Philosophy of Religion 1: Cosmological Argument from Contingency (Thorough)

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1. Great video! For anyone interested Oppositum has a similar series on the PSR and why any objection to it ultimately fails.
2. @3:07 "... now as we shall see later the whole universe is contingent."
   
   Is this the case?
   
   If so, please demonstrate for us that the whole universe is contingent.
   
   Thanks
3. I loved the video, thanks for making it! I have a question. Could one accept Mackie's argument that we have no reason to believe that the universe will comply with our intellectual preferences, but nonetheless accept PSR for pragmatic reasons? If we reject the PSR, what stops us from just rejecting anything and everything without reason? Couldn't I just say in response to an argument I don't like "you are wrong, and that is an inexplicable brute fact." I don't really see a substantive difference between that response and rejecting the PSR to avoid the conclusion of the argument from contingency. If this is the case, then rejecting the PSR undermines the entire rational enterprise, and thus we have pragmatic reasons for accepting in methodologically. I would love to hear your thoughts!
4. Seems to me you miss the fact that not all 'how do you get your argument to stop at god?' responses come in the form 'what CAUSED god?'
   
   We can still apply PSR to God because there is no satisfying explanation of why there should be a necessary being, let alone how such a thing might exist. God might be uncaused but this does not mean God is explained. A necessary being is as puzzling as a contingent one. You imply that the universe's existence can always be questioned as it might have been otherwise, but this is not necessarily true. The universe may be necessary, indeed it seems far more plausible to argue that the essence of the universe is existence than that God's essence is existence due to the fact that when we speak of existence we typically mean something loosely translatable into 'is in the world'. (Exceptions to this rule are abstract objects such as numbers and it is deeply debatable whether one can truly state 'the number 7 exists' and what one might mean if one can. ) 'The world' is the very concept of existence and so it is far less sensible to state 'The world (ie. the sphere of existence) might not have existed'. Obviously this is rather subjective stuff but i would like to know how a necessary being is its own sufficient reason. Simply stating that it could not be otherwise does not eliminate the possibility of asking 'why could it not be otherwise'?
5. *Premise 2.*
   Let me look at the answers supplied at point 4). (26:00)
   
   1) Is a critique that breaks down when you are talking about axiomatic foundations, or the sort of truths which cannot be denied because to deny them would not be constitutive of rational discourse about objective reality. Within a formal system, there is no formal argument for an axiom apart from restating the axiom itself. Squinting, you can call it a kind of circular argument, but this type of 'circular' reasoning is perfectly acceptable for objective foundational knowledge.
   
   2) This sounds a bit like it's based on a denial of the composition fallacy as you've described it. No one says that the composite has to be from something like mere addition, or that the favored theory can't supply some additional structure about the entire ensemble. We could, for instance, have physical laws such that the most cogent extrapolation from local predictive rules stipulates a unique trajectory through all history. If you mash the sheep up and cover them in chocolate sauce, you are on the way to making a sheep chocolate.
   
   3) Not so. Even if I accept that each train car does not contain an engine, there may be a composition of parts distributed through the whole series which is an engine. Again, the set of collections of parts from the series is not the same thing as the set of all collections of parts from particular cars. Additionally, the cars themselves may have necessary parts, even if no car as a whole is necessary. Can we seriously claim that we have broken everything in the natural world down to an observation of its smallest features, that there aren't some parts of phenomena which we haven't fully explored and checked for necessity? This is assuming that there is even a cogent scientific way to check whether or not something has "sufficient reasons within itself".
   
   *Premise 1.*
   
   Leibnitz' book example also helps give a lot of clarity, I think, since the metaphor for a temporal series is obviously on his mind. By most reasonable definitions of necessity for events, the present moment, or immediate perception, is either strictly necessary or at least in a special indeterminate class. We generally take the immediate present to be necessary when trying to determine the future, and all our practical efforts are ultimately aimed toward attaining future outcomes. If we have in hand a particular book which we take to be necessary, we have the initial conditions required to extrapolate forward and backward in the series and justify the contents of each and every book.
   
   **
   
   Overall, I think that theists often have a strange notion of when we must import 'transcendent' beings. Ineluctable foundations for reasoning or conceptual frameworks for explaining reality in the situation where we stand are sufficient to justify apparently contingent, raw events -- and these concepts are in a sense timeless, in that they make no reference to time in their formal structure. However they are not transcendent, not in the sense that they obviously must be 'living' in some sort of fully 'real' realm of Forms apart from the activity of our own mortal minds.
   
