I. The Initial Argument
You: But yeah, we can talk about the cosmological argument now if you'd like. Do you have a version of it that you prefer?
Stranger: I’ll go with whatever version you prefer.
You: 1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. The universe has an explanation of its existence.
5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.
This is a variation of Leibniz's cosmological argument.
Stranger: Let’s start with premise (2.) then. How is that not begging the question?
You: Yeah, I don't think premise (2.) is just obvious. It's gotta be supported. The schema is just meant to get clear on where we disagree.
Stranger: Okay, just checking because I’m not the brightest light in the harbor by any stretch of the imagination, and that seems pretty blatant for a famous philosopher.
I figured there’s gotta be a reason for it
You: So, to support it, I'd have to make recourse to other arguments concerning the nature of the universe's explanation. I take 'universe' to just refer to all of contingent reality, reality that could fail to exist. If that's the case, then the universe's explanation is going to be a necessary being.
But we can say more about this being. Not only is it a necessary being, it's also an immensely powerful one, given that it explains/causes the universe.
II. The Gap Problem
You: But a "necessary and powerful being," while a step towards theism, obviously doesn't have the full panoply of God's attributes. Alexander Pruss calls this the Gap Problem, after the gap between "necessary and powerful cause" to the God of theism.
Stranger: Yeah, my go to point is that this necessary thing doesn’t need to be conscious, it could basically be like naturalistic pantheism, basically all the god attributes except for consciousness.
You: That'd be similar to the route taken by Spinoza. So I'll need arguments to bridge the gap and connect this necessary being with the God of theism. And if I can do this successfully, then I will have established premise (2).
Stranger: Yes.
III. Bridging the Gap; Different Paths and Initial Discussion
You: I think there's a few separate arguments to bridge it. Some of these are going to depend upon a shift in reference of "universe" from merely "contingent reality" to what we usually mean by the word, i.e., the cosmos.
You: Here's the first attempt to bridge the gap (I'm going to go somewhat fast here):
Scientific explanation works from prior physical facts to explain subsequent physical facts. Given that we're concerned in the Cosmological Argument with the beginning of the universe, there are no prior physical facts to explain the subsequent ones. So scientific explanation is ruled out. Personal explanation is the only other sort of explanation we have, so we should opt for it. So the first cause is a person.
Given that the cause of the universe is the cause of all physicality, the cause cannot be physical. But our lists for possible non-physical objects is quite small: Either abstract objects or disembodied minds. Abstract objects are things such as numbers or propositions. But abstract objects cannot enter into causal relations (that's what makes them abstract), so they cannot have caused the universe. This leaves disembodied minds as the only thing left on our list that could plausibly cause the universe.
The following is straightforward, using the Cosmological Argument in a cumulative way with the Teleological Argument: The universe exhibits design, design implies intelligence, so whatever caused the universe is probably intelligent.
The next idea is that a cause cannot give to its effect that which it itself does not have. The universe contains intelligent creatures. So the cause of the universe must also be intelligent. Once a popular principle in the Medieval period, this principle is now highly contentious, but it has its defenders. Samuel Clarke argued for it from the ex nihilo principle. Perhaps it can be given a probabilistic spin?
You said: I'm saving my best, but also most complex, for last. So we can stop here for now.
Stranger said: Okay, I’m gonna respond chronologically.
Stranger said: I think you’re ruling out scientific facts too quickly. I don’t see how you can say with certainty there could not have been natural or physical things prior to our universe’s existence, especially given the fact that there are theories of prior universes, or the amplituhedron. That seems like an inference disguised as a deductive fact.
Stranger said: And just to add on to that, most experts don’t agree that the physical stuff we observe could not have come from other physical stuff. That assertion doesn’t seem to be supported by the best science at all.
Stranger said: And then you seem to be committing a composition/division fallacy where you claim a cause must possess the same properties as its effect. This can’t be a universal law given that we know emergent properties exist. Walls can come from non walls, stars come from non stars, oceans from non oceans, etc.
Stranger said: And then your last point here about teleology. How do we conclude the universe itself exhibits design?
I think I covered everything, lemme know if I missed one of your points
You said:
Responding to: “I don’t see how you can say with certainty there could not have been natural or physical things prior to our universe’s existence.”
Well, I don’t think I can say with certainty that there are no prior physical facts to our universe’s existence. From what I can understand, it seems like our current science points towards the universe coming into being a finite time ago. And even on the most popular multiverse theories, if I understand them correctly, the universe-ensemble itself is usually understood to be past-finite. Of course, none of this can be said with a great deal of certainty as the science is still nebulous.
But even if the universe or multiverse were past-eternal, it still seems like it itself isn’t a necessary being, that it would require an explanation. And given this, then if the multiverse includes all of physicality, my first argument that we cannot use scientific explanation to explain the global multiverse would still go through.
You said: Responding to: “You seem to be committing a composition/division fallacy.”
The reasoning in my example isn’t from parts-to-wholes, so isn’t an example of compositional reasoning. It’s from the intuition that effects cannot give what they don’t already, in some way, possess themselves. It’s just meant to be plausible independently. Walls are just dimensions and shapes, and they are composed from particles that themselves have dimensions and shape. So this (and the other examples) aren’t a counter-example.
A person committed to the principle that effects cannot rise above their causes would just deny that there are emergent properties, which isn’t a particularly high cost given that emergentism is itself controversial. But I’m not going to push this point too much. I think it should just be given only a small amount of weight.
You said: Responding to: How do we conclude the universe itself exhibits design?
