The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[johnhanks]

BTW what was the necessity for your analogy to be drunk?

Because someone who was thinking straight would look for the money where he'd dropped it - just as someone evaluating a verse supposedly predicting harm to be done by one group against another would look at actual harm done, not at scripture.

If I can make the time I will respond to the rest of your post in the Biblical Debates thread. Transferring a dialogue between forums is time-consuming and tedious, so it may take a while.

On edit: done.

 

[1robin]

Because someone who was thinking straight would look for the money where he'd dropped it - just as someone evaluating a verse supposedly predicting harm to be done by one group against another would look at actual harm done, not at scripture.

You just illustrated a fault in your analogy because the area where our money was possibly dropped is unavailable. The only option left is to look at the only area available which is fine because what is going on the area we can't access is caused by what occurred in the area we can evaluate. You suggest we look at the blackness we cannot see and ignore the light we can. I conclude that have no interest in resolving the issue.

If I can make the time I will respond to the rest of your post in the Biblical Debates thread. Transferring a dialogue between forums is time-consuming and tedious, so it may take a while.

Do what ever you need to when ever it is convenient. I have my hands more than full for the time I currently have. You are a competent debater even if a little illusive. I hope we can find a way to conclude what is being contended.

 

[1robin]

When cosmologists and theoretical physicists use the word "nothing" now they have been saying Nothing, meaning the vacuum of empty space isn't empty after all and is therefore NOT no-thing. It is something.

Traditional cosmology has proposed an actual nothing prior to the singularity. Nothing meaning non-being. Meaning that time, space, matter, and all things natural did not exist prior to the singularity. I am sure of what I state but it's motivation is my opinion. This actual nothing caused major problems with the theological preferences of many scientists because it made God a virtual necessity. That is why all these cracked eggs, multiverses, oscillating models have been pushed so enthusiastically even though they have vast problems bordering on impossibilities and an absence of any evidence which renders them mere science fiction. Another arrow in the quiver against standard nothing is simply to redefine something as nothing because this gets rid of the necessity of the supernatural and ensures the scientist's relevance. Hawking went so far as to proclaim the death of the entire field of philosophy (much to the anger of his colleges). he then went on his latest book to state scientific guesses and then draw purely philosophic conclusions in addition to making irrational statements that equated something with nothing.

 

[Bunyip]

Traditional cosmology has proposed an actual nothing prior to the singularity. Nothing meaning non-being. Meaning that time, space, matter, and all things natural did not exist prior to the singularity. I am sure of what I state but it's motivation is my opinion. This actual nothing caused major problems with the theological preferences of many scientists because it made God a virtual necessity. That is why all these cracked eggs, multiverses, oscillating models have been pushed so enthusiastically even though they have vast problems bordering on impossibilities and an absence of any evidence which renders them mere science fiction. Another arrow in the quiver against standard nothing is simply to redefine something as nothing because this gets rid of the necessity of the supernatural and ensures the scientist's relevance. Hawking went so far as to proclaim the death of the entire field of philosophy (much to the anger of his colleges). he then went on his latest book to state scientific guesses and then draw purely philosophic conclusions in addition to making irrational statements that equated something with nothing.

You have misunderstood the science here - according to cosmology there was no 'prior' to the singularity. Time begins with the Big Bang. Also the net energy of the universe is zero, and of course zero energy can come from nothing anyway.

So far, contrary to your claim - no aspect of cosmology makes god a necessity, there was no 'prior' to the big bang.

 

[Thief]

You have misunderstood the science here - according to cosmology there was no 'prior' to the singularity. Time begins with the Big Bang. Also the net energy of the universe is zero, and of course zero energy can come from nothing anyway.

So far, contrary to your claim - no aspect of cosmology makes god a necessity, there was no 'prior' to the big bang.

So the singularity created ....itself?

 

[Bunyip]

So the singularity created ....itself?

Why would the singularity need a creator? There is nothing in physics or cosmology to suggest that it should.

 

[ruffen]

So the singularity created ....itself?

So the creator of the singularity created.... himself?

 

[Thief]

So the creator of the singularity created.... himself?

