Unraveling the Puzzle of Existence
Exploring the Foundations of Reality
Hello. In this article, I’m going to share with you a strange puzzle about existence, and then I’m going to propose a solution.
So I have a little bit of reality here. And this reality, let’s say represents everything put together. So it’s going to include particles, people , planets, trees and everything that’s ever existed all space and time. Let’s call this bit of reality ”Bob” Bob is the totality of all things. Now, the puzzle arises when asking this this question about Bob why does Bob exist, if you ever wondered that? Why is there this totality of reality rather than just nothing? Or maybe just something else? Something different in nature something maybe we couldn’t even imagine. Why does Bob exist?
Here’s an answer You might think of maybe there’s some other entity, maybe it’s a God or some Transcendent being that thinks to himself. Let there be Bob and Bob appears. Here’s the problem with this answer though is that it contradicts reason because we Define Bob as the reality which includes all realities. And so therefore since Bob is the totality of all things, anything that’s outside of Bob is not real. And so there is no real explanation Beyond Bob, but then this is puzzling, because the things that we normally experience in life, have an explanation Beyond themselves. I mean, think of this tree. For example, it exists, you can see it. It has an explanation Beyond itself, it didn’t just snap into existence on its own. It’s not like something that doesn’t exist or can think to itself I shall exist and then carry itself into existence and that’s absurd. It doesn’t make sense. But things normally have an explanation, things are produced by prior states of reality. And yet here we have BOB which has no prior explanation. In fact, it can’t because there’s no reality outside of Bob.
Now, you might think well this isn’t really even a puzzle because we already know that Bob can’t have an explanation precisely because it includes all things. That’s why it can’t have an explanation. But that doesn’t solve the puzzle that actually, just restates the puzzle. How can there be a reality that has no outside explanation? Especially if it’s built up, entirely out of things that depend on other things. Imagine got one bit of reality, that depends on another bit of reality. It depends on another bit of reality ad infinitum. This infinite stack of dependent things. How can you get from a dependence? Something that’s of a different kind. Something that doesn’t depend on anything
One more thought to consider the thing that is dependent in nature. Like this tree doesn’t cease to be dependent in nature, just because of its size. Something that is dependent in nature that is the size of Bob would still be dependent in nature and so this leads us back to the question. Then, how can there be something that’s independent in its nature? That doesn’t depend Anything beyond itself. Now, the solution that I propose for why Bob exists and how Bob can exist at all, is that at the foundation of Bob, is a special kind of reality. This Foundation is an outside. Bob, there’s nothing real outside Bob, rather, it’s the foundation of Bob, within Bob, and it exists because it has what philosophers call self-existence it exists because it cannot not exist. It exists with a kind of robust necessity, it can’t fail to do this. It can’t be snapped out of existence. It can’t come into existence. This foundational element has self-existence and it provides the foundation for all the dependent things that we experience in life to things which has an explanations beyond themselves
So why does this matter three reasons? First, it provides a solution to the puzzle of existence. We have an explanation for why there’s anything at all. There’s Something rather than nothing because there is at the foundation of reality. The kind of thing that cannot not be, something that has self-existence. Second this Theory provides a framework for understanding science itself. Science is based on the search for explanations and this Foundation Theory this accounts for how there could be explanations all the way down to a foundation, which itself has an explanation in terms of the impossibility of its non-existence. It exists because it cannot not exist. And finally, this Theory, invites further inquiry into the nature of the foundation. I mean the things that we ordinarily experience in life, things like this tree or people or houses whatever. We see, these are the kinds of things that have an explanation beyond that prior states of reality that account for their existence. If the foundation has nothing prior to it explains its existence. Because again, it has self-existence it exists because it cannot not exist. Not because of some Prior state but then that invites a further investigation into the kind of thing that could be a foundation. So this Theory provides a foundation for further understanding the nature of reality.
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” — Eugene Ionesco
