What is the nature of our existence?

[MSC]

I absolutely detest the question; What is the meaning of life? It's just, really poorly worded when you think about it. 

So I spent a decade or so, trying to just figure out a better question to ask. 

This is it; What is the nature of our existence?

I could go on I guess, but I'd rather just let people sit with the question. 

As for why "What is the meaning of life?" Is a pretty shite question; that's a whole other thread!

[geordief]

24 minutes ago, MSC said:

I absolutely detest the question; What is the meaning of life? It's just, really poorly worded when you think about it. 

So I spent a decade or so, trying to just figure out a better question to ask. 

This is it; What is the nature of our existence?

I could go on I guess, but I'd rather just let people sit with the question. 

As for why "What is the meaning of life?" Is a pretty shite question; that's a whole other thread!

I agree that  the question "the meaning of life" is "but a joke" as the great Bob Dylan  might  have said.**

But the nature of existence ,whilst just as hard to answer is more to the point.

 

Personally I take existence to apply to both inanimate  and living entities as I think there is no   cut and dried demarcation between them  and I anticipate that the  coming decades may resolve some of our misunderstandings about them  whilst at the same time creating new questions  that we have next to zero  ideas about at this present stage in the evolution of our culture

Still ,it will be interesting  which questions  remain standing as the fog clears or reforms.

 

Will it be one step forward and two steps back or the inverse?

 

** I know he just said "There are many here among us who feel that life is just a joke" but I like quoting  him whenever I can 😙

 

 

Edited August 9, 2023 by geordief

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

What is the nature of our existence?

 Is 'our' existence somehow separable and distinct from that of all the other anonymous things and beings that exist in Existence? Is there something outside of existence that doesn't exist?

[Genady]

The nature of our existence is a sequence of events.

[geordief]

12 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

 Is 'our' existence somehow separable and distinct from that of all the other anonymous things and beings that exist in Existence? Is there something outside of existence that doesn't exist?

The question is one that we examine from the inside out.

There is nothing outside.

Everything is where it is (and maybe only where  we find it **,although some would say that is anthropocentic ,I think)

 

**disappearing in the wake of the discovery ,maybe.

 

(I hope I understood what you were saying)

9 minutes ago, Genady said:

The nature of our existence is a sequence of events.

What about the nature of the connections between the events in the sequence?

And are there connections between the  unimaginably many sequences that could be described as informing the nature of existence?

Or or all the sequences independent  and "autonomous"?

[Peterkin]

9 minutes ago, geordief said:

(I hope I understood what you were saying)

How would you know there is nothing outside of existence, unless 'existence' is a concept you yourself have defined and qualified, so that you know with certainty what it includes [everything] and excludes [nothing]. The bracketed entities are also creations of the human mind, so that only a human can define them. 

What is the nature of nature? [yes] Is reality real? [42]  

[geordief]

10 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

How would you know there is nothing outside of existence, unless 'existence' is a concept you yourself have defined and qualified, so that you know with certainty what it includes [everything] and excludes [nothing]. The bracketed entities are also creations of the human mind, so that only a human can define them. 

What is the nature of nature? [yes] Is reality real? [42]  

I take my ignorance as an article of faith.?(not just faith,experience)

Everything I encounter is an ephemeral acquisition of knowledge  that is true to the extent that it makes sense of my contemporaneous perceptions.

I also  sense something is coming down the road and expect that it will  be similar to the road already traveled.

So,to answer the OP might we say that discovery is the nature of existence?(at least for living entities)

As an aside definitions  are so important  but so constricting and when faced with an unanswerable but interesting question like this one we may have to indulge in flights of fancy at times.

Edited August 9, 2023 by geordief

[Genady]

32 minutes ago, geordief said:

What about the nature of the connections between the events in the sequence?

Some are not connected; some are causally connected.

 

33 minutes ago, geordief said:

And are there connections between the  unimaginably many sequences that could be described as informing the nature of existence?

