1 of 1
- Johannes
- Member
Offline - Registered: 7/11/2015
- Posts: 240
Thought experiment: physical intelligibility of the universe vs PSR
We know that physical events in the universe follow regular patterns, usually called laws. Even when some of those laws are not deterministic but probabilistic, they still involve a high degree of regularity and predictability. Thus, if a scientist shoots an electron toward a screen in the double-slit experiment, even while he does not know where the electron will impact the screen, he does know that the screen will be impacted by an electron, and not by a photon, a proton, or a hammer (in the last case, unless he gets mad and throws one at the screen).
But let's assume for a moment that God ruled the universe in an entirely arbitrary way, so that we could any day wake up to find the Earth being orbited by two additional moons, or surrounded by a ring, which at any time could just disappear. Or a vegetable grower could any day wake up to find that all lettuces have turned into broccolis. Or the world could any day wake up to find that all sugar canes have been turned into bamboos, just in time to feed the millions of pandas that have popped up everywhere!
Clearly, in such an arbitrarily ruled universe the Principle of Sufficient Reason would not apply regarding secondary causes, because God would be acting permanently and unpredictably not just as the first cause of entities and events but also as their only cause. However, the universe would still be metaphysically explainable, since God can at any time create anything out of nothing or change one thing into another or into nothing. The question is: what would be the effect that such a universe would have on the strength of the case for metaphysical rationality and thus classical theism, with respect to the actual, regularly ruled universe in which we live?
Answer: the case for metaphysical rationality and thus classical theism...
a. would be made altogether indisputable.
b. would be strengthened.
c. would not be affected.
d. would be weakened.
e. would be made altogether implausible.
To note, I am not asking whether that universe would still be metaphysically rational, which it clearly would, but whether the strength of the argument that it is metaphysically rational would be affected, and in what way.
This thought experiment is related to three articles Prof. Feser published in Oct.-Nov. 2014, particularly the third:
Last edited by Johannes (7/23/2015 11:35 am)
- DanielCC
- Administrator
Offline
- Registered: 6/26/2015
- Posts: 765
Re: Thought experiment: physical intelligibility of the universe vs PSR
I'll opt for C. in as much as our more powerful arguments for the PSR are retorsive I.e. show the incoherencies which follow on from its denial. A weak D would also be an option in as far it weakens the self-evidence justification for PSR claims.We have to bear in mind that a lot of the time the PSR is an ideal goal - there maybe many things in the universe that due to complexity or our phenomenological inadequacy we will never be in the position to establish the PSR for, we only know that they do have one.
Johannes wrote:
But let's assume for a moment that God ruled the universe in an entirely arbitrary way,
Here we might be good Leibnizians and claim that the PSR entails God cannot act irrationally (even if we don't go the whole way and declare the Deity must follow a single determined course of actions), thus the universe in question is in fact metaphysically impossible.
- iwpoe
- Member
Offline
- From: Knoxville, TN
- Registered: 6/26/2015
- Posts: 1,080
Re: Thought experiment: physical intelligibility of the universe vs PSR
I think I agree with Daniel on his interpretation of the PSR such that God cannot act arbitrarily, at least not truly arbitrarily. After all, wouldn't that require that, in principle, God acts at certain times for no reason at all, which would be a violation of the principle? I'll concede that as an epistemological possibility God could act such that we would never know his reason, but this is not the same as his truly acting arbitrarily, and even then I'm not sure that that concession is ultimately intelligible. After all, what could possibly generate that epistemological situation without violating the PSR?
Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
My Books
It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
1 of 1