8 Great Philosophical Questions That We'll Never Solve

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8 Great Philosophical Questions That We'll Never Solve

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George Dvorsky

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9/24/12 10:00am

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Philosophy goes where hard science can't, or won't. Philosophers have a license to speculate about everything from metaphysics to morality, and this means they can shed light on some of the basic questions of existence. The bad news? These are questions that may always lay just beyond the limits of our comprehension.

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Here are eight mysteries of philosophy that we'll probably never resolve.

1. Why is there something rather than nothing?

SEXPAND

Our presence in the universe is something too bizarre for words. The mundaneness of our daily lives cause us take our existence for granted — but every once in awhile we're cajoled out of that complacency and enter into a profound state of existential awareness, and we ask: Why is there all this stuff in the universe, and why is it governed by such exquisitely precise laws? And why should anything exist at all? We inhabit a universe with such things as spiral galaxies, the aurora borealis, and SpongeBob Squarepants. And as Sean Carroll notes, "Nothing about modern physics explains why we have these laws rather than some totally different laws, although physicists sometimes talk that way — a mistake they might be able to avoid if they took philosophers more seriously." And as for the philosophers, the best that they can come up with is the anthropic principle— the notion that our particular universe appears the way it does by virtue of our presence as observers within it — a suggestion that has an uncomfortably tautological ring to it.

2. Is our universe real?

SEXPAND

This the classic Cartesian question. It essentially asks, how do we know that what we see around us is the real deal, and not some grand illusion perpetuated by an unseen force (who René Descartes referred to as the hypothesized ‘evil demon')? More recently, the question has been reframed as the "brain in a vat" problem, or theSimulation Argument. And it could very well be that we're the products of an elaborate simulation. A deeper question to ask, therefore, is whether the civilization running the simulation is also in a simulation — a kind of supercomputer regression (or simulationception). Moreover, we may not be who we think we are. Assuming that the people running the simulation are also taking part in it, our true identities may be temporarily suppressed, to heighten the realness of the experience. This philosophical conundrum also forces us to re-evaluate what we mean by "real." Modal realists argue that if the universe around us seems rational (as opposed to it being dreamy, incoherent, or lawless), then we have no choice but to declare it as being real and genuine. Or maybe, as Cipher said after eating a piece of "simulated" steak in The Matrix, "Ignorance is bliss."

3. Do we have free will?

Also called the dilemma of determinism, we do not know if our actions are controlled by a causal chain of preceding events (or by some other external influence), or if we're truly free agents making decisions of our own volition. Philosophers (and now some scientists) have been debating this for millennia, and with no apparent end in sight. If our decision making is influenced by an endless chain of causality, then determinism is true and we don't have free will. But if the opposite is true, what's called indeterminism, then our actions must be random — what some argue is still not free will. Conversely, libertarians (no, not political libertarians, those are other people), make the case for compatibilism — the idea that free will is logically compatible with deterministic views of the universe. Compounding the problem are advances in neuroscience showing that our brains make decisions before we're even conscious of them. But if we don't have free will, then why did we evolve consciousness instead of zombie-minds? Quantum mechanics makes this problem even more complicated by suggesting that we live in a universe of probability, and that determinism of any sort is impossible. And as Linas Vepstas has said, "Consciousness seems to be intimately and inescapably tied to the perception of the passage of time, and indeed, the idea that the past is fixed and perfectly deterministic, and that the future is unknowable. This fits well, because if the future were predetermined, then there'd be no free will, and no point in the participation of the passage of time."

