Kalam cosmological argument
The Kalam cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of a creator that is often used by theist. it is most notably used by William Lane Craig. I think this argument is a false argument and I will try to explain why here.
First, what is the argument?
Premise 1: "Whatever begins to exist has a cause"
Premise 2: "The universe began to exist"
Conclusion: "The universe has a cause"
The cause of the universe, according to Craig, is a timeless, spaceless, personal, powerful being, i.e. God.
So let's start at the end, with three statements that theists make.
1. God did not begin to exist.
2. There is only one god and that is God.
3. There is only one universe.
This means that everything that exists are these three: God, the universe, everything within the universe. premise i, Whatever begins to exist has a cause, is not a statement about God and not about the universe, it is a statement about everything within the universe. The first premise can therefor be rephrased as "Everything within the universe that begins to exist has a cause". This lets us formulate the argument in another way:
If X is true for everything within the universe, then X is also true for the universe itself.
Is that then a statement that holds true? Let's take the speed of light. The speed of light is the universal speed limit for everything that exists in the universe, we can say "Whatever exists in the universe has a speed limit of the speed of light". Is this then true for the universe itself? The universe is about 13.8 billion years old, if the speed limit for the universe was the speed of light, the size of the universe would be at most 27.6 light-years across. the observable universe is however 93 billion light-years across.
Thus, the argument "If X is true for everything within the universe, then X is also true for the universe itself" is proven false and subsequently, the Kalam cosmological argument is proven to be a false argument.
First, what is the argument?
Premise 1: "Whatever begins to exist has a cause"
Premise 2: "The universe began to exist"
Conclusion: "The universe has a cause"
The cause of the universe, according to Craig, is a timeless, spaceless, personal, powerful being, i.e. God.
So let's start at the end, with three statements that theists make.
1. God did not begin to exist.
2. There is only one god and that is God.
3. There is only one universe.
This means that everything that exists are these three: God, the universe, everything within the universe. premise i, Whatever begins to exist has a cause, is not a statement about God and not about the universe, it is a statement about everything within the universe. The first premise can therefor be rephrased as "Everything within the universe that begins to exist has a cause". This lets us formulate the argument in another way:
If X is true for everything within the universe, then X is also true for the universe itself.
Is that then a statement that holds true? Let's take the speed of light. The speed of light is the universal speed limit for everything that exists in the universe, we can say "Whatever exists in the universe has a speed limit of the speed of light". Is this then true for the universe itself? The universe is about 13.8 billion years old, if the speed limit for the universe was the speed of light, the size of the universe would be at most 27.6 light-years across. the observable universe is however 93 billion light-years across.
Thus, the argument "If X is true for everything within the universe, then X is also true for the universe itself" is proven false and subsequently, the Kalam cosmological argument is proven to be a false argument.
Comments (77)
I think the idea is that there is an inductive conclusion which is the first premise: "X is true for every thing". Then , "the universe is a thing". Therefore X is true of the universe.
When driving, one must look in front to avoid accidents. Where we're headed seems more critical to our well-being than where we came from, oui?
P. S. All vehicles have rearview mirrors. I hope God penned down the history of the world in mirror writing; you know, to make it easier for us, mere mortals.
Nice trick to mirror write: take a pen in both hands. A left hand pen and a right hand pen. Write the same word with left as with tight, but in opposite directions. You will see the miracle happening.
:ok:
Quoting Magnus
False.
False or unprovable.
"Exist" is not well defined.
One issue here is that universe expands faster than speed of light.
How is FTL possible?
It's not possible but universe expands in two directions which means maximum 2 x speed of light from reference point.
Yes. Aka compositional fallacy. :up:
There's a rationale in physics for this apparent paradox. The physics is pretty advanced, but physics writer Ethan Siegel has an article on it:
The Kalam cosmological argument may indeed be false, but not on those grounds.
One potential challenge to your objection is that you differentiate
However, the "universe" is defined as
Meaning if you accept that matter and energy cannot come from "nothing," then I think you are implicitly assuming that "universes" (defined as collections of matter and energy) cannot come from nothing either.
Furthermore, you state
1. I think most theists would agree with this statement.
2. This is a bit tricky. Outside of our physical world, does the idea of "one" vs "many" actually exist? And thus does this idea exist outside of God?
