Why have anything exist at all?

originally posted by: LeeMich83

That is a very good observation, it shows that you think non-linear, I suppose reason is purely a human construct. I doubt any of the animal kingdom ponder reason, they just do what their primeval impulses compel them to without questioning why. Maybe it is a blight rather than a blessing to have the ability to question why?

Thanks, and did think that it was very à-propos for your OP subject.

Also always am drawn to observe Nature, to compare to ideas being pondered, vs. us crazy hairless apes, ish ... LoL !

Seems like we could observe reasons in Nature, if we seek them, but don't want to look too hard, to possibly bias the observation.

A wise man once told me : that there was no reason, nor no good nor bad, in Nature ; there are merely consequences.

So am kinda leaning, like you, towards wondering if 'reason' is anything beyond a Human construct ?

Perhaps blight, or a curse, vs. a gift, or blessing : is again just a different reflection through the prism of Human experience.

Mostly because our filters, lenses, or attitude : different folks, can have a different personal experience, in similar circumstances.

Approach and attitude can really affect our in-the-moment experience : therefore, it can be a fun exercise to try and get behind those filters, and try to see what is left underneath.

You know : raw.

originally posted by: ThirdEyeofHorus

In Hindu philosophy, we learn the concept of the Inbreath and the Outbreath of Brahman. This is a cycle of creation and destruction of the Universe p11deepakm.medium.com...
indianyug.com...
This should give you some food for thought

Thanks for the links.
Am interested in Hindu, and all world-views.
Will investigate more later, but unfortunately the second linky doesn't like my personal-preservation techniques :

AdBlock Detected - Our site is an advertising supported site. Please whitelist to support our site.

So many awesome ideas in Hinduism, as well as many other traditions.
It is humbling to ponder ideas that have been refined through centuries of thought and meditation.

Am not a good student though, and don't seem to retain much these days.

originally posted by: Machshev
Doesn't mainstream science suggest that the universe is a quantum waveform fluctuation? Other researchers suggest we are AI being trained in a simulator.

I would venture to say that someone would have to create AI. Is that a fair statement?

a reply to: Nothin
I’m sorry one if those links didn’t work for you. As for being a student, is it an easily quantifiable assertion? Esoteric or spiritual concepts are somewhat different from ordinary intellectualism. I believe though that least reading a bit then pondering it facilitates the mind, so give yourself a chance.
Let the seedlings germinate.
It’s good to ask questions.

originally posted by: Astyanax

Nope.

If there is a God, then sure, God is infinitely great.

But I am allowed to have my opinions too. If you believe in God, you must believe that God has created you to have opinions, because you do have them. Even if your great xn granny had to eat an apple to obtain that ability. You can't help yourself.

'Their eyes were opened'. Genesis, no?

If I ever meet God, I hope I will somewhere find the courage to ask a few questions. Though one hopes to have them answered anyway. Might not like the answers.

Yeah, that's part of the fun : that we have seemingly our own individual interpretations of this Human experience ( opinions, beliefs, etc ... )

We may be the ocean waving, but it seems that there are forces, influencing us,
to focus on our dualistic waviness. ( Ego ? )

We sometimes only see the differences betwixt us : why not look for similarities every now and then ?

originally posted by: Nothin
a reply to: Untun

Agreed that it seems to be the Universe tends towards entropy, that may be involved in decay.

Good reasons, and understand a bit.

What about psychopaths ?

And all that is beyond Human creation, need or use ?

Why does a coconut tree exist, other than to make coconuts ?

And what if your reason for that is remouved : and we observe that the coconut tree is still there, beyond our interpretation of it ?

What is the reason, for reason ?

Why, do we ask why? That's a reasonable question, because it probes the impulse to dig beyond the apparent and dissect the process of utility. Then you encounter the question, what is useful? How do you quantify that?

originally posted by: ThirdEyeofHorus
a reply to: Nothin
I’m sorry one if those links didn’t work for you. As for being a student, is it an easily quantifiable assertion? Esoteric or spiritual concepts are somewhat different from ordinary intellectualism. I believe though that least reading a bit then pondering it facilitates the mind, so give yourself a chance.
Let the seedlings germinate.
It’s good to ask questions.

It's a perfectly fine link : just my choice to not disable AdBlock™ .

Agreed that all of the soup ingredients, blend-into the soup, while some pieces may still have some qualities.

Two days later : throw some leftover ingredients into the soup, let it simmer, and the new soup will be some kind of metamorphized Frankensoup.

We are always receiving new inputs, and we're constantly readjusting, and dancing with the new vibes.

