Serendipper wrote:Dimensions of what? Spacial dimensions? Temporal dimensions? Psychological dimensions? How long is 1 second in terms of inches? Dimensions don't mean anything until you define them in terms of what already exists, so what you're doing is describing a relationship between existent things. And since we can't describe relationships between nonexistent things, existence itself precedes our descriptions of it.
Yes, infinite in all spatial dimensions as well the dimension of time. You can take measurements on these dimensions when you focus on a beginning and an end within these dimensions. There are finite things within these dimensions that are separated.
Yes Existence does precede our description of them. They are all aspects of Existence. Width is an aspect of Existence as is time. But they are all in Existence. We’re defining dimensions in terms of Existence which exists.
Existence means relationship because we can have no other conception of what existence means. Dimensions exist as an artifact of the spacetime fabric of the universe. If the fabric gets bigger, then our dimensions get bigger, but we have no way of knowing that because there is nothing to compare it to other than itself.
But we clearly do. It’s not something we’ve empirically observed, but it’s clearly something that reason dictates. Everything we do (including the organisation of scientific observations) is with what reason dictates us to do.
Existence is omnipresent. Reason dictates that we have a clear and sufficient conception/understanding of this concept because when we take this adjective away from Existence, our understanding of Existence, amounts to a paradox.
Reason isn't reason unless it is doubted. As soon as you postulate anything to be incontrovertibly true, look out!
You can postulate that Existence being omnipresent is incontrovertibly true in the same way that you can postulate that reason being infallible is true; purely because the alternatives are without a doubt, paradoxical. This isn’t an unknown. It’s clear knowledge.
No one has ever
successfully doubted reason for such a thing is meaningless. And no one has doubted Existence as being anything other than omnipresent without being bombarded with paradoxes. Yet, when we say Existence is omnipresent, we have no paradox.
Anyway, reason that isn't doubted, isn't reason, but faith
Fair enough. First you have to apply doubt, then that clearly establishes that reason is infallible.
How do you know reason is objective and infallible? How can the thing residing inside the construct make conclusions about what lies without the construct?
We're in Existence. We're making conclusions about Existence with what Existence gave us (reason). We know it's objective and infallible because when we attempt to doubt its objectivity and infallibility we reach a paradox.
A paradox is a paradox because it can't be understood using a frame of logic, so if the paradox is true, it merely means our logic was faulty. At least some great truths started as paradoxes: like if the earth is round, why do people not fall off? If you knew nothing, that would seem a sensible concern, wouldn't it? Up and down are fixed dimensions, so when the earth rotated, people should fall off the bottom, but they don't, so what explains this paradox? Eventually we discovered gravity and everything fell into place
Lack of knowledge never altered how things amount to paradoxes. For example with the earth we've always known that people would always fall off a surface that's upside down. We've also always known that they wouldn't fall if some sufficient forces was gluing them to the surface. This never changed and will never change.
Yes of course, but Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe" and insisted there were "unknowns" yet to be discovered while Borh said "Don't presume to tell God what to do" and insisted the "unknowns" do not exist. Bell finally proved Borh right: there are no unknowns and what's left is the absurd. It is my speculation that the absurd is explained by self-inspection, but that's just speculation on my part; maybe things can come from nothing.
They may be unknown to us, but they are not unknowable if that's what you mean. Things can never come from nothing. This isn't a matter of unknown where some additional premise makes this possible. You can have things come into our reality from a different reality, but never can you have something come from nothing. Look back at the round earth example. Has there ever been a case in our history where we've had a paradox actually happen? Would that even be meaningful?
In my view, reason forces the conclusion of self-inspection to explain absurdities which defy reason.I've said before that there is one thing that cannot be known, but now I believe there are two things: the self and other because if we can't know the self, then we can't know the other, but all we can know is the relationship between the two, which can only give us clues about what each are, but never 100% certainties nor the explanation of absurdities. IOW, there is no you outside the universe with which to view the universe in order to make conclusions about it. You're stuck on the inside trying to discover what you are (the internal) and what everything else is (the external) and that's not a problem that can be solved according to reason.
Reason is merely another mode of perception. As Goethe said "Thinking… is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." What we perceive is "the other" that is not us, but is a part of us. We can't perceive things that are truly disconnected because there is no mechanism by which to do so. If there were a mechanism, they wouldn't be disconnected. So we only perceive connected things, which aren't things, but continuations of us and a part of us. So when we perceive, what we are perceiving is ourself, but veiled by the illusion that it's not, and the relationship between the two is what we call reality. So when we try to get to the heart of reality, then infinities, circularities, and absurdities result. Reality is the stubbornly persistent illusion resulting from the eternal ignorance of oneself.
There are things that are unknown to us but are not unknowable. With regards to what is truly unknowable, well that is anything that is paradoxical. It's not something that can be known. A square-circle is not knowable. Everything that isn't paradoxical, is knowable. I may not know myself fully, but I certainly know myself sufficiently. To not know something is for meaningfulness to be non-existent. This is always the case when it comes to paradoxes. Everything else, is knowable.
