PARTIAL REVIEW OF LUDWIG FAHRBACH'S
According to most causal theories of explanation, explanations convey information about causal relations which are part of
the external world.
In this case, the dependency relations can be identified
with the causal relations between events, and the order of nature can be identified with the whole causal net.
I feel that, the idea of dependence does not distinguishe between cause and condition, on the one hand, and between cause and implication, on the other hand. We can make possible many hegelian confusions on this base. Between a causal relation and a cognitive implication there can be no substantial difference? Only their form is somehow similar. Neither an analitical implication cannot be reduced at a causal relation or objective dependence nor a causal relation or objective dependence can be reduced at an analitical dependence. That is, the substance of dependence, in the two cases, the reason of dependence is different, essentialy different.
For example, the Big Bang is a starting point in the causal structure of the world, which belongs to the brink of the causal structure of the world, which, in turn, consists of all uncaused events and all epiphenomena (i.e., events that don't cause other events).
What scientist pretended that The Big Bang have had no cause? There can be no any occurence without cause. Without causality there can be no time and therefore Big Bang. Moreover, who can prove that even the empty space do not have any reason of being?
There can be events that do not have any influence on other events? Only completely isolated events.
Smith might still harbor such feelings about X, because he might insist that, in spite of everything, he still doesn't know why X happened or occurred.
Here the error is obvious. I believed that the author maybe refers to some very fundamental existent (e.g., empty space or the brink of space etc.), but he refers also to occurences. There can be no any non-causal occurence, there can be no any non-causal temporal event. The causality is the reason of time and therefore of all and every occurence. The causality is on of the most fundamental principle of time. Logic metastructures the mathematical demonstrations, but both are fundamentaly underlied by time and causality.
If there is such a thing as a
Theory of Everything that is true of our world, it seems possible that
physicists could accumulate sufficiently diverse and extensive evidence to confirm that it indeed encompasses everything and consequently is brute.
However, a theory is a cognitive entity, a mental representation, but every mental representation is an Effect. Moreover, if our material
universe has at its fundamental level an philosophical atom (indivisible, infisionable etc.), then
that atom cannot be explained?
Its existence is unconditioned. It does not come from Big Bang? Its indivisibility cannot be explained? Its unstructured nature cannot be explained?
For example, upon learning that there is no cause for the Big Bang, Smith's understanding of the Big Bang improves.
Every event that has source, origin, begining has also is causal. There can be no any explosion and expansion without cause/causes. Both explosions and expansions are changes, are temporal, and therefore causal.
My fundamental principle of time:
'There can be no any change whitout cause/causes; every change is an effect.'
For example, if a neutron decays at a particular time and Smith knows everything about neutrons in general and about that neutron in particular, then he has a complete
understanding of its decay.
It no longer represents a scientific mystery for him. So brute facts can be completely understood.
Every decay is a change, occurence. Every integration and every disintegration are changes, occurences. There can be no neither an integration nor a disintegration without a cause (e.g., some forces, fields of forces, charges, contacts etc.).
My causal principle of physical structuration: The physical atrraction is the causal principle of physical structuration.
And the physical multiplicity is the condition of possibility of the physicat structuration.
The charge is probable the causal principle of force.
There can be no any fundamental atraction or repulsion without certain causes.
How can a representative of rationality to
bow the reason to the ignorance of scientists? The structure of structural
of the fundamental physical
entities is essentialy conditioned by atrractive and repulsive forces.
There can be no neither an disintegration nor a fision without a cause. There can be no any physical
separation without cause/causes.
Owens (1992) holds that coincidences are inexplicable. A coincidence is an event that can be decomposed into several constituent events which have independent causal explanations, i.e., their causal histories don't share any causal factors. Consider the collision of two particles P and Q at location l at time t. Assume that the two trajectories leading to the
Collision are independent in the sense that they don't share any common causal factor. Then, according to Owens's account there is a causal explanation of why particle P is at location l at time t, and there is a causal explanation of why particle Q is at location l at time t, but there is no causal explanation of why both particles are at the same place at the same time.
