I love this question. Why is there existence? Why is there anything? Why isn't there nothing? I've woven my mind through this tapestry on so many idle days. Echoing out what was said before me, it appears to be the fundamental question that from which all other questions extend from. It's so hard then to attempt to reveal your perspective on it because it just calls for further definition ad infinitum. You get lost in so called tangents and your conversation starts to resemble a drug-induced sprint through the forest. Occasionally stopping to hit a tree.
It's funny... The most alien concept in a way is the concept of nothing. It's so tremendously fucking hard to relate to. Much more so then other concepts I've come across in this little trip called life. The concepts we fear seem to orbit around this nothing. Loss for instance is a big one. Something, something you care for, you invest a tremendous energy in and you gain an even more remarkable reward from, becomes nothing. No more, done. That is a very scary thought...
What the hell is nothing though? Light serves as a good medium for the understanding of this point. Light is electromagnetic radiation. Darkness, what we interpret to be the opposite, is the absence of light. Nothing then is the absence of something, obviously. Basic, easy.
Now we get into semantics and the little quirks that come with language. Scientifically speaking there has yet to be the achievement of a region of space with nothing in it. A vacuum, space with no matter, still contains fields. It is then simply a theoretical reference. Technically there's no application of "nothing."
Nothing can be used then in reference to the absence of something. It'd however still be more accurate to say that "there is no _______ there" or something to that effect. Nothing in an absolute sense, as in there is nothing at all, is really an unsupported platform. It then would seem this relative observation, the absence of something being within our experience, is applied to a more grandiose or "objective" scale: the universe, existence, etc. This application is really hard to support.
We could reasonable say that nothing could be no more than a false perception. The question becomes "why would there ever be nothing?" and you go "I don't know."
Nothing in the absolute sense leads to logical contradictions and difficulties. If there were "nothing" and "everything" was created the classic how was it created? What created the thing that created everything? So on and so forth. The search for the primary cause. This train of reasoning is based on a linear sort of thought. Tracing through causality cause and effect.
This is a very relatable sort of thought as our life is experienced in a linear fashion. Observing life it'd be reasonable to conclude that all of existence moves in a similar fashion. As our methods of observation advanced, we now have reason to break down that linear progression. That, simply, what we see as solid, isn't. So on and so forth.
By excluding this faith in linear progression we can say that events for example "exist" in every possible variation at every possible point in time all at once. These possibilities are then isolated through observation, or life, and is experienced in a linear way.
Everything then, every possibility, every stretch of the imagination exists. Nothing is then describing the absence of certain possibilities. Existence is a relative term, mostly describing observation, or experience. Nothing exists within the parameters of this phenomenon. What we are aware of we ascribe a measure of "existence". What we're unaware of exists in a state of nonexistence until discovered. These possibilities that we're unaware of exist in "another state" so to speak.
I love this shit
Thoughts are getting scattered though. Will have to reapproach in a bit.