What is the Most Important Philosophical Question

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: Godabove09
a reply to: Wang Tang

The most important question for me, as simplistic as it may be, is this;

Q. Everything from nothing by accident OR an unknowable and infinite CREATOR of incalculable majesty?

Great question except there is no evidence that nothingness ever existed. All the evidence is to the contrary. As equally hard as it is to imagine somethingness always existed it is equallly hard to imagine that nothingness ever did. Since something does exist the only rational conclusion is everything that exists always existed. Either way of thinking about it is equally hard to accept.

Nothing begets nothing.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Why are we here? If we're not here, then there's nothing. We're here to make the universe happen by observing it. You can easily test this by dying. Once you're dead, try to experience the universe.

On a more personal level, we're here to keep DNA replicating through time. We may not make a lasting contribution, but all of the living things in existence work together over time to find new ways of keeping DNA moving, and in response, the universe existing.

But if science has shown us anything, it's that in the grand scheme of time and space -- which is unfathomably long and big -- we're so inconsequential that we statistically don't even exist. It could be that aliens will keep the universe going after we're long gone, but nobody knows that for sure.

Great post! I love your way of thinking.

I love the interpretation if we are not here to witness the Universe the Universe does not exist. I usually say time does not exist when I say it. I agree with the idea that time does not exist and that time is human construct that only occurs in our minds and thoughts.

I have another way of answering why we are here. Assume for a minute there exists an infinite omnipotent God being. Being omnipotent gets kind of boring. Also, in order to be omnipotent, you have to be every possible way of being all at the same time. So human beings are God's way of experiencing the thrill of having limitations by vicariously experiencing our life joys and frustrations.

If you consider human experience as a unit of information organization, then in order to complete every possibility imaginable for God to be omnipotent, you would need something like quantum indeterminacy.

You could think all of reality is God's way of experiencing the thrill of having limitations. We really know nothing about energy other than it can be measured with mass. And all we know about mass is that it can be measured to exist with energy. But in the deepest sense, we have no idea what energy actually is other than it it is always flowing as part of some process. Is God the energy or is God the potential or space the energy flows into. My mind wanders into and out of the void of in indeterminate non existence.

originally posted by: Talorc

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: Godabove09
a reply to: Wang Tang

The most important question for me, as simplistic as it may be, is this;

Q. Everything from nothing by accident OR an unknowable and infinite CREATOR of incalculable majesty?

Great question except there is no evidence that nothingness ever existed. All the evidence is to the contrary. As equally hard as it is to imagine somethingness always existed it is equallly hard to imagine that nothingness ever did. Since something does exist the only rational conclusion is everything that exists always existed. Either way of thinking about it is equally hard to accept.

Nothing begets nothing.

To the scientist, nothing never equals infinity. To the mystic, zero equals infinity.

Heidegger claimed being and nothingness is the greatest possible question to ask.

I still like the argument that nothingness may be imaginary because it blows the idea of first clause out of the water. If you are going to to travel these waters everyone must sink.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

how you KNOW that you "chose" pepsi - and the " choice " was not asssigned to you

A choice is made not based on reason. A reason would be like taste or bubble content. A real choice is not based on any reasons. When you make a choice, you can choose either way equally without any measurable difference in terms of subjective judgment.

a reply to: Wang Tang

I always found "Why am I here?" to be a most basic and often the first philosophical question that we ask ourselves...

philosophy isn't about getting answers, it is about gaining perspective. There is no answer, only your ability to understand multiple sides of the same story, if you can not see that both sides are equal and valid, you haven't even gotten started.

Philosophy isn't about what answer you get, it is a discovery of unlearning, you get to break down your own personal walls by asking questions that you weren't taught the answers to.

Not changing your personnal beliefs, but realizing they might be flawed, that the things you learned were true, turn out to be opinion, that no mans belief is better than another mans, only an understanding of what they have questioned.

The less you question what YOU believe the less you are able to learn about others.

The most important question is the one that lets you see from a perspective you haven't learned to see from yet.
Then it is time for a new question.

a reply to: dfnj2015

This seems to me to be demonstrably false. Just because I may favor one of my choices over the other doesn't mean there isn't a decision being made. A choice is quite simply a decision made between two or more possibilities. Just because I choose Pepsi over coke due to the fact that I have a subjective preference for Pepsi doesn't mean I didn't make a decision

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: dfnj2015

This seems to me to be demonstrably false. Just because I may favor one of my choices over the other doesn't mean there isn't a decision being made. A choice is quite simply a decision made between two or more possibilities. Just because I choose Pepsi over coke due to the fact that I have a subjective preference for Pepsi doesn't mean I didn't make a decision

It's only a decision if you CHOOSE to attribute reasons for making the choice.

a reply to: dfnj2015

This isn't really debatable.

de·ci·sion
dəˈsiZHən/
noun
a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.

a reply to: dfnj2015

“Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled."—The Kybalion.”

a reply to: Wang Tang

Here is a question I find myself asking, what are they going to do when I find the answers, to EVERYTHING, without "their" consent ???

And how badly do they want to be "fixed".

Cause all I know is, I CAN FIND EVERYTHING.

a reply to: Wang Tang

Also, there is no "true" nature.

You are human and will always think like a human.

Without human thinking, human perspective wouldn't exist.

It is evident that some humans think differently than others.

Without the opposite view, there is only one view.

Without either, there is no view.

Only the existence not questioning itself.

I think therefore I am.

originally posted by: AMNicks
a reply to: Wang Tang

In order to become complete (philosophically speaking) you need not to ask the question.

