C: But are you going to say that we can't, or we shouldn't even raise the question of the existence of the whole of this sorry scheme of things -- of the whole universe?
R: Yes, I don't think there's any meaning in it at all. I think the word "universe" is a handy word in some connections, but I don't think it stands for anything that has a meaning.
C: If the word is meaningless, it can't be so very handy. (...)
R: First may I take up the point that if a word is meaningless it can't be handy. That sounds well but isn't in fact correct. Take, say, such a word as "the" or "than." You can't point to any object that those words mean, but they are very useful words; I should say the same of "universe." (...)
Anyway, the point of the OP? What question/s do you wish to discuss? — 180 Proof
In other words, sufficient reason for the PSR is lacking or (hidden) somewhere north of the North Pole. :smirk:The only answer to Why that does not precipitate an infinite regress and, in effect, begs the question is There Is No Why. — 180 Proof
This reminds me of Democritus' atoms & void. However, what scientists mean by "world" or "universe" are simply methodological concepts which satisfy theoretical models and not ontological posits.The world is the totality of facts, not of things. — TLP 1.1
The problem is you really have two definitions, the physicalists universe as all actual material, and its potential states, versus the subjective world with all potential experience. — Count Timothy von Icarus
"That" and "the" aren't nouns and the universe is and I think Russell's claim runs into the problem that universe certainly can be defined meaningfully in the way the word is most commonly employed. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I believe the conception of "the universe" to be, as its etymology indicates, a mere relic of pre-Copernican astronomy(...)
In the days before Copernicus, the conception of the "universe" was defensible on scientific grounds: the diurnal revolution of the heavenly bodies bound them together as all parts of one system, of which the earth was the centre.(...)
When Copernicus swept away the astronomical basis of this system of thought, it had grown so familiar, and had associated itself so intimately with men's aspirations, that it survived with scarcely diminished force—survived even Kant's "Copernican revolution," and is still now the unconscious premiss of most metaphysical systems.
The oneness of the world is an almost undiscussed postulate of most metaphysics. "Reality is not merely one and self-consistent, but is a system of reciprocally determinate parts"[19]—such a statement would pass almost unnoticed as a mere truism. Yet I believe that it embodies a failure to effect thoroughly the "Copernican revolution," and that the apparent oneness of the world is merely the oneness of what is seen by a single spectator or apprehended by a single mind.
I suppose the problem for physicalism in asserting various aspects of material being is a set of brute facts is on the one hand, that we keep peeling back layers on the onion and finding that these brute facts do have causes resulting from other layers of fundemental forces, and our elementary particles prove they can break down into even more elementary particles. — Count Timothy von Icarus
C: Well, to say that there isn't any cause is not the same thing as saying that we shouldn't look for a cause. The statement that there isn't any cause should come, if it comes at all, at the end of the inquiry, not the beginning. In any case, if the total has no cause, then to my way of thinking it must be its own cause, which seems to me impossible. Moreover, the statement that the world is simply there if in answer to a question, presupposes that the question has meaning.
R: No, it doesn't need to be its own cause, what I'm saying is that the concept of cause is not applicable to the total.
but if I read him right he seems to be falling back into a Parmenidean trap. — Count Timothy von Icarus
at least in that context, "universe" does not apply to a class. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The universe is the sum total of actual energy and matter that exists, and the volume occupies. — Count Timothy von Icarus
From all this it seems to follow that events, not particles, must be the "stuff" of physics. What has been thought of as a particle will have to be thought of as a series of events.
The series of events that replaces a particle has certain important physical properties, and therefore demands our attention; but it has no more substantiality than any other series of events that we might arbitrarily single out.
Thus "matter" is not part of the ultimate material of the world, but merely a convenient way of collecting events into bundles.
Thus the Big Bang talks about the universe expanding. Indeed, some of the best evidence for the theory comes from evidence of this expansion. Classifications don't expand, these text books clearly refer to an expanding material entity, the universe — Count Timothy von Icarus
But isn't it true that a “sum total” must be a class or set? — Amalac
The universe is a class or a set in the sense that these abstractions can be used to talk about the universe as the "sum total" of all there is, but not in the sense that that is all there is to say about the universe. As you rightly point out, classes and sets leave out relations between their members, such as causal relations, so they probably aren't the right sort of abstraction to use here. — SophistiCat
Well, I just don't see how we can tell whether the universe is a set in the same sense in which we are sets of atoms, or merely a set in the sense in which the set of all the objects in my table is a set. I'm just suggesting that to think the word universe refers to an object and not merely to a set may be a mistake. — Amalac
If we suppose that the universe, defined as the sum total of all there is, isn't merely a set but also a thing (in the same sense in which an apple is a thing), then we could question Russell's claim, for why would the notion of cause not apply to the total then? — Amalac
Well, I don't know. I mean, the explanation of one thing is another thing which makes the other thing dependent on yet another, and you have to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire to do what you want, and that we can't do. — Russell
Are you saying that the universe is nothing more than an unstructured collection of items about which nothing can be said other than that they are distinct from each other? Because that is what insisting that the universe is nothing more than a "set" implies. — SophistiCat
If not, then where is the mistake? In referring to the universe as an "object"? OK, let's not refer to the universe as an "object". Where does that get us? We aren't any closer towards answering the question of whether we should expect the universe to have a cause. — SophistiCat
He did at one point say that the word "universe" had no meaning, which I thought was rather confusing. Perhaps where he was going with this was to say that the word "universe" has the function of a quantifier, rather than a proper noun, but he didn't get to develop that thought. — SophistiCat
Recall how the unrestricted comprehension of predicates resulted in a set theory paradox that Russell had discovered earlier. Perhaps Russell was pushing in that direction when he offered this objection:
Well, I don't know. I mean, the explanation of one thing is another thing which makes the other thing dependent on yet another, and you have to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire to do what you want, and that we can't do.
— Russell — SophistiCat
But in the end, where Russell makes a stand is merely in denying that the principle of sufficient reason applies to the world as a whole. — SophistiCat
I thought Russell's point was that the notion of cause applies only to objects (“particular things”). If the universe is neither an object nor an abstraction produced by the mind, then what is it? — Amalac
But then we agree that the universe is not a thing or object, so that it doesn't exist in the same sense in which an apple exists (or would you say a quantifier exists?), and therefore there is no sense in applying the notion of cause to it as we would with an apple, no? — Amalac
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.