The First Infinite Regress
In keeping with the error correction theme that seemed to draw some interest; I decided to look for infinite regress in common experience and perhaps solve them or find the mistakes causing them.
The First Infinite Regress : No Criteria answers the question "Why?"
It's a trick children discover early, they can keep asking why and get a new response. What criteria should terminate Why? or Why not? Is it possible to create universal criteria that answers the question why?.
The First Infinite Regress : No Criteria answers the question "Why?"
It's a trick children discover early, they can keep asking why and get a new response. What criteria should terminate Why? or Why not? Is it possible to create universal criteria that answers the question why?.
Comments (28)
Quoting Cheshire
Yep, I've been subject to a child's "why treatment" :groan: In each round it didn't take long before I had to admit "I don't know".
I guess it can only end with "I don't know" unless we know absolutely everything?
Suppose I assert the proposition Q. This proposition by itself can be either true/false, Q v ~Q When I assert Q, I mean that Q is true. The question why Q? is simply a request to make known what happened between the transition from Q v ~Q (doubt) to Q (certainty).
An infinite regress will rear its ugly head once certainty is declared in re the conclusion for the simple reason that it would require the premises to also be true and that would require further arguments which will also have its own premises which themsleves would have to be true...ad nauseum.
Best way to terminate an infinite regress, probably the easy way out, is to say something like IF P is true THEN Q is true as well, tactfully avoiding commitment on the truth of the premise P. That's what valid arguments are by the way: IF the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. It's all about logic, deductive logic in the end! Sadly, logic alone is useless - it's like a coffee machine with no coffee.
This "technique" piques my interest because it boils down to or is identical to one of the three lemmas in Agrippa the skeptic's trilemma viz. axiomatization, the other two being, circularity and infinite regress. :chin:
Children, it seems, are born skeptics - they're deeply puzzled by or even distressed by the transition from p v ~p (doubt) to p or ~p (certainty).
Note also that the entire scientific enterprise consists of inductively inferring the laws of nature and then deductively inferring from these laws of nature. The idea it seems is to work backwards from empirical truths (observational data) to the axioms (the laws of nature). We tweak/trash the axioms (hypotheses/theories) as and when they contradict empirical truths. These axioms (hypotheses/theories) would answer the question, "why?" with, It Just Is, exactly what axioms are.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
I like "Because I said so," although the best answer is probably "There are no answers to the question "Why." We don't or can't know that. The only question we can answer is "How."
Why?
The rotting of teeth, the passing of time. Ie. real circumstances, the real-life context of asking Why?
As in, "You ask Why?, while your teeth rot."
Pointing out to people, or to oneself, that life goes on, passes by, even as one is asking one's Why? should make a normal, conscientious person cease asking it, and focus on the task at hand.
Ahh "I don't know" doesn't end the regress. Luckily my interrogator let me off the hook there.
If we regressed back to a first thing that has always existed and gave rise to everything else - as it has no cause, no reason for being, we should get to a definitive answer?
Why anything?
[i]It has to be.[/I]
How come?
Existence has no alternative?
Why is that?
[i]'Nonexistence', also called 'Nothing', cannot be. 'It' has no properties.[/I]
Why all those quote marks?
[i]Because 'Nothing' cannot even be meant.[/I]
What if there never was anything?
[i]Not true, for there is something.[/I]
OK, but is there an infinite regress of entities made of lessor entities?
No, for a never ending cascade could never complete.
How come?
[i]It would take forever.[/I]
What, then, underlies all events?
So far, it is the quantum fields whose excitations give rise to the elemental particles.
Why does that work?
(I accidentally hit the post button; I may continue it…)
Hitting a law of thought does please the intuition. It is what it is; but if that is the answer to every why then meaning or reason is something we impart on things. It has no existence without the human mind or perhaps a more complex explanation is in order. Is it always true that it just is?
What good about quantum fields?
[i]The are continuous and thus non composite, having no parts, thus satisfying the fundamental arts.[/I]
Why and how are the quantum fields there already made with not anything to make them of?
[i]They were never made; they are eternal, and the eternal cannot have a beginning.[/I]
What if they end?
[i]The eternal cannot end; energy can neither be created nor destroyed.[/I]
Why does everything change, not even remaining as anything particular even for an instant?
[i]It is energetic.[/I]
What are the eternal quantum fields made of and what are they in particular?
They are 'made' of themselves, being fundamental (so far), but are not particular in the way you think of them having been designed, for the eternal can't have a design point, given no beginning.
All this seems not to then have any built-in direction, purpose, and meaning.
[i]I said that, in effect.[/I]
What can I do, as basically novel?
You can't really do anything truly original; the Cosmos does you.
Why do squirrels run back under a car after they're already in the clear?
[i]Some things are truly unfathomable![/I]
Really?
[I]No, they can't tell where the car's sound is coming from, for it reflects from the environment.[/i]
Genuinely, never knew this; So, Why? is like a human halting problem. What if we complicated it to every question being; "Why and Why not otherwise?".
[i]Because it already happened in a particular way, as per what was going on at the time.[/I]
Can't we still suppose?