Or or all the sequences independent  and "autonomous"?

Same events participate in many sequences.

[geordief]

32 minutes ago, Genady said:

Same events participate in many sequences

(I think you meant to write "same" rather than "some" -as an unwelcome computer word suggestion)

So  you are suggesting that an unspecified  number of causal chains can pass through the same event?

Can you give an example?

I can only think of entangled particles that could do this ,but there wouldn't be any chain of causality there, would there(so maybe that was not what you were suggesting)

[Genady]

1 minute ago, geordief said:

(I think you meant to write "same" rather than "some" -as an unwelcome computer word suggestion)

But I did write "same" rather than "some", didn't I?

2 minutes ago, geordief said:

43 minutes ago, Genady said:

Same events participate in many sequences

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, geordief said:

So  you are suggesting that an unspecified  number of causal chains can pass through the same event?

Yes.

 

4 minutes ago, geordief said:

Can you give an example?

I meet a person. This event affected some events in my life and also some events in that person's life. Later, some of these events in that person's life affected some events in my life. Etc.

[geordief]

6 minutes ago, Genady said:

I did write "same" rather than "some", didn't I?

Yes ,you did.I was unsure as to whether you might have intended writing "some" but that "same" could have been one of the word suggestions that "wrote itself" into the post by mistake .That happens to me sometimes.

I accept that "same" is both what you wrote and what you intended to write.

8 minutes ago, Genady said:

meet a person. This event affected some events in my life and also some events in that person's life. Later, some of these events in that person's life affected some events in my life. Etc.

I see(I was thinking on the micro level)

Yes ,it is a well woven web on the every day level.

[richards1]

And the idea of the associations between the occasions in the arrangement?

What's more, are there associations between the unfathomably many arrangements that could be portrayed as illuminating the nature regarding presence?

Or on the other hand or every one of the arrangements free and "independent"

[MSC]

9 hours ago, geordief said:

I agree that  the question "the meaning of life" is "but a joke" as the great Bob Dylan  might  have said.**

But the nature of existence ,whilst just as hard to answer is more to the point.

 

Personally I take existence to apply to both inanimate  and living entities as I think there is no   cut and dried demarcation between them  and I anticipate that the  coming decades may resolve some of our misunderstandings about them  whilst at the same time creating new questions  that we have next to zero  ideas about at this present stage in the evolution of our culture

Still ,it will be interesting  which questions  remain standing as the fog clears or reforms.

 

Will it be one step forward and two steps back or the inverse?

 

** I know he just said "There are many here among us who feel that life is just a joke" but I like quoting  him whenever I can 😙

 

 

Existence most definitely applies to animate and inanimate objects, but it also applies to imaginary objects too. 

See this question is essentially supposed to be a foil for existentialism, that questions whether or not we are real or if we exist. Personally, I see existence as a given. Clearly we all have an existence we are aware of, as does everything else within our universe of discourse. What differs is the nature of that existence. 

Me, a rock and Harry Potter, all have an existence. The difference between is the nature of that existence. I'm a living being, a rock is an inanimate object, Harry Potter is fictional character/idea that exists within and can influence the minds of living beings... even against what the creator of Harry Potter wishes. 

8 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Is 'our' existence somehow separable and distinct from that of all the other anonymous things and beings that exist in Existence? Is there something outside of existence that doesn't exist?

Yes to the first question; the nature of a given being, object, idea or person are different in a lot of ways but also share commonalities. As for your second question, no, there cannot be a something outside of existence that does not exist, that's just the nothing. 

 

 

[Genady]

9 minutes ago, MSC said:

Existence most definitely applies to animate and inanimate objects, but it also applies to imaginary objects too. 

Does it apply to mathematical objects?

[MSC]

4 minutes ago, Genady said:

Does it apply to mathematical objects?

Yes. At least I would say so. It's all within the context of our existence.

[Genady]

Is existence an absolute attribute or it might depend on a frame of reference?

