Free will and the necessary evil

[Belacqua]

I don't think Aristotle addressed the Casimir effect. 

Do you still think that the PSR is why he got rates of falling wrong? 

Anyway, as you know, when Aristotle uses the word "cause" he means all the things that are necessary for a thing to be the case. This is a broader meaning than our normal usage, which he would call "efficient cause." So in Aristotle's terms, the Casimir effect has numerous causes, because a number of things have to be the case for it to happen. For example, time and space have to exist, laws of nature have to exist, various kinds of fields or whatever have to exist. 

I don't know if it's acceptable to say that "it happens because the laws of nature are the way they are" counts as a "sufficient reason" or not, PSR-wise.

Maybe the Universe is its own cause?

I confess I don't know how that would work.

I suppose someone who believes strictly in the PSR would think that there is a reason for the universe to be this way, rather than another way, or not exist at all. But that brings us back to metaphysics, not something we can solve through experiment.

[The Grand Nudger]

It would be no more or less acceptable than positing that it happens because god is the way god is.

[Jehanne]

Maybe the Universe is its own cause?

I confess I don't know how that would work.

I suppose someone who believes strictly in the PSR would think that there is a reason for the universe to be this way, rather than another way, or not exist at all. But that brings us back to metaphysics, not something we can solve through experiment.

Likely such will fall in the same category as, "Moving clocks run slow". Consider such from the vantage point of two observers who are moving relative to each other.

[Belacqua]

I confess I don't know how that would work.

I suppose someone who believes strictly in the PSR would think that there is a reason for the universe to be this way, rather than another way, or not exist at all. But that brings us back to metaphysics, not something we can solve through experiment.

Likely such will fall in the same category as, "Moving clocks run slow".  Consider such from the vantage point of two observers who are moving relative to each other.

Oh, geez, now you're doing physics. I'm more of a meta- kind of guy...

[Jehanne]

Likely such will fall in the same category as, "Moving clocks run slow".  Consider such from the vantage point of two observers who are moving relative to each other.

Oh, geez, now you're doing physics. I'm more of a meta- kind of guy...

To have good metaphysics one must first have good physics.

[Angrboda]

Oh, geez, now you're doing physics. I'm more of a meta- kind of guy...

To have good metaphysics one must first have good physics.

This is pure word salad.

[Jehanne]

To have good metaphysics one must first have good physics.

This is pure word salad.

"Meta" means "beyond", and so metaphysics would mean "beyond physics".

[Angrboda]

This is pure word salad.

"Meta" means "beyond", and so metaphysics would mean "beyond physics".

You're not helping yourself.

The word ‘metaphysics’ is notoriously hard to define. Twentieth-century coinages like ‘meta-language’ and ‘metaphilosophy’ encourage the impression that metaphysics is a study that somehow “goes beyond” physics, a study devoted to matters that transcend the mundane concerns of Newton and Einstein and Heisenberg. This impression is mistaken. The word ‘metaphysics’ is derived from a collective title of the fourteen books by Aristotle that we currently think of as making up Aristotle's Metaphysics. Aristotle himself did not know the word. (He had four names for the branch of philosophy that is the subject-matter of Metaphysics: ‘first philosophy’, ‘first science’, ‘wisdom’, and ‘theology’.) At least one hundred years after Aristotle's death, an editor of his works (in all probability, Andronicus of Rhodes) titled those fourteen books “Ta meta ta phusika”—“the after the physicals” or “the ones after the physical ones”—the “physical ones” being the books contained in what we now call Aristotle's Physics. The title was probably meant to warn students of Aristotle's philosophy that they should attempt Metaphysics only after they had mastered “the physical ones”, the books about nature or the natural world—that is to say, about change, for change is the defining feature of the natural world.

Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy || Metaphysics

[Ahriman]

Am I alone in thinking all those renowned ancient philosophers weren't actually all that smart?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Am I alone in thinking all those renowned ancient philosophers weren't actually all that smart?

Yes. Yes you are.

Boru