Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

[MarcoD]

Ah, but you see, your interpretation of reality is within mine, it just excludes the rest of my interpretation. As the interpretation exists, it discretely exists, even if not within this Universe. Similarly, my interpretation does as well, even if not within this Universe.

Great!

All ideas which can be described with language are things, even your interpretation, and as things, they neither represent an objective truth nor represent any kind of permanence. There was a state in which both of our interpretations were not extant, so neither of our interpretations represent a constant truth of any kind from any perspective. Tautologically both of our interpretations are approximations of some "thing", not the thing itself.

This is my point. I wonder whether 'discrete' things exist, as far as I know, I have a fuzzy understanding of the universe, and even a fuzzy experience of the linguistic abstractions I assign to what I experience. I find it a leap of faith to conclude from that those things exist, in an ontological sense, from that fuzzy understanding.

Since logic and math presuppose the existence of things (which don't exist), any mathematical description of the universe [as a collection of things] would therefor be flawed.

Whether or not a thing is experienced or conveyed as information is completely irrelevant to the existence of those things, because all things, whether abstractions or not, had a time or a state in which they were absent, and so do not represent any kind of ultimate truth, either for you or for anyone else. They can be more true or less true, but not the truth.

For the sake of the argument (I am not that rabid on it), I deny the existence of things altogether.

Moreover, you presuppose the existence of things by them being able to be absent. Like Parmenides I would say: Nothing is absent, nothing is present, the whole universe is the only thing there.

Experiences are just as valid and invalid as knowledge for justifying existence, because they are both part of existence. In order to justify existence you must describe it within something larger than existence, otherwise you describe it incompletely.

The existence of the universe, yes. The existence of discrete things within it, no.

A more concrete example of this principal would be the following: suppose you had a program to simulate the deterministic nature of a Universe. Could this program simulate our own Universe from within it? No, it could not, as it would require all of the totality of our existence within this Universe to create a simulation of our existence within this Universe. Our existence can be described as real or simulated, but they describe the same thing.

I would agree to that since the universe is an undivisable thing, and therefor couldn't be put in itself.

If real, they are discrete, and if not, they can only exist within some thing discrete which can contain their indiscreteness in order to be experienced as discrete. The fact that they can be interpreted as discrete, even if they are not, means that their discreteness holds at some level, even if it is a level beyond our own experience of existence.

Again. I wonder, and for the sake of the argument deny, that there are discrete things. Except for the one universe.

I would say that 'discreteness' is a fuzzy delusion of my perception of my internal linguistical games. So, I again deny that discreteness holds, in an ontological sense, at some level.

EDIT: Again, it's a bit of stretch, but it comes from my own, say even mystical, experience, that I never in my life have met 'a thing.' And I wonder what that means.

 

[JordanL]

This is my point. I wonder whether 'discrete' things exist, as far as I know, I have a fuzzy understanding of the universe, and even a fuzzy experience of the linguistic abstractions I assign to what I experience. I find it a leap of faith to conclude from that those things exist, in an ontological sense, from that fuzzy understanding.

The existence of the universe, yes. The existence of discrete things within it, no.

You find it to be a fuzzy understanding, but in concluding that it is fuzzy, you assign varying degrees of truth or falsity to them. How could one do so with things that do not exist? Things. In the absence of discreteness within the things of our Universe, there would be no such thing as truth or falsity at all, for any particular thing that is either true or false would be a declaration of the truth of falsity of existence itself.

For the sake of the argument (I am not that rabid on it), I deny the existence of things altogether.

Moreover, you presuppose the existence of things by them being able to be absent. Like Parmenides I would say: Nothing is absent, nothing is present, the whole universe is the only thing there.

In denying the existence, you confirm it exists. How can you deny that which is not extant? In order to deny it must be described, and this that can be described exists tautologically within its description.

I am not saying that the absence of things confirms their existence. Quite the opposite. I am saying that the things which can be declared false or can be denied must be present so that they can be declared upon.

How can one deny that which is not anywhere or within anything? The denial of it provides it exists within the context of denial. That has nothing to do with whether or not it is a thing or whether or not it is discrete. It by definition exists, as an idea, as a thing, or as something indescrete, in order to be commented upon at all.

