Why is the æternal substance the Creator rather than anything else?

[Donnadogsoth]

The question, why is there anything rather than nothing, is answered here.  Briefly:  nothing cannot be predicated (e.g., “nothing exists,” “nothing endures,” etc.), nothing cannot be generated (where did it come from?), and nothing cannot be indicated (point to nothing). Therefore there must not be nothing æternally.

 

1.Why does the æternal substance which is not absolute nothing, yet is not contingent something, equate to the Creator of the Universe?

2.Why can't it simply be other than the Creator?

3.And why can't there be more than one of these substances?

 

1.

a. As per Leibniz, it is the nature of existence that every existing thing has a soul. This must be so for soul is the only substance possible; all experiences are “parts” (in a loose sense of the word) of the respective experiencing souls like projections on a screen. So, without souls, nothing would exist. Nothing is impossible, as shown above, so there must be something, whether contingent or æternal. Since contingent things cannot self-subsist, their origin must lie in the latter. Thus the nature of the æternal must be that it has an experiencing soul.

b. Such a substance would be unbounded by space and time and all limitations which are things we perceive in the contingent world. Thus there would be no reason for it, as a soul, not to be perfect as we understand the direction of soulful perfection we see with our cognitive powers:  supreme intellect, supreme potency (will+power), and a supreme emotional state (agapic love). These things combine to produce what could only be called a God.  

c. God would become a Creator only out of love, specifically the wish to share his love with creations capable of knowing him. Therefore the Universe was created specifically for man, who is made in God's image.

 

2.

An æternal substance can't be other than the Creator because of the implications of being an æternal substance, cf. 1.

 

3.

All such substances would have the same qualities and therefore according to the principle of identity of indiscernibles would be the same thing.

[wintermute]

Points 2 and 3 are entirely contingent on point 1, so I will focus on the three parts (a - c) of that. 

 

1a.I take issue with this: "soul is the only substance possible". I say (for sake of argument) that substance needs no qualification but can exist in itself without being either soul, body, or anything else.

 

1b. "there would be no reason for it, as a soul, not to be perfect as we understand the direction of soulful perfection". Stefan gives a reason why the eternal soul must not be perfect: observed perfection only arises from a long process of evolution.

 

1c. "God would become a Creator only out of love" This assumes "agapic love" is the most perfect disposition of the soul, but I (as Devil's advocate / Sith Lord / Anarcho-capitalist) contend that the most perfect disposition of the soul is self-love. 

 

Can you falsify these contentions?

[Will Torbald]

Philosophers arguing about substances and the universe without knowing anything about physics and cosmology is absolute futile intellectual masturbation.

[Donnadogsoth]

Philosophers arguing about substances and the universe without knowing anything about physics and cosmology is absolute futile intellectual masturbation.

 

That's like saying you need to know the atomic structure of a hammer before you can use it to build a house.

[Will Torbald]

That's like saying you need to know the atomic structure of a hammer before you can use it to build a house.

 

I know why you would think it is, but it's not a good analogy. The universe is not a hammer, because you can trace how the hammer was made from the wood to the iron by their craftsmen. The universe can't be assumed to be a craft in the way a hammer can, nor humans or other forms of life as well. It's a very easy to follow into trap. We as humans make things, so we say that spoons and cars have makers. We see natural things around us, so we assume natural things had makers too. It would be like spiders thinking everything is made out of silk because they make webs out of silk. Or like bees thinking everyone else also eats honey. We craft tools, so everything else was crafted as well. Back to the science aspect of it, if you don't know how atoms come together, how particles flow, how quantum fields operate - making any assumption about "substances" is folly of the arrogance to argue without knowledge. Those who do know about these things do not come to the conclussions you do because they actually know better.

[Donnadogsoth]

Points 2 and 3 are entirely contingent on point 1, so I will focus on the three parts (a - c) of that. 

 

1a.I take issue with this: "soul is the only substance possible". I say (for sake of argument) that substance needs no qualification but can exist in itself without being either soul, body, or anything else.

