Why does anything exist?

>It hurts my brain and I need to know.
I know the feeling. Do you think we'll get there? Or will we wipe ourselves out first? Sure is interesting. What if all of our "progress" in figuring things out turns out to be incorrect? How much further do we have to go? Is it infinite?

Typical christian/thomistic answer: existence exists. The transcendentals definition of god applies, creation is to further glorify him, etc, and the perception of him is the act of faith.
Only other explanation I find coherent is that all reality is a collection of unjustified facts.
(I.E., any answer here or knowable reality in general must be based on somme essential truth. Obviously specifics past that are quibblable)

I don't know. I don't think it's a question that can be answered "collectively" through experimentation or science. It's not something "we" can do as a species. It belongs to the individual, and if it can be answered then I doubt that the answer can be expressed in words.

Non-existence is extremely difficult (impossible?) to grasp, perceive, imagine, conceive, whatever you want to call it, it's hard as fuck to deal with. Most of the gripe humanity has ever had with death is no different than what it would have with not being born, since both of them imply, as far as we know, not existing.

Problem is, we were already born, so that one is out of the question, but death still looms around ever closer. And we never get any closer to solving the question of nothingness. When you ask why things exist, you are putting existence in contrast to something you can't possibly begin to know, or even assume/pretend to know, which obviously makes any answer really unconvincing.

Perhaps we are simply having a different outlook on the same kind of dreadful feeling, but to me nothingness is the truly mind-boggling word. How can anything not-be? Well, it can't in a strict sense, and that's awfully panic-inducing if you overthink it.

sorry, but you can't just skip language because you have declared yourself a realist about concepts whose content may very well only have ideal existence. how could you even approach this question without a concept of nothing, and without a concept of how it differs essentially from something? it's possible that the question is absurd: that the concept "nothing" already includes its reason (causal or transcendental) for not existing, namely that in its concept it doesnt exist. so there is something rather than nothing because nothing as such is not—it only "is" insofar as it isn't, the quotation marks placing the being of nothing under erasure. and the same objection would apply then to the concept "something," which is, again, causally or transcendentally implied to exist already.

you could take another tack, and ask "why" the present universe came to be at all—but in that case you'd have taken "something" quite literally, meaning this particular field of something with which human reality is confronted, this particular swath of possible being that is the territory of our phenomenal experience, and which would still be despite the extinction of the human race. but even given the most general, radical expansion of that field, the question would still bear not on the coming-into-being of being as such, but on the coming-into-being of "this" being, which ontologically presupposes being as such and the possibility of an ontical universe coming into it. such a question is under the domain of the physical sciences, and i understand they have a number of theories in those departments.

not really. he gives a number of categorical (applying to "things") and existential (applying to human reality) modes in which Being is, but as for Being itself, it's really only defined by reference to its modes. we have to avoid both the scylla of thinking therefore that Being is the "sum" of its modes, and the charibdis of thinking it's anything but it's modes. for heidegger all modes of Being are "equiprimordial;" Being "isn't" without them, but it isn't what you get when you add them up, either. Being, as I read him, is also the answer to a "how" question, posed toward reality generally. it's Dasein's responsibility to ask that question—indeed Dasein appears on the stage of Sein und Zeit initially with Heidegger's casting himself in the role of questioner-of or -toward-Being, and in this mode—inquiry—he claims Dasein for himself.

Skip Heidegger, he failed. Use Deleuze to cope and try to do something with existence.

No amount of linguistic deflection can make this problem disappear. I don't buy into that kind of hand-waving the problem away. If you're getting caught up in paradoxes like not being able to affirm that nothing "is" without a resulting contradiction, then simply refrain from speaking and consider the concepts apart from the words. Be silent, and consider.

Being and Time was the only philosophical work I dropped within pages of the introduction literally who gives a fuck
I'd like to push this little faggot over

That's quite interesting. Any good introductions to Heidegger or overviews of his philosophy that I can look at before trying to grapple with this texts?

Do you wish you weren't right? Because if you're correct there is basically nothing that can ever satiate your thirst. You're stuck with existing and potentially not-so in some years with no justification whatsoever

It is what it is. I ain't complaining.

