A Necessary Being?

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, we're being unkind.  The modal operator doesn't -always- fuck up...no system fucks up all the time.  It's worth noting that the fuckup in the modal operator only presents itself when confronted with the open question of existence as a real, not real, primary, or secondary predicate.  It actually gets pretty difficult to understand, linguistically and logically, why certain means of inference are valid, why they signify truth (if, indeed, they do)...and whether or not we're using the right terms in the proposition.  

Often enough a person is familiar with one or two of these currents but not all of them, and so they get blindsided by shit like the time traveling future setting newspaper/shipwreck example.....that's absolutely valid and unquestionably sound but -somehow- wrong with reference to our experience. Logic breaks, even when we don't -try- to break it, as chad did above.

You majored in philosophy....Whatevs? I never knew. All the art history spots were taken or something?

[Ben Davis]

Is there anything wrong with a Necessary Being per se?

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Is there really anything incoherent or illogical about the very concept of a Necessary Being? In other words, can anyone come up with reasons why a Necessary Being is impossible? Or have we now accepted that it is certainly possible for there to be a Necessary Being?

By "Necessary Being," I mean something that cannot not exist. In other words, "existence" is in the very essence/definition of that thing.

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Yes, using the term 'being' begs the question. Logical fallacy 101. Hence theistic philosophers argue for a 'necessary cause' and layer theistic arguments from there. That takes you on to a whole heap of different problems.

But for the sake of argument, I'll grant you a 'Necessary Being'. How could you tie that Deistic concept to any specific theistic concept?

[The Grand Nudger]

Being, in context, is a technical term.  Numbers are necessary beings. If a person takes it to mean a being as in a human "being" then yes, there's an issue. Namely that the term loses it's valid referent and becomes an assumption of what a person seeks to demonstrate, all while "being" an equivocation.

[robvalue]

Right. This is already an abandonment of science and reason, just to try and establish some vague entity. There's then absolutely nothing else to link this entity to any religious figure. It's all so far removed from reality that you may as well just admit you're making stuff up because you want it to be true so badly.

Am I biased? No. If any religion is "true", I don't care. If Allah exists, he can get bent. Makes no difference to me. Yahweh can go whistle. Even a nice God can just sit there smiling while I carry on as normal.

[Arkilogue]

Yes, using the term 'being' begs the question. Logical fallacy 101. Hence theistic philosophers argue for a 'necessary cause' and layer theistic arguments from there. That takes you on to a whole heap of different problems.

But for the sake of argument, I'll grant you a 'Necessary Being'. How could you tie that Deistic concept to any specific theistic concept?

Easily.

Most of the old creations stories begin before creation with an infinite undifferentiated substance. The Greeks called this "chaos". The Egyptians called it "Nu". In Hinduism, the body of Brahma is an infinite ocean. In Babylonian myth the fresh and salt water gods come out of a previously undifferentiated watery state.

The necessary being is "stuff", matter, extant-ness, substance. Pure being is matter taking up all space. In atomic matter 99.999999% of the space of the atom is not taken up by matter. There is hardly anything there to "be" at all....yet here we are, made of them.

It is before the "first cause". The first cause is what causes cavitation of this substance into stable void spheres aka universes.

[chimp3]

Yes, using the term 'being' begs the question. Logical fallacy 101. Hence theistic philosophers argue for a 'necessary cause' and layer theistic arguments from there. That takes you on to a whole heap of different problems.

But for the sake of argument, I'll grant you a 'Necessary Being'. How could you tie that Deistic concept to any specific theistic concept?

Easily.

Most of the old creations stories begin before creation with an infinite undifferentiated substance. The Greeks called this "chaos". The Egyptians called it "Nu". In Hinduism, the body of Brahma is an infinite ocean. In Babylonian myth the fresh and salt water gods come out of a previously undifferentiated watery state.

The necessary being is "stuff", matter, extant-ness, substance. Pure being is matter taking up all space.  In atomic matter 99.999999% of the space of the atom is not taken up by matter.  There is hardly anything there to "be" at all....yet here we are, made of them.

It is before the "first cause". The first cause is what causes cavitation of this substance into stable void spheres aka universes.

Your frequent use of the word " cavitation" is giving me a toothache!

[Arkilogue]

Easily.

Most of the old creations stories begin before creation with an infinite undifferentiated substance. The Greeks called this "chaos". The Egyptians called it "Nu". In Hinduism, the body of Brahma is an infinite ocean. In Babylonian myth the fresh and salt water gods come out of a previously undifferentiated watery state.

The necessary being is "stuff", matter, extant-ness, substance. Pure being is matter taking up all space.  In atomic matter 99.999999% of the space of the atom is not taken up by matter.  There is hardly anything there to "be" at all....yet here we are, made of them.

It is before the "first cause". The first cause is what causes cavitation of this substance into stable void spheres aka universes.

Your frequent use of the word " cavitation" is giving me a toothache!

Acoustic cavitation...like in the lab.

[The Grand Nudger]

Did sound waves exist before the first cause caused such and such, do you reckon?

[Arkilogue]

Did sound waves exist before the first cause caused such and such, do you reckon?

Not compression wave through air but through a solid body, like an earthquake through land or a tidal wave through the ocean.

Vibration through the body of the singularity state. That was the "quantum fluctuation", the fist cause.

The motion creates infinite spatially finite universes (void spaces) out of spatially infinite undifferentiated substance, like a crashing wave leaving a foam of bubbles behind it. It's still doing this and will continue to do so forever.

[wiploc]

Is there anything wrong with a Necessary Being per se?

---

Is there really anything incoherent or illogical about the very concept of a Necessary Being? In other words, can anyone come up with reasons why a Necessary Being is impossible? Or have we now accepted that it is certainly possible for there to be a Necessary Being?

By "Necessary Being," I mean something that cannot not exist. In other words, "existence" is in the very essence/definition of that thing.

---

Yes, using the term 'being' begs the question. Logical fallacy 101. Hence theistic philosophers argue for a 'necessary cause' and layer theistic arguments from there. That takes you on to a whole heap of different problems.

But for the sake of argument, I'll grant you a 'Necessary Being'. How could you tie that Deistic concept to any specific theistic concept?

Substitute "thing" for "being."

Then (1) he's not begging the question on that word, and (2) there are no deistic implications. 

I used to have the same problem, but, over time, I've become convinced that they usually aren't smuggling a person into the conversation disguised as a "being."  All they mean is "thing." 

So, presumptively, TheMuslim isn't being tricky here.  And if it turns out that I'm wrong about that, then we can call him on it when he plays that card.