If Euclidean lines extend without end, and there are an infinite number of them extending in every direction without end from some point, then the universe extends without end in every direction. This is because all of these lines are things and therefore must be contained within the universe.
This is true despite the fact some would like to consider these lines as mere abstractions which don’t actually exist in the universe. The fact of the matter is these lines, regardless of whether or not they’re abstractions, are real and within the universe. We can discuss them; therefore they must somehow exist in the universe.
Euclidean lines supposedly have an obvious existence here in the universe. So, supposedly a theory which rules them out is false. General Relativity may rule them out, therefore supposedly General Relativity may be false.
I often hear about how the universe is expanding, but I don’t see how that’s possible if the universe extends in every direction without end. Perhaps it’s the observable universe that’s expanding, but that’s often not made very clear.
One step at a time, please; 1) The property of “having affect” is the essential defining property of existence.
Agree/disagree?
If you disagree, please provide any reason to believe that there is that anything exists and yet has absolutely no affect upon anything.
This will lead into the question as to “how wide” the universe is.
Somehow. They don’t have to exist physically, having the physical properties (such as extension) ascribed to them, though. The fact I can conceptualise an elephant that weighs 500 tons means only that the concept of a 500-ton elephant exists, not an elephant that actually weighs 500 tons. If I’m designing an elephant transporter, I don’t need to consider the existence of 500-ton conceptual elephants.
You can’t make reasonable judgements about physical properties, based on the existence of non-physical concepts.
Strictly, the universe could exist as two pockets of mutually-unaffecting matter/energy - maybe separated by too much space and velocity to ever affect each other, and one of which we could know nothing about.
If one of those pockets is a single particle, say, that had no effect on the rest of the universe as we know it, I should still say it exists even though it’s unobserved. I think things can exist without our knowledge, and without the possibility of our knowledge, which seems to me to be the boundary prescribed by “having affect”. I don’t think they’re very useful things to worry about.
At any one moment in time, nothing affects anything, subjectively not existing, except for that which is immediately contacting it. Through time, anything that was affecting anything else eventually reflects that affect upon everything else. Through time, all things touch and affect each other, even if the original affecter no longer exists.
So when I say that affect is the defining property of existence, I am speaking of anything affecting anything else at any time and to any degree. The argument is simply that if anything is known to have absolutely no affect upon anything, then why would we even both to say that “it exists”?
If non-existence means having absolutely no affect upon anything whatsoever, then to exist means the lack of that property - to affect something. So even if there was some distance “pocket universe”, as long as it can never escape that pocket, it can never exist to your universe.
You wrote: “Strictly, the universe could exist as two pockets of mutually-unaffecting matter/energy - maybe separated by too much space and velocity to ever affect each other, and one of which we could know nothing about.”
A teacup could be stationed in orbit around Jupiter, too small and too far away to be detected. Until it can be detected it is as if it did not exist because it has had no effect, effect here being equal to an observation by him or her who could make a judgment about existence.
I guess “affect” has to be further defined as an external effect because otherwise every object of my imagination could be said to exist. Even existence has to be further explained. As you point out, there are mental “objects”, concepts that exist in our minds, such as the tea cup, the parallel universe, that are conceived, constructed, from a variety of perceived existences. A humean concept that I am sure you recognize.
Until the time comes that we have an affect, an observation, of a tea cup in orbit around Jupiter for example, being remains hypothetical. If an affect is by definition impossible to ever be recorded, then the being of such concept is a hypothesis that has being only in the head of people. Whether it exists outside of our heads, regardless of whether it is observed or not, remains a hypothesis and cannot be decided without a leap of faith.
You wrote: “If non-existence means having absolutely no affect upon anything whatsoever, then to exist means the lack of that property - to affect something. So even if there was some distance “pocket universe”, as long as it can never escape that pocket, it can never exist to your universe.”
Do the things I dream about exist? In one sense, no. In another, yes. This is illustrated by the problem of other minds. You come across a person, or what looks like a person. It talks, it reasons. It tells you “his” name is Pete. To you, Pete exists as a human being, just like you. In reality, Pete might simply be a friendly robot. When you think of Pete you do not think of a robot, but of another man just like you. So does Pete actually exists? The effect is there in both cases, so “being” has two aspects, one as it is in itself and another as it is to us. One effect however is an inference that is added, prodded, inspired by the effects of conversing with this robot. To me it seems that we are not simply passive observers, but active and so even non-existence (our notion that this is a person) can come from a series of effects. Pete, the person, does not exist even if Pete, the robot, has provided effects. Since this is so, it seems to me that being and non-being cannot be reduced to effects because it involves a deduction from a fallible judge.