3. I don't know how many theists are attached to this claim. How could we possibly know if another universe (or universes) exist? I guess if you define the universe as the collection all matter and energy, then by definition there can only be "one." But you could also invoke an idea such as the multiverse (which, I should admit, some physicists say is not a legitimate topic of scientific inquiry) where different combinations of physical laws could give rise to different collections of matter entirely.
You're attacking a straw man. You have outlined his argument and then you have proceeded to attack a premise not present in it.
His argument requires that the universe actually has a beginning. He does not make the stronger claim that it 'has' to have a beginning.
But anyway, if every material object has come into being and by 'the universe' we just mean the sum total of all currently existing material objects, then the universe has come into being. How does that not follow?
The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) is, as of yet, unproven. It's simply a rule-of-thumb; useful, yes, but true/false, a different story.
The problem with speed of light is that everyone measures it as the same regardless of their own movement. Which is a bit of a brain twister.
No, I think it's the inductive principle which justifies premise 2 as true. Premise 1 says that if a thing has a beginning, it has a cause. Premise 2 says that "the universe" is that type of thing.
Your discussion concerned "the universe" being defined as a collection of all things. But that is misguided (or a 'strawman') discussion, because that is not how "the universe" is defined here. "The universe" is defined as a thing which has a beginning.
Whether or not premise 2 provides an accurate description of "the universe", is a question you might ask. You might also ask whether or not Premise 1 provides an accurate description of things which have a beginning. Showing that the premises are not necessarily true, demonstrates that the argument is unsound. But to give "the universe" a different meaning, other from the one used in the argument, doesn't prove the logic invalid, it just makes a strawman refutation.
Quoting Magnus
Um, no.
The universe isn't "everything inside the universe".
Quoting Magnus
The Kalam argument never lifted off the ground. There is no evidence for any kind of unique existence of a "personal powerful being"; so the first premise is already false because there would evidence via 'cause' to point to the existence of a powerful being being 'caused to exist'.
That is it,yes.
From what I have seen and read at least, theist see the multiverse theory as something non-theist come up with to not have to deal with a god. Like here for example.
The Kalam argument says nothing about multiverses and I agree with you, how could you possibly know? If there is a God, maybe this is just one of many universes he made. Or maybe there are many gods and they all made their own universes. :)
It does not follow that if the sum total of all the parts of something have one characteristic, then the something also have that one characteric because it is a fallacy of composition as i learn from 180 proof that it's called. In fact, I would say that it is false for the big majority of characteristics.
Let's say X is "is a thing within the universe."
P1. If everything within the universe is a thing within the universe then the universe itself is a thing within the universe.
Neither of the Kalam cosmological argument's premises entail P1. Therefore P1 is an incorrect representation of the Kalam cosmological argument's premises.
Quoting Magnus
Arguments can't be false. Premises (and conclusions) can be false, arguments can be invalid. So do you believe that one or both of the argument's premises are false, or that the conclusion doesn't follow?
I certainly think that the conclusion follows, so if the conclusion is false then either things can begin to exist without a cause or the universe has an infinite past.
The article explains that the expansion of space cannot be measured in terms of velocity, but of rate of increase. So it's not true to say that it's 'faster than' the speed of light.
[quote=Ethan Siegel]The restriction that "nothing can move faster than light" only applies to the motion of objects through space. The rate at which space itself expands — this speed-per-unit-distance — has no physical bounds on its upper limit.[/quote]
Very tricky concept, I agree. I can't claim to understand all of it, but I think it falsifies your 'faster than' claim.
It's just a tricky way of saying, that there's a way that the distance between two objects increases at a rate which is faster than the speed of light. It's allowed to be faster than the speed of light, because the change in distance is not called "motion". The concepts of space and time, which are the basis for the concept of "motion" are tied to relativity theory in a way which makes understanding this change in distance as a "motion" impossible. So they are forced to say that this change in distance between two objects is something other than "motion".
You have decided that the truth of 2 somehow depends upon the claim that if x is true of everything in the universe, then x is true of the universe itself.
No it doesn't.
But anyway, if by 'the universe' you mean the sum total of all things that have come into being, then of course the universe came into being. How does that not follow? It would only not follow if you think there can be an actual infinity of events. But that's precisely what Craig denies. So, explain to me how something made of things that came into being did not itself come into being. And do that without begging the question by assuming there can be an actual infinity of events - something Craig denies.
If there is no actual infinity of events, then the universe - if by that we mean the sum total of all things that have come into being - came into being. And thus there would need to be a cause of it's coming into being.
