RE: The reasons why there is something rather than nothing
Thought I should amplify a bit - wouldn't want anyone to think I was just being an vacuous argumentative arse (well at least not without good reason :-)
If you define "nothing" as AnyThing other than SomeThing, then there is obviously not NoThing (Even if I am just a fignewton of my own imagination, that is still SomeThing :-)
If you (re)define "nothing" as a SomeThing but just a non-physical SomeThing (energy perhaps?) this changes your real question to: "Why is there physicality rather than non-physicality?" which is a horse of another color entirely.
And my response would have to be: Why do you presume there is (TRUE physicality)?
It seems to me the "deeper" we (science) LOOK, the less physically tangible we get all the way "down" to (essentially) "vibration".
Maybe the real problem is that our CONCEPTION of physicality (solidity) (particularity) - in other words one of our PREMISES is flawed.
And we all know what that leads.
If at the end there are no particles anymore, one could ask "what is vibrating"? It seems that pure energy cannot be understood by thought, because ontologies are compounded by things and pure energy is not a thing. But it's not an absolute nothing either.
Exactly! I probably should have said "fields" rather than "vibration" but either way - as you say - whatever it is, it is not NoThing.
As an aside - in my opinion, just because we don't CURRENTLY understand something, doesn't mean it cannot BE understood.