First, the point made about no time existing prior to the Big Bang applies just as readily to the Standard Model as it does to Hawking’s newer model (which fudges math to create imaginary time and a “no boundary” version of the beginning). This new version accomplished nothing (no pun intended), because under any model it is nonsense to ask “What existed before time?” (because “before” is a temporal term, obviously). However, the question of WHY is there a universe at all? (i.e. what is the REASON?) is a perfectly fair question that should not be avoided (and is not temporally-based).
You said, “We have no prior reason to expect that ‘nothing’ would be a viable alternative to ‘something.’” Of course we do! Our experience ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT of the time contradicts this statement.
You said, “Trying to explain ‘why existence’ is pointless; existence is, inherently.” You’re committing the taxicab fallacy. You can’t just dismiss the causal principle at the point you’re “ready to get out.” If anything in your daily life happened out of the ordinary (like your car changed colors or someone threw a rock through your window), you would look for a sufficient REASON (because there IS one).
Finally, you said, “Explaining how existence works is the useful and meaningful goal.” Um, this is useful and meaningful (I agree), but we are only able to accomplish this using a little thing called the “Law of Causality.” So you’re willing to use the causal principle for EVERYTHING all the way back to the beginning, but then you choose to stick your head in the sand?
In Aristotle’s Metaphysics, he suggested the need for an “unmoved mover” to explain the motion of ordinary objects. That makes sense in the context of Aristotle’s physics, which was fundamentally teleological: objects tended toward their natural place, which is where they wanted to stay. How, then, to account for all the motion we find everywhere around us? But subsequent developments in physics – conservation of momentum, Newton’s laws of motion – changed the context in which such a question might be asked. Now we know that objects that are moving freely continue to move along a uniform trajectory, without anything moving them. Why? Because that’s what objects do. It’s often convenient, in the context of everyday life, for us to refer to this or that event as having some particular cause. But this is just shorthand for what’s really going on, namely: things are obeying the laws of physics.
Likewise for the universe. There is no reason, within anything we currently understand about the ultimate structure of reality, to think of the existence and persistence and regularity of the universe as things that require external explanation. Indeed, for most scientists, adding on another layer of metaphysical structure in order to purportedly explain these nomological facts is an unnecessary complication.
However fundamental you think the “causal principle” may be, modern physics is not done that way.
You’re making statements about events or phenomena that happen within the universe, and then taking a gigantic, unfounded leap to apply the same principles to the universe itself. How could we possibly have a prior reason to expect the absence of all existence? Not the existence of some specific thing, but existence, in the broadest sense.
sigh this is an unfortunate reply
First, the point made about no time existing prior to the Big Bang applies just as readily to the Standard Model as it does to Hawking’s newer model (which fudges math to create imaginary time and a “no boundary” version of the beginning). This new version accomplished nothing (no pun intended), because under any model it is nonsense to ask “What existed before time?” (because “before” is a temporal term, obviously). However, the question of WHY is there a universe at all? (i.e. what is the REASON?) is a perfectly fair question that should not be avoided (and is not temporally-based).
You said, “We have no prior reason to expect that ‘nothing’ would be a viable alternative to ‘something.’” Of course we do! Our experience ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT of the time contradicts this statement.
You said, “Trying to explain ‘why existence’ is pointless; existence is, inherently.” You’re committing the taxicab fallacy. You can’t just dismiss the causal principle at the point you’re “ready to get out.” If anything in your daily life happened out of the ordinary (like your car changed colors or someone threw a rock through your window), you would look for a sufficient REASON (because there IS one).
Finally, you said, “Explaining how existence works is the useful and meaningful goal.” Um, this is useful and meaningful (I agree), but we are only able to accomplish this using a little thing called the “Law of Causality.” So you’re willing to use the causal principle for EVERYTHING all the way back to the beginning, but then you choose to stick your head in the sand?
Once again...unfortunate.
Did you actually read the essay?
However fundamental you think the “causal principle” may be, modern physics is not done that way.
You’re making statements about events or phenomena that happen within the universe, and then taking a gigantic, unfounded leap to apply the same principles to the universe itself. How could we possibly have a prior reason to expect the absence of all existence? Not the existence of some specific thing, but existence, in the broadest sense.