Scientists...Got it wrong again!

Quote from Barth Vader:

Well, I will take this statement as my entry back into this argument. On the contrary, the debate between Stu and WaveStrider has been a joy to follow. Both parties have executed the art of mental combat perfectly.

Stu, your original reply to my "...nothing can pre-date the Creator...." was "..Existence must have predated a Creator. Creators cant exist unless existence exists. No Creator could exist were there no existence..."

Your reply was concise, compact and direct. My many attempts to reply were unsatisfactory due to the length and multi-pronged avenues I needed. I could not match the profound simplicity of your statement. I could match the argument, no doubt, but not the compactness.

WaveStrider carried the "potentiality" water in a very effecient and logical manner. This was one of the avenues I would have needed [potentiality], and WaveStrider presented the argument better than I could have.

You have intimated that a large portion of the "existence v. potentiality" argument is philosophical, and this is correct, in my opinion. You and I are virtually in agreement regarding the cold hard "fact" of existence. I still contend, that our positions meet at the edge of that "chasm" of pre-beginning. You view that gulf of darkness as "...existence of the possibility existed. Then existence existed..." whereas I view the darkness as the instant prior to creation, time and knowability.

None the less, the argument between yourself and WaveStrider, has cleared the way for me to enter my position of "knowability", as you have already deduced with your comment "..knowing about whether it is unrealized or realized, is a seperate matter altogether.....", but is it ?

In the Biblical account of creation, G-D blesses the creatures of the sea and the winged fowl. I find this poignant, because these creatures operate in an enviroment that man cannot, without the aid of mechanical devices. Man, for the most part, is "designed" to operate on the firm footing of the earth. Those creatures whose potential and possibilities are found in the sea or in the air, required, according to the Biblical account, a special "blessing" to "operate" in these inhospitable environs.

So, allow me, at the risk of my argument being critiqued as "..for the birds..", too use our feathered friends regarding "knowability" of existence AND existences, as opposed to the Kantian precept that "..all of our knowledge must conform to objects...".

I would assume, that whether our beliefs state that we are created entities or we have evolved to our present state, agreement would be had in the assumption humans are the pre-eminent creature in our present "time / history"...

We look at birds, as objects or as created entities, and analyze what we observe. We can "know" the habits, bone structure, muscle structure, mating, speed and distance of flight, etc..

We paint pictures, take photographs, make sculptures and other representations of birds. We "know" that a bird stays aloft because of the pressure of the air on top of its wing is less than the pressure below, much like the aerodynamics of airplane flight.

But, does the bird "know" this. I would doubt it. It operates purely within its organic potential and possibilities. It is airborne when it desires to be, and lands when it decides to do so.

The bird, I would venture to say, is oblivious to our cataloguing of its "existence". We may "know" the how, but the bird can be the only "knower" of the why. Why did the one bird endeavor to catch the grasshopper in mid-flight, when the companion did not.
Why did one bird land at the water source and decide to fly away, when another lands with it and revels in the water.

These birds are living within the proscribed perimeter of their potential and possibilities. Our observations do not impact their living, or their "why" or, may I say, their "known" existence, as they understand it.[Obviously, as the "pre-eminent" creature, we can impact their existence by various means, but not by our detached observations].

Birds , via our observations, are "known" by man, to be very sensitive to temperature, pressure, humidity, wind currents and light. We know, as the pre-eminent creature, the why and how of these factors, the mechanics of these factors. The bird does not "know" the mechanics, but rather, the bird "knows" its required and optimum responses to these enviromental stimulus.
Our knowledge of the mechanics, does not alter the birds "knowledge" of its existence, and its natural instincts.

Therefore, if the bird, operates within the truth of its "known" existence, potential and possibilities, and is oblivious to an "unkown" entities observations and cataloguing, and said observations have no impact on the birds "known" existence, why would the same truth not also be a "potentiality" for man, even within the sphere of the cold, hard, logical statement by man that nothing can or does lay outside of "known" existence and its objects ?