This it seems very contra-intuitive to me. Why there is no such a causal explanation? The motion of at least one particle is necessary for their collision. Suposse that both of them were in motion before collision. Their trajectories should intersect, for the collision to be possible. If all this requirements are satisfied, a proper individual speed and direction for both of them will contribute to the complete causal explanation of their presence at same place and at the same time. All that hapens in the worls is effect. This event-collision results from many causes and conditions.
INEXPLANABLE BRUTE FACTS?
Hence, the concept of being a brute fact provides a basis for distinguishing between the concept of explanation and the concept of understanding.
Brute facts are inexplicable, but can be fully understood (LUDWIG FAHRBACH, 2004).
Suposse that there exists an absolute object. That is, an object that neither have origin nor can be destroyed. This is the kind of object would be a brute fact, for the author. But, would be such object inexplanable? No. Even if it would not have origin, it would not be inexplanable, cause its existence is explanable by its presence and its indestructibility. Suposse that there exists a philosophical atom (indestructible, indivisible, non-fisionable, continuous etc.). This atom would not be explanable? It actual existence would be explanable by its physical presence. The continuity of its existence would be explanable by its indestructibility. Its unstructurity would be explanable by its the continuous nature of its substance. Its existence would be explanable by the presence of its substance in space. Even the
existence of empty space can be explanated by its indestructibility, if it is indestructible, or by the absence of the cause of its destruction, if it is destructible. If there exists something without origin and it is destructible, then its existence is conditioned, and therefore explanable, by the absence of its destructive cause. That is, even the entities that would not have originary cause and would be indestructible would be explanable:their unconditioned existence would be explanable by their indestructibility, their existence by their presence, and their presence by their non-nothingness.
This is my provisional basic idea: the nothing cannot be present and, therefore, cannot exist. The nothing there can be no. This is in agreement with some ancient ideas
Moreover, even the inexistence of the nothing can be explanable. The nothing is inexistent, because it is absolutely absent. Presence is the cause of existence. The nothing is inexistent, because it does not have the cause of existence.
THE IMPROPER AXIOMATIZATION AND THE IMPROPER CONCLUSION
OF LUDWIG FAHRBACH?
Friedman conceives of the unification of the set of accepted law-like sentences (which represent phenomena) as some kind of axiomatization where all accepted law-like sentences are derivable from a set of axioms.
In counting axioms, we are not entitled to count the conjunction
of a set of axioms as a single axiom.
For that reason, Friedman requires that the axioms of the axiomatization be "independent", i.e., they should not be equivalent to conjunctions of law-like sentences.
The author wants to defend Friedman from a criticism, but both of them make some errors. Thus, the author considers that we are not entitled to count the conjunction of a set of axioms as a single axiom, but also he conceive the brute facts as being basic facts (e.g., TOE), therefore its axioms should be elementary, but the basic or elementary parts-facts of the whole-universe are effects of the whole-universe explosion, if we accept the theory of Big Bang.
Moreover, our universe has a history, but the individual axiomatization inplicited by the author make possible many syntheses and combinations, but does not imply the genuine history of the universe.
He wants to axiomatize a history of which entirety he does not know.
And, I do not believe that the brute facts should be axioms, but axioms should be about facts. I am not against axiomatization in general, but I consider that, the axiomatization implicited by authors is not the proper one. With regard to the history of the universe, no one proved that the object that exploded at Big Bang was the effect of a previous contraction. That object maybe have a different origin. We do not use to experience explosions followed by contractions.
The circle is a one dimensional spatial form, not the form of time. Causality is the form of time. Without causality, there can be no succesion. As causality cannot be fundamentaly symetrical so as the time cannot be reversible and 'ciclic'. If causality would be symmetrical, then there would be no neither past nor future. If this is truth, Noica should pay for its circles. From a philosophical point of consideration, an explosion is not necessary to be followed by a contraction. That is, contraction is not a necessary consequence of any explosion. Most of our experienced explosions-expansions were not followed by contractions.
