The Cosmological Argument

[lunamoth]

Is that a Discordian reference?



That's true, but a true belief which isn't justified isn't known, either.

Consider what would happen if I were curious about what the capitol city of Missouri is, so I flip open a book that lists cities in Missouri. To my surprise it doesn't happen to list which one is the capitol, though, so I pick two that look pretty: St. Louis and Jefferson City.

I then decide for whatever reason that I'll flip a coin (heads = St. Louis and tails = Jefferson City) to determine which of these is the capitol. I flip a coin, it lands tails up, so I therefore decide that Jefferson City is the capitol of Missouri.

I hold a true belief, but not a justified belief: obviously, coin-flipping isn't a valid justifier. Therefore, regardless of having the true belief that Jefferson City is the capitol of Missouri, I don't actually know that to be the case. Considering the grievous holes in my ability to justify, I'm simply lucky to have included the correct city in my coin-flip in the first place -- let alone lucky to have had the coin land tails up to give me the correct answer.

I'm sure people might sometimes get lucky with their unjustified beliefs, but to me that's as asinine as grasping at the wind.

But, I've been to Jefferson City, and it is so wonderful that even if it were not the capitol of MO, it should be.

 

[Dan4reason]

Calling it the unknown puts no importance on it. A god is still a god, if it has intelligence and power to create this. Whether it is an idea of god we have, or one beyond what we can comprehend, is it not?

Calling it God is confusing. God already has mythological meaning, and usually refers to a person. Since the cause of the universe may not be supernatural or personal, calling it God is confusing and falsely hints at religion. Lets find a better term. What about Origin?

 

[1137]

Calling it God is confusing. God already has mythological meaning, and usually refers to a person. Since the cause of the universe may not be supernatural or personal, calling it God is confusing and falsely hints at religion. Lets find a better term. What about Origin?

How about "The Absolute"? That is what I would perhaps choose. I do agree with you that calling it 'god' has meanings already put on it, and therefore it may not be the best word.

 

[Dunemeister]

That's not "begging the question," that's what definitions of words are for: to distinguish what they are from what they are not. When we say "I know X," we are saying that we're in some state by which we believe X is true, we have [epistemic] justification for X, and X really is true (either absolutely or as far as is possible for us to know given what is available to us at the time). (I suppose if someone is a coherentist or something we can branch out the conversation to cover that topic as well, but for now, JTB should be sufficient)

No, that IS begging the question. Externalist epistemology denies that justification is necessary or sufficient for a belief to constitute knowledge. You can't wave aside a long and fruitful philosophical tradition by taking a contrary position and baptising it as the one and only correct analysis of knowledge.

Since irrational thinking and arational thinking are incapable of generating epistemic justification they can't by any contortion of the mind ever lead to knowledge since any beliefs arrived to by their use will fail to be justified.

Unless there is knowledge we have that isn't justified. And we have plenty. In fact, most of what we know isn't justified. I won't take this thread further afield by attempting to demonstrate this, but it's easily done.

 

[camanintx]

Briefly, If the total amount of energy is limited and the amount of useable energy is decreasing, then the universe cannot have existed forever, otherwise it would have already used up all its energy.

However, if matter / energy has always been around, you must accept that the universe is infinite in age.

Just because something doesn't have a beginning doesn't mean it has to be infinite.

Chapter 31. The Possibility of a “Finite” and Yet “Unbounded” Universe. Einstein, Albert. 1920. Relativity: The Special and General Theory

 

[Meow Mix]

No, that IS begging the question. Externalist epistemology denies that justification is necessary or sufficient for a belief to constitute knowledge. You can't wave aside a long and fruitful philosophical tradition by taking a contrary position and baptising it as the one and only correct analysis of knowledge.

I did say that "if someone is a coherentist or something we can branch out... for now JTB is sufficient," so this would be the instance where "someone is a coherentist or something"

Unless there is knowledge we have that isn't justified. And we have plenty. In fact, most of what we know isn't justified. I won't take this thread further afield by attempting to demonstrate this, but it's easily done.

