The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[1robin]

Mathematicians, in my experience, tend to be dogmatic, black and white thinkers with little global view who regularly glom on to magical thinking. While they can be quite creative within rather narrow boundaries, if they have not made "their significant contribution" by age thirty, or so, they go through life resentful and unfulfilled.

Well that probably explains why I was never a straight A student. I do not meet any of these generalities and will probably never make any contribution like what you refer to. I am however not bitter on that account, I am bitter for a bunch of other reasons. Just kidding, I have many extraordinary things to feel bitter over but Christ helped me let them all go.

 

[Sapiens]

That's just your usual semantic obfuscation, walking into the bar looking for a fight. I made a claim, with what would be an objective test if it could be applied, I mean nothing more than that, I make no claim beyond that. The point I was illustrating is that much of religion and philosophy has been replace by concrete, actual knowledge of real things.

My point is better made by Sam Harris:

"Imagine that we could revive a well-educated Christian of the fourteenth century. The man would prove to be a total ignoramus, except on matters of faith. His beliefs about geography, astronomy, and medicine would embarrass even a child, but he would know more or less everything there is to know about God. Though he would be considered a fool to think that the earth is flat, or that trepanning* constitutes a wise medical intervention, his religious ideas would still be beyond reproach. There are two explanations for this: either we perfected our religious understanding of the world a millennium ago—while our knowledge on all other fronts was still hopelessly inchoate—or religion, being the mere maintenance of dogma, is one area of discourse that does not admit of progress. We will see that there is much to recommend the latter view.

With each passing year, do our religious beliefs conserve more and more of the data of human experience? If religion addresses a genuine sphere of understanding and human necessity, then it should be susceptible to progress; its doctrines should become more useful, rather than less. Progress in religion, as in other fields, would have to be a matter of present inquiry, not the mere reiteration of past doctrine. Whatever is true now should be discoverable now, and describable in terms that are not an outright affront to the rest of what we know about the world. By this measure, the entire project of religion seems perfectly backward. It cannot survive the changes that have come over us—culturally, technologically, and even ethically. Otherwise, there are few reasons to believe that we will survive it."

 

[viole]

Mathematicians, in my experience, tend to be dogmatic, black and white thinkers with little global view who regularly glom on to magical thinking. While they can be quite creative within rather narrow boundaries, if they have not made "their significant contribution" by age thirty, or so, they go through life resentful and unfulfilled.

Well, modern mathematicians cannot possibly be black and white because of the awareness of unavoidable undecidable propositions which necessarily exist in any sufficiently complex axiomatic system. As a polymath, you should know that.

And what you are talking about? Significant contributions by age 30 or step into resentful and unfulfilled existence? You don't seem to be immune against mythology either, I am afraid. So, I am not sure what kind of intellectual pedestal entitles you to criticize believers in people living three days in a fish or water turning into wine.

I agree that mathematics is not very useful towards thinking right, but I believe it is very helpful in showing how easy it is to think wrong.

My personal suggestion is that you get a degree in it, too.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Sapiens]

Not interested in theoretical math more interested in math as a tool. My background was sufficient to get me through the majors' Physics sequence at Berkeley as well as graduate courses in Physical Oceanography, Fluid Dynamics and Meteorology on the science side as well as Probability, and Exploratory Data Analysis on the Statistics side.

 

[viole]

Not interested in theoretical math more interested in math as a tool. My background was sufficient to get me through the majors' Physics sequence at Berkeley as well as graduate courses in Physical Oceanography, Fluid Dynamics and Meteorology on the science side as well as Probability, and Exploratory Data Analysis on the Statistics side.

Good for you, but I am not usually impressed by titles, miles long CVs, or whatever. I am more interested in how people think. Independently from them being a PhD. or Joe the plumber.

For, as Feynman said, education is useless in most cases, except those few ones for whom it is superfluous.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Sapiens]

"Education is useless in most cases, except those few ones for whom it is superfluous." I like that.

