Why does anything exist?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Why don't try and turn it around;

Nothing exists. Or rather, everything is nothing at the same time. Nothing is permanent.

But something exists... even if we just imagine it, or if it's not material and only virtual/whatever. There should be nothing at all, just blackness everywhere, in fact there wouldn't even be blackness, because that's something we can imagine.

[Hax]

I often thought it was interesting that the Perfection of Wisdom Texts in Buddhism (which deal with these topics) evolved over the course of 400 years. They all point at the same thing, however they went through a phase where the works became enormously voluminous "The Perfection of Wisdom in 100,000 Lines", and later went through a phase where they became incredibly small; down the point where someone worte a Sutra which is the "Perfection of Wisdom in One Letter"

There is the Heart Sutra, which deals with the Buddhist concept of "Emptiness":

Shariputra, all dharmas are empty of characteristics. They are not produced. Not destroyed, not defiled, not pure, and they neither increase nor diminish. Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, feeling, cognition, formation, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch, or dharmas; no field of the eyes, up to and including no field of mind-consciousness; and no ignorance or ending of ignorance, up to and including no old age and death or ending of old age and death. There is no suffering, no accumulating, no extinction, no way, and no understanding and no attaining.

Which seems contradicting, but (in my point of view) explains that nothing is permanent, and that the complete acceptance of this fact leads to being a Bodhisattva.

[Kurando]

But something exists... even if we just imagine it, or if it's not material and only virtual/whatever. There should be nothing at all, just blackness everywhere, in fact there wouldn't even be blackness, because that's something we can imagine.

You've come up with some real gems there, Rhyfelwyr!

If you could manage to not start off with an initial assertion "But something exists..." and exaustively examine the rest of what you've said, I'll guarantee that you'll have a much less boring summer vacation than you seem to have been having so far.

I once heard it said, "if you are looking for water, you're better off digging one well that is 100 feet deep, than digging 100 wells which are one foot deep" -Same amount of digging, but the first route has a much better chance of finding what is being sought.

You seem to have a the ability to go to the heart of the matter; if you develop a tendency to you beyond even that, I would confidently say that you can find the answer to the intial question you asked "Why does anything exist?" -To get the ultimate answer is to go to the heart of the matter, to go beyond even that is the dissapearance of the questioner.