your position is not the same as mine :) :) This is why I keep saying you are confused and it keeps getting more confusing:
For me squared circles are impossible meaning they cannot exist - that is what impossible is. If it could exist it wouldn't be impossible.
If your position is the same as mine but you still insist they 'can' exist then your view is not the same as mine and in your view they are possible???

Square circles do not exist. There are none - none - in reality. I am quite sure of it. But they are possible. They 'can' exist, — Bartricks

This is the most clear indication why you need to revise your position.

I rest my case on this topic.
And also sometimes in Philosophy we need time to think things over and let the arguments to grow on us. This is a good time for both of us to think over what we have learned from these great discussions as I for sure got thinking about a few ideas from our chats.

Hope you having a good Sunday

I think we are getting closer to identifying the symptoms.

The issue is you don’t have a clear notion of necessity even though you are denying it. What I mean is ‘what is necessity for you which you are denying’?

What you mean by necessity seems confused to me and this I think is why you are now getting yourself in all sorts of knots.

My position on it is clear, for me it means 'what is impossible and what must be' vs. 'what is possible'.
Such that talk of necessity is talk of an exclusive relationship between possibility and impossibility. You can drop the concept of necessity if you wish but you would need to take a position whether something is possible or impossible. And as soon as you say something is impossible then it means under no circumstances can it be possible. It doesn’t mean ‘well it is impossible now but it might be impossible under some under conditions even though I don’t really know what those conditions are… and maybe human reason is limited but surely beyond the boundaries of human reason maybe it is possible…’ and so on’. Because if any of that were true it would very simply mean ‘it is possible’ and not impossible.
All this sounds like some confused notion that although something seems impossible to us it doesn’t mean it is impossible in itself and so on,????

And this will lead you saying 'there certainly aren’t contradictions any in reality’ which now makes matters worse, as though we have some realm outside of reality we can talk about. Whatever we talk about is within the boundaries of what reason tells us and whatever we mean by reality automatically falls under reason.

And it keeps going back to this distinction between what we think of some entity and what that entity is in itself. Such that in your view there can’t be any squared circles, due to what reason dictates, but you there could in fact be squared circles in themselves outside of our reason. (and I did address the flaw with this view before).

What usually happens next is that when pressed further people end up saying they don’t know whether some X is possible or impossible, and pressed further they say for any X that x (anything and everything) might be possible or might be impossible. In other words they refrain from committing to whether somethings 'are' possible and whether some things 'are' impossible (because as soon as they make such a commitment they will fall in the above trap). They just say they don’t know. Such that squared circles might very well be possible, they just don’t know.

You could for example say (as you have) we don't know every aspect of the world and contradictions are one such aspect.

But this doesn’t help much either for this is a more flawed position to take.

Speak soon

I appreciate what you are saying.
But forget 'certainty' if it cannot tell you whether something is possible or impossible or actual. To know something goes beyond a particular case, and has a sense of generality, even if we talk purely of sense experiences and not the objects in themselves (whatever that might mean).

As I mentioned before check out demonstration or negation of the Law of contradiction. This law is a necessary truth because we use it to demonstrate or to negate it. There are many examples of it.

Also:
Earlier I asked you what you would say if I asked you whether this object in your room is a squared circle. Would you first check it before answering? And you clearly and confidently replied no you wouldn’t check it because you agree there cannot be any square circles.

What you don’t seem to appreciate is that ‘cannot be’ just means ‘it is impossible’. And what you don’t seem to appreciate is that impossible just means there necessary cannot be such an X. Because if this wasn’t the case ‘necessarily’ it would mean square circles are possible after all, hence wouldn’t be impossible.

And if they are possible then it means it is impossible that there cannot be any, and that now becomes a necessary truth, simply as a result of your own statement.

And furthermore if they are possible then maybe the object in your room is a squared circle after all? You never know, you better check? But how would you check? How would you confirm the truth of a statement that is true and false at the same time and in the same respect?

What we therefore have is a circular case. And in every case you are adding the ‘not necessarily’ at the beginning of ‘impossible’ and saying ‘well it is not necessarily impossible’. As though this sentence is now giving us new information. But if it is impossible then it cannot be, and ‘cannot be’ means at all times and in the same respect, never. Never means necessarily.

But then you add ‘it is not necessarily never’ as though you are making a valid statement.
Please forgive my analogy but it is like having a dialogue with a computer that just keeps adding the notion of ‘not necessarily’ to the beginning of every notion including ‘impossibility’.

Impossible just means it is not ‘possible’ which means some way other than possibility, which is necessity.

And forget all this talk about 'certainly there cannot be but maybe they can be' and so on. These don't add any new information to the sentence unless it determines whether something is possible or impossible.