Love those new vibes, and that was my feeling reading the first half of the first link, so very nice, and thanks again.

a reply to: Nothin

Thinking these questions and wondering why is actually what differentiates humans from the animal world. It makes us unique, on this planet at least, but im not always sure it is a good thing. I have never witnessed a mentally handicapped person that does not have a smile on their face and isn't living without fear. So it begs the question who are the lucky ones, those that have a high level of understanding of the universe and what goes on around us or those that are blissfully ignorant to it?

originally posted by: TzarChasm

Why, do we ask why? That's a reasonable question, because it probes the impulse to dig beyond the apparent and dissect the process of utility. Then you encounter the question, what is useful? How do you quantify that?

Hey TC : glad to see you sharing those ideas and questions.

It is a wonderful question, because it seems like it has been pondered by all of our relations, since they used to sit at night, use natural medicines, and stare into the fire.

So agreed, that sometimes it's fine to just accept that things are the way they are, and not go nuts trying to dig-down every rabbit-hole at the same time.

Don't know if we choose what to ponder, or it just happens somehow.

Sometimes ideas just pop in our thoughts, and we can't see where they came from.
Like you're trying to ponder about how Rastafarians view their Trinity : then all of a sudden you find yourself wondering what's for dinner ... LoL !!

Maybe it's just our quirkiness, and not in the realm of things that are quantifiable ?
We are conscious that we wonder, and probe : but we don't know why.
We just do.
Maybe there is no answer : to every question ?

Don't know.

originally posted by: LeeMich83
a reply to: Nothin

Thinking these questions and wondering why is actually what differentiates humans from the animal world. It makes us unique, on this planet at least, but im not always sure it is a good thing. I have never witnessed a mentally handicapped person that does not have a smile on their face and isn't living without fear. So it begs the question who are the lucky ones, those that have a high level of understanding of the universe and what goes on around us or those that are blissfully ignorant to it?

And how shall we figure what "a good thing" is, or not ?

Maybe that's part of our pull to wonder about "Why Anything Exists At All" ?

Agreed that folks who experience this here/now differently : are also very interesting to try to understand, if only a little bit.

Also agreed that many folks that our Society™ defines as on the margins : are the most interesting to me.

Saw a wonderful docu, filmed in Slab-City, about a supposedly labelled schizophrenic woman, who had turned her condition into a blessing.
Everyone loved her, and her wild, whacky, and wonderful personality/personalities.

So much beauty, in a myriad in which people experience this differently.

Read a beautiful book, called "I Was Born on a Blue Thursday", by Daniel Tammet, and he very aptly described his experience of synesthesia.

The vast majority of us, can't even imagine how a person with synesthesia experiences the world, as different as they are to all of us, and also to others whom experience a different flavour of synesthesia.

Are you finding that the more we view the wide range of Human experience : that perhaps our wondering, and asking questions ; are maybe actually a part of our communication skills ?

To commune together ?
Don't we thrive in families, and small groups ?

Don't really know anything.

I think this quote by Samuel Johnson is relevant to this topic.

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

originally posted by: LeeMich83
a reply to: Nothin

That is a very good observation, it shows that you think non-linear, I suppose reason is purely a human construct. I doubt any of the animal kingdom ponder reason, they just do what their primeval impulses compel them to without questioning why. Maybe it is a blight rather than a blessing to have the ability to question why?

The paragraph I skipped before from the article:

Purposeful Design or Mindless Process? (Awake!—2009)

...

Human Consciousness

The fact that we form theories for the existence of the cosmos is remarkable. In a universe without purpose, such an ability would have to be nothing but the result of a mindless process. Does that seem reasonable to you?

The human brain has been described as “the most marvelous and mysterious object in the whole universe.” No amount of knowledge in the fields of physics and chemistry can in itself produce adequate explanations for the human capacity for abstract thought and our widespread search for purpose in life.

Either the human mind, with its quest for understanding, was put in place by a superior intelligence, or it arose randomly. Which of these two possibilities seems more reasonable to you?

...

And a little extra...

Chapter 4: How Unique You Are! (Is There a Creator Who Cares About You?)

...

Unequaled Communication Skills

...

Chimpanzees have been taught some limited sign language, but their use of it is essentially limited to simple requests for food or other basics. Having worked to teach chimps simple nonverbal communication, Dr. David Premack concluded: “Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory because it is vastly more powerful than one can account for.”

We might ponder: ‘Why do humans have this marvelous skill to communicate thoughts and feelings, to inquire and to respond?’ The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics states that “[human] speech is special” and admits that “the search for precursors in animal communication does not help much in bridging the enormous gap that separates language and speech from nonhuman behaviors.” Professor Ludwig Koehler summarized the difference: “Human speech is a secret; it is a divine gift, a miracle.”