I suppose the leap I am describing is that knowledge and experience are as concrete an existence as physical existence, they just interact with our Universe using different rules and different mechanisms. But they are a part of existence, or existence is a part of them, however you wish to phrase it.

Again. I wonder, and for the sake of the argument deny, that there are discrete things. Except for the one universe.

I would say that 'discreteness' is a fuzzy delusion of my perception of my internal linguistical games. So, I again deny that discreteness holds, in an ontological sense, at some level.

EDIT: Again, it's a bit of stretch, but it comes from my own, say even mystical, experience, that I never in my life have met 'a thing.' And I wonder what that means.

If the issue is mostly about whether or not the parts are discrete or not, and thus can be confirmed to exist inherently instead of as a part of the whole, then I would say that the idea of inherent or whole existence as you are describing it is missing the point.

Things do not need to be separate to be inherent, and the whole does not need to be divisible to have things. You can choose to engage all things as part of arbitrarily large or small systems, (ontological systems), because the only part of existence that has been utterly consistent has been this: all things exist within a larger existence, and contain smaller existences.

Where you decide to stop along this infinite chain of regress is unimportant and arbitrary in my opinion. Each thing within it contains the same infinite microchasms of existence, just as all things are contained within the larger macrochasm of our Universe's existence, and at least to me, logically it is also contained within infinitely larger existence.

There is no stopping point or starting point. Existence contains the Universe, the Universe does not contain existence, so dividing the Universe up into the real and not real is unimportant to me from an ontological perspective.

Side note: I am not actually trying to convince you of anything, and I would like to say that I've found your points fascinating and thought-provoking. This is an angle I have not had to consider the idea I'm proposing from before, and even as I explain it within the context of what you are presenting, my conclusions are not fully formed, and I am not nearly as firm in these opinions as I'm sure I seem to be.

 

[Willowz]

Nothing except more infractions for no defensible reason. A philosophy forum should be moderated by people with a working knowledge of philosophy.

I found your old thread very readable. https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=301514

 

[MarcoD]

You find it to be a fuzzy understanding, but in concluding that it is fuzzy, you assign varying degrees of truth or falsity to them. How could one do so with things that do not exist? Things.

No, you see. That's where I totally disagree with you. In the claim of 'assignment of varying degrees of truth of falsity,' is a presupposition that things exist. (To what can I assign if I don't believe in things, but think that the concept of 'thing' is a delusion?)

Again, I don't deny that I (fuzzily) perceive 'things' as emergent attributes from an internal linguistical game which is the result of an imperfect reflection on reality, but I fail to see how that would make things exist since everything I perceive is fuzzy, and -again- I have never encountered an (undividable/atomic) thing in reality, or in thought.

In the absence of discreteness within the things of our Universe, there would be no such thing as truth or falsity at all, for any particular thing that is either true or false would be a declaration of the truth of falsity of existence itself.

Yes, there cannot be a thing, as truth, since things don't exist. Truth itself is a delusional linguistic abstraction stemming from a linguistic game.

In denying the existence, you confirm it exists. How can you deny that which is not extant? In order to deny it must be described, and this that can be described exists tautologically within its description.

I deny the existence of things, not the universe. The universe I perceive, it exists.

I deny that description is the proof of existence of things. The description is a delusional linguistical game in itself.

I am not saying that the absence of things confirms their existence. Quite the opposite. I am saying that the things which can be declared false or can be denied must be present so that they can be declared upon.

Which is a stretch to far for me, since I deny things exist, and therefor, things cannot be declared false.

How can one deny that which is not anywhere or within anything? The denial of it provides it exists within the context of denial. That has nothing to do with whether or not it is a thing or whether or not it is discrete. It by definition exists, as an idea, as a thing, or as something indescrete, in order to be commented upon at all.

No, the denial is on the fact that 'How can one deny that which is not anywhere or within anything,' is a linguistical stament, a word game, an imperfect delusion. 'The universe is,' is also a word game, but something I experience; 'that what is not' is (only) a word game, since it cannot be experienced.

I suppose the leap I am describing is that knowledge and experience are as concrete an existence as physical existence, they just interact with our Universe using different rules and different mechanisms. But they are a part of existence, or existence is a part of them, however you wish to phrase it.

To me, knowledge and experience and physical perception is the universe - they are all -for lack of better words- 'fuzzy'.

