Theoretical Physicist David Deutsch on the limitations of science

One of the most important limits of science is that it isn't philosophy. [...] Scientism is the purported application of science to problems that are really philosophical. Such as the question of whether animals really feel pain or not. We can tell whether animal's nerves are excited and whether their brains react to that. But whether an animal feels pain in the sense that humans do, or merely react in the sense that a robot does, that is ultimately a matter of philosophy, because it's only philosophy that can determine the criterion for science to use when trying to distinguish between those cases. So that's a limit of science--trying to reach into philosophy is scientism. [...] I would say to [those who claim that the only good explanations are scientific explanations] that that theory is not part of science, and therfore it rules itself out.

Taken from an interview with Robert Lawrence Kuhn.

How to (really) think about metaphysics

Today I was visiting some of the blogs I frequent and I stopped by the blog Atheism and the City, authored by a frequent commenter at my blog who goes by the name “The Thinker”.  He has just posted a review of Chapter 3 of Edward Feser’s book The Last Superstition. There is much to quibble with in Thinker’s post, but I’ll save an attempted refutation of his arguments for another day. My main focus here is regarding his comments on metaphysics and scientism.  I’ve gone on ad nauseum on this blog about the importance of metaphysics, and the falsity and self-refutation of scientism (see here),  but Thinker presents a different spin on this issue—a view he calls “weak scientism”—and therefore I felt the need to point out its falsity, thereby tossing it in the trash-bin with the other failed metaphysical frameworks.

Thinker begins to articulate his thoughts on weak scientism:

 I hold to what is sometimes called "weak scientism." Unlike strong scientism, which says that "the characteristic inductive methods of the natural sciences are the only source of genuine factual knowledge and, in particular, that they alone can yield true knowledge about man and society," weak scientism says that the natural sciences are given a privileged status over metaphysics and logic and all other methods of derived knowledge, but it stops short of saying that science and logic are the "only" ways of yielding true knowledge.

It’s hard to say exactly what Thinker means by the natural sciences entertaining a “privileged status” over metaphysics and logic. Perhaps he means that the natural sciences are more genuine and pure methods for attaining knowledge of reality. It is certainly true that the natural sciences have illumined the majority of beliefs and knowledge that we have about how the natural world behaves. But does this give one warrant to claim that science therefore entertains a privileged status for gaining knowledge about reality, over and above metaphysics? I don’t see how. For, as I’ve argued before, science tells us how the world behaves, but it does not, and cannot, tell us why—only metaphysics can hope to do this. Science might be able to tell us about the four forces of nature, for example, but it cannot tell us why those forces obtain at all as opposed to others. So I fail to see how science should be given a privileged status regarding methods of inquiry above methods like metaphysics.

The Thinker continues:

Furthermore, I apply this privileged status of science mostly when entertaining questions regarding ontology, such as the fundamental nature of reality—for which science is our most reliable epistemology, contrary to what Feser says.

So now Thinker says that science seems to be our most reliable guide for answering questions regarding the fundamental nature of reality. Again, this presents a couple problems. First, science by itself does not have the tools to comment on the fundamental nature of reality. This might seem like an arrogant statement against science, but it’s the truth. Scientific law only describes what already exists and how it behaves. But simply describing what already exists is purely abstract, in that it doesn’t actually enlighten us to the intrinsic nature of what it’s describing. So science simply doesn’t cut deep enough to penetrate the fundamental nature of reality.

Second, the natural sciences necessarily describe only the natural world. Therefore, if there were other aspects of reality, science could not enlighten us one way or another regarding their behavior. In fact, even if there exists no supernatural aspects of reality, science could likewise not comment on its non-behavior. The point is that science is completely silent on the question of what comprises the set of reality and being. To construct my point in another fashion, the description of a set of elements is not sufficient to conclude that only the set exists. Something else would be needed to ground this proposition, and it couldn’t be a mere description of a set’s behavior.

Let’s move on:

No logician could ever derive the physics of quantum mechanics from the laws of logic, or from metaphysics. Only empirical evidence could enlighten us to such phenomena, and the universe is ultimately quantum mechanical in nature.

Thinker continues to make the similar mistakes here. First, I agree that science, and only science, enlightens us to the physics of quantum mechanics and general relativity etc. But nobody ever said that metaphysics was the method of inquiry that should have done this. You see, science uncovers the physical contingencies of the universe that can be repeated and predicted using abstract mathematical equations—equations that could have been different. But, metaphysics enlightens us to the necessities of the universe, and anything that could or would exist. It tells us the ontology of causality, identity, first principles, time and free will etc. So, to once again engage in chest-thumping on behalf of science because of its discoveries of the physical contingencies of the world is simply misplaced here, since metaphysics wasn’t attempting to do this in the first place. It’s like a basketball player praising his dunking ability, while playing soccer. Metaphysics tells us the fundamental nature of reality, and science tells us how this reality happens to behave. The latter is not equivalent to the former.

Second, Thinker shoots himself in the foot here with his last statement about the universe being quantum mechanical in nature. How does he know the universe is entirely quantum mechanical in nature? Well quantum mechanics cannot tell him this, since, to reiterate, QM is only a description of sub-atomically existing matter. How does he know this description constitutes the fundamental nature of reality? Even if he has an answer to this question, it will not be given to him by QM. He will have to have some other fulcrum to lay this proposition upon. And this goes for any set of natural sciences you want to erect as the end-all be-all description of reality. A description of a set simply will not be sufficient for concluding that only what’s in the set is what exists, or that the set does not have an aspect of its nature not captured by the original description. The Thinker’s attempt, then, to ground weak scientism seems to have failed.

Embodied Realism Part III: Is this realism?

Let us continue our survey of the philosophy of embodied realism as expounded in Philosophy of the Flesh (first two posts here and here). We now turn our attention to probably one of the biggest topics in philosophy, with which embodied realism actively comments on, namely that of metaphysical realism. Metaphysical realism is the position that an external reality exists apart from our consciousness, and that our apprehensions of this reality are determined mostly by the actual properties inherent in it. The opposite of realism is anti-realism, which states either that an external reality does not exist, or that we cannot know this reality in itself.

