Jamie_L

Every now and then I consider the fact that existence makes no sense to my feeble human brain.

This is not a questioning of my atheism, because this same sense of senselessness is why I abandoned religion. Religion offers no explanation for this dilema. It merely cloaks the dilema in supernaturalism so that it is easier to accept.

At the core, however, everyone accepts that something "just is", with no reason. The question "Why are we here?" has no answer. I accept that. It's just a brute fact. BUT, the brute fact is disturbing nonetheless.

Religion is no better off. The brute fact just gets shuffled up a level to God or whatever other supernatural force one chooses to believe in. Something, at some level, just IS, without explanation.

Does that bug anyone else? I'm not saying that because it bugs me there must be an answer. Quite the contrary. The fact that it bugs me has no bearing on the truth of the matter. The explanation that makes the most sense is that existence just is, with no explanation, and our brains are just programmed in such a way that this is difficult to comprehend.

And yet, it still bugs me that I can't get my brain around it.

Anyone else sit around and bang their head against this wall from time to time? Just wondering.

Jamie

John Page

Bugs me too! The best I can come up with is another question. "Why is it that we seek reasons for the fact of existence?" IMO the key is that we are seeking reasons, causal chains if you will, and that "existence" does not require us find or have reasons in order to exist.

You see a lump of coal. The lump of coal will be there regardless of whether it knows it exists or not. This can be used to differentiate conscious and non-conscious matter. Now, it seems a) humans are conscious of themsleves as well as their surroundings and b) we are competitive beasts and partly so on our ability detect causal chains and use that knowledge to our advantage. Other than that, we can be likened to lumps of coal.

In short, we are assemblages of matter that have cannot but help themselves wonder "Why?", and this need to imply reason is both a blessing and a curse. Like the lumps of coal, there need be no reason or purpose in our being (or not being for that matter).

Cheers, John

Hugo Holbling

Your best bet is to read Wittgenstein for yourself and puzzle out the problem with your problem. Alternatively, you could read James Still's excellent essay here in the library which goes over it nicely.

Ensign Steve

These are old analogies, so forgive me if you've seen them before. I'm paraphrasing from the book "How to Think About Weird Things" by ??? umm... I don't know, the book's at home.

One might say, "It is not so amazing that we exist, because if we did not exist, we would not be here to be amazed that we exist." That is weak, because if you were in a very bad car accident, and you died, you would not be able to ponder about the accident. However, if by a slim chance you survived, you would be able to ponder extensively at the fact that you survived the wreck, and could find it quite amazing, given the odds against it.

So are the odds stacked against existence? Let's say the odds of the universe existing exactly as it is are a million to one (obviously they are much higher than that, but this is just an example).

Imagine you entered a contest, and the winner was chosen by drawing one of a million names out of a hat. If your name was chosen, you would be just amazed! The odds against your winning were a million to one.

Now suppose instead of a drawing, what you had to do to win the contest was to pull a white marble out of a bag with 999,999 black marbles. You reach in and pull the white marble, and you are floored! You still won, despite million to one odds.

In both contests, your odds of winning were exactly the same. However the second contest is far more amazing than the first. Why? In the first contest, _someone_ had to win. It's amazing to you, because you did win, but if you didn't somebody you never heard of would still have won. The odds of _someone_ winning that contest were 1:1. The second contest was the one that was truly improbable.

So the question is, did a universe have to exist? If not, then it is like the second contest, where our universe's existence really beats the odds. However, if a universe did have to exist, it is more like the first contest, and it is not at all amazing that this is the one we got.


(my first attempt at a philosophical post. FWIW.)

Jen

Luiseach

It used to bother me, but then I got over it. Honestly. I quite enjoy the feeling of awe that comes along with thoughts of the vast age and size of the universe, of the complexity of life forms, and other natural phenomena. Magic enough for this infidel. ;-)

If existence makes no sense, as you say, then I guess we always have the option to make sense of existence.

philechat

Only when there exists human consciousness (or alien consciousness, if there is one) is the "why" question ever asked. That is, there is no reason in existence except in the field of subjective interpretation, for the question of the universe's purpose of existence is loaded in itself, i.e. in danger of theistic presumption.

Phanes

Didn't bother me at all until you reminded me it was still hanging around.


Really it does bother me though, and has before. It's not that I need some mystical reason to go on living; it's that I want an answer to the old "Why is there something instead of nothing?" If I could see just a simple mathematical explanation of why things have to be just so, I would be content. Of course I doubt any such thing is possible, because you can always take the question up a level. As you said, positing a God doesn't give any better answer, since presumably God counts as something.


At least it makes for some good literature and art.

7thangel

Jamie:

The religious people you are talking about are actually ignorant of what they are talking about. Allow me to share to you some things that the Bible has to say.

It will be a blessing for you to know the senselessness of just existing. Just like John Page said, our worthiness is nothing but like the coal that only gives distinction among nature. That is actually the clue that you would get from the Creation. The Bible said, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:” It is only the Bible which states that man is of worthless value, and that human’s worth is dependent only on the mercy of his/her creator. This is the foremost doctrine of salvation through Christ. It is about predestination, that everything is actually God’s work.

Everything that human could boast are actually beyond
his/her control; our intellect, our free will, our very own existence. We are actually of no power to make direction even of ourselves, though as if we seem able to. Humans, without God, is bound by the deterministic control of the physical laws.

Now that you knew this, about your existence, you should have hope of the mercy of the Being who can have such power to maintain your existence, of life eternal, in peace. But then again, may God work on you to realize His mercy.

God Bless,

Ab_Normal

I'll let Neil Peart say it for me:

I was discussing this very issue with my husband last night, and he called me a mutant because it doesn't bother me at all. (where's that shrugging smilie?)

John Page

Guess that makes me god, then.