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Comment by vibemasterxl | Hacker News Reader

The fact that anything exists at all. I’m not talking about matter-antimatter asymmetry or consciousness, but rather the fact that there is no causality-compatible answer to “where did the universe and whatever it exists within come from?” For all the arguing about creation vs evolution etc, this sure seems like a glaring issue sitting out in the open that folks don’t often acknowledge. And when it is brought up, people often get sidetracked with something like gravity or matter-antimatter as above.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and it hurts my brain, and it also scares me. It seems definite to me that there must be some truly incredible quality of existence which allowed it to come to be out of nothing, one that I don’t have even the slightest hope to even explain or probably even understand.

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Exactly my thoughts. My conclusion was that the idea of cause and effect is something that only applies inside our universe, and not in the system our universe is embedded in (whatever that is). In other words, to us time is a basic feature of existence, while on some most basic level it's not. That's why existence itself seems to counteract our most basic intuitions.

> time is a basic feature of existence, while on some most basic level it's not

I've come to two conclusions, only one of which is correct:

1. We are in a continuous universe, and time is a human construct. The only thing that actually exists is force interaction and momentum/velocity. Time is merely an emergent property of these things, and one that we use to measure, as humans. God may or may not exist.

2. We are in a discrete simulation, and time, specifically the Planck Time, is derived from the clock frequency of the computing substrate. God exists, or some form of god, because a simulation implies the existence of a Simulator.

Currently leaning to option 2, but who knows?

In both of your described scenarios time would still exist (because cause and effect would still exist), they are just different abstractions. When I say "time doesn't exist outside our universe" I don't mean it's an illusion, or that it's something else that we think. I mean it literally. On some most basic level outside our universe there's nothing that could be construed as time, so there's no cause end effect.

> The only thing that actually exists is force interaction and momentum/velocity.

Why do those things exists at all? And not 'why did they start in the first place', but rather why don't they stop existing? What causes them to keep going?

> God exists, or some form of god, because a simulation implies the existence of a Simulator.

That doesn't answer anything, it just moves it to another layer of the stack: what is running the simulation?

> The fact that anything exists at all. I’m not talking about matter-antimatter asymmetry or consciousness, but rather the fact that there is no causality-compatible answer to “where did the universe and whatever it exists within come from?”

You're asking "where it came from?" in the sense of "who pushed the first domino over in the chain of events?". A more interesting question is "what keeps it going?".

As in: if the universe/reality was a song, who is playing the instrument that is making the sound?

The fact that there needs to be an Uncaused Cause is the Argument from Motion of Aristotle/Aquinas:

* https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/07/first-way-some-backgrou...

> I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and it hurts my brain, and it also scares me.

For a fuller treatment on these question see:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6963088-aquinas

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...

at its core this thought is unsolvable from our current state within the universe

Our reality exists because existence was possible. there are no contradictory rules to the way the universe functions. maybe for all abstract possibilities of non-contradictory existence, it spontaneously happens. this is where the multiverse theories come from.

The fact that anything is tangible, or has a "where" or any property at all is just a subset of that existence so as far as "where did this all come from" goes.. it didnt. It exists to us only because we are in it, but is as consequential as a thought experiment. This spawned the "universe is a simulation" theories. the universe is large because we are small within it, it feels so full of time because we are shortlived within it.. but maybe the entire thing is a near instantaneous collapse of some wave function in some other system.

Maybe that system is looking to us to use our relatively fast existence to give it answers in its slow world.

I agree, I used to think about the possibility for absolute nothingness when I was younger and it terrified me - I still kinda get chills when I do. I don't see why the universe has any reason to exist in itself, but I could imagine that being the case for a higher power, which is one of the reasons I do believe in God. Even so, thinking about nothingness still messes with me - I think it's the closest feeling to the literary "staring into the abyss".

It is odd how much materialist strong atheism exists considering it’s literally impossible for there to be nothing bigger than us. The entire materialist context is embedded into a reality we have no explanation for and this gets forgotten or ignored.

I agree-ish - I think you could reasonably hold that the material world must exist for some reason, though I think such a view is weaker than holding that a perfect being like God must exist.

More impossible from a materialist perspective to me is the experience of the self - I experience myself in a non-physical way. I can tell (though I cannot possibly prove to anyone else) that I have a self-aware internal life. From the outside it would be indistinguishable from a simulation of one (via computer or via atoms/molecules/neurons), but for every person's internal life they have a self-experience that I don't believe can be explained without the supernatural (a soul or similar). Certainly it's extremely connected to the physical, and chemicals/impulses etc shape my entire experience, but the experience itself is not physical (IMHO).

I don’t know how to explain your feeling of existing in a non-physical way. I feel that way because I’m the only one who exists and you’re all philosophical zombies…

> which is one of the reasons I do believe in God

I've always found this line of reasoning interesting, because to me it just kicks the can down the road. What created the universe? God. Ok, so what created God?

The idea would be that a perfect existence must exist as a part of being perfect, thus God (or some primary existence/force).

That may sound handwavey, but lets look at it the other way around - something existed "first" casually, because the universe exists. (Note I'm saying casually, I'm not ruling out something existing "forever" or getting into the existence or nonexistence of time, but something exists/existed without a cause that caused everything else.) Either that primary cause is the universe itself, for some reason, or it was something that caused the universe (force, God, whatever). It's unclear to me why the universe itself needs to exist, and to me the alternative that makes more sense that a perfect being needs to exist and caused the rest of it.

> What created the universe? God. Ok, so what created God?

The logical conclusion is that there needs to exist an Uncaused Cause:

* https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/08/first-way-moving-tale.h...

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6963088-aquinas

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...

If you're asking "What caused God?":

* https://strangenotions.com/if-everything-requires-a-cause-wh...

Generally, starting with the premise "everything has a cause" is where people's problems start.

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