Does God require a creator?

[Left Coast]

It is worth noting that the universe as a whole, that is, the space-time manifold, does not appear to be contingent on anything. It exists (according to general relativity) as a sort of 4-dimensional object. Time and causality are internal to it and it makes no sense to apply them to the whole. I'm not saying that that makes it necessary because it's very easy to imagine it not existing or being different.

If you're conceding that the universe could not exist, or could be different than it is, then it seems you've conceded it's not necessary.

Except it really isn't. You've just contrived the definition in such a way as to make it true.

I didn't contrive anything, that I can see - metaphysically necessary things have a definition. We can use that definition to see if things we observe or propose meet that criteria. What's wrong with that?

 

[dybmh]

Yes, that premise was my critique to the OP, who appeared to maintain it. I was building a case assuming it, in order to defeat it.

The OP, Left Coast, whom you just therefore called ignorant.

i would suggest three things to avoid further attempts to destroy your feet, by constantly shooting on them:

1) Read the thread, and try to assess the context and the rationale of the discussions
2) try to understand what a premise is
3) avoid to offend people

ciao

- viole

Great! So you don't actually have a proof that God doesn't exist. Just checking.

 

[Left Coast]

I don’t see why. I live both options open. So, it should be the one making the stronger claim to prove that.

You making the claim that you're necessary seems to be quite obviously the stronger claim to me. I have yet to see you demonstrate it, and I've given several rather obvious reasons why you're not a candidate.

anyway, you say I am a piece of the Universe, and therefore contingent. My claim is that it is possible that the entire Universe is necessary, including what is inside. Including my parents, and all the things that led to my existence.

How? Things that depend on other things for their existence are contingent, by definition. That's what contingency is.

Actually, on second thought, I do not agree with myself anymore.

Ah okay. Phew!

However, the very requirement of being possible, assumes that the laws of logic apply in all universes. Otherwise, it would be meaningless to even call them “possible”. So, we can assume that those abstracta are tautologically available in every possible universe.

I would agree with that I think - this is what I was just saying in an earlier reply re: The Law of Non-Contradiction.

we do not know. As I said, it is entirely possible that we live in a world dominated by strict deterministic laws. In that case, any state of affairs would be completely determined by its antecedents. And if their antecedents are necessary, it would be necessary, too. And this could go like that forever, making the sheer possibility of an alternative scenario, utterly logically impossible.

This is a basic misunderstanding, I think, of what necessity means. Even if determinism were true, that wouldn't make everything metaphysically necessary. It would simply make the initial, or better said fundamental, cause of that deterministic chain of events necessary.

 

[ratiocinator]

It seems to me that all theories of science are predicated on some version of PSR. If everything just has no explanation, and things just happen completely at random for no discernible reason, scientific enquiry becomes a non-starter.

You've switched from everything having a reason to nothing again.

My point in bringing up everyday experience isn't to say that no scientific discovery could ever contradict what may seem intuitively obvious, but merely to say that the evidence seems stacked pretty strongly in favor of some version of PSR, as we can all sample in our everyday experience of the world.

It depends a bit on exactly how you interpret it. There are certain events that current theory suggests do not have an exact reason for why they happened. The decay of a radioactive nucleus, for example. We know there is a certain probability that it will happen over a given time but there is (according the best theory) no reason whatsoever why if happens at the exact moment it does.

Regardless, even if it does apply to our experience, there would seem to be nothing impossible about it not applying to the basis of existence. A brute fact is self-consistent and imaginable.

I'm not even sure what you're asking here. If something can't not exist, wouldn't the more relevant question be to ask how it could possibly not?

I'm asking how it is possible for anything to be such that its non-existence would be impossible. How does it make logical sense?

I'm curious what you'd say about certain abstract objects that people have argued are necessary. The Law of Non-Contradiction, for example. Could a world exist where things aren't themselves?

Yes, some sort of principle like non-contradiction could well be universal and I think a principle was one of the proposals in the paper I posted. It makes more sense than a 'thing'. Perhaps everything that is self-consistent actually exists in some vast multiverse. Purest speculation but at least that is kind of imaginable.

Why do you find that more believable? If you genuinely don't know, I assume you'd find their likelihoods relatively equal?

Because it at least seems imaginable, whereas a necessary entity seems to be impossible.

I don't see how it's impossible. Can you explain how you arrived at that conclusion?

It is inconceivable that something can exist that would cause a contradiction if it did not. It is impossible to even imagine something that one can't imagine a possible world without it. It appears to be a nonsensical concept.