So, where does embodied realism stand in this dichotomy? Well, embodied realism is called realism, and thus it would seem to fit neatly in this category. And indeed this would be prima facie correct, since the authors explicitly state their belief that an external world exists. So then, are we finished here? Well, not exactly. For while the authors will admit the existence of an objective reality, they deny that there is any neutral vantage point from which we can know anything about this objective reality apart from our embodiment:

[C]lassical metaphysical realism cannot be right, since the properties of categories are mediated by the body rather than determined directly by a mind-independent reality. (p. 28)

[Embodied realism] gives up on being able to know things-in-themselves, but, through embodiment, explains how we can have knowledge that, although it is not absolute, is nonetheless sufficient to allow us to function and flourish. (p. 95)

[Embodied realism] denies that we can have objective and absolute knowledge of the world-in-itself…[E]mbodied realism denies on empirical grounds, that there exists one and only one correct description of the world[.] (p. 96)

We will deal with the inherent problems with these claims in just a moment. Primarily, we need to observe why they are being made. This is to ask why the authors are claiming that we cannot have objective knowledge of reality-in-itself, and why does our embodiment keep us from predicating properties of reality from a neutral vantage point? The main reason is due to the levels of embodiment (neural, phenomenological, and cognitive unconscious) that we surveyed in the first post of this series. Remember that embodied realism claims that, based on our embodiment, we don’t have a neutral vantage point to say “X is or isn’t the case,” because things are or are not “the case” (i.e. real or unreal) relative to our understanding at a certain level of embodiment. Therefore, we can only say “X is or isn’t the case, at a certain level of embodiment.” So, what we mean by something being “true” and “real”, on embodied realism, depends upon the perspective and level of embodiment being considered. To take the example the authors utilize—and which we saw was false in the first post—color isn’t “actually” real, if we are attempting to promulgate this statement from a neutral standpoint. Rather, color is “real” only when considered from the level of phenomenology, but is it “unreal” when considered from the neural level. That is, the existence of color is “real” only relative to the perspective, here the phenomenological level of embodiment, being considered.

Now, remember that in the aforementioned post we saw these arguments to be false. Not only can we make absolute predications of reality from a privileged perspective, but we must do so. In fact, the author’s own theses contradict their very claims. When they say, for instance, that we cannot know “things-in-themselves”, or that we cannot have objective and absolute knowledge of the world, the authors are predicating these propositions as objective predications of reality from their own privileged vantage point! That is, they’re saying that it is an objective fact that we cannot know things in themselves, and it is objectively true that we cannot have objective knowledge. This is, to say the least, self-refuting. For the embodied realist’s claim that reality cannot be known is not simply made at the neural level, or the phenomenological level, or the cognitive unconscious level. No, it’s made from a unique perspective that says “reality is this way, period,” even though this is what the embodied realist says cannot be done.

The embodied realist, thus, is blind to the absurd implications of their philosophy. If one level of embodiment cannot be privileged over and above another, then no single proposition can be seen as an adequate predication of reality in any domain whatsoever—since any single proposition can only represent one level of embodiment at a time. But if no single proposition can be an adequate predication of reality in any domain, then the embodied realist’s very claims about objectivity, knowledge, reality, and ontology cannot be adequate predications of reality either, and thus we should pay them no heed.

Furthermore, if we truly cannot know reality-in-itself, and can have no objective or absolute knowledge of this reality, then we cannot make those very same claims—i.e. that we cannot know reality-in-itself and that we cannot have objective knowledge of the world. That is to say, if we can’t know objective reality, then the statement “we can’t know objective reality” is also false, since it is predicated on a knowledge claim about the nature of reality. Everywhere we turn embodied realism shoots itself in the foot. This is why, as I said in the last post, embodied realism is junkyard of poor philosophy.

So, is embodied realism a misnomer? Should it even be labeled a form of realism? Not really. While it admits the existence of an external reality, it discards the proposition that we can have any real knowledge of the objective properties of this reality, and thus it belongs in the camp of anti-realism.

The principle of causality

It is no secret that causality places a central role in natural theology. That is to say, the notion of causality is central to arguments—mostly cosmological arguments—that attempt to prove the existence of God. It is because of this fact that most theologians work very hard to ground the principle of causality as an absolute. For if the principle of causality has exceptions, then natural theology will take a hit. Hence it is obvious that theologians have a vested interest in preserving the immutability of this principle. Because of this fact some, then, will claim that theists are extremely tendentious when it comes to talk of causality, and that such talk should be challenged, and put under the skeptical magnifying glass. I completely agree with this, though I do believe that the “skeptics” or non-theists can be charged with a bias as well (can’t we all?) since a denial of the principle of causality is central to their position, all things being equal.

I will not attempt to distance myself from the aforementioned theologian. I agree that the principle of causality is something that, perhaps through my own biases and wishful thinking, I am determined to defend. That being said, however, I do in fact believe that said principle is hard to deny, and I do believe that any attempt to do just that will run into absurdity and incoherence; And thus, my belief in the principle of causality is at least surely grounded in reason, and has just warrant.

It is my objective in this post to demonstrate why it has said warrant.

So, let me begin by articulating the principle of causality. The principle of causality states that whatever is moved from potentiality (potency) to actuality (act) is done so by something already actual. (Let the reader understand that the potentiality of a substance is just the potential that the substance could realize, and the actuality of a substance is just the way it currently is realized—that is, the way it currently exists or exhibits being. For instance, an acorn is actually an acorn and is potentially an oak tree, while it is not potentially a lizard.) Another way to formulate the principle is to say that whatever is changed is changed by another, since change just involves a reduction of some potency of a thing to an actualization of said potency. Thus, the glass of water on my table has the potential to be knocked over (among other things) but this potential can only become a reality--that is, it can only be actualized--if, for example, someone or something (actual) knocks it over.

Now, while one can conjure up all sorts of examples that satisfy the principle of causality, how do we know that this principle is an actual principle in the sense that it holds immutably, without exception? Well, to one who tries to deny the principle, there are only two other options: 1) a potential can actualize itself, or 2) nothing can actualize the potential. Obviously 1) is not possible because potency qua potency cannot do anything because it is not actual. In fact, the only way for it to actualize itself would be for it be actual before it is actual, which is a contradiction and an absurdity. Now, 2) is likewise absurd because nothing is, well, nothing, and nothing cannot do anything. Nothing is not actual and cannot act on anything, precisely because it is nothing--that is, because it is the absence of being. So, then by logical necessity we can see that that which is moved from potency to act must be done so by something already actual.