[geordief]

36 minutes ago, MSC said:

no, there cannot be a something outside of existence that does not exist, that's just the nothing. 

Or the "potentially existing" since existence can be viewed as ever changing.

 

Then again GR seems to require that the laws of nature are the same everywhere(I see that as a reasonable approximation and wonder whether the laws may change over time -there seems to be an unlimited amount of time  and even if some laws may not permit life as we know it)

[Genady]

3 minutes ago, geordief said:

whether the laws may change over time

If they change over time, then there are other laws that govern this change.

[geordief]

42 minutes ago, MSC said:

Existence most definitely applies to animate and inanimate objects, but it also applies to imaginary objects too. 

 Yes imaginary too , but different relationships apply.

An imagined concept can still alter the physical world  but through physical agencies (Is that the bee in the bonnet  Christianity has about Christ "coming to earth" as God's "physical emissary"? At some stage humans came to realize the power of ideas versus the practicalities of survival?

Just now, Genady said:

If they change over time, then there are other laws that govern this change

Which can also change? (I think there is no evidence for laws of nature changing but how might we ever know?)

29 minutes ago, Genady said:

s existence an absolute attribute or it might depend on a frame of reference?

I definitely lean to the latter.Think the burden of proof is on the former but the definition of "existence"  means for me that not much can really be said without a particular definition.(are there as many definitions of "existence" as there are frames of reference?

[Genady]

11 minutes ago, geordief said:

Which can also change?

A better solution is incorporating of the law changes in the law itself. Example could be the "running coupling constants" in QFT.

[TheVat]

The OP is asking what is the nature of our existence which I would take to be less a physics question and more an ontology question.  Clearly, as conscious beings, our existence has some aspects that are different from the existence of a rock.  Both the rock and I are ruled by entropy and the arrow of time, but we experience that while the rock does not.  Also, we can conjure imaginary entities while the rock cannot.  I guess there may be some way to drill down deeper, philosophically, into how consciousness mediates existence, but that may be a vast Kantian enterprise, looking at how minds shape the incoming perceptions with concepts of sequence and time and space.   It's early here, so will come back later, with tea.

[MSC]

2 hours ago, Genady said:

Is existence an absolute attribute or it might depend on a frame of reference?

I'd say it is an absolute, but I am very glad you brought up frame of reference. That's a very important point to make and I appreciate you making it. 

Okay, so a lot of my research is all based on theories of relationships and an indexical view of epistemology through context relativism. Now, before anyone screams "oh no not relativism!" I want to make something very clear, context relativism is a form of truth and moral objectivism. What determines whether or not a flavour of relativism is subjective or objective, is what we are saying truth is relative to. Cultural relativism = subjective, Context relativism = objective. 

In order for us to make true statements and utterances about existence, we need to put what we are saying into it's correct context. 

The context of our existence, is essentially the state of affairs of our universe. Context comes from the Latin Contexare which means, that which is weaved (b)together(/b). We all have a limited view of the context of our existence, but together in collaboration, discussion, research, reflection and respectful debate, we come closer to the true context of it all.

In my opinion, Contextualism does for metaphysics what the standard cosmological model does for physics and cosmology. By that I mean, it's not entirely complete, but is our current best guess due primarily to its explanatory power.

2 hours ago, geordief said:

definitely lean to the latter.Think the burden of proof is on the former but the definition of "existence"  means for me that not much can really be said without a particular definition.(are there as many definitions of "existence" as there are frames of reference?

Existence is to me, simply anything that just is, to exist is to be somewhere, whether that is in space or mind-space. But I'm not into strict definitions, so long as useful meaning is conveyed, as per the conveyance theory of meaning. 

There is still a lot to go through, have I lost anybody? Happy to try and explain more in depth but this stuff, like existence, is not simple. Everything is complex. 

