Friday, November 4, 2011
The Principle of Sufficent Reason: No Brute Facts?
You are hiking in a remote wilderness, miles from the nearest building or even cell phone tower. You come upon a clearing and see a crystal sphere hovering over you and emitting colorful light pulses in some seeming order: red, blue, green and the pattern repeats. Should there be an explanation for this odd phenomenon or is it acceptable to shrug our shoulders and mutter "Stuff happens"? Can we extrapolate from this case to a general principle of the universe? If so, can we prove that God (or a reasonable facsimile) exists?
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I have never come across anything that I could not also find a cause, a means, for its creation. It would seem safe to assume that a phenomenon, such as the crystal sphere, does not exist without a cause. I may not know how such a thing came to exist, but my I am inclined to believe that such an explanation exists as well. While I believe this point is largely agreeable, it does not seem prudent to apply a principle of my limited observation to something as large as the universe. At the same time the idea that something exists without a cause for its existence seems confounding to me. Perhaps it is because when contemplate this notion I find myself searching for the cause of why something would exist without a cause, and in this way I contradict the very thing I am trying to think possible.
ReplyDeleteTo prove the Principle of Sufficient Reason wrong I need only find one thing that exists, but I cannot find the reason its existence. Everything I can think of falls into two categories: Things that exists through natural means, and such means are known. The second category being things that exist through unknown means. The problem that arises is that I am unable to conclude with certainty that what exist through unknown means exists through means at all. At the same time I am unable to prove that it does.
From this point the Principle of Sufficient Reason seems impossible to prove. A conceivable way around this problem would be the existence of God, or an ultimate cause. With everything's cause of existence tracing back to this ultimate cause. However, if an ultimate cause is needed to prove the Principle of Sufficient Reason, then the principle cannot be used to prove the existence of an ultimate cause without becoming circular. It would seem that the Principle of Sufficient Reason can only be seen as creditable if the cause of everything is known, which would require knowledge of everything in the universe. This does not seem to be a reality to mankind at this time, and for that reason I cannot accept Principle of Sufficient Reason as being a definite truth.
Of course there should be an explanation for the floating sphere. In my opinion, everything in the universe has an explanation for its existence. That would mean that there is an explanation, or cause, for the colorful, floating ball. What that cause is is a completely different story. However, just because we can’t think of what the cause is doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. To say “stuff happens” means that you have no idea what the cause is. Adam talked about the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which states “whatever exists must have a cause or reason for existence”. While, in my opinion, this is an adequate principle to apply to the universe, there is one flaw. If everything has a cause or reason for existence, then there is no real starting point. Like Adam said, the only way to break this infinite chain of causes is through God, because God would be the starting point, the ultimate cause. The Cosmological Argument argues for God’s existence, which breaks the infinite chain. The first premise is the Principle of Sufficient Reason; the second states that there must be an infinite chain of succession or cause; even an infinite chain needs a cause for existence; there must be an ultimate cause; God exists. In my opinion, the Cosmological Argument proves God’s existence. Everything has a cause, but there needs to be an ultimate cause, and God fits the description perfectly.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that there are some things in the world we don’t understand nor have the answers to. With the phenomenal in the woods, no we do not know where the glowing sphere came from but we do know that the object came from somewhere. Where it came from or who created it we do not know, but who is to say that it just appeared before our eyes with no reason or purpose. In the case of the universe we have no full concrete proof that the universe was created by a intelligent being or if it was not. As Cleanthes states on pages 8-11 that if we have contradicting evidence that we should withhold judgment, if we have little evidence we should not believe it and if we have a great deal of evidence we should believe it. In the case of rather God exist we have contradicting evidence so we cannot make the judgment either way. But on that note how do we explain the existence of our universe and the human race without some kind of intelligent being to create it. If we do not have a creator to explain the world then we have an infinite creation that can not be explained. The way the universe is put together in such a specific way there is no way it all happen by chance of rocks exploding. The fact if we a few inches closer or further away from the sun we could not survive. Everything in the universe is so specific, it can only be explained by some type of being who created it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Adam in that I cannot disprove the principle of sufficient reason with my current knowledge. Inductively, everything that we know of either has a reason to exist or might have a reason to exist, but we do not know of this reason. There is clearly enough evidence to show that things do not just 'happen' My disagreement with Hume lies in what is considered to be sufficient reason. The universe does not necessarily have to be designed or created by a god to have sufficient reason to exist. It is possible that something lesser created the universe. What if there was some natural force that formed the universe? The universe is clearly not a perfect creation, so how could an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent being have created something less than perfect.