 

1b. "there would be no reason for it, as a soul, not to be perfect as we understand the direction of soulful perfection". Stefan gives a reason why the eternal soul must not be perfect: observed perfection only arises from a long process of evolution.

 

1c. "God would become a Creator only out of love" This assumes "agapic love" is the most perfect disposition of the soul, but I (as Devil's advocate / Sith Lord / Anarcho-capitalist) contend that the most perfect disposition of the soul is self-love. 

 

Can you falsify these contentions?

 

1a. Substance is efficient cause, efficient cause requires will. For something to exist without being an efficient cause of some effect in the world, would mean that that thing is a predicate of a subject, a mere appearance in a soul's mind, a substance's mind, not a soul or substance in of itself. So, all substances are willing souls, all predicates are neither substances nor souls, but associates of them.

 

1b. That presumes the lack of an entelechy guiding the process towards an omega state. Stefan is misreading the situation by presuming that the arrow of time applies to æternity, destroying æternity. If it does not, we can consider Æternity, or Truth, to be that which the temporal is striving towards, and therefore we have the phenomenon of physical, biological, and noëtic evolution.

 

1c. The expression of self-love compares to agape as a sticky-fingered baby reaching for more grape jelly compares to the sacrifice of Joan of Arc.

I know why you would think it is, but it's not a good analogy. The universe is not a hammer, because you can trace how the hammer was made from the wood to the iron by their craftsmen. The universe can't be assumed to be a craft in the way a hammer can, nor humans or other forms of life as well. It's a very easy to follow into trap. We as humans make things, so we say that spoons and cars have makers. We see natural things around us, so we assume natural things had makers too. It would be like spiders thinking everything is made out of silk because they make webs out of silk. Or like bees thinking everyone else also eats honey. We craft tools, so everything else was crafted as well. Back to the science aspect of it, if you don't know how atoms come together, how particles flow, how quantum fields operate - making any assumption about "substances" is folly of the arrogance to argue without knowledge. Those who do know about these things do not come to the conclussions you do because they actually know better.

 

Silk would be the Spider race's primary metaphor, for certain. They would conceive of a Universe that was spun. And, in a way, they'd be right. Eventually they would arrive at the principle of learned ignorance and realise that the Universe is different in its nature of making, but they would not, unless they were Atheist spiders, fail to acknowledge that there was an intelligence behind said making, that the Truth encircled them like a perfect orb web's circumference, and that no matter how well they spun they would never spin a web of knowledge that would exactly equal the perfection of said Truth.

 

On the hammer issue, my point was that I don't need to know a fig's worth of physics, mathematics, metallurgy, or anything else to know that the hammer has the virtue of hammering, which none of those aforementioned disciplines can in any way detract from.

[Des]

Alternatively, consciousness and free will are emergent properties of the accumulated matter of human brains. Something existed, unobserved until the capacity to observe existence - emerged from the existing something.

[Donnadogsoth]

Alternatively, consciousness and free will are emergent properties of the accumulated matter of human brains. Something existed, unobserved until the capacity to observe existence - emerged from the existing something.

 

A plausible and popular idea, but, which rests consciousness only on an inexplicable "brute fact".  An  æternal substance which is the repository of the essence of consciousness and which necessarily exists solves this problem.

[Des]

I don't have Stefan's style, I learn from it and adapt my own style. I will interpret your meaning as "emergent properties are an inexplicable observation", and I counter that with an enquiry as to how we would detect whether emergent properties are inexplicable or merely unexplained.

 

There, I started addressing what may be my own misinterpretation of your words, and will promptly stop right here for obvious reasons.

[Donnadogsoth]

I don't have Stefan's style, I learn from it and adapt my own style. I will interpret your meaning as "emergent properties are an inexplicable observation", and I counter that with an enquiry as to how we would detect whether emergent properties are inexplicable or merely unexplained.