I'm going to say...yeah.

Someone had to be First.

 

[McBell]

I'm going to say...yeah.

Someone had to be First.

So much for cause and effect....

 

[Thief]

So much for cause and effect....

We get to ask Him about that.....when we get there.

oh....that's right.....you've got a better plan.
something about laying in a box, in the ground.

 

[McBell]

We get to ask Him about that.....when we get there.

oh....that's right.....you've got a better plan.
something about laying in a box, in the ground.

Your dishonesty is not the least bit surprising.
Nor is it unexpected.

You have been singing the same song and dancing the same dance for so long...
Sad that no one is interested in your snake oil.

 

[Bunyip]

We get to ask Him about that.....when we get there.

oh....that's right.....you've got a better plan.
something about laying in a box, in the ground.

But that is the Christian idea - laying for millenia in a box in the ground awaiting judgement day.

My body will burn or rot away, the molecules within it becoming parts of the ecosystem again - it' s rather a lovely thought.

 

[cottage]

Lets hypothetically say we existed and observed reality 18 billion years ago. According to the most prevalent cosmology we would see nothing. No time, no matter, no space. Nothing. Then in a microsecond a singularity appeared and in it was all the matter and the potential for time and space we would observe today. That event requires an explanation and a cause that it nor anything it produced contains.

No explanation is required unless it is the case that nothing can exist uncaused, and if that is the (non-demonstrable argument) then the cause of the world also requires a cause, for as causation is contingent, subject to movement and mutability, it exists in time and must therefore lead to an infinite regress. And exactly the same constraint applies if the Kalam causal argument is stated.
There may/may not be an explanation for the world existing, but nor is an explanation or a first cause necessary. There is no contradiction in the world coming to exist uncaused. We just don’t know. But what we do know is that God, a supposedly conscious, personal being, logically needs an explanation for the purpose or reason for his creating the world and yet no explanation can be given that doesn’t run to a contradiction.

That is not a comprehensive explanation. You may claim science can explain the causation of what preceded a car. I would agree. You cannot ever say that same natural explanation traced back will ever produce a single ultimate explanation.
You say above that nothing in the material world begins to exist (this is absolutely and completely wrong, but let's pretend it's true for the heck of it).

If this statement is ‘absolutely and completely wrong’ then you have an obligation to say why it is wrong. So here is that passage again: “Nothing in the phenomenal world begins to exist but is subject to movement and mutation, change in other words, in pre-existent matter. So we accept that everything in the world has a cause to explain how it comes to be the way it is.”

That would by necessity require that what composes the natural world is eternal. You can't have it both ways. Either a singularity began to exist and with it all matter, time, and space, or things have always existed. Your claims seem to have no fixed position. Some require eternal existence and some do not. For the sake of time and simplicity simply state which one of those propositions you affirm.


1. A material world that began to exist a finite time ago.

2. A universe that contains stuff that always existed and only changes form.

I don’t affirm either! But I see no reason at all to believe the world did not have a beginning, and I’ve made that position clear to you many times.

It is the conclusion most justified by cosmology. Cosmology has only one universe with a finite lifespan. It began to exist. Science fiction has posited many other theories but none of them are evidenced enough to be more than a hypothetical "well maybe X". The only way you can get out of a need for God is to posit something that requires more faith given less evidence that God does. There is infinitely more evidence and justification for believing God exists than for BELIEVING multiverses exist.

There is no ‘evidence’ for God: there are only believers’ arguments that lead directly or indirectly to a contradiction. My metaphysical explanation is not faith based but a non-contradictory hypothesis. And how many more times must I say to you that I don’t ‘believe in’ multiverses?

If you deny a material reality that has a beginning then you are far deeper in the faith arena than I am. Not only is there only evidence for a single finite universe, there are many reasons to think a eternal universe would be impossible anyway. However I would be happy at this time to get you to state a consistent opinion. You balked at my suggesting you have a position that requires an eternal material world and then stated that is exactly what you believe in. I no longer know what claim I am to evaluate.

