectDark]

it would be nice if the person who is being asked the question got a little bit more time to complete their sentences without being interrupted

[@gartnait1]

Number threes colour is blue,number one is red and number two is white.Red,white and blue WATP.

[@schuey999]

Grayling just said the interviewer is ignorant, and I concur.

[@johnnastrom9400]

No.

[@cthoadmin7458]

Could this nothing ever have existed? If that's not a contradiction in terms. Further why would we ever, or could we ever assume it was the antecedent state to something? What is nothing? No space, no time, no matter, no quantum fields, no laws of nature... We can describe something like that but could it ever, or did it ever exist in reality? Why would that state be more natural than something?

[@jakethemistakeRulez]

I think a better question is how could there be nothing without something? The idea of nothing is meaningless without something in contrast.

[@pokerandphilosophy8328]

Indeed. But then it sets up the question explicitly as a question about logical grammar: what it makes or doesn't make sense to say. I think Grayling would be more approving of setting the question in such terms as a starting point for a philosophical inquiry into the meaning of "nothing" (and the nonsensicality of the idea of "there being nothing at all").

[@niranjansaikia9379]

Leo gura break down the ultimate question beautifully in his latest vdo very profoundly..

[@jeffdunlap2754]

need another million years of scientific research and we probably still won't know

[@thinker2925]

So to go literal on the question, "Why Not Nothing?" There DOES seem to be a perfectly possible answer. If we figure out how the something started then that is an answer to why is it not nothing anymore. Scientifically, If we figure out how the big bang started then that is a suitable answer to the question. Maybe the big bang instantly happens when nothing starts. Maybe nothing is the catalyst that causes something. Maybe total entropy is the very cause of the big bang. I am not saying this is correct but this is a logical and possible answer to the question therefore it CANNOT be unanswerable.

[@kingsassociates4845]

how do we have emergence if we have no question of why is there something rather than nothing.....where is the starting point, and why is there a starting point?

[@michaelfarrell4824]

Can nothing exist without something to compare it to? If there was nothing what would it be a lack of?

[@ericday4505]

It is truly amazing how very intelligent people try to say nothing is something, I love how this interviewer stops that nonsense , they dont get that.

[@ramaraksha01]

We are basically saying we can't see anything it is dark therefore it is nothing. We can see, touch - there is matter, there is something - but we are stuck with our limited views. Space bends - how does nothing bend?

[@johnsetzco4178]

That was disappointing. The interviewer, I thought, was making logical points, to which Grayling's analogies did not hold up. My personal, and highly flawed take, is that the universe paradox-ed itself into existence, for if there is nothing, there must also be something to validate its nothingness.

[@Jesusismykin]

Very simple, a creator God is very real. He is real. !!!

[@donespiritu1345]

If we agree on one fact. That something exists now. Then the idea of nothingness is meaningless because if we exist now it means that before we existed the possibility that we might exist existed, and after we are all dead and gone then the historic fact that we existed will be true. So absolute, metaphysical "nothingness" is logically not possible.

[@liamhayes1011]

If all trees are trees then all questions are questions. All trees are trees. Therefore all questions are questions.

[@gerhardmoeller774]

So....a question is meaningless.....if YOU refuse to accept an obvious answer......because that answer conflicts with your deeply held and unsubstantiated world view!

[@yuriarin3237]

what is the answer

[@yuriarin3237]

@Carl Green I didn't believe that, but what is

[@Jesusismykin]

Who can comprehend a all powerful creator being who created and control's everything.

[@halleuz1550]

I was really disappointed by Grayling. The man is the author of Introduction To Philosophical Logic, yet he failed to produce any good argument, let alone proof for the meaninglessness of the question. He gave examples of other, clearly meaningless, questions without ever showing that the question Lawrence Kuhn asked is in any relevant aspect similar to the examples. Throughout the interview it seemed to me that Lawrence Kuhn is much better at philosophical logic than Grayling.

[@sfopera]

I would think that the question at issue is a scientific inquiry, rather than a philosophical one, that cannot be answered now but might be in the future.

[@bozo5632]

If there was nothing, where would it be?

[@h.astley2113]

The question is fallacious. There is both something AND nothing! It’s just that nothing has no properties

[@mmo4754]

isn't there an infinite amount of nothing occupying every point in space, and a very small amount of something?

[@jaronloar1762]

I don't think you can do that with language or am I just really high?

[@sebolddaniel]

If there is a spiritual realm we go to, we may eventually come to the end of the Universe and ask, "Why is there nothing rather than something?"

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

'Why not nothing?' assumes `nothing' is or could be a real thing or real state, a state of 'nothing exists'. It assumes 'nothing' is a primary and existence is secondary. I don't see it that way. To me 'nothing' is a word that denoted the absence of 'something'. The 'something' comes first. 'Nothing' has meaning only in relationship to some prior 'something'. Therefore to me the question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' is either a meaningless utterance or the first line of a joke.

[@12fskawof]

Why something something means something forever motion is just the formiton of change in phyicL

[@xspotbox4400]

Why is there something rather than nothing, i have no idea, but since i am not nothing, wouldn't mind to hear a good answer. Answer is emergent from a fact i do not exist as a solid. Many atoms of my body would love to know also, so there must be physical causality behind grand illusion of the non existence. Real question is, how could things dissapear from this universe or suddenly pop into existence, if nothing can't exist, all is full and nothing could be taken away or inserted inside. But if nothing do exist, anything is possible really, one must just create a shape of things to come, from what is.

