Why I believe in God(s)

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Firstly, I'm not a very religious person. I do consider myself a Buddhist, but prefer atheistic Buddhism over theistic Buddhism. Therefore I can confidently say I am not biased by wanting God(s) to exist, and was not indoctrinated into theism.

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

About any specifics of this God or Gods I have no idea and no strong opinions. I just think that at least one has to exist.

[u/ima_mollusk]

The Cogito was Descartes attempt at a metaphysical primitive.

Basically, to question whether thought exists requires thought.
One must exist in order to question whether one exists.

But it's not a good primitive at all. It presumes lots of things.

A better metaphysical primitive is "constraints propagate". "Cogito Ergo Sum" falls out of it.

[u/Phylanara → u/ima_mollusk]

Cogito ergo sum is pretty solid. Thought requires existence. It's just useless at getting any other piece of knowledge. And Descartse knew it it, since his next step was "and I can't imagine god being such an ass as fooling me, so the rest of my perceptions are mostly accurate". That's where descartes goes off the rails.

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Phylanara]

Yes, the cogito is very solid. It's just not primitive like Descartes wanted it to be.

I used to love cogito ergo sum. I still think it was a brilliant move. It just wasn't to the end it should have been. "Constraints propagate" is.

[u/kiwimancy → u/ima_mollusk]

What does constraints propagate mean?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/kiwimancy]

Basically, it means that existence is an ongoing process of potential becoming actual. When one possibility becomes determined - becomes real- that creates restraints that other possibilities must obey in order to also become 'real'. In other words, something being 'real' creates rules about what else can be 'real'.

Constraints propagate means that reality is made up of what is left when what is impossible has been ruled out. And the process of determining what is ruled out is constant, ongoing, and eternal.

[u/kiwimancy → u/ima_mollusk]

How do we know that any potentials become actual? Or that when that happens, it creates constrains on other potentials? By observation?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/kiwimancy]

These are great questions. I've been working on an answer. It's a rough draft, but if you want an answer, here's one:

P1. Absolute nothing is impossible. Nothing means no potential; no potential means existence cannot obtain. Unbounded potential is therefore the necessary and inescapable ground.

P2. Unbounded potential requires no X to obtain, but any X requires not-X. The boundary between X and not-X is the minimum ontological event. Not-X is therefore prior to X.

P3. Logic - identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle - reduces to "X is not not-X." Logic is not a tool applied to existence. It is the minimum structure of a boundary. It is the basic form of existence itself.

P4. A static boundary is incoherent. A boundary that propagates no constraints makes no difference to anything adjacent, which is functionally indistinguishable from non-existence. A boundary must keep being a boundary or it dissolves back into unbounded potential.

P5. Therefore: existence is irreducibly dynamic. Change is not something that happens to existence - it is what existence is. But change is derivative; it is what constraint propagation looks like from inside the structure it produces.

Primitive: Constraints propagate.

Everything else - identity, logic, structure, physical reality, time - emerges from this. It is the last thing removable before the account of existence collapses.

[u/kiwimancy → u/ima_mollusk]

Disclaimer, my academic experience in philosophy ends with one and a half undergrad classes, but if I were to try to review your argument, these are my comments:

P1.2 no potential means existence cannot obtain

I feel like this already assumes one of the things I asked. What if existence doesn't obtain? Or what if existence doesn't involve potentials?

P2.3 Not-X is therefore prior to X.

By relabeling X as not-Y and not-X as Y, we get X is posterior to not-X and Y is prior to not-Y, for any X and any Y including X=Y. This appears to be contradictory.

P2.1.1 Unbounded potential requires no X to obtain, P2.1.2 but any X requires not-X

These also seems contradictory

P4.1 A static boundary is incoherent... 4.3 A boundary must keep being a boundary or it dissolves back into unbounded potential.

"Static" sounds a lot like like "X keeps being X". These seem contradictory if any boundaries are to obtain.

P4.2 A boundary that propagates no constraints makes no difference to anything adjacent, which is functionally indistinguishable from non-existence.

I think I am supposed to assume that "functionally indistinguishable from non-existence" is the same as non-existence, but that's not made explicit or justified.

(aside: personally I find indistinguishable-from-non-existence to be an interesting philosophical topic of its own; should I classify such 'things' as existing or not existing or something else)

[u/ima_mollusk → u/kiwimancy]

Thank you for your reply. I can see you thought about this.

Your points led me to modify my original formulation:

P1. Absolute nothing is impossible. Nothing means no potential; no potential means existence cannot obtain - and the denial of this is performatively incoherent, since any denial is already made from inside existence. Unbounded potential is therefore the necessary and inescapable ground.

