Following Putnam's argument that if scientific theories are about existing things, they must exist themselves and Mathematical Objects being part of those theories must exist too.
But what is existence?
So this is actually an intractable problem: "what" something is, and "that" it is are completely different. But some analysis should reveal just how bizarre this is.
We all know "what" this is:
But are there any instances of it? No. It does not "exist". At least so far.
Does this exists?
Well yes something is there. But what is it?
Well someone may say: 4 dots. Someone else may say the corners of a square.Someone else may say four points on a circle. Someone else may say a white die rolled so the 4 shows on a white background. Someone else may say an arbitrary diagram to demonstrate ambiguity in what things are.
Perhaps we say oh its just a picture. So lets take something solid like a wall. Here is a picture is a wall.
How many things exist here? Some one says : a wall. Someone else says: 100s of bricks?
They start to argue and then decide to settle by saying both the wall AND the bricks exist.
And then things start to get crazy because then someone says what happens if you take the bricks away? Are you still left with the wall?
So they decide there is no wall, just bricks.
Someone else is late to the argument and says both wrong its all made of atoms. What happens if you take the atoms away?
So they decide its made of atoms.
Then someone says sub atomic particles...
Eventually someone says Energy and they all agree okay there is just energy there.
So energy exists and everything else does not exist.
Woah! The wall does not exist? So when I say to the builders I want a wall to stop my neighbours dog getting into my garden do they look at me blankly and say you may as well order a Unicorn off Amazon cos wall's don't exist?
But I persuade them to do it anyway, doing all that work that does not exist, during a week that does not exist and finally a wall is there. I sit on it, it seems solid. The neighbours dog is barking on the other side and definitely can't get into my garden. Yet it does not exist?
So I go back to the "energy guy" and say "mate, kick that and tell me it does not exist!"
"oh it does exist, its just not a wall"
and so on...
So the thing is all "things", all the "what it is" is actually an illusion. In brain terms its just the brain processing stimuli and activating brain regions that separate out the stimuli. Some are deep separations that we have evolved like light and darkness, but most are learned like the difference between a Unicorn and a Horse.
This is why we can argue about a picture of a Unicorn. Its enough to switch on the bits of our brain that would be switched on if we ever did see a Unicorn.
Interesting to note that our imaginations are always modifications of things that exist. A Unicorn is a horse with a horn.
Here is a "Treloche".
The problem with completely making things up is no one knows what to do with this. Is it even an animal? Does it have a head or legs? It's impossible to give it any meaning. And if an animator took this and started to move it perhaps they could take that canal that seems to go inside and push that out like an amoeba, but then keep it rigid like a leg. If it's too weird it doesn't work. So we make things that are familiar so we can mentally handle them easily.
In Zoology there is the concept of "handling time" which is the amount of thought an animal must put into dealing with a prey item. Its often more efficient to practice on a particular item so you can process it fast, and so ignore other items. This is the explanation for why fly eating fish like trout will go for particular flies at particular times and ignore others. Our brain is the same ignoring things which are too hard to handle, and sticking to what we know well.
Its not all brain though. Show a Unicorn to a deep Artic Eskimo who never even seen a reindeer and they won't have a clue what it is. They won't even see a horse, cos they have no idea what this.
Show this to most people and they won't know what it is. Although its obviously a human of some description.
Its Huītzilōpōchtli the Aztec god of Sun and War. We are familiar with "gods" and that gods in many religions command certain parts of the world so this is not so strange. I believe Socrates pointed out that the Ethiopian gods looked like Ethiopians. We tend to think things we are familiar with both because there is no point in thinking the unfamiliar and confusing and because its hard to be completely original too.
But and here is the killer blow. Everything I was just talking about is like a "wall." All that does not exist either.
So what we end up with actually is the extraordinary realisation that there is One Existence!
Only One Thing Exists!!!!!!!!
Now we called it Energy above, but it goes by other names too, most famously God.
Parmenides was correct there is just one world that gets divided by the mind again and again into all its parts.
However note we did not get to this conclusion by putting things back together to rebuild The One.
We actually took the Atomic approach of Democritus and kept breaking down the world to show that each level did not exist by itself until we got to the bottom and Energy.
So this is doubly baffling because that One True Existence both sits as the foundation of everything we think and see, but is also the whole thing as well.
You will not win this thing by thinking of the One Existence like it is a thing. As we have shown any thing that we can pick can just be broken into parts and then remove those parts and what we thought we had turns out does not exist.
To get to the One Existence requires moving on from a museum of "things" and start thinking about the museum itself.