4. Does God exist?

SEXPAND

Simply put, we cannot know if God exists or not. Both the atheists and believers are wrong in their proclamations, and the agnostics are right. True agnostics are simply being Cartesian about it, recognizing the epistemological issues involved and the limitations of human inquiry. We do not know enough about the inner workings of the universe to make any sort of grand claim about the nature of reality and whether or not a Prime Mover exists somewhere in the background. Many people defer to naturalism — the suggestion that the universe runs according to autonomous processes — but that doesn't preclude the existence of a grand designer who set the whole thing in motion (what's called deism). And as mentioned earlier, we may live in a simulation where the hacker gods control all the variables. Or perhaps the gnostics are right and powerful beings exist in some deeper reality that we're unaware of. These aren't necessarily the omniscient, omnipotent gods of the Abrahamic traditions — but they're (hypothetically) powerful beings nonetheless. Again, these aren't scientific questions per se — they're more Platonic thought experiments that force us to confront the limits of human experience and inquiry.

5. Is there life after death?

SEXPAND

Before everyone gets excited, this is not a suggestion that we'll all end up strumming harps on some fluffy white cloud, or find ourselves shoveling coal in the depths of Hell for eternity. Because we cannot ask the dead if there's anything on the other side, we're left guessing as to what happens next. Materialists assume that there's no life after death, but it's just that — an assumption that cannot necessarily be proven. Looking closer at the machinations of the universe (or multiverse), whether it be through a classical Newtonian/Einsteinian lens, or through the spooky filter of quantum mechanics, there's no reason to believe that we only have one shot at this thing called life. It's a question of metaphysics and the possibility that the cosmos (what Carl Sagan described as "all that is or ever was or ever will be") cycles and percolates in such a way that lives are infinitely recycled. Hans Moravec put it best when, speaking in relation to the quantum Many Worlds Interpretation, said that non-observance of the universe is impossible; we must always find ourselves alive and observing the universe in some form or another. This is highly speculative stuff, but like the God problem, is one that science cannot yet tackle, leaving it to the philosophers.

6. Can you really experience anything objectively?

SEXPAND

There's a difference between understanding the world objectively (or at least trying to, anyway) and experiencing it through an exclusively objective framework. This is essentially the problem of qualia — the notion that our surroundings can only be observed through the filter of our senses and the cogitations of our minds. Everything you know, everything you've touched, seen, and smelled, has been filtered through any number of physiological and cognitive processes. Subsequently, your subjective experience of the world is unique. In the classic example, the subjective appreciation of the color red may vary from person to person. The only way you could possibly know is if you were to somehow observe the universe from the "conscious lens" of another person in a sort of Being John Malkovich kind of way — not anything we're likely going to be able to accomplish at any stage of our scientific or technological development. Another way of saying all this is that the universe can only be observed through a brain (or potentially a machine mind), and by virtue of that, can only be interpreted subjectively. But given that the universe appears to be coherent and (somewhat) knowable, should we continue to assume that its true objective quality can never be observed or known? It's worth noting that much of Buddhist philosophy is predicated on this fundamental limitation (what they call emptiness), and a complete antithesis to Plato's idealism.

7. What is the best moral system?

Essentially, we'll never truly be able to distinguish between "right" and "wrong" actions. At any given time in history, however, philosophers, theologians, and politicians will claim to have discovered the best way to evaluate human actions and establish the most righteous code of conduct. But it's never that easy. Life is far too messy and complicated for there to be anything like a universal morality or an absolutist ethics. The Golden Rule is great (the idea that you should treat others as you would like them to treat you), but it disregards moral autonomy and leaves no room for the imposition of justice (such as jailing criminals), and can even be used to justify oppression (Immanuel Kant was among its most staunchest critics). Moreover, it's a highly simplified rule of thumb that doesn't provision for more complex scenarios. For example, should the few be spared to save the many? Who has more moral worth: a human baby or a full-grown great ape? And as neuroscientists have shown, morality is not only a culturally-ingrained thing, it's also a part of our psychologies (the Trolly Problem is the best demonstration of this). At best, we can only say that morality is normative, while acknowledging that our sense of right and wrong will change over time.

