Logged in to say something about how the question is based on a false dichotomy, but now I think it better just to say nothing.
You said something, not nothing, though.
Why does anything exist?
181–190 of 233 posts
Re: Why does anything exist?
#182Survivor bias. If nothing existed [1], we wouldn't be here to ask the question. It's like asking what is P(A|A). The question "Why do I not exist" has never and will never be (seriously) asked. [1] To be clear, if only nothing existed, and there existed nothing other than nothingness. [2] [2] I sense epistemologists warming their guns here, asking if the "existence" of "nothing" counts as the existence of "something"…
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Re: Why does anything exist?
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Don’t sweat it. Thanks for the reply. And if it helps at all I agree that “binary” was the wrong word. I couldn’t come up with anything else that articulated what I was thinking.
What I meant is that us humans have this tendency to describe the world through dualistic models: good and bad, light and dark, mind and body, reason and emotion, nurture and nature, etc.
Inarguably this model has helped us to rationalize a lot of insights about the universe. However there are probabably a lot of ideas about our universe that can only be described through a dialectic model.
In fact, it was this type of thinking what allowed Einstein to image the paradox that gave birth to the general theory of relativity.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#184Wrong question.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 somethi…
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Re: Why does anything exist?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Sorry but at you. What do you even mean by god is the universal wave function. That means nothing. What is a wave function? Like in the uncertainty principle?
Re: Why does anything exist?
#187>So long as we operate from a theory of geometry, we can’t define nothingness as anything less than a space of zero-dimensionality. >This leaves us with a point. That's still not nothing.
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Re: Why does anything exist?
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 somethi…
Not being obviously incoherent is not an argument for that belief being correct; it is merely the very minimum a belief has to achieve to avoid being summarily dismissed for being irrational.
I can understand why you would like the question of why God is necessary to be "misplaced" (which is a euphemism for what, exactly? It is no less coherent than the other questions being entertained here), but, with your 'that's it", you are simply refusing to look further than the answer you wanted.
Furthermore, as I am sure you are aware, 'God' is a loaded term, on which has been heaped a huge amount of conceptual baggage. Therefore, I assume you chose to write 'God', rather than some more neutral term such as 'necessary cause', for some purpose - but what? Your argument for there being a necessary cause would not offer any reason to justify any of that baggage.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
What interests me is that if there is only the point, there's no external system for reference. So the point has no coordinates, no observable properties... right?
You said "there is only the point", which means there is something. That's not nothing.
To observe something, you need another reference frame.
Without an external reference frame, there's no extrinsic information about the point, and if the point is dimensionless, then there is no intrinsic information, either.
What you are left with, is the notion of a point, with no way to describe or observe it.
Re: Why does anything exist?
#190I think it's interesting to see the ease with which a few commenters on this thread assume they either 1) know how to answer this question or 2) are comfortable hand-waving it away.
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