Necessary Thing

[robvalue]

...So it would appear that energy could exist without conditions, because you can't create or destroy it. This is based on my primitive understanding of science, and is mere speculation when applied to anything other than observable reality. I don't have any firm beliefs about whether this rule would hold elsewhere.

But then again, maybe something is keeping the energy from disappearing? I couldn't possibly know. Things would look the same either way. So in conclusion, I have no firm beliefs at all, just an intuitive idea that energy will probably always exist in our reality...

I think the questions you voice here strike at the very point of the OP. So that me ask a conditional question for you to consider:

IF energy's existence was conditional on some other thing (X) "keeping it from disappearing", we could then immediately ask if some DIFFERENT thing (Y) is keeping that other thing (X) from disappearing, which are together (X+Y) keeping energy from disappearing. Then we can ask if some other thing (Z) is keeping Y from disappearing which (together) are keeping X from disappearing, which are all (X+Y+Z) keeping energy from disappearing. And so on. There is the context, here is the question:

Is it logically possible that there is an infinite chain of "other things" simultaneously keeping energy from disappearing?

In other words, I am not asking which thing you think is without conditions (it could be energy, it could be something else). I am asking if it is logically possible for ALL things to exist with conditions. If not, then at least one thing exists without conditions for existence. Otherwise, right now, an infinity of conditions are currently being satisfied for everything that exists. What do you think?

Well, there is an immediate problem of trying to apply logic as it appears to work within this reality to things not a part of this reality. I have no idea if our logic would make any sense regarding those things.

But assuming that it does...

Can there be infinitely many "things" in the first place? I have no idea. Again, I can only go by our reality. Who knows how it works outside.

I see no logical reason why there can't be infinitely many "things", although what exactly constitutes a "thing" is already getting pretty hazy.

So if there can be infinitely many things, then you could have the existence of all those things all be dependent on the existence of every other thing. So we've got a never ending list of things, and if a single one ever stops existing, then they all stop existing. So they are all dependent.

Of course, I'm just making all this up. As I said, it's all speculation. But that would appear to be a logically consistent situation where there is nothing that exists without depending on something else.

You wouldn't even need to go outside our reality. If our reality is made up of infinitely many elements, and the existence of every element is dependent on the continued existence of every other element, then there are no elements that exist regardless.