Suppose the Principle of Sufficient Reason is false. Then consider an infinitude of phenomena such as:
- A brick did not causelessly come into existence in front of me over the past five minutes.
- A frog did not causelessly come into existence in front of me over the past five minutes.
- A golden icosahedron did not causelessly come into existence in front of me over the past five minutes.
- A platinum sphere did not causelessly come into existence in front of me over the past five minutes.
16 comments:
So, I realise this isn't the most insightful question in the world: but why couldn't law-based explanations explain such phenomena?
That's a good question.
Answer 1: It's logically possible for the laws to be violated. So, now, the question is: Why didn't a golden icosahedron come into existence in violation of the laws.
Answer 2: The laws of nature are all ceteris paribus. So now the question is: Why didn't a supernatural being come into existence ex nihilo and produce a golden icosahedron, in full conformity with the laws, since the ceteris paribus clause applies to the supernatural being's causal influence.
I'm afraid I've never been clear on the distinction between metaphysical and logical possibility.
But why couldn't a denier of the PSR hold that it is in fact impossible for laws to be violated, and then claim that the reason a supernatural being didn't interfere with things is because no supernatural beings in fact exist.
hmm, if you're denying the PSR, perhaps you suspend judgment as to whether any given proposition is explicable.
If that's the case, then the one who objects to the PSR may not be bothered by all the questions you raise since he suspends judgment as to whether they have an explanation. i.e., he doesn't believe we should expect to have answers.
But why couldn't a supernatural being come into existence for no cause at all, cause the existence of the golden icosahedron, and then pop back out of existence? That there aren't any doesn't mean there couldn't be any.
OK, so I can see that giving an answer to such a question is difficult absent something like the PSR. But why, on inductive grounds, couldn't one nevertheless think it likely that things have sufficient reasons for their happening?
A. Pruss,
Sorry, you are simply mistaken here. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is the proposition that nothing not logically necessary is without explanation. There need exist only one unexplained non-necessary fact in the entire universe (or even, some would argue, an abstract principle for that matter) for PSR to be false. The falsity of PSR doesn't mean nothing has an explanation, it means not everything has an explanation. There is a difference, and I think you just got a little confused.
I might also add that I think that Gödel's incompleteness theorem actually conclusively proves PSR to be false, but of course there might be room for disagreement depending on your interpretation of PSR and of logical necessity.
Generally, people who deny the PSR think it's possible to have all sorts of causeless events. Otherwise, one gets a an adhocish view on which certain kinds of contingent things can lack explanation and others can't.
A. Pruss,
Maybe so, for all I know. But that is not a good argument for PSR - we simply minimize the number of "adhocish" (your term) things we must postulate, and the number of postulates themselves. The fact that we should try to minimize this number is not an argument that the minimum is in fact zero.
Are you, then, proposing an alternative to the PSR on which, say, platinum spheres cannot come into existence ex nihilo, but, say, universes can?
There is another option. The PSR skeptic could say that things can't come into being from nothing since nothingness simply lacks the potential for things to come into being out of it (just as a real egg cannot come from an imaginary chicken), and yet it is also metaphysically possible for something to exist eternally with no external cause explaining its existence. It seems such an individual could accept that there is an explanation for "A brick did not causelessly come into existence in front of me over the past five minutes" while denying the PSR. Why wouldn't this work?
but don't both of these have a sufficient reason behind them? that nothing lacks the potential to do that is the sufficient reason for why that doesn't happen and that something can metaphysically exist eternally without a external cause is sufficiently explained by the "something" nature. where is the denial of the psr here?
There are no Laws of Nature, this is an anthropomorphic Interpretation of Reality. But that does not mean that there aren't impossible or possible things to happen that, if possible, will eventually happen.
Anything which is possible physically is an effect of a preceding movement, which is as well an effect, and so on until the First Causes (which are the Gods). The idea that something would happen without an explanation is ludicrous.
Ask yourself, if nothing comes out of nothing, then things sprang about out of something, because matter cannot be created, nor movement, by the Principle of Conservation of Energy, which seems to be true in empirical testing. Either way, you cannot produce something out of nothing, because you need material 'stuff' for that and physical Energy (which is Work = m*v², mass times velocity squared, or matter in movement).
Space and Time in this Kósmos is an approximation to the Ideal or Formal, so it is impossible for a supernatural being to produce a golden icosahedron. And nothing comes out of nothing.
I beg your pardon, YOU are mistaken, and below is a good definition:
https://search.brave.com/search?q=The+Principle+of+Sufficent+Reason&source=desktop&summary=1&conversation=3fc1590da285d6a517002c&summary_og=f5a772c4eb7c166302150c
Leibniz’s Formulation: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a prominent philosopher of the time, formulated the PSR as follows:
For every fact, there must be a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise.
This reason is not necessarily known or accessible to us, but it exists nonetheless.
Two Types of Reasons: Leibniz distinguished between two types of reasons:
Sufficient Reasons: These concern contingent facts, which are explainable by prior causes and conditions. Sufficient reasons are conditional and based on experience.
Necessary Reasons: These relate to metaphysical truths, which are absolute and necessary. Necessary reasons are independent of experience and concern the fundamental nature of reality.
The Principle which is not a Law is about contingent facts or non-Aeternal facts. Necessary metaphysical truths do have an explanation, incomplete axiomatic systems may not have a sufficient reason why a mathematical proof is such and such, but that does not prove it lacks an explanation whatsoever (and even if it does, it is not about contingent facts that do require a sufficient reason to exist). Puzzle problems such as the Thompson's Lamp, or several number series that the same summation yield conflicting different results just prove that axioms are not either complete or completely consistent with one of the proofs. Or say finding the explation about the logical consistency of the paradox 'I am not saying this' (which led to Gödel's famous theorem, if I am not mistaken).
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