Thursday, November 20, 2008

... on Independent existence

Collected arguments in logical order.

RocketmanAllen wrote:


"Who or what created the creator. The creator simply came from non-existance ot existance or was simply always there?

"You can't apply the something must have created the universe for it to exist without that question coming around."


Objection overruled!

There is a distinction between what needs something else in order to exist and that which exists in its own right.

Everything needing something else to exist needs either something else that also needs something else to exist or it needs that which exists in its own right. Since nothing can depend on an infinite number of conditions for its existence(See footnote.)this brings us back to that which exists in its own right - and by definition, THAT does not need any Creator. But it may very well be the Creator - and actually is, as may be proven from another argument.

Hans Georg Lundahl


Footnote to Voice of Principle: the infinite is by definition what cannot be transcrossed. An infinite distance is a distance noone can pass through and an infinite number of conditions is one that never can be fulfilled. That is why the regress into the infinite is impossible.

Your definition of infinite is too limited. Consider an infinite convergent series. It is both infinite and fulfilled.


Infinite series are not actual infinities, only potential ones. Not that they have the potency actually to reach the infinite, but that there is no finite limit to their potency to go on. I am taking this to the Independent Existence thread, which is a spin-off from this. HGL


Your definition of the infinite implies that an infinite number of conditions must be processed serially. Why should this be a requirement? Suppose I have an infinite number of conditions designated condition 1, condition 2, condition 3, etc. Suppose all odd numbered conditions occur first and occur simultaneously. Suppose further that once the odd numbered conditions have occurred that the even numbered conditions will then occur, again all simultaneously. Under these condtions, an infinite number of conditions can be satisfied in a finite number of steps. Comments?




Yes. Accomplishing an infinite number of conditions simultaneously does not alter the nature of one condition depending on another. You claim an infinite number of steps could be made in a finite number of moments. It would be even clearer if we were arguing the 1st way, proof of unmoved mover.

The hit depends on the hammer in motion, the hammer in motion on the hand in motion, the hand on the arm, the arm on the will. Period. Only in further analysis we may see that the smith is not an unmoved mover in the full sense. But he is an example of what unmoved mover means in the process of hammering. Obviously the simultaneous conditions for the hammer hit cannot be infinite. Infinity is not to be transcrossed, a travel through infinity - whether temporal and successive or non-temporal and simultaneous - means never arriving.

Same goes for same reason for conditions of causation or - as we are discussing here - being, existence.

Hans Georg Lundahl


RocketmanAllen wrote:


"Somebody finally got it! (without realizing it). Neither can be proven to exist with or without the other.

"You caught yourself with your own argument.

"Creationists want to state that existance of anything cannot occur without a creator."


Not so - another misquoted argument.

The existence of anything DEPENDING ON SOMETHING ELSE FOR EXISTENCE cannot occur without the existence of that something else. There is a difference between "the existence of anything" and "the existence of anything DEPENDING ON SOMETHING ELSE FOR EXISTENCE" - see. You made a confusion between simpliciter and secundum quid - which is a sophism.

Hans Georg Lundahl


zoombwaz wrote:
"But who defines that which can exist on its own right, and that which must be created? You? Who is to say the universe doesn't exist in its own right? Your logic is faulty, as you assume the universse must be created, in order to prove the existence of a creator. It is in fact circular, and an unsupported premise to boot."


What is clearly dependent on something else for existence needs an ultimate necessarily existent ground for its existence, as proven. The question whether that ultimate ground is the creator is another one, the answer to which is NOT presupposed as necessary proof in the argument above, which is why my argument is NOT a circle in demonstration.

As to your question: existing in its own right means existing without depending on any other thing for it. It is an existance that cannot vary with the condition of other things. Hence everything the existence of which is demonstrably varied - like coming to exist or ceasing to exist - is ruled out from existing in its own right. This was proved already by the eleatic philosophers, who were NOT Christians.

Hans Georg Lundahl

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