For a printable version of this text see: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics
"Why
is there something rather than nothing?" Ever since Leibniz
first raised this question in 1714, philosophers and scientists have
been exasperated by it. Some have thought it unanswerable and
therefore meaningless. Some have deemed the question trivially wrong,
since according to them the world has always existed and will always
exist, so no mystery in that department. Still others have been
unconvinced by this answer and continue to take Leibniz' question to
be the most fundamental of all. Only a few philosophers and
scientists, however, have actually grappled with it, getting their
hands dirty and stretching the very limits of language and logic in
desperate attempts to conceive of the possibility of an answer. "The
question cuts so deep," the philosopher Robert Nozick wrote in a
famous essay on this matter, "that any approach that stands a
chance of yielding an answer will look extremely weird. Someone who
proposes a non-strange answer shows he didn't understand this
question." (Nozick 1981: 116)
From
quantum theory to dialectics?
In
the following I want to examine one possible type of solution which
has recently gained considerable currency in the ongoing attempt to
answer this question. This type of solution, which definitely does
not belong to the non-strange category, has been termed the
"something from nothing theory" and its proponents have
aptly been called "nothing theorists". It may surprise the
unsuspecting reader to learn that these theorists are renown quantum
physicists (and the odd chemist) rather than obscure philosophers.
Here is how Jim Holt introduces the quantum theory of nothing in his
recent book Why
Does The World Exist?:
"Perhaps
the world arose spontaneously from sheer nothingness. All existence
might be chalked up to a random fluctuation in the void, a "quantum
tunneling" from nothingness into being. Exactly how this could
have happened has become the province of a small but influential
group of physicists who are sometimes referred to as "nothing
theorists". With a mixture of metaphysical chutzpah and naivete,
these physicists –
who include Stephen Hawking among their number –
think they might be able to resolve a mystery heretofore considered
untouchable by science." (Holt 2013: 27-8)
In the
following I offer a philosophical analysis of these quantum theories
of nothing. Can these theories really answer Leibniz' question? I
will argue that ultimately they cannot, even if they are
scientifically sound and offer crucial insights into how the universe
came into being. The difficulty is that these theories, as belonging
to science and physics in particular, still presuppose too much
ontological baggage, notably the false vacuum of 'empty' space and/or
the laws of quantum mechanics. Thus their 'nothing' is still not the
absolute nothingness which is required if we truly want to answer
Leibniz' question. Here, I think, philosophy must come to the rescue
of physics.
Near
the end of this post, therefore,
I will argue for a dialectical conception of nothingness as
self-negating. This, according to me, is the necessary philosophical
complement to the quantum theory of nothing. A crucially important
fact in this regard is the often noted energetic polarity of the
physical universe, i.e. its separation into the positive energy
captured in matter and the negative energy of the gravitational
force. Since the amounts of positive and negative energy in the
universe are equal, they ultimately cancel each other out and leave
the total energy level of the universe at exactly zero (Hawking 1988:
p.129). And since everything in the universe consists in one form or
another of energy, this means that the universe is literally made out
of nothing, but a nothing split into opposites (Atkins 2011,
pp.13-17). A similar conclusion is suggested by the fluctuation
of the false vacuum, where particle and antiparticle pairs
spontaneously pop into existence out of the fluctuating 'zero' energy
level of empty space. As I will argue, these facts clearly point in
the direction of a dialectical conception of nothingness as
self-negating, since on such a conception polarity is an intrinsic
feature of nothingness itself, divided as it is between itself and
its negation. Only a dialectics of nothingness, then, is truly able
to answer Leibniz' question.
Preliminary
remarks: Why nothingness is unavoidable
Before
dealing in more detail with the quantum theories of nothing, however,
I want to make some preliminary remarks about how Leibniz' question
should be answered. My
contention is that this question by itself already forces us to
entertain the concept of nothingness as the ultimate answer. This is
because any other answer simply leads to a regress or vicious circle.
Thus if we answer the question "Why is there anything at all?"
by referring to some existing thing as the ultimate cause (say, God),
we still have not truly answered our question. For what then explains
the existence of that first thing? Why then does God exist? Obviously
it might then be answered, as theology has done for centuries, that
God is causa
sui,
his existence is self-caused and hence eternal. Or one might invoke
St. Anselm's ontological argument: "God necessarily exists,
because as the utmost perfect being his existence is included in his
essence." But can these arguments satisfy? The concept of
self-causation surely seems viciously circular. And Anselm's
ontological argument just seems to define God into existence. But
definitions can only yield tautological truths, not synthetic truths
that tell us about what is 'really out there'. In short, it seems
clear there can't be any magical 'something' the existence of which
is self-explanatory and which can then be used to answer Leibniz
question. As long as that question is answered by reference to
another existing something, the answer runs afoul of a vicious
regress or circle. Ayer, the don of logical positivism, put this
problem succinctly as follows:
"Supposing you asked a
question like 'Where do all things come from?' Now that's a perfectly
meaningful question as regards any given event. Asking where it came
from is asking for a description of some event prior to it. But if
you generalize that question, it becomes meaningless. You're then
asking what event is prior to all events. Clearly no event can be
prior to all events. Because it's a member of the class of all events
it must be included in it, and therefore can't be prior to it."