 

[ratiocinator]

If you're conceding that the universe could not exist, or could be different than it is, then it seems you've conceded it's not necessary.

I can imagine it not existing or being different (in much the same way I can't imagine a necessary entity) but that doesn't mean that it actually could have not existed or have been different. I don't know, and neither does anybody else.

I didn't contrive anything, that I can see - metaphysically necessary things have a definition.

I didn't mean that you personally contrived it.

 

[Left Coast]

You've switched from everything having a reason to nothing again.

So which things have a reason for their existence and which don't? What you're arguing, it seems, is that virtually everything that happens all around us all the time has comprehensible reasons for why it happens, but the entire basis of that of framework has no reason for it. That strikes me as wildly implausible, at least.

It depends a bit on exactly how you interpret it. There are certain events that current theory suggests do not have an exact reason for why they happened. The decay of a radioactive nucleus, for example. We know there is a certain probability that it will happen over a given time but there is (according the best theory) no reason whatsoever why if happens at the exact moment it does.

The fact that we don't know an exact reason for some precise subatomic change, but rather it's reason is probabilistic, doesn't change the overall point that things have a reason for their existence. We know why particles decay. It doesn't just happen out of the blue for no reason at all. There is a causal framework there, even if we can't predict which exact particle will decay at which exact moment.

Regardless, even if it does apply to our experience, there would seem to be nothing impossible about it not applying to the basis of existence. A brute fact is self-consistent and imaginable.

As I mentioned before, this strikes me as simply implausible. The basis for existence is completely without explanation, despite everything we know about it being predicated on the fact that it operates by things occurring for a reason? That just strains credulity to me.

I'm asking how it is possible for anything to be such that its non-existence would be impossible. How does it make logical sense?

This is the entire point of arguments based on contingency. You can challenge the premises involved, but nothing about it is logically impossible that I can see. In fact it seems logically inescapable, if the premises hold true.

Yes, some sort of principle like non-contradiction could well be universal and I think a principle was one of the proposals in the paper I posted. It makes more sense than a 'thing'. Perhaps everything that is self-consistent actually exists in some vast multiverse. Purest speculation but at least that is kind of imaginable.

Okay thanks, that's helpful.

It is inconceivable that something can exist that would cause a contradiction if it did not. It is impossible to even imagine something that one can't imagine a possible world without it. It appears to be a nonsensical concept.

I'm just not seeing how, sorry.

 

[Left Coast]

I can imagine it not existing or being different (in much the same way I can't imagine a necessary entity) but that doesn't mean that it actually could have not existed or have been different. I don't know, and neither does anybody else.

Given the fact that universe is in a constant state of change in various ways, doesn't that lead inextricably to the conclusion that at least some features of the universe are not necessary? If they have been different in the past, and will be different in the future, how could they possibly be necessary?

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Dearth Vader

I’m sure there are “arrogant jerk gets tortured and becomes a blood thirsty demon “ characters around.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Oh dear. Isn’t that obvious, from the discussion?

Premise: God is necessary
Premise: something is contingent if we can imagine its not existence
Fact: it is very easy to imagine the not existence of God, all atheists do that
Conclusion: God is contingent
Conclusion: God is necessary and contingent at the same time. Contradiction with premise! Violation of excluded third!
Conclusion: God cannot exist

so, this are the premises of the claimant, the first is from me, and the conclusions follow from simple logic, and your old excluded middle friend. Well, simple for most of us, at least.

and, as any proof, it is valid if

1) the premises hold
2) the conclusion is not a non sequitur

in this case it is not a non sequitur, ergo, if God exists, some of the premises are false.

i am not holding my breath that you see it, given the cognitive dissonance that reductio ad absurdum gives you, but here is your chance to prove that God exists, by understanding It.

joking of course.



ciao

- viole

Premise: something is contingent if we can imagine its non existence
I am having trouble with that one. In causal terms it means that if I imagine something as non-existent it is caused by imagining its non-existence to become contingent. How does that work? Is that a fact that it works that way?

So I question if that is a fact: Conclusion: God is contingent

 

[ratiocinator]

So which things have a reason for their existence and which don't?

I don't know. It looks like at least most of what we see, from our point of view, embedded as we are in space-time, has reasons.

What you're arguing, it seems, is that virtually everything that happens all around us all the time has comprehensible reasons for why it happens, but the entire basis of that of framework has no reason for it. That strikes me as wildly implausible, at least.

