Posted by aftermathemat  2/18/2018 6:19 am | #1 |
I've recently been thinking about a quite interesting argument for PSR, based on existence.
What got me started on thinking about this is the consequences of ~PSR. If ~PSR, then everything in the universe exists for no reason right now, and continues existing, thereby defying the void for no reason.
But if the entire universe can exist for no reason, then it could also easily cease existing for no reason.
In other words, if ~PSR, then the universe could easily stop existing in the next 5 seconds for no reason. And what's worse is the fact that we have to take that possibility seriously because that is what ~PSR entails.
Now, one interesting argument for PSR is that, if PSR were false, then we would expect things to constantly be popping into existence everywhere, which is clearly not true. The only way for a PSR denier to avoid this argument would be to say that ~PSR doesn't entail anything at all, that one shouldn't expect anything at all to happen. What this means is that we cannot expect anything if ~PSR is true, which means we cannot expect the universe will continue to exist, which means we have to take seriously the possibility that it could all cease to exist in the next 5 seconds, just as much as we believe and take seriously that it will continue to exist.
This then entails that we cannot actually expect that the universe will continue to exist at all, which is contrary to all of our intuitions. Whenever we do something or go through life, we constantly expect that the universe will in fact continue to exist, that our actions will be fulfilled or that our decisions will be finished. And if ~PSR, then we can no longer have any confidence in any of that. This is the price we have to pay if we want to deny PSR, which is existential anxiety and dread that not even Sartre or Nietzsche would have taken seriously.
What do you think?
Last edited by aftermathemat (2/18/2018 6:22 am)
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Posted by RomanJoe 2/18/2018 12:29 pm | #2 |
I don't think ~PSR entails that things should be popping into existence. Like you said, there should be no expectations at all in a world where PSR doesn't hold. Things may persist in existence for no reason, things may be annihilated for no reason. I find, for me at least, PSR is purely evident by the fact that everything in reality seems to have an explanation for it and when we don't find one we at least expect to find one eventually. Of course one could argue that I'm assuming PSR by claiming that our sense experience of contingent affairs having explanations is evidence which explains my coming to the conclusion that PSR is true. But if I can't conduct myself logically with regards to the conclusion that PSR is true then this should also extend to any logical conclusion at all--including the conclusion that ~PSR id true.
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Posted by aftermathemat 2/18/2018 1:52 pm | #3 |
RomanJoe wrote:
I don't think ~PSR entails that things should be popping into existence. Like you said, there should be no expectations at all in a world where PSR doesn't hold. Things may persist in existence for no reason, things may be annihilated for no reason.
Which is an excellent argument for PSR. If PSR were false, then not only have we no basis even in principle to expect that the universe will continue to exist in the next 10 seconds (and we obviously positively expect that it will continue to exist throughout our everyday lives), but we should also treat the possibility of it ceasing to exist in the next 10 seconds seriously, because to not treat it seriously is to dismiss it and expect the opposite, which is implicitly to accept the PSR.
The only way the PSR denier could reply to this argument is to posit that we already have reasons to believe things could get annihilated, such as Stephen Hawking's worries that the Higgs boson may show that our quantum vacuum is a positive energy vacuum which is unstable and may collapse and destroy everything by recreating the whole universe.
But to my mind, such an argument already suffers some setbacks, such as the fact it is not a literal annihilation of existing things, but merely a catastrophic change, and the fact that ~PSR entails that we have no reason to expect anything to happen, which is deeper and more problematic than any purported similar scenario could be, including even scenarios where we have postulated entities that could literally erase everything from existence, since ~PSR undercuts rationality even deeper than that.
But if I can't conduct myself logically with regards to the conclusion that PSR is true then this should also extend to any logical conclusion at all--including the conclusion that ~PSR id true.
I've been thinking something similar along these lines.
In one of my posts, I've mentioned whether or not ~PSR entails the possibility of epistemic nihilism, epistemic nihilism being the idea that there are no normative epistemic facts, no obligations to be rational because there is no difference between rational or irrational, no propositions that entail anything beyond themselves and thus literally no reason to believe in anything whatsoever, literally.
If we can demonstrate that ~PSR opens this up as a possibility in the same way it opens up the possibility of other such scenarios, then we can make the ultimate retorsion argument for PSR; namely that to deny PSR is to say epistemic nihilism is possible, which is to say that ~PSR entails that it is possibly self-refuting, literally meaningless and literally unbelievable.
But I'm not sure if this can be done. Some might say that this entails that nothing is intelligible, but that this may not be a contingent truth but a necessary one if it were true, so we would have to show how ~PSR necessarily entails that nothing is intelligible, rather than it being a mere possibility.
