Why is there anything?

Great Debates
61

What you’re seeing is the result of millions of years of evolution pushing the human brain into better and better pattern recognition, because a being which can connect the dots from incomplete information and react appropriately is at great advantage over those who must wait for the whole tiger to be visible to start to run. In other words, that’s just a gas cloud, and you are engaging in patternicity when you see something more in it.

Much like the ancient beings who believed the constellation of Orion looked like a man with a bow and arrow, and therefore there must be beings in the stars. Drawing conclusions from inadequate evidence is a fundamental feature of human beings. It has upsides and downsides. The upside is we can communicate in imperfect ways and rely on the brains of our fellows to fill in the blanks and the downside is that sometimes we fill in the blanks with bullshit.

The appropriate response to filling in the blanks with bullshit is to examine why we jumped to those conclusions, and examine them rationally. To be able to do so in a systematic way is why science has become the most powerful epistemology humanity ever developed.

Enjoy,
Steven

62

Um, because nature abhors a vacuum? (much in the way a dog does?:D)

I confess I am not of the opinion that everything that is is meaningless, random, and pointless. I think there IS some higher purpose/power involved. So sue me.

BUT, I never got the opposition to the idea that scientific explainations for physical phenomenon amount to a discrediting of any higher purpose or design behind such phenomenon. :confused:

I guess I tend to see it as all Energy, continually changing form…it’s beautiful, really, and I see that Energy as the force/intelligence/purpose behind the physical manifestations we witness.

And WE are a part of that Energy flow, and no Energy is ever lost. Even IF we die and change forms and have no consiousness of ourselves, we can rest assured that we are immortal in that sense…the Energy that animates us and the matter that makes up our physical forms goes on, is transmuted/recycled, and the dance goes on.

Who knows? Maybe it/we is all just biomass/random, blind energy from some ancient explosion winding down over time spans we cannot even wrap our minds around…maybe it “means” more. Either way, as Woody Allen once put it, even if that’s all there is, don’t you want to be a PART of it? :smiley: I mean, DAMN, how fucking cool is THAT? To be a self-aware product of some random event/process and get to witness it from within and wonder and dream and eat and sleep and fuck and love and create art and give birth and laugh and post on the SD message boards and otherwise experience LIFE, even if it IS all a pointless illusion? :confused:

HELLS yes! :cool:

If it’s nothing more than random and pointless, it’s still astoundingly beautiful and deep. If it’s more than that, even more so.

And I agree, astronomy is some creepy shit! When I realized, as a child, that what we were seeing in the way of stars seen with the naked eye and further off phenomenon were actually events/objects which took place eons ago and which could, for all we know, be long gone, it sort of freaked me out! :eek::stuck_out_tongue:

Still does, but in a good way. Life is good. :smiley:

63

Thanks** InterestedObserver **for the respite from the sterile, mechanical, meaningless nothing.

64

You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

65

The argument has really been against the non sequitur of god dunnit, not about trying to be miserable.

But part of why you’re concluding life is good is because you’ve just listed all the good parts of it: art, birth, laughter, dreams etc.

Equally a part of life is fear, misery, hunger, pain etc.
We’re “wired up” to experience these things too.

In fact, to the OP I considered posting a disturbing picture and asking: does this make you think there’s a god?
(I found a pretty disturbing image of a birth defect, but I still don’t have the balls to post it up).

I’m not telling people to be miserable. I believe in trying to be positive, but not pretending that everything already is positive.

66

Oh, trust me, I am also fully aware of the shit aspects of life. It can really suck sometimes. I lost my husband of 23 yrs a few yrs ago to a genetic condition…I know about the pain and grief involved and mine has been a relatively fortunate life compared to those of many.

Just saying that if given the choice between non-existance and existing and experiencing ALL that life has to offer, even given the shit aspects, I vote for existing…still so many positives to counter the negative. Life IS good, overall. It beats the SHIT out of the alternative, in most cases. (not always, sadly). Even in my deepest despair, there were moments of pleasure and enjoyment.

