Everything In Time Has A Cause
The title of this post is, of course, a variation on Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason (='everything has a cause'). I think the six words of the title rather economically explain quite a lot:
Time Has A Start
Everything in time has a cause, so to avoid an infinite regress, there must be something outside of time that is the cause of everything else (including time). Something outside of time is beyond causality and has no ‘before’ so it is uncaused. This something created time.
Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing
Something that is beyond time/causality has no ‘why’ property. There is no explanation for it. It simply IS - never created - never destroyed - it exists permanently. So ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ is an inappropriate question - the uncaused cause has nothing logically before it so there is no why/cause/explanation for it.
There is a God
The uncaused cause must be able to cause an effect without itself being effected. Therefore it must be self-driven. Therefore it must be intelligent. An intelligent creator of the universe fits my personal definition for God.
Time Has A Start
Everything in time has a cause, so to avoid an infinite regress, there must be something outside of time that is the cause of everything else (including time). Something outside of time is beyond causality and has no ‘before’ so it is uncaused. This something created time.
Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing
Something that is beyond time/causality has no ‘why’ property. There is no explanation for it. It simply IS - never created - never destroyed - it exists permanently. So ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ is an inappropriate question - the uncaused cause has nothing logically before it so there is no why/cause/explanation for it.
There is a God
The uncaused cause must be able to cause an effect without itself being effected. Therefore it must be self-driven. Therefore it must be intelligent. An intelligent creator of the universe fits my personal definition for God.
Comments (269)
Wiki: "Confusion of causality and determinism is particularly acute in quantum mechanics, this theory being acausal in the sense that it is unable in many cases to identify the causes of actually observed effects or to predict the effects of identical causes, but arguably deterministic in some interpretations"
Also
Wiki:"The many-worlds interpretation accepts the linear causal sets of sequential events with adequate consistency yet also suggests constant forking of causal chains creating "multiple universes" to account for multiple outcomes from single events."
This is where I become interested in metaphysics, for I favor this concept. :cool:
You need to give up the the Newtonian idea of time
But what was the cause of time starting? It seems it cannot be gravity as gravity requires time to express itself? Perpetual motion is impossible so there must have been a start of motion. What caused a start of motion? Call it X. What caused X. Say Y. What caused Y. Say Z. So we are in an infinite causal regress - which requires something from beyond time/causality to start the whole sequence.
Quoting Gregory
I believe in spacetime. It is finite and it has a definite shape. So it can be said to have a start as all definitely shaped objects have identifiable start points.
Free will requires reason, but reason is prior to free will. Likewise, gravity causes time, upon which it is dependent to work. There is no contradiction there. We have a self-contained universe. There are just a number of discrete motions going infinitely into the future
Going to LA, talk to you latter. Think about what I said here
Something strangely "atemporal" would be inert and lifeless.
Quoting Devans99
Outside of discursive argumentation, what's wrong with "an infinite regress"? What physical law, or condition, precludes it?
[quote=Devans99]Something outside of time is beyond causality and has no ‘before’ so it is uncaused.[/quote]
Why multiply entities unnecessarily (vide Ockham)? Suppose time is "outside of time"? Suppose causality is "beyond causality"? On what grounds should we - do you, D99 - assume otherwise?
[quote=Devans99]This something created time.[/quote]
"Something" is either formal or factual. Formal, or abstract, denotes the absence of causal relations (i.e. cannot create). Factual, or physical, presupposes (space)time; claiming (it) "created time" merely begs the question, and invites the sort of "infinite regress" the OP seeks "to avoid".
:yawn:
[quote=Devans99]The uncaused cause must be able to cause an effect without itself being effected.[/quote]
Why?
E.g. pandeism suggests otherwise ... :chin:
[quote=Devans99]Therefore it must be self-driven.[/quote]
Non sequitur.
[quote=Devans99]Therefore it must be intelligent.[/quote]
Non sequitur redux.
Interesting point. But the universe must have some age and it cannot be infinite, so why not 14 billion years? If you believe in 4d spacetime (as I do) then spacetime in its whole entirety has some form of eternal existence, we just happen to experience the part of spacetime that is 14 billion years since the BB.
Quoting jorndoe
It seems a logical requirement that such a thing exists and is causally efficacious. I acknowledge I am not sure how it could work though (as are others who have considered the problem down the ages).
I believe it is possible that a mapping between each point in spacetime and the timeless thing could exist so that the timeless thing could express itself within spacetime. As to how it could tie its own shoelaces, I have no answer.
Mathematical induction precludes it: Assume there is no first cause. If there is no nth cause then there is no nth+1 cause. Then there is nothing.
Quoting 180 Proof
The universe appears to be fine tuned. So there seems to be a need for a fine tuner. Imagining the whole of (the fine tuned) spacetime to exist eternally provides no answer to how it was fine tuned. The assumption of a timeless first cause that caused spacetime works better.
Quoting 180 Proof
It is possible that something of substance could exist yet it be not of / beyond spacetime. Such a being would be able to interact with matter to create the universe. I admit I am not sure how such a being could work but it seems a logical requirement.
Since when is "mathematical induction" a physical law? (vide Hume, Popper, et al)
Quoting Devans99
Lost me. :roll: I can't decide - post hoc fallacy? compositional fallacy? hasty generalization fallacy? (re: problem of induction, etc)
Quoting Devans99
Yet not a physical requirement (therefore, not a sound one). Symptom of faulty - false - premises, etc.
Quoting Devans99
Of course.
Causality is a physical law (at least at macroscopic level and we are dealing with a macroscopic question here). I referenced mathematical induction merely to demonstrate how that physical law requires a first cause.
Quoting 180 Proof
Not sure what you mean. There are about 20 physical constants that must be at or near current values for the spacetime to support life. That seems to imply something external to spacetime created spacetime with specific characteristics so that it would support life.
How does that work? Can you set it out concisely?
An example from pool. Cue hits the white ball. White ball hits the black. Black ball goes in the pocket. If the cue does not hit the white, then nothing happens. So removing the first element in a finite causal regress nullifies the rest of the regress. Infinite causal regresses have no first element/cause by definition so they cannot logically exist.
Another example from pool. A frictionless, perfect pool table. The balls are currently wizzing around. They will go on wizzing around for a potential infinity of time. Can we deduce a first cause - the break off shot by the player. Or should we assume that the balls have 'always' been wizzing around. The second would be an infinite causal regress - an impossibility.
Causality is not a physical law; it's a speculative category (metaphysics) or methodological principle (epistemology applied to model theory/building e.g. classical physics). And if the topic is 'the origin of the universe' then we are always, necessarily dealing with the "macroscopic level" at its microscopic - planck scale, or quantum - initial conditions (i.e. quantum cosmology).
[quote=Devans99]I referenced mathematical induction merely to demonstrate how that physical law requires a first cause.[/quote]
Ad hoc fallacy. :roll:
Quoting Devans99
Non sequitur redux redux. :shade:
Physical constants belong to scientific models and not to what they model, namely, the universe. Maps =|= territory, they merely approximate via abstraction of salient, or selected, features. We "fine-tune" our physics to the universe, D99, not the other way around.
Also, the Many-Worlds Interpretation of QFT, especially with respect to QG (quantum cosmology), entails that the Planck Era universe c13.8 billion years ago in superposition @ (so-called) BB consisted in countless universes each constituted by every possible physical value (i.e. ratios we designate "constants"), with this, our current "anthropic" universe being just one out of many possible universes; thus, the plausibility of which alone debunks the "need for" "intelligent" "fine tuning" as the late particle physicist & philosopher Victor Stenger points out at length in his The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning.
Quoting Devans99
Well, merely saying so doesn't make it so.
Can you at least deduce a contradiction then?
I think you are a believer in phenomena such as quantum fluctuations. They do not exist IMO. They are purely theoretical... there is no clear empirical evidence that they exist. In any case, they respect the law of conservation of energy and are extremely tiny so can account for precisely squat in the macroscopic universe. Even if they did naturally produce matter/energy (somehow), that would lead to infinite matter/energy density (with infinite time). You can call causality what you like but it is an inescapable truth that everything in the macroscopic world is bound by it. And the BB was a hugely macroscopic event, so its clear that it needs a macroscopic cause.
Quoting 180 Proof
It is a minor miracle that the atom exists and it requires specific fine tuning of the properties of quarks, electrons, the strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force. All have to have their current values else no complex matter would exist and therefore no elements, no chemical compounds, and no life.
Quoting 180 Proof
I do not buy such explanations:
- Any explanation of origins of the universe that involves a billions to one shot coming off is not worth the paper it's written on.
- Each of those countless universes is made of the same stuff and evolve in the same way, so they all support life
- Certain physical law apply across all possible universe and those laws must be fine tuned else our universe would not support life
- We have a sample size of 1 that all universes support life so the statistics indicate they all support life
The contradiction is:
- Effects are currently happening in our universe
- But if there is no first cause, no effects are possible (contradiction)
- So we must conclude that there is in fact a first cause
How can you possibly know this? Have you traversed the spectrum?
But, interesting thread. :chin:
No. Multiple universe theories are not testable so not scientific IMO.
