A Question.

[Old Things]

Why do things more or less function without error? Why does the universe "work" so well, as in it works to the degree that the laws of physics are upheld? Further, we can only know something does not work right by all the other instances where things do work. In other words, the number of things that work compared to how much they don't work is quite striking. Nothing about the universe proper needs to exist without error.

How do you explain this?

 

[Black Rose]

Actually, there is a thing in quantum physics based on error correction called adinkras.

I think it has to do with where a particle goes and why noise is important to overcoming uncertainty at the classical level.

 

[Cognisant]

By definition life could not exist in a universe that cannot sustain life.

If anything exists it stands to reason that therefore everything that can* exist must exist, otherwise there must be a reason why something exists and something else does not.

*: By "can" I mean the existence of the thing is not somehow self contradictory or paradoxical, a triangle with four sides cannot exist because by definition a triangle is a shape with three sides, which is not to say a shape with four sides cannot exist, it just cannot have four sides and be a triangle.

So it seems extremely likely that our universe exists in a multiverse of all possible universes, most of which probably don't have any life, I can't say this for certain but I suspect the conditions to allow life to exist are quite specific and generally speaking non-specific is far more common than specific.

This doesn't really prove anything one way or another about the existence or nature of a god like entity. Maybe our universe has such an entity, maybe it had one, maybe one will be created someday, in any case I doubt gods are crossing the boundary between universes. It's a bit like time travel, if time travel were possible we would be drowning in time travelers because they would go everywhere, be everywhere, time/space would be in constant flux. Likewise if inter-universal travel was possible and there's infinite universes then things get very silly very fast and that doesn't appear to be happening.

Anyway point is the fact that our universe suits us is a given because we evolved in this universe, it wasn't made for us we were "made" for it.

 

[The Grey Man]

If anything exists it stands to reason that therefore everything that can* exist must exist, otherwise there must be a reason why something exists and something else does not.

Doesn't this invert Ockham's razor by demanding that anyone who would claim that a thing does not exist provide some proof that it is not even possible? It is easy to prove that a four-sided triangle is not possible, but can we prove that, say, unicorns or Middle Earth not only are not, but could not be? There is no absurdity in the concept of a unicorn, but why on earth should we accept that unicorns exist merely because they are not, so far as we know, impossible?

(I don't agree with all of Ockham's conclusions, but I take his razor to be beyond dispute because it can be reduced to a tautology: 'It is not necessary to posit more entities than necessary.' In fact, I think that some of his errors are due to his misapplying his own razor: I think that he was wrong to reject St. Thomas Aquinas's notion of the intelligible species for example, not because he was wrong to reject an unnecessary hypothesis, but because something like the hypothesis of intelligible species actually is necessary to explain human cognition. The principle of parsimony ('Do not posit more entities than necessary') must be compensated and complemented by the principle of adequacy ('Do not posit fewer entities than are sufficient').)

The multiverse hypothesis is also catastrophic for ethics since, as Kant pointed out, ought implies can, meaning that, by this hypothesis, everything that I ought to do has already been done, by me or my alter ego in some alternate universe, by the very fact that it is not impossible, so it makes absolutely no difference what decisions I make in this universe. Finally, even if the sole necessary condition of a thing's existence was that it is not impossible, still the multiverse itself could not exist because it is no more possible than a four-sided triangle: if our universe does not contain everything that exists, then it is not a universe except in the trivial sense that a basket is the 'universe' of everything that exists and is in the basket, but if the multiverse does contain everything that exists, then it is not 'multi' in any meaningful sense.

Why do things more or less function without error? Why does the universe "work" so well, as in it works to the degree that the laws of physics are upheld? Further, we can only know something does not work right by all the other instances where things do work. In other words, the number of things that work compared to how much they don't work is quite striking. Nothing about the universe proper needs to exist without error.

How do you explain this?

I don't know if this is what you mean by the universe's "working", but, to my mind, the unity and intelligibility of the cosmos is hands down the best argument that God exists (I do not say argument 'for' God's existence, as if were a resolution to be decided upon). Anti-theists occasionally complain about theists who take refuge in the 'gaps' of human knowledge, but is it not a miracle that we can know anything at all, let alone decipher the laws of nature? Evolutionary theory can't explain this: as C.S. Peirce (one of the most rational man who ever walked the earth) clearly saw, if evolutionary materialism is true, then, at best, we can be said to 'know' what it is useful or evolutionarily advantageous for us to believe, but if we do actually know things in the full-blooded sense that the knower knows himself by containing within himself, at least intentionally, the object of this very knowing (and I think that we do), then, by modus tollens, evolutionary materialism cannot be true.

