Existencia

Estudia: Hi, Phi. I’ve been looking into what you said last time about starting at the beginning. I think that is where we start when we are born. I can’t remember, but I must have been just like my friends new little sister. She looks at everything and jerks and makes noises but she must not know what anything is.

Philo: Good observation. That baby knows, somehow, that there is something. No need to discover anything else at that point and no need for us to demand anything from all that IS.

Estudia: Why?

Philo: Why, what?

Estudia: Why don’t we need to discover what it is?

Philo: We’re talking general here. Just It is. Don’t ask what “it” is. And it doesn’t depend on what the meaning of “IS” is either. I’m not talking about any particular thing now. I want you to first accept the idea that existence, what is, includes everything. It includes you, me, that tree, people moving, peoples minds and whatever you can point to.

Estudia: What about the unknown? I mean there must be things I don’t know about, aren’t there?

Philo: Sure, but I’m only going to include what is known by someone somewhere at sometime, past, present or future, either directly or indirectly. If it’s not knowable at some point it can’t be something. It must be NO THING or as we say it’s nothing. Everyone knows that there is something.

Estudia: Can you prove that? I know someone who likes to think it’s all a joke and we are all just in the mind of some god or pawns in a super intelligent alien game. Some people just accept God on faith and say He made everything and we should worship Him or Her or Whatever.

Philo: Then you have the problem of who or what is this god and where did it come from and does it have a god and on and on. Leave religion out of this. I don’t want to have to rely on faith to figure out what to do. Always there is going to be someone there to try and tell me what I should do because they heard it straight from their god or the aliens or whatever. No need for proof here. We can only point around us and validate this fundamental idea. There is something. That’s enough for us to build on. You do accept that don’t you?

Estudia: Ok, all right. Obviously there is something as opposed to NO thing or nothing other wise how are we going to talk about anything. All kinds of things exist and we can examine them and learn more about them and determine what is good for us and what is bad. Right?

Philo: You got it. We can’t define the concept of existence in terms of anything else. It is everything and we can only point. We call such a concept an axiomatic concept. Or stated another way we can say we have one foundational axiom.

Estudia: Which is?

Philo: Existence exists.

Estudia: Did you figure this out or who?

Philo: Me? Heck no, I’m not that smart, but it is obvious and lots of thinkers have stated this in one form or another. Ayn Rand said it explicitly and build on it. She was the greatest philosophical thinker ever, well, at least up to now, and if you want to hold a philosophy that will guide you in living I suggest you study her writings. I’m trying to take you through her work. Lets do more later. I’ve got to deal with existence.

Estudia: ¡Claro que sí!

Where do we start?

What a shame some say. Why bother with philosophy? I can listen and be told how to behave and that way I won’t have to think for myself. Oh, but what a slippery slope you wind up on when you leave it to other to show you the way. How will you know they got it right, and if you don’t like something, how you goin’ no the boss man right? Trouble is all philosophic questions are interrelated so you can’t just start, say, with politics, or esthetics. That makes it tough.
You have to make use of an idea, but in order to do so, you have to understand it in context and ultimately to use the idea to live. Let me introduce you to Philo, the answer man and to Estudia, the one asking all the important questions that Philo tries to answer.
(Se le presento a Philo, el hombre de las respuestas, y también Estudia, el estudiante con muchísima curiosidad.) Quizas - Maybe we’ll get some help from the rest of the world via comments and maybe we won’t, but heck, let’s see if we can bootstrap this rationality idea from the cave to the stars. Let’s listen:

Philo: Any way we first have to start with the fundamentals.

Estudia: Where and what are they?

Philo: The concepts at the base of knowledge (what humans know most fundamentally). They have to be irreducible principles of thinking, not derived from other ideas. We need the primaries of our existence, the philosophical fundamentals.

Estudia: Why?

Philo: Why, what?

Estudia: Why do we have to begin with fundamentals? Why can’t we just start with a good idea like we should be honest or just or peaceful? Or fair for that matter? Aren’t all those things good and worthy and don’t we know that already?

Philo: Ay, good question. Pick anything like say honesty. How would you know when to be honest? Do you have to tell the truth to someone who wants to find out something that would hurt you on someone else? Do you have to show the thief where you keep your money? Who knows and why? Can you be happy in life or is there another life beyond this one waiting where honesty doesn’t matter? How do you figure this out?
No, there are too many loose ends to clean up if you start in the middle. You have to start with something you are sure of. Something fundamental, like things exist.

Estudia: What things?

Philo: Something, anything. I don’t care what or where or when, but there is something and I think you and I are things too. We are something, somewhere at some time so there. Don’t try to deny it. I tried and it can’t be done. That’s a fundamental. You can’t get around it.

Estudia: Sure I can. Nothing exists, it’s all in the mind of … God or me or yours. Things aren’t what they seem anyway. Now you can make a picture have anything you want in it and the scene is not anywhere but it exists in that picture and in my mind. It’s real if I think it isn’t it?

Philo: Sorry, but if you keep up this crazy talk I can’t help you. If there are no things, why are we going to talk about? Ideas are things, but there has to be something to have the idea and so on. Forget it, it’s a fundamental and there is no way to deny it. I love things like that.

Estudia: Ok, you’re right. There has to be things. They are all around, in, under, over and behind me doing all kinds of things. Great, you there, I’m here and that’s real, right?

Philo: You got it. We’re making progress. From nothing, we now know there is something and we can think about that until next time. Hasta la vista!

Hola

Welcome all reasonable fellow beings! Are you rational, logical and a seeker of objective truth? If so please stay, watch me play, and oh, by the way, meet someone you love in the hay. Otherwise, just go away and pray.

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Hasta luego!