Does everything even exist?

[Tom Crooze]

Recently, I got to thinking about the concept of existence, and if I'm the only real thing, and everything else is but an allusion. Now, do to my Aspergers, it really troubled me.

Does anybody else ever get the feeling, the fear that they don't exist, the fear that only comes when thinking about something you'll never know?

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Absolute negation cannot exist. It is an inherently fallacious fantasy.

[Himster]

Absolute negation cannot exist. It is an inherently fallacious fantasy.

So unicorns and santa Clause do exist? Sweey.

[The Dude]

You may find some solace in Descartes's cogito argument, namely that since you are the one thinking about non-existence, there must at least exist a thinking part of you to do the thinking with.

But even if nothing exists... which seems ludicrous, but let's roll with it. Even if nothing exists at all, you may find solace in the fact that you will never be able to experience yourself as non-existant. Whatever the truth of the matter, the way you experience yourself as a subject will not align with it.

[Vizsla]

What looks smells, sounds and feels like a table is mostly not a table. We know this from quantum physics.
So the difference between actual bona fide existence and non-existence is only a few percentage points made up entirely of tiny electrons and similar things. Hardly seems worth worrying about it in the long run.

[Ariovistus Maximus]

It's an irrelevant question because you are going to perceive that you exist and act accordingly, whether you do or not. You can debate the existence of the walls in your house but when you go to leave you'll still use the door.

[zachattack]

The question I wonder is: does it matter? Whether we exist or don't exist, and whether we know it or not, will it change the way anything in our lives goes? Not really. I like the way Ariovistus put it.

[Justice and Mercy]

Does everything even exist?

Nonsensical question based on a contradiction of concepts. Existence is everything that exists. If it exists, it's a thing. It can't simultaneously be part of "everything" while not existing.

[Amorphos]

In a sense everything both exist and doesn’t exist [see below], I think somehow non-’existent’ things make effect upon the fabric of reality which itself is real. So when we look at particulars everything seams empty or at least void of an absolute nature, yet if we don’t look so deep there is a realness to things.
Atm I am considering reality to be resolution based, and the level of realness becomes more apparent as things become of higher resolution. That is not the same as gaining aggregate - if you will, because then we would have a definable ‘realness’ to things ~ which is what we don’t seam to have.

---- from another forum

The total amount of matter in the universe is 10^53 Kg.

The total amount of gravitational energy in the universe is -10^53 Kg.

They are perfectly equal but with opposite sign (the gravitational energy is put in terms of kilograms because that is what you get when you convert it from energy to mass using E=mc^2). Therefore, the total amount of mass/energy in the universe sums to zero.

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/professor...l.aspx?pid=364


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[Marie Louise von Preussen]

if you will, because then we would have a definable ‘realness’ to things ~ which is what we don’t seam to have.

The "solidity" of material reality is an old and discredited illusion.

... It's Maya.

[Amorphos]

The "solidity" of material reality is an old and discredited illusion.

Indeed. Yet it is strange, even though we may find no instances of solidity, the opposite seams equally implausible.

Does nothing have a solidity? I know it’s a contradiction but think upon being in a space, if there were nothing to it et al then what are you ‘in’

[♔DARTH LEGO♔]

man im loving this thread.....

keep it going......

[Amorphos]

Let me present a conundrum…

Lets ask; must all things come to an end? Then go to that place…

It would be that same stateless place we may consider to be the base nature of reality [or what else is ~ given all things are transient].

Could we truly say that not only is there no time, but history had not happened? [there would be nothing to make record of it, and causality would have come to an end ~ hence one could not follow the causal line back to the past.
We would have to say that history did happen, even though there would be no evidence for it.

We could go through other things like energy and mind and also say the same of that, then keep adding and in my mind you end up with some manner of everythingness within the nothingness.

…………

Back to the solidity of the void, in order for that space to extend the infinite, it has to have or be something, even if that is the most miniscule of ‘substance’ [I use that term in the lightest of senses]. As above you have stuff there even when it is logically impossible.

So now take the 8thC BC hindu understanding of the infinite; “you can take an infinity from an infinity and be left with an infinity”, so we take that whole space which has the least substance possible, then we take another similar space from it, then keep going, eventually that minimal substance that doesn’t originally exists as such, is now gaining aggregate - if you will. Such that don’t we end up with substance? And that in the particular, [each thing has its own set of infinities and time etc].