That statement in red is quite untrue; I never said any such thing!
I don’t believe-in anything concerning the beginning of the world; I believe-that some metaphysical explanations are logically possible while others are logically impossible. Don’t confuse me, theist-like, as a dogmatist who always begins with the answer. My ‘position’ is that while I don’t profess to know how the world came to be whatever it is, we can demonstrate logically that there is no supreme being as a personal, conscious deity to which the world answers, because that conclusion always runs to a contradiction whichever argument is employed, whereas the thesis I give further down the page is not contradictory.

If you state anything about a universe or world that requires no causation then you are firmly in the faith camp, at it's deepest end as well. It is also not on any level a reasoned determination that if the world must have X then God must have X. God is independent of the world and so is not bound by what is true of the world. Things that exist in time, space, and physical domains have properties that have nothing to do with supernatural entities.

I wholeheartedly agree with that; in fact I could have written those words myself! And that is just one reason why it is absurd to link God with causation, a contingent principle.

Time can't be eternal because you can't cross a infinite expanse to arrive at this moment. It had to begin. Matter can't be eternal because an infinite number of physical arrangements is impossible to traverse. I must have had a beginning. Space "as far as we can know" is not infinite. I must hear Hawking and the rest mention the edge of space every time I hear them speak. God is not bound by a single limitation the world has. If you wish to believe the universe is infinite that is fine with me, but call it what it is a belief, not an argument.

1. Everything ever observed is consistent with the claim that all things have causes.
2. The world has no cause.


This IS a contradiction. Unless again your in the rarified air of a universe that did not begin to exist. That is such an unjustifiable claim you will find that I keep forgetting you hold it.

That (2) is not a contradiction.



Permit me remind you of your argument once again:

• Everything that begins to exist requires a cause for its existence
• The world began to exist
• The world requires a cause for its existence.

Premise 1) is false. No things in the physical world begin to exist as if there was nothing there in the first place. The synthesis occurs as a change or variation in the form of existent physical matter. A graphic example will help. My argument isn’t to imagine a blank square, and then a blank square with an empty circle, and finally that circle filled with dots, as if there was nothing, then the world came into being and then things in the world began to appear (or popped into being). The ‘world’ is the entirety of whatever it is. So first there was nothing (the blank square), and then there was the world (the circle replete with its dots). In other words, the world and its things (the dots) began together as the atoms and the fundamental constituents of all other things. So the argument that ‘things that begin to exist in the world need a cause of their existence’ is false prospective because nothing in the world begins to exist, and therefore cannot be used speciously as an argument to explain the beginning of the world.


Thesis: The world began to exist and there was nothing before the world began to exist (The Big Bang Theory.) The world has not always existed; there was nothing before the world and with no necessary existence it may one day cease to be. Hence there is no infinite regression or infinite progression of causes. The world is finite, and uncaused since there is no contradiction in denying any necessity in cause and effect, which being a contingent principle belongs to the phenomenal world; and nor is there any necessity or empirical evidence for acts of creation, it being nothing more than an arbitrary act of the mind. On this understanding the world neither created itself nor was it produced from nothing, but appeared where no thing existed previously; and causality being a worldly phenomenon began and will end with the world.

 

[cottage]

The test for reality is not non-contradiction. Everything that is not contradictory is not true. This is a mistaken application. The test says that anything that logically contradicts is not true. It does not say that anything that lacks contradiction is.

No moral principle is absolute; so of course there is no such thing. But the assertion is propositional, and if you’re claiming that morality is an absolute God-given law then the statement is either true or false. And since there is no contradiction in stating that it is false then the proposition cannot be held to be true, and we know that to be the case empirically or in ‘reality’. ‘Murder’ is a subjective term because killing can always be justified as necessary or deserved as if to excuse the term, and so murder cannot be demonstrated as objectively wrong. Britain and the US bombed German cities during WW2 killing huge numbers of innocent civilians (Germany also bombed British cities, of course). The justification for total war was that the conflict would be brought to its end more quickly, which it undoubtedly was. But it is still the case that innocents were killed. So it was justified subjectively.
The application and proof of what we call morality is induction: what we see happen to others can also happen to me and mine. So the notion of what we call ‘morality’, our generally accepted view of what is right, is based on a need to safeguard ourselves and our kin and to co-exist harmoniously with our neighbours for our own security. And an empathetic view is developed from the necessary element of self-interest, but as a general principle it works exceedingly well for the world at large. This behaviour is even observed in animals.