Another formulation of the principle of causality is that whatever begins to exist has a cause. And again, we can see that this formulation is necessarily valid. For if something comes into being, then there are only two options left over if one is to deny the principle: 1) the substance caused itself to come into being, or 2) the substance came into being from nothing. It should be obvious that these options fail for the same reasons as above. 1) is false because in order for a thing to be self-caused it would have to exist before it existed in order to cause itself to exist, which is incoherent. 2) is false because nothing cannot be a cause because nothing cannot do anything, since it is by definition the absence of anything. Thus, this formulation of the principle of causality is also necessarily valid.

So far then we have seen that the principle of causality is a metaphysically absolute principle. There simply is no logical room for any exception to said principle, for any alternative runs into absurdity and incoherence. It seems then that we can be completely certain of the validity of the principle of causality.

Science and explanation

Science works by uncovering certain conditional statements such as “If a occurs under certain ideal conditions, then b will occur” or “if a is present under certain ideal conditions, then b will be present.” For instance, every time water accumulates energy in the form of heat, once the water reaches a certain temperature (approximately 100 degrees Celsius) it will become gaseous. Thus, we can form the conditional statement that “if water reaches the temperature of 100 degrees Celsius, then it will become steam.”

Now this is generally how laws of nature come to be formulated. We run an experiment a few times under ideal conditions, and when a certain state of affairs reliably obtains, then we assume that this happens across the board and formulate a law of nature. This means that laws of nature are really just descriptions of the way nature tends to behave.

But what, then, is the explanatory use of laws of nature? For example, if one asks, per our example above, why when water reaches a certain temperature it subsequently tends to become gaseous, it won’t do any good to revert back to the law that states this very thing. For that would simply be to say that a tends to be followed by b because a law of nature says that b’s are reliably produced by a’s. Such an answer would thus amount to a tautology, and be explanatory vacuous.

Now, one could instead say that the boiling point of water is not explained by the law of nature, but rather that the boiling point of water is explained by molecular behavior, kinetic energy, and molecular forces. The problem, though, is that here a law of nature is simply being explained by more laws of nature—for molecular behavior, kinetic energy, and molecular forces are themselves simply physical descriptions. That is, this explanation is tantamount to saying that the reason a’s are followed by b’s is because c’s are followed by d’s, and e’s are followed by f’s etc. But, this only pushes the problem back a bit. For the original question was not how water becomes a gas, but, rather, why it does. And explaining laws of nature by other laws of nature only answers a “how” question, and not a “why” one. (Not to mention that if this method of explanation were valid, then eventually we would arrive at a law of nature which simply has no explanation whatsoever, which is absurd.)

This is to say that the ultimate question here pertains to asking why things tend to behave the way they do at all. And again, it will not do to answer this by reverting to any law of nature, because a law of nature is purely descriptive. But then what tool does science have for answering this “why” question, since all science can really do is formulate descriptive laws of nature useful for prediction and manipulation? The answer is that science simply does not have this tool, philosophy does. And this is why naturalist Bertrand Russell said the following:

[Physics] lays down certain fundamental equations which enable it to deal with the logical structure of events, while leaving it completely unknown what is the intrinsic character of the events that have the structure[…] All that physics gives us is certain equations giving abstract properties of their changes. But as to what it is that changes, and what it changes from and to—as to this, physics is silent.

The point here is that science can tell us about certain regularities in nature. But, it cannot tell us why these regularities happen without fail, or why the correlation between these regularities is necessary, or exactly why it is of the nature of substances to have certain dispositions to behave the way they do, or even why there is regularity at all.

Thus stated, we see that science does in fact have explanatory limits, and therefore we should not expect that science exhausts our knowledge of reality. Science is not the be-all end-all description of reality. It tells us nothing about the intrinsic nature of the things that it describes. It only tells us of the quantitative, and not the ontological.

The argument from contingency

The cosmological argument for the existence of God has taken many different forms for hundreds of years. However, the version that I take to be the most powerful, as some readers of my blog know, is the argument from contingency. And it is this version that I will be presently defending, as well as answering common objections put forward against it.

The terms

Before promulgating the argument I feel it necessary to define the terms being used (i.e. contingency and necessity). Now, there are different (though not contradictory) definitions of contingency, so let me spell these out. Something is contingent if: (1) it exists, but could have possibly failed to exist, or (2) it is not of the nature of it to exist, or (3) its nature can be contemplated without simultaneously contemplating its existence.

Let me now expand these definitions so as to illuminate how they each entail contingency. If some existent X satisfies (1) then, to reiterate, it is possible that X could not have been. But this necessarily entails that it is not of the nature of X to exist. For if it was of the nature of X to exist, then it could not be possible for it to fail to exist. (My claim here is that if it is of the nature of X to be Y, then you cannot have X without Y. As an example, if it is of the nature of a triangle to have three sides then it is not possible for an triangle to fail to have three sides.) This point seems to lead us directly to (2), and thus our first two definitions go hand in hand. Now what this means is that if it is not of X’s nature to exist, then X does not contain the reason for its own existence, and thus it must derive its existence from something else.

 Let’s take a look at (3). If I can contemplate the nature of X without simultaneously contemplating its existence, then this entails the fact that it is not of the nature of X to exist—otherwise contemplating the nature of X would be to simultaneously contemplate its existence. Thus we see that (3) leads to contingency for the same reasons as (1) and (2).

From what precedes it should be obvious how we can define necessary. Something is necessary if it is non-contingent. That is to say, something is necessary if it is not possible for it to not exist (i.e. it must exist), or if it is of its very nature to exist, or if contemplating its nature entails simultaneously contemplating its existence.

The argument

It is now appropriate to state the argument from contingency, and note that the term contingency in the argument can take the form of any of the above definitions:

1) If something is contingent, then it derives its existence from something outside of itself.

2) The universe is contingent.

3) Therefore, the universe derives its existence from something outside of itself.

The argument is logically valid, that is, the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. But the question can be posed regarding its soundness, so let us go about demonstrating the premises. Premise 1) seems to follow necessarily from the definitions of contingency given above. To reiterate, if it’s possible that X could (have) fail(ed) to exist, then the reason for its existence is not contained within its own nature, and thus it must be contained in the existence of something else—and this thing would be where X derives its existence from. Premise 1) then seems to be on quite solid ground.

