May 14th, 2013
by Max Andrews
When we think of infinity we usually think of the usual two categorical distinctions: a potential infinite and an actual infinite. A potential infinite suggests that infinity is only an idea or a concept but doesn’t actually exist in the Platonic sense or in the physical sense. In any set, one may always be added. An actual infinite is the notion that there exists such a set, Platonic or physical, whichis infinite. A potential infinity may be symbolized by a lemniscate: ∞. An actual infinite can be depicted by the aleph-null or aleph-nought: ℵ0 (The Hebrew letter aleph with a subscript zero).
First, let’s have a brief refresher on set theory. A set is any collection of things or numbers that belong to a well-defined category. In a set notation, this would be written as {2, 3, 5, 7, 11} being the first five prime numbers, which is a finite set of things. Let’s simply signify this set as S. There is a proper subset (SS) of S. There are members in S that are not in SS, but no member of SS that is not in S.
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Posted in Logic, Mathematics, Metaphysics | No Comments »
April 30th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Question:
Max,
I have a question regarding God being all-knowing in light of the impossibility of an actual infinite set.
I assume the following premises:
· God knows all true propositions of past, present and future.
· God does not learn anything but has always known everything. If He was to learn something that would imply there was something He did not know, which would mean He is not all-knowing.
· It is impossible to contain or hold an infinite set because such an action would imply that it is finite instead of infinite.
Are these three premises valid? If they are, does it follow that the number of events in the future are finite? If so, how does that cohere with the belief that we will be in relation with God for all eternity?
Bill Clute
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Posted in Metaphysics | 4 Comments »
April 26th, 2013
by Max Andrews
In the eighteenth century David Hume held that the relation of cause and effect obtains only when one or more laws subsume the related events—that is, cover them as cases or instances of the operation of the law.[1] This method and criticism of causality deprived science of any valid foundation in necessary connections obtaining between actual events and of leaving it with nothing more reliable than habits of mind rooted in association. Hume’s mode of inquiry was one in which questions yield results that are not entirely new, giving rise to knowledge that can only be derived by an inferential process from what was already known. Humean regularities and constant connections cannot be reduced to scientific explanations. If scientific explanation is causal explanation, and causation is law-governed sequence, then it follows that scientific explanations require laws. However, a problem with this (i.e. the ideal gas law: PV=nRT) is that instead of making things clearer, it threatens to involve the analysis of scientific explanation in a thicket of “metaphysical” issues that several philosophers and positivists sought to avoid.[2] Scientific explanation requires a causal explanation, which requires a law-governed explanation.
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Posted in Metaphysics, Philosophy of Science, Science | 1 Comment »
April 5th, 2013
by Max Andrews
The Newtonian system depicted a deterministic universe but it was not causally closed. Newtonian mechanics in conjunction with the Laplacian causally closed universe entails problems for divine immanence. Because of Einstein’s relativity the Newtonian and Laplacian models have been abandoned. The present discussion of how God interacts with the world has shifted to quantum mechanics. There are over a dozen interpretations, which mathematically describe the quantum world. Objections from the principle of conservation are moot in an Einsteinian universe because it is not causally closed. Even so, certain quantum interpretations reject the principle of conservation such as the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber (GRW) interpretation. In a theistic context, GRW makes sense of external causes having an ontological link to the physical world without violating conservation.[1]
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Posted in Metaphysics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science | 2 Comments »
March 4th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Question:
I often here materialists argue that minds are the products of brains. I also have heard some argue that minds are non physical. However, I was recently approached with a challenge to materialism on YouTube (specifically this video by a user named OntoLogistics
youtube.com/watch?v=sIr22Puh1Wk) where he argued a transcendent mind and argued that materialism is faith based and is based on minimal evidence. I have never heard any clear objections to materialism however a few questions (I am not materialist myself by the way):
1. Is mind Non Physical?
2. Does the mind transcend the brain?
3. Is materialism verifiable/valid?
4. Does the soul exist?
5. your thoughts on mind/body dualism
Sam
Answer:
Sam,
Thanks for sending me your question and the material you’ve included. Before I respond to the arguments presented by OntoLogistics I’ll give you a brief response to your five questions and then I’ll elaborate on them.
- Is the mind non-physical? -Yes
- Does the mind transcend the brain? -Yes
- Is materialism verifiable/valid? -Maybe
- Does the soul exist? -Yes
- [My] thoughts on mind/body dualism: I consider myself to be a Cartesian dualist.
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Posted in Metaphysics, Philosophy | 2 Comments »
February 5th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Max Tegmark, “Parallel Universes,” Scientific American 2003.
The following is the abstract to Don Page’s paper, “A Theological Argument for an Everett Multiverse.”
Science looks for the simplest hypotheses to explain observations. Starting with the simple assumption that {\em the actual world is the best possible world}, I sketch an {\it Optimal Argument for the Existence of God}, that the sufferings in our universe would not be consistent with its being alone the best possible world, but the total world could be the best possible if it includes an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God who experiences great value in creating and knowing a universe with great mathematical elegance, even though such a universe has suffering.