Philosophy is a tool to HELP find truth. It is not the only tests or basis for truths that exist. The denial of morality would contradict with the apprehension of the human race in general. Almost every one detects an objective moral realm. To deny it is a contradiction. It is not absolute but it is meaningful and in the opposite direction of your claims.

Don’t confuse ‘objective’ with what is objectionable. Moral codes have their foundation in experience and not in some god-given law, which in any case is reduced to an absurdity by the Problem of Evil and God-condoned, cause of suffering. As sentient creatures we suffer and we see others suffer, and since it is in our interest not to suffer and for others not to suffer we are as one in finding it abhorrent.

On a side note: Do you understand what Christians among many find so dangerous about atheistic view points like this. To deny the objective quality is to deny the absolute wrong or right of certain actions. While the argument is not dismissible do you have any idea how dangerous it is. You setting up exactly what Dostoevsky meant buy without God all things are permissible. Can you not see that a Stalin or Mao who was simply looking for an excuse to murder their own people would easily find it in the idea that murder is not objectively wrong, it is only socially unfashionable. Whether you agree or not you must be able to see the devastating stakes involved with your view points.

The above is patronizing. Let me ask you a question in response to yours. As an atheist I argue that morality isn’t objective in the way that you understand it, but do you honestly think in holding that view I’m not moved by my fellow humans’ suffering or not outraged by the actions and vileness of some of my fellow beings? Murder is wrong, and it is wrong not because it has been ordained as such by a supposed deity but because it is observed to cause immense suffering and distress. Neither god-belief nor non-belief is a prerequisite for moral behaviour as some of the worst excesses have been perpetrated by adherents to both views. It is a pseudo-argument.

I have already done so with someone. Here it goes again. God, morals, mathematics, natural law, certain constants and philosophical principles show no dependence on the natural. They govern the natural but have no known natural source.


God as a the Christian concept can fully exist without ever having need of a cause. Would 2 + 2 not = 4 if the universe disappeared? Would murder be any less wrong if there was only one person alive? Would truths requiring non contradictory properties be less true if the universe was missing?

We’re arguing whether the world as an existing thing needs God as a cause.

I said if ‘All existent things need a cause’ is true, and God exists, then God needs a cause’.

You replied: ‘That’s not true. Only things that begin to exist require a cause.’

So then I ask you to give me an example of anything existent that is uncaused?

And your answer was: ‘God’!!

Brilliant! (I’ve saved this discussion on my computer to use as a classic example of a circular argument.)

And if the universe didn’t exist, i.e. if there was nothing, then nor would concepts such as the laws of thought and analytical concepts such as 2 + 2 = 4, ‘natural law’ or anything. I’ve a lot to say on this pet subject of mine but I’ll reserve it for when I have your response.

Once and for all please state exactly what you think "world's" history is. You keep confusing me.

‘World’s history’? (!)

 

[Thief]

Your dishonesty is not the least bit surprising.
Nor is it unexpected.

You have been singing the same song and dancing the same dance for so long...
Sad that no one is interested in your snake oil.

And YOUR scenario reads...how?

 

[Thief]

But that is the Christian idea - laying for millenia in a box in the ground awaiting judgement day.

My body will burn or rot away, the molecules within it becoming parts of the ecosystem again - it' s rather a lovely thought.

The Carpenter may well be my Inspiration....however....

I believe judgment is immediate.
Doing that hour of the last breath.

The will to live is likely the cause you will forsake the body.
You will stand up.

I believe the angelic have a personal cause to come see what stands from the dust.\

I strongly suspect your spirit is not free to wander.
The peace of heaven is most likely guarded.
I don't think they let just anyone wander about.

You are not your own handiwork.
You did not put 'you' in that body.
You can't get out.....not while you're breathing anyway.

And though I prefer to say we can escape....I can't guarantee for you.
I can't guarantee it for myself.
Judgment first.