8. What are numbers?

SEXPAND

We use numbers every day, but taking a step back, what are they, really — and why do they do such a damn good job of helping us explain the universe (such as Newtonian laws)? Mathematical structures can consist of numbers, sets, groups, and points — but are they real objects, or do they simply describe relationships that necessarily exist in all structures? Plato argued that numbers were real (it doesn't matter that you can't "see" them), but formalists insisted that they were merely formal systems (well-defined constructions of abstract thought based on math). This is essentially an ontological problem, where we're left baffled about the true nature of the universe and which aspects of it are human constructs and which are truly tangible.

Why Agnosticism Probably Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means

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Why Agnosticism Probably Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means

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George Dvorsky

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Agnostics are often characterized as ambivalent or wishy-washy fence sitters who refuse to make up their minds. But there's much more to agnosticism than these tired misconceptions, including a stricter adherence to scientific principles than those typically invoked by atheists.

Top image: "The Eye of God" Helix Nebula (NGC 7293). Credit: Hubble/NASA/Rogelio Bernal Andreo.

The current culture war doesn't leave much room for agnostics. Atheists and theists are battling it out for memetic supremacy, each side making cocksure proclamations as to whether or not God truly exists. Theists make the case for God by appealing to faith, scripture, or any number of now-archaic arguments. Atheists take the diametrically opposed stance, arguing that there's no reason to believe that a supreme being exists.

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And woe betide anyone who dares to complexify the polarized nature of this debate. As far as this battle is concerned, the answer is either black or white; there's no tolerance for nuance or doubt.

The vociferousness of these sentiments have largely forced agnosticism to the philosophical sidelines. That and some fairly serious misconceptions as to what it really means. These days, agnosticism is often mischaracterized as an undecided response to a question. And in fact, the term is frequently applied outside of a religious context when describing things for which we haven't yet made an opinion. For example, we can say we're "agnostic" about climate change, neither believing it or disbelieving it. Alternately, it's used to express our ambivalence about something, using the term to equate to such sentiments as, "I don't care," "I don't really want to know," or "I don't even want to think about it."

But this casual usage of the term betrays its original purpose, an epistemological stance and methodology in which skepticism and empiricism — two hallmarks of the scientific method — takes center stage.

'To An Unknown God'

To understand what it means to be agnostic about the existence of God, it's important to understand where the term came from.

Back in 1869, T. H. Huxley coined the term to counter the rampant dogmatism exhibited by many of his peers. Unwilling to subscribe to another "ism", and inspired by a reference in the Bible to an "unknown God," he came up with the word "agnostic." The word, said Huxley, was "suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant." And indeed, the term was never intended to be some go-between between atheism and theism; the absence of an "ism" was quite deliberate.

Huxley was convinced that humanity cannot and will never know the ultimate origin and causes of the universe. In this sense he was a Kantian skeptic — a subscriber to the notion that we cannot know the world because the mind's structures are a distorting influence on our knowledge of what is real. This is what Kant referred to as the Veil of Perception — an idea that's reminiscent (though not as severe) as Cartesian skepticism (i.e. 'the only known truth is one's own self-awareness'). Ultimately, Huxley thought that arguments about the transcendental and metaphysical (though possibly meaningful) were empirically untestable.

What's remarkable about Huxley's skepticism was his stance against certainty and those who refused to doubt — especially those who insisted that their theism or atheism must be true.

Moreover, Huxley's agnosticism was more than just stubborn skepticism — it was a methodology. Asnoted by the Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor:

He saw agnosticism as demanding as any moral, philosophical, or religious creed. But he refused to see it as a creed in the traditional sense of the word, and saw it far more as a method. The method he had in mind is broadly that which underpins scientific inquiry. It means, on the one hand, taking one's reason as far as it will go and, on the other, not accepting anything as true unless it is somehow demonstrable.

Which he rightly compares to Buddhist philosophy:

All traditions of Buddhism agree that one should not believe something simply for the sake of believing it, but only if it can somehow be demonstrated as true, if it can be realised in some practical way.

