A Good Infinite Regress Step of Some Cosmological Arguments

[Dontaskme]

Opposites have to exist in the exact same moment. The existence of opposites provides a meaning to a word. The word by itself is devoid of any meaning without the presence of it's opposite. This implies that the meaning which you do not want is also present in the meaning that you do want.

It's a two way mirror which implies the opposite is also true. Everything is true because everything is one. First cause is impossible to determine as that would require a second witness.

Ask yourself, can one step out of it's consciousness and look at consciousness ? ..the answer would most likely be.. probably not.

[Dontaskme]

If now is all there IS which is true. I mean now is definitely here without a doubt or else these words would not be appearing on the computer screen if there was no where for them to appear. So now is here and here is now.

Ask yourself...can there be a before now? can you experience any time that is before now ?

Can there be a time that is after now? can you experience a time after now ?

Now is your consciousness the awareness that you are. You are now and always now. Before or after now is impossible to experience. Only now is the experience.

Therefore, first causes will always be a mute subject. Therefore, that which is mute on the subject of first causes, cannot possibly indulge in ideas such as effects. Therefore God is just another name for NOW.

[uwot]

Opposites have to exist in the exact same moment. The existence of opposites provides a meaning to a word. The word by itself is devoid of any meaning without the presence of it's opposite.

What's the opposite of cheese?

[uwot]

If now is all there IS which is true.

Not if you subscribe to block universe theory. Here ya go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalis ... y_of_time)

[Dontaskme]

Opposites have to exist in the exact same moment. The existence of opposites provides a meaning to a word. The word by itself is devoid of any meaning without the presence of it's opposite.

What's the opposite of cheese?

No cheese.

[Dontaskme]

If now is all there IS which is true.

Not if you subscribe to block universe theory. Here ya go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalis ... y_of_time)

Who's in time?

[Justintruth]

I trust that clarifies the case I'm pointing out.

Not in the least.

You want to be able to make the claim that "Every event has a cause."

Ok. Take the integers again and let's say they represent events, and each integer's immediate predecessor is its "cause."

Now -47, does that have a cause? Yes, -48.

-44324324, does that have a cause? Yes, -4432435.

Challenge: Can you find a single event that does not have a cause? No, you can't.

So we have a model of causation such that TWO things are true:

1) Every event has a cause; and

2) There is no first cause.

Now of course you want to object, "But how did everything get started then?" It seems to me that this question makes many hidden assumptions about how time and causality work. It's a different question. A good question perhaps.

But that does not contradict my model. We wake up, look around, realize we're event -12 and we were caused by 4 -13. Doesn't seem to be a problem. Any event we consider does in fact have a cause. That satisfies the "causist" demand that everything must have a cause. It doesn't satisfy the first-mover fans but they are always looking for a reason to invoke God.

Doesn't work because imagine that 14 causes 15 but 14 does not exist. 13 causes 14 but 13 does not exist. Every causing number can cause only if it is. So compare a set of countablely infinite items in a infinite causal series that exists to the same set that does not exist. Same set of integers. But one exists and the other doesn't so the integers cannot be the cause of being and if they are not then what is a cause?

[wtf]

Doesn't work because imagine that 14 causes 15 but 14 does not exist. 13 causes 14 but 13 does not exist. Every causing number can cause only if it is.

I don't see how that's an objection to my model. You are saying that if you break one link in a chain of causality, the following events won't happen. To write this post I need a computer. For me to have a computer there must be a computer factory. The computer factory requires raw materials dug out of the earth. To have the earth there must be a modern universe. To have the modern universe there must have been the Big Bang.

Break any link in that chain and the rest of it doesn't happen. No Big Bang, no forum post. Big Bang followed by modern universe followed by existence of earth followed by people digging raw materials out of the ground doesn't get me a computer, someone still needed to build a computer factory.

I don't see at all what this has to do with my example. All causal chains have the property that if one event fails to happen, all following events fail to happen as well. What does this have to do with what I said?

My example is to note that there can indeed be an endless backchain of causality. Event 0 is caused by event -1 which is caused by event -2 which is caused by event -3, and so forth. This model of an endless causal backchain has the following properties:

* Every event has a cause;

* There is no first cause.

* The interval between any two events is finite.

I suggest that this model causes problems for the cosmological argument. It's clearly not true that there must be a first cause. One can argue along the lines of, "Oh yeah? How'd all this get started?" without invalidating the simple truth of the model and the claims I have made about it.

In any event this has nothing at all to do with your objection. Sure, if there's no Big Bang then I can't mow my lawn. What of it?