 

There, I started addressing what may be my own misinterpretation of your words, and will promptly stop right here for obvious reasons.

 

There are no "emergent" properties, they all originate from the Creator.  Human creativity is the discovery and application of principle to change the nature of the visible Universe, but, this strikes me as the opposite of emergent properties.  We might call it "submergent" properties:  the delving into the ontological muck to pull out an irregular silvery object of remarkable beauty and utility.

[wintermute]

There are no "emergent" properties, they all originate from the Creator.  Human creativity is the discovery and application of principle to change the nature of the visible Universe, but, this strikes me as the opposite of emergent properties.  We might call it "submergent" properties:  the delving into the ontological muck to pull out an irregular silvery object of remarkable beauty and utility.

 

Your statement that all properties originate from the Creator seems to flow from what appears to be this central idea: "efficient cause requires will." How do you know this? It seems plausible that the First Cause is cause of an infinite number of realities simply by nature of its being, without any act of will on its part.

[Donnadogsoth]

Your statement that all properties originate from the Creator seems to flow from what appears to be this central idea: "efficient cause requires will." How do you know this? It seems plausible that the First Cause is cause of an infinite number of realities simply by nature of its being, without any act of will on its part.

 

Since substance is both necessarily conscious, to whatever degree, and the efficient cause of its own self-transformation, then it requires will (what Leibniz called "appetition") to do so.

[Des]

There are no "emergent" properties, they all originate from the Creator. .

This is different from your earlier statement that emergent properties arise in a way that is inexplicable, not merely unexplained.

 

I can interpret your meaning as "the inexplicable is impossible, therefore emergent properties are impossible and don't exist"

 

Whatever your meaning, I'm interested in understanding how we can arrive at the conclusion.

There are no "emergent" properties, they all originate from the Creator. .

This is different from your earlier statement that emergent properties arise in a way that is inexplicable, not merely unexplained.

 

I can interpret your meaning as "the inexplicable is impossible, therefore emergent properties are impossible and don't exist"

 

Whatever your meaning, I'm interested in understanding how we can arrive at the conclusion.

There are no "emergent" properties, they all originate from the Creator. .

This is different from your earlier statement that emergent properties arise in a way that is inexplicable, not merely unexplained.

 

I can interpret your meaning as "the inexplicable is impossible, therefore emergent properties are impossible and don't exist"

 

Whatever your meaning, I'm interested in understanding how we can arrive at the conclusion.

[Donnadogsoth]

This is different from your earlier statement that emergent properties arise in a way that is inexplicable, not merely unexplained.

 

I can interpret your meaning as "the inexplicable is impossible, therefore emergent properties are impossible and don't exist"

 

Whatever your meaning, I'm interested in understanding how we can arrive at the conclusion.

 

Yes, that which cannot be explained in principle, cannot exist, for it would violate the principle of sufficient reason.

[Des]

Yes, that which cannot be explained in principle, cannot exist, for it would violate the principle of sufficient reason.

So, how will we know if emergent properties cannot be explained, or merely have not yet been explained?

[Donnadogsoth]

So, how will we know if emergent properties cannot be explained, or merely have not yet been explained?

 

I'm saying there are no emergent properties, and all is explicable-in-principle.  For, for anything to be inexplicable-in-principle and thus violating the PSR, is to contaminate the entire Universe with irrationality, since all things are in relationship to all other things, and if one thing were irrational, its reflection into the monads of every other respective thing would place an irrational spot there.  Since monads are parts-less, such a spot could not be isolated and sequestered, but would exist as a tincture of the entire monad, making its entirety irrational.  Therefore, all monads would be irrational, no principles would apply, and occasionalism would be the only way to truthfully explain the nature of the Universe.

[wintermute]

Since substance is both necessarily conscious, to whatever degree, and the efficient cause of its own self-transformation, then it requires will (what Leibniz called "appetition") to do so.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to be your logic concerning substance:

1. "soul is the only substance possible" because...
2. "Substance is efficient cause [which] requires will" because...
3. substance is "necessarily conscious"

I do not yet see your reason for this third premise. Why do you think substance is conscious? Put another way: why is the Efficient Cause not an "eternal machine" which causes perpetually by force of nature without will or consciousness?

