Be VERY careful with the term ‘exist’ and clarify how it is being used as well as how it can be used and applied in another way. — I like sushi

Haha I’ve made whole posts based on this issue. Trying to define what exists and what doesn’t and how etc. Seems it’s creeping into my other threads. “Existence” as both a concept and physical property continues to elude my capacity to define

So with the advent of Galilelean and Newtonian science, a different mentality emerges, which aims to divest the world of all such 'vague and primitive' concepts such like wills, aims and purpose (telos) and instead provide an account resting solely on the measurable properties of objects and on reaching consensus in respect of those. The subjective, interior or intentional domain is banished to 'the past', or declared archaic. Newton still saw the need to God to set the cosmic machine in motion, but Laplace 'had no need of that hypotheses'. Thus begins what René Geunon calls 'the reign of quantity'. Within that overall paradigm, there is no way to accomodate God, or the numinous, or indeed any real idea of the transcendent. Welcome to modernity. — Wayfarer

I like how you explained the progression it was well articulated.

Scientific method confuses me a bit though in that it is not completely objective in that it is restricted by ethics. If decisions were made without bias it would be open season on how to most effectively collect data and the most efficient ways are no doubt often immoral. So it is biased on principle towards the well-being and safety of humans, and every increasingly animals, the environment etc ( due to emerging laws).

If subjects are those that exert unalienable rights and restrictions on how objectified they can be made, and objects are those things with no restrictions on how they can be tested, and if we are now applying rights and laws to protect non human things like the environment and animals etc... are we not “subjectifying” the world?

And if so do we not increasingly limit the depth of knowledge we can attain with scientific method.

merely an artificial belief that only holds value insofar as it is productive and conducive to society. — chiknsld

Interesting however could a concept of a god not be conducive to a productive or cooperative society and has it not done so before historically- leaving out all the war and bloodshed done in the name of religions. In that people felt their bad behaviour would be punished in some form - be it by a deity or karma or whatever regardless of whether societal justice systems noticed and reprimanded them or not. There was and still is for many a moralistic imperative to not “piss off” some all knowing entity or in a non anthropomorphised way not to tip the fine balance, the equilibrium that nature demands of it’s systems.

Furthermore I agree money is “artificial” but if a god existed based on exchange of belief by us - sentient beings what’s the difference- would a god that depends on our faith for potency/ existence not be artificial also?

In any case the term Artificial for me is a bit of a strange notion as humans are organic and natural and one would ask where exactly something stops being a “natural progression” and becomes “artificial”. Artificial things come from the natural world and natural things also come from the natural world

Pure instinct pretending to be more? — TiredThinker

Because we can go against baser instincts. We can refrain from primal urges and in the extreme case we can completely go against the mechanism of natural selection by ending our own lives if we want. I find it difficult to find an reason why natural selection would bring about the capacity to have full autonomy over whether we continue to exist

Beyond that I don't know its purpose. — TiredThinker

Perhaps agency and awareness of self had the edge on aimless unconscious meandering in natural selection? Maybe it’s better to navigate by an ego then be at the whim of mechanical processes with no choice involved.

Yes. If I trim all the branches off of a tree, its a "tree without branches". — Philosophim

A dying one maybe haha

We are that part of the universe perceiving ourselves as part of the universe. — 180 Proof

I don’t see what this clarification offers additionally tbh. By this do you mean you believe conscious awareness as a phenomenon to be somehow outside of the rest of universe? You can’t directly observe atoms but they still exist nor gravitational waves but they exist and you can’t directly observe “consciousness” but it exists - because in all cases they can be indirectly measured by their interactions and properties. All of them are properties that the universe permits to occur.

Is life the universe becoming self aware? — Hillary

I didn’t say life is the “whole” universe becoming self aware but life exists in the universe and is composed of it - hallucinations are still processes of consciousness. Life doesn’t exist separately to everything else it’s a fraction of it. Life is the piece of the whole pie that can taste the flavour.

Well, there is a false sense of choice in such questions as obviously positing whether one should exist or not is from the bias of a state of already existing to posit the question in the first place.

