Dan, Its good to hear from you.
On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 2:32 AM, Dan Glover <[email protected]> wrote: > From Religion without God: > > "Here is an ancient philosophical problem. Is there a way the universe > just is? Not for any reason but just because that is the way it > happens to be? Jc: I'd say yes. The Universe is it's own finite cause. > Will theoretical physics one day hit a wall that means > there is just nothing more for it to learn? Jc: That's not a question of the nature of the universe so much as it is a question of theoretical physicists. The Phaedrus hypothesis is the hypothesizing is infinite so it's just a question of when they get tired. > Will it end just in > pointing a finger at what just happens to be? > > "The philosopher Gottfried Leibniz thought that a just-happens-to-be > solution like that makes no sense. Nothing happens, he said, unless > there is a "sufficient reason" for its happening. God made the > universe and so it is a sufficient reason for the universe being the > way it is that God wanted it that way. > > Jc: that's a ridiculous postulatinon - first of all, causation isn't of the universe, its of human thought. Secondly, by his logic, Why is there a God? It's an argument that obviously leads to infinite regress. Jc: > "Bertrand Russell declared that "the universe is just there, and > that's all." Richard Feynman, who is often called the most important > physicist since Einstein, said that he could hope to explain how > things work but not why they work that way. We must just accept, he > said, "Nature as She is-- absurd." > > Dworkin, Ronald (2013-10-01). Religion without God (p. 77). Harvard > University Press. Kindle Edition. > > Dan comments: > I notice that Robert Pirsig asks much the same questions in Lila: > > "Metaphysics is what Aristotle called the First Philosophy. It's a > collection of the most general statements of a hierarchical structure > of thought. On one of his slips he had copied a definition of it as > "that part of philosophy which deals with the nature and structure of > reality." It asks such questions as, "Are the objects we perceive real > or illusory? Does the external world exist apart from our > consciousness of it? Is reality ultimately reducible to a single > underlying substance? If so, is it essentially spiritual or material? > Is the universe intelligible and orderly or incomprehensible and > chaotic?" > > I think he answers the questions much like Richard Feynman. He > explains the how by ordering unfolding experience into four static > quality levels while simultaneously suggesting the why is beyond > explanation. > > DQ is an explanation. It's not a rigorously logical explanation, (defining by the indefinable) but it's an explanation. Thanks Dan, It's been a while. John Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