I don't really believe in multiple universes, but if they do exist, then which of the following is more likely:
1. They are all made of completely different stuff and evolve in completely different ways
2. They are all made of similar stuff and evolve in similar ways
I think the 2nd is much more likely, leading to the conclusion that most or all such universes support life; a conclusion that fatally undermines the so called strong anthropic principle.
:roll: e.g. Casimir effect ... Lamb shift ... Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation ... quantum uncertainty ...
... but okay. Good luck with that! :wink: I'm done here.
*Happy 2020*
Multiverse is a speculative aspect of eternal inflation, inflation itself being just a postulate for explaining isotropism and homogeneity in the observable universe. Not sure how this can be offered as an argument to debunk anything.
Since MUs is such a mind-blowing concept I don't think "more likely" has any bearing. But have a good new year! :cool:
I don't see why it would be so.
You keep saying so without showing it. :confused:
He won't even consider Hawking's no boundary hypothesis
I've demonstrated it several times quite clearly to you. Maybe you will take Leibniz's word for it:
’Suppose the book of the elements of geometry to have been eternal, one copy having been written down from an earlier one. It is evident that even though a reason can be given for the present book out, we should never come to a full reason. What is true of the books is also true of the states of the world. If you suppose the world eternal, you will suppose nothing but a succession of states and will not find in any of them a sufficient reason.’ - Leibniz, Theodicy
IE a first cause is required to give solidness to the succession of states of the world.
Quoting Gregory
I've considered it. It uses a complex variable for time. That is unlike any time I'm familiar with. So I do not think it reflects the universe we live in.
You haven't.
Mostly just something like "... which is impossible", no contradiction derived.
The opening post started out with Leibnizian sufficient reason, which didn't really hold up, so you switched to
Quoting Devans99
instead, without showing so.
Quoting Devans99
... is hence bare assertion. :confused:
{ ..., -5, -4, -3, -2, -1 }
- We can see it is possible to define the negative integers if we start at -1 and work downwards through -2, -3, etc...
- Yet it is impossible to start at '...' and define the negative integers - there is no starting point so nothing can be defined/derived from that
- So if we now consider cause-effect, then the cause defines/derives the effect and the cause must exist before the effect
- So equivalently, it is not possible to define effects starting at '...' because all of the subsequent effects would be undefined.
Think about causality as a giant pyramid - the first cause is the pointy end and effects multiply towards the base of the pyramid (example: the break off shot in pool is the pointy end and then the balls colliding with each other lead to the middle/base of the pyramid). If there is no first cause, then the pyramid simply does not exist.
You think you can peer into the nature of time. You think that proving to yourself that God exists means you have to convince us. Why don't you spend your day trying to communicate with "Him" through prayer and good works instead of starting threads on here? I don't get it
I think physicists resort to complex (or imaginary) variables when it is convenient to do so and by doing so can predict phenomena. There's no magic or mysticism or metaphysics usually, just a path forward that produces results. The Feynman path integral uses a complex integrand, for example. :chin:
By the way, still treating ? as a number (integer in this case)...? (n)
Time and God are traditional subjects of philosophy and this is a philosophy forum - I don't see why you are complaining. I happen to be interested in these subjects and would like to discuss them with folks who share my interest. If they are of no interest to you, I suggest you don't read my posts and don't post replies.
BTW I do not pray because I do not believe God is omnipresent. I give to charity.
I've already given you about 5 arguments that infinite causal regresses are impossible, including some that even a child could follow. It's really simple:
1. Assume there is no first cause
2. If there is no nth cause, then there is no nth+1 cause
3. So by mathematic induction, there are no causes/effects at all
4. But there are causes/effects in our universe (contradiction)
5. So there must be a first cause
Could you explain exactly what is wrong with the above argument?
Quoting jorndoe
I am treating ? as UNDEFINED. Please point out where I treated it as a number.
Yep, I believe it was Kant who endorsed: All events must have a cause.
The synthetic a priori is alive and well!!!
Keep up the good work Devans. Don't be deterred by the naysayers. What do I mean by 'good work'?
Answer: embracing your God given sense of wonderment, and your Kantian intuition.
Why do I say 'God given'?
Answer: because wonder is a metaphysical/intrinsic attribute of consciousness.
Why do I associate wonder with the concept of God?
Answer: both are metaphysical concepts.
I challenge anyone here on this forum to explain the nature of wonder to me. How, why, what and where does wonder exist [in consciousness]. Pardon the mini-rant LOL.
Not so.
You've shown that such causes don't have such (definite) numbers, that such causes aren't numbered so. (y)
But 3 is a non sequitur.
(That's roughly what I meant by "you can't number all such moments non-indexically".)
Incidentally reminds me a bit of Pólya's horses.
Leibnizian sufficient reason doesn't work to this end, the mathematical induction above doesn't either. :confused:
Why? If it holds for the base case and holds for the nth+1 case, then it holds for all n. Please explain.
I have proved that there must be a first cause several times to you. Maybe you will take Thomas Aquinas's word for it:
‘The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.’ - Thomas Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3, Summa Theologica
Let me ask you a question - can you prove that there could be something in existence without a first cause?
Quoting 3017amen
I think that it is a wonder that there is something rather than nothing. Nothing requires no cause and there is nothing to explain and indeed no-one to ask for an explanation. A clean, simple, null universe is the Occam's razor explanation. The fact that there is anything at all is a miracle IMO.
Yep. And among many other questions is, why do we have a sense of wonderment when instinct would do us just fine.
And while we're at it, throw-in abstract thinking and mathematics...
Don't see any biological advantages there LOL.
Love.
Not to sound dogmatic and Fundy, but may as well throw in the paradigm of Faith and Hope too.
LOL
The world could have all the reality it needs to exist, everything you attribute to God, except consciousness and it's faculties of will and reason. Then the world explains itself because we are called to be moral. The struggle between good and evil in each of us is the reason for the world. Maybe animals struggle with these in a rudimentary fashion. There is no need to posit some extra dude out there somewhere
Okay. Is the Kantian judgement 'all events must have a cause' true or false?
And why should we care?
That's true when considered from materialism alone. But I am a materialist who thinks the world is God minus the consciousness. We are the higher form God takes. The world is self-caused, like you say of the dude out there. You have to admit this is a valid alternative to theism or deism
Self-caused is a logical impossibility. Uncaused as in beyond causality or time is not logically impossible.
Still, whatever you apply to the deist God as the reason why HE doesn't need a cause can be applied to the universe (with organic beings alone in all reality having consciousness). Prove me wrong.
Nothing can exist in time without a temporal start, so the universe must have a temporal start. There must be a cause of that temporal start (of the universe).
I've explained already on this thread how the universe works mechanically. TIme starts from the first motion of gravity. There i no before in any sense whatsoever, even one for a dude out their to exist in. I am not saying anything Spinoza didn't, or Einstein or Hawking..
You switch from the first 2 Ways to the 5th. You're position really is the Third Way.
You think the world is not God, so there must be a God out there somewhere for you. As Spinoza pointed out, Aquinas was wrong to say the world can't be God just because it can be divided and change within the whole.
Just did ...
Quoting jorndoe
1. suppose there's no 1[sup]st[/sup] cause
2. if there's no n[sup]th[/sup] cause, then there's no n+1[sup]th[/sup] cause
3. so, by induction such causes don't have such (definite) numbering
What causes that first motion?
Quoting Gregory
The third way is a beautiful argument that is supportive of my argument in the OP. I paraphrase it as:
1. Can’t get something from nothing
2. So something must have existed ‘always’.
3. (IE if there was ever a state of nothingness, it would persist to today, so something must have permanent existence).
4. It’s not possible to exist permanently in time (you would have no start - no coming into being - could you exist if you were not born?), so the ‘something’ must be the timeless first cause (of time/causality).
And 4. if they cannot be assigned a definite numbering, they cannot exist. Leading to 5 - nothing exists presently. Thats a contradiction.
So, your Turtles must stop at the doorstep of the material world. The irony is that your sense of wonder about that very thing, is not material at all.
Gah non sequitur again.
Sure they can; you can use whatever numbering.
Let's put up a temporal flag pole (indexical) at 1970 Jan 1[sup]st[/sup] 00:00:00 UTC, and call it epoch 0 (incidentally commonly used in computing, I just checked, epoch time rounded off to seconds was 1578080549 when I typed this up).
Whatever back/forth can now be determined/used from that.
Or, assuming time has a start, then the time at the start of time is 00:00. Subsequent times are given by elapsed % 24. If time has no start, what then?
The most obvious metaphysical arguments and therefore the most worthy (according to Occam's Razor) are made first in history. So it would be foolish to disregard them purely because of their antiquity.
But see GBV Theorem for an example of an up to date argument that time has a start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borde–Guth–Vilenkin_theorem
God cannot be all knowing: the clue is 'know thyself'.
Quoting Devans99
... then a 1[sup]st[/sup] moment is "undefined".
Quoting Devans99
Then you've started out with a contradiction.
Anyway, still no proof, then.
Leibnizian sufficient reason doesn't work (may not be applicable at all), the induction doesn't either.
I don't think it's a mere logical matter (as I'm sure Kant and Hume would have agreed); to learn more (and more still) we have to go look.
