Re: Re: The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the beginning of the universe
Re: Re: The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the beginning of the universe
Originally posted by Scrimshaw
heusden,
You quoted Craig:
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"From the webpage: Creation and Big Bang Cosmology (see above) the following text fragment: "But why think that such a cause exists at all? Very simply, the causal inference is based in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come out of absolutely nothing. A pure potentiality cannot actualize itself. In the case of the universe (including any boundary points), there was not anything physically prior to the initial singularity.{4} The potentiality for the existence of the universe could not therefore have lain in itself, since it did not exist prior to the singularity. On the theistic hypothesis, the potentiality of the universe's existence lay in the power of God to create it. On the atheistic hypothesis, there did not even exist the potentiality for the existence of the universe. But then it seems inconceivable that the universe should become actual if there did not exist any potentiality for its existence. It seems to me therefore that a little reflection leads us to the conclusion that the origin of the universe had a cause."
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That is incorrect. The scenario being described is specifically, and exclusively referring to the state of a *PHYSICAL* nothingness. That should be obvious since the discussion is regarding the origin of the PHYSICAL dimension. God could exist in a separate, non-physical dimension. No one has claimed that God existed WITHIN the *physical* state of nothingness.
Regarding this:
1. I do not, never did I state, that God exists in any physical dimension at all, neither that God is physical or material AT ALL.
2. God, as it is most commonly denoted, and also defined withing the context of the discussion/battle about the existence of God, must be seen as something spiritual or consciouss, that does not require anything material to exist. (which as I have show, is something of an absurd thing)
3. The "state of nothingness" is the state of absence of anything that either does or can exist. So whatever can be the case for God, the state of nothingness can not include God. Therefore "God" can not transfer this state of nothingness into somethingness. Impossible.
So: wether or not it is claimed that God exists as a physical entity is rather irrelevant. It is simply stated that God does not exist, neither anything else, in the state of "nothingness". Hence "God" could not create anything, and hence this mythological notion does not denote any possible explenation for the fact that a world does exist.
Like I explained in the thread
The Fundamental Question this leads us to conclude that the world in total in material form, must have been existing for all time, without begin or end.
I advise you to read this thread carefull and examine the stepwise argumentation which takes me to that conclusion.
Further I could suggest you to read my argument of the
impossibility of a begin of time
That is correct. Theists generally do not claim that God existed within the physical state of nothingness.
I do not nor have denied that, which therefore means: we speak on the same terms.
YES, God did not exist as a PHYSICAL THING. "Nothing" means - NO-PHYSICAL-THING. God is not defined as a physical thing, so yes, he would not have existed in the physical dimension.
Nothing means the absence of any something, of anything that exists or can exist. I did not refer in any way , nor assumed anything that does exist, I just stated that whatever that is or can exists, is not existent in this theoretical concept of a total nothingness.
Does God exist or does God not exist. It does not matter to the argument. In the state which I described as a total nothingness, God does not exist. From a total nothingness, it is inconceivable that anything can occur. It denotes a state of inexistence. It can therefore not 'cause' existence.
We witness an existing world now. Hence it follows that this world must have always existed, since it exists in a spatiotemporal way. Existence out of time as well as existence out of space are simply absurd notions, and don't denote anything real.
The terminal problem with your argument is you state that theists believe God exists in the physical state of the world. That is false. Theists claim that God exists OUTSIDE of the physical state of the universe.
Answer: I did not state that. Perhaps see my lengthy contribution in respond to Bob' last post that adresses this issue. ('Creation of the physical universe').
I asked Mr Bob Enyart to please at least define what he defines as existence, and asked him if he could define if God exists in waty that is OUTSIDE, INDEPENDEND AND APART from our consciousness. He refutes to answer that question, cause the truth is that GOD DOES NOT EXIST IN ANY OBJECTIVE FORM.
This leaves the existence domain for God to the domain of subjective entities.
And I proved in my argument that WITHOUT THERE BEING AN OBJECTIVE REALITY there can not exist any subjective entities.
That is why God as a concept of the mind, is not referring to any real concept outside, independend and apart from the mind itself.
But I adequately dealt with all this in my post in the Battle specific discussion thread. Please look there.