If you can't escape when you 'think' you are in control.....
what makes you think you will when you're dead?

Recycle?....not if you do the typical funeral routine!!!!
Spirit does not recycle.
But maybe you lean to coming back?.....reincarnation?.....forever?

 

[McBell]

And YOUR scenario reads...how?

My scenario is completely irrelevant to your snake oil.

If your snake oil cannot stand up on its own, it is a problem with your snake oil, not with someone else's scenario.

So your blatant diversion tactic has failed.

Care to try again?

 

[1robin]

No explanation is required unless it is the case that nothing can exist uncaused, and if that is the (non-demonstrable argument) then the cause of the world also requires a cause, for as causation is contingent, subject to movement and mutability, it exists in time and must therefore lead to an infinite regress. And exactly the same constraint applies if the Kalam causal argument is stated.
There may/may not be an explanation for the world existing, but nor is an explanation or a first cause necessary. There is no contradiction in the world coming to exist uncaused. We just don’t know. But what we do know is that God, a supposedly conscious, personal being, logically needs an explanation for the purpose or reason for his creating the world and yet no explanation can be given that doesn’t run to a contradiction.

Hello Cottage. What do you mean by the bolded statement above? Do you mean that that things must have causes and there for nothing exists without a cause, or do you mean that absence of being does not require a cause?

If the former I can only say that only things that come into being require causes. Anything that was eternal by definition would not be a caused thing. Caused things have a temporal beginning. If time was eternal there is no second zero or one. Of course that is non-sensical and one of the reasons why natural infinites seem impossible. However God as the Christian concept is explained does not have a cause and couldn't have a cause. He did not begin to exist.

You mentioned something about time above which would require us to understand time and being independent of time. I prefer to skip issues about things we have no access to and probably would not comprehend even if we did. Suffice it to say God is not in time and would not be subject to temporal restraints and laws. Craig trying to fill a vacuum says that some non-temporal concept of duration existed before time. I prefer ignoring the whole issue.

If this statement is ‘absolutely and completely wrong’ then you have an obligation to say why it is wrong. So here is that passage again: “Nothing in the phenomenal world begins to exist but is subject to movement and mutation, change in other words, in pre-existent matter. So we accept that everything in the world has a cause to explain how it comes to be the way it is.”

I posted what is wrong about it. In quantum physics particles have been seen to come into existence. They come into existence but they do not do that without a cause. Fluctuations in the quantum energy fields and their potential differences create energy densities that result in matter. I could also have said that arrangements are new entities in themselves. They may be composed of pre-existing things but have never existed together in arrangement X before and are new entities. We all call what we get at the deal a new car and know it was caused to come into being. Does not matter if it is composed of preexisting elements or not. Something I thought fascinating about the quantum is that particles do not disappear and reappear in new places as was originally claimed. According to them the information that built a particular particle is somehow transferred to another location and mysteriously constructs a new particle. Interesting and just as weird and bizarre as any miracle I have ever heard of.

I don’t affirm either! But I see no reason at all to believe the world did not have a beginning, and I’ve made that position clear to you many times.

If you do not have a position then from what perspective are you arguing. I believe the world has a beginning, you admit it probably does, and that is consistent with God and the totality of what my argument was. Why are you contending with that?

My position has consistently been.

1. The world (universe) began to exist and so must have a cause and that cause it does not contain.
2. The only candidates outside the natural are supernatural. The Christina God being the front runner.
3. That God never began to exist and so does not have a cause.

Continued below:

 

[1robin]

There is no ‘evidence’ for God: there are only believers’ arguments that lead directly or indirectly to a contradiction. My metaphysical explanation is not faith based but a non-contradictory hypothesis. And how many more times must I say to you that I don’t ‘believe in’ multiverses?

There is far more evidence for God than for dark matter. I think you meant to say there is no proof of God. That is the only way what you stated would even be anywhere near the truth. I credit you with being a rational debater but occasionally you betray that estimation. Evidence is reliable information, which the inclusion of makes the proposition more likely. You know very well there is mountains of evidence that makes God more likely. Beyond even this there is inexhaustible proof, however this proof is not objectively available for scrutiny. I consider remarks like this beneath you.