So we go full circle and end up with substance! …even though originally we had none at all.

mindfeck eh

[Helm]

*looks around*

Yeah it seems to. I'm not sure exactly what everything it is but what I'm seeing is a matter/energy space and time combo.

[Helm]

It's easier to just assume that substance always existed in some form. It just didn't always exist in he form of our universe as it's only 13.75 billion years old.

[Amorphos]

It's easier to just assume that substance always existed in some form. It just didn't always exist in he form of our universe as it's only 13.75 billion years old.

Indeed, and that’s kinda what I am assuming, its just that whenever I take out all the transient elements I always arrive at statelessness.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Our Universe is not the whole of manifestation. Indeed, it is safe to assume there is an indeterminate amount of Universes, in several different dimensions of time and space, all of them part of it.

It doesn't really matter, since all that matters is that Brahman encompasses the all, above spacetime. And as you have already stated, you take an infinity from it, and there still remains the infinite. The indefinite is in principle analitically inescrutable, the alpha and the omega. You cannot tell what it "is", if it "is" at all (by principle, while Ishvara is Being, Brahman is above being and non-being).

So really, any logical analysis seeking positive concepts will end up in paradoxes.

[Helm]

We're getting into Taoist territory here, statelessness being the opposite polarity of state and you require both polarities in order for anything to exist.

Edit: Brahma is good as well, eastern philosophy generally is very good. Not that Western philosophy is shabby or anything it's just a bit more separate from religion.

[Amorphos]

Jean de la Valette

Our Universe is not the whole of manifestation. Indeed, it is safe to assume there is an indeterminate amount of Universes, in several different dimensions of time and space, all of them part of it.
It doesn't really matter, since all that matters is that Brahman encompasses the all, above spacetime. And as you have already stated, you take an infinity from it, and there still remains the infinite. The indefinite is in principle analitically inescrutable, the alpha and the omega. You cannot tell what it "is", if it "is" at all (by principle, while Ishvara is Being, Brahman is above being and non-being).
So really, any logical analysis seeking positive concepts will end up in paradoxes.

nice post.

Does brahma live in statelessness?

What you take infinities to make a composition are they not taken together?

In other words would there not be a single expression [even if cyclic] when surely there is but one operation.
Many universes are problematic, by what are they separate from one another ~ when that something would surely be a medium of their union. Not to mention the problem concerning infinite amounts ~ you cannot build up to the infinite.

Helm

We're getting into Taoist territory here, statelessness being the opposite polarity of state and you require both polarities in order for anything to exist.
Edit: Brahma is good as well, eastern philosophy generally is very good. Not that Western philosophy is shabby or anything it's just a bit more separate from religion

Druidry has all these elements too; ceugant [divine infinite] and the awens [winds or primary manifestations thereof], as I see it such terms [5thC] derive from an even deeper understanding cantered around transmigration. In my mind and according to certain esoteric teachings, in order for there to be transmigration there too must be a medium > statelessness, commonly known as the void.

Polarity and state are manifestations in both + & -, but you make an interesting point that the manifest itself would be polarised with the un-manifest.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Does brahma live in statelessness?

What you take infinities to make a composition are they not taken together?

Brahman is a stateless, non-ent, infinite.

Brahma is a super-entity, a theos. It is essentially a bit of an illusion - Indeed, Advaita states that Brahma is the result of grasping the infinite with the finite and conditioned.

As for the composition of infinites... Well! Infinity is no aggregate, neither a quantitative "whole".

In other words would there not be a single expression [even if cyclic] when surely there is but one operation.
Many universes are problematic, by what are they separate from one another ~ when that something would surely be a medium of their union. Not to mention the problem concerning infinite amounts ~ you cannot build up to the infinite.

IT'S a complicated problem, and yes you're probably right that there are many multiverses, as opposed to an infinity. As I said, paradox. The correct would be to argue they are "part" of the manifestation.

Anyway others are probably more familiar. I'm just a layman .

"What separates them?" - Perhaps something as tenuous as mere Maya. Ergo, it is "here, now" but we can't perceive it.