Metaphysics: Things we can know to be true about reality without the scientific method

[IWantGod]

This reminds me of a riddle…where was the man when he jumped off the building? If you say that he was standing on the edge of the building, you’re wrong, because that was before he jumped off the building. If you say that he was in the air, you’re also wrong, because that was after he jumped off the building. So where was the man when he jumped off the building?

My point is, any change from my non-existence to my existence, can’t be a change in me. Because before I existed, I couldn’t change, and after I existed my change from non-existence to existence had already occurred. So it couldn’t have been me that changed. So if something changed then it must have been the thing which caused me to exist. But you claim that the uncaused cause can’t change. Which would seem to leave only one logical conclusion…nothing changed. But if nothing changed, then my existence isn’t unnecessary, it isn’t optional. It must have always been so. It wasn’t a change from potential to actual…it was always actual. I must have always existed.

Contingent existence, it’s beginning, has always existed simultaneously with the first cause, because there is no “before” the first change. I admit that. But that does not mean your existence is necessary. Your existence is still dependent upon the uncaused cause. You cannot be the cause of all change and also be changing at the same time that you cause it. That would be a contradiction.

You cannot have an unchanging act of existence and at the same time be the thing that is changing because that leads to a contradiction also insomuch as you have an unchanging nature and you are simultaneous with the effect. There would have to be 2 distinct beings, the unchanging cause and the changing effect. To argue otherwise would lead to a contradiction.

Insofar as you begin to exist, there has been a change insofar as you are an actualized potential and every moment after that is an actualized potential.The first moment of your existence isn’t preceded by any change, but as soon as you exist you are changing in the sense that you are never not changing. Change has a beginning, and so your changing existence has to be actualized by a being that is not changing in the sense that it is not an actualized potential…If you begin to exist, then you are dependent upon a cause that does not begin to exist, that’s assuming that you are the only effect. To argue otherwise would lead to a contradiction.

I know that i am not eternal because the entirety of my existence is an actualized potential in one way or another. If my existence was necessary that would not be the case… If my existence was necessary, no part of my being would be unactualized or unrealized or in other-words unnecessary; for the simple fact that i am necessary. To argue otherwise would lead to a contradiction.

 

[IWantGod]

Well, at least we are getting somewhere close to an agreement. We’ll speak later.

 

[HarryStotle]

IWantGod:

Insofar as you begin to exist, there has been a change insofar as you are an actualized potential and every moment after that is an actualized potential.

First, I agree that there must be an uncaused cause, but what I fail to understand is how I can possibly be actualized potential. For potential to be actualized it must first exist somewhere. But the potential for my existence couldn’t have existed in me, and neither could it have existed in the uncaused cause. So how can I be actualized potential, when the potential never existed?

And since there was never the potential for me to exist, or not exist, my existence must be necessary.

Your potential to exist existed in the actuality of the existence of your parents since it was the actuality of their genetic makeup along with their actual capacity to reproduce that brought you about.

You didn’t exist as potentiality in and of yourself, but in the potential of actual beings to reproduce. The Church would also claim the direct action of God who creates and infuses your spiritual aspect when you were conceived.

Read Aquinas or Feser on proportionate causality. I’ll see if I can provide links in a bit.

 

[STT]

Well, at least we are getting somewhere close to an agreement. We’ll speak later.

I think he is talking about the fact that you cannot refute idealism. We can be minds perceiving illusion caused by a higher mind/God.

 

[IWantGod]

but what I fail to understand is how I can possibly be actualized potential. For potential to be actualized it must first exist somewhere.

There’s the potential of your nature and there is also the potential for your existence. Perhaps i should have described the potential for your existence as the possibility of being real. Where does this possibility come from? I would say that all possibilities are a natural reflection of the necessary nature we call the uncaused cause. So i would say that the possibility of you is necessarily a reflection of this nature, but i do not think this justifies saying that your existence is something that must necessarily become real. Your existence is possible but not necessary, and we know this because any actuality that is existentially necessary is not an actualized potential or possibility. Something that exists necessarily does not have a beginning or end; it is changeless, for if it were to change that would contradict the fact that it necessarily exists as what it is. Thus we cannot say that your nature naturally arises out of the nature of the uncaused cause because only that which is necessary ought to exist. So natural cause and effect relationships become null and void at this point. And then the question of why unnecessary things exist becomes the focus of metaphysics, and that’s why i say that the uncaused cause is an intelligent cause because all natural cause and effect relationships in principle cannot explain the existence of unnecessary things, but an intentional act of creation does.

