Why Couldn't the Universe Exist Without a Cause?

[JuanFlorencio]

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.

If we find that at least some times effect precedes cause I think we should accept the fact and adapt to it: instead of predicting the effect we should learn how to predict the cause. For all the other cases it wouldn’t be intelligent to try to do the same: if cause precedes effect and it is possible to predict it, why shouldn’t we try?

 

[Bradski]

If we find that at least some times effect precedes cause I think we should accept the fact and adapt to it: instead of predicting the effect we should learn how to predict the cause.

Well, rather than predict a cause, on the assumption that it has already occurred we simply look for it. X happened – what caused it. As opposed to X is happening – what will the result be.

 

[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.

Isn’t it true that non-fiction must precede fiction, even in a hypothesis which is an unproven theory? Is it not the creative imagination employed in hypothesis even if some parts of it’s creation employ known facts? What is creative imaginations, something necessarily objective and true? Are things of a spiritual nature, non-physical, unseen, not sensed necessarily imaginary? There has to be a cause to exist before there can be a possibility A thing is a possibility if it is known that it can exist, otherwise it is not a possibility, but purely imaginative and exists as fiction. Try having an hypothesis without imagination. The accuracy of a hypothesis is it’s relationship to objective reality, some confuse what is subjective reality (imagination) with objective reality and treat it as fact, not theory.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

…

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…

However, at moments it seems that Hume wants to generalize and question the principle of causality. He insists that it is not obtained by reasoning, but by experience:

“Suppose a person, though endowed with the strongest faculties of reason and reflection, to be brought on a sudden into this world; he would, indeed, immediately observe a continual succession of objects, and one event following another; but he would not be able to discover anything farther. He would not, at first, by any reasoning, be able to reach the idea of cause and effect; since the particular powers, by which all natural operations are performed, never appear to the senses; nor is it reasonable to conclude, merely because one event, in one instance, precedes another, that therefore the one is the cause, the other the effect. Their conjunction may be arbitrary and casual. There may be no reason to infer the existence of one from the appearance of the other.”

What was for Hume “the faculty of reason and reflection” and what was “reasoning”? He had said that the objects of reason are “relations of ideas” and “matters of fact”, and that “all the materials of thinking are derived from our outward or inward sentiment: the mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will. Or, to express myself in philosophical language -he said-, all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones.” Hadn’t he said also that the principles of our “understanding” are Resemblance, Contiguity, and Cause and effect? He had! Therefore, for him, the faculty of reason must be just this set of operating principles and reasoning must be no more than their operation. Then, a person endowed with the strongest faculties of reason and reflection is one that is able to establish associations according to his operating principles as soon as he receives impressions. And as I have said before, we can look for causes and make mistakes thinking that this agent is the cause of that effect, but it does not imply that we make a mistake when we look for a cause. Once we realize we made a mistake, we look again for the real cause.

Still, Hume dares to ask what can be the origin of the association principle of “Cause and effect”. As was stated before, he thinks that the question that needs to be responded is this: “why is it that from similar “causes” or conditions we expect similar “effects”?”. And he pretends that the answer is very simple: “we do it by custom”:

“What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? A simple one; though, it must be confessed, pretty remote from the common theories of philosophy. All belief of matter of fact or real existence is derived merely from some object, present to the memory or senses, and a customary conjunction between that and some other object. Or in other words; having found, in many instances, that any two kinds of objects flame and heat, snow and cold- have always been conjoined together; if flame or snow be presented anew to the senses, the mind is carried by custom to expect heat or cold, and to believe that such a quality does exist, and will discover itself upon a nearer approach. This belief is the necessary result of placing the mind in such circumstances. It is an operation of the soul, when we are so situated, as unavoidable as to feel the passion of love, when we receive benefits; or hatred, when we meet with injuries. All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of the thought and understanding is able either to produce or to prevent.”