And then what is happening I think is the following:
You seem to think even though there can’t be any squared circles, this is so because of our reason, and that maybe outside of our reason it is possible for there to be such entities.
Kant made this very mistake which brought down the Kantian movement. He talked about the existence (possibly or actually) of something we cannot know, something which is beyond the grasp of our reason. Well, if it is beyond the grasp of our reason then we cannot know anything about it including whether it is possible, impossible, or actually, or potential, and so on.
If it is beyond our reason then we need to end all discussion about it because we can never go beyond reason. Just because we have the concept of ‘outside’ and have the concept of ‘reason’ it doesn’t mean we can talk about ‘outside of reason’. Any such talk will use reason and it is therefore within reason. Even doubting reason is using reason itself.

If according to reason something is impossible, we cannot then say well maybe it is possible outside of our reason. That my friend is a meaningless statement for reasons I gave in the above paragraph.
And then you talk of mistakes in reasoning in trying to explain your views on the faculty of reason vs. our particular reasons.

But we have errors in judgment as we have error in senses. Different organs and parts are involved and sometimes these organs are weakened or something else gets in the way and they do not process the information, sometimes it is lack of familiarity sometimes it is lack of remembering certain facts an so on. Things are not as simple as you outline them.

I am not saying you are wrong, I am just saying you need to go into far more detail to see whether you are presenting a powerful argument.

Maybe start a separate discussion with a new title and focus on how reason works and where error comes from and so on.

(The other thing I can see is maybe you are trying to talk about objective truth, subjective truth, and these in relation to necessity. Maybe what you are trying to say that such truths as ‘there are no squared circles’ are subjective as in subject to reason, but not objectively true. If this is what you mean then the discussion needs to be focused just on these so that we can have targeted discussions).

I have. What is the truth-maker of a necessary truth? — Bartricks

Yes:
Something the negation of which is a contradiction.

I give you another example:

It is a necessary truth that ‘some statements are true and some false but no statement is both true and false at the same time and in the same respect’.

Because the negation of it would mean the same statement could be both true and false at the same time and in the same respect then the reasons we give for it to be true are negated by the reasons we give if for it to be false and vice versa resulting in a contradiction.

Oh man, how could you make this assertion:
how can you say epistemically there cannot be any squared circles but metaphysically they can be??? :)
What we can say of metaphysics is what we can know, otherwise we may as well say any thing we like and throw the books in the bin.

:)

Your line of thought is not clear again, you need to structure the arguments better.

The distinction between our reason and the faculty and reason and so on, all not clear at all.
It is a mistake to think that our reasoning as a process (faculty or a vehicle) is separate than what we reason we about. Just like any process, our faculty is a potential that becomes actualised when we reason.

Sometimes the problem with forums is before you know it you lose the thread of the original question and the topic becomes very confused.

Over the weekend I will look at your God reply and comment back.
Have a good weekend and speak soon

By the way the below is not true:

I do not see any evidence that this is the case. My arguments make no appeal to necessity. — Bartricks

You are constantly making general statements which carry with them force of necessity without which they cannot be general statements.

Look, the statement you made when you agreed with me that ‘there are no squared circles’ is a general statement without you having checked every inch of the known world. And this is why this statement just means ‘there can’t be any squared circles’. You yourself made a general statement implying necessity.

Unless you now retract that statement and concede there is a possibility that there can be squared circles. And that would mean it is possible for this object in this room to be a squared circle. Because no matter how much you examine some object your examination could be wrong and if it is in fact possible to have some squared circles then maybe you are wrong and this object is an instance of a squared circle.

And then your reply to my previous question ‘is this object a squared circle’ would then have to become ‘maybe it is’ not that “it certainly isn’t” and so on.

And this will open a whole host of other issues for you.

And I repeat:
To say that everything is possible means there cannot be anything other than things that are possible, which again as a general statement is a necessary truth. Unless you say something are possible and something’s are not possible, which brings you to somethings not being possible (hence impossible), and impossible means they necessarily cannot be the case. Another necessary truth.

So I suggest we leave this and go to the God argument at a later time. Because although we are making progress on the notions of necessity and possibility, the frame work in which we are discussing these notions will not have a direct impact on that questions.

Good news we are making progress. But I have to say I don’t really follow your comments about necessity. Your comments are contradictory at times and this is what I can summarise tonight:

For the last few days the one point you have consistently made is that there is no need for necessity, and that you can use ‘is’ and ‘is not’ instead of ‘must’ and ‘cannot be’ since the latter two imply necessity. The point you have been making was about all assertion in general.

In my view you definitely need to let go of this need to get rid of necessity.

If your position is that everything is possible (in order to avoid that somethings are impossible) then you are in for a shuck: for the statement 'everything is possible' means 'impossible is also possible' which is a contradiction, unless of course you mean 'impossible is not possible' in which case somethings are not possible. You can make a final retreat and say 'something are possible' which open the door for some things to be impossible, hence they are not possible necessarily (which is what makes them impossible). And that is just that, no escaping the conclusion. And no point saying 'well this is certainly true, but maybe it doesn't have to be true, although it might be true, and so on and so on.