(Ayer quoted in Holt 2013: 24)
As this quote reveals, true
to the iconoclastic spirit of logical positivism, Ayer thinks
Leibniz' question is nonsensical because it is unanswerable on
principle – unanswerable, that is, as long as the range of possible
answers is restricted to the domain of existing somethings and
events. But what if we leave this domain behind and look for the
answer in what does not exist and is not anything at all? What if we
look to nothingness as a possible answer? No doubt, the logical
positivist Ayer will reject this possibility as nonsensical as well,
agreeing with fellow logical positivist Rudolf Carnap that the
concept of nothingness is illogical and meaningless since by
definition it cannot have a referent. The concept of nothingness,
after all, refers to... nothing at all. Thus it is a pseudo concept,
or so Carnap argued in his criticism of Heidegger (more about this
below).
The
trouble with infinitism
We
should, however, also take note of another possibility, one not
mentioned by Ayer but nonetheless often taken as the only possible
answer to the question why there is anything at all. According to
this line of reasoning, which we may call "infinitism", the
cause of the universe is unproblematic, because there simply is no
first cause: there is an infinite chain of causes, stretching all the
way back into an infinite past and forward into an infinite future.
Simply put, the universe exists eternally; it has – in one form or
another – always existed and will always exist. There is no
mystery, then, as to why the universe exists. This answer has been
appealing to many great rational minds: Aristotle, Galileo, Hume,
Spinoza, Newton, Einstein... Still, however, I think the infinitist
answer misses the point of Leibniz question. Here I fully agree with
what Jim Holt
writes
about the infinitist solution:
"But there's still
something missing here. This infinite world is like a railroad train
with an infinite number of carriages, each pulling the one behind it
– and no locomotive. It can also be likened to a vertical chain
with an infinite number of links. Each of these links holds up the
link below it. But what holds up the chain as a whole?" (Holt
2013: 86)
The idea of an eternally existing universe – for
example in the form of an eternal cycle of Big Bangs – might turn
out to be a scientifically legitimate hypothesis. It might even turn
out to be true. But it still doesn't answer the question why there is
anything at all. It doesn't answer the question why there is this
infinite series to begin with. It might be objected that this
question makes no sense because in an infinite series of causes there
simply is no first cause. But this objection assumes that the
ultimate cause of the universe must be temporal, existing in time,
like the universe itself. But why can't the ultimate cause be
non-temporal? This, indeed, is what contemporary physics suggests
about the cause of the Big Bang: since not only space and matter but
also time itself only came into existence with the Big Bang, the
cause of the Big Bang must be timeless. This notion of a non-temporal
cause is also inescapable for the infinitist
solution. A temporally infinite series of causes has no first cause
in time, but it must have an ultimate cause outside of time, a
non-temporal cause. Otherwise the infinite series will itself remain
unexplained. Even the infinitist solution, then, must posit some
ultimate non-temporal cause. And as long as this cause remains an
existing something, we are back in the problem of vicious regresses
and circles. Hence, also on the infinitist solution we are driven to
an ultimate cause that is not an existing something – that is to
say: were are driven to entertain nothingness as the ultimate cause
of the universe.
Nothingness and the zero-energy universe
Still,
one is inclined to ask, how can something emerge from nothing? Isn’t
this plainly impossible? After all, as the ancients said, ex
nihilo nihil fit,
from nothing only nothing can come. Christianity, in contrast, was
able to imagine a creatio
ex nihilo,
but only by presupposing a God who could perform this magic trick. So
even according to Christianity no true creation out of nothing took
place, since God pre-existed the creation. And, indeed, doesn’t it
seem wildly absurd to suppose that nothing can cause the existence
of something? As William James put it: "from nothing to being
there is no logical bridge" (James 1911: p.40).
Yet
what if we don’t really need such a bridge? What if the entirety of
being is after all nothing but… nothing? Strange as it may sound,
this indeed seems to be the conclusion of present-day physics. The
point is that the physical universe (and is there anything else?)
consists of nothing but energy in different forms (matter, light,
movement, heat, gravity). On the most elementary level, this total
energy of the universe consists in a negative and a positive part:
two parts of equal magnitude, which – as opposites – cancel each
other out, thus leaving the net energy of the universe at precisely
zero! And since the total energy of the universe is zero, there
really is – in terms of energy – nothing at all, albeit a nothing
split in two opposing parts.