   The motivation for theists to view this cosmological argument as persuasive is also pretty obvious if, as I do, you view equivocation to be a fundamental device for doing work with religious rhetoric. If you conflate the idea of imminent necessity with your personal God, this 'proof' can help you feel that your particular faith is justified.
   
   What it glosses over, however, is that all the other aspects of God are apparently contingent if you pursue this cosmological argument aggressively. Classic theism depends on a revelatory account of some kind or another. Just as the physicist admits that the constants 'could' be different, the theist must admit that he 'could' have misunderstood the teachings or heard a different story and taken that to be right instead.
   
   Even if the cosmological argument works, God still tends to come across as a possible contingent being which is taken to actually exist as a matter of faith. If God exists, then simply as a matter of definition, it incorporates this 'transcendent' aspect. However, the fully fleshed God is still not shown to exist, and has rather been shown to rest on the same sort of shaky footing which motivated the search for something like the cosmological argument in the first place.
6. *Premise 3:*
   
   I suspect that part of the reason why you may be wavering between accepting PSR and rejecting it is because you are trying to fit conflicting but contextually reasonable ideas into the same metaphysical box. Whether PSR should be accepted or rejected depends on the domain of reasoning -- so I suppose, in a pretty technical sense, that I categorically reject strict PSR for all of Reason.
   
   Within mathematics, I'd say that PSR should be accepted. In fact it's an analytic truth in my view. Mathematical truths are the goal of mathematical reasoning, and mathematical truths are precisely those propositions for which there is sufficient reason (i.e, rigorous proof). This isn't to say that the community of mathematicians always operates with complete rigor before accepting a proposition as true -- they often leave some of the minor details unspoken as a matter of trust and confidence and shared competency. Important foundational proofs often get extremely close scrutiny, however, and effectively attain the ideal rigor.
   
   But within science, I'd say that PSR should not be accepted. The expectation that science will eventually "make everything intelligible" or explain everything down to the minutest detail, seems to be based on an inaccurate view of science. In particular, this is not actually how scientific theories work to explain material within their respective spheres of observation. When we construct scientific theories, we always treat some of our data as simply given. Moreover, we almost always have to separate the signal from the noise. The theory tries to predict the regular and important aspect of phenomena as best it can, but generally there will be minor details which the theory declines to predict. A complete description of the phenomena being studied is not the thing which scientists pass around and eventually accept as a matter of consensus. The theoretical model is always moderated by the intellectual faculties and interests of the theoretician. However far science develops, we'll still have these limits, so long as we are remotely human.
   
   Now, my main critics seem like they would be the proponents of one of these cosmological arguments, who seem to be coming from a platonist sort of direction that privileges 'raw' metaphysics as an authority over all other domains of inquiry, so that this 'aspect' of God has to be accepted as an invokable part of all objective discourse. Such people may argue that my account of science effectively admits that science cannot explain everything, and hence that by their definition(s), I'm effectively agreeing that all features of the natural world (i.e. all 'beings') are contingent. They would then lean on me with some reasons why I should accept their view of PSR. Some of these, such as the claim that PSR is more intellectually ambitious and better reflective of intellectual integrity, are, if not persuasive, then capable of sullying my character if not answered carefully. As explaining myself in this area could take considerable time, let me try to nip that line of argumentation in the bud.
   
   Even at my strongest zeal for supporting our scientific institutions, I am not prepared to say that science is the only method for getting reasons to accept that something is sufficiently explained. Even when idealizing pretty heavily, it is, at best, the only objective method of reasoning. That's enough to give science enormous dominance over public discourse, but there are still subjective patterns of thinking, such as those in the contemplative traditions that are not scientific in themselves, but which help us to justify to ourselves that the existing reasons for things are sufficient. These patterns of thinking can be the subject of scientific inquiry and technological progress, and there isn't reason at present to accept that we (as a number of individuals) can't ultimately find that we have sufficient reasons for everything. It would thus seem that an objectively existent God isn't a necessary part of this purely humanistic account, and that since this account is possible, God is not necessary.
7. t--hank you v much ...only 10 mins in and googled three times [ with 100 per cent success rate]!....don't forget, the best way to educate is to provoke [emerson?] so throw the odd expletive in
8. It is also worth noting that logic alone dictates that creatio ex nihilo is incoherent and so is false by definition. One cannot have absolute nothing, and something that 'exists', necessarily, contingently or otherwise. That is, if god exists, absolute nothing cannot, by definition. This is basic set theory and it doesn't matter how you define god. If god exists, god MUST be something, whatever that something is defined as.
   
