Q&A: The Laws
The Laws
Question
Why not assume that the basic laws are the first cause / necessary existence? It seems that this answers both the cosmological argument and fine-tuning.
Answer
Because laws are not entities, and something that is not an entity cannot be the cause of something. A law describes the operation of the cause and the production of the effect, but the law is not the cause itself. And fine-tuning in general cannot be explained that way, since it is a feature of the laws themselves. It was not created by the laws.
Discussion on Answer
If there is Yuval Steinitz’s approach, then there is Nahum Ben-Dor’s difficulty.
And if there is Nahum Ben-Dor’s difficulty, then there is Rivka Kenderlomitz’s proposal.
And if there is Rivka Kenderlomitz’s proposal, then perhaps something along the lines of Tal Buzkovin’s way is possible.
And so on and so forth.
They answered you nicely. But as far as I remember, he says what I wrote here: that if the laws are entities, then they are God.
Why assume that our universe, with its laws, was created by the first cause?
Maybe there are other higher-order laws (which we can never discover) that brought this universe we know into being.
And then any attempt to talk about the first cause as though we know what it is (because we know the second cause) is a bit ridiculous.
Mr. Psik, can you spell out the difficulties and the answers?
The undecisive decisor,
The claim is that it is irrelevant what it is, so long as it is something essentially different. Also, this cause has teleological elements (we know of only two possibilities for such a thing: free choice or randomness). Given that, if you are uncertain whether it is random, then there is the physico-theological argument. Given that it is something like free choice, then there is the claim that it is God.
Also, there are proofs about the nature of the first cause, such as: if there are people with consciousness and free choice (and in particular if free choice = dualism), then it is preferable to hold that the primary thing has the capacity to create that. For example.
And there is also the convergence of the proofs, for example from morality and meaning, etc.
And a child knows either a unicorn or Santa Claus; that is not enough to bring them into existence.
Things exist because they exist, not by virtue of thought or logical or teleological inference.
If they are an entity in themselves, then there is Yuval Steinitz’s approach.