Why Couldn't the Universe Exist Without a Cause?

[Bradski]

To be consistent, the constant formation of universes also would have to be infinite.

Yeah, I said that. You highlighted it as well. Are you yet another of those who reply to my posts without understanding them?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

So, according to Hume, “Cause and Effect” is one of our principles of association that the “understanding” applies to impressions in order to form complex ideas; but he wants to know more, he wants to investigate how do we arrive at the knowledge of this principle. Here you can read his own words:

“…we must enquire how we arrive at the knowledge of cause and effect. I shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition, which admits of no exception, that the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance, attained by reasonings a priori; but arises entirely from experience, when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other.”

Evidently this general proposition, which according to Hume admits of no exception, was not obtained by reasonings a priori either; which implies that Hume believed there are propositions which are not obtained a priori and still are universally valid. Therefore, if he believed that the principle of “cause and effect” did not have universal validity just because it is not obtained by reasonings a priori, he was inconsistent.

Now, what does Hume mean when he says that “cause and effect” is known by experience? Is he speaking about the principle of causality or about particular cases of this principle. Let’s him explain:

“This proposition, that causes and effects are discoverable, not by reason but by experience, will readily be admitted with regard to such objects, as we remember to have once been altogether unknown to us; since we must be conscious of the utter inability, which we then lay under, of foretelling what would arise from them. Present two smooth pieces of marble to a man who has no tincture of natural philosophy; he will never discover that they will adhere together in such a manner as to require great force to separate them in a direct line, while they make so small a resistance to a lateral pressure. Such events, as bear little analogy to the common course of nature, are also readily confessed to be known only by experience; nor does any man imagine that the explosion of gunpowder, or the attraction of a loadstone, could ever be discovered by arguments a priori. In like manner, when an effect is supposed to depend upon an intricate machinery or secret structure of parts, we make no difficulty in attributing all our knowledge of it to experience. Who will assert that he can give the ultimate reason, why milk or bread is proper nourishment for a man, not for a lion or a tiger?”

So, he is speaking about cases of the principle, not about the principle, and I won’t argue that Hume is wrong on this…

Hume said that as we can conceive “cause and effect” relations which are different to those which we actually know, without incurring in contradiction, those relations are not necessary; they very well might be different than they are. Those who entertain thinking on “possible” worlds which obey other “rules” might think that Hume’s doctrines provide a great support to them. However, what Hume thought was that there is no way to prove that there is any rule at all in this very world: the behaviors that we have observed this second might be completely different the next moment. According to him we have no basis to think that from similar “causes” or conditions we can expect similar “effects”. Here you have his own words:

“It is certain that the most ignorant and stupid peasants- nay infants, nay even brute beasts- improve by experience, and learn the qualities of natural objects, by observing the effects which result from them. When a child has felt the sensation of pain from touching the flame of a candle, he will be careful not to put his hand near any candle; but will expect a similar effect from a cause which is similar in its sensible qualities and appearance. If you assert, therefore, that the understanding of the child is led into this conclusion by any process of argument or ratiocination, I may justly require you to produce that argument; nor have you any pretense to refuse so equitable a demand. You cannot say that the argument is abstruse, and may possibly escape your enquiry; since you confess that it is obvious to the capacity of a mere infant. If you hesitate, therefore, a moment, or if, after reflection, you produce any intricate or profound argument, you, in a manner, give up the question, and confess that it is not reasoning which engages us to suppose the past resembling the future, and to expect similar effects from causes which are, to appearance, similar. This is the proposition which I intended to enforce in the present section. If I be right, I pretend not to have made any mighty discovery. And if I be wrong, I must acknowledge myself to be indeed a very backward scholar; since I cannot now discover an argument which, it seems, was perfectly familiar to me long before I was out of my cradle.”

Let’s suppose it is a fact that you are one of those guys who can’t provide a satisfactory argument to Hume. How could you avoid thinking that physical sciences are just illusions? In particular, how would you respond to someone who, based on Hume’s words, said that the mathematical expressions with which we pretend to represent certain regularities that we conceive in the world are fantasies? They would represent how physicists think in a given moment, not how the world is or might be. And, of course, this would include all cosmological models. Besides, verifiability/ falseability would be entirely useless “methods” to show that a hypothesis is scientific; and to say that a statement is scientific would add nothing.