I wouldn't be opposed to a thread on epistemology, would you? I'm enjoying this conversation more than the OP.

 

[1137]

Just because something doesn't have a beginning doesn't mean it has to be infinite.

Chapter 31. The Possibility of a “Finite” and Yet “Unbounded” Universe. Einstein, Albert. 1920. Relativity: The Special and General Theory

How so?

 

[Willamena]

Sorry for the late reply. I had two cups of coffee this morning, and was useless after that.

Is that a Discordian reference?

Yes, indeed! Negations have identity, too. Structuring the world in terms of things is lovely, but (as the Myth of Greyface points out) only one way to go about it. A possible world that “includes no zebras” is valid.

Dharmic types also structure the world differently, with a philosophy that revolves around two images of substance: form and emptiness.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/#EmpSva

The “form” of anything is its substance or essence, be it tangible, conceptual, imaginary or whatever --the concept of “form” also includes the idea of the thing so perceived, making no significant distinction between what we hold (believe) to be “out there” and what is real. The “emptiness” of a thing is the negation not only of substance or essence but the idea of the negation of the thing, again making no significant distinction. Ontologically speaking, while negated zebras may simply lack for substance, the idea of “no zebra” is much harder to believe away. The result of this duality is embodied in the Daoist symbol of Tao: the concepts of form and emptiness in identical proportion, present of all things (of equal importance to understanding non-duality are the concepts of the form of form, the form of emptiness, the emptiness of form, and the emptiness of emptiness).

This is an article that explains the point Orontes was making about arational learning methods: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-zen/#ZenAnt

That's true, but a true belief which isn't justified isn't known, either.

Consider what would happen if I were curious about what the capitol city of Missouri is, so I flip open a book that lists cities in Missouri. To my surprise it doesn't happen to list which one is the capitol, though, so I pick two that look pretty: St. Louis and Jefferson City.

I then decide for whatever reason that I'll flip a coin (heads = St. Louis and tails = Jefferson City) to determine which of these is the capitol. I flip a coin, it lands tails up, so I therefore decide that Jefferson City is the capitol of Missouri.

I hold a true belief, but not a justified belief: obviously, coin-flipping isn't a valid justifier. Therefore, regardless of having the true belief that Jefferson City is the capitol of Missouri, I don't actually know that to be the case. Considering the grievous holes in my ability to justify, I'm simply lucky to have included the correct city in my coin-flip in the first place -- let alone lucky to have had the coin land tails up to give me the correct answer.

I'm sure people might sometimes get lucky with their unjustified beliefs, but to me that's as asinine as grasping at the wind.

I've forgotten the fine point I was making this morning. Ah well...

We begin with a foundation of belief, which is everything we hold to be true about the world. Knowledge is belief that is justified and true, but truth doesn't require justification and knowledge is true despite justification. Further, we can and do recognize truth despite justification. Justification depends on truth, not the other way around.*

So, do we have another word for things that are true that reside in our heads?


*We can't paint the world without it.

 

[Meow Mix]

Sorry for the late reply. I had two cups of coffee this morning, and was useless after that.

I know what you mean, I've been at work for 14 hours. :cover:

Yes, indeed! Negations have identity, too. Structuring the world in terms of things is lovely, but (as the Myth of Greyface points out) only one way to go about it. A possible world that “includes no zebras” is valid.

Dharmic types also structure the world differently, with a philosophy that revolves around two images of substance: form and emptiness.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/#EmpSva

The “form” of anything is its substance or essence, be it tangible, conceptual, imaginary or whatever --the concept of “form” also includes the idea of the thing so perceived, making no significant distinction between what we hold (believe) to be “out there” and what is real. The “emptiness” of a thing is the negation not only of substance or essence but the idea of the negation of the thing, again making no significant distinction. Ontologically speaking, while negated zebras may simply lack for substance, the idea of “no zebra” is much harder to believe away. The result of this duality is embodied in the Daoist symbol of Tao: the concepts of form and emptiness in identical proportion, present of all things (of equal importance to understanding non-duality are the concepts of the form of form, the form of emptiness, the emptiness of form, and the emptiness of emptiness).

