Library document
The Sustainer
What holds reality together and forces the laws? Three sub-questions with three confidence levels: the logical holding (non-contradiction, self-enforcing, free); the specific laws (open: Humean regularity, DTA governing laws, dispositions, mathematical necessity, or a sustaining mind); and moment-to-moment sustaining (free if the ground is necessary, else a director). The sustainer aspect, sources, and weights.
The essay What Holds It Together? is the readable version. This is the tagged backing.
This question sorts to the sustainer aspect (the traditions' director, dharma, Logos, the ongoing rather than the origin). It splits into three. FRAMING
1. The logical holding FRAMING, very high
Nothing external is needed for a world to be consistent. A contradiction describes nothing and cannot obtain, so whatever exists hangs together at least to the extent of not cancelling itself out. Self-enforcing, no enforcer. Caveat: dialetheism (Graham Priest) holds some contradictions are true; set aside here but named. FRAMING
2. The specific laws OPEN
Consistency does not pick the contingent constants. Live candidates:
| Position | The laws are... | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Humean regularity | brute patterns, nothing enforcing them | Deflationary; no glue, only regularity |
| Governing laws (DTA) | a necessitation relation between universals | Dretske, Tooley, Armstrong; owes an account of how N necessitates |
| Dispositional essentialism | what things must do given their powers/natures | Bird, Ellis; best fit for a one-thing framework: laws as the grain, not imposed rules |
| Mathematical necessity | theorems of the structure reality is | Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis |
| A sustaining mind (occasionalism) | upheld directly by an intelligence | Malebranche; the director aspect; sits past proof, so requires belief |
3. Moment-to-moment sustaining OPEN
Why persist rather than wink out? If the ground is necessary, no sustaining is required (the necessary cannot lapse). If contingent, continuous holding is required, which returns the director and belief. This is the other doorway (with the origin) through which a sustaining agency re-enters.
Calibrated weights
| Claim | Weight | Defeater |
|---|---|---|
| The world hangs together because it is consistent | Very high | A demonstrated true contradiction in reality (dialetheism vindicated) |
| The specific laws are the dispositional nature of the one thing | Best fit, not proven | Laws shown to float free of any natures (pure Humean or DTA success) |
| The specific laws are brute / governed / mathematical | Each live | Decisive evidence for one over the others |
| Reality needs continuous sustaining by an agency | Open; free if the ground is necessary | A demonstration the ground is necessary, or that it is contingent |
Sources
- Humean regularity vs governing laws: David Hume; the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong (DTA) necessitation theory of laws. FRAMING
- Dispositional essentialism: Alexander Bird, Nature's Metaphysics; Brian Ellis, Scientific Essentialism. FRAMING
- Mathematical universe: Max Tegmark, "The Mathematical Universe" (2008) / Our Mathematical Universe. FRAMING
- Occasionalism (a sustaining mind): Nicolas Malebranche. FRAMING
- Dialetheism (the non-contradiction caveat): Graham Priest. CONTESTED