Thursday, December 3, 2009
The Principle of Sufficient Reason: No Brute Facts?
You are hiking in a remote wilderness, miles from the nearest building or even cell phone tower. You come upon a clearing and see a crystal sphere hovering over you and emitting colorful light pulses in some seeming order: red, blue, green and the pattern repeats. Should there be an explanation for this odd phenomenon or is it acceptable to shrug our shoulders and mutter "Stuff happens"? Can we extrapolate from this case to a general principle of the universe? If so, can we prove that God (or a reasonable facsimile) exists?
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Examining the principle of sufficient reason we know that if we are perceiving this flashing crystal there must be an explanation for why we are perceiving it. Simply saying Stuff happens doesn't explain why you perceive the crystal ball, but rather that you simply don't care. It is important to make the distinction between perception and reality as well. Descartes tells us that our senses mislead us to false conclusions. If I perceive something there must be a reason I perceive it, but a reason explaining why it exists in actuality does not always follow. Looking at the example of the crystal ball, I know that there must be a reason I perceive it, and that reason could be that aliens from Indiana Jones are beaming it down to earth. This would also explain why the flashing ball exists. At the same time my perception can be explained through a way that does not validate the crystal's true existence. Everyone knows the real reason I am in the middle of nowhere is because I needed a safe place to consume my psilocybian mushrooms and enjoy nature. This explains why I am perceiving the strange crystal without necessitating its actual existence.
ReplyDeleteIn relation to the universe the principle of sufficient reason requires that both our perceptions AND reality command an explanation for their existence. Nothing can logically occur 'just because.' Because of this I find most modern conceptualizations of God to be flawed in at least some aspect since all fail to explain why God exists. The argument made in Hume explaining that God contains his reason within himself (assuming God is male... which technically he should have no gender) may be totally legitimate however I can not comprehend how such may be the case. Does anyone have a good explanation as to how God contains his reason within his existence? I would love to hear it.
I think Evan did a nice job of summarizing the principle of sufficient reason, because we take as an assumption that everything must have a reason. Having first accepted this principle, we begin to trace the causes and effects back to their "origin". At this point, we can either suppose that the chain is infinite or that there is something that contains its own reason for being in itself. Hume argues that no matter which you choose, you are ultimately left with a single cause that contains its own cause within itself. He then names this God.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this doesn't prove anything extraordinary, because the argument only proves that "something" exists that contains its own cause. It gives no insight into what that something might be. In short, the God that Hume claims is the ultimate cause of everything, might not match up in the least with what we currently suppose God to be like. This ultimate cause might not be omniscient, omnipotent, or omnibenevolent. In fact, it might not even be a consciousness at all. Simply naming this ultimate cause "God" is most certainly not an argument for the existence of the God as we know him/her.
Chip makes an excellent point. The god Hume is rationalizing by claiming god to be self contained does not necessarily line up with popular religious concepts of god. All Hume is showing is that something that we could otherwise not explain, i.e. the universe, contains reason within itself sufficient to maintain its existence.
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