
Why anything? Why this? (1998) - diodorus
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n02/derek-parfit/why-anything-why-this
======
dvt
For context, Parfit died a few days ago, he was a brilliant man and I read
some of his papers as a philosophy undergraduate. As far as the essay itself
goes, it's pretty much typical run-of-the-mill anti-theist cosmology with the
same arguments that have become status quo for the past 20 years or so.

Even as a Christian, I find both cosmological arguments (theist and anti-
theist) wholly unconvincing. For example, if I was a non-believer, I would
find it equally hard to believe in a multi-verse or a God. Not only that, but
to make these kinds of arguments, we need to make all kinds of pretty serious
assumptions: that we know how causality works in a multiverse, that laws of
physics are invariant even at the beginning of universes (whatever that might
mean), and so on.

But here's where I completely disagree with the position so many philosophers
have (a field which I love):

> As these remarks suggest, there is no clear boundary here between philosophy
> and science. If there is such a highest law governing reality, this law is
> of the same kind as those that physicists are trying to discover.

As much as I respect Parfit (and many other philosophers of science), I think
they're just dead wrong. What philosophers do is very different than what
physicists do. This view absolutely permeates academic philosophy: that
philosophy of science is, you know, _basically science_. It's not. I always
recommend Barry Dainton's Time and Space[1] for budding philosophers of
science, but don't kid yourself: it's merely a very high-level introduction to
the physics of space and time. Until you really get down and dirty with the
intricacies of (at first) Galilean spacetime and (eventually) Minkowski
spacetime, you really won't "get it" \-- but alas, many philosophy
undergraduates and grad students think they do. And I'm sure that hubris
follows them in their postgraduate careers.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Time-Space-Barry-Francis-
Dainton/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Time-Space-Barry-Francis-
Dainton/dp/0773537473)

~~~
sethrin
I think you're mischaracterizing the relationship between science and
philosophy. The philosophy of science is philosophy, and science is more like
the applied philosophy of empiricism. God, so far, is not a subject for
empirical debate.

I am also not sure that your dismissal of the argument as "run-of-the-mill
anti-theist cosmology". This seems like a discussion of cosmology from an
empirical perspective, and I can't see how theism is particularly useful
there. If you'll pardon me for a blunt characterization, you seem to have an
axe to grind about theism. I'm not sure that is either warranted or
particularly topical. Parfit may be "dead wrong" but suggesting that this has
anything to do with your personal religious beliefs rather detracts from your
argument, in my opinion.

~~~
dvt
> I am also not sure that your dismissal of the argument as "run-of-the-mill
> anti-theist cosmology".

I didn't mean to be dismissive, just to point out that the article is old
(1998) and that most of HN's more learned readers would've already seen these
arguments in one form or another.

> If you'll pardon me for a blunt characterization, you seem to have an axe to
> grind about theism.

Parfit's agenda is pretty clearly anti-theist, I think I'm pretty on-topic. If
anything, I have an axe to grind with philosophy of science.

~~~
sethrin
Okay, well then assuming it is intended to be anti-theist, why is that a
problem? Is the cosmology he describes not empirical?

------
lolc
Humans are good at recognizing intent. They want to be. When you let them
loose on a question, they will try to find an answer with intent, because the
expectation is for there to be intent. Sheer complexity is hard to stomach for
us.

We must be clear that the only things that make sense are we ourselves, plus
the animals we're surrounded by. The animals too are trying hard to make sense
of things. Most cannot afford the luxury of developing advanced brains like we
did. We can try and calculate the possibility for other "sensible" things in
the universe, but that is just idle speculation. We have not the slightest
indication of them existing.

For our current physics, the question of what lies beyond the beginning of our
universe is nonsensical, as we are limited to light-speed. We cannot leave the
universe expanding outwards at light-speed. Our perception is limited to that
bubble within.

When we say that our physical discoveries point to a fine-tuned universe,
we're just being proud of our fine-tuned physics. We _did_ figure out a few
things about the universe after all. And we're trying really hard to
understand something that happened far in the past. Then these intent-people
come along and claim it theirs.

TLDR: Who created this fine-tuned universe? We did.