However, even if it were the case that similar conditions were followed by different effects, Hume’s severe doubt would not affect the principle of causality; it would be a severe doubt concerning determinism, but not causality.

Continues…

 

[HelenRose]

Without any hope for finding scientific proof that something can exist without a cause, it would take a great leap of faith to believe in such a thing. How could one prove that nothing existed before something existed?

 

[fisherman_carl]

I assume that you mean ‘how’ as opposed to ‘why’. I’d Google it and read up on the physics that suggests it.

No, our universe would have a beginning, but the constant formation of other universes may be eternal. And there is doubt that is the proposal is true that there would be a ny collisions between two universes. However, if there is a chance that that might have happened, then it would leave a signature (like ripples in a pond) and some people are suggesting we look for these ‘ripples’.

Yes, I heard that the multiverse would also require a beginning. I can’t remember why right now, but it was from Fr. Spitzer from Magis Reason Center. He has a few videos on Youtube talking about this. He was getting his information from the physicists themselves.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

The way I read it, PR was proposing a kind of “meta-argument” about the over-all state of respective arguments coming from both camps.

The “trump card” is that theists actually do propose the existence of God on the basis of other arguments and not on the basis of gaps in knowledge. Whereas, atheists rely on knowledge gaps as reasons to disbelieve any claims about God being proposed. Atheists tenaciously hold to a negative or “skeptical” case for their view that God does not exist – i.e., the default atheistic retort to whatever the theist has to say is “we don’t that for sure” or “we can’t know that with absolute certainty.” Ergo, atheists depend entirely upon the “gap” or uncertainty of human knowledge as a “fallback” to maintain their position.

The capacity to actually muster arguments is what PR is referring to as the “trump card of the Believer” over the inability of Unbelievers to make any positive case that God does not exist.

As far as I’m concerned, when someone asks “Why Couldn’t the Universe Exist Without a Cause?” the philosophically correct thing to do is the following:

1. Assume the universe exists without a cause.
2. Reason to a logical contradiction.
3. Conclude that the universe must have a cause.

And indeed, this thread sort of took that form at the beginning. Specifically, the argument is:

1. Assume the universe exists without a cause.
   2a. The PSR (or equivalent) says that everything has a cause.
   2b. Line 1 violates line 2a.
2. Therefore the universe must have a cause.

However, the problem is this: The PSR and it’s variants are, to the best of my knowledge, based on inductive reasoning. Therefore, the instant you assert line 1, you lose the ability inductively reason your way to the PSR. After all, in line 1, you’ve asserted that there is a counter example. The fact that the thread is currently hung up on multiverses is (I think) a tacit recognition of this fact.

So having been failed by the PSR, where does the religious person go next? Off to science-land. “Here” he thinks to himself “we will find the sort of concrete evidence proving the need for a cause of the universe that the atheist must accept.” Unfortunately, science does not give us this sort of evidence. When talking about things that science does or does not know, the atheist is not arguing from ignorance, he is telling you that you can’t (currently) do this:

1. Assume the universe exists without a cause.
   2a. Science says the universe has a cause.
   2b. Contradiction, and science wins!
2. Conclude that the universe must have a cause.

 

[Bradski]

Let’s suppose it is a fact that you are one of those guys who can’t provide a satisfactory argument to Hume.

I think we all do exactly as Hume did. We see that these things work, that is: cause precedes effect, and we work on that basis until such time as that concept is no longer useful.

Without any hope for finding scientific proof that something can exist without a cause, it would take a great leap of faith to believe in such a thing. How could one prove that nothing existed before something existed?

It seems to be those who wish to make a claim for God that insist that something has come from nothing (because they feel that anything illogical must therefore be impossible - and then demand examples from this macro world in which we live, as if the two situations were compatible).

All we know is that we don’t know what this universe came from. We can’t peek behind the curtain. If someone says it came from nothing, they mean ‘nothing that relates to this universe’. Other than that…

Yes, I heard that the multiverse would also require a beginning. I can’t remember why right now, but it was from Fr. Spitzer from Magis Reason Center. He has a few videos on Youtube talking about this. He was getting his information from the physicists themselves.