Let us now turn to what is most likely the premise that a naturalist will find most fault with, namely, premise 2). The easiest way to demonstrate premise 2) is to demonstrate that the universe satisfies the definition(s) of contingency. So, the first thing we can ask is whether it is possible for the universe to have failed to exist. Here we might meet some resistance. First, what exactly is meant by the universe, and how do we know that we can conceive of it failing to exist? Well, by universe I simply mean “all matter, energy, and space-time,” and therefore this includes not only our observable universe, but any meta-universe(s), if you will. Subsequently, to say that we can conceive of matter, energy, and space-time not existing does not seem to bring forth any inherent difficulty. That is to say, there is no contradiction or incoherence in such a statement, and thus I see no claim for inconceivability that could be made here. (Note that something is said to be metaphysically possible if it is conceivable.)

What about the second definition of contingency? Does the nature of the universe contain the reason for its own existence? I don’t see how it does, in that having the nature of being all matter, energy, and space-time does not tell us why all matter, energy and space-time actually exist in the first place. That is, there is nothing in matter, energy and space-time together (or even apart) that tell us that it must exist. This goes hand in hand with the third definition of contingency. That is, I can contemplate the nature of the universe without simultaneously contemplating its existence. But if I can do this, then the reason for the existence of the universe is not found within itself.

What this demonstrates then is that the universe—all matter, energy, space and time—satisfies all three definitions of contingency, and thus the premises of the above argument seem to be vindicated. This obviously means that the conclusion is valid and sound, and therefore the universe necessarily derives its existence from something else.

Objections

It should go without saying that the naturalist will not take this argument lying down, nor would I expect one to do so. There are many arguments or objections that could be leveled against the argument from contingency, and while I cannot deal with all of them here, I will currently try to deal with the most penetrating and popular ones.

(a) How do we know that what the universe derives its existence from is God? There is nothing logically wrong with claiming that perhaps the universe derives its existence from something that is itself contingent. However, this only pushes the problem back a step further, for then this thing requires an account for its existence. The point here is that we must, at some point, admit of something which is non-contingent, that is, necessary—something that cannot fail to exist. This would be something whose nature contains the reason for its own existence, and whose nature we can contemplate while simultaneously contemplating its existence. This thing then just would be existence, that is, it would be pure existence, or pure being. And surely this is worthy of earning the name “God.”

(b) Why admit of something necessary? Why can’t we have an infinite series of contingent beings? I will not answer this objection by asserting that an actual infinity cannot exist. For this is something that it seems even mathematicians and philosophers cannot agree on. Rather, my argument is that a chain of contingent beings remains contingent. Now, before one levels a fallacy of composition at me, remember that not every inference from a part to a whole is fallacious. For instance, if every brick in a wall is red, then it does in fact follow that the wall is red. What this means is that claiming that a chain of contingent things is itself contingent commits the fallacy of composition would need to be demonstrated. Moreover, this could be avoided if one simply demonstrates that a collection of contingent things is in fact contingent, and this I plan to do currently.

Physicist Paul Davies explains the problem elegantly:

[I]t is quite wrong to suppose that an infinite chain of explanation is satisfactory on the basis that every member of that chain is explained by the next member. One is still left with the mystery of why that particular chain is the one that exists, or why any chain exists at all.

This point was also made a long time ago by the mathematician Leibniz when he gave an example of an infinite collection of books, of which each book was simply a copy of the content in the previous book. The point being that the content in the books is not accounted for simply because the collection is infinite, and there must be something outside this collection that does account for it. The big picture here, then, is that if we have an infinite collection of individual things of which it is possible for them to fail to exist, then it is possible that the collection in its own right could fail to exist, and thus the infinite chain is still contingent. Therefore something necessary must still be admitted.

(c) Why expect the universe to admit of explanation at all? Why can’t the universe simply be? To claim that the universe (or anything) might escape explanation in principle is to admit of brute facts—in fact, that’s exactly what a brute fact is, namely, a state of affairs which has no explanation for its existence. There are a few problems with this line of reasoning. First, since things are made intelligible by explanation then a brute fact does not have an explanation for itself, and it has no explanation to impart to anything else. This entails that a brute fact cannot be a participant in an explanatory chain, and therefore it certainly cannot be the end of an explanatory chain, as the universe would have to be. (Note that I have argued this at much greater length here.)

The second problem is that an object or substance can only either possibly fail to exist, or not. This is to say that something can only either be contingent or necessary. There is no middle ground here, of which a brute fact would have to be. To deny that something can either only be contingent or necessary is to deny the law of excluded middle, and would thus be illogical.

(d) It’s possible that the universe is eternal, and thus it would not be contingent. I have no problem with theoretically granting the possibility of an eternal universe. However, simply asserting that the universe could be eternal does not thereby make it necessary. Let us return to Leibniz’s example of the collection of books to see why this is so, except let us not imagine a collection of books but, rather, simply one book existing eternally. Does the fact that this book has always existed demonstrate that it is necessary? No, because one can still ask why this book exists, has the content that it does, and why this content was not different. The point is that it remains true that nothing about the book, not even its eternality, provides the reason for why it exists at all.  To always exist is not the same as existing necessarily, because duration of existence does not enlighten us to the reason of existence. Moreover, duration of existence does not affect a thing’s nature. A triangle is still a triangle, whether it exists for a second or for an infinite amount of seconds.

Similarly, it would remain the case that an eternal universe could possibly have been different, or it could have not existed at all. Moreover, it would still remain the case that contemplating the nature of the universe does not entail contemplating its existence. Thus, even an eternal universe satisfies the definition, not of necessity, but of contingency.

There are other objections that can be raised (e.g. “What created God?” or “Why does God exist?”) but I felt the need to only address, what I take to be, the most substantial ones. The point seems to remain that the universe is indeed contingent, and that it ultimately derives its existence from something which is necessary and which we call God. The argument from contingency then seems to be successful.

On final causality

Aristotle famously argued that in order to exhaustively comprehend an object or substance, you need to know the four causes of it. First there is the material cause, namely that which the object is made out of. Then there is the efficient cause, which is what brings the object into being—this is the type of causation that is commonly referred to when using the word “cause”.  Next there is the formal cause, which is the form, essence, or nature that the object has. Lastly, there is the final cause, which is the end, goal or purpose that something exists for, or that something tends towards.

Now, most contemporary philosophers, and scientists for that matter, admit the reality of efficient causation as well as material causation—though, again, they wouldn’t call the latter a cause—but will not admit the reality of formal and final causes. One reason for this is that final causes are commonly tied with the word “teleology,” and this word is strictly taboo in the scientific domain.

Anyway, it is final causes that will constitute the focal point of this post, and it will be demonstrated that one cannot coherently deny the reality of said causes.