Non- existing you never was nor would ever be aware of the potential to exist or any of the inquiries that comes with being sentient. The question is a bit redundant as both choices are irreconcilable with one another - you are uninformed on what it is like to not exist and non existent not you is uniformed on what it would ever be like to exist. The difference being that in “existence” you have choices regarding whether to continue to exist or not. While non-existence only offers more “non existence” as a “non-option” which is “not available” to “no one.” The reason I use the quadruple negative is to highlight the absurdity of projecting “self” on the non-existent.

A reason to exist is well “what better do ‘you’ have to do with your time? - as only in this state are you a you with time to kill.

Furthermore there are parts of you that are indivisible and indestructible for the entirety of the universe - your atoms, your energy which you ingest and excrete at a fairly constant rate. The hard problem of what makes you you in this respect and what sustains your continuity as a conscious being is more interesting but so far we have fallen very short of answering exactly what the true nature of sentience is.

As far as a I know you and a Crystal are similar in that neither of you chose to exist as a transient, structured, ordered complexity of material with particular properties unique to your makeup, that is was manifested by a certain set of ore existing natural conditions you had no control over. And we don’t ask why crystals should exist they simply do as a product of common and non-unique processes , just as sex and gestation and nurture.

Linguistic isn't science, it's not meant to understand the world but to make categories of elements in the world so that we can communicate. — Skalidris

Not sure I agree that linguistics or languages don’t exist to understand the world because you cannot remove understanding from communication they’re not mutually exclusive. I would imagine it’s difficult to educate someone in science without using a language of sorts. Perhaps mathematics is an exception however maths is often considered a language - with rules and grammar by which subjects - numbers and letters - are put into relationships and functions and whether you call it programming or learning a language it requires an input of rules by which to manipulate the subject matter.

Also a large part of science is about categorising, structuring or ordering things in a useful and meaningful way just as language is.

1. Essential properties - These are properties which are absolutely necessary to the word. A tree is a plant. — Philosophim

The only issue I have with this is the regression of definitions. Ie. A tree is a plant, a plant is a living thing a living thing is ... at so forth all of which by your reasoning has some previous essential property contained within the next. So what is “thee” essential property in the first place? What property must we have in order to begin with the first definition by which we relativistically base the following ones?

2. Accidental properties - Properties that the definition can contain, but are not essential to its identity. "A tree can have branches". — Philosophim

Are there trees without branches?

Hence definitions don't tell you anything new. They are overrated. — Banno

I disagree definitions can definitely tell you something new. If not how ever do we educate ourselves on the world/ nature - it’s characteristic, properties and relationships. If definitions don’t tell us anything knew about things that supposes we are all omniscient.

Also one can write fiction, invent objects that don’t exist and give them names based on their hypothetical purpose or traits. Imagination can define.

That’s not to say definitions don’t require a base knowledge from which we can extrapolate knew concepts or recombine older or other ones. I see your point in that in most cases observation comes before requiring a definition for something just as a person living alone in the wilderness doesn’t really need a language or words at all to survive and use things.

distinctions — T Clark

Can you define without making distinctions?

Mistaking words for the world is a common problem with philosophy. — T Clark

I know what you’re saying in that language is a projection we apply to objects. We could just as easily call a shoe by any other name as we see in the various languages humans speak. However I don’t see what point there is in clarifying that words are not the real world because if we cannot apply language to the world we cannot gather communal information about anything. If an object doesn’t have a name for its existence then what exactly do we understand it to be? In this way I think distinction and definition is synonymous. TVs have high definition images not high distinction images - although it could be used interchangeably because vision is the ability to “define” contrasts in light perception. To define is to distinguish.

The minute you speak about it you divide it. Is that what you're getting at? — T Clark

In short, yes. And by dividing it we a). Define it and b). Omit possible ways to define it otherwise leading to inaccuracies in our definition. My point was that definitions are limited in that they are decisions we must make about objects that restrict them/ quantify them by character, property or purpose when really their true definition and relationship to other things can never quite be defined linguistically or conceptually. If they could, art, creativity and imagination could not be possible because everything is firmly set in its ways and can’t be redefined otherwise.

