Heidegger said that any practical answer to a question is not a philosophical answer. Philosophy is the constant adressing of the fundamental problem of being - ‘why being, why not far rather not being?’ This is supposedly the torment of the philosophical mind.
Nietzsche’s answer to it is simple: because of the joy that existence brings to the succesful being. This existential joy justifies even the most horrible suffering. Heideggers question seems to be answered quite easily.
to me, who has suffered from Heideggerian complex for years, this answer is sufficient. It is, in a very human way, perfectly logical. A classical scientific objection would be that the cause of existence is not to be formulated in terms of human experience. The objection to this objection is that there is not really any other way for a human to judge and measure - so that objection is out of the way. I can’t think of another objection, but I’m sure there is - or is there? Is not simply nature’s cause nature’s delight in itself? I’m using nature here where I previously said existence because it effectively comes down to the same thing, with the difference that nature allready includes the idea of self-perpetuation through delight.
In general, I agree with you.
I think there can be practical answers in philosphy.
Recent discussions on ILP have landed on the old point that
philosophical investigation can get bogged down if we
are constantly questioning even the most basic of assumptions
such as ‘there is objective/external reality’. Another example
would be words and definitions. We have to at least agree on
basic word usage or agree that we think we mean the same
thing in the words we are using.
I think in logic in particular, there can be short straight forward answers.
A side note: I have never felt such a profound understanding and experience of Nietzsche’s ‘existential joy’ of existence as I have recently. It has been growing over the years and it just keeps getting stronger and stronger. I am “smelling the roses” constantly, so to speak. One of these days I’m just going to evaporate or find myself in Nirvana or the like because I became too enamored with the simplest joy of simply existing! I’ll just be sitting there in my car or on the toilet thinking, “WOW! I exist!”… and POOF I’m gone! Either that or I might spontaneously combust and go out screaming in a ball of flaming agony! HA! 
In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger says that “the Being of that which is ‘is’ not itself something that is.” He also says somewhere that the Nothing itself nothings. So we might say that the Being of that which is ‘is’ nothing, whereas the nothinging of that which nothings is (i.e., is Being). So existence is really the nothinging of the Nothing.
I have a question; perhaps you can help. Why isn’t the being of that which is, the thing itself?
As for the nothingness of nothing being Being, hadn’t Hegel already done that?
I think Heidegger’s just trying to confuse the Nietzscheans again. 
Do you mean the thing in itself?
Compare the being of that which is to the running of him who runs. The running of him who runs is not itself something that runs.
Not the nothingness, the nothinging (gerund).
Hegel already addressed the question: why is there something rather than nothing?
Well, being a primitive Aristotelian myself, I see “the man” running as being in the category of substance and “the running” as being in the category of action. Both are, but in different ways.
If I could think of a concrete example of that, I would find it a convincing argument for the origin of the universe.
Will you forever remain a primitive Aristotelian? I think you should read more of him: you might one day learn to read.
I did not say that the running was not, but that the running ran not. Likewise, the being of that which is is not.
The answer is actually easy. “Nothing” cannot be, by definition, and “something” is, also by definition. But the Being of that something is not, i.e., it is nothing; whereas the nothinging of the nothing is not itself nothinging, i.e.: it is something.
Another question for you guys.
I own a copy of Satres “Being and Nothingness” which I’m still mentally preparing for… I know it’s heavily influenced by Heideggers “Sein und Zeit”, does this mean that it’d be better if I first read “Sein und Zeit” or will I understand B&N without the pre-info?
Thanks
what?
hahaaha THE THING , ITSELF! hahaha 
hhaha
First, let us make sure you understand the first proposition. Let us say we have something that is (exists). This thing exists, so we can speak of the existing (or “the existence”) of this thing. The thing exists, but the existing of the thing does not itself exist.
The athlete is running, but the running of the athlete is not itself running.
One of Heideggers points was, it seems, that the one practicing philosophical questioning needs to avoid agreements of any kind. He needs to question everything as thoroughly as he can, over and over. That is why he (Heidegger, at least) gets into area’s of language as enormously confusing and impractical as Sauwelios is demonstrating.
Sauwelios shows what happens when we do not agree on certain basic uses of words. We need to use our minds in ways that are actually strenuous.
On your bliss of existence I can only congratiulate you. haven’t quite reached that point of perfect bliss without the aids of stimulants. Just be careful to watch the traffic and breath and stuff. Or does the state of nirvana include an indifference towards life and death?
I’ pretty sure reading Sein und Zeit will not help you understand any other work - in most cases reading Sein und Zeit will probably not even help the reader understand the book itself.
Heidegger writes for what Heidegger calls a philosopher, which as I understand it is someone who is inclined of himself to question the basic being of being. Without Heideggers ‘aid’, that is.
I would guess Sartre was not so much influenced by Heidegger as that he suffered from the same inclinations and recognized himself in Sein und Zeit.
It sometimes captures both in the same moment.
It is as if life means nothing and everything at the same time.
Death looses it’s power, yet you cannot escape it.
It will ominously sit over our heads.
It is inevitable that “I†will end.
But the fact that “I” will die is part of what gives my life meaning. 
That is a mathematical way of solving the question of being or not being; negative times negative is positive. But do you think there is a good reason for this question at all?
That is not quite what I’m saying. It is rather like this: linear acceleration is a diagonal, but the acceleration of this acceleration is a horizontal.
I wonder. I know of four people who have asked themselves this question, and you are one of them, whereas I am not. So perhaps you can enlighten me. Do you think it would be less absurd if there were nothing? If so, why?
Let us continue. Suppose there were nothing. (Of course, this is a self-contradiction; but then, we are using language: language deals with things, which are - regardless of whether this is an accurate description of reality.) The nothing would be “doing” one thing, and one thing only: “not be”. So the nothing is not-being. But is the not-being of the nothing itself not-being?
At this point, I had a surge of anima-induced inspiration.
The athlete is concrete, but his running is not - nor is his concreteness.
The being-concrete of that which is concrete is not itself concrete.
But how about the abstractness of that which is abstract?
The being-concrete of that which is concrete is abstract; but is the abstractness of that being-concrete not itself abstract?
“Concrete” is Latin for “grown together”. Heidegger’s Dasein, “being-there”, and In-der-Welt-Sein, “being-in-the-world”, are both concrete: the being, for instance man, is concresced with its world; the being in itself and the world in itself are abstractions, Lat. lit. “things drawn off”.
Being is an abstraction. But how about the nothing?
The nothing (not-being) is an abstraction: there is no nothing, no not-being, in itself, but only not-being-not-there, or not-being-not-in-the-world. So the answer to the question, “why is there anything at all, and not rather nothing?”, is: there is nothing, but it is not in the world; it thusly presupposes a world to not be in.
Being as such doesn’t exist; it exists only insofar as it manifests through objects. Isn’t this Nothing spoken of simply Dasein’s awareness of its own annihilation?
What? Which four people? And what question, why there is existence, or if the question has a good reason?
In the former case, why there is existence, I’ve come to an answer to that, as I’ve explained in the OP - there is life because life is worth living, to phrase it in the most simple way I’m able to. That is, honestly, the only way I can explain it to myself - and I’ve struggled with it in great angst for years.
If there were nothing, it is would be hard to say anything about it - so it would neither be absurd nor not absurd. Well, it would not be absurd, because it would not be at all.
But I think Degger came to the same answer at the end, that the justification for life is in the very basic stuff of life. That is why I figure that late set of lectures is so practically oriented - finding the ultimate meaning of existence in ‘wohnen’ - which I would have no idea how to translate into english any other way than ‘living’ which obviously is misleading.