If aging is eradicable, even life should not go essentialy in circles, and this is our Ideal. Our fundamental Ideal is the eternal life, not the reproduction in itself. For the fundamental asymmetry of time, for its beliefs in pseudo-eesentialities, Noica and its disciples should pay, proportionaly with the fundamentality, gravity of its philosophical error. Obscurity, confusion, and mixture are not philosophical values.
The only interesting thing to note is that the notion of "independent acceptability" is based on the notion of "good grounds for belief", which is an epistemic notion, although an objective one (Friedman 1974, 8).
I consider that, the independent acceptability should mean that no one axiom can be derived from other axiom/axioms.
The goal of unification is strictly holistic. It concerns the number of
brute facts and cannot be taken to imply that every one of them should be eliminated. An analogy may help to see the point more clearly. For the unification theory, explanatory power is like thrift. The goal of minimizing the number
of brute facts is like the goal of minimizing the number of dollars that we have to spend when we want to buy something. In the case of thrift, if we find the best deal, we have achieved the goal of thrift and the dollars we then have to spend should not distress us. (We might still resent the money that we have to spend on the best deal, but such a feeling is not appropriate).
The holistic nature of
thrift can also be recognized in the fact that we are only interested in the
number of dollars rather than in individual coins or banknotes.
We see, unification concerns only the numbers of brute facts and the individual coins should not explanated. I do not agreed. Counting the numbers of brute facts is rather the an evaluation of the amount of a multiplicity than unification. Unification can be realised by similarity, community, or the common origin of the elementary parts (e.g., the explosion of the whole at Big Bang). I explained why even the philosophical atoms can be explanated. A fundamental part can appear also as an effect of the explosion of a whole, not only from other more fundamental pr basic parts. And the amount of the multiplicity of parts that results at an explosion of the whole can be caused and conditioned by the enlargement of the force that caused the explosion, by the amount of the substance of the whole, by the anlargement of external space etc. We do not know if the matter is infinit fisionable. We do not know if the actual fundamentality of matter is conditioned only by the enlargement of the originary explosion. But even if there are philosophical atoms, they can be explained, therefore are not brute facts. The intelligible and explanable are 'the light'.
The obscurity or non-intelligibility and non-explanability are 'the dark'. The light will win against the dark, with time. We are not philosophers, representative of rationality, who are fundamentaly BASED ON IRATIONALITY, NON-INTELLIGIBLE, and NON-EXPLANABLE. We are not wolfs dressed in 'coats' of sheeps.
Our goal is to destroy the dark by increasing and expansing the light, not to impress with obscure and contra-intuitive pharasses.
10. CONCLUSION
I have analyzed the epistemic process that occurs in our belief system when we learn that a fact is brute. The epistemic process has two features, a negative feature and a positive feature. The negative feature is simply that we don't get an explanation for that fact. The positive feature is the epistemic gain imparted by the statement that an explanation for that fact doesn't exist.
I argued that, there will be no brute facts and, therefore, the author's reasoning is wrong.
As brute facts are starting points in the order of nature, our learning that a fact is brute informs us about the order of nature, and thereby contributes to our understanding of the world.
I argued that, TOE can be only an effect of Big Bang and therefore are not starting points. More philosophicaly, we can understand and explanate a quasi-fundamental part not only by moving from other more fundamental part, but moving from the (explosion of) whole to the actual parts. And a brute fact has even by itself properties that make it at least partial explanable.
The causal generality results from the identity of the type of causes. That is why, even the most general or universal theory is explanable
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Though that I wanted to conquer the author, as any philosopher would want win its possible competitors, this authors was more intelligible than others. That is why, in this limit, I symphatize him.
