Has anyone come up with a theory to why things exist instead of not exist...

The anthropic principle isn't an answer though? Like I said, it's a dodge. "We're here so it had to be this way" is a cop out and you know it. It's like getting home and asking why there's dog shit on your carpet and getting the response "Well if you get home and smell dog shit naturally there will be dog shit on your carpet." without any further elaboration

The anthropic principle just doesn't apply here. It shows the fine-tuning problem to be a tautology.

It's just not very effective here.

You exist. You must exist. Therefore at least one thing must exist. Therefore it is not possible for nothing to exist. The universe is literally fine-tuned for at least one thing to exist. That thing is you. It cannot be any other way.
is that tautological enough for you?

You're assuming a deterministic universe baka

it isn't a necessary question! You guys, these things we use to dissect the universe are normative concepts! This question simply makes no sense within that context. There is no "why" there exists a thing and not its negation, only a how the thing exist!

>Wouldn't it make much more sense for nothing to exist?
How so?

It's not a dodge, it's the correct answer.
Suppose nonexistence is a possible state. OK, then maybe some universes never exist. Why aren't we in one of those non-existent universes? Well they don't exist so how could we ever be in one of them?
Suppose existence is a possible state. OK, then maybe some universes exist. Why are we in one of them? Because we wouldn't be around to ask a question like that if we weren't. Either we were going to exist or we weren't. Maybe both possibilities were actualized, each in its own universe. If that's the case then there's no mystery about why existence happened because it both did and didn't happen.
And lastly suppose existence isn't a possible state. How would that work? Would the state of non-existence have a rule that existence can't ever emerge? Well, if it has a rule then it's no longer non-existence, is it? Rules follow existence, not vice versa. So you can't even argue there could ever not be existence without implicitly contradicting yourself by imagining a non-world with worldly rules against the formation of worlds capable of having worldly rules.

It's a great big mystery and we will never know.

What is metaphysics. I thought this was a science board baka famalam.

>And lastly suppose existence isn't a possible state. How would that work? Would the state of non-existence have a rule that existence can't ever emerge? Well, if it has a rule then it's no longer non-existence, is it? Rules follow existence, not vice versa. So you can't even argue there could ever not be existence without implicitly contradicting yourself by imagining a non-world with worldly rules against the formation of worlds capable of having worldly rules.
Isn't this merely clever semantic trickery?
If nothing exists, there's no need for any rules to prevent existence.

If nothing existed then how would you define existence?

No, it's just the truth. If you start with a state of nothing, why would existence be precluded from that starting state? Any reason you can come up with would itself imply something that exists.
>If nothing exists, there's no need for any rules to prevent existence.
"Prevented" is different from something just not happening. For something to be prevented in an absolute way there needs to exist some conspiratorial mechanism that consistently keeps that something from ever happening.
Just not happening on the other hand isn't really saying much. From nothing, existence could both happen and not happen. If each of these possibilities comes up then that's equivalent to existence just happening, much like how not eating a sandwich and then eating a sandwich is the same thing as eating a sandwich.

>implying 'nothing' is the default state and 'something' is the anamoly that needs explaining

There's no evidence for this assertion. If anything, the universe logically must exist because areas of 'nothingness' don't occur anywhere. Even the deepest vacuum of space has fields and virtual particles.

Yes.

The most popular one is called religion.

If nothing existed then nothing would prevent something from spontaneously spawning

If nothing whatsoever existed (which would obviously mean no laws of causality, physics, or anything else), what would prevent something from happening for no reason at all?

Because God.
Study theology.

>Check out theories like the Big Bounce or any theory about the universe being a simulation.
Those explain nothing.
The question deals with a transcendent cause that is the condition for the possibility of existence in the first place.
Perpetual Farting and Inhaling cycles don't explain anything. In fact if they are taken to imply an "eternal Universe" in some form, then they are totally illogical and false and must be thrown in the pile of garbage along with most empirical "cosmology"

>"eternal Universe"

Are you implying that existence came out of nothing? That's way more ridiculous than the notion that existence has always been here.

Now explain why this particular reality came into existence and not some other.

If every point of space was something, then wouldn't the universe be one solid block?

>existence came out of nothing
Existence came out of God's power. He has the power to create without the need of anything else, i.e creation ex nihilo.

>eternal universe makes sense
makes no sense, infinite regress is illogical, also no initial condition would ever be satisfied for any event to actually occur.

Explain why eternal God is more likely than eternal universe? One of them supposes the existence of a supernatural being, which there is no evidence for. The other is perfectly alligned with what we know (science).

Let me just call the nothingverse and see if someone picks up.

Hello? Well that's odd.

"Circular Thinking On Steroids!" ...the thread

>Now explain why this particular reality came into existence and not some other.
Why do you assume other realities didn't come into existence? It's not like you would be able to notice them seeing as how you're contained entirely in one particular reality.

Lmao

Upvoted.

Suppose our reality is finite in scope and has a beginning that was caused by something that isn't finite in scope.
Why would you assume this cause is intelligent? This cause would be the absolute simplest / most fundamental thing there is, a thing that exists prior to any sort of the built up complexity of our finite world that this thing is meant to account for in the first place. To have the first thing be intelligent would make all the gradual evolution of elaborate physical scaffolding required to support intelligence in our world completely nonsensical. If intelligence is just a given trait from the very beginning then why would it be one of the least immediate, most built up and dependent on prior physical phenomena sort of trait we know of in our world?
You could try to argue "the first thing doesn't operate by the same rules our world does," but then you're effectively deciding to believe in an idea of intelligence that not only isn't supported by any of the information our world provides for how intelligence works but further goes in a blatantly opposite direction to all the information our world provides for how intelligence works.

Which god?

Cthulhu

Getting slightly pholosophical here, but bare with me :P

In general, i am pretty convinced that "nothing", as in absence of any existence, is an impossible state for the universe. Why? Because I suppose we agree the Universe exists, therefore it always had to have the potential to exist, i.e. it never was "nothing" nor could it ever have been "nothing" since nothing would imply the absence of all features ( like "could exist"). We could, for the same reason, even argue wether "nothing" in this sense is a sensible concept at all, since i'd argue that you can't conceptualize nor really talk about it, since to do either you'd have to treat it like something. Thats the usual philosophical rebuttal that i partially agree with : i do not think the question itself is useful or has a valid form^^