This
obviously requires some further explanation. Let’s start with the
concept of positive energy. This is the energy invested in matter
(including light and antimatter), both in the constitution of matter
itself (‘frozen energy’) and in its movement (kinetic energy).
Obviously, given the sheer size of the material universe, there is a
tremendous lot of positive energy (though no one is quite sure how
much). At the same time, however, there is an equal amount of
negative energy stored in the gravitational attraction that exists
between all pieces of matter. The positive energy of matter is
precisely balanced by the negative energy of gravity, so ultimately
there is no energy in the universe at all. Here is how Stephen
Hawking explains it:
“Two
pieces of matter that are close to each other have less [positive]
energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to
expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that
is pulling them together.” In other words: since it takes energy to
separate the two pieces of matter, gravity must be using an opposed
form of energy to pull them together. Thus, as Hawking writes: “the
gravitational field has negative energy… this negative
gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented
by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.”
(Hawking 1988: p.129)
Particles
and antiparticles
Nature
seems to have a taste for such polarities, such that the opposites
ultimately cancel each other out, leaving nothing as their sum total.
For not only is there the polarity of positive and negative energy,
there is also within the realm of positive energy – to be precise:
within the constitution of matter – the polarity of particle and
antiparticle (collectively referred to as “fermions”). According
to quantum physics, for every type of particle there is a type of
antiparticle with opposite properties, such that when they meet they
annihilate each other. In fact, particles and antiparticles can only
come into existence together, in pairs. Here is what John Gribbin
(2007) writes about it:
“The
only way you can make a 'new' fermion, such as an electron, out of
energy is if, at the same time, you make a mirror-image anti-particle
(in this case, a positron). The mirror-image particle has opposite
quantum properties (including, in this case, positive electric charge
instead of negative electric charge) so the two cancel each other out
for the purpose of counting fermions, with one negative and one
positive adding up to nothing.” (p. 17) Thus “when a positron
meets an electron, both particles disappear in a puff of high-energy
photons – gamma rays – as their opposite quantum properties
cancel each other out.” (p.62)
Electromagnetic
polarity is a prime example of such fermionic polarity in nature.
Positrons have positive electric charge, they repel each other but
attract the electrons which have negative charge. Since there is a
negative charge for every positive charge, all the charges ultimately
cancel each other out, so in the final analysis the total electric
charge of the universe is precisely zero. It is important to
remember, however, that electromagnetic polarity is only one example
of fermionic polarity. Even the particles with no electric charge
have this fundamental property of being paired to a type of
antiparticle. There is an antimatter counterpart for the neutron, for
example, even though these particles lack electric charge.
All
this, however, does not mean that the physical universe consists of
nothing but such polarities. There are indeed many fundamental
aspects of the physical universe which apparently do not exhibit
polarity. For example, closely connected to the fermions are the
bosons, which are not precisely particles, though they have some
particle-like properties (e.g. bosons are field quanta). Bosons are
the mediators between the fermions, conveying the fundamental forces
(or interactions) from one particle to another. Bosons, however, do
not exhibit polarity like the fermions: they do not come in pairs of
opposites.
A
splitting of 0 into 1 and -1?
Nevertheless,
polarity does remain a remarkably deep feature of nature at many
different levels (positive and negative energy, electromagnetic
polarity, fermionic polarity), a feature that still cries out for a
general explanation. And, indeed, it is a feature of nature that is
very suggestive when it comes to answering Leibniz’ question. For
the fact remains that on the most fundamental level – the level of
pure energy, the basic ‘stuff’ of physical existence – the
universe consists of two opposed magnitudes, positive and negative
energy, which in the end cancel each other out. The net amount of
energy in the universe is thus strictly speaking zero, so that in an
energetic sense the universe is literally nothing. Hence, as the
chemist (and famous popularizer of science and atheism) Peter Atkins
notes, explaining how the universe ‘popped into being’ out of
nothing may turn out to be less of a paradox than was always
believed. For if the universe is itself ultimately nothing, then
surely it can come out of nothing, since ex
nihilo nihil fit.
As Atkins writes:
“First,
it is important to realize that there probably isn’t anything here
anyway… Of course we are part of and surrounded by things; but at a
deep level there is nothing… The bottom line, prejudiced with a
dash of speculation, is that the initial endowment of energy at the
creation was exactly zero, and the total energy has remained fixed at
that value for all time… What we see around us is in fact nothing,
but Nothing that has been separated into opposites to give, thereby,
the appearance of something”. (Atkins 2011, p.13, 17)
What
Atkins is suggesting, then, is that the creation of the universe may
have been something like “1 + (-1) = 0” in reverse. That is to
say: not 1 and -1 coming together to make 0, but rather 0 splitting
itself into the polarity of 1 and -1. Analogously, Atkins speculates
that the universe emerged out of a primordial nothing because this
nothing divided itself into positive and negative energy as well as
into particle-antiparticle pairs.
