Cosmologic philosophy: Sean Carroll on cause (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, November 02, 2016, 00:59 (2944 days ago) @ David Turell

This is a review critically of Sean Carrol's new book: The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. Very long so I will cover the discussion on causality:

Carroll: "At the deepest level we currently know about, the basic notions are things like “spacetime,” “quantum fields,” “equations of motion” and “interactions.” No causes, whether material, formal, efficient, or final.

"You cannot get away from Aristotle that easily. The language that physicists use is not really a good guide to the theories that they can justify. Here is a guide to talking about fundamental physics like an Aristotelian. Instead of saying that the universe consists of quantum fields, say that quantum fields are material causes. Instead of saying that fields interact with each other, say that those fields are efficient causes, ones serving to actualize in the real world what is potential in each quantum field. To answer the question, “What is a quantum field?” is to identify its formal cause.

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"..causes create the pattern of the laws of nature; they are not the pattern itself. Sometimes causes create time-symmetric patterns, and sometimes they don’t. The patterns still need an explanation.

"Carroll is among the physicists who argue that the world is better understood the less it seems to have any transcendent purpose.8 To support this sweeping conclusion, Carroll argues that if the universe had a purpose, it would obey teleological laws; but the laws of nature are not formulated in teleological terms. Therefore, by contraposition, the universe has no purpose.

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"This argument is valid without being sound. The universe could have a purpose without obeying teleological laws. Purpose can be front-loaded into the special initial conditions of the universe, as an arrow shot for the purpose of hitting the bullseye is carefully aimed before being fired. Carroll is placing an arbitrary restriction on how the universe could be purposeful.

"The problem is that Carroll’s definition of a final cause—“the purpose for which an object exists”—is not Aristotle’s definition: “causes which act for the sake of something.” A conscious purpose is a kind of final cause, but Aristotle’s idea is broader.

"We find Aristotelian teleology in nature wherever an efficient cause is directed towards some particular effect...Aristotelian teleology is intrinsic, not externally imposed. Acorns have the ability—but not the conscious desire—to grow into oaks; oaks do not happen by chance or coincidence.

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"Must we accept the existence of facts that have no explanation, or so-called brute facts? If not, then naturalism, whether poetic or otherwise, should be rejected. This is the core of versions of the cosmological argument that appeal to the principle of sufficient reason, a restricted version of which states that all explainable true propositions have explanations. For example, the theist will argue that the existence of contingent reality is an explainable true fact, and thus has an explanation. But this explanation cannot be another contingent being, and so must be a necessary being.

"Carroll rejects this conclusion:
[T]here are no such things as necessary beings. All sorts of versions of reality are possible, some of which have entities one would reasonably identify with God, and some of which don’t.

"But this rejection, based on the assumption that what is conceivable is possible, is inconsistent with his reply to the challenge of philosophical zombies in Chapter 41: “[T]he logical possibility of a concept depends on whether this or that ontology turns out to be true.”13 So with God.

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"It’s a mistake,” Carroll argues, “to start embracing mystery for its own sake.” This is a remark that Carroll might take to heart. The naturalist, when faced with the fact that anything at all exists, must immediately surrender before an unfathomable mystery. The success of science, the existence of natural laws, every fundamental property of the natural world—are all in principle inexplicable:

"Why was the entropy low near the Big Bang? … Why does the universe exist at all? … The secret here is to accept that such questions may or may not have answers. … [F]or some questions, the answer doesn’t go any deeper than “that’s what it is.”

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"The fine-tuning argument need not assume that our existence is the sole purpose of the universe. The laws of physics, Carroll argues, do not allow us to predict the emergence of life: “if we didn’t know anything about the universe other than the basic numbers of [particle physics] and cosmology, would we predict that life would come about? It seems highly unlikely.”24 But this is the wrong calculation. We do not know the sufficient conditions for life. But fine-tuning is concerned with its necessary conditions."

Comment: There is no getting around first cause