Baseless (null) physics
In commenting on this "new" physics theory (soon to be educated in the physics dept. in the universitie near you), let us first see what this "new physics" is aimed at, as explained by it's author.
Null Physics attacks the problem from the other pole, starting with the toughest question of all: “why does the universe exist?”. Its premise is that if you can’t provide a rational, complete answer to this question, your physical theories will always contain gaping philosophical holes, and you will forever be unable to explain the universe to any great depth.
So, the thoughest question of all, mankind has stumbled upon read like: "why does the universe exists". This question is not brought up for the first time in history, and most often the question is put forward in the following format: "why is there something (anything at all)
instead of nothing?".
This question, coined by some people as "The fundamental question of Philosphy" and attributed (amongst others) to Leibnitz, has been brought up by different people during the course of history, and is in no way a "new" question to be asked. The only "new" thing about it is perhaps that the term is asked in the context of a physics theory, although in fact, the question itself is not of any relevance to physics, and does not even belong there, since physics explains the physical world purely and solely at the basis of what physics can (empirically) testify and verify through experiment.
So, for example, the law of gravity is something that physics can explore, because we have material mass-having bodies to our disposal of which we can experimentally testify what kind of laws govern their motion. Laws, as in the case of the law of gravity, are not products of pure thought, and are not made up from thin air, but are definately rooted upon experimentally verifiable facts, which is, they express a certain fact or aspect of reality, which can be experimentally verified. Physics can not be the result of pure thought (how well formed and formulated that thought may or may not be expressed) alone, since in all cases the outside, objective existing material / physical world is both the source for physical descriptions and ultimate arbiter of descriptions we find usefull for expressing a certain fact or aspect of physical reality.
That said, it can be pretty obvious that phyics can only describe objectively existing physical realities. Which excludes and dismisses the physicist from having to describe non-existing, non-physical realities. This off course limits the task of physics.
In most general terms it is not the task of physics to respond any ponderable or unponderable question the human mind can come up with, unless it definately is in the domain of physics. And being bound to that, the only way physics can describe the objective physical world is in terms of physical entities. As for instance the law of gravity can only be explained in terms of mass-having bodies, and all attempts to make physical laws without those real existing physical bodies, would be rather fruitless. Since physical laws have no seperate existing onto themselves, but from the motion of bodies they describe.
This short introduction is deemed necessary I think to get us focussed on what the task of physics is, and thereby also discriminate against those kind of questions, physics should be silent on, as it has nothing to say on it.
That said it might be quit obvious that - in all instances - the working assumption (and most often a priori assumed) and basic condition is that we have the context of an existing physical reality, which is open for investigation, which means: it has observables (and which are themselves physical entities) and observers, which also means that observables and observers can interact.
This means that types of questions, which by their nature divert from these a priori assumptions/context, are not the type of questions physics should have a word on.
So, physics is the study of how material entities and physical observables interact, as can be experimentally (by observation and/or experimentation) verified and testified.
As to the nature of the question put forward of the author of the "null hypothesis" as to "why does the universe exists" is can be pretty clear that such a question does not in any way belong to the questions physics should be concerned with, and even if it would, is able of answering.
This can be made clear as the question most often reads like: "why does something (the universe, anything at all) exists instead of nothing".
Put in physics terms, this could be translated to: what physical law, or entity, caused the universe to exist, instead of not-exist. This then immediately reads into explain me the origin or cause (in terms of physical forces, bodies, entities, laws) were responsible for the existence of the universe, with the implicit assumption that none of those physical entities, bodies, laws and whatever there can exist physically can be assumed to exist.
And it is of course necessary to see that (although not explicitly mentioned in the original formulation of the question as put forward of the author of the "null physics" theory) the added assumption of not assuming there is any physical reality, is of course an implicit assumption which was hidden in the question.
The necessity of adding this is to reveal the hidden assumption implicit in the question, as to ask a "why" question (as in the general form of "why is it the case that X?") this realy is only a meaningfull question if it can be assumed that (given certain conditions/circumstances) X was
not the case (i.e. can not be ruled out by definition).
For example, if the question was stated as: "why is it the case that earth has a moon?", one could without too much difficulty ascertain that the negation of that (earth without a moon) could have been the case, and can not be ruled out completely or by definition.
So, in general there are numerous cases in which the question of the form: "Why is it the case that X?" is a meaningfull question, since X need not necessarily be the case.
The case of the question where X reads "there is a universe" however has the remarkable property that it's negation (there not be a universe) must be ruled out by definition, as such can not possible have been, be or ever be the case.
So, in that case, X is true by definition, and not at the basis of any physical fact, entity or law, they have simply nothing to do with it.
Even in the case one is not totally convinced of that fact, try to think of any possible physical entity, body or law, which could be proposed as a possible answer to the question, and then realise that as soon as we introduce any physical entity at all - which we may name P, we already introduced the thing we needed to explain, namely that there is a universe (instead of none), which by the same question, needs to be explained, which then reads as: why does P exist (and for which then we might introduce another physical entity Q, and then be asked the same question again: why does Q exist, etc.etc.).
So in other words, there is no entity of physical nature that can ever explain that fact, because the truth of the conditional X does not depend on any
specific physical entity/condition, but is "true by definition". (*)
[ Or perhaps, we could state in a somewhat retarded way that the universe is or contains it's own (physical) causes of existence, and needs no (or can have no) outside (physical) causes (since, if they existed, they would already be part of the universe), but such a way of answering this question ("Why is it the case that X?" "Because X!" is not commonly seen as a sensible answer, since we request the answer to be stated in terms different then the posited 'thing' (however, the universe is not a 'thing').]
In other words, within the domain of physics, there is no possibility of answering this type of question, and the very nature of the question, already disqualifies the question of being answerable at the basis of physics, since the basic premise, that there is a physical reality which is observable with physical means, has been ruled out by the question itself, which has the result that the question disqualifies itself as being answerable within the physics domain.
Whatever the answer to that question may be in any other knowledge domain, any answer that might fit as an answer to that question, is definately not part of physical reality and not expressible in terms of physical entities, and therefore should not be of any concern for physics.
And as to the theory, which states itself as a physics theory, which proclaims about itself that it's main purpose is to answer such non-physical questions, it can be already clear that it can not bring us any new "physics" as it has in fact nothing to base itself on.
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(*) a more "physical" expression of this would be that since the universe contains matter/energy, and which are by conservation laws never created/destroyed but only transformed/changed, matter/energy has been always there and will be always there.
For those that still want to engage in unponderable questions, here is some other question, this time belonging to the field of computation.
A. Please show the result of the computation of the sum of the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4, which are to be read from file X, assuming no such file X exists.
Or, the more difficult variant:
B. Same as in A. but this time, assume the computer does not exist.