All life is the reflection of the infinities that make up the universe, you only THINK that things "exist" but that's an inaccurate perception that your brain has fooled yourself to believe. Everything exists because in the landscape of infinity, EVERYTHING happens immediately, from the moment of the universes' conception to it's death. time is an illusion constructed by your brain in order to form memories and learn. what you are experiencing is not reality, but a masquerade that your brain plays with itself in order to explain the infinities.

>"nothing exists...oh yeah, except your brains and these infinity things"

"Why" is the question of mankind, "how" is the question of nature.

Why are you arbitrarily cordoning man off from nature? Insofar as man asks why, nature does also.

Do not discount your being so easily. Simply by existing I'd say you have the requisite experience sufficient to endeavor a ponder.

>but I haven't read him.
good, don't read him.

massive pseud who babbles on about ontological being without any substance behind his supposed arguments (if any), just continuous word saladry.

don't waste your time.

It is the culmination of experience and the presence of an other, that which is perhaps not separate of form or body, but may be.

I am not drawing borders between nature and mankind, but between the human ideas of causality and purpose and the pure extance of that which is beyond humanity.

You're just drawing more and more lines in the sand, but they're still just lines in the sand and just as arbitrary. If purpose and causlity are merely fictitious human ideas than so is "pure extance". Can't have your cake and eat it too.

Heidegger didn't really talk about this, I don't think.

But you are dead-on correct that it's a real question, and that almost all people responding to it give pseudo-answers, especially physicists and materialists. Reading Heidegger CAN really make you appreciate how retarded any attempt is to handwave this question away, because almost all attempts are made on the basis of "well, it's just ________" and if you know Heidegger you know there's no "just" anything, no final point of reference that terminates our inquiries. Useful for seeing through idiotic scientism or logicism.

At this point no philosophy really touches on it that isn't theological, for obvious reasons. We're living in some dark fucking times. Scientists are so pleased with their reductivism that they can't even see that it isn't real science, and philosophers are quietists who are indifferent about real reality.

I'd say this is the threshold of philosophy, the farthest point it's reached.

>such a question is under the domain of the physical sciences, and i understand they have a number of theories in those departments.

I really think this is wrong advice. Both Heidegger and Nietzsche open the possibility of true science of reality precisely by showing the impossibility or at least the tautology of the present scientific worldview, which is the extension of Western metaphysics into "technology."

Reading these guys should make you be able to see instantly that contemporary physicists are only ever getting back the answers that their questions already put into their experiments at the outset.

Again, the threshold of modern philosophy is basically split between
>fringe guys with proto-"grand theories of everything" ("it's all strings/quantum foam" types)
>philosophers who mostly don't care, and who mostly focus on the human side of things (all the big ones)
>really really bad philosophers (like the ones still doing ontological arguments using logic)
>scientists like Stephen Hawking who literally think "There was no 'time' before the Big Bang, therefore it's meaningless to ask about its origin" is a real answer, i.e., glorified technicians who can't think

It's just not fashionable or easy to be interested in natural philosophy, science in the original sense, these days

To solve this you should either turn to religion or stop giving a fuck altogether.
As far as I know, humanity did not come up with any other solutions.

"Why" is irrelevant, focus on "how".

Interesting, thanks for the response. I had some some more thoughts on this. If man is a being, if he truly has being, then why wouldn't he, for that very reason, be supremely qualified to inquire into being? For man to inquire into being is for being to inquire into itself. Thoughts?

I can see that you don't actually know much about mathematics and physics

Keep studying. It'll make sense. Stop being so lazy and exploring these empty ambiguous thoughts.

You've already answered your question.
> If man is a being
Emphasis on "if" here.

The sciences take a naturalistic world view as an unproven and unquestioned axiom. This axiom rules out the possibility of even inquiring into the problem I posed in the OP, let alone ever resolving it. Science cannot even begin to deal with this problem because its specialized point of view restricts it from doing so. The naturalistic world view is useful, that is, it possesses a certain utility, but it also has its own self imposed limits just like any systematic (axiom based) belief.

The if he isn't what is he? If he isn't a being then it only leaves one option: he is nothing, and if he is nothing who could be more qualified to inquire into the nature of nothing than him?

Stop doing that universal/general shit. Start answering with particular statements. Actual statements about state of the real world, not some universal statement like "science takes a naturalistic world view". That belongs to childrens high school book, not to minds of great thinkers.

Again, stop being lazy. Go calculate some mathematics.