But what is “custom”? Hume speaks of it as something that forces, induces or influences us to think in certain ways. Is it an “external” or an “internal” force? Or is it an “internal” force produced (caused!) little by little by something “external” to us? Is it an external regularity that causes an internal regularity? No! Regularity exists only in our minds. You have to notice that according to Hume (I am not sure that he realized it) the most important principle of association is caused by non-associated phenomena.

I really don’t know how this thinker became as influential as he was. Was it because his writing was “elegant”?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Well, rather than predict a cause, on the assumption that it has already occurred we simply look for it. X happened – what caused it. As opposed to X is happening – what will the result be.

Not the result, but the cause. But yes, if both the effect and the cause have already occurred, we just look for the cause which produced the effect.

 

[Nixbits]

ynotzap:

Are things of a spiritual nature, non-physical, unseen, not sensed necessarily imaginary?

Necessarily imaginary? No. Necessarily real? No. Possibly imaginary? Yes. Possibly real? We don’t know. Let’s look at some evidence and test the claim.

 

[inocente]

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.

By Genesis I take it you don’t mean all 50 chapters but just the creation myth in 2-3. Research (much of it presumably by Catholic scholars) shows the myth evolved over many generations, starting with adaptation of Mesopotamian myths, and is layered with all kinds of cultural meanings, but none of them have anything to do with your American intelligent design. See for instance here. Nothing in the Genesis account supports American creationism’s intelligent designer myth.

*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. *

The fallacy is called appeal to authority. Fame doesn’t stop someone making mistakes. If it doesn’t agree with experiment then it’s wrong, whether it’s cherry picked from Newton or Hawking or a cab driver.

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

See for instance
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quote_mining
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_quoting_out_of_context

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

Matthew 23 NIV. I won’t give the verse number because anyone who knows the quote will know that it is representative of the chapter, and anyone who is unfamiliar with it needs to read the whole chapter to get the context. Which is that Jesus really doesn’t like legalists and isn’t the slightest bit subtle about telling them.

 

[inocente]

But what is “custom”? Hume speaks of it as something that forces, induces or influences us to think in certain ways. Is it an “external” or an “internal” force? Or is it an “internal” force produced (caused!) little by little by something “external” to us? Is it an external regularity that causes an internal regularity? No! Regularity exists only in our minds. You have to notice that according to Hume (I am not sure that he realized it) the most important principle of association is caused by non-associated phenomena.

I really don’t know how this thinker became as influential as he was. Was it because his writing was “elegant”?

Consider a Jell-O (jelly). It sits there gently wobbling. Pour boiling water through a thin spout onto the center. Rivulets form as the water melts the gelatin. The directions of the rivulets are of course generally downhill but otherwise not predictable. But once a rivulet forms, the water tends to flow down it, making it deeper, rather than forming new channels. I’ve seen this used as an analogy to how patterns of thought develop.

The regularities self-organize by repetition. There are many examples of self-organization. I’ve not read Hume but believe he uses the idea of self-organization to argue against the intelligent designer of his day in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

 

[PRmerger]

Matthew 23 NIV. I won’t give the verse number because anyone who knows the quote will know that it is representative of the chapter, and anyone who is unfamiliar with it needs to read the whole chapter to get the context. Which is that Jesus really doesn’t like legalists and isn’t the slightest bit subtle about telling them.

Just as a reminder: you do realize that you are giving your tacit submission to the authority of the CC when you quote from Matthew, indicating these words were actually said by Jesus, right?

 

[PRmerger]

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?

Indeed.

And even atheists grudgingly admit it’s a question that necessitates an answer: why is there something rather than nothing? And how could something come from nothing?

#trumpcardsforsure

 

[PRmerger]

The assertion that no atheist is capable of sacrificing his life for another is of course ridiculous and deeply insulting to atheist members of the armed forces and emergency services, at the very least.