Hmmm maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean when you say
For instance, if we said that all parts of the house were made of wood, or that all parts of the house came into existence at some point, then I believe it would follow that the house was made of wood (i.e. made of parts that were made of wood) or also came into existence at some point. I admit its been a while since I've seen Craig's Kalam argument, but I think he makes the point that if matter or energy don't just "pop" into existence, then universes don't just "pop" into existence either. Especially if these universes are collections of matter. I believe he uses the analogy such as things like horses and other objects not just coming into existence unprovoked. Maybe someone else who is more familiar with the argument can chime in here.
I think the distinction between this and the fallacy of composition is that the fallacy of composition is applied when someone generalizes from a part of something to the whole of something (similar to hasty generalization). For instance, the fallacy of composition would be "This tire is made of rubber, therefore the vehicle of which it is a part is also made of rubber." Inductive reasoning would instead say (a rather crude example) "Tires are made of rubber. Therefore this pile of many tires, is also made of rubber". Note the difference between generalizing from part of something to a whole vs. generalizing from the properties of a collection of constituent items.
Of course, it may not always be that simple, as we have things such as emergence and the Modo hoc fallacy. So a fallacy of composition would also be
However, once again, the distinction is "alive" can apply to a collection of atoms despite not applying to each one individually. Kalam's argument, on the other hand is more like saying "matter and energy do not just spontaneously come into existence. The universe is a collection of matter and energy. Therefore, the universe could not spontaneously come into existence."
As for the multiverse
I totally agree. If God exists he could make many universes/multiverses. Each one could either have the same or a different God (who knows), if a god or gods exist. In my experience, some of the theists I've talked to are hesitant about the multiverse not because it does away with the idea of God but simply because it is a non-falsifiable theory (how would it be empirically verified?). As a result, according to some, why would multiverse be considered a scientific theory while theism would not?
Next, he assumes a finite past implies the universe "popped into existence". This is a problematic characterization because it implies there is an existence into-which a universe pops. A finite past merely implies there was an initial, uncaused state, which didn't "pop in", but rather existed with the potential to evolve.
The Kalam arguments can not be used to argue in favor of god(s) .
The concept of god isn't mentioned in the premises or the conclusion so not an argument about god....but about the universe and its state of existence.
1)We have found the cause of the universe and all gaps are closed.
2)An irreducible cause can have no deeper natural explanation or explain it's own cause.
3)The only logical explanation for the existence of the material universe are non-material supernatural causes.
4)Only supernatural intelligent being can bring non-intelligent material into existence.
5)The only logical conclusion: gods exist.
Numerous problems with your argument:
1) We have not actually found such a cause.
2) A first cause isn't necessarily irreducible
3) Assertion without support: assumes something supernatural actually exists that has the capability to design and produce a universe. Why believe such a complex entity just happens to exist? Why exempt it from requiring cause?
4) Unstated premise that material is brought into existence. An initial state of material reality does not entail being "brought into" existence; it entails no earlier state.
I have.
Quoting Relativist
Not neccessarily, but in the real world it is, as you will realize how it works.
Quoting Relativist
There is support. The existence of the universe.
Quoting Relativist
Material, even when eternal, cannot have brought itself into existence. It's not intelligent enough for that. Only eternal intelligences can do that.
@Magnus
What @Nickolasgaspar says is correct.That's why Craig has to extend the argument further. And the subsequent lines of argument are controversial. At least the arguments are weaker than the Kalam argument, which itself is not fully convincing.
"[i]It therefore follows that the universe has a cause. Conceptual analysis enables us to recover a number of striking properties that must be possessed by such an ultramundane being. For as the cause of space and time, this entity must transcend space and time and therefore exist atemporally and nonspatially, at least without the universe. This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial, since timelessness entails changelessness, and changelessness implies immateriality. Such a cause must be beginningless and uncaused, at least in the sense of lacking any antecedent causal conditions. Ockham’s razor will shave away further causes, since we should not multiply causes beyond necessity. This entity must be unimaginably powerful, since it created the universe without any material cause.