Science itself depends on universals to even operate. Science wouldn't work if they didn't have universal generalizations they took to be axiomatic like a naturalistic world view. If you're going to tell me to stop doing it you'll have to do the same with scientists, which would cause the whole pursuit of science to collapse on itself.

>dude u are just wrong haha me smart you dumb haha

muh science

>Why does anything exist at all? Why not nothing? Like NOTHING nothing.
>I feel like nothing should exist, although I can't really justify that sentiment.
The correct approach to the issue of Nothing was already taken care of by Parmenides. I don't give a shit that you're butthurt that physicists showed that vacuum isn't metaphysical nothingness, as per the Casimir Effect and the related experiments, and that none can show you a perfect vacuum anywhere in the universe. To ask of Nothing to exist is a priori impossible. Nothing can't be a thing, Nothing can't be a process, Nothing can't be Being, Nothing can't be.
Nothing Is Not. And Nothing is nothing to worry about.

forgot pic

>nothing cant be a thing
How are you talking about it then :^)

Thats what Heidegger did you fucking idiot

How can you talk about dragons?

I see what you're getting at with the focus on axiomatic "beliefs" but I think science is more than just its axioms. There is also a heavy use of theory in scientific application. Hell, I might even argue that science is not only a system based on axioms but also a system based on theories. I don't think that the mechanical functions of the physical world demand the implementation of theory or hypothesis, but I do think that both are utilized for discovery and problem solving, not just the strict adherence to axiomatic systems. The question you pose encompasses the physical world, as well as a lot of other immaterial things like thoughts and beliefs such as religion or "God" but simply because the physical realm is included within the scope of "anything" then I think that science to some degree can formulate an answer, maybe not now but in time.
"Make a hypothesis and test it."
You pointed out that axioms would
>rule out even the possibility of even inquiring into the problem (posed in the OP) let alone resolving it
but I would like to disagree. To answer the question using science would begin with a proposed theory. That would be the first step towards inquiring into the problem. I agree that the limits of science, at least right now, are great and numerous, but I would argue that with the passage of time, problems once thought unsolvable become solvable with the advent of new laws, axioms or theories. Kind of like trying to achieve flight without the knowledge of aerodynamics. Maybe the keys to these problematic doors just haven't been theorized or discovered yet.

Your second sentiment hurt my brain because I too believe that there should be a good reason for "existence" just as there's a good reason for certain types of bacteria to have evolved or for a rock to roll down a hill. I think that maybe there might be a rational explanation however at least from a realist's perspective. However I'm struggling with the perspective that you hold which is that the one making the positive claim here is the one advocating that there be a reason for existence or to justify existence in general. I really such at philosophy but so I might be making a gaff here, but my understanding is that we do exist and so the one with the burden of proof aught to be you who is advocating or at least stating that he feels that there should be nothing at all. I guess, I'm thinking about how we couldn't exist even though we do and the only answer I can come up with for why we exist, or why anything exists is; because it does/because we do.

I know that's not really compelling but I'm not really sure how else to answer at this point in time. Maybe there is a grand function for the universe, outside of our scope of understanding. Maybe there is a damn good reason but I don't think so, at least right now. As far as I can tell, there are simply rules in this... whatever it is; a lab experiment, a simulation, etc. We exist because we have to.

>pic
Very nice

Because they are a thing

God.

Stop being selfish.

Dude no one is hating on science or saying it is gay or something just keep it the fuck away from ethics

One day, user went to Languageville, ignoring all advice from philosophers contemporary or past, even a feminist robot programmed to repeat: "NO MEANS NO." without end. His quest was for Nothing to exist, as he felt this should be the case, and for that he needed help. He knocked at Mr. No's door. "Good day, my good sir, may I ask you to join my cause, and impersonate Mr. Yes for a few moments?", he asked. But, to his shock, "No." was what Mr. No replied. user wept.

>too much words hard brain hurts!

The language game I'm playing allows me to use a signifier without your retarded ontological confusions. :^)

Whose feel is Wojak experiencing there, and who are you quoting?

