The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[Monk Of Reason]

What we think of as space time began to exist. Many philosophers posit some kind of time before the big bang but we cannot access it to explain it. It is a terrible mistake to think that if we cannot explain something in detail it cannot have existed. BTW many philosophers also claim that simultaneous causality is possible. I have no idea but do know it is very arrogant to think we can say how things worked before the big bang. We can only make a few inroads into it and they are all philosophic not scientific. Science ends at the singularity. I have read papers explaining how time may have functioned before space time. It is over my head but you can easily find them if you look.

The bolded part is what I have been arguing. We don't know and that is the extent we can argue about it.

Look me or you have no idea but you can't expect me to believe you can a firm understanding that disproves the hundreds of the best trained minds in academic history who hold the exact opposite view. I can take disagreement but dismissal is not in your pay grade.

You don't know what my pay grade is. And I doubt your pay grade would grant you any ability to tell me what mine can do.

However you continue to misunderstand my argument in the face of your own. We don't know. That is the end of it. We can postulate all we want but your claim that "god" is the BEST explanation is what I have a problem with. Its nothing more than an argument from ignroance.

By the complete lack of evidence of it's opposite. It is hard to prove a negative. It usually arises from the lack of evidence for a positive. I have never seen the slightest reason to think cause and effect is dependent on nature. I am only left with one option as Sherlock so adequately put it.

Except your not. We aren't left with any answer. There isn't a finite umber of things and we can't simply knock them off one by one till we have one left. We are stuck at a point where I have an infinite number of things that could be behind curtain 1 but you have no idea what it is. You can postulate all you want about what is behind curtain number 1 but you DO NOT KNOW what it is.

I have not seen an argument for your case at all. You and most only seem to suggest I lack perfect certainty so any answer is equally valid. They aren't. In fact look above this point in this post. Not one argument for your case, just challenges to mine.

All theories are equal at this point except ones that can be proven to exist only upon presuppositions (for example god). I have not argued for any point, that there is a god or there is not. I have stated WE DO NOT KNOW and that you are fooling yourself to state that we have any evidence to assume god is the best explanation.

No it is not. Philosophy considers that type of argument pure deduction. I have read quite a bit on the type of argument specifically involved in the premise of the cosmological argument. I never heard in in a pulpit or read it I scripture. I found in science and philosophy alone.

Its not deduction if its based off of an unkown. Your making a shot in the dark with presuppositions and that is the extent of your argument.

Back up the truth trolley. It is my views that assign degrees of reliability based on claim. It is yours which equates less than certainty with uselessness (as long as it is God that Is the topic). So I do not need to defend actions I never took. Your the one making these equality estimations if God is in the equation or even suggested by it, so you need to explain not me.

I have stated that your view that god is the "best" explanation is false. I have made that case adequately.

That is garbage. I never hinted, thought, suggested, or implied that any issue here has anything to do with knowing. You argue against my point by proving it in detail. It is about best explanations or deductions, NOT CERTAINTY for crying out loud. How many times do you have to misunderstand that, me point it out, before you stop doing it? Faith, history, law, much of science, even parts of math, etc.... are NOT about certainty. They are about the best explanations and conclusions. My argument is by far better than yours even if it is not a certainty.

It has nothing to do with certainty and everything to do with "you have nothing to back this up and your logic is faulty as it is based upon presuppositions that you do not know to be fact".

If you wish to make the case that you feel that the universe had to have acted in a similar enough way to still require the same laws of physics we have become accustom to today then by all means make that case. But until you do any deduction you make about the Pre-universe is folly.

 

[idav]

I think we are going to get of on a tangent involving how arbitrarily good the design was. This is a common false optimality issue. My argument was only for intent not necessarily the quality of the intent. Bad design is still design. I do not for one second agree anything was designed poorly given purpose, but a house that a partially caved in was still intended by intelligence.

Yes however a bad design can also be a sign of lower intelligence. Flaws have us question the intelligence of said designer.

 

[1robin]

I know what you mean. From the looks of it the universe is fine tuned for life to struggle.