And I gave the example about the squared-circle as one case where the notion of necessity is unavoidable.

And it is your position on this matter which is really unclear an confusing and contradictory.

You say:

So take square circles. I think they certainly do not exist. But I do not think they 'necessarily' do not exist. Still, I am absolutely certain they do not exist. — Bartricks

To say "they certainly do not exist" just means they can't exist. Because you are making a sweeping statement without having first searched every inch of the universe to see if they do in fact exist or not. What you therefore mean is they can't exist. Unless you retract your statement "they certainly do not exist".

And later you say:

If you were to ask me if it is possible that the object is a square circle, I would say no. — Bartricks

But then you say:

But if you were to ask me the slightly different question "is it possible for there to be square circles" I would say yes. — Bartricks

In the first statement you eliminated the possibility. Because to say 'it is impossible for X to be a squared circle' just means 'no X can be a squared circle'.
But in the second statement you say 'it is possible for some X to be a squared circle'. ?????

And then you think by introducing 'certainly true' the problem gets any easier. I think there is a confusion here between 'certainty' and 'certainly'. If not then your notion of 'certainly' becomes pointless and adds no value or extra information to the sentence.

And then you talk of what reason demands and that according to reason it is inconceivable but it doesn't mean it is not possible and so on.

But reason is our faculty as rational beings.
And then you talk about how truths such as 'squared circles are impossible' cannot tell us anything about objects that actually exists such as their size and so on. Sure, perhaps so. But my point was to demonstrate there are different types of truths and some are necessarily true, not that all are.

You also give the example of the 'whether you exist' question and you are again getting confused between necessary truth and true necessarily.

If I am having a conversation with James then it means there exists a James for me to have a conversation with, which means if the first part of my statement is true then the second part is true necessarily. Not that the second part is some necessary truth regardless of my first statement.

As I said you definitely need to let go of this need to get rid of necessity because your arguments are missing the target. I would understand your insistence if we were somehow conflating between necessary truth and true necessarily, in which case you could target your arguments better at that conflation. But this has never been the case here.

Anyway, I don't think there is much I can add to this. I have gone over all this in my previous comments.

I think it would be useful for you to contemplate about what makes a statement true, the truth maker so to speak.

Apologies I didn't get a chance to properly read your comment about the God argument, I will do that at some point tomorrow.

thank u. Speak soon

‍♂️ ‍♂️ I really enjoy the discussions. Philosophy is amazing I simply love it. I think u do too. That's great.

One question; how do you copy sections from previous comments? I haven't worked it out yet

Well, it is necessarily true that X cannot be a squared circle.

We can’t just start an argument with a statement that is neither true nor false and draw conclusions from it. Because the conclusion will be neither true nor false. And statements like ‘sit here’ or ‘buy me a mars bar’ are neither true nor false. That’s that.

I make this point because we need to stick to valid forms of argument in order to make progress. You can choose the form but it needs to offer a structure to reach conclusions.

Now, from what I understand your claim is that we can just say ‘is’ or ‘is not’ rather than ‘can’ and ‘cannot’. In other words you wish to replace ‘how something must be’ with ‘how something is’.

OK here is a demonstration why this cannot always happen:

If I asked you ‘is this object a squared-circle?’ what would you reply?
In your system of thought you will say ‘it is not’.
I will say on what grounds do you say that, and you will say well I have examined it and it is not.
I will then say maybe your examination was not correct so is it possible that you are wrong and is it possible that X is a squared-circle?

Your reply surely is that ‘no it cannot be because nothing can be squared-circle’.

And this is how you move from ‘is not’ to ‘it cannot be’. And ‘cannot be’ means never, it necessarily cannot be. Not that it happens not to be but it might have been. No, it cannot be because nothing can be a squared and a circle at the same time in the respect. So no matter how many years to examine it and with what apparatus or with what system of thought, X will never be a squared-circle.

To suggest its possibility is to suggest a contradiction.

The only path to dismantle the original God or first cause argument is to reject its key premises. And remember it had two halves; the 1st half concluded that a causal chain needs a first uncaused cause, and the 2nd half defined the uncaused cause as something simple and unique in number.

And no point saying ‘well we will just accept the conclusion until some other argument comes along to reject it and that the conclusion is not necessarily true because one day it may be proven wrong’. That is not in the spirit of a philosophical or scientific enquiry.

By the way I might be less active for a few days as I need to work on a painting, my second main passion, which I have neglected recently due to my philosophy research.
But this forum is great and I thank you for all your replies.

