Abduction - Charles Sanders Pierce

 No, not alien kidnapping, that's another form of abduction. This is the abduction proposed by a guy called Charles Sanders Pierce around the 1900's. This "abduction" is another option to induction and deduction, the two main forms of logic. Abduction, in this context, is often referred to as “to the best explanation”.

Abduction conjectures the most promising explanation for a statement based on what would need to be the case for that statement to be true or “a matter of course”. I suppose that Catholic guy G. K. Chesterton was dabbling in a way with abduction when he claimed that our world was "just the way you would expect it to be if Christianity were true." Not very convincing really, and I'd see that as more "bias confirmation" - let's face it, our world is actually just the way it would be if Buddhism were true.....

But I ask, what truly is the more promising explanation for there being anything at all rather than nothing?

"That the world is - that is the mystical" said Wittgenstein.

I must admit that for me the simple truth that there is indeed something rather than nothing genuinely screams meaning/significance. Following on, that I as a human being can actually reflect upon such things would seem to indicate that the meaning/significance does embrace and relate to the human mind/heart. I say this not as any argument in favour but simply to say how I feel/think about it. i.e that there IS something (rather than nothing) implies meaning. We do not live in a Chaos, but a Cosmos (maybe James Joyce had it right, in a word he created for Finnegans Wake, chaosmos....) Life is not a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, but holds infinite possibilities.

Today, the trinity of "time/space/causality" rules for many. Such is "enough". We simply project our meanings upon a canvas that does not actually give a jot (ultimately) for our hopes and dreams. Many are post-enlightenment rationalists - many presuming all the questions posed in the past by our religious Faiths are fundamentally meaningless. When you are dead you are dead. Grab it while you can.

Me, I dislike conclusions. Even precise definitions. And to be honest, when I look back through history, and actually take time to listen to the various voices of my own time, it is those who have supported, and do support, the idea of a "hidden ground of love" beyond (or maybe better, within) our Cosmos who I find myself respecting. I am not desperate in any way whatsoever to defend this, it is simply how my own mind/heart thinks, feels and relates to the world around me. It makes sense, it brings together so much of what I have learnt about so many things. The rationalism of Scientism, which rules for many, that so often pours scorn on Faith, comes across to me as simplistic and empty.

Anyway, I like to learn a new word every day. Today......."abduction" (not actually new, but another meaning of it) Tomorrow perhaps........"verbosity"!