An age-old proposal that to be is to be a unity, or what I call a grouping, is updated and applied to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (WSRTN). I propose the straight-forward idea that a thing exists if it is a grouping which ties zero or more things together into a new unit whole and existent entity. A grouping is visually manifested as the surface, or boundary, of the thing. In regard to WSRTN, when we subtract (...) away all existent entities, including the mind of the thinker, the resulting situation that we usually call “nothing would, by its very nature, be the whole amount, or entirety, of the situation. It completely defines the situation. The inherent nature of “nothing” is that it’s everything. Is there anything else besides that “nothing”? No. It is “nothing”, and this “nothing” is it, the all. A whole amount/entirety/all is a grouping, meaning that “nothing” is itself an existent entity. One objection might be that being a grouping is a property so how can it be there in “nothing”? The answer is that it is only once all known existent entities, including all properties and the mind visualizing this, are removed does this “nothing” gain the entirety/all grouping property. Therefore, the very lack of all existent entities is itself what allows this new property to be present and thereby to allow “nothing” to be an existent entity. This entirety/all grouping property is inherent, or intrinsic, to “nothing” and cannot be removed to get a more pure “nothing”. While the idea that “nothing” is a “something” that exists necessarily isn’t new, the grouping, or any, mechanism for how this can be so is. (shrink)

Surfaces have been much studied, but no consensus has been reached about the actual physical nature of the surface of a three-dimensional, mind-independent physical object. I analyze, from a common sense or “folk” perspective, the surface of a physically-extended simple in a space containing no other objects. From this, I propose the novel idea that a surface is not a part of an object or its outside but instead is made of two components: 1) the object as a unit whole, (...) or a unity, which acts as a barrier to 2) the outside space next to the object. I further propose that if there is no pre-existing outside space, the process of grouping zero or more things together into a new unit whole and physical object creates one with the grouping/unit-wholeness acting as a barrier to that newly created outside. A second test case containing 3 components and an observer is used to defend the hypothesis that a new outside space is created by the grouping process. When combined with a previously published example of an extended simple containing nothing inside, the two-part surface hypothesis suggests a process by which this simple can undergo self-replication leading to a Big Bang-like expansion of space. This offers a possible solution to an important question in philosophy: How do you start with one or a few fundamental existent entities and end up with the many contingent entities we see in the universe around us? (shrink)