[Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???

[C. G. Estabrook]

Perhaps it does.  But why is there anything instead of nothing?

Or can't I be puzzled by that question?


LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
> While you reply to my post, I am unsure if you are responding to what I have 
> written or are just using my post as a vehicle for responding to someone 
> else's words.  When I said that the concept of god was not necessarily empty 
> if one viewed its contents as being psychological, I was specifically 
> referencing Mort's comments on the emptiness of the concept of god ("That 
> which we don't know is what People call god, which shows its emptiness"). I 
> was not in any way talking about the question, "why is there anything instead
> of nothing?"  That question has not been an empty question from a 
> philosophical, theological, or even a scientific point of view in that it has
> generated volumes of rational discourse, discussion, and debate as an 
> analytic and theoretical topic.  It is the identification of that question 
> with the name/concept of god that is problematic and I believe Mort was 
> saying showed emptiness in that it was unknowable or unanswerable from an 
> empirical science perspective. I was noting that the identification had 
> content and was not empty from a psychological point of view in that 
> performed psychological functions and fulfilled psychological needs.
> 
> -----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: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 12:12 PM To: LAURIE SOLOMON Cc:
> 'Morton K. Brussel'; peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net Subject: Re:
> [Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???
> 
> 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