On Thu Jan 17, Shane Mage wrote:
> Meaningless "questions" like "Why is there something instead of
> nothing?" cannot yield a meaningful answer to scientific, or any other,
> technique.
There are many scientists who would disagree with you about that. They're called "nothing theorists" and they think about exactly this question.
One of the clearest answers comes from a guy named Alex Vilenkin, who has a scientific definition of nothing: a closed four-dimensional space-time continuum of radius zero. He then goes to show mathematically that quantum tunnelling effects would produce something out of nothing.
Of course, on this model, the laws of the universe -- at least the ones that that govern quantum tunnelling -- have to exist even when there's no universe.
Stephen Hawkings takes up the question explicitly in _A Brief History of Time_. His way of phrasing it is slightly different -- "Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?" -- but it's obviously the same question and he considers it an important one.
So I don't think the idea that this question is scientifically meaningless can be defended. Scientists seem to be treating it with the same seriousness they treat, say, inflation theory.
Michael