The Universe's Existence is Explicable

I will begin by demonstrating what my opponent takes for granted in his argument and will proceed to the affirmation of my own side. Explain: 1. to make plain or clear; render understandable or intelligible: to explain an obscure point. (1) 2. To offer reasons for or a cause of; justify: explain an error. To offer reasons for the actions, beliefs, or remarks of (oneself). (2) "1. A proposition is plausible if it has explanatory power. 2. If an inexplicable proposition has no explanatory power, then it is not plausible. 3. Inexplicable propositions do not have explanatory power. 4. Therefore, it is not plausible to posit inexplicable propositions. " The implicit assumption in this argument is that everything has an explanation, otherwise inexplicable propositions would have to be plausible. As explanation is a function of language, what is explainable must first be expressable. For example, the proposition "that painting is beautiful" is perhaps entirely unexplainable to someone who has been blind from birth, or to someone who has opposing views of what makes something beautiful. The proposition breaks down into "I find the painting beautiful because I find the painting beautiful. " This has no real explanatory power and yet when peoples' terms of reference are different, it is the only way to explain the proposition. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder is perhaps the "explanatory" principle allowing people to explain their tastes this way, but it is merely an extension of the tauology. Conclusion: A0. A proposition is plausible if it has explanatory powers A1. "Some things are inexpressable" has explanatory power A2. Therefore "some things are inexpressable" is a plausible statement A3. Explainable things must be expressable things A4. As per (A1. ) and (A3) some things are inexplicable "Inexplicable propositions, on the other hand, are propositions that are said to simply be the case without any reason for why they are the case. " It has been shown above that inexplicable propositions ae not simply this. They are also propositions whose reasons are impossible to be expressed whether or not reasons exist becomes irrelevant. "For example, the fact that I have presents under my tree could be said to have appeared without any reason. Or perhaps Santa Claus popped into existence for a moment to deliver the presents but then vanished into non-existence for no reason. Both of these would trivially explain the fact that I have presents but I would have no reason for positing either of them to be true. On the other hand, I do have valid reason to think that my parents or family put the presents under the tree through observation. Now, which one would you say is more plausible? " This is an unfair analogy because it deals with clearly knowable and expressable reasons. For it to be analogous to our resolution, we must already assume that the universe's cause has clearly knowable and expressable reasons. This makes the argument circular. My opponent must show why they are the same. "I don't think it is difficult to understand that explicability should be the default position. " This is a highly-loaded normative statement. Faith, for example, in many worldviews, has a high value even above that of plausible explanation. If seeking explicability should be our "default position", I think it is incumbent upon Pro to show why. "What this suggests is that in order for someone to claim that an inexplicable proposition is true, you'd need to provide a reason why it is implausible or impossible for the universe to have an explanation. However, doing so would subject you to assuming premise (1) as true because you'd be providing an explanatory reason for positing an inexplicable fact. " I do not see how this hurts con's side. Yes, it is necessary to explain why a proposition is inexplicable, but if that undermines con's side than this debate becomes impossible. "The universe in particular is known to exist because we have reason to think it does but to then propose that "it exists because it exists" just seems to be a useless tautology. It does not answer why the universe exists at all but instead begs the question. Even if the universe is eternal, that would still not answer "why" it exists. " Any statement a person does make regarding anything "the cause of A" for example, must be tautolgous or else false. "The cause of A=B C and D only if B C and D are equivalent to the cause of A" Therefore any true statement must be in its simplt form "The cause of A is the cause of A". Indeed anything beyond the tautogy only works to complicate what is otherwise a clear, but almost always void of explanatory power, fact. Therefore, by giving reasons for anything, one must necessarily render a thing more complex and obscure, therefore it is impossible to satisfy the two provided definitions of explainable. "However, even if I was to grant this assumption, this only shows that we cannot know what the cause is. It does not tell us that it is implausible or impossible to think that it has some kind of cause. " I agree with my opponent, in fact I am sure that there is a cause of some kind, however the resolution is whether the existence of the universe is explicable and so its reason must be expressable. Given this, my opponent must show how the reasons for the universe's existence are not only existent but knowable and expressable as well. Now onto my own arguments. 1. The Limits of Language "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. " (3) This quote comes from the Pears/McGuiness translation of Wittgstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Largely considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, he studied the limits of language in deapth. This quote expresses the idea that certain things are inexpressable and given such are inexplicable, by showing that the cause of the universe falls into this category it becomes undeniable that the resolution of this debate is false. Wittgenstein understood reality as comprising of facts. These facts are not objects, as a scientist or a materialist might think, facts are states of affairs. They are combinations, both actual and possible, of objects. Thoughts and propositions are representations of these "facts". He treated them as pictures and said that these pictures were "models of reality". He built on these ideas two criteria for a sensical proposition "First, the structure of the proposition must conform with the constraints of logical form, and second, the elements of the proposition must have reference (bedeutung). " (3) The reference here is the important thing to consider. It basically means that the meaning of the word comes from its social context (4). Any proposition that concerns the outside of the universe offers us no frame of reference and so cannot be meaninful. Going back to the very beginning of this argument, it would be like trying to explain a colour to someone who has never seen colours or trying to convey what death feels like. The statements might meet the first criterion, but not the second. In conclusion, my opponent has ommited an important element of explicability in all his arguments, namely, expressibility. The argument that our default stance should be explanatory is unsubstantiated and highly-loaded. Additionally, the analogy showing how it is always more plausible to explain something is somewhat abusive. Conversely, it has been shown that some things are indeed inexpressable and that the cause of the universe is necessarily one of those things. It has also been shown that explanations in general are contradictory in their purpose and at their base no different from non-explanatory tautologies. (1) . http://dictionary.reference.com... (2) . http://www.answers.com... (3) . http://plato.stanford.edu... (4) . http://en.wikipedia.org...