The inadequacy of materialism does not, however, prove that there is a God. The 'unity and intelligibility' argument instead relies on the presence of proportionality and hierarchy in the universe, and especially the proportionality between the material universe and the human mind (made possible by the substantial union, in the human person, of the spirit and the body, of which the latter is part of the material universe, and the parallel complementarity of sensibility and intellection) that makes it all intelligible, of which the most striking evidence is what the physicist Eugene Wigner dubbed "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences" (thus, ironically, the very existence of modern, essentially Pythagorean science, which was supposed to supplant religion, is an inconvenient fact for the proponents of anti-theistic 'scientism'). Though I can do no more than sketch it out here, this, I think, is the best argument for theism, and is moreover purely 'natural-theological' in the sense that it can be used by any religion (though it is by now obvious to everyone which religion I identify with). Nor does this conflict with my refusal to sacrifice theological "details" for the sake of ecumenism, for, as St. Thomas Aquinas argued, that God is can be known rationally, though what he is can be known only by faith, and in this life, only in part, as if "through a glass in a dark manner."

 

[Black Rose]

In a computer, a state can either be 1 or 0, in the case that they are both then nothing exists until the collapse of the function. That means everything that exists is either collapsed or is not being measured.

So in simple form no the multiverse does not exist. You cannot run every possible program on your computer even if t is a quantum computer because eventually, the function must collapse into a definitive state for anything to exist.

It is the case that your forum avatar cannot be every possible avatar at the same time because it can only be one on the screen at once. That does not mean every possible avatar does not exist theoretically but only that the number of computer screens is only 1 and the computation behind it is also finite. Your computer does not hold every possible avatar but only has the potential to depending on the operating system that generated it. The internet is not the multiverse because it cannot hold every possible avatar at the same time without going static, it is just as finite as your computer.

Change is dependent on what your computer does via its state and so to the universe. But it is the case that state is not every possible state but only a potential given the previous state. Probability is not infinite. Previous state matters.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I've thought of this before, but there's a simple counter-question to this.

Let's say there was a world that worked so well, in a parallel universe. Wouldn't it be rational to say that they would ask the same question? In any reasonable world where things went well, that world would ask this question about itself, that it is special because things functioned properly. It would be the same for all worlds that functioned well.

If there was a world that didn't function properly as it did, the question in the first place would not arise.

I think this is a bias that 'existence' has.

 

[dr froyd]

if the question is why does such a complex system as physical reality obey certain physical laws so consistently, then my answer would be that this complex system is comprised of many small parts (at the sub-atomic scale) that follow very simple rules. Everything we see with the naked eye are emergent properties of these small parts doing simple things.

 

[birdsnestfern]

Could it also be that the universe is a conscious entity that its inhabitants are simply like cells in a larger part of itself, and the universe is always expanding and always contracting, like a continuum and new knowledge keeps being added on like a spiraling snail shell.

Fibonacci Numbers in Nature​

Where patterns are growing both ways, ie, expanding and contracting, and following innate patterns of nature.

I see there are patterns and there are also loose particles that are ready to move and rearrange into other patterns, and that you can mold things according to vibration or frequency. Waves, light, particles, patterns, Newtons Laws, and Quantum physics and Holographic realities, etc.

Certainly there are errors, but who is to say what is normal and what isn't?
Certainly there is a bell curve, of a more common occurence and a less common occurence, but all those outliers are expressions of themselves too, perhaps some condition created the outlier but its normal for that condition. So, I think the error is not to see things in black and white so much, but all a continuum of the same reality.

 

[Old Things]

Could it also be that the universe is a conscious entity that its inhabitants are simply like cells in a larger part of itself, and the universe is always expanding and always contracting, like a continuum and new knowledge keeps being added on like a spiraling snail shell.

I used to believe the same exact thing. But then I had an experience that changed that. I now consider Spiritual realities without any greater foundation to be quite fleeting.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

Why exactly does this need explanation? Position an intelligent mind or anything does not answer this - that's just saying "it all works, because there is a working intelligence" - that's no better than saying "it works because it works". That's the main problem I have with design arguments. I see only two possible answer here, either there is a logical explanation according to which it works like it do because it must be this way by logical necessity (I don't find the answer sensible or likely), or just "brute fact". I went in more detail here about my views on explanations and why these kinds of questions don't go much anywhere.

