16
votes
Accepted
Does the impossibility of an infinite regress prove God exists?
Most answers are misinterpreting your question. Whether it be space-time itself, the multi-verse, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster you would like to know if something had to first exist for infinity ...
- 282
15
votes
Does the impossibility of an infinite regress prove God exists?
It's no solution to postulate a primordial source as a remedy against infinite regress. The concept of a primordial source prompts at once the question for its cause. To say it is "causa sui" - the ...
- 20.8k
14
votes
Accepted
How do defenders of libertarian freewill reconcile it with constraints imposed by the laws of physics?
There are ways to reconcile libertarian free will even with classical physics. One could say (as was common position in 19-th century) that the laws of nature are only approximations and do not ...
- 42.3k
13
votes
Accepted
Can a totally ordered set with a last element but no first element exist, or is this contradictory?
Can a totally ordered set with a last element but no first element exist, or is this contradictory?
Taking the usual mathematical definition of total order, and taking "last element" to ...
- 650
11
votes
Accepted
Is there a causal influence of the mental on the physical?
The threat of epiphenomenalism is indeed a major issue intensively discussed in the last decades. But while there is a broad consensus against it, there is no agreement as to what exactly blocks it. ...
- 42.3k
9
votes
Accepted
How does Quantum Mechanics affect the modern account of free will and determinism?
The OP quote draws a distinction between determinism ("hard determinism"), and causal completeness ("less absolute determinism"). The former means that the current physical state ...
- 42.3k
8
votes
Does the impossibility of an infinite regress prove God exists?
OK, I'm going to have a go at this.
An argument can go 3 ways:
A circular path.
Infinite regress.
Hmm... let's just call it stop condition for now.
Circular arguments
These are outright nonsense. ...
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8
votes
How does Quantum Mechanics affect the modern account of free will and determinism?
First a point of clarification, from what you are describing, you are talking about libertarian freewill, not compatibilist freewill. More on that later.
At the heart of your question is a confusion ...
- 27k
7
votes
Accepted
Is the delayed choice quantum eraser a refutation of principle of causality? How does contemporary philosophy make sense of it?
One of the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics is the principle of superposition. Its most simple application reads: If two paths exist to move from state A to state B, then the transition ...
- 20.8k
7
votes
Does Quantum Entanglement Disprove the Principle of Locality?
In the relevant sense the answer is "no", the appearance of a "yes" is created by projecting classical intuitions about locality onto quantum objects. This is confusing because the definition of ...
- 42.3k
7
votes
Accepted
If we imagine a world that functions without causality, how absurd could it be?
If the world were without causality then it need not change in any way. It might fortuitously behave exactly as it does now. This is certainly a logical possibility.
If the world were without ...
- 35.3k
7
votes
How to be skeptical of transcendental arguments?
The argument form that you quote is straightforwardly valid in standard logic. It might be symbolised as
1. ◇Y → X
2. Y
3. Y → ◇Y
therefore,
4. X
You give 1 and 2 as premises, and 3 is the T axiom ...
- 22.1k
6
votes
How do defenders of libertarian freewill reconcile it with constraints imposed by the laws of physics?
The problem of freewill results from the fact that our subjective experiences from the first persons's viewpoint are different than our scientific observations and experiences from the third person's ...
- 20.8k
6
votes
Can a totally ordered set with a last element but no first element exist, or is this contradictory?
Take the negative integers.
But remember that arbitrarily large numbers don’t require an infinite item. There are arbitrarily large and small integers, but no infinite ones.
- 5,097
5
votes
Is the delayed choice quantum eraser a refutation of principle of causality? How does contemporary philosophy make sense of it?
Delayed choices undermines past to future causality only if one assumes that the initial state of a system must directly determine measurement results, and that wave functions represent our ignorance ...
- 5,830
5
votes
Does causality always require time?
The answer depends on the definition of "causal", but traditional metaphysics did not require causal relation to be temporal. The most famous counterexample is the relation between God and the world ...
- 42.3k
5
votes
Does causality always require time?
When you ask if "causality" requires an "arrow of time," I believe it is not impertinent to say, the opposite is more nearly the case.
The Newtonian, "billiard ball" picture of causation is ...
- 13.3k
5
votes
Spinoza and causality
Spinoza is not in any straightforward way a follower of Descartes. Descartes, for instance, believes that there are two substances, mind and body. For Spinoza, by contrast, there is only one substance;...
- 35.3k
5
votes
Is it possible to have truth if objective randomness exists?
Your definition of randomness is not bad.
A couple important points to note, however:
Randomness refers to physical processes only.
Mathematical identities like 1 + 1 = 2 are independent of any ...
- 916
5
votes
Is causality a type of necessary and sufficient condition?
Simply put, causality would imply that the cause is a sufficient condition for the effect.
That A caused B would only mean that A is a sufficient condition for B -- not that A is a necessary ...
- 24.5k
5
votes
How to be skeptical of transcendental arguments?
Keeping a fairly narrow scope to Modal Logic here, I think a key concept that might help you out here is Access in modal frames. Kripke's frame semantics introduce not just the idea of possible ...
- 5,179
5
votes
Accepted
What is this idea of causality being articulated?
The answer to this question is straightforward. Any metaphysical view of causation that imputes causal powers from the abstract domain of human thought to the physical world is known as mental ...
- 20.5k
5
votes
If nothing is preventing something from existing, must it exist?
No. You are assuming that for a thing not to exist there must be a factor that prevents it from existing, which is an unnecessary assumption. There is nothing to prevent me from creating a passible ...
- 9,163
4
votes
How does Quantum Mechanics affect the modern account of free will and determinism?
The way quantum mechanics is commonly discussed makes this a very confusing issue. I will discuss this problem first and then move on to free will. People like to say there are multiple ...
- 7,305
4
votes
When trying to identify causality, do we assume "nearness" between cause and effect?
First, we need to distinguish between the proximate and mediate causes, because we would call throwing a ball to be the (mediate) cause of a broken window even though the throwing hand never came into ...
- 42.3k
4
votes
Accepted
Book or article recommendation about causality and counterfactuals
I suggest
Paul, L.A. (2009): Counterfactual Theories, In: Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Causation, Oxford: Oxford UP, Ch. 8.
This is a good and ...
- 13.1k
4
votes
Accepted
Why is Hume struggling to reconcile causality with his notion of what is knowable?
It was an epistemological problem, Hume's theory of impressions and ideas was a bit too simplistic to describe human cognition realistically, which is understandable given the state of psychology at ...
- 42.3k
4
votes
Accepted
Most important modern/contemporary essays on free will
It's interesting that this isn't straightforward to answer.
I would note, discussions of free will come down primarily to definitions, so what tradition or perspective someone comes from is key to not ...
- 19.8k
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