A Good Infinite Regress Step of Some Cosmological Arguments

[Arising_uk]

Actually I think it'd more a matter of what empirical evidence can find rather than a belief.

However this 'absolute vacuum' thing seems different from the spacetime idea as it's positing a thing in a time I'd have thought, i.e. a vacuum.

But you didn't answer my question, why can the universe not be an uncaused cause if you accept that the BBT posits that spacetime is what was created not space and time - which is where the causality that IC appears to use to justify his 'God' lives.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Not quite. "Everything that begins to happen must have a cause." That will do.

![/quote]

Mr. Can is so stupid that he can't see how insisting on this phrase directly contradicts his own thoughts on determinism and free will.

DUH fucking DUH.

[Hobbes' Choice]

P1 is false, as all infinite regresses, imply a series of present events.

Yup. Can't argue with that. What I find so ridiculous about Mr Can's logic (Ha!) is that by his reckoning, if god has been around for eternity, there was an infinite amount of time before he created the universe, therefore he couldn't have created the universe.

You seem to confuse 'eternity' with an infinite amount of time or 'forever'. 'Eternity' and 'Forever' are not the same. Forever is an infinite amount of time but in eternity there is no time.

Even if that were true, that is not the problem at hand.

[thedoc]

Actually I think it'd more a matter of what empirical evidence can find rather than a belief.

However this 'absolute vacuum' thing seems different from the spacetime idea as it's positing a thing in a time I'd have thought, i.e. a vacuum.

But you didn't answer my question, why can the universe not be an uncaused cause if you accept that the BBT posits that spacetime is what was created not space and time - which is where the causality that IC appears to use to justify his 'God' lives.

I thought I did, you asked if the Big Bang couldn't be considered as the first 'uncaused cause' and I said there is no reason that it can't.

In some theories spacetime is space and time but considered as the same thing instead of 2 different components.

There are several different hypothesis about how the universe formed, all based on the same evidence but differing on how that evidence is interpreted.

[Arising_uk]

Yes, and I asked you why you didn't believe it?

[thedoc]

Yes, and I asked you why you didn't believe it?

You never asked that, and I never said that I didn't believe it, you really need to improve your reading comprehension.

[Arising_uk]

I'm sorry, maybe the 'why aren't they happy with that' was too vague.

So you do believe the universe is the uncaused cause?

Is it that you believe the universe is your 'God' and 'it' is sentient?

[Justintruth]

1) God cannot be an entity posited to exist. Midieval and classical philosophers knew this.

Was that for me? I have no position on whether God exists or what Medieval or classical philosophers believed.

Of course I will grant you that outside of math, I might consider the set of paths not taken as nonempty, or the set of impossible orbits. I'll grant you those. But I'm afraid I can't grant you five pink elephants. I may have to think awhile on why I regard those cases as different.

This might help. Consider holding a ball out at arms length then letting it go (no special circumstances)

Abstractly the ball can move in any direction or not, or even, I don'the know, turn into a TV.

But the laws of physics constrain that set (non empty) of possibilities into a subset of possibilities (again not empty) that are in accordance with physical law.

Now if you actually get a ball and drop it and you consider the set of all balls that have ever been actually dropped you have a subset of the possibilities - the ones that actually are.

The laws of dynamics constrain to the second subset but do not constrain to the third. Causal laws cannot be the reason that a particular causal chain exists. It must be a posit and therefore cannot be the reason for its being.

Maybe you can say more about those orbits. If X is the set of possible orbits, and Y is the set of things that are not possible orbits, is a pink elephant in Y?

Clearly a "not possible orbit" has some property that makes it a member of a class in a way that a pink elephant is not...So we may say that the set of IDEAS of pink elephants is not empty

In a sense the pink elephant's are in Your. Assuming that one is physically possible. The idea of equating possibilities with ideas works provided you don't think an idea must be had by some contingent being. In other words imagine no one ever existed or ever had an idea...or just consider the time before neurology evolved. Still there are a host of possible ways the world could have been. Many of the possiblexperiencing world's do not include creatures with ideas.

[thedoc]

I'm sorry, maybe the 'why aren't they happy with that' was too vague.

So you do believe the universe is the uncaused cause?

Is it that you believe the universe is your 'God' and 'it' is sentient?

