Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
Discussion started by Dennis Hackethal
Log in or sign up to participate in this discussion.
With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas, and submit new ideas.A discussion with Logan Chipkin. Shared with permission. Others are welcome to contribute.
Ayn Rand writes:
[A]lthough few people today believe that the singing of mystic incantations will bring rain, most people still regard as valid an argument such as: “If there is no God, who created the universe?”
To grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the Law of Identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe—from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life—are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved. Nature is the metaphysically given—i.e., the nature of nature is outside the power of any volition.
In short, she argues that “the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated […]”. Which means that investigations into the origin of the universe are metaphysically invalid because they contradict the primacy of existence.
Sounds like she treats existence or nature or the law of identity as an ultimate bedrock. Foundationalism.
Yes. Which doesn’t problematize most of her other ideas, fortunately.
But my guess is that any false idea could, if not corrected, result in humanity’s demise. So, should any of Rand’s ideas spread to fixation, we could have her to thank for going the way of the dodo.
Of course the fact that this ‘existence as foundationalism’ idea does not problematize her other ideas goes both ways - opponents of Objectivism cannot appeal to that idea as a wholesale refutation of Objectivism.
(Logan Chipkin)
What do you think of: it’s the fact that the law of the excluded middle that constrains the universe to exist. Nothing can’t exist, so the only alternative that’s left is for something to exist.
Since the law of the excluded middle is a corollary of the law of identity, Rand kind of implies this idea when she says that nature “is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the Law of Identity.”
I think this explanation holds if you assume the law of the excluded middle is true. The only remaining criticism I can see, is if you throw out the law of the excluded middle (like paraconsistent- and intutionist logic.)
[…] it’s the fact that the law of the excluded middle that constrains the universe to exist.
That isn’t a sentence.
@knut-sondre-saebo, you write in the explanation for this revision:
I think the the law of excluded middle is more a property or constraint of existence, rather than a cause. Since we can treat universe as being something as a given, the reason it can't be something else is because the law of excluded middle constrains it to be what it is.
Revision explanations are meant to be short, eg ‘Fixed typo’ or ‘Clarified x’. Since the quote above contradicts #521, it might be worth submitting it as a criticism of #521, or as a separate idea. It doesn’t really work as a revision because revisions are for incremental changes, not for introducing contradictions.
I don’t see why nonexistence cannot also be a logical possibility.
If nonexistence is logically possible, and existence is logically possible, we need to explain why the former has been physicalized in the first place.
(Logan Chipkin)