Let me begin by illuminating the nature of final causes—what they are, and are not--so as to avoid confusion. When most individuals hear of final causes and their subsequent tie-in with” teleology,” they tend to think of William Paley’s design argument. That is, they tend to think that the teleology spoken of here is analogous to the teleology imposed upon artificial machines. If artificial machines exhibit complexity coupled with purpose, then other natural objects that exhibit similar complexity must also have been extrinsically endowed with purpose—think here of Paley’s watchmaker illustration. But this is not what is meant by something having a final cause.

Rather, for something to have a final cause simply means for it to have inherent dispositions to reliably bring about a range of effects. That is to say, if an object A regularly brings about B, C or D, then generating B, C or D is the final cause of A. This is what is meant by an end or goal of an object. For example, an acorn reliably generates an oak tree, rather than, say, a weed, or a dog, and thus the oak tree is the end or goal that the acorn is directed towards—that is, the oak tree is the final cause of the acorn. (Note that “directed towards” does not entail that a cause is consciously directed toward an effect. Final causality does not mean that an object is consciously trying to reach said effect, but only that the object tends to produce certain effects reliably.)

Now, although this seems to be intuitive, final causes are nevertheless commonly seen as superfluous. Science, and physics, it is said, makes no use of attributing final causes to things, and therefore we have no reason to believe that such things exist. However, remember 1) that this is completely false, unless one assumes that only science gives us knowledge of reality; 2) the fact that final causes are not pragmatic for science is also irrelevant since final causes are an ontological reality, and thus we’re not looking for them to be pragmatic for science; 3) science does not even enlighten us regarding the intrinsic nature of substances—of which final causality would be a part—but rather only how substances tend to behave; and 4) science actually presupposes final causality, though the substantiation of this assertion will be forthcoming below.

More importantly, science does indeed affirm the reality of efficient causality, and efficient causality actually presupposes final causality. You see, science discovers regularities in nature, hence the formulation of scientific laws. Science works by discovering conditional propositions such as “if A occurs under certain conditions, then B occurs”, or that A’s tend to bring about B’s. But, as Edward Feser says, “there is no way to make sense of these regularities apart from the notion of final causation, of things being directed toward an end or goal.” That is to say, if A reliably brings about B, then producing B is the final cause of A. Now, if substances did not exhibit final causality then one effect would not follow any more than another. Remember also that science doesn’t say that A’s simply happen to be followed by B’s. Rather, it is said, A is a sufficient condition for B, and thus A is inherently directed towards generating B. Again, if there were no final causes then A would not be a sufficient condition for B. Final causality then, far from being superfluous, is a necessary condition for causal regularity.

Again, if substances have final causes, this entails that these substances have certain dispositions to bring about certain effects. And this is what philosophers of science have been saying for quite some time now—that is, that substances have inherent “powers” or dispositions. Edward Feser illuminates my point:

Actual experimental practice indicates that what physicists are really looking for are the inherent powers a thing will naturally manifest when interfering conditions are removed, and the fact that a few experiments, or even a single controlled experiment, are taken to establish the results in question indicates that these powers are taken to reflect a nature that is universal to things of that type.

Again, philosopher of science Brian Ellis:

Scientists today certainly talk about inanimate things as though they believed they had such powers. Negatively charged particles have the power to attract positively charged ones. Electrostatic fields have the power to modify spectral lines. Sulfuric acid has the power to dissolve copper.

That is to say, what science is looking for is precisely what inherent dispositions or powers a substance will produce in ideal circumstances. And this presupposes that there are in fact certain dispositions inherent in these substances that tend to produce a range of effects, and thus it presupposes final causality.

Final causality, then, cannot coherently be denied. That is, unless one wants to deny efficient causation, causal regularity, and science itself. This is why Aquinas called final causes “the cause of causes.”

Essentialism and reductionism

Mike D over at The Aunicornist has, once again, devoted a couple of posts to refuting the metaphysics of Thomism. Since I am myself a Thomist I felt the need to deal with such arguments and assertions. I will, for now, be dealing with this post of Mikes. So, let’s dig in.

Mike states the following:

[W]e all agree that if tomorrow all humans were wiped off the face of the Earth,cats (for example) would still be cats—that is, they would retain the amalgam of physical properties that our brains categorizeas simply “cats”, even there [sic] wouldn’t be anyone around to say, “Hey, that’s a cat!” But does it follow, then, that cats have a property of identity that makes them cats?

Here Mike demonstrates his poor understanding of Thomism by conflating identity with essence. What Mike is talking about here is essence which is just that whereby something is what it is. To grasp a thing’s essence is to grasp all the properties that are essential to that thing remaining that very thing. Or, to take Mike’s example, the essence of a cat is comprised of whatever properties a cat must have for it to remain a cat. Yet, Mike here uses the terms “the property of identity.” But, identity is not the same thing as essence. It is an essence that makes something what it is and not identity. Identity is more broad and more tautological. The property of identity simply means that something is identical to itself and is not identical to what it isn’t. A corollary of this is that all of a thing’s properties are contained in its identity. Yet this is not the same with regards to a thing’s essence.

Let’s use an example to illuminate the distinction between identity and essence. Take two chairs. Each particular chair is identical to itself and is not identical to the other chair even if they both look  exactly the same. Yet, these chairs do share the same essence in that they both provide a seat—here providing a seat is the essence of being a chair. So, two objects can share an essence without being identical. This is because identity takes all of a thing’s properties into account whereas essence only takes essential properties into account. It is essential that a chair provide a seat, but it is not essential for a chair to have four legs. Yet, when contemplating a chair’s identity it is crucial to include the property of how many legs it has—for a chair with four legs is obviously not identical to a chair with three.

All this is important because Mike, in the quote above, is again conflating identity with essence, which wouldn’t have happened if Mike adequately understood the position he’s attempting to refute. So, while none of this, so far, undermines Mike’s arguments, it does demonstrate that Mike does not understand his opponent’s positions the way he thinks he does.

Mike then illustrates his (already confused) argument with an example of a mountain:

Mountains are formed, if I remember grade school geology correctly, when massive tectonic plates press against each other, forcing the earth to slowly rise over eons. I wonder how the Thomist might think about this, then—at what point does the earth have the property of identity of a mountain, versus just being a really big hill or a giant pile of rocks?