Using the same sort of reasoning we use when we infer design in usual cases. If we discovered some alien sort of machine on the dark side of the moon that had something analogous to a motor and a crane system, it’d be a perfectly justified inference that this machine was designed. The machine exhibits an unlikely complexity and seems to serve some sort of goal (mining moon rocks?), even though we may be unable to say what further purpose aliens would have for moon rocks.
Here’s a schema:
1. The universe, whether it is finite or eternal, requires an explanation outside of itself.
2. I'm stipulating "universe" to mean all of physical reality.
3. There are only two forms of explanation: personal and scientific.
4. Scientific explanation works from prior physical facts to explain subsequent.
5. Given that we're considering the explanation of all physical facts, either taken as infinite or finite, the explanation cannot be scientific.
6. So the explanation is personal.
Stranger said: I’m still reading and formulating my response, but you said something about emergence being controversial, and I don’t understand what you mean there. A single hydrogen atom contains none of the properties a star does except for the general property of physicality. But when there is a high enough concentration of hydrogen atoms, a star forms which has added properties the single hydrogen atom doesn’t have. That seems to be a clear case of emergence right there. We also know that stars produce other elements, especially the heavier elements, so how is this not an emergent property?
Stranger said: To your first point about the universe. You said that even if the universe or physical reality as a whole (there is this distinction in science) is past eternal, it would still require an explanation for its existence. Why though? If physicality has always existed, that means there was never a point where it required a cause for its existence. Past eternal seems to be the very property we would look for in a necessary thing, why can’t this necessary thing be both physical and past eternal?
Stranger said: Also, the consensus of physicists and cosmologists agree that reality itself (everything in existence) is past eternal. This is a point brought up by Sean Carroll in his debate with William Lane Craig. Our local presentation of the universe is no past eternal, but no one really thinks our universe is the end all be all of physical existence.
Stranger said: And then we get to your point about design where you seem to be saying two things at once. You say we recognize design when something is analogous to other things we already know are designed, and I agree with that. But then you mention complexity, and that’s where we disagree. I see no reason to say that complexity is indicative of design. Complexity paired with things that are analogous to known designed things, sure
Stranger said: But not complexity on its own, and that’s where the design argument runs into trouble. What about the universe is analogous to human design?
Stranger said: Now to your syllogism, I just reject the first premise
Stranger said: I think you’d agree that God is past eternal, so why does a past eternal universe require an explanation for its existence?
You: Responding to: “That seems to be a clear case of emergence right there.”
A philosopher that denies emergence would just take it that “stars” have a functional analysis in terms of their atomic structure together with more basic physical laws. This functional analysis provides a way to reduce “starness” to other more basic properties. Starness isn’t really anything in addition to these properties--it’s just a shortcut to refer to particles arranged starwise plus basic physical laws. The same sort of analysis would apply to any elements that are not fundamental. So the only real constituent of things, on this view, would be whatever elementary and fundamental particles there actually are (muons and gluons?).
IV. The Relevance of Whether the Universe is Past Eternal or Not
You said: Responding to: “Why can’t this necessary thing be both physical and past eternal?”
Leibniz asks us to imagine a geometry book that has been copied from a prior geometry book for an infinite period of time. We may be able to give an explanation for every single geometry book in the series by referring to the prior geometry book, but this analysis does not provide us with an explanation of the whole infinite series. It still seems like the infinite series itself needs an explanation, especially if it seems like the series could fail to exist and if it has arbitrary properties that cry out for an explanation. The universe seems to have both of these features. So even if the universe is past eternal, it does not follow that it doesn’t need an explanation.
So eternality is a necessary, but not sufficient property for some thing to count as a necessary being. So it follows that this form of argument won’t work:
1. If P is necessary, then P is eternal.
2. P is eternal.
3. Therefore P is necessary.
This is invalid.
But I could run this modus tollens to strength my case, even if, strictly speaking, I don’t need it for this version of the CA:
4. If P is necessary, then P is eternal.
5. P is not eternal
6. Therefore P is not necessary.
Which is valid.
You said: And I do think I can provide arguments in support of (5.) of the last message. The BGV theorem applies to the multiverse, if there is one, as much as it does to our universe, and the BGV theorem implies that the universe/multiverse is past-finite. Plus we have further philosophical arguments for supposing that time is not backwards-infinite (WLC’s arguments plus some new arguments from Pruss/Koons/Rasmussen that have arisen in the last decade that rely on “Grim Reaper” thought experiments.) These arguments apply as much to the multiverse as it does to our local universe.
You said: Responding to: “Cosmologists agree that reality itself (everything in existence) is past eternal.”
Do you have a source for this claim? Because I have a disagreeing source:
“There are no models at this time that provide a satisfactory model for a universe without a beginning. None of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal.” - Vilenkin, and he’s referring to the whole universe-ensemble in this quote.
Most physicists who wish to resist the conclusion of the Cosmological Argument usually just reject its first premise rather than claiming that the universe is necessary.
You said: Responding to: What about the universe is analogous to human design?
So it seems right that a certain amount of complexity is requisite for recognizing design--otherwise, how could design be distinguished from non-design?
Imagine the first human encountering the first thing ever designed. He did not have an analogy for “designed” things with which to compare possible design-candidates. But presumably he could still make a justified inference that some thing is designed by seeing (1) complexity (a motor, crane, and so on) and (2) some goal towards which the complexity seems to be striving (picking up moon rocks), even if he is unable to understand why this goal would be a goal.
I’m not really wanting to get into the design-argument at the moment, so I’ll probably reduce my responses to this line of argument until we switch topics.
