BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Existence

 
  

Page: 1(2)

 
 
40%
23:04 / 31.03.04
My world view is fairly up for grabs at the moment. I'll let you know when I have something substantial.

For the time being, I think I like Quantum's view best. Whether it can be argued from philosophical or scientific principles or not, it's surely more likely to inspire good poetry than some of the other views I'm reading here.
 
 
Pingle!Pop
09:25 / 01.04.04
The first one being, I've never really understood the atheist position, insofar as it seems as much a matter of faith as any religion you'd like - to say there's definitely no god seems about the same thing as saying there definitely is, when surely the atheist is a sceptic before anything else ?

Well, the best I've seen the answer to this question put is in Tom Coates' pretty perfect post in the "Choosing a Spiritual Path" thread. Basically: surely it's absolutely ludicrous to say that it's a matter of faith to take the default position of "x does not exist"? I can say with perfect confidence, "Invisible pink unicorns do not exist." Is this a matter of faith? Just because there're a lot more people arguing for the existence of god than the existence of invisible pink unicorns, doesn't mean the burden of proof should be on the person taking the position pointed to by all logical evidence, rationality etc.

Second point being, and it's a bit more contentious, does it actually matter what anyone does, if this is basically it ? If you're just going to die and there you go, well it's over, why on earth would you worry about anything you do/did ? You could be Ed Gein or whoever, if that's what you wanted, you could live your whole life out like Patrick Bateman, or that guy who's in charge of The Daily Star, and it would mean nothing whatsoever, according to say the Stephen Hawking view of the world.

Many atheists will be happy to tell you that just because they don't believe in a god, and therefore believe there is no "divine purpose", there is still inherent meaning in life itself. Indeed, I'd say it seems a pretty tragic position to *need* some higher power to dictate a purpose to one's life, whether it be belief in the higher power, to treat people in x, y and z way, or to spend life making as many clay hippopotami as possible.

However, I'm not going to claim belief in any inherent purpose or meaning. Yes, I believe that life is essentially meaningless. But I also believe that jsut because nothing means anything, doesn't mean it isn't real; sure, feelings are just a load of electrons or whatever whizzing around in one's brain, but it doesn't make them any less real. And technically, yes I do believe that everything is predetermined, simply by cause-and-effect on an infinitesimal scale, but I still consider the perception of free will to be, in effect, the same as "true" free will, and just as valid.

Do you have any idea of how liberating that is? "Happy nihilism", as it were. "No, nothing means anything, so we may as well ignore all the accepted rules and live just by the effect one's actions have for oneself and on others." Create your own meaning, it leads to a much better life than following a path set out in a book.
 
 
astrojax69
23:50 / 04.04.04
... but i don't exist.

why?
 
 
sky_bites_me
07:34 / 05.04.04
simple as this.
there must be an intelligent thing that has created the universe and its content. it can be God, power or anything that u believe in as our creator.

we do exist, i exist. just like this forums exists.
 
 
Pingle!Pop
10:19 / 05.04.04
Sorry to ask the blindingly obvious, but, er, why? Because you personally find existence an impossible concept to wrap your head around unless it can be explained in a ridiculously simplistic and easily comprehensible way?
 
 
Corrigan
21:58 / 17.04.04
I exist, because I exist. I could not explain it as I have not the intellect to do so, because it is a question whose answer will be found outside of the thinking range of any human. If I were to say some god put me here for a reason, then it would be folly, as my next question would be 'what is the point of all humanity, if I have a part to play in it?' We just exist, and there is no sound proof of anything that could ever properly explain it.
 
 
Benny the Ball
07:43 / 19.04.04
You all exist because I say you do. I exist because without me, none of you would exist.
 
 
Tom Coates
10:51 / 19.04.04
This is ludicrous - all of you are just asserting random odds and sods of your personal belief systems (or just writing one-liners that you think are deep or make you look cool). This is not what this place is for. Think a little before posting. Read some of the other comments and try to actually contribute something useful.
 
 
Benny the Ball
14:56 / 19.04.04
Alright touchy!

It's true to an extent. Yes the post looked glib, but the fact of the matter is that the world exists because I exist, ie the only way that I can know of the world is through my own experiences, sensory or otherwise. If I die, the world ceases to exist, because the world is made up of my perception of it. I genuinelly beleive that we exist because at some level it is important to have a splinted perceptory opion (for lack of a better word) of all that is around us as, maybe to fracture the shared experience of existence and therefore make it easier to process. I also beleive that transmorphic resonance is real, that we are all one conscious, and perhaps this fracturing helps the one mind by giving it more depth.
 
