Why Couldn't the Universe Exist Without a Cause?

[DrTaffy]

Oh, *all *my responses are constructive and on topic, Taffy.

To wit: to assert that the universe is eternal is to be a science-denier.

Could be eternal, in the sense of having infinite past time - after all you quite likely believe in infinite future time, which would also make it ‘eternal’ by many definitions.

And this is not denying science, but understanding it better than you do. Note the distinguished cosmologists who entertain models that include unbounded past time.

To say that the universe began to exist means that it has a cause.

No, it means that you don’t understand all those perfectly viable models where the universe does not ‘begin’ to exist in any meaningful sense.

The trump card of the Believer is this: why is there something rather than nothing.

Back at you. You can assert that God ‘must’ exist, but we can point out that the universe does exist. No need to posit a sentient entity that somehow exists and thinks with a body, space or time in order to assert that something is necessary.

Likewise, why shouldn’t there be something? There is only one way for there to be absolutely nothing, but infinite ways for there to be something.

That’s not what you asked.

Bradski;13609799:

That’s not what you asked.

What did I ask then?

As has been been pointed out several times, you asked for an example of something like a turnip appearing on your plate.

That is in space-time, in nothing like a vacuum and nothing like the lowest possible energy state.

Likewise your objection about virtual particles appearing in a low energy state vacuum displays a misunderstanding of the physics. Those virtual particles are the ‘low energy’ of the vacuum, not something separate that ‘comes from’ another pot of energy.

And you have not addressed the point that most modern cosmological models do not involve ‘something coming from nothing.’ The Big Bang even at its most naive is not a cosmic egg popping into existence in a pre-existing space-time, but of space time where at the earliest moment in time there is already something.

We are still waiting on an answer to the following:
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.

 

[Bradski]

What did I ask then?

I am perplexed by the general lack of comprehension that people seem to have with my posts. It really does appear that quite a few forum members simply skip what myself (and a few other atheists) say and then hit the keyboard with such enthusiasm, the answer drifts away from any connection with what the reply is mean to address.

The additional fact that I have to point out to you what you actually asked in order to clear up this type of misunderstanding is bizarre.

Unless you can tell us of any single thing, ever in the entirety of human existence, that has come to exist without a cause.

Will two examples do?

 

[inocente]

Oh, and did you see what your article asserted:

“While the Big Bang theory explains how the universe has expanded and cooled since it began,”…

One more time, this time with my emphasis.

While the Big Bang theory explains how the universe has expanded and cooled since it began,

Began.

The universe began to exist.

Again, one has to be a science denier to assert that the universe is eternal.

QED.

Again.

The big bang theory says a beginning, not necessarily a creation. It can’t distinguish, as it says that if there was a before, all evidence got wiped out by the extreme contraction of the singularity. There are hypotheses about whether or not anything existed before, but currently there’s no evidence which disproves either possibility.

In any case we’re talking of a theory which proposes the most remote, violent and extreme event ever, but it’s a theory which didn’t even predict the accelerating expansion of the universe, an expansion driven by more energy than is in all the visible and dark matter put together, an acceleration which came as a total surprise to cosmologists when it was first observed less than 20 year’s ago.

A bit of skepticism is in order. Cosmologists have proved they’re a long way from infallible, there’s a lot of unknowns, and the theory could change tomorrow.

 

[inocente]

Certainly, fundamentalist atheist types like to strip this ‘God of the Gaps’ naked and parade him down the street, but it seems the only real outcome is to demonstrate their inability to engage with actual arguments from the tradition of classical theism.

While I do suppose that the young earth creationists may require a bit of straightening out in the investigatory skills department, I don’t think every ID proponent necessarily should be tarred with the same brush.

After all, no one has adequately explained the complexity of genetic code, amino acid sequencing, functional proteins or, for that matter, how life arose on this planet and whether it exists anywhere else in the universe.

God-of-the-gaps is a term invented by theologians to criticize any apologetic which relies on gaps in knowledge. A god-of-the-gaps argument is always a logical fallacy, which commits, at the least, an appeal to ignorance fallacy (it can be rewritten We can’t explain X therefore God exists).

