MugaSofer comments on Wrong Questions - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: MugaSofer 14 April 2013 04:28:58PM -2 points [-]

Applying Greek thought to "Ehyeh asher ehyeh" is an attempt to get at something that "explain(s) itself", I am sure you are familiar with St. Thomas Aquinas and his five ways.

Yup. Being a theist, I suspect God is in some way the cause of everything, although I'm not really smart enough to understand how that could be. I leave the answer to some future genius (or, more likely, superintelligent AI.)

Saying we have a logical reason for things existing seems to be on that same level of reasoning and appears to just add another turtle to me.

Really? But logic, as a mathematical construct, "exists" (in the sense that it exists at all) independently of physical objects; a calculator on mars will get the same result as one on Earth, even if they have no causal connection. Logic seems like it can explain things in terms of platonic mathematical structure, not contingent physical causes.

Comment author: PrawnOfFate 14 April 2013 06:29:42PM 0 points [-]

Logic is independent of particular objects (multiply realisable), but there is is no evidence that it exists immaterially

Comment author: MugaSofer 15 April 2013 11:39:44AM -2 points [-]

Not entirely sure what "exists" even means in cases like this, but yeah, then I guess you're restricted to self-causing entities in that case, whatever that might mean.