 

[The Grey Man]

@DoIMustHaveAnUsername? is the most capable philosopher on this forum. Y'all don't know what you've got lol

But yeah, we have to now analyze what exact virtues are "brute" explanations offering. In case of "brute" explanations the kind of virtues that I personally prefer are:

1. Reduces bruteness (if not eliminate). Explains one or many phenomena/relations by some other phenomena/relations wherein the latter is relatively more intelligible (less is required to understand the latter). The idea of compression as comprehension get close to the spirit of what I am trying to get towards although I may not accept the exact idea in letter fully.
2. It provides power. That it provides ways to engineer/design/control things. It provides models of predictions and such.

I think this is what I was trying to get at with the my talk of the complementary principles of adequacy and parsimony above. This was partly based on George Pólya's distinction between diluting and condensing generalizations.

 

[Old Things]

Why exactly does this need explanation? Position an intelligent mind or anything does not answer this - that's just saying "it all works, because there is a working intelligence" - that's no better than saying "it works because it works". That's the main problem I have with design arguments. I see only two possible answer here, either there is a logical explanation according to which it works like it do because it must be this way by logical necessity (I don't find the answer sensible or likely), or just "brute fact". I went in more detail here about my views on explanations and why these kinds of questions don't go much anywhere.

It's better to just say you don't know than rely on brute facts--especially when it comes to cosmology because it's literally begging for an explanation.

 

[Black Rose]

Amplituhedron - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Amplituhedron theory challenges the notion that spacetime locality and unitarity are necessary components of a model of particle interactions. Instead, they are treated as properties that emerge from an underlying phenomenon.

When subatomic particles interact, different outcomes are possible. The evolution of the various possibilities is called a "tree" and the probability of a given outcome is called its scattering amplitude. According to the principle of unitarity, the sum of the probabilities for every possible outcome is 1.

The twistor approach simplifies calculations of particle interactions. In a conventional perturbative approach to quantum field theory, such interactions may require the calculation of thousands of Feynman diagrams, most describing off-shell "virtual" particles which have no directly observable existence.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

Why exactly does this need explanation? Position an intelligent mind or anything does not answer this - that's just saying "it all works, because there is a working intelligence" - that's no better than saying "it works because it works". That's the main problem I have with design arguments. I see only two possible answer here, either there is a logical explanation according to which it works like it do because it must be this way by logical necessity (I don't find the answer sensible or likely), or just "brute fact". I went in more detail here about my views on explanations and why these kinds of questions don't go much anywhere.

It's better to just say you don't know than rely on brute facts--especially when it comes to cosmology because it's literally begging for an explanation.

I'm not claiming to know anything. All I am pointing out are the deficiences of most of the explanations that try to avoid bruteness.

 

[Old Things]

Why exactly does this need explanation? Position an intelligent mind or anything does not answer this - that's just saying "it all works, because there is a working intelligence" - that's no better than saying "it works because it works". That's the main problem I have with design arguments. I see only two possible answer here, either there is a logical explanation according to which it works like it do because it must be this way by logical necessity (I don't find the answer sensible or likely), or just "brute fact". I went in more detail here about my views on explanations and why these kinds of questions don't go much anywhere.

It's better to just say you don't know than rely on brute facts--especially when it comes to cosmology because it's literally begging for an explanation.

I'm not claiming to know anything. All I am pointing out are the deficiences of most of the explanations that try to avoid bruteness.

Alright, so if someone asks you and says, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" What is your response?

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

Why exactly does this need explanation? Position an intelligent mind or anything does not answer this - that's just saying "it all works, because there is a working intelligence" - that's no better than saying "it works because it works". That's the main problem I have with design arguments. I see only two possible answer here, either there is a logical explanation according to which it works like it do because it must be this way by logical necessity (I don't find the answer sensible or likely), or just "brute fact". I went in more detail here about my views on explanations and why these kinds of questions don't go much anywhere.

It's better to just say you don't know than rely on brute facts--especially when it comes to cosmology because it's literally begging for an explanation.

I'm not claiming to know anything. All I am pointing out are the deficiences of most of the explanations that try to avoid bruteness.

Alright, so if someone asks you and says, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" What is your response?