Firstly, what is being asserted is that no atheist is capable of the great act of love done by Believers–as manifested by, say, a sacrificial giving of one’s life–NOT that atheists can’t be heroic.

Secondly, if you assert that atheists have done this, then please offer some names of atheists who have done this.

We will, of course, require some documentation:
-4 independent witnesses accounts of this act of sublime sacrificial love
-text from this individual attesting to his atheism

Now, without this we will have to assume that you believe he/she exists, yet have no evidence for this…

and that would be supremely amusing for us Believers to see you profess belief in the existence of something, without a shred of evidence.

 

[inocente]

Just as a reminder: you do realize that you are giving your tacit submission to the authority of the CC when you quote from Matthew, indicating these words were actually said by Jesus, right?

Muslims revere the bible, how have they reacted to the Church commanding them to submit to its authority? Does this new requirement apply to Jews, are Jews required to submit to the Church before quoting a Jew? Please link the page on vatican.va giving the details of this submission process and the penalties for non-compliance.

Is there a Department of Irony for those, like me, who are told we must make a submission in order to quote Jesus speaking against legalism?

Or if you just meant that we can all be thankful for our common heritage, sure, of course.

 

[PRmerger]

Muslims revere the bible, how have they reacted to the Church commanding them to submit to its authority? Does this new requirement apply to Jews, are Jews required to submit to the Church before quoting a Jew? Please link the page on vatican.va giving the details of this submission process and the penalties for non-compliance.

Is there a Department of Irony for those, like me, who are told we must make a submission in order to quote Jesus speaking against legalism?

Or if you just meant that we can all be thankful for our common heritage, sure, of course.

They don’t believe it’s theopneustos.

You do.

And the ONLY way you know that Hebrews, for example, is the Word of God, is because you give your tacit submission to the Catholic Church.

Now, if you want to say that you have the same attitude towards the Bible as you would any historical text, that’s fine, but then you can’t say that God has revealed himself through a sacred text. It’s just some interesting neat stuff written by some folks who lived around the time of Jesus.

Is that your position?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Matthew 23 NIV. I won’t give the verse number because anyone who knows the quote will know that it is representative of the chapter, and anyone who is unfamiliar with it needs to read the whole chapter to get the context. Which is that Jesus really doesn’t like legalists and isn’t the slightest bit subtle about telling them.

Well, now you are reading into Jesus’ words far beyond warrant. YOU may not like legalists and YOU are not the slightest bit subtle about telling them, but I would venture that Jesus loves everyone, including legalists.

Jesus (aka God) counted the ultimate “legalist” – you know, Moses, the one who tipped every yodh and hooked every tittle in the Mosaic Law – among his closest human friends. He was invited to the Transfiguration event along with Elijah and only a select few of the Apostles.

Jesus spoke quite eloquently about the law and legalists…

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:17-21)

It would appear that it wasn’t the “legalism” of the Pharisees that Jesus spoke against, it was the hypocrisy of those who held positions of authority and so were able to prioritize and emphasize certain human standards and “traditions” above more critical matters and could then crush others with their idiosyncratic views for fun and profit to themselves.

Your Matthew 23…

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them…

23 “**Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! **For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

So, if Jesus was chastizing the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and LAWLESSNESS (their lack of proportionate obedience to the law) he wouldn’t have been criticizing them for their “legalism,” was he?

Arguably the most effective Apostle for spreading the Gospel after Jesus’ death was the Pharisee of Pharisees, the legalist of legalists, Paul.

 

[Peter_Plato]

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.

Well, no, the PSR and “its variants” are not based upon inductive reasoning. The PSR is recognized as a first principle of reasoning – which is why it is called the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

What you are mistaking is how the principle came to be recognized as a first principle – i.e., through human experience – with its logical necessity as the foundation for human reasoning. The truth of something does not depend upon how it came to be believed – genetic fallacy.

