Why Couldn't the Universe Exist Without a Cause?

[PRmerger]

Still, it would seem he is committing something like a black swan fallacy by insisting that ontology requires existing things have certain physical traits.

Yes. There is a peculiar fundamentalism that descends upon atheistic circles.

There is the idea of adding ONLYs where none are required.

“Ontology requires physical traits ONLY”.

I dismiss this type of thinking along with those who say:

The Mass must be in Latin ONLY.
We must use the Bible ONLY.
There is Science ONLY.

This type of arbitrary insistence is as absurd as saying, “You can eat bacon ONLY at breakfast.”

And this is what makes Catholicism so formidable to refute. We rarely appeal to the ONLY argument. We can say, “Sure. It’s just not ONLY that”.

 

[meltzerboy]

Yes. There is a peculiar fundamentalism that descends upon atheistic circles.

There is the idea of adding ONLYs where none are required.

“Ontology requires physical traits ONLY”.

I dismiss this type of thinking along with those who say:

The Mass must be in Latin ONLY.
We must use the Bible ONLY.
There is Science ONLY.

This type of arbitrary insistence is as absurd as saying, “You can eat bacon ONLY at breakfast.”

And this is what makes Catholicism so formidable to refute. We rarely appeal to the ONLY argument. We can say, “Sure. It’s just not ONLY that”.

Or “You CANNOT eat bacon ONLY at breakfast.” Just a touch of levity on this day of the blizzard…

 

[PRmerger]

Or “You CANNOT eat bacon ONLY at breakfast.” Just a touch of levity on this day of the blizzard…

Stay warm, friend. Stay warm.

 

[Bradski]

Any barricades we put up will be shown to be contrived. The very simple question, that we all should be most interested in, is: “What is the truth?”

I am quite happy slipping past barricades and asking, “Made any progress, yet?” Or, “What’s happening there?” Provided the truth is seriously being considered.

As I said, you join nothing. You will appear on one side or another by the position you take.

One one side we have a mixture of atheists and Christians. On the other, just Christians. On that side they are all saying: ‘In this matter, look no further. The answer is God’.

On the other side, the Christians are saying: ‘You idiot. The answer is ALWAYS God. We just want to find out how He did it’.

I don’t see any middle road. It’s no good asking the first group: ‘made any progress there?’. The investigation has stopped. It has been taken out of the science lab and put into the theological department.

You are in the first group if you say we should stop investigating something because we know the answer. Do you have anything that you want to be taken down the corridor from one department to the other?

 

[meltzerboy]

Stay warm, friend. Stay warm.

Many thanks, PR.

 

[Peter_Plato]

As I said, you join nothing. You will appear on one side or another by the position you take.

Have you ever watched those old westerns where native scouts slip in and out of enemy camps undetected? Well, that’s me.

Elusive as all get out – a snow leopard in a blizzard or a black panther in the dark of night.

Ow! Jeez, I think I bumped my shin on something.

One one side we have a mixture of atheists and Christians. On the other, just Christians. On that side they are all saying: ‘In this matter, look no further. The answer is God’.

On the other side, the Christians are saying: ‘You idiot. The answer is ALWAYS God. We just want to find out how He did it’.

I don’t see any middle road. It’s no good asking the first group: ‘made any progress there?’. The investigation has stopped. It has been taken out of the science lab and put into the theological department.

Well, no, actually. that isn’t what they have decided, THAT is what YOU have decided FOR them.

I was there, remember? You probably didn’t notice me. See how elusive I can be?

You are in the first group if you say we should stop investigating something because we know the answer. Do you have anything that you want to be taken down the corridor from one department to the other?

I don’t carry anything for anyone. I hurt my shin once doing it. It also gets in the way of my stealthiness

 

[Bradski]

I used to do the same. Make a light hearted post because, hey no need to be too serious about things. We’re just a couple guys shootin’ the breeze. And hope nobody noticed I didn’t answer the question. Which I’ll ask again. You know, just lolly gaggin’.

Is there anything you need to remove from the science department (which looks for how God does things) into the theological one (where it assumed to be supernatural).

And anyone can feel free to throw in their two cents.

 

[Solmyr]

“Write off” is a bit disingenuous.

I don’t think so. It was YOU, who said that God might consider it more important to “nudge” us to cure and feed our children, instead of healing them and feeding them. That means to “write off” the suffering and the death of those children - in the name of using them as teaching tools.