Finally, and most remarkably, such a transcendent cause is plausibly taken to be personal. Three reasons can be given for this conclusion. First, there are two types of causal explanation: scientific explanations in terms of laws and initial conditions and personal explanations in terms of agents and their volitions. A first state of the universe cannot have a scientific explanation, since there is nothing before it, and therefore it can be accounted for only in terms of a personal explanation. Second, the personhood of the cause of the universe is implied by its timelessness and immateriality, since the only entities we know of that can possess such properties are either minds or abstract objects, and abstract objects do not stand in causal relations. Therefore, the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe must be of the order of mind. Third, this same conclusion is also implied by the fact that we have in this case the origin of a temporal effect from a timeless cause. If the cause of the origin of the universe were an impersonal set of necessary and sufficient conditions, it would be impossible for the cause to exist without its effect. For if the necessary and sufficient conditions of the effect are timelessly given, then their effect must be given as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and changeless but for its effect to originate anew a finite time ago is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to bring about an effect without antecedent determining conditions. Thus we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its Personal Creator. He is, as Leibniz maintained, the Sufficient Reason why anything exists rather than nothing.[/i]" (Philosophical foundations for a Christian worldview / J.P. Moreland
and William Lane Craig. )
-Correct because we don't have a way to investigate an Absolute statement like "Whatever begins to exist has a cause".
We can only answer that within the rules of our universe (not the Cosmos) and based on what we currently know, which is ok but that doesn't justify any absolute conclusion...and that I guess is a problem for any theology.
lol mr Hillary. You can not conclude to a point that isn't part of your premises!!!
And even if you did constructed a valid argument, you forget that you need to verify your premises for your argument to be sound.
Your premises are not just not sound, some are even wrong!
-"We have found the cause of the universe and all gaps are closed."
-lol no you haven't. The theory of the big bang doesn't describe a cause. It describes what the progress of this process tells us for its initial condition.
Quoting Hillary
-If yo declare it as such...sure. But that is an Observer dependent declaration...not an intrinsic feature of the "cause" necessarily. Again you will need to demonstrate the cause and its nature...not just assume it.
-"3)The only logical explanation for the existence of the material universe are non-material supernatural causes."
-lol no! made up "non-material supernatural causes." are not explanations..not to mention logical!
You can not make up a bigger mystery and try to explain smaller mysteries. There is zero explanatory power in unknown and undefined concepts like the supernatural.
Even if we assume that we have verified the supernatural, in order to hold it as a logical explanation for existence, you would have to demonstrate its role.
-"4)Only supernatural intelligent being can bring non-intelligent material into existence."
-And how one can demonstrate that bold assertion? I mean you haven't demonstrated whether the supernatural is possible....how can you even make claims about its role in existence???
5)The only logical conclusion: gods exist.
Unjustified conclusion which uses an undefined and unfalsifiable concept. Your "god" artifact isn't found in any of your premises....so at best, if your argument was not such a mesh and unfounded you could only point to the supernatural.
Quoting Hillary
In that case, your first premise is based on this unstated premise that a God exists, which makes your argument circular.
Quoting Hillary
No, because an initial state of affairs can possibly be reducible to distinct, atomic states of affairs.
You also clalm that an irreducible cause can't explain it's own cause, but irreducibility is irrelevant: a first cause is uncaused, and therefore it's logically impossible for there to be a causal explanation for it. To assume other sorts of explanations exist entails another unstated premise requiring support.
Quoting Hillary
The universe is a natural entity, so clearly doesn't imply anything exists other than the natural.
Quoting Hillary
Irrelevant - you seem to be making another unsupported assumption that material objects cannot exist uncaused.
Quoting Hillary
How could anything cause itself? If intelligence is needed to cause something, then you require an infinite series of prior causes. An uncaused initial state is coherent.
Let's see. My first statement is:
1)We have found the cause of the universe and all gaps are closed.
No gods mentioned!
Quoting Relativist
As it indeed is!
Quoting Relativist
That's the demand for proof. The infinite chain of cause and effect (serial big bangs) needs outside creatures to be brought into existence (in an infinite past). Non-intelligent matter needs eternal intelligences to exist. I don't need to give proof because my default state (thanks, Nickolas!) is a material universe with eternal gods. It's me who should ask evidence for their non-existence.
Material cannot have brought itself into existence, even when eternal. How? What's the physical process behind the emergence of matter?
But there is no natural cause for the universe in it's eternal and infinite extension. There is a cause for every big bang in the eternal sequence of them, but what's the cause for the whole infinite sequence? And the cause for the right coupling strengths of elementary particles? One can invoke a string landscape (which is unprovable as well and invokes only 10exp500 possibilities, and strings are dubious in the first place, if you know what's it about) but what brought this string landscape into existence?
