PSR & Woo-woo

And the sufficient reason for the "PSR" is ...?

Quoting Agent Smith

The PSR has enjoyed the favor of philosophers, logicians, and scientists. It's considered rationally legit. Not woo woo, not nonsense.

Absurdism has also enjoyed the favour of philosophers. Perhaps less though.

Quoting 180 Proof

And the sufficient reason for the "PSR" is ...?

Axiomatic?

Quoting emancipate

Axiomatic?

The question remains, just one step back: what "sufficient reason" makes this "axiom" indispensable (i.e. necessary), or preferable to any other "axiom"?

The only reason for any axiom is its usefulness, what it enables one to do/construct. It's pretty evident how useful PSR is.

Quoting 180 Proof

And the sufficient reason for the "PSR" is ...?

As emancipate pointed out, one possibility is the PSR's axiomatic.

However, I suspect there are empirical grounds for the PSR: at a minimum, 99% of things we observe have a reason which is another way of saying they're not random, but deterministic.

That said, some physical phenomena are recognized to be totally random e.g. radioactive decay.

I propose two kinds of PSR, explicated below in the context of a bout of Delhi belly and a fire at the office. You stayed home because you had diarrhea; that very day there was a fire at your office, all your colleagues perished. You survived.

1. PSR[sub]1[/sub]: There's a reason for everything. The fire was caused by a short circuit. All your office staff died because of smoke inhalation or 3[sup]rd[/sup] degree burns.

2. PSR[sub]2[/sub]: There's a reason for everything. God wanted you to live, he wants you to do something specific with your life. You're part of the Divine plan. That's why you fell ill that fateful day, preventing you from going to office and saving your life in the process.

PSR[sub]2[/sub] includes PSR[sub]1[/sub] but has an added feature viz. a being (God/guardian angel) who intervenes in your life (providence).

This difference (a supernatural agency) distinguishes the two identical statements PSR[sub]1[/sub] and PSR[sub]2[/sub].

Quoting emancipate

Absurdism has also enjoyed the favour of philosophers. Perhaps less though.

I somehow feel you can't compare absurdism to the PSR unless...you wish to bring up the meaning of life which has supernatural written all over it.

Quoting Agent Smith

the meaning of life

Or in a conversation about the nature of reality.

Quoting Agent Smith

can't compare absurdism to the PSR

Opposites of the same coin.

Reply to emancipate :up:

Quoting emancipate

can't compare absurdism to the PSR
— Agent Smith

Opposites of the same coin.

How much of meaning do we depend on the divine for? Atheists seem as happy as theists if not more. Where is that void in the hearts of unbelievers that can only be filled by, some say, a role in the Divine Plan?

Quoting Agent Smith

As emancipate pointed out, one possibility is the PSR's axiomatic.

:point: Reply to 180 Proof

Quoting Agent Smith

Atheists seem as happy as theists if not more

Citation needed

Reply to 180 Proof Well, this is hard to explain. I'll give it my best shot.

Suppose there are things that happen for no rhyme or reason.

How would we know?

We'll have use the method of elimination which is, to be very brief, listing some candidate reasons for something (x), and then demonstrating that no item on such a list is a reason for x.

As you can see, we always have to assume the PSR.

Quoting emancipate

Citation needed

You got me! Just a hunch. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris seem happy and late Christopher Hitchens seemed most pleased with how he rocked the Papal boat.

Reply to Agent Smith In the face of evidence to the contrary, we don't have to "assume the PSR". Consider e.g. acausal / random vacuum fluctuations (or radioactive decay) which are fundamental to the "structure" of physical reality.

Reply to 180 Proof

I’m leery of any leap from quantum to the macro world of humans.

Agent Smith’s PSR1 can be treated as an axiom, but PSR2 cannot - in the case of PSR2, God is the axiom (or “God meddles”) and PSR2 is a theorem.

The traditional PSR is PSR1 - insisting that things have “meaning” (i.e., are the result of agency) is a human peccadillo.

Reply to Real Gone Cat Radioactive decay is quite macro.

Quoting 180 Proof

In the face of evidence to the contrary, we don't have to "assume the PSR". Consider e.g. acausal / random vacuum fluctuations (or radioactive decay) which are fundamental to the "structure" of physical reality.

I wasn't clear enough then. Let's say we're going to assess whether a certain phenomenon (p) has a reason or not.

I first think of a list of possible reasons, ones that seem most likely. Say they are a, b, and c.

Next, I evaluate a. Is it the reason for p? No!

Now I check b. Is it a reason for p? No!

Last but not the least, I look at c. Is it the reason for p? No!

Conclusion: Phenomenon p has no reason.

As your keen powers of observation will have informed you, I had to assume the PSR for me to demonstrate that phenomenon p occurs for no apparent reason.

Reply to 180 Proof

I just worry about pop physics interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. The ideas are abstract, and not too many of us can speak of them with authority. I know I can't, so I avoid them as much as possible. If we are not physicists, we need to be careful.

