> This is pure solipsism. I can't imagine the world
> without myself in it either. Doesn't mean I'm not
> going to die (that is, be nothing, assuming there's no afterlife).
What does this have to do with solipsism? Solipsism is the position that nothing exists besides my mind. What I am talking about is nothing, period, existing.
Put it this way. I think that the question "why does anything exist, rather than nothing?" presupposes that there are two possible cases: Case A, in which something exists, and Case B, in which nothing exists. I am proposing that Case B doesn't make sense, because it essentially says that "reality is such that there is nothing." This, it seems to me, is incoherent. If the concept of reality makes any sense at all (and if it doesn't, we're really in trouble!), i.e., if there is reality at all, then there is reality -- in other words, reality exists.
It's a position that's very hard to express in language, I admit; probably there are better ways of doing it, but I hope you get what I'm driving at. This sort of metaphysical statement is at the very boundaries of meaningful language, and it's very hard to tell whether what you're saying is right or wrong or even makes sense.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________ The mass of man[sic]kind is divided into two classes, the Sancho Panzas who have a sense for reality, but no ideals, and the Don Quixotes with a sense for ideals, but mad. -- George Santayana (Interpretations of Poetry and Religion)