By "Universe", I'm referring to the entirety of material reality. I accept the assumption of a finite past (just as the Kalam does) - so there is no "infinite sequence". I infer there to have been an initial state, one that has the potential to fluctuate into one or more "big bangs". The initial state accounts for everything subsequent. I'm invoking no particular cosmology (string theory or otherwise). I'm examining this from a materialist metaphysical standpoint.
Quoting Hillary
An initial state does not entail being "brought into" existence, it entails it existing uncaused and "eternally" - in that there is no time at which it doesn't exist.
I don't understand your issue with "matter", as that's not controversial: matter is composed of particles, particles are quanta of quantum fields, which came to exist as our "universe" (i.e. the product of the "big bang" that we examine retrospectively) cooled after the big bang.
Quoting Hillary
You mentioned it here: " I don't need to give proof because my default state (thanks, Nickolas!) is a material universe with eternal gods."
Quoting Hillary
Supposing an infinite past is somehow feasible, what is an "outside creature"? As noted, I regard "the universe" as the entirety of material reality; hence there are no "outside creatures". Assume such things, if you like, but don't then claim you've proven one of these actually exists when you simply assume it.
So your argument is circular.
You presented an argument that ostensibly proves there's a God. Your argument is a failure, for all the reasons I stated. If this argument is at all related to your justification for belief, then I conclude your belief in God is irrational. Calling it a "default" doesn't rationally justify holding it as a belief. Personally, I prefer to hold rational beliefs.
BTW, I don't subscribe to there being some objective "burden of proof" for a position, but I do believe rationality entails having rational justifications for what we believe. I'm aware of many atheists who's belief in the non-existence of gods is rational, and I'm open to the possibility there may be theists who hold their beliefs rationally. Maybe I'll encounter such a person someday.
Matter consists of real particles that inflated into real existence from virtual particles. Before the big bang, before inflation, only virtual particles rotated in the small spacetime or energy-momentum space (time-position and energy-momentum are equivalent). So the virtual particles turned real and in a sense real particles are time extended virtual particles with well definied position (time) and momentum (energy). But from where did this come? What caused this virtual matter to exist? What caused the spacetime they exist in to exist? Thermodynamic time and the space in which it enrolls emerged from the singularity and behind us this will happen again, as it happened many times before. But where does it come from, if not from gods?
Quoting Relativist
No. Its not circular, as no cause or reason for existence is given by physics. Only gods can do that. The Default State is gods plus the universe they created. All claims positing that gods don't exist need to prove that claim and by repeating that I must give the proof, the real circular reasoning is exposed. Because that seems to be the main problem. The need for proof. No, the claim that diverges from the default state needs to prove the claim gods don't exist. I don't have to prove anything within the realm of creation.
Yes, but that was not in the five points. Your default state is the universe without gods. Do you have proof?
What about the ratio, "reason for existence"? Can I be more rational?
That's not a view consistent with Quantum Field Theory, which holds that quantum fields are fundamental, particles are quanta of quantum fields, and "virtual particles" just useful, computational fictions that are used to describe certain behaviors of quantum fields other than particle behavior. See this article. Here's a snippet:
A virtual particle is not a particle at all. It refers precisely to a disturbance in a field that is not a particle. A particle is a nice, regular ripple in a field, one that can travel smoothly and effortlessly through space, like a clear tone of a bell moving through the air. A “virtual particle”, generally, is a disturbance in a field that will never be found on its own, but instead is something that is caused by the presence of other particles, often of other fields.
Quoting Hillary
Theists are apt to form arguments from ignorance based on the current state of physics, so I don't play that game. As I mentioned, I'm examining this in terms of materialist metaphysics. I defended the notion that the past is finite, and a finite past entails an uncaused first cause, which by definition cannot have a cause - and therefore no causal explanation. If you were to insist it must have a non-causal explanation, then you have the burden to show that non-causal explanations are metaphysically necessary for existence. Or is this just another of your unstated premises that you choose to believe as a "default"? :-)
All premises in an argument need to be supported, including unstated premises. I'm not making an argument, so I have no such burden; I'm just critiquing yours.
You're confused. You presented an argument, and if you can't make a case for its soundness then the argument (as presented) is vacuous. You believe in God. I got that, and I have not suggested I can prove your belief false. So what is the point of presenting an argument that you can't defend other than by saying "prove it false (or unsound)?" Is it not obvious that such an argument would persuade no one? So what is the point of presenting it? Why not simply assert "I believe in God. Prove me wrong," since that's essentially what you're doing in a roundabout way?