I disagreed with a lot of what you wrote, but it's still an interesting thread about an important subject. — T Clark

Feel free to contest anything and everything I say. That’s the purpose of discussion no? Wouldn’t be much use if everyone was unanimous. I’m learning and evaluating what I’ve said based on your input

Graphics on paper are not shoes, they are images. Images of shoes. — T Clark

Yes but show an image of a shoe to anyone and they will immediately Manifest in the minds eye the functions properties and nature of a shoe or their understanding of what a shoe is. They won’t think of “images” just in the same way that when you see a shoe you don’t think of “vision”. It is the subject not the medium of communication.

Then it is a matter of playing between being overly pedantic and overly vague — I like sushi

Exactly this is the crux for which I started the thread. Definitions deal with specificity and accuracy and is a balance of both, you can be highly specific but it leaves you open to exceptions to the rule or you can be accurate but it leaves the definition much short of anything that conveys precise information

But the most significant properties are conveyed, based on the most common usage. — Relativist

Granted this is true of purpose or utlilitarian based definitions but if we consider all words on the dictionary (all having definitions) there are many that are abstract, metaphysical or don’t have a clear purpose or function in which case this breaks down. There are also circular definitions in which the topic can only be described using words that imply its definition in the first place. For example the word condescending has only ever been described as the act of being condescending or patronising and patronising is defined as condescending in this way no additional information is offered. It’s circular. How then do we convey the property when we must use the property to convey it?

fuzzy and because of that our definitions fall short of the mark. No fault of ours if this is the case, oui? — Agent Smith

It depends what exactly you mean but yes in a general sense I think most things are not clear cut and discrete but rather a more flexible spectrum of transition in which a certain level of bias or interpretation must be made.

For example using the previous example we could say a shoe is a piece of footwear you wear to walk or make a fashion statement. However when one considers repurposing and lateral thinking a shoe can indeed function in many ways - it can be a container for plants, a missile to throw at someone when you’re annoyed, something symbolic like the shoes that hang on telephone wires where drugs are sold, it could be part of a sculpture or art installation in a gallery, or could be worn comically by different animals - cats dogs etc. The list is endless. Yet we can’t afford to spend time defining every possible way a shoe can exist or function even though the possibilities are vast. This applies to most objects and thus yes the world is “fuzzy” indeed.

Mathematics & science are quite well-known for the quality of their definitions — Agent Smith

I agree that the paradigm of science and maths is establishing truth through consistent laws and rules and in this sense their definitions are more precise than those we use in a linguistic context.
However I think we cannot ignore that definitions even in science and maths are restricted temporally. And as advancements are made, as time progresses and more information is elicited, so too the “best definitions” we have are refined and redefined further.

So really I think definitions are likely to be approximations on any level... as relationships between phenomena are so far not exhaustive. Definitions are relative only to what we know. The future holds many unknowns that will have to be worked into current definitions. Scientific definitions are very different between those of the 1800s and those of the 21st century and many now will be obsolete or over ruled in the next hundreds of years

interesting. Perhaps something for me to read more on.

Are we our personality? Are we a soul? Are we our brain? What makes the real us? — TiredThinker

In the broadest sense but also a bit of a useless definition: we are that aspect of existence which has an awareness of its existence. We are the part of the universe perceiving itself.

That depends on it's actual nature. I think everything can actually be known. — Hillary

Heisenbergs uncertainty principle begs to differ. If you know the exact location of a particle you cannot know it’s velocity and vice versa. It’s like a dot verses a line on a piece of paper. If you have a dot you don’t know what direction it may make a line to and if you have a line you don’t know at which point along that line the original dot was drawn. It’s a simplified Illustration but mathematically Heisenbergs uncertainty principle appears to hold true. You cannot know all information simultaneously as information itself is change and change cannot stop even momentarily.

Furthermore the act of knowing all information simultaneously is additional information outside the original set. You can’t operate outside of the system from which the definition comes from - this is known as a circular definition.