You said: Responding to: “I think you’d agree that God is past eternal, so why does a past eternal universe require an explanation for its existence?”
I think God is eternal, but I don’t read this as “past eternal.” Christian tradition understands God’s eternality to mean “timelessness.”
You said: There are features that any purported candidate for “necessary being” must have to most satisfactorily occupy that role, and the universe just doesn’t possess those features. The universe is (likely) past-finite, arbitrary, brute, limited, extremely complex, and seems like it could fail to exist. It doesn’t seem like it should play the role of “necessary being” unless we don't have any other candidate on offer--or, we could reject the first premise of the CA, but that cost seems too high to me.
Stranger said: There’s a lot here, so I’m just gonna do a quick response, and then later I’ll get more in depth. I think we’re getting sloppy with our terms and conflating two different ideas of the universe. There is our observable universe, the one which began at the Big Bang, and then there is reality, which encompasses everything that exists, including god if there is one. Now, I’ll have to double check, but I’m pretty sure these points were brought up in the Craig /Carroll debate, and Carroll has Vilenkin holding up a sign saying he believes physical reality is past eternal, but I’ll double check. I’ll get to the rest of your points later today.
You said: It's been awhile since I've looked at the debate, but I think it's Guth, not Vilenkin, that believes that the universe is past eternal. I don't think Craig did particularly well in that debate. I'm mainly relying on comments from the Cambridge physicists Aron Walls and Luke Barnes, who both have done a series reviewing the debate between Craig and Carroll.
I think Walls has the best summary of it: "We don't know for sure whether the Universe began, but to the extent that our present-day knowledge is an indicator, it probably did. However, as Carroll correctly says, we can also construct models where it doesn't have a beginning."
And of course WLC did not make recourse to the Grim Reaper style paradoxes to support the finitude of the past, both because they were relatively new when the debate occurred, and because they probably (I'm not super confident of this claim) require a B-theory of time, which WLC rejects.
V. The Problem of Emergent Properties
Stranger said: Yeah, this conversation has compelled me to revisit that debate, and I’m enjoying it very much. I’m a fan of WLC for his wonderful oration. I think he’s very well spoken, and a fantastic example of public speaking mastery. I do want to ask, I’ve been going over the philosophical denial of emergence, and I can’t for the life of me understand it. My instinct tells me it’s just a very convoluted way of redefining emergence. Is there a paper or something you could point me to, because I genuinely did not know there are serious thinkers who deny emergence.
You said: Well, emergentism is usually connected with mental properties, and there's a whole host of philosophers who doubt that mental properties can emerge from physical properties. Dualists, for one.
But the examples you were giving me as cases of emergentism are highly controversial and are more relevant to mereological arguments. There's a position known as mereological nihilism, and I think it's relevant to your examples. It's the position that supposed objects (like chairs) that are composed out of other, more fundamental particles, do not actually exist.
The word "chair" is just a shorthand way to refer to particles arranged in a chair-wise fashion. Chairs aren't "things," on this view. They're heaps of things. Similar to how a pile of sand isn't a thing, but a collection of things.
By saying "chairs don't exist," I mean really, fundamentally exist. That's vague. But maybe it communicates the idea. Peter van Inwagen is an example of a philosopher who believes this. He believes only fundamental particles and living organisms exist. So mountains, planets, cars, stars, none of those exist fundamentally. They're just arrangements of heaps of fundamental particles.
Stranger said: Why can’t we just say that “chair” is the label for this specific pattern of particles? Why can we not say that this specific pattern of particles produces properties that the individual particle doesn’t possess? Obviously size is a property that can change with a specific pattern of particles. One grouping is bigger than the other grouping. I just don’t see how any of this actually refutes emergence, it just seems to redefine it out of existence.
You: Inwagen would be fine with the first suggestion. "Chairs" are largely dependent upon our linguistic interests. "Bigness" isn't a new and different property from the "smallnesses" of the constituent particles. "Big" just means "lots of distance" and small just means "smaller distance." There's not a jump to a new kind of property, there's just more of the kind of property that was already there. It's just all of the particles considered plus some physical laws.
I think for a property to be emergent it would need to be (a) sufficiently unlike its constituent parts (b) not identical to something already present. (c) Not merely an aggregate of already existing properties.
Stranger said: So what about stars? Stars are very hot, very bright, and produce heavier elements. Stars are made from a high concentration of hydrogen and helium. As far as I know, a single hydrogen atom is neither bright, or intensely hot, but enough of these atoms together produces these properties, how is that not emergent?
You: Brightness is a qualia contributed to stars from our mental awareness, on the same level as colors, both of which reduce to certain wavelengths of protons. So brightness is not an actual property of stars, but protons moving along certain wavelengths is. Heat reduces to molecular movement. So far we just have the property “movement,” which single hydrogen atoms can possess.
But I don’t think the building blocks of stars are merely certain kinds of particles. It’s also the laws of how those particles interact. It’s an open question about how we should understand these laws, e.g., whether they are Platonic objects or are inhering properties of particles. But so long as they are fundamental constituents of stars alongside particles, then they’re not an emergent property.
Btw, out and out physicalists concerning mental properties would also count as anti-emergentist.
Stranger said: I’ll correct myself, because I’m referring to light. But again, a single hydrogen atom doesn't have the ability to produce light on its own, it needs to interact with other particles to bring about the specific property. I don’t see how this isn’t emergent. A single piece doesn’t have the properties that happen when you have particles interacting with one another. An atom itself is arguably an emergent thing that is the result of smaller particles interacting with one another. And I’m not sure what you mean, if you ask a physicalist what consciousness is they’re going to tell you that it’s an emergent property of the brain.