 

Forgive me if this question is ignorant or foolish. I am not a trained philosopher, nor have I read Leibniz, but I do find your posts extremely interesting and significant.

[Donnadogsoth]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to be your logic concerning substance:

1. "soul is the only substance possible" because...
2. "Substance is efficient cause [which] requires will" because...
3. substance is "necessarily conscious"

I do not yet see your reason for this third premise. Why do you think substance is conscious? Put another way: why is the Efficient Cause not an "eternal machine" which causes perpetually by force of nature without will or consciousness?

 

Forgive me if this question is ignorant or foolish. I am not a trained philosopher, nor have I read Leibniz, but I do find your posts extremely interesting and significant.

 

Thank you. I'll try not to disappoint you!

 

Call it “necessary panpsychism,” for experience is the primary level of experience. All percepts or predicates are predicates in the awareness of an experiencing being. Try defining what the essence is of a grape without relying on any sense-data or other information that comes to us as experience. In the end, there is only your mind which is having experiences, and any other (invisible) minds which are having their experiences. If the grape exists in-of-itself, then the only substance that fits that bill is consciousness or experience (composed of what Leibniz called perception and appetition or desire). I happen to think grapes are rather full of themselves due to their Roman heritage of being fed to patricians by their slaves, but, in any case, the grape must have some kind of experience, presumably of wanting to be eaten and so to fulfill its intended purpose. Jumping from that ridiculously banal example to the æternal machine, whatever rudimentary consciouness the grape has must be trumped colossally at the opposite extreme for the Origin itself. Or else the Origin is a mere percept, which means it isn't itself, which means solipsism.

[wintermute]

Thank you. I'll try not to disappoint you!

 

Call it “necessary panpsychism,” for experience is the primary level of experience. All percepts or predicates are predicates in the awareness of an experiencing being. Try defining what the essence is of a grape without relying on any sense-data or other information that comes to us as experience. In the end, there is only your mind which is having experiences, and any other (invisible) minds which are having their experiences. If the grape exists in-of-itself, then the only substance that fits that bill is consciousness or experience (composed of what Leibniz called perception and appetition or desire). I happen to think grapes are rather full of themselves due to their Roman heritage of being fed to patricians by their slaves, but, in any case, the grape must have some kind of experience, presumably of wanting to be eaten and so to fulfill its intended purpose. Jumping from that ridiculously banal example to the æternal machine, whatever rudimentary consciouness the grape has must be trumped colossally at the opposite extreme for the Origin itself. Or else the Origin is a mere percept, which means it isn't itself, which means solipsism.

 

I certainly agree that perceptions are the only way we can know that anything exists (in so far as we *can* know this at all), but why does it follow that will is necessary to perception?

[Donnadogsoth]

I certainly agree that perceptions are the only way we can know that anything exists (in so far as we *can* know this at all), but why does it follow that will is necessary to perception?

 

Without will, change is a brute fact, inexplicable, and, so, in violation of the principle of sufficient reason.

[wintermute]

Without will, change is a brute fact, inexplicable, and, so, in violation of the principle of sufficient reason.

 

To argue that will or soul is the Brute Fact seems to violate the principal of sufficient reason no less than arguing that change is the Brute Fact. What reason do we have for accepting will rather than change?

 

I can think of at least one precedent for each position. To argue that change is the Brute Fact seems correspondent with the "Panta Rhei" of Heraclitus, while to argue that will is the Brute Fact seems close to Descartes position that the only certain reality (the "brute fact", if you will) is the mind which he describes as, "A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sense perceptions" (Descartes [emphasis mine] as in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

 

Call me old fashioned, but I incline toward Heraclitus over Descartes in this, but perhaps you prefer some third option...

