The cosmological argument revisted.

[leroy]

You're contradicting yourself (and science), again.

The Big Bang is an event local to our universe. The nomenclature for the (speculative) multiverse including our universe is "cosmos".

Here you say definitely that there is something that is not part of our universe. So what is it now? In the Kalam it is said that the cause for the universe must be outside of our universe, so it argues for a multiverse. Are you still with the Kalam?
Or are you on the side of established science with a (single) universe that began at the Big Bang?
You have to discern those concepts in your mind and choose one.

If you choose the Big Bang, the Kalam is off the table and the discussion resolved.

If you choose the multiverse, we are speculating and my speculations are as good as yours i.e. only limited by logic.

My suggestion is that the cosmos began to exist at the big bang.

Do you have a better alternative in mind?
[

 

[leroy]

There may not have been a before. Did you not read that article by Sean Carroll that I linked for you? He is a physicist that understands this far better than you ever will, and far better than I ever will. He does not seem to agree with your claims of problems.

Ok then quote the actual words from Sean Carol, then quote my actual words, and expalin why my words contradict what SC said.

Just kitting, I know that you would rather to keep things vague and ambiguous…………you would rather say “you are wrong because SC says so” rather than quote my actual mistake and the actual correction

 

[leroy]

Replacing the most honest answer of "do not know" with "GodDidIt" does not actually answer anything.
It might make you feel good, but it does not lead to learning and merely adds a bunch more questions that the most honest answer is "do not know" that you would be far to ready to answer with "GodDidIt".

Replacing the most honest answer of "do not know" with "GodDidIt" does not actually answer anything.
It might make you feel good, but it does not lead to learning and merely adds a bunch more questions that the most honest answer is "do not know" that you would be far to ready to answer with "GodDidIt".

Granted, “we don’t know” is the current answer……….the question is based on what we know and based on the data that we have to date…………..which alternative is the best.

The Universe / Multiverse / Cosmos had a cause …….yes or no? which scenario seems more plausible given the evidence and data that we have today?

 

[leroy]

l"eroy said: ↑
Ok so if the universe (including time) began to exist at the big bang, it seems to me that there are only 2 options

1 ether something caused the universe (something that exists independently of the universe)

2 nothing caused the universe

I would argue that option 1 seems much more reasonable."

Based on what?

Because the other alternative is logically absurd………the idea that “nothing” created the universe is incoherent

 

[leroy]

1. Unless if the singularity was the cause.

2. Not necessarily. This something does not need to be eternal, it's only necessary for it to have caused the universe to begin.

Tell me more about this singularity….

Was this singularity the cause of the whole universe / cosmos (including time)…………or was it just the cause of our local bubble?

Did time existed before the big bang?

 

[Heyo]

My suggestion is that the cosmos began to exist at the big bang.

Do you have a better alternative in mind?

No, I already said that that is the model that is best in accord with the data.

But you are still arguing that that universe/cosmos had a cause - which can't be, at least not in the traditional meaning of the word where the cause has to precede the effect.
Do we agree?

 

[McBell]

Granted, “we don’t know” is the current answer……….the question is based on what we know and based on the data that we have to date…………..which alternative is the best.

The Universe / Multiverse / Cosmos had a cause …….yes or no? which scenario seems more plausible given the evidence and data that we have today?

You keep asking the same question and I keep giving you the same honest answer, I Do No Know.

Why are you so desperately fishing for your prefered answer?
So far as I can see, all you are doing is taking the premise "GodDidIt" and trying to manipulate a path that end.

Even if you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was a cause, god still is not in the picture.
God can not be in the picture until you can show that god exists in the first place.
and even after that you would need to show god was involved.
And since the whole point of your proving there is a cause is for no other reason than you think merely proving a cause proves god, you shoot your whole "argument" in the foot.

 

[leroy]

No, I already said that that is the model that is best in accord with the data.

But you are still arguing that that universe/cosmos had a cause - which can't be, at least not in the traditional meaning of the word where the cause has to precede the effect.
Do we agree?

