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Why does anything exist?

alwaysasking.com

171–180 of 233 posts

Re: Why does anything exist?

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our universe requires a "sustaining cause" (as with a picture on a TV set). The movie doesn't cease to exist because you turned the television off, only the projection of it into those particular photons. Top Gun will continue to exist even if you break every Blu Ray of it into tiny pieces, crush those pieces to powder, and melt the result into a formless goo. Movies are purely information, a sequence of bits. Thos…

> Top Gun will continue to exist even if you break every Blu Ray of it into tiny pieces If you destroy every recording of Top Gun, it will cease to exist. > The bit sequence doesn't stop existing just because we delete every manifestation Yes it does. And Top Gun didn't exist before 1986.

The concept of Pi and the irrationality of sqrt(2) predates the universe itself. Think about it.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#172

I 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…

Not the change, the information about the change itself predated the change.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#173
In response to Leibniz's ontological query "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Morgenbesser answered "If there were nothing you'd still be complaining!" — Sidney Morgenbesser

https://quotepark.com/quotes/1744434-sidney-morgenbesser-in-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Morgenbesser

Re: Why does anything exist?

#174
To me, the issue and flaw with this argument, as with most computation-based theories about existence and consciousness, is that we like to conceive of computation in purely abstract terms. But it's been known since the 1940s that the concept of computation is founded on information theory, which is simply a restatement of parts of the laws of thermodynamics, which are derived from classical physics and applicable only in the macro world.

But we know that the universe is not classical in nature. So it seems to me that trying to use a classical-only approximation to do all the backfilling to a theory of the nature of existence must necessarily come up short. It feels "like butter scraped over too much bread."

Information theory also establishes that any information state must correspond directly to a physical state, so it seems to me most likely that all our concepts of mathematics are not communions with the mind of God, but projections of some aspect of the physical functioning of our brains. And since our brains are products of a non-classical universe, the classical nature of our concepts of computation represents some sort of essential reduction of complexity; just like our brains reduce the complexity of our sensory inputs to produce a model of the world sensible enough for us to act on. Trying to employ that reduced-complexity model to account for the nature of existence itself is necessarily forced and futile in my view, like trying to explain the nature of a reflection in a mirror as an alternate dimension.

It reminds me of how Frank Tipler pointed out that Nietzsche's theories of physics and his concept of eternal return were in fact formally correct, or would be if the universe were classical in nature. But the universe is non-classical, and thus there were surprises in 20th century calculations of the nature and destiny of the universe.

Until there are full non-classical theories of physics and of computation, I think we as well will need to expect surprises in conceptions of how existence came about.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#175
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…

> https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHEIA-20

Some back and forth between Schmid (author of the paper) and Feser (whose arguments it is critiquing):

* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2021/07/schmid-on-aristotel...

* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2021/07/schmid-on-existenti...

Re: Why does anything exist?

#176

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Why does anything exist?

#177
post #53

Does "cause" exist? I didn't spend the hours reading the entire article, but after 10-15min I realized that the author has adopted a "caused" vs. "uncaused" taxonomy, without really defining what "caused" means. Does causality exist or is it simply an observational phenomenon that is a side effect of our limited perception of space-time? Kind of like "centrifugal force" is an observational phenomenon. Maybe there is…

I like the question 'Does "cause" exist?' because it exposes the fact that basic terms haven't been defined and axioms haven't been made clear.

This kind of discussion can (and definitely has, in my opinion) devolved into meaningless rambling as a result of vague or missing definitions. I didn't read the whole article either, obviously (way too long), so I may have missed the author defining things.

Even the question "Why does anything exist?" is never really broken down and defined. What kind of answers are we looking for?

When dealing with philosophical stuff it's crucial to define terms very carefully. If you can't make clear definitions, you're in the realm of nonsense.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is much wrong with this post, I'm embarrassed to respond to it. Our minds don't interpret the world through a binary model. Abandoning your rational mind means what exactly?

Look at the rest of the debate below the original answer, and maybe you will get an idea of what I meant. My choice of words shouldn’t be the basis for attacking my points, especially since there’s more context in this very same thread that expands on my ideas. Maybe instead of coming against me with an incendiary comment, make an effort to gain more insight into my views and add some value to the discussion. Again,…

You are right. I apologize for my rude behavior. COVID has been rough on me.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our universe requires a "sustaining cause" (as with a picture on a TV set). The movie doesn't cease to exist because you turned the television off, only the projection of it into those particular photons. Top Gun will continue to exist even if you break every Blu Ray of it into tiny pieces, crush those pieces to powder, and melt the result into a formless goo. Movies are purely information, a sequence of bits. Thos…

> Top Gun will continue to exist even if you break every Blu Ray of it into tiny pieces If you destroy every recording of Top Gun, it will cease to exist. > The bit sequence doesn't stop existing just because we delete every manifestation Yes it does. And Top Gun didn't exist before 1986.

Top Gun still exists in the minds of everyone who has seen it. It is an idea as well as a performance. And you don't need to consume any particular encoding of the performance to continue to either enjoy or hate it. Art is weird like that.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our universe requires a "sustaining cause" (as with a picture on a TV set). The movie doesn't cease to exist because you turned the television off, only the projection of it into those particular photons. Top Gun will continue to exist even if you break every Blu Ray of it into tiny pieces, crush those pieces to powder, and melt the result into a formless goo. Movies are purely information, a sequence of bits. Thos…

> Top Gun will continue to exist even if you break every Blu Ray of it into tiny pieces If you destroy every recording of Top Gun, it will cease to exist. > The bit sequence doesn't stop existing just because we delete every manifestation Yes it does. And Top Gun didn't exist before 1986.

We stop knowing about it, but it still exists. It's just a number. You can't delete a number from existence, you can just delete your copy of it.
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