Quoting Hillary
Your first stated premise is contingent upon the existence of gods. Without that assumption, no one would consider your argument sound. That's my point. I don't have a "default state" about gods (you may be mistaking me with someone else), but I'm pointing out that someone presenting an argument has the burden of arguing for its soundness. If you aren't able to do that, then just admit it.
Quoting Hillary
What you just said makes no sense ("ratio"?!). So yes, you can be more rational.
Yes, I have read that a 1000 times already. But not being observed doesn't mean the virtual particles don't exist. The mathematical description of a virtual particle is pointing at exactly what such a particle is. A particle not on mass shell to which real particles couple (and other virtual particles too). It's what the vacuum is made of. And the gods created that special kind of vacuum.
Quoting Relativist
How can I be more rational then? It makes perfect sense to me: the gods are the reason for existence. The reason= ratio!
Yes, arguments from ignorance. The usual reply. I have heard the same thing from others. But the fact is, I argue from knowledge of the cosmos. I know the workings of the cosmos. And thats the basis of my my default position that next to the cosmos gods exist.
Yes you have. You consider them non existent, and just to be safe you say that might evidence show up you believe in them. Well, you need the evidence and I don't. I know for sure they exist. I saw them in a dream, making preparations for creation.
After growing up Catholic, and spending years questioning what I'd been taught, I concluded gods don't exist. My default would have been to unquestioningly accept what I was taught, like most theists do.
Quoting HillaryThat's a weird charge. Do you think it's ?u]better[/u] to cling to beliefs irrespective of evidence to the contrary?!
What do you mean by "default position"? I had assumed you were mirroring atheists who propose that atheism should be assumed as a starting point, but your statement implies you concluded it only after learning about the cosmos, after previously having a contrary or neutral position.
With me, it's exactly the opposite. I studied physics and was tought in the books that all can be explained by physical processes (the university was Christian though and I even had to sign I was a Christian! I didn't visit college, except for the last year, a few times; I can't stand classrooms). But science can't explain everything, especially not the origin of the universe, which gets clearer the more you know about such stories as strings or my own theory.
My default position was that science has the answers. But it hasn't, in principle. So now my default position is science plus gods. They provide the reason for origin and the nature of matter.
God of the gaps
From the link:
"God of the gaps" is a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence"
In my scientific knowledge there is no gap. You can call that haughty or whatever, but the material universe holds no secrets for me. But from where comes matter itself? Okay, real matter inflated into real existence from virtual matter. And a previous inflated real universe triggered it. And before that another, etc. But where does that series come from?
Well, maybe the nature of charge is a mystery. WTF is charge? Gods know...
So not a gap is evidence but the knowledge.
Yet you said: "My default position was that science has the answers. But it hasn't, in principle" and "But science can't explain everything, especially not the origin of the universe."
That's the god of the gaps fallacy; our scientific theories can't explain X, therefore God(s) explain X.
Our science theories can't explain where the ingredients it describes come from. Even when new matter is introduced. As far as I can see the origin of matter lays in an infinite past. But what's the reason it exists in the first place? It just exists? What for? How can non-intelligent stuff has brought itself into existence?
Well, maybe. But science can't answer my question, because I have a model to account from the beginning to know. So it's no fallacy.
What the hell are you doing on a philosophy forum, if you already know everything?
I don't know everything. What gave you that idea? I know the fundamentals. Which is but a small part but the necessary part to understand the origin and evolution of the cosmos.
Quoting Magnus
Quoting SpaceDweller
The rate of expansion is not a speed. It has different units (m/sec/mpc) than speed (m/sec)
Speed of light is only c in a vacuum in Minkowskian spacetime relative to an inertial frame.
The rate of recession of some distant galaxy isn't specified relative to an inertial frame, but rather relative to the cosmological (or comoving) frame, which is a different sort of coordinate system. Under (approximate) inertial coordinates, that galaxy is not receding faster than c.
Neptune moves faster than c relative to the frame of Paris, but Paris is stationary only in a rotating reference frame.
Wayfarer quoted Ethan Siegel along the same lines:
I mostly agree with Ethan here, but not quite right. I can put a mirror on the moon and time the light going round trip and it will exceed c by a little bit despite it very much being the rate 'through space' as he puts it. The reason for this is the non-Minkowskian spacetime (a change in gravitational potential) between here and there.
