Why is there anything at all

The question of "why is there anything at all (rather than nothing)?" has been raised by scientists including Liebniz, who wrote "why is there something rather than nothing?" and Hawking, who wrote "why does the universe bother to exist?"
Explanations
Leslie and Kuhn and others list various explanations, but accept that none are satisfactory;
Explanations that push the question back a level
* that in quantum physics 'nothing' does not exist, as particles continuously appear and disappear even in vacuums. However the question then becomes why and how does quantum physics exist?
* that God made everything. However the question then becomes why and how does God exist?
* that everything only exists in a mind or consciousness (e.g. that of God). However the question then becomes why and how does this mind or consciousness exist?
Explanations based on the question being wrong
* that the question is illogical because time did not exist before Big Bang (a related view from Augustine is that time is part of God's creation). However the question is not related to time, and still remains.
* that the natural human view, that nothing is a more elegant and obvious state than something, is wrong.
* that the existence of anything is an unexplainable 'brute fact'. Bertrand Russell said “I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all”, a position also taken by physicist Sean Carroll.
* that the question does not make sense or is illogical (for instance that 'something' cannot explain 'nothing', or that nothing cannot exist). Stephen Law says the question may not need an answer. He says it is attempting to answer a question that is outside a spatio-temporal setting, from within a spatio-temporal setting. He compares the question to asking 'what is north of the north pole?', or 'what time is it on the sun?', and also questions whether the concept of 'nothing' exists. All else could come from this.
* that humans don't understand the situation well enough or are otherwise presently unable to answer the question. However the history of science gives hope that humans will find an answer in future. This may be helped by the advent of machine learning and AI.
On the nature of possible explanations
Brian Leftow and others have argued that the question cannot have a causal explanation (as any cause must itself have a cause) or a contingent explanation (as the factors giving the contingency must pre-exist), and that if there is an answer it must be something that exists necessarily (i.e. something that exists, rather than is caused).<ref name="closertotruth.com"/>

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