You: Light, along with smell, taste, and a few others, were in the old philosophical parlance called “secondary qualities.” Secondary qualities are taken to exist merely in the mental realm. Movement, size, shape, and distance are taken to be “primary qualities,” and exist out there in the actual world. So the only sense in which light is really in the physical world is in the sense that there’s certain kinds of movement.
So even though a single hydrogen atom doesn’t have the ability to produce the mental qualia of light on its own, it does have the ability to move, and with successive addition of more particles (which discounts this from being a case of emergence, given that it’s reached through mere addition), can give rise to the mental qualia of light. But this mental qualia of light is only an experience that exists in the mind, and not in the thing itself. The movement of particles is what exists in the thing itself.
An atom wouldn’t count as a thing according to a mereological nihilist. It’s just a heap of things.
Some forms of physicalism are incompatible with emergentism. Here’s a quick quote from Stanford EoP: “And yet, if emergentism is true, physicalism is false.” And from another article: “Thus, if emergentism is true, it is false that everything supervenes on physical properties.” I think Daniel Dennett is probably a physicalist in this strong sense, though I’m not very familiar with his work on mental properties.
Stranger said: I’m not talking about the experience of light, I’m talking about the physical thing. Does a single hydrogen atom in motion produce the same kind of wave that produces the physical thing I’m labeling as light? Obviously not, and the waves that we call light are produced by smaller particles in motion, not just any combination of atoms in motion. I really don’t think we’re going to agree on this point about emergence.
The only consequence of that is that we cannot proceed with the point that intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence.
But we can stick with the other points concerning teleology
You: Responding to: “Does a single hydrogen atom in motion produce the same kind of wave that produces the physical thing I’m labeling as light?”
No, it doesn't have the same kind of wave. But a wave is similar to the word "big." It's just a collection of aggregates. And a hydrogen atom does have the right sort of thing to make the aggregate.
But yeah, that's okay. I'm really not too committed to the point. My only point is that emergence is controversial, so the principle that a cause cannot give to an effect that which it itself doesn't have should be given some amount of weight.
Stranger said: As far as I can tell, emergence is not an extremely controversial thing in science, or philosophy. There are certainly those who disagree, but I don’t see any evidence that emergence is controversial to the point where there is no consensus on it. If you can find a poll or something on it, I’d love to check it out though. Does the SEP cover the controversy in its entry on emergence? If so, in what section?
You: Looks like IEP has a better article on Emergence. Might be worth checking that out. Mind if I share an extended section from Rasmussen? He's explaining the point I've been trying to make, but probably in a much clearer way.
Stranger said: Sure
You: This is from a slightly different context--discussing whether mental qualia can reduce to physical states. But it's relevance should be easy to see.
At this point, one might wonder whether qualia could somehow emerge from purely non-sense qualities. Consider, by comparison, the way certain properties of water, like liquidity and wetness, emerge from its molecular structure. While the atoms that make up water are not themselves liquid or wet, given a certain geometric arrangement, the H2O structure as a whole is liquid and wet. The idea, then, is that while liquidity and wetness are irreducible properties, they emerge given the right conditions. Perhaps consciousness is like that: it just emerges under certain conditions. Call this proposal “emergentism.”
The emergentist proposal merits an entire book in its own right. Here I shall attempt to explain succinctly why I don’t think emergentism solves the problem. I have two points to make. First, the alleged cases of “emergence” are not like qualia, or they end up smuggling in qualia into the causes. Consider liquidity, for example. This property has a functional analysis in terms of water’s molecular structure together with more basic physical laws. This functional analysis provides a way to reduce liquidity to other more basic properties. The felt aspect of consciousness, by contrast, is characteristically irreducible to non-felt qualities. So it isn’t like liquidity.
Or take wetness. Although this property doesn’t seem to be analyzable in terms of purely non-wet qualities because wetness includes a qualitative feel, which is the very aspect of consciousness we are trying to explain. In general, for every candidate emergent property, it seems to me that either a reductive analysis is possible, or the property smuggles in the target phenomenon: felt consciousness. Thus, the problem remains unsolved.
Second, and more significantly, the term emergentism merely labels the mystery. It is not a solution. To illustrate, suppose you see water springing out of a rock. You might wonder, How can water be coming out of that rock? Here is one simple answer: the water emerges from the rock. That answer is not satisfying, however. Reflection on the nature of water reveals that water cannot come solely from the rock by itself.
You said: And this paper is just about a perfect summary of our discussion:
http://www.owl232.net/papers/emerge.htmEmergentismowl232.net
Looks like it was written by Michael Huemer in his younger days.
Stranger said:Well, I can’t say I’m lacking in stuff to read. Thanks.
You: Yeah. All this stuff is just massively complex. I almost hate philosophy in a way lol.
Stranger said: Same here. My biggest problem is a lack of understanding, and a kind of laziness associated with trying to overcome that lack of understanding. There’s so much that I want to do, and so much that I enjoy doing, it’s hard to fit in these papers that I have to read more than once to really wrap my head around it. But I am committed to knowing what is true, and that kind of commitment is a long and frustrating journey, (at least from my perspective.)
But I’m super grateful for your willingness to have these conversations, I find them frustrating at times, especially when I’m feeling competitive, but they’re enlightening for the most part
So thank you, I really do enjoy this stuff, even when I don’t.
VI. Simplicity as a way to Bridge the Gap
You: I think it's about time to give my favorite argument to bridge the Gap Problem. I'll start working on typing it up shortly.