(After that, there is the process of accepting that there is also a physical universe, that I am a part of that, and that knowledge and experience are probably reducable to the universe itself- but I really don't want to start a debate on materialism.)

If the issue is mostly about whether or not the parts are discrete or not, and thus can be confirmed to exist inherently instead of as a part of the whole, then I would say that the idea of inherent or whole existence as you are describing it is missing the point.

Things do not need to be separate to be inherent, and the whole does not need to be divisible to have things. You can choose to engage all things as part of arbitrarily large or small systems, (ontological systems), because the only part of existence that has been utterly consistent has been this: all things exist within a larger existence, and contain smaller existences.

Yeah, well, unless I deny that last statement since the universe is undividable. No things exist.

There is no stopping point or starting point. Existence contains the Universe, the Universe does not contain existence, so dividing the Universe up into the real and not real is unimportant to me from an ontological perspective.

Ah. But you constantly do divide, or make statements which imply that you can divide things. For instance, a 'decision between accepted or rejected.'

Why do I reject decision (in free will)? Because:

A) I reject 'things' exist, except as for as delusions from my mind stemming from a linguistic game. And
B) A decision is a choice between (two) things.

Therefor, decisions don't exist. It is impossible since there is nothing to chose between.

Side note: I am not actually trying to convince you of anything, and I would like to say that I've found your points fascinating and thought-provoking. This is an angle I have not had to consider the idea I'm proposing from before, and even as I explain it within the context of what you are presenting, my conclusions are not fully formed, and I am not nearly as firm in these opinions as I'm sure I seem to be.

I am not trying to convince anyone of anything here too. I just think that I am deluded in my perception of reality, that's an uncommon stance.

 

[bohm2]

But I mostly reject mathematics as a basis for philosophical answers.

So I'm guessing you wouldn't agree with Friedman's quote below?

"the philosophers of the modern tradition from Descartes are not best understood as attempting to stand outside the new science so as to show, from some mysterious point outside of sciences itself that our scientific knowledge somehow mirrors an independently existing reality. Rather, they start from the fact of modern scientific knowledge as a fixed point, as it were. Their problem is not so much to justify this knowledge from some 'higher' standpoint so as to articulate the new philosophical conceptions that are forced upon us by the new science. In Kant's words, mathematics and the science of nature stand in no need of philosophical inquiry for themselves, but for the sake of another science: metaphysics."

If you don't agree, what are some reasons you think this view is mistaken?

 

[MarcoD]

So I'm guessing you wouldn't agree with Friedman's quote below?

"the philosophers of the modern tradition from Descartes are not best understood as attempting to stand outside the new science so as to show, from some mysterious point outside of sciences itself that our scientific knowledge somehow mirrors an independently existing reality. Rather, they start from the fact of modern scientific knowledge as a fixed point, as it were. Their problem is not so much to justify this knowledge from some 'higher' standpoint so as to articulate the new philosophical conceptions that are forced upon us by the new science. In Kant's words, mathematics and the science of nature stand in no need of philosophical inquiry for themselves, but for the sake of another science: metaphysics."

If you don't agree, what are some reasons you think this view is mistaken?

Well, for those who missed it, I just gave an ontological/metaphysical argument that math may fall short of describing reality by questioning a fundamental assumption in it: the existence of things. (Which leads to, among others, counting and the law of the excluded middle.)

I have no other reason except for a) a feeling that we know way less than we think, b) the above argument, and c) (a reason stolen from fundamentalist Islamist) that the rational method leads to reductions at absurdum, or, doesn't seem to have improved our understanding of nature one iota, and d) doesn't seem to have solved any fundamental problem in the world.

I therefor, jokingly, posted that a more fundamental question than 'Why change?' would be 'Who are you?' Now that seems like an unscientific question, but stemming from Greek tradition, if we drop all assumptions, shouldn't the question about other intelligences be more fundamental to our core (ontological) knowledge of the world given what we experience?

 

[apeiron]

but stemming from Greek tradition, if we drop all assumptions...

Do you have a source for this?

Perhaps you mean here the method of induction. So where does that leave deduction (and hence mathematical argument)?

