What ever the size of the group, I am one of them, and since I would never agree that I don't exist, there would never be a "consensus" a unanimous agreement of all the people. Therefore, it is not possible that the universe does not exist. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.
Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Could it be possible that the universe doesn't exist? Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 10 months ago. Active 5 years, 2 months ago. Viewed 3k times. That nothing exists, not even you or me?
Improve this question. Yes, it is possible; but in this case you are not entitled to ask questions, nor to expect answers And if it only exists in your imagination, so what? I agree with nir. If for example by Mauro's reasoning the nature of asking questions and expecting answers requires existence, and we are in fact doing that, then it is very much impossible.
Who's asking? Show 4 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. This is the correct answer. Whether or not you agree with all of Descartes, he is unanswerable on the point that the fact that there seems to be a universe is proof that something "exists," even in the case that we are utterly mistaken about the nature of that thing and what it means for it to exist.
Well, it's all in the semantics, essentially. Buddhist philosophy uses the word "exist" to mean "inherently existing". I find Descartes' "answer" a cheat, which answered nothing. I like the Buddhist way of separating conventional reality from ultimate reality. Conventionally, all things are exactly as seen or defined by the local language.
Ultimately, nothing is exactly as seen as there are always "causes and conditions", which, incidentally is one form of their proof for "no beginnings, and no ends" of reality, for infinite time in both the past and the future.
PFS32, how is you comment related to the OP question or this answer? But Descartes could have been a nonexistent zombie! I might have a strong gut feeling I am conscious right now, even if I am not sure if I existed a short time ago.
Might it also be possible that I am a nonexistent zombie "having" nonexistent thoughts? Show 5 more comments. Some sample verses from chapter IV. Swami Vishwananda Swami Vishwananda 3, 2 2 gold badges 17 17 silver badges 25 25 bronze badges.
While those are beautiful examples, my knowledge fails me. Is Brahman considered "nonexistent? Nihilism would suggest that Brahman does not exist as well. CortAmmon Brahman is neither existent nor non-existent. All that can be said is - Brahman is. There is only one Consciousness that exists, there are not multiple consciousnesses. The universe exists; but it does not exist as 'the universe'. It is all Brahman. When you see it as 'the universe' you are seeing an illusion.
There were nihilistic philosophers in India that suggested that Brahman did not exist. The particular chapter referenced gives nihilistic arguments and Gaudapada's counter-arguments to them. But basically he argues that how can that Pure Consciousness which is eternal birthless become born?
To be born implies non-eternal. If something is eternal it cannot become non-eternal. Something that is non-eternal cannot become eternal. If something is born, then it is non-eternal.
Birth is an illusion. He also argues on the point of what is birth? From a relative standpoint did not everything that makes up 'you' exist before your 'birth'?
Were you conscious at your 'birth'? SwamiVishwananda, this kind of argumentation reminds me of Buddhism according to which I think existence is an endless change in which nothing can be said to be separate nor created or destroyed ; nevertheless "pure" consciousness does not seem to change only the objects change, but the watching doesn't and it is separate in the sense that you and I have distinct separate "pure" consciousnesses.
Something can be infinite and yet have both a beginning and an end - just consider the infinite set of rational numbers between 0 and 1. Show 1 more comment. It exists all along… its position is just not describable by ordinary numbers. Nor is there any need for consciousness to be involved. The fluorescent screen has no consciousness at all, but it does confine the electron to an eigenstate because it itself is a classical object or so close to being classical as to be indistinguishable from it.
So no, the existence of the universe does not depend on the presence of life. And many things in this universe are in eigenstates every once in a while simply because of the way they interact with other things which are, for all practical intents and purposes, classical. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. More questions:. This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here.
More From Forbes. May 6, , am EDT. Feb 9, , am EST. Feb 4, , am EST. Jan 26, , am EST. Oct 29, , pm EDT. Philosophers call it the problem of other minds.
I prefer to call it the solipsism problem. Solipsism, technically, is an extreme form of skepticism, at once utterly nuts and irrefutable. It holds that you are the only conscious being in existence.
The cosmos sprang into existence when you became sentient, and it will vanish when you die. As crazy as this proposition seems, it rests on a brute fact: each of us is sealed in an impermeable prison cell of subjective awareness. Even our most intimate exchanges might as well be carried out via Zoom. You experience your own mind every waking second, but you can only infer the existence of other minds through indirect means.
You can guess how the world looks to me, based on my behavior and utterances, including these words you are reading, but you have no first-hand access to my inner life. For all you know, I might be a mindless bot. But we have a countertendency to deceive each other, and to fear we are being deceived. The solipsism problem thwarts efforts to explain consciousness. Scientists and philosophers have proposed countless contradictory hypotheses about what consciousness is and how it arises.
Panpsychists contend that all creatures and even inanimate matter— even a single proton! Hard-core materialists insist, conversely and perversely , that not even humans are all that conscious. The solipsism problem prevents us from verifying or falsifying these and other claims. As long as we lack what neuroscientist Christof Koch calls a consciousness meter —a device that can measure consciousness in the same way that a thermometer measures temperature—theories of consciousness will remain in the realm of pure speculation.
But the solipsism problem is far more than a technical philosophical matter. It is a paranoid but understandable response to the feelings of solitude that lurk within us all. Even if you reject solipsism as an intellectual position, you sense it, emotionally, whenever you feel estranged from others, whenever you confront the awful truth that you can never know, really know another person, and no one can really know you.
Religion is one response to the solipsism problem. Our ancestors dreamed up a supernatural entity who bears witness to our innermost fears and desires. No matter how lonesome we feel, how alienated from our fellow humans, God is always there watching over us.
He sees our souls, our most secret selves, and He loves us anyway. The arts, too, can be seen as attempts to overcome the solipsism problem. The artist, musician, poet, novelist says, This is how my life feels or This is how life might feel for another person.
But to imagine is not to know. Some of my favorite works of art dwell on the solipsism problem. Kaufman no doubt hopes to help us, and himself, overcome the solipsism problem by venting his anxiety about it, but I find his dramatizations almost too evocative.
Love, ideally, give us the illusion of transcending the solipsism problem.
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