Stranger said: Cool, I look forward to it.
You: We’ve previously agreed that the necessary cause is powerful, given that it’s responsible for contingent reality. But just how powerful should we assume this being to be? Arbitrary limits are less simple, ad hoc, and are not to be preferred. If the necessary cause just has the power to produce 1009 particles, this would seem arbitrary and brute, so it’s a complexifying factor. It requires a reason to posit the power as well as a reason to posit the limit to the power. Each limit adds complexity to a theory since each limit requires additional information to describe the theory.
By the tool of simplicity, then, a theory of a limitless power is more internally likely. In other words, the tool of simplicity provides a reason to think the necessary cause lacks arbitrary limits.
So if it has power, then it’s best to assume that it has infinite power.
To see an example of this sort of reasoning, consider the speed of light prior to its measurement. The two simplest suppositions would be that it's speed is either 0 km/h or that it lacks arbitrary limits, that is, has infinite or maximal speed. And that’s exactly what physicists believed prior to its measurement. They knew that its speed was not 0, so they held that its speed was infinite using the rule of simplicity and lacking any reason to believe otherwise.
You: So we have the pieces required to bridge the Gap. The necessary cause has maximal power. The ability to know things is a possible power. So the necessary cause has the ability to know things. Only minds have the ability to know things, so the necessary cause has a mind.
Here’s the steps to this argument:
1. The necessary cause has maximum power. (As shown by simplicity style reasoning)
2. The power to know something is a power.
3. So the necessary cause has the power to know something.
4. Only minds have the power to know something.
5. So the necessary cause has a mind.
Stranger said: My only problem here is that it’s deductive. Sure, we cannot posit arbitrary limits since that cannot get us anywhere, but I don’t think we can use this in a deductive argument simply because we can’t say with any level of certainty what the nature of the thing is. Why not form it as an inductive argument?
You: Oh, you definitely could. Swinburne does just that. Bayesian formulas are a bit more technical though so I generally don't use them.
Stranger said: I’m just saying that the first premise is already problematic since we’re making an inference there. You mentioned that we did something similar with the speed of light, but now we know light travels at a measurable speed. So it doesn’t seem at all helpful to use this as a deductive argument since at least one of the premises is assumed rather than demonstrated. There could very well be a limit we are not aware of.
It’s entirely possible the necessary thing has one power, and that is to create particles.
You: Yeah, that could be the case. But in the absence of a reason to believe that there's a limit, simplicity dictates that we should assume that there isn't one.
Plus, we get gains in explanatory power. An unlimited being is less brute than a limited being, and an unlimited being providing an explanation for all limited being is a nice gain in explanatory power.
So there's more than just simplicity pushing us towards the idea that the necessary cause lacks limits of power. There's also explanatory power and a nice reduction
Stranger said: Yeah, but explanatory power isn’t really what bridges the gap between what is imaginary and what is real. We can come up with a dozen perfectly fine alternative explanations for any given observed phenomena
And sure, we would prefer explanation over brute facts, but I think we’re going to run into a brute fact here anyway
Why does the necessary thing possess maximal power? Seems like the only explanation is a brute fact
So this doesn’t really bridge the gap for me, the gap being what is imaginary and what is real.
I also don’t really get the point that an infinite is more simple than a finite.
That’s not intuitive to me.
You: Responding to: “We can come up with a dozen perfectly fine alternative explanations for any given observed phenomena.”
The arbitrator between empirically equivalent theories is a balance between explanatory power paired with simplicity. This balance is usually taken to be the bridge to reality.
Responding to: “I think we’re going to run into a brute fact here anyway.”
If we must have bruteness, let’s locate bruteness in the least arbitrary foundation. A maximally powerful being satisfies that criteria. An arbitrarily limited necessary cause would also lose explanatory power, given that its limit would have no explanation. So both simplicity and explanatory power push us towards the same view, that the necessary cause does not have limits.
I’m going to offer an additional argument for supposing the necessary cause has maximal power. Rasmussen calls this the argument from arbitrary limits, a type of argument from uniformity:
1. All limits that we know of are dependent on other things for an explanation.
2. The necessary cause is not-dependent.
3. So we have good reason to think that the necessary cause does not have limits.
I think this sort of reasoning is defeasible, but still weighty. All limits that we observe in nature are dependent. For instance: a mountain range that has only two peaks is dependent upon an explanation of plate tectonics, erosion, and so on. A mountain range with 2000 peaks also would be dependent upon such an explanation. This point seems generalizable to all limits, all of which seem to require an explanation. But we don’t have any cases of a limitless being requiring an explanation.
You: Responding to: “I also don’t really get the point that an infinite is more simple than a finite. That’s not intuitive to me.”
Because a maximal/infinite property takes less concepts to describe and doesn’t require a further reason for the limit in addition to the reason for the property. A universalized scientific law is also an example of this sort of reasoning: It’s simpler to suppose the law obtains universally than it is to suppose, without reason, that it only obtains in one local region.
I’m not claiming that it’s intuitive that this principle is true. I think its theoretical advantage is clear to see on reflection.
Stranger said: I’m still stuck on this idea of simplicity. You’re saying that a theory is more simple when we do not suppose some kind of limitation, am I understanding you there?
You said: Yeah, that’s right.
Stranger said: That’s definitely something I hadn’t given much thought to. I want to consider a hypothetical alternative. First, I want to talk a little bit about energy. What in your mind is energy?
You said: Not sure. Ability to do something. Power.