 

[Ouroboros]

... at Berkeley ...

Just came back from there. A two day trip to visit our son. He's on a full scholarship there... for... don't get knickers in a knot now now... Math major. LOL!

 

[Sapiens]

Berkeley is an astounding institution, congrats to your son, tell him to join the research diving program, if he has an interest ... best bunch of people anywhere.

He still has time to change his major to something taught down in the Life Sciences Building. Mathematical Ecology is a hot field there.

 

[Ouroboros]

Berkeley is an astounding institution, congrats to your son, tell him to join the research diving program, if he has an interest ... best bunch of people anywhere.

Thanks. I will let him know.

---

Oh, and the T-Rex was really cool. It wasn't as big as I had imagined, but still quite large. The casts of Lucy was cool to see too.

 

[cottage]

Actually that can be shown but let me do something far more comprehensive and quick. All events and beings in the universe have an explanation. That is Leibniz version of the argument and I like it better anyway.

It is the Leibniz formulation I’m responding to.

Actually there is but I will stick to "explanation" to simply things. Not even the most rabid atheist would suggests that anything ever comes into being without a cause. I have even heard them bristle and denounce anyone who tried to do to suggest they do. Not only that but every action, event, and fluctuation of any kind has a cause.

I have three option to counter you.

1. Show that no one of any significance denies that things that begin to exist have causes.
2. Show that not only existence but every aspect of the universe has a cause.
3. Clarify the claim in a way to make it more comprehensive and simple.

I have chosen 3.

‘Not only that but every action, event, and fluctuation of any kind has a cause.’
Wow! I love it when people make these absolute statements.
That assertion is an argument from certainty and since you are the one defending the argument on those terms it is for you to demonstrate the necessity of cause; and I’m saying it cannot be done.

Not exactly but if they were then my original claim is even stronger because even you surely will not claim anything happens without an explanation. And if so then you have a cause as well if they are equal. There has never been an event of any kind ever observed that occurred without an explanation plus there is no reason to even theoretically consider that something could. I am on as firm a ground here as science can get. That is what makes events a law. No known exception and no evidence to suggest an exception could exist.

Permit me to repeat what I’ve already said to you: Everything that exists may have what is trivially understood as an explanation, that is to say observed to be conjoined or associated in experience with some other thing, but there is no demonstrable cause (The Problem of Causal Inference). And to say ‘There has never been an event of any kind ever observed that occurred without an explanation’ is a statement without substance; we find explanations even for things we can’t fathom or don’t understand, and explanations are often wrong. The term ‘explanation’ is entirely inadequate in any ontological proposition, and in any case it is obviously a euphemism for ‘cause’ as far as this argument goes.

Every observation ever made is proof of my claim. You must show that despite that an alternate claim has better evidence. Good luck.

‘All events in the universe have an explanation’ is not the equivalent of ‘every thing in the universe begins to exist’ as you set out in your argument.

That argument existed 3000 years before Craig. Craig does not even have his own argument bt uses an Islamic version created 1000 years before he existed. Craig has nothing to do with not that his use of it has any flaw.

I’m well versed in the history of the cosmological argument(s), which indeed was posed first by Aristotle before the Islamic scholars’ formulation. But I notice you use Craig’s presentation, his terms and expressions, and the argument in all its guises does have hugely significant flaws as I shall show.

Causation is not only demonstrated but demonstrated in every event where cause can be observed.
There has never been an event where a lack of cause was demonstrated. I do not care what amount of evidence you claim exists 100% of it is exactly consistent with my claim. Now if you hold the ridiculous view that no claim is true unless tested in every form and place then you have just destroyed not only virtually all of science but just about all knowledge in any subject.

That’s the reply I was expecting. You misunderstand what I mean by demonstration. I refer to the problem of induction which has befuddled philosophers for centuries and cannot be answered by science. Cause isn’t observed. All we are aware of is A-type things preceding B-type things, and as no argument from the past can be an argument to the future we can never demonstrate that B-type things will always follow A-type things. Clearly, if such a thing is not demonstrable in our own world which we know to exist then it is the height of sophistry to think it must be so in the case of what we only imagine to exist. And it is self-evidently absurd and self-refuting to endow a necessary being with such a contingent constraint.