Again, Mike should be talking about essence here, and not identity. For a mountain, or hill, at any stage in its formation will still always be identical to itself. And thus, the “property of identity” will always be present. What Mike means to argue here is that if we watched the earth slowly rising over eons then at what point could we say that the earth exhibits the essence of a mountain, as opposed to a hill? The point of this example is to demonstrate that determining the essence of something is not always so clear cut, and that such an endeavor can run into ambiguities and vagueness.

Yet, this argument doesn’t really make the case that Mike thinks it does. First, a Thomist would not claim that determining a thing’s essence is always an easy endeavor. It is in some cases very difficult to determine what the essence of something is, or how such an essence differs from the essence of another. But nothing about this difficulty demonstrates that there are no such things as essences. The real problem then deals with epistemology, and not ontology. Encountering difficulty in determining a thing’s essence is an epistemic problem, while proclaiming that things do not have an essence is an ontological problem, and Mike is conflating the two.  In order for Mike’s example to have any force he would need to demonstrate that difficulty in determining a thing’s essence entails that essences are therefore nonexistent. But Mike has not done this.

Second, Mike’s argument actually makes the case for Thomistic essentialism, and not against. By picking a vague case of determining essence, Mike is implicitly conceding that there are cases that are not vague. In fact, most cases are not vague. One could easily identify the essence of the brain, the heart, water, human rationality etc. The fact is that we can find an abundance of easily identifiable essences all around us. So why should we call essentialism into question because of a few exceptional cases that run into obscurity, instead of affirming essentialism due to the abundance of its applicability? There is no reason. The fact is that we wouldn’t even be able to recognize vague instances of identifying essence if we didn’t already have clear and precise examples.

Mike then articulates one of his central arguments:

Thomists take things like identity, essence, nature, 'prime matter' and potentiality to be literally real properties of the external world, independently of human minds. But at every turn, we can see that we have no reason whatsoever to think that any of these 'metaphysical' properties are anything more than conceptual constructs. There's no reason for us to think that the concept of "cat" is anything more than a useful categorization of our brains for a particular arrangement of matter; we have no reason to think that there exists any such a thing as the identity, essence, or nature of a cat independently of our minds.

Mike is making the argument that our metaphysical concepts are mind-dependent, and that they are simply constructs of our brain that help us order and identify the world we experience. There is no essence of a cat independently of our minds. The essence of a cat is simply something that our brains have constructed in order to arrange the matter that makes up a cat.
While this viewpoint might seem parsimonious, it is rife with problems. First, the world is exactly the way we would expect if there were in fact actual essences and identities of things. One example of this is unity. Let’s illustrate. If I consider all four of my dogs—my Chihuahua, Dachshund, Beagle and Blue Heeler—I can see that all of them share the same essence of “dogness” even though they are not identical. And in that sense they share in a unity between them. They are all individual particulars yet they are in fact related to one another. They are related to one another in a way that they are not related to a cup, a tree, or a lamp. But if Mike is correct, and dogs share no “essence” and we simply construct such things in our brain, then why is it the case that we attribute a shared essence to all these dogs? The only way one can answer this is to say that these dogs, in mind-independent reality, exhibit similar characteristics and have similar properties that allow us to group them into these related “kinds”. But then this simply makes the case for the Thomist! For this is what the Thomist has been arguing all along. For dogs can only be grouped into a specific kind because they have certain dispositions and properties that make them dogs, as opposed to, say, frogs. And it is these dispositions and properties that constitute an essence. So, the fact that the world contains a multitude of particulars yet many of these particulars are unified only makes sense on essentialism.

Second, Mike seems to forget that our concepts are always derived from reality itself. He is so smitten with Model-Dependent Realism and Embodied Realism that he seems to think that our brains literally make this stuff  (like essences) up. (A common example he uses is the way our brain “creates” color. But this is false. Our brains don’t create color. They simply perceive the raw materials of sense datum in a certain way so as to “see’ color. But everything that causes us to see color (e.g. wavelengths and photons ) already exists in the world. So color does exist, it simply exists virtually instead of formally. All this is to say that we perceive color because color exists virtually in reality, and is not a simple construct of our brain. ) But if our concepts are abstracted from reality then this simply isn’t the case. To use an example, I can tell the difference between an apple and an orange. Why? Is it simply because my brain arranges the matter into two different categories? Or is it because there is a real difference between the properties and dispositions of an apple and an orange and my mind is abstracting those differences? Obviously it must be the latter. But if this is true, then there must be something about an apple that makes it different than an orange. And we know this to be true because my understanding of the essence of an orange is different from the essence of an apple. But these essences weren’t simply constructed by my brain, rather they are rooted in the properties of the objects themselves in mind-independent reality.

Mike then states the following:

[W]e can reject the Thomistic metaphysical gobbledygook on the principle of parsimony — the notion that cats have a distinct, non-physical property of 'catness' (their 'essence'), for example, is completely superfluous to our understanding and description of what a cat is. We can have a fully accurate, useful description of the animal simply by recognizing it as an amalgam of physical properties which our brains categorize in a particular way, and nothing more. There is no need to postulate any extra non-physical or 'metaphysical' properties to understand what a cat is, why it behaves as it does, or what it evolved from. Since the assumption of the existence of such things is not essential to our description or understanding of cats, we can discard it. We don't even have to demonstrate its falsity — i.e., somehow 'disprove' the existence of those metaphysical properties — we can simply discard them as superfluous and thus meaningless.

A few responses here. First, nobody has argued that postulating things like essences and identities are pragmatic. So why would Mike be looking for pragmatism here? Why? Because Mike has an empiricist presupposition, and anything that is not scientifically observable, predictable, and measurable is, to him, not pragmatic and therefore “superfluous.” But in order for Mike’s position to be vindicated, he would need to demonstrate that science is the only path to knowledge. But Mike knows that this is self-undermining. So why, then, should we believe that metaphysical concepts like essence and identity can be thrown out simply because science has no use of them? The answer is that there is no reason.

 Moreover, let it not be forgotten that science is only interested in the quantitative aspects of the world and not the qualitative. Yet, metaphysical concepts like identity and essence are not quantitative, and therefore the fact that they might not be pragmatic in scientific investigation is completely irrelevant, since science isn’t looking for them to begin with!

