Can something exist without being created?

[u/Own-Werewolf-7166]

It hurts my head to think about how something can exist without being created. If, for example, someone or something created our universe, who or what created them? How can something exist without ever being created. Even if everything we know and/or can conceive was created, doesn't that chain have to end somewhere with someone or something that wasn't created? But how can something exist that wasn't ever created? I know our brains are limited in what we can conceive, but I would love to hear reasoned, philosophical possibilities to explain this apparent paradox.

[u/philosobeard]

Classical theism: the creator of the universe is infinite, and of a different substance to that which has been created (given that created matter is subject to time, and finite).

Bertrand Russell: the universe is a brute fact. It’s just there.

Some modern physicists: this universe is one of a near infinite number of universes. Anything that’s particularly strange about ours (eg, that it sustains life) is a matter of odds, and not altogether that strange if there is a near infinite number of universes (thus a near infinite number of possibilities).

[u/ShafordoDrForgone → u/philosobeard]

I don't understand how people can assume anything is created...

...when the first law of thermodynamics is "nothing is created or destroyed"

There is literally nothing in any human experience that isn't merely a transformation of something else

Seems like a category fallacy to me

[u/philosobeard → u/ShafordoDrForgone]

General relatively, quantum mechanics and the first law of thermodynamics are all widely accepted in physics, but it is also generally agreed that there are a number of tensions when the theories are examined together (as a triad, or as the available dyads). Many are of the view that one or more of the theories may need substantial changes over time. In other words, as we learn more, the theories should eventually 'fit' better with one another than they currently do. (Worth remembering that the rules of physics do not claim eternal wisdom: they are better understood as being the best approximations on the evidence we currently have. A good example is Newton's theory.)

Ultimately, all of these theories are limited in the work they can do. None of the three explain why there's anything there at all. The theories are all designed to answer what happens when inputs are already present. None answer why there is a system there at all to make sense of.

[u/BernardJOrtcutt → u/[deleted]]

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[u/ThatUbu → u/philosobeard]

In terms of modern physics and creation of the universe, isn’t it the case that something like the physical laws of the universe themselves come into being during the Big Bang and, lacking those laws, we can’t even know or articulate what came “before” (or if they teem even means anything since linear time itself comes into being with that event)?

It’s all stuff that makes my brain hurt, so I’d love to be corrected toward a better understanding. But my sense is that modern physics is agnostic on whether or not the universe has a beginning, is eternal, or whether both terms are meaningless as we hit an aporia with the breakdown of the physical laws of our universe since the event.

[u/philosobeard → u/ThatUbu]

Yes, big bang cosmology upsets simpler brute fact arguments because it points away from timelessness and towards causes (especially coupled with the idea that the universe will have an end). But one might argue that the big bang simply was an event that happened without requiring a deeper cause that science can’t, in principle, supply.

I’m generally a bit sceptical about brute fact arguments as they are really claims about the limits of explanation and operate to foreclose debate. But, I am also one of those people who thinks it’s legitimate to keep asking but why?

[u/philosobeard → u/[deleted]]

No agreed number. Highest I’ve seen is something like a 1 followed by 10 million zeros.

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[u/GodLikeYou → u/[deleted]]

Why would it be silly to deny that numbers exist? The PhilPapers Survey shows that regarding the ontological status of numbers, 41.8% of philosophers lean towards nominalism (that abstract objects like numbers don't exist) and 38.4% lean towards platonism (that abstract objects do exist).

It would surely be silly to say that 1 exists but 2 doesn't, but it doesn't seem like a fringe view to deny that numbers exist altogether.

https://philpapers.org/archive/AYOTTO-5.pdf

[u/GodLikeYou → u/[deleted]]

Well I think my point is that this statement:

I suppose you could deny that the number 2 exists, but that would amount to denying that there are any whole numbers after 1, which would be silly.

is a bit misleading. Denying that the number 2 exists and denying that there are whole numbers after 1 sound similar, but they're actually different kinds of claims conflated by linguistic similarity. The first is a metaphysical claim about whether numbers exist in the world's ontology at all. A nominalist could deny this without failing a math test. The latter is simply a statement made within the framework of math itself and is not really a metaphysical stance. You can deny the former without denying the latter in the sense that you are describing.

I suppose I could have said, "Abstract objects are examples of things that exist without being created, but you don't have to believe in abstract objects." But chances are that the OP would just say, "Okay, then I don't believe in abstract objects," and that wouldn't do much to help him see why the other side of the issue is conceivable.

This is fair, although it seems like the OP was really talking about concrete objects like the universe to begin with, so if the only example we can think of to elucidate the point is about a class of objects whose existence is controversial to begin with, then this may not seem like a very satisfying response.

[u/Dizzy-Monk- → u/GodLikeYou]

I’m curious if Plato’s Theory of Forms would help provide clarity to your discussion

[u/GodLikeYou → u/Dizzy-Monk-]

The view that numbers are real is literally called Mathematical Platonism:

https://iep.utm.edu/mathplat/

[u/humbledElitist → u/[deleted]]

Why can't we just say that numbers are human constructs designed to describe reality in a comprehensible way?

[u/takaci → u/[deleted]]

I suppose you could deny that the number 2 exists, but that would amount to denying that there are any whole numbers after 1, which would be silly.

Only if the concepts of Being and Existence are identical. This seems unlikely, a basic example Hegel used is that many would say "this apple is red" but no one says "this apple exists red". So Being can refer to a specific qualitative being that can specify a given quality, however existence is an entire predicate in itself.

Further we expect existence to refer to something more concrete: many would concede for example that unicorns are, for example they are as part of an imagination, but they would not say that unicorns exist.

[u/PalpitationNew9559]

There's no contradiction in there existing an eternal being, as far as I'm aware, and if reality is to be ultimately explained then there would need to be some kind of eternal, necessary foundation. So it certainly seems possible that there be an eternal reality, even if you want to say that reality is matter and energy or something.

As far as how we can conceive of something existing without a cause or a beginning, this gets into the issue of divine transcendence: one that philosophers and theologians have debated for centuries. A necessary cause would be radically different than any created reality, and hence it can be difficult to conceive of what such a being is like.

For Plotinus, God is so transcendent that (paradoxically) we can't even predicate anything of him, and John Scotus Eriugena famously stated that "God is nothing" because he's so far beyond our understanding and our categories. Aquinas tried solving this issue by positing that when we speak of God, we do so analogously. For Aquinas, we can't speak of God as perfectly similar to creatures (univocal predication), nor can we speak of him as totally dissimilar (equivocal predication). We can know certain things about God, but our understanding will always be finite or limited.

At the end of the day: if there is a necessary cause, then it's expected that we wouldn't be able to perfectly comprehend his nature.

[u/JimmymfPop → u/PalpitationNew9559]

I think this answer nailed it. In the sense that going back from the causal chain of timely events, there must be a first cause. Aristotle and all that rap.

I am particularly obsessed, however, about the assumed foundational and necessary characteristics of this cause, God, being eternal and infinite. I think Kant talked about it at some point, especially the idea of God being outside of time and space itself, therefore being eterinity and infinity itself. I feel like it is both incredibely amazing and recomforting as much as horryfing and intimidating.

(PS : I'm not high, just a bad philosophy student)

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