Augustine had a somewhat humorous take on that stuff. :)
[quote=The Confessions (400) by Augustine (354-430)]How, then, shall I respond to him who asks, “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” I do not answer, as a certain one is reported to have done facetiously (shrugging off the force of the question). “He was preparing hell,” he said, “for those who pry too deep.”[/quote]
Why would our experience of time be any more trustworthy than our sight, and if our visual perception is so limited, so easily tricked, then why would you assume that your experience of the progression of time is inherently true and infallible? Cause is caused by a cause that exists outside of time? I'm bored of this already, but I haven't read every comment under the post, and I would, but I don't have time.
Even modern physicists very often don't believe that. Have you read "A brief history of time" (Stephen Hawkings"). What do you mean by self contained assuming i'm misunderstanding that?
Your assumption is that Einstein rejected all aspects of Newton's ideas on time. While he did change some things he didn't reject everything Newton believed on time.
Einstein and Hawking, the two greatest thinkers of the last century, didn't think the universe required a God separate from it.
Your suggestion that people can't have wonder if they don't believe in an all-powerful guy out there is wrong wrong wrong. You just think everyone is like you. You don't have to believe in anything higher than humans and other mammals.
ok, but thats besides the point. As time goes on peoples view points change. If you look at Einstein and Hawking there viewpoints changed over time.
You have of course ignored my extensive reply to 180 on the subject of fine tuning:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/367699
Have a read of it first and then see if you can come up with any decent counter arguments against fine tuning. That would be more useful than your usual habit of clogging up the forum with non-philosophical whining ( 'I don't like devans99 blah...')
For the non realists, there is this argument:
1. Thoughts flow in the mind. There are past thoughts, a present thought and future thoughts.
2. So we can deduce the presence of time with a linear-like structure from our minds alone without using our senses.
3. So time exists.
4. If time has no start, it has no 1st moment. If it has no nth moment, it has no nth+1 moment
5. So time with no start has no moments in it
6. But time has moments (contradiction), so it must have a start
7. If time has a start, something timeless must have created it.
Quoting Devans99
5. such time has no such numbering of moments
It's not about the numbering of moments, it's about the fact that the previous moment defines/determines the next moment. So the present moment cannot exist if the previous moment does not exist. So logically, if there is no first moment, there are no moments at all.
Lets quickly do an alternative proof that time has a start:
1. Assume time has no start
2. The universe has a state as defined by the precise position and velocity vectors of all 10^80 particles in it
3. Call the current state of the universe X
4. How many times has the universe been in that exact same state X in the past?
5. Probability of state X is non-zero * ? = ?
6. So the universe has been in state X an actually infinite number of times in the past (IE a greater than any number of times)
7. Reductio ad absurdum, time must have a start
Or if you don't agree with that, how about:
A. Assume time has no start
B. Particle X has a collision 5 minutes ago, call that collision 1, 10 minutes ago call that collision 2, 15 minutes ago call that collision 3, etc...
C. How many collisions has particle X had?
D. Can't be actual infinite because it's impossible to count to infinity
E. So the particle must have had every number of collisions in the past
F. IE The particle has effectively counted 'every number' in the past
G. But it's impossible to count every number, if you count a million, you are 0% done, if you count a trillion, you are 0% done, etc...
H. Hence the particle must have had a finite number of collisions in the past
I. Which contradicts our initial assumption, hence time must have a start
I have a few more proofs that time has a start if you are interested?
Respectfully suggest that you re-read and absorb what @Seditious has to say. Your reasoning is based
Quoting Seditious
Okay, what is the purpose of the humanistic will to wonder? And explain to me what the will is, and what wonder is... ?
Are those features of consciousness important or unimportant, and do you yourself benefit from them?
Bonus question : does the will and the sense of wonder confer any biological advantages in Darwinism?
Sorry for all the questions... but let's at least start there... .
If you and @Seditious refuse to even trust your own mental faculty then there is little hope that I can win you over with reasoned arguments - you can reply to any and all logical arguments with 'I do not trust my own mind'!
If you think about all of 4D spacetime instead as 3D spacetime (drop a spacial dimension), then the universe must have a definite 3D shape to it. It maybe a cone (with the point representing the BB). Whatever its precise shape is, all 3D shapes have identifiable start points and our universe would be no exception.
What then causes the first motion? What causes there to be a time when gravity starts to take effect? What fine-tuned the universe for life? To be truly uncaused, one must be beyond time - you have something in time that is uncaused - some sort of creation ex nilhilo?
I trust my mental faculties to function properly within its limited capabilities.
Mankind in its current state has been on this planet for roughly 40,000 years or so. It is only within the last 100 years that we have become aware of the immensity of the universe we live in - and there are still vast gaps in our knowledge. If history is any guide, it is likely that much of our scientific knowledge of the universe will prove to be partially true and will be superseded by more encompassing theories. For all we know, the entire observable universe could be a microscopic pimple on something much larger.
To think that we can unravel the mystery of time based on the functionality of our advanced monkey brains is a case of hubris. We must be humble and acknowledge our limitations.
I have sympathy with this point of view. Our knowledge of reality is currently very incomplete and no doubt riddled with misunderstandings.
Quoting EricH
However, I think this is a bit defeatist. With such an attitude, science will not progress. We must try to understand the world around us, as I am trying to do in my own limited way.
We understand time and causality well enough to draw some initial conclusions I feel. It seems likely that time must have a start (as must all things) and there must be a first cause.
Let me try another argument out. You have a hamster and a hamster cage:
1. You put the hamster in the cage and observe
2. You take the hamster out of the cage and observe
3. You conclude that there must be a God
What starts gravity?
Quoting Gregory
The no boundary hypothesis is nonsensical in the view of the fine-tuned nature of the universe; there must be a fine-tuner and that fine-tuner must be external to spacetime.
Exactly, the buck has to stop somewhere. And logic suggests it stops at an intelligent, timeless, fine-tuner.
Quoting Gregory
Things don't start by themselves.
Quoting Gregory
I have an open mind. I calculate the probability of a creator or creator(s) of the universe at approximately 95%, so I am still open minded. I hope to hone that estimate via debate.
It is not over my head; you simply hold an illogical/indefensible viewpoint. I'm sure if you had any valid counter arguments, you would have given them.
Universe is uncaused cause, it existed before time. And although there are reasons to call the universe intelligent and equate it with god, to take that metaphor to biblical proportions and personificate universe as a stupid, angry, jelaous and psychopathic magical being is unnecessary and far more complicated postulate, bringing in more questions than answers, and is thus childishly unreasonable idea.
The universe is fine-tuned for life. Saying the universe existed before time means there is no room for a fine tuner so that leaves a billions to one shot that the universe is fine tuned by accident. So the odds are firmly against your explanation.
Quoting Zelebg
I am a deist so I do not associate my hypothesised God with the God of ancient scripture.
Deists don't usually try to convince others that it is rational to believe in God. They can't even communicate with their God, so what motive could they have? I think you just want to prove a point. I've expressed my position clearly, but it doesn't compute with ye. Maybe it will someday. See you
In every your argument I can substitute the word “god” with “universe”, and vice versa. And neither god nor universe as the first axiom explain anything, but god will always be more complicated and thus less reasonable assumption.
With god the question about fine tuning is not answered but exaggerated as we can ask not only why is god fine tuned to create life, but also why is “nothing” fine tuned for god to exist in the first place.
The fine tuning argument says there must be something external to spacetime to do the fine-tuning. If you remove God, you are left with something completely inexplicable / unexplained, so that is not a more reasonable explanation, it is a less reasonable explanation.
The universe is fundamentally in-time. Nothing can exist in time forever, so time must have a start. It must of been started by something beyond time.
Quoting Zelebg
Good point. I think that it must be that God does not require a fine-tuned environment to exist. God must be something quite different from our everyday experience I think. The very fact that there is something rather than nothing (we are not living in null universe), points to some sort of miracle. We posit that the universe is fine tuned. That requires a fine tuner. Then something must have fine tuned the fine tuner's environment. So we are in an infinite regress of fine tuners. The only way out is to posit a fine-tuner that does not need a fine-tuned environment. So I think God must be a creature that does not require a fine-tuned environment. Indeed, the start of everything must be timeless and there is clearly nothing 'before' a timeless entity, so it cannot in itself have a fine-tuned environment.
Then what's 1st and nth about here? ?
Quoting Devans99
So, without such a 1st moment, you can't number such moments like that. (y) (though whatever indexical numbering will do, it's what we already do anyway)
Quoting Devans99
A supposed 1st moment, having no defining previous moment, is then undefined?
Quoting Devans99
Timeless? In that case, you break the principle of sufficient reason. (and some other things)
To think about time, it is handy to introduce numbering (IE a clock). I am not claiming time is actually numbered, just that in order to think about time, it is useful to have numbering (IE a clock).
Quoting jorndoe
But my point is that there is a first moment. If there is no first moment, then there is no time at all.
Quoting jorndoe
The first moment of time is caused by the creation of space time. The first moment causes the second moment and so on...
Quoting jorndoe
That is the whole point of my argument - to propose a revised version of the PSR - IE 'Everything in time has a cause'.