Another illustration: Put up a circular wall of radius 1 million km with you at the center. Use a laser pointer to shine a red dot at it, to the excitement of your relativistic cat. You can flick your wrist and send the dot moving at arbitrarily high speeds around the screen. The dot moves at far faster than c in any direction at your choosing.
Not saying I disagree with your conclusion in the OP, but the speed of light thing isn't a valid counter to the KCA. For one, it would have to be meaningful for the universe to have a speed, and for that you need to give it a location at different times.
You also need to define universe. What did the god supposedly create? Just the visible universe? Everything since the big bang? What about the stuff beyond the bang which arguably caused it? Our spacetime is just part of a larger structure, so it is very much arguably caused. Just not by the deity.
Quoting Metaphysician UndercoverI agree, premise 2 is a category error, and Michael points out that classifying the universe as a 'thing' is not how the KCA is worded.
Quoting RelativistHe says that? Then God didn't create time? How unomnipotent of him.
About premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. This is apparently not so. For instance yttrium-90 begins to exist by the un-caused decay of strontium-90. That's kind of thin since the existence of the strontium is admittedly a potential waiting to happen, just not a direct cause.
Quoting JacksonI personally agree with this, but most people kind of take the standard realist meaning. The KCA does beg this definition, and thus is dependent on it. Any additional premise, even unstated, weakens the argument since it only works if the premise is true.
Yes, Craig says the past is finite (his KCA depends on it), and God chose to create spacetime, and to become temporal himself.
Why needs time to be created? Thermodynamic time is an emergent property. Before TD time, another kind of time existed, without cause and effect.
Because (according to Craig) everything is created, except for God).
But (thermodynamic) time can naturally emerge from a state without time yet. So it doesn't need God to be created.
First of all, my mistake. I read your comment from last week to say "Craig believes the past is infinite", which would have contradicted what I've heard.
OK, but if God created spacetime, that's a structure of which time is a part, not a structure in time. A created thing is only applicable to a thing contained by time, which spacetime by definition isn't.
I'm just wondering what Craig actually says. Kalam certainly didn't word things that way since the concept of spacetime was unknown then. I've seen Craig do his debates, and he seems to deliberately use fallacious naive reasoning (incredulity against a straw man) rather than stronger arguments. I suspect he doesn't believe his shtick at all but knows very well from where his paycheck comes. So he plays to his audience in preference to playing to his debate opponent, and he excels at that. The audience hired him and wants rationalization, not rational reasoning.
Bottom line is that to propose the creation of a spacetime structure, one has to posit a 2nd kind of time that is entirely separate from the time that is part of the structure.
To 'become temporal' is pretty self contradictory. God wasn't temporal (there was no time), and 1) later on there was time (a self contradiction), and 2) God 'became temporal', which also implies a time before which God wasn't temporal, and that God seemed to choose this limitation, to be contained.
Maybe that's just all the inability of language to speak of concepts outside our normal sphere of existence. I'm not trying to disprove a god here, but the argument certainly seems fallacious on several levels.
Quoting HillaryI pretty much agree with this. The time that we know (part of spacetime) is only applicable within, and creation is only defined under the physics of it.
Quoting RelativistIsn't it easier to say that everything is created except the universe? But no, that again commits the fallacy of categorizing the universe as a 'thing'. Saying it is created is not even wrong.
Thermodynamic time is no part of the initial vacuum yet. TD time emerges from the TD timeless state.
As you agree with, I see only now!
:fire:
[quote=noAxioms]Another illustration: Put up a circular wall of radius 1 million km with you at the center. Use a laser pointer to shine a red dot at it, to the excitement of your relativistic cat. You can flick your wrist and send the dot moving at arbitrarily high speeds around the screen. The dot moves at far faster than c in any direction at your choosing.[/quote]
So the red dot "moving at (an) arbitrarily high speed(s)" (faster-than-light) is nonphysical! Hasta be, oui?
@Wayfarer [math]\uparrow[/math]
Ouioui! Good point!
That's easier but it's not what's actually the case. In the heavenly eternal kingdom, time exists in a purely divine non-material form, like the gods and the heaven they live in. They could have created the 5d spacetime (time fluctuating) structure with inherent fluctuating, non thermodynamic time, from which the universal 3d space and TD time emerge.
Well, Craig also says that by creating time, became a temporal being. One of his slogans is, "God exists timelessly sans the universe, and temorally with it". So he does not consider time to merely be a dimension of spacetime, and he absolutely rejects block-time.