 

[bohm2]

a) a feeling that we know way less than we think,

This is what really confuses me also. On the one hand, one can't help but have this sense of immense progress in selected domains (like in physics) so that we are getting closer to ‘the real properties of the natural world’ and yet if we assume we are like all other animals and not gods, our knowledge must be pretty slim. It seems almost a sure thing that things-in-themselves (if that term even applies) will forever be hidden from us as Kant argued. Consider Pinker's argument:

We are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth. Our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life-and-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness.

Thus, it's argued that our minds like most other biological systems/organs are likely poor solutions to the design-problems posed by nature. They are, "the best solution that evolution could achieve under existing circumstances, but perhaps a clumsy and messy solution." Thus, it seems we cannot have direct knowledge of how the world is like as the knowledge has to be routed in terms of the resources available to our theory-building abilities/mental organs and these are not likely to be "pipelines to the truth".

What is even stranger is the "the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences". Why is abstract mathematics so effective especially given its unlikely role in natural selection. I mean abstract mathematical thinking doesn't appear to have played any role in our evolution. I mean our ancestors didn't even know they had it, I think? I mean, what survival advantage does the ability to do abstract mathematics have to do with dealing with every day objects?

 

[MarcoD]

Do you have a source for this?

Perhaps you mean here the method of induction. So where does that leave deduction (and hence mathematical argument)?

One might wonder whether deduction, and you should define that, is a mathematical argument.

EDIT: Critical thinking is assigned to the Socratic school of thought, but probably older than that. I forgot why it is assigned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

 

[MarcoD]

This is what really confuses me also. On the one hand, one can't help but have this sense of immense progress in selected domains (like in physics) so that we are getting closer to ‘the real properties of the natural world’ and yet if we assume we are like all other animals and not gods, our knowledge must be pretty slim. It seems almost a sure thing that things-in-themselves (if that term even applies) will forever be hidden from us as Kant argued. Consider Pinker's argument:

We are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth. Our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life-and-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness.

Fortunately, this problem is solved by all religions. (This was a joke. Thing is in your argument you assume an awful lot, which I tried to avoid in the ontological denial.)

Thus, it's argued that our minds like most other biological systems/organs are likely poor solutions to the design-problems posed by nature. They are, "the best solution that evolution could achieve under existing circumstances, but perhaps a clumsy and messy solution." Thus, it seems we cannot have direct knowledge of how the world is like as the knowledge has to be routed in terms of the resources available to our theory-building abilities/mental organs and these are not likely to be "pipelines to the truth".

Plato's cave enhanced with biology and evolutionary theory. The problem is that Plato already showed that without biology and evolutionary theory our understanding is hopelessly ineffective. (But to be honest, I don't care to much about these questions. The only interesting thing about my original denial of existence of things is that it might reasonably show that math is inadequate to describe reality. I don't really care to much about the other, for me, unanswerable questions of existence.)

What is even stranger is the "the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences". Why is abstract mathematics so effective especially given its unlikely role in natural selection. I mean abstract mathematical thinking doesn't appear to have played any role in our evolution. I mean our ancestors didn't even know they had it, I think? I mean, what survival advantage does the ability to do abstract mathematics have to do with dealing with every day objects?

I don't buy into that claim except for that I think it's nice to believe as a physicist.

As for the last question, it just seems to me that nukes come in handy when dealing with existential questions of survival.

But, also, you reduced to Darwinism, which is amoral. I rather stopped worrying about that, and wonder more about why we fail to 'transcend' amorality.

EDIT: Maybe we should stop the thread, or discuss the reasonability of math being able to describe reality, or it's unreasonable effectiveness elsewhere.

 

[bohm2]

The thread would be most productive if we could go through Tegmarks reasonings for a mathematical universe. That is, why does he think it is indispensabile? "Just because it is", doesn't cut the mustard.

I think Tegmark comes to that conclusion because to a large extent,

"the propositions of physics are equations, equations that contain numbers, terms that refer without describing, many other mathematical symbols, and nothing else; and that these equations, being what they are, can only tell us about the abstract or mathematically characterizable structure of matter or the physical world without telling us anything else about the nature of the thing that exemplifies the structure. Even in the case of spacetime, as opposed to matter or force—to the doubtful extent that these three things can be separated—it’s unclear whether we have any knowledge of its intrinsic nature beyond its abstract or mathematically representable structure."

