What was in the beginning? The very beginning of
everything. Not necessarily a temporal beginning. If there is
no time, one can hardly speak of a beginning. One should
not ask “what was before anything”? but rather “what was
‘above’ anything?” “Above” – in an ontological sense: what
was a priori or ontologically prior with respect to anything
that was or could be?
In the beginning there was a field of possibilities
For the history of the universe to happen,
the field of possibilities had to be strongly constrained:
from all possibilities to what had a chance to happen.
FIELD OF POSSIBILITIES
Constraining of possibilities = information.
This means that some information was encoded „in the beginning”.
It is called INITIAL CONDITIONS.
In this way, the history of the universe took off
arrow of time = increase of entropy
Improbable beginning
How to reconcile the increase of entropy with something that is
so„improbable”?
Dynamical systems faraway
from the equilibrium
Increase of entropy + very small entropy „in the beginning” =
= arrow of time
- history of the universe towards the increase of disorder
- origin of structures (in states faraway from the equilibrium).
- Disintegration of structures (physical evil)
Moral evil appeared in the history of the universe
together with the possibility of free choice
Moral evil transcends explanatory power
of physical laws.
2013
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Comprehensibility
Existence
Attempts to answer:
Quantum creation of the Universe
WHO IS SUPPORTING ATLAS?
Plato, Phaedo
“…they rather expect to discover another Atlas who is stronger and more
everlasting than this earthly Atlas”
The only logically possible set
of physical laws
LOGICAL NECESSITY –
ONTOLOGICAL NECESSITY
Vice versa: everything that is possible, exists
Multiverse
Leibniz’s question is
even more pressing
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Even a tiny pebble is infinitely more than nothing
2+2=4 Is it “something”?
“Like infinitely many other mathematical affairs, the fact that two and two
make four could surely be called something real, but must it therefore exist?”
What to do with the Leibniz question?
One could try to neutralize it by claiming
• that it is a meaningless question
• that the existence is a brute fact which does not claim for explanation
These are attempts to anesthetize Leibniz’s question
rather than to answer it.
There is yet one attempt to answer Leibniz’s question:
Plato, Republic: The Good which “is not existence, but
lies far beyond it in dignity and power, is what bestows
existence on all known things.”
Phaedo: “The good and right is what holds and binds
things together.”
[John Leslie supports this view]
What is prior?
Existence
[Ontology]
BONUM ET ENS CONVENTUNTUR
The Good is a source of Existence,
The Existence causes the Good to exist.
GOOD
[Ethics]
A God or a Demiurge contemplates all possibilities,
Classifies them,
And selects one to be implemented.
The Good itself is – if one may say so – the best of
possibilities, and this is why it does exist and is the source
of everything that exists.
Leibniz tried to approximate this idea by means of a metaphor. He “pictures possible things as
struggling for existence. The better they are, the stronger their tendencies to exist. The best
possible combination of them is then generated, somewhat as the greatest possible descent of
weight is produced when heavy bodies linked by pulleys compete to move downward”
[quoted by Leslie and Kuhn (2013: 105)].
How to reconcile the necessity of good with the freedom
to do wrong?
In a piece of art freedom coexists with necessity.
• Without freedom only reproductions are possible.
• In creating masterpieces the hand of a master is
guided by a subtle necessity.
Michelangelo envisioned the statue
as already existing within the marble,
needing only to be "set free" from it
WHY EVIL?
Possible goods could not all be present simultaneously.
One ethical requirement could often clash with another.
There are not individual goods that concur with each other,
but rather their possible combinations.
If this is the best of all possible worlds,
what are the others?
The Universe without
evil and without freedom
The Universe with evil
and with freedom
Why is there something rather than nothing”
Mystery of comprehensibility
Mystery of existence
GOOD = EXISTENCE = RATIONALITY
EVIL IS NEGATION OF GOOD
EVIL IS NEGATION OF RATIONALITY
EVIL IS IRRATIONAL
Therefore, it cannot be justified
The problem of good
and evil is, first of all,
a personal problem.
It is to be solved by good life,
rather than by constructing
theories.
Cranach the Elder
ETHICS HAS ALSO COSMIC DIMENSIONS