Believe in now a place with no need for an answer..

Absolutely.If you feel the need to ask, you are not complete.
That is when you need to look deep inside yourself and find out what fulfills your soul.

Only you can answer that.

a reply to: dfnj2015

It's only a decision if you CHOOSE to attribute reasons for making the choice.

That is incorrect. The only difference in a choosing something for a reason like subjective preference and choosing something for no reason at all is simply a matter of the degree of consideration that went in to your resolution. My point is simple, concluding that it isn't a choice simply because the person has reasons for their decision is a non sequitur.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Great question except there is no evidence that nothingness ever existed. All the evidence is to the contrary.

Wells lets test that claim:

Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem has shown that any universe that is has average expansion rate higher than zero cannot be extended infinitely into the past. This includes inflationary models of the universe and oscillating models of the universe.

The Second law of themordynamics tells us in a closed system the state of entropy always increases. The universe is a closed system. There is no outside system feeding energy into the universe. If the universe was eternal, then the state of the universe would be in a much higher state of entropy.

The universe is expanding extrapolate time backwards and expansion becomes contraction, and combine with the BGV it tells us the universe is finite.

The theory of special relativity itself implies the beginning of the universe. This is the very reason Einstein divided by zero, and it wasn't until Hubble invited him to come see the red shift for himself that he admitted to his mistake.

As equally hard as it is to imagine somethingness always existed it is equallly hard to imagine that nothingness ever did. Since something does exist the only rational conclusion is everything that exists always existed. Either way of thinking about it is equally hard to accept.

Man you are all over the place. So if we follow your logic it looks like this:

Premise 1 Something exist
Premise 2 If something exist, then that thing has always existed
Premise 3 Therefore, everything that exist has always existed

Premise 2 is again a nonsequitur. Things can exist temporarily. Take earth for example. Earth is 4 billion years old. Go back 7 billion no earth. It again is demonstrably false.

I don't think eternity and nothing are concepts that so difficult we just can't imagine them. In fact nothing is a pretty easy concept to imagine. It is simply the absence of all things and something that is eternal is simply without beginning or end.

Everyone thinks the Big Bang is the beginning but with multiverse string theory our Big Bang is an inflationary event which could be the result of a star collapsing to a black hole in another space-time dimension.

Everyone thinks the Big Bang was the beginning because we know that spacetime popped into existence at the first planck time. Without spacetime you have no space. Without space you cannot have physical duration. Without physical duration you do not have time. Without time and space you do not have matter or energy. Now I personally do not think there was nothing, but the naturalist seems left with no other alternative. Please explain the model of the universe you think is closest to the truth or at least source it..

a reply to: Wang Tang

I think the best thing to do in a case like this is brainstorm possible solutions and then pick the best from them... I think questions like "How often does life sprout in the universe?" and "Are there other intelligent life forms out there?" "What created the universe?" "Are we living in a digital simulation?" "What is the nature of the spirit?"

Perhaps we all find our innermost most important philosophical question, maybe with a 2nd or 3rd place, and then we all compare to each other to see what we think the most important philosophical question is.

I was gonna go with "why?" but I think that's part of what kicked this whole charade off. I'm going with "how do you turn it off?". Even that's not important, some asshat would probably turn it on again.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

I believe that at the point of the big bang, a universe of anti-matter was also created that runs time backwards. There are also theories about there being multiple universes with multiple big bangs.

a reply to: darkbake

Yes even multiverse theories would have had to had a beginning as well via the BGV theorem. I suggest you read the article irrespective of your opinion of Dr.Craig the man has devoted a lot of his time to cosmological arguments it also quotes and references papers from vilenkin:

In 1994, however, Arvind Borde and Alexander Vilenkin showed that any spacetime eternally inflating toward the future cannot be “geodesically complete” in the past, that is to say, there must have existed at some point in the indefinite past an initial singularity. Hence, the multiverse scenario cannot be past eternal. They write, A model in which the inflationary phase has no end . . . naturally leads to this question: Can this model also be extended to the infinite past, avoiding in this way the problem of the initial singularity? . . . this is in fact not possible in future-eternal inflationary spacetimes as long as they obey some reasonable physical conditions: such models must necessarily possess initial singularities. . . . the fact that inflationary spacetimes are past incomplete forces one to address the question of what, if anything, came before.[11] In response, Linde concurred with the conclusion of Borde and Vilenkin: there must have been a Big Bang singularity at some point in the past.[12] In 2003 Borde and Vilenkin in co-operation with Alan Guth, the father of inflationary cosmology, were able to strengthen their conclusion by crafting a new theorem independent of the assumption of the so-called “weak energy condition,” which partisans of past-eternal inflation might have denied in an effort to save their theory.[13] The new theorem, in Vilenkin’s words, “appears to close that door completely.”[14] The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem proves that classical space-time, under a single, very general condition, cannot be extended to past infinity but must reach a boundary at some time in the finite past. Now either there was something on the other side of that boundary or not. If not, then that boundary just is the beginning of the universe. If there was something on the other side, then it will be a region described by the yet to be discovered theory of quantum gravity. In that case, Vilenkin says, it will be the beginning of the universe. Either way, the universe began to exist. In 2012 in Cambridge at a conference celebrating the 70th birthday of Stephen Hawking, Vilenkin delivered a paper which surveys current cosmology with respect to the question, “Did the Universe Have a Beginning?” He argued that “none of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal.”[15] He concluded, “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”[16]

Read more: www.reasonablefaith.org...

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

As far as the anti-matter universe theory. Wanna give me some sources and evidence behind the theory?