What a difference there is between an ape’s use of signs and the complex language ability of children! Sir John Eccles referred to what most of us have also observed, an ability “exhibited even by 3-year-old children with their torrent of questions in their desire to understand their world.” He added: “By contrast, apes do not ask questions.” Yes, only humans form questions, including questions about the meaning of life.

Memory and More!

...

Art and Beauty

...

Moral Values

...

You Can Contemplate the Future and Plan for It

Another facet of human consciousness is our ability to consider the future. When asked whether humans have traits that distinguish them from animals, Professor Richard Dawkins acknowledged that man has, indeed, unique qualities. After mentioning “the ability to plan ahead using conscious, imagined foresight,” Dawkins added: “Short-term benefit has always been the only thing that counts in evolution; long-term benefit has never counted. It has never been possible for something to evolve in spite of being bad for the immediate short-term good of the individual. For the first time ever, it’s possible for at least some people to say, ‘Forget about the fact that you can make a short-term profit by chopping down this forest; what about the long-term benefit?’ Now I think that’s genuinely new and unique.”

Other researchers confirm that humans’ ability for conscious, long-term planning is without parallel. Neurophysiologist William H. Calvin notes: “Aside from hormonally triggered preparations for winter and mating, animals exhibit surprisingly little evidence of planning more than a few minutes ahead.” Animals may store food before a cold season, but they do not think things through and plan. By contrast, humans consider the future, even the distant future. Some scientists contemplate what may happen to the universe billions of years hence. Did you ever wonder why man—so different from animals—is able to think about the future and lay out plans?

The Bible says of humans: “Even time indefinite [the Creator] has put in their heart.” The Revised Standard Version renders it: “He has put eternity into man’s mind.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) We use this distinctive ability daily, even in as common an act as glancing in a mirror and thinking what our appearance will be in 10 or 20 years. And we are confirming what Ecclesiastes 3:11 says when we give even passing thought to such concepts as the infinity of time and space. The mere fact that we have this ability harmonizes with the comment that a Creator has put “eternity into man’s mind.”

Drawn to a Creator

Many people, however, are not satisfied fully by enjoying beauty, doing good to fellowmen, and thinking about the future. “Strangely enough,” notes Professor C. Stephen Evans, “even in our most happy and treasured moments of love, we often feel something is missing. We find ourselves wanting more but not knowing what is the more we want.” Indeed, conscious humans—unlike the animals with which we share this planet—feel another need.

“Religion is deeply rooted in human nature and experienced at every level of economic status and educational background.” This summed up the research that Professor Alister Hardy presented in The Spiritual Nature of Man. It confirms what numerous other studies have established—man is God-conscious. While individuals may be atheists, whole nations are not. The book Is God the Only Reality? observes: “The religious quest for meaning . . . is the common experience in every culture and every age since the emergence of humankind.”

From where does this seemingly inborn awareness of God come? If man were merely an accidental grouping of nucleic acid and protein molecules, why would these molecules develop a love of art and beauty, turn religious, and contemplate eternity?

Sir John Eccles concluded that an evolutionary explanation of man’s existence “fails in a most important respect. It cannot account for the existence of each one of us as unique self-conscious beings.” The more we learn about the workings of our brain and mind, the easier it is to see why millions of people have concluded that man’s conscious existence is evidence of a Creator who cares about us.

In the next chapter, we will see why people of all walks of life have found that this rational conclusion lays the basis for finding satisfying answers to the vital questions, Why are we here, and where are we going?

...

“Endowed” to Ask

Concerning the future of our universe, physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote: “We are emboldened to ask questions about things we may never see directly because we can ask them. Our children, or their children, will one day answer them. We are endowed with imagination.”

[Box on page 69]

If the universe and our being alive in it are accidental, our lives can have no lasting meaning. But if our life in the universe results from design, there must be a satisfying meaning to it.

...

[Picture on page 63]

Only humans form questions. Some are questions about the meaning of life

[Picture on page 64]

Unlike the animals, humans have an awareness about themselves and about the future

...

a reply to: Nothin

Without looking it up isn't synthanasia roughly about being in tune with others. I know the univewrse operates with octaves, harmonics and so forth and anything inbetween sounds like noise. Its vibrating strings.

p.s. I love conversations like this

a reply to: TzarChasm

Because when something is wrong we try to make it right.

a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Whether you believe in religion or not, we exist. Life exists. To what purpose ?

