[Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???

C. G. Estabrook galliher at uiuc.edu
Wed Nov 12 12:11:51 CST 2008 

The question, Why is here anything instead of nothing?, is philosophical, not 
psychological (or even strictly speaking theological), as its formulators from 
Leibniz to Heidegger recognized.

Some philosophers, like Bertrand Russel or recently Thomas Nagel, have said that 
the question just can't be asked.  You can ask about how come any piece of the 
universe exists, but not about the whole thing.

That seems to me like the answer given to Darwin when he asked why species 
exist.  Species just are, he was told, and you can't ask, e.g., Why are there dogs?

To say as Russell once did, "The universe is just there!" seems to me just as 
arbitrary as to say, "Dogs are just there!"

The difference is that we now know by hindsight that Darwin's critics were
irrational because we have familiarized ourselves with an answer to the
question, "How come there are dogs?" We have not familiarized ourselves with
an answer to the question, "How come the world instead of nothing?" But
that does not make it any less arbitrary to refuse to ask it.

To ask that question is to begin a philosophical reflection that Russell was 
simply refusing to do, it seems. It is of course perfectly right to point out 
the mysteriousness of a question about everything, to point to the fact that
we have no way of answering it, but that is by no means the same as saying
it is an unaskable question. As Wittgenstein once said, "Not how the world is,
but that it is, is the mystery."  --CGE


LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
> I do not think it shows its emptiness necessarily. It depends on what one
> views as being substance or content.  If one is looking for the meaning of
> non-empty to be a rational or "factually" concrete answer, then it will be
> empty; but if its content is psychological (e.g., the provision of emotional
> security, feelings of non-randomness, the furnishing of comfort, etc.). then
> it is not empty.  One might argue that deluding oneself into believing
> scientific findings and theories are knowledge is empty and Science as an
> answer to what is truth & knowledge is a postulation of an empty concept.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Morton K. Brussel [mailto:brussel at illinois.edu] 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 10:16 PM
> To: C. G. Estabrook
> Cc: LAURIE SOLOMON; peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???
> 
> .That which we don't know is what People call god, which shows its  
> emptiness.
> 
> --mkb
> 
> On Nov 11, 2008, at 10:05 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> I agree that we don't know the answer to the question, Why is there  
>> anything instead of nothing?
>>
>> But that answer (which we don't know) is "what people have called  
>> God," as Thomas Aquinas says.
>>
>>
>> LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
>>> You can ask all you want; but that does not mean that there are  
>>> any answers
>>> that are The Answer.  Thus, the exercise can turn into intellectual
>>> masturbation, which may give some pleasure although it may not  
>>> furnish such
>>> pleasure to all.
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
>>> [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G.
>>> Estabrook
>>> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 9:00 PM
>>> To: Morton K. Brussel
>>> Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???
>>> The universe just is, and we can't ask about it?
>>> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>>> I submit that gods have no substance to answer this question.  
>>>> They are totally insubstantial.
>>>> My guess is there has never been "nothing". There's no need to  
>>>> question existence; it's axiomatic. --mkb
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 11, 2008, at 8:27 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Why is there anything instead of nothing, Mort?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>>>>> All this preaching on this list!  Perhaps I can insert the  
>>>>>> opinion that "God"
>>>>>> (or gods) are totally empty concepts, explaining nothing, but  
>>>>>> giving rise to
>>>>>> endless ratiocination.  --mkb
>>>>>> On Nov 10, 2008, at 10:35 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>>>>> God is not a necessary component of morality for the simple  
>>>>>>> reason that God
>>>>>>> -- the answer (which we do not know) to the question, "Why is  
>>>>>>> there
>>>>>>> anything instead of nothing?" -- is not a component of anything.
>>>>>>> God is not a thing in the universe -- we can't point to  
>>>>>>> something in the universe as the reason for the existence of  
>>>>>>> the universe -- and God and the
>>>>>>>  universe don't add up to two. (Two of what would that be?   
>>>>>>> Two things?
>>>>>>> But God is not thing in the universe, etc.)
>>>>>>> Morality is a component of human nature (for the existence of  
>>>>>>> which God of
>>>>>>> course is the reason, as for everything), as grammar is a  
>>>>>>> component of language. Just as an intelligent visitor from  
>>>>>>> Mars would think that all
>>>>>>> humans were speaking one language with regional variations, so  
>>>>>>> human ethics
>>>>>>>  might be regarded as the rules (or grammar) for humans' being  
>>>>>>> together --
>>>>>>> with some interesting regional variations... (That's what  
>>>>>>> makes horse racing, or at least philosophical argument -- and  
>>>>>>> literature.)
>>>>>>> Well over a thousand years of Christian philosophical  
>>>>>>> reflection took it as
>>>>>>> a commonplace that the Decalogue is not a set of rules imposed  
>>>>>>> from outside, as it were, that might have been different, but  
>>>>>>> rather rational
>>>>>>> conclusions from reflection on what it is to be human.  (They  
>>>>>>> did think it
>>>>>>> was a little hard to derive the 3rd/4th Commandment -- there  
>>>>>>> are different
>>>>>>> numbering systems -- this way.)
>>>>>>> Christian theologians thought that, although ethics could be  
>>>>>>> descried rationally, that took effort (and time) -- hence all  
>>>>>>> that literature -- and
>>>>>>> so God generously provided in the Ten Commandments as it were  
>>>>>>> an operating
>>>>>>> manual ("documentation," we would say) for being human.
>>>>>>> More on this from me (quoting others), if you want, at "The  
>>>>>>> Subversive Commandments," <http://www.counterpunch.org/ 
>>>>>>> estabrook03292005.html>. --CGE
>>>>>>> John W. wrote:
>>>>>>>> ... I'd be more interested in hearing one or both of you  
>>>>>>>> Bible scholars
>>>>>>>> explain to Jenifer why God is a necessary component of  
>>>>>>>> morality.  Or
>>>>>>>> conversely, how one can be moral without a belief in God.  
>>>>>>>> John Wason
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