Zeeya,
Hi. Thank you for the invitation to discuss unconventional ideas about reality. I've discussed my view of reality in past FQXi essays but would like to briefly summarize them here.
1. Reality, including space and time, seems to me to be the same as all the stuff that exists. Therefore, to answer the question of why there is reality (incl. space and time), we need to know why things exist.
2. Why do things exist? I suggest that a thing exists if it is a grouping, or collection. A grouping is some relationship saying, or defining, what is contained within. Such a definition or grouping is equivalent to an edge, boundary, or enclosing surface defining what is contained within and giving "substance" and existence to the thing. For instance, the surface of a book, the outlines of a cloud, and the curly braces around a set all define what is contained within and give substance and existence to these things. Even for an abstract concept in our mind, we have a list of the things that we think are included within that concept. Without such a list, that abstract concept wouldn't exist in our mind. Another example of a grouping, and thus an existent state, is a set. Without a relationship defining what elements are contained within a set, the set would not exist. This relationship, or grouping is shown by the curly braces, or edge, around the elements of the set, and is what gives existence to the set
3. Why is there something rather than nothing? First, "absolute nothing", or "non-existence", is first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think about this absolute lack-of-all. This absolute lack-of-all itself, not our mind's conception of the absolute lack-of-all, is the entirety or whole amount of all that is present. That's it. It's all there is. In other words, this lack-of-all, in and of itself, defines the entirety of all that is present. It says exactly what's there. An entirety, or whole amount, or everything, is a relationship defining what is contained within (ie., everything) and is therefore a grouping, or edge, and, therefore, an existent state. This edge is not some separate thing; it is just the relationship, inherent in the absolute lack-of-all, defining what is contained within. Therefore, what has traditionally been thought of as "absolute lack-of-all", is, when seen from this different perspective, a grouping, and thus an existent state or "something". Basically, what this means is that we've been misdefining the word "nothing", and this has caused us to make an incorrect distinction between "something" and "nothing".
4. Now, given the properties of an existent entity previously, and incorrectly, thought of as the "complete lack-of-all" or "non-existence", one can develop a model of an expanding set of these existent entities where this expanding set of entities is the same as space. This model provides natural, "mechanical" mechanisms for symmetry breaking and energy. I've done this at previous FQXi essays and at my website at:
sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Granet_fqxifinal.pdf
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1783
So, this is my alternate view of reality. So far I know this is purely hypothetical, but the logic seems completely reasonable to me. Additionally, I at least provide answers to why things, including space, exist, why there is something rather than nothing and physical mechanisms for symmetry breaking and energy in the universe, things that our overly mathematical physicists and overly wordy (while saying nothing) philosophers seem unable or unwilling to do. Also, I'm working on developing the model in order to someday be able to make testable predictions.
Thank you for listening! Check out my website at sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite for more on this and its relatinoships to Russell's Paradox/Godel's incompleteness Theorem.
Roger