Existence: stuck in the middle

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by pragmathen, Mar 10, 2001.

  1. pragmathen 0001 1111 Registered Senior Member

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    Assuming there is an "outside" that contains the Universe (regardless of whether multiple universes concurrently exist), it is interesting to think of the possible reasons of why we exist. Sentience is not in question here, but rather, why <i>any</i>thing exists. Why does this planet exist (apart from the obvious smattering of particles coagulating to form a suitable environment to support flora and fauna)? Why the universe?
    Let's take this a step further, or more inward if you will. It would be nonsense to think that this Universe has always existed. There was a starting point and there may possibly be an ending point. However, imagine life as if it <i>wasn't</i>.
    For example, imagine life as if it was brain-dead: no EEG waves, no electrical impulses traversing the axons, no comprehension whatsoever. No comprehension of there not being any comprehension whatsoever. Not only is there no <i>IS</i>, there is also no <i>IS NOT</i>.
    If we think in linear terms (as is the custom of our species), then we find ourselves asking the question: When was the moment that things came to <i>BE</i>? And, if that question is at all plausible, then we might as well ask the question: What was it before it came to be?

    If any of you can phrase this in a better manner, it would be appreciated. This is not a question of the existence of God, for that is secondary to this. This is a question of existence and its antithesis.
     
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  3. tony1 Jesus is Lord Registered Senior Member

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    Interesting stuff.

    Assumptions are being made here, linear, before, etc.

    If time is entirely linear, then obviously there would be a "before" before time zero.

    Maybe this stuff is different.
    Suppose hypertime wherein normal time begins to exist.
    "Before" normal time begins to exist, there is no time at all.
    "After" normal time begins to exist, there is all time, infinite before now and infinite after.

    Can you get your mind around that?

    If you can, then rename hypertime to...
     
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  5. beyondtimeandspace Everlasting Student Registered Senior Member

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    Amazingly, after already awkwardly admitting an australian allegiance, although attempting an apology, an artificially arranged american archangel astronaut accidentally altered an arduously assembled alien asteroid, and as all americans agree, all accidentally averted apocalyptic asteroids are accpetable apologies.
     
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  7. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Hey! That was clever!

    Anyway, imagine a universe. One in which the matter density becomes so low that big bang after big bang occurrs. This has always been and always will be. No beginning, no end. The universe is simply a continuum. Time is simply the measure of the seperation of events in spacetime. If spacetime ceases to exist (say between incarnations of the universe) so does time. If at some point the void bubbles forth another universe, events then unfold again, seperated in space and time.

    Or maybe not.
     
  8. Cottontop3000 Death Beckoned Registered Senior Member

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    "Clowns to the left of me; Joker's to the right. Here I am...stuck in the middle with you." -off the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. (don't know the artist, sorry)

    Anyway, though I would love to be proven wrong, I don't know if we'll ever figure out the answers, to anything. All I really wonder about nowadays, is what will come after I "die."
     
  9. kenworth dude...**** it,lets go bowling Registered Senior Member

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    someone on the sky at night put it pretty well,he said. i am a 3-d creature you cannot ask me 4-d questions.well he probably said it a lot better than that but nevermind.
     
  10. Cyperium I'm always me Valued Senior Member

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    I've also thought about this.

    Nothing is not only blank, or "space", or black, or whatever you can think of it, it is ABSOLUTLY NOTHING.

    Ahhhhhh....


    Nothing can come from nothing by itself, it's impossible because there is no nothing, and there is no something that can come from nothing because it don't exist AT ALL.

    I Really Do Believe That Everything Exists! Cause NOTHING DON'T! It is eternal also, cause nothing have never existed!

    I can't emphasise that more, why do many of the scientists support the idea of NOTHING???

    So why do I capitalize about this? Because it doesn't seem to be understood!

    Why the small post-count in this thread? There should be MORE on such a important subject!
     
  11. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    Cyperium:

    THOU SHALT NOT COMMITETH THE ABOMINATION OF THREAD NECROMANCY!

    Anyway, if you're interested in ontology, check out two of my prior posts on the subject, namely, "The Prince James Argument for the Existence of God" and "The Ontological-Epistemological Link".
     