No I don’t agree that the cause has to precede the effect. You have a huge burden proof, you have to show that the cause always (and necessarily) precedes the effect. Can you carry such a burden proof?

--

For example if you cut a square in 2 halves (with a diagonal) you will end up with 2 triangles.

Cause: cut the square in 2 halves

Effect: 2 triangles appear.

Both he cause and the effect would be simultaneous in this scenario, there is no point in time where the cause is fully fulfilled and the effect is missing.

So the alternatives

1 The universe had a cause / the cause and the effect are simultaneous

2 the universe came from nothing


Number 2 is incoherent, therefore number 1 is our best alternative.

 

[leroy]

You keep asking the same question and I keep giving you the same honest answer, I Do No Know.

Why are you so desperately fishing for your prefered answer?
So far as I can see, all you are doing is taking the premise "GodDidIt" and trying to manipulate a path that end.

Even if you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was a cause, god still is not in the picture.
God can not be in the picture until you can show that god exists in the first place.
and even after that you would need to show god was involved.
And since the whole point of your proving there is a cause is for no other reason than you think merely proving a cause proves god, you shoot your whole "argument" in the foot.

Yes once you accept that the universe had a cause. the idea of God flows necessarily ,

Once you grant that the universe / cosmos had a cause (including time) had a cause, you should ask “what does it mean to be a cause of the universe”?

The cause of the universe has to be timeless, space less immaterial and personal (amoung other properties)


for more details on why the cause most have those atributes:

Conceptual analysis of what it is to be a cause of the universe enables us to recover a number of striking properties which this ultramundane cause must possess and which are of theological significance. For example, the cause must be uncaused, since, as we have seen, an infinite regress of causes is impossible. One could, of course, arbitrarily posit a plurality of causes in some sense prior to the origin of the universe, but ultimately, if the philosophical kalam arguments are sound, this causal chain must terminate in a cause which is absolutely first and uncaused. There being no reason to perpetuate the series of events beyond the origin of the universe, Ockham’s Razor, which enjoins us not to posit causes beyond necessity, strikes such further causes in favor of an immediate First Cause of the origin of the universe. The same principle dictates that we are warranted in ignoring the possibility of a plurality of uncaused causes in favor of assuming the unicity of the First Cause.

This First Cause must also be beginningless, since by contraposition of premiss (1.0) whatever is uncaused does not begin to exist. Moreover, this cause must be changeless, since, once more, an infinite temporal regress of changes cannot exist. We should not be warranted, however, in inferring the immutability of the First Cause, since immutability is a modal property, and from the Cause’s changelessness we cannot infer that it is incapable of change. But we can know that the First Cause is changeless, at least insofar as it exists sans the universe. From the changelessness of the First Cause, its immateriality follows. For whatever is material involves incessant change on at least the molecular and atomic levels, but the uncaused First Cause exists in a state of absolute changelessness. Given some relational theory of time, the Uncaused Cause must therefore also be timeless, at least sans the universe, since in the utter absence of events time would not exist. It is true that some philosophers have argued persuasively that time could continue to exist even if all events were to cease (Shoemaker, 1969; Forbes, 1993), but such arguments are inapplicable in the case at hand, where we are envisioning, not the cessation of events, but the utter absence of any events whatsoever. In any case, the timelessness of the First Cause sans the universe can be more directly inferred from the finitude of the past. Given that time had a beginning, the cause of the beginning of time must be timeless. [20] It follows that this Cause must also be spaceless, since it is both immaterial and timeless and no spatial entity can be both immaterial and timeless. If an entity is immaterial, it could exist in space only in virtue of being related to material things in space; but then it could not be timeless, since it undergoes extrinsic change in its relations to material things. Hence, the uncaused First Cause must transcend both time and space and be the cause of their origination. Such a being must be, moreover, enormously powerful, since it brought the entirety of physical reality, including all matter and energy and space-time itself, into being without any material cause.

