For thousands of years, we humans have been looking toward the heavens with a sense of awe and wonder. Great monuments all over the earth, dating back perhaps as much as 10,000 years (such as Göbekli Tepe in Southeastern Turkey and human-created stone arrangements in Australia). Better known monuments, dating back several thousand years, such as the Pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge in England demonstrate a remarkable knowledge of the movement of the celestial realm.[1] The great philosopher Immanuel Kant said: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”[2] For some, looking up at the heavens brings a feeling of how small and insignificant we—and our lives on this small planet—are. For others, the feeling is the opposite: There is a sense that being able to hold a conception of this vast universe in one’s consciousness gives a hint of the meaning of existence, perhaps even that being able to have that conception is necessary before the universe can exist.
Why is there anything at all?
Existence. What exactly is existence? And why? A number of the greatest minds in human history have pondered this puzzle: Why does a world exist at all? Where did it come from? If there was once nothing, how did something come to be? To paraphrase the great Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: Beyond the rational lies something mystical, and that mystical dimension has to do with the fact that the universe exists.[3] Or as Martin Heidegger said in his Introduction to Metaphysics: “Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? Obviously, this is the first of all questions.”[4] The great philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz put it the most succinctly: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”[5]
The fact that we are conscious of both ourselves and a world “out there,” separate from ourselves, has led western philosophers such as Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle to wrestle with this question and answer it in a variety of ways. Friedrich Schelling made it the core question of his lifelong exploration, believing it was the only place to ground the possibility of human freedom. In A Brief History of Time, the modern physicist Stephen Hawking wondered, “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” and “Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing?”[6] The answer, of course, is: No one knows. Or, as William James put it more poetically, “All of us are beggars here.”[7]
In modern times the popular answer is the “Big Bang,” but that is really no answer at all. As the poet and writer Wendell Berry quipped: “What banged? Before banging, how did it get there? When it got there, where was it?”[8] The “Big Bang” is not a rational or scientific answer but a metaphor. It is useful as a starting point for modern calculations and speculations concerning the expansion and development of the physical properties of the universe as we currently understand them. The metaphor works pretty well for those things. But it tells us absolutely nothing about existence itself. As Wendall Berry suggested, if you are going to have a “bang,” you first have to have something to “bang.” Furthermore, the theory says there was no time and no space before the bang occurred, so when did it happen? Where exactly did it happen? What existed before the “bang?” If, as is assumed in the theory, time did not exist before the bang, how did time just show up just at the precise nanosecond it was needed? In other words, where did time and space come from? How did they come to exist?
Just as perplexing with regard to the “Big Bang” theory is its assumption that all the laws of the universe where simply “there” from the moment of the “Bang.” Where did all those laws come from? How did a universe come into being with dozens (actually, hundreds) of precise laws that we assume to be fixed and immutable—forever? How does that fit with the idea that the universe is forever changing and evolving? How does it make sense that hundreds of very precise physical laws came into existence all at once—laws that our current science assumes never change—in a universe that is, itself, constantly changing? Yet this is the current assumption. There is no proof it is true; it is simply an assumption. But it is an assumption that our current science needs in order to operate. Why it might be true, however, or how it came to be in a universe that is changing and evolving is a total mystery.
Adding to the lack of clarity about these issues is that the nature of time and space themselves are very much in question. More than 200 years ago Immanuel Kant made a persuasive argument that time and space do not exist “out there,” but are constructs of the human mind, constructs the mind creates within itself to organize our lives in the practical world. His understanding has been supported over and over by modern physics, with Albert Einstein showing that time is relative, and therefore that our normal conception of time as a fixed and given thing is an illusion. And since Einstein’s insight a hundred years ago, this contradiction to our normal way of thinking has not been resolved. In his 2019 book The Order of Time, theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli presents a strong case that recent evidence reinforces the idea that time as we commonly understand it is an illusion. Yet we do not live as if this is the case. If time is really an illusion, what would be the implication for you in how you live your life?
