The Principle Of Sufficient Reason
I’d like to discuss the PSR, its weaknesses, a revised version and the support from modern science for a revised version of the PSR.
Principle Of Sufficient Reason
This ancient, simple, powerful argument was first named and clearly enunciated by Leibniz:
’Nothing takes place without a sufficient reason’ - Leibniz, The Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason
’No fact can hold or be real, and no proposition can be true, unless there is a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise.’ - Leibniz, Monadology
The most succinct expression is: everything must have a reason.
Leibniz’s Cosmological Argument from the PSR
Leibniz believed that explaining contingents truth with other contingent truths leads to an infinite regress of explanations. Therefore there has to be a necessary truth, God, at the base of the regress to make everything else real:
’Suppose the book of the elements of geometry to have been eternal, one copy having been written down from an earlier one. It is evident that even though a reason can be given for the present book out, we should never come to a full reason. What is true of the books is also true of the states of the world. If you suppose the world eternal, you will suppose nothing but a succession of states and will not find in any of them a sufficient reason.’ - Leibniz, Theodicy
’Now this sufficient reason for the existence of the universe cannot be found in the series of contingent things....Although the present motion...arises from preceding motion, and that in turn from motion which preceded it, we do not get further however far we may go, for the same question always remains. The sufficient reason, therefore, which needs not further reason, must be outside of this series of contingent things and is found in a substance which...is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself; otherwise we should not yet have a sufficient reason with which to stop. This final reason for things is called God’ - Leibniz, The Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason
Of course the objection raised most frequently to the PSR (and its use in cosmological arguments) is that if everything has a reason, what is the reason for God? Leibniz says only contingent things need a reason, God is necessary, so he does not need a reason. This is somewhat lame - saying something is necessary does not in itself explain why it is necessary. It is a necessary fact that square circles do not exist and the reason is that they are a contradiction - that is an explanation for a necessary fact and in general, necessary facts need explanations - a complete cosmological argument should explain everything, including God.
Revised PSR
- Everything in time has a reason
- Nothing can be the reason of itself
Time is the reason for causality - effects follow causes - and the revised PSR reflects this truth. This formulation negates the most obvious objection to Leibniz’s PSR - now we can have existing outside of time/causality a truly uncaused being that is the ultimate cause of everything. Being outside of time, the being is never created and has nothing logically/temporally prior to it - it just ‘IS’.
The Start of Time
Of course the revised PSR requires a start of time. This I have already justified:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6218/the-universe-cannot-have-existed-forever/p1
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5832/argument-from-equilibrium/p1
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5302/an-argument-for-eternalism/p1
Support For the Revised PSR From Science
Causality forms a huge pyramid in time - at the tip of the pyramid is the Big Bang and at the base of the pyramid are present events. Of course it only works if there is an uncaused cause - a brute fact - to start the whole thing off - and uncaused things can only exist outside of time.
This view is very much supported by the 2nd law of thermodynamics - entropy increases with time as cause and effects multiply. A cause causing one or more effects is the normal state of affairs, multiple causes leading to one effect is a freak occurrence, thus causality always leads to a pyramid shape, a view which is very much supported by the Big Bang cosmology:
Even if time preexisted the Big Bang, a pre-Big Bang pyramid of causality would still exist - leading to the same conclusion - a timeless, causally efficacious agent as the cause of everything (be it Eternal Inflation or whatever alternative pre-Big Bang cosmology).
Principle Of Sufficient Reason
This ancient, simple, powerful argument was first named and clearly enunciated by Leibniz:
’Nothing takes place without a sufficient reason’ - Leibniz, The Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason
’No fact can hold or be real, and no proposition can be true, unless there is a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise.’ - Leibniz, Monadology
The most succinct expression is: everything must have a reason.