Fluctuation
of
the false
vacuum
However,
even if – in terms of energy – the universe is ultimately
nothing, the idea of nothing splitting into opposites may still seem
wildly speculative and absurd, not to say horribly close to New Age
spirituality (Yin and Yang and all that). Nevertheless, quantum
physics has revealed that something like this does actually happen.
This is the quantum fluctuation of the false vacuum. This is a
phenomenon whereby particle-antiparticle pairs (such as electrons and
positrons) spontaneously pop in and out of existence in empty space
for very short durations.
In quantum mechanics, this is explained by
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which – among many other
things – says you cannot precisely measure both the value of an
energy field and the rate at which it changes. Knowledge of the one
implies uncertainty about the other, and vice versa. The point is
that this pretty much rules out the possibility of empty space. Empty
space, or the vacuum, is by definition a state in which the amount of
energy is zero. But Heisenberg’s principle tells us that if the
value of a field is precisely known to be zero, its rate of change is
completely random and thus can’t be zero. So even in ‘empty’
space, the energy level fluctuates randomly. This is also why the
vacuum is better described as a false vacuum, since strictly speaking
a real vacuum is impossible, ruled out by the uncertainty principle.
In reality, 'empty space' is seething with activity on the quantum
scale, with particle-antiparticle pairs popping in and out of
existence all the time. Mostly such pairs are extremely short lived,
since nearly every particle and antiparticle pair annihilates itself
almost immediately after popping into existence. Hence such pairs are
generally known as virtual
particle-antiparticle pairs. Yet despite their virtuality, they are
very real in their consequences, since laboratory experiments have
shown that virtual pairs directly affect the energy levels of
existing atoms.
“Maybe
the universe is a quantum fluctuation!”
So
now we have virtual particle and antiparticle pairs spontaneously
emerging from the almost nothing of ‘empty’ space… Could this
perhaps be the key to how the universe came into existence? The key
to how primordial nothingness split into polarities? The first to
entertain such an idea seems to have been physicist Ed Tryon who in
1969 – during a talk by a celebrity physicist at Columbia
University – suddenly blurted out: “Maybe the universe is a
quantum fluctuation!” Reportedly his remark was greeted with
derisive laughter from the several Nobel laureates present at that
meeting. Nevertheless, Tryon’s idea stuck and was subsequently
developed further by Tryon himself and other physicist. Nowadays the
idea has bloomed into a serious scientific theory whose proponents
include renowned physicists like Stephen Hawking, Alan Guth, Frank
Wilczek, Lawrence Krauss, Alexei Filippenko and Jay Pasachoff. What
allowed the idea to grow into scientific theory was the fact that it
fitted nicely with the inflationary theory about the expansion of the
universe right after the Big Bang. I am not going to discuss the
inflationary theory here in any detail, since that would take us too
far a field. Suffice it to say that together with inflation the
occurrence of quantum fluctuations in primordial empty space may
quite possibly have been enough to cause the Big Bang. Here is how
Filippenko and Pasachoff relate the story in a well-known paper
entitled A
Universe from Nothing:
“Perhaps
many quantum fluctuations occurred before the birth of our universe.
Most of them quickly disappeared. But one lived sufficiently long and
had the right conditions for inflation to have been initiated.
Thereafter, the original tiny volume inflated by an enormous factor,
and our macroscopic universe was born.” (Filippenko and Pasachoff
2010)
If
this theory is correct, then the emergence of the universe was a
matter of sheer chance, a result of the randomness implied by
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. “In answer to the question of
why it happened”, Tryon later commented, “I offer the modest
proposal that our universe is simply one of those things which happen
from time to time.” In a similar vein Alan Guth has described the
universe as the “ultimate free lunch”. Finally, physicist and
Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek famously epitomized this theory by
answering the question "Why is there something rather than
nothing?" with the pithy remark: "Because nothing is
unstable." Unstable, that is, insofar as the energy level of
'empty' space fluctuates randomly.
The
problem posed by a piece of rubber
But
does this really answer Leibniz’ question why there is anything at
all? This theory is certainly suggestive about how ‘nothing’ can
split itself into opposites, namely, the virtual particle and
antiparticle pairs. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the theory
itself is not yet the answer. After all, according to this theory,
quite a bit of things must have existed before the Big Bang: there
must have been ‘empty’ space, and there must have been the laws
of nature (as described by quantum mechanics) in order to facilitate
the fluctuations of the vacuum that supposedly caused the Big Bang.