The Unknown Unknowns

Indeed, many agnostics are skeptical of those who claim to have all the answers in regards to life, the universe, and everything. They view hardcore atheists and devout believers with equal scorn — and they often see the two camps exhibiting the same kind of overzealousness when making their case and propagating their views. To the agnostic, it's just as important to prove the existence of God as it is to disprove God's existence; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

What's more, and as noted by philosopher Gary Gutting:

Atheism may be intellectually viable, but it requires its own arguments and can't merely cite the lack of decisive evidence for religion. Further, unless atheists themselves have a clearly superior case for their denial of theistic religion, then agnosticism...remains a viable alternative. The no-arguments argument for atheism fails.

Agnostics also argue that, because there are so many scientific questions about existence that remain unanswered, it's grossly premature to start speaking of incontrovertible certainties. For example,consciousness is a vexing "hard problem". And there's no shortage of metaphysical explanations for our existence and the presence of the universe, including quantum-fueled multiverse theories,spontaneously forming space brains, computer simulations, string theoried multidimensionality, the presence of what appears to be a finely tuned universe, and black holes that spew out a never-ending chain of black hole-spewing universes.

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Stunting Science?

But many atheists counter — and with good reason — that too much skepticism can be a problem. Indeed, when taken to an extreme, skepticism can be quite debilitating and even harmful to the scientific method.

Take, for example, the absurd verificationism of the logical positivists of the early 20th century. According to their theory of knowledge, the only statements that are cognitively meaningful are those that can be verified either logically or empirically. Though fashionable among epistemologists for a time, it was eventually counter-argued that such a strict criterion for verifiability made universal statements practically meaningless — which would pose an unreasonable restriction on what could be considered science.

Karl Popper was a vociferous critic of logical positivism. He argued that science cannot move forward without falsifiable predictions. What's more, he found tremendous value in metaphysics, which he viewed as an important requirement for the development of new scientific theories. Popper believed that an unfalsifiable concept (and thus an unscientific and perhaps metaphysical concept) in one era can, later, through evolving knowledge or technology, eventually become falsifiable, and thus scientific.

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As Bertrand Russell once said "Skepticism, while logically impeccable, is psychologically impossible, and there is an element of frivolous insincerity in any philosophy which pretends to accept it."

It's an important lesson that should be heeded by both atheists and agnostics. When it comes to "knowledge," a certain pragmatism is required; having knowledge is about believing with appropriate justification what is true. Knowledge can be highly probable, but never certain.

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The Agnostic Atheist

Now, all this philosophizing is fine and well, but how are we to live? Just what, exactly, are we supposed to believe and value? Personally, my agnosticism on the matter of God is tilted heavily in favor of disbelief. My day-to-day is rooted under the presumption of atheism, which in turn has led me to adopt secular humanist and secular Buddhist values. But epistemologically, I know that I cannot know about God or other metaphysical unknowns. This is why I describe myself as an agnostic atheist, a "belief system" that's referred to as agnosto-atheism.

And I'm not alone. Outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins has admitted that he's agnostic because he cannot disprove the existence of God. On a scale from 1 to 7, he says he's a 6.9 in terms of the certainty of his beliefs, adding that, "I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very, very low."

Nick Spencer of The Guardian also supports agnostic atheism, arguing that agnosticism can most certainly be accompanied by an overarching metaphysical — or materialist — conviction:

And that points us to a difficulty with agnosticism. Attitudes are fine but they need to be about something. Adjectives need nouns. If Huxley was indeed an agnostic, he was an agnostic atheist, tending away from the divine but unwilling (so he claimed) to be too dogmatic about it.

Thus understood, we all need a dash of agnosticism – of appropriate intellectual reserve in the face of the big questions. The dogmatic alternative, familiar to us as "fundamentalism", is neither appealing nor helpful.

But we should not imagine agnosticism is a complete and sufficient metaphysical position. The question is not simply whether you are an agnostic, but what kind of agnostic you are.

So what kind of agnostic are you?

Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | New York Times | Guardian | The Week

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