Why does the Universe exist?

@north,

Quote:

Time is a Human concept . But the Universe is an entirely different thing though

Yes it is but if your were any other animal on earth other than a human being it would not exist. I think it is because of our ability to use language and name things that we are able to see or observe things is why we are able to bring these things into existence. We may be wrong about our description of the universe but I do think we were the people who brought it into existence by our subjective ability to notice this thing we call "the universe"

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@north,

Quote:

How does one imagine stars that you have never seen before ; up until that moment that you looked up ?

I can only guess it would be the same as coming up with the measurement of time even though there was no such thing before.

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Quote:
How does one imagine stars that you have never seen before ; up until that moment that you looked up ?

I can only guess it would be the same as coming up with the measurement of time even though there was no such thing before.

First , thanks for remembering me by the way ; appreciated more than you know. Many have expressed this concept of time without any acknowledgement of who came up the idea ; again thanks again .

No

The Universe is not about any measurement . It is about objects in space . Galaxies , stars , planets , moons etc .

Understand the difference ?

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@north,

Quote:

No

The Universe is not about any measurement . It is about objects in space . Galaxies , stars , planets , moons etc .

Understand the difference ?

I think it is a measurement of our perception. We all see it a little bit differently. It is somewhat of a measurement of our understanding or our perception. If you were not taught this word or concept of what a universe is, how would you ever be able to have this discussion with me?
Time would not exist either if you were
not taught the concept.

Every word we know is a human constructed concept if my understanding is correct. Look it up on Wikipedia or some where else. Please do not believe anything I share but rather come to your own understanding.

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Quote:
No

The Universe is not about any measurement . It is about objects in space . Galaxies , stars , planets , moons etc .

Understand the difference ?

I think it is a measurement of our perception. We all see it a little bit differently. It is somewhat of a measurement of our understanding or our perception. If you were not taught that the word or the concept of what a universe is, how would you ever be able to have this discussion with me?
Time would not exist either if you were
not taught the concept.

Every word we know is a human constructed concept if my understanding is correct. Look it up on Wikipedia or some where else. Please do not believe anything I share but rather come to your own understanding.

Yet the word towards anything seems to make sense .

We don't call a table a car , we don't call a tree a rock , etc .

There seems to be a word that describes an object Naturally .

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@north,

Quote:

There seems to be a word that describes an object Naturally .

I guess that one might call labeling or creating a word to name a perception," Natural." being Humans are a part of nature.

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Quote:

There seems to be a word that describes an object Naturally .

I guess that one might call labeling or creating a word to name a perception," Natural." being Humans are a part of nature.

Yes

What other word would fit ?

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@nacredambition,

Quote:

Leadfoot Quote:
"Presumably there was no one around to see the big bang but it sure made a lot of light."

Well, umm, kinda.

The first hydrogen atom supposedly formed after a few hundred thousand years and the first star after more than one hundred million years.

If you're going to correct or disagree, first make sure there is something to disagree about.

I didn't specify a timeframe and of course there weren't any biological living things around to see that light even 100myrs into the BB.

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The Universe as everything else in it exits because there is no alternative. What else could it be ???

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Yeah, but why? "Nothing" does seem more logical.

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@Leadfoot,

I think I answered pretty clear...
Let me bring it to your terms. Why does "God" exist ?
Surely from your pov the answer is because it is necessary. There is no alternative. No non being.

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@Leadfoot,

"Nothing" is a self denying concept. Look repeat after me:
Nothing IS nothing.
Got it ? Its absent of itself...
Existence is all there is.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

You're starting to sound anthropic.

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@Leadfoot,

I think you have a pragmatic point. But epistemologically I don't think its as simple as you make it out to be..It is as I said: An exercise in our understanding of what we think we know. If your answer is pragmatic..fair enough. But I don't think you can claim so 'easy' an epistemological answer..And certainly not anything so demanding as proof..

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

Nothing IS nothing.

It appears to me that "nothing" is a word we use to describe the absence of something, but in using that word, we do not actually describe "anything". Ergo, the question: "does 'nothing' exist?" is an absurdity. It has no answer/is a non sequitur because we cannot properly describe the subject. By contrast, asking if things exist makes sense because there is a pointer to the object of our question.

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@catbeasy,

Quote:

I think you have a pragmatic point. But epistemologically I don't think its as simple as you make it out to be..

How do you mean 'pragmatic'? I'm trying to look at it from outside of any human sort of pragmatism.

The question of the OP could be rephrased as:

Why is there anything?

It's a good question that needs both a pragmatic/scientific and epistemological answer. I haven't heard one yet. I used to haunt a website with a similar name (www.whyistheresomething.com) which the owner shut down because he didn't like the way I pursued the answer.
Funny that it is that way, but it's an emotional issue.

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

What I've really been saying from the start is that this question does not have much value in its ability to make us question what we think we know. It's not difficult to solve, it's childishly simple

Your "childishly simple" hyperbole aside, this 'tree falling/sound' issue gets at the heart of what we think we know. Would sound waves exist without us? I think probably something would exist without us. Or would it? Is it necessary to have a perceiver for something to exist?

I think underneath this question lies the necessity for something along the lines of your God or some kind of perceiver or perhaps better put, some kind of 'mind'. I think that's one of the arguments supports the contention of a God.

On the other side, perhaps the whole universe - everything in it is alive, has 'awareness' at some level and so perceives itself to 'guarantee the existence of things'?

I don't know, I can conceive of a few possibilities and for me, that keeps it interesting and not childishly simple..

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@catbeasy,

On the question of 'the falling tree', what I meant by the problem being childishly simple to solve is, for example - Put a recorder in the woods with no one around, wait for a tree to fall (or dynamite it remotely) and then listen to the recording. If a self aware perceiver is necessary for sound generation, there will be nothing on the recording.

Unless you wish to make the case that listening to it after the fact still qualifies as having a perceiver, then this should settle the matter.

Why there is something instead of nothing is harder to test.

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@Leadfoot,

Your approach is simplistic.

If there was no one or nothing that had the ability to hear, then those frequencies that you refer to would not be called "sound." They'd be mechanical frequencies labled with another term and Meriam Webster Dictionary's and the The American National Standard on Acoustical Terminology's definitions would be quite different. The American National Standard on Acoustical Terminology would be quite a different organization if it existed at all.

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@InfraBlue,

As someone else already pointed out, the primary definition of sound has nothing to do with a perceiver, it's just periodic compression and expansion in a medium.

The only 'human' part of the primary definition is the range of frequencies, the ones human can hear. But there are sounds that humans can't even hear and bats, dogs, etc. can, yet again taking humans out of the picture.

1 Reply

Why does the Universe exist?

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