Origins of reality. [Archive]

Revy

25th January 2010, 10:56

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

This is an assumption that the universe "began to exist" and hasn't always existed. Technically, nothing began to exist. Every atom in the universe has always existed, even before the Big Bang.

Given the truth of the two premises, the conclusion necessarily follows.

From the very nature of the case, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being which created the universe. It must be uncaused because we've seen that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. It must be timeless and therefore changeless—at least without the universe—because it created time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be immaterial, not physical. Nice way around violating your ideas about the origin of the universe by positing the God never began to exist. It's merely a way of avoiding the question - anyway, if God can be uncaused, why not the universe? Why do we need God then?

Moreover, I would argue, it must also be personal.

For how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe?
It could be a force or unconscious "Universal Spirit", rather than an anthropomorphic being. To think that something would need consciousness to create the universe is laughable - water does not need a mind to flow, the Sun does not need a mind to shine, etc.

If the cause were a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without the effect. For example, the cause of water's freezing is the temperature's being below 0˚ Centigrade. If the temperature were below 0˚ from eternity past, then any water that was around would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for the water to begin to freeze just a finite time ago. So if the cause is permanently present, then the effect should be permanently present as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and the effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any prior determining conditions. For example, a man sitting from eternity could freely will to stand up. Thus, we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator.Or....the universe could be existing for eternity! No creator needed. Hell, even if it didn't exist eternally, it doesn't need a creator then.

People who believe in science believe that matter is not eternal, but came into existence 13.7 billion yrs ago according to the big bang theory.
Wrong! Matter existed before the Big Bang in an extremely tiny, dense and hot form.

If the atheist denies this premise, then they are denying a fundamental law of natural science, namely, that matter can neither be created or destroyed. That is natural law. It would be like denying gravity.

Matter cannot be created --> matter was created? That's some interesting logic there.:rolleyes:

Whatever causes the universe to appear is not bound by time (temporal). It never began to exist. There was no passage of time causally prior to the big bang, so the cause of the universe did not come into being. The cause existed eternally. In other words, God never began to exist, so the laws of thermodynamics would not apply to Him - or whatever the cause of the universe (or the conditions for the universe - time>space?) is.
The universe never began to exist.

Stop trying to prove God (you cannot) and accept your belief rests on faith.

ZeroNowhere

25th January 2010, 11:07

Nice way around violating your ideas about the origin of the universe by positing the God never began to exist. It's merely a way of avoiding the question - anyway, if God can be uncaused, why not the universe? Why do we need God then?Because apparently everything in the universe has a cause (which is a problematic claim in itself), and therefore the universe must have had a cause.

spiltteeth

25th January 2010, 13:29

Technically, speaking of natural laws literally already presupposes a god-like being. Or rather, a prime mover who wasn't particularly intelligent and whose knowledge has already been superseded by humans in the field of quantum mechanics. Otherwise a personal being without a physical body would be just as much an affront to physical laws.

Causation, on the other hand, is a temporal concept.

Quantum gravity theory, you mean?

Which quantum gravity theory are you referring to - and I'd like to point out that all of them utilize imaginary time, which mathematicians tell us can't exist in reality, and presuppose an initial vacuum - which also didn't exist prior to the big bang.

1) QM events that we observe in a laboratory take place a vacuum that is there, not absolute nothing as was the case with the big bang. 2) QM events could not occur without a field present, they are not uncaused. 3) Virtual particles exist only temporarily, inversely proportional to their mass. The universe has been here for 13.7 billion years, not a fraction of a second.

in the case of the big bang, there is no vacuum – there’s nothing. And the universe is far too massive to last 14 billion years as a virtual particle.

spiltteeth

25th January 2010, 13:47

The Human Condition;1658360]This is an assumption that the universe "began to exist" and hasn't always existed. Technically, nothing began to exist. Every atom in the universe has always existed, even before the Big Bang.

P. C. W. Davies explains, "
the coming into being of the universe, as discussed in modern science . . . is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization . . . upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming-into-being of all physical things from nothing."

Physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler, speaking of the beginning of the universe, explain,
“At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo (out of nothing).”

Therefore, what the Big Bang model actually requires, as Hoyle points out, is creatio ex nihilo; this is because as one follows the expansion back in time one reaches a time at which the universe was 'shrunk down to nothing at all'.
P. C. W. Davies muses,

'What caused the big bang?' . . . One might consider some supernatural force, some agency beyond space and time as being responsible for the big bang, or one might prefer to regard the big bang as an event without a cause. It seems to me that we don't have too much choice. Either . . . something outside of the physical world . . . or . . . an event without a cause.

Nice way around violating your ideas about the origin of the universe by positing the God never began to exist. It's merely a way of avoiding the question - anyway, if God can be uncaused, why not the universe? Why do we need God then?

Science tells us that the universe did indeed begin to exist - around 13.7 billion yrs ago. This argument is really for people who believe in science.

It could be a force or unconscious "Universal Spirit", rather than an anthropomorphic being. To think that something would need consciousness to create the universe is laughable - water does not need a mind to flow, the Sun does not need a mind to shine, etc.

The reason for thinking that the first cause is personal is because a first cause requires a will, since an unthinking mechanical cause requires antecedent causal influences to occur. But this cannot be, for we know that the first cause is the first productive cause in the causal nexus. Only something that controls its own actions can be the first cause; the sufficient reasons for its actions are found within itself. This, of course, occurs all the time when free-willed agents choose a particular course of action, such as my deciding to go for a walk, for example.

The argument can be pressed further. If the first cause simply consisted of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that existed from eternity, then the effect would also have existed from eternity (i.e. the universe should have been eternal). For example, if the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of fire are present, then the effect--a flame--arises immediately. There is no delay from cause to effect. Thus, if the necessary and sufficient (causal) conditions for fire are present from eternity, then a flame would also exist (as an effect) from eternity. What this analysis reveals is that the origin of our temporal universe (which began a finite time ago) could not have resulted from a mechanistic state of affairs that existed from eternity. As Craig argues,
"[t]he only way to have an eternal cause but a temporal effect would seem to be if the cause is a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time."

Or....the universe could be existing for eternity! No creator needed. Hell, even if it didn't exist eternally, it doesn't need a creator then.

We know the universe began to exist 13.7 billion yrs ago.

Wrong! Matter existed before the Big Bang in an extremely tiny, dense and hot form.

The singularity DID NOT exist before the big bang, in fact one cannot escape this incoherence of postulating a time before time by identifying the primordial time with the cosmological singularity itself, for not only is the singularity not an instant of time, but more importantly the entire mass-energy content of the universe and, indeed, space itself is compacted into the initial singularity, the first temporal interval is in such a case a closed internal [0, 1] terminating in the singularity. The cosmological singularity marked the origin of time and space and beyond which the spacetime manifold cannot be extended.
There is no earlier space-time point so it is false that something existed prior to the singularity.

The ontological status of the Big Bang singularity is a metaphysical question concerning which one will be hard-pressed to find a discussion in scientific literature. The singularity does not exist in space and time; therefore it is not an event. Typically it is cryptically said to lie on the boundary of space-time. But the ontological status of this boundary point is virtually never discussed.
Gott, Gunn, Schramm, and Tinsley write,

"the universe began from a state of infinite density about one Hubble time ago. Space and time were created in that event and so was all the matter in the universe. It is not meaningful to ask what happened before the big bang; it is somewhat like asking what is north of the North Pole. Similarly, it is not sensible to ask where the big bang took place. The point-universe was not an object isolated in space; it was the entire universe, and so the only answer can be that the big bang happened everywhere"

Matter cannot be created --> matter was created? That's some interesting logic there.:rolleyes:

As the natural laws of science tells us - whatever BEGAN to exist must have a cause. the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not hold prior to the big bang.

The universe never began to exist.

Please, share this stunning body of research that will turn all the science around.

BUT - lets say you do not believe in all the science. Einstein, Hawking are all idiots and you have the real science.

Do you at least believe in rationality?

Could the universe be eternal? Is it not possible that an infinite causal sequence of contingent entities preceded the present moment? There are good reasons to think not. If the sequence of events preceding the present moment is infinite, then it follows that we are currently at the end of an infinite sequence of events .

First, if we are at the end of an infinite causal sequence, then it follows we have a set that is actually infinite, denoted by the mathematical symbol À0. Such a set, however, is prone to all the paradoxes of the infinite and is therefore rendered implausible. Second, the supposition that we are at the end of an infinite causal sequence is refuted by the clear fact that a beginningless sequence can never be completed, or traversed. It would never be possible, for example, for a man to reach the last rung of a ladder that consists of an infinite number of rungs. The fact that the sequence of events in the world does have a terminus (i.e. the present moment) falsifies the possibility of an infinite regress into the past.

Therefore, we are led to reject the possibility of a completed infinite sequence of events because its implications are openly false. Once again, according to David Hume:
"[a]n infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man whose judgment is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it."

Now if the possibility of an infinite causal sequence preceding the present moment is false, it is true that the causal chain must be finite, and it follows ipso facto that the universe had a beginning. This conclusion is, of course, supported by modern Big Bang cosmology

Given the truth of premises (1) and (2) it follows deductively that the universe has a metaphysical cause for its existence: the first cause.

Stop trying to prove God (you cannot) and accept your belief rests on faith.

There are usually three basic reasons for rejecting a premise: (a) it is demonstrably false, (b) it lacks sufficient evidence or (c) it has at least one counterexample. If one wishes to dispute (1) then he must categorize the causal principle into one of the three classifications I have stated. For many, the premise is grasped intuitively. Thus, David Hume's famous remark that he
"never asserted so absurd a Proposition as that anything might arise without cause."

Ravachol

25th January 2010, 15:57

http://www.revleft.com/vb/two-good-reasons-t120646/index.html

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

You realize this is Thomas Aquinas's argument right?

First of all, how does it follow that everything that 'begins to exist' has a 'cause'. How do you define 'cause', as any action leading to another?

Secondly the assumption that the universe 'began to exist' ignores the possibility of eternal existence it contains the assumption the universe, at some point in time, didn't exist.

Also, non-existence is nothing but the negation of existence, it only makes sense in relation to existence. There is no such thing as non-existence-in-itself, there is only the absence of those segments of reality that we call 'existence'.

Meridian

25th January 2010, 17:27

I'll just respond to Splitteeth's answer to my previous post:

Whatever causes the universe to appear is not bound by time (temporal). It never began to exist. There was no passage of time causally prior to the big bang, so the cause of the universe did not come into being. The cause existed eternally. In other words, God never began to exist, so the laws of thermodynamics would not apply to Him - or whatever the cause of the universe (or the conditions for the universe - time>space?) is.
Most of these are empty assertions which you do not explain.

You say yourself that there was no passage of time "causally" (whatever that is supposed to mean) prior to the big bang. But let's be clear; big bang indicates the beginning of all things and the motion of all things. That is what is meant by the beginning of time, there can not be anything prior to it because (as stated) the beginning of time is by definition the beginning of all things and the condition for all things.

In other words it would need to be "internal", or it would be nothing at all.

We might as well say "reality" instead of "the universe", as the latter makes us think of space and stars and planets, while it is logic and geometry that is the foundation or formation of reality. What can not be in logic or geometry can not be thought or constructed and visualised spatially.

spiltteeth

26th January 2010, 04:04

I'll just respond to Splitteeth's answer to my previous post:

Most of these are empty assertions which you do not explain.

You say yourself that there was no passage of time "causally" (whatever that is supposed to mean) prior to the big bang. But let's be clear; big bang indicates the beginning of all things and the motion of all things. That is what is meant by the beginning of time, there can not be anything prior to it because (as stated) the beginning of time is by definition the beginning of all things and the condition for all things.

In other words it would need to be "internal", or it would be nothing at all.

We might as well say "reality" instead of "the universe", as the latter makes us think of space and stars and planets, while it is logic and geometry that is the foundation or formation of reality. What can not be in logic or geometry can not be thought or constructed and visualised spatially.

whatever existed casually prior top the big bang had to exist outside of time and space and therefore had to be immaterial. Nothing material existed casually prior to the big bang.

So, space, time, and matter began to exist. What could have caused them to begin to exist?

Whatever causes the universe to appear is not inside of space, because there was no space causally prior to the creation event. The cause must therefore be non-physical, because physical things exist in space.
Whatever causes the universe to appear is not bound by time (temporal). It never began to exist. There was no passage of time causally prior to the big bang, so the cause of the universe did not come into being. The cause existed eternally.
And the cause is not material. All the matter in the universe came into being at the first moment. Whatever caused the universe to begin to exist cannot have been matter, because there was no matter causally prior to the big bang.
So what could the cause be? Craig notes that we are only familiar with two kinds of non-material realities:

Abstract objects, like numbers, sets and mathematical relations
Minds, like your own mind
Now, abstract objects don’t cause of any effects in nature. But we are very familiar with the causal capabilities of our own minds – just raise your own arm and see! So, by process of elimination, we are left with a mind as the cause of the universe.

spiltteeth

26th January 2010, 04:46

=Ravachol;1658535]You realize this is Thomas Aquinas's argument right?

No, this is a bit different from Aquinus's argument. This comes from a group of muslim philosophers about 1200 yrs ago known as 'Kalam'.

First of all, how does it follow that everything that 'begins to exist' has a 'cause'. How do you define 'cause', as any action leading to another?

"begins to exist" means "has a first time of its existence."
As I say, If the atheist denies this premise, then they are denying a fundamental law of natural science, namely, that matter can neither be created or destroyed. That is natural law. It is as solid as gravity.

Craig writes,

Does he believe that it is really possible that, say, a raging tiger should suddenly come into existence uncaused out of nothing in the room in which he is now reading this article? How much the same would this seem to apply to the entire universe! If there were originally absolute nothingness-- no God, no space, no time-- how could the universe possibly come to exist?

Before the Big Bang there was nothing; no time/space, no universe, no energy, no matter. Then boom, suddenly all the energy and matter required to develop into our universe “pops” into existence. How can that be?

Assuming this would happen independently of an outside force such as a Creator directly violates one of the best proved and observed natural laws of science: the law of preservation of energy (or matter), technically known as the First Law of Thermodynamics. This principle states:

“Within a closed system, during any transformation the net energy increase or decrease is zero.”

This means energy (or matter) cannot be created or destroyed, and the net effect of any transformation is zero. Simply stated, without energy from the outside, no reaction or transformation alone can generate additional energy, nor will energy merely disappear.

For instance when you operate a car, all energy put into powering the car (by the combustion engine) will be transformed into mechanical energy (moving the car) and heat (exhaust). But the sum of the mechanical energy and the heat/exhaust produced will be exactly equal to the energy produced by the burning of the gas/oxygen. No net energy is created or lost.

This also relates to the Big Bang. The explosion cannot have just happened by itself, as the energy released then (and even today drives the expansion of the universe) must have come from somewhere – the ONLY source possible would be a creating force, i.e. a Creator.

There are usually three basic reasons for rejecting a premise: (a) it is demonstrably false, (b) it lacks sufficient evidence or (c) it has at least one counterexample. If one wishes to dispute (1) then he must categorize the causal principle into one of the three classifications I have stated. For many, the premise is grasped intuitively. Thus, David Hume's famous remark that he
"never asserted so absurd a Proposition as that anything might arise without cause."

Secondly the assumption that the universe 'began to exist' ignores the possibility of eternal existence it contains the assumption the universe, at some point in time, didn't exist.

Also, non-existence is nothing but the negation of existence, it only makes sense in relation to existence. There is no such thing as non-existence-in-itself, there is only the absence of those segments of reality that we call 'existence'.

It is NOT an assumption - it is hard science. The universe began to exist 13.7 billion yrs ago.

We have had a string of solid, recent scientific discoveries that point in a definite direction, as follows:

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars

So, insofar as one question these discoveries and the origin of the entire physical universe out of nothing, they are opposing the progress of science.

Of course there is also simple logical and mathematical reasons the universe could not always have existed as pointed out in an above post.

For the beginning of the universe is the point at which the universe literally came into being. The universe does not transition from nothingness into something; rather it comes into being absolutely. But if anything seems metaphysically impossible, it is that something can come into being absolutely without a cause. Being only comes from being. There must therefore be causally prior (if not temporally prior) to the Big Bang an ultra-mundane cause of the universe.