Second, Mike’s argument above implicitly affirms reductionism. That is, Mike believes that any entity or object is nothing more than an amalgam of its physical parts and components. But reductionism runs into problems. For example, if water is nothing but hydrogen and oxygen composed together, then water should not have any dispositions and properties different from its constituents. But surely water does have properties that differ from hydrogen and oxygen. So then water cannot be nothing more than its physical parts. At this point one might say that we should expect water to have different properties than its parts alone, because water isn’t simply hydrogen and oxygen, but hydrogen and oxygen bonded together. So of course hydrogen and oxygen bonded together will behave different than hydrogen and oxygen by themselves. But this is exactly the anti-reductionist’s point. If water behaves differently than its constituents, then there is something about water as a substance in itself that amounts to more than its parts. Thus stated, if a substance has properties that its physical parts do not have by themselves, then there is something over and above these parts alone that make up the dispositions of said substance, and therefore a substance cannot be said to be nothing but an amalgam of its parts.

Hence we see that Mike D has failed to make his case. First, he has shown that he doesn’t even correctly comprehend the position he is arguing against. He constantly rebukes those who recommend Scholastic literature to him, yet he’s shown that his research into this very area is minimal and is lacking. So why not at least buy a book that gives a formal defense of such a position? That would be my recommendation. Second, he has tried to demonstrate why metaphysical concepts like essence and identity are meaningless and superfluous, yet his arguments are rife with problems. Third, he’s attempted to affirm metaphysical theories like reductionism which, when considered, only lead back to the very metaphysical concepts he was attempting to overthrow. I maintain, then, that nowhere have we seen good reason to overthrow Scholastic metaphysics, let alone metaphysics themselves.

 

 

Death to metaphysics?

Logical positivism was a philosophical school of thought that was hot during the 1920s. The bedrock of this philosophy was the explicit rejection of metaphysics as a valid mode of inquiry into the nature of reality. The positivists believed that metaphysics was essentially meaningless, and that the only statements that harbored meaning were statements that could be, at least in principle, empirically verifiable. The first fruits of this philosophy could even be seen in the writings of David Hume in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, "Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?" No. "Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?" No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

While logical positivism as an organized philosophy has died out, there still remain many who, along with Hume, would affirm a death sentence to metaphysics. This contemporary school of thought still takes metaphysics as essentially ambiguous and superfluous.

 I myself, as a Scholastic, would disagree with this. The Scholastics—a school of philosophy which is actually increasing in adherents—would claim that not only should metaphysics be utilized, but that it must. It would be claimed by them that metaphysical concepts like identity, essence, form, substance, and act/potency etc., describe fundamental properties of reality, and therefore that such concepts are necessary for a sound framework regarding the nature of reality in the first place.

 However, the contemporary positivist scoffs at such assertions. They would claim that concepts like the ones mentioned above are, even if remotely accurate—of which the positivist would most likely claim they are not—completely superfluous for describing reality. Physics already tells us how one event can, and does, follow another, and thus the need for a description riddled with the act/potency distinction is not necessary. Likewise, physics and chemistry already enlighten us regarding what physically composes and makes up a certain empirical object, so that to add descriptive concepts like identity and essence on top of these physical explanations and descriptions is to upset the principle of parsimony. Science, it is seen by contemporary positivists, already tells us (or will eventually tell us) all we need to know about the objects and phenomena that make up our observable universe. Hence, the need for any metaphysical description is seen as completely superfluous.

 While such a position might seem rational, especially since science has been extremely successful in a pragmatic and predictive sense, I maintain that said position is not only false, but demonstrably so--and for multiple reasons at that. First, the picture that science provides of the material world can only be seen as comprehensively descriptive if one assumes ahead of time that reality can only be described in scientific terms and concepts. Theologian David Bentley Hart, in his amazing book The Experience of God, articulates such fallacious thinking:

And naturalism’s claim that, by confining itself to purely material explanations for all things, it adheres to the only sure path of verifiable knowledge is nothing but a feat of sublimely circular thinking: physics explains everything, which we know because anything physics cannot explain does not exist, which we know because whatever exists must be explicable by physics, which we know because physics explains everything. (p. 77)

The problem here should be obvious. Moreover, the claim that science gives us an exhaustive portrait of reality is itself a claim that only metaphysics, and not science, can make. So, even ignoring the question begging nature of positivism alluded to above, the positivist still has the problem of utilizing the very method they’re attempting to overthrow. They’re basically claiming the following: all metaphysics is meaningless, except for the metaphysical statement I’m making currently.

 The second problem that positivism runs into—as if being subject to question-begging and self-refutation weren’t bad enough—is that the scientific method already a priori rules out the kinds of descriptions that could be considered metaphysical in the first place. You see, the objective of science was to be able to control and predict the world around us using the language of mathematics. This means, and this is crucial here, that science is, already at the outset, only looking for a quantitative description of reality—thereby paying no attention to anything qualitative or metaphysical. This is to say, the scientific method already stipulates what kind of answers and descriptions it’s looking for. It’s not as if science, looking for the quantitative, will somehow stumble upon the metaphysical, because it’s not looking for the metaphysical. To use an example, science will not stumble upon the ‘essence’ of a substance, because science is not looking for ‘essences’ in the first place--precisely because a thing’s essence cannot be modeled by the language of mathematics and prediction. Philosopher Edward Feser, in his (also) amazing book Scholastic Metaphysics, further articulates my point:

The reason qualitative features don’t show up is not that the method has allowed us to discover that they aren’t there but rather that the method has essentially stipulated that they be left out of the description whether they are there or not. (p. 14)

And again, David Bentley Hart reinforces the point:

If we look exclusively for material and efficient processes, then indeed we find them, precisely where everyone, of nearly any metaphysical persuasion, expects them to be found. All this shows is that we can coherently describe physical events in mechanical terms, at least for certain limited practical purposes; it certaintly does not prove that they cannot also be described otherwise with as much or more accuracy. To paraphrase Heisenberg, the sorts of answers that nature provides are determined by the sorts of questions we pose of her. (p.65)

Moreover, there is a third problem for positivism. You see, science, and physics most importantly, only enlightens us regarding how nature tends to behave, or how certain events produce or tend to be produced by others. Atheist Bertrand Russell articulates:

[Physics] lays down certain fundamental equations which enable it to deal with the logical structure of events, while leaving it completely unknown what is the intrinsic character of the events that have the structure[…] All that physics gives us is certain equations giving abstract properties of their changes. But as to what it is that changes, and what it changes from and to—as to this, physics is silent.