Examples include: The big bang therefore God; Unexplained event therefore God; Bach/sunsets/etc. therefore God; Life on Earth therefore God; Fine tuning therefore God; Irreducible complexity therefore God; Amino acid sequencing therefore God.

I’m not certain but think all intelligent design arguments use the fallacy in its “appeal to incredulity” form - they find something which, for those without specialist knowledge, sounds incredible.

 

[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.

No response?

 

[Bradski]

If I have two apples and I give you one, I have one left. If I go to the pub, I can’t go to the football at the same time. If I have to work for eight hours today, that will be exactly the same length of time as eight hours will be tomorrow.

All this is entirely reasonable. Objects and time, space and distance. We are all familiar with them. What could be easier. All pretty simple really. We understand what fast means. What small means. What someone means when they say that something is heavy.

But when we start looking a little closer, things begin to appear a little different. And when we start looking really closely, they change. The physics of the very small and the very large begin to drift ever further from what we consider being common sense. ‘Well, it’s obvious…any fool can see…it is patently logical that…’. None of these terms carry any weight at all when we get down to distances and times that are literally impossible to imagine. Although these distances and times actually exist in reality, they can only exist to us in a mathematical sense.

When we get down to Planck lengths (and times and mass), then what any of us considers to be reasonable just about disappears completely. To get an idea of what we are talking about, read the following description of what exactly a Planck length comprises:

The Planck length is 1.6x10-35 metres. (That’s 0.000000000000000000000000000000000016meters.) To give you an idea, let’s compare it with the size of an atom, which is already about 100,000 times smaller than anything you can see with your unaided eye (an atom size is about 0.0000000001meters). Suppose that you measured the diameter of an atom in Planck lengths, and that you counted off one Planck length per second. To measure the atomic diameter in Planck lengths would take you 10,000,000 times the current age of the universe. newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/jw/module6_Planck.htm

It becomes nonsensical to use everyday descriptions for these concepts. It is nonsensical to use the term ‘small’ for a Planck length because we use the term small for items which we can actually imagine and which obey the everyday rules of this macro existence of ours.

Nevertheless, a lot of people on both sides of the fence in these type of discussions are waaaay to fond of making definitive statements about that which we cannot understand. Maybe those on the planet who do understand it run into the dozens. And I would imagine that they would have no problem in admitting that the deeper they delve, the less they know and it may be the case that we never will.

So to say that This Happened Because That Could Not Have Happened is abject nonsense. To say that There Are No Other Ways It Could Have Happened, is abject nonsense. To say that you know anything at all with any certainly about this is abject nonsense.

To draw conclusions about what happened, or what didn’t happen, or what could not have happened using everyday concepts for a situation that is beyond comprehension for even the most brilliant minds of our time? Well… Go for it if you feel the need.

 

[PRmerger]

I am perplexed by the general lack of comprehension that people seem to have with my posts. It really does appear that quite a few forum members simply skip what myself (and a few other atheists) say and then hit the keyboard with such enthusiasm, the answer drifts away from any connection with what the reply is mean to address.

Could you please show me exactly what question I asked that you’re responding to?

Will two examples do?

You haven’t given a single one.

You can’t redefine “nothing” to “something”, luv.

 

[PRmerger]

The big bang theory says a beginning, not necessarily a creation. It can’t distinguish, as it says that if there was a before, all evidence got wiped out by the extreme contraction of the singularity. There are hypotheses about whether or not anything existed before, but currently there’s no evidence which disproves either possibility.

In any case we’re talking of a theory which proposes the most remote, violent and extreme event ever, but it’s a theory which didn’t even predict the accelerating expansion of the universe, an expansion driven by more energy than is in all the visible and dark matter put together, an acceleration which came as a total surprise to cosmologists when it was first observed less than 20 year’s ago.

A bit of skepticism is in order. Cosmologists have proved they’re a long way from infallible, there’s a lot of unknowns, and the theory could change tomorrow.

So you believe the universe wasn’t created by God? And it is eternal?

 

[Bradski]

Could you please show me exactly what question I asked that you’re responding to?

You haven’t given a single one.

You can’t redefine “nothing” to “something”, luv.

What on earth? I have to do it again? It’s in post 362. This isn’t credible…

 

[DrTaffy]

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.

No response?

