Vichara 7: Contingency
"... because, after all, it is fundamentally departing with hitherto known reality"
It is apodictic that whatever is good in-itself and objectively is what should be in and of reality. But what is the criterion of that which we find to have intrinsic, objective value? We know that it can't be directly defined in terms of some concept or concepts that break it down. So then, what could be a sufficient basis for being able to say correctly that there is Good? Is there a basis on which it could be said, “Well, there is this that there is whenever there is Good.” What could be such?
An answer to this can at least be intuited by approaching it front-on, i.e., phenomenologically, or in terms of our experiences of intrinsic value. Let's go back to our prior examples of when we find something to be good for its own sake, whether it's art or technology or a person. When one drives a splendidly designed and engineered vehicle, as described in the previous dispatch, or is out for a walk in a beautiful place, say through a landscape of a wonderful composition of nonhuman and human forms and substances, or some quarter of a city with a vibrant, vital and flourishing human and nonhuman ecology, one may find these to be amazing to the point of finding them good for their own sake.
Now, our experiences of finding slices of reality to be ends-unto-themselves may be taken to mean that we are having the sense that “This is so good” or some variant of that. However, we can intuit things further. Our experience in such cases, where we have the sense that “This is so good,” is actually cognized more closely as or is accompanied more precisely with the effect of: “How can this even be?” or “How crazy is that?” That is, when we find things to be Good, we are amazed by how things actually are the way they are.
This is true for all such experiences of ultimate value. Whether it's a full starry night sans photopollution, a glorious sporting performance, an act of courageous virtue or honesty, or the pure, beatific radiance of a baby's eyes, we find such things to have intrinsic or non-instrumental value; we are glad they exist for their own sake. But there are more phenomenologically authentic ways of expressing this sense that we find them to be intrinsic or non-instrumentally valuable. We never think “Wow, that is just non-instrumentally valuable!” or “How glad I am about the existence of this for its own sake!” What we do consciously think for instances such as the above, rather, is “How beautiful!” or “amazing!” or “marvelous!” or “in-credible!” And what we actually mean or what we’re actually seeing about reality when we think that is that there appears to be something beyond or not in keeping with reality as it normally is. That is, when we find things to be Good aesthetically, as we had seen previously is how we find things to be Good, this aesthetic experience involves finding one's sense of reality to be broken.
This isn't the meaning of what it is for there to be Good; as we saw, that may be undefinable or unconveyable in-itself in the way that you can't meaningfully explain what “yellow” is to someone who has never seen it. But is there a way of specifying that we have yellow at hand? Yes, since objectively, yellow is the part of the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 575-585 nm. Similarly, it seems that an opening to specifying the ontological (rather than physical, as for the color yellow) correlate of there being genuine value is by seeing that it involves (the perception of a) radical departure with reality that we find unbelievable or wondrous.
This is so at least phenomenologically. Just because this is how we feel it or find it to be doesn't mean that is how it is, though. As it is, the front-on phenomenological approach to the problem cannot show that such a meaningful break with “status quo reality” that we are amazed by and that pleases us, which we sense when it seems to us that there is intrinsic, non-instrumental value, necessarily involves the actual presence of intrinsic, non-instrumental value, for what that truly is. We can only “get at,” not settle, this being the case through the observation of our experience, i.e., through attacking the problem front-on. To demonstrate that it necessarily would be the case, though—to show this isn't an extraneous, let alone illusory feature of the experience of the Good—a flanking maneuver must be undertaken.
We are trying to figure out what the Good is. Rather than look straight at our experience of it to discern through to its depth, let us now come at the problem obliquely, by stating the question in a different way: See how asking “What is the Good?” or “What should there ultimately, objectively be?” is equivalent to asking “For what ultimately, objectively should there be things in general?”