"I don't know. Either there is no real explanation at all - brute fact (most plausible to me) - after all why should there even be reasons at all? or perhaps one can derive everything from logical laws (unlikely, but that's probably the only way you can fully avoid brute fact. Unless everything is derivable from some "self-evident necessary" principles (if any) bruteness will persist) - or some other way that I can't even concieve. That said, although I don't believe things necessarily have to have explanations, in general I do encourage to keep an explanation-seeking attitude - because even if we don't discover "ultimate truths" we can still potentially discover interesting symmetries and principles that help us gain more intelligibility of the world, and make better predictions. That said, sometimes this explanation-seeking attitude upon not finding much to chew upon may end up in pseudo-explanations that don't offer any practical virtues which is to be wary of. "

 

[Old Things]

Either there is no real explanation at all - brute fact (most plausible to me)

I find this... strange, quite frankly. How can something have no explanation, especially when it comes to natural phenomena? It's a rejection of natural causes and the PSR.

 

[Old Things]

It's my belief that the cause of the universe cannot be natural and must be metaphysical. Why? Because we don't have any way to even test what happened after time began but before physics is what we know today let alone explain it. So for all practical purposes, a metaphysical explanation should be completely acceptable with why the universe works as it does.

Personally, as I believe in God, I do not believe God must micromanage the universe. Rather, God set up the universe to function on certain laws of physics. Knowing this then provides great explanatory power to the more or less fact of miracles people experience today which would be done by God's special input into the universe. So the idea that God exists explains both that the universal physical laws function without error and the instances where something miraculous must have happened.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

Either there is no real explanation at all - brute fact (most plausible to me)

I find this... strange, quite frankly. How can something have no explanation, especially when it comes to natural phenomena? It's a rejection of natural causes and the PSR.

I always found the idea of things somehow having "explanations" strange. Also yes, I don't buy PSR. I also don't think "natural causes" provide reasons in a strong sense in the first place (consider Hume for example, there doesn't seem to be any logically necessary connection between causes and effects). Also causations don't have a stable status. They are plenty of philosophers suspicious of "causation", and it's not all too clear if things like radioactive decay have sufficient causes. There may be something to Kant's point that we have a cognitive form that organizes events under the form of a causal law - but again, to make grander claims than that would be exceeding the limits of reason - into the sphere of transcendental illusions - or something; I have yet to read the second part of Kant.

 

[Old Things]

Hume

Hume didn't take off until methodological naturalism did. His contemporaries didn't like him much.

philosophers suspicious of "causation"

Kinda hard to do science without causation. What do you ground things in if not causation?

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

It's my belief that the cause of the universe cannot be natural and must be metaphysical. Why? Because we don't have any way to even test what happened after time began but before physics is what we know today let alone explain it. So for all practical purposes, a metaphysical explanation should be completely acceptable with why the universe works as it does.

Personally, as I believe in God, I do not believe God must micromanage the universe. Rather, God set up the universe to function on certain laws of physics. Knowing this then provides great explanatory power to the more or less fact of miracles people experience today which would be done by God's special input into the universe. So the idea that God exists explains both that the universal physical laws function without error and the instances where something miraculous must have happened.

First, there isn't any clear differentiation between natural and metaphysical. Metaphysical - insofar we are talking about ontology - is just about what exists - on the nature of being. Nature is the expression of being so not something ametaphysical. Perhaps, you tried to mean "supernatural", but I don't think there is a motivated non-arbitrary distinction between supernatural vs natural.

Second, I don't think that particularly explain anything. As I already said, to explain why things work, you just posited another working intelligent being. "it works because there is a being that works to keep making things work". That's not really a satisfying explanation - unless you can also show that existence of God is somehow self-explained (perhaps by some ontological argument) - and typically those arguments are mediocre. This whole "God did it" explanation seems to abuse the folk-psychological explanations taking it beyond its day-to-day context to answering grand questions - as if we should be satisfied by appeal to motives, or agency and not ask more questions.

Third, these forms of explanation have limited virtue - it doesn't provide us a simpler principle (compression) from which the complex observable phenomena can be derived; it doesn't provide new predictions for future phenomena, or resolve any anomalies in current theories. I think there could be some potential for theistic explanations to provide some level of "compression" - so may be worth investigating that line of thought more, but it's not immediately obvious.

Fourth, I think the idea of "working without error" is a tricky notion. If a function has an error or not depends on our intepretations and expectations and how we have idealized the function and other thing. I am not sure that there is some "stance-independent error". Whatever nature do, that would be its function. it's not clear what "error" is supposed to mean. Either way, that's not a big point, because you can ask why we can predict things so well, or why mathematics is so effective or why it seems possible to compress phenomena at all.

