Reply
Fri 4 Aug, 2006 09:43 am
As we look around this world we live in we all tend to come to our own conclusions as to how it all came into being. Some people base their conclusions on what others think or say. Some spend their lives trying to make everything in life come to some sort of logical conclusion. Some just don't care... all that matters is that they are here. Putting aside spiritual existence, the possibility of an "after life", whether that be a heaven, or reincarnation, or whatever... I really wonder... Is all this really chance?
Did some cosmic astroid collide with whatever it was and suddenly produce life from nothing? So how did the astroid come into being then? How about the evolution theory... we evolved from what? Ameba's? Ok, I know I'm not too schooled in other theories of how we came to be. I'm trying to get there, but every once in a while I like to stop and ponder something. This is my current pondering point. Are we here by chance? Or is it destiny? Is it really THAT hard to believe that something was behind us being here? If it is I would like to know why it's so much easier to believe we are here by chance? By some cosmic accident. Or how it was exactly that first little form of life we "evolved" from came into existence?
I think I'm right in saying that there is not a logical explanation for everything in life. I dare say there never will be. So why does everything pertaining to our existence have to be logical?
We must necessarily be here because of the principle of contingency. The question "Are we here?" can never have a negative answer. Whoever identifies the answer as No must exist. Therefore we must exist. The question then becomes, "Would it have been possible for me to not have existed?" According to the positivist or phenomenological perspective, the only way that it could be known that you could have not existed is if you don't exist, so the answer is still no, you exist because you exist. Jean-Paul Sartre went to great lengths in Being and Nothingness to elaborate his theory of freedom and the fact that we are "thrown into the world" (an idea that Heidegger also used) and that we are "condemned to be free."
I am not a full believer in the phenomenological-existential perspective, but it does demonstrate that our "reason" for existing is outside of logic.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace