even funnier: If there are non zero odds for something to arise out of nothing the amount of nothing has disturbing consequences. It must happen infinity often, it always did and will continue forever.
Why does anything exist?
141–150 of 233 posts
Re: Why does anything exist?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you give an example of a "necessary" thing? You brought up the square having four sides thing, but that's not about existence. Furthermore, why does a contingent thing have to depend on a necessary thing?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy presents a brief overview that addresses some of the questions you raise: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-necessary-being/
No it does not.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#143If you like the question of "Why does anything exist?" then an obvious next question is: "What's stopping things from not existing?" In philosophy, there is a distinction between things that must be (they're called necessary) and things that may or may not be (they're called contingent). For instance, if we use the standard definition of a square, then every square you will ever encounter will necessarily have four s…
but isn't the problem that you could get stuck in an infinite contingency loop? i.e if you pick God, what if God is contingent and so on. Sure you can say something is required but it's rather arbitrary.
That is the whole point of God as an explanation. God is where the buck stops on contingency. God is necessary.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#144If you like the question of "Why does anything exist?" then an obvious next question is: "What's stopping things from not existing?" In philosophy, there is a distinction between things that must be (they're called necessary) and things that may or may not be (they're called contingent). For instance, if we use the standard definition of a square, then every square you will ever encounter will necessarily have four s…
Can you give an example of a "necessary" thing? You brought up the square having four sides thing, but that's not about existence. Furthermore, why does a contingent thing have to depend on a necessary thing?
Depends on if you mean direct-dependence or some ancestral-dependence. Contingent things can depend on other contingent things in some narrow scope. But a complete answer to "why X?" (e.g., "because Y") should avoid begging the question (e.g., "ok, why Y?").
Re: Why does anything exist?
#145I had a mushroom trip that made this all make sense (at the time). The gist of it was, there was never nothing. Nothing is a made up concept. It's deeply valuable, but there is no instance of any kind of nothing that actually exists. There is only "exists". The most basic form of existence is change. Even if there had been nothing, and something came from it, in order for something to come from it, there would first…
My favorite cyclic theory so far is probably Roger Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology. In essence the universe keeps expanding exponentially which in the end becomes equivalent to a new big bang since the universe at that point will loose all notions of scale due to their being no more particles to drive scale. A much better explanation is given here https://youtu.be/FVDJJVoTx7s
Re: Why does anything exist?
#146Logged in to say something about how the question is based on a false dichotomy, but now I think it better just to say nothing.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everything we can observe in this universe has a cause and effect. The first cause is God.
Theology fits comfortably with our intuitive perception of time, but that doesn’t make it the definitive answer.
It doesn't really have anything to do with time. The "sustainment" question is different from the "causal" question. Causal questions are typically temporal and past-looking. Sustainment is a question about "now", always.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#148If you like the question of "Why does anything exist?" then an obvious next question is: "What's stopping things from not existing?" In philosophy, there is a distinction between things that must be (they're called necessary) and things that may or may not be (they're called contingent). For instance, if we use the standard definition of a square, then every square you will ever encounter will necessarily have four s…
> But if our universe is contingent, then it must be contingent upon something that is necessary You say that as if it was a obvious why, but to me that looks like a baseless assumption. The way I see it, if our universe is contingent, then that’s all we can know , the journey ends, there’s nothing else we can deduce. I simply can’t “assume” that there’s a “necessary substrate” just … because.
You probably have to assume there is a necessary substrate. What else can you possibly think? Contingency means being contingent on something else. You could suppose that the "something else" is itself contingent, but then you have another contingency. At some point you will likely take it for granted that there must be something that is itself not contingent and that the rest of the stuff downstream turns on it being the way it is.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#149If you like the question of "Why does anything exist?" then an obvious next question is: "What's stopping things from not existing?" In philosophy, there is a distinction between things that must be (they're called necessary) and things that may or may not be (they're called contingent). For instance, if we use the standard definition of a square, then every square you will ever encounter will necessarily have four s…
> our universe requires a "sustaining cause" (as with a picture on a TV set). Diving further into this, there's a hot debate about whether the universe does require a sustaining cause (the Existential Expiration thesis), or whether it can just exist unless something stops it from existing (Existential Inertia Thesis) Personally, I am inclined to think that things tend to keep existing unless something stops them from…
Maybe, but the capacity for "something" to "stop something else from existing" seems to depend on laws, and the laws themselves seem pretty contingent. Why are the laws sustained? If the laws changed and things themselves caused their own demise, things couldn't just go on existing. So what keeps the current laws on the books?
Re: Why does anything exist?
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But if our universe is contingent, then it must be contingent upon something that is necessary You say that as if it was a obvious why, but to me that looks like a baseless assumption. The way I see it, if our universe is contingent, then that’s all we can know , the journey ends, there’s nothing else we can deduce. I simply can’t “assume” that there’s a “necessary substrate” just … because.
You probably have to assume there is a necessary substrate. What else can you possibly think? Contingency means being contingent on something else. You could suppose that the "something else" is itself contingent, but then you have another contingency. At some point you will likely take it for granted that there must be something that is itself not contingent and that the rest of the stuff downstream turns on it bein…
Can the universe be infinite? Whatever layer of contingent substrate one finds, can't there be another one lurking behind it, just as contingent?