Why language is a poor physical theory

Many arguments for the existence of god rely on the existence of the universe and the fact it had a “beginning”. I highlight beginning in this fashion because this term does not always make sense when applied to what is referred to as the singularity. The issues with arguments with this basis are to some extent unresolvable by mere debate.

The first problem is the application of the word existence. It’s used in a careless and presumptuous fashion; our familiar concept of existence is based upon our experience within the universe. Following this obvious statement we can drape new words around the definition of existence: Something exists when it can be considered to be an element of the universe. This makes sense because we say things exist if they can be found within our universe.

This is where the carelessness comes in; when people try to construct arguments appealing to the supposedly unbelievable fact that the universe “exists” and had a beginning we come across the problem which may be an inconsistency. They apply the word “exists” to the universe. What exactly does it mean for the universe to exist when the standard usage of the word uses the universe itself as the arbiter for whether or not something exists? We would have to find the universe within itself to confirm if it exists or not. Doing this means we are judging whether or not the universe exists by using the same universe which we are in the process of classifying. You need the universe in the first place before we can judge the existence of something else. This gives rise to circularity/infinite regress which indicates that we can’t use the word and its logical application to deduce anything. For this to make sense we would need something outside the universe which it is suspended in to make a clear judgement about what it means for the universe to exist. We have no idea what this may be if it even makes sense to ask since we are consigned to using the universe itself to discern existence. This shows clearly that we can’t use the “existence” of the universe to tell us anything about what lies outside of it.

This should highlight the problem with using our language to tease out things about the workings of the universe and beyond: it just cannot be trusted outside its range of applicability; the range being defined by exactly where it developed to be applicable. Language developed on our planet for the communication of simple concepts related to our survival. These concepts were mundane and limited by our perceivable scale; our language doesn’t even apply well to things that exist within the universe outside of this scale. This is why Philosophy only gets you so far.

Another similar example is applying the notion of existence laid out here to God Himself/Herself/Itself. Most often the arguments in God’s favour require God to be outside the universe which is an obvious problem when it comes to his existence. Given that we can only make statements about existence using the universe we can’t make any statement about God’s existence since he is required to be outside the universe. I also remind you that we can’t say for certain what “God created the universe” means because the word “create” is native to us who reside within the universe and applies to objects in it. As indicated when God was introduced we can’t even apply concepts such as gender, personality and being to God if He/Her/It (whatever) doesn’t exist in the universe because these concepts were developed within the universe.