This is an article that explains the point Orontes was making about arational learning methods: [URL]http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-zen/#ZenAnt[/URL]

I may have to try those links when I eventually get home (and probably after I take a long, well deserved rest) -- they're not opening on my work computer for some reason. Until then, I'm not sure what the difference is between a negated zebra and the concept of "no zebra." I'm thinking of each as ¬x -- is this incorrect?

I've forgotten the fine point I was making this morning. Ah well...

We begin with a foundation of belief, which is everything we hold to be true about the world. Knowledge is belief that is justified and true, but truth doesn't require justification and knowledge is true despite justification. Further, we can and do recognize truth despite justification. Justification depends on truth, not the other way around.*

So, do we have another word for things that are true that reside in our heads?


*We can't paint the world without it.

Knowledge isn't true despite justification; and we can't recognize truth without justification. Epistemically speaking, something that causes us to recognize truth is justification (if it does just that); but there appear to be more characteristics than just that (such as the possibility of a false "recognition," e.g., mistakenly believing that coin-flipping is a legitimate "recognition" of some truth).

Justification depends on truth, yes, but also the other way around: you can't realize that you have a truth unless you can justify it. Otherwise you have a guess that may or may not be true as far as you believe (even if it may or may not be true in reality).

That was the purpose of the coin flipping example: I might come to some true belief without valid justification -- but I have no indication that it's true; no reason why I should believe that it's true; no confirmation that it's true; no external and internal consistency attesting to its truth. I might as well just pick what I believe based on a dart toss without justification.

 

[Satyamavejayanti]

Dan4reason;2696923]Sufficient causes:
If x is a sufficient cause of y, then the presence of x necessarily implies the presence of y. However, another cause z may alternatively cause y. Thus the presence of y does not imply the presence of x.

The Y always requires a X or Z as its cause, without cause there is no effect.

So the sufficient cause of something is a cause which if it exists, the result will also be there, however it is not the only way the result could have been brought about.

The universe is a effect of a cause, the cause is is always there.

Remember that the material cause is what the star is made out of, and the efficient cause is the way that the star was made. So in the case of the star the efficient cause is gravity. We don't have any evidence that a person makes stars. Using Newtonian physics, we know that matter will draw itself together given enough time, because each particle exerts an attractive force on other objects. You don't need God to get a large mass of particles to condense and condense until it turns into a star.

I never said that a person makes stars, a person will be made of the same thing the stars are made of, Newtons laws prove that the universe is tructured, as everything has a a governing Law.

The material cause is infinite if the material a thing is made out of has existed forever. The Efficient cause is infinite if the person or process that made that thing has been around forever.

Correct

It is plausible that the material that makes up something has been around forever (eternal material cause), and then a person (temporal efficient cause) who is 15 then organizes that material to make a product. So your point is incorrect.

Not if your talking about the Universe

It is plausible that a person who has been around forever (eternal efficent cause), used material that has been around 200 years (temporal material cause), to make something. So your point is incorrect.

Incorrect, this universe was never non existent, material cause will always exists and has always.

Sometimes the sufficient cause is the efficient cause, so it does not need to exist prior to the efficient cause, the material cause can exist prior to the efficient cause, so the material cause can exist prior to the sufficient cause.

Incorrect, the sufficient cause is the "Idea" of something, the efficient cause is the process of something, an idea on its own cannot cause anything without having a efficient cause. and i have stated earlier that the material cause of the universe has existed for eternity.

I do not see why you think the sufficient cause has to be started at some point in time.

Where did i say that? please read my post clearly, i was scrutinizing other beliefs

The universe will exist forever, it will just exist in a more primitive state with black holes everywhere and stars all died out. So a decaying universe can exist forever.

i agree, read my post clearly.