I believe that was the OP's question. It is not one to which religion provides an answer. Religion sometimes answers the question 'why do I exist?' (answer: to do God's will and submit to His dictates), but it never answers the question 'what is life's purpose in the universe?' God created life; it exists because He allows it to. End of story. Thoroughly unhelpful.

Marxists believe religion is the “opiate of the masses”.

People love to quote this in isolation. Allow me to quote it in context, for once. As you will see, Marx's concept of religion explains why faith provides no answer to the question of the purpose of life; the question is deliberately left open so that the rulers of state and society can provide whatever answer best fits their need of the moment.

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man: state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.

-- Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1844)

You will notice that Marx does not say whether the objective claims of religion are true or false. His objection to religion is that it is used by the rich and powerful to encourage (and sometimes compel) the poor and powerless to put up with their unhappy lot without question or protest. That conclusion, by the way, is at least as old as Seneca.

Unfortunately, the only cure that Marx could come up with was to start a new religion of his own, which came to be called Marxism and is just as fictitious and absurd as the plot of any ancient Middle Eastern fantasy novel.

a reply to: Nothin

Approach and attitude can really affect our in-the-moment experience : therefore, it can be a fun exercise to try and get behind those filters, and try to see what is left underneath.

I'm afraid there are good scientific reasons why this is ultimately impossible. Didn't you say you were a naturalist/scientific materialist? If you really are, you probably know the reasons already; certainly, if you hold that stance, you ought to.

As for whether reason itself exists; well, of course it does. Reason is just the human ability to recognise and understand cause and effect. Without causality, the universe would be completely unpredictable -- which, at any scale larger than the Planck scale, it certainly isn't. The universe is rational, and so are we.

What is it you don't want to do when you start wondering about the purpose of life? I think the question comes from a certain dissatisfaction and powerlessness. Ecclesiastes reads all there is to life is to do work. Stay withing your box.

a reply to: LeeMich83

'I refute it thus' is also Johnson.

a reply to: LeeMich83

Am also appreciating the exchange, LM.

If we are constantly dancing to the music of the Universe : synesthesia is the person dancing, singing, playing an instrument, and winking at the same time.

It doesn't appear that we can learn it, but perhaps we can touch on the experience, if we practice.

Seems it's a gift from birth.

Synesthesia can be described as multiple sensory inputs received together, in a seamless way.

( Remember : am describing this from a perspective of observing, and not from experience. )

Ex : one with synesthesia may view all examples of the numeral "2", as not only meaning two, but always being blue.
Even a black 2 on a monitor, is still bluish.

Daniel Tammet has multiple other flavors, all going-on at the same time.
He never knew others didn't experience this, until he was a bit older.

A Synesthetic Landscape

One word that he uses quite frequently is “landscape”. When Tammet recites a number with numerable digits (Pi, for example), he sees a landscape that consists of the shapes that are representative of each integer. By making his way through the landscape in his mind, he is able to see (and recite) each digit in eerily perfect sequential order. Something else that’s relatively amazing – Daniel’s shape/color/emotion association doesn’t stop at digits (0-9); each integer from 0-10,000 has its own respective “symbol”. Pretty terrific, huh? While these tendencies aren’t necessarily indicative of any one type of synesthesia, we can certainly see some of the characteristics of a few of the common manifestations that we’ve discussed.

So multiple qualities to numerals, and a vision of a sort of landscape, where they can be found.

So rather than a beautiful piano chord : more like a multi-textured symphonic hit, with various elements of tension, resolution, promise, menace, and resonance.

Yeah : so the person in the middle of the dance-floor, tripping balls ! LoL !!

Who needs a reason for that ? LoL !!

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Nothin

Approach and attitude can really affect our in-the-moment experience : therefore, it can be a fun exercise to try and get behind those filters, and try to see what is left underneath.

I'm afraid there are good scientific reasons why this is ultimately impossible. Didn't you say you were a naturalist/scientific materialist? If you really are, you probably know the reasons already; certainly, if you hold that stance, you ought to.

As for whether reason itself exists; well, of course it does. Reason is just the human ability to recognise and understand cause and effect. Without causality, the universe would be completely unpredictable -- which, at any scale larger than the Planck scale, it certainly isn't. The universe is rational, and so are we.

Impossibility, and scientific-impossibility : are two different things.

Beyond the framework of the limitations of scientific-impossibility : is an endless ocean of potentialities,
that is unquantifiable from within that box of limitations.

Am not any kind of "...ist". Maybe someone else ?

That 96% or so of the Universe, that we sometimes casually write-off as dark-energy, and dark-matter : don't appear too rational to me.
But am just a fool who doesn't believe in science.