Why is there something rather than nothing?

[PureX]

I think there is little question that there was a beginning to time. And there is your problem. In your 'logical' view, cause-and-effect is temporal: causes come before effects. But with the beginning of the universe, the very first thing we see is an effect, not a cause. There is no such thing as "before the beginning of the universe".

So already you can forget human logic if you are trying to explain the existence of the universe. Who says the universe has to conform to logic? We already know it doesn't because of the freaky effects we observe at the quantum level.

Stuart

Like it or not, I think this hits the proverbial nail on the head.

The way we humans think is not sufficient to deduce a proper answer to the existential questions that we're asking. And that's just the way it is. :stuck:

 

[Stuu]

Lmao! So you think there needn't be a logical explanation for the existence of the universe? This is quite astonishing. What is science for? Why are scientists sweating over it?

Are scientists sweating over it? The problem is pretty plain to everyone who can understand it.

We see an effect and we have the audacity to attribute no cause to it just because time does seem to began just then and cause and effect are temporal.

You got it! But it's not audacious to say 'we don't know', and 'we think we can't know'.

Why not think of an abstract cause - something that is timeless and spaceless. Why not try the God hypothesis (the god of the deists). It needn't be up to a point of certainty. A Mind (which exists as a necessity of its own nature) being the cause of it is more probable than no cause at all! That's enough a good argument for God's existence.

Because it's entirely wishful thinking on your part, and a supreme example of something that goes past audacity to arrogance. Why should we listen to you spreading your lame selfish fantasies all over the universe? Actually what does it explain anyway? Nothing!

The "freaky effects we observe at a quantum level" or more specifically the nondeterministic model of reality at the quantum level we are forced to consider does not provide any explanation for the beginning of the universe. It debunks determinism and upholds the concept of freewill in a way but "before" the beginning we should have had a philosophical nothingness and this leads to NO "freaky effects at all". No way could matter,space and time originate from a philosophical nothingness.

You are welcome to your sophistry.

We have a universe from nothing. Perhaps you might care to deal with that fact first.

Stuart

 

[Repentance]

Lol how can someone even entertain the idea of something being born from an absolute philosophical nothing.

Lol how can someone even entertain the idea of a Creator God existing necessarily as a result of its own nature?

The latter is much more plausible than the former and is the safer conclusion out of the two. It needn't be science. Its just humble acceptance.

 

[Stuu]

Lol how can someone even entertain the idea of something being born from an absolute philosophical nothing.

I don't know. I entertain the idea of matter and energy being borrowed from the gravitational energy of the inflation of the universe, giving us a universe from nothing, because that's physics.

Lol how can someone even entertain the idea of a Creator God existing necessarily as a result of its own nature?

The mental gymnastics that theists invent for themselves serves only as amusement for us atheists.

The latter is much more plausible than the former and is the safer conclusion out of the two. It needn't be science. Its just humble acceptance.

Sure, best to go for safe, rather than correct, I guess.

Stuart

 

[Aimiel]

Lol how can someone even entertain the idea of something being born from an absolute philosophical nothing.

Lol how can someone even entertain the idea of a Creator God existing necessarily as a result of its own nature?

The latter is much more plausible than the former and is the safer conclusion out of the two. It needn't be science. Its just humble acceptance.

Believing that Recombinant DNA came about by chance isn't even as possible as an eventual landslide causing trees to 'accidentally' be cut into 2"X4"'s and glass accidentally forming into windows and carpet, furniture and other knick-knacks appearing at random, since that is MUCH simpler than DNA. Believing evolution exists alone is a stretch, since there's no evidence, whatsoever. You need to re-think. You need to admit to knowing God exists, you understand Him and acknowledge His Power. If not, God calls you a FOOL!


For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

 

[bybee]

That's not the title of the thread.

Stuart

There are mysteries! Some questions are exercises in futility because any answer is merely a surmise on our part.
I apology for not adhering to your "Why" agenda.

 

[PureX]

There are mysteries! Some questions are exercises in futility because any answer is merely a surmise on our part.

Yes. I still think it's good that we ask these questions, however, because their unanswerability forces us to face the limited nature of our own thinking, and of what we think we know, and how well we actually know it.

We tend to go through our lives taking in information in the form of experiences, and continually adjusting our ideas about what is real and true, accordingly (at least, most of us are), and we never really question the fact that our natural intellectual limitations as human beings bias what we're able to perceive, recognize, and surmise about reality and 'truth'. And our egos tend to work within us to maintain that blind spot.

So that when we run head on into a big question like why does existence exist, and we see right away that this is one of those questions that we just don't have the capability of answering, we then find ourselves wondering why not? Why aren't we able to answer such an important and elemental question? And asking ourselves this last question is good for the mind and the soul, because it brings us some self-perspective, and therefor humbles us in an appropriate way.

 

[bybee]

Yes. I still think it's good that we ask these questions, however, because their unanswerability forces us to face the limited nature of our own thinking, and of what we think we know, and how well we actually know it.

We tend to go through our lives taking in information in the form of experiences, and continually adjusting our ideas about what is real and true, accordingly (at least, most of us are), and we never really question the fact that our natural intellectual limitations as human beings bias what we're able to perceive, recognize, and surmise about reality and 'truth'. And our egos tend to work within us to maintain that blind spot.