  12. Satyr Banned Banned

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    The world can only be experienced in the past – consciousness looking back on itself.
     
  13. pragmathen 0001 1111 Registered Senior Member

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    After chanting the various incantantations necessary to bring to life once again this necromantic thread, I must say that I'm not any closer to wrapping my mind around the existence that pre-dated existence.

    Satyr's got a point in that we only know what we remember and that could be applied to the Universe itself, though not without its own set of imperfections. There is one of those points, like in Asimov's Robot Dreams, where there is a state at which One says, "Ah, I think. Before I did not."

    My original question, long ago (literally) but only a few posts up from this one (funny, that) is why does Anything exist? Why the Universe? I can NOT wrap my mind around a state where nothing exists. Because even in that state, the state of nothingness exists. These are questions for which God Heretics, with their vast knowledge of all things, are forbidden to ponder.
     
  14. c7ityi_ Registered Senior Member

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    the answer is here: http://www.hatem.com/metah3.htm

    you may need to read the page before that to understand.
     
  15. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Would it be safe to assume that only the moment exists, and that even the moment has no permanence? Maybe it is easier to assume that nothing exists?
     
  16. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    Pragmethan:

    I've found it funny that I chose to return and this thread is brought back to life by you. It's a topic I find very interesting and shall hope to clear things up.

    Quoting from your original post...

    "If we think in linear terms (as is the custom of our species), then we find ourselves asking the question: When was the moment that things came to BE? And, if that question is at all plausible, then we might as well ask the question: What was it before it came to be?"

    Before I start: Whenever I say existence, I do not mean "the universe". If the universe has a beginning, then it is not existence, but exists within a larger existence. Just keep that in mind.

    Though rude of me, I shall answer your question with a (rhetorical) question of my own: Can there be a moment where things come to be?

    Aristotle is perhaps history's most favourite opponent of the concept of infinite regression, that is to say, a link of cause-and-effect stretching eternally back is preposterous. For this he proposed his "Unmoved MOver" argument, which has come to be known as the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God. However, his argument states that "all which is an effect, must have a cause, which itself must have had a prior cause", yet then argues soon after that God - or the Unmoved Mover - has no cause himself, in which case the foundation of causality is itself uprooted in the very argument. Infinite regression, I then propose, may offer us an alternative. But we'll get back to that in a moment, let's consider some other things first.

    First, ultimately there can either be something or nothing. Correct? You may either have somethingness, or existence, and nothingness, or non-existence. Now it can be furthermore said that nothingness, by virtue of being nothingness, cannot exist. If it exists, it must not be nothing - it must be something. In order to prevail as nothingness, it must then remain forever a null-thing, which has no existence whatsoever, but is its antithesis in everyway. Let's then apply this to space: What would happen if somethingness ended? Well, as there can only be somethingness and nothingness, then nothingness would have to be beyond it. But hold on a moment, if nothingness is beyond it, it ceases to be nothingness, for it is interacting with somethingness, whereas if it is beyond something, it too cannot remain being nothingness, as it would have a place and position, and therefore exist in part of space. So you are met with an undeniable conclusion: Somethingness cannot end, for nothing would prevail beyond it, and nothing cannot do so. In essence: Existence is infinite.

    Let's shift to time in a way similar to before. Either you can have something-time, or no-time. No-time cannot exist, as it is the absence of existence, whereas something-time is every day time. Now, what would happen if time ceased to be or had a point of origin? Well, in either case, you have no-time replacing nothingness in the above argument, which I declare, is impossible. Therefore, if time ends, we have the absurd notion of no-time existing. In essence: Time must be eternal.

    Another proof of eternity can be rendered thus: If existence is infinite, and the infinite can never be reached in time, then existence must be eternal, have always been and never having begun.

    As I said before, infinite regression might give us something here, also. Now let's take as a given - and if you want, I can validate this more fully - that causality exists and is a -law-. Something must have a cause, no matter what it is. Now if you accept as truth eternity, you realize that this is not at all a problem, for an infinite chain of cause-and-effect can indeed be infinite if it can stretch back infinitely. That if somethingness has no beginning, it allows for something to always have a cause as far back as you go, because there will never be a beginning to this cause whatsoever. In essence, an infintie regress is not only logical, it is mandated if causality, time, and space exist.