That statement in red is quite untrue; I never said any such thing!
I don’t believe-in anything concerning the beginning of the world; I believe-that some metaphysical explanations are logically possible while others are logically impossible. Don’t confuse me, theist-like, as a dogmatist who always begins with the answer. My ‘position’ is that while I don’t profess to know how the world came to be whatever it is, we can demonstrate logically that there is no supreme being as a personal, conscious deity to which the world answers, because that conclusion always runs to a contradiction whichever argument is employed, whereas the thesis I give further down the page is not contradictory.

I am quite sure you said something identical to what I stated, however in the interest of time and length lets just drop it. I am quite aware that non-theists love ambiguity instead of firm fixed truth positions. I actually think it is a motivation. If I wished reality to be what I desired my first impulse would be to obscure what reality actually is. If I can blur actual reality then I can select whatever truth I wish to substitute for it. You can see the effect in science, history, reason, but most obviously in morality. The modern secular trend in philosophy is to deny truth as a category even exists at all. Then the door is open for any thing desired. As famously stated "God is truth" and "without God all things are permissible". I was not making any specific remarks about you in particular, just linking what you said with a general observation so obvious as to be readily apparent.

I wholeheartedly agree with that; in fact I could have written those words myself! And that is just one reason why it is absurd to link God with causation, a contingent principle.

I try and never link God with any demand for causation. I am happy to concede what he does occurs within cause and effect understandings or not. I do not care. I linked causation with the universe. The universe requires a cause that it does not contain. Whether God is bound by causation or not the universe is and God is the front runner for that cause. Whether bound by causation or not it appears he acted through it in creating the universe.

That (2) is not a contradiction.

Again solely in the interest of time, simplicity, and length I will soften what I said a bit but it will remain just as emphatic a flaw. Instead of a direct contradiction I will instead claim that any hint the universe was uncaused is a violation of reasoned based deduction.

In many areas and science in particular the lessons of the rules are applied to unknowns. There exists every reason to extrapolate that everything in the universe requires a cause so the universe does as well. There exists no reason of any kind to conclude the opposite is true. You seem to oscillate back and forth but if you have ever even hinted the universe is causeless then you have abandoned reasons and have stepped into complete speculation based on nothing what ever.



Permit me remind you of your argument once again:

• Everything that begins to exist requires a cause for its existence
• The world began to exist
• The world requires a cause for its existence.

Premise 1) is false. No things in the physical world begin to exist as if there was nothing there in the first place. The synthesis occurs as a change or variation in the form of existent physical matter. A graphic example will help. My argument isn’t to imagine a blank square, and then a blank square with an empty circle, and finally that circle filled with dots, as if there was nothing, then the world came into being and then things in the world began to appear (or popped into being). The ‘world’ is the entirety of whatever it is. So first there was nothing (the blank square), and then there was the world (the circle replete with its dots). In other words, the world and its things (the dots) began together as the atoms and the fundamental constituents of all other things. So the argument that ‘things that begin to exist in the world need a cause of their existence’ is false prospective because nothing in the world begins to exist, and therefore cannot be used speciously as an argument to explain the beginning of the world.


Thesis: The world began to exist and there was nothing before the world began to exist (The Big Bang Theory.) The world has not always existed; there was nothing before the world and with no necessary existence it may one day cease to be. Hence there is no infinite regression or infinite progression of causes. The world is finite, and uncaused since there is no contradiction in denying any necessity in cause and effect, which being a contingent principle belongs to the phenomenal world; and nor is there any necessity or empirical evidence for acts of creation, it being nothing more than an arbitrary act of the mind. On this understanding the world neither created itself nor was it produced from nothing, but appeared where no thing existed previously; and causality being a worldly phenomenon began and will end with the world.[/QUOTE] I believe I have countered most of this above and am in a hurry so I will assume I have anyway.

 

[wannabe]

if something can't come from nothing
that's like saying god came from nothing, right?
lets think about this; we have empirical evidence the universe exists
we don't have empirical evidence anyones definition of their god exists