Existence Theory (plus a plausible way to kill off God)

Okay, lemme start with a simple rhetorical question:

If a sound is made in a forest, and nobody hears it, does that sound exist?

Now, the answer of my choice is that because nobody hears it, its existence is practically non-existent. The idea is if nobody knows of it, it doesn't exist.

Now let's say that God exist because everybody believes in him (or at least knows him), thus He somehow exist. My thought is, what if everybody just forgets about God? Not everybody hating him, but everybody forgets he exists, maybe in the future when religion is banned and stuff. That means God will cease to exist right?

Now what if in reality, God really does exist though the power of thought and he created everything the same way, through thought. Will that mean that if we forget God, and He, who maintained creation through thought, will cease to exist, will we also, who are his creations, cease to exist together with Him?


Just a thought...

Hmmm, I feel as if i've both heard this question before, and/or watched/read an anime/manga about this very topic. Besides the whole "dividing by zero" quandry and total mind fuck from seriously thinking about this. I would have to say, frankly, I wouldnt know. There's the whole, "I think, therefore I am". But to me, the possibility of both the unheard and unseen existing is entirely plausible. As a man if intellect and science, my motto stands thusly.

"Nothing is impossible.........only really... really improbable.

As a more direct answer, if we were the result of a gods imagination, then yes, his no longer dreaming or thinking of us would most likely cause instant annihilation.

Doesn't the question usually go like this: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

And My answer to your question is: if a majority of people believe that there is, or that someone is a God, there automatically will be. Maybe not a God in the supernatural meaning, but still a God in the eyes and minds of the people. Therefore, if no one believes there is a God, then there isn't.

I think I've made this reference before, but it is the same as the "value" of money.

I believe that if you argued that everyone forgot about God, those who believe in God would say God would make people become aware again...though in my personal opinion of how God handles these kinds of situations, he'd just say he fucked up again and wipe out most/all of the Earth and start again. Those that don't believe in God can't really argue on this fact because something that doesn't exist doesn't enter nonexistence a second time when forgotten, because there wasn't anything to remove from existence to begin with.



Now my question is, what if everybody didn't forget God, but instead no one believed that he a true diety. Take for example a Greek god, some people still worship them, but if nobody did, does he transcend from Godhood into a simple historical fact? We know of his existence, but he became something personal to concept, such as "Some tree in the forest, which fell down."


Along this train of though though, many people have argued that if people remember who you are, you have attained immortality. You are never an individual, but are who other people make of you. So if somebody, at any point in time, knew of your existence in the world, then you would have existed throughout all time, and played a part in history even if not by direct means.

Sound is the variation of pressure that propagates through matter as a wave. - Lord Wikipedia

You not being able to perceive sound does not constitute its nonexistence. You only understand sound by the sensation you experience.



No, because lifeforms were apparently capable of existing before humans apparently created this god.

If everyone believes that there is a god that does not mean there is a god. They may act upon those beliefs as if there is a god, though. Humanity has already abandoned their beliefs in countless gods or goddesses (how do you even attribute gender to these things?). Someday, they will add the few that "exist" today to that oh-so-long list.

Ah, that tree question just wont stay dead, it seems...

But really, if God depended upon us to maintain his existence, while imagining us into existence, he would just imagine us not forgetting him.

The tree question is more philosophical. The cat in the box. He might be dead or alive. Hell, he might have cheated death and become a zombie. You'll never know until you open the box. Quite the same with the tree. It might have made a sound, but what do you know?

Just like how we imagine endless possibilities for a situation. That situation has already accepted only one possibility, which became reality. But in our mind it has yet to take form. And until we are told, its as if the situation still isnt settled.

Do I even make sense XD?

............too much emphasis is put on consciousness...meh.

The tree make sounds when it falls, whether there are anything to hear it or not. As for the cat...lol, it's just that we don't know until we observe it.

Lastly, thinking about it does not make it exist, and vice versa.

I always hated that question. Of course a falling tree with no one around makes a sound. Sound isn't defined as "being heard" but as traveling waves. Now, maybe their is a definition out there that these waves are not considered sound until received, but the waves of pressure are still created (I'm no scientist, or student of science, so I'm sure I'd be easy to refute if wrong).

I've had this question about god pop up in my head a few times. Namely, from the game Black and White. In the introduction animation, it states, and i paraphrase, that you (the player) exist/were born as a god because the people are praying for you. In short, you exist because people believe in you, thus you can infer the reverse of losing existence if they stop believing in you.