 Now, the reader might be inclined to part ways with Russell here. “Surely” one might claim, “physics does tell us the intrinsic nature of things. Physics give us comprehensive knowledge of the physical characteristics of certain objects, and describes how it is possible for these objects to behave the way they do.” But this is only half true. No matter what explanations and descriptions that physics gives of certain characteristics of an object or event, these descriptions themselves will still only boil down to abstract mathematical equations and functions. For example, for physics to describe the behavior of object (x), physics will posit the description that A events follow B events, of which object (x) is a part of. But, A events and B events will also only be subject to further descriptions of certain other objects following certain other sequential events.  So, no matter how many layers of physics one traverses to explain a certain object or event, one will invariably run into nothing but abstract behavioral descriptions dancing to the tune of mathematics—and this, again, only gives structure, and does not enlighten us regarding any sort of intrinsic nature that these objects or events have themselves. I’ll pass the baton once more to Feser:

By the very fact that physics tells us that an abstract structure of such-and-such a mathematically describable character exists, then, physics implies that there is more to reality than structure itself, and thus more to reality than what physics can reveal. (p.18)

These three problems (there are others) articulated above suffice to show that positivism is, quite frankly, vacuous. Nowhere have we uncovered any cogent reason to believe that metaphysical descriptions are superfluous, nor have we seen any reason to believe that science gives an exhaustive description of reality. On the contrary, we’ve seen that metaphysical explanations and concepts are completely necessary, and are required, even in light of, and because of, science. Metaphysics, then, is here to stay. Thus stated, we shouldn’t be worried about utilizing metaphysical inquiry, but rather we should be worried about utilizing it fallaciously, and I think the positivist position is a good example of how this can be done.

 

Why something rather than nothing? Part III

In the last part of our series regarding naturalistic answers to the question “Why there is something rather than nothing?”, we shall survey the arguments of atheist Richard Carrier. Carrier’s explicit answer to this question can be found on his blog in a post entitled Ex Nihilo Onus Merdae Fit. Carrier begins by defining what he means by nothing:

[Nothing] can only mean that nothing whatever exists except anything whose non-existence is logically impossible. That latter caveat is unavoidable for the obvious reason that if it is logically impossible for something not to exist, then there can’t have ever been a state of being where it did not exist. So if by “absolutely nothing” you mean even the non-existence of logically necessary things, then “absolutely nothing” is logically impossible, and thus there can’t ever have been “nothing” in that sense.

A few caveats here. First, when someone begins the definition of nothing with “nothing, except…” then they have already gotten off on the wrong foot. Nothing, by definition means the absence of anything, at all. Period. It does not, contrary to Carrier, mean nothing except X,Y, and Z. For then, one is indeed talking about something.

Now, obviously Carrier has reasons for this definition, which he explains in the passage following the above quote. Carrier claims that logically necessary things must, by definition, always exist, and, therefore, there cannot be a state of reality without them. Is it just me, or is this the very answer that theists give for the existential question—namely, that since God is a necessary being, absolute nothing is not a possible state of affairs.(Now, this already demonstrates how ridiculous Carrier’s definition is. For if God did exist, even by himself, then by Carrier’s definition, this would still constitute “nothing”. But, I digress.) However, Carrier obviously does not adhere to this answer—and his reasons for it are given elsewhere. So, he must be talking about some other necessary thing:

[A]ll the fundamental propositions of logic and mathematics are necessarily true[…]and therefore there can never have been a state of being in which they were false.

 Carrier is claiming, then, that the laws of logic and mathematics are these necessary things that must exist. Fair enough. While it is not clear that these laws could be predicated in a state of “nothingness”—since these laws only describe the way existence behaves—it seems harmless to allow this premise in Carrier’s argument. Carrier continues:

Now, when nothing exists (except that which is logically necessary), then anything can happen (whose happening is logically possible). Because the only way to prevent something from happening, is to have some law or force or power or object or agency, in other words some actual thing, that prevents it. If you remove all obstacles, you allow all possibilities.

This is where Carrier goes off the deep end, and subsequently where his argument collapses. He is claiming that since nothing exists (that is, nothing is actual), then there are infinite possibilities (that is, infinite potential). This is completely incoherent. Why? Because actuality is ontologically prior to potentiality—that is to say, only something already existing can have potential. For example, water has the potential to become ice, but this potential is dependent on the already existing substance, namely, that of water. This potential would not exist by itself. Yet, this is what Carrier would have us believe, namely, that a big state of “nothing” has infinite potential! (Note: this objection was brought to Carrier's attention by individuals in the comment section of Carrier's post, but his reply boiled down to exclaiming "prove it".)

Another way to think of the problem here is the following. Potentiality must be predicated of something. That is to say, for potentiality to be a predicate, you must have a subject. To say “(x) has potential” one must substitute some thing for (x). Yet, Carrier can only substitute “nothing” for (x), which renders such a proposition nonsensical. Just ask the question “What has potential?” to which the reply will be “nothing.” So, not only is Carrier’s claim here silly, it is logically incoherent.

 But, wait, Carrier’s not finished:

Therefore, in the beginning, nothing existed to prevent anything from happening or to make any one thing happening more likely than any other thing.[…] Of all the logically possible things that can happen when nothing exists to prevent them from happening, continuing to be nothing is one thing, one universe popping into existence is another thing, two universes popping into existence is yet another thing, and so on all the way to infinitely many universes popping into existence[…]Therefore, the probability of some infinite number of universes having popped into existence is infinitely close to one hundred percent.

 So, Carrier has basically argued that from “nothing”, everything comes, multiple universes and all. There are many problems with Carrier’s argument here. First, Carrier has still given no metaphysical explanation of how “nothing” can spontaneously pop into something. This is seen to be metaphysically impossible—hence the old adage “from nothing, nothing comes”. For something to go from one state (nothing) to another (something) would be for potentiality to be reduced to actuality. But, 1) we’ve already seen that potential must be a potential of some actual thing, which is not nothing, and 2) something can only be reduced from potentiality to actuality by something already actual, which, again, cannot exist in nothing; that is, potentiality cannot move itself to act because mere potential is not actual.

Thus stated, we have seen that Carrier begins his argument with a dubious definition of “nothing”. Then he tried to predicate metaphysical concepts of this “nothing”, yet, said concepts can only be coherently predicated of something, not nothing. Third, even after all this ridiculous argumentation, Carrier has given no metaphysical explanation of how this ‘nothing” can produce anything at all. Rather, it is simply flatly asserted that this “nothing” can pop into multiple universes. Taking all of this into consideration, we can see that Richard Carrier has not given a coherent and tenable answer to the existential question.