My friend you are making an error precisely related to what makes an argument either valid or sound, or both. This is exactly where soundness vs validity comes into play.

First things first;

The ‘if’ in deductive reasoning secures the validity of the conclusion regardless of what P and Q stand for.

Therefore to see whether the argument is in fact sound we then drop the ‘if’ and see whether the first statement is in fact true, and thus question the truth of the conclusion.

Now the crucial point in reply to your example:

Your ‘if there are mars bars in the shop then buy me some’ isn’t describing some state of affairs that can be used as a general principle. It is neither true nor false, precisely because it is not describing a state of affairs. So it is of no use in any argument. It merely is describing one state of affairs and one request. So we need to re-write it as:

P1: If there are any mars bars in the shop she will buy me some (describing a state of affairs that is either true or false, the same as ‘whatever goes up will come down’)

P2: There are mars bars in the shop (or X goes up).

Conclusion: She will necessarily buy me some (or X will necessarily come down).

You will rightfully object that she very well may not buy you any mars bars (or that not everything that goes up will come down). And here we say these arguments were valid but not sound because at least one of P1 and P2 wasn’t true. A sound argument is one where the conclusion isn’t just valid but true, and for a conclusion of an argument to be true its premises must be true. This means we will start by questioning the truth of P1 (which is what I suggested we do with our own argument).

But truth or falsehood doesn’t apply to your mars bar statement because you are not asserting a state of affairs (be it concretely or abstractly).

You may wish to reject the structure and force of a deductive argument but the point remains that in both valid and sound arguments the conclusion is implied by the premises, such that to deny the conclusion would be to a contradiction.

Which brings us to what Aristotle would call the first principle of thought, the law of non-contradiction. We cannot accept that something is both A and not A at the same time and in the same respect.

To deny the implied conclusion of a deductive argument would be a contradiction in the same spirit as some x is A and not A at the same time in the same respect.

You now may wish to insist that something is A and not A at the same time and in the same respect but to demonstrate how this can be so you will come full circle to the law of non-contradiction (interesting process, check it out on-line).

In summary: Your mars bar statement isn’t asserting some general observation or some general principle which could be subject to criticism as a principle in order for us to draw a conclusion from. It is a statement that is neither true nor false. ‘Please sit here’ doesn’t describe the world hence it is neither true nor false.

But such statements can be turned into state of affairs if we describe them as the mental state of the person making the request and in that respect we can say they are either true or false.

As a mental state we can re-write them as:
P1: If there are mars bars in the shop I desire her to buy me some.

And you can see how the 2nd premise and conclusion will look like. And following everything we have said above it means we can question the truth of P1 in a number of ways.

Look, forget everything else, matters in this argument are far simpler than this based on basic rules of deduction. You are right, deductive arguments can be sound but not valid, but this is why we have the crucial ‘if’ which enforces a ‘conditional’ validity.

Premise 1 (given the crucial ‘if’) offers a universal premise such as ‘if all Ps are Qs’ (which of course can be contested to be false).

Premise 2, or the middle premise, makes another ‘if’ observation (where the ‘if’ is often omitted) that ‘if some X is in fact P’ (not that it must be P but that we assume it to be P) which again can be contested not to be a true observation.

The conclusion then follows that ‘X is therefore Q’ (given that we take the first two premises to be true).
The characteristic of the conclusion is different that P1 and P2. The ‘therefore’ in the conclusion just means ‘X cannot fail but to Q’ if we have accepted the validity of P1 and P2.

The conclusion isn’t, unlike, premise 2, an observation stating what some X ‘could’ be. It is a conclusion telling us what it ‘needs’ to be, given we have accepted the validity of premise 1 and 2 (presumptions which can be objected to).

This means, X, independent and outside of premises 1 & 2, ‘could’ in fact be an S in a world where either P1 or P2, or both are not true. So the only way where X can fail to be Q is where one or both of the initial premises do not prevail.

So to deny that X cannot fail but to be Q we must first deny P1 or P2 or both (which we are allowed to do and I have said that all along).
Please remember:

The conclusion of such a deductive argument, although necessary true, isn’t some necessary truth. That much we both agree on. It is a contingent truth as you say, but contingent on P1 and P2. Meaning it is necessarily true ‘if’ we accept P1 and P2. Which, as I stated, can either or both be contested.

Nowhere did I say the conclusion is a ‘necessary truth’ regardless of the validity of either P1 or P2 or both. But you insist on claiming that I am guilty of committing this conflation which I have demonstrated repeatedly not to be the case.

All I have said is ‘if’ we accept P1 and P2 then the conclusion cannot fail to be what we have stated it to be.

And as far as translating this to our argument is concerned we can break it down as such with the crucial ‘if’:

P1: ‘If’ all causal chains must be caused by some non-caused cause,
P2: And if our world is in fact a causal chain,
C: Therefore our world cannot fail but to be caused by some non-caused cause.

