Metaphysical Interpretations of Reality

Determinism

All actions are determined by every previous action

No free will

All actions are predetermined. the difference between physicals actions and human actions is that human actions are determined by many invisible factors.
Beliefs+ Desires + Temperament = Human action

Nothing other then what does occur can occur

Event causation: no event can occur without having been caused by a previous event.

"Everything is the inevitable result of what came before. Including what we do"

We believe we have free will because our minds tell us we have free will but: Mental state = Brain state = biological state
And biological states are physical states and the physical world is deterministic

Librarian free will

Some humane actions are freely chosen

Principle of alternate: possibilities: an action is free only if the agent could have done otherwise.

Event causation: no event can occur without having been caused by a previous event.

The physical world is deterministic

Agent causation: An agent (person) being propelled by a mind can start a chain without having been propelled by anything else.

Compatibilism

The universe operates in a law like order, the future is determined by the past. But some human actions are free

What is the difference between someone jumping in the pool and some being pushed in the pool, if the result is the same. in both cases the action is determined. But when an action of an agent is self-determined it could be considered free will.

This view holds people morally responsible sometimes

Religion and Spirituality.

His proposed ontological arguments:
"[God is] that then which no greater can be conceived" And so must exist. He reasoned can exist as strictly in our mind/imaginary or it can exist both in our minds and reality.
Any good thing is better if it exists in our mind and in reality
If god existed only in our mind he could not be the best thing we could think of because god in reality would be better.

Necessity and Possibility.

Argument for Motion

We live in a world in which things are moving
Movement is caused by movers
Everything moving must be set into place by something else moving
Something must have started the movement in the first place

Argument for Causation

Somethings are caused
everything that is caused must be caused by something else
There can't be an infinite regress of cause
So there must have been a first causer,
itself uncaused, and that is God

Argument for Contingency

There are contingent things
Contingent things can cause other contingent things
But there can not only be contingent things because that would mean that there is a infinite regression of contingency, and possibility that nothing might have existed
an infinite regress is impossible
and so there for at least one thing must be necessary, God

Argument from Degrees

Properties come in degrees (a 12 inch dog is small but a 12 inch rat is huge)
in order for there to be degrees of perfection, there must be something against which everything can be measured
God is the pinnacle of perfection

postmodernists

there is no objective reality.

Our “situatedness” prevents us from directly accessing the real world or having true knowledge about it.

This does not mean that the world defiantly doesn't exists but rather that it may or may not

No one has a God-eye view in order to confirm

Important figures: Immanuel Kant,

idealism

Reality/physical world is a sprit/consciousness

Important figures: Slavoj Žižek, Richard Rothe, Solomon Formstecher

Realism

physical world is real and exists by itself, alone.

physical objects that have causal powers, are located in space and time, belong to natural kinds, and interact causally with each other in various natural kinds of ways.

Important figures: Plato, Hilary Putnam, Blessed John Duns Scotus

Essentialism

Everything has an essence. A certain set of core properties that are necessary for a thing to be what it is.

Everything, Including us.

Our Essence is the purpose/meaning of our life

Nihilism

Life is ultimately meaning less

Existentialism

The purpose of life is to live authentically. Any meaning your life has is given to it by you.

We are condemned to be free

He asked what if we exists first?, what if we are not born with an essence but rather we find it later?

Existence precedes essence

Not always synonyms with atheisms

Sense there is no teleology the world was not created for a reason, and it does not exists for a reason.

We are painfully free. if there is no guideline for our actions, then we must each design our own moral compass

Life is ultimately meaning less unless you decide to give it meaning

Devine Creator/God

Some intelligible, all knowing and all capable being decided to create.

Orthodoxic christen philosopher. he proposed that god created the universe out of nothing

God + Nothing = Universe

(how did God come to be?)

Quantum Mechanics

The big bang theory

A vacuum of nothingness blowup creating the universe

Depends on the physicals laws being exact laws and not patterns that may stray and change

The principle of plenitude

Reality is actually as full as it could possibly be, as far removed from nothingness as possible

All possible world really exist (multiverse)