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Posted by SR 2/18/2018 2:26 pm | #4 |
In other words, if ~PSR, then the universe could easily stop existing in the next 5 seconds for no reason. And what's worse is the fact that we have to take that possibility seriously because that is what ~PSR entails.
But if the PSR is true, and if one concludes from that that the ultimate reason for the universe's existence is that it is God's Will, then couldn't it also be God's Will that the universe will cease to exist five seconds from now?
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Posted by aftermathemat 2/18/2018 2:39 pm | #5 |
But if the PSR is true, and if one concludes from that that the ultimate reason for the universe's existence is that it is God's Will, then couldn't it also be God's Will that the universe will cease to exist five seconds from now?
It is indeed possible for God to cease to keep the universe in being, but that is extremely unlikely for several reasons.
One, since creation is fundamentally a rational act for a rational end, to cease to keep something in being would be to frustrate the rational nature of the act one is attempting to do. It would be like playing a beautiful symphony only to cut it off mid-way, or to start painting something and then wash everything away with a sponge. In other words, it would be to miss the point or even to act irrational.
Two, since keeping creation in being is a great ontological good, it follows that it is also a great ontological good to continue keeping it in being and not to squander such an amazing thing. And since everything that exists has in this sense God as it's final end, it would be quite unlikely for that end to be frustrated by annihilation and for God to intentionally frustrate the ends of His creatures.
Last edited by aftermathemat (2/18/2018 2:40 pm)
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Posted by Greg 2/18/2018 4:01 pm | #6 |
If ~PSR, then everything in the universe exists for no reason right now, and continues existing, thereby defying the void for no reason.
Why? How are you formulating PSR such that this can be asserted straight off? Consider two formulations:
(EPSR) Every contingent fact has an explanation.
(IPSR) Necessarily, every contingent has an explanation.
Then:
(~EPSR) Some contingent fact does not have an explanation.
(~IPSR) Possibly, some contingent fact does not have an explanation
In neither case is it obvious how "everything in the universe exists for no reason right now" follows.
Think about it this way. You and I concur in thinking that we can imagine what it would be for PSR to be true. We can make sense of the idea of a world in which every contingent fact has an explanation. Ok. Keep imagining that. And now add in just one thing: one unexplained fact. That suffices to render PSR false. But why does it also undermine the explanations for each of the other contingent facts?
In fact, ~IPSR is consistent--or, at least, is not immediately inconsistent--with EPSR. That is, it may be that every contingent fact has an explanation even if possibly one of them doesn't. But then it seems that the unieverse and everything in it could very much have an explanation, right now, even though PSR (on one plausible reading) is false.
Of course, there is a lot one could say in reply. One could try to filter the argument through a cosmological argument to secure the claim: if every contingent fact has an explanation, then, perhaps, it can be argued that some necessary being exists and is the ground of whatever possibly exists. But that argument is going to depend on a lot of unstated assumptions not just about explanation but about metaphysics generally.
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Posted by Miguel 2/18/2018 4:12 pm | #7 |
I don't think ~PSR entails that things should be popping into existence. Like you said, there should be no expectations at all in a world where PSR doesn't hold. Things may persist in existence for no reason, things may be annihilated for no reason. I find, for me at least, PSR is purely evident by the fact that everything in reality seems to have an explanation for it and when we don't find one we at least expect to find one eventually. Of course one could argue that I'm assuming PSR by claiming that our sense experience of contingent affairs having explanations is evidence which explains my coming to the conclusion that PSR is true. But if I can't conduct myself logically with regards to the conclusion that PSR is true then this should also extend to any logical conclusion at all--including the conclusion that ~PSR id true.
If ~PSR then there surely is a mystery about why things don't pop into existence, just as there would be a mystery as to why we find explanations for everything if nothing needs to have an explanation. If ~PSR, then it is not impossible for things to pop into existence, but this means that at any point in the history of the universe, anything could have popped into existence with no explanation whatsoever. But it never happened. And it doesn't happen. In this sense, there *is* a bizarre fact, because ~PSR would entail possibilities that could be actualized at any time and yet end up never ever being actualized (things popping into existence). That is enough for us to make an inference to PSR as best explanation, because it's precisely what we would expect if PSR were true, and not at all what we'd expect from ~PSR, if we ought to take seriously the possibility that things could pop into existence uncaused.
PSR is a better explanation for the orderly fact that things don't pop into existence uncaused, because this orderly fact is entailed by PSR and is what we'd expect if PSR is true. By contrast, it is not something entailed or explainable by ~PSR, and ~PSR would require an additional brute fact in order to accomodate it: that it's just a brute fact that, even though things could be popping into existence all the time, they never did so and aren't doing so.
Clearly PSR is favored as best explanation here.
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Posted by Miguel 2/18/2018 4:17 pm | #8 |
If ~PSR, then everything in the universe exists for no reason right now, and continues existing, thereby defying the void for no reason.