The only path to avoid the conclusion is to object either to P1 or P2 or both.

This is the only thing we need to focus on to reject the argument. So let’s keep the focus on this.

So we must present at least one arguments to weaken the universality of P1, and at least one argument to weaken the observation made in P2.

And I do in fact think there is a way to make one such decisive objection.

Hi and thanks for the reply but your argument is invalid my friend, for the following reason;

When we exclude ‘must’ it means what ‘is’ just happens to be that way but could have been different.

But with regards to a chain of events having a non-event cause, we did not conclude ‘it happens to have a non-event cause’ meaning it could have not had such an initiating cause. What we said is that such an infinite chain 'must' end in a non-event initial cause.

This mean given the fact that we have such a set it means we must have a non-event cause, meaning given the current state of affairs it is necessary that there is a non-event cause (corresponding to the current world).

In deductive reasoning if the conclusion was not the necessary conclusion of the premises then in wouldn’t be much use. The conclusion is in fact a ‘must’, given the initial premises.

And I repeat this doesn't mean 'such a non-event cause is a necessary existent' (which is the point you are consistently taking an issue with. We are not making such a conflation, all we are doing is working backward given the current state of affairs not the other way around (in other words given the initial premises of a deductive argument). We are not saying we must have such a non-event initial cause even if this set didn’t exist.

It is as simple as that and I don't think I can explain it any clearer.

Unless we are willing to concede that such a causal chain could very well have had a non-event cause, which would result in an infinite regress, the very point we had initially denied with the introduction of the non-event cause.

You can of course now do a U-turn and assert that such a chain doesn’t need to have an initial non-event cause, but this means you have to revise your entire argument and present an argument for how such a chain can ‘in principle’ have a non-event initial cause avoiding the infinite regress.
Regards
Miles

I do agree with you that these terms are toxic.

My main point however is that it is unavoidable to say ‘there must be’. As I said before if we agree all houses have foundations, and then also agree we do in fact and actually have a house, then it follows, unavoidably, that there must be a foundation. It is working the problem backward.

Basically what we are saying is that ‘given we have some current conditions, and given these conditions depend on an X then it means we must have an X since our current conditions demands it’. It doesn’t mean the X is some necessary being that would exist even if conditions where different, which would the conflation you and I agree on. Which would be equal to saying ‘we don’t have a house but must have a foundation’. This is not what we are saying.

And I do appreciate you reaching some of the conclusions, such as simplicity, in your own way rather than echoing other people’s views. I applaud that and this is how it actually should be.

These debated are very enjoyable and helpful to me. I hope to you and others too.
Speak soon

Thanks for the reply at this late hour. I must say at first glance I cannot see where you are substantially disagreeing with me apart from a couple of points which I address below:

The use of contingency and necessary is the following: contingent just means dependent on a causes/s. Necessary comes in because a set of an ‘actual’ caused event makes it necessary that some non-event/s caused them. Not that it is a necessary non-event (which is the conflation I eluded to earlier). But given we have an actual set of caused event it followed they were causes by some non-event/s. necessarily. No other option about because we have the set of caused things that demands such a being.

Put differently; you cannot both confirm that ‘if we have a house, we will have a foundation’ and deny ‘we have a house therefore we necessarily have a foundation’. This as I said doesn’t say ‘we have a necessary foundation’. It just says given we have a house, and given our own claim that all houses have a foundation, then we cannot fail but to have a foundation.

I agree with you, we can drop the notions of contingency and necessary and just talk about caused and un-caused, but then something goes missing when we want to say ‘now given we have a house it means we necessarily have a foundation’. Whether you like the terms or not, talk of necessity means given the world of events means we ‘cannot fail’ but to have a non-event causing it, meaning it is necessary that this is to in this world. Now, you can switch ‘necessary’ with ‘cannot fail’, I have no issue with that but both mean the same thing. You pick.

Then to say ‘some substances’ meaning multiple just begs the question as we have outlined a possible argument why it needs to be one in number and not multiples.

There are certain possible objections to the argument I have presented and I don’t think it is valid, but not as you stated them above.

Hi
It is so difficult to juggle between a demanding day job and a philosophical pursuit after work. I was up t 5am doing my research believe it or not :) and then off to work few hours later :( :( 

Going to back to your comments:

I do apologise I wasn’t initially clear about what you meant by ‘self-explanatory’ but I think I now understand what you mean. And I also agree with you that there is often a conflation between something existing necessarily and some necessary existent.

It is like saying ‘if every house has a foundation, and this is a house, then there exist a foundation necessarily’ which doesn’t mean ‘there is a necessary foundation that cannot fail but to exist’. So far I agree.

