Good news! The universe is lawful and you and me can understand it.  We know that the universe is lawful and intelligible, and it doesn’t matter if we believe in God, science, or combinations thereof-- we know it.  Our existence proves it true.  We know that the universe is lawful, because, to remain alive, we living beings require a consistent environment.  We know that the universe is intelligible, because, to remain alive, we living beings must make sense of our environment.  We living beings can understand our world and the cause-and-effect of things, and our existence is proof positive of this fact.  Mr. Amoeba understands his world in his way and we people understand our world in our way.

 

All living beings have a fundamental faith, a first premise of life, “that the nature of the world must be such that sweeping statements may be made about it” (William James from Metaphysical Axioms).  Let’s start there.  As living beings on Earth, our collective first premise is that the universe is lawful and intelligible.

 

Next question: how do we people make sense of the universe?  Facts don’t speak for themselves, instead, we make sense of facts and speak for them.  In making sense of the world, I believe that we first see images, images from our collective unconscious that are older than human beings.  We have images of movement before we have rational thought, and the images reflect how reality works.  When I understand the cause and effect of things, it’s because my internal image maps to external reality- and it fits! Or not. 

 

Here’s an image: visualize a particle moving in a straight line, randomly bouncing off some material objects and joining others.  Here the universe consists of independent particles that bounce around and assemble like Lego blocks into more complex things.  Recognize this image? it’s the modern scientific worldview.  In the beginning there was a big bang and there appeared countless indivisible little parts that moved and combined by strict application of the laws of physics, creating atoms, molecules, organisms, galaxies.  In this image, the arrow of causation goes upward from individual parts to complexes of parts.

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Here's another image, this time from a classical worldview.  Imagine a sphere and in it are lesser orbs and parts, and they all circle the center and actively maintain their relationships with one another and with the whole, everything moving in its proper orbit.  Here the universe begins as a whole, then over time, lesser wholes and parts appear inside the sphere, but the connections remain like thin filaments of spider web.  In this image, the arrow of causation goes downward from the all-inclusive whole to lesser wholes and parts.

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Most of the time I see through the first image (parts-first) because that’s the default image of my civilization, the modern West.  It’s an unconscious and foundational assumption that I bring to reality.  Still, both images (parts-first and wholes-first) come from the same place-- they’re archetypes in our collective human unconscious-- and in that sense, they're objective because we all share in the same collective unconscious. 

 

Every individual has personal and subjective assumptions, too.  Said Aristotle: as the man is, so he sees.  I bring myself and my personality to everything I see.  William James agreed when he said that a person’s temperament determines his philosophy. Per William James, my temperament is a bias by which I load the evidence one way or the other.  It’s a bias that remains hidden, and therefore, “the potentest of all our premises is never mentioned” (from Pragmatism, essay-- The Present Dilemma in Philosophy). 

 

James saw two basic temperaments in philosophy: monists and pluralists.  In science, Freeman Dyson saw two similar temperaments: unifiers and diversifiers.  Monists are unifiers-- they like to look through the multitude of things to the fundamental parts and laws that underly them, which parts and laws are the true cause of things.  Pluralists are diversifiers-- they like looking at individual things and their natures, without looking through, and they like to tinker around with things and watch what they do.  Per Mr. Dyson, physicists are a paradigm example of the monists and unifiers, because they dream of reducing all laws and things down to that one mathematical rule to rule them all.  Biologists are a paradigm of the pluralists and diversifiers, because they like individual organisms and eco-systems, whole things as they are.

 

How about another image?  Imagine a balance of opposites, of wholes and parts, single and plural, each needing the other.  Carl Jung would prefer this image; he said “the world exists only because opposing forces are held in equilibrium” (from Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype).

I’ll summarize this essay so far.  The universe is lawful and intelligible: we can understand our universe and its causes-and-effects.  Next, we have two stances for understanding the universe.  One stance sees an image of parts-first, and by temperament, it’s a monist and unifier-- it enjoys looking through the multiplicity to the material parts and the physical laws that underlie and cause everything.  The other stance sees an image of wholes-first, and by temperament, it’s a pluralist and diversifier-- it enjoys looking at individual, whole things as they are in themselves.

 

I’ll conclude.  We need both stances because reality is thick.  Hence my thesis in this series on Causation: to understand the cause-and-effect of things, we must see from multiple angles, look at parts, at wholes, and use whatever images, temperaments and stories that work.  Good news! We can do this.  In Leisure, Josef Pieper said that understanding “comes to one like a gift; it is effortless and not burdensome” and given in God’s grace.  When I first read this, I laughed for the happiness of it.  Yes, the universe is intelligible, which means it presents itself to be read and understood in all its diversity.  Heroic measures not required.  Truth is written into the code of the universe for us to read and understand, to see essence and to know it.  The universe is lawful, and we’re made to understand it, and these are free gifts from God.