Is the universe a necessary being?

[Willamena]

Necessary beings are those that could not fail to have existed.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Necessary beings is are those that could not fail to have existed.

We have no idea how or why the universe came into existence, so there is no way of saying if it was "necessary". Also "necessary" is a human concept which didn't exist before we developed the ability to think, it would have had no meaning prior to that.

 

[Yerda]

I'm not sure there is any literal meaning in the question.

 

[Ouroboros]

Necessary beings are those that could not fail to have existed.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Can't really say, honestly. Perhaps it was just by chance. Or maybe or understanding and view of necessary and chance are so limited that we can't see that they're both the same in the "non-necessary world".

 

[Penumbra]

I doubt anyone has enough info at this time to say one way or another on that.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Necessary beings are those that could not fail to have existed.

Apart from being unanswerable (like most good philosophical questions), this question seems prima facie unapproachable. The anthropic principle (in its weak form) in some sense is designed to bypass this kind of questioning by starting from the premise that we are here in this universe as this universe exists. It is hard enough to speculate about possible worlds in which the universe had different properties than ours, but to ask whether or not it is necessary? Perhaps we can better understand the question if we wonder what it would mean for the universe to be contingent. For if it is not necessary then its existence must be contingent upon something, and we must wonder what that thing is, and then perhaps whether that thing was necessary (and turtles all the way down).

I think that this question presents the kind of challenges that questions such as "what was it like before the big bang?" in that (assuming one accepts the standard model and that time began when the universe did) one is asked to wonder about an atemporal state of affairs (a "time" before there was time). Language encodes time in multiple ways, but no language is equipped with a tense-aspect-modality (TAM) system or similar grammatical means to convey time in order to speak meaningfully and without contradiction of a state of affairs "before" time. Your question is more extreme, as it asks us not only to consider a state of affairs in which the universe was not, but whether that state would necessarily produce/result/become/etc. the universe (notice that all those verbs implicitly refer to time, despite the fact that we are considering an atemporal state of affairs).

Interesting.

 

[Willamena]

Apart from being unanswerable (like most good philosophical questions), this question seems prima facie unapproachable. The anthropic principle (in its weak form) in some sense is designed to bypass this kind of questioning by starting from the premise that we are here in this universe as this universe exists. It is hard enough to speculate about possible worlds in which the universe had different properties than ours, but to ask whether or not it is necessary? Perhaps we can better understand the question if we wonder what it would mean for the universe to be contingent. For if it is not necessary then its existence must be contingent upon something, and we must wonder what that thing is, and then perhaps whether that thing was necessary (and turtles all the way down).

I think that this question presents the kind of challenges that questions such as "what was it like before the big bang?" in that (assuming one accepts the standard model and that time began when the universe did) one is asked to wonder about an atemporal state of affairs (a "time" before there was time). Language encodes time in multiple ways, but no language is equipped with a tense-aspect-modality (TAM) system or similar grammatical means to convey time in order to speak meaningfully and without contradiction of a state of affairs "before" time. Your question is more extreme, as it asks us not only to consider a state of affairs in which the universe was not, but whether that state would necessarily produce/result/become/etc. the universe (notice that all those verbs implicitly refer to time, despite the fact that we are considering an atemporal state of affairs).

Interesting.

Is there a named principle for the idea that what is, what exists currently, "could not have failed to exist"? Or is that fatalism?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Is there a named principle for the idea that what is, what exists currently, "could not have failed to exist"? Or is that fatalism?

I would love to be able to provide an answer, but I've been awake for over 36 hours now and I'm not actually sure if I know the answer. But I think I can say it's a good question regardless of sleep deprivation.

 

[Willamena]

I found an interesting possible read that may be related, authored by Henry Staten: Wittgenstein and Derrida.
Wittgenstein and Derrida - Henry Staten - Google Books

Accidents… are the infinite possibilities of variation in the course of things that, because they are infinite, cannot be subjected to rule, cannot be mastered by intellect and language. Knowledge, says Aristotle, can only be of what is the case always or at least for the most part; but beyond the regularities whose formula the mind can discover there is the illimitable realm of “accidental being,” and accidental being is close to “nonbeing.” Accidents in this sense, says Aristotle, are not really real—they are only names. Now, “accidents” may be innocuous, as when a man happens to be pale, or even happy; as when a man digging a hole for a plant finds a treasure; but the principle of accidents (if we can call it a principle) is not innocuous; accidents have no aition horismenon, no cause with a definite boundary drawn or drawable about its limits. Accidents come by chance (to tucheon), and chance lacks a boundary of definition or definiteness; it is aoriston. Matter, indefinite in itself and capable of bearing infinite predication, is the cause of accidents, and indefiniteness threatens the principle of being and of knowability, the determinate, unified selfsameness of the same, kath’auton—as such.

Derrida’s question with respect to this schema is so simple that it can scarcely be misunderstood, and so radical in its implications that it can scarcely be understood. It is this: if essence is always exposed to the possibility of accidents, is this not then a necessary, rather than a chance, possibility, and if it is always and necessarily possible, is it not then an essential possibility?​

Would that I had time to read it now.

 

[Laika]

Why would the universe have to be necessary in order to exist? Why is nothingness a more natural state than existence?