Such a cause must transcend physical space and time and therefore be immaterial not physical. Since the only immaterial entities of which we know are either minds or abstract objects (like numbers), and since the latter do not stand in causal relations, it is plausible that the cause of the universe is an unembodied mind or person who created the universe. Thus, physical eschatology itself provides grounds for believing in the existence of just that sort of agent who is capable of altering the projections of physical eschatology.

The Feral Underclass

26th January 2010, 07:05

革命者

26th January 2010, 10:58

While it may be interesting to have these discussions about why reality exists, you'll never achieve an answer. The human mind is not capable of understanding the reason for existence and the search for an answer is futile. We'll never know why we have come to exist. We may be able to conclude on how we came to exist, but a search for meaning is pointless. Largely because there isn't any. Our existence is totally senseless and pointless and void of reasoning.If you are not religious, meaning can't be given by one entity controlling or characterising all there is. It has to be given by individuals to their own lives then, I suppose.

I am religious and I believe in one entity; 'God' suits my defintion quite nicely, which has meant all things to happen in a certain way. I try to understand my life by that meaning.

But if you believe in individuals creating their own lives, it's obvious that they all mean to do what they do.

So saying that our existence is senseless is senseless, since sense is meaning and without it existing, it can not be absent.

Meridian

26th January 2010, 11:21

So, space, time, and matter began to exist. What could have caused them to begin to exist?
No, you have misunderstood what is meant by the beginning of time.

Forget about how a scientist may define the "big bang" or whatever. Scientists theories will always differ, they are not set in stone. What is meant by the beginning of time, however, does not change: The beginning of reality. The beginning of the conditions for existence, of 'organisation'. Not the beginning of "matter", or the beginning of "space" and "time".

This is what gives words like space, time and matter meaning.

What could have caused it to exist? That question is completely senseless.

spiltteeth

26th January 2010, 13:29

No, you have misunderstood what is meant by the beginning of time.

Forget about how a scientist may define the "big bang" or whatever. Scientists theories will always differ, they are not set in stone. What is meant by the beginning of time, however, does not change: The beginning of reality. The beginning of the conditions for existence, of 'organisation'. Not the beginning of "matter", or the beginning of "space" and "time".

This is what gives words like space, time and matter meaning.

What could have caused it to exist? That question is completely senseless.

No "conditions for reality" existed casually prior to the big bang.

And I'm afraid I takes science's definitions based on decades of hard research over whatever it is "conditions for reality" means to you personally.
Regardless - it is hard science that the universe (and the "conditions for reality") began to exist and the only logical cause is what many refer to as "God" - if you deny the premise you deny logic and science - which is fine; many atheists are anti-science and irrational.

I don't see how its senseless. I always wondered how I began to exist - apparantly it had something to do with my parents.
If oyu wish to belive you just popped into existence with no cause that is your buisness, however this belif contradicts my faith in science, logic, and rationality.

My criteria for truth is rational consistency, so I belive in logic, rationality, and science - I cannot "forget" them.

Muzk

26th January 2010, 20:06

only logical cause is what many refer to as "God" - if you deny the premise you deny logic and science -Nonsense! What created God then? And does God have a reason to create anything? Logic and science are BOTH against ANY kind of higher-being controlling the course of everything

Belisarius

26th January 2010, 20:11

Nonsense! What created God then? And does God have a reason to create anything? Logic and science are BOTH against ANY kind of higher-being controlling the course of everything
according to aristotelian logic there is a "primum mobile". since everything as a cause and an effect, there must be a causeless cause, otherwise there would be an infinity of causes, which would be illogical (regressio ad infinitum). this causeless cause has been interpreted as god.

革命者

26th January 2010, 20:17

Nonsense! What created God then? And does God have a reason to create anything? Logic and science are BOTH against ANY kind of higher-being controlling the course of everythingScience or logic no more have a will of their own than God has.

Most people who give a meaning to 'God' define it as an entity without a cause. Science can only validate some specific examples of 'cause and effect', it can't prove every cause to have an effect, vice versa, or any direct relation between the two.

The Feral Underclass

27th January 2010, 00:49

So saying that our existence is senseless is senseless, since sense is meaning and without it existing, it can not be absent.

That's gobbledegook.

Perhaps you don't understand the word senseless (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/senseless).

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 07:01

splitteeth, you are a language "sorcerer" and the physicists you quote are physicists playing philosophy, which is not their forte.

spiltteeth

27th January 2010, 08:37

splitteeth, you are a language "sorcerer" and the physicists you quote are physicists playing philosophy, which is not their forte.

Actually I made a conciouss effort to avoid all physicists who make metaphysics or ontological claims (Hawking etc) and rely on the hard science - the implications that this science leads to is not philosophy but deductive logic : if p is true, then q is true
p is true
therefore, q is true
That means that so long as premise 1 and 2 are true, the conclusion follows necessarily.

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 09:17

Actually I made a conciouss effort to avoid all physicists who make metaphysics or ontological claims (Hawking etc) and rely on the hard science - the implications that this science leads to is not philosophy but deductive logic : if p is true, then q is true
p is true
therefore, q is true
That means that so long as premise 1 and 2 are true, the conclusion follows necessarily.

No you don't. you choose cosmologists that give wild interpretations to their mathematical work. "Space and time" did not exist is one of them. Space, and time to a physicist has a different "sense" than "space and time" to a layman. To a physicist, space and time are orthogonal basis in a four dimensional vector space. You probably did not understand that last statement, because well, that is the formal and "real" definition physicists actually use.

革命者

27th January 2010, 09:52

That's gobbledegook.

Perhaps you don't understand the word senseless (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/senseless).Perhaps you don't understand logic. If there's sense, i.e. meaning, there's existence. So existence is not senseless. There would be nothing to speak of if it were, so no senseless either.

革命者

27th January 2010, 09:56

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 10:11

Get off your high horse. Next thing you start referencing dictionaries.

oh shut up. i was making a point. the point that i was making is that mathematical language is not the same as laymen language, and that people try to mix them and think that when some physicist talks about curved space time literrally there is some sort of mathematical object going through reality that mixes space and time. this is not the case.

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 10:11

革命者

27th January 2010, 10:38

lol that has nothing to do with logicIt does. Read Wittgenstein.

The Feral Underclass

27th January 2010, 10:39

Perhaps you don't understand logic. If there's sense, i.e. meaning, there's existence. So existence is not senseless. There would be nothing to speak of if it were, so no senseless either.

But I don't agree with your premise do I? That's precisely why I made the assertion "Our existence is totally senseless and pointless and void of reasoning." I accept that you think there is some form of sense to existence, but that doesn't make it true.

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 10:53

It does. Read Wittgenstein.

lol i think you are the one that should read him.

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 10:58

lol i think you are the one that should read him.

to support this. propositions about "human existence", in the way tat is posing them are nonsensical actually. they are part of what witt termed "ethical, religious, aesthetical, and mystical proposition", which are outside the "logical limits" of language.

The Feral Underclass

27th January 2010, 11:01

革命者

27th January 2010, 11:01

But I don't agree with your premise do I? That's precisely why I made the assertion "Our existence is totally senseless and pointless and void of reasoning." I accept that you think there is some form of sense to existence, but that doesn't make it true.I don't see how you can use any word without using it to create meaning by its 'weak' meaning, if you like; the word itself has a (potential for/partial) meaning, i.e. sense. I'd say that goes for any word. Do you disagree?

For me, existence would include everything; thus also sense itself. When you use the word senseless, you acknowledge that there is sense.

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 11:05

You don't think it's possible to understand and articulate that human existence is meaningless?

Actually I agree with you.

Propositions about human existence cannot be "true or false". Saying for example, "humanity is love" is outside the logical limits of language:

"6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem.
(Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have been unable to say what constituted that sense?)"
-wittgenstein

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 11:09

Basically, wittgenstein arrived to more or less the same conclusion 20 years before than Camus did, albeit with logical devices. Philosophical, ethical, aesthetical, propositions are nonsensical by virtue that they cannot be "true or false". They are not "analytical" propositions, like mathematics, nor are they propositions about the world, like the propositions of physics.

The Feral Underclass

27th January 2010, 11:12

I don't see how you can use any word without using it to create meaning by its 'weak' meaning, if you like; the word itself has a (potential for/partial) meaning, i.e. sense. I'd say that goes for any word. Do you disagree?

Can sense be senseless? You can climb inside that conundrum if you want, but I'm going to stick with what I know: That I am born, that I live and that I die. From the literal meaning of the word senseless, it applies to these three facts. I.e. the fact I am born, that I live and that I die, has no meaning or reason in the context of trying to understand the sense for my existence.

The point I'm making is there isn't an answer to any of those questions. If you want to chase your tail around language then that's fine, but it doesn't alter the reality that your existence and my existence and the existence of 6 billion other people is void of reasoning and meaning and by definition, senseless.

For me, existence would include everything; thus also sense itself. When you use the word senseless, you acknowledge that there is sense.

I understand what you're getting at, I'm just not convinced that it bears any relevance to the reality of human existence. The human mind can run around in circles, deconstructing language and finding these logical dilemma's. It doesn't make our existence any less senseless.

And lets be clear here. Your attempts at understanding the meaning and purpose of existence, is god...

革命者

27th January 2010, 11:13

to support this. propositions about "human existence", in the way tat is posing them are nonsensical actually. they are part of what witt termed "ethical, religious, aesthetical, and mystical proposition", which are outside the "logical limits" of language.Indeed there are no philosophical propositions. But people give meaning/sense by their words. That's what I argue, and it's in line with Wittgenstein, albeit maybe more with the later.

That about propositions is in his Tractatus. That's why I started by saying the questions about the existence were nonsensical. But every person can still give a meaning to anything; that's what I think.

black magick hustla

27th January 2010, 11:17

Indeed there are no philosophical propositions. But people give meaning/sense by their words. That's what I argue, and it's in line with Wittgenstein, albeit maybe more with the later.

That about propositions is in his Tractatus. That's why I started by saying the questions about the existence were nonsensical. But every person can still give a meaning to anything; that's what I think.

Of course people give meaning to words. This is the whole reason why philosophical propositions are nonsensical. Philosophy treats words in a vacuum, not in their social context. Questions about the "meaning of life" suffer the same problem. They are along the lines of poetry, literature, music etc. This ideas cannot be argued. The only thing we can do is demacrate on "what can we say" and what is "unspeakable". The meaning of life is "unspeakable".

The Feral Underclass

27th January 2010, 11:17

But people give meaning/sense by their words.

But that's just an illusion. I can use words and say "I am the Duke of Luxembourg", it doesn't make it true.

革命者

27th January 2010, 11:28

And lets be clear here. Your attempts at understanding the meaning and purpose of existence, is god...People tend to describe it in a sense I wrote about earlier. That people do that gives it meaning.

But I do agree that it is difficult or impossible to prove any such propositions true, and even to check the validity of logic due to the problems in defining words like these, which Wittgenstein also wrote about.

The Feral Underclass

27th January 2010, 11:30

People tend to describe it in a sense I wrote about earlier. That people do that gives it meaning.

There's a difference between meaning and the illusion of meaning.

革命者

27th January 2010, 11:35

There's a difference between meaning and the illusion of meaning.I disagree. But there is diffuse meaning, I'd say.

What is important for me is that science is unable to deny the existence of God, but that the word is still given a meaning. I think that's justified. Logic validates reasoning, it doesn't make anything true or false. But I give the word God my own meaning, just as I give my life and existence meaning.

The Feral Underclass

27th January 2010, 11:54

What is important for me is that science is unable to deny the existence of God

And faith is unable to prove it. In any case, you can't disprove the existence of something that doesn't exist.

I think that's justified. Logic validates reasoning, it doesn't make anything true or false. But I give the word God my own meaning, just as I give my life and existence meaning.

Yes, I know. We all do this to some degree or another. It doesn't mean your life has meaning though. Especially since god doesn't exist.

革命者

27th January 2010, 12:41

I can use it, thus it exists. Questioning that is nonsensical, stating it is not.

You're just not using the same language game. It's not so much about God, as it is about meaning.

I'd say if for some something has meaning, it has. But you may not use it and then in might not have meaning for you.

Hit The North

27th January 2010, 12:48

革命者

27th January 2010, 13:15

Saying that existence is meaningless makes the same mistake as arguing that it has meaning. It presupposes an objective point of view from which existence can be evaluated.

Meaning emerges, or it doesn't, out of existence itself. It isn't a judgement which can be impose upon it from the outside.I think we're able to say that people use it and can be used in a meaningful way. But imposing an inherent meaning everyone should get from it is an error indeed. So meanings "weak" meaning, but not to all. That's my point of view.

Debating this and stating things makes reasoning about it possible, and we can delimit the things we can know and makes our thinking clearer.

That's what I read in Wittgenstein, not that you should only talk about that which can be shown. But you can't question the truth or falsehood of your conclusions, you can only examine the soundness or validity of your reasoning.

That's how I interpret "wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen."

spiltteeth

28th January 2010, 13:59

No you don't. you choose cosmologists that give wild interpretations to their mathematical work. "Space and time" did not exist is one of them. Space, and time to a physicist has a different "sense" than "space and time" to a layman. To a physicist, space and time are orthogonal basis in a four dimensional vector space. You probably did not understand that last statement, because well, that is the formal and "real" definition physicists actually use.

Really? I consciously avoided Valenkin, Hurtle, Hawking (who have all admitted to being influenced by the kalam argument I'm sure you know) etc etc and concentrated on mainstream physicists.
Please give me a short list of acceptable scientists who've worked on this problem.
So in what way are their interpretations "wild?"
Also, how does giving the basic definition of time and space change the argument?
I can't see yr objection
(also i feel i've far advanced highschool physics, so the last sentence, although incredibly advanced in conception, is, at least in a dim obscure way, somewhat understandable to my struggling intellect)

black magick hustla

29th January 2010, 08:46

Really? I consciously avoided Valenkin, Hurtle, Hawking (who have all admitted to being influenced by the kalam argument I'm sure you know) etc etc and concentrated on mainstream physicists.
Please give me a short list of acceptable scientists who've worked on this problem.
So in what way are their interpretations "wild?"
Also, how does giving the basic definition of time and space change the argument?
I can't see yr objection
(also i feel i've far advanced highschool physics, so the last sentence, although incredibly advanced in conception, is, at least in a dim obscure way, somewhat understandable to my struggling intellect)

I have no problem with the "science", I have problem with the language. Basically, the sense of "space" and "time is very different in the scientific language game than in ordinary language. To pressupose that "spacetime" exists in the same way obama does is to suppose there is such thing as geodesics, metrics, and other sorts of mathematical objects spanning across the universe. That is a very difficult proposition to defend. The only way one can defend it is by a sort of induction (i.e. it works, therefore it exists), unfortunately the history of science has disproved time to time this induction.
oso
Once this demacration between both language games is understood, all philosophical problems about it are rendered senseless. (i.e. what is space, what is time, did they exist for eternity?)

spiltteeth

29th January 2010, 11:18

I have no problem with the "science", I have problem with the language. Basically, the sense of "space" and "time is very different in the scientific language game than in ordinary language. To pressupose that "spacetime" exists in the same way obama does is to suppose there is such thing as geodesics, metrics, and other sorts of mathematical objects spanning across the universe. That is a very difficult proposition to defend. The only way one can defend it is by a sort of induction (i.e. it works, therefore it exists), unfortunately the history of science has disproved time to time this induction.
oso
Once this demacration between both language games is understood, all philosophical problems about it are rendered senseless. (i.e. what is space, what is time, did they exist for eternity?)

I'm afraid I still don't understand - what is your objection? To premise one or two?
Obviously what you say is true, but I don't see the relation to anything I said or anyone I quoted or the work of anyone I quoted.
Of course I'm more than aware of physicist who do exactly what you say (Hurtles "imaginary time", Velenkins conflation of time and space etc etc etc)
If I can make things simpler for you - where, or in what way, have I or those quoted misused language; specifically where it effects the argument?
You seem to be just giving random observations - what am i missing?

Revy

29th January 2010, 23:32

Meridian

30th January 2010, 21:30

spiltteeth

31st January 2010, 13:15

Look, I'm not closed-minded to the idea of creation. It's just not a fact, it's speculation. You're assuming that it's God. It could also be that an advanced civilization cloned a version of their universe into a virtual reality environment, simulating the Big Bang and all, and that we could speculate that this reality is simply a dependent reality, a reality that exists within another reality and is dependent on the other's existence.