TBH I actually find pretty much every idea about the basis of existence to be wildly implausible.

You can challenge the premises involved, but nothing about it is logically impossible that I can see. In fact it seems logically inescapable, if the premises hold true.

I regard the whole concept of a 'necessary entity' as an absurdity. The argument makes too many assumptions about unknowns for me to accept such an impossible to even imagine conclusion.

I'm not being some sort of extreme maverick here, apparently Hume agreed (see the paper I linked in #116), not to mention many others.

 

[ratiocinator]

Given the fact that universe is in a constant state of change in various ways, doesn't that lead inextricably to the conclusion that at least some features of the universe are not necessary?

It isn't in a constant state of change if we consider the whole space-time manifold. All of history exists spread out along the timelike directions.

 

[Left Coast]

I don't know. It looks like at least most of what we see, from our point of view, embedded as we are in space-time, has reasons.


TBH I actually find pretty much every idea about the basis of existence to be wildly implausible.


I regard the whole concept of a 'necessary entity' as an absurdity. The argument makes too many assumptions about unknowns for me to accept such an impossible to even imagine conclusion.

I'm not being some sort of extreme maverick here, apparently Hume agreed (see the paper I linked in #116), not to mention many others.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't find it impossible to imagine. But I appreciate your input, it's helpful.

 

[Left Coast]

It isn't in a constant state of change if we consider the whole space-time manifold. All of history exists spread out along the timelike directions.

It doesn't have to be in a constant state of change to be contingent (though if we consider something like the movement of subatomic particles, it seems pretty constant to me). If it changes, it's contingent. It doesn't have to be (otherwise it wouldn't change).

 

[Twilight Hue]

Do we require a creator or are we just a random fart in the space?

Progress in AI shows that intelligence can be created/programmed...

The ole watchmaker 'theory'.

Problem is if you see a watch in the woods, it's clear everyone knows already all to well that watches are made and by whom. No speculation required, albiet one might wonder who lost it.

Point is we also know where AI comes from.

 

[ratiocinator]

It doesn't have to be in a constant state of change to be contingent (though if we consider something like the movement of subatomic particles, it seems pretty constant to me). If it changes, it's contingent. It doesn't have to be (otherwise it wouldn't change)

You misunderstand. There is no change at all from the perspective of the whole space-time manifold. Change happens as you track along a timelike path through it. Change also happens along spacelike paths. The difference between time and space is just geometry.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You misunderstand. There is no change at all from the perspective of the whole space-time manifold. Change happens as you track along a timelike path through it. Change also happens along spacelike paths. The difference between time and space is just geometry.

I get what you are saying, but it also sounds like idealism in a sense.
That sounds like a non-supernatural form of idealism, where the model is the reality and reality is the math of the model.

 

[PureX]

I don't know. It looks like at least most of what we see, from our point of view, embedded as we are in space-time, has reasons.


TBH I actually find pretty much every idea about the basis of existence to be wildly implausible.


I regard the whole concept of a 'necessary entity' as an absurdity. The argument makes too many assumptions about unknowns for me to accept such an impossible to even imagine conclusion.

I'm not being some sort of extreme maverick here, apparently Hume agreed (see the paper I linked in #116), not to mention many others.

But the mystery remains. And we can represent it in our minds in whatever way we choose, because it is a mystery. And in doing so we can help ourselves to make some sense of it, and perhaps gain some peace from it. So, although there are no answers, there are still options.

 

[ratiocinator]

And we can represent it in our minds in whatever way we choose, because it is a mystery.

Not sure this makes sense. It's an unknown. There are plenty of those. Why 'represent' it as anything else but a simple unknown?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But the mystery remains. And we can represent it in our minds in whatever way we choose, because it is a mystery. And in doing so we can help ourselves to make some sense of it, and perhaps gain some peace from it. So, although there are no answers, there are still options.

As long as you accept if you can do it as with logic and I don't do that, but we both get peace and don't cause non-peace to the other person, then that is a part of the mystery.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not sure this makes sense. It's an unknown. There are plenty of those. Why 'represent' it as anything else but a simple unknown?

Because of the classical known as a justified true belief everything is unknown. It is philosophy and nobody in recorded history has been able to do known like that. In practice knowledge, truth, evidence and all that are in the mind. You have to make a leap of faith and trust the universe to be real, orderly and knowable.
Most people don't like that limit of human cognition, but it doesn't change just because they don't like it. The objective universe doesn't care about us.