Yes it would, and that is why theists have done no such thing. In order for you argument to work, you'd have to find an example of theists who claim God's existence is held WITHIN the physical dimension of the universe.
I never claimed this.
That argument is non-sequitur. #3 does not logically follow from #2. The fact that the world exists does not prove it must have ALWAYS existed. The world could have begun to exist at a finite point in the past, and you are simply observing it in it's current state of existence. More on this below.......
Do you agree with the following arguments?
[1] A state of nothingness does not and can never become something. It can not denote therefore any physical / material possible state of the world.
[2] The world as it exists now exists in a spatia-temporal and causal way. It can not exist outside of that. Events we denote as effects exist, because the causes for these events which are also events, exist. Hence no 'first" cause or effect (which is the same) can exist.
[3] Time itself does not have a beginning. Time is something different and independend from change, since we measure tim with change. The notion of a 'begin of time' therefore just denotes the impossible transition from the absence of motion (and matter) to a material world in motion.
How is it not conceivable that there was a time when the world did not exist? What attribute is displayed by the world that makes you think that it is eternal?
The arguments I already provided above.
That's fine and dandy, but where in the seven hells do you derive the notion of "always" existence? You are a finite being with a finite existence, finite thoughts, and finite experience. How in the blue blazes can you possibly make claims about the infinite existence of anything? You certainly have no ability to prove an infinity. As a finite being, you have no experiential knowledge upon which to make any claims about infinities. In fact, you cannot even conceive of an infinite/eternal existence. It is a completely imaginary concept that has no basis in reality. There are no infinities in the physical world, and even if there were, a finite being could never prove they exist!
I assume the above is just your assumption, and perhaps you are totally unfamiliar with the idea, given your way of reasoning against it. You make it sound like 'eternity' is something totallally inconceivable. This is however not the case.
However it follows from a few basic principles we find in our world, which makes this conclusion quite evidential.
They are the following principles of nature, which I listed above.
That is a totally flawed assumption because as a finite being with a finite consciousness, you have no basis for even conceptualizing an infinitely existing world. Everything you have ever observed has been finite. You have never observed the eternal existence of anything, therefore, you have no frame of reference for even identifying what an eternal existence would be, or what it would be like. So your assumption that the universe has an "eternal" existence is totally baseless.
Yes, we do have that. Since we already have the concept of indestructablity and uncreatability of matter, the notion that matter and motion are inseperatable, the notion of causality and the inconceivabilty of a something from nothing.
It therefore means that there is no begin to existence, to matter and motion and time itself.
You quoted Craig:
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"The problem with saying that the Big Bang is an event without a cause is that it entails that the universe came into being uncaused out of nothing, which seems metaphysically absurd. Philosopher of science Bernulf Kanitscheider remonstrates, "If taken seriously, the initial singularity is in head-on collision with the most successful ontological commitment that was a guiding line of research since Epicurus and Lucretius," namely, out of nothing nothing comes, which Kanitscheider calls "a metaphysical hypothesis which has proved so fruitful in every corner of science that we are surely well-advised to try as hard as we can to eschew processes of absolute origin."{56} But if the universe began to exist, we are therefore driven to the second alternative: a supernatural agency beyond space and time."
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I can see your knowledge on this subject is somewhat limited. Time is an extension of space and matter. Time only exists as long as matter exists. Matter has not existed forever, as evidenced by the law of entropy and the discoveries of COBE and SWAP. Most cosmologists believe the universe is a closed system, and for good reason.
I can see that your notion on this subject is purely speculative, and that you have not developed the right notions of what matter is,
You should distinguish between:
- matter (which is all that that exists primarily and independend of something else, and forms the objective world, independend, outside and apart from our consciousness)
- existence forms of matter (like particles, energy, fields, and also atoms, molecules, stars, planets, radiation, cars, birds, humans, etc)
So your notion as "matter has not existed always" is therefore wrong, since matter itself is indestructable. The correct notion that existence forms of matter, without exception, exist only as FINITE spatiotemporal objects.
So, this just means that the CURRENT existence forms of matter, may not have existed forever. However, they must have derived from PREVIOUS existence forms of matter.
]1. The lack of very old galaxies near our galaxy negates an infinite age for the universe, while the lack of very young galaxies near our galaxy negates continual creation.