    Let me add two more things:

    1. Necessity: All which is infinite and eternal must be necessary, for if it has existed always, it cannot be anything but. But what might be said to cause necessity? Well let us consider two diametrically opposed statements, one of which I affirm is necessary:

    "There are no absolute truths."

    "There are absolute truths".

    As I argue in "On the Necessity of Truth's Absolute Nature", the first statement denies its own validity, whereas the second is not only in accords with what is true, but to affirm otherwise is to fall into the absurdity of the first's failures. In essence, it is necessary because it cannot be otherwise but be so, and this is in part due to its opposition of the false opposite. Now, surely somethingness and nothingness are opposites. And like all opposites, through their opposition, I would say in someway allow for the other to be real. For instance, if you have large, you must also have short - if you have top, you must also have bottom. Both are dependent on one another and create what it means to be the other. If we take this as true, then if you have something, you must also have nothing, and indeed if you have nothing, you must also have something, and just as the second of our statements above is absolutely true, the opposite is absolutely false, just as somethingness is absolutely existent, whereas nothingness is absolutely non-existence. In this eternal opposition we can speak of something of an "eternal cause-and-effect", where somethingness, standing in opposition to its non-existent opposite (which is only its opposite because it is non-existent) and two eternally "co-create" one another.

    2. In contradiction to C7's website and George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, nothingness and something -cannot- be the same. If nothingness is to be nothingness, it cannot be anything but a null state, which is completely in opposition to existence, and as it is nothing, it cannot cause anything. Even when it "causes" existence as an opposition, it is not a cause in the normal sense, but in the sense explained above. For something to come out of nothing in a normal causal relationship, whereas nothingness is present before somethingness, and somethingness is the result of nothingness' prior action, than nothingness is not nothing, but something, and thus we aren't speaking of nothing at all anymore! For in ordre to have causal power, in order for it to create something, it must exist. Moreover, it is clear and apparent that somethingness and nothingness are not the same - again, in contradiction to Hegel and C7 - because, for instance, nothingness, in order to be nothingness, cannot be infinite, for it has no space. No space is not infinite. No space is the absence of space all together, whereas infinity is extension of space without limit. Somethingness has substance, whereas nothing has no substance, and where there is no substance, there is not substance, and thus we have another contradiction. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

    The idea that nothingness = something is impossible and wrong.





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    Last edited: Jul 19, 2006
  17. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    Here's an interesting thought experiment: Attempt to think of nothingness.
     
  18. Spectrum Registered Senior Member

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    Pragmathen, simply because one is without consciousness does not mean that there is nothing, it simply means one lacks the comprehension to sense what there is. Besides, if there 'is', then there cannot be what isn't.
    Ex-istence itself implies a state of what used to be, so I would say you are questionning things in the correct manner.
     
  19. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    So, when Pragmathen dreams a dream in his sleep that world is and this world is not simply because his mind has slipped from one reference to another? If he can comprehend his dream, does that make it real? Maybe his comprehension has changed then?

    Reading these words to myself, I recognize the existence of thought. Though I cannot see it or touch it or validate its existence, I can still experience thought. It has no shape or form or material foundation. It exist as nothing, yet it still exists.
     
  20. c7ityi_ Registered Senior Member

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    what is substance?infinity

    if you think too logical you can't understand. "nothing" includes everything.

    you can't comprehend it if you don't comprehend (include) it.

    yeah, sure you do..

    no, thoughts are not nothing, they are mental waves which exist higher than astral realms.

    maybe in the future, thought waves can be detected with techhnology, but maybe they can only be detected with the metaphysical instruments of the mind.
     
  21. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Easy... It is everything that has yet to be. It must be potential... infinite possibilities.
     
  22. c7ityi_ Registered Senior Member

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    that's right bowser, y're such an intelligent dog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
  23. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    I smell possible sarcasm--potential in this moment wanting to bloom?
     

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