Good exists - a Catholic comments

[GrandizerII]

Aren't all brute facts arbitrary by definition?

For me, arbitrary and particular are one and the same in this context, so interchangeable. In this context, something is arbitrary if it has some property that appears to be random and could have instead been less or more extreme in quality or frequency or intensity or whatever. Using this local universe yet again as an example, this universe has a set of specific initial constants that govern things in this universe. They are particular because they could have been different values instead, and we could've therefore ended up with the speed of light being higher than it is in our actual universe or the gravitational constant being lower and what have you. And for me, this then raises the question: why did we end up with these specific values instead of others? It's just so random that these specific values, instead of others, would just happen to be (if this universe is indeed a brute fact).

When I use the term brute fact I mean something that exists without any explanation or reason (contra a fact), and yet might have been otherwise (contra necessity), and therefore are utterly meaningless and absurd.

I mean I personally consider necessary brute facts to still be brute facts, but it doesn't really matter that much anyway.

It seems to me that something (the first cause) has to be a brute fact (assuming necessity is incoherent).

If some first cause exists, then I suppose it would have to be, yes.

So at bottom, reality is absurd whether that first cause was God or a set of physical states or whatever.

What is considered absurd boils down to our intuitions. It's a reflection of how we feel about it. Absurdity is not something that's inherent within the thing being contemplated as absurd. It's an "us problem", not the universe or God or whatever. But it just so happens to be the case some things for us sound less absurd than others, whether we're contemplating various possible brute facts or some other type of thing that has nothing to do with brute facts.

Is it more intuitive that a timeless being with infinite power, moral goodness, multiple perfections, and which knows a literally infinite number of propositions has always existed for no reason than that a timeless quantum vacuum of limitless energy (or whatever) has always existed for no reason?  I couldn't say.  Both are insane as far as my intuition is concerned.

The thing with a quantum vacuum is that it's a flux of energy. Flux implies random, which screams arbitrary to me. The more arbitrary, the more insane to me.

Infinite always sounds better to me than something that is complex but is nevertheless less than infinite. Unitary also sounds better to me than something that is finite but more than "one of something".