Since this can be denoted as a FINITE spatio temporal existence form of matter, it is conceivable and not in any way in contrast with what I say.
But the problem here is that you denote the term universe to denote something different as what we ordinary define it.
See my note on this issue of terminology.
2. The paucity of galaxies and quasars beyond a certain boundary implies that we are NOT living in an infinite universe.
I can accept that WITHOUT ANY PROBLEM, without having to refute the basic notion of matter, that matter itself is indestructable and infinite.
But same as above, the problem in this is the use of terminology, regarding the term 'universe'.
See my notes on that.
3. The enormous entropy, and the continual heat-loss of the universe makes no sense if the universe is an eternal, open system.
Neither makes that sense as it was a closed system.
But I discussed this in lenght in this post. See below.
4. An open system means a system that is open to some external source of energy. However, the universe is all energy that exists and we have never observed an external source of energy outside the universe. (i.e., another universe outside of our own)
Let us be exact and precise about what we DEFINE as the universe.
It is theoretically defined as everything that exist.
However, in our common daily notions, since we do not have an a priori and instantanious notion of all the possible existence forms of all matter in all time and all space, the notion of the universe is often interpreted as:
- the observable universe
- the extand of the observable universe that is within and outside observational horizon, which is a specific material formation (galaxies, stars) that originated at the event we call the Big Bang.
Notes:
1. The term open or closed, I assume you refer to the terms as they have been defined for thermodynamical systems. In fact there are three terms used, which are isolated, closed and open.
Isolated means no thermal interaction and no matter or energy flowing in or out. Closed means no matter or energy flowing in or out and only minimal thermal interaction. Open means that both matter and energy can flow in and out of the system.
For simplicity I will not make this distinction in the following, and define the term closed as total isolation from outside.
2. Further note that the notions of thermodynamic systems as being open or closed, are used for finite systems that are part of the whole. Closed then means: having no thermal interaction with the rest of the universe, neither flow of matter or energy.
Open means: having thermal interaction with the rest of the universe and flow of energy and/or matter.
3. And lastly note that when defining these terms, they do not just apply for the second law of thermodynamics, but also the the first law of thermodynamics. We can not state that the universe is closed in respect of the second law, while it is open in respect of the first law, and vice versa.
Some arguments (by creationists or theists) go like this, and run into deep contradiction.
First it is considered in respect to the Second law of Thermodynamics, that the universe is a CLOSED system. This then means that at the basis of the Second law of Thermodynamics, that the amount of usueable energy runs down. It is argued then on the basis of this that if the universe is infinitely old, all usueable sources of energy would have already been used up. However: I look out of my window, and I see the sun is still shining. But that would be impossible, unless somewhere we made a mistake in our argument.
It then is assumed that the universe must have had a begin, and the contradiction is resolved. However, the universe is not less a closed system in respect to the Second law of Thermodynamics as it is a closed system in respect to the First law of Thermodynamics. Which states that the amount of total energy and mass in a CLOSED system is constant at all time. Another contradiction!
Whatever we do to resolve the contradiction, new and more profound contradictions arise.
Therefore we must reconsider our first notion, about the universe being a closed system, which is the cause of this error. But neither and for even more obvious reasons we can call the universe an OPEN system.
The only possible way out of this is to reconsider our concept of Thermodynamics in the context of an infinite system.
The laws of Thermodynamics are not stated on the basis of infinite systems, but only on the basis of finite systems.
Our conclusion must therefore be that the amount of usueable energy in the universe must also be conserved.
Stated more briefly: you can not simply use the notion of what happens to the amount of usueable energy in a closed and finite thermodynamic system and apply that to the universe as a whole, since it is an infinite system.
It does not work that way. As soon as you try to do that, you will run into deep contradictions. Then, you either have to assume that the world itself is impossible, or (more probable) that your notion of the world is impossible.
You realy should read some philosophical stuff on dialectics to get some more understanding in this.
So if you want to claim the universe is an open system, you have to resolve all of these problems I presented above, and you also carry the burden of proving the existence of some other universe or source of energy that is OUTSIDE of the our universe. In other words - if you claim our universe is an open system, you must prove what external source of energy the universe is open TO.
See the discussion regarding open/close in respect to the universe above.