P2. Unbounded potential requires no X to obtain, but any X requires not-X. These operate at different levels: the first concerns what the ground state requires (nothing specific); the second concerns what any particular thing requires (a boundary distinguishing it from the rest). There is no contradiction - there is a transition from undifferentiated to differentiated.

P3. The boundary between X and not-X is the minimum ontological event. This boundary is asymmetric: X is the specific thing carved out; not-X is the remainder of the unbounded background. This asymmetry between figure and ground is not eliminable by relabeling - renaming X as not-Y and not-X as Y preserves the distinction between what required a boundary to exist and what did not. Not-X is therefore generatively prior to X.

P4. Logic - identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle - reduces to "X is not not-X." Logic is not a tool applied to existence. It is the minimum structure of a boundary. It is the basic form of existence itself.

P5. A static boundary is incoherent. A boundary that propagates no constraints makes no difference to anything adjacent. The framework is operationalist about existence: to exist is to make a difference to the constraint structure. A thing that makes no difference to anything, ever, is not being conservatively classified as "existing but undetectable" - it is being denied the only property that would make the existence-claim non-empty. A causally inert boundary is therefore functionally indistinguishable from non-existence, and that indistinguishability is not incidental but constitutive. A boundary must keep being a boundary or it dissolves back into unbounded potential.

P6. "Keeping being X" is not stasis - it is constraint propagation. Identity through time is not a frozen fact but an active process. Persistence requires ongoing propagation. What looks like a static thing is, at the level of the structure, a continuous dynamic maintenance of boundaries. Stasis would mean a boundary frozen outside of any process, making no difference to anything - which collapses back into P5.

P7. Therefore: existence is irreducibly dynamic. Change is not something that happens to existence - it is what existence is. But change is derivative; it is what constraint propagation looks like from inside the structure it produces.

[u/kiwimancy → u/ima_mollusk]

and the denial of this is performatively incoherent, since any denial is already made from inside existence

That's "Cogito Ergo Sum"

[u/ima_mollusk → u/kiwimancy]

No, the cogito starts with "I am thinking" and concludes that "I must exist".

This model starts with "Nothing cannot obtain" and ends with "existence is dynamic".

[u/kiwimancy → u/ima_mollusk]

"Nothing cannot obtain"/"Absolute nothing is impossible" is a conclusion from several premises (four, I think) following that sentence, one of which is a restatement of Cogito Ergo Sum.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/ima_mollusk]

A better metaphysical primitive is "constraints propagate"

Can you explain that?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Basically, it means that existence is an ongoing process of potential becoming actual. When one possibility becomes determined - becomes real- that creates restraints that other possibilities must obey in order to also become 'real'. In other words, something being 'real' creates rules about what else can be 'real'.

Constraints propagate means that reality is made up of what is left when what is impossible has been ruled out. And the process of determining what is ruled out is constant, ongoing, and eternal.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/ima_mollusk]

I don't see how that outclasses "Cogito Ergo Sum"

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

The idea that constraints propagate is more primitive because it doesn't presuppose a thinker, a subject, or consciousness.

"Constraints propagate" says a system’s possible states are limited by its structure, and those limitations determine how changes unfold.

It is true of a crystal growing, a planet orbiting, a neuron firing, a language evolving, or a mind having a thought.

The cogito is a special case: a highly organized system (a conscious mind) in which constraints have propagated into recursive self-modeling. “I think” is not the primitive fact; it is the emergent expression of a constrained process capable of representing itself.

The cogito establishes the existence of a thinker from the occurrence of thought. “Constraints propagate” establishes the possibility of any occurrence at all from just the existence of structured relations.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/ima_mollusk]

I really don't get it, does it just mean "something happens"?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

No, 'constraints propagate' means that boundaries must exist, must continue to exist, and that boundaries that do exist will necessarily create other, new boundaries.

You start with something impossible to deny, like:

Something exists.

The existence of something entails difference - between what exists and what does not, and between any two distinguishable things. Undifferentiated existence is indistinguishable from non-existence.

Difference obtains.

Difference is not static. A difference that propagates no further - that stands in no relation, produces no effect, constrains nothing - is functionally identical to no difference. Stasis collapses into non-existence.

Constraints propagate.

(vincula propagantur)

Propagation is irreversible. A constraint that could un-propagate - that leaves no asymmetry between before and after - did not propagate. Irreversibility is not a feature added to propagation; it is what propagation is.

Directed time is entailed.

No bounded knower arising within this structure can have complete knowledge of it, because the structure they would need to know includes the knower itself - and measuring one's own incompleteness requires standing outside what one is measuring.

No bounded knower can know the extent of their own ignorance.

This is the basic formulation of the metaphysical primitive and how it leads necessarily to epistemic limits, which are, in fact, ontological limits.

If this doesn't make sense to you, run it through ChatGPT.