Why can't anyone get this. Good design or poor design is irrelevant. If I find an ugly house I do not suggest it happened by accident. I do not agree anything is poorly designed but it is irrelevant.

So Einstein claimed when he was upset about the results QM was displaying. That question is still open.

No it isn't. God's [playing dice has no justification. IT is like saying does intent lack intent.

No, as long as evolution has it's beginning then what it ends up doing is inevitable. Evolution ends up winning the only lottery it played and it was the only game in town.

So if I start WW3 I had no choice but to do so? Determinism is not justifiable. Even given partial determination it still gives you a trillion initial conditions determined by no natural cause known.
Even half the guess about what mathematics to use in the QM are non-determinate.

 

[1robin]

Yes however a bad design can also be a sign of lower intelligence. Flaws have us question the intelligence of said designer.

I didn't say it was bad. I said it was irrelevant to the argument.

 

[idav]

So if I start WW3 I had no choice but to do so?

Thats not what I said. If you started WW3 then anything that happened once it began would be inevitable. Though you don't have the ability to predict the outcome of the war, so for us, starting something may have been intended but we can't intend the end result for a whole war.

The problem is a struggling universe appears as a universe changing via trial and error. It isn't bad for it to be a flawed design but flaws make it look as though it wasn't intended.

 

[ArtieE]

Why don't you just ask me which direction is up. The fine tuning argument is so common and so well known and so absolute your question appears rhetorical or bait for something.

Imagine your god: "I am going to produce an infinitely big universe containing more than 300 sextillion stars and 50 sextillion habitable Earth-like planets. I will fine tune this universe for "life". Then in about 13.7 billion years I will personally create innumerable very complicated and different configurations of atoms and molecules. These configurations will have signalling and self-sustaining properties, homeostasis, organization, metabolism, be capable of growth, adaptation, response to stimuli and reproduction. Then I will put them on the surface of one planet. Then I will drown almost all of them, promise some of them eternal life, then I will sacrifice my only son for some of them. Sounds like a good plan. Let's get started..."
Universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Astronomers estimate 100 billion habitable Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, 50 sextillion in the universe | ExtremeTech

 

[1robin]

The bolded part is what I have been arguing. We don't know and that is the extent we can argue about it.

It wasn't what I was talking about. I can easily speculate that Whittle was the agent that caused the jet engine without knowing any thermodynamic explanations. I can justly claim God as a causal agent without knowing any mechanism. That may be the best statement I made all day.

You don't know what my pay grade is. And I doubt your pay grade would grant you any ability to tell me what mine can do.

I see the intent does not trump semantic complaint.

However you continue to misunderstand my argument in the face of your own. We don't know. That is the end of it. We can postulate all we want but your claim that "god" is the BEST explanation is what I have a problem with. Its nothing more than an argument from ignroance.

I do understand. I took about 1 second to recognize your not claiming anything that refutes anything I have said. I never claimed to know. I claimed to have the best explanation. I do not know but the best explanation on my computer is intelligent intent. Don't know yet still have every justification to believe it.

I am not ignronant, expect about what that word means.

Except your not. We aren't left with any answer. There isn't a finite umber of things and we can't simply knock them off one by one till we have one left. We are stuck at a point where I have an infinite number of things that could be behind curtain 1 but you have no idea what it is. You can postulate all you want about what is behind curtain number 1 but you DO NOT KNOW what it is.

I see we have circled back to if uncertain then no explanation has any value. Good to know no legal system in history is valid. No person, no system, no academic subject acts by that principle. Human history is almost universally based on a principle you say is wholly invalid.
In what other subject is not being absolutely sure grounds for giving up instead of doing the best you can given the evidence you have and even acting without certainty in the most important aspects of human life. Much of science begins at he point where you say we must all stop. We all do it every single day constantly. Why is there one standard for God and another fir everything else? That is all I got for today. I have to get out of here.

 

[1robin]

Thats not what I said. If you started WW3 then anything that happened once it began would be inevitable. Though you don't have the ability to predict the outcome of the war, so for us, starting something may have been intended but we can't intend the end result for a whole war.

So once I yell it is war every battle and every casualty is determined at that point. What happened to freewill?