Regarding causality, logic and reasoning are formulated based on our knowledge, which is derived from observation. Here is the theist Argument from Causality for a caused universe:
In terms of our observation:
1) All or nearly all observed physical events have a cause.
2) The origin of the universe is a physical event.
3) Therefore, the origin of the universe *most likely* have a cause.
Yes. And this kind of 'logic' has a serious error. Can you see it?
Let us try your 'logic' on another example.
1) A football team has individual members
2) All members of the football team have parents
3) Therefore, the football team must have a parent
As you can figure out, this is not necessarily the case.
The error becomes even more visible when we use it like this:
1) All things that exist must have a cause
2) Causality exists
3) Causality therefore must have a cause.
Your error is that you use the term 'universe' in different ways.
The universe as the totality of the material reality throughout all space and all time (as it is commonly defined) is not an event.
[Same as the set of integers is not an integer itself; you can add 1 to all integers and the result is an integer, but you can not add 1 to the set of all integers]
If you would state that before the Big Bang event occured, there was an existing material world (but probably in a far different material form) that caused this Big Bang event, then we speak on the same terms, and I can agree on your notion.
However, whatever there was that existed in this state prior to the Big Bang, it still was part of the universe (in the sense that the universe is everything that exists).
We have regarding this issue a more general problem of definition, which is in this case the only cause for a dispute, which occurs on the basis of ill-use of the term 'universe'.
I think we should at least distinguish three different concepts of 'universe'.
1. Everything material that exists at all time in all of space, the totallity of (material) existence.
2. The observable universe, in the form that is visible to us since the Big Bang (the observable part of the 'spacetime' bubble that formed as the consequence or effect of the Big Bang)
2. All of the universe (extended to all of space) in the form that exists since the Big Bang (the 'spacetime' bubble that formed as the consequence or effect of the Big Bang)
In other words, my assumption that the universe had a cause is unanimously supported by the terms of our experience, and is therefore the most logical/probable assumption. Since the terms of our experience DO NOT show that most physical events are *uncaused*, your assumption that the origin of the universe was uncaused is drastically less logical and less probable than mine, based on the evidence.
You are arguing here realy baseless, since there is no 'begin' neither an 'origin' to the universe. The universe, in the sense of everything that exists, is not an 'event' and does not have a cause (neither as causality as a cause since outside of causality there are no causes).
Further: causes only exist in the context of causality, and causality only exist in the contect of a material world that is in motion / change. Outside of causality, we can not even speak about causes, so your whole argument is an absurd and baseless statement.
My statement makes sense since it is just stating that the material world exists in a causal way, and that there is no 'begin' to causality itself, since such is in contradiction with causality itself.
Quite logic I would say.
But if there is a point in the past beyond which we can say nothing meaningful about the state of the world, then you saying that the world "existed" at the point in time would be meaningless as well. After all, if you cannot see beyond that point in the past, then you have no basis for saying the world was there! If you can't see the world was there, you cannot CLAIM the world was there! Well, you can claim whatever you want........but your claims would be meaningless.
Blessings,
Scrim
The reason why it is meaningfull to say that, is that it would be inconceivable and in contradiction with the known laws of the universe to state the opposite, and to assume that the world all of a sudden started 'out of nothing'.
There are more things which we can't see or directly observe, that we DO claim is there and KNOW is there.
For instance:
- In astronomy the existence of a extra-solar planet is stated not on the basis of observing that planet, but by observing the anomoly in the star itself, due to the gravitational influence of the planet.
- In geology and evolution, a wide range of phenomena are explained, which were not observed directly.
- etc.
The claim I made is based on the principles we see in effect in the world, that permit us to postulate that matter was there all the time, that is it infinite, indestruactable and uncreatable.
Now, how could it be proven that this claim is incorrect?
It could only be proven by evidence that one or more of the principles that lead to thisclaim, are incorrect.
There is as of yet no evidence for that.
And as a comment:
Really all of your (and others) ill-notions and ill use of definitions have to do with overpopularized explenations of physical laws and theory. I do not blame you for that, but most of your arguing is based on wrong use of terms.
What I could recommend you is to read some basic stuff on dialectical-materialism, that can probably explain in proper terms what matter is, and how we can conceive of matter.