Again, there is no assumption, it is clear deductive logic - it could NOT be an alien race (where would they come from? how did they're universe come to be? etc it would end in the same argument, an alien race does not solve the problem at all)

From the very nature of the case, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being which created the universe. It must be uncaused because we've seen that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. It must be timeless and therefore changeless—at least without the universe—because it created time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be immaterial, not physical.

Moreover, it must also be personal. For how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe?
This cause created the entire physical universe. The cause of this event is therefore supernatural, because it brings nature into being and is not inside of nature itself.

Again, from what we actually know from science (at least until evidence or a logical deductive argument for the existence of yr alien race) :

1 Whatever begins to exist requires a cause
2 The universe began to exist
3 Therefore, the universe requires a cause

The most important thing to realize is that nothing can be sustained in a debate unless it can be phrased as a valid argument according the rules of inference. This argument can be broken down into logical propositions that use the standard laws of logical reasoning in order to force their conclusions deductively, so long as the premises are true.

This argument is valid because it allows for a modus ponens inference.

if p is true, then q is true
p is true
therefore, q is true
That means that so long as premise 1 and 2 are true, the conclusion follows necessarily.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

31st January 2010, 18:41

From the very nature of the case, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being which created the universe. It must be uncaused because we've seen that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes.

Why can't the "uncaused" entity be the universe itself? You're positing an entity of which we have no evidence (by the way, your armchair ratiocination doesn't count as evidence), yet we have ample evidence that the universe exists.

It must be timeless and therefore changeless—at least without the universe—because it created time.

We don't know if time had a beginning. The Big Bang only explains how the universe as we currently know it came to be.

Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be immaterial, not physical.

This is pure assertion on your part - what is the evidence that there is such a thing as an "immaterial being"?

Moreover, it must also be personal. For how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe?

How does that follow? We have plenty of evidence that unconscious processes can give rise to startling complexity. Your argument, while logical, is dependant on flawed premises.

This cause created the entire physical universe. The cause of this event is therefore supernatural, because it brings nature into being and is not inside of nature itself.

If it's not "inside" nature, how can it affect it?

Again, from what we actually know from science (at least until evidence or a logical deductive argument for the existence of yr alien race) :

1 Whatever begins to exist requires a cause
2 The universe began to exist

The Big Bang theory doesn't actually require the universe to have a beginning. So...

3 Therefore, the universe requires a cause

This conclusion is unwarranted.

The most important thing to realize is that nothing can be sustained in a debate unless it can be phrased as a valid argument according the rules of inference. This argument can be broken down into logical propositions that use the standard laws of logical reasoning in order to force their conclusions deductively, so long as the premises are true.

Which yours aren't, because you have no evidence. You're simply arguing from ignorance and slotting God into the gap. Just like those Creationists you accuse me of being similar to.

spiltteeth

1st February 2010, 05:03

NoXion;1662998]Why can't the "uncaused" entity be the universe itself? You're positing an entity of which we have no evidence (by the way, your armchair ratiocination doesn't count as evidence), yet we have ample evidence that the universe exists.

I'm not sure I understand - yr saying the universe caused it self? That the universe existed casually before the universe existed -and caused itself?

We don't know if time had a beginning. The Big Bang only explains how the universe as we currently know it came to be.

We do know. Both from science and simple logic.

1) From simple logic :

If the universe and never had a beginning, that means that the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But mathematicians recognize that the existence of an actually infinite number of things leads to self-contradictions. For example, what is infinity minus infinity? Well, mathematically, you get self-contradictory answers. This shows that infinity is just an idea in your mind, not something that exists in reality. David Hilbert, perhaps the greatest mathematician of the twentieth century, states,

The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.

But that entails that since past events are not just ideas, but are real, the number of past events must be finite. Therefore, the series of past events can't go back forever; rather the universe and time must have begun to exist.

according to that great atheist David Hume:

"[a]n infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man whose judgment is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it."

2) From science :

n fact, in 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that any universe which is, on average, in a state of cosmic expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. Vilenkin pulls no punches:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.

The universe began from a state of infinite density. . . . Space and time were created in that event and so was all the matter in the universe. It is not meaningful to ask what happened before the Big Bang; it is like asking what is north of the North Pole. Similarly, it is not sensible to ask where the Big Bang took place. The point-universe was not an object isolated in space; it was the entire universe, and so the answer can only be that the Big Bang happened everywhere.

P. C. W. Davies comments,

An initial cosmological singularity . . . forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. . . . On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.

The standard Big Bang model thus describes a universe which is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover,--and this deserves underscoring--the origin it posits is an absolute origin ex nihilo. For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As Barrow and Tipler emphasize,
"At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo."

This is pure assertion on your part - what is the evidence that there is such a thing as an "immaterial being"?

As I have said three times already - this is a deductive argument based on logic.
The form of the kalam argument is valid because it allows for a modus ponens inference. (Here’s a primer on logical reasoning)

if p is true, then q is true
p is true
therefore, q is true
That means that so long as premise 1 and 2 are true, the conclusion follows necessarily.

We have had a string of solid, recent scientific discoveries that point in a definite direction, as follows:

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars
So, insofar as atheists question these discoveries and the origin of the entire physical universe out of nothing, they are opposing the progress of science.

I can line up 6 scientific discoveries, based on experimental results. I am holding confirmed predictions of cosmic microwave background radiation temperatures in my left hand, and confirmed helium-hydrogen abundance predictions in my right. If you want to deny the premise, I need some reasons or some scientific data.

What have you got? Where is your evidence?

The current best theory of cosmology is the standard big bang model, which posits the origin of matter, energy, space and time OUT OF NOTHING. You need to deal with the data we have today, not imagine alternative realities where untested speculations preserve your belief in atheism from falsification by the progress of science.

The cause is could not be material. All the matter in the universe came into being at the first moment. Whatever caused the universe to begin to exist cannot have been matter, because there was no matter causally prior to the big bang.

So what could the cause be? We are only familiar with two kinds of non-material realities:

Abstract objects, like numbers, sets and mathematical relations
Minds, like your own mind
Now, abstract objects don’t cause of any effects in nature. so...

How does that follow? We have plenty of evidence that unconscious processes can give rise to startling complexity. Your argument, while logical, is dependant on flawed premises.

it must also be personal. For how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe? If the cause were a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without the effect.
For example, the cause of water's freezing is the temperature's being below 0˚ Centigrade. If the temperature were below 0˚ from eternity past, then any water that was around would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for the water to begin to freeze just a finite time ago.
So if the cause is permanently present, then the effect should be permanently present as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and the effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any prior determining conditions. For example, a man sitting from eternity could freely will to stand up. Thus, we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator.

Or - if you want it broken down :

1. The first cause is either personal or mechanical.

2. The first cause is not mechanical.

3. Therefore, the first cause is personal.

We can affirm the truth of (2) based on the fact that the first cause is eternal, yet it gave rise to a temporal event (i.e. the beginning of the universe).
The reason for thinking that the first cause is personal is because a first cause requires a will, since an unthinking mechanical cause requires antecedent causal influences to occur. But this cannot be, for we know that the first cause is the first productive cause in the causal nexus. Only something that controls its own actions can be the first cause; the sufficient reasons for its actions are found within itself. This, of course, occurs all the time when free-willed agents choose a particular course of action, such as my deciding to go for a walk, for example.

If it's not "inside" nature, how can it affect it?

That's a good question. I've read 2 books by respected physicist that purport to give an answer, however, to be intellectually honest neither convinced me, so in my opinion we really don't know. This doesn't effect the argument. We don't know exactly how evolution gave rise to many things, but that doesn't mean we ought to abandon it.

The Big Bang theory doesn't actually require the universe to have a beginning. So...

Yes - it does. And logic also dictates this necessity.

This conclusion is unwarranted.

Which yours aren't, because you have no evidence. You're simply arguing from ignorance and slotting God into the gap. Just like those Creationists you accuse me of being similar to.

Refer to the above statements.

black magick hustla

1st February 2010, 06:25

I'm afraid I still don't understand - what is your objection? To premise one or two?
Obviously what you say is true, but I don't see the relation to anything I said or anyone I quoted or the work of anyone I quoted.
Of course I'm more than aware of physicist who do exactly what you say (Hurtles "imaginary time", Velenkins conflation of time and space etc etc etc)
If I can make things simpler for you - where, or in what way, have I or those quoted misused language; specifically where it effects the argument?
You seem to be just giving random observations - what am i missing?

You said that before the big bang "space" and "time" did not exist. That statement is absolutely senseless unless you know what a physicist means by space and time. I.e. {e1,e2,e3,e4}

black magick hustla

1st February 2010, 06:43

If the universe and never had a beginning, that means that the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But mathematicians recognize that the existence of an actually infinite number of things leads to self-contradictions. For example, what is infinity minus infinity? Well, mathematically, you get self-contradictory answers.
Mathematics are mathematics. It does not say anything about the world. It is merely a tool. It is like saying that because computers have circuits then the universe has circuits (we can model the universe with computers)

But that entails that since past events are not just ideas, but are real, the number of past events must be finite. Therefore, the series of past events can't go back forever; rather the universe and time must have begun to exist.

It entails nothing. We simply do not know what happened before the Big Bang, nor we are sure the Big Bang is actually real. It is just a theory that gives surprisingly accurate results. For somoene who claims to be an anti-realist you are using really bad realist arguments.

n fact, in 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that any universe which is, on average, in a state of cosmic expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. Vilenkin pulls no punches:

We don't know.

The standard Big Bang model thus describes a universe which is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover,--and this deserves underscoring--the origin it posits is an absolute origin ex nihilo. For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As Barrow and Tipler emphasize,

Scientists confusing mathematical language, which makes use of metaphors, with ordinary language. Nothing new here, just scientific pseudo philosophers.

As I have said three times already - this is a deductive argument based on logic.
The form of the kalam argument is valid because it allows for a modus ponens inference. (Here’s a primer on logical reasoning)

if p is true, then q is true
p is true
therefore, q is true
That means that so long as premise 1 and 2 are true, the conclusion follows necessarily.

Too bad all your premises are flawed.

We have had a string of solid, recent scientific discoveries that point in a definite direction, as follows:

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars
So, insofar as atheists question these discoveries and the origin of the entire physical universe out of nothing, they are opposing the progress of science.

So were Ptolemaic Cycles, newtonian physics, and to a certain extent, aristotlean physics. The only thing this says is that the model is useful for particular things.

I can line up 6 scientific discoveries, based on experimental results. I am holding confirmed predictions of cosmic microwave background radiation temperatures in my left hand, and confirmed helium-hydrogen abundance predictions in my right. If you want to deny the premise, I need some reasons or some scientific data.

Nothing questions the accuracy of the predictions. This only means that the model is useful.

The current best theory of cosmology is the standard big bang model, which posits the origin of matter, energy, space and time OUT OF NOTHING. You need to deal with the data we have today, not imagine alternative realities where untested speculations preserve your belief in atheism from falsification by the progress of science.

The only thing you have by you is some bad logic and some sketchy premises based on confusion of language. By the way, only GR accepts the idea of singularity. scientists think there might have been some crazy quantum effects.

The rest of your post is kindof silly. Remember that logic says nothing about the world, it is just an accumulation of rules we use for communication.

Rosa Lichtenstein

1st February 2010, 08:28

Burn (welcome back, by the way!):

So, why is there anything at all? Why is there existence instead of nothing? Can we get any kind of grip on this question?

Why do you suppose this question makes any sense? Any more than, say, "Who performed the marriage ceremony between the King and Queen in chess?"

The best book on this, which shows how senseless a question this is, is:

Rundle, B. (2004), Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? (Oxford University Press).

spiltteeth

1st February 2010, 09:01

dada;1663437]Mathematics are mathematics. It does not say anything about the world. It is merely a tool. It is like saying that because computers have circuits then the universe has circuits (we can model the universe with computers)

Thats exactly what I'm saying - just because infinity exists as a mathamatical concept does not mean it is reality descriptive.
However, it seems yr saying ALL math is not reality descriptive - so if I say there are two ducks, this does not tell us anything about how many ducks there are, I cannot abide with that.

It entails nothing. We simply do not know what happened before the Big Bang, nor we are sure the Big Bang is actually real. It is just a theory that gives surprisingly accurate results. For somoene who claims to be an anti-realist you are using really bad realist arguments.

Actually, I'm a realist. Evolution is just a theory too, we're not sure its "real."
The concept of "before the big bang" is rendered meaningless as the bigbang
entailed the beginning of time.

We don't know.

Kindly point out the errors in Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin's work in this specific regard. I know yr a physics student and I am well versed in their work.

Scientists confusing mathematical language, which makes use of metaphors, with ordinary language. Nothing new here, just scientific pseudo philosophers.

Please point this out, or at least give a list of scientists whose conceptualizations of their work you agree is reality descriptive.
Basically yr saying we can never say what math means, what it actually describes - correct?

Too bad all your premises are flawed.

Another statement. You seem, again, to be giving random statements and observations, I'll remind you, yet again, for clarity's sake, There are usually three basic reasons for rejecting a premise: (a) it is demonstrably false, (b) it lacks sufficient evidence or (c) it has at least one counterexample. If you wishe to dispute (1) then you must categorize the causal principle into one of the three classifications I have stated.
For many, the premise is grasped intuitively. Thus, David Hume's famous remark that he
"never asserted so absurd a Proposition as that anything might arise without cause."

So were Ptolemaic Cycles, newtonian physics, and to a certain extent, aristotlean physics. The only thing this says is that the model is useful for particular things.

Useful for....?> "Things" would one of these things be describing reality?...

Nothing questions the accuracy of the predictions. This only means that the model is useful.

Again, useful for.....?

The only thing you have by you is some bad logic and some sketchy premises based on confusion of language. By the way, only GR accepts the idea of singularity. scientists think there might have been some crazy quantum effects.

The rest of your post is kindof silly. Remember that logic says nothing about the world, it is just an accumulation of rules we use for communication.

More statements - please point out where the logic is faulty, which premisses are faulty and why, what "crazy quantum effects" you are referring too.

If logic says nothing about the world, (although I imagine you betray this statement every time you choose to walk through a door instead of a wall) what is yr criteria of truth?

It sounds like you are saying science can never say anything about reality. This argument, which has been a major impetus for most major physicists in the past 40 yrs or so, is for people who think science CAN actually say something about the world we live in.

spiltteeth

1st February 2010, 09:24

You said that before the big bang "space" and "time" did not exist. That statement is absolutely senseless unless you know what a physicist means by space and time. I.e. {e1,e2,e3,e4}

Really, what I should have said, and do in other parts, is that there is no "before" the bigbang.

No me but this is what several physicists say, all of whom do not interpret the data "correctly" according to you; I am very aware that many physics use silly notions of "nothingness" etc etc however I must yet a third time ask you where they have used language incorrectly and why you think this :

On such a model the universe originates ex nihilo in the sense that at the initial singularity it is true that There is no earlier space-time point or it is false that Something existed prior to the singularity.

Anthony Kenny of Oxford University. He writes, "A proponent of the Big Bang theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing."

Which as YOU point out - does not make sense.

As I say, begins to exist means "has a first time of its existence."

The standard Big Bang model does not describe the expansion of the material content of the universe into a pre-existing, empty space, but rather the expansion of space itself. As one extrapolates back in time, space-time curvature becomes progressively greater until one arrives at a singularity, at which space-time curvature becomes infinite. It therefore constitutes an edge or boundary to space-time itself.

Most naturalist mathamatical philosophers I know analyzing the concept of necessary existence agree that the essential properties of any necessarily existing entity include its being eternal, uncaused, incorruptible, and indestructible--for otherwise it would be capable of non-existence, which is self-contradictory. Thus, if the universe began to exist, its lacks at least one of the essential properties of necessary existence-eternality. Therefore, the reason for its existence cannot be immanent, but must in some mysterious way be ultra-mundane, or transcendent

Hawking notes
almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang."

Philosopher of science Bernulf Kanitscheider,

"If taken seriously, the initial singularity is in head-on collision with the most successful ontological commitment that was a guiding line of research since Epicurus and Lucretius," {namely, out of nothing nothing comes, which Kanitscheider calls} "a metaphysical hypothesis which has proved so fruitful in every corner of science that we are surely well-advised to try as hard as we can to eschew processes of absolute origin."

Basically, I agree with what you say, that psysists interpret data nonsensically, but this is why if the universe began to exist, we are therefore driven to the second alternative: a supernatural agency beyond space and time.
Otherwise that math remains, as you say, nonsensical.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

1st February 2010, 21:14

I'm not sure I understand - yr saying the universe caused it self? That the universe existed casually before the universe existed -and caused itself?

No, I am saying that there is no requirement for the universe to have a cause in the first place.

We do know. Both from science and simple logic.

1) From simple logic :

If the universe and never had a beginning, that means that the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite.

Not necessarily. If if the universe is finite and space and time, and the universe is all that exists, then the universe is finite and had no cause - it just is.

But mathematicians recognize that the existence of an actually infinite number of things leads to self-contradictions. For example, what is infinity minus infinity? Well, mathematically, you get self-contradictory answers. This shows that infinity is just an idea in your mind, not something that exists in reality.

Infinity isn't truly paradoxical, it's just counter-intuitive, which is not the same thing. Take Hilbert's Hotel - it can take infinitely many new guests despite being full already (if you know what to do), which is counter-intuitive. But it "works" and is self-consistent.

Is the universe like that? Not at first glance, but there's no reason why it couldn't be upon deeper investigation. But that's the whole point - we have to actually conduct experiments and observations and find out, rather than sit about spouting logic which confirms our own prejudices.

David Hilbert, perhaps the greatest mathematician of the twentieth century, states,

But that entails that since past events are not just ideas, but are real, the number of past events must be finite. Therefore, the series of past events can't go back forever; rather the universe and time must have begun to exist.

according to that great atheist David Hume:

Did either of them actually try looking? Thought not.

2) From science :

n fact, in 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that any universe which is, on average, in a state of cosmic expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. Vilenkin pulls no punches:

Current theory states that the universe began as a singularity of infinite density. If you accept that, why do you have a problem with infinite time but not with infinite density? Infinities in general make physicists uneasy - it is shows that their theories have gone wrong somewhere. At the very least, the infinity of the singularity is a strong indicator of the Big Bang's incompleteness as a theory.

P. C. W. Davies comments,

The standard Big Bang model thus describes a universe which is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover,--and this deserves underscoring--the origin it posits is an absolute origin ex nihilo.

As do you, only you bodge an extra layer in - God - and declare him exempt from the same problem by fiat.

For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As Barrow and Tipler emphasize,

Yes, and? How that any less ridiculous than your idea of a cosmic creator god that exists outside of space and time and furthermore, never shows any evidence of his existence? The cosmic singularity is far more parsimonious, as well as in keeping with the evidence so far accrued.

As I have said three times already - this is a deductive argument based on logic.

Which just so happens to confirm your prejudices while ignoring the vast reams of evidence that show the Universe as the consequence of blind and pitilessly indifferent natural forces. How convenient. Logic is not good enough, evidence is needed.

The form of the kalam argument is valid because it allows for a modus ponens inference. (Here’s a primer on logical reasoning)

if p is true, then q is true
p is true
therefore, q is true

That means that so long as premise 1 and 2 are true, the conclusion follows necessarily.

We have had a string of solid, recent scientific discoveries that point in a definite direction, as follows:

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars
So, insofar as atheists question these discoveries and the origin of the entire physical universe out of nothing, they are opposing the progress of science.

I can line up 6 scientific discoveries, based on experimental results. I am holding confirmed predictions of cosmic microwave background radiation temperatures in my left hand, and confirmed helium-hydrogen abundance predictions in my right. If you want to deny the premise, I need some reasons or some scientific data.

What have you got? Where is your evidence?

I am not denying the scientific discoveries you've reeled off, I'm pointing out that the conclusion you draw from them - that the universe was created by a personal creator who just so happens to be as immaterial as fart in a hurricance is an unwarranted leap of logic with no supporting evidence. There is plenty of evidence for the Big Bang, but we don't have the whole story and furthermore your personal creator god is invalidated by evidence that intelligence arises a considerable time after the event in question.

The current best theory of cosmology is the standard big bang model, which posits the origin of matter, energy, space and time OUT OF NOTHING. You need to deal with the data we have today, not imagine alternative realities where untested speculations preserve your belief in atheism from falsification by the progress of science.

This is incredibly rich coming from you. The data says Big Bang (and nothing further so far), but that's not enough for you - you then go on to posit, using logical chicanery but no evidence, an immaterial personal creator being that exists outside of spacetime which just so happens to have similar characteristics to the Christian God.

Pardon me for being skeptical.

The cause is could not be material. All the matter in the universe came into being at the first moment. Whatever caused the universe to begin to exist cannot have been matter, because there was no matter causally prior to the big bang.

What cause? If things must be in spacetime to exist, then to talk of "causes" outside of spacetime is nonsense.

So what could the cause be? We are only familiar with two kinds of non-material realities:

Abstract objects, like numbers, sets and mathematical relations
Minds, like your own mind
Now, abstract objects don’t cause of any effects in nature. so...

Minds are a emergent property of specifically ordered arrangements of matter and energy - if that arrangement is changed or disrupted, the mind changes (brain damage) or ceases to exist (gunshot to the head). Despite strenuous searches, evidence for minds without matter has not been found.

If there is no matter or energy, whence come minds?

it must also be personal. For how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe?

Personal or otherwise, a "timeless cause" is a contradiction in terms. Causes require causality, and with no time there is no causality, and hence there would be no causes.

If the cause were a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without the effect.
For example, the cause of water's freezing is the temperature's being below 0˚ Centigrade. If the temperature were below 0˚ from eternity past, then any water that was around would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for the water to begin to freeze just a finite time ago.

It's a good thing water came into being a good time after the Big Bang then, isn't it?

So if the cause is permanently present, then the effect should be permanently present as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and the effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any prior determining conditions. For example, a man sitting from eternity could freely will to stand up. Thus, we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator.

Apart from the contradictory nature of a timeless cause and the lack of any material for minds to arise out of, this argument also presumes the existence of free will.

Or - if you want it broken down :

1. The first cause is either personal or mechanical.

2. The first cause is not mechanical.

3. Therefore, the first cause is personal.

We can affirm the truth of (2) based on the fact that the first cause is eternal, yet it gave rise to a temporal event (i.e. the beginning of the universe).
The reason for thinking that the first cause is personal is because a first cause requires a will, since an unthinking mechanical cause requires antecedent causal influences to occur. But this cannot be, for we know that the first cause is the first productive cause in the causal nexus. Only something that controls its own actions can be the first cause; the sufficient reasons for its actions are found within itself. This, of course, occurs all the time when free-willed agents choose a particular course of action, such as my deciding to go for a walk, for example.

Again, there is no reason for a cause in the first place. There was no event, therefore no cause is necessary.

That's a good question. I've read 2 books by respected physicist that purport to give an answer, however, to be intellectually honest neither convinced me, so in my opinion we really don't know. This doesn't effect the argument. We don't know exactly how evolution gave rise to many things, but that doesn't mean we ought to abandon it.

The difference is though, is that we have no evidence for immaterial entities that exist outside time and space (in fact it's meaningless to speak of things existing "outside" spacetime, since all things that exist have a location in spacetime), whereas we have plenty of evidence for evolution even if we don't fully understand it. Therefore the balance of evidence suggests that however the universe as we currently understand it came into existence, it was through unconscious processes.

Yes - it does. And logic also dictates this necessity.

No it doesn't. If it did, we'd have a unified theory of some sort already. And your logic is based on faulty and self-serving premises, whether you consciously realise this or not.

I mean really - the entire universe, all its billions of light years in size and billions of years of detectable history, the countless stars and galaxies, all of that exists for our benefit? I've heard atheists being accused of arrogance, but believing that the universe was created especially for us by a human-like superintelligence really takes the cake in terms of sheer fucking hubris! :ohmy:

Rosa Lichtenstein

1st February 2010, 21:25

Can a mod move all this religious stuff to Religion, please?

spiltteeth

2nd February 2010, 03:27

No, I am saying that there is no requirement for the universe to have a cause in the first place.

So you are contradicting all the data of the last 50 yrs? You are saying the universe did not begin to exist? Please provide the evidence or argument.

Not necessarily. If if the universe is finite and space and time, and the universe is all that exists, then the universe is finite and had no cause - it just is.

I'm afraid I don't follow this at all, if it had no cause, then it could not be finite. You've totally lost me.

Infinity isn't truly paradoxical, it's just counter-intuitive, which is not the same thing. Take Hilbert's Hotel - it can take infinitely many new guests despite being full already (if you know what to do), which is counter-intuitive. But it "works" and is self-consistent.

Is the universe like that? Not at first glance, but there's no reason why it couldn't be upon deeper investigation. But that's the whole point - we have to actually conduct experiments and observations and find out, rather than sit about spouting logic which confirms our own prejudices.

Yes, it works, but as Hilbert points out, it cannot exist in reality, as I say and have shown. There are many, many reasons why the universe must be finite, I can expand.

Are you denying the universe began to exist?

There numerous reasons the universe couldn't be "like that" - mathematical, scientific and logical. I've addressed all 3 - are you denting the universe had a beginning?

Did either of them actually try looking? Thought not.

Did david Hilbert look for infinity? What, with a telescope? I have not the slightest idea of what this is supposed to mean or the point this is trying to make.

Current theory states that the universe began as a singularity of infinite density. If you accept that, why do you have a problem with infinite time but not with infinite density? Infinities in general make physicists uneasy - it is shows that their theories have gone wrong somewhere. At the very least, the infinity of the singularity is a strong indicator of the Big Bang's incompleteness as a theory.

Right, technically it at near infinite, not infinite.

As do you, only you bodge an extra layer in - God - and declare him exempt from the same problem by fiat.

By "fiat" are you referring to natural laws of science? Thermodynamics?

Yes, and? How that any less ridiculous than your idea of a cosmic creator god that exists outside of space and time and furthermore, never shows any evidence of his existence? The cosmic singularity is far more parsimonious, as well as in keeping with the evidence so far accrued.

I'm certainly not denying the singularity, so I don't understand yr point. Creation ex nihlo is less logical. I try to avoid words like 'ridiculous' and emotional language when it comes to math.

Which just so happens to confirm your prejudices while ignoring the vast reams of evidence that show the Universe as the consequence of blind and pitilessly indifferent natural forces. How convenient. Logic is not good enough, evidence is needed.

Oh. A statement. Actually I think the evidence shows the exact opposite, but I'll bite - present this evidence.
Or shall we wait until the science confirms your prejudice and only then draw our conclusions?

I am not denying the scientific discoveries you've reeled off, I'm pointing out that the conclusion you draw from them - that the universe was created by a personal creator who just so happens to be as immaterial as fart in a hurricance is an unwarranted leap of logic with no supporting evidence. There is plenty of evidence for the Big Bang, but we don't have the whole story and furthermore your personal creator god is invalidated by evidence that intelligence arises a considerable time after the event in question.

I don't see how you've pointed this out. Please tell me how the logic is unwarrented. Also, how does life arising billions of years after the beginning of the universe invalidate the argument?
How does the evidence I've provided NOT support the conclusion?
You seem to be making random statements - I must have a reason to think they might be true.

This is incredibly rich coming from you. The data says Big Bang (and nothing further so far), but that's not enough for you - you then go on to posit, using logical chicanery but no evidence, an immaterial personal creator being that exists outside of spacetime which just so happens to have similar characteristics to the Christian God.

Pardon me for being skeptical.

The logic is basic. Where the chicanary? No evidence! Honestly, I've given plenty :

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars

What cause? If things must be in spacetime to exist, then to talk of "causes" outside of spacetime is nonsense.

For a third time, everything that BEGINS to exist etc....

Minds are a emergent property of specifically ordered arrangements of matter and energy - if that arrangement is changed or disrupted, the mind changes (brain damage) or ceases to exist (gunshot to the head). Despite strenuous searches, evidence for minds without matter has not been found.

If there is no matter or energy, whence come minds?

I don't agree with your idea of minds at all. In fact, I'd argue both neuroscience (read the great David Chalmers) and logic dictate minds must be immaterial.

Regardless, we are only familiar with two kinds of non-material realities:

1) Abstract objects, like numbers, sets and mathematical relations
2) Minds, like your own mind

Now, abstract objects don’t cause of any effects in nature. But we are very familiar with the causal capabilities of our own minds – just raise your own arm and see! So, by process of elimination, we are left with a mind as the cause of the universe. As Sherlock Holmes says, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.“

This doesn't mean we must explain the etiology of mind though.

Although, I can expand on 3 fronts of why I think the mind must be imaterial if you wish, for now I'll simply quote Dr Goetz.

It is well known that those who identify the mind with the brain typically deny that any of us freely (indeterministically) make choices for purposes. Materialists are typically determinists who insist that the only legitimate kind of explanation is a non-teleological explanation. Causal explanations are the most well-known and frequently used kind of non-teleological explanations. Those who exclude the possibility of teleological explanations are often called ‘naturalists.’

I believe it is important to note that some of the world’s foremost neuroscientists have believed that the mind is immaterial. These neuroscientists have been well aware that stimulating the brain can produce some intriguing psychological results. One of the pioneers in the field of neuroscience was Wilder Penfield. In his fascinating book The Mystery of the Mind, he writes the following:

When I have caused a conscious patient to move his hand by applying an electrode to the motor cortex of one hemisphere, I have often asked him about it. Invariably his response was: ‘I didn’t do that. You did.’ When I caused him to vocalize, he said: ‘I didn’t make that sound. You pulled it out of me.’ When I caused the record of the stream of consciousness to run again and so presented to him the record of his past experience, he marveled that he should be conscious of the past as well as of the present. He was astonished that it should come back to him so completely, with more detail than he could possibly recall voluntarily. He assumed at once that, somehow, the surgeon was responsible for the phenomenon, but he recognized the details as those of his own past experience. (76)

Penfield goes on to note that “There is no place in the cerebral cortex where electrical stimulation will cause a patient . . . to decide” (77). This is consistent with my point that choices are undetermined events with a teleological explanation. In light of his work as a neuroscientist, Penfield concludes the following: “For my own part, after years of striving to explain the mind on the basis of brain-action alone, I have come to the conclusion that it is simpler (and far easier and logical) if one adopts the hypothesis that our being does consist of two fundamental elements” (80).

Another famous neuroscientist who believed that the mind is immaterial was Sir John C. Eccles. He and the widely respected philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper wrote a book entitled The Self and Its Brain in which they argued that the human mind is best understood along interactionist dualist lines (the mind and brain are separate entities that causally interact). After reading The Mystery of the Mind and The Self and Its Brain and many similar books and puzzling over questions about the mind-brain relationship, I have come to the conclusion that neuroscience provides no evidence whatsoever that the mind is identical with its brain. I am convinced that those who believe that it does provide such evidence bring their naturalist convictions to the evidence. In other words, they are already naturalists (materialists) before they do their neuroscience.

Fourth, we might ask why neuroscientists like Penfield and Eccles believed in the immateriality of the mind, even though they were well aware of the causal dependency of many psychological events on brain events. I believe that part of the answer is that they did not confuse the concept of the correlation of two events with the concept of the identity of two events. It simply does not follow from the fact that two events are correlated that they are identical. For example, when one learns that a high score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is correlated with entrance to a good college one does not identify scoring well on the exam with entrance to college. Similarly, when one discovers that eating a certain food is correlated with an upset stomach one does not identify eating that food with having an upset stomach. Then there is the fact that movements of bodily limbs like arms and legs are correlated with events in the motor cortex of the brain. No one believes, however, that movements of arms and legs are identical with their causal antecedents in the brain. Upon reflection, it is just as obvious that there is no good reason to believe that psychological events are identical with brain events simply because the two are correlated.

Personal or otherwise, a "timeless cause" is a contradiction in terms. Causes require causality, and with no time there is no causality, and hence there would be no causes.

Indeed, the cause would have to be cotemperaneous with the universe coming into existence the universe.

It's a good thing water came into being a good time after the Big Bang then, isn't it?

yessss....not sure what yr point is...

Apart from the contradictory nature of a timeless cause and the lack of any material for minds to arise out of, this argument also presumes the existence of free will.

Yes, although I see no contradiction, please point it out.

Again, there is no reason for a cause in the first place. There was no event, therefore no cause is necessary.

The reason for a cause is that the universe began to exist. Are you denying this? You are denying the bigbang correct? Well, again, I need reasons or evidence. At least an argument.

The difference is though, is that we have no evidence for immaterial entities that exist outside time and space (in fact it's meaningless to speak of things existing "outside" spacetime, since all things that exist have a location in spacetime), whereas we have plenty of evidence for evolution even if we don't fully understand it. Therefore the balance of evidence suggests that however the universe as we currently understand it came into existence, it was through unconscious processes.

But it could not have, to put it a third way :

1. The first cause is either personal or mechanical.

2. The first cause is not mechanical.

3. Therefore, the first cause is personal.

We can affirm the truth of (2) based on the fact that the first cause is eternal, yet it gave rise to a temporal event (i.e. the beginning of the universe). The reason for thinking that the first cause is personal is because a first cause requires a will, since an unthinking mechanical cause requires antecedent causal influences to occur. But this cannot be, for we know that the first cause is the first productive cause in the causal nexus. Only something that controls its own actions can be the first cause; the sufficient reasons for its actions are found within itself. This, of course, occurs all the time when free-willed agents choose a particular course of action, such as my deciding to go for a walk, for example.

The argument can be pressed further. If the first cause simply consisted of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that existed from eternity, then the effect would also have existed from eternity (i.e. the universe should have been eternal). For example, if the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of fire are present, then the effect--a flame--arises immediately. There is no delay from cause to effect. Thus, if the necessary and sufficient (causal) conditions for fire are present from eternity, then a flame would also exist (as an effect) from eternity. What this analysis reveals is that the origin of our temporal universe (which began a finite time ago) could not have resulted from a mechanistic state of affairs that existed from eternity.

No it doesn't. If it did, we'd have a unified theory of some sort already. And your logic is based on faulty and self-serving premises, whether you consciously realise this or not.

All interesting observations, however you must point out how the logic is faulty.
Yet a fourth time :
There are usually three basic reasons for rejecting a premise: (a) it is demonstrably false, (b) it lacks sufficient evidence or (c) it has at least one counterexample. If you wish to dispute (1) then he must categorize the causal principle into one of the three classifications I have stated.

I mean really - the entire universe, all its billions of light years in size and billions of years of detectable history, the countless stars and galaxies, all of that exists for our benefit? I've heard atheists being accused of arrogance, but believing that the universe was created especially for us by a human-like superintelligence really takes the cake in terms of sheer fucking hubris! :ohmy:

This is not part of the argument at all and appears neither in premise 1 nor 2.
Again, I don't know what yr point is.

Meridian

3rd February 2010, 11:36

Mathematics are mathematics. It does not say anything about the world. It is merely a tool. It is like saying that because computers have circuits then the universe has circuits (we can model the universe with computers)Unfortunately I run into this type of delusional statement all the time. It is completely wrong.

Mathematics is not "merely a tool". Mathematics displays all logical possibilities of organisation. As such, it is extremely useful as a tool. But, it does also "say something about the universe" by delimiting what is possible! Nothing physical can break the laws of geometry. Nothing of components can break the laws of organisation, it would be absurd. To compare mathematics with computer circuits is also just that, absurd.

Rosa Lichtenstein

3rd February 2010, 16:41

Meridian:

Mathematics is not "merely a tool". Mathematics displays all logical possibilities of organisation. As such, it is extremely useful as a tool. But, it does also "say something about the universe" by delimiting what is possible! Nothing physical can break the laws of geometry. Nothing of components can break the laws of organisation, it would be absurd. To compare mathematics with computer circuits is also just that, absurd.

Well, given the fact that no mathematical objects exist in the material universe, I am not sure what it can say about 'reality'.

But you say:

As such, it is extremely useful as a tool. But, it does also "say something about the universe" by delimiting what is possible! Nothing physical can break the laws of geometry.

Which 'laws' are these? And how come brute matter is able to obey such 'laws'? Is every atom in the universe intelligent?

And how does mathematics delimit the possible? In what way does it do this? By threats, rewards, advice..., hand-cuffs...?

Meridian

3rd February 2010, 17:17

Well, given the fact that no mathematical objects exist in the material universe, I am not sure what it can say about 'reality'.
That we can speak about objects at all tells us that we, at least, understand physical reality as fundamentally organised. That it is not entirely chaotic. As stated, mathematics can be considered the demarcation of this, and within it, all possible organisation. This is what gives us our ability to use mathematics as a tool in the first place.

Obviously mathematical objects do not exist by themselves (other than occasionally, as symbols we use to represent them). I do not think anyone, ever, have seriously believed that... except maybe Plato.

Which 'laws' are these? And how come brute matter is able to obey such 'laws'? Is every atom in the universe intelligent?
You should know I am not talking about "laws" as in "judicial laws", but "laws" the way scientists sometimes use the word. By the "laws of geometry" I simply mean what falls under what we call geometry. Something physical breaking the "laws of geometry" could not be physical, that would be a contradiction.
"We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry."
- Wittgenstein

And how does mathematics delimit the possible? In what way does it do this? By threats, rewards, advice..., hand-cuffs...?
That question is impossible for me to answer, anything stepping beyond the boundaries of possible organisation is a contradiction.

Rosa Lichtenstein

3rd February 2010, 17:51

Meridian:

That we can speak about objects at all tells us that we, at least, understand physical reality as fundamentally organised. That it is not entirely chaotic. As stated, mathematics can be considered the demarcation of this, and within it, all possible organisation. This is what gives us our ability to use mathematics as a tool in the first place.

Sure, but what has the fact that the world seems to possess some form of organisation (even if we seem to change our minds every 50 years or so what that organisation is) got to with mathematics?

Obviously mathematical objects do not exist by themselves (other than occasionally, as symbols we use to represent them). I do not think anyone, ever, have seriously believed that... except maybe Plato.

Not only do they not exist, they cannot exist.

You should know I am not talking about "laws" as in "judicial laws", but "laws" the way scientists sometimes use the word. By the "laws of geometry" I simply mean what falls under what we call geometry. Something physical breaking the "laws of geometry" could not be physical, that would be a contradiction.

But, then what are these 'laws'? They seem to me to be the ways we have of trying to make sense of the world (so the word "law" is inapt -- Wittgenstein called them "forms of representation"), but why does anything have to do what they say -- unless, once more, we think brute matter is intelligent?

"We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry."
- Wittgenstein

Well, as we know, Wittgenstein abandoned this dogmatic view of things. [He later came to see such things as "forms of representation" (as I pointed out above), not laws of reality (if I might use that phrase).]

That question is impossible for me to answer, anything stepping beyond the boundaries of possible organisation is a contradiction.

Well, in that case, what sense can be made of what you said?

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

3rd February 2010, 20:46

So you are contradicting all the data of the last 50 yrs? You are saying the universe did not begin to exist? Please provide the evidence or argument.

The data says nothing about whether the universe "began to exist"

Or do you forget that the Big Bang is not a "complete" theory of the origin of the universe, but only a description of how the universe came to be in it's current arrangement?

I'm afraid I don't follow this at all, if it had no cause, then it could not be finite.

Sez who? Quantum events can be acausal and yet be of finite duration - virtual particles are an example.

Yes, it works, but as Hilbert points out, it cannot exist in reality, as I say and have shown.

You've shown no such thing.

There are many, many reasons why the universe must be finite, I can expand.

No need to repeat yourself.

Are you denying the universe began to exist?

There numerous reasons the universe couldn't be "like that" - mathematical, scientific and logical. I've addressed all 3 - are you denting the universe had a beginning?

I'm saying I don't know and you don't either.

Did david Hilbert look for infinity? What, with a telescope? I have not the slightest idea of what this is supposed to mean or the point this is trying to make.

A telescope a merely one tool of observation. Doubtless other tools could be used to determine whether the universe is finite or infinite.

Right, technically it at near infinite, not infinite.

Other interpretations of the Big Bang, such as the Ekpyrotic universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekpyrotic_universe) (a Cyclic model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model) of the universe) have the "initial" conditions as being large but finite - but the "Standard Model" of the Big Bang has a singularity of infinite temperature and density.

By "fiat" are you referring to natural laws of science? Thermodynamics?

No, I'm referring to your self-serving logic.

I'm certainly not denying the singularity, so I don't understand yr point.

So why is infinite temperature and density any less absurd than infinite time?

Creation ex nihlo is less logical.

Sure, if you're a believer in a "god of the gaps". The provenance of the universe being the ultimate "gap"

Oh. A statement. Actually I think the evidence shows the exact opposite, but I'll bite - present this evidence.

Evolution, for a start. Any being deliberately creating a universe in which such a process can occur has to be either shatteringly cruel (perhaps watching lions chasing down and eating antelopes is just a small part of a cosmic snuff movie?), supremely callous (aware of us, but as unfeeling as a human scientist would be to a sample of E.Coli), or completely unaware of us (we're a biological contamination in a physics experiment and currently far too small to notice).

Notwithstanding the lack of evidence for any of these options, none of them are conducive to worshiping the creative being in question.

Or shall we wait until the science confirms your prejudice and only then draw our conclusions?

Where's your evidence for your god?

I don't see how you've pointed this out. Please tell me how the logic is unwarrented.

Because there's no evidence that the universe was created by a superhuman intelligence. There's only evidence of something which we call the Big Bang, which while certainly a beginning, isn't necessarily the beginning, if such a thing happened.

Also, how does life arising billions of years after the beginning of the universe invalidate the argument?

Because intelligence and personality are consequences of life.

How does the evidence I've provided NOT support the conclusion?

Because it's evidence for the Big Bang, not your lovable cosmic creator daddy.

The logic is basic. Where the chicanary? No evidence! Honestly, I've given plenty :

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars

None of which proves the existence of intelligence outside life or spacetime.

For a third time, everything that BEGINS to exist etc....

Yeah, and there's no evidence that the universe "began" to exist

I don't agree with your idea of minds at all. In fact, I'd argue both neuroscience (read the great David Chalmers) and logic dictate minds must be immaterial.

A philosopher's interpretation of neuroscience and your logic. Colour me unimpressed.

Regardless, we are only familiar with two kinds of non-material realities:

1) Abstract objects, like numbers, sets and mathematical relations
2) Minds, like your own mind

Now, abstract objects don’t cause of any effects in nature. But we are very familiar with the causal capabilities of our own minds – just raise your own arm and see! So, by process of elimination, we are left with a mind as the cause of the universe. As Sherlock Holmes says, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.“

This doesn't mean we must explain the etiology of mind though.

Although, I can expand on 3 fronts of why I think the mind must be imaterial if you wish, for now I'll simply quote Dr Goetz.

Parsimony dictates that mind is inseperable from brains. Since you like to trumpet how logical you are, I'm surprised you find that simple principle so hard to grasp.

Indeed, the cause would have to be cotemperaneous with the universe coming into existence the universe.

If a superhuman intelligence that (somehow) manages to exist without a physical body can suddenly poof into exist, why is it any more absurd for the universe to do the same?

yessss....not sure what yr point is...

It means your analogy is flawed.

Yes, although I see no contradiction, please point it out.

Causes need time to happen in. That's what we observe, therefore the burden of evidence is on you to demonstrate otherwise.

The reason for a cause is that the universe began to exist. Are you denying this? You are denying the bigbang correct? Well, again, I need reasons or evidence. At least an argument.

Evidence for the Big Bang is not evidence for the beginning of the universe.

But it could not have, to put it a third way :

1. The first cause is either personal or mechanical.

2. The first cause is not mechanical.

3. Therefore, the first cause is personal.

We can affirm the truth of (2) based on the fact that the first cause is eternal, yet it gave rise to a temporal event (i.e. the beginning of the universe). The reason for thinking that the first cause is personal is because a first cause requires a will, since an unthinking mechanical cause requires antecedent causal influences to occur. But this cannot be, for we know that the first cause is the first productive cause in the causal nexus. Only something that controls its own actions can be the first cause; the sufficient reasons for its actions are found within itself. This, of course, occurs all the time when free-willed agents choose a particular course of action, such as my deciding to go for a walk, for example.

Restating your argument does not make it stronger

The argument can be pressed further. If the first cause simply consisted of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that existed from eternity, then the effect would also have existed from eternity (i.e. the universe should have been eternal). For example, if the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of fire are present, then the effect--a flame--arises immediately. There is no delay from cause to effect. Thus, if the necessary and sufficient (causal) conditions for fire are present from eternity, then a flame would also exist (as an effect) from eternity. What this analysis reveals is that the origin of our temporal universe (which began a finite time ago) could not have resulted from a mechanistic state of affairs that existed from eternity.

Maybe it didn't. That doesn't mean God created it. Maybe Cthulhu did.

All interesting observations, however you must point out how the logic is faulty.
Yet a fourth time :
There are usually three basic reasons for rejecting a premise: (a) it is demonstrably false, (b) it lacks sufficient evidence or (c) it has at least one counterexample. If you wish to dispute (1) then he must categorize the causal principle into one of the three classifications I have stated.

Lack of evidence for your God is enough to reject your argument.

This is not part of the argument at all and appears neither in premise 1 nor 2.
Again, I don't know what yr point is.

Just pointing out your hypocrisy.

black magick hustla

4th February 2010, 09:39

"We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry."
- Wittgenstein

It is a linguistic argument. Anything that contradicts the laws of geomoetry would make communication break down. (Or any logical or mathematical law for that matter). I think the tractatus was on language, not on cognition. i always thought it was wrong to give the tractatus a kantian interpretation. "

The progression from the tractatus to PI has to do with the idea that there can be many language games, rather than just an ultimately logical one. it was not a jump from kantianism.

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th February 2010, 09:48

Dada:

It is a linguistic argument. Anything that contradicts the laws of geomoetry would make communication break down. (Or any logical or mathematical law for that matter). I think the tractatus was on language, not on cognition. i always thought it was wrong to give the tractatus a kantian interpretation.

Well, as non-Euclidean Geometry showed, the alleged 'laws' of Euclidean Geometry could be broken. And what works in Riemannian geomery is abrogated in Lobachevsky's, and vice versa.

Communication was not noticebly affected by this.

black magick hustla

4th February 2010, 09:56

"Euclidean geometry" was broken way before Wittgenstein wrote the tt. I do not think he means that. I think he means the geometry which we can "visualize", which is euclidean. when you tell someone parallel lines can cross he will scratch his head, because to a laymen "parallel" means something different than to a mathematician. To a mathematician, it means that vectors follow certain rules. i remember reading some critique on kant on how his concept on space and mathematics breaks down because the universe can be "non-euclidean". of course, kants argument breaks down but not because of this.
as
The same problem arises when cosmologists write that the universe is 12dimensional. Of course, to a physicist 12 dimensional means simply a vector space with 12 orthogonal unit vectors. it sounds trippy as hell to the average layman, but that is because to him a dimension means something different.

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th February 2010, 10:02

Dada:

"Euclidean geometry" was broken way before Wittgenstein wrote the tt. I do not think he means that. I think he means the geometry which we can "visualize", which is euclidean. when you tell someone parallel lines can cross he will scratch his head, because to a laymen "parallel" means something different than to a mathematician. To a mathematician, it means that vectors follow certain rules. i remember reading some critique on kant on how his concept on space and mathematics breaks down because the universe can be "non-euclidean". of course, kants argument breaks down but not because of this.

But, we can visualise parallel lines meeting. They do so on the horizon (everyone knows this), and they do it on globes (where lines of longitude are parallel at the equator, but meet at the poles). So, Wittgenstein was wrong. No wonder, then, that he abandoned this in his later work, and regarded gemetry as a "form of representatation" as I pointed out earlier.

The same problem arises when cosmologists write that the universe is 12dimensional. Of course, to a physicist 12 dimensional means simply a vector space with 12 orthogonal unit vectors. it sounds trippy as hell to the average layman, but that is because to him a dimension means something different.

I agree, but I'm not too sure what this has to do with the above.

black magick hustla

4th February 2010, 10:06

Dada:

But, we can visualise parallel lines meeting. They do so on the horizon (everyone knows this), and they do it on globes (where lines of longitude are parallel at the equator, but meet at the poles). So, Wittgenstein was wrong. No wonder, then, that he abandoned this in his later work, and regarded gemetry as a "form of representatation" as I pointed out earlier.

[quote]

i dont think people consider those parallel lines.

[quote]I agree, but I'm not too sure what this has to do with the above.

That mathematicians talk different, including pertaining "geometry", and i would be damned if wittgenstein didnt know that the "laws of geometry" were broken when he wrote the tt. so you think he was being a realist?

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th February 2010, 10:19

Dada:

i dont think people consider those parallel lines.

Ask any child old enough to understand the word for an example of parallel lines and they will probably refer you to railway lines -- which they can see meet on the horizon. Adults, by default, already know this.

and i would be damned if wittgenstein didnt know that the "laws of geometry" were broken when he wrote the tt. so you think he was being a realist?

Well, even if he did, he still screwed up. That is why he changed his mind.

Meridian

4th February 2010, 10:42

I was not referring to geometry in a formal sense. I do not know if Wittgenstein was referring to geometry in a formal sense, either.

That railway lines can meet in the horizon (are you talking about how things look smaller/closer together from a longer distance?) does in no way "break the laws" of geometry. Anything percievable does not, exemplified by the fact that those railway lines does not appear as parallel lines because they meet. I think I agree with Wittgensteins "forms of representation" term of geometry, although I don't have time to look into it right now.

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th February 2010, 13:04

Meridian:

That railway lines can meet in the horizon (are you talking about how things look smaller/closer together from a longer distance?) does in no way "break the laws" of geometry. Anything percievable does not, exemplified by the fact that those railway lines does not appear as parallel lines because they meet. I think I agree with Wittgensteins "forms of representation" term of geometry, although I don't have time to look into it right now.

Recall, I was merely responding to Dada's point:

I think he means the geometry which we can "visualize", which is euclidean. when you tell someone parallel lines can cross he will scratch his head,

Escher drawings do this too, as do many optical illusions.

Now, railway lines certainly do appear parallel in the immediate vicinity, and given the fact that they do not bend, they appear to meet at the horizon. So, we can not only visualise this (close your eyes and you can visualise this quite easily), it also appears in perception. If railway lines weren't parallel, trains would crash.

My other point was that various non-Euclidean geometries do indeed violate the 'laws' of geometry, and each other.

Meridian

4th February 2010, 14:21

Escher drawings do this too, as do many optical illusions.

Now, railway lines certainly do appear parallel in the immediate vicinity, and given the fact that they do not bend, they appear to meet at the horizon. So, we can not only visualise this (close your eyes and you can visualise this quite easily), it also appears in perception. If railway lines weren't parallel, trains would crash.
These are illusions, though. Escher may appear to be breaking the laws of physics but I do not think many would claim they contravene geometry. Indeed, Escher seems to utilize a rather profound understanding of geometry in his works. It is true that railway lines do not appear as parallel lines from all points of view, but anything perceivable as physical objects must be geometric, no matter how so. It relates to our conception of "objects" and "physical".

I think perhaps the use of the word "geometry" could cause confusion here, as there are diverse types of uses of it. Perhaps words replaceable with "geometric" are, in this case, "computable" or "estimable".

That we can speak about objects at all tells us that we, at least, understand physical reality as fundamentally organised. That it is not entirely chaotic. As stated, mathematics can be considered the demarcation of this, and within it, all possible organisation. This is what gives us our ability to use mathematics as a tool in the first place.

Sure, but what has the fact that the world seems to possess some form of organisation (even if we seem to change our minds every 50 years or so what that organisation is) got to with mathematics?
Because, if we agree that the world does 'possess some form of organisation' (although I think that saying it 'possesses organisation', or even 'is organised' is more accurate) at least as perceived, then it meets the criteria of being organised. As I tried to indicate, mathematics is the study of possibilities for, or the logic of, organisation or structure.

Again, the word "mathematics" is a bit too unclear, as not all mathematics would qualify directly (although indirectly) for the given definition.

spiltteeth

4th February 2010, 16:14

NoXion;1665245]The data says nothing about whether the universe "began to exist"

Or do you forget that the Big Bang is not a "complete" theory of the origin of the universe, but only a description of how the universe came to be in it's current arrangement?

It most emphatically does. Every peice of data I've mentions confirms this, I can, if u wish, very breifly explain how in each instance.

“Today almost everyone believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.”
Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose

As the physicist P. C. W. Davies explains, "
the coming into being of the universe, as discussed in modern science . . . is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization . . . upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming-into-being of all physical things from nothing."

In fact, in 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that any universe which is, on average, in a state of cosmic expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. Vilenkin:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.

P. C. W. Davies comments,

An initial cosmological singularity . . . forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. . . . On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.

Sez who? Quantum events can be acausal and yet be of finite duration - virtual particles are an example.

As I've already said, In QM, virtual particles come into being in a vacuum. The vacuum is sparked by a scientist. The particles exist for a period of time inversely proportional to their mass. But in the case of the big bang, there is no vacuum – there’s nothing. There is no scientist – there’s nothing. And the universe is far too massive to last 14 billion years as a virtual particle.
QM phenomena are not appearing from nothing, they are appearing in a vacuum. So, nothing is really beginning to exist from nothing – there was something already there that is changing.

1) QM events that we observe in a laboratory take place a vacuum that is there, not absolute nothing as was the case with the big bang. 2) QM events could not occur without a field present, they are not uncaused. 3) Virtual particles exist only temporarily, inversely proportional to their mass. The universe has been here for 13.7 billion years, not a fraction of a second.

You've shown no such thing.

That infinity can't exist in reality? Really?

Well, One cannot form an actually infinite collection of things by successively adding one member after another. Since one can always add one more before arriving at infinity, it is impossible to reach actual infinity. Sometimes this is called the impossibility of "counting to infinity" or "traversing the infinite."

If the universe never had a beginning, that means that the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But mathematicians recognize that the existence of an actually infinite number of things leads to self-contradictions. For example, what is infinity minus infinity? Well, mathematically, you get self-contradictory answers. This shows that infinity is just an idea in your mind, not something that exists in reality. David Hilbert, perhaps the greatest mathematician of the twentieth century, states,

The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.

The number of past events must be finite. Therefore, the series of past events can't go back forever; rather the universe must have begun to exist.

I'm saying I don't know and you don't either.

According to science, math, and logic the universe had a beginning. I have no idea what will convince you if not these 3.

A telescope a merely one tool of observation. Doubtless other tools could be used to determine whether the universe is finite or infinite.

gee like the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars

all thaty tell us the universe had a beginning?

Other interpretations of the Big Bang, such as the Ekpyrotic universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekpyrotic_universe) (a Cyclic model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model) of the universe) have the "initial" conditions as being large but finite - but the "Standard Model" of the Big Bang has a singularity of infinite temperature and density.

No, I'm referring to your self-serving logic.

So why is infinite temperature and density any less absurd than infinite time?

I've explained, briefly, why infinite time can't exist, I don't see the problem as it relates to the singularity, as the actual singularity is an ideal point.

Sure, if you're a believer in a "god of the gaps". The provenance of the universe being the ultimate "gap"

I don't know what this means.

Evolution, for a start. Any being deliberately creating a universe in which such a process can occur has to be either shatteringly cruel (perhaps watching lions chasing down and eating antelopes is just a small part of a cosmic snuff movie?), supremely callous (aware of us, but as unfeeling as a human scientist would be to a sample of E.Coli), or completely unaware of us (we're a biological contamination in a physics experiment and currently far too small to notice).

Notwithstanding the lack of evidence for any of these options, none of them are conducive to worshiping the creative being in question.

Obviously any imaginative child can think of alternatives to these 2 choices, obviously Christians have our own answer.

Regardless, I still don't see how this impact premise one or two?

Where's your evidence for your god?

Thats proper to the religion forum, not here, I have, and will be happy to, address it there.

Because there's no evidence that the universe was created by a superhuman intelligence. There's only evidence of something which we call the Big Bang, which while certainly a beginning, isn't necessarily the beginning, if such a thing happened.

The deductive logical argument is based on plenty of evidence, as I keep saying, it is a deductive argument that compels one (if the first 2 premices hold) to concede the point.

Because intelligence and personality are consequences of life.

So because intelligence and personality are consequences of life (something Plantinga has shown to logically be impossible but lets ignore this) therefor 1) whatever begins to exist has a cause is false??

I honestly do not see the connection. You must point it out for me.

Because it's evidence for the Big Bang, not your lovable cosmic creator daddy.

From which the conclusion necessarily follows....what's the problem?

None of which proves the existence of intelligence outside life or spacetime.

Another statement. I am eager to hear your counter argument. Is it that you feel numbers created the universe?

Yeah, and there's no evidence that the universe "began" to exist

cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars
A philosopher's interpretation of neuroscience and your logic. Colour me unimpressed.

Parsimony dictates that mind is inseperable from brains. Since you like to trumpet how logical you are, I'm surprised you find that simple principle so hard to grasp.

How does parsimony dictate this when all logic and science is against it? Again, we need reasons to believe things. You seem to have assertions...just no reasons to believe them.
Of course, as Rorty and Dennett and Dawkings have all pointed out, if mind is inseparable from the brain then beliefs do not exist. neither does the experience of pain, or love, or etc etc

I
f a superhuman intelligence that (somehow) manages to exist without a physical body can suddenly poof into exist, why is it any more absurd for the universe to do the same?

For the fourth time, sigh, it could not, which is why it would always have had to exist.

It means your analogy is flawed.

Oh. Another statement...any reason you think this or....?

Causes need time to happen in. That's what we observe, therefore the burden of evidence is on you to demonstrate otherwise.

Unless the cause is simultaneous with the effect - contemporaneous.
a simultaneous, asymmetric causation.
(obviously proponents of simultaneous, efficient causation are certainly not unaware of causal chains, such as pregnancy resulting from intercourse, but insist that in any such chain the final link will be simultaneous with the commencement of the effect.)

Evidence for the Big Bang is not evidence for the beginning of the universe.

It most definitely is.

Restating your argument does not make it stronger

ok

Maybe it didn't. That doesn't mean God created it. Maybe Cthulhu did.

As long as 'Cthulhu' is an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial personal being.

Lack of evidence for your God is enough to reject your argument.

The evidence from which the argument proceeds is as follows :
osmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars

A philosopher's interpretation of neuroscience and your logic. Colour me unimpressed.

Actually he quoted great genius neuroscientists, which, obviously, does not compare to the great work you have done in this field, yet for some silly reason I fell they may have more to offer.
Regardless, I'm willing to defend it on strict scientific, logical, and/or philosophically grounds, if you wish.

Just pointing out your hypocrisy.

Actually I am a Christian, and yr accusation is not part of any doctrine I hold.

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th February 2010, 20:45

Meridian:

These are illusions, though. Escher may appear to be breaking the laws of physics but I do not think many would claim they contravene geometry. Indeed, Escher seems to utilize a rather profound understanding of geometry in his works. It is true that railway lines do not appear as parallel lines from all points of view, but anything perceivable as physical objects must be geometric, no matter how so. It relates to our conception of "objects" and "physical".

In fact, Escher does both. And, I wait with interest your proof of this rather bold claim:

but anything perceivable as physical objects must be geometric, no matter how so.

As Wittgenstein noted, one of the most difficult tasks facing philosophers is to avoid dogmatism.

I think perhaps the use of the word "geometry" could cause confusion here, as there are diverse types of uses of it. Perhaps words replaceable with "geometric" are, in this case, "computable" or "estimable".

But, again, the meaning of each of these is up for grabs, since it is not written in the stars how we should use them.

Because, if we agree that the world does 'possess some form of organisation' (although I think that saying it 'possesses organisation', or even 'is organised' is more accurate) at least as perceived, then it meets the criteria of being organised. As I tried to indicate, mathematics is the study of possibilities for, or the logic of, organisation or structure.

Even so, I still do not see how the rest of what you say follows. You still appear to want to do philosophy in the bad old, traditional way: attempting to derive substantive truths about reality from words alone.

black magick hustla

5th February 2010, 07:11

Dada:

Ask any child old enough to understand the word for an example of parallel lines and they will probably refer you to railway lines -- which they can see meet on the horizon. Adults, by default, already know this.

:shrugs: i doubt it. i think if you ask adults "do parallel lines cross" they will say no. only after you tell them that lines cross in the horizon you might convince them. and even then, i bet a few will argue that those 'are not parallel lines'.

Well, even if he did, he still screwed up. That is why he changed his mind.
i
. i am not convinced though that he was that naive to refer to 'geometrical laws' as kantian or realist laws, atleast from the stuff i read on his philosophy of mathematics, and the fact that tt is resolutely anti-realist. maybe i feel hurt about this idea because tt is one of my fav. books even if i dont agree with all of it.

black magick hustla

5th February 2010, 07:18

Regardless, I'm willing to defend it on strict scientific, logical, and/or philosophically grounds, if you wish.

that is not "scientific", and it is logical to the extent that your premises are wrong. its just zizekian wordplay man.

we know nothing about the universe except what we can measure. even the interpretations of measurements can be iffy. just because some guy who can move three vector spaces in his head say cryptic shit like 'space and time were created in the big bang" it doesnt mean he is not using sloppy language. this is the problem of realism and realists have been thourougly discredited by history.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th February 2010, 07:43

Dada:

i doubt it.

Well, many years ago, I worked with children, teaching them mathematics, and found that whenever you asked them for an example of parallel lines they referred to railway lines.

i think if you ask adults "do parallel lines cross" they will say no. only after you tell them that lines cross in the horizon you might convince them. and even then, i bet a few will argue that those 'are not parallel lines'.

Well, my point was aimed at your claim that:

I think he means the geometry which we can "visualize", which is euclidean.

I was not addressing the deliberations people might or might not engage in. In what they see, despite what they think, observers can see that railway lines meet on the horizon; indeed, in art they are taught to draw things this way. Check out the rules of perspective drawing, one of which is that all parallel lines meet on the horizon:

http://www.learn-to-draw-lessons.com/images/1point.gif

http://www.learn-to-draw-lessons.com/perspective-drawing.html

Indeed, when I pointed this out to the aforementioned children, that parallel line meet on the horizon, they were puzzled, but only because they could see it was true, even though they thought parallel lines do not meet. So, their deliberations were out of kilter with what they could see.

And that is one reason why Wittgenstein said in his later work "Don't think, look!"

i am not convinced though that he was that naive to refer to 'geometrical laws' as kantian or realist laws, atleast from the stuff i read on his philosophy of mathematics, and the fact that tt is resolutely anti-realist. maybe i feel hurt about this idea because tt is one of my fav. books even if i don't agree with all of it.

And yet, this is precisely what he said of himself, that he screwed up.

Meridian

5th February 2010, 08:37

In fact, Escher does both. And, I wait with interest your proof of this rather bold claim:

My claim was that words such as "physical" and "materials" pertains to something that is organised. It is inherently organised what we refer to, and what makes us able to refer to it in the first place is organisation (language). It is a necessary quality for us being able to discern something, and a necessary tool for us to name something and speak of it.

As Wittgenstein noted, one of the most difficult tasks facing philosophers is to avoid dogmatism.
Yes, but I think what I write is logical. Sorry if it comes out as dogmatic.

But, again, the meaning of each of these is up for grabs, since it is not written in the stars how we should use them.
The point was to show what type/practice of geometry I was referring to, and quite effective in the way that I think most people would understand what I meant. Something having the quality of being estimable is something that is measurable by some means. Something discernable.

Even so, I still do not see how the rest of what you say follows. You still appear to want to do philosophy in the bad old, traditional way: attempting to derive substantive truths about reality from words alone.
Now you point the finger a little too soon. I am not talking about reality, but if what I write comes out as such then there's another way to interpret it. I am talking about the basis of our reasoning, perhaps, our language.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th February 2010, 09:41

Meridian:

My claim was that words such as "physical" and "materials" pertains to something that is organised. It is inherently organised what we refer to, and what makes us able to refer to it in the first place is organisation (language). It is a necessary quality for us being able to discern something, and a necessary tool for us to name something and speak of it.

But that is not a proof of this:

but anything perceivable as physical objects must be geometric, no matter how so.

Especially since there are no geometric objects anywhere in the material world.

I think you are running three separate things together:

1) Anything we perceive we perceive as geometric. This might be so, I pass no comment on it.

2) When we perceive things they must be geometric in the material world.

This can't be true for the reasons I said.