Thus, in physics, the propositions are invariably mathematical expressions that are totally devoid of direct pictoriality. Physicists believe that physics has to 'free itself' from ‘intuitive pictures’ and give up the hope of ‘visualizing the world'. Steven Weinberg traces the realistic significance of physics to its mathematical formulations: ‘we have all been making abstract mathematical models of the universe to which at least the physicists give a higher degree of reality than they accord the ordinary world of sensations' ( e.g. so-called 'Galilean Style').

But I think it's far-fetched to jump the ship and say there is nothing but math because one still has a "math-phenonology" unification problem replacing the mind-body explanatory gap. For how do mathematical entities lead to phenomenology? It seems to me that mathematical objects because of their abstractness are just the best mental objects/tools we have for describing stuff that our senses and every day notions cannot describe. But there seems to be far more than just mathematical objects as introspection/subjectivity reveals:

"And Since we know—more certainly than anything else—that experience is real, and is therefore wholly physical, if materialism is true, we have reason, as materialists, to think, with Priestley, Russell, Eddington, and others, that experientiality is a fundamental feature of the physical."

http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262513102pref2.pdf

 

[klimatos]

This is the kind of question that makes me bang my head on my desk. Why do people spend time on such useless questions? Oh, I know, philosophy asks the questions that don't need to be asked. <bangs head on desk>

Carry on.

My sympathies, Evo. I only hope that you have an indefinitely large supply of desks. I would have said "an infinite supply" except that some reader would have been sure to ask me "just exactly what do you mean by 'infinite'".

 

[Evo]

My sympathies, Evo. I only hope that you have an indefinitely large supply of desks. I would have said "an infinite supply" except that some reader would have been sure to ask me "just exactly what do you mean by 'infinite'".

LOL, unfortunately I only have one head.

 

[foolishwun]

Reality is an illusion, but the thing that's being eluded is also a part of that illusion.
First consider the fact that there is a possibility that all that exists is the very moment where you understand what I am saying now, with all memories of the even recent past nothing but an artificial arrangement of atoms and electrical activity. There is no objective present, only a quantumly subjective one. Think of it as a quantumly decided random outcome in infinite dimensions. A random position, a random present, a random set of universal laws, a random observer existent in any way that agrees with the universal laws and the logic that allows it to exist in the first place. It's like when you look directly at an electron or photon or whatever and say "why am I in the universe where this is here, instead of somewhere else in the wave funtion?" The same concept can be applied to every dimension of your subjectivity: location, present, even the universe that allows you to exist in the first place. Each of these things exists, at an abstract level, perpendicularly to the last, and the observer is a random outcome in any place where he/she is possible.
Anyone get what I mean? >.>

 

[estro]

Reality is an illusion, but the thing that's being eluded is also a part of that illusion.
First consider the fact that there is a possibility that all that exists is the very moment where you understand what I am saying now, with all memories of the even recent past nothing but an artificial arrangement of atoms and electrical activity. There is no objective present, only a quantumly subjective one. Think of it as a quantumly decided random outcome in infinite dimensions. A random position, a random present, a random set of universal laws, a random observer existent in any way that agrees with the universal laws and the logic that allows it to exist in the first place. It's like when you look directly at an electron or photon or whatever and say "why am I in the universe where this is here, instead of somewhere else in the wave funtion?" The same concept can be applied to every dimension of your subjectivity: location, present, even the universe that allows you to exist in the first place. Each of these things exists, at an abstract level, perpendicularly to the last, and the observer is a random outcome in any place where he/she is possible.
Anyone get what I mean? >.>

To me it sounds like a random collection of words.
Can you describe the idea, using short logical arguments. [after all philosophy should be logical?]

 

[estro]

Today I have a mood for some philosophy!

...
Why there is something rather than nothing?
...

Do you know why does a dog lick his balls?
I guess you can put the dog as a metaphor for the universe. =)

 

[Willowz]

Today I have a mood for some philosophy!


Do you know why does a dog lick his balls?
I guess you can put the dog as a metaphor for the universe. =)

Durrrrr! Does not compute.

 

[estro]

Durrrrr! Does not compute.