The dividing line between what the bird can "know" and what man does "know" would seem to be valid for my argument, if in fact an entity did exist outside of the perimeter of our "knowing"and our existence. Since we can see the validity of my argument with lesser creatures, are we being presumptuous, when we endeavor to state that "we" are the end of the line of this particular argument ?

" He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not "
John 1:10
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Barth,

When you said "I'll be back" I must admit to having some doubts. However, as an eternal optimist, somewhere I was perhaps hoping you would be, and that you'd have something interesting to add. I am not disappointed on either count. Thanks for your remarks and observations.

My understanding is that I find WaveStrider and yourself articulating two distinct counter arguments to the Existence Axiom. WaveStrider to my mind is mainly taking more of an epistemological approach, whereas you adopt a conceptual one .

The reason I support Existence exists is , in my opinion both these lines of reasoning are fully met in the Existence maxim.


The "knowledge" you explain is actually found to be no such a thing at all , but rather an inborn pattern of behavior which has evolved in response to the environment. Birds fly because air enables animals to evolve and exploit its properties. The innate ability to breath is not "knowledge", it is a development established over millions of years. You don't have a knowledge of breathing, as you describe it. You do have knowledge you can breathe.


But for this argument I don't mind allowing any kind of understanding or "knowledge" at all, because there is one defining point where everything, including notional definitions and meaning, come to an over riding obviousness intuitive determination.

So when you open the door to let in God to the argument as you have done, you also can't help but allow all sorts of every other imagination into the room at the same time.
In discussing abstract philosophical conceptual constructs like God , I don't think you can assume 2nd and third level concepts are derived true, simply because you've introduced the first.

Now there are these fantastic supernatural notions all over the place , needing perhaps an explanation or recognition that stands out from it all. That's one reason why God is produced.
But a more consistent singular awareness which is self evident to stand apart from all the exceptional and fantastic concepts including God would do nicely thankyou. Something with a precise relevance, than even all powerful Super Beings, than my own super-super powerful "imaginary sky faeries" , do not achieve.

It's Existence. They must all exist. If they don't exist they have no point. If God does not exist, why the fuss anyway.

Furthermore they all need existence to exist. You can see where this conceptual side of the argument inherently and inevitably leads to.
To exist itself or to even be shaped into any form of abstraction, the concept will need existence.
Even proposing a concept which is so powerful it doesn't need to exist, requires the obvious self evident philosophical conceptual paradox that even non-existence must exist for it to do so .

Your G-d and my sky fairies both need existence to exist or to not exist. They are not as all powerful as they claim it seems.
 
Quote from WaveStrider:

Thx for the comments. A summation of my thoughts at this point would be:

1) "Potential" can be viewed as an expected outcome from an observation in hindsight of an event.

2) "Potential" can also mean "possible", in which a possibility is postulated without benefit of an observed occurrence (hindsight).

#2 is where I say uncertainty is, and where "potential" is not sufficient to define it's existence. Therefore, the existence of a "potential" is not an adequate test. Definition 2 allows for "non-existence", otherwise the "imaginary sky faeries" mentioned previously could be described as existing.


Though finally, I would argue that the entire argument on both sides may be fundamentally flawed because it is using Time as it's benchmark. To use that one dimension as the limiting degree is like using only Height or Width in the argument, leaving out the other 2-3 dimensions, and would be fatally flawed by defining the problem in a self-imposed box. In dimensionality beyond our senses, the entire discussion is likely moot. Just MHO...
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Thing is, I am saying the definitions you give for potential do not stand in entirety.
Potential is defined as . Existing in possibility.


If your definition #2 of non-existence is the state or is the case, I have already asked you to explain in what way non-existence can pertain if itself does not exist ie: is not the state or is not the case.

I am talking of an archetypal cognition here, like mathematics. Numbers are actually conceptual but always have the potential to exist. A Platonic approach maybe.
You don't think mathematics does not have the potential to exist , yet it's a concept only , that proves itself through testing. Existence does too, every time and so I put it forward as an irreducible primary.