Finally, and most remarkably, such a transcendent cause is plausibly taken to be personal. Three reasons can be given for this conclusion. First, as Richard Swinburne (1991, pp. 32-48) points out, there are two types of causal explanation: scientific explanations in terms of laws and initial conditions and personal explanations in terms of agents and their volitions. For example, in answer to the question, “Why is the kettle boiling?” we might be told, “The heat of the flame is being conducted via the copper bottom of the kettle to the water, increasing the kinetic energy of the water molecules, such that they vibrate so violently that they break the surface tension of the water and are thrown off in the form of steam.” Or alternatively, we might be told, “I put it on to make a cup of tea. Would you like some?” The first provides a scientific explanation, the second a personal explanation. Each is a perfectly legitimate form of explanation; indeed, in certain contexts it would be wholly inappropriate to give one rather than the other. Now a first state of the universe cannot have a scientific explanation, since there is nothing before it, and therefore it cannot be accounted for in terms of laws operating on initial conditions. It can only be accounted for in terms of an agent and his volitions, a personal explanation.

Second, the personhood of the First Cause is already powerfully suggested by the properties which have been deduced by means of our conceptual analysis. For there appear to be only two candidates which can be described as immaterial, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, and spaceless beings: either abstract objects or an unembodied mind. Abstract objects like numbers, sets, propositions, and properties are very typically construed by philosophers who include such things in their ontology as being precisely the sort of entities which exist necessarily, timelessly, and spacelessly. Similarly philosophers who hold to the possibility of disembodied mind would describe such mental substances as immaterial and spaceless, and there seems no reason to think that a Cosmic Mind might not also be beginningless and uncaused. No other candidates which could be suitably described as immaterial, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, and spaceless beings come to mind. Nor has anyone else, to our knowledge, suggested any other such candidates. But no sort of abstract object can be the cause of the origin of the universe, for abstract objects are not involved in causal relations. Even if they were,since they are not agents, they cannot volitionally exercise a causal power to do anything. If they were causes, they would be so, not as agents, but as mindless events or states. But they cannot be event-causes, since they do not exist in time and space. Even if we allow that some abstract objects exist in time (for example, propositions which change their truth-value in virtue of the tense of the sentences which express them), still, in view of their abstract nature, it remains utterly mysterious how they could be causally related to concrete objects so as to bring about events, including the origin of the universe. Nor can they be state-causes of states involving concrete objects, for the same reason, not to mention the fact that in the case at hand we are not talking about state-state causation (that is, the causal dependence of one state on another), but what would amount to state-event causation (namely, the universe’s coming into being because of the state of some abstract object(s)), which seems impossible. Thus, the cause of the universe must be an unembodied mind.

Third, this same conclusion is also implied by the fact that only personal, free agency can account for the origin of a first temporal effect from a changeless cause. We have concluded that the beginning of the universe was the effect of a First Cause. By the nature of the case that cause cannot have any beginning of its existence nor any prior cause. Nor can there have been any changes in this cause, either in its nature or operations, prior to the beginning of the universe. It just exists changelessly without beginning, and a finite time ago it brought the universe into existence. Now this is exceedingly odd. The cause is in some sense eternal and yet the effect which it produced is not eternal but began to exist a finite time ago. How can this be? If the necessary and sufficient conditions for the production of the effect are eternal, then why is not the effect eternal? How can all the causal conditions sufficient for the production of the effect be changelessly existent and yet the effect not also be existent along with the cause? How can the cause exist without the effect

So pelase, no do just run away, but rather spott he specific points where you disagree and expalin why you disagree.

You keep asking the same question and I keep giving you the same honest answer, I Do No Know.

If you don’t know, then I invite you to do some research and find the conclusion that you think better fits the current evidence………..after you do that please share and explain why is your conclusion bettern than mine

 

[McBell]

Both he cause and the effect would be simultaneous in this scenario, there is no point in time where the cause is fully fulfilled and the effect is missing.

