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Why does anything exist?

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Re: Why does anything exist?

#191

Post by mannykannot »

logicchop wrote: post #161
a_techwriter_00 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

"What it buys you" suggests that we should assume reality is fundamentally organized for our convenience or comfort, or to avoid being too challenging to our intellectual powers and/or beliefs.

By introducing the concept of reasons into the discussion, you seem to be adding a new dimension of purpose to it (unless you are using 'reason' as a synonym for 'cause', but if so, it would have been clearer to stick with the latter.) Your belief that the universe has a purpose (if that is what you are saying here) does not logically compel anyone else to accept a first cause.

Update: In your view, there is a hierarchy of causes of something, the first of which is necessary and the rest of which are contingent. Therefore, the second cause was contingent. This implies that the first cause made a choice between which of the second-cause options obtained. But as the first cause had a choice, then it could have gone another way, so it was contingent...

Re: Why does anything exist?

#192

Post by erklik »

anthk wrote: post #171
booleandilemma wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

How? Get rid of the universe, and the concept of pi doesn't exist. Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to it's diameter. Circles didn't exist before the universe, thus no pi. There could be another universe where circles are impossible due to whatever laws of physics exist, thus no pi.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#193

Post by mr_toad »

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…

> In Hinduism God is not a man or a woman, but instead the energy that is manifest in every atom of every universe. God is the universal wave function.

Greg Egan called this the Church of the God that Makes No Difference.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#194

Post by thatswrong0 »

enw wrote: post #111
yes_man wrote: post #36

Having listened to a dozen YT videos and podcasts on the subject, I am kind of an expert (just kidding). But I can relay one view a few brilliant people invested into the subject have about the issue: that reality is a set of all possible states. Of what states? Well literally anything. Imagine a wave that can at any point oscillate up or down. If it does both and splits, it eventually will create all possible states…

> So universes with (seemingly) deterministic laws of any kind are just extremely rare sub-trees of this wave of ”every possible wavestate”. Wow! This is very similar to what I experienced when I accidentally ingested a large amount of psilocybin (and went to ER just in case, it was the most terrifying experience of my life). This is what I wrote in my notes post the bad trip: "I felt a disconnection from my self and…

Yeah, I've had a few experiences that resulted in an extremely similar train of thought (minus the ER). Terrifying but pretty interesting.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#195

Post by im3w1l »

Before asking why, can we even prove that anything does exist?

Three famous quotes that many people agree with: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" "I think therefore I exist" "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

We can interpret the first saying that it is questionable if something exists if it isn't perceived. It ties reality to perception. The second quote insists that a person exists because he is thinking, because he is exhibiting conscious activity. How can we interpret the last one. What does it mean that something "doesn't go away". I take it to mean that it keeps affecting you and impacting your life.

I think it's pretty interesting that it all seems to tie into the experience of a conscious entity. Maybe it's a self-centered view of the world, or maybe these two concepts really are intrinsically linked.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#196

Post by ako »

logicchop wrote: post #164
mannykannot wrote: post #157

Earlier 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…

If god can be the one-time exception, the universe can also be the one-time exception.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#197

Post by aeonik »

ako wrote: post #196
logicchop wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If god can be the one-time exception, the universe can also be the one-time exception.

I agree with this, but we don't really know if the universe is God using this infinite regress definition.

The cool part about this definition of God, is that it necessitates the existence by definition, and gives a falsifiable hypothesis.

Continuing with this definition, current cosmological theories would then imply that the Big Bang is God. Though this explanation of the beginning of everything leaves me unsatisfied. It just feels like something else kicked everything off.

We really need a way to peer behind the Event Horizon of the Big Bang, which we obviously can't do empirically, so we are stuck using logical deductions.

I personally think studying pure math and some of the more untested physics theories like String Theory, and Stephen Wolfram's physics project give a lot of food for thought.

Enumerating every possible pattern, while computationally infeasible, still paints an interesting landscape, even granting how little of it we can describe.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#198

Post by hackerlight »

erklik wrote: post #192
anthk wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> The concept of Pi and the irrationality of sqrt(2) predates the universe itself. Think about it. How? Get rid of the universe, and the concept of pi doesn't exist. Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to it's diameter. Circles didn't exist before the universe, thus no pi. There could be another universe where circles are impossible due to whatever laws of physics exist, thus no pi.

> There could be another universe where circles are impossible due to whatever laws of physics exist, thus no pi.

Circles (perfect ones) are impossible in our universe, too. Circles are abstractions. If we have successfully deduced a conclusion from a set of axioms, wouldn't that deduction hold true in all possible universes?

The mathematical realist position is that these abstract math objects exist independent of an observer.

Re: Why does anything exist?

#199

Post by ako »

aeonik wrote: post #197
ako wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If god can be the one-time exception, the universe can also be the one-time exception.

I agree with this, but we don't really know if the universe is God using this infinite regress definition. The cool part about this definition of God, is that it necessitates the existence by definition, and gives a falsifiable hypothesis. Continuing with this definition, current cosmological theories would then imply that the Big Bang is God. Though this explanation of the beginning of everything leaves me unsatisfi…

Any beginning would probably leave you unsatisfied, as it would probably still make you wonder what started that beginning...

Re: Why does anything exist?

#200

Post by pellucide »

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…

What did I just read? You just adapted(and adopted) some random currently known physics fact with your version of God.
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