You test math and test with math and you test potential. You don't have to physically have some existence of math before you can derive its potential, any more than you have to have two apples before you can do the math. Because you do so in hindsight is not any reason why the potential would be affected. Unless you are suggesting that thinking of a concept changes whether or not it was a potential? I think that would be a stretch and no reason to assume so. Nevertheless, that state itself would still have to exist or have potential to !
I asked you some questions which suggest a rational intuitive conceptual test for potential.

With respect, time is not being used as a benchmark here. Time exists like mathematics exists. Time as the fourth coordinate.
Again if there ever were any such a thing as before time, then that state or that case of before time would exist in whatever form or way it took. Quantum perhaps? It's nonsensical, so in a way in which cannot be known perhaps. Nevertheless then , that state would exist !


In any dimensionality beyond our senses, that dimensionality would exist. Otherwise there would be another state (even if that were beyond our senses) so that it did not exist.

It’s not a question of “how do you know” or “prove it” .

It’s the primary irreducibility. That’s my argument
 
Quote from stu:


Potential is defined as . Existing in possibility.

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Therefore, there is existing in possibility a God, who could have existed from the same moment as existence, who did all the Bible stuff...
 
Quote from WaveStrider:

Therefore, there is existing in possibility a God, who could have existed from the same moment as existence, who did all the Bible stuff...
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is this the extent of your rebut?

is this all you got?

you got a whole lot of nothing.

that's PROBABILITY!

ever hear it? would you trade 'possibility'?

ROFL!

:D
 
Quote from stu:

Stu: Fair enough, but my position is there cannot be any potentiality without existence. It is why I am supporting existence exists as an axiom of irreducible principal.
So if there is a potential of existence, existence must exist for the potentiality. Existence exists is the irreducible principal.

Hans: Existence is a nominalization; existence does not exist other than as concept and therefore not independently of the mind. Existing is another matter.

Stu: The potential for a Creator/God to exist for example, can only be, if existence exists for the potential to exist.

Hans: Unless time began with God. In order for there to be the potential for God there must be time in which this potential exists since existing is a function of time. If time began with God then there was no pre-God time in which probabilty could have existed and therefore no probability or improbabilty of God; if there was no probability there was no zero probabilty of God and therefore no impossibility of God. God was neither probable nor improbable, and neither possible nor impossible. In the absence of probabilty and possibility potentiality has no meaning. If there was no pre-God time explaining God in terms of the product of potential would be meaningless.

Stu: Before anything can exist or potentially exist, there must be a state of existence where either of those can take effect. And that state cannot be a potential one.

Hans: With the unique exception of a God with whom time, probability, possibility, and potentiality began.

Stu: That to my mind is so much more elegant, obvious , straightforward and compelling than having to invent nonsensical giant all powerful imaginary sky fairies.

Hans: Not bad, as rhetoric goes.
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Quote from WaveStrider:

Therefore, there is existing in possibility a God, who could have existed from the same moment as existence, who did all the Bible stuff...
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No. It does not follow I don’t think you can say there IS – is existing in possibility . It could be the case that there IS NOT – is existing in possibility….


It is the case there must have existed a potential for concepts of God because concepts do exist.
If there was (is) however the potential for an actual God, then the potential for one always existed. If it didn't , there could not (cannot ) have been (be) such a God. If the existence of possibility for God does not exist, then the possibility of God does not exist.

God existing in possibility, conceptually or actually, needs existence in possibility to exist. God is therefore not the irreducible primary it's supposed to be.

Also there are any number of other things existing in conceptual or actual possibility, which could have existed from the same moment as existence . Time is but one.

In the same way, non can be the irreducible primary that Existence is, whether it is Existence of a potential or Existence of any other kind. God is obliged to share the same territory as Time, fairies and all other mythical beasties in that regard.

Potential existence or existence , both exist for something to exist.

Existence exists. Foremost.
 
Hansel dude,
most of what you post has already been covered. I don't intend to keep repeating it.

Can I suggest you just choose your main shot?
 
Quote from stu:

Potential is defined as . Existing in possibility.
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So what is this "existing in possibility"? Is this a kind of existing or merely a potential to exist?
 
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