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Old June 23rd 03, 08:57 PM
WinField
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Default something and nothing [ Existence continues ]

Sounds to me like you're chasing your own tail here, Ralph. You put
WAY too fine a point on your epistemilogical existangents, create a
hairball of logic, then expand upon it like the BigBang. Yeow!

Here are a few cherry-picking quibbles: (You explained ...)

You made an error of logic in your statement that, "something implies
existence". That isn't true.


Of course that's true. I'm talking sidewalk, man-on-the-street
common sense here.
I tried to follow your short-circuited train of thought about "...
existence, is not implied by the existence of existence, ...", but have
to admit it sounds a bit gobbley-gook to me.
-

With this I agree with you :
Existence exists regardless of whether there is any person who can
discover any implication from anything else.


One possibly too-near example. A lot of people were not aware of the
Arab/911 attack on the Towers before it happened. Did they exist? As
Benign-Vanilla asked elsewhere "And even if it is (does exist:me), does
it matter?
-

This is one of the most ludicrous statements I have ever heard:
There is no purpose to the universe.


Well folks, there you have it. Ralph Hertle's quickie assesment of
God's creation.

Cheers,
Winfield


Ralph Hertle wrote:
Charles:

See what would happen if you were to extend your basic argument:
Therefore, the purpose of the BB and of all existence, in the Platonic
anti-Aristotelean, anti-logic, anti-existence, and anti-continuation
view of things, is the destruction of everything. That is, once created
by the BB, existence must then cease to exist.

Why everything? What is the purpose of everything? Destruction. Right?

.....

Of course, that isn't true.

You made an error of logic in your statement that, "something implies
existence". That isn't true. Existence, meaning all of existence, is not
implied by the existence of existence, or of anything, or of any something.

Existence exists regardless of whether there is any person who can
discover any implication from anything else. Existence is a metaphysical
concept, and something implied by something is an epistemological
concept. You are in effect saying that the metaphysical concept
existence is secondary to, or is derived from, the existence of a
something, and epistemological concept. But, clearly, all of existence
is greater than any constituent something, and cannot be implied by the
something. A universal cannot be deduced from particulars. A universal
concept such the existence of existence is not implied by something, the
cause from the result, the greater from the lesser.

Rather, existence, being the functioning of everything taken together as
a grouping idea, is the primary continuation of the plurality of all
existents. That is not implication by deduction; that is induction.

It is true, however, that [everything is existence] and that [everything
is the continuing being of the plurality of all existents]. These
identities can only be formed by induction, not deduction, and the
concept of implication is inapplicable.

....

There is no purpose to the universe. It merely is all that it is
comprised of. It exists as its parts all function, and together it
continues to exist eternally. The plurality of all things in the
universe, taken together, have one unifying concept, existence.
Existence has three fundamental properties that are true of all things
if not more that may also be identified by induction: 1. that things
have properties, 2. that things have potentials of changing or becoming
what they can become according to their properties, and 3. that things
taken together as the universe have the property of continuation of being.

To endorse the BB is to deny these fundamental identifications that are
basic to all science.

"Existence is existing", said Ayn Rand, and that was also the underlying
principle that Aristotle identified, giving that same concept the name,
"Circular Motion". The meaning is that existence continues to exist.
There is no evidence to the contrary in all the work of science. In fact
all the work of all science and of all human action, not to mention the
being of everything, validates the continuation of existence.


Ralph Hertle
........................................



Charles D. Bohne wrote:

On Mon, 9 Jun 2003 01:26:36 +0100, "Saville" wrote:


Why is there something rather than nothing??

Saville.


"something" implies existence.
************************************
"nothing" would not even exist [without being "some thing" like
"non-existence"].

You can reduce your question to: why is there "existence"?

If it all started with the Big Bang, we can hope that it will
end with a Small Crunch that cancels out all time, energy,
space ... and everything that ever "happened" :-)

Is this "close enough to nothing" for you? :-

C.