The universe became conscious in the form of humans and asked ‘who made me?’
These historical artifacts are a beautiful testimony to this profound question that we can only contemplate for a small amount of time before we turn back into stardust.
These historical artifacts are a beautiful testimony to this profound question that we can only contemplate for a small amount of time before we turn back into stardust.
Emotionally persuasive, maybe.
These are concepts that probably humans can’t grok because we are so wedded to time.
Something akin to "Dust Theory" from Permutation City is a semi-plausible theory of non-creation (although, as it's fiction and must at least pretend to entertain a plot, some happenings in the book are much more far-fetched).
Edit: although on second thought maybe the book's actually more of a theory of creation, and we're the insects. I don't know.
I think a better question than "who made us" is "where are we?"
Or, more subtly, "who is making me?":
> Distinction: A sequence of changers can be ordered essentially or accidentally. These are called per se and per accidens sequences.
> A sequence is ordered accidentally if each changer in the sequence possesses the power to change another regardless whether any prior changer is still acting. For example: a woman may possess the power to give birth regardless whether her mother is still alive. She possesses the power of birthing in and of her own self.
> A sequence is ordered essentially if each changer in the sequence possesses the power to change another only if a preceding changer is acting concurrently upon it. For example, a clarinet does not have the power to play Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A in and of itself. It will only play if Sharon Kam is playing upon it concurrently.¹ A mover like the clarinet is called an "instrumental" mover, happily so since the clarinet is literally an instrument! In a similar wise, TOF's very own clarinet will not make music by itself. Unfortunately, it does not seem to make music even when TOF is playing it, although he has summoned ducks in this fashion.²
[…]
> 1. An instrumental changer cannot transmit a change unless a primary changer is acting concurrently upon it.
> 2. An infinite regress has no primary changer.
> 3. There cannot be an infinite regress of instrumental changers.
* https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-l...
You do not keep yourself in existence, i.e., you do not prevent yourself from going *poof* into nothingness. Something "underlies" your existence and keeps you 'going'. And something underlies that, and something… But it has to stop somewhere. A bad analogy: in a sky scraper the 99th floor keeps the 100th floor in the air, and then 98th keeps the 99th, …. But at some point there needs to be bedrock.
The eventual Prime Mover is what theologians refer to as God: that which nothing else can exist without.