Proof Of An Intelligent Neccesary Cause

[IWantGod]

It could be or have partially actualised potental. Also although it is not possible in Euclidean planar geormetry, by using an extra dimension a square can be morphed into a circle, How do you know that reality does not contain estra hidden dimensions?

The point of the matter is, change is a reduction of potency to act.

A necessary being however, is necessarily what it is eternally; it has the fullness of being. It is not potentially a planet and then a whale and then a pig, as these are actualised potential, and are therefore not identical to what is necessarily real. Physical reality may very well contain extra-dimensions but it is irrelevant.

 

[Tomdstone]

change is a reduction of potency to act.

Let’s say I change my morning breakfast habits so that now I drink a glass of orange juice instead of a cup of coffee. How has my potency to act been reduced?

 

[IWantGod]

Let’s say I change my morning breakfast habits so that now I drink a glass of orange juice instead of a cup of coffee. How has my potency to act been reduced?

You misunderstand. I’m often misunderstood .

The change is an actualisation of potential. It doesn’t matter what you are doing in particular other than the fact that you are bringing more potential in to act in general in everything you do.

 

[Nixbits]

ProdglArchitect:

I didn’t say that our knowledge of the universe was exhaustive, only that all know evidence points to the conclusion that something cannot come from nothing. There’s no evidence to suggest that the laws of physics have ever been different, so it would not be smart to base an argument on the presumption that they were at some point in the past.

I was not aware that we had gathered sufficient evidence about conditions prior to (if I can use such temporal terminology) the first existence of anything to make this sort of determination. It seems that you and IWantGod know differently. It would not be smart to base an argument on the presumption that the laws of physics have always been the same or that we know enough about the laws of physics as they relate to conditions at or ‘prior’ to the first existence of anything to allow us to confidently make claims about causality.

ProdglArchitect:

Thought games are all well and good, but if you’re going to make an actual argument on a subject, you should base that argument on the collected data. Feel free to seek out alternate data, that’s half the point of the sciences, but until evidence is found that contradicts the observed reality there is no rational reason to reject that reality.

I agree that IWantGod’s proof should be based on the collected data. Where is the collected data and what is the observed reality that relates to conditions that caused our universe to exist? I’m clearly not up-to-date with the latest scientific thinking and would welcome help from anyone to understand it.

ProdglArchitect:

If premise 1 is true, (and you’ve given no reason based on evidence to assume otherwise), and if premise 2 is true (which it obviously is), then it is absolutely necessary that something exists which has no cause of an external creator (i.e., it is something that necessarily exists as a result of it’s own nature. In other words, it is that things nature to exist.)

Sorry to keep labouring this point. I must be very dense to not understand this. Are you saying that, given that something exists, it is necessary that something exists to have caused the somethings that we observe? Or are you saying that, regardless of what actually happened, it was impossible, simply not a valid option, for there to be nothing that exists?

Also, in Premise 2, what does it mean that something must have always existed if time itself began at the Big Bang?

ProdglArchitect:

If something exists, we know that something else must have created it. Since an infinite regression of creators is impossible (any sequential chain, no matter how long it may have existed, must have a starting point to set the chain in motion.), we know that there must be a creator who exists without an external cause. This is what we mean when we say something exists necessarily. It exists because it is in its nature to exist.

If there cannot be an infinite regress and so must be something that exists without an external cause, can it be that our universe can have come into existence without an external cause? If not, why not?

 

[Tomdstone]

Premise 1: Out of nothing comes nothing.

Premise 2: Something exists. Therefore something must have always existed if premise 1 is true.

Premise 3: Something necessarily exists and therefore it does not potentially exist if premise 1 and 2 is correct.

Premise 4: If something necessarily exists, then every aspect of its being is necessarily actual and therefore does not change. Its being is not potentially actual, it does not become potentially more than what it is because it is eternally everything that it is and ever will be. There is no potency in it.

Premise 5: Physical reality changes. It is potentially more, it is in a continuous state of evolution and becoming. Therefore Physical reality or activity and the laws that govern its being is not necessary reality because it has potency/potential in its being.

Premise 6: Potential/potency cannot be actualised from nothing according to premise 1 and as such neither can physical laws since physical laws are intrinsic to the nature of potential physical beings.

