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!