For example time can only be defined by words from which time is implied: eg event, moments, sequences.

To me atheism does not make sense. What it tells me is, atheists don't believe in something that never existed in the first place. It's a circular argument. — L'éléphant

I agree. Atheism is a rejection of a preconceived idea of god or gods. There is only “relative atheism” - atheism relative to say christian god or Hindu gods or allah etc. And seeing as anyone can posit at any time a more accurate and acceptable doctrine or description of any type of god whatsoever, of a possible god either to be discovered in the future or not, then true atheism would be to not believe in all possible things.

At most we can be agnostic. We simply don’t know yet.

Yes. But... Why they don't radiate inwards? Why isn't the beginning of time situated at the end? — EugeneW

I think now is a good time to point out that in the case of black holes... light and matter radiate inwards towards a singularity. Theyre a bit like dustbins sucking up everything that comes within their vicinity. If everything eventually got dragged into a black hole and then those black holes got pulled into one another eventually all energy and matter would be pulled into one super black hole - a singularity. However Hawkings radiation means that actually eventually even black holes radiate away. So the quest continues to ascertain whether it’s ever possible for “a Big Crunch” the opposite of the Big Bang where all things come together once again

The way I see it, an apparently ‘saintly’ human remains capable of even the worst atrocities in different circumstances, and the most demonstrably cruel diabolical and ‘evil’ human being remains capable of love, kindness and even divine grace, given time, effort and attention. I think when we recognise and accept this range of potentiality within all humans, including ourselves, then we can not only appreciate those who strive for ‘saintly’ even if they fail, but also recognise what might lead someone to cruel behaviour, and what could prevent it. I find this more useful than moral judgement. — Possibility

That’s very astute and I’m inclined to agree that everyone is capable of both extremes. It’s likely those that don’t believe they can possibly be that good or bad are the most dangerous to themselves and others. We’ve all had nasty or hateful thoughts and great shows of kindness in our lives and at the end of the day you have the choice at any point to change trajectory

It was never endorsed by any thinkers to be a saintly human. I don't think you're aware of the make-up of saintly humans. — L'éléphant

Exactly I don’t believe many of us at all are aware of what would really make a person “saintly” or whatever term or word you wish to use for the idea. The point of the post is whether it’s reasonable to believe that there is a worst person alive and a best person alive or would it be impossible to say because of everyone in between being various mixes of the two groups of traits and therefore having different criteria for the best and worst

interesting. Yes I agree we often believe that because of our knowledge of our own intentions we believe our actions are removed from the question of morality. But just as a fool with a gun is dangerous, one that that never turns the spotlight of interrogation and rigorous judgement on themselves is at risk of attributing too great a benevolence to their own decisions.

Definitely i think many of us could do with a healthy respect for silence and inaction as a perfectly humble and self restraining reaction to situations in which we really aren’t sure what is right. Action does not always trump passivity

It is apparent that it is not possible to set out what it is to be a religion, any more than for what it is to be a game. — Banno

This for me brought up an old phrase “everybody worships” - for some it’s a god, others money, fame, influence and power, beauty, love, skill, etc but everybody worships. When framed in that way doctrines abound and religions are endless in shape and form.

well whether we need religion or not for our morality, at the very least benevolence as an idea (be it fundamental or simply a construct of humanity) is required for some semblance or organisation and order in human life.

Science is an incredible tool when poised toward our natural world in search for some common laws or principles as to how it works, However I feel it really falls short in describing the “self”, consciousness, ethics and moral or the innate feeling of good and bad we have collectively developed over the millennia - the need for compassion or empathy at all. After all objective scientific method cannot “objectify” a “subject” entirely without gross perversion of their individual rights - autonomy, safety, privacy etc

So what aspect of the the natural sciences allows for the existence of an ethics and moral so powerful it dictates scientific endeavour at every corner and penalises those which choose to ignore it?

It makes much more sense that a mechanistic, motion and chemistry based, dead, inanimate and purposeless universe governed by numbers and calculations and proportions should never give rise to anything that is irrational, emotive or “feeling” at all. And yet it does.
The best thing we have to describe morality and ethics is spiritual and philosophical writings not scientific papers. At least not yet.

