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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: AreoZephin]
    #3484472 -

Ok.

Another tack, Given that all you have is memories, and memories are put together by all the information passed to your brain by your senses. So what you know from your memories says it's all secondhand info anyway. Lights go in your eyes, turn into electricty, are transmitted along the optic nerve and are interpreted to some form by the brain, and incorporated into a new part of the stream of memory. You could have a brain in a tank, and if you fed it all the right electrical signals, that brain would think it was a person going about its daily life, punching walls, watching videos of itself or whatever. Though, it is far beyond our technology (if it exists at all) to do so.

I'm not saying you're a brain in a tank.. But that you cannot rely on anything being real. Of anything existing at all. Because all you are is the sum of your memories, and theres no proof those are of real things anyway.

If I were to press the issue, I could say that it is only these memories that tell you the human brain interprets signals from the senses in this manner in the first place.


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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: Hambo]
    #3484524 -

So basically like the movie Matrix?

Well yeah. I mean it's possible.

But still, my friends and other people have memories of me, I have memories of them. We'd be falling over dead from some sort of termination also which would make it logical for the brain/tank theory not to be true. Yet it could be. Yet ... heh. It's possible. But then it's improbable. We have scientists and etc, I suppose they could disprove that from happening in our reality of where our brain is at? Eventually.


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The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: AreoZephin]
    #3484549 -

maybe your just hallucinating and we are all part of that hallucination. perhaps you jsut dream up your friends having memories of you, after all you know all tehre is to know about you...kinda.

Fight Club.....


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The seeds you won't sow are the plants you dont grow.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: kadakuda]
    #3484780 -

It's interesting how this thread started with a very profound metaphysical problem, but has been sidetracked into an epistemological discussion of skepticism.

Did existence begin or did it not begin?

I like the Angelic Doctor's answer.

"The third proof is taken from the natures of the merely possible and necessary. We find that certain things either may or may not exist, since they are found to come into being and be destroyed, and in consequence potentially, either existent or non-existent. But it is impossible for all things that are of this character to exist eternally, because what may not exist, at length will not. If, then, all things were merely possible (mere accidents), eventually nothing among things would exist. If this is true, even now there would be nothing, because what does not exist, does not take its beginning except through something that does exist. If then nothing existed, it would be impossible for anything to begin, and there would now be nothing existing, which is admittedly false. Hence not all things are mere accidents, but there must be one necessarily existing being. Now every necessary thing either has a cause of its necessary existence, or has not. In the case of necessary things that have a cause for their necessary existence, the chain of causes cannot go back infinitely, just as not in the case of efficient causes, as proved. Hence there must be presupposed something necessarily existing through its own nature, not having a cause elsewhere but being itself the cause of the necessary existence of other things---which all call God."
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aquinas3.html

While this may not necessarily prove God's existence, I think it certainly proves that a necessary being must exist in order for anything to exist. Necessary being precludes beginning, for beginning implies that there was a time when the necessary being was not, and non-existing-necessary-being is an oxymoron.

The contradiction is impossible to escape if causality is considered real. Two options present themselves for belief: either there is an infinite regress in the chain of causality, or there is a first cause which is itself uncaused. I chose to believe the later because I find it more reasonable than an infinite regress.


Some have tried to solve this problem by saying cause and effect are not real, but only exist in the mind. I don't really know about that.

Edited by shroomydan (12/12/04 02:22 AM)

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: shroomydan]
    #3484818 -

interesting. im not sure if i believe that but to be honest i have about 0 idea of how it came to be or how it comes to be. all im doinbg is putting ideas out there, like reading everyone spost though. perhaps after enough mushrooms i might find somthing that clicks. but i jsut cant see any of this fitting logically in my head. so many grey areas and what ifs and how comes.


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The seeds you won't sow are the plants you dont grow.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: kadakuda]
    #3484928 -

So basically what the doctor is saying is that everything has a beginning until nothing existed. And if nothing existed there's no beginning. And if there is no beginning then there has to be another reality to create this reality and it's proportions and entities. Yet, not it's pre determined aspects as if it were programmed.