The assumption here is that we have to ‘reach’ the present ( from where?) as opposed to the timeline or sequence of events just being. Just as zero exists on the number line with an infinite number of integers, positive and negative, on either side. There is no need to count ‘from’ minus infinity up to zero.

 

[inocente]

So, what are the principles of association, according to Hume? He writes the following:

*“It is evident that there is a principle of connexion between the different thoughts or ideas of the mind, and that, in their appearance to the memory or imagination, they introduce each other with a certain degree of method and regularity. In our more serious thinking or discourse this is so observable that any particular thought, which breaks in upon the regular tract or chain of ideas, is immediately remarked and rejected. And even in our wildest and most wandering reveries, nay in our very dreams, we shall find, if we reflect, that the imagination ran not altogether at adventures, but that there was still a connexion upheld among the different ideas, which succeeded each other. Were the loosest and freest conversation to be transcribed, there would immediately be observed something which connected it in all its transitions. Or where this is wanting, the person who broke the thread of discourse might still inform you, that there had secretly revolved in his mind a succession of thought, which had gradually led him from the subject of conversation. Among different languages, even where we cannot suspect the least connexion or communication, it is found, that the words, expressive of ideas, the most compounded, do yet nearly correspond to each other: a certain proof that the simple ideas, comprehended in the compound ones, were bound together by some universal principle, which had an equal influence on all mankind.”

“Though it be too obvious to escape observation, that different ideas are connected together; I do not find that any philosopher has attempted to enumerate or class all the principles of association; a subject, however, that seems worthy of curiosity. To me, there appear to be only three principles of connexion among ideas, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect.”

“That these principles serve to connect ideas will not, I believe, be much doubted. A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original: the mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an enquiry or discourse concerning the others: and if we think of a wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows it. But that this enumeration is complete, and that there are no other principles of association except these, may be difficult to prove to the satisfaction of the reader, or even to a man’s own satisfaction. All we can do, in such cases, is to run over several instances, and examine carefully the principle which binds the different thoughts to each other, never stopping till we render the principle as general as possible. The more instances we examine, and the more care we employ, the more assurance shall we acquire, that the enumeration, which we form from the whole, is complete and entire.”*

Indeed, it would be very difficult to prove that Resemblance, Contiguity, and Cause and Effect are the complete list of the principles of association. How could we, for instance, based only on those principles, build the complex idea of Pythagoras’ theorem? How could we build Galileo’s principle? Hume was very smart when he admitted that he could not prove the completeness of his list.

But let’s look at the details: simple ideas are continually there, at least hypothetically, in our understanding, isolated from each other. Those simple ideas are what Hume calls “impressions”, and are distinguished from those other “perceptions” that Hume calls “ideas” in that they are more “lively”. But, what does “lively” mean? Does it mean that while impressions produce strong effects on us (sensations, feelings, emotions…), ideas produce just dull effects? If simple ideas are, by themselves, isolated from each other, how is it that they can affect us?

Anyway, Hume suggests that we continually make associations between the simple ideas that emerge in our conscience. So, we produce complex ideas; we are the cause of complex ideas.… But, isn’t this an indication that “Cause and effect” is a peculiar principle of association which has to be distinguished from Resemblance and Contiguity, because it is not only an epistemological principle, but an ontological one: When our “understanding” associates ideas (either simple or complex already) by Resemblance or Contiguity, isn’t “Cause and effect” immanent there? Yes, it is there, precisely because our “understanding” is producing the complex ideas.

Hume has been very influential of course, and following that influence we might be even more tentative about what can be known. Is a simple idea a quantum of thought, an idea which cannot be decomposed into other ideas? Or perhaps there is no quantum, perhaps even a simple idea relies on other ideas, in the way that dictionary definitions always make use of other words.

And perhaps the mind gives an illusion of cause and effect. Suppose I see an eagle while thinking of Hume, and imagine the eagle wearing Hume’s wig while it mutters gems of observational humor on account of its magnificent eyesight. The parts of that idea don’t seem to be its cause, since I could instead have imagined the eagle with a tiny parrot on its shoulder, reciting Hume in pirate, avast there shiver me timbers. Or any number of other associations. It would seem rather than my mind picked the component ideas out of a bag and then invented plausible (!) causal relationships to make a narrative. Perhaps the mind works by always automatically weaving a narrative, and invents cause and effect where the plot would otherwise be disjointed, so we see causality even where there is none, as in superstitions. I think Hume does conclude that even where we’re pretty sure there really is cause and effect, we still can never be certain.