[Donnadogsoth]

To argue that will or soul is the Brute Fact seems to violate the principal of sufficient reason no less than arguing that change is the Brute Fact. What reason do we have for accepting will rather than change?

 

I can think of at least one precedent for each position. To argue that change is the Brute Fact seems correspondent with the "Panta Rhei" of Heraclitus, while to argue that will is the Brute Fact seems close to Descartes position that the only certain reality (the "brute fact", if you will) is the mind which he describes as, "A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sense perceptions" (Descartes [emphasis mine] as in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

 

Call me old fashioned, but I incline toward Heraclitus over Descartes in this, but perhaps you prefer some third option...

 

The apparent brute facticity of human will is resolved by appeal to a necessary Creator as origin. The apparent brute facticity of the Creator's will is a necessary component of consciousness which is a necessary state. It resolves to “why is there anything rather than nothing?”, the answer to which is, nothingness cannot be predicated (it can have no attributes, including existence), cannot be indicated (there is no indicable nothingness in the world, only rarefied states of somethingness), and cannot be generated (generation requires a something to do the generating). Therefore, consciousness, and so will, is the necessary, not brute, fact at the origin of reality.

[wintermute]

The apparent brute facticity of human will is resolved by appeal to a necessary Creator as origin. The apparent brute facticity of the Creator's will is a necessary component of consciousness which is a necessary state. It resolves to “why is there anything rather than nothing?”, the answer to which is, nothingness cannot be predicated (it can have no attributes, including existence), cannot be indicated (there is no indicable nothingness in the world, only rarefied states of somethingness), and cannot be generated (generation requires a something to do the generating). Therefore, consciousness, and so will, is the necessary, not brute, fact at the origin of reality.

 

When you say, "The apparent brute facticity of the Creator's will is a necessary component of consciousness which is a necessary state." This sounds circular to me because it resolves to:

 

1. The Creator's will is appears as a brute fact

2. This apparent fact is necessarily associated with consciousness

3. Consciousness is therefore a necessary state of the Creator

 

The problem with this is that the Creator's will is *not* apparent. This is precisely my objection. I do not argue that something came from nothing. What I doubt is that the Origin is conscious. 

[Donnadogsoth]

When you say, "The apparent brute facticity of the Creator's will is a necessary component of consciousness which is a necessary state." This sounds circular to me because it resolves to:

 

1. The Creator's will is appears as a brute fact

2. This apparent fact is necessarily associated with consciousness

3. Consciousness is therefore a necessary state of the Creator

 

The problem with this is that the Creator's will is *not* apparent. This is precisely my objection. I do not argue that something came from nothing. What I doubt is that the Origin is conscious. 

 

I'm saying that existence cannot follow from non-consciousness.  In other words, if existence exists, it exists as an experience.  There is no sensory, conceptual, or emotional datum that can exist by or in of itself, apart from all consciousness, just like a debate cannot exist outside of at least two debaters.  The Origin must therefore be conscious.

 

Why is the Origin conscious?  Because there is no intelligible alternative.

[wintermute]

I'm saying that existence cannot follow from non-consciousness.  In other words, if existence exists, it exists as an experience.  There is no sensory, conceptual, or emotional datum that can exist by or in of itself, apart from all consciousness, just like a debate cannot exist outside of at least two debaters.  The Origin must therefore be conscious.

 

Why is the Origin conscious?  Because there is no intelligible alternative.

 

The "intelligible alternative" is an "eternal machine" or "God particle" which causes perpetually by force of nature without will or consciousness. This causation would have to form a multiverse in order to account for the random variables in our own universe which allow for life to develop, but I do not know of a reason to say that such a scenario is not intelligible. 

[Donnadogsoth]

The "intelligible alternative" is an "eternal machine" or "God particle" which causes perpetually by force of nature without will or consciousness. This causation would have to form a multiverse in order to account for the random variables in our own universe which allow for life to develop, but I do not know of a reason to say that such a scenario is not intelligible. 

