3Read more at location 555
Note: spiegazioni complete 1 materialismo: si arretra nella catena causale fino alle cause prime che si postula di natura materiale. 2 umanesimo: si arretra nella catena causale fino alle cause prime senza postulare alcunchè sulla sua natura... 3 personalismo: si compie la medesima operazione postulando che la causa prima sia xsonale. il teismo appartiene a qs famiglia... valutare i tre approcci secondo i criteri di cui al cap precedente... tesi: tutti i criteri classici sono inservibili tranne quello della semplicità. sulla base del criterio sopravvissuto l ipotesi teista è da preferire... imho: il criterio della background knowladge spiega opzioni differenti... materialismo: si arretra verso la particella fondamentale: atomo elettrone quark. se l universo è infinito si arretra all infinito postulando una serie infinita di oggetti inosservabili. nota che gli oggetti rilevanti da postulare sono specifici altrimenti bisognerebbe spiegare la regolarità dei comportamenti. il materialismo è costretto a postulare formidabili coincidenze. ovvero la presenza di elemento diversi in un particolare stato in un particolare momento. in qs senso è un ipotesi complicata. il teismo postula un unca causa. in qs senso è più semplice del politeismo... il concetto di infinito è molto semplice. porre dei limiti è molto più complicato. il dio strettamente necessario x creare il mondo sarebbe una xsona molto più difficile da descrivere rispetto al dio infinito. io stesso sono molto più difficile da definire rispetto a dio... Edit
background knowledge, fits best with it). 3 THE SIMPLICITY OF GODRead more at location 555
Physical science explains why a ball dropped from a tower 64 feet above the ground takes two seconds to reach the ground. But we may require a personal explanation of why the ball was dropped at all.Read more at location 557
The human quest for explanation inevitably and rightly seeks for the ultimate explanation of everything observable—that object or objects on which everything else depends for its existence and properties.Read more at location 569
We will have to acknowledge something as ultimate—the great metaphysical issue is what that is. There seem to be three possible ultimate explanations available. One is materialism.Read more at location 571
One alternative to materialism is a mixed theory—that the existence and operation of the factors involved in personal explanation cannot be explained fully in inanimate terms; and, conversely, that the existence and operation of the factors involved in inanimate explanation cannot be explained fully in personal terms. Let us call this theory humanism.Read more at location 581
The third possibility is that the existence and operation of the factors involved in inanimate explanation are themselves to be explained in personal terms, where persons include, not just human persons, but a personal being of a quite different kind, God.Read more at location 584
These three rivals for providing the ultimate explanation of all observable phenomena must be assessed by the four criteria for assessing proposedRead more at location 597
But when we are considering explanations of all observable phenomena, clearly, as we saw there, criterion 3 drops out. When you are trying to explain everything observable, there are no neighbouring fields about which you can have knowledge,Read more at location 598
The thesis of this book is that theism provides by far the simplest explanation of all phenomena. Materialism is not, I shall argue, a simple hypothesis, and there is a range of phenomena which it is most unlikely ever to be able to explain. Humanism is an even less simple hypothesis than materialism.Read more at location 602
the great complexity of materialism arises from this, that it postulates that the ultimate explanation of things behaving as they do now is provided by the powers and liabilities of an immense (possibly infinite) number of material objects.Read more at location 604
All bits of copper, as we have noted, have exactly the same powers to expand or melt or convey electricity, and the liabilities to exercise these powers under the same circumstances. For each event, the ultimate explanation of why it happened is to be found in the powers and liabilities of the particular objects involved in it.Read more at location 608
The ultimate explanation of this stone falling to the ground in two seconds lies in the powers and liabilities of the stone and the earthRead more at location 611
And the ultimate explanation of this piece of copper expanding when heated lies in the powers and liabilities of this bit of copper.Read more at location 612
According to materialism, ultimate explanation stops at innumerable different stopping points, many of them—according to materialism, coincidentally—having exactly the same powers and liabilities as each other.Read more at location 613
Whatever happened in the beginning, it is only because electrons and bits of copper and all other material objects have the same powers in the twentieth century as they did in the nineteenth century that things are as they are now. The present powers of objects may have been brought about by a past cause, but their present continuing in existence is—on the materialist hypothesis—an ultimate brute fact.Read more at location 616
My parents may have caused my coming into existence, but my continuing existence has nothing to do with their past act; it is in virtue of myself, my own powers, that I continue to exist.Read more at location 618
So the complexity of materialism cannot be explained away by the universe coming into being from a ‘singularity’ in the past. It remains a very complicated hypothesis—in postulating that the complete causes of things now are innumerable separate objectsRead more at location 620
Theism, I shall be arguing, can do a lot better. In this chapter I shall argue that theism is a very simple hypothesis—Read more at location 625
Theism claims that every other object which exists is caused to exist and kept in existence by just one substance, God.Read more at location 629
It is a hallmark of a simple explanation to postulate few causes.Read more at location 630
There could in this respect be no simpler explanation than one which postulated only one cause. Theism is simpler than polytheism.Read more at location 631
The hypothesis that there is an infinitely powerful, knowledgeable and free person is the hypothesis that there is a person with zero limits (apart from those of logic) to his power, knowledge, and freedom. Scientists have always seen postulating infinite degrees of some quantity as simpler than postulating some very large finite degree of that quantity, and have always done the former when it predicted observations equally well.Read more at location 635
Note: LA SEMPLICITÀ DELL INFINITO. DIO: OGGETTO DALLE PROP. SEMPLICI. LA PIÙ SEMPLICE TRA LE SPIEGHE XSONALI Edit
Newton’s theory of gravity postulated that the gravitational force travelled with infinite velocity, rather than with some very large finite velocityRead more at location 638
Likewise in the Middle Ages people believed that light travelled with an infinite velocity rather than with some large finite velocity equally compatible with observations. Only when observations were made by Römer in the seventeenth century incompatible with the infinite-velocity theory was it accepted that light had a finite velocity.Read more at location 642
It is a simpler hypothesis to postulate that his power is infinite rather than just very large.Read more at location 651
Hence, theism provides the simplest kind of personal explanation of the universe there could be.Read more at location 680