   Further, on ex nihilo creation, since physics describes the evolution of systems and system states, the central contention of this claim is that there is no prior state of ANY KIND from which the universe can possibly evolve. And since there is no time, there can be no cause, at least in the sense we understand cause and affect to apply IN the universe. Indeed, as there is no prior state of any kind (if there were this would violate the claim of absolute nothing), there can be no god by definition. This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that if creatio ex nihilo did occur, the creation of the universe must have been uncaused as there are no prior conditions that exist to be able to cause anything. As you say, you can't have it both ways.
   
   Finally, as Sean Carroll comments, and I paraphrase, 'what we want, expect or can reason by simply kicking off our shoes and engaging in a touch of armchair ratiocination, has zero relevance to what the universe actually is or how it actually behaves', none of which conforms to the reasoning discussed here.
9. According to the first law of thermodynamics energy CANNOT be created or destroyed. That is, energy DOES NOT require a creator by axiomatic definition. In other words energy has to contain within itself a reason for its own existence, whether we know why or what that is or not. On the issue of asking what created energy, I think we can invoke exactly the same argument you use to conclude a non contingent necessary being, only it's not a being is it?
   
   On PSR, universes do not 'pop' into existence, and so this argument fails at the starting gate. The philosophy of cause and effect simply do not apply to the universe and certainly not at a quantum level.
   
   About Leibniz he DID NOT create calculus! This was Isaac Newton.
10. Great video :D
    
    You did address this in a question. However, I believe questioning PSR, and questioning what the sufficient being is, are the best criticisms of the argument.
    
    You gave a short explanation on a possibility of why the sufficient being would be conscious/intelligent, however this was far from a proof. The sufficient being doesn't even have to be a being (at least in the common definition of "being" as I see it). It can be any kind of transcendent force. Consciousness is not something I would necessitate onto this "thing", as I see no reason for it to be necessitated. I can easily imagine a transcendent force that acts much like a physical law/phenomena, and is sufficient.
    
    Thus, a sufficient being isn't the conclusion, but a sufficient cause is the conclusion.
11. I am sort of a newbie, just browsing through your video, few things that struck me. Mentioning this as a disclaimer I may make some quite obvious errors.
    
    Questions:
    
    1]My major question is regarding point 5. Argument supports necessary being not God. I assume you didnt get into the depths of this section since that would open up the ontological argument. However I am still stuck at it. First I would like to have this distinction clarified - Are you arguing there exists a necessary being and then defining this necessary being as God along with whatever attributes it (necessary being) has in reality. Or are you saying this argument can be used to prove the existence of God as we know (pretty vague, but I hope you know what I mean). In your explanation of the train and the leibnitz book analogy, the necessary being seemed to be the engine car, or the original book. So as an extension, (here's where I suppose I am making errors since this is out of intuition), wouldnt, or more appropriately couldnt, the necessary being for the universe in time be a state of the universe that is timeless or an extension of the universe as we know it. And if that is possible, are you calling it God, or does the argument say God as we know, is the most likely candidate for necessary being. Somehow, God just seems like either naming a dead end for logical progression or a not-so-good inference of an argument- I know this sounds very much like Darwin's statement.
    
    2]Quantum physics part - again I am probably even more of an amateur in this area, however, just applying logic, your argument against it sounded more like the question "What caused God?" The quantum fluctuations you talked about could be like the train engine car right? We might not know why the engine car is moving forward but it is the necessary being for the train cars to move. So how am I wrong (I am pretty sure I am) in saying you cannot ask the dependency for quantum fluctuations because I say it IS the independent necessary being. Just as the theist argument where I cannot question the dependency of God.
    
    I will comment further questions after rewatching the video. I had a few more but cannot recall right now. I think your explanations/arguments would be much clearer with the ontological argument in play. Just seems incomplete without it.
12. Great video - thanks Paul. My immediate reaction is to reject premise 1 and the PSR primarily because the terms 'being' and 'existence' are not defined and appear to be based on an intuitive understanding of the words. Our best models of the physical world describe a fundamental nature to reality that is far from intuitive, in which at the smallest scale 'things' are not the distinct entities we are used to but are probably better described as fuzzy dances. At that level it appears that it is the dance, the behaviour, that is more important than the thing itself. This makes me very sceptical about our intuitive understanding of existence and it suggests that our categorisation of the world into 'things' may be a feature of human nature rather than fundamental to reality. Certainly, I have sufficient doubt in our intuitive ideas to think that premise 1 and the PSR are not logically necessary.
13. Never assert things that cannot be checked.
    
