Why does ANYTHING exist?

An age old question, I suppose, but how can anything exist, including God? Personally, I believe a God created our souls and spirits but our bodies have been engineered. But that's my belief, I don't really have any proof. The only thing I do have proof of is that there is existence, of matter, of organized matter, and of intelligence. How did any of it start? How could something, even the tiniest particle of matter or electrical charge or maybe something we haven't discovered yet --- how could that come from nothing? If "nothing" did not come first, why not and how could matter, particles, etc. enter into the picture? Then, from that, I ask how could matter exist without a God willing it into existence? How could God exist without something willing him/her/it into existence?

Pardon my rambling thoughts...I'm just writing as I continue to ponder these questions...although I know there is no answer, your thoughts are greatly appreciated, .

An interesting question that has plagued philosophers since the first drunkard asked a second drunkard "What's it all about, really, when you get right down to it?"

It's one of those questions that can never truly be answered, as you said. To do so would require one going so far back in history, as to reach the critical branching point from which all other points in time commenced. And, according to the quantum theory of superposition, proposed by Erwin Schrodinger in 1935, the mere act of observing something, changes it. Which would probably go poorly for all involved. I suppose there's a chance we'll know once we're freed from this mortal coil, but then again, since we won't be able to pass the information along, that's really kind of moot.

Thus, I can offer only my own particular theory on the matter of...er...matter:

We exist because I will it so.

im 13 so im not sure of exact details, but i thinks it been proven that very small pieces of matter like electrons can accutually come in and out of existence randomly. maybe other unknown particles do this to.

STB: You're on the right track.
tl: If "We exist because I will it so", how do you account for someone else willing the opposite?
MM: It has already been sufficiently spoken to by Douglas Adams—"The answer is 42".

:-)

You can't will thelibra not to exist because you're only a figment of his imagination.

STB, I think what you're talking about is a tenet of quantum physics, where electrons exist only in probability states and thus actually exist in several places at the same time...theoretically. Trying to recall my Year 11 Physics lessons here.

Philosophising about things existing and not existing is limited by our existence itself and our perception of it. We live in a universe where things appear to exist or they don't. But God would perhaps be outside of all of that. Where He "is" (or what he is) there are no states of being such as "exist" and "not exist". There are no concepts like space, matter and time.

simple answer: time is not linear, there was no beginning and there will be no end.

every other explanation defies logic.

[edit on 21-1-2005 by feyd rautha]

Mickey Martian,
Good Question!

Wecomeinpeace, thelibra & SmokeyTheBear,
Very nice answers!

I'll just expand a little to keep things rolling:

"I think, therefore, I am" - Descartes
This makes for an interesting Paradox.

If we are to look at this from the "cause & effect" viewpoint, "I am" (or "My Being") is the effect of "I think" (or "My Thinking").

However, "My Being" would already have to "Be" to do the "My Thinking" in the first place. But if that is true, then "I Think" is no longer needed but simply "I AM" is complete in and of itself.

This is perhaps the importance behind the phrase, ""Know Thyself " - Socrates

Interesting Hebrew words for "God's Creative Word"
There was - (Hayah)
There is - (Havah)
The will be - (Yahi)
Personified Name for God - YHVH - "He who is"

If nothing is done, then all will be done." --Tao Te Ching

[edit on 21-1-2005 by mOjOm]

I've read enough mythology, that god is usually upset with ?self and deciding to make people who can A. Learn from ?self, B. Learn from each other, C. Have potenial to do "Cool Things", D. Reproduce. Anyway, I think that's why ? did it because ? got bored, sad,and lonely in whatever was before creation, so we were the final model made after the first three were made1. Clay people(didn't move much, think much, or apperciate anything.) 2. Wooden people(they broke real easily, and had a lot of fires), 3. Us, I still don't understand, but hey, ? thinks were cool if we chose to like ?.

That's funny. There might have been other prototypes.
Air people: They floated away.
Fire people: They destroyed the wood people and then burnt out for lack of fuel.
Water people: They all dried up.
Metal people: They all rusted to death.
Light people: They were too afraid of the dark.
Flesh people (us): They became too interested in the pleasures of the flesh and God destroyed them all.

I still like that line from Jurassic Park. "God creates dinosaur. God destroys dinosaur. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosuar. Dinosaur eats man. Dinosaurs rule the Earth."