I’ll see what I can dig up. The last time I read anything a few days ago I got the impression that there wasn’t a requirement for a beginning to the process. This universe cannot be infinite in time as it has a finite shelf life, but that’s not the case as regards the process that produced it.

 

[DrTaffy]

Yes, a robust demonstrable example has been provided of a mind existing without a physical substrate. I explained it in one of my posts on another thread, with Blue Horizon, and Bradski

Ok, that starts well, but as you don’t give a link to the post you refer to, or enough information for me to find, it doesn’t help much.

The rest of your post I struggle to follow. Is it supposed to be a restatement of your “robust demonstrable example”?

Because if so, I remind you that PR was demanding that we show concrete examples in day to day life of something coming into existence before we were ‘allowed’ to even consider the possibility in a hypothesis. I am merely turning that around and pointing out that if that is so, then the theist side would have to show concrete examples from day to day life of (for example) a mind existing without a body, space or time before being ‘allowed’ to consider the possibility, even in an argument. So in PRs paradigm, you cannot use argument or statements of faith as ‘examples’ of such a thing, apparently you have to be able to point to one on the table in front of you before including the possibility in any hypothesis.

I would suggest that this paradigm is far more damaging to the theist worldview than the atheist one - assuming, of course, that it applied equally to both sides of the debate.

 

[DrTaffy]

Yes, I heard that the multiverse would also require a beginning. I can’t remember why right now, but it was from Fr. Spitzer from Magis Reason Center. He has a few videos on Youtube talking about this. He was getting his information from the physicists themselves.

For that to mean anything, you have to be very clear on what you mean by ‘multiverse’. Are you referring to the many worlds interpretation of QM, eternal inflation models, oscillating universes, multiple entirely independent space time continua or what?

 

[inocente]

As a Baptist, do you believe that God intelligently designed the universe, or do you believe that he foolishly designed it?

You can’t have it both ways.

It can’t be undersigned in science and designed in scripture.

Please try to answer directly instead of posting the usual insulting intellectual calisthenics.

Do you want me to throw Newton and Einstein at you? Again???

I daresay, as usual, you have no answer to them.

Intelligent design is an American political movement which tried and failed to get creationism taught as science in American schools. It doesn’t speak of God but of an “intelligent designer”.

God is never called a designer in scripture, therefore to me, intelligent design speaks of a false idol. It’s neither science nor religion, it’s a provincial political lobby which dresses up appeals to ignorance as pseudoscience.

Appeals to authority are also fallacies. Just because Newton and Einstein had expertise in one area doesn’t make them authorities in any others.

I don’t remember you ever alleging that I’m evasive before. If that’s genuinely how you feel then you should say so at the time, no point sitting on it, I’m not a mind reader. Let me know if there were any questions in this post where you feel I was evasive.

 

[inocente]

Prove you understand Meyer’s argument by actually spelling it out in so many words, then.

Note: There is NO ban on discussing Intelligent Design. What is Meyer’s positive argument if you can characterize it as “not even worthy of being called an argument?” You must know it intimately.

Go.

No need. I’m debating you not him, and I’m not about to fix your arguments for you.

You said “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.”

Therefore, according to you, Meyer’s “explanation” is the appeal to ignorance - he can’t explain it so he invents an magic invisible alien. Not even worthy of being called an argument.

Or are you saying you mischaracterized his argument and now want to change what you said? By all means, be my guest.



btw, Meyer’s magical invisible alien, or MIA, is obviously invented in Meyer’s image, and it needs to be a very complicated deity, since it must be at least as complicated as what it designed. Meyer’s intelligence is a result of a long process of natural selection. It cannot possibly be God’s intelligence, since God has no parts, aka divine simplicity.

 

[inocente]

No ban at all, but the ban on evolution provides a convenient dodge for those who don’t understand Intelligent Design.

I did explicitly refer to the ban on discussing the theory of evolution. The notion that only the cognoscente are sufficiently intellectual to understand something is an argument used by cultists - no one but them can see the finery of the Emperor’s new clothes.

 

[inocente]

I would actually like to see him explain why he believes in God. Instead of always holding the negative position to any argument for God. But I don’t think he ever will. I am not sure he can do anything except tear down. Or perhaps he is an atheist masquerading.