[i]Sure, it's good for reviewing what we would do in a similar situation or for enjoying thinking in an alternate fantasy world, but, all that aside there is not really a 'What if'.[/I]
What if Germany and/or Japan had won World War II?'
[i]They didn't; there are no real 'what ifs'.[/I]
To say we can give a physical account of what took place but we can't completely explain the outcome when others were possible?
It comes down to what "completely explain the outcome" means. Does it mean "how," or does it mean "why." I think how is all we can know.
Here's another way to look at it. Biology, the youngest of the sciences, is reducible to chemistry, chemistry to physics, physics to...here's where it gets interesting...mathematics (Mathematical Universe Hypothesis)
Mathematics, as we all know, is Axiomatic. In other words, it just is! Axioms, by definition, are assumptions - deemed true sans proof. Whatever else mathematics is, infinite regress isn't one of its problems.
In the case of human expression it seems leaving out why would miss most of the contextual information surrounding an event like a protest isn't explained by the manner of gathering but the reasons for it. It could be impossible to generalize successfully at this level. I see what you mean by only the 'how' is theoretically explainable. But, it has to contain the set of states that were in impossible in order to be completely explained.
Rolling two dice, one loaded and one fair and they both come up 6 is the explanation different?
I would be willing to suppose that it is the same outside of mathematics; that the termination of Why? is most likely an unspoken assumption like reality can't exist in contradiction or the state of affairs was possible long enough to occur and did.
Since you seem to be interested for some reason...hopefully, a good one...I'll let you know what I think of this problem with justification - it is about justification vis-à-vis Agrippa's trilemma [1. Infinite regress (topic of discussion), 2. Circularity and 3. Axiomatization (the best option)].
The issue is that we need to get our hands on some proposition (atomic/compound) that's true, must be true, sans any justification whatsoever in order that the infinite regress is terminated.
My initial gut feelings were, why not assume a contradiction as our axiom. Ex falso quodlibet, everything follows - a contradiction as the one and only axiom would be like a theory of everything.
However, the problem is contradictions are false and so to have one as an axiom would be basing all knowledge on a lie - a bad idea. Plus, what's the point of axiomatic system in which both a proposition and its negation are true. How would you, for example, plan a vacation in Paris is Paris is in France and Paris is not in France? Confusion, big time!
Your question was opportune insofar as I'm concerned since what I said in my first post is germane to the matter at hand. Everything begins with doubt - given a proposition p, we begin as p v ~p. From p v ~p, we then try and justify either that p or ~p (certainty) and that's precisely the point where/how infinte regress gains a foothold and from thereon gums up the works as ut were.
Notice something interesting though! p v ~p is a tautology i.e. it's always true and, more importantly, it doesn't need an argument that justifies it! What does this mean? Well, if anything else, a tautology p v ~p can be, by virtue of it being true sans proof, can serve as a foundational axiom - no infinite regress, no circularity, plus even if it's just an axiom, it's nevertheless true (it's a tautology).
Thus, a way out of Agrippa's trilemma is to use a tautology (p v ~p) as the first port of call in our journey into epistemology. This squares with what I said earlier. We argue by explicitly declaring our ignorance like so: Begin with p v ~p. Then proceed as follows: IF p then q and IF ~p then r. We haven't committed to either p or ~p. We've simply assumed p in one instance and ~p in another and investigated (skepticism) what follows from these assumptions (axioms).
Children never lie
Child: p v ~p (always true, tautology)
Adult: p (Aagrippa's trilemma)
Child: Why?
Child: p v ~p (always true, tautology)
Adult: ~p (Agrippa's trilemma)
Child: Why?
Child In Addendum: It's never true in a superposition. If a thing is in all states it can't be p v ~p
Thanks for all the commentary, I intend to make sure I cover it all in the coming days.
:ok: I gave it my best shot. I know nothing about superposition except perhaps that it's a contradiction - the cat is both dead and alive!
Good luck!
Q. Why does this first cause exist?
A. There is no reason for its existence.
Q. Why is there no reason for its existence?
A. Because nothing caused it.
Q. ....
It doesn't make sense to ask "why did nothing cause it"!
Good point. I was thinking more of subatomic particles, billiard balls, and galaxies. Is "the sky is blue because blue light scatters more than other wavelengths," how or why?
It seems like mechanical questions are better suited to 'how'. How implies a terminating point into the state of affairs or corresponding facts that are the subject. How we settled on calling it blue might be a why question that tracks the origins of words.
It is certainly an awkward phrase, but people rhetorically ask how/why something would come from nothing. Which I think is in the process of being answered by this approach to physics that concentrates on using impossibilities as axioms. Really, at this point it starts digging into the problem of change. If everything is in flux how could something not happen? I think I got lost on my own detour. Thanks for the commentary.
Interestingly, when I tried to reverse the why game with a child, they came back with a very simple answer: "because I want to".
One could take that to indicate that asking "why" is only meaningful if we're referring to intentional actions, and that the infinite regress is therefore a symptom of asking an incoherent question.
That child understood that all regressions of intention and actions end in a will,a want to.
And though matter does not have will,it also ends as itself.
Translation; Will and matter/energy are eternal and dynamic.