Leibniz’s Cosmological Argument from the PSR
Leibniz believed that explaining contingents truth with other contingent truths leads to an infinite regress of explanations. Therefore there has to be a necessary truth, God, at the base of the regress to make everything else real:
’Suppose the book of the elements of geometry to have been eternal, one copy having been written down from an earlier one. It is evident that even though a reason can be given for the present book out, we should never come to a full reason. What is true of the books is also true of the states of the world. If you suppose the world eternal, you will suppose nothing but a succession of states and will not find in any of them a sufficient reason.’ - Leibniz, Theodicy
’Now this sufficient reason for the existence of the universe cannot be found in the series of contingent things....Although the present motion...arises from preceding motion, and that in turn from motion which preceded it, we do not get further however far we may go, for the same question always remains. The sufficient reason, therefore, which needs not further reason, must be outside of this series of contingent things and is found in a substance which...is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself; otherwise we should not yet have a sufficient reason with which to stop. This final reason for things is called God’ - Leibniz, The Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason
Of course the objection raised most frequently to the PSR (and its use in cosmological arguments) is that if everything has a reason, what is the reason for God? Leibniz says only contingent things need a reason, God is necessary, so he does not need a reason. This is somewhat lame - saying something is necessary does not in itself explain why it is necessary. It is a necessary fact that square circles do not exist and the reason is that they are a contradiction - that is an explanation for a necessary fact and in general, necessary facts need explanations - a complete cosmological argument should explain everything, including God.
Revised PSR
- Everything in time has a reason
- Nothing can be the reason of itself
Time is the reason for causality - effects follow causes - and the revised PSR reflects this truth. This formulation negates the most obvious objection to Leibniz’s PSR - now we can have existing outside of time/causality a truly uncaused being that is the ultimate cause of everything. Being outside of time, the being is never created and has nothing logically/temporally prior to it - it just ‘IS’.
The Start of Time
Of course the revised PSR requires a start of time. This I have already justified:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6218/the-universe-cannot-have-existed-forever/p1
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5832/argument-from-equilibrium/p1
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5302/an-argument-for-eternalism/p1
Support For the Revised PSR From Science
Causality forms a huge pyramid in time - at the tip of the pyramid is the Big Bang and at the base of the pyramid are present events. Of course it only works if there is an uncaused cause - a brute fact - to start the whole thing off - and uncaused things can only exist outside of time.
This view is very much supported by the 2nd law of thermodynamics - entropy increases with time as cause and effects multiply. A cause causing one or more effects is the normal state of affairs, multiple causes leading to one effect is a freak occurrence, thus causality always leads to a pyramid shape, a view which is very much supported by the Big Bang cosmology:
Even if time preexisted the Big Bang, a pre-Big Bang pyramid of causality would still exist - leading to the same conclusion - a timeless, causally efficacious agent as the cause of everything (be it Eternal Inflation or whatever alternative pre-Big Bang cosmology).
Comments (45)
What are your objections to the (revised) PSR?
The PSR in general, including the revised one, just seems completely arbitrary to me. I don't see how we could possibly rule out "spontaneous events" in principle.
There is the conservation of energy as an argument against energy/matter producing spontaneous events. Also, if spontaneous appearance of energy/matter occurs naturally and time is infinite, then infinite energy/matter would result. So that has not happened, so one of the following being true:
1) Time is not infinite. The start of time needs a cause.
Or
2) Energy/matter came about unnaturally. Unnatural things must have a cause.
Tracing backwards starting at the cause identified in the above two possibilities, the pyramid of causality leads to (ultimately) the existence of an uncaused causally efficacious agent (IE beyond time).
I'd acknowledge that these are not conclusive arguments but they do add to the weight of evidence from arguments like fine tuning, the impossibility (IMO) of the infinite, equilibrium...
The conservation of energy has the same problem as SPR--it's rather arbitrary, and there's really no good reason to believe it as a principle. It's fine as an assumption in that it makes many things in the sciences easier, but it really shouldn't be taken as anything more than that. There's no way to establish it as a principle that must be the case. That's true for all physical principles, all physical "laws."
Quoting Devans99
Again, the idea of that is completely arbitrary. There could be one spontaneous event. One time.
Or two. And that's it. Or three or whatever. There could be any arbitrary finite number of them, whether time is infinite or not.
I think it is a better axiom that creation ex nihilo - more experimental support, but I acknowledge they are both axioms.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'd appeal to the maths of infinity:
- A natural event has >0% probability of occurring naturally. Assuming these events produce matter then given infinite time, there would be >0% * ? = ? matter (IE infinite density) in the universe (I believe the universe is spatially finite - a separate argument).
