The fundamental question of Metaphysics: Why something rather than nothing From the perspective of a computer programmer we could visualize the situation as pseudocode...
# Our universe is one-dimensional, its contents quantified by "length." Units are centimeters.
# Our universe is a set of objects, defined as follows...
UNIVERSE = {A: 5, B: 3, C: 1}
# The only way we can define what does not exist is in its relation to that which does exist. We can only visualize "nothing" as sort of a negative image of "something."
NOTHING = {x in RANGE(∞, ∞) where x not in UNIVERSE}
# NOTHING = {..., -2, -1, 0, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, ...}
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It's similar to the common inquiry into our cosmological origin: "But how can something come from nothing? We've never seen something come from nothing before, why should it happen now?"
Such a question is based on the premise that we've actually ever seen "nothing" at all; which is by definition impossible.
As soon as we can define nothing it ceases to become nothing.