About all these things we must still ask why they were there in the
first place.
Take, for example, the idea of ‘empty space’.
It is clear that this is not absolute nothingness. The space of the
quantum vacuum is not really empty. It has a complicated mathematical
structure; it bends and flexes like rubber; it is saturated with
energy fields and seethes with virtual-particle activity. Why would
such a complicated object like the quantum vacuum ever have existed?
As Alan Guth has observed (thereby in fact retracting his earlier
“ultimate free lunch” remark): “A proposal that the universe
was created from empty space seems no more fundamental than a
proposal that the universe was spawned by a piece of rubber. It might
be true, but one still would want to ask where the piece of rubber
came from.” (Guth quoted in Holt 2013: 142)
A
quantum
tunnel from nothing to something?
The
physicist who seems to have come closest to solving this “piece of
rubber” problem is Alex Vilenkin. When he talks about the universe
as arising from nothing, he literally means nothing. “Nothing is
nothing!”, he said during an interview: “Not just no matter. It’s
no space. No time. Nothing.” How can he pull of such a feat?
Actually Vilenkin cheats a bit. He still defines nothing in spatial
terms, admittedly not as empty space, but as a space (or rather
spacetime) with zero dimensions. Imagine spacetime as the surface of
a sphere. (This is what is called a closed spacetime, which curves
back on itself; it is finite even though it has no boundaries.) Now
what Vilenkin asks us to do is to imagine this sphere as shrinking,
like a balloon losing its air. The radius goes smaller and smaller.
Eventually the radius goes all the way down to zero. The surface of
the sphere disappears completely and with it spacetime itself. Thus
we arrive at a mathematically precise definition of nothingness: a
closed spacetime with zero radius. Now with this mathematical
definition in hand Vilenkin was able to do an interesting
calculation. Using the principles of quantum theory he showed that
out of such an initial state of nothingness a tiny bit of false
vacuum could spontaneously pop into existence (Vilenkin calls this
process “tunneling”). Then, driven by inflation, this tiny bit of
vacuum would expand dramatically and turn into the Big Bang.
It
is true that – if his calculations are correct – Vilenkin has got
rid of the problem of the empty spacetime pre-existing the Big Bang.
Yet his primordial nothingness still doesn’t seem to be absolute
nothingness, since he is still presupposing the laws of nature.
Obviously these laws are not quotidian things like physical objects,
but still there is a sense in which they exist or hold true. So we
still have to ask why these laws were there in the first place. Why
these laws? Why not others? And why any law at all? It would seem
that absolute nothingness would also have to be void of law. In fact
Vilenkin acknowledges the problem. Here is what he writes:
“The
tunneling process is governed by the same fundamental laws that
describe the subsequent evolution of the universe. It follows that
the laws should be ‘there’ even prior to the universe itself.
Does this mean that the laws are not mere descriptions of reality and
can have an independent existence of their own? In the absence of
space, time, and matter, what tablets could they be written upon? The
laws are expressed in the form of mathematical equations. If the
medium of mathematics is the mind, does this mean that mind should
predate the universe?” (Vilenkin quoted in Holt 2013: p.161)
Asked
whose mind this could be, Vilenkin answered: “If you like you can
say they [the laws of nature] are in the mind of God.” (Ibid.) Thus
with one stroke Vilenkin makes clear we still have not answered
Leibniz’ question. Even if the laws of nature are such as to make
nothingness impossible, we would still want to know why these laws
were there to begin with.
On
the boundary of science
So
where do we go from here? I think there are two conclusions to be
drawn form the above discussion – two conclusions which together
will point us in the right direction. The first conclusion follows
from the inadequacy of the quantum theories of 'nothing' as answers
to Leibniz' question. I am, of course, not saying these theories are
false or scientifically unsound: as far as we know, they might very
well be true. Nevertheless, they fail to answer Leibniz' question
because they still presuppose too much ontological baggage. That is
to say: they presuppose either the false vacuum and the laws of
physics (Hawking, Tryon, Guth, Wilczek, Krauss e.a.) or just the laws
of physics (Vilenkin) as pre-existing the Big Bang. And maybe this is
as far as science can go in explaining how something emerged from
nothing. Science, and physics in particular, has to proceed through
experimental observation and mathematization of the observed results.