This argument has been around since at least the Greeks and everyone has thrown everything they have at it. It has never been defeated and is still as strongly adopted today as ever and still without a single known exception.
I am familiar with most of the objections and the faults they have. The only place where even a reasonable content may possibly be made is against the last conclusion that God is that explanation but you will not find it easy there. Remember I did not say that my God is the certain explanation just the best from among explanations which reasons exist to consider.

Arguments from science fail to refute the Kalam argument because we cannot go outside experience. My objections are not from science but from a metaphysical standpoint, and I have five or six arguments, at least four of which make God not just implausible but logically impossible.

My first first two objections will follow this post.

 

[ArtieE]

I believe all men have a God given conscience and do get all correct morals from it

It doesn't matter if you believe all men have a God given conscience. I want irrefutable evidence that your God exists and a written and signed statement from him confirming that he's got all the correct morals. Your belief isn't enough for any rational person to accept that what you believe is actually true.

 

[Thief]

It doesn't matter if you believe all men have a God given conscience. I want irrefutable evidence that your God exists and a written and signed statement from him confirming that he's got all the correct morals. Your belief isn't enough for any rational person to accept that what you believe is actually true.

This demand would be irrational.

But that's ok.
After you surrender your last breath and stand from the flesh.....
He can then make the same demand from you.

Fair is fair.

oh...that's right...you think you exist.
How can that be?
Did you create yourself?
At what point did you find the ability to say...I AM!....?
Did you write that down?....just in case someone else might ask for proof?

 

[1robin]

It is the Leibniz formulation I’m responding to.

You have been challenging causation which is Kalam not Leibniz, Leibniz is the explanation version.

‘Not only that but every action, event, and fluctuation of any kind has a cause.’
Wow! I love it when people make these absolute statements.
That assertion is an argument from certainty and since you are the one defending the argument on those terms it is for you to demonstrate the necessity of cause; and I’m saying it cannot be done.

No, it is a deduction from observation and principle. Every event ever observed has an explanation and no reason exists to suggest that anything lacks one. I have every reason possible to draw that valid conclusion and you have no reason what ever to deny it. You are certainly free to take the position that conflicts with every observation ever made but do not expect to find a persuasive argument there. My view is justified, your is not.

BTW Science as a whole is based on the exact same deductions. Science assumes light, gravity, time operate the same in all places. Despite the fact we can only check less than .00001% of possibilities scientists in every field there is assume the same things occur everywhere.

Permit me to repeat what I’ve already said to you: Everything that exists may have what is trivially understood as an explanation, that is to say observed to be conjoined or associated in experience with some other thing, but there is no demonstrable cause (The Problem of Causal Inference). And to say ‘There has never been an event of any kind ever observed that occurred without an explanation’ is a statement without substance; we find explanations even for things we can’t fathom or don’t understand, and explanations are often wrong. The term ‘explanation’ is entirely inadequate in any ontological proposition, and in any case it is obviously a euphemism for ‘cause’ as far as this argument goes.

Permit me to say that that is not true. Causes exist for everything ever seen, that is why it is refereed to as a law which I have never heard anyone deny in general. I will see if you can prove your point. Give me an example of something occurring that has no cause. That thing must be something that if it had a cause that cause can be known by me. That is the easiest possible test I can think of for you to prove what you said is true. 1 single example please.

Your also making the drastic error of equating not knowing the cause or being sure of the explanation with an event lacking one. There is not a single example of a thing occurring with no cause.

‘All events in the universe have an explanation’ is not the equivalent of ‘every thing in the universe begins to exist’ as you set out in your argument.