Stranger said: I’m not too certain about what it is either. I’m doing some quick research on the physics of it and everything. The general definition is the ability to do work. Objects at rest have potential energy, objects in motion have kinetic energy. We can say, with a degree of certainty, that energy exists. Now, if we suppose that the law of conservation is true, we can say energy has always existed. Yes, that only applies to a closed system, but it seems that reality itself is necessarily a closed system. (Reality=all that exists.) Given the broad definition of energy, do you think god would make use of energy?
You: Maybe. I think it may be the case that God just is energy, too. I want to leave open the question of how God relates to contingent reality; whether he creates it ex nihilo, ex deo, or contains it, or is immanent in it, or whatever--I don't think I need to make a decision on it.
VII. Building Towards an Objection to Simplicity
Stranger said: Do you accept the law of energy conservation?
You: I think so. I think there's a few options for how to make it work. But, as far as I understand it, physicists do not think that the law of energy conservation applies to a certain point after the big bang.
Stranger said: Well, if we can say energy is eternal, why can we not say that energy is the necessary thing?
You: Yeah, it might be. And we should ascribe the least arbitrary properties that we can to energy, so no limits, which implies that it has a power to know things, and thus has a mind.
So energy turns out to just be God.
Stranger said: Well, hold on there
Stranger said: Because we know of some limits to energy. We can observe manifestations of energy, and none of those manifestations are analogous to human consciousness. We also know that energy becomes limited by other forces be it pulling or pushing. We of course don’t need to conclude with certainty that energy cannot achieve consciousness, but I don’t see any evidence to support the notion that energy is fundamentally conscious.
It doesn’t require consciousness to do anything so far as we can tell, and if we add consciousness to it, we’re adding an entirely hypothetical property to it
Which makes the theory less simple.
You: Responding to: “Because we know of some limits to energy.”
It’s not a part of the original argument that there are no limitations around us. Clearly there are limited things around us. A bouncing basketball has a derived and limited amount of energy. The question is whether the total, necessary, underrived energy is itself limited.
Responding to: “We can observe manifestations of energy, and none of those manifestations are analogous to human consciousness.”
Sure there are such observations. I observe you, and you’re a manifestation of energy, and you’re conscious.
Responding to: “Which makes the theory less simple.”
There’s a distinction at work in simplicity style arguments between (a) the simplicity of the hypothesis and (b) the predictive success of that hypothesis, which may itself be complex. The simplicity is in the hypothesis--that the necessary cause lacks limits. The hypothesis’s predictive success, on the other hand, is complex--which is that the necessary cause has a mind (but this is also constitutive of the hypothesis’s explanatory power).
Stranger said: I gotta admit I find it a bit frustrating when you make a point about something I said, namely that we have observations of energy, and none of them are analogous to human consciousness, and you don’t really acknowledge that I clarified almost immediately after saying that. I’m talking about energy in its most fundamental form, and I said that. Chemical energy in our body doesn’t appear to be fundamentally conscious. Lightning doesn’t appear to be fundamentally conscious. The fact that energy in a specific pattern can produce consciousness is not what I was talking about. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear. My one and only contention with scholastic theology here is that consciousness as a property is undemonstrated. We can hypothesize all we want about the fundamental nature of reality, but as far as I know, the hypothesis that energy is fundamentally conscious is entirely speculative. My counter hypothesis is that energy, as we observe, is the fundamental or necessary thing that brought about contingent reality. Consciousness is not a necessary addition to that hypothesis, so why would we add it in?
VIII. Refinement of Simplicity Argument
You:
1. Fundamentally mind-like beings (FMBs) exist without a complex-array of matter (CAM) in possible world W1.
2. A cosmological argument can be run in W1.
3. So a necessary being, N1, exists in W1 and caused the existence of the FMBs in W1.
4. Maximum power should be ascribed to N1 in W1 for reasons of simplicity.
5. In W1, CAM-requirement type arguments cannot be pushed against N1.
6. N1 of W1 is identical to the necessary being (N0) of the actual world (W0).
7. If a CAM-requirement type argument cannot be run against N0 in W1, then a CAM-requirement type argument cannot be run against N0 in the actual world, W0.
Still working on it, but there's a taste.
I'm not sure how much I like this argument. It's a bit technical and requires a basic grasp of modal logic.
And it might just reduce to the more clear point that it just seems possible for mind-like things to exist that do not exemplify a CAM. Not sure.
I've got another style argument I'm working on too, but not sure how to schematize it yet.
Stranger said: Quick question about premise 4: why would we bound a hypothetical to the necessity of simplicity?
You: The prior probability of any hypothesis is determined by background knowledge, which has two elements: Simplicity and background experience.
Responding to: “Why would we bound a hypothetical to the necessity of simplicity?”
Consider a possible world, K1, that contains more events that violate Occam’s razor than follow it. Occam’s razor wouldn’t be a good epistemic guide for residents of K1.
However, I think simplicity does, of necessity, increase the prior probability of any given hypothesis, even in K1. But estimating the prior probability of an event is more than just a function of how simple a hypothesis is--it’s also (usually) co-determined by our prior experience as well. And the background knowledge of residents of K1 that Occam violations are usual would swamp the simplicity considerations, but not, I think, erase them.
Background knowledge, of course, will vary widely in different possible worlds given the vast range of possible prior experiences. So the prior probability of any hypothesis will vary widely in different worlds, despite simplicity itself not being variable across worlds.
You: And this hits on the second type of argument that I have gestating. In discussing the necessary being, we’re seeking to explain all contingent reality. The “prior experiences” of any possible world plausibly falls under contingent reality. Given that contingent reality is what the necessary cause is meant to explain, then our background knowledge will be reduced to merely concerns of simplicity. Prior experiences will fall out of consideration, given that they’re among the things to be explained by the necessary cause.
