Glostik91 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2018 2:18 pm
I don’t understand how you can challenge the existence of the concept of existence. While challenging the existence of something, you have already conceived existence.
I'm not challenging the existence of existence, but the existence of existence in the abstract. Existence is a relative term like "hotter" which doesn't exist abstractly because a subject needs and object. There is nothing outside of everything to be the subject that observes the object of everything. As soon as you conceive of a reference point outside of everything, then it's no longer everything.
I see what you're saying... that there must be something that exists that is fundamental to everything and absolute unto itself, but I'm claiming that is a meaningless idea. For something to be absolute, it would have an inside to contain everything, but no outside. How can that be? If there is no shared boundary, then how can it have an inside?
Most likely the nonexistence of 'positive' engenders the existence of 'negative' and vice versa. The existence of one is relational to the existence of the other. If the two are combined, we have cancellation and are left with nothing.
Causality is a way in which we come to understand the phenomenal world.
That's fine... It's a construct of imagination, but we must realize that before imposing our conceptions on reality.
Are you talking about things as they are perceived, or are you talking about things in themselves (a thing as it truly is in itself)?
If the first, I am perceiving this phone. If I wasn't then I wouldn't be making this post, now would I?
If the second, you do not have knowledge of a thing as it truly is in itself. A thing in itself may exist. It may not. You don't know.
I know from physics that phones are constructed of atoms which are constructed of "fundamental particles" which are energy densities existing as part of at least one medium called the gluon field and interacting with another called the Higgs field. It's not much different from the virtual cyber world where things exist on an LCD display as energy densities (where a white pixel has more energy than black). In neither case is a thing really a thing unto itself, but they're aspects of the medium that contains them.
This is what empty space looks like:
If we pull apart a quark/antiquark pair, the energy put into the pulling will create another quark/antiquark pair from seemingly nothing and that demonstration testifies that there really is no such thing as matter... since it appears out of nowhere like a pixel on an LCD.
Good video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztc6QPNUqls
Because of quantum tunneling, it's possible to throw your phone towards a wall and have it appear on the other side unscathed, but it's astronomically unlikely since it would require every particle inside the phone to decide to tunnel at the same time (I say "decide" because it's random and uncaused). Superposition is also possible, but exceedingly unlikely for the same reason. Superposition is the basis for the Many Worlds interpretation which insists that all possible replies to this thread already exist, both future and past (seems silly to me, but some folks buy it).
Anyway, the point I wanted to convey is that things do not exist as we perceive them and furthermore, perception is limited to that which contains "charge".
Vision = perception of oscillations in charged particles by means of EM radiation
Smell = chemical reactions dependent upon baryonic (charged) matter.
Taste = ditto
Touch = perception of interatomic forces generated by charged particles (electrostatic)
Hearing = perception of pressure waves propagating by electrostatic intermolecular interactions.
We can perceive gravity, but not on an atomic scale. Essentially, all we perceive is charge. We can infer dark matter, but we can't interact with it (except by gravity, which isn't perceptible). So at the fundamental of what we call reality is the oscillations between + and -.
If we go deeper and into string theory, then all matter is vibrating strings which is still another way of saying on/off.
A priori is a term Kant used to refer to knowledge which is gained prior to an experience. For example, 2+2=4 is known a priori. I don't have to go to the other end of the galaxy and have an experience of 2+2=4 to know that 2+2=4 over there just as it does here.
There is nothing that is not experienced. The concept of "plus" is gained by experience as well as the concept of "two". What divides a priori from a posteriori is arbitrary depending how you choose to define experience.
What was it Otto Weininger said about genius? "The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.” Does that mean everything is a priori to a genius? Is 2+2 a priori to a dog? Where do we draw the line between a priori and posteriori in order to make a universal and absolute claim?
Just because someone has read the critique of pure reason and uses it's terminology sometimes does not necessarily mean that someone is up to something egoic.
I said I could be wrong, but from the context of the post, it seemed you were assuming a higher authority over me by peppering with "student, nonsense, a priori". But it's cool... no harm done.
It also doesn't stop you from asking me to explain what I mean by a word (or just googling it yourself). I don't go around telling buddhists to keep their ego in check because they have read books I haven't read and use words I'm not familiar with.
I think people use big words to project an image. Every time I write, I have to make a decision: Do I use big words and seem pompous or use small words and seem stupid? Am I trying to convey a point to a wider audience or am I desiring for one to struggle to decipher my parlance. In real life, I sometimes say "you was" instead of "you were" because that is the dialect of the commoners in my area and I don't want to seem snobby. When I read PubMed, I think, "Is this language really necessary? Do they talk to their friends this way?" Like, "Hey Bob, I posit a randomized sampling of an aqueous solution of volatile organic compounds at the establishment adjacent to the intersection of perpendicular sidewalks" instead of "Hey man, wanna grab a beer?"
It seems to me that you are stuck on this idea of existence.
If it's the case that nothing exists then for the sake of understanding we need new terms for things which used to exist (things like phones, streets, plants, fingers, etc) and of course the rest of the nonexistent things (things like unicorns, fairies, gods, a space-elevator in my backyard, etc), because how else am I supposed to understand and communicate the difference between one thing (like a phone) and another thing (like a magic stone)? Clearly there's a difference between these two things (in that one exists and the other doesn't), but if I can't say that one exists and other doesn't, then what should I say about them?
Now I propose that we basically just keep the term as it is for the sake of communication and understanding, and have different terms for when we want to talk about the difference between a thing perceived and a thing in itself.
It's not the difference between a thing perceived and a thing in itself, but existence is relational in concept. Abstract existence is meaningless.
If a category of understanding must be verified by the concept of relation, then what verifies the concept of relation (which is itself a category of understanding)?
By using another relation... the relation to abstraction... the relation to absurdity.
So you're saying that the concept of relation doesn't need verification. There is no need to try and misdirect me by saying, just use a different relation. Fundamentally what you're saying is that the categories of relation need no verification because they are fundamental to our understanding.
I suppose that is correct. Can "on" exist by itself or is it relational to "off"? Do we need to verify that or is it a priori? In fact, it's by definition since "on" is "not-off", so the nonexistence of off causes the existence of on.
Coincidentally, this article arrived today on zerohedge:
Why Quantum Physics, AI, & Eastern Mystics All Agree We Are Living In A Video Game