To directly answer the post question ordinary things do not exist. This is the great mistake of Materialism and where the Western world is entirely wrong. If we think about Capitalism and the desire to possess actual things, it all seems rather pointless when we see that none of these things exist.
All of Liberal Democracy falls apart as well because the ultimate shock hidden in here is that if nothing exists then neither do we!
We die. The lights go out.
Ha ha. No that is what they call "nihilism."
Not existing is no problem at all because we never existed. So suddenly discovering you don't exist doesn't change anything. No lights going on or off, no change at all!
Although one light may become more bright.
When we realise there is only One Existence and it is that which make the world exist we realise that we are experiencing that One Existence all the time. No matter where we are, what we are doing, that One Existence is right there making the world exist. Amazing even when we are fast asleep we are still face to face with this existence.
The flaw in the "existing self" view is that be become overwhelmed by the belief we are "embodied." We see this body and and all the things its does and thinks and feels and we get confused and think that the existence it shows comes from itself.
We don't see the obvious thing that the existence of our thoughts and wishes and desires and feelings and senses and doings, that existence is the same existence as everything and everyone else.
There is only One Existence and it shines through all the little things we put together to make them exist, including all the bits and pieces we put together into ourself.
The same argument above we applied to the wall can be applied to self.
We look at the world and we go what is that? Ah it is "me" we answer.
Okay but its also a bunch of bricks such as feelings and memories and experiences and thoughts and most importantly yes desires, wishes and decisions and actions.
I will show you what I Am, I will go and make a cup of tea to make me happy. There we go, making tea as a free agent. No one can stop me. I've bought all the things I need and now I'm doing it. Go me. Awesome.
Okay goes the argument so what if we take away all the bricks like the making tea, and the desire for tea, and all the ingredients, and the seeing the tea and the feeling the heat of the hot water etc. Is a self left?
If we think a self is still left after the bits are all gone then this is as crazy as building a wall and then selling all the bricks and still thinking we have a wall.
All this points at there being only One Existence. And all the little things that we think exist through their own existence, are actually just made up. If you look into them you will find your way eventually not to their own core existence but all the way back to the One Existence.
So its where we started. What things are that that they are are completely different. There is only One Existence, but there are many things.
That sounds crazy, and yes this is at least while it is unfamiliar like the "Treloche". The way we see the whole world is wrong.
But what is perhaps surprising is there is nothing to learn here. We know perfectly well what the One Existence is: its right there right now in the existence of the world. The only thing we need to do is not think that this existence comes from either us or the world. It is just there in everything both outside the world like the sky and Sun and inside in everything that happens like our feelings and thoughts. Indeed the inside/outside thing is just another thing that comes from the One Existence.
So Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and even Buddhists will recognise everything in here at some level.
The Creator God did not just make the world 8000 years ago of whenever people think it started, and then have a chat with Abraham and the prophets before seemingly leaving the world. The world importantly does not exists by itself like a ball that was made and then thrown on its journey by God. God carries the world every step. And the fact there is a world IS GOD still doing creation.
The mundane view of the Bible is that Time somehow existed before God. What kind of God is this?
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day" [Genesis 1:1-5]
While it shows the creation of day and night and the 1st Day, clearly time is ticking before this. Day and Night simply divide time into periods. Indeed there is no mention of the creation of Time. We start at the beginning, so time has already started. God needs to make The Beginning itself! By SRH that means be outside what is being described in the narrative of the Bible itself.
So the Bible is accurate, Time was already there. Afterall Time is how things happen and come before and after each other. How can Time itself happen? What came before Time is nonsense. It's like who came first if you run the finish line along the track. The finish line needs to be across the end of the track so people can run through it to end a race.
So Time has always been here, it can't be in the Past or the Future cos that needs Time. Time is how things get into the Past or Future.
So that Time at the beginning of Creation is with us right now. Look out into the world right now and what you see is the same Time that God started creation in. Its the Time in which God first lit the lights. And this is profound because as you look into the world right now you can see that same Light lighting up your ability to see. Not just you seeing lights, but the very seeing itself that sits behind the light. You look at a lamp and yes you see the light, but to see the light you need to see so there is "seeing" going as as well. And behind that seeing is the Time of creation.
This is why God, The One Existence, is also the Creator. That creation is happening right now for ever. This is why those who know God are immortal. To know God you realise that the mortal body of flesh and bone, that will turn back to dust, all the memories and feelings and making tea, that will be lost to time are just a wall made of bricks. They do not exist by themselves, they never existed by themselves, and so there is nothing to not exist. You can't actually get rid of a wall, you can only lose bricks. Instead the One Existence that lit it up and made them appear that is Time and is Forever.
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