This is I think the Weak Anthropic Principle to which you refer. It explains that the universe must be life supporting because we are here to experience it - so no mystery about that. But it does not explain the reason why the universe is live supporting. There are two possible reasons:
1. A complete fluke (billions to one shot)
2. It was fine tuned to be life supporting
Which is the more likely in your opinion?
Quoting tim wood
Multiverses are fundamentally unobservable so unscientific concepts. So you have to use your common sense and probability when thinking about multiverses. Really what are the chances that each universe is completely different from each other Vs they are all similar. The 2nd is much more probable.
In any case, the predominate multiverse theory, Eternal Inflation, has the universes all manufactured out of the same stuff and go through the same evolution. So the only common sense conclusion is that they all must be live supporting.
Quoting tim wood
I've told you about this before. Reasoned counter arguments please, not mindless diatribe.
1. The universe is indubitably fine tuned for life and the WAP/SAP are both flawed explanations of why. So there can be only one explanation, that a fine tuner exists.
2. Everything in the spacetime follows the law of cause and effect. Therefore logically there must be a cause beyond spacetime.
Your counter arguments please...
I would think by definition there can not possibly exist anything more inexplicable and unexplained than god itself. Every property of god is maximally fantastic and magical, to say the least, and not to go into how they are paradoxical as self-refuting or contradicting each other.
That is using a theist definition of God. I use a deist definition of God. He is more like a timeless architect, a designer, as opposed to the omnipotent/omnipresent/omniscient God of ancient scripture.
A different deduction, then. Cool, let's have it. (y)
[sup](Despite the connotations, mathematical induction is fine as far as deduction goes.)[/sup]
Quoting Devans99
Let's have the proof (I mean, not just saying so). (y)
Quoting Devans99
Quoting Devans99
Subtly switching between moments and causes in mid-run. :meh:
So, "the creation of space time" is supposedly the 1st cause and the 1st moment?
Anyway, let's have the proof instead.
OK BGV theorem:
1. An expanding universe (the only sort possible) must have a spacetime boundary at the start.
2. Einstein says (and we have empirical evidence for his claim) that time is observed to slow in intense gravitational fields. So as we go back in time in our expanding universe, we observe time to slow down as gravitational forces increase due to increased density of matter. At the first point of expansion, time is logically not flowing. A start of time.
3. Something must have caused the expansion to start. Call it X. What caused X. Call it Y. What caused Y. Call it Z... we are in an infinite causal regress. The only way out of such is to have something uncaused (from beyond causality=time) to start of the whole process.
So expanding universes (which science tells us our universe is) must have a start of time; trebly so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borde–Guth–Vilenkin_theorem
It looks like you misinterpreted me. What I said was that we cannot base our understanding of time based upon the way our brain perceives it - this also applies to our understanding of gravity, quantum mechanics, etc. If we ever come to an understanding of these issues, it will most likely come through years (decades? centuries? millennia?) of continued scientific research - or whatever scientific research evolves into.
Quoting Devans99
This notion of causality has no place in physics. I can speak from experience as I was a physics major in college - albeit not a very good physicist. I can assure you that the notion of causality never appeared in my 4 years of undergraduate study. I did encounter it when I took Philosophy 101 & 102. However, this philosophical concept of causality does not correspond to reality at the atomic and sub-atomic levels. Events happen with no prior measurable or discernible "cause" whatsoever.
As far as time goes, it appears - based on our current understanding - that time started with the big bang some 13 odd billion years ago. However, that knowledge is *very* preliminary - and we cannot draw any other conclusions from it.
I have no idea what you're getting at with the hamsters. I also have no illusions that I will change your mind.
I'll give you the last word here - if you want it that is :smile:
Because even advanced matter (IE atoms/molecules) would not form in the vast majority of hypothetical universes. If you had a computer program generate universes at random with random configurations of forces and particles, the huge majority of generated universes would fall into one of the following categories:
1. Too much adhesion. Everything ends up in one big black hole
2. Too little adhesion. IE quarks bouncing off each other forever (no advanced matter)
Our universe, with atoms/molecules, is a very fine balancing point between these two extremes. The chances that this balance happened by accident are probably billions to one.
Quoting tim wood
What can I say. You experience causality every second of your life and yet you are in denial of it? It governs every macro level interaction in the universe and the origins of the universe is a macro level question (involving huge amounts of matter).
Quoting tim wood
1. If there is no first cause, there is no second cause
2. If there is no nth cause, there is no nth+1 cause
3. So there are no causes. But there are causes all around us so this is a contradiction
4. So there must be a first cause
5. A first cause must be uncaused; IE beyond causality; IE beyond time.
Yes but I cannot wait millennia, I need answers in my lifetime. So I have to use probability. I estimate it is 95% likely that time has a start. So I maybe wrong, but probably not.
Quoting EricH
Newton's 3rd law - every action has an equal and opposite reaction - does reflect the nature of cause and effect somewhat. Causality does (by appeal to everyday experience) govern everything in the macro world and the origin of the universe is a macro question (huge amounts of matter involved).
Quoting EricH
All expanding universes lead to a start of time logically, as mentioned here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/368829
Quoting EricH
Quoting Devans99
The universe is not in equilibrium and has never been in equilibrium. All dumb mechanical systems tend to equilibrium. So the universe must have always been more than a dumb mechanical system; there must of always been a hamster (=God) keeping the universe out of equilibrium.
...I'm sorry, were you not able to answer my questions?
I have the opinion that reality is 100% logical and anywhere where it seems illogical is just due to our lack of understanding. So we can use logic to probe reality - contradictions just don't happen in reality - so we can trust our logical arguments.
Quoting tim wood
A first cause must be able to cause effects without in itself being effected. So it must be self-driven. IE Intelligent.
- Heraclitus
“Couples are things whole and things not whole, what is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.”
- Heraclitus
“The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.”
- Heraclitus
Whatever name we assign to it, it is the same source of everything in existence that we can sense or point out patterns, but we must also be aware that other beings sense and note patterns in the "medium" differently than humans.
Thank you I believe we got your answer!
LOL
Be well,
Jim
Intelligent about what? How can it know anything if there is nothing to know? So instead of asking where did the universe come from, the question becomes where did god get the idea of “universe”, perhaps it has seen it somewhere before?
And what about emotions, why couldn’t it be just emotional instead of intelligent being? Also, do you think it ever questions why does it exist, how and where did it come from, and whether it was itself created by some prior deity?
By the way, if god exist out of time and space, practically existing nowhere and never, so is it then actually made of something or it follows it is really made of nothing?
"what is the purpose of the humanistic will to wonder?"
Life
"And explain to me what the will is, and what wonder is... ?"
We both know what they are
"Are those features of consciousness important or unimportant, and do you yourself benefit from them?"
Important
"Bonus question : does the will and the sense of wonder confer any biological advantages in Darwinism?"
Probably.
Your arrogant because you think only theists have wonder. I was an atheist from age 3 to 8 and I had tons of wonder and joy. I stopped believing in God when I turned 19, and again, didn't lose wonder. You think everyone is like you.
The first cause of everything has to be beyond time - that is surely the only logical answer to the chicken and egg problem. So for such a timeless entity, there is no 'before' - it merely IS - permanent uncaused existence.
The universe is fine-tuned for life suggesting some form of intelligence.
Quoting Zelebg
I am not sure. God has to be causally effective, that suggests made of some substance that is from beyond spacetime. It is possible that the universe is underpinned by a non-material substrate (see quantum entanglement). Maybe God is made of this substance.
I agree, keep that logic in mind...
To exist out of substance is to consist of nothing.
-- meaning: it does not exist
To exist out of time is to exist never.
-- meaning: it never existed
To exist out of space is to exist nowhere.
-- meaning: it does not exist
1. Can’t get something from nothing
2. So something must have existed ‘always’.
3. (IE if there was ever a state of nothingness, it would persist to today, so something must have permanent existence).
4. It’s not possible to exist permanently in time (would have no start to existence and you cannot exist if you do not start to exist), so the ‘something’ must be the timeless first cause (of time/causality).
You see this argument agrees precisely with the axiom 'everything in time has a cause'. And in fact there are many arguments that time has a start and all imply that something timeless must exist.
Now I cannot explain exactly what is the nature of this timeless thing; all I can do is point out it is a logical requirement. We as humans are only familiar with a tiny portion of what is possible. Who knows what states of possible existence there are? Maybe it is non-material. Maybe there is a wider 'space' that exists beyond spacetime. Maybe as creatures of spacetime we will never be able to understand a wider reality. Sorry if that sounds like a cop-out, but I have reached the limits of my understanding on the issue.
When Christians say "if you don't believe in God, why don't you kill people", all they are doing is admitting that THEY are going to be murderers once they stop believing in genies. It also goes to show their ignorance of other people
But the universe exists in time and no brute fact can exist in time - it would have no temporal start. If it has no temporal start, it has no temporal start +1. If it has no temporal nth moment, it has no temporal nth+1 moment. So it does not exist. So brute facts have to be timeless (=uncaused). The brute fact that caused everything else (causality forms an inverted pyramid with the first cause at tip), has to cause an effect without being effected itself. So the first cause must be intelligent.
I do not fully understand anything. My beliefs are merely what I think is probable (has a greater than 50% probability of being true). I argue for the things I 'believe' in. What else should I do? Argue for things that I think are not probable?