As you didn’t have the guts to say that to my face, the only way to accurately describe it is cowardly gossip and slander.

There may be some who believe an intelligent designer died on the cross, that they’re redeemed by an intelligent designer, but to me it’s nonsense.

Christians belong to Christ, not to you. You’re not the shepherd, how can you be so arrogant as to imagine you can judge other sheep! You call yourself a fisherman, if that’s supposed to be a fisherman of souls then remember what Jesus said: “You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are”. Please try to make sure that can never be said of you - straighten up and fly right bro.

 

[Vico]

… If we cannot know, indeed, if we cannot really know anything about such a state of affairs for sure, then how can we be sure things would require a cause?

Time exists in our universe. But it mightn’t everywhere. …

Gn. I, I: “In the beginning God created Heaven and earth.”

Vatican I defines a dogma of faith that:
5. If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their whole substance, out of nothing by God; or holds that God did not create by his will free from all necessity, but as necessarily as he necessarily loves himself; or denies that the world was created for the glory of God: let him be anathema.

 

[inocente]

The problem is that “it" doesn’t “assert that something is… otherwise inexplicable,” it asserts that intelligence is a perfectly valid explanation for complex information, in particular where information is coded and decoded within a medium that relies upon some kind of structured coding method to do both.

Intelligence is clearly a valid mechanism for coding and decoding information - we see it active all the time. The software in your computer was not written by a "magical invisible agent,” but it was written by intelligent agents.

Now, it is clearly true that the genesis of intelligence – our intelligence – hasn’t exactly been explained by science, either. That is the reason it appears that ID relies on something “otherwise inexplicable” – intelligence – to explain what requires explanation. Human intelligence hasn’t, when you get right down to it, been explained, either. Your argument essentially misses the point because the existence of human intelligence also hasn’t been explained – which is why it appears that what hasn’t been explained is being used to explain the inexplicable.

That isn’t a problem merely for ID proponents. It is a problem for science, as well. Which is why categorizing appeals to “intelligence” to explain existing phenomena gives the appearance of being an appeal to the inexplicable or to “magical invisible agents” and your “argument" gives the appearance of being a cogent one.

I would suggest that when science can really explain the genesis and existence of human intelligence, you might have a point, depending upon what that explanation turns out to be. Until then, consciousness, intelligence and intentionality are still on the table as plausible causes and your argument is bogus because it relies entirely upon the inexplicability of human intelligence.

You assume “reason” to decry the "abrogation of reasoning,” yet you can no more explain the existence of the ability to reason as the basis for your argument than ID proponents can justify intelligence as the conclusion of theirs.

You just avoid the entire issue by pretending it doesn’t exist for you, but that it does for them.

In the end, you have just as much a problem rationalizing your use of reason that they have justifying their invocation of intelligence. If you were even half honest about it, you would admit as much and stop posturing about how your position is superior in that respect. It isn’t. It merely presumes “reason,” where they presume “intelligence."

Not sure why you go on trying to defend the indefensible. And you’re the third person on this thread to say I’m dishonest. If the best you guys can do is throw mud around and hope some of it sticks, you’re not exactly up there with Thomas. Still, not your fault that others did it first.

The explanation of human intelligence is the thing we’re banned from discussing. It explains how a long blind process can be mistaken for intelligent design, as well as explaining how intelligence in animals arose. That’s about as much as I feel comfortable saying, given the ban. But if we talk of neuroscience instead, to claim that because the explanation is as yet incomplete it’s somehow not an explanation, is an appeal to ignorance.

What we can say, from all we know, including in humans, animals and machines, is that intelligence requires complexity. We never see intelligence without complexity. You make an argument from analogy to assert that intelligence is a valid explanation for the origin of complexity. True, but that’s human-like intelligence, which requires complexity. Therefore the very thing which is claimed to explain complexity, the intelligent designer, has a complexity which is never explained. Its complexity, which must necessarily be at least as complex as the things it designs, is just asserted by fiat. It’s therefore more complicated than what its supposed to explain. That’s why I call it a magical invisible alien, an abrogation of reasoning.

Have to stop now, spent far too long on this today.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Yes, I heard that the multiverse would also require a beginning.