So that when we run head on into a big question like why does existence exist, and we see right away that this is one of those questions that we just don't have the capability of answering, we then find ourselves wondering why not? Why aren't we able to answer such an important and elemental question? And asking ourselves this last question is good for the mind and the soul, because it brings us some self-perspective, and therefor humbles us in an appropriate way.

Yup!

 

[Damian]

So already you can forget human logic if you are trying to explain the existence of the universe. Who says the universe has to conform to logic? We already know it doesn't because of the freaky effects we observe at the quantum level.

You're dispensing with rationality. As such, you are barring yourself from this or any other rational debate. (If you can't abide by the rules, then you can't play the game. That's how it works.)

 

[Repentance]

Believing that Recombinant DNA came about by chance isn't even as possible as an eventual landslide causing trees to 'accidentally' be cut into 2"X4"'s and glass accidentally forming into windows and carpet, furniture and other knick-knacks appearing at random, since that is MUCH simpler than DNA. Believing evolution exists alone is a stretch, since there's no evidence, whatsoever. You need to re-think. You need to admit to knowing God exists, you understand Him and acknowledge His Power. If not, God calls you a FOOL!


For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

Hey are you speaking to me or are you using the general second person?

I believe that God exists. That a maximally great being exists. End of story.

On a side note my belief in God doesn't contradict my belief in evolution.

 

[George Affleck]

Because I am experiencing something.

How do you know you are experiencing?

 

[Stuu]

So that when we run head on into a big question like why does existence exist, and we see right away that this is one of those questions that we just don't have the capability of answering, we then find ourselves wondering why not?

..and also, gee my navel really does collect a lot of fluff. I wonder why that is...

Why does existence exist. Good grief. Philosophy isn't just dead, it's a corpse doing a parody of its former self.

Stuart

 

[Damian]

How do you know you are experiencing?

Consciousness is axiomatic. Any attempt to deny it presupposes it.

 

[Stuu]

You're dispensing with rationality. As such, you are barring yourself from this or any other rational debate. (If you can't abide by the rules, then you can't play the game. That's how it works.)

I think you might have thrown the baby out with the bathwater there.

The scientific method consists of rationally processing empirical data and producing further testable hypotheses. So it's not a case of dispensing with rational argument. But the claims I was addressing were resurrecting the arguments between the rationalists and the empiricists. Pure reason won't get you any closer to understanding the nature of the beginnings of the universe because the expansion of space-time from a singularity just doesn't conform to the rational forms of thinking we invented for ourselves. Otherwise one of Hume, Leibniz, Kant, Locke or Descartes could have worked it all out a quarter of a millennium ago, right?

But they are all dead, just like their modes of philosophical thinking. It took some human apes with a fancy metal tube full of pigeon poo to show us how, and when, the universe began.

Stuart

 

[George Affleck]

Consciousness is axiomatic. Any attempt to deny it presupposes it.

Nothing is self-evident. Everything is presuppositional - even consciousness.

 

[Stuu]

Nothing is self-evident. Everything is presuppositional - even consciousness.

Just another of Damian's semantic games.

Stuart

 

[freelight]

I am that..........

I am that..........

Nothing is self-evident. Everything is presuppositional - even consciousness.

Consciousness is the fundamental reality; nothing exists as 'real' or 'unreal' apart from its recognition or determination (this includes all concepts of 'somethingness' or 'nothingness'.) Life itself, being conscious is absolutely Self-evident, here, now.....moment to moment. The conscious "I" that I am proves it. What is absolute is always that.....it is what always already IS. All points of view in space-time are subject to relativity, hence those perceptions and interpretations are relative, fluctuating, conditional.

Awareness precedes thought, ideation, supposition, concepts....being the prior reality in which such emerging perceptions arise. 'Something' appears to exist by consciousness alone (whether real or illusory).....without it there is nothing to perceive or know. This not 'supposed' since awareness is prior to suppositions. Existence itself is its own knowing, whatever terms we use to describe it, as 'God' (energy-intelligence-spirit) or otherwise.


pj

 

[freelight]

beyond questioning.....

beyond questioning.....

Why is there something rather than nothing?

We do not know, for we only know something exists thru awareness, that there is consciousness in which a duality-play of objectivity and subjectivity takes place. In the primal awareness there is no-thing and every-thing, since it includes all. It would appear all questions dissolve in that which is beyond question.



pj

 

[Damian]

I think you might have thrown the baby out with the bathwater there.

The scientific method consists of rationally processing empirical data and producing further testable hypotheses. So it's not a case of dispensing with rational argument. But the claims I was addressing were resurrecting the arguments between the rationalists and the empiricists.

What you are promoting is a not-so-tacit form of logical positivism. Positivism has been shown to be inherently self-refuting. (I asked a metaphysical question in the OP. If you believe that you do not have the rational capacity to address such questions, then I suggest you find another thread.)

The statements "statements are meaningless unless they can be empirically verified" and "statements are meaningless unless they can be empirically falsified" have both been called self-refuting on the basis that they can neither be empirically verified nor falsified.[32] Similar arguments have been made for statements such as "no statements are true unless they can be shown empirically to be true," which was a problem for logical positivism.[33]

(source: Wikipedia: Self-refuting idea)

 

[Damian]

Nothing is self-evident. Everything is presuppositional - even consciousness.

That's my point. You're presupposing consciousness. Thus your argument is inherently self-refuting.