ReplyDeleteTo contradict myself, a rebuttal for the above argument is that the natural force needs a creator in itself. If the chain were followed to the beginning, we would find perfection. There is in fact a scientific law that might prove the existence of a perfect being (or a god should we name this being). According to the principle of entropy, the universe is in a constant state of degradation. Order always turns into chaos, and the only way to create more order is to make another part of the universe more chaotic than the order produced. Theoretically, the universe could have started from a state of perfect order. What if the universe itself is the decomposition of a God? Maybe the universe was perfect at one point, but has degraded to the point that we no longer directly see the influence of a perfect being.
I believe that there is a reason and or explanation behind everything that happens. To not question the origins of this mysterious orb I believe is foolish in that everything has a purpose and from that purpose comes an explanation. I think that existing in an of itself brings forth an explanation of why the object is in existence. Without a purpose of explanation I believe that there is no existence. For example if one has no purpose in life how is that person any different from a person that does not actually exist? Ultimately if something does not exist then there cannot be any explanation, yet if something does exist then an explanation is needed.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the Universe as a whole this concept of no explanations cannot stand. Due to the fact that everything in the universe works in such harmony together bears testament to the fact that there must be an answer or explanation to everything that is in existence. Such an intricate universe such as ours must have a purpose otherwise it would not exist.
In terms of the universe as a whole, I believe that everything does indeed happen for a reason. There has to be an explanation behind the various objects/things/forces in our world that are solely designed for a certain purpose and or one specific function. Things do not just simply happen to come into existence; everything does have a reason for it being brought into being. I agree with Robert completely in his reasoning for disagreeing with Hume. For me, this isn’t enough evidence to make the statement that the universe had to be designed or created by a god in order to give it reason. It is possible that a being who’s not omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent may have created the universe. When you actually think about it if a “god”, one’s whose omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent actually did exist; why would there be a universe with such apparent flaws?
ReplyDeleteFirst, I do not believe that the Principal of Sufficient Reason is correct. It’s not necessarily true that everything that happens in the universe would have a cause. For example, I am sitting at a table in the AC Lobby- I have two options, to lift my right foot or to lift my left foot. Either way, no other thing in the universe is going to be impacted unless there is something on the other side of the universe that parallels my actions, which would be impossible to prove and therefore the possibility of which can be ignored. I believe that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is nothing more than a mask of human curiosity- we must find a cause for everything we observe because of our innate curiosity. Thus, if we accept that we don’t have to find a cause for everything, we don’t have to worry about finding the cause of the sphere or even the universe.
ReplyDeleteNext, even if we believe that there should be a cause to the universe, that cause is not necessarily an infinite being- it could be a being complex enough that it could create our universe in its fishbowl. Then, this being is in a house with several other being, and because this house must have a cause, it was created by another even more complex being that also lives in a house with several other beings and multiple universes in fishbowls. As you can see, demanding a cause for the universe does not necessary create an infinite being, and in the case that there it is not an infinite being, an infinite regress is created. Thus, I believe that we should not search for a cause of the universe because it is completely out of our grasp.
The principal of sufficient reason is sound because if it it were to be untrue there would be some challenging implications. One such implication being: the floating sphere simply ‘popped’ into existence which most people would reject as absurd. Even if things were capable of coming into existence there must be some cause that allows for this. Something must have bent natural laws to allow for a sphere to be floating in the middle of the woods. Or, the sphere could be there because of an infinite chain of events that allow it to logically exist there, but, even in this case something must be the cause of these circumstances. Everything in our universe must be caused by something and if one where to follow this trail far enough into infinity they would find an ultimate cause fr everything that exists.
ReplyDeleteWhile the principle of sufficient reason is true, it is far from proving the existence of God. The principle of sufficient reason only proves that there is an ultimate cause of everything that exists. It does not prove that this cause is god. Nothing in the principle of sufficient reason points towards a god that is all powerful, all good, or all knowing. This ultimate cause may not even have chosen what it caused and it is therefore just an entity that causes things without any thought or plan.