Why does the Universe exist?

Yes, a universal contingency is partly what is meant by the Unity of everything. And I do suspect that Nothingness (the absence of everything in contrast to the absence of particular things in particular situations) is paradoxical. I CAN, however, appreciate the notion of the insubstantiality of everything in this dynamic reality, a reality in which "process and becoming" are more descriptive than are "structure and being".

Then you’re ’way ahead of me. I’m sure it is but I don’t know why

Okay but the conclusion seems dualistic and runs counter to the general idea that nothing is entirely anything while everything is partly something else

How is it dualistic? (or How can I say anything non-dualistically?)
Are not my terms "insubstantiality" and "becoming" consistent with your ideas that "nothing is entirely anything while everything is partly something else"? Perhaps you're suggesting that my contrast between ""process and becoming" and "structure and being" is dualistic. I am suggesting that the former is ontologically realistic and the latter a distortion of the world's character, namely that "structures" are abstract falsifications of concrete realities and "beings" (similarly) are thought rather than observed.

Okay but the conclusion seems dualistic and runs counter to the general idea that nothing is entirely anything while everything is partly something else. Three rocks for example seem more substantial than the quantity 3

By the implication that substantiality is a digital function whereas it’s analog like the rest of the Megillah with insubstantial at one extreme and substantial at the other

Of course you can’t. Everyday conversation is necessary dualistic

If there’s a contrast they’re necessarily dualistic

Dualism is a necessary characteristic of ordinary thought. Up-down, good-bad, real-unreal, hard-soft, beautiful-ugly, true-false, etc. etc. Very useful distinctions (like yin and yang, each identifying its contrast) but not very good as absolute desriptions of reality. In space there's no "up" and "down", direction exists only relative to something. I've never met a person or bird who was totally "beautiful" or "ugly". I've never made a statement that was absolutely "true", or a deed "good" or "bad". "Hardness" is clearly relative to something softer etc. It seems that all traits occur as matters of degree in relation to their conceptual (not ontological) opposites. Everything is a shade of grey on a conceptual spectrum between the ideals of black and white.
But when I just look in a prereflective state of mind (free of my usual "hardening of the categories") I sometimes get a glimpse of pre-categorized phenomena non- (or should I say pre-?) dualistically. This applies most wonderfully to the master bifurcation between "I" and "that". I appreciate then the Hindu dictum "tat tvam asi" (that art thou).

Quite so

Indeed well put


A pretty impressive accomplishment perhaps behyond the Average Clod (me)

No, not beyond you. You probably do it all the time, as when you first open your eyes in the morning, when you see a non-representational abstract painting or hear music. Meditation is a way to experience the world pre-reflectively without the above enabling conditions.

So might entail Intuition

I miss your meaning.

Benefits obtained from meditation might arise from the operation of Intuition

Yes, and perhaps Intuition is sharpest when our consciousness is effortlessly non-discriminating. What is referred to as "without thinking" (as opposed to thinking and not-thinking).

Perhaps so

I like how Carl Sagan put it

"We are a way for the universe to know itself"

I use the term 'objects' loosely. It might be better to say that, "All things are necessarily contingent"; but even then we have to deal with "thingness". Whatever they are, they are one and all contingent, and necessarily so.

Well put responds the pantheist as we are in effect Her brain cells

Yes, NECESSARILY so. I think Sagan's metaphor is very good.
Someone asked--I don't recall when--if the Universe was conscious. My answer was that we are conscious and we are undeniably part of the Universe. But I don't mean that it is only HUMAN consciousness that tells the Universe what it is about. It is also the consciousness of all things, including snails, ants. Lions, and who knows what else throughout the Universe. I can only know something of the Human contribution to Cosmic Consciousness.

JL I can see you’re also a pantheist so I’d like herewith to invite you to join the club. Also are you into The Brew

What's the name of the Club?

/Apodistical Existential Pantheists of the World

Do the members smoke weed?