I did not draw the latter from the former. The latter comes from cosmology not philosophy nor theology. The universe we have is full of evidence of a finite existence. There is not even a good reason to think any infinite universe could exists. No natural infinites have ever been found and good reasons do exist to think that can't exist. The best cosmological models that exist today include a finite universe that began to exist. That is true from Hawking to Vilenkin. So yes everything began to exist but no that was not drawn from what you suggested it was.

I’m well versed in the history of the cosmological argument(s), which indeed was posed first by Aristotle before the Islamic scholars’ formulation. But I notice you use Craig’s presentation, his terms and expressions, and the argument in all its guises does have hugely significant flaws as I shall show.

I have seen centuries of attempts to point out these glaring flaws to no avail. The argument keeps marching along from generation to generation without any loss of fidelity while it's challenges do not. I find most of these counter arguments use the grey areas of ambiguity and uncertainty which are minimal in reality but are amplified through the roof by cognitive dissonance to make up for the fact that no good argument actually exists. However do your worst and let's see what you got.

That’s the reply I was expecting. You misunderstand what I mean by demonstration. I refer to the problem of induction which has befuddled philosophers for centuries and cannot be answered by science. Cause isn’t observed. All we are aware of is A-type things preceding B-type things, and as no argument from the past can be an argument to the future we can never demonstrate that B-type things will always follow A-type things. Clearly, if such a thing is not demonstrable in our own world which we know to exist then it is the height of sophistry to think it must be so in the case of what we only imagine to exist. And it is self-evidently absurd and self-refuting to endow a necessary being with such a contingent constraint.

I have no idea where you get this. I can see that my pushing not only preceded the door opening but accounts for it perfectly.

I think all your arguments take this form. I say X is the best explanation for Y. You reply that (for some bizarre reason) it is not perfectly certain X caused Y and so any explanation for that type is of no value. That is ridiculous. Even things without certainty have major value. The entirety of human law is based on the best solution not the certain solution. If it works for life and death it is certainly applicable to debate.

Let me ask you this. If I saw a box in a field filled with TNT suddenly fly into splinters, what exactly is the flaw with saying TNT is why the box flew apart? What is so mysterious here? What is so unknowable? I am afraid your response with be some semantic gyration that attempts to only obscure and not clear up anything. It seems you do not have a justifiable position so your employing and over inflating even the tiniest of imperfections in mine, declaring it imperfect and therefore irrelevant. That will not work. You must show that the claim that the universe had a cause is not as good as for the claim it did not.

Arguments from science fail to refute the Kalam argument because we cannot go outside experience. My objections are not from science but from a metaphysical standpoint, and I have five or six arguments, at least four of which make God not just implausible but logically impossible.

Well I consider experience far more real that metaphysical speculation. Which is why if Christianity di not offer experientially evidence/roof I would have been even harder to convince than I was. But you go ahead with your metaphysics. Lets see what you have here. However remember this. It is not enough to show my arguments is less than perfect, you must show yours is more likely than mine. Good luck.

My first first two objections will follow this post.

Ok

 

[1robin]

It doesn't matter if you believe all men have a God given conscience. I want irrefutable evidence that your God exists and a written and signed statement from him confirming that he's got all the correct morals. Your belief isn't enough for any rational person to accept that what you believe is actually true.

Your demands are not rational enough to justify anything. Neither I nor God are beholden to your demands. I did not offer my belief as evidence that my faith was true, never have, never even thought it was, never will. I offer by far the best explanations for reality, as they exist in the bible. You can demand anything you wish but neither I nor God will be moved by that demand. I am responsible for giving the truth as best I can determine it, not for what is done with it, and certainly not for irrational demands without any justification what ever.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

The correct answer to "what caused the big bang" is "I don't know". We can't postulate that it required a cause. At least by the basest of definitions. "coming into existence" is not an action. It still can't be defined by current scientific understanding. And even if it did require a "cause" it would no more be likely to be god than the ancients who believed rain was caused by god rather than the ,currently, well understood process of the water cycle.

