MugaSofer comments on Wrong Questions - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 March 2008 05:11PM

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Comment author: MugaSofer 11 April 2013 01:23:09PM -2 points [-]

The question certainly feels dissolved.

Huh. Fair enough.

Maitzen's basic argument reads like a reasonable one to me: either the questioner supplies some actual semantic content for the word "anything" in "Why is there anything?", or they don't. If they do, the question presumably has a naturalistic answer (even if science don't know that answer). If they don't, the question's ill-posed, and dissipates in a cloud of underspecification. (Strictly speaking, only the latter counts as dissolving the question, but then it's only the latter form of the question that ties people up in philosophical knots, so I'm counting it.)

Well, here's my counter-dissolution rephrasing: "Why is there everything? Including the things you assume exist when providing a naturalistic explanation of, say, penguins?"

Of course, the argument might be really terrible even though it passes my smell test. I'll keep an eye out in Discussion for your counterargument.

As you know, I actually ended up posting a pared-down version here, but I would have posted a link here anyway.

Comment author: satt 12 April 2013 01:16:08AM 0 points [-]

TheOtherDave's answer seems close enough to what I'd have said here that I'll just point at what he wrote!

Comment author: MugaSofer 12 April 2013 09:15:05PM -2 points [-]

Then I guess I'll have to point at my reply to him ;)