Premise 7: Therefore physical activity or physical being and physical laws require an existential cause according to premise 1.

Premise 8: If physical being or physical activity requires a cause according to premise 1 then its cause is not physical being or physical activity or any of the laws that govern it according to premise 4, 5 and 6.

Premise 9: According to premise 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8, necessary being is the necessary cause of anything that has potency/potential in its being. And according to premise 8, we can see that necessary being is not physical activity or physical being. Therefore necessary reality cannot be defined as having moving parts or dimensions. Also it must follow that such a being is not governed by physical laws.

Premise 10: Therefore physical reality cannot have a “natural” cause as that would require moving parts or dimensions. It would require potency/potential.

Premise 11: Necessary reality must therefore be a super-natural cause. However since it has no parts from which physical reality and it laws can be formed naturally – having no potency in its being – then there is only one other kind of cause that can actualise physical potential and the laws that govern it. An intelligent cause.

Premise 12: According to premise 1, out of nothing comes nothing. Thus a necessary being is also an intelligent cause. Everything that has potency and therefore - contingent laws of activity - must therefore exist and have its being in something like an intelligent mind.

Premise 13: If necessary reality has an intelligent mind and we exist in its intellect, then it is self-knowing or self-aware, and all that which has potency including ourselves and the laws of nature is a creation of its self-knowledge and is sustained within its self-knowing.

Conclusion: Ultimate reality is an intelligent necessary cause.

According to the cyclical model of the universe, there is a neverending cycle of expansion and contraction. It doesn’t have a beginning or an end.

 

[Tomdstone]

If there cannot be an infinite regress and so must be something that exists without an external cause, can it be that our universe can have come into existence without an external cause? If not, why not?

According to the current cyclical models, the universe extends infinitely backwards and infinitely forward in time.

 

[Nixbits]

IWantGod:

change is a reduction of potency to act

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that, when something changes, one of the things that could happen to that something does actually happen. In other words, change is when something happens. This seems a trivial statement of the obvious. I don’t see how the use of such terminology helps to make things clearer in any way.

IWantGod:

The change is an actualisation of potential.

In other words, change is when something actually happens. Correct?

IWantGod:

It doesn’t matter what you are doing in particular other than the fact that you are bringing more potential in to act in general in everything you do.

In other words, when you do something, you are making one of the things that you potentially could do actually happen. I don’t see how thinking of things like ‘potency’ and ‘act’ as things in themselves helps in any way. ‘Potency’ is just things that could happen. ‘Act’ is just things that actually happen.

Or am I missing something?

 

[IWantGod]

According to the cyclical model of the universe, there is a neverending cycle of expansion and contraction. It doesn’t have a beginning or an end.

You are missing the point. Even if there is an infinite change of potential/potency being actualised, it is still not necessary reality precisely because it is actualised potency. Something that necessarily exist is not actualised potential and neither is any aspect of its being.

Also An actually infinite number or quantity is meaningless in real world terms, but that’s beside the point.

 

[Tomdstone]

Also An actually infinite number or quantity is meaningless in real world terms.

Not true. Take a time interval of one hour. In that one hour period, say from 1:00 to 2:00 there are an infinite number of real times. Give me any two times within that one hour period, and I will find you another one between the given two. So there are an infinite number of real times between 1:00 and 2:00.
You give me 1:25 and 1:26. I can give you 1:25:30. So the time interval is infinitely divisible, and you have an actually infinite quantity in the real world.

 

[dmar198]

Not true. Take a time interval of one hour. In that one hour period, say from 1:00 to 2:00 there are an infinite number of real times. Give me any two times within that one hour period, and I will find you another one between the given two. So there are an infinite number of real times between 1:00 and 2:00.
You give me 1:25 and 1:26. I can give you 1:25:30. So the time interval is infinitely divisible, and you have an actually infinite quantity in the real world.

Not if there’s planck time, perhaps.

 

[IWantGod]

Not true. Take a time interval of one hour. In that one hour period, say from 1:00 to 2:00 there are an infinite number of real times. Give me any two times within that one hour period, and I will find you another one between the given two. So there are an infinite number of real times between 1:00 and 2:00.
You give me 1:25 and 1:26. I can give you 1:25:30. So the time interval is infinitely divisible, and you have an actually infinite quantity in the real world.