[Quote]to propose the creation of a spacetime structure, one has to posit a 2nd kind of time that is entirely separate from the time that is part of the structure.[/quote]Not necessarily. Craig is a presentist: only the present exists and it is universal (includes God). In terms of special relativity, God has a privileged point of view.
IMO, Craig's views are coherent, albeit that they depend on some questionable metaphysical assumptions.
I pretty much agree, except for the phrasing "without time yet"- this sounds like there's a point prior to time. My view is that there is an initial point OF time (t0). IMO, there could be multiple thermodynamic arrows of time emerging from initial conditions, each causally independent of each other, but retrospectively converging at t0. This is a hypothesis of Sean Carroll. (I don't know if it's true, but it seems as reasonable as anything).
Quoting Agent SmithDepends on your definition of 'physical' I suppose. It is very arguably not an object, but if it has a name, it also arguably is an object.
The dot cannot be used to transfer information faster than light.
A moiré pattern also can move at well over light speed without the need to stand a million km from it.
It would be interesting to work out exactly what the cat would see as the faster-than-light red dot approached it and then passed it by. Just like you can't hear a supersonic jet coming, you also cannot see the dot coming as it outruns the light it emits.
Quoting RelativistThis is what I was talking about when I said that language cannot express this. Creation implies a temporal event: The thing exists, and it didn't earlier, but if there's no earlier, it isn't really a creation, or a 'becoming' for that matter. We haven't language (or any valid logic) to describe an act or thought being performed by a non-temporal entity. The assertion seems to bury any counterargument behind this haze of self-contradictory language.
Quoting RelativistOK, you said otherwise earlier:
Quoting Relativistso I assume that was said in error. God created or fired-up time, and then created a 3D universe (space, not spacetime) in that time. This goes pretty much along the lines of him playing to the naive audience who expect confirmation of their biases, and not to science. It is a rejection of Einstein, but I doubt he has openly suggested that Einstein (his postulates right down to the 1905 ones) was wrong, especially without an alternate theory to replace it except something pathetic like neoLET which only says all of Einstein's equations are to be used despite them being derived from premises that are false. Craig knows his science and knows that there are real flaws to be exploited by the naturalist view, but rather than attacking those flaws, he chooses to state his case using mostly arguments from incredulity and such. The paying audience eats that stuff up and they'd not understand the stronger argument.
SR does not forbid such a POV. Out of curiosity, does Craig ever mention which quantum interpretation jives best with the God view? I mean, it all sounds entirely classical, but it has been shown that our universe cannot be explained in classical terms.
If locality is abandoned, then some effects are caused by events that have not yet happened, which doesn't work well with presentism. In fact, I'm hard pressed to find an interpretation that is compatible with presentism, but I haven't looked for articles on it.
The moving dot is just a marquee. You can let a number go seemingly faster than the speed of light. Without anything actually moving.
Quoting noAxioms
To let both (apparently) 3d space and thermodynamic time (which Einstein compared with an ideal, non-existent clock, which he placed on an imaginary axis: it), there has to exist a substrate (apparently) 4d quantum vacuum first (by which I mean a bulk vacuum filled with, or made up of virtual particles). If the gods create such a TD timeless state (with special geometry, and the right particle properties) first, the universe as we know it (and a right-handed mirror version with antimatter) will automatically follow. And infinite big bangs after it.
"God exists timelessly sans creation" refers to the counterfactual case, the non-actualized, metaphysically contingent possibility in which God did not choose to create the universe. So it doesn't entail a time before time. Craig relies on atemporal causation, which seems to entail God and the universe's initial conditions coexisting at t0. But Craig doesn't commit to this. He says that God could exist temporally prior to the universe (a time before spacetime), because he's omnipotent. So I don't think there's a logical problem.
Quoting noAxioms
No, not an error. Although spacetime is a package deal, omnipotence means he can behave temporally without the full package. So he's not going against general relativity, just saying God's not constrained by it. The assumption of omnipotence is quite a convenience when constructing a metaphysical account.
Quoting noAxioms
That is his Forte.
These are the limits of my understanding. Interesting nevertheless.
I was just drawing a conclusion that seemed to be staring me in the face! "Something" (the red dot) has a measurable speed that's greater than c. Ergo, it can't be physical (all matter & energy follows the cosmic speed limit c).
How would you characterize the nature of the red dot whose speed exceeds c? The red dot is like time to me - can be measured, but quid sit? No clear answer.
Gracias for replying.