 

[idav]

I didn't say it was bad. I said it was irrelevant to the argument.

It's relevant to whether the designer is omniscient. If god is omniscient, bad design just looks like chance doing the designing, but of course "bad" a matter of opinion. God may not see us on a need to know basis, bad could just be a form of ignorance which I highly suspect.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

It wasn't what I was talking about. I can easily speculate that Whittle was the agent that caused the jet engine without knowing any thermodynamic explanations. I can justly claim God as a causal agent without knowing any mechanism. That may be the best statement I made all day.

Inadequate metaphor. Imagine there might have been a plane crash with unknown pasengers, may or may not have crashed, and you don't know what country or even what Planet it was on.

For you to speculate it was Whittle would be a more adequate explanation.

I do understand. I took about 1 second to recognize your not claiming anything that refutes anything I have said. I never claimed to know. I claimed to have the best explanation. I do not know but the best explanation on my computer is intelligent intent. Don't know yet still have every justification to believe it.

Except it is not the "best" explanation. It can be your opinion but it doesn't make it fact. It is a convenient explanation. It is about as "good" of an explanation as assuming the gods made it rain from heaven and the earth was flat.

I am not ignronant, expect about what that word means.

I specifically stated it was an argument from Ignorance. Not that you were ignorant. By extent of course it does mean that as we are all ignorant. As you have stated you are totally ignorant (in that you don't claim knowledge or evidence based reasoning of the matter) yet still state "God" is the best explanation.

I see we have circled back to if uncertain then no explanation has any value. Good to know no legal system in history is valid. No person, no system, no academic subject acts by that principle. Human history is almost universally based on a principle you say is wholly invalid.
In what other subject is not being absolutely sure grounds for giving up instead of doing the best you can given the evidence you have and even acting without certainty in the most important aspects of human life. Much of science begins at he point where you say we must all stop. We all do it every single day constantly. Why is there one standard for God and another fir everything else? That is all I got for today. I have to get out of here.

The legal system aside, personal opinion and statements not backed by evidence or sound arguments are invalid. In cases where we don't know it would be nothing more than an argument from Ignorance.

I have corrected you several times about the usage of "uncertainty" in your claims about my position. I hold "god" and "everything else" on equal ground. Most of "everything else" still passes. God usually does not.

I am uncertain that cars won't swerve on the road and kill me. But I have good reason and evidence to believe that won't be the norm. I am not "certain" that the sun will rise tomorrow. But I have good reason to believe it will based on prior events.

However It isn't simply a lack of "certainty" that god made the universe it is that I don't know one way or the other and no evidence has been provided in either direction to fully sway that. Does that make sense to you now ?

 

[Thief]

I know what you mean. From the looks of it the universe is fine tuned for life to struggle.

So Einstein claimed when he was upset about the results QM was displaying. That question is still open.

No, as long as evolution has it's beginning then what it ends up doing is inevitable. Evolution ends up winning the only lottery it played and it was the only game in town.

First line...on the mark.

Second line...debatable...wrong thread.

Evolution as an intended game?

It may be the only game in this solar system.....

 

[cottage]

One of the most self contradictory phrases I have ever heard is from Hume though I do acknowledge he was a brilliant man.

Here is the phrase: "I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that something could arise without a cause."

I thought this required a response all on its own, as it is an evergreen cliché, quoted without reference to anything else Hume wrote or without understanding the point he was making in an entire chapter and a theme that was continued throughout the Enquiries and the Treatise.

So theists like to point out that David Hume didn’t seriously believe that causation could be rejected. He didn’t! And neither do I. Hume was an empiricist, he actually gave an intelligible analysis of cause and effect and his mitigated scepticism acknowledged that while causation is a necessary element in the empirical world, from there on we can progress no further with the principle, for on contingent matters he said: "whatever is may not be."