 

[DrTaffy]

No need to posit a sentient entity that somehow exists and thinks with a body, space or time in order to assert that something is necessary.

That should be “…exists and thinks without a body…” of course.

What on earth? I have to do it again? It’s in post 362. This isn’t credible…

Did you mean that it is in post 361? Or is that my egocentrism speaking?

 

[inocente]

So you believe the universe wasn’t created by God? And it is eternal?

No. It doesn’t need to be either/or, there is a third way, which is to admit when we don’t know, admit it when the science is a long way from certain.

You must have sometimes raised an eyebrow at the inconsistency of the intelligent design fan, who never questions the science of the big bang, because it confirms his wishful thinking, but questions the science of pretty much everything else when it goes against his wishful thinking.

 

[DrTaffy]

Belated thought: for those who wanted a concrete example of the God of the Gaps argument actually being used, here you go:

The trump card of the Believer is this: why is there something rather than nothing.

Atheism has no answer for this.

QED

‘Atheism’ (presumably meaning atheist science) allegedly has no explanation, therefore God. Classic God of the Gaps argument.

 

[Peter_Plato]

God-of-the-gaps is a term invented by theologians to criticize any apologetic which relies on gaps in knowledge. A god-of-the-gaps argument is always a logical fallacy, which commits, at the least, an appeal to ignorance fallacy (it can be rewritten We can’t explain X therefore God exists).

Examples include: The big bang therefore God; Unexplained event therefore God; Bach/sunsets/etc. therefore God; Life on Earth therefore God; Fine tuning therefore God; Irreducible complexity therefore God; Amino acid sequencing therefore God.

I’m not certain but think all intelligent design arguments use the fallacy in its “appeal to incredulity” form - they find something which, for those without specialist knowledge, sounds incredible.

That is what the critics of intelligent design arguments contend, but that is not what the proponents of the design arguments actually do, at least not those with serious science or philosophical backgrounds.

Meyer, for one, has argued specificially that what he is doing is very much what Darwin has done – an inference to the best explanation. Given that evolution cannot be replicated or observed first had, Darwin proposed abductive reasoning by arriving at the best explanation for what we see happening in terms of adaptation by natural selection today extrapolated to explain change we weren’t around to see happen in the past.

Meyer uses the same kind of abductive reasoning to explain the existence of the otherwise inexplicable levels of information code in DNA. Ergo, it isn’t an appeal to ignorance. We know how complex sequential information in coding gets here today – by intelligent agency – therefore we have a plausible explanation for how it got there in the past. Not an appeal to a “gaps” argument, it proposes a possible mechanism, intelligence, as the best explanation we currently have to explain the existence of coded information in the past.

If you insist on calling a resort to the best POSSIBLE explanation “a fallacy of the gaps,” then go ahead, but the same goes for the theory of evolution since it relies on existing gaps in the knowledge we have about the past, in order to propose “random” or unknown past events as the “best” explanation for the change we see active around us. That is, punting to “random” and, therefore UNKNOWN eventualities as explanatory rather than locating and cataloguing each and every actual past causal event that a proper explanation would yield.

The theory of evolution is positively ensconced on ignorance of the actual past and the gaps in our positive knowledge about the past for its validity. Funny how only one side gets saddled with the “argument from ignorance” charge, in cases where sufficient sympathetic ignorance can be mustered. It isn’t, apparently, an argument FROM ignorance if the ignorance can be made empathic.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Belated thought: for those who wanted a concrete example of the God of the Gaps argument actually being used, here you go:

‘Atheism’ (presumably meaning atheist science) allegedly has no explanation, therefore God. Classic God of the Gaps argument.

Well, no, Doc. PR wasn’t making an argument there, she was making an observation. Something exists rather than nothing and atheism doesn’t explain why. In fact, it has no explanation for why. That was a simple (and true) observation that she made.

You reframed it as an argument as if HER conclusion would take the non sequitur route. She didn’t, you did.