    Suppose you have an Aunt Alice, but no one you know has heard from her in years. Suppose you strongly believe that Aunt Alice is pregnant, but there is no one you can ask to check that you are correct. You have only your intuition and a strong feeling that she is pregnant. Would you go ahead and assert that Aunt Alice really is pregnant without checking?
    
    Consider the least that you can possibly do to check something. If you can't even do that, then surely you should not make the assertion. Suppose you have the idea that all swans are white. About the least you can do to check this idea would be to find an example swan. Perhaps a friend has seen a swan and you could ask her what color it was. It's not a very strong check, but it serves the purpose of a minimal check because if you were wrong then you'd have at least a slim chance of discovering a non-white swan.
    
    People make mistakes every day, therefore anything that cannot be checked cannot be trusted. Suppose you are trapped on a deserted island with no books and no tools. Suppose you remember that the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. Even if you doubted your memory and wanted to check that number, you have no hope of doing so. You can't even do the minimal sort of check from the white swan example. If you flipped two of the digits around, you'll never be able to recognize the mistake. In this situation, you really shouldn't assert the speed of light on your own authority alone.
    
    Premise 1: "There are contingent beings."
    
    In other words, there are beings that do not contain within themselves the reason of their existence. How might we check this? I would want to pick a random object and examine its contents for a reason of its own existence, but how would I know if I found what I was looking for?
    
    Suppose I destroyed an object. That might indicate that its reason for existing was partially inside myself and my choice to not destroy it, but unfortunately the object ceases to exist as soon as I destroy it so I still haven't found an example of a contingent object. What I really want to check is whether I could possibly have destroyed it before I destroyed it, but how does one check the road not taken without a time machine? Maybe there was an invisible barrier or something like that until the moment I destroyed the object, and unfortunately I can see no way to check that.
    
    This is a hard premise to check, but people more clever than myself can surely think of ways to check it that I've overlooked, so I will move on to the next premise.
    
    Premise 2: "Contingent beings do not sufficiently explain themselves, nor does the totality of contingent beings explain itself."
    
    The first part of this premise comes directly from the definition of contingent, so we can check that just by rewinding the video to the point at which contingent is defined.
    
    The second part of the premise is far more difficult to check. Suppose we lived in a world where the totality of contingent beings did explain itself. How would that world look different from the actual world? What can we do or observe that might in principle reveal that we're wrong about the totality of contingent beings not explaining itself? We need to approach this check from a different angle.
    
    Think of the totality of contingent beings like a wall made of red bricks. We know that we can't use the fallacy of composition to immediately infer that the totality of contingent beings is contingent, but we might be able to figure out rules about the structure of the totality of contingent beings. With those rules we might show that the contingent beings fit together like bricks in a wall to create a contingent totality. Specifically, we need to check that none of the contingent beings come together to create any sort of improvised explanation for the totality.
    
    In the spirit of minimal checking, we can simply take any collection of contingent beings and see if they explain the totality. Now we just need to figure out how to recognize an explanation for the totality of contingent beings when we see one.
    
    It seems that premise 2 is also extremely hard to check.
    
    Premise 3 is the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Fortunately we are only concerned with minimal checking so we don't need to exhaustively search the entire universe and catalog the sufficient reason of everything. We can just pick any one thing and see what sort of reasons it has. If one thing turns out to have sufficient reasons, then we've done the least we can do to check the principle.
    
    Unfortunately we are yet again at a roadblock because it's not clear how we could find the complete reason of even one thing.
    
    In effect we're trapped on a deserted island with nothing but these three claims and no hope of ever checking them. We can consult our memories and our intuitions to see if the claims feel good, but in the end that is all we can do. We have to choose whether to accept or reject the premises using nothing but own authorities.
14. thinking about this idea about train, if some of the car at the start, are going downhill then i don't think we need a motorcar.
    
    so is not we really talking about a necessary reason, and not a necessary being.
15. They're trying really hard to not let God go away, aren't they? But their efforts are useless. Humanity is going towards a no-religion, cosmopolitan society.