There are several possibilities that I entertain, I don't see the necessity that I decide on one or the other right now. Is it OK with you that I express an open mind? I do believe that God created the Universe, but I don't know if God is the universe. I have read that Christians don't need to have all the questions answered before they die, are you saying that atheists need to have all questions answered, so that there are no more questions at death, if so good luck with that.

[uwot]

You seem to confuse 'eternity' with an infinite amount of time or 'forever'. 'Eternity' and 'Forever' are not the same. Forever is an infinite amount of time but in eternity there is no time.

I had an image of Mr Can sitting at his computer, steam coming out of his ears ranting 'These atheists don't understand that god exists outside of time!' Frankly, people who trot out any version of the above don't understand time. It is simply how we measure change. The idea of a changeless god goes back to Aristotle, as he wrote in the Metaphysics "there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world". That was based on the idea that the Earth was the centre of the universe, made of earth, water, air and fire; the heavenly bodies were points on the celestial spheres that glowed because of friction, and the whole thing had to be set in motion by something that could do so with the power of its mind alone. This model was incorporated into Christianity by Thomas Aquinas, it's the template for Dante's Divine Comedy, and Christian apologists, who apparently haven't heard of Galileo, have been blithely chanting it ever since. The problem is that change applies to mental states as much as physical processes, regardless of your beliefs about mind/body. If god decided to create the world, there was a change in his mental state: there was a before and after, which is what time is.

[attofishpi]

Why does everyone, whether they are atheist or theist have to continue this argument regarding God to the extent that it created the universe. It is quite likely since there is a God, that it is the result of the universe but formed the ultimate conditions permitting our reality.

[uwot]

Why does everyone, whether they are atheist or theist have to continue this argument regarding God to the extent that it created the universe.

I was thinking it had gone rather quiet; well, apart from someone flagging up an article from PN on the topic.

It is quite likely since there is a God, that it is the result of the universe but formed the ultimate conditions permitting our reality.

That's more of a demiurge than yer almighty god, but who knows?

[Arising_uk]

There are several possibilities that I entertain, I don't see the necessity that I decide on one or the other right now. Is it OK with you that I express an open mind? ...

Is it open to the idea that there is no 'God' and that the universe could well be an uncaused cause?

I do believe that God created the Universe, but I don't know if God is the universe. ...

What universe was 'it' living in before?

I have read that Christians don't need to have all the questions answered before they die, are you saying that atheists need to have all questions answered, so that there are no more questions at death, if so good luck with that.

I have no idea what questions you are thinking about and personally I don't see what death has to do with it?

[thedoc]

There are several possibilities that I entertain, I don't see the necessity that I decide on one or the other right now. Is it OK with you that I express an open mind? ...

Is it open to the idea that there is no 'God' and that the universe could well be an uncaused cause?

I do believe that God created the Universe, but I don't know if God is the universe. ...

What universe was 'it' living in before?

I have read that Christians don't need to have all the questions answered before they die, are you saying that atheists need to have all questions answered, so that there are no more questions at death, if so good luck with that.

I have no idea what questions you are thinking about and personally I don't see what death has to do with it?

Science doesn't address the question of God at all, science is only concerned with materialistic explanations.

there is no reason to believe that any Universe existed before this one, likewise there is no reason to believe that there was not a universe or several before this one, science has no way to answer that question and most religions don't address it.

Mostly they are the questions of "what is God like" and "What is Heaven and Hell like". Death would be the end of the quest to find the answers.

[Arising_uk]

Science doesn't address the question of God at all, science is only concerned with materialistic explanations. ...

Well for sure it can't deal with questions about something nobody's been able to, so far, show exists but so far it's put a real dent in a lot of the claims about what this 'God' is up to in the world, i.e. it's pretty much destroyed most of the ' 'God' does it' answers to how the world works.

there is no reason to believe that any Universe existed before this one, likewise there is no reason to believe that there was not a universe or several before this one, science has no way to answer that question and most religions don't address it. ...

Eh!? So where did your 'God' exist before this one?

Mostly they are the questions of "what is God like" and "What is Heaven and Hell like". ...

Oh! I don't have such questions. They seem a bit ridiculous to me but whatever.

Death would be the end of the quest to find the answers.

So why bother asking them if you're going to get the answers at the end?

Are you saying you'll have no questions when you get to this 'Heaven or Hell'?