Yes ! Absurdity !

All the why questions related to natural phenomena, can be answered by "self organization". I think you will understand what I mean.

Why does a fish have scales, why do birds fly?

Why does a fish have scales, why do birds fly? — Pop

These are questions of function (how), not questions of existence (why).

Why do WE exist - self organization! :smile:

But point taken. :up:

And Science can answer the questions assuringly and comfortably, because they are observable via direct experience and sense data available.

I do agree with your point in one of your posts that it is only the human being who asks why. I am sure trees cannot stop and wonder why they exist. It is probably a difference between being and thinking. But, we could also ask why have we developed the consciousness with which to ask why? What is going on here on an evolutionary scale, and where are we going with this?

I think it is largely due to the invention of language. When the first humans appeared on the Earth, they probably didn't have language. But then, on one funny day, they started making sounds and utterances, and then it developed into language. The mind invented and kept developing the language, and the languages enriched the consciousness. So, they kinda worked together for their mutual development. And they have invented many other abstract concepts such as Gods, paradise, immortality, good and bad ...etc under the frame of the Forms.

Now our consciousness is getting even richer and more diverse with not only interaction of language and mind, but also scientific developments and globalisation. The consciousness keeps expanding due to not only the global communications, but also the space crafts landing on the Moon and Mars, and looking into the other galaxies.

This development has provided a great deal of information and knowledge about the material world, but at the same time, it also increased more mysteries on the origin of the universe and life. Because sciences and religions still have not given us the answers to these origins beyond doubt. Our consciousness will keep on going seeking for these answers I guess.

I definitely believe that language is a key factor in consciousness and how we began to ask questions about why. There is a whole tension between the way in which we make discoveries in science, but many questions remain. There is been a view that many of the metaphysical questions should not be the centre of philosophy, but even though I think that is hard to come up with clear answers, it is probably inevitable that human beings will continue to speculate about existence and other aspects of metaphysics.

Yes, I think so too. A great post. Thank you.

Your posts are extremely interesting, and I do think that some of it really does come back to the idea of the question of whether there is any underlying purpose. I am aware that there have been a couple of threads on this idea. I believe that you had some discussion in them. I think that your own interest in the idea of self organisation is extremely interesting, but I am a little unclear about your view on this.

I believe that we have a whole tradition in philosophy, stemming from Plato, which placed humanity grasping for inherent forms. But, I wonder in a perspective of self organising existence and consciousness, would these be ruled out, because the basis of creation is not based on an abstract 'out there'. I also wonder if there are any underlying archetypes, because Jung's idea of archetypes seems connected to Plato's ideas on forms, but more firmly based in nature. I am not presuming that you have any interest in Jung though, and I think that his writings are ambiguous as to whether archetypes are based on some kind of transcendental reality or as aspects arising within nature.

I just read one of your posts, and I agree that apart from asking why we need to appreciate and be grateful. Gratefull Dead are an excellent band, but I do going into psychedelic mystery and appreciate, which may be a convoluted tangent.

Perhaps, we need, rather than asking so many impossible questions, to develop a philosophy of gratefulness, and it would not need to be restricted to philosophies which see this in terms of being grateful and thankful to God. It may be about appreciating the numinous, and be simply a philosophy of awe and the wondrous aspects of existence.

Perhaps, we need, rather than asking so many impossible questions, to develop a philosophy of gratefulness ... — Jack Cummins

If I may offer some ("modern") candidates —

• Spinozism (of course!)
• Absurdism (re: P.W. Zapffe, A. Camus, C. Rosset, R. Brassier)
• Jazzism^ (re: A. Murray's Stomping The Blues or Murray Talks Music ... *H. Carruth's Sitting In ...)

– reflective stances on life/living which insist on beauty and love, integrity and gratitude in spite of the ineluctable failures, heartbreaks & catastrophes. Nietzschean "Ja-sagen!" (amor fati). Separately and together this trinity manifests the ancient the "Tetrapharmakos" in these compostmodern times so that I am never a stranger to, or exiled from, the numinous ...

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in. — Anthem (1992)

^I just noticed this coinage of mine is already in use, but I'll stick with it until something better strikes me.