It is a counter argument. Your position is based on you thinking you understand time and matter, yet even you said on another thread that "The mind is fundamentally illogical". I've refuted your arguments over and over again on this thread from various angles. You'r either not smart enough to understand, too immature, or too obstinate. Probably all of the above
Perhaps, but not in English language, at least. It is not because I refuse to think “out of the box”, it is because the time concept is one of the fundamentals our whole understanding is based upon.
Without it there is no change, and without change there is no event, there is no process. All the verbs applied without it completely lose their meaning and the concept becomes semantically invalid, a paradox that we simply can not reason about just like there is nothing to say about ‘round square’ except that is self-contradiction and thus can not exist.
But there is actually one thing that is not caused by anything and which causes everything to happen, in a way. It certainly makes things possible to happen and without which nothing can happen. This one special thing that stands above everything else, it can be said it exist beyond time as well, and that thing is the time itself.
You have to admit the power that time has over everything, even over the gods themselves (logically at least), is pretty god-like, so there, why is not Khronos good enough god for you?
I've stated my counter arguments but you insist on trying to see only deism. That's bias. You even choose not to read Aquinas's arguments on God's omniscience. I think this stubborn deist stance is some type of rebellion for you.
There is some homework for Devans (a small portion of what Aquinas wrote on the subject). I don't like having intellectual conversations with people who don't act like adults
- God cannot exist in time eternally because he would never start existing so could not exist.
- Nothing can exist in time eternally because it would never start existing so could not exist.
- If time existed forever, it has no first moment. If it has no nth moment it has no nth+1 moment, so it does not exist
So you have to face the fact that something atemporal is a logical requirement in order for there to be anything at all in existence.
I imagine that there is the atemporal thing and it is external to spacetime, but can express itself within spacetime. It is possible that it created spacetime through its first action. So maybe it became part of spacetime when its first action was accomplished. Or maybe it is just something that we will never be able to comprehend.
I will have a read. Thanks. Meanwhile, I suggest that God must be able to 'know thyself' and that is impossible so God is not omniscient.
Yes, but the choice of “brute fact” is still just an assumption.
So you have a choice to postulate magical fine-tuned universe, just like we observe, or to postulate unobservable magical being, that just so happens to be fine-tuned to hallucinate into existence this magical fine-tuned universe we actually observe.
Do you see the extra step? All the magical properties you want to attribute to some deity we can simply skip and apply directly to the universe, except then we don’t have to postulate absurdity like unembodied intelligence.
I’m not saying magical universe makes sense, that is plausible, or that it explains anything. I’m only saying it is less, much less of an assumption since it is what we already observe and requires no further assumptions.
Again there is choice between things that do not make sense.
something always existed
something out of nothing
something existed before time
You think something existed before time is less senseless than something out of nothing even though it is explicit self-contradiction, and it doesn’t get rid of the absurdity “something existed for no reason”.
Something out of nothing is at least not self-contradiction to begin with, and there is really no reason to believe it is actually false, though I do agree it would be surprising. But not more surprising than magic superman just happens to exist for no reason, fluffing around and creating worlds out of boredom.
Universe.
Then the universe existed before time. Or whatever paradox you accepted for your deity, it can be applied directly to the universe.
It seems to me that 'time' is playing no real role in the argument. All that is needed is the principle that anything that exists has either been caused to exist by something external to it, or is self-explanatory.
From that we get to the conclusion that if anything exists, some self-explanatory thing or things must exist.
I don't think that conclusion gets you to an agency, much less God. I think what it gets you to is the existence of simple things. For a simple thing, having no parts, requires no external explanation. Thus simple things are self-explanatory.
So, the ultimate causes of all else must be simple things. But why think these simple things are, in fact, one simple thing? And why think that the simple thing in question must be an agency? These steps seem missing. You've jumped from everything needing self-explanatory causes to there being one and only one such cause, and you've attributed agency to it on no very compelling grounds.
I mean, I can see why we might have 'some' reason to think these things. The principle of simplicity might favour us positing one simple thing rather than lots (though that's controversial - it may be simpler to posit lots of simple first causes, given how complex the created world appears to be....I mean, when I see an ocean liner I do not posit one mega-creator, but many mundane creators). And given that I myself appear to be both a simple thing and an agent, that gives me some reason to suppose that if something is simple then it is an agency - but not a very powerful reason.
Anyway, bringing 'time' in seems to me to add nothing to the argument, but only muddies the waters further. For your claim that "everything in time must have a cause" seems false by your own lights. I mean, I assume that by 'a cause' you mean some kind of external cause. And you think time itself has a cause, for there has to be a first moment and it needs a cause. But after time has been created, then that which created it would be 'in' time. For how could it not be? And yet this creator or creators, would now be in time, yet would not have any cause external to themselves. Thus by your own lights not everything in time has an external cause of its existence, for the creator of time is in time and does not have an external cause of its existence.
You are assuming, it seems to me, that to have caused time is not subsequently to be in it. I see no reason to think that's true. If I build a house around me, the house is created by me, yet I am also now in it.
I should add, I do not deny your conclusion - I think we do have overwhelmingly good reason to think that the universe has a single first cause and that the first cause is 'God' at least in some sense of that term. I just do not see how your argument, as it stands, gets us with any confidence to that conclusion.
Thats a good point. I would argue there would have to be some entity or set of entities that cannot explain why they behave the way they do. I believe scientific determinism is the reality we live in (cause and effect going back billions of years). However I would imagine if you go back far enough it is intrinsically impossible to explain why things were set up a certain way or in the case of religion, why the creator or creator gods is the way that he/she is. Actually the name Yahweh is sometimes explained to mean "I Am" as in hes sitting around for X amount of time and finally he just accepts the fact that he is the way he is.
A programmer can explain statistics based random number generators (not random) and they can explain the program world they created, but the programmer can't explain why he prefers one entity over another or why he loves his one sibling more than his other sibling.
The original version of a related argument, regarded as one of the most influential arguments for the existence of God later adopted by Aquinas and others, was presented by Avicenna or Ibn Sina the Persian philosopher sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Arabic Philosopher.
Here is my understanding and summary of the argument:
1. Things that exist are either contingent or necessary: meaning either they can ‘not exist’ or they can’t fail but to exist.
2. The things we see around us are all contingent for they could have not existed. The chair, the table, humans, trees, atoms and so on.
3. Contingent things owe their existence to something that brought/brings them about, or in other words causes them.
4. If everything in the world is contingent then we have an infinite regress of contingent things; everything else being caused or brought about by something which is/was itself contingent and was brought about by something else, ad infinitum.
Now, taking such infinite series as a set, it is either the case that the set of all such things is either contingent, or is not contingent.
5. If the set is contingent then it means it must have been brought about/caused by something outside of the set of all things contingent, which means something that itself cannot be a part of that set and is hence a necessary existent.
6. If the set is not itself contingent then it means the set itself is necessary which proves what he was looking for; namely the ‘need’ for the existence of a necessary existent.
Now, if 6 then this needed necessary existent is either:
6a. Part of the set itself
6b. Outside of it.
But it cannot be 6a since the necessary existent cannot be a part of the set of all things contingent for it too will be contingent. So it must be 6b and the necessary existent must be something outside of the set. The cause of the set is therefore some necessary being, some necessary existent.
He then moves to the argument for ‘simplicity’ and ‘Oneness’ of this necessary being (let us note that here ‘oneness’ means ‘uniqueness’ and being one in number.
7. This being must be simple and not composite for if it is a composite then its being is contingent on its parts. So it must be simple.
8. This being must be unique for if it is not then something must explain why there are two or more of it. If for example as have two necessary beings A and B, which even if we accept to be qualitatively identical, the question we face is whether it is a contingent fact that there are two or whether it is a matter of necessity that there are two? If the former then A and B cannot be necessary beings after all for there could have been more or less of them; there could have been A, B, and C, but then how could C be necessary if it ‘merely’ could have existed but happens not to hence why we only have A and B, or they could have been just A, making B not necessary and vice versa. But if it was a matter necessity that there were 2 then A’s and B’s existent is contingent on what necessitated there being two, hence making their existence contingent.
These last two points, especially 8, is, I think, designed to avoid the conclusion that elementary particles could be viewed as the candidate for necessary beings. Although he wasn’t familiar with the modern notion of elementary particles he would have appreciated the notion of some elementary matter bits/particles that subsists everything.
The above is just a summary and some of the steps in his arguments can surely be contested and successfully rejected.
But the surprising conclusion of his argument is that whatever the necessary being is its essence is actual and not potential for whatever it is, it ‘is’ necessary. So if the necessary existent is the cause of the world then it is the necessary cause of the world, such that its causing of the world is a necessary feature of its existence which means ‘it’ caused the world not of free will but of necessity. In other words since the necessary being is internal and was never brought about it also means what ‘it’ caused is internal since there couldn’t have been a time where ‘it’ didn’t cause the world. We can of course say that the concept of time only comes into play after we have the physical world of change and that it doesn’t make sense to talk about a time ‘before’ it caused the world. But if we go down that route we will have to omit any talk of a cause before the physical world, namely the existence of the necessary being existing ‘prior’ to the physical world, which brings us full circle back to the contingent world being attached temporally to the necessary being.