My point here is not to come to any conclusions regarding what time is or is not, or about where the universe came from, but simply to point out that our lack of understanding about these questions takes us directly back to the first core question, of existence itself. Why does anything exist? If there once was no time, where did it come from? If there once was nothing, how could something arise from that? The fact that these questions have not been answered through all these centuries of scientific and philosophical investigation suggests that we are unlikely to find answers through either of these methods of inquiry.
Examining what is
So let’s look elsewhere. Instead of contemplating the starry heavens, let us look much closer to home. Let us look at matter, the material stuff around us, something we can examine much more closely and intimately. Or can we?
All matter consists of atoms, which are made up of protons, neutrons, electrons—and 99.99999% empty space. What does that last part mean—the empty space part? Well, it turns out that if you had a giant vise, and could put the entire earth in it, and then squeezed all the empty space out of the earth, the amount of pure matter that would remain would be somewhere between the size of an apple and a bowling ball. Can you wrap your mind around that—that all the real, hard stuff in the earth is only about the size of a compact bowling ball (an actual bowling ball would be so small you could hardly find it with a microscope).[9]
The strangeness doesn’t stop there. In the last few decades we have learned that atoms are made up of quarks. But each time we think we have it figured out, it gets stranger. We have now learned there are six “flavors” of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top. Besides quarks, though, we now have six types of leptons, including muons and tau neutrinos (don’t ask). Then there are twelve gauge bosons, including eight gluons, and most recently the Higgs boson. The smallest possible number of particles is currently estimated to be seventeen (but there could be many more). All this, by the way, is the result of the attempt to find the “simplest,” most basic form of matter! Whatever happened to “Occam’s razor,” so beloved by early scientists, and the idea that we were going to find the “basic building blocks” of all matter?
We are still not finished with the weirdness. In recent years we have learned that approximately 96% of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy, about which we know virtually nothing. Then there is antimatter—and virtual particles in the zero-point field that pop in and out of existence for a billionth of a trillionth of a second. Unless they borrow energy from a “real” particle and become real themselves. As it turns out, all this “non-matter stuff” fills “empty” space. Empty space is not empty at all. In fact, it is now calculated that there is enough energy in one pint of completely “empty” space to boil away the entire Pacific Ocean in an instant.
Perhaps the most powerful lesson of modern science is that we actually know very little about the true nature of our “physical” world. If it is even physical at all. Some scientists now say that the smallest particles are not physical objects, but are superstrings, which are one-dimensional. But how can “matter” be matter if it has only one dimension? Well, it can’t. So perhaps it is better to think of “what is” as energy (or musical notes, as physicist and science writer Michio Kaku calls superstrings). So actually, at the most basic level, there aren’t any particles at all, there isn’t any “matter,” but energy, or vibrational waves. At the deepest level we are energy or waves in a field of multiple and overlapping waves—electro/magnetic waves, gravitational waves, light waves, etc.—all constantly flowing, moving, interacting. One way to think about all this was given by Einstein: “Matter is where the concentration of energy is great, field where the concentration of energy small,”[10] suggesting there is really no separation between matter and the field in which it exists. But what on earth does that mean?
If you’re trying to imagine all this: Stop. You can’t. It is math. It grows out of mathematical theories that no one can really imagine as real, tangible “things.” And besides, it will probably all change again in a few years anyway. The proof for these mathematical theories comes in experiments that measure possible traces of the actions of these incredibly small and often theoretical particles—and interpreting the traces is incredibly complex and filled with speculations.
Do these experiments reveal reality? A hundred years ago, when these speculations were just getting started, one of the greatest physicists of all time, Niels Bohr, said: “When we measure something we are forcing an undetermined, undefined world to assume an experimental value. We are not measuring the world, we are creating it.”[11] In other words, we create instruments to find things we have speculated are there, and then those particular instruments “find them.” Then a new theory comes along, new instruments are created, and we find new and different things. So, what is really there? Stay tuned.
