Infinite regression
peace,
I wanted to ask the Rabbi:
I read the second notebook, and I can understand why infinite regression is an escape from explanation, or in other words, explaining every answer in “this way”…
But I don’t understand why that means it’s wrong.
After all, there is an explanation in it that the situation has always been the same. Why doesn’t it make sense?
I know of only one explanation that shows that this cannot be realized in reality:
Because if every event must be preceded by an infinite number of causes, then no event will ever occur. For example, if you are standing in line to enter a certain door. In the case where there is a limited number of people standing in line in front of you, and every so often someone enters the door, then after a certain amount of time your turn will come.
But if there are countless people in line before you, then your turn will never come. And not only your turn, but the turn of the person in front of you will never come, and so on. Then it turns out that no person can ever pass through the door. And in the parable – no event can ever happen. But in reality events do happen, and this shows that there is a first cause from which everything begins.
This is the only explanation I know, but I have seen for myself that today modern mathematics, following Cantor and others, has proven that this explanation is nonsense.
/Perhaps the rabbi has some wise comments to shed light on and add to the subject? Because, as I understand it, the ‘regression fallacy’ is perhaps the most important foundation in the evidence for faith.
Hello.
I can’t understand the question. If you also think this is an evasion of explanation, then how can you see it as an explanation?
The question you raised about infinite time to reach the current state is incorrect, since on the timeline there could be a chain of infinite links that could be traversed in finite time (the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox). This has nothing to do with Cantor in any way.
It is true that this is an evasion of explanation, but it is itself an explanation.
It is not an evasion without providing an alternative answer. Rather, it does give and provide an alternative answer, but in the word “thus” – it has always been.
I agree that it is true and to some extent this is a limited explanation, even a very limited one.
But why is an explanation that assumes within it a claim that stands on the ”unknown” preferable?
It is how do we know that the world really did not always exist?
Regarding the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise - I do not understand why you give the dogma of an infinite converging series.
The causes of the universe are not an infinite converging series (and if so, then it has a starting point anyway) but an infinite one that does not converge (diverges?). Does the Rabbi think that the argument of the duty of the hearts/Rs”G / ‘the turn that will not come’ is indeed valid regarding the universe?
I have another question. I saw in ’Shaar Haychud’ that anything that can be destroyed is not a necessity of reality and is therefore not infinite. Perhaps the Rabbi knows why something that is infinite must also be a necessity of reality? (The opposite is easy to understand)
Well, my little one (dodging an explanation is an explanation???).
Saying it like that is not an explanation. Saying it always was is not an explanation, both because we now know about the big bang and because of the principle of sufficient reason (I explained all this in the notebook). Beyond that, infinite regression does not say that it was always like that, but rather suggests an infinite chain of explanations.
An explanation that addresses the unknown is preferable because the argument shows that there must be such an unknown. Therefore, the fact that it is something unknown is not a disadvantage of the explanation (especially when looking for explanations for the known, and therefore it is no wonder that they cannot be given in terms of the known).
A converging chain has no beginning. Only the timeline on which it occurs is finite. You are confusing the length of time it takes for it to occur with its essential convergence.
It does not have to be. In my opinion, he is wrong on a logical level. Logically, something infinite is possible that is not necessarily reality. But philosophically, it is possible to argue that if something is infinite then it is a necessity of reality (or at least that it has a cause/reason for the necessity of reality, according to the principle of sufficient reason).
The Big Crunch claims that the universe has always been.
And there is clearly a certain amount of explanation in this.
After all, if we have no reason to assume that there is a God, then we would rather assume that the universe has always been than introduce an unknown factor into the picture.
I did not understand what you wanted to argue about a converging chain.
PS I think the main difficulty with infinity is precisely in the chain of causes, not necessarily from the concept.
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