You can answer these both questions using similar logic...=)

 

[NorEaster]

Interestingly, this post was sent as a post-reply forum alert (within a forum email), and I remember commenting on this subject, and yet I can't find whatever it was that I posted within this thread. I guess I'm just not doing something right, but I still can address some of this.

Reality is an illusion, but the thing that's being eluded is also a part of that illusion.

The truth is that your singular perception of reality is an illusion - crafted by the cognitive vetting process that manages all information that is allowed to be loaded into your corporeal brain's short term memory. That said, to believe that the whole of reality is an illusion is to suggest that you are the Alpha and Omega of what lies above and beyond existence itself and are being served by that existential whole as the central purpose of that whole. A good self image is important, but there are boundaries between what is good and what is a little too good, and your assertion might be an illustration of the crossing of such a boundary in this case.

First consider the fact that there is a possibility that all that exists is the very moment where you understand what I am saying now, with all memories of the even recent past nothing but an artificial arrangement of atoms and electrical activity.

In reference to your perception, this is true, but only regarding your perception. The caveat that I would inject here is that what you understand to be "now" is anywhere from 3-7 seconds in the past (delayed reality perception) since the cognitive vetting process takes a moment to shed, mask, amplify, minimize, and otherwise "massage" all the data (stored residual, ruminative, audio/visual/sensory) that is streaming into your short term memory as a mix-down wash of corporeal consciousness at this specific instant.

Once that data has been streamed in (in the form of a residual data clone of the real associated "burst" whole of indivisible conscious intellect) the carbon storage material (that we're all constructed of) stores that cloned data for quick access, since this is on-board data storage/access/application/configuration capacity is what makes the brain itself such a superior survival data management system (as opposed to the point-of-application DNA directives system found in much more primitive corporeal matrix wholes). The original Intellect "burst" (a dynamic information/event unit hybrid) immediately associates with existing "bursts" from the same corporeal authoring brain, forming a unique existential hybrid collective, but that's a subject for discussion within a different thread.

There is no objective present, only a quantumly subjective one.

Actually, there is a definitive present, but it only lasts the span of the contextual environment's Unit Rate of Change (URC) before being replaced by the next change (event) unit. We refer to each of these indivisible event units as "now", and it's fair to say that they are very short-lived. They do - however - survive as associated unit configurations of information (the facts of these event units having occurred), but that's a completely different form of physical existence, so in truth, these event units do not literally survive the instant. That said, they can logically survive as contributive holon units within larger event holons, which can also be integral to progressively larger event holons, giving all associated event units logically representative survival as long as the umbrella event trajectory survives.

It can get pretty complicated when you start examining umbrella event holons that approach the sophistication of those that we perceive as material existence. By that time, the holon layers are fairly extreme, and the contextual ramifications are very rigid (by juxtapositional default impact, of course), and the potentials have become comfortably predictable.

Think of it as a quantumly decided random outcome in infinite dimensions. A random position, a random present, a random set of universal laws, a random observer existent in any way that agrees with the universal laws and the logic that allows it to exist in the first place. It's like when you look directly at an electron or photon or whatever and say "why am I in the universe where this is here, instead of somewhere else in the wave funtion?" The same concept can be applied to every dimension of your subjectivity: location, present, even the universe that allows you to exist in the first place. Each of these things exists, at an abstract level, perpendicularly to the last, and the observer is a random outcome in any place where he/she is possible.

What you're suggesting is superposition, which defies the elegant efficiency of the real reality that sits beneath you and allows you the progressive stability and capacity to consider its structure. What we know of reality - that it is exceedingly crisp in its elimination of what is cumbersome and non-essential - is directly contrary to the launching-of-infinite-realities-upon-the-manifestation-of-the-choice-not-made notion that bases what you just described. What exists as stable and relatively reliable can't be structured as a result of that which is random and infinitely malleable, since these qualities sets are incompatible with one another at a core level. This means that the random existential foundation that you describe can't progress into the stable and dependable real that serve you as well as it does from moment to moment. The point of stability in any system that is inherently instable simply does exist. There can't logically ever emerge a transition point from true instability and randomness to what is essentially its own antithesis.