But you cannot empirically observe absolute nothingness (whether you
can mathematize nothingness is an open question; see axiomatic set
theory with its foundational empty set). Hence already Vilenkin's
theory of how the laws of physics imply the "tunneling" of
a false vacuum out of nothingness moves on the very boundary of
science, since – given the unobservability of nothingness – the
theory doesn't seem to be open to empirical falsification. This
indicates the dilemma we are in. If we truly want to answer Leibniz'
question, we must somehow develop a solution in terms of absolute
nothingness, without even presupposing the laws of physics. But then
by the same token we seem to step outside of science, or at least
outside of physics, given the unobservability of such a 'thing' as
absolute nothingness, if it exists.
A
logical transition from nothing to something?
But
then again physics is not the only science. And not every science is
dependent on empirical testing. Just think of pure mathematics or
pure logic. And this brings me to the second conclusion to be drawn
from the preceding discussion, namely, that the transition from
nothing to something should perhaps primarily be thought of as
logical rather than temporal. Consider Vilenkin's scenario, where the
transition from nothing to something must have happened outside of
time (since time only emerged with the Big Bang) and on the basis of
just the laws of physics (laws which are mathematical in nature, as
Vilenkin emphasizes). Such a transition seems to be logical or
conceptual in nature, insofar as it is ordained by a timeless realm
of mathematical truths. Jim Holt puts this very well in his
discussion of Vilenkin's theory:
"Since
time itself (along with space) is created in the transition from
Nothing to Something, this transition can't very well take place in
time. It seems to unfold logically rather than temporally. If
Vilenkin is right, nothingness never had a chance: the laws of
physics eternally ordained that, with some appreciable probability,
there would be a universe. But what gives ontological clout to these
laws? If they are logically prior to the world, where exactly are
they written down?" (Holt 2013: p.144)
The
only thing wrong with Vilenkin's theory, as an answer to Leibniz'
question, is that it presupposes the laws of physics; this is also
what Holt indicates in the quote above. So what if we replace the
laws of physics with the 'pure' laws of logic and mathematics?
Certainly the elementary truths of logic (such as the principles of
identity, non-contradiction, tertium
non datur)
are much more fundamental than the laws of physics, which as far as
we know are only true for our particular universe, whereas these
logical truths hold for every possible universe. Thus the logical
truths are certainly timeless if any truth is. Whether this timeless
validity also holds for mathematics is an open question, although the
reducibility of the bulk of mathematics to logic and axiomatic set
theory is certainly suggestive here (not least because set theory
crucially involves its own version of nothingness in terms of the
foundational empty set). But let us for the time being just focus on
the 'eternal' truths of logic. What happens if we apply these truths
to the concept of pure nothingness? Perhaps – to paraphrase Jim
Holt's quote above – nothingness never had a chance given the laws
of logic? Perhaps logic forbids nothingness and thus eternally
ordains that there is being? Perhaps being is just a logical
necessity?
Logical
problems with nothingness
Come
to think of it, it is very strange that this possibility has not
figured more prominently in the academic discussion surrounding
Leibniz' question. It is after all obvious that there is a logical
problem with the concept of nothingness. The apparent paradox of this
concept has, since time immemorial, been the source of countless
jokes and puzzles concerning the 'existence' of nothing or absence in
general. In Homer's Odyssey,
for example, the cunning Ulysses utilizes a version of this paradox
by telling the cyclops Polyphemus his name is "Nobody"
before piercing the cyclops' eye with a burning stake. Then, when
asked by the other cyclopes why he is screaming, Polyphemus replies
that "Nobody" is hurting him. Or take the episode in Alice
in Wonderland
where Alice says "I can see nothing" and the Cheshire Cat
replies "My, you must have good eyes".
The
paradox, then, turns on what we might call the referentiality of
"nothingness". For if we take "nothing" to be a
referring expression, referring to a definite object, then paradox
immediately arises, since the referent of this term must be...
nothing and as such it must be absent or non-existent. But how can
this term refer if it has no referent? As a referring expression
"nothing" undermines its own referentiality. It is, as
philosophers say, performatively inconsistent, since it negates the
existence of its referent in the (performative) act of referring to
it as "nothing".
In
more general terms, the paradox concerns the supposed existence of
nothingness. If nothingness can be said to exist, then it must be a
being, a thing that exists, an object able to function as the
referent of a referring expression. But then again, nothingness is
precisely nothingness because it is not any of these things: not a
being, not a thing that exists, not an object and not a referent.
Hence it seems clear that nothingness can't exist and can't be
referred to.
In
logical terms, nothingness thus violates the most elementary law of
logic, the principle of identity, which states that “each thing is
identical with itself and different from another”. For how can
nothingness be self-identical if it has no identity to begin with?
Nothingness, after all, cannot be referred to by means of the
demonstrative "this", which is a precondition for having
identity. It makes no sense to speak of "this nothingness"
as if it could be distinguished from other "nothingnesses".