Instantaneous is not simultaneous.

And your false dichotomy is still a false dichotomy.

 

[McBell]

Yes once you accept that the universe had a cause. the idea of God flows necessarily

No, it does not.
Especially when you can not show god exists in the first place.

Once you grant that the universe / cosmos had a cause (including time) had a cause, you should ask “what does it mean to be a cause of the universe”?

I agree, but you still can not just jump to god with out showing that god exists AND that god is the cause...

The cause of the universe has to be timeless, space less immaterial and personal (amoung other properties)

Bold empty claim.
And one you can not show to be true.
So it is just as useless as your bold empty claims of god.

So pelase, no do just run away, but rather spott he specific points where you disagree and expalin why you disagree.

Until you can show your assumptions to be true...

If you don’t know, then I invite you to do some research and find the conclusion that you think better fits the current evidence………..after you do that please share and explain why is your conclusion bettern than mine

Since I have no problem with admitting that I do not know...
Nor am I pushing a god agenda.
Nor am I letting a god agenda push me

The biggest problem I have with your conclusion is that I am not convinced that god exists.
Thus I am not chasing my tail trying to prove god exists.

You make all manner of assumptions thinking that if you present them as facts that you somehow "prove" your beliefs true.

But bold empty claims are not even evidence.
they are merely bold empty claims.

 

[leroy]

Instantaneous is not simultaneous.

You can call it however you want….The point is that the cause doesn’t necessarily has to precede the effect…………..any disagreement?

And your false dichotomy is still a false dichotomy.

Ether the universe / cosmos had a cause, or it didn’t. What is false about this dichotomy?..............is there a third option?

 

[McBell]

You can call it however you want….The point is that the cause doesn’t necessarily has to precede the effect…………..any disagreement?

Yes, because Instantaneous is not simultaneous.

Ether the universe / cosmos had a cause, or it didn’t. What is false about this dichotomy?..............is there a third option?

Post #117 already answers this.

 

[leroy]

No, it does not.
Especially when you can not show god exists in the first place.

It follows that the cause is space less timeless, immaterial personal etc…….. you can call it God or give it another name.

I agree, but you still can not just jump to god with out showing that god exists AND that god is the cause...

The cause would be something spaceless timeless inmaterial personal etc………feel free to call it God, or give it an other name

Bold empty claim.
And one you can not show to be true.
So it is just as useless as your bold empty claims of god.

No, the claim was supported with extensive detail………………if you disagree I would like you to tell me exactly where are your points of disagreement.

Until you can show your assumptions to be true...

I did

The biggest problem I have with your conclusion is that I am not convinced that god exists.
Thus I am not chasing my tail trying to prove god exists.

Why is that a “problem” for my conclusion?

You make all manner of assumptions thinking that if you present them as facts that you somehow "prove" your beliefs true.

Give an example of a specific assumption that I fail to support

But bold empty claims are not even evidence.
they are merely bold empty claims.

Its very easy to be you……………..all you have to do is repeat like a parrot “bold empty claims” “bold empty claims”……………………you are expected to support your assertions, you are expected to explain what is wrong with the evidence/arguments that I provided.

Lets make a deal

1 Please give an specific example of a “bold empty claim”

2 Then I will provide arguments in support for that claim

3 Then you will explain specifically what is wrong with my arguments.

 

[leroy]

Yes, because Instantaneous is not simultaneous.]

Semantic games….this simply show how desperate and trapped you are.

Post #117 already answers this.

no it doesnt.

plase provide a third option..............

 

[McBell]

1 Please give an specific example of a “bold empty claim”

Been there, done that, and you just keep repeating it over and over as though you think that if you repeat it enough times, it will magically become fact.

2 Then I will provide arguments in support for that claim

Bold empty claims in support of bold empty claims is not an "argument"

3 Then you will explain specifically what is wrong with my arguments.

Bold empty claims in support of bold empty claims is not an "argument"

 

[McBell]

Semantic games….this simply show how desperate and trapped you are.