Hope you find the above useful
I agree with Avicenna that all complex things require explanation, and agree that simple things do not. But that does not make simple things 'necessary' things.
If - if - anything exists, then at least one simple thing exists. But nothing 'has' to exist, some things just do. And of those things that exist, some require explanation, and some do not.
And 8 seems clearly dodgy. There seems no reason why there should be only one simple thing. If simple thing A does not require explanation (due to its being simple), then simple thing B does not either, and nor does the existence of A and B. To think that they do, is simply to have overlooked their simplicity. It is really no different to thinking - confusedly - that A's existence requires explanation (which by hypothesis it does not, given its status as simple).
So, as far as I can see, nothing about simplicity precludes there being multiple simple things.
Quoting Miles
I don't think that's right. What rules out elementary particles is the fact they would be complex. For such particles would have to occupy space and anything that occupies some space is divisible - and anything divisible has parts (namely those into which it can be divided). So no physical entity is ever going to qualify as simple, as any physical entity - no matter how small - is going to be divisible.
Simple things are, by their very nature then, immaterial entities.
I do agree there are causal accounts and explanatory accounts. Why 2 +2 =4 is an explanatory account and not causal. 'Why is this chair here, because it has to be somewhere and happens to be here' is again an explanatory account.
I am not sure as I decided to read up on him a few days ago, but I think Avicenna is aware of this distinction an the genius of his argument is that he immediately makes it about contingency and necessity. These notions are closely related to causality and a causal account. It will be missing the point of his argument to miss this crucial point.
No matter how we explain an event or an entity, he is directly asking whether they have a cause or causes. And in doing so the discussion unfolds about things that are contingent on their cause/s and things that do not have a cause.
In relation to why can’t we have 2 necessary beings; no matter how we explain each in terms of how they are what they are, the question is what explains there are 2. To say ‘there are two because there are two’ is circular, to say ‘there are two because it happens to be two’ invites the valid modal question ‘could there have been more’. The same goes for ‘if we can have one then surely we can have another for the same reason’ for that means we can have 3 or 4 or more. And that is where the problem is. If there could have been more than one then something necessitates why that number and not another number instead. What I mean is that the ones that don’t exist (say 3 and 4) could have existed and the ones that exist (1 and 2) could have not existed. Their existence all becomes contingent on something. That contingency cannot be explained in terms of ‘they exist because they exist’ as a reason. Their contingency (and this his key point) means they depend on something or some fact, and that something or fact becomes the ‘necessary being’ in the wider sense.
Interesting observation you have made about point 8. I think there is mileage in it but I don’t think this is the reason the Avicenna would have had in mind for he wouldn’t have been aware of properties of elementary material particles occupying space.
But we can nevertheless, in his defence, contest the absolute nature of space and suggest that multiple entities (such as photons as understood today) could be in the so called same quantum space and occupy, for the lack of a better world, the same space. Spatial occupation doesn’t have the same implications for such particles and they are believed to be simply indivisible particles. Even if quantum mechanics is wrong about their simplicity it isn’t too difficult to imagine the possibility of some such simple entities existing, case in point packets of energy.
The reason why your observation is interesting is because I think there might be a way to use space (conceptually or absolute) to object to some of his premises, but not about simplicity or complexity.
a. time has always existed, but it’s not quite what it seems to be
b. time is not just time, it is really a chaotic combination of infinite dimensions
c. number of these dimensions is so infinite, and they are sooo randomly mixed the whole goulash can be better described as nothing, rather than something, and it shall be called “dimension X”
d. from time to time some of the dimensions escape the chaos of the dimension X and this can manifest in various ways, some of which produce universes
e. some people in escaped dimensions think dimension X is a god, dimension X doesn’t care
It’s undeniable!
Seriously though, "dimension X" satisfies criteria from the opening post to classify as god, plus is far more plausible and is even not self-contradicting.
x=x thread? :lol:
I'm personally sceptical that anything exists of necessity, but I nevertheless think some things require no explanation.
So, take the claim - whether made by Avicenna or not - that anything that has come into being needs a cause of its coming into being.
Well, if that's true - and it certainly seems true to me - then we can conclude that some things have not come into being (for otherwise we would have an actual infinity of things-that-have-come-into-being on our hands).
But it would be to go beyond the evidence to then claim that those things that have not come into being exist of necessity. For all the argument actually establishes is that they exist uncaused.
Or take the claim that anything that exists must be made of something. Well, nothing can have an infinity of ingredients, so some things - the basic constituents of reality - must be simple. That is, they must be made of themselves alone and have no more simple ingredients.
That establishes the existence of simple things, but it would once more be to go beyond the evidence to conclude that these simple things exist 'of necessity'.
We can, it seems to me, understand that a things existence requires no explanation, without having to think that it exists of necessity.
Re two things requiring explanation - I still do not see this point. If understanding the nature of object A suffices to explain its existence, and if understanding the nature of object B similarly suffices, why would there by a question about why A and B exist?
Yes, one could ask why there are not three or four or more - but one could ask that of A alone (why is there one, rather than none?).
So I still do not see how one can get from the self-explanatory nature of an object, to its being the only one of that kind possible.
I am not attributing magic properties to God. All I am claiming is he is timeless and that is not in itself magical. And without God, we are left with an unexplainable mystery of the universe being fine-tuned (billions to one to happen by chance).
Quoting Zelebg
Something causally effective, IE intelligent, must exist before time.
But the first cause must be causally effective; able to cause an effect without itself being caused. So it must be intelligent and not just a 'simple thing'.
Quoting Bartricks
Good point, but the thing that creates time may stay outside of time. It might be diminishing of its powers to enter time.
Quoting Bartricks
God is either in time or out of time:
1. If he is eternal in time, then he has no start, no coming into being so cannot exist
2. If he is in time but there is an empty stretch of time before his coming into being then there is nothing to create him - creation ex nilhilo - which is impossible
3. That leaves just a timeless God as the only possibility.
Time cannot have always existed:
1. Assume time has always existed
2. Call the current state of the universe X
3. Then the universe has been in state X a greater than any number of times in the past
4. Absurd, so 1 is wrong - time has a start
If you have a sense of wonder, then explain it(?) Thus far, you haven't been able to explain it, have you(?)
In the context of the thread, why are you wondering about causation?
Sorry for all the questions... .
No, with god you are just making extra step and renaming mystery to "why is god fine-tuned".
Why is god fine-tuned?
You are not addressing the point. Universe is causally effective and it does not have to be intelligent to achieve that. Ok?
It’s really simple, keep everything you said about god, then just instead of saying god created the universe, say god is universe. Everyone can agree with that, and then if you want to personificate it, that’s like thinking about Earth as Gaia, is ok.
God's environment cannot be fine-tuned for life because there is no-one to do the fine tuning. So God must not need a fine-tuned environment. We are not God. We need a fine-tuned environment to exist and the universe is fine tuned.
Quoting Zelebg
No dumb mechanical system can be causally effective - there is nothing to initiate motion and even if by some impossibility there was motion, it would lead to equilibrium after a time. The fact that the universe is not and has never been in equilibrium means it is not a dumb mechanical system. There must be something self-driven (=inteligent) and permanent in the universe that has always kept it out of equilibrium. You wish to attribute this intelligence to the universe itself but as far as we can tell, the universe is a dumb mechanical system - so there must be some other source of this intelligence.
You are misinterpreting. I did not say the universe always existed, I said time always existed and universes get created from time to time.
Because there is no-one to do the fine tuning? Hmm. Take that logic and apply it directly to the universe.
I did not ask about any environment, but god itself.
Why is god fine-tuned to produce fine-tuned universe?
So you lack understanding of basic physics. I don’t have patience for that kind of ignorance. May mighty Khorons have mercy on your soul.
You are the one who is ignorant. All dumb mechanical systems tend to equilibrium:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion
If universes get created from 'time to time' naturally and time is infinite then that leads to infinite density. Back to the drawing board with that idea then.
I got carried away by your comment that physics doesn't investigate reality, which is the domain of philosophy. I cited the "x=x" thread because, to a novice philosopher, the law of identity (Leibniz's "It is what it is") seems beyond refutation and axiomatic. How can it contribute to a further understanding of reality?
I don't agree with your comment. Physics most definitely investigates reality. The fact that scientists may avoid discussions of causality simply means that by doing so they can achieve a better understanding of physical reality.
But I reacted excessively. Sorry.
How does it follow that it 'must' be an intelligence? It must be a simple thing that has the power of substance causation (substance causation being causation by a substance, rather than an event involving it). But you've made a leap by concluding that it therefore must be intelligent.
And why must it be unitary? A plethora of simple substance causes seems perhaps more reasonable than the posit of a single simple substance cause.
Quoting Devans99
I do not understand how something existent can be outside of time if time exists. But anyway, unless you rule out the possibility of the simple substance causes of time being subsequently inside time then your claim that anything inside time requires an external cause is false.
Quoting Devans99
I don't see why you think premise 1 is true. If God is a simple thing then he is uncreated, which is not the same as not existing. The simple things that are required for anything to exist are of precisely this kind - that is, they have no beginning, yet nevertheless exist.