To suppose nothingness has an identity is to turn it into a
something, which it precisely is not. In a similar vein, we can say
that nothingness also violates the second-most basic law of logic,
the principle of non-contradiction, which states that "either
something exists or it does not exist". For, as we have seen, a
paradox arises when we say nothingness exists, since then we turn it
into a being. The only way for nothingness to exist, then, is by not
existing. Or as Jacques Lacan, always a lover of paradox, put it in a
somewhat different context: "Nothing exists insofar as it does
not exist." (Lacan 1966: p.392) The supposed existence of
nothingness, then, is inherently contradictory. A further analysis of the logical impossibility of nothingness can be found here.
From
Parmenides to Carnap
In
the history of philosophy, these logical paradoxes are well-known.
They have motivated a long tradition of philosophers rejecting the
logical possibility of talk about nothingness, a tradition ranging
from Parmenides to Carnap. In the late 6th century BC, the
presocratic philosopher Parmenides of Elea already argued that "you
cannot know what is not, for that is impossible - nor can you utter
it", concluding from this that thought and being must coincide,
since you can only think of what exists. In the 20th century, the
logical positivist Rudolf Carnap – though obviously not promoting
Eleatic idealism – deployed essentially the same argument to
denounce Heidegger's talk of "the Nothing" that "nothings".
Such talk, Carnap argued, "involves a contradiction": "For
even if it were admissible to introduce "nothing" as a name
or description of an entity, still the existence of this entity would
be denied in its very definition..." (Carnap, 1959 [1931]: p.71)
Carnap, then, basically repeats the argument that ascribing existence
to nothingness is contradictory, since by definition it is
nothing.
Kantianism,
Platonism or Dialectics?
It
seems, then, we have found our answer to Leibniz' question! And it
seems this answer is infinitely more simple than anything proposed by
the quantum theories of nothing. It seem that to the question "Why
is there something rather than nothing?" we should simply
answer: because the concept of nothingness is inconsistent, ruled out
by the timeless truths of logic! Nothingness is logically impossible,
hence its negation – the statement that there is something – is
logically necessary. So is this the end of the matter? Not quite. For
it is still an open question how this logical impossibility of
nothingness should be interpreted. Three interpretations seem
possible:
1) A subjective or Kantian
interpretation: Logic is primarily about the normative structure of
human cognition, we don't know if it applies to reality-in-itself. So
the fact that nothingness is logically impossible simply means that
we can't imagine or think nothingness – being is merely logically
necessary for us, not in itself.
2) An objective Platonic
interpretation: The laws of logic are in themselves timelessly true,
independently of human cognition, they belong to a Platonic realm of
ideal truths. The logical impossibility of nothingness, then, means
that being is a logical necessity in itself, not just for us. Being
is timelessly ordained by objective logic.
3) An objective
dialectical
interpretation: Nothingness really exists (or really existed), but
since its existence is contradictory (i.e. self-negating),
nothingness negated itself and thereby produced being. Being is a
manifestation of the contradictory nature of nothingness in itself,
not just for us.
Which interpretation is the correct one? It
seems the subjective interpretation can be ruled out from the start.
Logic may be just subjective, being no more than the inherent
structure of human thought. But as such it cannot declare the
necessity of existence. It is absurd and indeed circular to say that
there must be being since we cannot imagine it otherwise. The
circularity of such a proposal follows from the fact that we
ourselves, after all, are part of being, so on this proposal we
exist because we cannot imagine ourselves as not existing. In such a
scenario, then, we would be
causa sui,
since we would have imagined or thought ourselves into existence. But
this is plainly absurd.
Why
is
there ought
anyway?
So
the issue comes down to a choice between the Platonic and the
dialectical interpretations. Here, I think, we have to admit the
dialectical interpretation is the stronger one. Two reasons in
particular seem to plead in its favor. First of all, it seems clear
that on the Platonic interpretation the logical impossibility of
nothingness does not really answer Leibniz' question. For on this
interpretation we still have to presuppose the existence of the
Platonic realm of ideal truths. Thus we have not genuinely explained
how something emerges from nothing. To this it may be objected that
"existence" is not the right term to describe this
'obtaining' of the ideal truths, rather they have a normative force
or validity: in terms of the familiar is/ought distinction, we should
say that the obtaining of such ideal truths is not a matter of "is"
but of "ought". This objection, however, seems vacuous to
me. For even if it were correct, we could still say that there is
such a thing as normativity or ideal validity. And then we would
still want to know why there was such a thing in the first place.