The PSR is axiomatic to reasoning. That is, if you subscribe to reasoning at all as a process for coming to know anything at all about reality then the PSR must hold, necessarily – just as mathematical axioms hold necessarily within their respective systems. The PSR is axiomatic within reason itself.

If you throw out the PSR “and its variants” then you have no grounds upon which to know that anything whatsoever is or can be true.

In short, science, philosophy and logic are all grounded upon the truth (and acceptance) of the PSR, because without it we have no reason for thinking anything at all about anything at all. It is the dividing line between rationality and irrationality. Certainly, you are free to be irrational or to accept the unreal as real, but you would be doing that for no reason whatsoever except caprice. Good luck with that, but don’t expect anyone reasonable to be convinced.

Sure, the insane, the utterly irrational and those susceptible to rhetoric and/or coercion may find your “logic” persuasive, but those interested in truth and rationality will be left shaking their heads – provided they understand, in the first instance, what it is that you are claiming to be “true.”

Feser’s point which he makes in a number of places in his books and his blog is that…

“… [if the] PSR were false, we could have no reason to trust the deliverances of our cognitive faculties, including any grounds we might have for doubting or denying PSR; and an argument to the effect that a critic of PSR cannot coherently accept even the scientific explanations he does accept, unless he acknowledges that there are no brute facts and thus that PSR is true.”
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2014/10/della-rocca-on-psr.html

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The fallacy is called appeal to authority. Fame doesn’t stop someone making mistakes. If it doesn’t agree with experiment then it’s wrong, whether it’s cherry picked from Newton or Hawking or a cab driver.

There you go! Appealing to an authority to prove the appeal to authority is a fallacy.

Please try to reason better than Richard Dawkins can.

The entire source you quote reads as follows:

*An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.

Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

However, the informal fallacy occurs only when the authority cited either (a) is not an authority, or (b) is not an authority on the subject on which he is being cited. If someone either isn’t an authority at all, or isn’t an authority on the subject about which they’re speaking, then that undermines the value of their testimony.*

So apparently your appeal to the authority you cite was fallacious.

I don’t know who the dude is your citing, but he seems not too swift on the fallacies.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

By Genesis I take it you don’t mean all 50 chapters but just the creation myth in 2-3.

Mainly.

Gerald Schroeder in his book *The Science of God *(especially chapters 3 & 4) does an excellent job of interpreting Genesis as a master plan of intelligently designed creation that is generally consistent with the discoveries of modern science. He has a doctorate in physics from M.I.T., and is a respected biblical scholar in Israel.

But I’m afraid that’s more authority than you can stand so I doubt you will entertain any of his thoughts.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Matthew 23 NIV. I won’t give the verse number because anyone who knows the quote will know that it is representative of the chapter, and anyone who is unfamiliar with it needs to read the whole chapter to get the context. Which is that Jesus really doesn’t like legalists and isn’t the slightest bit subtle about telling them.

Jesus detested those who like the letter of the law but despise the spirit of the law.

Jesus did not detest the law itself.

Sorry, I’m afraid I could never appeal to you as an authority on scriptural interpretation.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Jesus spoke quite eloquently about the law and legalists.

Indeed, he spread a few holy legalisms dictionary.reference.com/browse/legalism of his own, notably at the end of Matthew 25.

And he was not reluctant to use the carrot and the stick while spreading them.

 

[ynotzap]

Necessarily imaginary? No. Necessarily real? No. Possibly imaginary? Yes. Possibly real? We don’t know. Let’s look at some evidence and test the claim.

Go to post 480 of this thread, my answer to DrTaffy. If it is possibly imaginary- it still has to have reality as a source from which to draw ideas from- no reality, no imagination, no non-fiction, no fiction. Possibly imaginary, possibly real. eg, Jules Verns “trip to the Moon, 20 thousand leagues under the sea” All classified as fiction when written. These stories are a mixture of subjective thought, and objective thought. There has to be a cause for a possibility.