Why do we exist?
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Re: Why do we exist?
"Why do we exist?" is not a philosophical question!
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Re: Why do we exist?
'We exist,' God exists, that apple exists, etc.Stellan Hoekfelt wrote:Are we that sure that we exist, life comes from nothing as I see it, and letting the world come out from nothing is reasonably impossible and that makes us the same, impossible to exist or impossible to understand why we exist and then the reason to exist falls with that, as reachable knowledge. And if we exist so is that because we can do the impossible, and that is s a believe it a meaning in it self, if I can do the impossible then everything is possible when nothing is impossible instead of nothing is possible. And that may be the meaning of all, everything is possible!
But re Kant, "Existence is not a predicate"
"Exist" or "is" is merely a copula and by implication is always qualified [connected] to something.
"I" exists as a living human being. [btw, not a soul that survives physical death.]
As human beings we exist like other living things with an inherent [not teleological] 'purpose' and meaning. [inferred from empirical evidence].
Thus to exist efficiently humans [given a higher faculty of reason] need to understand its purpose and meaning then strive to align [flow] with it.
As human beings we also exist to play the 'language games' [Wittgenstein] to an outcome of thinking 'The possible is impossible' and 'The impossible is possible'. That 'something cannot come from nothing' is merely a resultant of the 'language games' we play which is driven by primal psychological impulse. The 'purpose' and 'meaning' of 'we exists' are also a result of the language games but these has to be justified within an empirical-rational reality.
While "humans exist" is by implication "copulated" [Latin cōpulāre, cōpulāt-, to join together, from cōpula, link.] with empirical-rational reality, 'God exists' is "copulated" with nothing of substance except human psychological impulses.
Thus while we are engrossed in a game, it is critical to be mindful we are playing games, i.e. we exist as the game of life with a game plan [not by a God but by ourselves].
- Razblo
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Re: Why do we exist?
What is "we" in the sentence "why do we exist" surely can and is a philosophical question so I think "why do we exist" is also, or can be made so.Pelegrin_1 wrote:We exist because one evolutionary path led to us, led to the existence of what we call ourselves: humans/Homo sapiens sapiens. That's the simplest and most direct answer. Anything more would have to deal with the mechanisms of evolution or more specifically the elements/details of the evolutionary path that resulted with humans coming into existence. But then, is that really a philosophical question, or is it an evolutionary science question?
"Why do we exist?" is not a philosophical question!
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Re: Why do we exist?
Okay! So, if we, meaning those of us who ask the question, mean "Why do we exist" as in "we" being all of existence rather than just human existence, then I suppose you may well have a question without a definitive answer, and as such it could therefore possibly be approached philosophically. Nevertheless, I think a discussion of such, philosophically, would be futile task of philosophical acrobatics... perhaps a good act for practicing philosophical discussion, but with no possibility of a meaningful answer, at least not a meaningful "philosophical" answer.Razblo wrote: What is "we" in the sentence "why do we exist" surely can and is a philosophical question so I think "why do we exist" is also, or can be made so.
So again, "Why do we exist", as homo sapiens, or even with respect to the existence of all things, is certainly a meaningful question, but I can't respectfully and logically see how it's a philosophical question. We just exist, in the sense of how we commonly define the word "exist", and there's nothing philosophical about "why we exist".
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Re: Why do we exist?
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Re: Why do we exist?
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Re: Why do we exist?
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Re: Why do we exist?
-- Updated Tue Nov 28, 2017 12:34 am to add the following --
Importance is relative. Existence, especially existence having identifiable life, is special in an of itself, as "life" appears not to exist so commonly in the universe. Life-forms that have developed much beyond the simplest are apparently even more special, and even within all such life-forms there is identifying variety and uniqueness, which makes each life even that much more special. Why should we exist and why do we exist are two quite different questions. But then there's also the question, which you actually seem to be asking: Why should we continue to exist (especially if we feel that our life, or life in general, has no importance)? But then, I think I've just given a reason for why we should treat life as something special, simply because it is something very special. It would seem a waste not to appreciate it for as long as one has it, and here of course I'm talking about living creatures that have the capacity to actually "appreciate" life beyond just living it instinctively.Bebelle wrote:Have you ever felt that everything you do and will do is meaningless? That no matter how great you are at something you will never be truly important, and that's when you are good at something, because most of the time you are just average. So why should we live if our existence has no importance, if it is not going to make any difference in the world? No big changes, you are just one more person like many others.
