Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (10361)	11/30/2010 4:07:15 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

Heidegger didn't challenge the how of science or the who of religion when he asked: "Why is there something instead of nothing" This, according to Heidegger is the original question, which gives meaning to all others. You can get real comfortable with the study of electricity because the rules are just plane simple and observable. You can do that without asking why is there something instead of nothing. You can't get comfortable with beings and beingness anymore than you can get comfortable with nothingness. Nothingness means there is not even a hole where nothing exists, that would be something, there is not even an 'is.' Beingness presents the same problem or sets of problems. When you get started on you ontological study, you immediately realize the 'instead' qualifier doesn't even make sense. There is no instead of nothing there is only something which is carried on the back of nothing. You can't explain away Heidegger's question and you can't deal with it according to the conventional rules. 'Why?' is the question, and the answer is not limited to rules of observable phenomenon. What is, is both concrete and conceptual. What is, is subject to consideration by those daring enough. Why it is, goes beyond daring, it continues to absurdity and to uncertainty. And it must be that way because the question reaches to a reality which is beyond what is in the present state of existence. And yet the question is primary and originary to every other question you might consider. It is impossible to supply an answer except that it comes from a person, even as the question comes from your self the answer must be sought in consideration of who you are as a being. The answer does not lie out there in a test tube, in some magnificent cosmic process, nor can be gathered up by isolation and contemplative rigor. Why are we even subject to such an absurd question, if not for the very fact upon which our condition stands ... we are persons positioned to ask it primarily so that we consider it, and consider it we must to avail ourselves of the wholeness of truth, using conscious awareness, logic, perception, and powers of deliberation. Or I suppose you could just continue to seek nihilistic comfort in your fantasy life of odd sensations, delusions of grandeur, illusion of prosperity, feelings of loneliness, and anxiety. The rules of understanding "Why is there something instead of nothing" are relatively simple also but you have to be willing to employ them to get anywhere.