1. Hmmm . . .
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    01 Sep '06 01:57
    Originally posted by lucifershammer
    When I use the terms "necessary" or "contingent" in referring to the Universe, I suppose I'm referring to metaphysical necessity. However, when I speak of "logically necessary", I'm using it in the standard logical sense (e.g. it is logically necessary that 2+2 is 4; i.e. it follows from the definitions of the terms involved); not in the sense used in ...[text shortened]... ge you cite (which I consider to be more like 'ontological' or existential necessity).
    Just so I understand then (and so I don't wander astray), when you speak of a “necessary being” (i.e., a necessary, extra-U cause), you are speaking of metaphysical necessity?
  2. Hmmm . . .
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    01 Sep '06 03:551 edit
    My thinking seems a bit sloppy tonight, so forgive me for adding this to my prior response. I just want to keep track of the “forest.” So—

    To recap my arguments:

    I. There is no such thing as “everything in the universe” (again: things, energy, forces, relationships, etc.) plus the universe-itself. The universe is not a thing that contains, so to speak, its elements in their relationships—like ants in a jar; nor is “it” a separable cause of them—the way rain causes plants to grow. The universe is defined by those elements and relationships—it is the name we give to the whole of them.

    Therefore it is an error to treat the universe-itself as an effect needing an “outside” cause.

    When we get to that “group,” it is impossible to go further without question-begging—or saying something like, “We can’t get any further without assuming a necessary extra-U cause; we ought to be able to go further; therefore there must be such a necessary cause.” (This links with II, and the analogy problem, since if we can’t go further, we have no way to construct a proper analogy)

    II. We are barred from examining U-as-a-whole (or as an “itself” ) in any way that is unconditioned by our existence in U. There is no extra-U “viewpoint” from which we can do so.* (It is for this reason also that U-itself has no proper analogy, and that all analogies drawn from within U can be criticized as being incomplete.)

    III. (a) If there is no bar on proposing an extra-U necessary being, there is no bar on proposing that U has the properties, that are outside (transcendental to) our intellectual access, that make up such a “necessary being”—within and of U itself.

    (b) Since any such extra-U entity would also be outside (transcendental to) our intellectual access—i.e., has the Hume/Blackburn “unknown and inconceivable” properties—we have no “view from nowhere” from which to contemplate it. (This links to II.)

    IV. The Kantian argument, which I will drop for now.

    __________________________

    * Unless you start to assume something like “divine revelation,” which makes me wonder if the cosmological argument really can get off the ground without additional assumptions about the nature of the necessary being.
  3. Joined
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    03 Sep '06 23:352 edits
    Originally posted by vistesd
    [/i]I have several arguments, presented here in descending order, roughly according to how I would weight them—or, think of them as “gates”: if you can’t get through the first one, the others don’t matter (except from the point of view of intellectual exercise).

    In the following, I am using the universe in it’s ordinary the “all of all of all of it,” wit orrections to this, so if you're reading it before seeing this, please reread--sorry!
    [/b]
    I'm going to try enter this discussion slowly. I don't find the Eskimo argument very convincing (as it relates to the Cosmological Argument [CA]) for a couple reasons:

    1. Yes, it is true that we cannot separate the universe "itself" from the entities which comprise the universe. But the CA, I think, does not require otherwise. It only requires that we be able to reasonably talk about the universe itself as a set -- a set of entities; and that we be able to speak about sets as being necessary or contingent. It seems to me that we can do this: otherwise, Set Theory would be incoherent.

    2. The Hume-ian argument (that to explain a set it is sufficient to explain each and every member of the set) may or may not be correct. But, in either case, it does not adequately bear on the CA. Most formulations of the CA rely on (usually a strong version of) the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), and therefore, the proponent of the CA can say that Hume's argument is not adequate for the following reason: it does not explain at least one other (brute) fact. In the case of saying that the universe is an eternal set of contingent entities (in which each contingent entity is explained by some other contingent entity within the set, forming an infinite causal chain), the unexplained brute fact would be that there is and always has been contingent entities. Your example is structured differently, so I don't want to try to propose a rigorous analogy. But it suffices to say that the proponent of the PSR would not grant that the travel stories of each individual Eskimo constitute an adequate explanation of the resultant group.
  4. Hmmm . . .
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    04 Sep '06 01:29
    Originally posted by LemonJello
    I'm going to try enter this discussion slowly. I don't find the Eskimo argument very convincing (as it relates to the Cosmological Argument [CA]) for a couple reasons:

    1. Yes, it is true that we cannot separate the universe "itself" from the entities which comprise the universe. But the CA, I think, does not require otherwise. It only requires that ...[text shortened]... ories of each individual Eskimo constitute an adequate explanation of the resultant group.
    It only requires that we be able to reasonably talk about the universe itself as a set -- a set of entities; and that we be able to speak about sets as being necessary or contingent.

    Maybe you can flesh this out for me a bit. For example, should the universe be considered as the set of all sets, or not? Does it make sense to speak of the universe-set itself as an effect needing a cause? Is it necessary to “reach outside” the universe in order to be able to talk about it as a set, as opposed to simply talking about its elements and their relationships? (I would think that’s not really possible.) I’m not strong on set theory, so maybe I am missing something.

    Also, with regard to the “analogy problem,” can the universe-set be simply treated like other sets within the universe?

    The Hume-ian argument (that to explain a set it is sufficient to explain each and every member of the set) may or may not be correct.

    Well, Russell’s argument here, in his debate with Father Copleston, was not that such an explanation is sufficient, if by sufficiency is meant complete. His argument was that such a complete explanation is not possible—at least without question-begging of the sort that I tried to show.

    Is this a Humean argument? I presented as a different one from the Hume/Blackburn argument in my III.
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