Pure Potentiality as the source of all existence

[Leibniz1699]

I'll try to explain in a new format that is clearer:

Right now in the present moment it can be empirically verified that there is reality. This reality is whatever it ultimately is regardless of whether we know or ever get to know the complete particulars (such as whether it is mind dependent or independent, any undiscovered scientific facts, or any undetected deities etc). So regardless of the exact particular setup there is reality the way it is and the fact that there is this reality at all cannot be denied by even the most extreme skepticism.

From there my train of thought is as follows:

-This actual reality is the way it is for no reason meaning it's exact state and particular characteristics have been randomly and arbitrarily determined
-This logically could not be determined by Gods or anything else because Gods and things are themselves just part of the very reality whose specifications we are trying to find a source for
-Because of the randomly determined nature of reality's specifications there is no statistical preference or 'bias' for reality being the way it is as opposed to being any other way
-The absence of preference or bias means reality as it is is a manifestation of being without preconditions, influences, or limitations.
-The lack of preconditions or limiting influence in determining the way reality is means that pure freedom (or pure potentiality) is the very foundational essence of reality.
-But this pure freedom or pure potentiality must not be mistaken for an actual thing as if it were a force as the source of reality cannot be a thing or force as the ultimate source created all things including forces.
-So this pure freedom or pure potentiality are just labels meant to try to get as close as possible to understanding a truth that is not explainable in an intuitively linear way. It seems complicated at first because 'it' isn't even a thing but 'it' is not nothing either.
-As I mentioned earlier the best way to conceptualize this 'non thing that isn't exactly nothing' is to imagine an atemporal superposition of infinitely many potential realities all representing the infinitely possible manifestations of pure freedom.
-'Our reality is the way it is for no reason' is its own arbitrary selection from the infinite superposition

Why should this idea be considered?
- It dissolves the ultimate question of why along with its assumptive mysteriousness
- It dissolves it by explaining the implications of what 'it is what it is' means from a metaphysical standpoint
- It renders theism, mysticism, and esotericism redundant as it can explain everything these fields try to explain but without the metaphysical baggage
- It leaves science completely unnafected as science is about studying the observable specifications of reality not why reality's specifications are what they are as opposed to being different
- It starts from objective empirical reality then works to a conclusion using logic grounded in empirical truths as opposed to flaky speculations that would not even be able answer the question they were intending to answer in the first place.


There are still many mysteries (like scientific mysteries) but there is ultimately nothing mysterious about these mysteries as they are mysteries within reality not of reality itself.

[Felix]

Leibniz1699: So regardless of the exact particular setup there is reality the way it is and the fact that there is this reality at all cannot be denied by even the most extreme skepticism.

It's not skepticism to question if the world we perceive with our senses is the ultimate reality, it's a pragmatic philosophical inquiry.

Leibniz1699: This actual reality is the way it is for no reason meaning it's exact state and particular characteristics have been randomly and arbitrarily determined.

There is absolutely no evidence to support that assumption. In fact "randomly determined" is an oxymoron since random means indeterminate.

Leibniz1699: Why should this idea be considered?
- It dissolves the ultimate question of why along with its assumptive mysteriousness
- It dissolves it by explaining the implications of what 'it is what it is' means from a metaphysical standpoint
- It renders theism, mysticism, and esotericism redundant as it can explain everything these fields try to explain but without the metaphysical baggage

It achieves none of the above. Simply asserting that reality is random in no way addresses the important existential questions, it only evades them.

- It starts from objective empirical reality then works to a conclusion using logic grounded in empirical truths as opposed to flaky speculations that would not even be able answer the question they were intending to answer in the first place.

The opposite is true: the idea that reality operates in a random fashion has no empirical basis.

[Leibniz1699]

Right now in the present moment it can be empirically verified that there is reality. This reality is whatever it ultimately is regardless of whether we know or ever get to know the complete particulars

Methodological Solipsism is my starting point - the most skeptical position. I'm saying that even if everything is doubted including other minds and all that exists is an illusory hallucinated sensory stream that is still some sort of reality nonetheless even if it is very limited.

My point is that this hypothetical reality or any other reality cannot have any reason or purpose to the way it is. There logically cannot be a reason or purpose for reality as any such reason or purpose is automatically subsumed into the set of all existing things leading to either a brute fact of existence or an infinite explanatory regress (which is just a brute fact by another name).

There is no logical way around it.

[Belindi]

I agree with Leibnitz. Pure potential is the ground of being. Change is possible with Yin and Yang. We live in change, we don't live in pure potentiality.
Leibnitz wrote in their OP:

The major question of philosophy is what is existence and reality itself?

Rather the main question of philosophy is "how should I live?"

Yin and Yang are the bare bones of existence itself and you and I , in order to be modes of existence itself, must therefore be not only more complex than potentiality but also more complex than Yin and Yang.

[Felix]

Leibniz1699: My point is that this hypothetical reality or any other reality cannot have any reason or purpose to the way it is.

From your perspective, however from another perspective in consciousness, purpose may be apparent. I agree that reality appears to have no predefined purpose, that it is we sentient beings who define its purpose.

Belindi: Rather the main question of philosophy is "how should I live?"

Which is another way of saying, "what purpose shall my life serve?"

[popeye1945]

Purposeless creation for no reason in other words. Itself the very reason for existence.
[/quote]



Excellent, you perhaps should read if you have not already done so, Alfred North Whitehead, " Process and Reality, its quiet a challenge but very much along the lines of your thought.