First there is the problem of whether God's power comes from him having access the incredibly advance technology or if it through some kind of "magic", — dclements

Though we don’t typically consider it “magic” I think the universe offers several phenomena or qualities which I would argue are as close the the term “magic” as one can get.

The Newtonian laws of thermodynamics for example: energy cannot be created or destroyed but can change from one form to another. The idea of “immortality” or “invincibility” underpins physics and we seem to just take this as a fact without really delving into just how bizarre that is.

Why can’t we destroy energy? Why can’t we create it? If it truly is invincible how did it come to be? How is it both matter and that which acts on matter? How can energy be conscious of itself through living systems? Energy must be omnipotent as it is all degrees of the ability to do work, it’s omnipresent because it cannot be in isolation from itself - information is always connected, there is no place in the universe where energy doesn’t occur, it’s omniscient in the sense that it is the means by which all information occurs - the change, the motion, the A the B and the transitionary state between A and B. It is fundamental to the existence of everything and at the same time “is” everything.

Even space and time cannot be removed from the concept of energy as without energy time could not pass and without space, energy has no location, no dimension in which to change between its various forms - as matter, or photons or anything in between. It creates order and chaos. Sounds pretty “godly” to me.

I agree that a personification of god - especially as a old wise man - is not at all necessary nor particularly useful but it doesn’t change the fact that humans are energy. Energy describing and interpreting itself.

I think this is the wrong way to look at things. If we could approach the universe from the outside, and found it to be well-ordered, then we might correctly be surprised. But we are products of this universe - we evolved to survive, and even thrive, in this universe. Therefore, it seems ordered to us. It would be much more shocking to find that it lacked order. — Real Gone Cat

Do you think that the universe is inherently able to create order or is it merely our conscious inclination to organise, categorise, define and group phenomenon that we observe.
Two things I would consider here is 1). One could reason the inverse does generate order despite our views - the cycles of orbits, the tides, the geometry of crystals, consistent steady patterns, laws and constants however 2). Order as perceived by humans depends on the capacity to remember. It is our memory that permits us to notice that yes the stairs have been at this angle before, yes winter has come before at the same predicted time. Without any memory, the present moment is a forever unpredictable, changing and confusing thing.

So what makes order in nature. Us? The cosmos? Both?

If God does exist, then that is not God. All existing things are relative to one another in various degrees. — Pierre Whalon

This is similar to Taoism in which there is something that cannot be defined. Any definition is drastically short of precise or accurate in any useful way. To define something is to give it some parameter... to enclose it or separate it from something else by contrast. For example “light” is defined darkness and sound is defined by silence. If no contrast existed no definition, no distinction, could ever be made.
Applying this to god - if god were supposedly everything, including all things that were but are no longer and all things that could possibly be in the future, there indeed is no means to define god at all other than this extreme totalitarian vaguery.

The problem with God as presented by most people, is that it is a personal feeling and experience — Philosophim

I see what you’re saying and it does follow a sound reason from an objective sense. I do feel that to qualify everything that exists in an objective way omits a large part of the human condition, of being. I don’t believe the scientific method can prove things that are highly rare, illusion, unique or individual due to the fact that such things are not repeatable or testable. I think it would be unwise to assume that all things can be tested under the rigorous eye of science. For example a mans love for his wife cannot be objectively proven, not in any repeatable standardised way. You can merely interpret his behaviour as coherent with the state of being in love. Again you cannot test objectively my experience of the colour green or your personal memory of your grandmother, or what beauty is, or if someone feels the same exact emotions that you do.
In this sense objectivism reaches a limit. And I often wonder could an entity such as god be vaguely described in scientific terms, but on a personal level be impossible to prove in its various idiosyncrasies/ specifics? I feel that when people talk of “god” it’s often in this personal sense as you cited and thus I can’t imagine how one begins to test those with scientific method. That isn’t to say of course that it doesn’t exist because we fail to have a took adequate to quantify it qualify it as we do with so much of nature.

