The Rational God

Fate and Final Causes

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Science is often characterized as a study of cause and effect. Prior to science Aristotelian causes was the method of study, one of his four causes being the ‘final cause.’ A final cause reversed the process of cause and effect, making the effect the reason for the cause rather than the principle which modern science requires – the cause is responsible for the effect.

For example, an explanation using final causes would claim that a hammer exists so that nails can be banged into wood.

In contrast, the scientific reason for the hammer existing is because someone shaped a piece of wood, forged the head from metal and connected the two together. If the hammer is handled with skill it can be used as a tool which bangs nails into wood.

It is such a simple and widespread idea that it barely needs stating. Things do not exist for what they do; they exist because of the chain of events leading up to their creation. What is obvious to us now was not so obvious 400 years ago. Explanations of why were very often answered with the final cause answer; “things exist to perform the function they perform.”

The removal of teleology and its replacement by cause and effect is one of the most solid principles of what science does, and for the most part is desirable. But is it always desirable? As in most things, at the extremes the rules very often break down. Where a strict application of cause and effect is in most danger of breaking down is at the beginning of the universe itself.

Why? Consider how and why we are here. To get to the current moment in time in the universe’s history we can (if we had sufficient information) trace back the sequence of causes and effects back to the beginning. But what do we find at the beginning and what is the cause of the first cause? Whatever the conditions or principles are present at the first moment it is they which are responsible for all subsequent events. We can then quite legitimately pose the question, ‘Could things have been any different to the way they are now?’ We can also ask ‘Is it possible that things could have been any different to the way they are now?’

There have been a number of philosophers who have felt the need to make this point. Nietzsche’s eternal return is the view that the universe is destined to repeat over and over for all eternity. Spinoza decided ‘everything is as it is and could be no other way.’
Physicist Paul Davis points out that such a view is a valid option today. Video Here

The seed, or set of initial conditions, contain within them the blueprint for all that is going to occur and all that is going to exist. This leads us to quite a different view to the one commonly held that we are here by some pure chance or slice of good fortune. It could be that we are here because that is the only way the universe can be. We are every bit a part of the fabric of the world and every bit as important to the universe’s existence as anything else. The universe is spiritual in its essence equally as much as it is material.

It may be the case that we are the chance occurrence of large configurations of complex molecules which give off blips of thought….. But the evidence does not rule out the case of humans being of fundamental importance to existence and having been written into the blueprint of existence from the very beginning. The final cause of creation is us; the processes between the beginning and now are the causal and necessary links between the two.

Materialism and Physicalism

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Materialism and Physicalism

The heyday of materialism was the 19th century, when it seemed to be clear that in time the universe and everything in it would be explained by one thing, the material. Materialism was the world view that the only truly existing entity was matter. All other things (particularly thinking) could be explained by recourse to material explanation. Matter thought to be tiny hard balls of solidity or extension in three dimensions. The ontology of the world, i.e.: what exists? was answered by using just one word – matter.

This was the culmination of a couple of centuries of wrangling over the Cartesian mind/body problem. It was agreed that logically, only one thing can actually exist, matter won the argument over mind and philosophical materialism reigned supreme until the advent of quantum mechanics. Then materialism failed.

Quantum mechanics and subsequent physics cannot be explained with such a simplistic account of the world. A new ontology evolved which is now used as the fundamental basis for all that exists. The new ontology includes such ephemeral entities as fields, quantum particles and spacetime points. These are the new entities that physicists see as being the fundamentals of existence. For the casual observer there was no major paradigm shift. Matter could not explain everything but the new physical entities being described could. Overnight the average materialist became a physicalist and basically assumed that it was more or less the same. But a close attention to the detail and we can see that it is not.

Materialism was a clear and distinct philosophy. It defined what it believed and it was clear what it did not believe. We could say that materialism is actually a falsifiable theory and as such is a scientific theory. It believes that the fundamental stuff of the world is matter and if that is proven to be false then materialism is falsified. If more than matter is required to explain reality, then materialism is false. The clear definition of materialism was that there is one thing that exists and that one thing is matter. Nothing else exists. The ontology of materialism is thus clearly defined.

Physicalism does not have a fixed ontology in the way that materialism had. Physicists will quite happily rearrange their idea of what is needed to explain the fundamental principles of reality. They will take things out of their list and they will add things to their list. It is a work in progress. Should a physicist deide that a new entity needs adding to the list then it will be added. Should there be no need to keep something on the list, then it will be removed. Physicalism does not make any claims about what exists in the world and what does not. The list is continuously changing and being updated according to current knowledge.