The dream of the objects exists. The objects in the dream do not exist except as a component of the dream.
Consciousness is the remote recognition of distant reality. That perception is always flawed to a degree. But the mind builds a inner map of reality within as its consciousness. That map is flawed, but not totally so. Thus the objects in the map or dream exist as components of that map or dream and they are to represent objects that are real to the degree required. Perfect representation is not required and often not even sought.
So there is still merely one reality but it contains many dreams of various degrees of accuracy. During sleep, the dreams have very little need for accuracy. The objects represented might have very little to do with reality. But for sake of the mind, they serve a purpose even when not completely accurate: “Something is headed at me. What should I do?. In which ways can I deal with this situation?” I don’t need to know every precise detail of what was headed at me, merely that it was something that I didn’t want to hit me. The mind’s function is to resolve the situation to a better one.
The conscious mind has more need to be accurate so as to respond to its situation more accurately, especially in a complex social environment or a deeply technical one. Thus accuracy is emphasized more and inaccuracy is more effective. But to each mind, the reality is still the intended guide even when one is trying to escape it. One dreams of what it not real so as to deal with what is real. Dreams of unreal things have affect.
Euclidean lines are a dream that has real affect toward dealing with reality: “geometry”.
Can you clarify this? I read you as saying that something exists if it has any affect on anything, but also that it has to affect everything. Since affecters can cease to exist, surely something could cease to exist before something else manages to affect it? And if so, isn’t the two-pocket question still valid?
If an affecter ceases to exist, then doesn’t that mean it no longer has any affect on anything else, by this definition? Yet the affects continue to be reflected in the events following the first affect… at what point does the initial affect “not count” towards existence any more?
That’s my point - the criteria is not so much about what is, as about what is known, and what we bother to say. Which is not wrong, or undesirable at all; it’s just that for me the way we talk about existence every day is as an objective property, rather than an unwittingly subjective one.
Hi Omar,
That’s my point - it is as if it did not exist. I’m not making any plans to go salvaging crockery from Jupiter’s generous gravity well. But is that the same as saying it does not exist? When a probe spots it in thirty years’ time, is that the point at which its existence commences?
This is the idiocy of the whole “existence equals affect” idea. A thing exists if it exists, existence is the basic necessary concept and ground of thought and any ontology, we may speak of IF or HOW or WHY or WHAT exists, that is what we ought to be doing; we cannot speak of “well the tea cup may exist but until we know for sure it has no affect and thus cannot be said to exist”. Things either exist or not, 500 ton elephants either exist or not, and the IDEA OF 500 ton elephants either exists or not. Those are separate questions that are perfectly ontologically meaningful and expressible in completely rational terms.
What we mean when we say either “500 ton elephant” or “the idea of a 500 ton elephant” is the real issue and philosophical interest here. Addressing those open-ended questions and their intersections and overlaps is what real philosophy would do.
But lest we forget, there are those here who are not interested in real philosophy.
Not that it “has to”, but merely consequently does.
If A exists to B because A affects B and B exists to C because B affects C, then A, through B will affect C. The only thing preventing A from immediately existing to C is time/distance. But the affect cannot be avoided, merely minimized.
No. The idea that A can’t affect Z because Z won’t be there by that time, is irrelevant. If you want to say that something out there doesn’t exist because you will be dead before it has a chance to affect you, go ahead. It will exist to other things and possibly people so they will maintain that it exists and you can deal with the issue. What other people believe affects them (exists) generally affects you even before any affect comes from the source.
Yes.
What you choose to call things is up to you. The propagating wave of affect that came from something (such as the light from the Sun) does the finally affecting. The source only affected its immediate surrounding. You don’t call the light that shines into your window “the Sun” itself. You call it “the light from the Sun”. But it is up to you.
To the degree that I know something mentioned has no affect, I know it to not exist.
We assign forms to parts of existence and then call the set of all of those forms, “existence”. Because our forms or orders are merely categorical and not precise, our estimate of what exists is inaccurate. And it doesn’t really need to be extremely precise. But what is actually existent is not merely whatever we named, but rather the impetus for our naming of it. There is always more detail in reality concerning what we “know to exist”. There are always more affects occurring than we can know about except as categories.
Strictly the jealousy of the VO Cult attempting a strawman.
— The dream of the objects exists. The objects in the dream do not exist except as a component of the dream.
O- Does the dream exist?
