Why is there something rather than nothing?

This is a question which has puzzled philosophers, scientists and theologians over centuries, and still to this day continues to be unanswered. Why is there something rather than nothing?

The Earth, universe and galaxies all seem to be in existence, but why are they in existence? Why is there something rather than nothing?

One explanation to this question is that something else created the 'something', and before that something else created the something else. It seems to be an endless, unanswered cycle, whereby you are always looking for one more thing to have created the previous something.  

Max Tegmark, cosmologist, suggested that there is however one thing which seems to have always existed. Mathematics. It seems mathematics is one concept which was never created, ever. He believed that this included mathematical objects such as the cube and the sphere. These concepts exist outside of space and time, as the cube was not created 14 billion years ago, however we still feel as though it exists. 

Another explanation to the question why is there something rather than nothing comes from Brian Greene (from Columbia university), who suggests that maybe the answer to the question is much more simple than expected. He used the example of the film The Matrix, explaining that maybe like in the film, our brains are being stimulated to think that we are in a given reality even though we are not. The idea can lead us to think of the conclusion; is mathematics a description of reality, or is mathematics reality itself. Is maths something that was invented, or discovered? The idea of the simulated multi-universe gives us a way of thinking about it because if you and I are in a computer simulation, then this is very good, and feels very real - as we believe that we are going through a real life. If this is the case, and you opened up the computer controlling it all, then you would find a bunch of numbers; one's and zero's being manipulated by mathematical equations. So if this is a computer simulation, then we would be mathematics. We would be what mathematics feels; which is reality. 

Finally, some may not answer this question at all, and may suggest that the question is a like a dog chasing its tail - a tautology. 

Maybe the universe itself is a tautology. Perhaps a strange loop is the engine that drives existence - the unresolveability of the paradox keeps it in motion forever. 

C.S