 
Tom Coates
15:27 / 19.04.04
Belief is one thing, but do you have any arguments to support your position? I mean - base solipsism is all very well but it has an enormous range of potential repercussions that I don't think you're taking seriously. If that is what you believe - what impact does that have on how you treat other people? How do you explain the causality of other people acting upon you and affecting you? Where do the societal behaviours or laws or structures that surround you come from? Why has your world taken the form it has. In other words, you may believe that you're willing the rest of us into existence, but you don't seem to have gone into much detail about what such a world-view would mean in terms of how you interacted with that world. So do you have any thoughts around these issues, or is it a pose or a stance that you take to appear interesting at parties?
 
 
Benny the Ball
15:56 / 19.04.04
Without compounding the idea that you have of me of a posturing cod-philosopher, I would genuinely like to believe that people are free to an extent to make their own opinions and decissions about the world about them as a life-learning process. Not sure if we exist as we do in the world that we do as part of the learning experience as external forces and our interaction with them, or whether it is totally of our own creating - is the world different from how we remember as it was when we were younger because we've changed or because the world has changed? I don't think that I have willed you into existence, I just believe you exist as I see you because I exist, and are therefore different to each person that meets you, which leads to a question about whether or not you can lock down an identity of a person, or is it all just opinion? Do we therefore exist, or are we just here, and the existence side of things is a series of overlapped opions that people (ourselves included) have just accepted. Is existence a reality tunnel or an organism (for lack of better word) that we interact with?
 
 
lysander
17:23 / 19.04.04
I believe the person you think you are, is a series of autonomous responces caused from memories and experiences,
creating the illusion of an "I" behind them.
The identification of these experiences and memories with
the body helps strengthen this belief.

So in answer to your question, I don't think we exist as the person we think we are.

As to free will, the "controller" is himself nothing more than a concept created by thought, by memory, by the past.

Hope this post isn't off track, I guess it's roaming into the area of ego/self aswell as reasons for existence...
 
 
Tom Coates
21:34 / 19.04.04
Jack, my issue with your position is not that it's unimaginative or uninteresting - just that it seems to be nothing more than an expressed opinion. At the moment your position doesn't seem to me to be cod philosophy rather than cod mysticism, which is fine and everything except that I'm asking for a bit more rigour. Why does this view of the world seem most reasonable to you? Are there any problems with it that you can't resolve? I mean - for example - this seems directly in opposition to what you were saying a moment ago:

Do we therefore exist, or are we just here, and the existence side of things is a series of overlapped opions that people (ourselves included) have just accepted.

According to this view, there's enough of a reality that you can state that other people exist. But is this essential reality entirely unknowable? Because if it's unknowable, then I don't understand what relationship your 'experience' of it has to the 'real thing' (presumably none - which presents problems if you're arguing that I have some kind of independent existence from you, since there would be no way of saying that with any confidence). And if it's knowable, then - well - basically it just exists and there is a reality that's separate and independent from everyone's overlapping opinions.

And then you go on to say that you can't 'lock down' the identity of a person, but we don't operate in a universe with that level of extreme doubt. We understand people as having some kind of consistent narrative, as exhibiting vaguely predictable intelligence, performing actions with consequences and taking responsibility for their actions. It seems disingenuous to argue that you can't lock down identities (or that you can't get a pretty good idea of 'the essentially useful aspects' of an identity) when we work all the time on the assumption that someone who has killed dozens of times is more likely to kill again than someone who has never evidenced any violent behaviour. We make those assertions as individuals and we trust the assertions of other people who we believe to be qualified to comment.

Lysander's comments seem closer to the bone with regards to human experience. There are some readily idenfiable stages in children's development including the moment when they recognise that the image in the mirror is themselves rather than a strangely synchronised mimic baby. There's also enormous amounts of work in behavioural science about how we create models of the mental processes of other humans in order to work out how they are going to behave - that we generate sympathetic feelings to help put ourselves in their place. It seems to me utterly consistent with the theory that our understanding of "I" emerges at the same time as our understanding of that which is other, and that the way we understand it could be in the same terms that we employ to try and work out how other people are going to behave and/or what they should do in difficult situations. It's not much to do with Existence, I guess, which I suppose is realistically an ontological question, but it's itneresting nonetheless. Perhaps something for the Laboratory?
 
 
Benny the Ball
22:42 / 19.04.04
Perhaps it is a fear that anything else would require more philosophical thought on my part, perhaps it is a comfort state of mind that it all sounded nice in a book I once read and I'm sticking with that. Basically, I don't know, and I like the fact that I don't know, because it means that I'll never be so arogent as to think that I know the answers to life, the universe and everything, so to speak.

I hope that I don't come across as one of those dinner-party types that express the latest opinon de jour, but also, how can I know that your posts' are anything more than a series of coincidental posts set out to make me think about myself. Is existence a series of selfish thoughts about the i/ego, or is it more a case of I exist to be, there I am here to be? I think, therefore I am rings only as true as it needs to be (ie is the thoughtless man less real or more real than the I). I don't profess to understand philosophy, but love to be made to think about the why of everything, so if my posts come across as glib or contradictory it is more a case of thinking aloud rather than aloud lack of thinking.
 
