From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 06 2002 - 11:05:51 MST
--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
> I'm not so sure of that. It seems to me that you
> might employ this reasoning to conclude that an
> individual cannot conceive of his being dead, i.e.,
> that the universe goes on without him.
Try it on yourself. You can conceive of the universe
existing without you, but you cannot conceive of the
universe not existing.
I'm reminded of Anselm's classic ontological argument
for the existence of God, which states that because
God is a being than which none greater can be
conceived, and because it is greater to conceive of a
God that exists than to conceive of one that does not
exist, God must necessarily exist. Kant destroyed
Anselm's argument by pointing out that existence is
not a property of objects. We cannot imagine a
non-existent God because to imagine God is to imagine
a God that exists.
The same kind of Kantian argument is true of our
conceptions of the universe. We can imagine a universe
in which some things are non-existent, but we cannnot
imagine a non-existent universe. It is therefore
pointless to ask why it exists.
-gts
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