- A non-natural has a 0% probability of occurring naturally. Non-natural events need causes (else they would be natural events - see above). And from that I'd trace back to a first cause as per the classic argument.
It doesn't matter if it's "natural" or not. It's possible for something to happen just once, or just twice, or whatever arbitrary, finite number we pick and then not happen again.
Mathematical conventions don't imply anything about ontology, by the way.
You seem to be arguing for an infinite past with a singular, naturally occurring something from nothing event? Natural events as far as we know, always come in pluralities - they are not singletons like the BB.
I don't think this is true. Actually, I don't think anything has a reason. All the things we know are just descriptions of how things behave, which can then be generalized to understand how typical types of things usually or often behave.
I am ambivalent about whether or not all things or some things have causes. I want to say "no," but then I think of simple situations like pushing on an object and seeing it start to move. On the other side, there are lots of situations where very minor differences in initial conditions result in vastly different outcomes.
lol--mathematics can't tell us anything like that. The whole idea of that is absurd. Mathematics is a language based on how we think about relations.
Can we not treat 'reason' and 'cause' as synonyms when it comes to cosmological arguments?
To have no cause is to have nothing logically/temporally preceding which seems only possible if the thing being considered is outside of time... which I admit is a challenging concept... but I cannot see how anything could exist without a minimum of one 'brute fact' and it seems they have to be timeless.
Not quite sure what you mean about initial conditions?
I think you are laughing at actual infinity then. I agree: it is a laughable concept. As an atheist you should not have a problem with this - Cantor only included in maths because he thought God was infinite (and was talking to him).
So here's the conundrum: Is time within the universe, or is the universe within time?
If time is just within the universe, then the universe itself isn't bound by the laws of time. Think of it like a fish tank: ''being full of water'' is one of its properties, but the tank is not inside an environment that's full of water.
Likewise, the universe does not need to be in time even though everything inside is in time. As such, the universe can be perfectly described as uncaused and self-sustaining.
I agree with the premises of your revised PSR, yet I don't come to the conclusion that there is a God.
One way to avoid the confusion is to talk about:
- Spacetime. The thing that came about because of the Big Bang
- Universe. The entirety of everything, including spacetime
So this view leads to time being within the universe. As you say, with this model, uncaused 'brute facts' are possible as long as they are without spacetime.
Thanks for clearing things up. I'll replace time with spacetime.
Yes, if spacetime is within the universe instead of something that encompasses the universe, then ''let there be the universe'' is one of these ''brute facts''.
How do you know that God exists and that Cantor talked to him?
Cantor on the other hand thought he was talking to God. From Wikipedia:
'Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Cantor, a devout Lutheran, believed the theory had been communicated to him by God.'
Just the idea that mathematics determines anything about ontology.
OK, fair enough--but just wonderin' though, on what basis do you argue for the existence of God using PSR?
As we've established, if spacetime is within the universe, then the universe is self-sustaining which excludes the necessity of a creator. So I assume that you believe that the universe is within spacetime instead--do you?
So it appears there must be an initial reason (because of PSR) for spacetime and that reason must be self-driven / causally efficacious - to return to the prime mover - something has to move of its own accord.
So there is maybe something like causality in the wider universe but not tied to spacetime - something from outside spacetime caused spacetime.
I'm not sure. I'll have to think about whether or not I think they're the same thing.... Earlier, you discussed the conservation laws as preventing getting something out of nothing. That strikes me as a reason, not a cause. Still, cause and reason are clearly mixed up together somehow. Maybe it doesn't matter, since I've called the existence of both into question.
Quoting Devans99
I'm not sure what you mean. The universe is full of "brute facts." It sure seems like things should have causes. It's kind of a common sense kind of thing. But, then again, much of the last 100 years of science has been about finding out how common sense doesn't work.
I see the physical laws of the universe (conservation of energy etc...) as being distinct from the causes/reasons for things in the universe.
At a macro level, it seems to me that every event has a cause and the creation of the universe is a macro level event. The PSR argument is all about what happens at macro level.