~~~
cristianpascu
Who put the wagon in front of the horses? The horses did. :)

------
woodandsteel
At its end the essay says there will be a part II that will address the
question of how much deeper these sorts of causal explanations could go. Is
there a link available for it?

My own view is that such causal explanation has to stop somewhere, and we are
left with, as Parfit mentions at a few points, sheer awe.

I think this is an example of the larger principle that human understanding is
finite. Another example would be Colin McGinn's argument the human mind is not
the sort of intelligence that could understand why consciousness (in the hard
problem meaning of the term:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness\)exists).

I think that furthermore the finiteness of human intelligence is linked with
many other types of finitude, such as our being mortal material bodies with
material brains in a material world, and that philosophy is to a great extent
the process of determining how finite things are in each area or aspect of
reality, and how these various finitudes connect with each other in an overall
pattern.

I would add that I think that many if not most philosphical disagreements are
based at least in part on differing views about these finitudes. So for
instance Platonism holds that many apparent finitudes are in fact delusions,
while Aristotle tends to affirm them as real.

~~~
cristianpascu
The problem raised by the article is one of necessesity and contingency. Why
is there something? Why this? A necessary being and a contingent being demand
very different questions. That's why the article then goes into probabilities,
which are the mark of contingency. The ancient and medieval
philosophy/theology insisted on the lack of contingent attributes of God,
whereas the Universe has all the attributes of contingency. As Heidegger said
(in a quote I read somewhere), necessity can not be explained. That's where
our mind will stop explaining things. The difference between a theist and an
atheist is in their willingness to accept contingency as being necessary, or,
to say that the electron is necessary the way it is and there's no other
possible way for it to be this way. It exists necessarily like this and that's
it. Or some other material entity that caused it, but the chain ends quickly
and stops there.

~~~
woodandsteel
I think I agree with what you are saying. In terms of the finitudes of human
understanding, I would put it this way: the theist thinks things are as they
are because that is what God wishes, but why God exists is a mystery. The
materialist thinks things are as they are because of the laws of nature, but
why the laws of nature are as they are is a mystery. Have I got that right?

And then there is the third option of absolute mysticism , which a human mind
merges with the Infinite, and all secrets are revealed to it.

Let me add that I am focusing on the finitudes of human existence because my
number one interest is political philosophy, and political philosophy is
ultimately about how human beings can best handle those finitudes.

------
johnfn
I have two fun answers to this question.

One is that we are in a simulation and our higher order universe has no
conception of cause and effect.

Two is that we are the side effects of a mathematical system. (This one is
harder to explain on mobile.) Consider Wolfram's rule 110. With simple inputs,
the results iterated over and over again become arbitrarily complex. Perhaps
complex enough to be life like? Perhaps complex enough to simulate a universe?

But consider that if you could actually simulate something complex with a
mathematical system, no cause is required, in the same way that no cause is
required for the empty cell to have whatever output exists when you iterate
rule 110 on it 10000 times. Our universe could just be playing out some
mathematical formula already set down.

Sorry, that probably makes no sense. It's a bastardized explanation of
something I read on lesswrong ages ago.

------
calebsurfs
Part 2 is here, with plenty of food for thought:

[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n03/derek-parfit/why-anything-
why-t...](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n03/derek-parfit/why-anything-why-this)

> If we find this astonishing, we are assuming that these features should be
> the Selectors: that reality should be as simple and unarbitrary as it could
> be. That assumption has, I believe, great plausibility. But, just as the
> simplest cosmic possibility is that nothing ever exists, the simplest
> explanatory possibility is that there is no Selector. So we should not
> expect simplicity at both the factual and explanatory levels. If there is no
> Selector, we should not expect that there would also be no Universe. That
> would be an extreme coincidence.

------
tehwalrus
This is the problem with philosophy. Expanding zero information into some
information.