Now if at some point in the course of future science physicists decide that we need to introduce the idea of angel and demon particles into the ontology of the universe, then they will. And just because the new ontology includes angels and demons, who is to say that such an inclusion refutes physicalism?

Physicalism then is no more than the claim that some future perfect science will one day be able to explain everything. But then this is true by definition; a future perfect science will explain everything that is why it is called perfect. And more importantly, physicalism does not refute the idea that mental phenomena are fundamental. Materialism denied the mental by definition, yet materialism is not enough to understand the world. Physicalism is a work in progress and without contradicting itself, could yet be forced to accommodate the mental as a fundamental entity of existence.

The philosophy of materialism then was the idea that mental phenomena do not exist in a fundamental way. The mental was a consequence of the material. Materialism does not work as an explanation of reality so it was replaced by physicalism. Yet physicalism does not perform the same crucial task that materialism once did; that of denying the fundamental existence of mind. Because physicalism is a work still in progress, it has no clear ontology, it is not a scientific or falsifiable theory in the way materialism once was. Physicalism is true, but it is true vacuously. Physicalism cannot be proven false no matter what we discover about our universe. In that sense it is no replacement for materialism and to present materialism, an abandoned theory, or physicalism, a vacuous theory, as support for any belief is to misrepresent the facts.

Materialism Definition

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Materialism Definition

 

The modern scientific notion of materialism was founded in the ideas of Descartes in the early years of the seventeenth century. Any discussion of philosophical materialism usually has Descartes materialism definition in mind. To recap, Descartes was distinguishing between two types of things which he assumed exists; mind and matter. Descartes concept of mind does not concern us here, but he spoke of ideas and sensations. His notion of what constituted matter was more clearly defined by Descartes, he suggested that matter had extension in three dimensions.

Now as science and knowledge developed this simple definition remained with some
qualification. Some spoke of hardness as well as extension, whilst later the idea of little balls became popular as an atomic theory evolved. The common factor in all of these suggestions was that matter was basic in the scheme of things and all other phenomena (which usually meant mind) were reducible to this one truly existing stuff: matter.

Though the definition of materialism had grown out of the ideas of Descartes, he himself did not propose a materialist explanation of existence. Descartes had postulated a dualist account. Matter existed and mental phenomena existed. Neither was reducible to the other, both were mutually independent existing things which somewhat mysteriously managed to co-exist with a large degree of mutual cooperation. As they were considered to be separate they could never interact, yet minds and matter did seem to interact. Dualism became instantly questionable as soon as Descartes suggested it, and little has changed to make us think otherwise. On purely rational grounds it seems that dualist accounts of reality cannot be possible.

There is more Materialism Definitions here

A Definition of Monism

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A Definition of Monism

Metaphysical monism is an ancient problem which still continues to this day, at least for some. A definition of monism can be framed quite succinctly; monism states that there is just one kind of thing that exists in the universe, everything is thus reducible to this one thing.

The earliest form of this problem was in ancient Greece. The Greeks had a scientific belief that the world was made up of earth, fire, air and water. What they attempted to understand was whether these four constituents of the universe were ultimate, or was there something more fundamental that underpinned or gave rise to them. They were asking, “Is the world made up of earth, fire, air and water or is the world made up of just one thing that can appear as earth, fire, air and water.”

From our modern post scientific perspective such a view can seem rather primitive. We know for example that the four primitive substances of the ancient Greeks are all reducible to molecules and atoms. We can continue the reduction to protons and neutrons and still further to quarks, or at least to quarks and electrons. The problem has been solved then, or at least the problem as the Greeks saw it has been solved. The debate concerning monism is still alive for some, though in a different format.

There is more A Definition of Monism here

Understanding Spinoza

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Understanding Spinoza

If you are ever going to get more than a brief understanding of pantheism then it is vital to get to grips with understanding Spinoza. Spinoza was not the first pantheist, but he is probably the most influential pantheist since the time of the enlightenment. The decline of theism and the rise of alternative beliefs can be traced back directly and indirectly to Spinoza. He was not only a chief architect in the rise and success of science; he was also a fundamental force behind the gradual decline of theological authority. Understanding Spinoza is not easy, but the difficulties involved in grasping his ideas are no less worthy of making the effort.

If you were to take a random page and quote form Spinoza’s main work, the ethics, you will no doubt find a sentence in which you understand all of the individual words. Yet I am reasonably sure that you would also find a sentence which is seemingly incomprehensible too. For example: The first axiom that Spinoza presents is “Everything which exists, exists either in itself or in something else.”