This whole "We create our own existence" thing doesn't seem like a lot of fun. What a lonely, depersonalized, uninteresting place it would be if everything and everyone else in the universe was purely created by your own perception and you KNEW it, 100%. Would you still be able to feel things like love, the joy of sharing, the meeting of minds, self-sacrifice, charity and the other positive things in life? This calls to mind Phillip k.Dick: Can man/woman fall in love with a being of artificial intelligence? Can a robot really feel sorrow, joy, love and empathy?

I think there was a point where we were all one with the creator of all things. Then one day the creator got fed up with our bitchin' and belly aching about this and that and, well...God exploded.

I'm sure you've heard that not only is the universe still expanding, its picking up speed. That alone is proof that not only are we not all heading back to the source but god is pushing us away....faster and faster.

Yep, the truth is out there, and it awaits each of us, like a land mine.

Love and light to each of you,

Wupy

So, I guess if we could get every human on earth not to think for just a moment at the same time, we could end it all huh?

No. If that were true, then 98% of the world's politicians would have popped out of existence long ago.

When you got the answer on that one, then answer this:

Why not?

stuff is created for a purpose no matter how big or small. Do we have an ultimate purpose. Or are we just matter with no purpose or design and we just exist just because. If the latter is true then why is killing someone murder? Why is murder wrong? we're just matter with no ultimate purpose or design. We can just get rid of matter no problem. Matter is never destroyed anyway it's just changed chemically right.

What are emotions for? When our matter changes are we still concious/aware. Why do we feel the need to accumulate things like money and property if we're just matter with no ultimate purpose or design? What force brought us into existance? Since matter just changes, where did matter begin?

absolutes cann9ot exist with God.
who can make absolutes? only the highest up power.
so with no God, no absolutes. thus nothing is really for a fact, including existence. which, if theirs no God, THIS statement and the following ones are incorrect, because I have stated this is the way it is, (an absolute) only God can make absolutes, so without God nothing can really be absolute.

The answer may lie in what is 'nothing' supposed to look like? Maybe everything that is is 'nothingness' in how something not there is supposed to look like.

In my book something and nothing are one in the same. Inside the something/nothing is the life and the death which dont even have to go together. And the something/nothing may create and form things of something/nothing from the something/nothing.

But there is things hidden from this world and this cosmos and this time.

Only in something/nothing somewhere/nowhere there is paradise and there is hell. As for a state and place. Paradise or hell is even as a person, place, and/or thing.

[edit on 27-1-2005 by Sign Related 2]

Everything exists because God created it and wants it to exist. Whatever God's plan is people will come and go and the world will change with God's will.

I hold a similar viewpoint. In order for something to come into existence there must be something else by which to gage what the first thing is not. This gives the first thing a definition of what it is and thus that it exists. In turn, the second thing's existence is verified and defined because it is not the first. It is here that we see the birth of Duality. Without duality existence is not possible as it could not take form.

So what happens if we do not have a division of the whole creating duality? Here is where it gets interesting. What if you had a multitude of containers of water? You would be able to tell the difference between them because of their location and shape. Each one (or division of the whole through duality) defines what the others are/are not thus bringing them into existence. NOW if you mixed all that water together you would have ONE water as oppose to many and you could not compare the different waters because they lose their duality/individual-ness. NOW what if there was nothing outside of that body of water by which to gage or define IT'S existence. It becomes boundry-less because there is NOTHING that is not water. Here we have everything in spacetime being the same water. It fails to have existence because it no longer has duality. There is only water and nothing else.

NOW change the containers of water to form within spacetime and the body of water to pure energy. With everything being pure energy, there is nothing that is not by which to define itself. It is both everything in existence and nothing by our own definition of the word nothing. Quite a paradox.

[edit on 27-1-2005 by Jonna]

What exists?

This computer, my finger, the keyboards?

My senses say they do...that's beyond question...but are my senses telling the truth?

My sense tells my that my solid finger is punching a period.

But, in reality, my atoms are punching other atoms, and because they vibrate at different frequencies, they don't just pass through each other like ghosts.

The spaces between a nucleus and its electrons is vast...and empty.

The atoms themselves are nothing but energy...not really solid at all.

So, what is this thing I'm punching? Is it just a dream? Does anything really exist at all?

naw...we're dreaming the world. The only reality is the dream itself.

Could reality be the mind of god?....we and everything else existing like files in a supercomputer?

God is a fitfull sleeper and what he is dreaming is us...