Think about it. To ask what there should ultimately, objectively be is to directly ask what that is. But if—whatever it specifically is—it is indeed what ultimately, objectively should be, then it is what it would be good for things at large, or reality in general, to instrumentally be for. Now, it is crucial to be clear about what we mean by concepts such as “reality in general.” When I write “reality in general” or “things at large” or “thing in general,” I am not talking about, concretely, and for all its specificity, literally everything, i.e., the set of all things that comprise reality. Rather, the sense is of the generality of reality, or even more so, reality taken for the essence of its general workings. After all, the set of all things that make up reality would also include some things of intrinsic and non-instrumental value, and they would, by definition, not be for anything else, even for other things of intrinsic and non-instrumental value. This said, the generality of things at large, while not the simple summation or collection of all entities and events, all products and processes, still bears the essence of the generalized totality of the “all.” While reality for its general workings or essence isn’t literally everything, some imprint or trace of everything, including what is at the outer fringes of its full distribution, accounted for in it. And it is things in general in this sense that have as their point or telos (the goodness of) the sorts of things which are of such value that they are what there should objectively be for their own sake.
This framing perhaps gives off a crude, utilitarian, maybe even totalitarian, vibe, I'm aware, maybe suggesting that everything should be put to work or distorted from its innate tendencies to serve that which there should be, but that isn't going to be the prescription in the end; we'll rather end up seeing how the “things at large” (the means) isn't grossly removed from the ultimate end.1 Still, the framing remains equivalent; when we ask "What is of value as an end-in-itself," we are also asking "What is valuable as an end-in-itself/what entities are valuable as ends-in-themselves such that things at large for their abstracted totality, or the workings of reality in general, are valuable because they have served as the ground or stage for the emergence the former?"
So what is the answer to that? To answer “the Good” or, as was phrased above, “the sorts of things which are of such value that they are what there should objectively be for their own sake, or are ends-in-themselves” does no good; this is true, of course, but goes around in a circle and begs the same question. Also, as we saw, the question cannot be answered directly, in terms of simple, analytic definition. It can, however, be itself analyzed or understood so well that its necessary answer becomes apparent as innately contained within it, and shines forth to the surface.
How would that be done? By conducting another oblique maneuver: When we ask “Why or for what should there be things in general” or “For what good ultimately is reality as such?” we are necessarily asking, “For what fundamentally unlike things in general, or apart from reality as such, should there be things?” This is entailed by the question itself; that which ‘things in general’/‘reality as such’ is for or could or should be for cannot be that itself; it must necessarily be something not that. This is not just true for reality at large; the purpose or point of anything, if it is indeed something that has a purpose or point, must be something that is “not it” (otherwise that thing would be an end-in-itself, and it wouldn't really be meaningful to ask what its point is; the answer to such a question would be ‘N/A’).
So what is the answer to “For what apart from things in general, i.e., apart from reality as such, should there be things?” Now, what is apart from or fundamentally unlike how reality works in general or what it yields from its general workings cannot be concretely specified, or pointed to as “That!”—because, after all, it is fundamentally departing with hitherto known reality, and if we could specify it, prior to its emergence, then it would be within the scheme of default, given reality. So we cannot say what is that “something” that is external to things at large. Rather, we can just speak of what it is for something to be external to things at large, or describe it in ways that cast its significance in relief. Which is to say, the only possible answer to “For what apart from the general workings of reality should there be the general workings of reality?” is indeed just that which is apart from, external to, or simply not the general workings of reality. It is that which breaks with reality.2 3
This is tautological from a strict, analytic perspective—but considered dialectically, it is profound. For what could be apart from reality? It appears to be a paradox; reality is, after all, everything there is. But if there were to be an answer to the question of “For what should there be things in general?,” this is the only possibility: To posit such being as makes for a fundamental break, rupture or discontinuity with reality as it is in its generality—to posit, in other words, a contingency, or something that need not have existed, but does exist.
A clarifying note on the term “contingency” is warranted here. Contingency is of two types, both of which do fall under the definition of “that which need not have existed, but does exist.” The most common treatment of contingency in Western metaphysics has been about the kind of thing that need not have been if starting conditions in a system were different, but given those starting conditions, what has happened is what had to have happened, out of necessity. Thus, this is something that “need not have existed,” in the sense that the specific chain of causality leading up to it need not have been. For example, if, due to somewhat different astrophysical conditions, the Sun was 10% larger, then the Earth would be uninhabitable. It could have been that the Sun was that much larger—that having been so is possible per the laws of physics—but it isn’t; given that it isn’t though, then, given other biochemical properties of this universe, it follows that the Earth is inhabitable. It need not have been, but it is, and as such, it is contingent.