Take radioactive decay as an example. Yes, on the quantum scale the decay of an individual particle is random, but on the macro scale the phenomenon is represented by half-life which is not random. Does the decay of one particle affect change on the macro scale? Do you realize how vanishingly small that is? Sure, vacuum fluctuations may be fundamental to the structure of reality, but only in aggregate. One randomly falling snowflake doesn't stop traffic, but enough of them create a blizzard. So does randomness on the quantum scale negate the PSR?

Everything we now use as second nature was once "woo-woo" or unrealistic fantasy, often bordering if not exceeding the threshold of mental illness.

It more or less order: running water, seafaring, ocean exploration, flashlights, flight, text messaging, etc..

Yet pessimists have yet to be breeded out. Goes back to entertainment. Curious, huh?

Quoting Real Gone Cat

So does randomness on the quantum scale negate the PSR?

Yes. The scope of the "PSR" claim is absolute, and given that most of nature – its fundamental structure (99.9 ...%) – is vacuum, that fact persuades me that the "PSR" is not absolute after all but just an anthropic heuristic (,i.e. useful working assumption). As Hume points out: "causal relations" (i.e. sufficient reasons) are only inferred "habits of association" (inductions) and not observed.

Anyway, I agree that QM should be avoided whenever possible but it's the most conspicuous, unimpeachable, evidence contrary to the "PSR" of which I'm aware. (Btw, I should have referred to radiation (emission) instead of "radioactive decay" (which is chaotic/stochastic, not random) or maybe just static (noise) as a macro example of randomness).

Quoting Agent Smith

Expressed differently,

There are no accidents.

Wrong. The PSR states there is a reason for everything. But what if that reason is an accident?

Quoting Philosophim

Wrong. The PSR states there is a reason for everything. But what if that reason is an accident?

An accident is meant here as a random event.

Quoting 180 Proof

an anthropic heuristic (,i.e. useful working assumption)

:up:

Quoting Agent Smith

An accident is meant here as a random event.

I understand that. Isn't a random event a reason for why something happened?

Quoting Philosophim

I understand that. Isn't a random event a reason for why something happened?

Not if

[quote=Master Oogway]There are no accidents.[/quote]

Quoting Agent Smith

Not if

There are no accidents.
— Master Oogway

And if an accident is the reason something happened? :smile:

And now we've come full circle. Why? Why Not? Because. Because why? Why not?

My point is a sufficient reason does not mean it has to indicate something prior. If for example, you found something in the chain of causality that had no prior causality, it would not eliminate the fact that it still exists. If you could find no prior reason for its existence, then logically, it must exist by the evidence that it does. How does it exist? As a self-explained entity. This is reasonably concluded if there is no prior causality, thus a sufficient reason for its existence. In other words, "It just happened" can be a sufficient reason for something's existence.

Quoting Philosophim

now we've come full circle.

Not we, you have come full circle.

Quoting Agent Smith

The PSR has enjoyed the favor of philosophers, logicians, and scientists. It's considered rationally legit. Not woo woo, not nonsense.

Discuss...

I can only make sense of it as a description of our nature, how we do science/philosophy. We look for reasons (exploitable relationships between entities). Curious George. The assumption that a reason for an event can be found is at least implicit in our looking for patterns in which to include it.

Quoting 180 Proof

persuades me that the "PSR" is not absolute after all but just an anthropic heuristic (,i.e. useful working assumption).

:up:

Quoting jas0n

I can only make sense of it as a description of our nature, how we do science/philosophy. We look for reasons (exploitable relationships between entities). Curious George. The assumption that a reason for an event can be found is at least implicit in our looking for patterns in which to include it

In other words, justifying the PSR is beside the point.

Quoting Agent Smith

In other words, justifying the PSR is beside the point.

I think it was the The Celestine Prophecy or some similar book that denied (meaningless) coincidences, as if a Creator stuffed the maximum amount of a relationship between all the spacetime pieces of his creation. 'It's all signal. Noise is just an illusion caused by ignorance.' I can sort of see the allure. But these days I'm just so used to living in the casino. The idea of a fair coin. Brutal contingency, heads or tails for no reason, yet equally likely one or the other. Whether actual coins can live up to this idea is a separate issue. So the OP is like a mirror image of 'does God flip coins?'

Quoting jas0n

does God flip coins

Exactly! I can, any intelligent being can, generate true randomness. Imagine I'm sitting behind a screen (you can't see me). On your screen is a virtual coin which you flip. You flip the coin. I manipulate the coin to show heads (1 H). You flip again, I again cause the coin to show heads (2 H). You flip the coin one more time, but now I let the display show tails (1 T). You flip once again, and I manipulate the program to show tails ( 2 T).

You do the math: 2 heads and 2 tails in four flips, a probability of 50% for both outcomes. You tell yourself, the coin flips are random. However, all this time, I've been using an algorithm (make sure that the number of heads = the number of tails on n flips).

Reply to Agent Smith
Yes, and though statistical tests can be used to suggest fishiness (maybe you accidentally manifest a pattern), they never prove genuine order. A fair coin can come up heads 50 times in a row. Unlikely, but possible....

Quoting jas0n

Yes, and though statistical tests can be used to suggest fishiness (maybe you accidentally manifest a pattern), they never prove genuine order. A fair coin can come up heads 50 times in a row. Unlikely, but possible....

:up: