And God is always "He".
Yeah, whatever...
Don't indicate this is a psychological dependance to your dad.
Yeah, whatever...
Don't indicate this is a psychological dependance to your dad.
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Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God
- Thread starter James R
- Start date
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
OK. We can accept that as a premise for the sake of argument. (I'm not convinced that it's true though.)
Again, we can agree to accept that as a premise for the sake of argument, even though I'm not entirely prepared to agree to its truth. (Holes have physical existence, even though they represent the non-existence of whatever they are holes in. My intuition is that there's a deeper metaphysical problem lurking there.)
That looks like an example of a formal fallacy to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
If P, then Q
Not P
therefore not Q
Male human beings are examples of Homo sapiens.
Mary isn't a male human being.
Therefore Mary isn't an example of Homo sapiens.
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It would be if you used "requires" in the normal sense, but Syne uses it to mean "necessary and sufficient".
So if physical existence requires a cause, per Syne's usage, then he is stating that if not-P then not-Q within that premise.
Why do evangelists insist on using such deceitful tactics?
Is arguing a mathematical logic, like set theory, in any way productive with anyone who has psychological issues?
I quote myself...
To sound like Carl Sagan: The cosmos is all there ever was, is, and ever will be.
Really?
physical
existence
IOW, the totality of material things as characterized by natural science. 1 a : of or relating to natural science
b (1) : of or relating to physics (2) : characterized or produced by the forces and operations of physics
2 a : having material existence : perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature
b : of or relating to material things
b (1) : of or relating to physics (2) : characterized or produced by the forces and operations of physics
2 a : having material existence : perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature
b : of or relating to material things
existence
1 a : reality as opposed to appearance
b : reality as presented in experience
c : the totality of existent things
b : reality as presented in experience
c : the totality of existent things
2 a : the state or fact of having being especially independently of human consciousness and as contrasted with nonexistence
cause
No, cause is not necessarily the effect of a thing. Forces and energies can be causes, as well as any ultimate, first cause. something that brings about an effect or a result
Logical validity rules out both infinite regress and causal loop. Introducing either as a premise begs the question in an argument about causal origin. If you assume physical existence necessitates and is sufficient to assume a cause, then you cannot conclude that the ultimate cause is physical. Concluding that the ultimate cause is physical just feeds back into the first premise, meaning it never reaches a valid conclusion.
Now if you want to construct a valid logical argument to support either of these as a conclusion, I would invite you to do so. But it will not be valid to assume physical causation if you seek to reach an ultimately physical cause as a conclusion. Offhand, I'm not sure if it can even be done. Thinking about it, I'd be really interested in how one would go about constructing such an argument. I would sincerely appreciate any attempt to do so.
If you read the post you quoted, then you would find I already explicitly specified (1) as both necessary and sufficient. At the very lease, 'requires' is a synonym of 'necessitates'. This does, indeed, conclude that 'not A implies not B' because the premise is 'A only if B'. So I assume you'd now agree that the argument is valid to this point.
Maybe you're unfamiliar with Guth's 'ultimate free lunch'? This is actually the best logically valid way to try to exclude god as a possibility. Either way, this is a question of soundness, not validity.
Already established that I can conclude (3). If you'll familiarize yourself with Guth's model of inflationary cosmology and his supposition of the universe as possessing a net zero total energy and being the 'ultimate free lunch' from nothing, i.e. requiring neither a creator god nor previous physical existence, then you may understand the conclusion of (5). Quite frankly, I'm surprised you're not already familiar with it. Are you making some rhetorical point?
Either way, this again relies on the soundness of (4). The logic is valid.
(6) is not a conclusion at all, derived or otherwise. If it were, it would be preceded by 'therefore', 'so', 'thus', etc.. (6) is a premise, and can only be evaluated for soundness. But how is an infinite time period not an infinite regress, in this context? Assuming causation, an infinite time period necessitates an infinite chain of causes. Doesn't matter if those causes regress through a 'universal origin' event or not.
Yep, a premise, not a conclusion.
A creator god need only have the property of volitional cause. In an argument for the existence of a god, I cannot validly introduce god as a premise...as that would be begging the question.
Really? Using 'requires' to mean its synonym 'necessitates' is idiosyncratic? I would say using 'requires' to mean 'implies', which is not a synonym, is much more idiosyncratic.
Please elaborate. Aside from Guth's 'ultimate free lunch', science has found, and considers, everything to have a cause. Unless you are asserting that the universe is eternal.
You seem to be talking about a conditional/contextual 'nothing'. Here I mean as opposed to existence and not merely representational.
nothingness
the absence or cessation of life or existence.
That would be true is 'requires' wasn't a synonym for 'necessitates'. It then must be:
P, only if Q
not Q
therefore, not P
Syne:
Thanks for your reply. With your further explanation, I agree that your argument may be valid as a matter of logic. The soundness of the many premises (or otherwise) is a completely separate issue, of course. I am not at all convinced that your argument is sound, even though it may be valid.
To rule out an infinite causal chain, you need to postulate that such a chain is impossible, and preferably give justification for why such a chain is impossible. Obviously the question here is to soundness rather than validity.
I still think it is an idiosyncratic usage of the word "requires". When we say "A requires B", we do not ordinarily mean, in addition, that B requires A. And yet this is the usage you are insisting on.
An example is probably unnecessary, but let me provide one just in case. If I say "My watch requires a battery in order to operate", most people would not assume that "a battery requires my watch in order to operate". If you want to use the word "necessitates" instead of "requires", the same applies.
Lawrence Krauss in his book A universe from nothing considers the meaning of "nothing" in physics in some detail. I would say that his version of "nothing" is somewhat different from yours.
Infinite time is an actual infinity, of course. Most versions of the cosmological argument (including the Kalam) assume that an actual infinity of anything is impossible. But that's a premise, not a conclusion.
Thanks for your reply. With your further explanation, I agree that your argument may be valid as a matter of logic. The soundness of the many premises (or otherwise) is a completely separate issue, of course. I am not at all convinced that your argument is sound, even though it may be valid.
From my perspective, a force is always an effect of a thing. No things; no forces. Also, I don't believe that energy has any meaning independent of things. Fundamentally, energy is a convenient number that can be assigned to a thing or some combination of things. (And by "thing" here I mean a physical object such as a particle, for example.)
I disagree with you that you can rule out infinite regress as some kind of matter of validity of the logical argument. To claim that infinite regress is impossible is an assumption, so it should be included as a premise. The possible lack of soundness of such a premise is one objection to any kind of Cosmological argument, including the original and Kalam versions.
Suppose we accept that "every physical effect requires a cause". Then there are two possibilities for the cause of any suggested physical effect. The first is that there is a finite chain of causes that ends with some kind of ultimate cause which started the whole thing off. The second is that their is an infinite chain of causes - one physical effect causing another, causing another, causing another, ad infinitum. In the second case there is no ultimate or first cause because the chain never terminates. You can keep tracing back the causes forever.
To rule out an infinite causal chain, you need to postulate that such a chain is impossible, and preferably give justification for why such a chain is impossible. Obviously the question here is to soundness rather than validity.
I agree with you and this invalidates my objection.
I still think it is an idiosyncratic usage of the word "requires". When we say "A requires B", we do not ordinarily mean, in addition, that B requires A. And yet this is the usage you are insisting on.
An example is probably unnecessary, but let me provide one just in case. If I say "My watch requires a battery in order to operate", most people would not assume that "a battery requires my watch in order to operate". If you want to use the word "necessitates" instead of "requires", the same applies.
I'm familiar with Guth's model of inflation. The "ultimate free lunch" part is an add-on assumption to that. The fact is that nobody knows what is required for a big bang to occur. Personally, I suspect that "nothing" won't be sufficient to do the job. But I could, of course, be wrong.
Lawrence Krauss in his book A universe from nothing considers the meaning of "nothing" in physics in some detail. I would say that his version of "nothing" is somewhat different from yours.
Ok.
Once you're dealing with infinity, all kinds of weird stuff is possible. There could be a single cause an infinite time in the past, then nothing more until some finite time in the past, which would imply a finite chain of causes and yet infinite time.
Infinite time is an actual infinity, of course. Most versions of the cosmological argument (including the Kalam) assume that an actual infinity of anything is impossible. But that's a premise, not a conclusion.
That's fine as far as validity goes, if you only want to define God as "an uncaused volitional first cause". I doubt the soundness of your premise requiring a first cause to be volition, but that's another issue for exploration.Syne said:
I completely agree. Physical existence is inclusive of energy and interactions.
Could you form a valid logical argument for such an infinite regress? One we can test for validity? Assuming a premise of 'every physical effect requires a cause', how do you avoid circular reasoning or begging the question in your conclusion? Are the necessary premises as sound or parsimonious as assuming a finite regress?
I would imagine that the first serious question raised of such an argument would be 'why does the universe exist'. If everything in the universe is contingent (assumed by that first premise), then why wouldn't the entire universe be contingent? Doesn't any infinite regress argument collapse to:
P if, and only, it is true that P
IOW, the conclusion is a simple tautology.
So you would agree that:
A requires B
Is equivalent to:A necessitates B
Or:B is necessary for A
So:Physical existence requires a cause
Is equivalent to:Physical existence necessitates a cause
Or:A cause is necessary for physical existence
Your watch battery example is flawed. 'My watch requires a battery in order to operate' does mean that 'my operating watch is sufficient to assume a battery'. As you have it written, the battery doesn't have a consistent relationship to the operation of the watch.
We are not assuming cause necessitates physical existence, but that physical existence is sufficient to assume a cause:
C is necessary for PE
PE is sufficient to assume C
PE is sufficient to assume C
Really?
“One thing is certain, however. The metaphysical 'rule', which is held as an ironclad conviction by those whom I have debated the issue of creation, namely that "out of nothing nothing comes," has no foundation in science. Arguing that it is self-evident, unwavering, and unassailable is like arguing, as Darwin falsely did, when he made the suggestion that the origin of life was beyond the domain of science by building an analogy with the incorrect claim that matter cannot be created or destroyed. All it represents is an unwillingness to recognize the simple fact that nature may be cleverer than philosophers or theologians.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
“Finally, and inevitably, the flat universe will further flatten into a nothingness that mirrors its beginning. Not only will there be no cosmologists to look out on the universe, there will be nothing for them to see even if they could. Nothing at all. Not even atoms. Nothing. If you think that’s bleak and cheerless, too bad. Reality doesn’t owe us comfort.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing
Or straight from the horse's mouth:― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
“Finally, and inevitably, the flat universe will further flatten into a nothingness that mirrors its beginning. Not only will there be no cosmologists to look out on the universe, there will be nothing for them to see even if they could. Nothing at all. Not even atoms. Nothing. If you think that’s bleak and cheerless, too bad. Reality doesn’t owe us comfort.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing
Or do you agree with this Christian apologetics website?
You would think that by the title of Krauss’ book he answers the question that Leibniz posed, but he doesn’t. Instead, he redefines what ‘nothing’ is. ‘Nothing’ to Dr. Krauss would be empty space or the quantum vacuum. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who is an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, says in his brief review of the book: “Nothing is not nothing. Nothing is something.
- https://carm.org/lawrence-krauss-atheist-definition-of-nothing
My definition of nothingness is one where quantum fluctuations allow virtual particles to boil in and out of existence. Nothingness that contradicts the notion that 'from nothing comes nothing'. Like I said, my notion doesn't, itself, require a god, and I think is one of the best arguments against god.- https://carm.org/lawrence-krauss-atheist-definition-of-nothing
'Single cause' seems to assume 'first cause', whether time is an a priori assumption or not. My argument only assumes that our universe began a finite time in the past, not that time itself had a finite beginning.
The timing of any first cause, assuming there is one, would require volition. Otherwise, why would the universe have began when it did rather than any other distance in the past? Even if we allow for a cycle of universes giving way to others, a first cause still requires volition to account for timing. We could say that it was random, but random in relation to what, especially from nothing?
P1: All physical things require a cause.
P2. Only the physical exists.
C1. Infinite regress of physical causation.
This is an example of a valid logical argument.
How do you wish to test for the validity?
Take it to a professor of logic?
Or did you mean test for the veracity?
Please outline the circular reasoning in the above argument?
If you do deem it circular, or question begging, then you will probably see such in every conclusion that is merely consistent with the premises.
Do you disagree with P1 above?
P2 - this seems rather parsimonious, wouldn't you agree?
Or should we start positing the non-physical?
Is it sound?
Well, you come up with something that is non-physical and we'll see.
Now, if the conclusion is not what we'd like, or goes against observed data / knowledge, then we can say that either P1 or P2 must be unsound.
But as an argument it is valid, and does lead to infinite regress with no question-begging and no circular reasoning.
FYI - this is not an argument I adhere to, it is simply an argument to make a point, to answer your questions.
The conclusion of everything is a simple tautology if phrased like that.
God exists if, and only if, it is true that God exists.
God doesn't exist if, and only if, it is true that God doesn't exist.
Infinite regress is a solution to the premises in the same way that any other conclusion is, and is as open to question begging and circularity as any other argument - but is not in and of itself question-begging or circular - as shown above.
If this is the case then you are not ruling out infinite regress of the non-physical either.
Your premise "physical existence requires a cause" says nothing about the non-physical - whether it needs a cause or not.
And there may also be other non-physical whatevers other than nothingness and/or God.
So the validity of your argument starts to break down even more if you wish in your conclusion to limit the non-physical to just those.
You need to find some way to exclude the other possibilities, as you have been informed previously.
And you still haven't acknowledged that you comprehend validity yet.
Do you accept your previous understanding was incorrect?
Don't expect him to acknowledge it, Baldeee, as that would require him admitting he was wrong. And someone so sure of their intellectual superiority as him would never allow themselves to admit such a thing. Heaven forbid! Rather he will simply ignore that which shows him to be wrong, continue on his path of ignorance in the matter, and tell himself that he is right.
As for this continued confusion as to what Syne actually means by "requires":
He initially stated that "requires" means "necessary and sufficient". You'll then recall in post #293 that by way of explanation Syne stated:
And then:Syne said:
as one of his premises (stated in #294).Syne said:
And now he is saying:
While I have no doubt Syne knows what he is trying to say, I don't think he knows how to state it such that others can understand it clearly, nor do I think he fully understands necessity and sufficiency.Syne said:
In the first, for example, he is using "required" when trying to explain "necessary", yet uses "necessary" and "sufficiency" when trying to explain "requires". Is it any wonder that there is confusion?
In the second Syne starts "physical existence necessitates a cause..." - i.e. that if you want physical existence then it must be caused. In the same way, if you want a number divisible by 2 then it must be an even number (i.e. being divisible by 2 necessitates it being even, to use Syne's syntax).
It seems that the second part of Syne's sentence thus follows: "a cause is sufficient to assume physical existence" (i.e. being even is sufficient to assume it is divisible by 2).
But this is then contradicted by Syne in the third quote, where he is assuming that a cause (being divisible by 2) does not necessitate physical existence (being even) - which seems incorrect if the second quote is correct. He goes on to say that it is instead assuming that physical existence (being even) is sufficient to assume a cause (being divisible by 2).
I.e. he equates cause with physical existence, which does mean - contrary to his assertion - that a cause necessitates physical existence (i.e. being divisible by 2 necessitates being even, and being even necessitates being divisible by 2).
So there is clearly some confusion.
However, I previously said that it seems that the second part of Syne's sentence followed the first part... but does it follow validly? Simply answer: no.
For example, using the equivalent form of Syne's sentence: "A number being divisible by 4 necessitates it being even..." (no problem here, as it is impossible to have a number divisible by 4 that is not even), but then Syne would go on and say: "... thus being even is sufficient to assume a number is divisible by 4" - which is, hopefully, accepted by everyone as clearly wrong.
So the form of Syne's second quote above is invalid, the second part clearly not following the first.
It can do but then, as shown, the third quote above is incorrect.
So not only is there confusion between what Syne is trying to get across with the "physical existence requires a cause", but there is some doubt he fully understands the terms he's using.
Furthermore, in the last quote, by way of further clarification, Syne seems to suggest that when he says "PE requires C" he means that C is necessary for PE and PE is sufficient to assume C.
The usual thing is to describe a condition as necessary and/or sufficient for a result.
Here Syne is saying that a condition is necessary for a result, but a result is sufficient to conclude the condition.
The latter follows trivially from the former - if a condition is necessary for a result then the result is sufficient to conclude the condition occurred.
His inclusion of "sufficient" thus seems superfluous and in no small way confusing.
As such I think Syne does simply mean that physical existence requires a cause - using "requires" as everyone understands it - i.e. that a cause is necessary for physical existence (and as such, if you have physical existence then this is sufficient for you to deduce that there was a cause).
Yet when you used this interpretation back in post #246 (your duck and oxygen example) to show him that this led to his argument being invalid he spat it back in your face (post #259): "I've already told you that 'requires' means both necessary and sufficient."
So, looking at his argument again, just because he states in 1 and 2 that "physical existence requires a cause", and "nothingness is not physical", the conclusion he reaches in 3 "Therefore, nothingness has no cause" is clearly invalid.
Again, this is taking what Syne has said, his explanations to date, his reclarifications et al.
His own explanations leave his argument invalid.
Funny how no one responds to me.
As if they already knew their argument was complete bullshit.
Scared.
As if they already knew their argument was complete bullshit.
Scared.
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I'm not sure that you understand the term "validity". Many people have an aesthetic aversion to infinite causal chains and to causal loops but aesthetic aversion doesn't bear on logical validity.
One does not have to introduce either as a premise. One can merely demonstrate that either is an alternative to the supposed schema of causes offered in the KCA.
Here, again, we have the aesthetic rather than the logical. If one assumes that every physical change has a cause, then one assumes that. There is nothing logically wrong with having an infinite chain of cause, nor is there anything wrong with having a closed causal loop. In both cases, these causal chains retain the proposition that all physical events or beings have causes.
You are missing the point: it is the KCA that goes beyond the boundaries of logic. It could be that there is not enough evidence to reach a valid conclusion on the issue.
And this definition is, in itself, so very wrong: it goes very much beyond the required scope of the argument. If we are speaking of the causes of physical being, then why do we need to make the wild claim that no effect can produce a non-physical being? Given that we have no experience with such beings, why should we say, on the basis of out experience with physical beings, that cause-and-effect does not effect non-physical beings?
You are attempting to introduce a claim that you know that your readers will not accept by sneaking it in through a gross misreading of a logical relationship in a more-or-less acceptable claim. This is the kind of deceitful practice that too often accompanies attempts to salvage the KCA.
It is a question of validity because it Seems to have absolutely no bearing on the claim that you are making about nothingness. You may thing that it does, but you have not explained this leap in reasoning. I suspect that you are grossly mistaken about the theory Guth argued, in which an existing physical state transforms, without cause, into a new state before returning to the initial state. The "nothingness" of Guth's hypothesis is not nothingness.
It could be that James R is, unlike you, neither confusing the two different hypotheses of Guth nor incorrectly identifying the initial state of the universe of the "free lunch" hypothesis as nothingness in anything other than a metaphorical sense.
Even if the universe began a finite time in the past, it may still have an infinite history of causes. I believe that Stephen Hawking has a nice demonstration of this somewhere in A Brief History of Time, but I could be wrong about that source. I'm sure that there should be something out there that explains this nicely.
That's cool. Describe the cosmos as God, then pretend that God doesn't exist.
jan.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
As somebody has already mentioned (Baldeee I think) a causal loop would seem to be another possibility.
Causation as a metaphysical principle seems to be a generalization of physical causation, and physical causation is a very poorly understood relationship between physical events which take place within the space-time-matter universe. If we are talking about the origin of the universe in its entirety, that origin might arguably be called a physical event as well, at least from the perspective of those who come after. (Physicists talk about the 'big bang' that way.) But it's hard to see how physical causation can possibly be responsible for it, since there wouldn't be any physical events prior to the space-time-matter origin event that could serve as its physical cause. Craig acknowledges this (in fact if forms a major part of his argument that the universe's cause is the traditional theistic God) since he argues that the entire universe's cause would have to be non-physical and timeless.
My complaint at the moment (they come and go) is that Craig (and perhaps Syne) are using the idea of causation ambiguously and elastically, starting out with the idea of physical causes (the assertion that all physical things require causes) and then backing away from the idea of physical causation as fast as they can towards some very different interpretation of the word 'cause'. As for me, I'd be more inclined to say that not only do we not know how to answer the question of what caused the entire physical universe, we don't even know whether the question makes sense, or whether we are misusing what seems to us to be the familiar concept of cause and committing a category mistake.
It doesn't seem to be all that applicable to causation. If a physical object in space is accelerating, we can say that the acceleration is caused by the interaction of its mass with a gravitational field. Or we could say that the acceleration is caused by the firing of an on-board rocket engine. In other words, many physical events can have more than one possible cause. A chemical reaction might speed up because it was heated, or because somebody introduced a catalyst. This seemingly wouldn't be possible if we interpret causality logically as a biconditional iff (if and only if).
Would Christian theology really want to argue that God is just as dependent on the existence of the physical universe as the existence of the physical universe is on God? I don't think that Craig would want to go anywhere near that.
I'm kind of put-off when physicists play at being metaphysicans. They announce that science has somehow answered the deepest of the age-old philosophical questions. But closer examination shows that they only accomplished whatever it is that they did by redefining 'nothing' as quantum vacuum (however 'flat') and by continuing to assume that their beloved laws of physics hold true. (So where did those come from?)
In other words, they aren't really addressing the ultimate 'why is there something rather than nothing?' question at all. Ultimate nothing, nothing in the strongest sense, means no physics. So physics would seem to be totally out of its depth in trying to answer this most fundamental of all questions.
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Beer w/Straw
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