Hi, Platt and Moqers all!
>Platt saith:
>
> The basic question for philosophy is: Why is there something rather
> than nothing? I know of only three rational options, each based on an
> unprovable premise: 1) God, 2) accident and 3) ethical requirement.
> God is the religious premise, accident the scientific premise and
> ethical requirement the MOQ premise.
>
Premise 1) God is antithetical to premise 2) accident, and premise 3)
ethical requirement is at best begging the God question.
The MoQ can exist, in fact works exceptionally well within a cosmology where
DQ is analogous to God - your choice, but I am Catholic.
> No need to elaborate on the God premise, God as the First Cause.
> Literature is full of that argument. The accident premise fails by self
> contradiction: Events fall into causation patterns for no cause
> whatsoever. The ethical requirement premise has at least something
> going for it. Its good to be alive. A good universe creates life. To cause
> such a universe to be, an ethical cause can be assumed. (In MOQ
> speak, the universe prefers precondition Good.)
>
Nice summation, except - Ethical cause = DQ = God. If it walks like a duck,
etc.
> At this point, all rationalizations end and infinite regress takes over.
> Who made God? Who set accidents in motion? Who created the
> ethical cause?
>
Usually, the creator of the ethical cause is the designer of the
metaphysics.
>
> Ultimately, the only thing that stops infinite regress and answers the
> question, "what's true?" is one's own innate sense of Quality. It stops
> when an individual (whether cleric, scientist or philosopher) decides
> for himself for whatever reason (explanatory power, simplicity,
> elegance, coherence, correspondence, consensus), that's a good truth.
>
Is there an objective measure? Is the answer to Pilate's question in Lk
18:38
whatever you believe it is, given your own innate sense of Quality? While
the vast majority of people live as if this were the case, I suspect that it
is not so. It is certainly not the best answer in a Quality sense.
> That's my answer to your question, Matt. But if you're looking for a one
> line zinger, maybe this line from Chap. 11 of Lila will suffice, assuming
> you believe it's better to be a person than an alligator:
>
> "Natural selection is Dynamic Quality at work."
>
Or God.
Quack, quack.
drose
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:20 BST