Dialectics
and the polarity of energy
The
second reason for the dialectical interpretation, however, is more
decisive. It has to do with the polarities which, as we have seen,
are fundamental to the physical universe: the polarity of positive
and negative energy, and the fermionic polarity of particle and
antiparticle, which includes the polarity of positive and
negative electric charge. This proclivity for polarities is an
objective feature of nature, which still cries out for a
comprehensive explanation. Moreover, since the opposites in these
polarities cancel each other out, they ultimately imply that the
universe is in a sense nothing at all. The polarity of positive and
negative energy seems especially fundamental in this regard. In the
physical universe, after all, everything is in one form or another a
manifestation of energy. And since the total energy level of the
universe is zero (because of the mutual cancellation of positive and
negative energy), this implies that the universe is literally made
out of nothing, but a nothing split into opposites. Or to repeat an
earlier quote from chemist Peter Atkins: "What we see around us
is in fact nothing, but Nothing that has been separated into
opposites to give, thereby, the appearance of something."
(Atkins 2011, p.17) Now isn't it clear that this division of nothing
into polarity fits hand in glove with the dialectical conception of
nothingness as self-negating? For if nothingness is indeed
self-negating, it is by the same token its own opposite, its own
negative counterpart, its own 'antiparticle' (or rather 'antibeing')
so to speak. Thus, as nothingness negates itself, it necessarily
splits in two opposed 'parts', namely, itself and its negation. From
a dialectical viewpoint, then, polarity seems to be an inherent
attribute of nothingness.
Where does this leave us?
As
we have seen, the only way to answer Leibniz' question without
getting stuck in the regress or circle problem is to presuppose
nothing – that is to say: nothing but the concept of nothing and
the elementary laws of logic, without which no thought is possible.
In the end, only the logical impossibility of nothingness itself can
be the ultimate answer to the question why there is something rather
nothing. Thus it seems clear to me that the parallel between the
energetic polarity of the universe and the dialectical polarity of
nothingness can be no mere coincidence.
Concluding
remarks
Obviously
there are still loads of questions to be answered. For example, how
does a dialectical conception of nothingness as self-negating relate
to
the laws of quantum mechanics which facilitate the fluctuation of the
vacuum
or even – on Vilenkin's scenario – the "quantum tunneling"
of the false vacuum out of nothingness?
It would of course be a pseudo-scientific absurdity to attempt a
direct derivation of quantum mechanics from the dialectical logic of
nothingness. But what about mathematics? The laws of quantum
mechanics are thoroughly mathematical in nature, and perhaps there is
a route from pure mathematics to the
equations of quantum
physics, as mathematical Platonists like Roger Penrose have
hypothesized.
If so, then the reduction of mathematics to logic and axiomatic set
theory does seem to forge an indirect link between quantum physics
and the dialectics of nothingness. For axiomatic set theory knows its
own version of nothingness in the form
of the foundational
concept of the empty set. And if nothingness is indeed self-negating,
it then seems to have a
recursive structure analogous to the
recursive
procedure by which all higher sets are defined on the basis of the
foundational empty set
(for
this analogy between set theory and the
dialectics
of self-negation,
see Ware
1999: pp.230-238). In short, could it perhaps be the case that the
set-theoretic derivation of mathematics is isomorphous to the
dialectical structure of self-negating nothingness? And if so,
doesn't this imply that mathematics is implicit in that dialectical
structure? In that case, the step from the dialectics of nothingness
to the mathematical laws of quantum mechanics is perhaps not so
daunting as it seems. But, obviously, for now this is all just
speculation and hypothesizing. I hope to be able to investigate these
issues in the future and publish the results on this blog. However,
for further ontological
implications of the dialectics of nothingness and its relation to
physics,
I can already refer the reader to my
earlier post: Theses
towards a dialectical ontology
References
-Atkins,
Peter (2011), On
Being: A scientist's exploration of the great questions of existence.
Oxford University Press, Oxford.-Carnap,
Rudolf (1959 [1931]), "The
Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language",
in: A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical
Positivism.
Glencoe, The Free Press, pp. 60-81.
-Filippenko,
Alexei V. and Pasachoff, Jay M. (2010), "A Universe from
Nothing" (a lecture for the
Astronomical
Society of the Pacific):
http://www.astrosociety.org/publications/a-universe-from-nothing/
-Gribbin,
John (2007), The
Universe: A Biography.
Allen Lane, London.
-Hawking, Stephen (1988), A
Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes.
Bantam, New York.
-Holt, Jim (2013), Why
Does The World Exist? One Man's Quest for the Big Answer.
Profile Books, London.
-James, William (1911), Some
Problems of Philosophy: A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy.
Longmans, Green, and Co., New York.
-Lacan, Jacques (1966),
Écrits.
Seuil, Paris.
-Nozick,
Robert (1981), Philosophical
Explanations.
Belknap Press, Cambridge Mass.-Ware,
Robert Bruce (1999), Hegel:
The Logic of Self-Consciousness.
Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