 

[1robin]

The correct answer to "what caused the big bang" is "I don't know". We can't postulate that it required a cause. At least by the basest of definitions. "coming into existence" is not an action. It still can't be defined by current scientific understanding. And even if it did require a "cause" it would no more be likely to be god than the ancients who believed rain was caused by god rather than the ,currently, well understood process of the water cycle.

I would be happy to leave it there if you include what is easily deducible from the effect. The worst possible deduction is that nothing created everything or that something less that the effect produced it. For example we know that a soda can is not a good explanation for what created the singularity. By sufficient and efficient causation we can easily see it was more powerful than anything known, must have been astronomically intelligent to create all the laws and rationality we see in the universe, was not dependent on time because time did not exist until creation did, was immaterial because all matter began to exist, was not in space because space began to exist. Plus we can add in personal because if not the effect would have always existed or never have (this cause chose to act). Now the only objection to these deduction anyone could ever make is that they are not absolute certainties which is not a standard any part of science adheres to and so neither will I accept it.


Instead of jumping from this to God and claiming everything proven, I will stop and only say that God is by far the best fit for whatever this cause is and leave it there. There is no flaw in this argument at all. It may very well prove to be false but it more than meets any criteria to validate reasoned faith. It is based on far more certainty than many things called science these days.

 

[idav]

I would be happy to leave it there if you include what is easily deducible from the effect. The worst possible deduction is that nothing created everything or that something less that the effect produced it. For example we know that a soda can is not a good explanation for what created the singularity. By sufficient and efficient causation we can easily see it was more powerful than anything known, must have been astronomically intelligent to create all the laws and rationality we see in the universe, was not dependent on time because time did not exist until creation did, was immaterial because all matter began to exist, was not in space because space began to exist. Plus we can add in personal because if not the effect would have always existed or never have (this cause chose to act). Now the only objection to these deduction anyone could ever make is that they are not absolute certainties which is not a standard any part of science adheres to and so neither will I accept it.

I agree with much of your quote but don't agree with your reasoning for intelligence being necessary. It is coincidence we find ourselves anywhere, nowhere would be any more special or less/more likely.

I also take notice of the immaterial thing. Matter is immaterial so the point is rather moot. Science shows nothing is really material.

"Time did not exist". Nonsense, it just has no affect on god.

"Space began to exist". The whole "began" thing is nonsensical.

What it is there was a point when space-time gets hold of the matter and energy, there isn't any indication of anything being created, or any indication of anything not already existing.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I would be happy to leave it there if you include what is easily deducible from the effect. The worst possible deduction is that nothing created everything or that something less that the effect produced it. For example we know that a soda can is not a good explanation for what created the singularity. By sufficient and efficient causation we can easily see it was more powerful than anything known, must have been astronomically intelligent to create all the laws and rationality we see in the universe, was not dependent on time because time did not exist until creation did, was immaterial because all matter began to exist, was not in space because space began to exist. Plus we can add in personal because if not the effect would have always existed or never have (this cause chose to act). Now the only objection to these deduction anyone could ever make is that they are not absolute certainties which is not a standard any part of science adheres to and so neither will I accept it.


Instead of jumping from this to God and claiming everything proven, I will stop and only say that God is by far the best fit for whatever this cause is and leave it there. There is no flaw in this argument at all. It may very well prove to be false but it more than meets any criteria to validate reasoned faith. It is based on far more certainty than many things called science these days.

We have to leave it exactly where I left it. We don't know if god created the universe, or if it was a system we don't understand or if it was another universe collapsing in on itself, or maybe we are part of a multiverse that has spontaneous universal creations are a common occurrence. Or the more likely choice is that its something beyond our understanding to a point that our conversations here are laughable.

 

[idav]

Or the more likely choice is that its something beyond our understanding to a point that our conversations here are laughable.

I hear you.

It is laughable, not so much because it is beyond our understanding but because everyone likes to just make ****** up.