* A late friend, father of one of my oldest friends, also a mentor whom I still miss dearly.

but I am a little unclear about your view on this. — Jack Cummins

There is so much misinformation on entropy. So much focus on it when in fact natural systems are dissipative systems:

"It is now generally recognized that in many important fields of research a state of true thermodynamic equilibrium is only attained in exceptional conditions. Experiments with radioactive tracers, for example, have shown that the nucleic acids contained in living cells continuously exchange matter with their surroundings. It is also well known that the steady flow of energy which originates in the sun and the stars prevents the atmosphere of the earth or stars from reaching a state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
Obviously then, the majority of the phenomena studied in biology, meteorology, astrophysics and other subjects are irreversible processes which take place outside the equilibrium state.

These few examples may serve to illustrate the urgent need for an extension of the methods of thermodynamics so as to include irreversible processes." - Ilya Prigogine -Introduction to Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes, 1955,

Natural systems are dissipative ( open ) systems - they dissipate entropy. And entropy in the universe is decreasing as a percentage of total space. So the universe is becoming more ordered. https://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information/entropy-expansion.gif Or at least the pockets of the universe that we have information of, are becoming more ordered ( are in a phase of order ). Order arises due to the "Self Organization" that creates it. What is self organizing is the information. I have found that by focusing on the history and evolution of the "self organization of information", that an understanding of consciousness can be found. Consciousness is Information integration for the purpose of Self organization - it has an evolutionary history. People ( and all things ) are really a bundle of information accumulated over a lifetime. Their bodies are articulated by information, and all they are juggling in mind is information. So the history of a person, is really a history of information accumulation and integration, as is the history of anything. And, the interesting thing is, information is self ordering - It can not fit together any old way. It insists on being integrated - this is why we exist. If information did not insist on being integrated nothing would exist. But due to the strong anthropic principle the laws of the universe combine such that information integrates, and due to this we are able to ask the question why we exist.

Your posts are extremely interesting, and I do think that some of it really does come back to the idea of the question of whether there is any underlying purpose. — Jack Cummins

"Purposes" are intentions and, as far as I can discern, it does not make sense to say "purpose" "underlies" anything. My (thread) purpose.

We can discern a cause, but a cause is not a purpose. To discern a purpose we would need to know what reality is founded on absolutely. Not having access to the absolute foundation of reality, the only way to discern reality is to relate one bit of information to another - thereby creating informational structure. And through this informational structure ( personal knowledge ) we construct purpose, reason, etc. IMO.

dissipative systems — Pop

Energy is a beauty and a brilliance,
Flashing up in its destructance,
For everything isn’t here to stay its “best”;
It’s merely here to die in its sublimeness.

Like slow fires making their brands, it breeds,
Yet ever consumes and moves on, as more it feeds,
Then spreads forth anew, this unpurposed dispersion,
An inexorable emergence with little reversion,

Ever becoming of its glorious excursions,
Bearing the change that patient time restrains,
While feasting upon the glorious decayed remains
In its progressive march through losses for gains.
…

https://austintorney.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/atlb-8.5x11-jpg-300-dpi.pdf

Purposes" are intentions and, as far as I can discern, it does not make sense to say "purpose" "underlies" anything. My (thread) purpose. — 180 Proof

If one begins from a framework of neo-Darwinian empirical causality , then purpose, intention and chance-randomness are co-determinative. Intention , by this thinking , is derivative of random
chance. It seems that enactivism may shift that thinking a bit, giving the self-organizing system a normative unity that is perpetually oriented toward purposes. I don’t know that this implies an endless regress though. Certainly the Nietzschean Husserlian and Heideggerian notions of intentionality don’t see change and randomness as the other side of the binary, since they are not beginning from objective causation Nor are they starting from a metaphysical ‘ purpose’. Rather, a radical interaction between subjectivity and objectify leads to a thinking which is neither of a chance-intention binary nor of metaphysically foundational purpose.

Thanks for the link. It is such a difficult thing to express, isnt it? I think you have done well. Just one little quibble. You also focus on entropy, when in fact we are an integrated self ordering system. Perhaps a work that expresses the strong anthropic principle might be in the offing?

I begin with "purposes are intentions", as I said, and go on from there avoiding as much nonsense as natural language allows.

It seems that enactivism may shift that thinking a bit, giving the self-organizing system a normative unity that is perpetually oriented toward purposes — Joshs

Rather, a radical interaction between subjectivity and objectify leads to a thinking which is neither of pure chance nor of foundational purpose. — Joshs

:up: I think there is a determinism with a slight element of randomness. It is enactivist. In the enactive interrelationship of subject and object the slight randomness causes emergence / creativity

** For the most part our actions are determined ( determined by the information that composes us ), but in any moment of consciousness a multiplicity of causal information intersects, with some randomness, such that the unforeseen arises..