8 minutes ago, TheVat said:

The OP is asking what is the nature of our existence which I would take to be less a physics question and more an ontology question.  Clearly, as conscious beings, our existence has some aspects that are different from the existence of a rock.  Both the rock and I are ruled by entropy and the arrow of time, but we experience that while the rock does not.  Also, we can conjure imaginary entities while the rock cannot.  I guess there may be some way to drill down deeper, philosophically, into how consciousness mediates existence, but that may be a vast Kantian enterprise, looking at how minds shape the incoming perceptions with concepts of sequence and time and space.   It's early here, so will come back later, with tea.

True, however I do think it is relevant to talk about the nature of other forms of existence and the nature of existence itself, if for only comparative analysis. A good example may be if I had a thread asking "what is truth?" It would be relevant to ask what falsehood is too, just like you can't speak of certainty without also speaking about doubt. 

And yes, get your tea my friend. I'm currently running on caffeine after getting stuck on the side of the highway in Kentucky on a broken down bus for 6 hours, on a 15h long journey. I've had only an hours sleep in the past 24. So running on fumes myself and probably gonna have to come back and correct myself when I've gotten some rest. 

[Genady]

33 minutes ago, TheVat said:

The OP is asking what is the nature of our existence which I would take to be less a physics question and more an ontology question.  Clearly, as conscious beings, our existence has some aspects that are different from the existence of a rock.  Both the rock and I are ruled by entropy and the arrow of time, but we experience that while the rock does not.  Also, we can conjure imaginary entities while the rock cannot.  I guess there may be some way to drill down deeper, philosophically, into how consciousness mediates existence, but that may be a vast Kantian enterprise, looking at how minds shape the incoming perceptions with concepts of sequence and time and space.   It's early here, so will come back later, with tea.

I understand this. My issue is that our existence seems to me less interesting and intellectually engaging than existence of physical and mathematical entities. This is why I keep going OT here. On this note, I'd rather quit.

P.S. My coffee was really good this morning. But I guess I am a couple hours ahead of you anyway.

[geordief]

42 minutes ago, MSC said:

There is still a lot to go through, have I lost anybody

Probably me as have so little familiarity with philosophy as a discipline.

 

Still it may be interesting to follow the discussion on the sidelines 

[MSC]

30 minutes ago, Genady said:

I understand this. My issue is that our existence seems to me less interesting and intellectually engaging than existence of physical and mathematical entities. This is why I keep going OT here. On this note, I'd rather quit.

P.S. My coffee was really good this morning. But I guess I am a couple hours ahead of you anyway.

Like I said to @TheVat, while my question was about the nature of our existence, I still believe it is relevant to discuss what you want to discuss about the nature of physical objects and mathematical objects. I see it as relevant and if any of us get to far OT, I'm sure the mods will let us know. @Phi for All are we all still on topic dyou think? I believe so but you're the boss. 

19 minutes ago, geordief said:

Probably me as have so little familiarity with philosophy as a discipline.

 

Still it may be interesting to follow the discussion on the sidelines 

I like your curiousity and willingness to engage tbh, also your intellectual humility at admitting this isn't your usual ball park. 

That said, 7hours of your life is all you need to grasp the fundamentals. Go onto YouTube and check out crash course philosophy, delivered by the awesome Hank Green! Roughly 10 minute episodes, roughly 50 of them, really accessible and it explains all the vocabulary and terminology fairly well, or gives you keywords to research on your own, which I would immediately take to the online Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Free knowledge is the best knowledge! For the crash course though, I do not recommend binge watching it. Two to three episodes a day is more than enough with ample time of reflection. Otherwise it can be overwhelming as philosophy is not easy by any means. Honestly though, that crash course changed my life for the better and I've seen so many improvements in all areas of my life. It doesn't really matter what your views are either, for me philosophy is about self discovery more than anything else, as it helps you figure out how to present your own views and gives you the language and critical thinking skills needed to present your ideas and challenge them yourself. To put that simply, you're going to be judged in philosophy for how well you present your views, not what they are... okay sometimes what they are too cuz everyone is biased lol