If this line of thought is right, then this is another type of response to the CAM-style objection.
You said: I really enjoyed that question. It's helping me clarify and see connections between my two arguments.
Stranger said: I’m glad you thought that was a good question. I’m gonna digest your response here. I’m still not quite agreeing with your idea of simplicity, I think it runs counterintuitive to what I would call simple. A simple theory from my understanding would contain the necessary elements to explain what we want to explain, and only add other elements when they are consistent with some kind of observation. Saying that energy is the fundamental element that caused the universe to exist seems to be both an adequate explanation of what we’ve observed. It’s eternal, and is literally what power is, so it possesses sufficient power to bring about the universe. Adding in consciousness seems to only complicate the theory, and doesn’t really fill in a gap in the explainability. But I’ll still be pondering your argument, it’s tough trying to wrap my head around modal arguments.
You: Simplicity isn’t a matter of how familiar we are with a hypothesis. We have probably never observed, or have never been familiar with, a truly straight line, yet a truly straight line is still more simple than any lines we’ve observed.
What’s the simplest thing we can posit apart from any empirical observations whatsoever? Probably nothing. Nothing is super simple. But given that nothing doesn’t have explanatory power, what’s the next most simple thing we can posit apart from observations? Maximums or infinity. And these certainly seem to have explanatory power. Prior experiences will fall out of consideration, given that they’re among the things to be explained by the necessary cause.
But why should we leave out empirical observations? Because they’re the very thing that we’re seeking to explain.
Nor is a simple hypothesis made complex by predicting complex things, like the fact that the necessary cause is intelligent. A simple hypothesis is nonetheless simple for entailing complicated consequences.
Stranger said: I guess what I’m asking is: why is a god (a necessary entity in possession of infinite properties including consciousness) a simpler explanation for the existence of the universe than positing that unconscious energy (the way we observe energy in its simplest form) is the necessary cause for the universe? It is by definition indicative of at least one infinite quality, and sufficiently powerful to bring about the existence of a universe. It can do what we need it to do and doesn’t require consciousness. The addition of consciousness in particular seems entirely unnecessary, therefore rendering its addition a complication.
You: Here’s an illustration: Let’s say that the fundamental energy that’s the necessary cause has infinite power save one form--it doesn’t have the power to cause pink elephants. This sort of exemption seems… odd. It seems ad hoc. We’d need a reason to place that limitation on the power.
Similarly, exempting the necessary cause from having the power to know things needs some justification. An easy route to such justification is to say that consciousness necessarily requires complex arrays of matter (a CAM) in order to obtain, and we don’t have reason to think that the necessary cause has such a CAM.
My response is that a CAM doesn’t seem like it’s necessary for consciousness to obtain, and if it’s not necessary, then this route seems ad hoc and we don’t have an explanation for why the necessary cause lacks the ability to know things. These sort of considerations give rise to my modal argument from world W1.
Furthermore, it seems like the CAM requirement is only something we know via contingent observation, and given that we’re seeking the explanation for all contingent observation, the CAM requirement can’t be used--it isn’t something we just know a priori as a part of simplicity--we only know it as a contingent fact of the actual world that minds seem to require CAMs.
Responding to: “The addition of consciousness in particular seems entirely unnecessary, therefore rendering its addition a complication.”
Consciousness is an implication of the simple hypothesis of maximal power. Consciousness is one of the complex things predicted by this hypothesis. It isn’t in the hypothesis itself.
We’ve been keeping this topic relatively isolated from other topics so we can get clear on it, and that's fine, but I just wanted to note that we’ve been focusing heavily on prior probability at the expense of explanatory power. Explanatory power usually leads to a decrease in a theory’s prior probability, but I think theism has both a relatively non-negligible prior probability as well as great explanatory power. You said something earlier to the effect that consciousness “doesn’t really fill in a gap in the explainability.” But it definitely can do so. Once we admit an item into our ontology, we should squeeze it for all its worth. Consciousness at the ground floor of reality, so to speak, helps explain a number of problems, like the origin of consciousness in the first place and the apparent unlikelihood of the universe. There’s also more metaphysical considerations like the status of propositions and other Platonic objects and how they best seem to fit into a necessary mind. The postulation of God has a great amount of explanatory power and can do a lot of metaphysical work.
Stranger said: Part of the reason we’re getting hung up on this one issue is because I don’t think we’re entirely understanding one another. Energy, in its simplest form from our observations, seems to lack consciousness. So the omission of consciousness as a property is not out of some ad hoc reasoning for leaving it out, it is from the observation that energy in its simplest observable form is not in any way analogous to what we generally call consciousness. We don’t need to make statements about what consciousness must be, we just need to observe our candidate explanation. Energy in its simplest form is my candidate explanation. If the law of energy conservation holds, energy’s presence is continuous within a closed system requiring no creator. Until we observe some other form of consciousness that arises from energy in what we would call its simplest form, what possible reason could there be to add consciousness as a necessary property. It has no precedence when reviewing the evidence describing energy that is available to us. So it comes down to one of two options: either energy in its simplest observable form cannot bring about something analogous to the observable universe, or it can, meaning that consciousness as a property is an entirely unnecessary addition to the hypothesis.
And sure, theism offers some general explanatory power for problems that we perceive such as fine tuning, and the existence of consciousness. But I think alternative theories have both been presented that explain these things, and they have novel testable predictions to boot.