If it would not have a beginning, it would certainly have to have a reason why it exists rather than a single universe. That is, what breathes fire into the equations of separate universes that keep popping into existence? Is there no reason for a multiverse rather than a universe? Mysteries keep exploding all over the place, and the multiverse is no provable alternative to the universe we are certain we inhabit.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

God is never called a designer in scripture, therefore to me, intelligent design speaks of a false idol. It’s neither science nor religion, it’s a provincial political lobby which dresses up appeals to ignorance as pseudoscience.

Appeals to authority are also fallacies. Just because Newton and Einstein had expertise in one area doesn’t make them authorities in any others.

What is Genesis all about if not God’s intelligent design of the universe?

Man up. Say God intelligently designed the universe or he foolishly designed the universe or he did not design the universe at all.

Also, appeals to authority are not fallacies. They are a common technique for teaching.

You must be thinking of the fallacy called “appeals to false authority.”

I hardly think Newton and Einstein are false authorities on what the universe looks like.

But you are welcome to think so.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Christians belong to Christ, not to you. You’re not the shepherd, how can you be so arrogant as to imagine you can judge other sheep! You call yourself a fisherman, if that’s supposed to be a fisherman of souls then remember what Jesus said: **“You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are”. **Please try to make sure that can never be said of you - straighten up and fly right bro.

Are you quote mining here, which you often accuse me of doing?

If you are going to quote, it’s always courteous, when quoting scripture, to cite book, chapter, and verse. Will you be courteous … please?

 

[PRmerger]

I think we all do exactly as Hume did. We see that these things work, that is: cause precedes effect, and we work on that basis until such time as that concept is no longer useful.

It seems to be those who wish to make a claim for God that insist that something has come from nothing (because they feel that anything illogical must therefore be impossible - and then demand examples from this macro world in which we live, as if the two situations were compatible).

All we know is that we don’t know what this universe came from. We can’t peek behind the curtain. If someone says it came from nothing, they mean ‘nothing that relates to this universe’. Other than that…

I’ll see what I can dig up. The last time I read anything a few days ago I got the impression that there wasn’t a requirement for a beginning to the process. This universe cannot be infinite in time as it has a finite shelf life, but that’s not the case as regards the process that produced it.

Hey, ho!!

Bradski! Your profile pic–is that you? Or someone famous I’m supposed to recognize?

 

[PRmerger]

Hey, ho!!

Bradski! Your profile pic–is that you? Or someone famous I’m supposed to recognize?

Ah. Just did a search. It’s Richard Feynman.

So now the question remains–is this a pic of you?

Edit: nevermind. Saw his bio. American. Had 3 wives. Died 1988.

 

[ynotzap]

Ok, that starts well, but as you don’t give a link to the post you refer to, or enough information for me to find, it doesn’t help much.

The rest of your post I struggle to follow. Is it supposed to be a restatement of your “robust demonstrable example”?

Because if so, I remind you that PR was demanding that we show concrete examples in day to day life of something coming into existence before we were ‘allowed’ to even consider the possibility in a hypothesis. I am merely turning that around and pointing out that if that is so, then the theist side would have to show concrete examples from day to day life of (for example) a mind existing without a body, space or time before being ‘allowed’ to consider the possibility, even in an argument. So in PRs paradigm, you cannot use argument or statements of faith as ‘examples’ of such a thing, apparently you have to be able to point to one on the table in front of you before including the possibility in any hypothesis.

I would suggest that this paradigm is far more damaging to the theist worldview than the atheist one - assuming, of course, that it applied equally to both sides of the debate.

Go to the Thread "Questions to Atheists about God of the Gaps, Post l04,and l05 Aug. 21, 015 in my posts. I have more experiences than mentioned, but I am restricted on this Forum from sharing them. What I know and experience is not a hypothesis, but reality. If I said it was experienced by me alone, I wouldn’t blame you for not believing As I said, I had many reliable and very intelligent people. One taught Theology, another had his own TV.Program, others where college students. I can’t go into more detail. What many don’t know is that these phenomenon are more prevalent then people realize. What does the secular world and it’s science know about the reality of spiritual existence, it can’t even explain what the nature of an idea or concept is, let alone understand the existence of God. Materialism is such an obstacle to the truth and the paradox is that it is matter where we get our first contact with reality but many stop there and don’t transcend to the spiritual in their knowledge.