Why? How are you formulating PSR such that this can be asserted straight off? Consider two formulations:
(EPSR) Every contingent fact has an explanation.
(IPSR) Necessarily, every contingent has an explanation.
Then:
(~EPSR) Some contingent fact does not have an explanation.
(~IPSR) Possibly, some contingent fact does not have an explanation
In neither case is it obvious how "everything in the universe exists for no reason right now" follows.
Think about it this way. You and I concur in thinking that we can imagine what it would be for PSR to be true. We can make sense of the idea of a world in which every contingent fact has an explanation. Ok. Keep imagining that. And now add in just one thing: one unexplained fact. That suffices to render PSR false. But why does it also undermine the explanations for each of the other contingent facts?
In fact, ~IPSR is consistent--or, at least, is not immediately inconsistent--with EPSR. That is, it may be that every contingent fact has an explanation even if possibly one of them doesn't. But then it seems that the unieverse and everything in it could very much have an explanation, right now, even though PSR (on one plausible reading) is false.
Of course, there is a lot one could say in reply. One could try to filter the argument through a cosmological argument to secure the claim: if every contingent fact has an explanation, then, perhaps, it can be argued that some necessary being exists and is the ground of whatever possibly exists. But that argument is going to depend on a lot of unstated assumptions not just about explanation but about metaphysics generally.
The problem is that if IPSR is false then there is no reason whatsoever as to why EPSR would hold. It would be a merely accidental fact. EPSR does not explain why we tend to find explanations for things or why things don't pop into existence, it merely *describes* such facts. EPSR would not explain why the universe does not cease to exist at any moment, it merely accomodates it. PSR, by contrast, explains such facts and leads us to expect them. It is also a much more plausible candidate for a metaphysical principle.
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Posted by aftermathemat 2/18/2018 4:20 pm | #9 |
Why? How are you formulating PSR such that this can be asserted straight off?
Of course, there is a lot one could say in reply. One could try to filter the argument through a cosmological argument to secure the claim: if every contingent fact has an explanation, then, perhaps, it can be argued that some necessary being exists and is the ground of whatever possibly exists. But that argument is going to depend on a lot of unstated assumptions not just about explanation but about metaphysics generally.
Well, the main question that starts off the PSR in some form or another is "Why is there something rather than nothing?" / "Why is there anything at all?", and to say that there is an answer to these questions is basically the PSR, because PSR just is the claim that the existence of at least anything contingent must have an explanation. The atheist typically denies that there is any answer to these questions above, which results in saying that the contingent things that exist do so for no reason.
I think it's pretty straightforward as a consequence, especially considering it's something basically all atheists accept when one gets down to the contingency argument.
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Posted by aftermathemat 2/18/2018 4:33 pm | #10 |
But it never happened. And it doesn't happen.
Actually, there are accounts of some rather anomalous (paranormal?) phenomena out there, such as an object randomly appearing again almost as if it were out of nothing even after a person has already disposed of it. To be sure, such accounts are rare, but they do exist.
PSR is a better explanation for the orderly fact that things don't pop into existence uncaused, because this orderly fact is entailed by PSR and is what we'd expect if PSR is true. By contrast, it is not something entailed or explainable by ~PSR, and ~PSR would require an additional brute fact in order to accomodate it: that it's just a brute fact that, even though things could be popping into existence all the time, they never did so and aren't doing so.
Yes, that is what an atheist would be commited to if he denied PSR, because in order to avoid such empirical arguments that you are using he would have to say the non-appearance of brute facts is also a brute fact, and an additional one to boot.
But the thing is, this approach basically ends up saying that we shouldn't expect anything if PSR is false. Which leads us not only to arguments such as the one I sketched out above in my OP, but also to Hume style skepticism about the future, Rising Sun arguments to the effect that we cannot expect the sun to rise if PSR were false, and a whole host of such similar arguments.
Heck, one inductive argument for PSR I've been toying with is one developed by Pruss's raven analogy. If we saw millions of new unique ravens everyday, we would be completely correct to conclude that all ravens are black simply because the sample size would eventually bottom out beyond any doubt. But the same is true of contingent facts; we find millions of new and unique contingent facts every day, and they all are explicable. We are thus correct in inductively concluding that all contingent facts are explicable, in exactly the same way we would be correct to conclude that all ravens are black if we saw millions of new ones every day.
I think we can basically develop a dilemma for the atheist: Either ~PSR makes us expect something empirical will happen, or it forces us to suspend judgement on absolutely everything. The first horn of the dilemma proves the PSR with the empirical failure of things to pop out of nothing, the second horn proves the PSR by showing how ~PSR destroys all of our intuitions as human beings.
Last edited by aftermathemat (2/18/2018 4:34 pm)