I confess I haven’t had much time to properly reflect on this topic as my research is about something else (fortunately all philosophy is in some related) but if we carry a line of enquiry, independent of what Avicenna had said, we may perhaps be able to reach the below. Before I start let me say I don’t claim to have conclusive answers and my hope is to outline some possible options and possible lines of enquiry in favour of yesterday’s argument.

Here we go:

The first premise is the key premise which we often take as uncontested and elf-evident. And that premise states ‘every event has a cause’ or that ‘every event is dependent on some other event to bring it about’ including the event of an object coming into being and the position/state of that object, the how it is and what it is.

This premise maybe contested and requires an enquiry of its own. But I take it that most of us are willing to accept as a truism and I take it to be so here for the sake of our argument.

But as a side note I would say that we associate the ‘coming into being of anything’ with some force or energy. If something, an event or an object, was to come into being it would need some force to bring it about, which also applies to force itself which means force itself (energy) cannot just come into being without some force to initiate it (whatever that could mean). In explaining the Big Bang it is suggested (as a part of one of physics unknowns) that energy seem to enter the universe accelerating its expansion. But that doesn’t mean energy is created from nothing as it also could mean that the energy is coming from an unknown system into a known system, from outside of our universe into our universe, it doesn’t mean it was created from nothing. Unless of course we circumvent all this and say energy is neither created nor destroyed which then gives us a candidate for some uncaused being, namely force or energy. As I said this is a much bigger discussion that needs a more in-depth enquiry and research and I might be conflating force with energy here.

So for the sake of argument let us start with the premise, calls it P1, that ‘every event has at least one cause’ and see which conclusions this gives us. I have added ‘at least one cause’ to open the possibility of multiple necessary existents.

Now, although we have accepted that every event has at least one cause, we haven’t however conceded that every cause is an event. This option is still on the table, and it wouldn’t contradict P1 if we were to establish the existence of some non-events which were uncaused. It wouldn’t contradict P1 because all that P1 implied was about events, not non-events.

Also what we so far have from yesterday’s comments, is that if every event has at least one cause then we will have an infinite causal chain.

We then took the chain to be a set of all things caused and called it the contingent set.
Following our own enquiry we can then ask if the set itself is contingent (dependent on one cause or more) or not.

Now, if we take the set of all things contingent as one event, for simplicity, we can then refer to P1 and deduce that it must have a cause. But if its cause is an event than it is itself contingent (dependent on a cause) and belongs to the set.

For the cause of the set not to be contingent we can say it could be a non-event sitting outside of the set which itself wasn’t caused (since it is not an event) which caused and brought about the set.

This we called the necessary existent by which we meant something non-contingent.
So far is the summary of what we said before.

The valid point you made earlier is that just because the existence of something is necessary it doesn’t mean it is some necessary existence.

What this means is that ‘even if the house demands the existence of some foundation it doesn’t some foundation exists such that it cannot fail to exist’. This means we can easily imagine a world without the house and hence without the foundation.

This much is true. But as a reply I think we can say the following:

Given that there is a house in this world we can then conclude that there necessary exists a foundation in this world.

Meaning; given there is a world of events, we can conclude that in this world there necessary exists some non-contingent being. In other words given there is a world of events it is necessary that such an entity exists.

This should not be confused with the statement that ‘this non-contingent being is in fact contingent on there being a world of events’. This would be some strange backward causation meaning the non-contingent being is caused by the events which itself caused. No, what we mean by “given there is a world of events” is that we have reason to conclude “it is necessary that such an entity exists” given the original premise P1.

Sure, in a world where there are no events such a non-contingent being can easily not exist, but all that this statement says is that where there is nothing then nothing brought it about, which is the same as saying in a no-world there are no necessary being/s. I say no-world because an eventless world could be argued to be an empty world and as such no world at all. For how else could we descriptively discern a world that doesn’t exist from a world that has nothing inside it including the very notion of ‘inside’. This means the notion of necessary being/s applies to worlds that exist and not to worlds that do not exist. And I think this is a somewhat acceptable point for an argument in favour of the existence of the necessary being.

Sure in maths we can have empty sets but some mathematical talks are just abstract and not applicable to the real world.
(Remember as I said earlier I don’t claim to have conclusive answers but I think what we have so far is some path for a possible argument in favour of an Avicenna type argument)

OK, so from what we have so far we need to move onto why this non-contingent being needs to be unique and one in number.

Yesterday we also agreed this this thing must be simple and non-composite, so at least one in nature if not yet agreed to be one in number. That was agreed so because if it had parts it would be contingent on its parts. We then arrived at a simple definition.