If all that is not weird enough for you, there is more. Increasingly, quantum mechanics has been demonstrating that, at the basic level, there are no particles at all, only probabilities. Try to wrap your mind around the fact that you are made up of probabilities. Even energy waves aren’t really “there” (wherever there is); they are “probability waves.” They don’t exist anywhere until they are measured, or as it is also said, until consciousness observes them. Everything that “exists” is actually in a state of virtual possibility until observed. Until the observation, they are nowhere, or it could just as easily be said they are everywhere. So, what is reality? (That would be an excellent Zen koan.)
Surely science will eventually answer these questions. But the most accurate science ever created is quantum mechanics. It works. Its predictions have been almost unerring, and it has led to an endless stream of new technologies that have revolutionized the modern world. But will quantum science answer the basic questions about existence? Listen again to Niels Bohr, who was central to the creation of quantum physics: “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.”[12] Or this by Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman: “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”[13] At another time Feynman said:
Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, “But how can it be like that?” because you will get “down the drain,” into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.[14]
But if the greatest physicists don’t even understand their own area of study, they most likely do not understand existence itself, or consciousness, love, beauty, values, relationships, or what life is about. Neither quantum mechanics nor any other area of science is likely to provide answers to these kinds of questions.
This does not mean that scientific studies are unimportant. They are very important. It is simply to realize that we can look to science to answer some kinds of questions, while refraining from placing on it the burden of answering all our questions, especially those it was not designed nor is equipped to answer. It is no accident that many thousands of years of human inquiry and thought have not removed the truth of Carl Jung’s brief, penetrating statement: “Life is a short pause between two mysteries.”
Where, then, shall we begin our exploration? One good place to begin is with that which we can never get behind: our own consciousness. Existence and consciousness are not separate, but deeply entwined, and while the question of existence is hard to approach directly (how could you personally directly explore existence, how everything came to be?), consciousness is always near at hand. It is available for my examination each and every moment, whenever I choose to turn my attention toward it. Thus, I prefer to start this journey with consciousness. Consciousness is right here, right now, and (if you think about it), there is no way to explore anything at all except through consciousness. So I take consciousness as the starting point for trying to understand my life, what is truly important, and how best to live.
Join me in this exciting exploration.
[1] Graham Hancock and Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror Quest for the Lost Civilization (New York, New York: Three Rivers Press/Crown Publishing Group, 1998) provide convincing proof for sites several thousand years old, and there is a decent amount of more recent evidence that Göbekli Tepe, built at least 11,000 years ago, was aligned with the heavens. Stone alignments in Australia could be as old, or even much older, but it is very hard to establish actual dates. The aboriginal culture has been there at least 50,000 years, and we just don’t now the timeline of the development of their knowledge.
[2] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, (1788) 5:161. One of his most famous quotes, and inscribed on his tombstone in Kaliningrad, Russia.
[3] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), 6.44.
[4] Martin Heidegger, trans. Ralph Manheim, Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1959), 1.
[5] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Principles of Nature and Grace” 1714. This was an essay written for Prince Eugene of Savoy.
[6] Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time: The Updated and Expanded Tenth Anniversary Edition (New York: Bantum Books, 1998). Need Rest of Information
[7] William James, need citation
[8] Wendell Berry, “On the Theory of the Big Bang as the Origin of the Universe,” Appalachian Heritage, The University of North Carolina Press vol. 34, no. 3, Summer/delete (2006), 46.
[9] Rather than give one citation, I will just direct you to the internet, where Googling the size of a totally compressed earth will bring hundreds of interesting articles. Have fun.
[10] Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1938), 242.
[11] Quote by Niels Henrik David Bohr found in Robert Lanza, M.D. and Bob Berman, Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion (Dallas, Texas: Ben Bella Books, Inc., 2016), 94.
[12] Niels Henrik David Bohr, The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr (Woodbridge, Connecticut: Ox Bow Press, 1987). Also quoted in Karen Michelle Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2007), 254.
[13] Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 129.
[14] Richard P. Feynman, Probability & Uncertainty the Quantum Mechanical View of Nature (Newton, Massachusetts: Education Development Center, 1990), 129.