The ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ question
This is widely understood to represent the ultimate philosophical question, encapsulating in a single phrase, all that can be queried about the universe as a whole. To the jobbing philosopher – whatever their occupation – the formulation apparently looks to be very grand, and more than a little conclusive. No one in the last three hundred years – not even Heidegger – has even attempted to knock the beast off its perch, so the question has acquired a stately authority all of its own.
But there is at least one question which, from a metaphysical point of view, is infinitely more interesting than ‘why is there something rather than nothing ?’, even if it is able to take its cue from the original question itself. And it can work like this: imagine the profoundest, most comprehensive and most appropriate possible answer to the ‘why is there something rather than nothing ?’ question, arrived at collectively and exhaustively by the greatest minds of the day, after decades of calculation, and even in the end endorsed by God himself. And then imagine further that this astonishing answer, once formulated, would take every ounce of human mental effort to understand, involving massive brain busting mental recalibration, spatio-temporal dislocation, bodily distortion, and all the rest. And then imagine having grasped this answer to its fullest extent, to the furthest level of satisfaction, with no remaining dark corners, and no angles hidden from view, and everything at peace with itself.
But then, with all that said and done, the dust having settled, and the singing having stopped, you could just as easily think to ask yourself, ‘So what ?’ ‘So what, all this complexity, this profundity, this sanctity, this shock, awe and wonder ? So bloody what ? So what the whole damn thing ? What was the point of the whole damn existential universe and its questionability in the first place ?’
Which leaves the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing ?’ always liable to be overwritten by a ‘so what, the whole damn thing ?’ type of question. This is not a cheap joke, but rather an example of genuine metaphysical questioning always seeking to push questioning ever further, hoping to discover something like a final frontier, the crossing of which would deliver the ultimate answer. And if the ultimate answer is vulnerable to being overthrown by another ‘So what ?’ type question, then we clearly didn’t manage it, and we’re no better off than we were before, and we have to go right back to the drawing board. This kind of resolute approach is what Buddhist metaphysics is all about, if and when you commit to it seriously.
Some will reply, ‘But I’ve always asked extreme searching questions like that since I was a child, and nothing ever happened. Nothing ever does.’ This is true enough, as far as it goes. But the point is not simply to pose the question: you have also got to try a find a way to find an answer. That’s the key: genuinely struggling to find an answer. Not so that you can win arguments at seminars, but because you genuinely want to know, for yourself, in clear sight. And this part of it takes you well beyond child’s play, beyond adolescent sanctimony and cleverness, and well into adulthood, where a quiet determination in the face of total silence and total darkness is called for, possibly lasting for many decades, where you don’t give up, and you don’t give way to answers and substitute answers which are not anything like as demanding and as utterly ruthless as the questioning itself. Anything less constitutes failure, and the worst type of inner degradation. So if your mind can pose a question which cuts everything – God, the universe, profundity, sanctity, Darwinism, quantum mechanics, evolution, the big bang, the lot – down to nothing, doing to dust, why not take the time and effort to see if you can find out what that’s all about ? What lies behind and beyond the capacity of mind to cut everything down to zero ? What gives the analytical capacity of mind its brutal authority ?
But there is at least one question which, from a metaphysical point of view, is infinitely more interesting than ‘why is there something rather than nothing ?’, even if it is able to take its cue from the original question itself. And it can work like this: imagine the profoundest, most comprehensive and most appropriate possible answer to the ‘why is there something rather than nothing ?’ question, arrived at collectively and exhaustively by the greatest minds of the day, after decades of calculation, and even in the end endorsed by God himself. And then imagine further that this astonishing answer, once formulated, would take every ounce of human mental effort to understand, involving massive brain busting mental recalibration, spatio-temporal dislocation, bodily distortion, and all the rest. And then imagine having grasped this answer to its fullest extent, to the furthest level of satisfaction, with no remaining dark corners, and no angles hidden from view, and everything at peace with itself.
But then, with all that said and done, the dust having settled, and the singing having stopped, you could just as easily think to ask yourself, ‘So what ?’ ‘So what, all this complexity, this profundity, this sanctity, this shock, awe and wonder ? So bloody what ? So what the whole damn thing ? What was the point of the whole damn existential universe and its questionability in the first place ?’
Which leaves the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing ?’ always liable to be overwritten by a ‘so what, the whole damn thing ?’ type of question. This is not a cheap joke, but rather an example of genuine metaphysical questioning always seeking to push questioning ever further, hoping to discover something like a final frontier, the crossing of which would deliver the ultimate answer. And if the ultimate answer is vulnerable to being overthrown by another ‘So what ?’ type question, then we clearly didn’t manage it, and we’re no better off than we were before, and we have to go right back to the drawing board. This kind of resolute approach is what Buddhist metaphysics is all about, if and when you commit to it seriously.
Some will reply, ‘But I’ve always asked extreme searching questions like that since I was a child, and nothing ever happened. Nothing ever does.’ This is true enough, as far as it goes. But the point is not simply to pose the question: you have also got to try a find a way to find an answer. That’s the key: genuinely struggling to find an answer. Not so that you can win arguments at seminars, but because you genuinely want to know, for yourself, in clear sight. And this part of it takes you well beyond child’s play, beyond adolescent sanctimony and cleverness, and well into adulthood, where a quiet determination in the face of total silence and total darkness is called for, possibly lasting for many decades, where you don’t give up, and you don’t give way to answers and substitute answers which are not anything like as demanding and as utterly ruthless as the questioning itself. Anything less constitutes failure, and the worst type of inner degradation. So if your mind can pose a question which cuts everything – God, the universe, profundity, sanctity, Darwinism, quantum mechanics, evolution, the big bang, the lot – down to nothing, doing to dust, why not take the time and effort to see if you can find out what that’s all about ? What lies behind and beyond the capacity of mind to cut everything down to zero ? What gives the analytical capacity of mind its brutal authority ?