There are a fair number of highly intelligent physicists, cosmologists, astronomers, etc, and none of the consensus theories hinge on the existence of a god. Sean Carroll presents a number of models with explanatory power which are considered many times more robust than the theories offered by theists attempting to explain the same things. Your position has the added detriment of not only lacking expert consensus, but also the fact that what it attempts to explain can be explained by alternative theories just as well.
You: Responding to “Energy, in its simplest form from our observations, seems to lack consciousness.”
I think this just amounts to saying that we observe limited forms of energy. I’m not disputing that. Of course we can see pockets of limited energy. But I don’t think we should take isolated pockets of limited energy and extrapolate its characteristics to the necessary maximal “energy substratum” or whatever. Isolated pockets aren’t going to have the full range of characteristics that maximal energy has, right? It’s not going to be maximal, for one. It won’t be able to cause nearly as many things as maximal energy, for another. It very well may lack a whole host of characteristics that maximal energy will possess.
Besides, the limited energy that we see just seems highly arbitrary and contingent. It seems to require an explanation for its highly arbitrary and limited conditions. It’s in seeking this deeper explanation for the arbitrary nature of limited energy that concerns of simplicity come to the fore.
Responding to “If the law of energy conservation holds, energy’s presence is continuous within a closed system requiring no creator.”
This depends on how you understand creation. Creatio ex nihilo isn’t the only model available. There’s also creatio ex deo, on which God himself would be part of the “closed system.” The energy in the system would just be maximal.
Responding to “Until we observe some other form of consciousness that arises from energy in what we would call its simplest form, what possible reason could there be to add consciousness as a necessary property.”
We don’t observe pink elephants, either, but it seems that we should ascribe the possibility of their creation to energy, right? It just seems possible that energy could produce pink elephants. This conclusion is largely a result of simplicity-style reasoning.
Responding to: “consciousness as a property is an entirely unnecessary addition to the hypothesis.”
Again, consciousness isn’t a part of the hypothesis. It’s an implication of it.
Responding to: “There are a fair number of highly intelligent physicists, cosmologists, astronomers, etc., and none of the consensus theories hinge on the existence of a god.”
It’s no fault of mathematics that it makes no reference to human beings. That just isn’t part of the field. When matters of God’s existence come up, philosophical principles like the PSR are the determining factors, not scientific theories.
IRT to physical theories, recall that I think a Cosmological style argument is going to work even given an eternal universe. We both granted a necessary ground, foundation, or whatever of some sort. We're just trying to probe the nature of that necessary cause using philosophical reasoning.
Stranger said: I feel like you’re straw manning, or just misunderstanding my points here. I’ve not intentionally implied the impossibility of energy in its simplest form possessing consciousness. In fact, I feel that I have tried to make very clear that I grant it as a possibility. Our argument is not about whether or not it is possible for god to exist. What I am concerned with is what a person ought to believe. I am specifically offering energy in the simplest form that we observe. I am not claiming that the simplest form of energy is the form that we observe, I am hypothesizing that if we do observe energy in its simplest form, and that form doesn’t possess consciousness, and we suppose that energy in this form is the necessary thing for all of contingent existence, then we have no requirement to add consciousness to the theory. My theory seems to be just as possible as your theory, and it doesn’t have a problem with simplicity as I’ve already explained. So you must either argue that energy in the form I have described is not sufficient for the emergence of the universe, or it would appear that you must grant consciousness is not an essential element, and we need not suppose it without further evidence.
You: Responding to “I feel like you’re straw manning, or just misunderstanding my points here.”
Never underestimate my ability to misunderstand! Part of our confusion is stemming from my attempt to formulate your argument for you. I really am interested in getting your objection in the best form that we can have it. It’s no use to either of us if it’s a strawman.
But yeah, you’re taking the argument in a direction I wasn’t expecting. And I don’t think that direction is a very good one. I think there’s some level of confusion in the way you’re trying to present it.
I’ll try to have my response typed up shortly.
IX: One Final Illustration
You: This example will be a bit involved, but bear with me.
Let’s take Brownian motion as an example. We see a collection of suspended pollen moving about erratically in water. The motion of the particles is puzzling, extremely complex, arbitrary, and seemingly random. Some theorist in the 19th century opted to explain the phenomenon by just asserting that the motion was brute and fundamental, that it was just the nature of the pollen to move in that way (Vitalists took this interpretation).
Others realized that the motion was too complex, random, and ugly to serve as a satisfactory stopping point for explanation. Einstein definitively proved that if we suppose atoms exist (which could not be observed at the time), that we could then explain Brownian motion as a result of the bombardment of the pollen particles by invisible atoms.
Doing this, he asserted the existence of an unobservable thing (atoms) on the basis of its reduced complexity and its ability to explain something complex that we do observe, Brownian motion, in a relatively simple way. The gains in simplicity and explanatory power gave him justification to assert the existence of something unobservable.
You: Responding to “I am specifically offering energy in the simplest form that we observe.”
From Swinburne: “Leibniz claims that the universe is not metaphysically necessary, and so that its existence needs explanation. He may be right, but I cannot see how you can argue for this claim except in terms of the relatively greater simplicity and explanatory power of a potential explanatory hypothesis.”
In positing a maximal power without limits, we get such a gain in simplicity as well as explanatory power. I’m claiming that I’m siding with the atomists, and that you’re going with the vitalist in the Brownian motion dispute.
Stranger: When exactly was Einstein’s theory accepted by the consensus? 1905 or 1908?
You: Not sure. I doubt there was a poll about whether physicists found it convincing or not. Seems like it was accepted relatively quickly.