As far as random is concerned, it is exactly what it suggests that it is - completely undependable and unpredictable. There are no actual degrees of randomness. There are only incorrect perceptions of that which is not truly random, but actually structured within a pattern scheme that has yet to be accurately discerned or observed by the unassociated and freely dynamic Intellect. If you are positioned 3 inches from a 100 square yard patterned whole, your point of perspective is simply too close to allow you to view the pattern that exists despite your inability to observe it. That doesn't mean that the pattern doesn't exist until you finally get around to realizing its existence. It means that you are incapable of observing it in its entirety until that moment when the pattern becomes obvious to you. This is why there is the material capacity to back up a bit and take another look. Maybe not "why" that capacity exists, but since it does exist, it's good to take advantage of it now and again.

Reality exist, and while it's not Harry Potter-ville, it's pretty amazing.

Anyone get what I mean? >.>

I get what you mean. Do you get what I mean?

 

[shashankac655]

Why there is something rather than nothing?

Actually, this itself is an assumption! what makes you think there is something?
What if our consciousness is just an illusion.
Some Ancient Indian philosophers came up with the theory that the universe is our consciousness(an illusion)
Maya

Don't ask me for proofs ,i was just trying to tell that some people have tried to answer this question.

 

[bohm2]

What if our consciousness is just an illusion.

That doesn't make sense. How can consciousness be an illusion?

 

[shashankac655]

That doesn't make sense. How can consciousness be an illusion?

I was thinking that our whole life is a big dream and we will all wake up when we die.

 

[chiro]

Why anything at all?

Well anything is just a term we use in a descriptive capacity.

Like a fish that lives in water, we are the same but in a different kind of fish-bowl.

We only know of how to describe things that we can sense, or things that we have a created a way to sense, like mathematics.

No one can visualize four dimensions visually, but mathematics provides a gateway to sensing this in a new way, and like any other language, it helps us make sense of the world by reducing some aspect of it down so that it can be attempted to be understood.

My best guess is that these "senses" will evolve with new language that is beyond our current understanding.

Just in the way that the pythagoreans couldn't come to terms with real numbers, it will probably be the same with us. The future will have language that is so far removed from our current state of being, just like we take the complex numbers for granted now, when even a couple of hundred years ago, many could not comprehend the necessity and the power that these give us.

 

[Sefrez]

You would think that you could not differentiate the two, something and nothing. But it does seem, here, that I can by simply saying that this question wouldn't be asked if there were nothing. But that is implying that nothing is of what we think nothing is to be. Or in other words, is this question even something? I'm unsure.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Actually, the original question assumed anything exists. I demand proof that anything exists.

 

[bohm2]

Actually, the original question assumed anything exists. I demand proof that anything exists.

Descartes: "I think, I exist"? I think one would have trouble trying to question their own existence.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Descartes: "I think, I exist"? I think one would have trouble trying to question their own existence.

I exist. But I'm not sure about you or Descartes. Besides, the question is "why" anything exists. I exist, but I have no idea why.

 

[apeiron]

I exist. But I'm not sure about you or Descartes.

You only need the existence of one particular thing to motivate the more general question of why should anything exist. And it is a legitimate metaphysical question that is worth taking more seriously.

Some try to answer it in terms of material cause (some event like a quantum fluctuation).

Some employ final cause (existence is necessary to complete some sort of purpose).

The OP was about an argument based on formal cause - the ways to exist far out-number the simple alternative of non-existence.

So it is a question that forces you to question your very understanding of "existence" and "causality". What is the ground beneath these fundamental notions?

 

[SW VandeCarr]

So it is a question that forces you to question your very understanding of "existence" and "causality". What is the ground beneath these fundamental notions?

Frankly I find these discussions rather useless and annoying. The OP's question as to "why" anything ultimately exists has no answer IMO outside theology and as such should be off limits, even in this forum.

 

[apeiron]

Frankly I find these discussions rather useless and annoying. The OP's question as to "why" anything exists has no answer IMO outside theology and as such should be off limits, even in this forum.

That seems an odd reaction to me. Philosophy is in fact more about how to frame questions properly than in delivering the certainty of an answer. You can always hope to do at least that much.

While perhaps theology does start with its answer, then seeks its supporting framework of argumentation (in so far as it needs to justify what people are going to believe from social indoctrination anyway).

But here in this forum, it is pretty clear that you have to demonstrate why the question has no possible answer before you can call for it to be ruled "off limits". Are you suggesting it is a tautology or ill-posed for some other standard reason?