>butthurt that physicists showed that vacuum isn't metaphysical nothingness
Hmm? Wasn't butthurt about that, that was exactly my point―that it's not really nothing.
>vacuum
A vacuum isn't nothing. That's empty space (as far as I understand, correct me if I'm wrong). As for what you said about nothing not being by definition, they are valid points but not conclusive enough for me to feel settled about the question. Interesting, though.
Briefly, in order to operate scientific equipment and run "tests" one does not need axioms. But without an axiomatic world view one lacks the "cognitive equipment" to interpret the tests and determine their meaning or significance. You just have empty figures. Science's world view takes the premise of naturalism for granted, it does not question it, and cannot question it without ceasing to be science. It cannot deal with the questions in the OP because naturalism comes after ontology, in a manner of speaking. Naturalism precludes questions pertaining to being qua being, although ironically it presupposes it, since the natural world must necessarily be said to exist. It's simply not a scientific question unless we expand the boundaries of what we term science to include ontology―but in that case, have we put philosophy into science or science into philosophy? In any case, you wouldn't be left with anything recognizable as science, which would be a shame because science is preeminently useful. Nevertheless, useful as it may be, we have to recognized its necessary limits.
>but my understanding is that we do exist and so the one with the burden of proof aught to be you
In the OP I stated that I FELT this to be the case. It's a hunch, and this hunch leads me to probe and ask questions. These are unasnwered questions, but investigating them may prove more useful then you suspect. Without such incessant questioning, for example, man would have never developed the aforementioned "cognitive equipment" that makes science possible. In any case, I look forward to your continued contribution to this thread. Asking these questions is beneficial to us all.

everything you said about science is wrong

>not conclusive enough for me
Since when is the a priori impossible not enough to shove bullshit where it belongs?
>to feel
See? You're butthurt. Less feels, more reals.

How does that quote disagree with what I said. I 100% agree with that quote.

Nigga u dumb

A gut feeling isn't the equivalent of soap opera melodrama tier emotions. If you never listen to your gut you are intellectually handicapped.

As for your first point, it isn't sufficient since patience was a virtue. I won't feel settled until I feel I have felt that I dealt with the question exhaustively. There are still lots of questions here about whether the proof you have given hinges to closely on language and defnitions. We have to examine this question from a lot of angles. If you lack that sort of patience you don't belong in philosophy.

>There is no quantum world
This is at odds with naturalism.
You also assumed all scientists have the same interpenetration of the scientific fact (or "cognitive equipment as you called it).
You should also check out what Schrödinger thought about QM.

Ok, have fun being autistic

That isn't at all at odds with naturalism. I fail to see why you think that is the case. Science also uses mathematics but doesn't require proofs of the reality of numbers in any kind of Platonic sense.

Anyway I'm watching the new bladerunner, so I'm out of this convo for the time being. I'll be back later―maybe.

Why not? Naturalists would say that the quantum world does indeed exist.

There's always been existence

Creation and destruction are literally illusions which most human beings constantly take for granted

I wish I didn't come into existence desu

>implying creation ex nihilo
>implying you didn't always necessarily exist
>implying you will ever cease to exist
welcome to hell, user

Heidegger did pose this question, I suppose the easiest route into his thought is reading the major works of Plato, Aristotle, and Nietzsche, then read Heidegger’s ‘Basic Writings’ compilation and ‘Introduction to Metaphysics’ where he asks the questions you are asking now. There is another guy called Leo Strauss who constantly reprimands thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger but also secretly kind of agrees with them if you read between the lines enough, a good introduction to his thought is probably Natural Right and History.

the point of the philosophical traverse through language isn't "deflection"—it's the rigorous analysis and understanding of the problem. i'm not complicating to defuse your concerns, but rather to show that, on the one hand, our common-sensical ways of approaching it are inadequate, and on the other, that if it is a real problem—which it may or may not be—it will take a lot of specifically "linguistic" effort to make it appear in its proper form. this effort is called philosophy.

>I really think this is wrong advice. Both Heidegger and Nietzsche open the possibility of true science of reality precisely by showing the impossibility or at least the tautology of the present scientific worldview, which is the extension of Western metaphysics into "technology."
exactly my point. "the present scientific worldview" has quite enough to say about how the present-at-hand universe came to be—but nothing at all to say about "why" it is, or why there is being at all. the ontical universe is "explained" by quantum physics, big bang theory, etc, whereas the ontological universe, or rather the universe as conceived by ontology, either requires metaphysical explanation or includes a temporality that doesn't leave it subject to causality in the sense we mean when we ask "why" something is or is not (the "why" here asking for an answer in the form of "because such and such happened to cause it"). on the other hand the question "why" might concern telos ("why" now asking for an answer in the form of "because it is leading up to so and so" or "because it is designed to fulfill such and such a purpose"), which again is either metaphysically explained or is not answerable based on the universe's ontological structure.

a philosophical inquiry will have to face up to these possibilities—but an ontical inquiry such as pursued by the physicist can get on without them and arrive at mechanistic explanations based on causality.