2 is also false if God is the creator of time, for then there is no empty stretch of time before he created it.
God exists with aseity. That is, if God exists he has not been created. His nature explains his existence.
God does create time, I think. But he is not outside of it, for what he creates now applies to him, just as the writer of an autobiography is the author of a work that has him/herself as its main subject.
What we're interested in is the fundamental nature of reality - what does it consist of? Is it material or immaterial? And so on. These are not questions physicists ask. Many physicists make philosophical assumptions - as do police detectives - and then, in light of these philosophical assumptions, make pronouncements about the nature of reality (to the frustration of philosophers). But they're still not doing philosophy.
How can something cause without itself being effected? It must be self-driven. The first cause cannot be an automation because they need creating. So the first cause must be intelligent.
Quoting Bartricks
What set the plethora of simple substances is motion? There must be a first cause for that too.
Quoting Bartricks
How can something exist in time without a temporal start? Would you exist if you were not born? If something has no temporal start, it has no temporal start+1, no temporal start+2, no temporal start+2... hence it does not exist in time.
Quoting Bartricks
If God is in time, God is dead. That is the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I don't believe God would have created time if he knew it would destroy him.
'Substance causation' is causation by a substance - by a thing - rather than by an event, by a happening.
Now, some think the idea of substance causation is incoherent. But I - and you too - cannot think that, for it is precisely this possibility that stops an infinite regress of event causes.
Not everything that happens can be caused by a happening, for then one has an infinite regress of happenings. So some things that happen - including, of course, the first happenings - must be caused not by prior happenings, but by substances.
So we know from that argument that substance causation exists. That is, we now know that it is not only events that cause things - substances can as well.
But that leaves entirely open whether the substances that have this power are agents or non-agents.
You're just leaping to the conclusion that they are agents without providing a bridging argument.
No, because we're positing a plethora of 'simple' substances. Simple substances exist by their nature and are not caused to exist.
You must already accept the existence of such things, for 'God' is one. What I am saying is that you are not justified in insisting that there is just 'one' such substance. Other things being equal it seems as reasonable - if not more reasonable - to posit a plethora.
Once we are beyond time, we are beyond the familiar comfort of cause and effect. And therefore beyond the possibility of an infinite causal regress. It must be the case that something created time, but there is no meaning in ordering the event of the creation of time - it took place beyond time.
Substances are causally inert. They only do something if another substance interacts. That cannot precede back forever in an infinite regress. There must be something causally active at the base of the regress.
Quoting Bartricks
As soon as we posit a plethora and causation that leads back to a first cause.
That's false and it contradicts your own position. You think God created time - yes? Well, how did he do that if causation itself requires time (which it doesn't)?
I am not entirely sure but causation (cause precedes effect) cannot hold as we know it beyond time.
God would be able to express himself in spacetime without being part of spacetime. So maybe his first expression made spacetime. But that does not mean he is part of spacetime.
If you ask 'how does he tie his own shoelaces?' then I admit I have no answer beyond saying that the human comprehension is limited and we may not ever be able to answer such questions.
You think God created time, yes? (I agree - he did).
But you also think causation requires time - yes?
That's contradictory. That means God would be unable to create time until or unless time exists.
Causation does not require time. Time is caused to exist. So clearly causation does not require time, otherwise how could it be caused to exist?
Our sort of familiar causation (cause precedes effect) needs time.
Quoting Bartricks
We do not understand what timeless causation could mean so it is hard to answer. God's first act could have created time. But 'first' has no meaning for a timeless entity.
Does it or doesn't it? If any and all causation requires time, then God can't have caused time to exist, but instead time must be among those simple existences that have not been created.
If, on the other hand, God did create time, then causation does not require time.
It seems that some sort of atemporal causation is required to cause time but this is not the same as our familiar temporal form of causation.
We know timeless causation exists, however, for how else was time created? So, timeless causation exists.
We know that substance causation exists, for not every event can have been caused by a prior event.
And by describing God as timeless you are begging the question. God is the creator of time, and he is - now - in time.
If God is a creature of time, he is dead.
As I said earlier, bringing in 'time' into this has simply muddied the water as this discussion is showing.
The issue is to do with causation, not time. There's event causation - that's the familiar kind in which one event causes another event. But we know - know - that not all causation can be of this kind. It has nothing to do with 'time', but everything to do with the impossibility of there being actual infinities.
If all causation is by events (whether prior or concurrent) then we would have to have an actual infinity of events.
There cannot be any actual infinities of anything.
Therefore, not all causation is by events. Some of what is caused to occur must be caused to occur not by any event, but by objects - substances.
Not, note, by the object undergoing some change - that would be an event. No, 'directly'. The substance causes the event, not by means of another event, but 'directly'.
That argument establishes that there is substance causation and that such substances exist. Furthermore, as such substances cannot have been caused to exist by any prior event - for then the regress starts again - such substances must be self-existent. That is, they exist by their nature.
The only kind of object that exists by its very nature is a simple object.
Thus we can conclude that there exist some simple objects and that these simple objects are ultimately causally responsible for all else that exists.
Time doesn't come into it. We can get to that conclusion without invoking time.
But note that 'creating time' requires timeless causation - which is exactly what substance causation would be, given that it is 'events' that are essentially in time.
If God is a simple substance with the power of substance causation, then God can create time by 'substance causing' it to exist. As substance causation is not causation by an event - and it is events that are datable - this explains how God can create time.
I'm not sure how you can cause something without it being an event.
Do you think God is some sort of Boltzmann Brain? That seems impossible, the particles forming him must have been put in motion by something. Leading to another first cause. Also, the environment must be fine tuned for a Boltzmann to exist and there is no possible fine tuner (unless you introduce another first cause).
Quoting Bartricks
Maybe God is indivisible which I guess would meet your definition. Or he could be composed of parts that all exist timelessly and permantly. I am not sure which.
Then you can't run the first cause argument. If every event if caused by a prior event, then you get an infinity of events. And if you're fine with that, then you don't need God.
On the other hand, if you're not fine with that and think that there needs to be an initial cause of any chain of events, than that initial cause cannot be an event, but must be a thing.
Those who run the first cause argument typically identify that thing with God.
Not fine with that. An actual infinity of anything is impossible IMO.
Quoting Bartricks
And the initial cause must be timeless. And I don't think it is true that something from beyond spacetime could fit into spacetime. Might be like trying to get a pint into a half pint pot.
You're the one who brought God into this by identifying the first cause with God - and I questioned how you got to this conclusion.
There are a variety of ways of arriving at broadly the same or complimentary conclusions.
So, every event must have a cause. But not every event can have been caused by another event, for that leads to a regress. So, objects - substances - must be able to cause things too.
So, therefore there are some objects that cause things to occur without themselves having to have been caused to cause them.
Also, not everything that exists can have been brought into existence by something else, for once more that lands us with an actual infinity (this time of things, rather than of events).
So, therefore some things must exist by their nature.
And it clearly must be those things - the things that exist by their very nature - that are causally responsible for everything else. (Denying this once more sets one off on a regress).
So now we have established the existence of substance causation (and note, being able to understand it is not a condition of its existence - we know it exists, even if we can't understand 'how' it can). And we have also established the existence of some self-existent things.
Another argument that adds to this: anything that exists is made of something. But not everything can be made of more basic ingredients, for - once more - that sets us off on a regress. So, some things are made of themselves and nothing else. Those things are 'simples' - simple things.
Clearly simple things are self-existent, because there is nothing more basic from which they are made, and nothing more basic into which they can be destroyed.
So, there exist some simple things and they are self-existent and they have substance-caused everything else.
Such a simple thing can have caused time to exist, for time - if it has been caused to exist -must have been 'substance-caused' to exist, as event causation would require time already to be on the scene.
But if you want to show that God's existence is implied by all of this, then you need to go even further and show that a) there is only one simple substance of this kind and b) that it is a mind (and then show how the other attributes accrue to this agent).
To my mind you have not done these last tasks. You have not provided any reason to think the simple existences that must exist must in fact number 1 and no more. And you have not provided any reason to think that this one simple existence must be a mind. And then there are the other attributes - why would it be omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent?
No, if - if - time has been created, then its cause will be a substance, not an event. Why? Because events happen in time.
But it is simply false that the initial cause must be timeless - for as I've stressed above, what stops it from being in time upon creating it? Nothing. indeed, it is the reverse - its remaining outside of time despite having created it - that seems incomprehensible.
So I think this talk of 'timelessness' is unhelpful. That which causes time would not be 'outside' time prior to creating it, because there's nothing there for it to be outside of. And upon creating it, it would be in it, not out of it. So it's not helpful - it's confusing (despite the popularity of such talk).
I mean, imagine I dig a cave. Now, prior to digging the cave, was I 'outside of the cave'? No, the cave didn't exist. When I dug the cave was I outside of the cave? No, I was in it - my creating it put me in it.
Why are you certain of this? Because that's the way the world works now?
It's a self-evident truth of reason that every event has a cause. It's why we have disciplines that look into the causes of things.
We were talking about the beginning, your statement is about ending. And in the meantime dumb mechanical systems tend to aggregate into things like this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology
Dear god! So first you confused big bang with the heath death of the universe, which you then confused with perpetual motion. Triple confusion, you win!!