[@patrickboudreau3846]

I dont know that it is so easy to imagine absolute nothingness. No space, no dark void ! If i try, i always see a very dark shade of blackness but i obviously cant exclude myself from it and somehow it makes me feel something is in the darkness.

[@nmh75556]

If it is a meaningless question then we should just stop science and do nothing. What is the point of humans having an intellect then ?

[@MarlboroughBlenheim1]

How can there “be” nothing? If there “is” nothing then what is it? Can that state exist? If it can exist, then it isn’t nothing. If it can’t exist then there can’t be nothing because nothing can’t exist. It can’t be. By definition. In which case there has always been something. In which case you don’t need god.

[@zebonautsmith1541]

The reason there is something rather than nothing is because [insert answer here]. So now it all makes sense; you can sleep well.

[@jamesrathman3635]

Robert Kuhn needs to start with the more fundamental question: is "nothing" possible? What would it mean for "nothing" to exist?The question "why is there something rather than nothing" assumes "nothing" is a conceivable and possible something. I suspect Grayling is correct - the question is not meaningful.

[@andrewwells6323]

... and where’s the proof of that? You don’t need evidence to say something is merely possible. The person who says something is impossible takes the burden of proof.

[@orlovsskibet]

Like when someone says, that the particular god they believe in, created it? Anyway, James didn't state it as a definite thing (as religion would) he merely asked a question. And a damn good one.

[@andrewwells6323]

​@@orlovsskibet No one needs to defend the position "nothing is possible", the question "why does something exist rather than nothing" is a very good (and important) question.

[@orlovsskibet]

Why is it nod needed to defend the position that nothing is possible? To my knowledge we have never seen, detected or even been able to describe nothing. So it is a valid question to ask, if nothing is at all possible. I suspect it might not be.

[@andrewwells6323]

@@orlovsskibet Well the burden of proof is on the person who says something is impossible, "x is possible" is the default, you don't need to observe something to know that it is possible. More to the point, nobody who asks "why does something exist rather than nothing" is actually making the claim that somehow 'nothing once existed'.

[@nicoladisvevia]

The twelve-year-old Robert Kuhn had more philosophical instinct than the superbly learned Professor Grayling has ever possessed. To not be struck by the sheerness of something, and to not be horrified by total nothing, means to be lacking a strong sense of reality. Details apart, this brief conversation seems to me to point to the shallowness of so much contemporary philosophy: the MYSTERY is explained away.

[@mr.d.8121]

Without something the discussion wouldn't place e.

[@thesprawl2361]

"I can conceive of nothing. That's what scared me as a kid" I call bullshit on this claim. You may believe you can conceive of nothing but you are mistaken. Even the idea that you can conceive of 'it' in the first place makes no sense. What are you conceiving _of_? You're conceiving of a space in which all things are removed. That's far from nothing. It still exists, it can still be conceived of. It's not 'nothing'. As soon as you conceive of it you've made it _into_ something. The host is an apologist for a certain kind of philosophical obscurantism and Grayling should have pulled him up on that particular quote. Because once you grant him that 'nothing' is an inteliigible concept, a whole load of irrelevant bollocks can be built on top of it.

[@DontTestTheX]

The Sprawl 'Conceiving' of 'nothing' presupposes that there is something, and is therefore a contradiction and paradox.

[@starlord6088]

Because eventually there will be something and it’s impossible to experience nothing so there will always be something because if there was nothing we wouldn’t even know there was nothing until there was something so there has to be something instead of nothing. Matter of fact, time doesn’t even start until something so there has always been something but for how long there has been something is unknown.

[@kilt81]

For what is worth this is my say about this stuff. I am now an adult person with an healthy mind (or at least I like to think I have an healthy mind 😆) And my passion is to think about the misteries of life and cosmos and all those mind blowing things. I am a rational person and of course i need proofs and empirical demonstrations. Now...and you are free to believe me or not, when I was a child I experienced and saw things that go beyond what we believe is possible for a human. I will not enter into details and again believe me or not i know that what happened was real, i remember those things that happened like if it was yesterday because they kind of shocked me, but did not drive me insane basically because i was a child. Even tho I was so young those experiences got firemarked into my brain because even at that time i understood they were out of the ordinary.The funny thing is...i am pretty sure that when we are children we still have for some reason the ability to sense that there is something else that goes beyond our senses and ordinary phisics, but basically we do not have the curiosity or knowledge to start to ask questions or wonder for real about what is going on, then as we grow up we develop this interest, at least some of us, but at that time we have already lost the ability to experience those extraordinary things because society and science and phisics or whatever told us what is possible or not. So dear sir and friends, i can tell you for sure, there is so much more that we can not see, and things that we believe impossible because forbidden by science are in reality possible, i know it for sure because i experienced them with this body and saw them with those eyes. I apologize if i made some mistakes writing this comment but English is not my language. Everybody have a good night.

[@plekkchand]

The letter three is not a letter. Fair enough. But the color of the number three is a light lavender.