Existence

In this proposed topic I would like to discuss existence.From dictionary.com:

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—noun
1. the state or fact of existing; being.

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SourceFrom the free dicgtionary:

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1. The fact or state of existing; being.

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SourceFrom Wikipedia:

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Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations.

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SourceFor this thread Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth". is to be accepted as a declarative statement of completed action.Genesis 1:2, "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." is to be accepted as a disjunctive as translated in the LXX and marked by the Masoretes.Thus it would begin with 'Now' or 'But' the earth...Now to a very controversial word. היה is translated 'was' in verse 2 means 1) to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out.I find only 4 times היה is translated 'was'. Genesis 1:2, 3:1, Exodus 5:13, and Judges 20:3.Since the word does not have 'was' in the definition I don't know why the translators chose 'was' unless it suited their bias.In Genesis 1:2 my bias would prefer become, or come to pass. But I believe a form of exist (existed) would be better.In Genesis Exodus 3:14 "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." אהיה אשר אהיה This statement was translated "I AM THAT I AM'.But should have been translated 'I EXIST THAT I EXIST'. 'I' comes from the prefix א.Thus God claims to be existence.In Genesis 1:1 Moses declared God caused the Heavens and the Earth to exist.In Isaiah 40:26 Isaiah declared God caused all things to exist.In Isaiah 42:5 God declared He caused the Heavens to begin to exist and streached them out.In Isaiah 45:12 God declared He caused the earth to begin to exist and man upon it.These are just a few scriptures that declare Existence caused everything to begin to exist.Observations:The Heavens (universe) exists.
The Earth exists.
Mankind as well as all living creatures exist.The question is:Is existence responsible for bringing into existence all that exists?If not, then what is responsible for bringing into existence all that exists.The Bible declares existence is responsible for bringing into existence all that exists.I agree.What say you?If existence is not responsible for bringing into existence all that exists, then what is?There is existence (all things exist) and the opposite of that is non-existence (no thing exists). There is no known mechanism whereby existence can begin to exist from non-existence.Can anyone present a case for existence without it being brought about by existence?God Bless,Your choice.Edited by ICANT, : Correct text reference to Exodus from Genesis

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Thread copied here from the Existence thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

Why does everything need to be caused by something else? What's wrong with proposing a universe where things can happen without a cause?You would have no difficulty imagining your god as uncaused, why the difficulty here?

Hi Larni, Great question, I wish I had the answer.Being finite human beings everything we know of happening in our lifetime has a cause and effect. So the default position is that everything has a cause. Nothing is wrong with a universe existing where things can happen without a cause.But the one we live in has a cause and effect for everything.But there is a problem with a universe that has always existed. Science tells us it would be a dead universe had it always existed. Therefore the universe had to have a beginning. (Or it had to have many beginnings.)Then we get into the problem of existence.Either there is existence or there is non-existence. The two cannot co-exist.We know for a fact there is existence. We exist.Thus either existence has always existed, which is a scientific impossibility, according to present theory. There are those working on hypothesis of existence always existing. (Such as string theory.)Or existence began to exist out of non-existence, which is also a scientific impossibility.Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that is an attempt to explain existence. I have no problem with existence, existing. I happen to call that existence God.I am on record here at EvC as saying whatever caused the universe to exist would be considered God as it would have to be everything that has ever existed or will exist.If it was the so called God particle, Hawkings instanton or that pin point that existed at T=10^-43. They all would have to be everything that ever existed or will exist to produce what is observed today.We have the same amount of physical reproducable evidence for any of those, as we do for my God.The universe exists and we exist.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Non-sequitur. How does the first statement have anything to do with your conclusion? Please show your evidence. Please explain this present theory. Isn't it funny how you dismiss scientific evidence, but will rely on a theory if you feel it has anything to do with your argument. Isn't that a bit disingenuous? Nay, hypocritical?Maybe if you could define existence there could at least be some sort of conversation here.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Hi Theodoric, If you are refering to a universe existing where things can happen without a cause, I can not find anything that does not have a cause.But that does not mean that a universe could not exist where things happen without a cause.Now if you are refering to the later where everything in our universe has a cause and effect for everything. I will give you one example of cause and effect.
I hold an apple in my extended hand and turn loose of the apple, the apple falls to the solid surface below. When it reaches that solid surface it stops.The apple falls because gravity pulls the mass to the solid surface below. The apple stops when it comes in contact with the surface, it may bounce because the surface is solid. Because the solid surface is harder than the apple the apple will bruise.Now you give me one example of something that does not have a cause and effect in the universe in which we live. I will quote Stephen Hawking.

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In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted.

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SourceThe standard theory says the universe has not always existed but had a beginning in the past. From the OP:

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From dictionary.com:

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—noun
1. the state or fact of existing; being.

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Source

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From the free dicgtionary:

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1. The fact or state of existing; being.

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Source

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From Wikipedia:

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Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations.