 

A machine or particle is a sense object. Minus the sense impressions associated with them, what's left?

[wintermute]

A machine or particle is a sense object. Minus the sense impressions associated with them, what's left?

 

Ah, I see what you mean at last. Let us assume that the Origin can "sense" itself. Why would this mean that it chooses to generate the multiverse?

[Donnadogsoth]

Ah, I see what you mean at last. Let us assume that the Origin can "sense" itself. Why would this mean that it chooses to generate the multiverse?

 

Principle of sufficient reason: it must have a sufficient (emotional) reason to do what it does or else it would do nothing. The emotion most associated with creativity is love. A curious, creative child is the one we're proud of, not the indifferent, distracted, sulking, or malign one.

[wintermute]

Principle of sufficient reason: it must have a sufficient (emotional) reason to do what it does or else it would do nothing. The emotion most associated with creativity is love. A curious, creative child is the one we're proud of, not the indifferent, distracted, sulking, or malign one.

 

Emotion comes in response to stimuli like everything else, so why is emotion a sufficient reason for anything?

[Donnadogsoth]

Emotion comes in response to stimuli like everything else, so why is emotion a sufficient reason for anything?

 

The Origin would exist outside of the cause and effect sequence in terms of its own internal operations, and, so, its love would be not in response to stimuli but would be part of the original stimuli of the created Universe.

[wintermute]

The Origin would exist outside of the cause and effect sequence in terms of its own internal operations, and, so, its love would be not in response to stimuli but would be part of the original stimuli of the created Universe.

 

This sounds like an adhoc argument. Why do you feel it necessary to postulate an eternal, self-causing bundle of emotionally-charged stimuli rather than a simple, unemotional wave-particle?

[Donnadogsoth]

This sounds like an adhoc argument. Why do you feel it necessary to postulate an eternal, self-causing bundle of emotionally-charged stimuli rather than a simple, unemotional wave-particle?

 

Because action does not exist without emotion.

 

That's why fictional “emotionless” beings like Vulcans are so erroneous. An emotionless being would not act, because he would have no motivation.

 

The unemotional wave-particle needs a motivation in order to do anything, or refrain from doing anything. The capital emotion is love, the most efficient emotion befitting the divine simplicity is love. Ergo, the Origin must have love, and act from that emotion.

[wintermute]

Because action does not exist without emotion.

 

That's why fictional “emotionless” beings like Vulcans are so erroneous. An emotionless being would not act, because he would have no motivation.

 

The unemotional wave-particle needs a motivation in order to do anything, or refrain from doing anything. The capital emotion is love, the most efficient emotion befitting the divine simplicity is love. Ergo, the Origin must have love, and act from that emotion.

 

I think your explanation is plausible, but I don't think there is any way to prove it because there is nothing observable which is not moved by something else. Both emotions and wave-particles are caused in all cases we can observe, both dissipate over time, and neither one can be observed to spontaneously manifest in a true vacuum.

[Donnadogsoth]

I think your explanation is plausible, but I don't think there is any way to prove it because there is nothing observable which is not moved by something else. Both emotions and wave-particles are caused in all cases we can observe, both dissipate over time, and neither one can be observed to spontaneously manifest in a true vacuum.

 

That's so if the human mind follows matter, that we are puppets of matter, so that we can say a brainscan demonstrates brain activity "causes" an emotion.  But, what if the human mind, as every experience tells us, precedes all matter?  Before we can look at a brainscan and see the "cause" of our emotion, we have to exist as mental beings, and as shown earlier, all material predicates are functions of the subject.  The monads are windowless and uncaused, except that God has created them and orchestrated them into an apparent material cause and effect, that we might rationally understand and act in the Universe.  The human mind is therefore antecedent to all causes aside from God.  Our emotions are not "parts" of us any more than God's love is a part of God; we are both partsless and unified.

[ofd]

so that we can say a brainscan demonstrates brain activity "causes" an emotion. 

 

Tough luck that electrodes can cause emotions.