 

[Old Things]

It's my belief that the cause of the universe cannot be natural and must be metaphysical. Why? Because we don't have any way to even test what happened after time began but before physics is what we know today let alone explain it. So for all practical purposes, a metaphysical explanation should be completely acceptable with why the universe works as it does.

Personally, as I believe in God, I do not believe God must micromanage the universe. Rather, God set up the universe to function on certain laws of physics. Knowing this then provides great explanatory power to the more or less fact of miracles people experience today which would be done by God's special input into the universe. So the idea that God exists explains both that the universal physical laws function without error and the instances where something miraculous must have happened.

First, there isn't any clear differentiation between natural and metaphysical. Metaphysical - insofar we are talking about ontology - is just about what exists - on the nature of being. Nature is the expression of being so not something ametaphysical. Perhaps, you tried to mean "supernatural", but I don't think there is a motivated non-arbitrary distinction between supernatural vs natural.

Second, I don't think that particularly explain anything. As I already said, to explain why things work, you just posited another working intelligent being. "it works because there is a being that works to keep making things work". That's not really a satisfying explanation - unless you can also show that existence of God is somehow self-explained (perhaps by some ontological argument) - and typically those arguments are mediocre. This whole "God did it" explanation seems to abuse the folk-psychological explanations taking it beyond its day-to-day context to answering grand questions - as if we should be satisfied by appeal to motives, or agency and not ask more questions.

Third, these forms of explanation have limited virtue - it doesn't provide us a simpler principle (compression) from which the complex observable phenomena can be derived; it doesn't provide new predictions for future phenomena, or resolve any anomalies in current theories. I think there could be some potential for theistic explanations to provide some level of "compression" - so may be worth investigating that line of thought more, but it's not immediately obvious.

Fourth, I think the idea of "working without error" is a tricky notion. If a function has an error or not depends on our intepretations and expectations and how we have idealized the function and other thing. I am not sure that there is some "stance-independent error". Whatever nature do, that would be its function. it's not clear what "error" is supposed to mean. Either way, that's not a big point, because you can ask why we can predict things so well, or why mathematics is so effective or why it seems possible to compress phenomena at all.

No offense but the conclusion you are left with is if we go with what you say is a pre-Newtonian world where the thing explains itself by having a nature that causes the effect.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

Hume

Hume didn't take off until methodological naturalism did. His contemporaries didn't like him much.

philosophers suspicious of "causation"

Kinda hard to do science without causation. What do you ground things in if not causation?

I don't think it's quite correct that Hume's contemporaries didn't like him. IIRC, he did achieve fame for his philosopher in his later life - although initially his treatise was relatively ignored - again that doesn't tell that he was disliked. Also "methodological naturalism" were already taking off during Hume. Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Francis Bacon, Hobbes, already kickstarted the spirit - although some of them were not really naturalists fully (technically I don't think "naturalism" even really means anything clearly particularly; so I don't really care for it).

Either way, I don't want to debate history here. Skepticism have always annoyed philosophers and people but it's specter keep on haunting - it's hard to precisely exorcise. I don't think the annoying nature of skepticism should count as a critique.

Regarding, science without causation, that's precisely the point of the paper - that there isn't a clear cut notion of causation used in physics. Similar point have been made by Russell and Sean Carroll. Although, my personal opinion is more unsettled here. I'm not talking a side - but these are not fully clear cut issues either. Causation is important at the level of "higher-level" sciences - interventional experiments - RCTs etc. but again you can do with a very deflationary notion of causation - probably. Personally, I do like causes - concrete causal powers that is; but either way I don't think they really "explain" things, just provides better grounds for predictions (over some co-incidental correlations and regularities).

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

It's my belief that the cause of the universe cannot be natural and must be metaphysical. Why? Because we don't have any way to even test what happened after time began but before physics is what we know today let alone explain it. So for all practical purposes, a metaphysical explanation should be completely acceptable with why the universe works as it does.

Personally, as I believe in God, I do not believe God must micromanage the universe. Rather, God set up the universe to function on certain laws of physics. Knowing this then provides great explanatory power to the more or less fact of miracles people experience today which would be done by God's special input into the universe. So the idea that God exists explains both that the universal physical laws function without error and the instances where something miraculous must have happened.

First, there isn't any clear differentiation between natural and metaphysical. Metaphysical - insofar we are talking about ontology - is just about what exists - on the nature of being. Nature is the expression of being so not something ametaphysical. Perhaps, you tried to mean "supernatural", but I don't think there is a motivated non-arbitrary distinction between supernatural vs natural.