God may have found the material (which existed before him) to make the universe, and then used it to make the universe.

That is what im saying, the material cause existed for infinity.

I don't see why that's true.

i don't see why that's cant be true?

How do you know that the material to make the universe existed for infinity? I hope you realise unconscious things can also be efficient causes too.

Refer to any scientific theory, and all will tell you that the Raw material existed for ever

Your post was very deep and took a lot of though to review. I hope my review was not too long and hopefully I didn't get any of the definitions wrong.[/QUOTE]

 

[Dunemeister]

I did say that "if someone is a coherentist or something we can branch out... for now JTB is sufficient," so this would be the instance where "someone is a coherentist or something"

Coherentism is actually an internalist epistemology, not an externalist one. And according to externalists, JTB is not sufficient for knowledge. It's entirely possible to have a J'd TB yet not have knowledge. And (so say the externalists), J is not even necessary. One can have knowledge without it. But then, that would take a few (at least!) lines of argument to show.

I wouldn't be opposed to a thread on epistemology, would you? I'm enjoying this conversation more than the OP.

No, but the last time we had a go 'round, it got quite involved. I don't think I'll have the time to really get into this as much these days. I have to content myself -- for now -- with occasionally poking around.

 

[camanintx]

How so?

If time begins when the universe begins as suggested by relativity, then there can be no moment when the universe didn't exist. Hence while the universe may have started 13 billion years ago, it has always existed.

 

[Dunemeister]

If time begins when the universe begins as suggested by relativity, then there can be no moment when the universe didn't exist. Hence while the universe may have started 13 billion years ago, it has always existed.

Which is why I prefer to set the issue in terms of causation. Why/How did the universe start? Why has there been a start rather than not? Presumably it started because of something other than itself. For it doesn't seem possible for something inert and impersonal/without will -- whether eternally extant or not -- (it would have to be inert etc at the starting point because we are postulating a "time before" causation) to start itself in motion. That "something other than itself" would have to somehow exist outside time and be capable of making a decision to get things moving; otherwise, it becomes part of the series we're trying to explain -- vicious infinite regress.

 

[PolyHedral]

What does it mean for the universe to be inert in that context?

 

[Willamena]

... I'm not sure what the difference is between a negated zebra and the concept of "no zebra." I'm thinking of each as ¬x -- is this incorrect?

That's probably my fault, worded it poorly. The negation of (zebra) is (no zebra), yes. It results in "nothing." But there's also the (idea of zebra) that we acquire when (zebra) has been realized. Much philosophical debate has gone into whether there is a negation of that, and if so what its nature might be. For instance, if we conceive of a possible world with no zebras, we have effectively placed a "blank" zebra into that world, a placemark where zebra might be. We can do that, because we still hold the idea of zebra. In the context of a possible world with no zebras, there's this big "nothing" where something should be roaming around; that "nothing" is not really nothing. It's useful.

The emptiness of form is not ¬x; in different contexts it negates different things, including the negation of "no zebras". Part of the learning referred to earlier as arational teaches one to switch between contexts to see multiple (myriad) "no zebras." Learning to switch contexts is often the more significant lesson.

Knowledge isn't true despite justification;

I'm sure you can agree that my having justified knowledge of a capitol city isn't what makes it true that it's a capitol city. Truth is paramount. That's what I meant by knowledge is true despite justification: that we have justified belief doesn't generate truth.

... and we can't recognize truth without justification. Epistemically speaking, something that causes us to recognize truth is justification (if it does just that);

If it were so that truth requires justification, then justification could not be true. I believe that truth is paramount. If justification is to work, it must itself be justifiable by other things (that's not to say we need indulge an endless recursive --it stops at the point where we are convinced of a thing).