You then commented then whatever explains this thing, meaning however we explain it in itself (its definition), then we can explain another in the same way. In summary whatever definition we give to the non-contingent being it can have multiple instances where each is explained in the same way. (This is what I think you meant but I might have misunderstood you)

If my understanding is correct then what we can say as a possible response is the following:
If the descriptions of some beings are exactly the same and are completely indiscernible then they could be argued to be the same thing, same as in one in number. So an argument can be made that if multiple objects are ‘qualitatively and descriptively’ truly identical then they are numerically identical too. For there would be no way to discern one from the other, implying all we have is just one thing after all. If we don’t agree to this then what we are saying is that single and multiple are descriptively and qualitatively the same which is a contradiction, unless we are going to radically change the concepts of ‘single’ and ‘multiple’.

In quantum mechanics some elementary particles are believed to be identical such that they may even occupy the same space. But in these cases is not true that they are completely indiscernible, because these particles have different trajectories and come together from different positions and, more importantly, have some combined effect different than each separately (such as wave interference even though they are not interacting) all of which offer us some justification as to why we say we have multiple photons while they are co-occupying the same space. All this means they are not truly and completely indiscernible. Granted the phrase ‘occupying the same space’ doesn’t really apply to photons but I use it for a lack of a better notion. All that matters is that photons pass through one another ‘not interacting’ and during that moment they are indiscernible and all we have is some combined effect.

In the case of the non-contingent beings it could be argued that unlike photons they are outside of time and space which too belong to the set, and as such the non-contingent beings are truly and completely indiscernible which would mean they are just one and the same thing; numerically one.

Most of the above needs tidying up but hopefully it gives food for thought.

Thanks Bartricks
I do agree there are causal accounts and explanatory accounts. Why 2 +2 =4 is an explanatory account and not causal. 'Why is this chair here, because it has to be somewhere and happens to be here' is again an explanatory account.

I am not sure as I decided to read up on him a few days ago, but I think Avicenna is aware of this distinction an the genius of his argument is that he immediately makes it about contingency and necessity. These notions are closely related to causality and a causal account. It will be missing the point of his argument to miss this crucial point.

No matter how we explain an event or an entity, he is directly asking whether they have a cause or causes. And in doing so the discussion unfolds about things that are contingent on their cause/s and things that do not have a cause.

In relation to why can’t we have 2 necessary beings; no matter how we explain each in terms of how they are what they are, the question is what explains there are 2. To say ‘there are two because there are two’ is circular, to say ‘there are two because it happens to be two’ invites the valid modal question ‘could there have been more’. The same goes for ‘if we can have one then surely we can have another for the same reason’ for that means we can have 3 or 4 or more. And that is where the problem is. If there could have been more than one then something necessitates why that number and not another number instead. What I mean is that the ones that don’t exist (say 3 and 4) could have existed and the ones that exist (1 and 2) could have not existed. Their existence all becomes contingent on something. That contingency cannot be explained in terms of ‘they exist because they exist’ as a reason. Their contingency (and this his key point) means they depend on something or some fact, and that something or fact becomes the ‘necessary being’ in the wider sense.

Interesting observation you have made about point 8. I think there is mileage in it but I don’t think this is the reason the Avicenna would have had in mind for he wouldn’t have been aware of properties of elementary material particles occupying space.
But we can nevertheless, in his defence, contest the absolute nature of space and suggest that multiple entities (such as photons as understood today) could be in the so called same quantum space and occupy, for the lack of a better world, the same space. Spatial occupation doesn’t have the same implications for such particles and they are believed to be simply indivisible particles. Even if quantum mechanics is wrong about their simplicity it isn’t too difficult to imagine the possibility of some such simple entities existing, case in point packets of energy.


The reason why your observation is interesting is because I think there might be a way to use space (conceptually or absolute) to object to some of his premises, but not about simplicity or complexity.