But back to "importance". The importance of one's life will come from what you feel you have made of your life. But of course, one's importance can be felt internally or it can be something that others attribute to our life in how important they think or feel your life to be through their eyes or mind.
Often though, I believe that the "human problem" lies within the loss of a general appreciation for life itself. Humans have a long history of conjuring up Gods, and with that also creating some connection between ourselves and whatever God or Gods we have come to believe that exist. And in so doing, we've lost our connection with the natural world (lost in the sense of misplaced), and we fail to recognize the beauty and wonder of life and for humans the appreciation of treasuring life. Also, on top of all of that, I believe, is the concept that some religions have about an afterlife, which almost inherently reduces the appreciation for the life that we actually have. Humans need to get back to respecting life, treasuring it, and trying to find ways to truly live it to its fullness, and by doing so, I think we'll have the answer for "why" we should try to live or exist as long as we possible can; and why everyone everywhere around us should want to wish for the same.
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Re: Why do we exist?
- Count Lucanor
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Re: Why do we exist?
I see you're quite confused about what I have espoused. There's a difference between reality being ultimately physical and the physical behaving in a unidirectional, mechanistic way, every time. Reducing everything to chains of cause-effect is not scientific. Living beings are immersed in complex interactions, constantly opening multiple paths, interwoven with other complex subsystems. Their processes are dynamic, dialectical, not linear and mechanical.Chili wrote:For a scientifically-minded observer, watching you climb up, he will decide this is merely chains of cause-and-effect leading back to the big bang. There is no "agency" involved. Do you agree or disagree?
A hard scientist watching you will understand those events in terms of your constituent neurons, their constituent molecules, atoms, particles - as these interact with one another like dominoes falling over in a cascade / avalanche which began with the big bang if not before. I specifically asked CL since he has espoused a very hard-nosed hard-scientific approach to several issues.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Re: Why do we exist?
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Re: Why do we exist?
Your hand waving is certainly not scientific. To say that things are in practice too complex to comprehend and control is different from saying there isn't underlying cause-and-effect. The whitecap jumps up in the ocean as uncountable waves come together but this nonlinearity doesn't mean that the waves of cause and effect haven't come together from their unmeasurably distant causes. The whitecap doen't have agency just because of that complexity. You use the language of agency and say it is justified by complexity. The devil is in the details.Count Lucanor wrote: ↑December 3rd, 2017, 9:32 pmTheir processes are dynamic, dialectical, not linear and mechanical.
- Count Lucanor
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Re: Why do we exist?
Excuse me, where was that when I supposedly said that "things are in practice too complex to comprehend"? When did I say "agency is justified (or caused) by complexity"?Chili wrote: ↑December 4th, 2017, 12:28 pmYour hand waving is certainly not scientific. To say that things are in practice too complex to comprehend and control is different from saying there isn't underlying cause-and-effect. The whitecap jumps up in the ocean as uncountable waves come together but this nonlinearity doesn't mean that the waves of cause and effect haven't come together from their unmeasurably distant causes. The whitecap doen't have agency just because of that complexity. You use the language of agency and say it is justified by complexity. The devil is in the details.Count Lucanor wrote: ↑December 3rd, 2017, 9:32 pmTheir processes are dynamic, dialectical, not linear and mechanical.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Re: Why do we exist?
I like that deliberately ironic choice of phrase to end the post here. Clearly the point of the post is that hypothetical conscious agents like devils are not in the details. Unconscious laws of physics combined with chaotic physical systems are....The devil is in the details.
It reminds me of another use of the devil metaphor: Maxwell's demon, in a thought experiment speculating about the violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
Interesting experiment:
https://phys.org/news/2016-02-physicist ... demon.html
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Re: Why do we exist?
What else could your objections mean? Why else would it be significant that processes are "non linear" ?Count Lucanor wrote: ↑December 5th, 2017, 11:24 pmExcuse me, where was that when I supposedly said that "things are in practice too complex to comprehend"? When did I say "agency is justified (or caused) by complexity"?Chili wrote: ↑December 4th, 2017, 12:28 pm
Your hand waving is certainly not scientific. To say that things are in practice too complex to comprehend and control is different from saying there isn't underlying cause-and-effect. The whitecap jumps up in the ocean as uncountable waves come together but this nonlinearity doesn't mean that the waves of cause and effect haven't come together from their unmeasurably distant causes. The whitecap doen't have agency just because of that complexity. You use the language of agency and say it is justified by complexity. The devil is in the details.
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