Wait, what is paradoxical? I can't reject reason because rejection of reason is paradoxical or because reason is paradoxical?
If reason was paradoxical, we wouldn't be able to use it. The rejection of reason is a paradoxical. Reason itself is not paradoxical.
I still maintain that existence can't be infinite or existence wouldn't exist. That's the opposite conclusion from yours and all I can suggest is to spend a couple years pondering infinity and you'll probably land the same place I did: infinity isn't something that can exist. First of all, things have borders/walls/edges and infinity does not. Infinity is a box with an inside but no outside. Infinity is a box containing all boxes, including itself. The infinite has no context or contrast and is ubiquitous, so it's impossible to delineate/detect/observe and therefore, because it has no affect/no relation, it cannot be said to exist.
Now, existence can apply to ALL of the universe, but that's finite with edges/contrast.
Rejecting Existence as infinite is paradoxical. There's literally no way around it. Things within it have borders whilst it does not. Infinity is not a box as a box needs a start point whilst that which is infinite is necessarily without a start point. If it has meaning, then it's meaningful. Infinity is clearly meaningful, as is Existence. Saying that Existence is not infinite amounts to meaninglessness (the paradox of something coming from nothing, or the paradox of Existence and non-existence bordering each other)
Well, it's saying that the thing called "nonexistence" does not exist. If the universe is expanding into nonexistence, then nonexistence is a thing to be expanded into
If we say nonexistence is a thing, then we'd be saying something paradoxical. If it's a thing, then it's something. It is not nothing.
So is nonexistence a blank slate with nothing on it or is it the absence of a slate? If my drawing is too big, I can glue on more paper, but if I have no more paper, I can't continue drawing.
Non-existence is not a thing. It is the absence of meaning. It is meaninglessness and it is impossible to understand, describe or meaningfully talk about meaninglessness. We cannot meaningfully say that the universe is expanding without having it expand within something else. What that thing is, is unknown as we've not empirically observed it as far as I'm aware.
Why can't I call a box infinity? Infinity is supposed to contain things and containers are boxes which have sides. If your pc had infinite memory, it would have no memory because there would be no reference point to allocate anything and if it did write something to memory, it could never find it again.
You can say a semi-infinite box (something that has a start point but no end) but you cannot say an infinite box because by definition, a box has a start point. This contradicts the meaning of infinity. My PC may have a semi-infinite amount of memory. As in it may have an endless amount of memory, but that memory has a start point.
Ok, well, why can't existence be finite and what's beyond the finite doesn't exist? Why can't the nothingness be infinite and the somethingness be finite?
Because that amounts to Existence bordering non-existence. Earth is finite. Can you meaningfully imagine it being surrounded by non-existent. Can you meaningfully imagine existence as being surrounded by non-existence? Can you meaningfully imagine Existence being infinite?
It does seem that something would have to exist in relation to nothingness, but then nothingness would be a thing that exists.
Nothingness is essentially meaninglessness. That which is meaningless (like a square-circle) does not exist. But meaninglessness itself is a phenomenon that occurs when we reason wrong or use words or letters wrong. Things can amount to paradoxes/meaninglessness. As in the negation of meaning occurs when we use words wrong or simple don't ascribe any meaning to them. You can't make sense of "ebfuisdfnjksd' because it's meaningless. What is existing here is a set of letters. You may be able to sound them out but still, it is meaningless."ebfuisdfnjksd' and non-existence are the both meaningless. The image looks different (as in different letters are used) but they are both meaningless.
How does omnipresence make up for the fact that one could not be big and small at the same time in order to posses the advantages of each simultaneously? Every advantage has a disadvantage and I don't see how being everywhere at once refutes that.
Being big or small is either advantageous or disadvantageous depending on the circumstance. For example, it may be advantageous to be small enough to access something that you'd otherwise not be able to access had you been bigger and so in this context, it's advantageous. But when it comes to omnipresence, you have reach and access to everything. So you're always at an advantage and never at a disadvantage. Give me one example that you consider as amounting to that which is omnipresent as being at a disadvantage.
"All your clothes" is different from "all the clothes". All existing things have the quality of existing only because there are things that do not exist, so it's not all the things, but only some of the things.
Something's non-existence does not give rise to nor does it sustain the existence of another thing. Existence has to have a quality that is present in everything that exists. Existence has to be all-existing and it has to be sustaining all existing things.
There are subsets of existence that you may want to ponder as well, such as being and nonbeing. A light can be on, off, or nonexistent. When the light is on, it's being. When the light is off, it's nonbeing. When the electrician removes the light, it's nonexistent. Just because the light is off doesn't mean the light doesn't exist because the potential to exist still exists. So we can have existence as a state of potential rather than actuality (being and nonbeing).
When the light is on, electricity is reaching it, so it's one. When the light is off, the electricity is no longer there, it's not gone into non-existence. It's either changed to something else or it's gone somewhere else in Existence. In all the examples that you'e give, have you ever had something go into non-existence? Or rather, has it always been either that something has changed to something else, or that it has gone/move somewhere else?