Hi all
The original version of a related argument, regarded as one of the most influential arguments for the existence of God later adopted by Aquinas and others, was presented by Avicenna or Ibn Sina the Persian philosopher sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Arabic Philosopher.
Here is my understanding and summary of the argument:
1. Things that exist are either contingent or necessary: meaning either they can ‘not exist’ or they can’t fail but to exist.
2. The things we see around us are all contingent for they could have not existed. The chair, the table, humans, trees, atoms and so on.
3. Contingent things owe their existence to something that brought/brings them about, or in other words causes them.
4. If everything in the world is contingent then we have an infinite regress of contingent things; everything else being caused or brought about by something which is/was itself contingent and was brought about by something else, ad infinitum.
Now, taking such infinite series as a set, it is either the case that the set of all such things is either contingent, or is not contingent.
5. If the set is contingent then it means it must have been brought about/caused by something outside of the set of all things contingent, which means something that itself cannot be a part of that set and is hence a necessary existent.
6. If the set is not itself contingent then it means the set itself is necessary which proves what he was looking for; namely the ‘need’ for the existence of a necessary existent.
Now, if 6 then this needed necessary existent is either:
6a. Part of the set itself
6b. Outside of it.
But it cannot be 6a since the necessary existent cannot be a part of the set of all things contingent for it too will be contingent. So it must be 6b and the necessary existent must be something outside of the set. The cause of the set is therefore some necessary being, some necessary existent.
He then moves to the argument for ‘simplicity’ and ‘Oneness’ of this necessary being (let us note that here ‘oneness’ means ‘uniqueness’ and being one in number.
7. This being must be simple and not composite for if it is a composite then its being is contingent on its parts. So it must be simple.
8. This being must be unique for if it is not then something must explain why there are two or more of it. If for example as have two necessary beings A and B, which even if we accept to be qualitatively identical, the question we face is whether it is a contingent fact that there are two or whether it is a matter of necessity that there are two? If the former then A and B cannot be necessary beings after all for there could have been more or less of them; there could have been A, B, and C, but then how could C be necessary if it ‘merely’ could have existed but happens not to hence why we only have A and B, or they could have been just A, making B not necessary and vice versa. But if it was a matter necessity that there were 2 then A’s and B’s existent is contingent on what necessitated there being two, hence making their existence contingent.
These last two points, especially 8, is, I think, designed to avoid the conclusion that elementary particles could be viewed as the candidate for necessary beings. Although he wasn’t familiar with the modern notion of elementary particles he would have appreciated the notion of some elementary matter bits/particles that subsists everything.
The above is just a summary and some of the steps in his arguments can surely be contested and successfully rejected.
But the surprising conclusion of his argument is that whatever the necessary being is its essence is actual and not potential for whatever it is, it ‘is’ necessary. So if the necessary existent is the cause of the world then it is the necessary cause of the world, such that its causing of the world is a necessary feature of its existence which means ‘it’ caused the world not of free will but of necessity. In other words since the necessary being is internal and was never brought about it also means what ‘it’ caused is internal since there couldn’t have been a time where ‘it’ didn’t cause the world. We can of course say that the concept of time only comes into play after we have the physical world of change and that it doesn’t make sense to talk about a time ‘before’ it caused the world. But if we go down that route we will have to omit any talk of a cause before the physical world, namely the existence of the necessary being existing ‘prior’ to the physical world, which brings us full circle back to the contingent world being attached temporally to the necessary being.

Hope you find the above useful

Happy NY all philosophy lovers, I am happy to have joined the group and I hope you don't mid me joining this discussion which I also have been writing about for some time.

What I wanted to add is that if we are going to ‘conceptually’ tackle the problem of same space/time co-occupation, then it is important we make the argument about any possible entity and make it type agnostic. For what we are concerned with here is the logical possibility of co-occupation by anything that can either be measured, or observed, or detected, or all. Because if the notion of co-occupation is 'possible' say in the case of photons, then it makes it a fact that the notion qua notion is a logical possibility given the entities in question have certain properties which photons would be an example of. So we need to talk in terms of whether it is possible in principle for any number of observable, measurable, or detectable entities to occupy the same space.

The other complication is should we position the question around ‘space/time’ at all? Or should we find a better way to ask the question? Because if we can’t then it either means our conceptual understanding of space is such that it is different from everything else, in which case we need to be able and define it, or it means there is a problem related to our question with the notion of space/time at the heart of the problem.

A related issue is the notion of ‘same’ used in the ‘same space/time location’. We have to be very clear about what this notion means. For example; to say two identical entities could have different histories just begs the question. In possible world W1 we can have two intrinsically identical particles, identical mass, same shape, and so on, where each have been traveling in a straight line for 1 year since they came into being. Our description of their history is the same it seems. Nothing in the description of one is different than the other. We may now wish to track them back to their source of origin and how they came into being. But the same can be said about those original particles where their history is not descriptively different and so on. But nevertheless we have two numerically different particles that are descriptively the same. I am not making the argument that such indiscernible identicals are at all possible, I am just saying resorting to ‘same history' doesn’t do the job. We will soon realise that we have to resort back to the notion of different/same space/time location' as some definitive point of difference, which brings me back to how we define 'same' and 'space/time'.

Now, to say that ‘if two objects occupied the same space wouldn’t they be just one’ doesn’t solve the problem for we haven’t demonstrated why that would be the case. Of course the assertion seems self-evident and intuitive but it nevertheless doesn’t represent at argument.
Now, I am not defending the position that such co-occupation is possible, I am merely saying that in my humble opinion the structure of the arguments need to be tightened.

Finally there is a difference between qualitative identity and numerical identity and the question is whether two objects that are qualitatively identical are necessarily numerically identical, or whether it is possible that they are in fact two numerically different objects. And how does the notorious 'space/time location' come into play.
This last point helps with confusions regarding 'everything is essentially made from the same thing' and so on. Any such comment needs to make clearly make the distinction between
qualitative vs numerical sameness and how they include or exclude one another .