 

[cottage]

You have been challenging causation which is Kalam not Leibniz, Leibniz is the explanation version.

I’m challenging both! All cosmological arguments are causal arguments. And “explanation” means “cause” if it is to make any sense at all in the context of the argument.

Give me an example of something occurring that has no cause. That thing must be something that if it had a cause that cause can be known by me. That is the easiest possible test I can think of for you to prove what you said is true. 1 single example please.

I think you rather misunderstand the argument. It isn’t being proposed, preposterously, that causes don’t exist; in fact we could not survive even for a few minutes without what we understand as the principle of causality, which is necessarily part and parcel of the natural world. But let’s return to the matter in question, fundamentally the existence of God. Now forgive me but you are arguing to a supernatural cause by a celestial being of which there are no known examples and yet with truly startling hypocrisy you reject an uncaused cause out of hand! And that seems to me to be a partiality that cannot be justified. Once you’ve allowed the principle of one unnatural or metaphysical concept you cannot then decry another as inadmissible.

Further down the page I argue that the primary premise of the Kalam is falsely inferred, and if an external cause cannot be demonstrated then cause is a phenomenon that belongs to the world. And on that account there can be no demonstrable external cause. Now it’s all very well to say “give me an example of something occurring without a cause” because there are, at least as far as we know, no such examples; and nor would we expect there to be in the universe. But what the issue comes down to, as with every argument including the Kalam, is whether the conclusions we come to are free of contradiction and logical absurdities, and, like it or not, the universe coming into existence without an identifiable cause is the only such example that isn’t contradictory. Of course at some point in the future that conclusion may be proved conclusively wrong by cosmologists or physicists and I will bow to that knowledge, but nevertheless the problem of non-contradiction will still remain a serious problem for a theist explanation.

I have seen centuries of attempts to point out these glaring flaws to no avail. The argument keeps marching along from generation to generation without any loss of fidelity while it's challenges do not. I find most of these counter arguments use the grey areas of ambiguity and uncertainty which are minimal in reality but are amplified through the roof by cognitive dissonance to make up for the fact that no good argument actually exists. However do your worst and let's see what you got.

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence
P2. The universe began to exist
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe was caused to exist

The move from P2 to the conclusion doesn’t follow since the major premise (P1) cannot be demonstrated. This is because although the universe may have begun to exist, nothing within the material world is seen to begin to exist but only changes form, therefore P1 can only be based on the universe as a whole beginning to exist. But an argument cannot be made that the universe as a whole began to exist and therefore the universe requires an efficient cause because that is simply to assume what you are supposed to prove. In other words, that would be a circular argument where the major premise and the conclusion are the same as I show below:

Any universe that begins to exist has a cause
The universe began to exist
Therefore the universe has a cause

The argument is completely removed from inferential content and is now just making a bald assertion.

Here is the corrected argument (and compare the primary premise with that of the Kalam):

P1. The universe began to exist
P2. Everything in the universe has a cause
C: Everything in the universe began to exist

P1. Current cosmological thinking is that the world and everything within it began with the Big Bang, and that is taken to mean that there was nothing before it.

P2. The phenomenon of cause and effect is observed in all things. (This is relatively uncontroversial even though it can never be demonstrated certain or true)

Conclusion:
If causality began with the world then self-evidently it can’t be argued that some external cause brought the world (including cause and effect) into being. And that effectively cancels out the ogre that is an infinite regress of causes and also removes the need for God since without cause there can be no causal agency.

Well I consider experience far more real that metaphysical speculation. Which is why if Christianity di not offer experientially evidence/roof I would have been even harder to convince than I was. But you go ahead with your metaphysics. Lets see what you have here.

Christianity is just a believers' argument, and it is also metaphysical in pretending to explain the existence of the universe.

However remember this. It is not enough to show my arguments is less than perfect, you must show yours is more likely than mine. Good luck.

No, that’s not correct. What I have to do, and what I have done, is to show an argument or a proposition to be contradictory or otherwise untenable.