Second, I don't think that particularly explain anything. As I already said, to explain why things work, you just posited another working intelligent being. "it works because there is a being that works to keep making things work". That's not really a satisfying explanation - unless you can also show that existence of God is somehow self-explained (perhaps by some ontological argument) - and typically those arguments are mediocre. This whole "God did it" explanation seems to abuse the folk-psychological explanations taking it beyond its day-to-day context to answering grand questions - as if we should be satisfied by appeal to motives, or agency and not ask more questions.

Third, these forms of explanation have limited virtue - it doesn't provide us a simpler principle (compression) from which the complex observable phenomena can be derived; it doesn't provide new predictions for future phenomena, or resolve any anomalies in current theories. I think there could be some potential for theistic explanations to provide some level of "compression" - so may be worth investigating that line of thought more, but it's not immediately obvious.

Fourth, I think the idea of "working without error" is a tricky notion. If a function has an error or not depends on our intepretations and expectations and how we have idealized the function and other thing. I am not sure that there is some "stance-independent error". Whatever nature do, that would be its function. it's not clear what "error" is supposed to mean. Either way, that's not a big point, because you can ask why we can predict things so well, or why mathematics is so effective or why it seems possible to compress phenomena at all.

No offense but the conclusion you are left with is if we go with what you say is a pre-Newtonian world where the thing explains itself by having a nature that causes the effect.

I don't have a problem with the view that "things have a nature that causes the effect" - that's basically the idea of dispositions - dispositional powers. It's not a unworkable thesis. I find this more plausible that laws are idealizations of dispositional activities of things (agents) than some abstract law governing everything. You can still try to work with "agents all the way down" sort of framework while keeping it consistent with observational data: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/25/1/129


Either way, I think fundamental "cause and effects" are not "full" explanations. After all they are not logical relations. You can turn it into a logical relations by positing some "nature" from which the effects logically follow, but that would just raise the question why that "nature"? It isn't a real answer, it's just saying "it works, because there happens to be some nature to make it work". By something self-evident what I have in mind would be logico-mathematical truths (but even for those I am not quite sure if it's right to consider them self-evident; but it's a starting point).

 

[Old Things]

Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Francis Bacon, Hobbes,

How many of these were Christians?

I don't have a problem with the view that "things have a nature that causes the effect"

Say no more. You've at this point demonstrated you have a very very bizarre view that might have been popular before Newton, but things have progressed and you don't seem to see that.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Francis Bacon, Hobbes,

How many of these were Christians?

I don't have a problem with the view that "things have a nature that causes the effect"

Say no more. You've at this point demonstrated you have a very very bizarre view that might have been popular before Newton, but things have progressed and you don't seem to see that.

I believe Newton, Leibniz, and Descartes were christians or at least theists. Hobbes is mixed. Either way I don't see why this is relevant.
Also we are going into tangents here. As I said my issues here are deeper than Newtonian vs Not. So pre-Newtonian vs post-Newtonian is an orthogonal side issue. Also, I don't know enough about either Newtonianism in particular or Aristtotleianism to say much meaningfully or take a side (I was talking about something like dispositionalism which is an active idea in philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dispositions/#CatDisLawNat).


One thing to keep in mind, is that image and conception of science have changed through time. For example, in the time of Newton, gravity as effect at a distance was considered absurd because it went against their conception of mechanistic universe. Now a days we have no problem with non-localities, gravity being curvatures of spacetime, vibrations in hyperspace or whatever, quantum fields and so on. The standards of what is "intelligible" keeps on changing with time.
Also I cited a recent paper talking about cutting edge particle physics where the authors used an agent-network based framework to explain predictions. So I am not sure what progress you are talking about. But these shifts in standards of "intelligibility", makes me question even more the intuitions people have embedded in a certain cultural context. It also helps that I don't personally have most of such intuitions.

 

[Black Rose]

I don't have a problem with the view that "things have a nature that causes the effect" - that's basically the idea of dispositions - dispositional powers. It's not a unworkable thesis. I find this more plausible that laws are idealizations of dispositional activities of things (agents) than some abstract law governing everything. You can still try to work with "agents all the way down" sort of framework while keeping it consistent with observational data: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/25/1/129

I do not know much about polytopes but I think god gives us options.

God is the look-ahead system so he loads the probabilities when things interact.

In effect, we cannot (NOT) play dice but he gives us a series of them based on an attractor state. He biases the outcome at each step.