= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
satt comments on Wrong Questions - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (126)
There is still the question of why there is an infinitely long string.
That question fails in the same way as the others. It's asking for a causal node which, if altered or deleted, would turn the infinite string of causal nodes into a finite one. But no node in an infinitely long string has that power, so the question's implicit assumption is false.
A why question has more possible anwers than efficient causality.
This might be true of "Why" questions in general but I'm talking about the more specific class of questions that start "Why is there". Can you think of examples of the latter that have a sensible answer that isn't a salient cause?
Sure. "Why are there airbags in cars" is answered with "to protect the occupants". it would be inane to give a a causal answer, such as "because someone fitted airbags".
"to protect the occupants" is merely syntactically simpler than "because of the builder's desire to protect the occupants." -- the two statements equally well indicate causality.
To be fair, this could be phrased as "because someone decided they were the best way to protect the occupants, and fitted them." However, I would define an answer to a "why is there" question more broadly - what explains why the universe is not in the counterfactual situation of this not being there? If you count any causal antecedent as an answer, you can't explain causal loops, and you can only explain parts of infinite chains, not the whole.
I agree with you about this. (And also agree with you & ArisKatsaris's response to PrawnOfFate's airbag example.) I suspect we just differ in our reactions to this inability to explain: you think it's a bug while I think it's expected behaviour.
Any causal chain eventually has to (1) end, (2) loop back on itself, or (3) go on forever without looping. So it's inevitable that if I try to locate the universe's cause, I'll get a counterintuitive answer. I'll find that it either just sprang into existence without being caused, that it caused itself, or that there's a never-ending procession of turtles.
None of these feel like Real Explanations, but (at least?) one of them must be the case. So I already know, a priori, that the universe's causal chain has no Real Explanation. If I think one exists, that just means I've failed to notice my confusion. Asking "Why is there everything?" and its equivalents is a failure to notice confusion.
What do you think you are confused about? You have grounds for thinking the question has no answer, but those are not per se grounds for thinking there was never a question.
About the reason the universe exists. I'm using "confusion" as shorthand for not having an explanation that feels adequate on a gut level (which leads to a sensation of confusion), whether or not that confusion is justified.
I don't doubt the question's existence. I doubt the question is worth asking.
Because?
By time you are saying things like "Well I'm confused, but... ...and therefore, it must be the case that A, B, or C", you should worry that you have already baked your confusion into your formulation of the question.
Or there could be a fourth explanation neither of us has thought of.
"There could be an (n+1)th explanation neither of us has thought of" is a fully general counterargument to any argument by cases.
It's valid too. Which is one reason not to put p=1.0 on anything.
Why yes, yes it is. Arguing that someone else is wrong, therefore you are right is a well-known cheap debating trick.
Would you care to explain why I'm wrong, rather than sorting my argument into a low-status category?
If propositional calculus (simpler than it sounds is a good way of describing causality in the territory, I very much doubt there is a fourth option. If I'm doing logic right:
1.¬A is A's cause(1)∨A is A's cause (1)(By NOT-3)
2.A has a cause→ ¬A is A's cause(1)∨A is A's cause(1)(By THEN-1)
3.A has a cause→ ¬A is A's cause(1)∨A is A's cause(1)→A has a cause ∧¬A is A's cause(1)∨A is A's cause(1)(By AND-3)
4.A has a cause→A has a cause ∧¬A is A's cause(1)∨ A is A's cause(1)(Modus Ponens on 3)
6.¬A has a cause∨A has a cause ∧ A is A's cause(1)∨¬A is A's cause(1)(Modus ponens on 5)
Which, translated back into English, means that something either has a cause apart from itself, is it's own cause*,or has no cause. If you apply "has a cause apart from itself" recursively, you end up with an infinite chain of causes. Otherwise, you have to go with "is it's own cause(1)", which means the causal chain loops back on itself or "has no cause" which means the causal chain ends.
Nothing thus far, to my knowledge, has been found to defy the axioms of PC, and thus, if PC were wrong, it would seem not only unsatisfying but downright crazy. I believe that I could make at least a thousand claims which I believe as strongly as "If the Universe defied the principles of logic, it would seem crazy to me." and be wrong at most once, so I assign at least a 99.9% probability to the claim that "Why is everything" has no satisfying answer if "It spontaneously sprang into being", "Causality is cyclical." and "an infinite chain of causes" are unsatisfying.
(1)Directly or indirectly
A problem, or a strength, depending on the context, with this sort of argument is that it does not depend on the meaning of the phrase "X is caused by Y". Logically, any binary relation forms chains that are either infinite, lead to a cycle, or stop. If the words "X is caused by Y" indeed define a binary relation, then the argument tells you this fact about that relation.
If the concept being groped for with the words is vague, ill-defined, or confused, then the argument will be working from a wrong ontology, and the precision and soundness of the argument may distract from noticing that. Hume denied causation, in favour of correlation; Pearl asserts causation as distinct but as far as I can see takes it as unproblematic enough for his purposes to leave undefined. The discussion here suggests the concept of causation is still unclear. Or if there is a clear concept, people are still unclear what it is.
The paraphrase introduces some efficient causality without removing all the teleology.
The point I was making is that a preceding cause is not the only kind of answer to a "why" question.
I'd say the causality was there all along and MugaSofer & ArisKatsaris just made it explicit. Causality can become teleology by operating through a mind, but it remains causal for all that.
There is some evidence of that within the universe, but it is not a conceptual identity. The big Why question could still have an answer that is irreducibly teleological. The universe as a whole has to have some unique properties.
Note that I think of teleology as a subset of causation rather than as coextensive with causation.
I don't think I can imagine how this could work. A teleological answer to "why does the universe exist?" implies (at least to me) some goal-seeking agent that makes the universe happen, or orients it towards some particular end. But making stuff happen or pushing it in a particular direction is causality.
I agree, but I don't see why the universe would have to be uniquely irreducibly teleological instead of, say, uniquely acausal (being the only entity that just springs into existence without a cause).