Yeah, it’s hard to imagine how “why regress” can be escaped.
Ontological: why is there something rather than nothing? To any answer, reply “why” again.
Epistemological: why is something true? To any answer, reply “why” again.
Moral: why is something good? To any answer, reply “why” again.
Maybe our trouble with these questions has to do with our conviction that everything must have a reason? An interesting perspective on this is Chaitin’s: “Some mathematical facts are true for no reason, they’re true by accident!” He gives a specific infinite sequence of questions about natural numbers, such that the sequence of their yes/no answers is provably indistinguishable from a fair coin by any algorithm (including our finite minds). Maybe this could teach us something about how to deal with “why regress” in other areas.
Right. But it’s notable that almost no-one in the world is stuck in an actual infinite why-regress, in that there don’t seem to be many people sitting around asking themselves “why” until they die, or sitting with a partner asking “why” until one person dies. (I also don’t think this is what is happening for monks or other contemplative folks.) I guess in practice people escape by shifting attention elsewhere. But sometimes that is a helpful thing to do, such as when stuck in a rut, and sometimes it is an unhelpful thing to do, such as when already overwhelmed with information. Furthermore some people at very good at shifting their attention around in a way that leads to understanding. Chaitin strikes me as exactly such a person and discusses allocation of attention in that talk (thank you for the lovely link btw—really delightful read!). So what actually is our attentional mechanism and in what way can we trust it?
Yeah, it’s hard to imagine how “why regress” can be escaped.
Ontological: why is there something rather than nothing? To any answer, reply “why” again.
Epistemological: why is something true? To any answer, reply “why” again.
Moral: why is something good? To any answer, reply “why” again.
Maybe our trouble with these questions has to do with our conviction that everything must have a reason? An interesting perspective on this is Chaitin’s: “Some mathematical facts are true for no reason, they’re true by accident!” He gives a specific infinite sequence of questions about natural numbers, such that the sequence of their yes/no answers is provably indistinguishable from a fair coin by any algorithm (including our finite minds). Maybe this could teach us something about how to deal with “why regress” in other areas.
Right. But it’s notable that almost no-one in the world is stuck in an actual infinite why-regress, in that there don’t seem to be many people sitting around asking themselves “why” until they die, or sitting with a partner asking “why” until one person dies. (I also don’t think this is what is happening for monks or other contemplative folks.) I guess in practice people escape by shifting attention elsewhere. But sometimes that is a helpful thing to do, such as when stuck in a rut, and sometimes it is an unhelpful thing to do, such as when already overwhelmed with information. Furthermore some people at very good at shifting their attention around in a way that leads to understanding. Chaitin strikes me as exactly such a person and discusses allocation of attention in that talk (thank you for the lovely link btw—really delightful read!). So what actually is our attentional mechanism and in what way can we trust it?
Interested in any thoughts you may have.
Hope you are well.