Ennea
Any naturalistic justification for existence must presuppose some element of what it seeks to explain. Thus, to avoid circularity, it is necessary to posit a transcendent ground of being. Moreover, one may develop awareness of it simply by choosing the appropriate reactions to external events, the actions of others, and personal shortcomings.
Existence comprises minds, ranging from singular particles to entire nervous systems. Consequently, sapience is such a rare and significant privilege that personally acquiring it defies coincidence. To make sense of my circumstances, then, I must invoke the MWI and posit that each mind perceives the world-branch in which it unifies with the ground, attaining Ennea.
Existence comprises minds, ranging from singular particles to entire nervous systems. Consequently, sapience is such a rare and significant privilege that personally acquiring it defies coincidence. To make sense of my circumstances, then, I must invoke the MWI and posit that each mind perceives the world-branch in which it unifies with the ground, attaining Ennea.
Comments (49)
Existence is a brute fact and does not require "justification". Besides, even a "transcendent" why begs its own question / precipitates an infinite regress (i.e. every "transcendent" terminus e.g. "god" is arbitrary and unwarranted).
Quoting Dogbert
Panpsychism is a theory. Have you proven it yourself conducting your own individual research you can share with us or do you just like the way it sounds? :chin:
A word of caution, if I may:
"You always admire what you really don't understand."
- Blaise Pascal
I like to call it "enchantment bias." (Dibs on full credit if I just coined that term right now, BTW.) :grin:
I dont understand. How is my presupposition any different from your positing of a transcendent ground of being?
Quoting Dogbert
This shows a lack of understanding of what probability means and how it works.
Explain why it doesn't.
This sounds like a discussion weve had before. Probably no good reason to rehash it.
Except when life gets hard and one wonders why keep on going.
Think of transcendence as height:
Imagine a mountain that is the tallest in the world.
By definition, nothing is taller than it.
To say there is a taller mountain would contradict the definition of it being tallest.
So you have existed for billions of years. We're you ever a mammoth? What was it like?
By what standard are human beings not also commonplace matter?
I *think* what he's saying is per law of conservation of matter (or whatever) since the beginning of the Universe, there was and remains the exact same number of atoms in existence. From the moment of the Big Bang to right now as you're reading this. There are no new atoms being made and no atoms currently in existence being destroyed (not sure about black holes). Basically saying, the atoms in each of our bodies (what he considers to be "him", his physical body, not a spiritual or metaphysical essence) are the exact same and have existed for billions of years.
It's... a novel concept. Something to chuckle at for a moment or two, I suppose. But nothing more.
Like, why didn't the atoms in my body end up becoming part of a mountain instead, or part of a star a billion light years away? Why are they exactly as they are, forming my physical body? (etc.)
Yep.
Existence is taken as granted, not demonstrated.
There's something extraordinarily compromised about a view that seeks to demonstrate "existence". There's even this:
Quoting Dogbert
We can't begin with the existence of the chair you are sitting on, but we can necessarily "posit a transcendental ground of being".
This is such poor thinking it beggars belief.
Accusing people of things that never happened is much worse, pal. All that and more.
"Ennea" is a prefix for the number "9." You can't use words outside of their meaning and expect people to read your mind. We can't. This is an English language forum, if it means something in another language, I apologize. That said, you should have offered some context first before expecting people to just know what you mean without having any ability to.
Once again, your theory is being ridiculed and discounted. Not you. I don't know you. You are not your theory. In philosophy, we attack ideas, not people. I don't know how you could have possibly arrived at the conclusion you have, but I'll keep it in mind that you're on a hair-trigger when engaging in discussions in which you're involved in the future.
It's just the Internet. Lighten up, friend. :smile:
That sounds like a copypasta lmao
I just went up to bat for you, dude. Come on, now. Don't attack your one and only wing man in this discussion. :wink:
Explain, please.
I'm merely trying to explore what you were before you became human. I don't know what "commonplace matter" may be. I suppose you may have been "just" commonplace matter up to the time you became human. But over the billions of years you lived you may have been an animal, or perhaps commonplace matter that was part of an animal.
I assume you were born, and had a mother and father, or were commonplace matter which was a part of either or both. If not, did God or something else intervene and make you human?
Probably not, I would say. But if not, wouldn't you have been your mother and/or your father, or a part of them? And before that their ancestors down through the ages (who may have included non humans)?
It seems you may well have been a mammoth, then. Or that you may have a very peculiar way of defining what you are.
The best analogy for my view is an ocean. Each mind is like a wave, moving across the water, replacing molecules and changing form as it goes. At one point it was small, combined with this or that ripple, and one day it will crash on the shore and return to that state.
:100:
Quoting Dogbert
Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth. Olympus Mons, which is on Mars, is over three times taller neither are "the tallest" possible mountain, so your analogy fails. "Transcendent" only means beyond or exterior to and not (the) absolute limit; ergo "transcendent ground" is like the illusion / horizon of "the largest number" (or "final number") and therefore is surpassable (i.e. Cantor's set theory proves there are infinitely many larger infinities).
is only nonexistence.
This post exists.
We might proceed from that, without the constipation.
My apologies, Dogbert. There is a rash of really poor idealist tending OPs at the moment, and yours is one that caught my ire. It starts out wrong and goes astray from there.
Edit: Im liking transcendent heart better. Thanks for the unintentional inspiration lol
It seems like a rather normal reaction of someone under strain.
Have you never been bullied? Have you never been told that you should do the world a favor and die?
What do you think are the metaphysical implications of having been bullied, or otherwise experiencing duress?
Indeed.
Sorry, more evocative gibberish "heart" cannot transcend your analogy makes even less sense now.
But in that case "you" don't and can't know what "you" were. All you know is that "you" weren't what "you" are now.
Why call it " you" in that case?
Speaking for myself, being bullied and told I should die wouldn't convince me I don't exist.
That is a somewhat superficial property, a feature only of the modernish decimal system. It does have more ancient significance as the number of the fates, and the muses. It is associated with the nine months of gestation and female deities in general. The triple triple is the first number to have a central unit as its core, (as has any product of two odd numbers arranged as a rectangle). And 3 is the sacred number of the Trinity and of the ancient Triple Goddess, at least according to Robert Graves, in "The White Goddess".
Anyway, your choice has a traditional significance that makes it appropriate to your topic. As to "brute" being the ground of all being. Well only a brute would maintain that. :wink:
does not "transcend" being anymore than the center of the Earth "transcends" the Earth. Only not-X (nonbeing) "transcends" X (being).
The latter.
Not to make this personally about you, though.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Indeed, but it just might push you into looking for a justification for your existence.
Not to say that this is what is happening for the OP. There is something fair-weather-ish about so much of philosophy. As if someone could spend one's days trying to figure out things like "Oh my, I don't know what's real!", and then close one's notebook, and then go and have a beer as if everything was totally fine.
I think it's strange to think about questions like, "How do I know what I think I know? How do I know what is real?", and then turn around and go about one's business as if one hadn't thought about those things.
In the spirit of taking one's reflections seriously, and taking seriously the act of reflecting, it seems rather natural to also wonder about things such as a justification for one's existence.
Although I have seen professional philosophers dismiss particular themes as being simply a matter of "poor self-esteem" or some such "psychological problem" that doesn't warrant a philosophical exploration.
Sorry, this slipped through the cracks and I didnt respond.
The OP and I had a fruitless discussion of this issue in a previous thread. Thats why I didnt carry the subject any further.