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The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: shroomydan]
    #3485442 -

shroomydan said:
It's interesting how this thread started with a very profound metaphysical problem, but has been sidetracked into an epistemological discussion of skepticism.


Not really sidetracking, The question concerns the nature of existance after all, I was merely pointing out that existance itself is not concrete. And given that this shaky 'existance' is apparently based on a single 'instant of time' (whatever unit you care to define that as..) that we have no definite proof that even time exists. How can you be sure you existed 5 minutes ago, how can you be sure you will exist in 5 minutes time? neither of those is where you (apparently) are.

Furthermore:
Quote:
I don't care for arguments such as "this is beyond the scope of human understanding, there is some greater force beyond us that operates beyond logic".


These 2 statements are not consonant, While the second part of this is obvious avoidance, The first part is undeniable. If it was not beyond the scope of human understanding, we would after all, have no need to ask ourselves such pointless questions, or indeed have done so since the beginning of rational thought.

In fact, I think my observations concerning the very nature of existance add another dimension entirely to the whole train of thought. Places it even further outside the realm of human understanding if you like, given that existance in time cannot be definate in the first place. In fact, distancing the 2 factors in the original arguement giving rise to the contradiction. Existance began, existance did not begin, existance in time. Is time even relevant to existance?


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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: Hambo]
    #3485823 -

I meant to dismiss arguments that avoid the question entirely. It is beyond the scope of human understanding, but I want to hear solutions that make at least a bit of sense, even if not entirely graspable.

My solution claims that experience itself is the root of the illusion that is how we perceive time to be. Events are logically sequenced, but they are not sequentially experienced. Instead, we experience them as being sequential and linearly progressing. This means that we experience time and because this experience is with us throughout our lives we see it not for what it really is. We take it for granted and assume it operates beyond our experience.

Everything exists all of the time and all times are equal. Now is then and then is now. There is something wrong with asking "what if we stopped existence and asked you how old you were at this 'time'"? You can't stop something that never started. I am all my life (and possibly other lives) and experience creates the feeling of progressing through linear time.

This is not directly graspable but I like to say that it is "abstractly" graspable.


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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: yewhew]
    #3486238 -

yewhew said:
I meant to dismiss arguments that avoid the question entirely. **It is beyond the scope of human understanding, but I want to hear solutions that make at least a bit of sense, even if not entirely graspable.**



perhaps the first step is grasping the fact that we could possibly grasp the concept. when we just dismiss the possibility of knowing then you get people like me just spurting off random shit that pops into their heads.

"Everything exists all of the time and all times are equal. Now is then and then is now. There is something wrong with asking "what if we stopped existence and asked you how old you were at this 'time'"? You can't stop something that never started. I am all my life (and possibly other lives) and experience creates the feeling of progressing through linear time."

its my opinion that time is irrelevant. we use time as a tool to keep records, and organize. perhaps the universe does not run on a chedual, maybe it does.

id also liek to throw this out about time travel. according to discovery channel it is already known how to travel into the future. according to them, in basic terms, you got 99.999% somthing percent teh speed of light to the nearest star that is not our sun. when you return it should be 1000 years in the earths future and i forget how much time for the person in the ship. i believe it was daily planet that was on, last year.

im not saying i buy it, jsut putting it out there.


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The seeds you won't sow are the plants you dont grow.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: Hambo]
    #3486270 -

Hambo said:
shroomydan said:
It's interesting how this thread started with a very profound metaphysical problem, but has been sidetracked into an epistemological discussion of skepticism.


Not really sidetracking, The question concerns the nature of existance after all, I was merely pointing out that existance itself is not concrete. And given that this shaky 'existance' is apparently based on a single 'instant of time' (whatever unit you care to define that as..) that we have no definite proof that even time exists. How can you be sure you existed 5 minutes ago, how can you be sure you will exist in 5 minutes time? neither of those is where you (apparently) are.