There are many positive arguments for God from metaphysics and cosmology. There is NO NEED for any theist to move from “We don’t know why there is something rather than nothing,” to “Therefore, God.” There are dozens of positive arguments that lead to “Therefore God” and none of them begin with “We don’t know…”

Every one of Aquinas’ arguments, for example, begin with “We know x, y and z. Therefore, that which everyone calls ‘God’ exists.”

Nice try at reframing, but no ceegar.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If I have two apples and I give you one, I have one left. If I go to the pub, I can’t go to the football at the same time. If I have to work for eight hours today, that will be exactly the same length of time as eight hours will be tomorrow.

All this is entirely reasonable. Objects and time, space and distance. We are all familiar with them. What could be easier. All pretty simple really. We understand what fast means. What small means. What someone means when they say that something is heavy.

But when we start looking a little closer, things begin to appear a little different. And when we start looking really closely, they change. The physics of the very small and the very large begin to drift ever further from what we consider being common sense. ‘Well, it’s obvious…any fool can see…it is patently logical that…’. None of these terms carry any weight at all when we get down to distances and times that are literally impossible to imagine. Although these distances and times actually exist in reality, they can only exist to us in a mathematical sense.

When we get down to Planck lengths (and times and mass), then what any of us considers to be reasonable just about disappears completely. To get an idea of what we are talking about, read the following description of what exactly a Planck length comprises:

The Planck length is 1.6x10-35 metres. (That’s 0.000000000000000000000000000000000016meters.) To give you an idea, let’s compare it with the size of an atom, which is already about 100,000 times smaller than anything you can see with your unaided eye (an atom size is about 0.0000000001meters). Suppose that you measured the diameter of an atom in Planck lengths, and that you counted off one Planck length per second. To measure the atomic diameter in Planck lengths would take you 10,000,000 times the current age of the universe. newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/jw/module6_Planck.htm

It becomes nonsensical to use everyday descriptions for these concepts. It is nonsensical to use the term ‘small’ for a Planck length because we use the term small for items which we can actually imagine and which obey the everyday rules of this macro existence of ours.

Nevertheless, a lot of people on both sides of the fence in these type of discussions are waaaay to fond of making definitive statements about that which we cannot understand. Maybe those on the planet who do understand it run into the dozens. And I would imagine that they would have no problem in admitting that the deeper they delve, the less they know and it may be the case that we never will.

So to say that This Happened Because That Could Not Have Happened is abject nonsense. To say that There Are No Other Ways It Could Have Happened, is abject nonsense. To say that you know anything at all with any certainly about this is abject nonsense.

To draw conclusions about what happened, or what didn’t happen, or what could not have happened using everyday concepts for a situation that is beyond comprehension for even the most brilliant minds of our time? Well… Go for it if you feel the need.

I thought you went fishing???

I would suspect that to argue, as you seem to, that because “…the Planck length is 1.6x10-35 metres” that, therefore, any explanation is as good as any other is also “abject nonsense.”

So, what is your point, other than to insist it isn’t an easy problem to answer? Sure, but so what? There still IS an answer. AND being assured by the fact that we have arrived at the point of being able to define things like Planck lengths means they are definable, measurable AND intelligible. Which seems to mean they are INTELLIGIBLE to an extraordinary level. AND that the ‘natural’ process which got us here made it possible for us to intellectually and mathematically grasp what is apprehensible at profoundly disturbing levels. Let that sink. In.

It isn’t an argument from ignorance, but an argument from intelligibility. It isn’t just “Why something rather than nothing?” but “Why something intelligible to absurd levels of complexity rather than nothing?”

 

[Wesrock]

The assumption here is that we have to ‘reach’ the present ( from where?) as opposed to the timeline or sequence of events just being. Just as zero exists on the number line with an infinite number of integers, positive and negative, on either side. There is no need to count ‘from’ minus infinity up to zero.

I think what’s being missed is that we are not speaking of a per accidens causal relationship, but a per se one. I think the post you’re responding to didn’t differentiate either.

It’s kind of the difference between a domino series and a chain of circular links. The domino series is per accidens. A domino falls, tilts another domino, which causes another domino to fall, which causes another to fall. You could have an infinite series of falling dominos, and if you remove any of the already falling dominos it doesn’t stop the ones ahead of it from continuing to fall.