‘“Whatever has a beginning has also a beginning of existence.”’ Here is an argument, which proves at once that the foregoing proposition is neither intuitively or demonstrably certain. We can never demonstrate the necessity of cause to every new existence, or every modification of existence, without shewing [sic] at the same time the impossibility there is, that anything can ever begin to exist without some productive principle; and where the latter proposition cannot be proved, we must despair of ever being able to prove the former. Now that the latter proposition is utterly incapable of a demonstrative proof, we satisfy ourselves by considering, that as all distinct ideas are separable from each other, and as the ideas of cause and effect are evidently distinct, ‘twill be easy for us to conceive any object to be non-existent, and existent the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or a productive principle. The separation, therefore, of the idea of a cause from that of the beginning of existence is plainly possible for the imagination; and consequently the actual separation of these objects is so far possible that it implies no contradiction or absurdity; and is therefore incapable of being refuted by any reason from mere ideas.” David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature

 

[cottage]

Replace conclusion with best conclusion and I will stick by this.

Let me back up a bit because I do not hold any specific view but a composite. I think all things that begin to exist do have causes but I also add that every event has a cause. I am not confined to the things that begin to exist alone. However this is that certainty minus any X is equal to wrong idea. If a thing begins to exist it either has a cause or not. Which is the most rational conclusion? That is what I take away from the cosmological argument. I have said over and over I do not draw the level of certainty that they suggest but do affirm their deduction vastly superior to their opposites.

Come on and lets get this over with. Which is better? An uncaused universe or one that has a cause? or some science fictional punt?

Nobody is denying that events have causes in the universe. And it’s not a question of “what is better”! Are you really arguing that the Kalam’s premises are valid because the conclusion is better than some alternative? Allow me to reiterate that I’m arguing that the Kalam is unsound because it has invalid premises. But you are not defending the argument against that objection; instead you are by-passing my objections to appeal to subjective rationality. And if we are to play that game, which has no relevance the question of the argument’s unsoundness, then may I remind you that your preferred explanation comes in the form of a miracle, that God brought the universe into existence ex nihilo!

This is exactly what I on about. This is a perfect argument of the type. We do not know so what was claimed is wrong. This does not follow. You are left where I at least started with a likely claim that is not proven. That is actually being generous I think but there is not room here to really start showing it. I am not sure how close to certainty you can get but you are no where near unlikely. Since every event has a cause why would beginning events be an exception?

The answer to that is a simple one – because we can identify effects with their causes, but we have never observed a thing to begin existing.

I think I must have attempted to explain this one theory a hundred times so far. They are running together. Even if what is seen is composed of other things eventually we need to get the things to begin with. I think it was Lewis who said natural law explains A + B but there is the rub you must first catch your A. A thing assembling out of other things is not an exception to cause and effect it is confirmation of it. Unless beginnings are in some other category of event deducting a cause for them is consistent with al known events. It is like testing every animal but one on earth and find it is carbon based but the one that can't be can't be deducted from anything.

Yes, natural laws may very well be explained as A, then B. But you are arguing that natural law cannot explain the beginning of the universe; in fact your ulterior motive is to say the opposite, that a supernatural entity brought the world into existence. An in any case you are still not addressing the misleading first premise of the argument; if we don’t see things beginning to exist then we cannot invoke “Whatever begins to exist has a cause” as a valid inference in order for “The universe has a cause” to follow as a valid conclusion.

What is the universe expanding into if not new space? Aquinas actually made a prime mover argument from what you think is evidenced against God.

What is “new space” if not the Universe, that is to say the sum total of everything? And are you speaking of Aquinas’ Five Ways, all basically the cosmological argument, of which the Unmoved Mover was just one?

Try this one.
1. Every observable event has a cause.
2. It is likely every event whether observed or not has a cause as well.

Yes, I agree entirely. But in the universe!

The concept of cause and effect is not an event. You can't put cause and effect in a box. It is a principle by which everything seems to obey. It it's self is an abstract idea. But even if the other way around it is just another thing that runs out of nature before it runs out of explanations.

Causes and their effects are events!

Hold the phone. The universe beginning to exist is a very well founded secular cosmological conclusion consistent with all manner of evidence. It is on the almost certainty the premise is founded. You need to get into science to challenge it not pick on it's philosophical adoption. Endless things are deducted from beyond experience. Science depends on it, heck most of life depends on it. You ever experienced the temperature on mars? What about the center of the earth? Seen a lake of ammonia? Dark matter? A boson? An orbital?

