Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
It's not exactly the reason we cannot have necessary existence even if I extend to the ratio of us to the universe.
Are we necessary beings or not?
- Thread starter wynn
- Start date
It's not exactly the reason we cannot have necessary existence even if I extend to the ratio of us to the universe.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
I think that you should go a little bit more into the detail of what you mean by necessary.
From Wikipedia:
Necessary may refer to:
Something that is a required condition for something else to be the case, see necessary and sufficient condition.
A necessary truth, something that cannot fail to be true, see logical possibility.
An important task or essential thing to do at a particular time or by a particular moment.
Necessity in the context of criminal law
An action somebody may feel they must do
In some languages a "necessary" is a bathroom or toilet. In English this is an archaic usage.
An economic need enunciated by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1944 Second Bill of Rights
A necessity in contract law
We're just tiny little specks, about the size of Mickey Rooney
Like I asked in the OP: Is our existence optional?
In the other thread you said it was.
Please provide some reasoning how our existence is optional; how can it be that we might also not exist.
(This is in the Comparative Religion section, so I think it is clear in what context the terms are to be understood.)
If you look at a quantum universe, natural states exist in distinct packets, with empty gaps between these states. Consider something man-made like the statue of liberty. This does not follow logically from the natural potentials in a quantum universe. In other words, it would not form spontaneously in nature using the potential of the quantum universe. It exists in the gap between what is natural. Humans are here to fill in the gaps between natural states.
Do you mean personally or humans as a whole?
It's optional in the way you can take it by jumping off a bridge if you like.
Necessary? Only to those that depend on us, such as our babies.
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Necessary? Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No! But I do it anyway, cause it's sterile and I like the taste.- Patches O'houliham
Could we be necessary to fulfill some omnipotent beings cycles of complete and utter boredom? Maybe just a toy in god's eye... possibly apprentices...
Maybe the light of consciousness ignites stars. If not I can't see how we are necessary.
Maybe the universe itself is a living creature and we fulfill some vital role in its existence. Doubtful.
Perhaps that is our mission... to find better ways to cope with the boredom of being eternal. How people watch people, the universe watches more closely.
Could we be necessary to fulfill some omnipotent beings cycles of complete and utter boredom? Maybe just a toy in god's eye... possibly apprentices...
Maybe the light of consciousness ignites stars. If not I can't see how we are necessary.
Maybe the universe itself is a living creature and we fulfill some vital role in its existence. Doubtful.
Perhaps that is our mission... to find better ways to cope with the boredom of being eternal. How people watch people, the universe watches more closely.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
Ok, we are not necessary beings, but contingent beings. The only being which is necessary is that which could not have been otherwise. Existence is a very part of the definition of a necessary being, it would be impossible to think of them not having existed in the past or ceasing to exist in the future.
Does that apply to us? No. We did not exist before our life on earth began. Our soul does not pre-exist the body, but the soul and body are two parts of a composite whole. We are not existence itself, but rather we get our existence from some other cause. If something receives its act of existence from a source other than itself, it is by definition not necessary being.
God could have not created us. It is theoretically possible. You may argue that since He did create us, we cannot cease to exist, but that does not mean that we are necessary beings just because we are immortal.
I consider myself a sentient being who happens to be living in a human body. I could be any of a trillion different forms on as many planets but I would still be the same sentient being.
I think this is why God made the Universe- to produce sentience: to have an audience... to have people to talk to.
I think we are very neccesary beings because we are sentient.
And I think it'll be at least several hundred years before we can digitally immortalize it and send us off into deep space for meaningless amounts of time to make contact in our immortal robot bodies.
I think this is why God made the Universe- to produce sentience: to have an audience... to have people to talk to.
I think we are very neccesary beings because we are sentient.
And I think it'll be at least several hundred years before we can digitally immortalize it and send us off into deep space for meaningless amounts of time to make contact in our immortal robot bodies.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
Is lightgigantic a Catholic? There isn't a Catholic apologist who would disagree with that, as the fact that God is necessary being and we are not is absolutely fundamental to Catholicism, Christianity, or really Theism in general, thought I suppose some theories of emanationism might argue that creation is necessary in an analogous sense. I am afraid the topic might not be interesting if you are expecting a debate an opposing viewpoint
The only existence that I can see as necessary is one's own. I.e. each person can say that without themselves existing there is nothing. They can not say that about anyone else. If everyone else did suddenly didn't exist... I still would. But if I suddenly did not exist... then to me nothing would exist... not even myself.
Hence, to me, I am the only necessary being.
Unless your consciousness is non-physical, and somehow
lives on.
The whole
world will cease to exist once your dead.
Won't it?
jan.
Depends on how centric your viewpoint is.
It will cease for me. I have serious doubt that the whole universe is dependent on my existence though. I hope for everyone's sake I'm right.
Not entirely, although it's along the same path. I'm not saying that nothing other than my mind exists or isn't real... but to me I am the only thing that is necessary.
It's more just an entirely subjective viewpoint rather than anything too far down the solispsist path.
Objectively I can't seen any existence as necessary... because I don't consider existence itself to be necessary... it begs the question of "necessary to who/what?"
Your logic is fascinating.