I wasn't very good at spotting it before I learned about compression and
information entropy, which incidentally gave me a lifelong obsession with
encodings.

It is sufficient to believe nothing about the origin of the universe, as with
deities, since obtaining data is impossible.

------
nessus42
I read Parfit's book _Reasons and Persons_ for a Philosophy class a number of
years ago. One large section of the book addressed that age-old question: If
you get into a Star Trek transporter, do you actually get transported
somewhere else? Or do you die, and a new person is created at the destination
who is deluded into thinking that they are you?

The book was very interesting. I'm not sure that I agree with his conclusion,
however, which was (1) Yes, you die. (2) So what?

(I.e., there being someone else who is just like you is just as good as not
dying.)

From my point of view, if the result is just as good as not dying, then that's
what I meant by not dying. But I'm sure I'd have to write just as much as
Parfit did to make that claim credible to philosophers.

~~~
mannykannot
I am not sure there is any difference in your opinions, I get the impression
that he and you are just putting it differently.

Many of these sorts of discussion end up being about the meaning of words.
Parfit seems to have had a talent for avoiding that.

------
Maken
In the end, it all comes down to Aristotle. We assume that nothing moves
unless it is moved by others, and then when faced by the fact that rule
necessarily implies a infinity chain of movers, we just and put a unmoved
mover at the beginning. Because breaking the rule just one is fine.

------
macawfish
I skimmed the article, and it was filled with lots of historical philosophical
sorts of things about anthropic principles and "God" and what not. But what I
really like is the headline was a question, which reads like a Simple English
Wikipedia article. Here's my reaction:

Let's assume that at least "one" existence of "something" is possible, and
that it corresponds with the one that you, the reader, are assuming to be
experiencing right now. Somethingness.

Okay, then let's make the leap and say it's possible that nothing could be.

At this point, the odds of nothing existing are 1/2, because the set of
possible universes is __[ _nothing_ , _something_ ] __. And if we go by the
assumptions that every possible state in this set of possible states is
equally likely (a common assumption in classical probability theory), but that
only one state can be actualized, then this is leaving us with 1 /2.

But then think about all the possible "existences" that could exist as
different combinations of the substance around you. The state space is huge.
Nothingness forms a vanishingly small part of that set of possible existences.
The thing is that one form of "nothingness" is indistinguishable from another
form of "nothingness". By extensionality, the set of possible existences only
contains "nothingness" one time.

This is a naive set theory/classical probability theory approach to the
question.

Of course, in a multiverse idea of reality, we don't necessarily have to pick
one of the possible existences. They can be in some kind of larger
superposition, even if they are somehow cut off from one another. Maybe
nothingness _is_ compatible with somethingness. We existers just don't happen
to experience it. And how could we? What is there to experience and who is
there to experience it?

Wow. Enough is enough! I feel like a wide-eyed college freshmen again!

Bye :)

P.S. It occurred to me that there might be distinguishable variations on non-
existence. For example, what if the set of possible realities is: __[ _"
Nil"_, _" nada"_, _" null"_, _" nothingness"_, _" pitch black silence"_, _"
non-sense"_, _" eternal vacuum"_, _" something"_] __. Well then in this case,
we are sure lucky to be here! There was a 7 /8 chance that some form of
nothing would be the ultimate reality!

~~~
Gatsky
How can you define a sample space if there is no space? I don't see how
nothingness can be treated as equally likely as somethingness.

~~~
macawfish
you said there " _is_ no space". How can there be nothing if there _is_ ___.
Is "no space" not something that can "be"? I mean, you said there "is" no
space, you said it yourself!

:D

But more seriously, why should my reasoning, my set theory/classical
probability idea, be required for a nothing reality? It's just a tool I'm
using here on hacker news to make a line of reasoning, to communicate about
the possibility this sort of nothingness. I have the luxury of such a tool
apparently existing, here in this universe of somethingness. But why should
that have any bearing on a possible nothing universe?