Your talking pure mathematics. I’m talking ontology. If there was truly a real world duration of an actual infinite between two events or two instances of change you would never get to 1:27.

 

[Tomdstone]

Your talking pure mathematics. I’m talking ontology. If there was truly a real world duration of an actual infinite between two events or two instances of change you would never get to 1:27.

Originally, you said that an actually infinite quantity is meaningless in real world terms. Now you have changed your statement to talk about duration and not quantity. Duration and quantity are two different things.

 

[IWantGod]

Originally, you said that an actually infinite quantity is meaningless in real world terms. Now you have changed your statement to talk about duration and not quantity. Duration and quantity are two different things.

It is. It only exists in mathematical terms. 12.25 is a purely abstract concept, and therefore you can divide it up as much as you like I suppose. There is a kind of quantity in duration and that is what I meant. But what ever the case you cannot have an infinite past number of changes. It makes no rational sense.

 

[Tomdstone]

Not if there’s planck time, perhaps.

True. If time is discrete, there would be a limit to how far you can cut up a time interval. Some people want to use discrete lattice gauge theory to explain physical laws. But a problem with lattice gauge theory is that it is left right symmetric, whereas certain physical phenomena are not symmetric.

 

[IWantGod]

True. If time is discrete, there would be a limit to how far you can cut up a time interval. Some people want to use discrete lattice gauge theory to explain physical laws. But a problem with lattice gauge theory is that it is left right symmetric, whereas certain physical phenomena are not symmetric.

You seem to have a good knowledge of these ideas. It would be great if you could give a small summary of lattice gauge theory just for the sake of the thread and say what you think is correct.

 

[dmar198]

a small summary of lattice gauge theory

Sounds like a tall order.

 

[IWantGod]

Sounds like a tall order.

Yeah, i think your right.

 

[IWantGod]

I was not aware that we had gathered sufficient evidence about conditions prior to (if I can use such temporal terminology) the first existence of anything to make this sort of determination. It seems that you and IWantGod know differently. It would not be smart to base an argument on the presumption that the laws of physics have always been the same or that we know enough about the laws of physics as they relate to conditions at or ‘prior’ to the first existence of anything to allow us to confidently make claims about causality.

What is relevant is the fact of change. Potentiality cannot be actualised from nothing. It does not matter how many actualised potentials extend into the past.

I agree that IWantGod’s proof should be based on the collected data. Where is the collected data and what is the observed reality that relates to conditions that caused our universe to exist?

Its not a scientific argument, its a metaphysical argument that’s based on the fact that something exists and that there are things that cannot account for there own existence.

I’m clearly not up-to-date with the latest scientific thinking and would welcome help from anyone to understand it.

Sorry to keep labouring this point. I must be very dense to not understand this. Are you saying that, given that something exists, it is necessary that something exists to have caused the something that we observe? Or are you saying that, regardless of what actually happened, it was impossible, simply not a valid option, for there to be nothing that exists?

Something exists. Thus something must have existed eternally since potentiality or potential being cannot actualise itself, since potential does not actually exist in and of itself.

Also, in Premise 2, what does it mean that something must have always existed if time itself began at the Big Bang?

Something must have timelessly existed (eternal).

If there cannot be an infinite regress and so must be something that exists without an external cause, can it be that our universe can have come into existence without an external cause? If not, why not?

Because potential cannot actualise itself. You need existence before you can actualise potential.

 

[Tomdstone]

What is relevant is the fact of change. Potentiality cannot be actualised from nothing. It does not matter how many actualised potentials extend into the past.

Its not a scientific argument, its a metaphysical argument that’s based on the fact that something exists and that there are things that cannot account for there own existence.

Something exists. Thus something must have existed eternally since potentiality or potential being cannot actualise itself, since potential does not actually exist in and of itself.

Something must have timelessly existed (eternal).

Because potential cannot actualise itself. You need existence before you can actualise potential.

I don’t see the proof that there was a time when quantum fluctuations did not exist.

 

[IWantGod]

I don’t see the proof that there was a time when quantum fluctuations did not exist.

No actualised potential existed.