Consider:

•Why does anything exist at all?
•Why this existence and not another?
•Is existence infinite?
•If infinite, what does that mean?
•Or, instead, was existence created?
•If created, by what or by whom?
•If created, out of what---nothing at all?
•If so, what can that possibly mean?
•Is there a teleological "purpose" behind existence?
•What happens after we die?

And, of course: where do you and I fit into all this?!

It would seem that, once you go that far out on the metaphysical limb, rational thought itself simply implodes into the philosophical equivalent of a Black Hole. Logic may go in but what exactly comes out?

Out there is right around the corner from God, I suppose. And, in contemplating mysteries that profound, if you don't feel something of a "mystical" sense of reality you simply aren't going out far enough.

Consider:

You and I are but two minds on a planet of 6,600,000,000 additional minds on this tiny little planet in this tiny little solar system in this humdrum galaxy in a universe containing billions of additional galaxies in what may or may not be one of an infinite number of parallel universes.

In turn, it is said that, if you put a single grain of sand in the world's largest cathedral, there would be more volume of sand in that church than there are stars in the entire universe. In fact I was just reading a book on astonomy that showed a picture [from Hubble] of these two gigantic galaxies containing billions and billions of stars that had just collided with each other. But the authors noted there is so much space between stars, they doubt there would be even a single collision!

When push comes to shove, we are analogous to tiny little bugs living out our entire lives on the body of the world's hairiest dog. Each morning we get up and start in on arguing about What The Dog Is. Meanwhile we are more or less oblivious to everything "outside the dog". We're like the folks in Flatland calculating the Meaning Of Life when they have only the vaguest of clues regarding the third dimension we live in.

And what other dimensions might there be? we in? Brian Greene in The Elegant Universe speculates there are [I believe] 13 additional dimensions given the "nature" of string theory.

Or, as the Moody Blues once lyrically proposed:

don't you feel small?/it happens to us all

Keith Russell wrote:

Iambiguous wrote:•Why does anything exist at all?

Wrong question. There is no "why".

•Why this existence and not another?

Again, wrong question. There is no reason to suppose "why".

•Is existence infinite?

No.

•Or, instead, was existence created?

No.

•Is there a teleological "purpose" behind existence?

No.

•What happens after we die?

Pay a visit to any mortuary.

And you know these things...how?

Or did you just think up the answers in your head?

Keith Russell wrote:

Iambiguous wrote:And you know these things...how?

Well, that's another set of questions entirely.

You just asked for the answers.

Explaining those answers will take some time. Give me a couple days; I'll get back to this...

Okay, a couple of days.

Keith Russell wrote: To ask "why" "existence" exists, presupposes that there is a "reason": some "purpose" behind existence. The question presupposes that existence was "created", first, and second, that existence was "created" to fulfill some need or desire.

But that doesn't explain why the question is able to be asked, only that the conditions exist in which to ask it. Why not no conditions at all?

Keith Russell wrote:I believe that existence is eternal, uncreated, and that there was not a "time" "before" existence, no "God", no "Creator", and thus no "reason" for existence.

Parenthetically, in other words.

Keith Russell wrote:To ask "why" existence exists is to misunderstand something about existence itself.

Again, consider Bryan Magee's attempt to grapple with the existence of time and space:

time

For a period of two to three years between the ages of nine and twelve I was in thrall to puzzlement about time. I would lie awake in bed at night in the dark thinking something along the following lines. I know there was a day before yesterday, and a day before that and a day before that and so on...Before everyday there must have been a day before. So it must be possible to go back like that for ever and ever and ever...Yet is it? The idea of going back for ever and ever was something I could not get hold of: it seemed impossible. So perhaps, after all, there must have been a beginning somewhere. But if there was a beginning, what had been going on before that? Well, obviously, nothing---nothing at all---otherwise it could not be the beginning. But if there was nothing, how could anything have got started? What could it have come from? Time wouldn't just pop into existence---bingo!--out of nothing, and start going, all by itself. Nothing is nothing, not anything. So the idea of a beginning was unimaginable, which somehow made it seem impossible too. The upshot was that it seemed to be impossible for time to have had a beginning and impossible not for it to have had a beginning.

I must be missing something here, I came to think. There are only these two alternatives so one of them must be right. They can't both be impossible. So I would switch my concentration from one to the other, and then when it had exhausted itself, back again, trying to figure out where I had gone wrong; but I never discovered.

space

I realized a similar problem existed with regard to space. I remember myself as a London evacuee in Market Harborough---I must have been ten or eleven at the time---lying on my back in the grass in a park and tryhing to penetrate a cloudless blue sky with my eyes and thinking something like this" "If I went straight up into the sky, and kept on going in a straight line, why wouldn't I be able to just keep on going for ever and ever and ever? But that's impossible. Why isn't it possible? Surely, eventually, I'd have to come to some sort of end. But why? If I bumped up against something eventually, wouldn't that have to be something in space? And if it was in space wouldn't there have to be something on the other side of it if only more space? On the other hand, if there was no limit, endless space couldn't just be, anymore than endless time could.the problem? No matter which direction you tackle this your head is spinning.

Let's focus on this question first.

iambiguous wrote:

Why not no conditions at all?

Keith Russell wrote:I cannot answer that question, except to repeat that--because existence exists--I can reasonably conclude only that it could not not exist.

If there is the possibility that at one point existence did not exist [as some astrophysicists contend is the case prior to the big bang] then it is always approporiate to ask why existence now and not no existence ever.

iambiguous wrote:

Again, consider Bryan Magee's attempt to grapple with the existence of time and space:

Keith Russell wrote:Why should I?

Because it is fascinating stuff. And certainly not irrational to pose.

Marcchehab wrote:Philosophy should at all times aim at answers. Whether she finds it, is irrelevant. But the direction of the endeavour must always be the answer.

I agree that should be the aim. I would only caution there are places philosophy may or may not be able to go with her logic and her language and her knowledge. For example:

Does chocolate ice cream taste better than vanilla?
Is Mozart a better composer than Beethoven?
Are liberals more prescient than conservatives?
Is abortion immoral?
What is meaning of art?

Indeed, in this respect even the smaller questions can be truly baffling.