So compare a set

I said nothing about sets. In fact one of the features of my model is that it does NOT assume a completed set of events. There is event 0, and event -1, and event -2, ... but there is NOT necessarily a completed set of all of them. My model only requires a potential infinity, not an actual infinity. I do NOT require the Axiom of Infinity for my model. Another one of my model's virtues.

of countablely infinite items in a infinite causal series that exists to the same set that does not exist.

I confess I don't know anything about sets that don't exist. Can you give me an example? Note that you can't just say, "The set of pink flying elephants." That set DOES exist. It's the empty set. So please, explain what you mean by a set that does not exist.

Of course the "set of all sets" can be proved to not exist, since it leads to a logical contradiction. That's Russell's paradox. Is that what you mean by a set that doesn't exist? A collection formed outside of the rules of set theory? That's a pretty technical point, I can't imagine what is the relevance here.

Same set of integers. But one exists and the other doesn't so the integers cannot be the cause of being and if they are not then what is a cause?

Of course I never said "the integers are the cause of being" or anything remotely like that. I simply offered a model of an infinite backchain of causation in which every event has a cause and there is no first cause. If you like, you can label my events ..., E(-2), E(-1), E(0). Makes no difference.

I note in passing that our esteemed OP actually mentions this example in his blog post http://lawrencecrocker.blogspot.com/201 ... ep-of.html. He says:

"As a set theory wonk would put it, the order type *ω, is supposed to be impossible for time."

That's actually a shorthand for my idea. The order type *ω is simply a mathematical shorthand for the natural numbers in reverse order: That is, ..., -3, -2, -1, 0. I thought this example was original with me but evidently it's been thought about before. I'll skip commenting on the irony of a professor of philosophy calling someone else a wonk.

Hope this is helpful.

ps -- I see that Professor Crocker mentioned this in his OP as well. "... time cannot be of order type *ω". But here he didn't call anyone a wonk. Well done Professor!

[uwot]

Opposites have to exist in the exact same moment. The existence of opposites provides a meaning to a word. The word by itself is devoid of any meaning without the presence of it's opposite.

What's the opposite of cheese?

No cheese.

I'm not sure I follow. I currently have no asparagus. Should I get some to provide meaning to the fact that I haven't got any?

[uwot]

Who's in time?

Ah, well; what do you think time is? And what could it possibly mean to be in it?

[Justintruth]

... You are saying that if you break one link in a chain of causality, the following events won't happen....

True but not what I am saying.

... I don't see at all what this has to do with my example. All causal chains have the property that if one event fails to happen, all following events fail to happen as well. What does this have to do with what I said?

OK let's go through it one step at a time. First a notion of causality explains why certain things occur. Taking Newtons mechanics and some billiard balls as an example. We can explain why a particular ball will enter a particular pocket by assuming the laws hold and some particular initial conditions exist.

When we go to an infinite regress in time then we have no initial conditions. If we still allow that the causal laws exist but do not say whether some initial conditions exist then we can't argue that a ball will go into a pocket at some time. In fact, if I give you two possible situations, both following the same causal laws with an infinite regress in place in both and I further specify that one of the chains exists and the other doesn't not then you will not be able to tell which does. So you are forced to posit the existence of the chain and not derive it. In other words the fact that a causal structure exists in some possible circumstance does not determine whether the causal sequence is actual.

You can posit that the chain exists and then conclude that therefore the chain exists but that is no longer explanation.

This can be seen physically by the need to posit the ensemble of particles and their initial position and velocities in Newton's mechanics. Without those posits you cannot specify whether something or other is caused to happen but only that it is possibly caused to happen.

The causal laws themselves also cannot be derived but the point of the cosmological argument is that even if you admit their validity no situation of explanation occurs unless you specify initial conditions and then derive through causal laws some future situation.

The cosmological argument points this out. I was taught that Thomas Aquinas believed that not only was an infinite causal chain possible but that it was necessary and critiques of his argument based on the fact that an infinite causal chain was possible failed to see that the point was to show how making the chin infinite eliminated the initial conditions posit and relegated that type of causal explanation only capable of explaining what was possible not explaining why something actually exists.

Marital? - I think - describes creation as the creation of time not creation in time. Creation is then not a verb.

Also many make the mistake of believing that some alternate explanation is being offered but actually that is a strawman. Creation is "mysterious" and that means not that we don'the know why it exists but rather that we can't know.

This is why God is described as necessary and eternal. God is not a posit meaning that the situation is not such that possibly God exists or possibly he doesn't and then we determine in fact whether he exists or whether he doesn't as a matterror of fact. That is also the basis for monotheism for there cannot be the distinguishability provided by spatial or temporal location. There was no time at which the universe was created.

Now personally I think that the medieval and classical scholars did not believe this and were just confused between the physical and metaphysical but I have been warned that I am wrong. Certainly most people who claim that they are religious do not believe what I am saying and rather do believe in a time when a God that exists contingently created the world. To me these people are not even religious. Rather they are just terrible scientists.