3) In order to perceive things they must already be geometric.

Again, this can't be so for the reasons I said.

Now you point the finger a little too soon. I am not talking about reality, but if what I write comes out as such then there's another way to interpret it. I am talking about the basis of our reasoning, perhaps, our language.

Well, it is extraordinarily easy to slip from the one into the other (thinking you are talking about language when you are in fact advancing substantive theses about reality). Some of the greatest minds the human race has produced did this all the time without noticing it, until Wittgenstein pointed it out.

You do this here:

but anything perceivable as physical objects must be geometric, no matter how so.

Here you purport to tell us what [I]must be so in the real world, based on thought alone.

And this is the way traditional philosophy has been done since Anaximander's day.

Meridian

5th February 2010, 11:36

That is a misinterpretation of the sentence. Here is the context:

It is true that railway lines do not appear as parallel lines from all points of view, but anything perceivable as physical objects must be geometric, no matter how so. It relates to our conception of "objects" and "physical".
I am not passing judgement on reality itself, I am talking about what is the basis for our ability to recognize objects. Or, to put it more correctly (as I don't really know the basis of our ability to recognize objects), what we mean when we say we recognize an object. When we talk about physical objects we usually refer to one who is in "three (or two) dimensional space", which is what I mean to be geometric or computable.

You have a good point about running three things together, however. The last two points are not what I am talking about.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th February 2010, 13:59

Meridian:

I am not passing judgement on reality itself, I am talking about what is the basis for our ability to recognize objects. Or, to put it more correctly (as I don't really know the basis of our ability to recognize objects), what we mean when we say we recognize an object. When we talk about physical objects we usually refer to one who is in "three (or two) dimensional space", which is what I mean to be geometric or computable.

In that case, this transforms into a substantive claim about our psychology, and my earlier comments still apply.

spiltteeth

5th February 2010, 15:43

that is not "scientific", and it is logical to the extent that your premises are wrong. its just zizekian wordplay man.

we know nothing about the universe except what we can measure. even the interpretations of measurements can be iffy. just because some guy who can move three vector spaces in his head say cryptic shit like 'space and time were created in the big bang" it doesnt mean he is not using sloppy language. this is the problem of realism and realists have been thourougly discredited by history.

I do respect yr opinion dada.
that particular part u quoted from me was just to say I am willing to defend the idea that the mind is not identical with the brain in strictly scientific, logical, or philosophical ways.

As for the 2 premises, you still haven't given a reason why you think either premise is wrong.

Regardless of the cryptic ontology of the bigbang and the sloppy language trying to come to grips with it, the measurements you mention that we can know the universe from all confirm that the universe had a beginning.
What is faulty about either premise?

1“Whatever begins to exist requires a cause”

I am claiming that things don’t pop into being out of nothing without a cause and violate the physical law of conservation of mass. Do you have any evidence that the premise is false? I have appeal to a scientific law and universal human experience. Do you have a counter-example based in objective reality?

After all, does anyone sincerely think that things can pop into existence uncaused out of nothing? Does he believe that it is really possible that, say, a raging tiger should suddenly come into existence uncaused out of nothing in the room in which he is now reading this article? How much the same would this seem to apply to the entire universe!

2“The universe began to exist”

The scientific evidence :

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars
all confirm this.

Or...to support premise 2 there are the following, which I can repeat or expand upon -

Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite:

1 An actual infinite cannot exist.
2 An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
3 Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

Argument based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition:

1 A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.
2 The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.
3 Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.

So... Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

Meridian

5th February 2010, 16:27

In that case, this transforms into a substantive claim about our psychology, and my earlier comments still apply.
No, it was intended to be interpreted as a linguistic argument.

Here's another attempt:

If:
What we perceive as reality consists of facts/states of affairs,
facts/states of affairs are true propositions,
true propositions are (formulated by) organised use of sentences,
sentences are (formulated by) organising terms,
things we perceive in reality are referred to by terms,

Then:
Organisation is the vehicle of formulation of true propositions about the world, it is the basis of our conscious, linguistic perception of reality.

We could perceive all kinds of languages, using all kinds of different types, symbols, sounds, colors, etc., in all kinds of different orders, yet for a language to have communicative function it needs a shred of organised form (however dynamic that form may be). In fact, isn't that the only recurring characteristic of language?

apehead

5th February 2010, 20:10

So, why is there anything at all

Unless omniscient, that question is unanswerable (since it also presupposes that there is anything, it may also be invalid).

Why is there existence instead of nothing?

Without omniscience, it's impossible to say whether there is existence.

Can we get any kind of grip on this question?

No, unless enlightened.

This is why anything is consequentially a belief, not a truth. This also helps explain why ideologies cannot be thought of as "good" or "bad" in the absolut sense, since that judgement is subject to the personal beliefs of the judge.

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th February 2010, 01:54

Meridian:

No, it was intended to be interpreted as a linguistic argument.

Well, as I pointed out to you this is the trap that traditional philosophers fell into all the time. Anselm, for example concocted a 'linguistc argument' to prove 'god' exists, but the result was a substantive truth about the ultimate constitution of reality.

You do something analogous here:

If:
What we perceive as reality consists of facts/states of affairs,
facts/states of affairs are true propositions,
true propositions are (formulated by) organised use of sentences,
sentences are (formulated by) organising terms,things we perceive in reality are referred to by terms,

I'm not sure how states of affairs can be true propositions. This is certainly what the early Russell and Moore believed, that there are real proposition out there for us to discover. You can't believe that, since it's a substantive truth derived from words alone.

You see how you have slipped from talk about talk (propositions) into talk about the world (states of affairs), as I said must always happen (see below) if you keep trying to discover some philosophical thesis or other.

Organisation is the vehicle of formulation of true propositions about the world, it is the basis of our conscious, linguistic perception of reality.

Again, this is another substantive conclusion about our psychology, based on thought alone: yet more traditional philosophy.

See how easy it is to slip into?

We could perceive all kinds of languages, using all kinds of different types, symbols, sounds, colors, etc., in all kinds of different orders, yet for a language to have communicative function it needs a shred of organised form (however dynamic that form may be). In fact, isn't that the only recurring characteristic of language?

In fact, chaotic language can be used to communicate.

I have explained why all such attempts must fail, here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/self-t105849/index.html?p=1408653#post1408653

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1596520&postcount=20

black magick hustla

6th February 2010, 09:19

Regardless of the cryptic ontology of the bigbang and the sloppy language trying to come to grips with it, the measurements you mention that we can know the universe from all confirm that the universe had a beginning.

first we cannot know if the "universe had a beginning". second studies do not show the "universe had a beginning", but that it expanded from something really small. third, cosmology is very different from other sciences and should not be treated as 'precise'.

“Whatever begins to exist requires a cause”

5.133 All inference takes place a priori.
5.134 From an elementary proposition no other can be inferred.
5.135 In no way can an inference be made from the existence of one state of affairs to the existence of another entirely different from it.
5.136 There is no causal nexus which justifies such an inference.
5.1361 The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present.
Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.

I am claiming that things don’t pop into being out of nothing without a cause and violate the physical law of conservation of mass. Do you have any evidence that the premise is false? I have appeal to a scientific law and universal human experience. Do you have a counter-example based in objective reality?

the current cosmological model is that energy is not conserved because dark energy pops out of nowhere and makes the universe expansion accelerate.

moreso than "disproving" energy conservation, it simply states that scientific modeling is just that, modeling, and that the appeal to "law" is sloppy thinking.

this just "proves" that the universe expanded from something really small and that there was a synthesis of elements a long time ago.

[quote]
:

1 An actual infinite cannot exist.
2 An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
3 Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

this is sloppy, and "infinite" has a multiplicity of meanings. the universe could keep expanding infinitely, for example.

1 A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.
2 The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.
3 Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.

So... Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

This is of course, sloppy thinking. "The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by succesive addition" is a figment of your mind because reality is not a mathematical law.

Meridian

6th February 2010, 21:21

In fact, chaotic language can be used to communicate.
And how would you define the word "chaotic" to justify its use in that sentence? What version of the word are you using?

By language needing organized form I meant that it is needed for it to be perceived by someone other than the utterer and for it to be used to communicate between people. 'Gkeejgjgouingh' probably does not make much sense to you because it is disorganized (to my knowledge, at least). As a term it does not take part of the "organization" of language we often speak here at RevLeft. Many birds can communicate (on some level) with each other because they make certain sounds, or make sounds at all, which may communicate, or indicate, something to nearby birds. Language doesn't need to be formally organized.

That language involves (or even, is defined by) communication between people is often said. True enough, but what is often left unmentioned is that for something to be communicated between people there needs to be some relationship between those people, some organisation. If it were not everything would be gobbledygook.

black magick hustla

6th February 2010, 23:08

{Quote}I'm not sure how states of affairs can be true propositions. This is certainly what the early Russell and Moore believed, that there are real proposition out there for us to discover. You can't believe that, since it's a substantive truth derived from words alone.{/quote}

I think depends on what you mean by "states of affairs". "The earth orbits around the sun," is a state of affair and a proposition. If you mean however, that the world is made up by this sentences in the literal sense obviously you are wrong. I think it can be a useful observation. Especially when people start making all sorts of aprioristic arguments, and making statements like splinteeths were he tries to link two states of affairs by logical necessity.

The reason why scientists have been wrong a lot of times is because there is no necessity that links two states of affairs. For example, we can have two propositions:

"The earth orbits around the sun"

"The sun is more massive than the earth"

A scientists will try to link with a "causal nexus" these two states and say. "The curvature of spacetime causes the earth to orbit around the sun,". The latter is not a state of affairs, and there is nothing in the statement itself that will always make it, by necessity true.

I am not implying scientists are necessarily wrong, but I think "states of affairs" can be a useful construct.

Meridian

7th February 2010, 00:55

Rosa Lichtenstein, I was talking about how we may formulate our empiric knowledge of the world. I think facts/states of affairs may in such a context be seen as true propositions. Here:

What we perceive as reality consists of facts/states of affairs,
facts/states of affairs are ((in this case)) true propositions
Or, in other words, what we perceive as reality (and formulate as such) are true propositions.

Rosa Lichtenstein

9th February 2010, 15:11

Meridian:

And how would you define the word "chaotic" to justify its use in that sentence? What version of the word are you using?

Well, I wouldn't try to define it; we would either agree on how to use it or cease to communicate.

By language needing organized form I meant that it is needed for it to be perceived by someone other than the utterer and for it to be used to communicate between people. 'Gkeejgjgouingh' probably does not make much sense to you because it is disorganized (to my knowledge, at least). As a term it does not take part of the "organization" of language we often speak here at RevLeft. Many birds can communicate (on some level) with each other because they make certain sounds, or make sounds at all, which may communicate, or indicate, something to nearby birds. Language doesn't need to be formally organized.

The 'word' you use is of course not in language, so this is not in fact an effective respone to my earlier claim.

Animal 'communication' is merely a form of signalling; it isn't an example of linguistic communcation.

That language involves (or even, is defined by) communication between people is often said. True enough, but what is often left unmentioned is that for something to be communicated between people there needs to be some relationship between those people, some organisation. If it were not everything would be gobbledygook.

Well, it seems to me that you are using 'organisation' as a magic wand; wave it about and everything is solved.

Rosa Lichtenstein

9th February 2010, 15:19

Dada:

I think depends on what you mean by "states of affairs". "The earth orbits around the sun," is a state of affair and a proposition. If you mean however, that the world is made up by this sentences in the literal sense obviously you are wrong. I think it can be a useful observation. Especially when people start making all sorts of aprioristic arguments, and making statements like splinteeths were he tries to link two states of affairs by logical necessity.

In fact, this was not my word, so I do not want to defend it's use in philosophical contexts.

"The earth orbits around the sun," is a state of affairs and a proposition.

It is certainly a proposition; but you are, I think, confusing a set of words with what is supposed to be a fact.

If the two were the same, then every proposution would be true!

-------------------------

Meridian:

Or, in other words, what we perceive as reality (and formulate as such) are true propositions.

This is certainly not what Wittgenstein meant; we do not perceive propositions. We may perhaps perceive a propositional sign, but that is a different matter.

Meridian

9th February 2010, 20:00

Well, it seems to me that you are using 'organisation' as a magic wand; wave it about and everything is solved.
Hehe. That wasn't the intention. I'll take a little while off here, for now. Perhaps I will come back with the position clarified. For now, here is a somewhat revised version of my earlier argument:

What we perceive as reality consists of what we hold to be facts
what we hold to be facts are (formulated by) true propositions,
true propositions are (formulated by) organised use of sentences,
sentences are (formulated by) organised use of terms,
perceivable things are referred to by terms

Formulation of true propositions involves the existence of organisation (this is also apparent in the word "formulation").

Certain aspects of mathematics is a useful representation (or is it, in itself, depending on what we mean by mathematics) of the logic of organisation. This is how I meant it is connected to what we may successfully formulate about the world. Organisation is the vehicle of formulation of true propositions about the world.

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th February 2010, 00:16

Meridian:

What we perceive as reality consists of what we hold to be facts
what we hold to be facts are (formulated by) true propositions,
true propositions are (formulated by) organised use of sentences,
sentences are (formulated by) organised use of terms,
perceivable things are referred to by terms

This looks like yet another dogmatic thesis derived from thought alone. Remember when I predicted that this is what you would end up with.

spiltteeth

4th March 2010, 13:31

=dada;1666843]first we cannot know if the "universe had a beginning". second studies do not show the "universe had a beginning", but that it expanded from something really small. third, cosmology is very different from other sciences and should not be treated as 'precise'.

Obviously, as I keep quoting, all major physicists disagree with you, do you have a REASON for thinking this?

As i say, in 2003, when three leading cosmologists, Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, were able to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.

What makes their proof so powerful is that it holds regardless of the physical description of the universe prior to the Planck time. Because we can’t yet provide a physical description of the very early universe, this brief moment has been fertile ground for speculations. But the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem is independent of any physical description of that moment. Their theorem implies that even if our universe is just a tiny part of a so-called “multiverse” composed of many universes, the multiverse must have an absolute beginning.

Vilenkin is blunt about the implications:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).

the current cosmological model is that energy is not conserved because dark energy pops out of nowhere and makes the universe expansion accelerate.

moreso than "disproving" energy conservation, it simply states that scientific modeling is just that, modeling, and that the appeal to "law" is sloppy thinking.

No, as I'm sure your aware, the Baum-Framton so called phantum Bounce which imagines a contraction followed by a super-expansion fueled by ‘dark’ energy, with the universe breaking into a multiverse, winds up implying the very beginning of the universe you seek to avert.

And, as I've already said, dark energy does NOT pop out of nothing, but out of the energy field of a vacuum, which is why sometimes its called vacuum energy! However, casually prior to the bigbang there was NO vacuum.

And then, of course, this does nothing to contradict the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, which proves the universe had a beginning.

The scientific evidence :

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar lifecycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars
all confirm this.

this just "proves" that the universe expanded from something really small and that there was a synthesis of elements a long time ago. [/QUOTE]

Again, all major psyisists disagree with you, as I've quoted, is there a REASON you disagree with Hawking, Davies, Borde, etc etc etc etc ?

this is sloppy, and "infinite" has a multiplicity of meanings. the universe could keep expanding infinitely, for example.

Yes. But infinity would never be reached, it does not contradict the fact that the universe had a beginning.

This is of course, sloppy thinking. "The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by succesive addition" is a figment of your mind because reality is not a mathematical law.

Ok. I agree with your premise :"reality is not a mathematical law."
Then you say, therefore, the universe did not have a beginning?
I'm afraid the conclusion does not necessarily follow from yr premise, so I must reject this bizarre argument as, at the very least, unsound.

black magick hustla

5th March 2010, 07:00

Obviously, as I keep quoting, all major physicists disagree with you, do you have a REASON for thinking this?

As i say, in 2003, when three leading cosmologists, Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, were able to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.

1)I don't disagree with their math, I disagree with their interpretation. Space-time is a mathematical construct, so arguments like "they must have a past space-time boundary" are mathematical.

What makes their proof so powerful is that it holds regardless of the physical description of the universe prior to the Planck time. Because we can’t yet provide a physical description of the very early universe, this brief moment has been fertile ground for speculations. But the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem is independent of any physical description of that moment. Their theorem implies that even if our universe is just a tiny part of a so-called “multiverse” composed of many universes, the multiverse must have an absolute beginning.

