RE: Is there objective Truth?
October 24, 2016 at 11:46 am
(This post was last modified: October 24, 2016 at 12:10 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
(October 24, 2016 at 9:47 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Alasdir Ham raises a common objection but fails to understand the significance of it.
No, you're wrong, it is you who does not understand. So seen as you start by rudely telling me I don't understand I'll directly tell you that no, it is you with the failing comprehension skills here.
If you want to question why existence is existent you need to realize that makes as little logical sense as asking why atheism is atheistic why colors are colorful why A=A... it's nonsense.
Existence is not a property. This is why the ontological argument for God is bullshit.
Asking why something is existent makes sense when asked about anything except existence itself. Asking why existence itself is existent makes no sense at all.
As I said, the question that people are trying to ask is why the universe began rather than existence just remaining stagnant. To ask why existence is existent makes no sense at all.
Quote:By hand-waving away the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?”, he or she, is by default asserting that the existence of the physical universe is a brute fact.
No I already dealt with that in my post. Either the universe is the totality of all things and existence itself or the universe came about through the totality of all things and existence itself.
You're completely ignoring the complexity of what I am saying. Clearly it is you who does not understand.
There is no problem with what the person is trying to ask when they ask "Why is there something rather than nothing?" but the question itself is nonsense. I dismiss it because it needs to be rephrased better. To ask "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is to ask "Why is the totality of existence itself existent at all rather than nonexistent?" which makes no fucking sense at all because the totality of existence itself has to be existent otherwise we are wrong to call it the totality of existence itself. Phrase the question better. Ask "Why did the big bang happen rather than not happen?".
Quote:He, or she, may not realize that this in turn entails a further assertion, that the universe must be as it is, since for it to be otherwise would require a prior cause, the one responsible for its existence.
Okay you started by telling me I don't understand. You couldn't be more wrong. You're ignoring the complexities here.
I did not say the unvierse must be as it is.
See how I already dealt with this... notice the bolded and underlined section and the added part in square brackets:
(October 24, 2016 at 7:14 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: It doesn't predate everything. Nothing predates everything. Everything=the totality of all things. Everything= every thing. Every thing=existence. Existence is eternal, mindless, existent by definition, prior to the universe (unless we define that which existed before the universe to also be part of the universe... IOW if we define "the universe" to ultimately have no beginning and the big bang was its expansion rather than beginning.... then if "the universe"=[the totality of] existence [itself] then it has always existed) and nothing existed before it or before time ("before time" makes no sense). It's all matter and anti-matter or other kinds of matter or even if it's non-matter it's something (if you distinguish between physical and material things and can think there are things that are non-matter, for example) and if it's not it's not only nothing but there is no 'it' to be nothing (there can't be. Nothing can't be. Being nothing= not being something=nonexistence=absence) because that's what nothing is, absence rather than presence. And absence can never be presence. Something has always existed... otherwise it's not something.
Quote:Alasdir also begs the question. The physical universe might not exist. Just ask Bennyboy. Maybe only sense data are brute facts that reference nothing objective.
You don't understand and you're not even spelling my name right. I notice that your reading of the rest of my posts is equally myopic.