 
Skit
11:15 / 20.04.04
Perhaps (just to be awkward) the reason for us existing is to ponder and debate why we exist, on the other hand there may not be a reason, we could just exist.
 
 
lysander
11:57 / 20.04.04
A taoist view is that god is playing a game of hide and seek, god can never see it'self because it would then be subject object instead of just subject

Basically, meaning if god is all things, then to see it self it would have to be seperate from itself, which it could not be if it is to be all.

Hense playing a cosmic game of hide and seek.

Using the word god can be confusing for some people, as it may induce a concept of a being, an entity, when I say it here I mean Brahman - all things.
 
 
sirganya
13:00 / 20.04.04
The purpose of existence is to reproduce.

I had no control over my arrival and have no control over my leaving. I have some control over my actions but can't go far without water.

The premise that we are independent individuals is problematic. We are part of a system that evolved without us and pushes us forward without our permission and with no explanation.

Thinking and loving and enjoyment are the bonus for being part of the chain.

The "meaning of existence" is a symptom of looking for a self-purpose beyond being a link, a DNA conduit.

42 was quite accurate.

I think.
 
 
Nalyd Khezr Bey
04:16 / 24.04.04
I don't exist. I am nothing but the figment of someone's twisted imagination. Or maybe a character in a book. What happens if whoever is reading it stops?
Maybe I do exist. Maybe everyone else are figments of my imagination or characters in a book. What happens if I...
"Why do we exist?" I think we exist for no reason outside of the ones we make up. Maybe we exist just to make up reasons for our meaningless existance.
 
 
espy
04:12 / 25.04.04
I just want to let you all know that I'm a lurker - I've been reading this and was surprised when it was brought back from the dead about a month ago, I think.

As for another point of view - if we are just a bunch of molecules and neurons firing in the brain, or even if we're a complex machine made by some sort of deity, can there be a certain purpose for which it happens to be? Why humans? Why are we the way we are, and why can't we know more about it? Why make the existentialists suffer?
I suppose you could take a kabbalist standpoint and say that the reason we do not understand everything is because if it was just given to us, we wouldn't have a sense of fulfillment. *shurgs*

As for us being a part of another person's imagination, I can't really grasp that as it's easily contradicted with: why is that person/being/conciousness existing as well?
 
 
elkhart
08:58 / 18.05.04
Why do we exist is answered more easily if we look at what part of us came first, the incarnate human or its immortal spirit, the embryonic egg? So we can ask, What came first the chicken or the egg?
The Greek Orphic Egg Philosophy suggests the primordial original energy was an immortal sphere or silver shinning egg. Very similar to the orbs captured on digital photography. Then part of the original egg seperated into billions of bits which one of those now presently make up our own personal causal body, which is reffered to by some as the angelic self, oversoul or higher self or non incarnate twin, double or doppleganger. A an incarnate human can contact it in dreams, meditation, spiritual discipline, or the impatient can follow the example of Willian James and sniff some nitrous oxide. The resulting chukle and laughter is the reckognition of your own opposite self, the watcher who witnesses your incarnate life. You both share deep levels of imagination and when in deep meditation and self reflection the twin essence of the human can pass up the silver chord into the silver sphere and you get the sense you are in a bubble looking down at yourself, of course which you are.
The encounter with the silver sphere is the illuminating primordial void,(mentioned in the Zen Ox herding story) which arose from the zero point of nothing into unfolding duality of all opposites of life.
To answer the question why do we exist? We arose out of the nothing void from the unmanifest into the manifest unfolding creation to explore and find out who and what we are. The occult tradition suggests that each individual is a micro component of a macro life form, similar to the life forms that make up the human body. Each individuals experience contributes to the collective unity or Jungs collective unconscious, The life principle operates through the illuminating void, the death principal through the dark black void which is like a garbage disposal and acts like cosmic acid and dissolves boundaries or what ever requires returning back to nothing. Both act upon us all and are the principals behind the flow and flux cycles of life. The mythology where the hero encounters a dragon, the black void, and a goddess eg. Isis is the personified version of the illuminating void.
You and I are the vessel upon which these two act upon eg. Osiris the one who is cut up into pieces by Seth ( black Void) and is brought back to life by the wisdom of Isis.
All this is horror and terror if you do not understand why do we exist?
I am suggesting a cross discipline approach to understand existence better by communication between those who have taken the path of direct real experience-tripping and those who through academic study advance consciousness in understanding the alchemy process. I have a discussion on this topic at Alchermergy and t6his site.
 
  

Page: 1(2)

 
  
Add Your Reply