God seems loathe to violate elegant laws of physics that He has chosen to use in His creation, such as Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism or Einstein’s equations of general relativity for gravity within their classical domains of applicability, even if their violation could greatly reduce human suffering (e.g., from falls). If indeed God is similarly loathe to violate quantum unitarity (though such violations by judicious collapses of the wavefunction could greatly reduce human suffering by always choosing only favorable outcomes), the resulting unitary evolution would lead to an Everett multiverse of `many worlds’, meaning many different quasiclassical histories beyond the quasiclassical history that each of us can observe over his or her lifetime. This is a theological argument for one reason why God might prefer to create a multiverse much broader than what one normally thinks of for a history of the universe.
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Posted in Cosmology, Existence of God, Metaphysics, Multiverse | No Comments »
February 5th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Traditionally, there are two models for how God preserves the existence of the universe. The first is creatio originans (originating creation), which suggests that there has been one initial act of creation and God conserves that reality through a temporal duration. Consider the following definition.
D1. God conserves e if and only if God acts upon e to bring about e’s enduring from t until some t* > t through every subinterval of the interval t –> t*.[1]
Thomas Aquinas de-temporalizes creatio ex nihilo.[2] Thus, Thomas is not very concerned with divine conservation as described above since he does not offer a tensed version of creation nor does he differentiate between conservation and creation.[3] Thomas’ model of creatio continuans (continual creation) can therefore be depicted as:
D2. God continuously creates x = def. x is a persistent thing, and, for all t, if x exists at t, then at t God creates x.[4]
Thomas certainly seems to make a commitment to creatio continuans given his doctrine of simplicity (since timeless follows). However, Thomas tries to have the best of both doctrines by suggesting that God acts within creation and creation was within time yet, in turn, adopt a model of timelessness. Thomas argues that the creation of things was in the beginning of time. For Genesis 1 to include, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” suggests that beginning connotes time.[5]
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Posted in Cosmology, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Theology | No Comments »
February 1st, 2013
by Max Andrews
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed a similar idea to Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of variety, which is known as the principle of plenitude. He argues that there must be diversity in that which changes.[1] This change and diversity is what produces the specification and variety of simple substances. This diversity must involve a multitude in the unity or in the simple. For, since all natural change is produced by degrees, something changes and something remains. As a result, there must be a plurality of properties and relations.[2] The principle of plenitude entails absolutely every way that a world could be is a way that some world is and absolutely every way that a part of a world could be is a way that some part of some world is.[3]
The principle of plenitude has been used to argue against modal realism. The principle is supposed to ensure that there are no gaps in logical space. There is some real concrete universe for every way a world could be. This entails that there may be a plurality of worlds that are on balance more bad than good. Theistic modal realism entails that each possible world is a real concrete universe that a perfect being has actualized. In the Leibnizian tradition, the principle entails at least some of the worlds are so bad that no perfect being could actualize them.[4] Hence, Leibniz committed to this world being the best of all possible worlds.[5] This is called the less-than-best problem.
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Posted in Metaphysics, Multiverse | 1 Comment »
January 29th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Thomas Aquinas believed that there was an appropriated assimilation or likeness to God found in creatures and creation. Some likeness must be found between an effect and its cause. It is in the nature of any agent to do something like itself. Thus, God also gives to creatures and creation all their perfections; and thereby he has with all creatures a likeness.[1]
Additionally, the cause of variety and the multitude of things in creation find their cause in God. Thomas contrasts himself with early Greek philosophers such as Democritus and the other atomists who argued that the distinction of things come from chance according to the movement of matter. Thomas follows Anaxagoras in attributing the multitude to matter and to the agent involved. Thomas identifies this agency as God since he is the creator of matter and thus the efficient cause behind the existence of the matter. Additionally, the universality of things and the perfection of the universe must precede forth from the intention of the first agent—God.[2] Thomas states that the distinction and variety reflects the divine goodness.
For he brought things into being in order that his goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and because his goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, he produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided and hence the whole universe together participates the divine goodness more perfectly, and represents it better than any single creature whatever.[3]
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Posted in Christianity, Metaphysics, Multiverse | 2 Comments »
January 19th, 2013
by Max Andrews
The multiverse hypothesis is the leading alternative to the competing fine-tuning hypothesis. The multiverse dispels many aspects of the fine-tuning argument by suggesting that there are different initial conditions in each universe, varying constants of physics, and the laws of nature lose their known arbitrary values; thus, making the previous single-universe argument from fine-tuning incredibly weak. There are four options for why a fine-tuning is either unnecessary to invoke or illusory if the multiverse hypothesis is used as an alternative explanans. Fine-tuning might be (1) illusory if life could adapt to very different conditions or if values of constants could compensate each other. Additionally, (2) it might be a result of chance or (3) it might be nonexistent because nature could not have been otherwise. With hopes of discovering a fundamental theory of everything all states of affairs in nature may perhaps be tautologous. Finally, (4) it may be a product of cosmic Darwinism, or cosmic natural selection, making the measured values quite likely within a multiverse of many different values. In this paper I contend that multiverse scenarios are insufficient in accounting for the fine-tuning of the laws of nature and that physicists and cosmologists must either accept it as a metaphysical brute fact or seriously entertain the hypothesis of a fine-tuner.
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Posted in Metaphysics, Multiverse, Philosophy of Science | 6 Comments »