No offense meant. I was just pointing out how the metaphysical question "What is" is inescapably linked to the epistemological question "How do we know what is." The problem arises when some one says we can't know what is. If this is the case then metaphysics is impossible. I happen to like metaphysics.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: yewhew]
    #3486312 -

Why do you feel that this moment is repeated? If there were no beginning, why or how could there be a repetition of times? Sometimes i think we are just one of many infinite events, we just happen to be able to understand, more or less, our "event" and how it interacts with many other simillar events in our life.

If you take it that there is a constant expansion/retraction of the universe, to a single infetissimal point, to a grand infinitely large point... that this explains the recombination of matter over many cycles of the universe... what are the chances that you would live the same life?

existence did begin... it has for you... more or less as a biological system...

so as you exist, there is no beginning or end, because you cant go back to that very point in which you were born, just like you wont be able to conciously remember as a biological organism, your existence, when your dead.

There is nothing and there is everything, begining and ending. Maybe existence "exists" between the times. Or at least this "middle" ground of experience, in which we have come to grow out and experience the universe around us... i dont know, these thoughts are kind of jumbled, but its about as close as i could get as to explaining my view on this issue.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: shroomydan]
    #3486356 -

I personally do not believe that something can spawn from nothing. When we say existance, I personally view this as anything in this world, not the conscious mind. This is because, evolution does exist, and consciousness could probably be formed through evolution IMO, so aslong as something exists, anything can infact exist.

If there was ever a nothing, I believe that there would never be anything. There is, therefore there always was. I do not limit these thoughts to the third dimension either, because honestly I do not know what exists out there. We could have been created by the almighty, but everyone reports to something. There will always be a level above in this heirarchy.

Time is also something to be taken into consideration. I do not understand it at all, so I will not speak of it. However without time, everything that could ever, and will ever happend, already happend at once, or never happend at all. Since we exist, and alright declared that we are infinite, there cannot be an end to time, unless it somehow loops itself. Or something.

Some people also think that we are a single consciousness, experiencing all these "lives" individually. A single entity taking on the role of millions, going through individual problems, and situations trying to learn a grand lesson.

"If a single person cannot get along with themselves, how can they unite in the real world"

Sorry for rambling on at a third grade level ;] Just wanted to maybe share some views


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The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: tak]
    #3486384 -

I personally do not believe that something can spawn from nothing.

For there to be sound, what must there be first?

Silence.

Sound is born out of Silence..

Analogously, for there to be every-thing, what must there be first?

No-thing.

Of course this is only one of many speculations, and only a speculation; nobody will have an absolute answer..

However, we can understand things outside of our experience by considering analogous cases lying within our experience.

Hence, the aforementioned analogy. Also, the analogy that I described doesn't necessarily dictate the why, but rather, the how..

Skorpivo's subjective 2 cents.



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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #3486628 -

"For there to be sound, what must there be first?

Silence.

Sound is born out of Silence.."

I would rather say that for there to be sound, there must be something making the sound. Silence does not produce sound, it is not an existential thing; it is merely the absence of sound.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: shroomydan]
    #3486659 -

I would rather say that for there to be sound, there must be something making the sound.

Of course. That is the second criterion.

Silence does not produce sound

No, it doesn't. It is the "Ground" on which sound is able to exist.

What I'm illustrating, is akin to the Yin and Yang. Without the yin, there would be no yang, withone one, there would be no other - hence no circle, or unity. Silence and Sound are two sides of the same coin.



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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

Edited by SkorpivoMusterion (12/12/04 07:51 PM)

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #3487404 -

but existance and non-existance cannot exist can they? I really cannot argue that they CANNOT. The only reason is probably because "nothingness" is completely beyond my comprehension.


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The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: tak]
    #3487480 -

The only way I can see nothingness is at a complete state of unconsciousness.


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The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: yewhew]
    #3487574 -

Existence didn't "begin." You're trying to use time where there is none. Time is a creation like space. Time and space are not inherent properties of existence. While you're trying to solve this, why don't you also figure out where the big bang happened.

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Re: The grand contradiction.. your solution? [Re: ]
    #3487607 -

I heard it was somewhere in Idaho.  :smirk:

P.S. This guy is on the money.

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