A loving being is supposed to help when possible. That is what “loving” means. Especially when “we, humans” are powerless to do the necessary “job” on our own. When there is sufficient rain, the starvation can be avoided. If there are sufficient medications, diseases can be prevented. If a human person would be as “aloof” and uncaring as God is, everyone would condemn that person in the strongest possible terms. Yet, you (all) wish to use a different scale for God. It makes you hypocrites.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I used to do the same. Make a light hearted post because, hey no need to be too serious about things. We’re just a couple guys shootin’ the breeze. And hope nobody noticed I didn’t answer the question. Which I’ll ask again. You know, just lolly gaggin’.

Is there anything you need to remove from the science department (which looks for how God does things) into the theological one (where it assumed to be supernatural).

And anyone can feel free to throw in their two cents.

I suppose it is possible to BOTH be “just lolly gaggin’” AND and to answer your question thoughtfully. Or will you insist upon a necessary Either/Or?

Perhaps you are creating a contrived division between two things that don’t actually divide up as you suppose, in reality. It may “appear” to be a division integral to reality, but it may not be so. The distinction only appears to bifurcate reality, whereas it may merely show the limits of our methods – not an actual demarcation of reality into natural and supernatural.

Reality just is. The aspect of it that we regard as “natural” is what we can see and/or explain. The other aspect – though no less real than the first – is that which is beyond our methods, which we call “supernatural.” I just think the whole distinction is a contrived one, which, in reality, only serves to tell us something about ourselves rather than about reality as it is in itself. :twocents:

Edward Feser posted a blog some time ago on this very issue with regard to the mind-body problem. It is possible to fabricate an entire philosophical conundrum (or scientific one) based upon a set of false premises – either philosophical or methodological.

Now the real juicy part – as far as this thread is concerned – is where he starts talking about, well… juice. Orange juice to be specific.

The way he tells it…

An analogy: Suppose you squeeze every last drop of juice out of an orange, and then, deciding you want to put it back in while at the same time keeping the dried-out husk you’ve created, puzzle over how to go about doing it. A Blackburn-like critic assures you that the problem is a pseudo-problem of your own making: “You’re illicitly moving from an adjective to an abstract noun. We say things like ‘This orange is juicy’ and ‘That orange is not so juicy.’ You fallaciously infer from that that there’s this stuff called ‘juice’ that exists over and above the husk of the orange. Resist the urge to do that and the problem begins to deflate.”

Well, the critic in this case is partly right; the problem is of your own making. But he does not see how deep the problem goes, and indeed seems deeply implicated in it himself. For the source of the difficulty is not a mere tendency to shift from adjective to noun. The source of the difficulty is that you have made of the juice a separate stuff precisely by squeezing it out of the orange, and you have created an insoluble problem of how to get it back into the orange precisely because you insist on doing so while at the same time keeping the orange a dry husk. **You are stuck with a dualism of dry husk and juice, and will remain stuck with it unless you give up not only the aim of keeping the juice as a stuff separate from the orange, but also the aim of keeping the orange as a dry husk devoid of juice. **The Blackburn-like critic, meanwhile, is in if anything an even odder position insofar as he regards the dried-out husk as somehow more real than the juice. The solution is to get the orange back – juice and husk in their organic unity, as a single entity. The juice/husk dualist wants to make of an orange an aggregate of two stuffs; the Blackburn-like critic wants to chuck out the juice, keep the husk, and call that alone an “orange.” The second position is hardly better than the first.
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2013/03/nagel-and-his-critics-part-viii.html

In case you missed it, you are the “Blackburn-like critic” with regard to “natural” reality trying to insist all the flavour is in the quanitifiable or “material” husk of reality and none in the actually far juicier aspects or qualities of reality.

AND the reason you insist on doing so is because quantities are, practically speaking, very easy to manipulate and turn into concrete demonstrable “goods.” Emphasis on “concrete.”

This is also Solmyr’s predicament, though he won’t admit he finds it binding. A little juice would be good for his constipation – i.e., the concrete consistency of his…ahem… “products.” A husk-alone diet is not good for the constitution. A little levity.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t think so. It was YOU, who said that God might consider it more important to “nudge” us to cure and feed our children, instead of healing them and feeding them. That means to “write off” the suffering and the death of those children - in the name of using them as teaching tools.

A loving being is supposed to help when possible. That is what “loving” means. Especially when “we, humans” are powerless to do the necessary “job” on our own. When there is sufficient rain, the starvation can be avoided. If there are sufficient medications, diseases can be prevented. If a human person would be as “aloof” and uncaring as God is, everyone would condemn that person in the strongest possible terms. Yet, you (all) wish to use a different scale for God. It makes you hypocrites.

Hypocrite is an interesting word. It comes from the Greek ὑποκριτής, meaning actor or player. Someone who purports to be something he is not.

It seems to me that you, as a human being believe it is in your purview to assess all ends and means at God’s disposal and have put yourself in the rather enviable position of making a judgement regarding God’s deficiencies. It seems to me, that the only one purporting to be something you cannot even possibly understand is you.