Nothing is literally impossible.

There are several ways one could read this post

And none of them involves humanity grasping at nothingness

>I'd say this is the threshold of philosophy, the farthest point it's reached.

You should have just said how something came out of nothing and was able to evolve further even though it was alone and started from the very particle(or whatever the actual lowest is). Eternity is pure brainlet kino.

Cause it can't be.
Nothing "is" antithetical to possibility.
OP's question is like asking
>where's the past
>when's the horizon

People in this thread attributes why to how; they demand that there's has to be a why.

A perfect vacuum still isn't nothing. It's space occupying physical dimensions

>something always was
You do realize how retarded you look?

Dreyfus's Being-in-the-World or Blattner's book (can't remember title) is good for his earlier stuff. Braver's Heidegger's Later Writings is good for his later stuff.

are you literally a Newtonian absolutist about space in 2018

>Dreyfus
no

Read Introduction to metaphysics, acquire spiritual virility

It's a really scary thought user, like how we have no idea of non existence because we have always existed even though there has been like 14 billion years of things before us, even though time and existence began with our perception of it.

I'm probably babbling but that's probably a reaction against the question OP asked, I just try not to think much about it because it turns me into a Raskolnikov or an Underground Man.

i suspect that "nothing" doesn't exist except as a concept like "infinity". creation ex nihilo is probably an impossibility imo. this would rule out both the existence of a god and a universe springing forth out of primordial chaos.

this would still leave the problem of an infinite regress and there's of course something deeply unintuitive about something, even some unknown physical substratum, existing without a cause, but we have to remember that our notions of time, space, and causality are limited not only by our current level of scientific understanding but by the fact that we aren't able to examine anything existing outside the observable universe as we perceive it. therefore, we can't make any definitive statements about the sort of physical laws that might govern whatever state or states of being preceded the creation of our universe. one thing's certain: any attempt to answer questions like this would likely have to begin with a radical reevaluation of the most fundamental concepts of our understanding.

always is only 13.8 billion years old

before anyone memes
Imagine
>"This sentence is a lie" > a strengthened lie (TL:DR it's true) > the sentence "This sentence is a lie" is always true, cause the sentence can never be a lie. (If the sentence is a lie, it stays a lie, and that's impossible. So the sentence must be true/starts of as true, then flips to lie, but immediately flips back to being true)
>"Nothing can't exist." > existence has to be > unstable primordial super particle/weird black hole> big bang "happens" > spacetime

>what "was" the state of existence before spacetime/big bang

that's the real question OP should ask

If nothing could exist, then that "would" be the "state".
You can't have nothing "over there" and something "here". Nothing is omnipresent, cause it's incapable of being. (If it could "be")

Which is probably why the universe is expanding.

I'm no veteran or expert on these affairs, but I'll take your statement here as a green light to comment.
I agree with the both of you that it seems almost bizarre that the world exists. Nonexistence would be something that seems almost "more natural", what with it's more simplistic (?) state of being.
Yet, here we are, existing with a consciousness along that which does not, all matter and energy existing in various forms, functioning in accordance with the scientific laws we learn to comprehend.

This is why I subscribe to palingenesis as a Stoic. Nonexistence is constant, and with existence, I believe it makes sense to be constant as well. We exist, things happen, so I will assume it to be as immortal and timeless as it's counterpart.

assume that there does not exist any thing. then in particular, there does not exist any thing with the property that it can stop things from coming into existence. Therefore, if there was nothing, there would be something.

also this

>Have you ever taken LSD?

>existence is a rebellion against oblivion

But doesn't that also mean there is no thing with the property to cause things to exist? Or am I missing out on something?

Yeah, I'd agree with you. The post you replied to implied things have a tendency to exist rather than not, which doesn't really work.
Things don't come into existence out of nothing, and the idea of something "preventing" that is farcical.