This talk about metaethics is trying to justify building castles in the clouds by declaring the foundation to be supported by the roof. It doesn’t deal with the fundamental problem at all—it makes it worse.
I don’t know about that. Think of this regression:
Q: What’s the roof held up by?
A: The walls.
Q: So, what are the walls held up by?
A: The floor.
Q: So what’s the floor held up by?
A: The foundation.
Q: So what’s the foundation held up by?
A: Bedrock.
Q: And what’s the bedrock held up by?
A: The planet.
Q: And what’s the planet held up by?
A: At that scale, “up” no longer has sufficient meaning for your question to make sense.
That doesn’t mean “what’s the planet held up by” is a gotcha—it means that at some point we went from a scale that we’re familiar with, to a scale that we’re not—and in that new scale, the dependency question that we’ve been asking recursively no longer makes semantic sense.
Or, to be very clear about it, once you get to “the planet”, the answer is, “planet and bedrock pull all the other things down by their own planetary gravity, so the gravitational center of mass doesn’t need to be held up by anything”.
I don’t know about that. Think of this regression:
Q: What’s the roof held up by? A: The walls.
Q: So, what are the walls held up by? A: The floor.
Q: So what’s the floor held up by? A: The foundation.
Q: So what’s the foundation held up by? A: Bedrock.
Q: And what’s the bedrock held up by? A: The planet.
Q: And what’s the planet held up by? A: At that scale, “up” no longer has sufficient meaning for your question to make sense.
That doesn’t mean “what’s the planet held up by” is a gotcha—it means that at some point we went from a scale that we’re familiar with, to a scale that we’re not—and in that new scale, the dependency question that we’ve been asking recursively no longer makes semantic sense.
Or, to be very clear about it, once you get to “the planet”, the answer is, “planet and bedrock pull all the other things down by their own planetary gravity, so the gravitational center of mass doesn’t need to be held up by anything”.