Admittedly, we humans are failures. Yup most of us, abject moral failures.

The problem, for you, is without knowing for certain what the omnipotent, omnibenevolent omniscient source of all reality has in mind regarding human existence, you are in no position to play at being God or pretend you have the wherewithal to make whatever judgements God might choose. Recall the definition of ὑποκριτής, – an actor playing the part of someone he actually is not.

As to children in North Africa, I suspect every human being has some responsibility, some more than others. The wealtiest 65 humans have more assets than the poorest 4 billion people on earth combined. Could something be done by them? You bet. Could each of us do something? You bet.

In the meantime, you have no idea what God is doing or planning because you are not God. Nor do you have the capacity to know what it is that he ought to do. There is a word for acting as if you do: ὑποκριτής,

 

[JuanFlorencio]

That is a hodgepodge of unrelated things. Not helpful at all. The word “existence” has two meanings. Physical existence and conceptual existence. Concepts have no ontological existence. You claim “soul” and “God”, both of which are supposed to have ontological existence, but you cannot present any evidence for them. Moreover there is no coherent definition of a “soul”.

Unfortunately the word “reality” as you use it is also meaningless for me. Sorry.

This is a rather profound thought.

I think that my thoughts do not exist.

I think, therefore I am not.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t think so. It was YOU, who said that God might consider it more important to “nudge” us to cure and feed our children, instead of healing them and feeding them. That means to “write off” the suffering and the death of those children - in the name of using them as teaching tools.

A loving being is supposed to help when possible. That is what “loving” means. Especially when “we, humans” are powerless to do the necessary “job” on our own. When there is sufficient rain, the starvation can be avoided. If there are sufficient medications, diseases can be prevented. If a human person would be as “aloof” and uncaring as God is, everyone would condemn that person in the strongest possible terms. Yet, you (all) wish to use a different scale for God. It makes you hypocrites.

There is a very subtle kind of “leveraging” going on here. A kind of “if God is on the ‘hook’ for something then I am off the ‘hook’ for it. Therefore, if I can find a way to pin something on God, then I am off the hook.”

I think the entire train of thought is deficient because we as human beings are not in the same moral position as God. We need to be fully aware of that.

There are some things that, morally speaking, we are all responsible for, yet none of us, individually, necessarily bear any culpability. Some moral issues could be resolved, but require joint concerted effort. Others fall squarely upon us as individuals. We will be judged proportionately

I suspect it is frustration with the moral good will of humans in general that causes finger pointing at God. It appears that he only shrugs his shoulders, but that simply is not true and we know that because of the cross. The point being he doesn’t require us to carry everyone’s cross at the same time, just our own in the situation we find ourselves in at the moment. That is all.

There is no need to put God on the hook because he has already anticipated our desire to put him there by voluntarily getting up and hanging on the cross. The question now is whether we are still looking to get ourselves off the hook?

 

[ynotzap]

Very nice summary, but you overlooked something.

Every time a “miracle” is being asserted, it is an implicit “goddidit” or “god of the gaps”. After all a “miracle” means an event which could not have happened without a supernatural agent (aka God). It is assumed that a miracle cannot be explained by natural means, in other words it denies that the universe is “decipherable”. If it could be explained in natural terms, it would not be a “miracle”

It is no assumed that a miracle can not be explained by natural terms, it is proven that they contradict laws of modern science eg. a child born without pupils in her eyes through the intercession of a saint can now see without pupils, science will never have the answer, after all for some of them the spiritual doesn’t exist. Miracles are evidence of God’s existence. If you don’t know you just don’;t know, and you can’t give what you do not have It appears to me that you are the one that is having trouble deciphering some things about the universe . You are right about if a miracle could be explained in natural terms it wouldn’t be a miracle.

 

[PRmerger]

Many thanks, PR.

My brother lives in Brooklyn.

The pictures are incredible.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

In his “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, David Hume wrote this as one of his premises concerning his reflections on “cause and effect”:

“All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.”

“Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind.”

“It may, therefore, be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is the nature of that evidence which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory.”

Is this distinction between “matters of fact” and “relations of ideas” itself a matter of fact or a relation of ideas? Or is it both at the same time? There was Hume’s mind and its contents; and Hume might have thought that those contents could have only two sources: either they were produced by his mind (or they constituted his mind), or they came from somewhere else. Berkeley had established a similar distinction, noticing that some of his “ideas” follow certain order independently of his wishes and some others that do not follow an evident order or do not follow any order at all, but which obey his wishes.

But again, is this distinction a matter of fact or a relation of ideas? Or is it both simultaneously? Or is it an element of a third class of those contents of Hume’s mind?