Thanks for the link. It is such a difficult thing to express, isnt it? I think you have done well. Just one little quibble. You also focus on entropy, when in fact we are an integrated self ordering system. Perhaps a work that expresses the strong anthropic principle might be in the offing? — Pop

On 'Good Fortune', 'Luck', etc.:

https://austintorney.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/moh-8.5x11-jpg-300-dpi.pdf

I stand corrected! Very nice, thank you.

No 29 is my favorite. I think you have a good understanding. :up: :smile:

For the most part our actions are determined ( determined by the information that composes us ), but in any moment of consciousness a multiplicity of causal information intersects, with some randomness, such that the unforeseen arises.. — Pop

That does sound like Varela:

“ It is perhaps is best to start with the notion of a state or phase space : a domain of variables or
measurements which attempts to completely specify a given process. Such specification is a law
or a rule, and these system are therefore deterministic, in contrast to a random dynamical
systems. The sequence of subsequent states evolving according to the dynamical rule describes a
trajectory in state space. In the case of continuous time, the system is defined as a flow.”

Suppose we did find ... some explanation. Then what of explaining that explanation?
Can there be an explanation that does not admit further inquiry, even in principle?
If not, then we may just find ourselves on some indefinite path of exploration.
Hence the diallelus: The Problem of the Criterion (IEP), Regress argument (Wikipedia).
Either way, artificial stop-gaps aren't it. Back to work it is, I guess.
There are questions to which the only honest response is (presently): "Don't know." And that makes for a fair amount of dishonesty out there.

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. — Max Planck

Yes, there is. Long ago when I was attempting to write a philosophical proof of God I came upon an interesting logical conclusion. There must exist a "first cause". What this means is that there is a point in the chain of explanations for why something must exist, that the only answer is, "Because it does."

There comes a point in which there is no prior explanation for somethings being. What does that logically entail? There is something that has no reason for being, and thus anything could actually be. Now there may be stepping stones of reasons for why we are, but at the end of this road the answer will necessarily be, "It just is."

Yes, there is. Long ago when I was attempting to write a philosophical proof of God I came upon an interesting logical conclusion. There must exist a "first cause". What this means is that there is a point in the chain of explanations for why something must exist, that the only answer is, "Because it does."

There comes a point in which there is no prior explanation for somethings being. What does that logically entail? There is something that has no reason for being, and thus anything could actually be. Now there may be stepping stones of reasons for why we are, but at the end of this road the answer will necessarily be, "It just is." — Philosophim

Is something coming from nothing any more absurd than something existing forever?

Your point still stands though. Whether something or nothing gave rise to everything else, it has no cause, no explanation or reason for being.

Consider: a young man wonders, usually, what it would be like to make love to a woman - perhaps not in that exact language - and in the great currents and turbulences of life eventually, usually, has that experience, even if not as he may have planned or expected. And in his wondering is nothing whatever pathological. Suppose a young man whose wonder is such that he uses it to block the possibility of the experience. Eventually that wonder becomes a denial of life and pathological. And nothing more complicated - in principle - that that. — tim wood

Again, I don't see how this addresses my concern that you are just saying (more subtly), don't question existence itself. That is to say, the enterprise of existing (aka continuing doing what we are doing as humans).

My point earlier with the "throwness" mixed with the idea of "micro-decisions" is that existence is not "for us", as we did not create this world, but inhabit it. HOWEVER, we are the only animal that can in most respects, "do otherwise". We can sublimate our curiosity on why we have to do anything by saying, "BUT this questioning makes us miss out!", but I don't see that as a real reason not to question. Rather, it is being authentically a human- someone that can wonder about these things, and perhaps judge the whole enterprise of being thrown into the world as sub-optimal. One can then try to sublimate and forget as you say as to not experience dread, or stay on the thin line and see the questioning through.

Is something coming from nothing any more absurd than something existing forever? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Not that absurd, since one has to be correct.

The Universe seems to have a zero-sum balance but for the tiny quantum uncertainty, so, 'Nothing' is always up to something, making 'it' not an extant Nothing.

Something existing forever, having no antecedent/precursor, needs to be unmakable and unbreakable, being only of itself, and thus it has no parts. Systems need not apply. Quantum fields suffice for now.