... but there appear to be more characteristics than just that (such as the possibility of a false "recognition," e.g., mistakenly believing that coin-flipping is a legitimate "recognition" of some truth). Justification depends on truth, yes, but also the other way around: you can't realize that you have a truth unless you can justify it. Otherwise you have a guess that may or may not be true as far as you believe (even if it may or may not be true in reality).

That was the purpose of the coin flipping example: I might come to some true belief without valid justification -- but I have no indication that it's true; no reason why I should believe that it's true; no confirmation that it's true; no external and internal consistency attesting to its truth. I might as well just pick what I believe based on a dart toss without justification.

Perhaps it's important to distinguish between the proposition truth and propositions that are true. Truth is the mother of all propositions: it simply says, "true." While we use justification to guarantee propositions are true, it is the truth we find in justification that leads us to that guarantee.

In my opinion, the phrase "knowledge is justified true belief" indicates that knowledge is unconditionally true, and it's also justified. That does not (for me) leave open the possiblity of knowledge skipping over justification, but truth is another matter.

 

[1137]

If time begins when the universe begins as suggested by relativity, then there can be no moment when the universe didn't exist. Hence while the universe may have started 13 billion years ago, it has always existed.

That is really interesting. Kind of mind blowing for someone with less of an understanding of such things haha.

 

[Dan4reason]

The Y always requires a X or Z as its cause, without cause there is no effect.

I see, so if a star is created, then we know that it was created by God or aliens, or something else. The fact that it was created does not tell us which one was the cause.

The universe is a effect of a cause, the cause is is always there.

I agree that the universe is an effect of a cause, however I am not 100% sure.

I never said that a person makes stars, a person will be made of the same thing the stars are made of, Newtons laws prove that the universe is tructured, as everything has a a governing Law.

Well, we are made of star stuff essentially.

The universe is structured because many things in existence have causal effects (laws) on other things in existence. For example gravity has a causal effect on matter, so we will see matter clump together. Also if one object approaches another with enough tangential velocity in a specific range of directions, that object will be caught in the orbit of the other.

The way that gravity acts on two objects with specific velocities, accelerations, masses, and directions, to cause orbits is the reason why we see objects in the universe orbit each other.

Not if your talking about the Universe

The universe with the arrangement it has now has not been around forever, however the matter in the universe came from energy, and the energy came from the singularity, and the singularity may have come from something else. So we don't see that the stuff in the universe was created out of nothing, it was just changed from another state, so the stuff in the universe may be timeless.

Incorrect, this universe was never non existent, material cause will always exists and has always.

I am not 100% sure of that because of quantum mechanics, however, the ideas seems reasonable so I will agree.

Incorrect, the sufficient cause is the "Idea" of something, the efficient cause is the process of something, an idea on its own cannot cause anything without having a efficient cause. and i have stated earlier that the material cause of the universe has existed for eternity.

So in the case of the star, the sufficient cause is the idea of gravity, and the efficient cause is the process of gravity making the star? I disagree with this definition of sufficient cause. Sufficient cause is not the idea of gravity (in this example), but rather gravity itself. When we refer to a cause we refer to a thing in the real world, not just an idea which may be true or false and does not cause stuff at all.

Where did i say that? please read my post clearly, i was scrutinizing other beliefs

Sorry about the straw-man. This is a deep discussion for me, I will try to make as few mistakes as possible.

i don't see why that's cant be true?

It is plausible that you can have a non-decaying God who makes a decaying universe.

 

[Dan4reason]

Which is why I prefer to set the issue in terms of causation. Why/How did the universe start?

We don't know. Maybe something outside the universe and space-time started it.

Why has there been a start rather than not?

The universe has a start because the initial conditions, outside the universe and its space-time, were met so that these conditions or forces would cause the universe to exist in the way it did.

Presumably it started because of something other than itself.

Agreed.

For it doesn't seem possible for something inert and impersonal/without will -- whether eternally extant or not -- (it would have to be inert etc at the starting point because we are postulating a "time before" causation) to start itself in motion.

Actually most of the stuff that goes on in the universe and is changed in the universe is because of the way that will-less objects interact with each other.