 

[Sophia]

Simply by contemplating two questions…what am I, and where did I come from?

The first question is easy: You are a human being.
The second question is answered by the song:

Enjoy!

 

[Sophia]

In a way that’s the point of my previous post.

As a matter of fact, my response was imprecise. It should have read: “You are very probably a human being”. But it is not certain, just a very plausible assumption. You could be a very advanced AI, or a space alien who likes to masquerade as a human. The rest of your post is rather confusing and hazy.

I hope you listened to the linked music. I like it very much.

 

[IWantGod]

How apropos. I was contemplating this very thing today, and an interesting scenario occurred to me.

If the uncaused cause is intelligent, then you are an artificial intelligence, and the universe may very well be a kind of virtual reality.

 

[IWantGod]

And it would still leave me thinking that the world in which I’m living is more in line with something that I would create, than something that a loving intelligent programmer would create. Unless he gave me free will, and the world is as it is, because I make it so, not because he makes it so.

Quantum physics seems to suggest that we do have some degree of influence over what we experience. Also, when you look at things from a quantum level perspective everything is made up of largely empty space and particles communicate or effect each other over large distances. Isn’t that kind of like a program? But that’s all above my pay grade, though fascinating none the less.

 

[abucs]

True, but are we to believe that the uncaused cause is merely the ultimate example of a computer programmer? It would simply leave me asking the question, who programmed the programmer?

I think this world is defined by cause and effect (and unknown probability) and so our minds are also forged with a cause and effect idea of rationality. Once we start thinking of something outside our world such as a loving computer programmer then I think we have to philosophically accept that our rationality (forged in this world) may not line up well with the reality there.

For example we intuitively have and idea of what time is but I do not think our minds can grasp exactly what time is nor what is a rational framework of existence without time. We can philosophise about this but our minds (at least mine) are built for understanding our world with cause and effect from which we intuitate time.

 

[o_mlly]

Science: Things we can know to be true about reality without metaphysics?

Answer: Nothing. The scientific method cannot prove the scientific method.

 

[HarryStotle]

oldnskeptical:

Simply by contemplating two questions…what am I, and where did I come from?

The first question is easy: You are a human being.

And that trite answer completely buries the more salient one under the guise of “easy.” As if what it means to be a human being is answered by the mere fact that you have been identified to be one, whatever it means to be one.

 

[philipl]

If you cant not measure it, then is isnt real. That is with the exception of God. God lives outside of the universe so he can not be measured

 

[HarryStotle]

If you cant not measure it, then is isnt real. That is with the exception of God. God lives outside of the universe so he can not be measured

Measured in what sense? If you mean spatially or numerically or in some other quantifiable way, aren’t you, a priori, dictating what real means as a function of our human capacity to measure things? Why would we believe reality itself is subject to or determined by a human capacity to measure it, rather than to God’s capacity to create?

 

[philipl]

I dont recall mentioning Gods not creating anything. But in this universe very thing that is real can be measured in some form.

 

[HarryStotle]

I dont recall mentioning Gods not creating anything. But in this universe very thing that is real can be measured in some form.

Your point assumes that nothing can exist an any reality besides God and the physical universe. Is that true, however?

Are minds real? Are moral principles real? Are truth and justice real? In what sense can any of these be measured?

Couldn’t God create some aspects of reality that are not measurable but are nevertheless real? Why couldn’t those exist in this universe but not be measurable?

 

[philipl]

yes all that can be measured, how accurate time will tell. This doesnt mean it has to be measured with a ruler. We can measure IQ, we can measure creative ability, We can measure good and evil. We can measure morality. What I can say is the we dont know what we dont know at the moment. A thousand years from now many question unknown today will be known then.