That kind of contingency is referred to as conditional contingency, and though it is more prominent in Western philosophy, that is not what we are getting at here. For a fundamental break with the workings of reality, which is what we are discussing, is not something that necessarily was supposed to follow given certain starting conditions. Rather, it is a rupture in the fabric of determinism altogether. It breaks the script, as it were, of how things would be in keeping with normal causality. It is not that which had to have been given prior facts or states of reality, but that which is completely uncalled for given how things are, which makes for something that is a total departure from the prior, given the prior.4 There is nothing about how things and their workings are that could have by themselves led to it—otherwise it would not be a fundamental break with how things are. This is unconditional, absolute or radical contingency, because while it also is something that need not have been, its need not having been is, precisely, unconditional or absolute relative to what else has been.
And that is one thing that we can say about what ultimately, objectively should be: That it is a contingency, that it makes for an absolute departure from status-quo reality. This may not be all there is to say about it—it may not be a sufficient account of the Good—but it is, we can tentatively hold, a necessary part of that account. As it happens, this analysis accords with our experiences when we find entities to be ends-in-themselves as well. When we like something so much that we think it should exist for its own sake, this always involves finding it beyond the expectations we had or the normalcy we had known of reality; when we find that there is Good present, we perceive contingency.
That the Good must be something radically unlike and breaking with the general workings of reality as we know it is one of the only things we can say to further specify what the Good is. It isn't necessarily a sufficient criterion for what should be, but based on the very meaning of an end-in-itself, or what is good in-itself, we can say it is at least a necessary feature of the Good. Furthermore, we can't say concretely what those entities may be that have contingency about them, and which may thus be of intrinsic and non-instrumental value, just as given only the information that yellow is the thing experienced visually corresponding to electromagnetic radiation of between 575 and 585 nm in wavelength, one cannot infer what sorts of actual things would be yellow.
Yet the understanding we have arrived at is nothing to be scoffed at. It may be possible to derive through simple analysis the idea that what we find intrinsic, ultimate value is related to some kind of a metaphysical break, i.e., to utter, absolute contingency in and of the fabric of reality. But taken as a connection in one sweep of consciousness, it is dazzling and mysterious enough to break open new vectors of inquiry and linkage. Just as those wavelengths of 575-585 nm make for the correct physical criterion for when there is (an experience of) yellow, here we have a definitive metaphysical criterion for what is necessary to make for the Good. That has great implications, and might enable inferences that are even greater still, though not without greater complications before there would be resolution into the singular luminosity of Truth. I will close today by articulating a few such vectors that stand out, especially those related to questions that may naturally have risen at this point.
First and foremost, a big question is: Does contingency really exist? Or is everything that exists necessarily and very simply a part of deterministic reality, and we only perceive what we take to be contingency as an illusion? Can anything exist outside of deterministic causality, which is ultimately what contingency must be per our definition, that of something that need not have existed, but does exist? From a mechanistic, scientific point-of-view, one would think it is impossible for there to be a true, fundamental break with reality. Is that so? We will confront this problem more vividly two essays from now, though its denouement will have to wait beyond that. Another issue is that of making out the relation between contingency and randomness; this will be the topic of the next essay.
Second, a core part of the stated purpose of this project is to find a basis for objective value. It is worth keeping in mind that if contingency can be shown to exist, and if there can be a way of formalizing or testing it (which may be necessary in any case to show it exists), contingency could be such a basis for demonstrating the objectivity of the good.
Third, one could well still ask why there is a relation between contingency and the Good. It may be that a common feature of our experience of ultimate value is the perception of contingency, but why? What is good about contingency?5 This is a very fair question, and the answer lies in the nature of the Subject, i.e., it will be understood when we have explored the existence of and for beings such as us.