Vilenkin is blunt about the implications:

(Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).

No, as I'm sure your aware, the Baum-Framton so called phantum Bounce which imagines a contraction followed by a super-expansion fueled by ‘dark’ energy, with the universe breaking into a multiverse, winds up implying the very beginning of the universe you seek to avert.

Very few physicists take the whole multiverse thing seriously.

And, as I've already said, dark energy does NOT pop out of nothing, but out of the energy field of a vacuum, which is why sometimes its called vacuum energy! However, casually prior to the bigbang there was NO vacuum.

It is called vaccuum energy because its density per meter cube is always constant. Which mean it doesnt dilutes, as if it is integrated in the fiber of space.

It still basically "pops" out of nowhere./

Again, all major psyisists disagree with you, as I've quoted, is there a REASON you disagree with Hawking, Davies, Borde, etc etc etc etc ?

They are not "major" physicists, they are cosmologists. there methodology is much different than the average physicist, who is concerned with more earthly things like condensed matter.

I don't disagree with their math, I disagree with their wild philosophical elucidation.

Ok. I agree with your premise :"reality is not a mathematical law."
Then you say, therefore, the universe did not have a beginning?
I'm afraid the conclusion does not necessarily follow from yr premise, so I must reject this bizarre argument as, at the very least, unsound.
I am not implying anything. I don't know. I am, however, dissolving your metaphysics.

spiltteeth

5th March 2010, 12:22

=dada;1686207]1)I don't disagree with their math, I disagree with their interpretation. Space-time is a mathematical construct, so arguments like "they must have a past space-time boundary" are mathematical.

Ok what is yr REASON for disagreeing with the fact that the universe had a beginning? I have given a mathematical reason, a philosophical reason, and an evidential reason.
If you disagree we must have REASONS.
So, scientists are wrong, the universe is not 13.7 billion yrs old, "dada" has the "real" answer - it is eternal....now why do you think this? Where is your evidence? What does all the data I've presented "really" mean?

Very few physicists take the whole multiverse thing seriously.

I totally agree....and? This contradicts Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem how?

It is ca
lled vaccuum energy because its density per meter cube is always constant. Which mean it doesnt dilutes, as if it is integrated in the fiber of space.

It still basically "pops" out of nowhere./

Oh, the word "energy" in vacuum energy is totally gratuitous. Ok.
Anyway, just saying "It still basically "pops" out of nowhere" does not make it true. Do you have a REASON for thinking this is true?
And of course what you originally said was it pops out of "nothing" which you claim contradicts the laws of conservation! Good lord I thought you were a physics student!
It pops out of a vacuum! Not out of nothing. There was no vacuum casually prior to the bigbang, as I keep saying. I you deny this, we must have REASONS - what is your brand new theory of dark energy?
The scientific community awaits!

They are not "major" physicists, they are cosmologists. there methodology is much different than the average physicist, who is concerned with more earthly things like condensed matter.

I don't disagree with their math, I disagree with their wild philosophical elucidation.

Again, we need reasons, you seem to think statements are convincing, I for example, have given many reasons, in a deductive argument, if you disagree with one of the premises, it is not enough to say "I disagree" "I don't agree with thee interpretations" etc
We need, and I will continue to capitalize, REASONS.

I am not implying anything. I don't know. I am, however, dissolving your metaphysics.

To suggest that things could just pop into being uncaused out of nothing is to quit doing even the most responsible metaphysics and to resort to plain magic! At the very least it is incoherent.

I have no idea what "dissolving" means, and just because you say "I am dissolving" etc: doesn't actually say anything. I feel like I'm talking to Bush jr.

however, as I have posted now 3 times to you personally, there are usually three basic reasons for rejecting a premise: (a) it is demonstrably false, (b) it lacks sufficient evidence or (c) it has at least one counterexample. If you wish to dispute (1) then you must categorize the causal principle into one of the three classifications I have stated.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

6th March 2010, 19:32

spiltteeth

7th March 2010, 01:21

Your argument could also be used to prove that pan-dimensional aliens created the universe. In fact, if anything, the pan-dimensional aliens angle is more closely in line with our knowledge of biology and intelligence.

Hence your argument is vacuous, since any spurious agent can be dreamed up by the fertile imagination to account for the alleged beginning of the universe.

As I keep saying, not ANY entity, from the very nature of the case, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being which created the universe. It must be uncaused because we've seen that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. It must be timeless and therefore changeless—at least without the universe—because it created time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be immaterial, not physical.
Moreover, it must also be personal. For how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe?

This cause, personal, uncaused, eternal, changeless, timeless, and immaterial; also enormously powerful (if not omnipotent) and intelligent (if not omniscient) based on the fact that it brought a complex, ordered and fine-tuned universe, such as ours, into existence, shares many aspects of what many people in the Jewish/Christen/Muslim community call "God"...but feel free to attach any label to it as you wish.

Meridian

7th March 2010, 01:23

uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being
In short, your problem is that what you are saying here makes no sense what so ever.

spiltteeth

8th March 2010, 08:40

In short, your problem is that what you are saying here makes no sense what so ever.

I have no problem, it was a response. How can it contradict sense?

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

13th March 2010, 21:59

As I keep saying, not ANY entity, from the very nature of the case, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being which created the universe. It must be uncaused because we've seen that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. It must be timeless and therefore changeless—at least without the universe—because it created time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be immaterial, not physical.
Moreover, it must also be personal. For how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe?

No reason why pan-dimensional aliens can't be all the things you mention.

This cause, personal, uncaused, eternal, changeless, timeless, and immaterial; also enormously powerful (if not omnipotent) and intelligent (if not omniscient) based on the fact that it brought a complex, ordered and fine-tuned universe, such as ours, into existence, shares many aspects of what many people in the Jewish/Christen/Muslim community call "God"...but feel free to attach any label to it as you wish.

Personality is the result of evolutionary processes operating in a population. Therefore the intelligence you claim created the universe could not be a singular entity, and even if it was then it would be nothing at all like a human since it would operate in a completely different environment.

black magick hustla

14th March 2010, 00:24

Ok what is yr REASON for disagreeing with the fact that the universe had a beginning? I have given a mathematical reason, a philosophical reason, and an evidential reason.
If you disagree we must have REASONS.
So, scientists are wrong, the universe is not 13.7 billion yrs old, "dada" has the "real" answer - it is eternal....now why do you think this? Where is your evidence? What does all the data I've presented "really" mean?

I think there is a communication problem here.

I don't have an answer. The problem with you christians is that y'all need an answer, therefore you have to make up some crazy stories to fill the voids.

I think words like eternal and beginning loose their meaning when talking about really abstract math. I consider the big bang a very useful model. I am not a realist however, so to me, its only in the pragmatic sense that it is useful, in the same sense a computer is.

For example, there is a saying, about how physicists think reality approximates their formulas, and engineers think how the formulas approximate reality. In this sense, I think more like an engineer.

So to make wild ontological statements about the existence of a God because of some mathematical model seems very naive to me.

I totally agree....and? This contradicts Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem how?

Now that I googled it, it doesn't. Is it some mathematical statement that seeks to prove that the big bang was the beginning of time?

Again, space time is a mathematical construct. The way a mathematician treats time is very different to the time we generally speak about. So I don't think its a useful clarification.

Oh, the word "energy" in vacuum energy is totally gratuitous. Ok.
Anyway, just saying "It still basically "pops" out of nowhere" does not make it true. Do you have a REASON for thinking this is true?
And of course what you originally said was it pops out of "nothing" which you claim contradicts the laws of conservation! Good lord I thought you were a physics student!
It pops out of a vacuum! Not out of nothing. There was no vacuum casually prior to the bigbang, as I keep saying. I you deny this, we must have REASONS - what is your brand new theory of dark energy?
The scientific community awaits!

Actually, I asked a few days ago Neil Turok about energy conservation. And he said energy conservation indeed fails in cosmology because of the existence of dark energy.

Again, we need reasons, you seem to think statements are convincing, I for example, have given many reasons, in a deductive argument, if you disagree with one of the premises, it is not enough to say "I disagree" "I don't agree with thee interpretations" etc
We need, and I will continue to capitalize, REASONS.

No what you want are answers. You want me to give you an alternate model. I dont have it.

To suggest that things could just pop into being uncaused out of nothing is to quit doing even the most responsible metaphysics and to resort to plain magic! At the very least it is incoherent.[/quou eote]

Actually, its a very famous philosophical problem, the problem of induction. I think you would be hard pressed to call Hume a metaphysician. Basically, there is no logical necessity that binds two facts. To paraphrase wittgenstein, "there is nothing that prevents the sun of not rising the next days" This is not just some lofty philosophizing, but has some really concrete effects. For example, have you ever read Kuhn? In the history of science there has been many altenrative models that give correct preidictions, yet they were proved wrong. For example, Ptolemy's earth centric model of the universe gave precise predictions about the movement of planets and stars. Yet it was a wrong model. This is a standard example on the problem of causation.

[quote]
I have no idea what "dissolving" means, and just because you say "I am dissolving" etc: doesn't actually say anything. I feel like I'm talking to Bush jr.

lol

its a reference to wittgenstein dissolving philosophical problems as pseudo problems.

Dermezel

14th March 2010, 04:34

Recent Quantum-Mechanical hypothesis suggest that substance can randomly appear out of a vacuum.

spiltteeth

16th March 2010, 21:15

dada;1692912]I think there is a communication problem here.

I don't have an answer. The problem with you christians is that y'all need an answer, therefore you have to make up some crazy stories to fill the voids.

I think words like eternal and beginning loose their meaning when talking about really abstract math. I consider the big bang a very useful model. I am not a realist however, so to me, its only in the pragmatic sense that it is useful, in the same sense a computer is.

For example, there is a saying, about how physicists think reality approximates their formulas, and engineers think how the formulas approximate reality. In this sense, I think more like an engineer.

So to make wild ontological statements about the existence of a God because of some mathematical model seems very naive to me.

I asked for no answer, I explained in logic what you need to do in order to deny a premise....thus far you haven't.

And its not based solely on a mathematical model - for instance, I've never seen anything just pop into existence. I've actually EXPERIENCED the effects of time etc

da da, do you sincerely think that things can pop into existence uncaused out of nothing?

Do you believe that it is really possible that, say, a raging tiger should suddenly come into existence uncaused out of nothing in your room as you read my post? How much the same would this seem to apply to the entire universe!

I don't think word like 'beginning etc DO lose their meaning, although I have heard that claim before.

Adolf Grünbaum, for instance, claims that the question of creation is a pseudo-problem because it is incoherent to seek an external, prior cause of the Big Bang, which marks the beginning of time.

I think this claim is unwarranted, however.

Bill Craig, responds that the theological creationist has a number of options available:

(i) The Creator may be conceived to be causally, but not temporally, prior to the origin of the universe, such that the act of creating is simultaneous with the universe's beginning to exist; (ii) The Creator may be conceived to exist in a metaphysical time of which physical time is but a sensible measure and so to exist temporally prior to the inception of physical time; or (iii) The Creator may be conceived to exist timelessly and to cause tenselessly the origin of the universe at the Big Bang singularity. Grünbaum also claims that theological creationism is pseudo-explanatory because it is in principle impossible to specify the causal linkage between the cause and the effect in this case. At best this objection only shows that theological creationism is not a scientific explanation. In fact Grünbaum's objection strikes not against theology per se, but against all appeals to personal agency as explanatory, which evinces a narrow scientism.

Now that I googled it, it doesn't. Is it some mathematical statement that seeks to prove that the big bang was the beginning of time?

Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, were able to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.

What makes their proof so powerful is that it holds regardless of the physical description of the universe prior to the Planck time. Because we can’t yet provide a physical description of the very early universe, this brief moment has been fertile ground for speculations, but Vilenkin is blunt about the implications:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning

Again, space time is a mathematical construct. The way a mathematician treats time is very different to the time we generally speak about. So I don't think its a useful clarification.

Space-time is a mathematical construct, but I'm talking about space and time, which we all experience.

I'm well aware that the mathamatition treats concepts differently, which is MY argument (for why actual infinte can't exist in REAL life)

I'm not interested in theory, of logical possibilities, but the actual.

For instance, apart from my arguments, I think it is metaphysically necessary that everything that begins to exist has a cause, even though there is no logical inconsistency in saying that a certain thing came into being without a cause.

To use the vauge generalization that math is not reality is not a reason to then say we can draw NO conclusions about reality from it.

If theres a REASON a particular math concept doesn't corraspond to reality (like the actual infinite) then state it, otherwise....etc

Actually, I asked a few days ago Neil Turok about energy conservation. And he said energy conservation indeed fails in cosmology because of the existence of dark energy.

Well first, many scientists will instead say, "energy is conserved in general relativity, it’s just that you have to include the energy of the gravitational field along with the energy of matter and radiation and so on."

but, I'm well aware, hell, 60 yrs ago Penrose sated

“These conservation laws hold only in a spacetime for which there is the appropriate symmetry, given by the Killing vector ĸ…. [These considerations] do not really help us in understanding what the fate of the conservation laws will be when gravity itself becomes an active player.

Apparently THESE mathematical constructs DO say something but mine don't?

The law of conservation of energy was made based on the assumption that all energy is positive energy. This is not true.
The fundamental concept in the law of conservation of energy is that the total amount of energy in the universe stays constant. This is true.
People assumed, "if total energy stays constant, then energy is not created or destroyed". This is false.

regardless, it does not violate premise one or two.

The dynamical properties of vacuous space arise out of its interaction with matter and radiation fields, in the absence of which
“this dynamism of empty space is but a formal abstraction lacking physical reality.”
- Alexander W. Stern
(Stern is even willing to speak of the quantum vacuum as a sort of ether!)

The quantum vacuum is a sea of fluctuating energy which gives rise to virtual particles. Thus, virtual particles can hardly be said to arise without a cause, and so neither premise one or two is touched.

There are, as you know, various alternatives for Dark energy, which may not even exist (Scalor-tensor gravity, Vacum modifies gravity etc)

It's highly speculative, but even then it can used as a further argument for God -to put it sloppily :

1. If the universe has zero total energy, then, the universe came from and amounts to nothing.
2. The universe was and continues to be exnihilated (created from nothing).
3. But, since the universe is everything physical and material, it must have been caused to begin by something beyond or outside itself.
4. Therefore, the universe must have been exnihilated by an exnihilator.

I doubt I'd actually argue this though.

Anywho, speaking of confusing mathamatical constructs with reality, philosopher of science Bernulf Kanitscheider explains of the vacuum fluctuation models of the universe:

The violent microstructure of the [quantum] vacuum has been used in attempts to explain the origin of the universe as a long-lived vacuum fluctuation. But some authors have connected with this legitimate speculations [sic] far-reaching metaphysical claims, or at most they couched their mathematics when they maintained “the creation of the universe out of nothing.” . . .
From the philosophical point of view it is essential to note that the foregoing is far from being a spontaneous generation of everything from naught, but the origin of that embryonic bubble is really a causal process leading from a primordial substratum with a rich physical structure to a materialized substratum of the vacuum. Admittedly this process is not deterministic; it includes that weak kind of causal dependence peculiar to every quantum mechanical process.

No what you want are answers. You want me to give you an alternate model. I dont have it.

No, only a contrary to either premise one or two.

[quote]

To suggest that things could just pop into being uncaused out of nothing is to quit doing even the most responsible metaphysics and to resort to plain magic! At the very least it is incoherent.[/quou eote]

Actually, its a very famous philosophical problem, the problem of induction. I think you would be hard pressed to call Hume a metaphysician. Basically, there is no logical necessity that binds two facts. To paraphrase wittgenstein, "there is nothing that prevents the sun of not rising the next days" This is not just some lofty philosophizing, but has some really concrete effects. For example, have you ever read Kuhn? In the history of science there has been many altenrative models that give correct preidictions, yet they were proved wrong. For example, Ptolemy's earth centric model of the universe gave precise predictions about the movement of planets and stars. Yet it was a wrong model. This is a standard example on the problem of causation.

I've read Khun, Hume said the exact same thing as Wittenstein, which is why he said ALL science is based on illogical grounds etc

Again, I'm NOT talking about logical necessity, but ACTUALITY.

lol

its a reference to wittgenstein dissolving philosophical problems as pseudo problems.

OH. Ok.