Are you saying that before time there can be no causality? I agree. That is a problem. Maybe there are conditions in which things can happen, other than in time, that we don't know about. Maybe this universe was caused by something within another universe with its own time dimension.

Anyway, if time prohibits causality, while this would be a problem for a non-living cause, it would also be a problem for living causes as well.

That "something other than itself" would have to somehow exist outside time and be capable of making a decision to get things moving;

Non-living objects do make decisions to make things happen. Gravity makes rocks fall to the ground without making any decisions.

otherwise, it becomes part of the series we're trying to explain -- vicious infinite regress.

If a non-living thing outside of time caused something to happen, then it is timeless and so does not require a cause for itself. It is a necessary causeless cause.

Anyway, if all non-living objects causing something would be part of an infinite regress, then why not God? If we say that God created the universe, then who or what caused God?

 

[Meow Mix]

Coherentism is actually an internalist epistemology, not an externalist one.

I know, I was trying to put emphasis on the "...or something"

I actually recall now (I think) that our previous discussion was specifically about Reformed Epistemology -- am I right? Or am I confusing you with someone else?

And according to externalists, JTB is not sufficient for knowledge. It's entirely possible to have a J'd TB yet not have knowledge. And (so say the externalists), J is not even necessary. One can have knowledge without it. But then, that would take a few (at least!) lines of argument to show.

Well, I'm not sure what to do here. If you don't have the time to commit I feel it would be unfair for me to write a bunch of response to this; but on the other hand I'd like to address it for anyone following the conversation. Maybe the most respectful thing I can do is acknowledge that we disagree on this with an offer of an explanation to other readers that might be interested in this.

No, but the last time we had a go 'round, it got quite involved. I don't think I'll have the time to really get into this as much these days. I have to content myself -- for now -- with occasionally poking around.

I definitely understand. The only reason I have time for this site at all is because I can sign on at work -- otherwise school dominates my time during the week and play takes over on the weekends. No worries

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Yes. The second premise is unjustified. There is nothing to suggest that the universe began to exist. The problem here is that there are a great deal of nuances in cosmology that are both difficult to comprehend and especially resistant to coherent explanation to laypersons.

Actually, modern cosmology has confirmed that the universe did indeed BEGIN to exist. This point is irrefutable. We have both scientific and philosophical arguments that would lead to the conclusion that the universe began to exist. The only two questions are, how and why did the universe begin to exist.

This leads to several problems: sure enough, most laypersons and even some physicists misunderstand the metaphysics behind the issue; and they believe that the Big Bang Event represents the beginning of the universe's existence. Usually, though, this misunderstanding is exacerbated by statements by big-name cosmologists like Hawking that "time began to exist" in the Big Bang Event.

True enough, the BBE does indeed represent the beginning of the entire universe, unless someone is positing one of the multi-verse theories. But the multi-verse theories have been plagued with problems and right now the standard model of the BBE remains the best explanation for the origin of the universe.

Time does cease to have meaning in the familiar context if you go back far enough during the BBE; but this is only because we lack a quantum theory of gravity, and furthermore because our current models end up with finite geodesics as you trace the systemic histories "backwards."

You cant trace time back any further than the singularity, which is why you have to posit a supernatural cause. Before the Planck time, space, matter, or energy did not exist. So if everything natural had a beginning, whatever gave it its beginning has to be supernatural.

The fact of the matter is, though, that we can't make physical assertions at this time prior to the first Planck time during the BBE. The BBE was certainly the beginning of the current state of the universe; but there is no justification whatsoever for the assertion that it was the beginning of its ontological existence.

We cant make physical assertions prior to the first Planck time because there was NOTHING physical in existence before this time. This is the point that those that support the kalam argument is trying to make. According to the BBE, the universe started at a singularity point. So I am confused as to why you grant that the BBE is the beginning of the current state of the universe, but speak as if it was in another state prior to Planck time, at which nothing physical existed.