An axiom is something that is assumed to be self evidently true, so Spinoza must have presented this axiom as something which he believed to be one of nature’s ultimate and self evident truths. The whole of Spinoza’s philosophy is set out in this way. He begins with a set of definitions, which he then uses to write his axioms. He then moves to working out how the universe must be given his definitions and on the assumption that his axioms are in fact true. To that extent his work is a work in logic, similar to a Euclidean system. It is probably the case that if you were to agree and accept just one of his axioms then you are logically committed to accepting his other axioms which follow rationally and necessarily from each other. In doing this Spinoza creates a set of principles and consequently a metaphysical system which he considers to be how the universe must be.

There is more Understanding Spinoza here

Define Theism and Atheism

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Define Theism and atheism

The definitions of theism and atheism should both be very clear. Yet at times because of the heat of debate in which theism and atheism are discussed the real meaning of each becomes blurred. Dictionaries are often considered the arbiters of definition, though reaching for a dictionary should be a last resort. Dictionaries are not definers of words. Dictionaries list words and how they are used in common speech. As a philosopher it is quite legitimate to define ones own terms provided one is clear that is what you are doing. If a philosopher defines a term to have a specific meaning then the dictionaries definition is irrelevant. Should a philosophers use of a term become standard then it will be the dictionary that adapts to the new usage. It is not the public who adapt to a dictionary definition, rather the dictionary changes to how words are used.

Theism can be a difficult word to define because theists themselves have so many different ideas of what their theism entails. Not only are there three primary theist religions, there are a number of sub groups within each religion further diluting any notion of there being a clear and distinct definition.

Atheism is easy to define. Atheism is the belief that theism is false. But as that definition rests on our understanding of what theism entails we are back to the problem of seeking a clear definition of theism. So for the purpose of this blog I shall make clear precisely how I define the concept of theism and by default how atheism then becomes defined.

There is more Define Theism and Atheism here

Verification and Falsification

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Verification and Falsification

The process of science is undertaken through two similar but distinct paths; verification and falsification. The two, though different, have more similarities than they have differences. Verification and falsification are based on two strands of knowing something; these are empirical data and rationality.

Empirical knowledge is basically that knowledge which is presented to our senses. Direct empirical knowledge is generally considered reliable and so is a route to knowledge. If I can report that there is a white thing in front of me that appears to have the characteristics of a wall, then it is reasonable to assume that I am standing in front of a wall.
Taking a step away from this direct knowledge does lead us away from certainty. For example, if I was to claim that yesterday I had a wall experience then I am adding another category of explanation to my wall experience, that of memory. A remembered experience is not as reliable as a current experience. But a current sensory experience is one of the best and most reliable chunks of knowledge that we can have.

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The Structure of Nature: The Nature of Structure

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I have been working on two posts over the last couple of days. The first to be posted I have decided to place on The Rational God website as a more permanent fixture of what the book discusses. It is an analogical discussion which is fairly tight and should give you a better idea of the books content. The title is “The Structure of Nature: The Nature of Structure.”

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Physics and God

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Physics and God

It is often claimed that physics and God are attempts at explaining the same thing. That thing is the universe. The four big questions of existence are: “Why are the laws of nature what they are? Why does the universe consist of the things it does? How did those things arise? How did the universe achieve its organization?” Physics and God are both used as methods to answer these four questions.

In my previous post I touched on the issue of pre-Christian beliefs and made the point that Pagans were very disposed to truth seeking. The Ancient Greeks left behind a massive volume of literature which is still relevant today. The two most notable writers of the period Aristotle and Plato are essential reading for anybody who seeks to probe the ultimate questions. Yet with the coming of Christianity they were cast aside and ignored. Though modern science sprouted out of Christian Europe, we could mount an argument that it was due to the legacy of the Greeks and despite Christian philosophy that enlightenment came. Christianity waged war against the Paganism it replaced, and it dragged its feet (and still does) against the scientific thinking that has all but replaced Christianity. Pagan philosophy and science both seek to discover the truth in a way that Christianity does not.

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Philosophy and God

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Introduction to Philosophy and God

How should we treat questions regarding philosophy and God? Does philosophy stray from its purpose when it discusses God? Do questions concerning God merit philosophical analysis? Or in the broadest terms, are investigations into philosophy and God really investigations of the same thing?

Philosophy and God have never really existed as two distinct subject areas. To postulate or to consider the existence of a deity is necessarily to engage in philosophical speculation. If we view philosophy as the definition of its root (philo = love of; sophia = knowledge) a love of knowledge – then at the deepest levels of the search for knowledge the question of the existence or not of God will be of major concern.

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