Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Stating the Purpose of Existence: an Unsolvable Problem

Existence: Everything. Examples: The chair I am sitting on, dust on the ceiling, a distant star in a different galaxy, mental concepts like atomic theory, patriotism etc.

Awareness: The fact that I am able to make this claim about chairs and stars means I am aware of chairs and stars. Somehow, I know these things are different from me (as I am also self-aware). Labeling them and scientifically understanding and manipulating them stems from this awareness.

Also stemming from this awareness, is a question: why is there an existence rather than nothing? Basically, what is the purpose of existence?

As an analogy, what is the purpose of a cell phone? Because man invented it, we can firmly state its intended purpose. To put it simply, one way to state the purpose of a cell phone is, it can be used to talk to a distant person. The important thing to note here is that, in stating the purpose of the cell phone we did not mention how a cell phone looks or works. The implementation of the cell phone itself is not needed to state its purpose.

It is my premise that the parts cannot be used to state the purpose of the whole. In our cell phone example, we used the concepts/objects: use, talk, distance, and person etc to state the purpose. Moreover, we did not mention the screen, keypad, antenna etc which are parts of a cell phone to state its purpose. But the parts need to be used to describe how the parts put together achievs the stated purpose.

From the cell-phone example, we can note that there is a difference between: a) stating the purpose of an object and b) describing how the parts of that object satisfy its purpose. The purpose of any object is stated using objects and concepts external to the object in question. Whereas, description and relationships between parts proves how the stated objective is achieved.

Coming back to the original question, what is the purpose of existence? We should, similar to a cell phone, be able to state the purpose of existence without involving the parts that make up existence. But the problem here is that existence encompasses all objects and concepts. There are no objects or concepts above and beyond existence that we can use to state the purpose of existence. We have to conclude, then, that it is impossible to state the purpose of existence.

The purpose of existence is beyond man's understanding. So, complete, perfect knowledge is impossible, for we have a question (what is the purpose of existence?) for which we cannot reason an answer. Hence, knowledge in the conventional sense is useless to solve this particular problem. This being the case, as long as we are aware of existence (duality), this problem will prevail and remain a cause of uncertainty.

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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Problem (Observation: 5/5)

Uneasiness due to uncertainty. Uncertainty due to incomplete knowledge.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Everyday Life (Observation: 4/5)

What is the basis for your action?



Courtesy for picture:
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
Author: Gerd Gigerenzer, Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classic)

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