Why does the universe exist?

PSI Blog 20180718 Why does the universe exist?

The universe exists because it cannot not exist. Nonexistence is impossible. That is because nonexistence would require perfectly empty space, which is completely imaginary. Space is one of the ideal end members of the empty space-solid matter continuum. As with all idealizations, empty space and solid matter cannot exist. According to “Infinite Universe Theory,” everything in existence has both characteristics. We use those idealizations to avoid hitting walls and to go through doorways even though walls are not perfectly solid and doorways are not perfectly empty.

In other words, the universe exists because empty space is impossible. The universe produces an infinite number of things, but it cannot produce perfectly empty space. Production requires the convergence of other “things”. “Perfectly empty space” is not a thing, so the convergence of “nothing” to form more “nothing” is oxymoronic. However, when we consider “space” as matter, it fits our definition of matter as an abstraction for all things.[1] Also, according to infinity[2] , all things contain other things. That is why we have never been able to find any perfectly empty space[3]; and why perfectly solid matter is impossible.[4]

Although the infinite universe cannot be completely understood by anyone, we gradually accumulate knowledge that allows us to survive and to “make sense” of our surroundings. Again, the scientific answer to why the universe exists is simply that it is impossible for it not to exist. When folks ask: “Why is there something instead of nothing?” they are sensing “something,” but only imagining “nothing.”

Idealists inclined to ask these questions are unlikely to be satisfied by the answer provided by Infinite Universe Theory. That is because idealists tend to think in absolute terms. For them, space is empty and matter is solid. By its nature, the infinite universe always “passes the buck.” They will continue to ask the question: “But where did it all come from?” Each thing in the infinite universe is a complex formed from still other things in the universe. The nice, tidy finite universe of the Big Bang Theory appeals because everything we have observed had a beginning. To finally realize those observations do not apply to the universe as a whole is a grandiose step. It is to finally reject cosmogony[5] and to join the Last Cosmological Revolution. 

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[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 2004, The Ten Assumptions of Science: Toward a new scientific worldview: Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, p. 17 [http://go.glennborchardt.com/TTAOS].

[2] The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions.

[3] Absolute zero (0^oK) cannot be obtained and the “vacuum” of outer space contains enough matter to yield a temperature of 2.7^oK.

[4] PSI Blog 20170322 Infinite Divisibility of Matter and Space

[5] The study of the origin of the universe. Cosmogony, of course, assumes that the universe is finite and that it had an origin, with the additional implication that it will have an ending (see also “Blog 20160330 The death of heat death”).