Quoting T Clark
I believe that everything in spacetime at a micro level can trace its cause back to the Big Bang (coincidental with the start of time) - matter was either created during the BB or entered time during the BB. With the second view, you could, as you say, say the universe is full of 'brute facts' in that matter can trace its origin back to a timeless past. But I don't think raw matter qualifies as causally efficacious macro brute facts - the BB/start of time requires something more than dumb matter to cause it (so does the fine tuning of the universe).
It's maybe easier to express things in terms of the analogy of the prime mover argument: one of the brute facts has to be able to cause macro events - has to be able to move of its own accord. Eternal, timeless, movement leads to an infinite regress which is impossible - something has to start moving for there to be movement at all - leading to some sort of self-driven agent.
I don't really think I know what this means, but I have a feeling that I disagree with it. You say "can trace it's cause back" what do you mean exactly? Sure, if the big bang hadn't happened, the television here in my living room never would have come into existence. Is that all causation means - If Event B will not happen unless Event A happens first, then A causes B. No, I don't think that's right.
So I'm trying to split macro level causation (this thread) and argue about that with the PSR, from micro level causation (other thread).
I didn't get involved in that previous thread. I started paying attention when it was already far along and I didn't think I could catch up. I did look through it a bit.
And, I guess, no. I don't necessarily see why everything that exists has to start sometime. Everything could always have just been here. When I think about it, that seems like the most plausible idea. Not that I have any specific evidence for it. It just kind of feels right.
Thing is, we do not really know. We hardly know much at all about how such things might work and its certainly could be discovered one way or another. The universe doesnt care about our models for how it works.
The fact that we do not know doesnt mean people can just make something up in place of that knowledge. (Not that you did that).
The OP on the other thread specifically addresses why things cannot have existed 'forever' in time. That leads to a model where something(s) have permanent existence outside of time.
In terms of the PSR and macro causality, I believe that causality always forms a pyramid shape in time, which is suggestive of a start of time. Also, as Leibniz, Aquinas and others have said, infinite regresses are impossible - they must terminate in something concrete, permanent and uncaused - in my view that is only possible if the terminator to the regress is outside of time.
I wonder what Leibniz meant.
I read the wikipedia article on the PSR and Leibniz claims that necessary truths are those whose denial leads to a contradiction.
1. PSR is true
2. No contingent reason is sufficient
Therefore
3. There is a necessary reason = God
If you reject 3 then there is a contradiction viz. the PSR is false and true because any contingent reason would be sufficient. That's how far I got. Any comments?
There are different formulations of the PSR, for example:
1. 'Everything must have a reason'
2. 'Everything contingent must have a reason'
3. 'Everything in time has a reason'
With [1], there appears to be a contradiction because what is the reason for God?
With [2] I think it matches your reasoning above - God is exempt from the PSR because he is a necessary being.
With [3], God becomes a timeless being - he just 'IS' without any need for a reason (there is and can be nothing logically or temporally prior to a timeless God). I personally prefer [3] as it is seems more explanatory than the other two.
Isn't this the core of your topic, another attempt to prove the existence of God? :chin:
It is a hobby of mine to try to arrive at a tentative conclusion with respect to the existence / non-existence of a creator of the universe. It passes the time. I'm hardly the only one on the forum who does it. It's certainly been a popular pastime for philosophically inclined folks down the ages (too many names to mention).
This is pretty fallacious...is Zuckerberg a reptilian just because he looks like one?
And if something's out of spacetime, then by definition it isn't bound by the laws of causality...I thought we've already established that.
1. It is a singleton; natural events always come in pluralities
2. Entropy was unnaturally low at the Big Bang
3. Rather than the objects themselves moving further apart, it is space itself that is expanding - the Big Bang is no normal explosion. This expansion of space is keeping the universe from collapsing in on itself into a massive black hole.
4. That the expansion is speeding up rather than slowing which also seems unnatural
If we can't judge by appearances, that handicaps us somewhat. By appearances, I judge it is possible that the BB is a creation. That ties in with other arguments.
Quoting Three-Buddy Problem
Not bound by causality but maybe still able to initiate (and even participate in) causality.
Isn't this just a restatement of the axiom of causality? Does Leibniz offer any reason why he believes this, or is it just an assertion of causality?