Fourth, what about bad things? Aren't there also tragedies, horrors of colossal proportions, that also have the characteristic of appearing to be completed uncalled for by the necessary proceedings of reality yet are existent? If contingency is a criterion of the Good, does that make cataclysmic events that also constitute breaks with reality to be Good? A few brief remarks can be made about this right now: a) This isn't necessarily the case at the very least because contingency hasn't at least yet been shown to be a sufficient criterion of the Good; only if it were so would any terrible thing that many people may find to be “contingent,” per our definition, also be Good. b) It may be the case that such negative things, no matter how extreme or unprecedented they appear, don't and can't actually make for genuine ruptures with hitherto reality, and that only the ones we see as positive can. We shall see about this later. c) It is also worth noting that a lot of things that in contemporary culture we consider bad—mainly, sadness, pain, or in general things that "feel bad"—aren't actually bad. I haven't quite thought through if there are extreme cases of this—things that produce extremely unpleasant sensations at a wide scale—that also aren't actually bad, but it is at least worth not starting from the bias that everything that feels bad is in fact bad; that is a historically peculiar way of looking at good and bad that we shouldn't take for granted—and one which, moreover, will face foundational questioning through this project.
Fifth, if contingency truly exists, and can be formalized in some way, does this mean that we are arriving at an account of what sorts of things are Good such that we can prescribe in advance what there should be? That doesn't sound very fun; in fact it sounds sort of scary—a recipe for dictatorships (perhaps AI dictatorships) where we are told and directed how to live so that it all comes together to maximize contingency. I very strongly doubt it is possible for this system to lead in this direction, both for a priori reasons of what contingency is (which would include two sub-reasons: One to do with the ideas we have already covered today, regarding how contingency is in-itself that which breaks with what already is, and cannot be seen in advance on the basis of or arising from the deterministic working of things, and the other to do with what may be the necessity of enabling genuine liberation of subjects6 for them to be conduits for the contingency that only they can foster and actualize), and a posteriori reasons of omniscience/computational complexity.
Sixth, and for now last, if contingency exists, then is there an Ultimate Contingency, with which the story of reality is, so to speak, “completed?” I will argue ahead that this too is unlikely. The reason for this will relate to the prior point, and along with it, it makes for one of the most important and interesting wings of this whole framework, and will merit further extraction and expansion. I will right now just say that the core idea there—that the Good, while objectively realizable, must be undefined in advance, and once realized would have reset the standard for what is Good beyond itself—has prodigious civilizational or political-economic implications regarding the progression of culture and the dynamism of society.
I want to emphasize here, despite appearances to the contrary, that this isn't going to turn into an argument for tyranny or paperclip-optimization, where all things that aren't ends-in-themselves are only meant then to serve the purpose, or serve as means, for the ends. While this is logically what means do, we will see ahead that pretty much all entities have, at least latent to them, some vital spark primed to exist for a higher good which isn't different from that respective entity flourishing in-itself and actualizing itself in the most honorable and joyous fashion. Or to put it differently, to refer back to a breadcrumb I'd put forth last time, we will come to see that the subject of the Good is no different from the object of the Good.
This makes for a way of substantiating Moore’s point about how the good cannot be defined for someone who doesn’t know it, i.e., cannot be broken down into further simple terms. He was correct in his intuition, but could not explain why due to his unease with a metaphysical basis to value. But we can see now that it would indeed be impossible to speak of what has ultimate, objective value, insofar as it resides in, as or in some way along with what is fundamentally discontinuous with or external to the generalized totality of reality, because the latter by definition cannot be pointed to and specified prior to its emergence, otherwise it would be part of reality.
The same can also be seen this way. Suppose that for the single entity or the general attribute of all the entities that should objectively, ultimately be, one would say, "This is why there should be things". For that to be a meaningful answer, "This" must be fundamentally, radically apart, different from, or unlike "things" (in general).
The savvy reader will notice already the paradox emerging here. We will see how this idea is not as simple as I make it seem here in the next essay.
Note how this question "Is contingency good?" is meaningful, showing, as per G.E. Moore's open question argument, that "Good" is not equivalent to "contingency"—clearly, we mean or are trying to get at different things when we speak of the two.
I will warn that this liberated existence may not resonate as well as may be desired for those who equate liberation with modern political ideas of liberty or personal autonomy regarded as sacred under liberal humanism.