You can see the cosmological argument at work best in very young children. "Why did the door closes?" " The wind blue it". "But why did the wind blows it?" "Because the sun heated the air" " But why did the sun heat the air"

Their minds are perceiving something wrong in the explanation given.

The intersection of the set of possibly existing pink elephant's and the set of actually existing pink elephant's may be empty but a set of 5 pink elephant's is not empty for example.

check out possible worlds

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/possible-worlds/

[wtf]

True but not what I am saying.

I wish I could respond point by point to your post but I see no relation at all between what I wrote and what you wrote.

The problem of the prime mover has been around for millenia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover

If you posit God and I posit the Flying Spaghetti Monster and someone else posits a circular universe or an eternal universe, it's all good to me. None of this bears on the extremely simple point I made.

Like I said I would love to discuss this with you but you seem to be talking about something else entirely.

I note you base your concept of causality in Newtonian physics. Perhaps if you studied some quantum theory and its various philosophical interpretations you'd have a much harder case to make. Particles pop in and out of existence for no reason at all, or for reasons whose "cause" -- a very murky concept in the context of modern physics -- has not yet been elucidated.

But even Newton well understood that he did not know the "cause" of gravity. He only described its behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotheses_non_fingo You should try to understand this point. Science is descriptive, not explanatory. You are confusing science with mysticism. Newton explicitly rejected that point of view.

It seems that the unanswerability of endless "why?" questions is just as much a refutation of the idea of causation as it is proof of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or God. It's clear in daily life that there is local causality, but that the idea of global causality is problematic.

It's clear to me that the set of integers has mathematical existence, and that: (1) there is no first element; (2) every element has an immediate predecessor; and (3) the difference of any two integers is finite. Perhaps my point is too simple to be understood.

a set of 5 pink elephant's is not empty

I'm afraid that's so wrong it's laughable. What ever are you thinking?

ps -- Since there are no pink elephants, a set of one of them or ten of them or a trillion, is empty. It can't be nonempty because to say it's nonempty is to say ∃x P(x) where P is the unary predicate "Is a pink elephant." But that is manifestly false. There are no pink elephants.

You linked to possible worlds. I take it that your argument is that even though there are no pink elephants in THIS world, there may well be in some other world. I don't actually agree with the philosophy of possible worlds [for one thing it's about language and not reality] but I'll put that aside just for now and grant your premise. In some other world there are five pink elephants hence a set of them.

However, a statement like ∃x P(x) has no truth value as a syntactic string of symbols. It only acquires a truth value by virtue of the symbols being mapped to some particular domain. That's the connection between syntax and semantics. And I would claim that it's understood that a statement like "there exists a pink elephant" is by default always to be interpreted in THIS world. The ACTUAL world. In which world there are no pink elephants.

The fact that there might be pink elephants in some other world is quite irrelevant. It's like asking if 5 is prime and saying, well, no, in some other world maybe it's not. Waste of everyone's time to play silly games like that. Then you'll say oh the truths of math are necessary truths but the truths of elephants are only contingent truths. And I'll say, Why is that? For all you know the laws of biology are as deep and fundamental as the laws of math. And you'll have an answer. But such a dialog is pointless. 5 is prime. There are no pink elephants.

Since I characterized your claim as laughable I felt I owed you a thorough justification of my position.

[surreptitious57]

HOW is an infinite regression of causes impossible

Try the experiment yourself. Go on. I am quite serious

Write 5 but not until you have written 4 but not until you have written 3 ... and so on to infinity

You were asked about physical infinity but gave an answer referencing mathematical infinity. This is always problematic because the
two are not the same. Mathematical infinity is entirely abstract so is not restricted by physical reality. Furthermore it exists because
the number line extends to infinity in both directions. Also there are many other mathematical infinities. Physical infinity however is
not abstract and has to be compatible with the laws of physics. So even if it does exist [ cannot think of an actual example which has
been subject to potential falsification ] it is not equivalent to mathematical infinity because the criteria for the two are not the same

[surreptitious57]

If every action causes a reaction then even a big bang type reaction was obviously caused by an action. To Me what that ( prior ) action was is pretty obvious but this will not even be looked at let alone confirmed until people stop believing that the big bang was the start or beginning

This would invalidate a universe extending infinitely into the past which is not incompatible with the laws of physics and so cannot be
ruled out at this point in time. But either way the Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe per se but of local cosmic expansion

[surreptitious57]

Particles pop in and out of existence for no reason at all or for reasons whose cause
a very murky concept in the context of modern physics has not yet been elucidated

Virtual particles pop in and out of existence by borrowing energy from the immediate environment and
are so called not because they are not real [ they are ] but because their existence is only infinitesimal