Now, I'm not a "follow," yet, of the following theory, but I'm a great admirer. Plato had this idea of realms of ideas- being and becoming. The screen your staring at and w/e your sitting on will never always be what they are and thus are in the realm of Becoming. However, the idea of them still exists within the realm of being. So, god cant be "non-existent" because the idea of god will always exist, even if all of humanity ceases to [exist].
^That ending is an insight into my beef with the ego of humanity, thinking we're so special that if we all die out then the universe is empty or all knowledge or w/e will cease to exist along with us. We were lucky to gain Reason, but it's not solely ours... just saying<--- tangent.

On the last part, I think it is a paradox or just plain incorrect to say God exists within reality. To me, if we are to give a definition to a "supreme being" with our flawed language, it would be something that exists outside/beyond time and space... i had a longer version, but forgot it.

In your last hypothetical question, if god "thought" of creation and thus it was so long as he continues to think (very important clause you put in there) then we would in fact cease to exist if he stopped thinking.

analogy of the divided line

1) It still makes a sound, as sound is just the air vibrating, which will happen if it falls. In fact, the tree is making a sound even when it's not falling, just because you can't hear it doesn't mean it's not happening. Now with a simple application of the butterfly effect we know that eventually someone will "hear" it.

2) Yes, if everyone stopped believing in God and all knowledge of him vanished he would cease to exist. This is because he is a concept not something actually real and the same thing would happen to any other concept. I'd give an example but this seems difficult as we rarely get an event of all people everyone not caring about something and all knowledge of it being lost and it's pretty hard to imagine it actually happening at all.

3) If God did exist he would continue to exist even if nobody believed in him and all knowledge is lost in the same way you or I would (though I suppose if someone found him later he wouldn't be a corpse like we would). Otherwise he's a semi-real being which only exists if people believe he exists. While theoretically possible it's about as likely as him being a semi-real being that exists so long as people bake pies and ceases to exist when no pies are being baked. Or only exists so long as the number of blue things has a combined total weight more than the amount of words in this thread. Or whatever.

It exists, but it doesn't matter to anybody.


I may be nitpicking here, but when religion is banned, people will still know of it. The reason is, if something is banned, there has to be an entity or a law to uphold that ban and thus, at least those with authority over that ban will know of it.

Actually, it could be on the contrary. If something is banned, it has or had to exist in order to put a ban on it. Otherwise there would be no point.

Let's say there is a ban on pink dinosaurs with a jet engine on its back. Last I checked, those don't or didn't exist in our current dimension (should be obvious I guess), but everybody will have SOME kind of image in their mind when speaking of a pink dinosaur with a jet engine on its back, whatever that may be. Thus, it has or had to exist because people know what I speak of, right?

That would be the reversed conclusion of "Nobody knows of it, therefore it doesn't exist".


That would mean we are only thoughts of a deity which in turn is only a thought; but WHO thought about God for him to actually exist as a thought?

Now, if we suppose God is an entity of the highest order with absolute power, which means he created himself and wasn't created by another entity, then that must also mean that he can't be killed and thus cannot cease to exist; he was born out of himself and will most likely have the power to revive himself should he actually be able to die.

When a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?

It doesn't, according to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

In this case "hearing" the sound counts as measuring it.

The cat in the box is BOTH dead and alive. The reality of it doesn't collapse until observed.



Anyway:




No.

Today, mankind still finds new species of plant and animals we never new existed.

Just because we don't know something exists or that no one remembers something that exists, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

And the cat is not some zombie.

When a tree starts falling it starts to create gravitational potential energy. When this tree hits the ground it converts or transforms into kinetic energy as repercussion. The most common forms of kinetic energy are radiant energy (light), thermal energy (heat), motion energy and sound.

So in theory, the energy built up from the tree falling and hitting the ground would produce light, heat, motion and sound (via gravitational potential energy converting into kinetic energy forms). So scientifically yes, it should make a sound, but when you mix in philosophy this question becomes more problematic.

Basically from a scientifical point of view, yes it does make a sound. From a philosophic view point, than no, it doesn't make a sound.

In your example, the sound existed at that point in time but its existence ended. You dont need to know of the existence of anything for it to do so.

God exists as a theory and as a mythical character. Even if people would stop believing of his physical existence, he will still exist as such, a theory.

I cant find a starting point to what you said on the last part so its not possible for me to answer it

One would just be caught in a continuing circle of thought war, per se. For Example:

Man:I'll kill you off by not remembering you
God: I'll make you remember.
Man: I'll choose not to remember.
God" I'll make you remember.

ETC, ETC.

