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    • AMMDI is an open-notebook hypertext writing experiment, authored by Mike Travers aka mtraven. It's a work in progress and some parts are more polished than others. Comments welcome! More.
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aseity

22 Jun 2026 - 22 Jun 2026
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    • define and explain aseity Ask Claude
       kinda the same thing as agency? Also obviously makes no sense. Nothing is uncaused and self-sufficient. And if it was – what do you do about that? If agent x acts entirely on its own will, which itself has no causes, what does that mean pragmatically? How do you act towards x given this?
    • If God is the only real being with aseity, hyperstitions are sort of evil fake aseities?

      • Aseity

      • Aseity (from Latin a se — "from oneself") is the property of existing entirely from and through oneself, independently of any external cause or condition.

      • Core Meaning

      • A being with aseity:
      • Has the source of its existence within itself
      • Is uncaused and self-sufficient
      • Depends on nothing outside itself to exist

      • Primary Application: God

      • In classical theism (developed by theologians like Anselm, Aquinas, and later Reformed scholastics), aseity is considered a divine perfection — God alone exists a se.
      • God has no cause
      • God does not receive being from anything
      • God simply is existence itself (ipsum esse subsistens in Aquinas)
      • Everything else exists ab alio — "from another" — meaning creatures are ontologically dependent and contingent.

      • Related Concepts

      • | Term | Meaning | |
        |
        | | Aseity | Existence from oneself | | Contingency | Existence dependent on external causes | | Necessity | Cannot not exist | | Simplicity | No composition of parts — often paired with aseity |

      • Why It Matters

      • Aseity grounds arguments for God as the ultimate explanation of existence — the reason anything exists rather than nothing. It is central to cosmological arguments and debates about divine independence from abstract objects (the Aseity-Sovereignty debate).