The fact that there is a major difference between instantaneous and simultaneous is not "semantics"
Pointing out that you are conflating instantaneous with simultaneous is not a game.

Thus it is not I who is desperate or trapped.

But I strongly suspect that you just plain flat out are unable to see anything outside of your box.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ok then quote the actual words from Sean Carol, then quote my actual words, and expalin why my words contradict what SC said.

Just kitting, I know that you would rather to keep things vague and ambiguous…………you would rather say “you are wrong because SC says so” rather than quote my actual mistake and the actual correction

Since the article was too long for you perhaps this tweet of his will make your error more clear:

"4. The Big Bang might have been the beginning of the universe. Or it might not have been; there could have been space and time before the Big Bang. We don’t really know."

https://twitter.com/seanmcarroll/status/1084183037946916864?lang=en

You are trying to put an absolute on the universe that is not justified right now. Worse yet you ignore a key part of physics. Don't worry, most physicists do too since they do not have an answer yet. You are ignoring the fact that physics is not just described using just classical physics. One is guaranteed to be wrong if one does so. It appears that one is wrong even if one uses just relativity. The use of quantum dynamics must be used too and when one does that the classic ideas of "cause and effect" simply do not exist any longer.

The current answer about what cause the Big Bang is "We don't know yet". And further we may never know. Not knowing something is never a valid excuse to bring a god into the equation. If you want to bring a god into the mix the burden of proof is upon you. And you do not appear to have any evidence at all for your god. Only poor arguments.

Please note that no one is

 

[leroy]

Since the article was too long for you perhaps this tweet of his will make your error more clear:

"4. The Big Bang might have been the beginning of the universe. Or it might not have been; there could have been space and time before the Big Bang. We don’t really know."

no disagreement from my part, I dont claim to know with certanity,

You are trying to put an absolute on the universe that is not justified right now. Worse yet you ignore a key part of physics. Don't worry, most physicists do too since they do not have an answer yet. You are ignoring the fact that physics is not just described using just classical physics. One is guaranteed to be wrong if one does so. It appears that one is wrong even if one uses just relativity. The use of quantum dynamics must be used too and when one does that the classic ideas of "cause and effect" simply do not exist any longer

.
Sure, but we have to work with what we have / know and try to get the best conclusions that we have with current data.
That the universe had a beginning at the big bang seems to be the best alternative. ………. If you have a better alternative in mind please share it and explain why is it better.

The current answer about what cause the Big Bang is "We don't know yet". And further we may never know. Not knowing something is never a valid excuse to bring a god into the equation. If you want to bring a god into the mix the burden of proof is upon you. And you do not appear to have any evidence at all for your god. Only poor arguments.

Please note that no one is

If the big bang represents the beginning of the universe/multiverse/cosmos (including time) and if the big bang had a cause.

Then we can conclude that the cause necessarily has to be timeless, space less, immaterial., personal etc. (which sounds a lot like God)

Some sort of God appears naturally and inescapable from the conclusion……….nobody is invoking god form nowhere.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Sure, but we have to work with what we have / know and try to get the best conclusions that we have with current data.
That the universe had a beginning at the big bang seems to be the best alternative. ………. If you have a better alternative in mind please share it and explain why is it better.

It seems to be the best, but that does not lead to anything.

If the big bang represents the beginning of the universe/multiverse/cosmos (including time) and if the big bang had a cause.

Then we can conclude that the cause necessarily has to be timeless, space less, immaterial., personal etc. (which sounds a lot like God)

Only to you. And this is both yours and WLC's error. That is merely an argument from ignorance and an unjustified attempt to define God into existence. It is a terribly failed argument. You do not get to define a being into existence without proper evidence. And he has none.

Some sort of God appears naturally and inescapable from the conclusion……….nobody is invoking god form nowhere.

No, again that is an unjustified conclusion. It is merely an argument from ignorance. In fact it is a "God of the Gaps" argument. I don't know why this happened, therefore God.