It could be me though, seeing god everywhere — EugeneW

Haha well in my defence i havent posited a thread about god in a while. But yeah I feel when you come across a topic it tends to come to the forefront of you awareness and you usually see it a lot more in the coming weeks after that. Like when you learn a new word you never came across before and then suddenly you see everywhere.

Is this a gender-neutral use of "man"? — Michael

Yes it’s used in this context as the general collective term for people both male or female. However when it comes to conscription I don’t believe the obligation is equal for both sexes correct me if I’m wrong.

One can say as a person of fighting age either it’s more of a linguistic technicality. However, more to point I would be inclined to agree with you as I don’t believe you need to serve your country through life and limb when it’s been demonstrated you can do it financially without violence. Being born into a nation doesn’t automatically mean you have to go to war for it. Some may say it’s unpatriotic but I would say it’s humanist.

If we ever know everything, then the question 'what's possible' will no longer be valid as we will know the answer — universeness

In mathematics factorial represents a function of all possible combinations. If you know everything (a set) you must also know every recombinant or “rephrased” question (the set of this set) then you must know the set or the set of that set and so on into an infinite regress. Knowledge and information can always be rehashed from a new perspective. If it couldn’t then lateral or creative thinking and imagination wouldn’t not be possible. This I believe to know everything is infinitely impossible

ah okay this clarifies it better for me thanks :)

timeless motion. — EugeneW

What do you mean by timeless motion. Because for me motion indicates a reference to space and distance. And I can’t see how motion from A to B can exist without some form of time which elapses between them. I thought space and time are inseparable - the space time continuum. How does motion occur without some medium be it time or space?

Also, pedantic note: "the universe" =/= "existence" (as the poll suggests); analogously, the latter is like a field and the former a dissipating structure^ with respect to that field (i.e. ocean and wave/s, respectively; or continuum and set/s). — 180 Proof

Ah yes i see what you mean. I often, like many, struggle to distinguish between that which is (exists and is objective) and that does not - in any “real” sense but which is merely a construct or concept used in order to make comprehension easier.

Fields and possibilities and waves, probabilities, potential vs the cold hard particulate objective world. The scope of “existence” in this way perplexes me. As I often wonder does it extend to feelings, dreams, ideas or is it merely that which is measurable in some physical external sense. I wonder where that which exists has its limits with the imaginary. Where something borders nothingness. I believe it is human tendency to make everything concrete. To imagine quarks as solid things as opposed to mathematically demonstrable oscillations that themselves are not tangible. Is maths something that exists as a physical logic or is it a human tool to navigate the physical world which has no application other than in our comprehension?

We have been arguing about what is real and what is not for millennia, I suspect this won’t be soon resolved.

I believe that depression cannot be the default state of human existence alone. For depression to exist so must it’s opposite. One does not know depression without knowing serenity, peace or joy- even if only briefly.

However if life’s greatest questions are impossible to know; for example who am I, why am I here, what’s does it all mean, what is consciousness, does love exist? Etc, if there is an irrevocable uncertainty to existing that cannot be known objectively or “proven” one way or another, this does set the grounds for a state of constant concern, anxiety, disatisfaction and lack of knowledge that goes with attempting to seek resolution.

If this is the case there are those who are destined to fail - the ones who wish to understand and go about trying, and those who have long given up and simple are - conceded to a state of peaceful ignorance and apathy.

For me as for many “depression” is a state of pointlessness, a state of not having your principle needs met, of being disenfranchised by what one can offer their mind to resolve these great questions. If your principle needs are untenable then you are in a constant state of failure to be nourish them. However unlike the general state of affairs answerable or not, you and I as beings can choose our psychological needs. Our basic desires can be anything, it seems them pointless instead to be despaired by the unknown and instead happy to exist in a mystery.

There can be no cause of existence. For there to be a cause something must exist. — Fooloso4

Could it be that “cause” is “existence”? In this way there is no need for cause indeed as it is synonymous with existence itself. Existence is cause or existence is energy - the ability to be/ do.

The verb “to be” may answer to no one. It simple “is”.