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Why does anything exist?

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Re: Why does anything exist?

#161

Post by logicchop »

a_techwriter_00 wrote: post #150
logicchop wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't see what the infinite sequence of contingency buys you. Seems you might as well say there is fundamentally no reason why anything is (though I think that's untenable).

Re: Why does anything exist?

#162

Post by triyambakam »

bergenty wrote: post #155
triyambakam wrote: post #86

> The religious person is left with a mystery which is no less than the mystery with which science leaves us As a Hindu I find this baffling. For the Hindu there is a consistency across science and religion, and sometimes the line between the two isn't clear. They work together harmoniously to form my worldview. Based on the cursory information I have about the author's background, I am assuming he was exposed to Wes…

I’m Hindu too but why come up with some random bullshit rather than try to figure out what is happening. If you want to call god the universe just say universe. The value of Hinduism is in cultural heritage and providing a pathway for life. It’s in tapping into the mysticism and indulging in the rituals to make life interesting.

Is this question directed at me, or the article's author?

If me, how do you mean that I am not figuring out what is happening? I have it figured out.

I agree that Hinduism has cultural value and guidance for life but I don't see how what I said is contrary to that.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#163

Post by voxl »

vehemenz wrote: post #23

As a philosopher, I recommend that anyone read up on ontological anti-realism before they get too invested in the answer to questions like these. Carnap and Quine (to say nothing of Kant) wrote extensively about the problems that arise when treating metaphysical "existence" as a predicate. There are strong reasons to adopt ontological anti-realism. I'm amused when folks muse extensively in the ontological mode withou…

"Metaphysical realism is the thesis that the objects, properties and relations the world contains, collectively: the structure of the world [Sider 2011], exists independently of our thoughts about it or our perceptions of it."

This is _necessarily_ true, to believe otherwise is to make an absurdist claim that humans are somehow special. It's "the earth is the center of the universe" all over again.

Of course, you could always take the truly absurd way out, and claim that _you_ are what is special, and everything else is mere simulacrum for you by you. By all means, admit to this.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#164

Post by logicchop »

mannykannot wrote: post #157
logicchop wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the whole point of God as an explanation. God is where the buck stops on contingency. God is necessary.

It seems to me that you have created a one-time exception that gets yourself out of the infinite regress that this line of thought leads to. All it does, however, is to raise another question to replace the original one: why is God necessary?

I think it does exactly that, which is supposes a one-time exception to get out of infinite regress. But, I mean, if God exists, that's how it is. So the story doesn't seem incoherent. As for asking why is God necessary, I think that is a misplaced question. God's necessity wouldn't derive from something else, because then it wouldn't be necessity (just another derived contingency). The starting point is that something necessary has to be the basis of the rest of the stuff, that's it.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#165

Post by atmartins »

caloriesdont wrote: post #78
jawns wrote: post #59

If 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…

What about the law of conservation of matter? When have you seen anything cease to exist, and not merely transform?

Isn't the question about the universe existing really asking where energy/matter came from? How the energy and matter are configured is a different question entirely, it seems.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#166

Post by layer8 »

My take is the following:

I don't think that "existence" is an actual property of $whatever, an actual property in the sense that it could be either way (either exists or not) without logical contradiction. Because if that were the case, both a reality where $whatever exists or where it does not exist would be conceivable, or in other words, whether $whatever exists or does not exists would be arbitrary, without explanation of why it is one way and not the other. Because, if there would be an explanation why it is one way and not the other, then effectively it would be a necessary consequence and not a freely choosable property. So, if on the other hand it is arbitrary, then that means that effectively there cannot be an explanation. Another way to put this is that anything "existing" must either mean it is an (necessarily arbitrarry, in the sense of freely chosen) axiom, or that is a mere implication.

Now comes the subjective part: Necessarily arbitrary axioms are highly unattractive, because they cannot ever be explained, by definition. If we accept such a thing, then implicitly everything is arbitrary (within the realm of what is logically consistent) due to the arbitraryness of the axioms from which everything derives, and thus there cannot be an explanation of the specific "existing" reality. Therefore, by Occam's razor, it makes much more sense to me to not assume that reality is based on such inherent arbitraryness, and rather assume (which is really the absence of an assumption) that everything that is logically consistent "exists". However, labelling it as "existing" is meaningless, because in that view that is just a synonym for "logically consistent". So, that's why I don't think that "existing" is a property different from "logically consistent".

Re: Why does anything exist?

#167

Post by 8bitsrule »

eldenwrong wrote: post #132
otikik wrote: post #127

Earlier 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.

Everything we can observe in this universe has a cause and effect. The first cause is God.

If the physical universe always existed, then it needed no creator. If it was created, then the question moves back a step: where'd the creator come from? And we wind up with the same mystery.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#168

Post by layer8 »

triyambakam wrote: post #86

> The religious person is left with a mystery which is no less than the mystery with which science leaves us As a Hindu I find this baffling. For the Hindu there is a consistency across science and religion, and sometimes the line between the two isn't clear. They work together harmoniously to form my worldview. Based on the cursory information I have about the author's background, I am assuming he was exposed to Wes…

> God is the universal wave function.

I suspect that that's disingenious, because calling it "God" implies that you think it is actually in some way more than what the universal wave function is in physics. Because otherwise why would you have a problem with an atheist physisist who believes the wave function describes the universe, and there is not more to it than that mathematical desciption?

Re: Why does anything exist?

#169

Post by dasil003 »

jiggywiggy wrote: post #151
dasil003 wrote: post #138

> For most of history, the question remained beyond the possibility of being answered. But we live in a most-exciting point in time: one where this question has fallen to the progress of human knowledge. > [...] > We now have viable answers to great questions of existence: > [...] > It required us to assume math, rather than matter, is fundamental. For all the length of this exposition, the conclusion is pure Streetl…

Us humans are all just meaning machines. We are on a constant quest of meaning. Quiet tiring to be honest. Somehow the question keeps arising in human mind, what does it all mean? (Especially if we have too much time to think) Yet us modern folks keep trying to solve it outside of our mind in which it arises, biology, physics, whatever. Maybe the answer is more straightforward?

Agree with you 100% and I love the way you phrased that. Maybe it is more straightforward, and I respect everyone's beliefs here.

The hard part is proving it one way or the other.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#170

Post by Booktrope »

logicchop wrote: post #148
otikik wrote: post #127

Earlier 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…

Wait! Contingent was just defined as everything that's not necessary. Not contingent with its normal meaning of dependent on something else. Like, a square has 4 sides, that's necessary for it to be called a square, but it might or might not depend on something else for that quality. Or a square is blue, that's contingent (i.e., what's not necessary in this usage for it to be called a square), and it might or might not depend on something else.

If you are using "contingent" with its normal meaning, the idea is absurd. We can divide everything that exists into "necessary" and "contingent", one or the other? We might as well divide everything into edible and picturesque, for example. Words, but more like word salad than meaningful statements.

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