[Erkle]

Potentiality is part of existence.
This precludes it from being the source.
The most fundamental philosophical question is "why is there something rather than nothing."

[Consul]

Potentiality is part of existence.
This precludes it from being the source.

Right. Moreover, potentials/potentialities aren't independent entities, because they are attributes or properties of something. Where there are potentials/potentialities, there must be something having them; so there is no possible world where nothing exists but "pure", unhad, free-floating potentials/potentialities.

The most fundamental philosophical question is "why is there something rather than nothing."

My answer: There is something rather than nothing, because there cannot be nothing. Being must be, and nonbeing cannot be. There is no alternative to being.

[Belindi]

Potential and necessity mean the same.

If an event is not a possible event it will not exist: if an event not a necessary event it will not exist.

Conversely, if an event is a necessary event it will exist: if an event is a possible event it will exist.

Conclusion: potential and necessary mean the same. Or in other words what happened necessarily happened: what will happen necessarily will happen.

Simply because we can't explain or foresee event x will happen does not imply event x is impossible/ not a necessity

[Consul]

Potential and necessity mean the same.

If an event is not a possible event it will not exist: if an event not a necessary event it will not exist.

Conversely, if an event is a necessary event it will exist: if an event is a possible event it will exist.

Conclusion: potential and necessary mean the same. Or in other words what happened necessarily happened: what will happen necessarily will happen.

Simply because we can't explain or foresee event x will happen does not imply event x is impossible/ not a necessity

You're wrong: Like possibility, potentiality entails neither actuality nor necessity. It is not the case that what can be (done) is (done), or that what can be (done) must or will be (done).

"Potentialities, in short, are possibilities rooted in objects; they are like possibilities, but they are properties of individual objects."

(Vetter, Barbara. Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. p. 3)

So potentialities are active (agentive) or passive possibilities for something or somebody:

If x has the potential(ity) to y, then it is possible for x to y.

It doesn't follow that potentialities are ever actualized or manifested, let alone necessarily.

[Erkle]

There is something rather than nothing, because there cannot be nothing. Being must be, and nonbeing cannot be. There is no alternative to being.

Yes. Existence is the default. The question then is what is existence comprised of?

[The Beast]

I represent my reality in a cartesian cube called the Universe. There is a history and its representation added Time to the Z axis.
If a picture of a moment of reality is compared to another picture in the form X-X’= change then experience = change. If X+X’= memory. I can say that consciousness is the memory of the changing reality.
How consciousness perceive reality is a process of attenuation. Reality as it happens is perceived and transcribed by the process of attenuation.
I could think of a reality that has a nY magnitude of single frames in which all the moments/frames nX of my reality plus its memory is encased in 1Y. It is possible that the collective generational human consciousness is contained in nY. The evolution of human consciousness is factual, and the executive function is also evolving. I could envision a spectrum on the z axis occupying the cartesian values of the known reality.
Basically, all processes are in some way energy exchange and consciousness is in the words of Socrates a “know thyself” process. Obviously, the distance between frames in the z axis is a relationship with the Einstein formula of exchange. For particles, the frames might be closer together. I would have access to their reality in the composition of my corresponding frame. An illustration of a frame of one thousand of a second is different from that of a second from one of one hour according to my perception. I have access to levels of reality given in the Einstein formula in the evolved process described as perceived attenuation of reality. There is an equal chance of the z axis extending past the Universal block as is equal chance of other” know thyself” processes in the known Universe. If one is discovered, then there is an equal chance of multiverses in the z axis with their attenuating processes represented as blocks/particles on the z-axis. The reality of know thyself is a spectrum of functions of starting potentials.

[Belindi]

Potential and necessity mean the same.

If an event is not a possible event it will not exist: if an event not a necessary event it will not exist.

Conversely, if an event is a necessary event it will exist: if an event is a possible event it will exist.

Conclusion: potential and necessary mean the same. Or in other words what happened necessarily happened: what will happen necessarily will happen.

Simply because we can't explain or foresee event x will happen does not imply event x is impossible/ not a necessity

You're wrong: Like possibility, potentiality entails neither actuality nor necessity. It is not the case that what can be (done) is (done), or that what can be (done) must or will be (done).

"Potentialities, in short, are possibilities rooted in objects; they are like possibilities, but they are properties of individual objects."

(Vetter, Barbara. Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. p. 3)

So potentialities are active (agentive) or passive possibilities for something or somebody:

If x has the potential(ity) to y, then it is possible for x to y.

It doesn't follow that potentialities are ever actualized or manifested, let alone necessarily.

You confuse what we can predict with what necessarily will happen.

"Potentialities, in short, are possibilities rooted in objects; they are like possibilities, but they are properties of individual objects."

Properties of individual objects are not forces of nature but are ascribed to objects by cultural agreement.

[Consul]

You confuse what we can predict with what necessarily will happen.

No, I don't. I know that predictability doesn't entail determinism, and that determinism doesn't entail predictability.

"Potentialities, in short, are possibilities rooted in objects; they are like possibilities, but they are properties of individual objects." – B. Vetter

Properties of individual objects are not forces of nature but are ascribed to objects by cultural agreement.

Natural properties (potentialities, abilities, powers) aren't "socially constructed". There's nothing conventional or contractual about them.

[Belindi]

Consul wrote:

Natural properties (potentialities, abilities, powers) aren't "socially constructed". There's nothing conventional or contractual about them.

Here we disagree. Man makes sense of, narrates, the story of nature. It is unknowable what if anything is absolutely the case.