Now consider the link chain. None of these links has the causal power to hold up another one I’m and of itself. Even in an infinite chain, they can only hold each other up if one is hooked into a ceiling beam. Therefore this chain, even if infinite, an remain suspended, with each link supporting another, though none of the link chains has in itself the power to support the ones below it, this causal power is given by the stationary ceiling beam. Another thing to note, this chain of support is all an ongoing action. Remove any middle link and all the chains below it will fall, because they stop receiving the causal power to support the next link. If none of the links are attached to the ceiling, then nothing in the system, even if infinite, has any causal power to give. There’s nothing to be received. The chain is limp. Adding more links doesn’t change that.

When a Thomist speaks of a prime mover, a first cause, he isn’t speaking about a series of dominos. He’s speaking of an ongoing, current action. All movement must originate within a thing or be given from outside a thing. Like the chain of links example, all examples we’ve encountered do not derive any of their movement from within. All of this movement is given and passed on, and the cause and effect is essentially simultaneous (not a series of events with temporal separation; strictly speaking it doesn’t need to be literally simultaneous, but it does refer to something currently going on and not something that happened in the past). The rock derives its movement from the stick pushing it, which derives its movement from the arm holding it, which derives it’s movement from the essentially simultaneous nerve firings in the muscle, which derive their movement from . . .

At some level, there must be something from which this movement originates that itself doesn’t have a cause. And again, don’t think of a series of dominos. We are talking about a chain of links. Even if the chain is infinite, there can be no movement in that series unless there is something that can add movement but itself doesn’t need to be moved (if it needed to be moved, then it doesn’t’t have the causal power to be the prime mover).

I use the word movement. I hope that isn’t confusing. I am referring to the giving of causal power.

Edit: I am posting from my phone while on break at work. Please forgive me any spelling errors.

 

[ynotzap]

The assumption here is that we have to ‘reach’ the present ( from where?) as opposed to the timeline or sequence of events just being. Just as zero exists on the number line with an infinite number of integers, positive and negative, on either side. There is no need to count ‘from’ minus infinity up to zero.

How do we reach the present (which is always changing) By memory eg. we go to the moment in time when we were conceived, to our beginning in time, or even to our birth date. Then we, by memory conceive the chain of events through our genealogy back to our ancestors. We come to the question “Is there a beginning for our first ancestors, if there was no beginning then it’s logical that they always existed, if they always existed, they needed no cause to exist because existence is in their nature, and if that’s the case, they still exist. That is not our experience, experience is the source of all our knowledge, whether it be intellectual experience, or physical experience. Going from effect to cause sequencially we come to the first cause. The first cause can’t explain itself, it’s existence necessitating (logically) a Cause outside of the series of causes. We call this Cause, the Uncaused Cause, that had to exist eternally, not in time. If it didn’t exist eternally, then it couldn’t be the Uncaused Cause, it would need it’s cause and so on. We have our existence in time, time is a measurement of change, a mathematical concept given to objective reality. The measurement of time can never be exact in the material world, for the instruments of measurement are subject to change while they are measuring. (try to grasp that concept) The word " moment in time” really doesn’t exist except in our mind, for our existence is in constant change, but it does give a way of expressing the connection between what we have experienced, what we are experiencing, and will experience., past, present and future. WE ARE AlLWAYS CHANGING, This is the condition of our existence. If we always existed, we would not change for we would possess the totality of being, because existence would be our nature. Therefore we had a beginning, we didn’t cause our beginning, we were caused.
Mathematics is the second degree of abstraction, we need to move on to the third degree of abstraction, Metaphysics. Math deals with the quantitative, Metaphysics deals with the qualitative truth. Metaphysics explains the nature of math, math does not explain the nature of Metaphysics. If we are not careful, we can slip into solipsism, the theory that self can be aware of nothing but it’s own experience and states, nothing is real but self. Objectivity vs subjectivity.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

your belief is irrelevant. You cannot prove that each and every suffering child will be offered that “everlasting” life. And even if it could be proven, allowing your child to suffer cannot be “undone” by giving that child a lollipop… Or even a million of them. No amount of “bliss” can retroactively justify allowing suffering.

And how would I prove everlasting life is in the offing?

Other than by suggesting that you might find out much to your terrified surprise and dismay some day that it actually is?