This is the sort of photo you were thinking of, I suspect. Horrible, heart-wrenching, and something that human-kind should act to address, but not a reason we should all kill ourselves out of despair, imo. What good would come from that?

http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/ultimate_in_unfair.htm

67

I’m pretty doubtful that there’s anybody in this thread who is both saying that life is meaningless, and that the proper reaction to life being meaningless is to promptly kill yourself. I mean, I know this is the Wired and all, but come on.

68

Ok, there are two main points of view, the universe ‘just is’, or God made the universe. If you believe God did it, who made God? Or is God ‘just is’? If you can accept that God ‘just is’, then why isn’t that as good an explanation as the universe ‘just is’.
I’m still trying to figure out why people who say they have ‘faith’ that God exists, need physical proof. Is that the limit of ‘faith’? Is it only good until something doesn’t conform to your beliefs?

69

Yes, we live in the duality, when we see good, be happy, when we see something like that photo, we do something, we give our time, money, and love, to make it better one person at a time.

70

Two separate issues, I think. They can’t accept that the universe ‘just is’ because they think their god created it. Oh, and also everything needs a creator. Except God, he’s special.

However, it’s not that they’d lose faith without physical proof their god exists, anymore than the discovery of evolution wiped out Christianity. They prefer being able to claim they can prove God’s a creator, but if they lost that they’d adapt.

71

I think we all get our faith shaken from time to time. Part of being human. Doesn’t mean we have given up.

72

Ok, so I exaggerated for effect (not so much, given that the man who took that photo killed himself, partly over the guilt and despair he felt as a result) but my point was that what IS the point of dwelling on the negatives and ignoring the positives? If you prefer to avoid the negatives involved in life, might as WELL kill yourself, because they are there.

Or you can choose to enjoy the good and endure the bad and reach some sort of balance.

73

I don’t feel that it’s a negative that life has no meaning, so I’m not entirely sure I understand the question.

Are you under the impression that people are arguing that a person should ignore the good in life to focus disproportionately on the bad?

74

Well if you haven’t given up, then you still have your faith. I didn’t mean the question quite literally, instead it questions whether some people have more faith in their personal beliefs than the God they claim to have faith in. Personally I don’t think you can have real faith without measuring it. Better to do it philosophically than when faced with tragedy. But if the explanation for a physical property of the universe shakes you, then it sounds like little faith to me.

BTW: Please don’t make assumptions about whether or not I believe in God. I don’t know the answer to that one myself.

75

I generally don’t make assumptions. I remember when I was an agnostic, most of my life, I did try to understand how and why others had no trouble believing in God. At least that was the impression I got from them. I just could find no proof to believe either way. After my near death experience I changed dramatically, I had experienced a higher consciousness, so now no faith is needed for me to believe in God. But I realize others still are questioning whether God exists or not, and I can’t show them what I experienced. It is very frustrating. I don’t believe measuring faith can be done, nor can God be found in some logical manner. So we are faced with having faith or no. In an earlier post I suggested some ways one could discover themselves, if this is done it goes a long way toward experiencing God.

76

Small note: If he is referring to the event described in his blog, what he had was a bad dream, not an NDE. He wasn’t in a hospital, no doctor was there when it happened, he woke up the next morning in his own bed, and he didn’t bother to see a doctor the next day.

77

Life is pretty much a Near Death Experience, followed by an All the Way Death Experience. Funny though, I’ve had a death dream, didn’t change my outlook on these matters. When I woke up it was pretty easy to tell I was still alive.

njtt are you out there? Here’s a case where philosophy is the right tool for the job.

78

IMHO, mostly jealousy of science, which can actually back up its claims.

79

Why and how are two very different questions and in some instances should never be linked.

The answer to how we get through science and we pretty much have a handle on what happened from just after the big bang onwards, this is like us saying we know how a kettle boils water, it does not tell us why it was turned on in the first place.

To understand the why we move away from science and into the worlds of philosphy and speculation.

I have no problem in understanding and accepting the scientific method and also looking at the world from a philosphical perspective…

To say “there is a god or there is not a god” is pretty narrow minded. The only correct answer is that based on my life experiences, culture, scientific proof [or lack thereof] and the shared collection of stories I have heard I believe X to be true.

80

I can relate to that, what do we have but our experiences, and the experiences of others we read about. Life itself is just experiences. So we believe what we experience, it is only natural that we would. Believing what no one has experienced is not common, and a risk I care not to take.