The point of the OP was to bring out how the PSR can be altered so it makes more sense and how it neatly ties in with scientific evidence.
You consider the Big Bang to be an actual natural event, but I think it's just a label we apply to ''the beginning of the universe'', and nothing else. And again, if the spacetime is within the universe then we didn't need anyone to start the Big Bang.
What's more, it doesn't matter if, say, entropy were instead maximally high, or the universe is expanding into the shape of a tap-dancing crocodile; because the universe itself doesn't need to be bound by the laws of nature at all, so we don't need to be surprised that it acts unnaturally.
Sure, you can speculate that the universe had a creator anyway even though it didn't need one...but yeah, that's just a speculation. I can speculate that time travelers created the universe. Wanna bet?
You consider the Big Bang to be an actual natural event, but I think it's just a label we apply to ''the beginning of the universe'', and nothing else. And again, if the spacetime is within the universe then we didn't need anyone to start the Big Bang.
What's more, it doesn't matter if, say, entropy were instead maximally high, or the universe is expanding into the shape of a tap-dancing crocodile; because the universe itself doesn't need to be bound by the laws of nature at all, so we don't need to be surprised that it acts unnaturally.
Sure, you can speculate that the universe had a creator anyway even though it didn't need one...but yeah, that's just a speculation. I can speculate that time travelers created the universe. Wanna bet?
Quoting Three-Buddy Problem
Thats an interesting idea - a future human, time traveller travels back in time and sets off the Big Bang via some sort of device. It would be ironic, after all the effort invested in religion down the years if it turned out that we are our own gods.
Sure. I think you understand what I was trying to do - It's not that I know, it's that it doesn't seem obvious to me that everything that exists has to start existing. I'm not sure that's something that's knowable. Then again, I'm not sure it's not knowable either.
I didn't buy that explanation either.
Quoting Devans99
As I indicated previously, it's not clear to me that everything has to be caused.
Quoting Devans99
If my memory is correct, both Leibniz and Aquinas understood the universe as one where God exists and sets definitive rules for how things work. I'll buy that - if God as he is usually portrayed exists, then everything you say about cause is probably true. If not, all bets are off and we have to figure it out for ourselves.
I'd be grateful if you could tell me why you did not buy the explanation.
At a macro-level, randomness is deemed not to exist:
What we normally call “random” is not truly random, but only appears so. The randomness is a reflection of our ignorance about the thing being observed, rather than something inherent to it.
According to the Bell experiments, the axiom of realism mostly falls apart -- but with loopholes -- at the scale of photons and electrons. The smaller the scale, the less the axiom of realism is sustainable.
Axiom of realism: The moon exists, even if we do not look at it.
If I understand it right, according to Bell's theorem, the axiom of causality requires the axiom of realism, the existence of which really depends on just the presence of loopholes that explicitly allow for local reality.
Generalized realism, however, seems to be unsustainable.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0609163.pdf
One of the author's points is that QM as it stands does not prove that reality is random at a micro level - that's down to the interpretation of QM.
On Bell's inequalities, I believe that the loopholes you mention imply that locality or realism do not hold. That seems like a large loophole - the violation of the inequalities does not mean that realism does not hold.
Quantum entanglement seems to be an established fact - non local behaviour. But I am not aware of any QM proof/evidence that realism does not hold?
So I believe I can maintain a belief in micro realism at this stage? Bell was, as I understand it, himself a supporter of Bohmian mechanics - non-local hidden variables but a realist interpretation.
My OP is an argument from macro level, which seems the more appropriate level when discussing the origin of the universe. The time around the singularity requires a quantum theory of gravity, but before and after the singularity, the origin of the universe appears to be a macro problem for which causality can be applied.
I certainly agree with what Hrvoje Nikolic writes on the matter:
[i]Fundamental randomness as a myth
Of course, if the usual form of QM is really the ultimate truth, then it is true that nature is fundamentally random. But who says that the usual form of QM really is the ultimate truth? (A serious
scientist will never claim that for any current theory.)[/i]
Visual observation requires receiving light on a phenomenon. This becomes a fundamental problem when the phenomenon observed is itself of the same size or smaller than light particles. In that case, we cannot expect an ordinary observation experience to occur. It will necessarily be confused.