— Consciousness is the remote recognition of distant reality. That perception is always flawed to a degree. But the mind builds a inner map of reality within as its consciousness. That map is flawed, but not totally so. Thus the objects in the map or dream exist as components of that map or dream and they are to represent objects that are real to the degree required. Perfect representation is not required and often not even sought.
O- I agree. I think that because of this any talk about “existence” equals affect we must remember what is there for judgment, which is our perception and interpretations made from those perceptions. The affect, because of this mediation by a flawed judge, is not equal to existence.
— So there is still merely one reality but it contains many dreams of various degrees of accuracy. During sleep, the dreams have very little need for accuracy. The objects represented might have very little to do with reality. But for sake of the mind, they serve a purpose even when not completely accurate: “Something is headed at me. What should I do?. In which ways can I deal with this situation?” I don’t need to know every precise detail of what was headed at me, merely that it was something that I didn’t want to hit me. The mind’s function is to resolve the situation to a better one.
O- The mind need not be involved. Not every movement is an effect of the mind, and this certainly seems a good example of that: You react to the impression of something flying at you- you don’t deliberate, you react.
— The conscious mind has more need to be accurate so as to respond to its situation more accurately, especially in a complex social environment or a deeply technical one.
O- No we don’t. As you said, it is not even sought. The more “accurate” something seems, the more it belongs to the observer than to that which is observed. Accuracy follows from a stream of sensations, which, beyond the instant, are retained in memory, which, when one reflects upon the accuracy of an observation, one enlists to reconstruct and blend in with this moment, previous sensations. In this way the waking world is achieved through a similar mechanism that at at night creates the dream world.
— Euclidean lines are a dream that has real affect toward dealing with reality: “geometry”.
O- Euclidean lines are a concept. It is part of a construct and a tool that can be used to understand perception in a certain way: geometrically.
— That’s my point - it is as if it did not exist. I’m not making any plans to go salvaging crockery from Jupiter’s generous gravity well. But is that the same as saying it does not exist? When a probe spots it in thirty years’ time, is that the point at which its existence commences?
O- Well, I meant if by definition it is without effect, the it does not exist outside of a leap of faith. Or a theory. Gravitons are theoretical particles which, some say, we will never be able to detect because of their very (theorized) nature. There are strong reasons to theorized their existence, but to say that they exist has to include various disclaimers about what is meant. But besides that, even if something was detected, it is still an inference that has to be made between effect and that which exist according to theory. So far then, it seems that existence is an speculation. Do I exist? Well, what do I mean by “exist”? and how do I know existence from non-existence? Do I, for example, “exist” in a dream? So, a lot of added hypotheses come into play.
Mechanical Monster,
— A thing exists if it exists
O- A tautology.
— existence is the basic necessary concept and ground of thought and any ontology, we may speak of IF or HOW or WHY or WHAT exists, that is what we ought to be doing; we cannot speak of “well the tea cup may exist but until we know for sure it has no affect and thus cannot be said to exist”. Things either exist or not, 500 ton elephants either exist or not, and the IDEA OF 500 ton elephants either exists or not. Those are separate questions that are perfectly ontologically meaningful and expressible in completely rational terms.
O- Quantum mechanics has shown that existence is a bit more complicated. We are not always dealing with 500 ton elephants, or planets, things in the best sense of the word. At the micro-level existence becomes complicated. Then we encounter “things” that are supposed to exist, according to a scientific model, and yet we have no way of empirically detect them. So, do they exist? The questions seems relevant.
— What we mean when we say either “500 ton elephant” or “the idea of a 500 ton elephant” is the real issue and philosophical interest here. Addressing those open-ended questions and their intersections and overlaps is what real philosophy would do.
O- Oh, we can mean something very specific, and idea that is well defined within boundaries of experience-- but does it exist?
They either exist or they do not. To find the answer you investigate specifically those hypothetical entities in question, expand and apply your reason, broaden and narrow your definitions. There is an answer rather or not you happen to know what that answer is-- so long as you can manage to posit the question as to a hypothetical thing’s existence or not, you are asking something that has a clear answer, again rather or not you know that answer.
That question, asked of specific hypothetical things, can only be addressed and answered in an equally specific way.
Do 500 ton elephants exist? We can approach this question by exactly and specifically examining what it means to be “500 tons”, what it means to be an “elephant”, what it means to be a “500 ton elephant” and what it means to be capable of asking the question and what it means to ask it. Those breakdowns of the question specifically, and only that level of specificity and adequacy to the question itself and the terms comprising it, will yield the ultimate answer.