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It would have helped if you had read the OP.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

That quote deals with time and the universe. So are you saying existence=universe? It would have helped if you had actually read my post. Not assume you know what I am saying. What does this actually mean to you? Does existence have some sort of metaphysical meaning to you?May Brighid bless youEdited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Hi Theodoric, I'm saying the universe has not always existed, but the universe does exist now.Existence does not = the universe. It seems that is evidence the universe has not existed forever. At the least Stephen Hawking at the time he made that statement believed the universe had a beginning. In Message 5 you said: I gave three definitions in the OP.How am I supposed to improve on those definitions? Why would existence have a metaphysical meaning to me?Existence is a state of being which is reality, which is the opposite of non-existence, non-reality. I will take all the blessings I can get.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

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The question is:

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Is existence responsible for bringing into existence all that exists?

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Based on the definition of "existence" you have chosen the answer must be "no". Your definition refers to an unspecified something existing i.e. in the state of existing, the fact of it's existence or of it having being. How could the mere fact of an unspecified something existing - in itself - cause anything to be brought into existence ?

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If not, then what is responsible for bringing into existence all that exists.

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Obviously nothing could be responsible for bringing itself into existence. Therefore nothing that exists could be responsible for bringing into existence all that exists. Think about it.

What is the cause of atomic decay? And that beginning is the expansion of space-time. Anything about what "caused" that beginning is baseless speculation.I'ld even argue that it can't have a cause like we understand causality to be... Causality requires the dimension of time.A cause happens and an effect follows. It's sequential.
Proposing a "cause" in that sense for the big bang is non-sensical in a way, since the time dimension was not existant at that point.It's like proposing that there is something "north" of the north pole. It doesn't make any sense to me. Again, you assume existance as we know it. You assert that if the universe always existed that it always existed in its present form.
This is false. Big bang theory even makes it false.Physics break down at planck time. Our models (including causality) do not apply there. Yes. And they don't claim that the universe always existed in its present form. So your point is invalid. Ok. But how is that usefull or meaningfull? Yes. And that only proves that.... the universe and we exist. It doesn't prove anything about why it exists, how it exists, when it started existing,...

Then the Hawking quote does not support your argument.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

If you did not exist you would not be able to ponder existence.
So what can one say about what existence is? Decartes summed it up rather well I think. Congito ergo sum.Reality depends on the physics of our universe to manifest matter and energy into a sentient being capable of pondering self awareness. But the universe could care less what or how or why. Since we are human we can not help but think as a human and inject anthopomorphic reasons de entre.It has long been a phylosophical struggle to relieve existential angst. It takes imo tremendous intellectual bravery to suggest we are a anomaly of no more importance than any other collection of atoms.
So my existence is one of my own being giving meaning and importance to my own life and those around me.

I've been using exactly those same arguments with ICANT for years now.He doesn't understand them. His faith and unfounded confidence in the Bible as the ultimate authority acts as a mental block preventing him from even attempting to grasp the concept of finite time and what that means for causality at T=0.

How many times can you use iterations of the word "exist" in a single sentence, ICANT?Your nonsense doesn't even make superficial sense this time. Even your three "definitions" use the word they define in their definitions!What I assume you're really asking, without all the bullshit behind it is, "why is there something, rather than nothing? Why should anything exist at all, rather than nothing?" You then tried to surround that with a bunch of apologetic "interpretation" from the Bible, as if that would support anything at all.But the answer to the root question, "why does anything at all exist rather than an absence of anything," is "We don't entirely know, we might never know, but why not?" For all we know, existence may be the default inevitable state, and nonexistence, a total absence of anything at all could be the impossible.Not everything about the Universe has to make intuitive sense to a human perspective. That's a big part of why we use math to model the early Universe instead of the type of philosophical navel-gazing you're so fond of. Special Relativity, the Uncertainty Principle, and Quantum Mechanics might seem strange or weird to us...but in reality, that place you fear to tread, Quantum Mechanics is normal, it's our human understanding that's messed up because the human brain is not equipped with an intuitive understanding of the underlying mechanics that govern the Universe. We're primates, not supercomputers. Causality doesn't make sense when you don't have a time dimension for linear progressive events to occur in. Causality is even just a simple way of describing the increase in entropy within a system - and entropy cannot change without time.You are also, of course, opening yourself yet again to infinite regression: if existence was required to cause existence, what caused existence?See how absolutely stupid that is? Of course you don't...but I'm sure everyone else does, and now we can all laugh at your expense.Obviously, it's turtles all the way down, and the turtles are all named "Existence."

Hi Paul, I agree. What does the conclusion have to do with the first statement?I did and have for a long time thought about it.Existence = something existing.Non-Existence = nothing existing.Now if according to your statement above that nothing that exists could be responsible for bringing into existence all that exists, what caused existence to begin to exist.According to that statement the universe and us do not exist.Can you comprehend non-existence, which is an absence of anything?Think about it.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."