 

[neophyte]

If there is no First Cause, then we are at the end of an infinite series of actual events. But by definition it is not possible to reach the end of an infinite series. Therefore there must be a First Cause.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Is this distinction between “matters of fact” and “relations of ideas” itself a matter of fact or a relation of ideas? Or is it both at the same time?

:coffeeread: :hypno: :jrbirdman: :takeoff:

 

[DrTaffy]

Oh, dear. Ohdearohdearohdear.

Indeed, so your idea of us “reasoning together” boils down to you completely ignoring my on-topic relevant points in order to repeat your usual threats?

You don’t even specify what it is that you find objectionable in that, so charitably assuming that you are not being wildly hypocritical I shall take my best guess and point out that you were the one who asserted that your posts need either a dictionary or a classical education to decipher, even when you are saying something as simple as “I think that is pointless”.

I merely express my opinion that that is not good writing. On the contrary, if anything ‘good’ writing would be expressing subtle and complex ideas in language so clear and simple that even someone just starting to learn english can understand it, not taking a banal and simple expression and turning it into something that even an educated natural english speaker needs a dictionary to understand.

And it’s often the ones who bristle so much about others’ choice of words who are the ones who need it the most.

All I said was that your one reply was “otiose and inutile, as you would put it” - you are the one who seems to have taken that badly. You must admit that you do use those two words a lot. As such, what is wrong with me commenting on it? Unless you feel some shame at using those words, there should be no problem surely?

Bear in mind too that you could have made the same point in a much more accessible manner for those who are not natural english speakers, given that this is an international forum. Likewise not all people reading here will be on broadband, so animated GIFs that serve no purpose other than to express simple phrases such as “I don’t understand” are less than considerate. Although having clicked on one I am glad to see that you have scaled them down in size considerably since the old days.

So, back on topic:

PRmerger;13590903:

Have you ever seen this happen?

Have you ever seen a turnip materialize, from nothing, upon your plate?

Anyone who knows anything about modern quantum mechanics will have heard of virtual particle pair creation, which is just that - something popping into existence like your strawman of a turnip materialising on a plate.

More to the point, anyone familiar with modern cosmology will know that the Universe does not need to pop into existence out of nothing. Even in the most naive version of the Big Bang Theory, since space and time are part of the cosmos, there is no time ‘before’ there was something, there was always something from the time t=0.

You have your concrete and very well demonstrated example of what you asked for, as well as a brief explanation of how that is not what most cosmologists claim.

Can you provide equally robust, demonstrable examples of a mind existing without a physical substrate, let alone ‘outside of time and space’, or of such a being conjuring something out of nothing? Otherwise it seems that it is your explanation for the cosmos that does indeed rely on asserting the existence of things completely outside of our experience.

 

[DrTaffy]

DrTaffy;13605563:

After all you assume that your God has no seperate cause. Put another way, define the ‘Universe’ in its conventional sense of “everything that exists” and either it has no seperate cause or you are asserting that it was caused by something nonexistent.

Well, no actually. This is not an assumption, but a conclusion of metaphysics and logic.

As you like. I think that boils down to a quibble about what I meant by ‘asssume’, but it is irrelevant to the argument.

Since you accept the existence of at least one thing that requires no external cause, there is nothing incoherent about positing a ‘universe’ with no external cause. This sort of debate really requires a lot of preliminary spadework to agree on what we mean by ‘universe’, ‘cause’ and so on, but as I pointed out immediately after the above:

Put another way, define the ‘Universe’ in its conventional sense of “everything that exists” and either it has no seperate cause or you are asserting that it was caused by something nonexistent.

you can’t just willy-nilly declare fully explanatory causes must, themselves, have outside causes. That is just logically incoherent and shows you haven’t thought much about the question.

Actually, it shows that you have not read what I wrote very carefully, as it says nothing like that.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t think so. It was YOU, who said that God might consider it more important to “nudge” us to cure and feed our children, instead of healing them and feeding them. That means to “write off” the suffering and the death of those children - in the name of using them as teaching tools.

A loving being is supposed to help when possible. That is what “loving” means. Especially when “we, humans” are powerless to do the necessary “job” on our own. When there is sufficient rain, the starvation can be avoided. If there are sufficient medications, diseases can be prevented. If a human person would be as “aloof” and uncaring as God is, everyone would condemn that person in the strongest possible terms. Yet, you (all) wish to use a different scale for God. It makes you hypocrites.

The real hypocrite is the one who pretends to have better judgment than the one he judges, namely God.

By the way, are you going to answer my earlier question? What conclusion did you draw?

This is going to be interesting if you dare to answer the question.