This of course, is only probable if your theory is correct and doable, but like many have said before, you run into certain problems (Ex: Just because you don't know it exist, does not automatically mean it does not exist, just as well as it does not mean said object/being does exist).

Hahaha I wanna make that into a t-shirt or something....

Anyway, that "Cognito ergo sum"-something probably is a good way to put it.

The God part is just an example, but I have another one...


I call this the "dreaming reality" theory (yeah, i name my thoughts... anything wrong with that?) which states that because, in relation with the idea=reality thingy, we think of things beyond what already exist, they appear according our thoughts. For example, we once thought that the molecule is the smallest particle in existence, but because somebody thought there might be anything smaller, Atoms suddenly appeared into existence. This thought is somehow related to the japanese philosophy of Kotodama (which is thoughts materialize through words).


Oh yeah, kinda out of topic, but i have a rhetoric question for atheists that believes in only what they can see. There are millions of things out there that can be only viewed in a specific time and place, like stars for example. You cannot see them by day, but they are really obvious at night. There are also some things that requires viewing from another angle to make sense. In addition to all that, there are things that we know its existence but can never see them due to limitations of our human bodies. So how can you say that something does not exist when you have never tried looking for it night and day everywhere, nor look at another angle, nor add the factor of our flawed and limited human perception?

I dunno, maybe i'ts the beer talking, but i'm getting pretty retarded with this.

Nice question. I think a few people missed the metaphor, though, and instead just answered the rhetorical. Yes, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, it makes a sound. If a god exists and no one's around to worship it, it doesn't just go away. However, if God (I'm using the christian one now, the only god that is capitalized) exists through our thoughts, then another hypothetical way to kill God would be using the entire village metaphor. That is, an entire village/town/city all envisioning a single tree bursting into flame will really make the tree burst into flame. If enough people didn't just forget about God, or stopped worshiping God, but instead believed that he DIDN'T exist, then God, being made up entirely of human consciousness, would cease to exist.

That said, if God truly is made up of human consciousness, then there must be some other explanation as to why there was a universe before humans came along.

Copenhagen interpretation does not apply to the tree question as it does not concern probability, or more specifically, quantum mechanics. To put things in perspective, and to draw a suitable analogy, what you propose is that the tree will both have fallen and have not fallen until it is witnessed, at which point it will have been proven to have either made a sound or have not made a sound depending on if it has fallen. This works for schrodinger's cat, because the outcome is the subject of probability. In this case though that the tree has fallen is not in question.



You propose a paradox conceived through a misunderstanding of the words “I think, therefore I am”. As you have interpreted these words, you are because you think. However, this is not what Descartes intended when he wrote them. The content of the excerpt from which the phrase comes deals with the fundamental uncertainties, whereas you suppose the opposite – that things exist with certainty only after you have thought of them.

The basic hypothesis behind the phrase was that Descartes could not be certain of anything due to the possibility of a “deceiver of supreme power”. In order to build a foundation of certainty for his other beliefs Descartes suggested that in spite of whatever power a supreme being could hold over his senses, the perception of your own thought is proof of your existence. He never suggested that this perception was the cause of his existence. As I mentioned, this would create a paradox, because you cannot think if you do not exist – and by your reasoning you would exist because you think. The two concepts are in direct opposition.



I will only answer this only to say that I think very few atheists, myself included, believe in only what they can see. So to some degree, you have unfairly constructed a strawman argument, though I suppose it could also simpily be construed to mean that your question was not aimed at me, despite that I am an atheist. However, the choice to disbelieve in one thing I cannot see is not synonymous with choosing to disbelieve in everything I cannot see. It is sufficient to say I believe that the likelyhood of there being some benevolent parent figure that lords above us (but doesn’t interact with us at all) and for some reason gets pissed when we doubt his existence is rather small.

God is real. His name is porn. All seriousness aside, rofl...

I apply "perception as truth" to everything. People can will things out of existence by refusing to acknowledge/remember these things; this is why a civilization can't truly conquer another civilization until they've burnt all their books. With knowledge or proof of knowledge comes "existence." Take this away, edit it, whatever, it's something else altogether and the previous data is nonexistent.

Paradoxically, I believe that there is some arbiter out there in the cosmos, and I identify this arbiter's existence based on the existence of my perception. If I, the first and only human being on this planet, i.e.: "human" as possessing ability to perceive, had not first been envisioned by something or someone else, then I don't really exist - which can't be true, because in the very act of perceiving myself, I am existing. Even in the act of trying to will yourself away, you are existing because you perceive an "entity" also known as "your(very)self."

I think "God," a real god or omnipotent entity, lies in this paradox.