Ontology

[Mike D]

Today I was watching a YouTube video about a guy who was a Christian youth leader who couldn't accept all the problems with Christianity (like us) and over a period of years went through a search for the truth, studied all religions and ended up a Muslim. This post isn't about any of that, since I personally have problems with any book that people claim to be an authoritative source, just because the book says it is. Just doesn't work for me. But his testimony got me thinking about some things.

 

One thing that theists often say is that God is eternal, meaning he's always existed. I have always dismissed this as illogical, among many of the other problems I find with a being that has always existed. However, I do believe that reality always existed. Meaning that some thing (matter) has always existed in one form or another. So I started wondering, am I making the same logic mistake with reality that I am making with the theist's argument for eternal God? Am I committing a special pleading fallacy?

 

Having said that, I am open minded enough to consider that there is some "Matrix"ish element to reality, or some other concept that might do away with some of these problems, although they probably introduce new problems. I've wondered at times if reality as we know it actually is "virtual" meaning that nothing actually does exist as we've come to know it, and our perception and senses exist as a simulation in our minds only, yet in some sort of an interconnected shared consciousness type of way. But even that would have to "come about" in some way.

 

I dunno, any opinions on the idea of existence and how it relates to an eternal creator?

[florduh]

I don't know. There was a time most people were sure that lightning couldn't happen unless there was some magical being in the sky doing it. I can't make the leap that since I don't know for sure there must be some magic involved. Sure, maybe there is, but I have no more reason to think that than I do to think we're in the Matrix. The way the universe in which I live consistently operates is the only useful reality to me. Even if life is all a dream of L. Ron Hubbard, an illusion we create, the creation of some god or the Matrix, that has no impact or meaning where I live here and now.

[LukeExChristian]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q3MWRvLndzs i found this interesting, maybe you've seen it.

it more genuinely and informatively begs the question, is this plane of existence static? or did it have a starting point?

[RankStranger]

I'm pretty confident that we don't fully understand the nature of time itself.  Look at relativity- "time" literally slows down for an object as it approaches the speed of light.  I don't even pretend to fully understand all the implications of relativity (and quantum mechanics is simply above my pay-grade)... but I do understand enough to say that time is not a static thing- it can change tremendously depending on perspective.  Now this implies to me that time is closely related to (or maybe even just a byproduct of?) mass and displacement.

 

I guess the way I see it, I'd say that the universe has "always" existed- for as long at time *as we know it* has existed.  But prior to the big bang?  If there was no movement, then there was no time best I can tell.  For me it seems kinda pointless to speculate about what was 'before' the big bang- I'm not sure we can even guess.  But right now we have an expanding universe- and I think that drives "time" as we know it.  I'm pretty sure that some people postulate a contracting universe prior to the big bang... and so I reckon that means time must've run backwards.  I think that would mean that the second law of thermodynamics would have to be inverted.  It's difficult to imagine- but lots of counterintuitive things are 'true'.

 

My point is that this may not be a simple question of logic.  Because that ontological question seems to have a built-in assumption that time is linear and constant- or at least that it always progresses in the same direction.  And I'm not sure that any of those are the case.  What does it mean to say that something has "always existed" when (as best we can tell), time itself has not "always existed"?  Or has not always existed in its current form?

[Bhim]

I'm pretty confident that we don't fully understand the nature of time itself.  Look at relativity- "time" literally slows down for an object as it approaches the speed of light.  I don't even pretend to fully understand all the implications of relativity (and quantum mechanics is simply above my pay-grade)... but I do understand enough to say that time is not a static thing- it can change tremendously depending on perspective.  Now this implies to me that time is closely related to (or maybe even just a byproduct of?) mass and displacement.

 

You're actually surprisingly close to an accurate description of space and time.  Relative speed doesn't simply change a moving clock's rate of counting time, it also makes it shorter along the direction of motion.  In essence it is possible to trade some space for some time, and this is one reason we say that space and time can be treated as the same (some people take this analogy too far, but that's another topic).  So you're quite right to say that time closely related to displacement.  Mass likewise affects the passage of time; the formalism of general relativity describes how clocks tick more slowly in a gravitational field.  So again you're right to say that time is very closely related to mass.

[Vigile]

I believe this is where Occam's razor is most apt.  There are far less logical leaps/complications in an eternal matter than there is in an eternal organized mass of something sentient, aka God. 

 

But, perhaps something did come from nothing: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/something-from-nothing-vacuum-can-yield-flashes-of-light/

[Ellinas]

The honest answer is "I don't know".

 

I'm not clear what "reality" is - so how could I possibly decide whether it has always existed?

 

If you start questioning "what was before the "Big Bang"?" how can that reasoning lead anywhere when there is no proof that whatever "reality" is has always had the same form?  And if the question is defined as "does everything have a beginning?", how can that possibly be answered?  Every beginning presumes a cause, which, it seems to me, presumes a prior "reality", but this does not make the concept of eternity any clearer.

 

This could lead to the conclusion that without the existence of something that is "eternal", or at least cyclical, we cannot be here; equally it seems to me inevitably to lead to the conclusion that there is simply no way of making sense of this.

 

Mind, I'm no scientist, so theoretical physicists ( or even someone with a smattering of scientific knowledge) might well tear me apart...

[Guest btallnight]

Mike D,

 

I can’t help myself… ;-)

 

I have listened to more than a few (Christian preachers) butcher “eternal”.  It is not, at least not directly, a synonym for “forever”.  I will here briefly give a short argument which will hopefully (start to) clear things up for you.  The conclusion of which is: if you are, you are (must be) so eternally!

 

Consider the thought of progress, or development, or improvement, or, perhaps most generally, evolution.  The argument is that there is a logical limit to the purview of such terms.  Evolution itself cannot be the cause of the capacity for evolution!  If you think through the idea of evolution, you realize that there are at least a few components without which even the mere thought of evolution would be impossible.  I here merely point out that the concept “evolution” demands certain organizational principles (like time itself).  The essential organizational principles cannot be the result of evolution, because there could be no evolution at all (capable of “developing” those principles) without recourse to those principles a priori.  Let that sink in.

 

It is the distinction between the a priori and the contingent which is the heart of the issue here.  Philosophers call the latter phenomena, and the former noumena.  The argument that phenomena demand noumena is inescapable.  Philosophic materialism (pure phenomenalism) cannot stand itself.  “Eternal”, at least in the hands of the ablest, points precisely to this “standing above contingency”.  That which is self-existent, stands rooted above contingency; call such standing noumenal or call it eternal.

 

I promised a little more at the outset: to confirm for you that you are not-other than that (ideal) noumenal (creating/organizing) principle.  I think I will let myself fall short for the time being, but I will point out that this argument is the essence of Jesus’ teaching that one "must be born from-above/again”: “When fully trained, every servant will be like the Master.”