Again you seem to be implying that I don’t believe the universe began to exist!! And I think you mean things are inferred from experience. We can infer almost anything, as long as it isn’t self-contradictory, but deduction requires premises that are not just valid but true or self-evident. And we cannot build a deductive argument on “Whatever begins to exist has a cause”
And please do not tell me that science claims the universe was caused.

You said the argument was “iron clad”. Well, I’ve not seen anything at all in the way of a refutation.

 

[ArtieE]

A world which would include even a single life for of any kind, heck even one in which a biological life form could potentially occur in is astronomically low compared with possible universes. Each additional life form just adds to that probability.

So what is the probability of getting a universe where not only life but exactly YOU exist 1robin? Can you calculate the odds against that? So the only explanation is that exactly YOU were designed and created on purpose.

 

[idav]

So what is the probability of getting a universe where not only life but exactly YOU exist 1robin? Can you calculate the odds against that? So the only explanation is that exactly YOU were designed and created on purpose.

Any possible parallel universe is just as likely.

 

[metis]

I think that one of the most sobering experiences I've gone through on this subject was when I did some of the math in regards to time, so let me put this out there:

We pretty much know that our universe is 13.8 billion years old, that Earth is roughly 4 & 1/2 billion years old, that humans as humans (separate from the ape line) appear to have emerged somewhere between 6-8 million years ago (based on fossil finds and the genome projects), that the first Biblical writings were somewhere around 3000 b.p., and that Jesus with his message emerged roughly around 2000 b.p.

OK, let's do the math.

As compared to the creation of the universe, humans only emerged roughly 7,000,000 years ago (I chose a middle dating) out of 14,000,000,000 years ago (I rounded slightly up to make the math easier). This means that humans emerged on just 1/2000 of the time our universe existed.

In regards to human evolution as compared to when humans supposedly received "God's Word" (the Bible), that works out to 3000 years over 6,000,000 years, which is 1/2000 of that time period, and Jesus' appearance is only 1/3000 of that same time period.

OK, here are my point's:

1. if humans are the main reason why God created our universe, then why did God only create us significantly less than 1% of that time period? IOW, we're pretty much like an extremely small drop in the bucket time-wise.

2. if the Bible was so vitally for us humans to know and follow, then why is it that humans for 1999/2000th of the time we've existed as humans there was no such "Word of God"?

3. if one believes that one must believe in Jesus in order to be "saved", then why is it that 2999/3000th of the time humans have been here that there was no such message?

Note that I am not saying or imply that there cannot be a god or gods, but that the certain commonly held beliefs simply defy logic to me.

Thoughts?

 

[idav]

1. if humans are the main reason why God created our universe, then why did God only create us significantly less than 1% of that time period? IOW, we're pretty much like an extremely small drop in the bucket time-wise.

Well thats when god just put the fast foward on his live universal dvr until the humans were at a good point for an introduction.

 

[ArtieE]

And please do not tell me that science claims the universe was caused.

No, science in the form of Einstein's Theory of Relativity tells us that we live in a "Block Universe." The universe wasn't caused or didn't start or didn't begin. It just is. Time and the Block Universe

 

[ArtieE]

2. if the Bible was so vitally for us humans to know and follow, then why is it that humans for 1999/2000th of the time we've existed as humans there was no such "Word of God"?

3. if one believes that one must believe in Jesus in order to be "saved", then why is it that 2999/3000th of the time humans have been here that there was no such message?

Because humans hadn't evolved brains big enough to make up such messages yet.

 

[Ouroboros]

Note that I am not saying or imply that there cannot be a god or gods, but that the certain commonly held beliefs simply defy logic to me.

Thoughts?

Same things struck me too in the past. Also, looking at the vast space of the universe. Our solar system is a tiny one. Our sun an average to small sized star. It's basically 99.99999...% wasted matter, space, time, just to produce this little "special" humans.

But it doesn't stop there. Out of 10 billion people that ever lived on Earth (current + past estimate), only some of them will go to Heaven. Most of them, 99.9999...% will go to Hell.