Why is god fine-tuned to produce fine-tuned universe?
And the reverse - can something that exists, cease to exist altogether? I mean, can it literally disappear?
I think the answers to those questions is obvious - as obvious as the answer to "does 2 + 1 = 3?" . The answers are 'no' and 'no'.
Something cannot come out of nothing. So if anything exists, some things exist with aseity. And those things that exist with aseity will never go out of existence.
Let me anticipate your answer: physicists say otherwise and what physicists say is true even though they're talking outside their areas of expertise when they say such things....but physics, yay!!
Hence, a thought you hold true must always be reflected in nature. Metaphysical actuality.
Er, no. But if my reason and the reason of others represents something to be the case, that is the best and only possible evidence we can ever have that it 'is' the case.
Now, my reason - and the reason of many, many others - represents it to be a truth of Reason that every event has a cause.
That's good evidence - and I stress, the best and only evidence we can ever have of anything - that every event has a cause.
You could simply deny that every event has a cause because you don't like the thesis in question (pehaps because accepting it would lead to conclusions you don't favour). But then you are deciding how things are with reality rather than following evidence, yes? You'd be guilty of following 'you' rather than following Reason - and what's the point in that?
Or you could try and find other equally or more self-evident apparent truths of Reason with which this one appears to conflict - that is what a philosopher would do. If you do that, I'll happily change my position.
So, again: when something happens, do you wonder what caused it?
And again: can something come out of nothing?
Can something completely disappear?
Hi
It is so difficult to juggle between a demanding day job and a philosophical pursuit after work. I was up t 5am doing my research believe it or not :) and then off to work few hours later :( :(? ?
Going to back to your comments:
I do apologise I wasn’t initially clear about what you meant by ‘self-explanatory’ but I think I now understand what you mean. And I also agree with you that there is often a conflation between something existing necessarily and some necessary existent.
It is like saying ‘if every house has a foundation, and this is a house, then there exist a foundation necessarily’ which doesn’t mean ‘there is a necessary foundation that cannot fail but to exist’. So far I agree.
I confess I haven’t had much time to properly reflect on this topic as my research is about something else (fortunately all philosophy is in some related) but if we carry a line of enquiry, independent of what Avicenna had said, we may perhaps be able to reach the below. Before I start let me say I don’t claim to have conclusive answers and my hope is to outline some possible options and possible lines of enquiry in favour of yesterday’s argument.
Here we go:
The first premise is the key premise which we often take as uncontested and elf-evident. And that premise states ‘every event has a cause’ or that ‘every event is dependent on some other event to bring it about’ including the event of an object coming into being and the position/state of that object, the how it is and what it is.
This premise maybe contested and requires an enquiry of its own. But I take it that most of us are willing to accept as a truism and I take it to be so here for the sake of our argument.
But as a side note I would say that we associate the ‘coming into being of anything’ with some force or energy. If something, an event or an object, was to come into being it would need some force to bring it about, which also applies to force itself which means force itself (energy) cannot just come into being without some force to initiate it (whatever that could mean). In explaining the Big Bang it is suggested (as a part of one of physics unknowns) that energy seem to enter the universe accelerating its expansion. But that doesn’t mean energy is created from nothing as it also could mean that the energy is coming from an unknown system into a known system, from outside of our universe into our universe, it doesn’t mean it was created from nothing. Unless of course we circumvent all this and say energy is neither created nor destroyed which then gives us a candidate for some uncaused being, namely force or energy. As I said this is a much bigger discussion that needs a more in-depth enquiry and research and I might be conflating force with energy here.
So for the sake of argument let us start with the premise, calls it P1, that ‘every event has at least one cause’ and see which conclusions this gives us. I have added ‘at least one cause’ to open the possibility of multiple necessary existents.
Now, although we have accepted that every event has at least one cause, we haven’t however conceded that every cause is an event. This option is still on the table, and it wouldn’t contradict P1 if we were to establish the existence of some non-events which were uncaused. It wouldn’t contradict P1 because all that P1 implied was about events, not non-events.
Also what we so far have from yesterday’s comments, is that if every event has at least one cause then we will have an infinite causal chain.
We then took the chain to be a set of all things caused and called it the contingent set.
Following our own enquiry we can then ask if the set itself is contingent (dependent on one cause or more) or not.
Now, if we take the set of all things contingent as one event, for simplicity, we can then refer to P1 and deduce that it must have a cause. But if its cause is an event than it is itself contingent (dependent on a cause) and belongs to the set.
For the cause of the set not to be contingent we can say it could be a non-event sitting outside of the set which itself wasn’t caused (since it is not an event) which caused and brought about the set.
This we called the necessary existent by which we meant something non-contingent.
So far is the summary of what we said before.
The valid point you made earlier is that just because the existence of something is necessary it doesn’t mean it is some necessary existence.
What this means is that ‘even if the house demands the existence of some foundation it doesn’t some foundation exists such that it cannot fail to exist’. This means we can easily imagine a world without the house and hence without the foundation.
This much is true. But as a reply I think we can say the following:
Given that there is a house in this world we can then conclude that there necessary exists a foundation in this world.
Meaning; given there is a world of events, we can conclude that in this world there necessary exists some non-contingent being. In other words given there is a world of events it is necessary that such an entity exists.
This should not be confused with the statement that ‘this non-contingent being is in fact contingent on there being a world of events’. This would be some strange backward causation meaning the non-contingent being is caused by the events which itself caused. No, what we mean by “given there is a world of events” is that we have reason to conclude “it is necessary that such an entity exists” given the original premise P1.
Sure, in a world where there are no events such a non-contingent being can easily not exist, but all that this statement says is that where there is nothing then nothing brought it about, which is the same as saying in a no-world there are no necessary being/s. I say no-world because an eventless world could be argued to be an empty world and as such no world at all. For how else could we descriptively discern a world that doesn’t exist from a world that has nothing inside it including the very notion of ‘inside’. This means the notion of necessary being/s applies to worlds that exist and not to worlds that do not exist. And I think this is a somewhat acceptable point for an argument in favour of the existence of the necessary being.
Sure in maths we can have empty sets but some mathematical talks are just abstract and not applicable to the real world.
(Remember as I said earlier I don’t claim to have conclusive answers but I think what we have so far is some path for a possible argument in favour of an Avicenna type argument)
OK, so from what we have so far we need to move onto why this non-contingent being needs to be unique and one in number.
Yesterday we also agreed this this thing must be simple and non-composite, so at least one in nature if not yet agreed to be one in number. That was agreed so because if it had parts it would be contingent on its parts. We then arrived at a simple definition.
You then commented then whatever explains this thing, meaning however we explain it in itself (its definition), then we can explain another in the same way. In summary whatever definition we give to the non-contingent being it can have multiple instances where each is explained in the same way. (This is what I think you meant but I might have misunderstood you)
If my understanding is correct then what we can say as a possible response is the following:
If the descriptions of some beings are exactly the same and are completely indiscernible then they could be argued to be the same thing, same as in one in number. So an argument can be made that if multiple objects are ‘qualitatively and descriptively’ truly identical then they are numerically identical too. For there would be no way to discern one from the other, implying all we have is just one thing after all. If we don’t agree to this then what we are saying is that single and multiple are descriptively and qualitatively the same which is a contradiction, unless we are going to radically change the concepts of ‘single’ and ‘multiple’.
In quantum mechanics some elementary particles are believed to be identical such that they may even occupy the same space. But in these cases is not true that they are completely indiscernible, because these particles have different trajectories and come together from different positions and, more importantly, have some combined effect different than each separately (such as wave interference even though they are not interacting) all of which offer us some justification as to why we say we have multiple photons while they are co-occupying the same space. All this means they are not truly and completely indiscernible. Granted the phrase ‘occupying the same space’ doesn’t really apply to photons but I use it for a lack of a better notion. All that matters is that photons pass through one another ‘not interacting’ and during that moment they are indiscernible and all we have is some combined effect.
In the case of the non-contingent beings it could be argued that unlike photons they are outside of time and space which too belong to the set, and as such the non-contingent beings are truly and completely indiscernible which would mean they are just one and the same thing; numerically one.
Most of the above needs tidying up but hopefully it gives food for thought.
Ah, I didn't do that - I didn't call it 'contingent' (that would be the point at which the conflation occurs - the conflation I was warning against). For we then have these troublesome and distracting notions of contingency and necessity getting in the way (or being used in ways that will confuse).
If every event has a cause - and we are taking that to be self-evidently true - then because there cannot be an actual infinity of events, we must conclude that some events are not caused by events, but by substances.
We do not need to talk about contingency and necessity to get to this conclusion. I have reached it without invoking those concepts. All that is needed is the self-evident truth that all events have a cause, the self-evident truth that there are some events, and the self-evident truth that there cannot be an actual infinity of anything. Those claims are sufficient to get us to the conclusion that some events are substance-caused, rather than event-caused.
Whether any particular substance that does the causing exists of necessity, or does the causing of necessity, is really neither here nor there, so far as I can tell anyway. For I do not have to claim that all 'continent' events require a cause - just all events - or that all substances that cause things exist of necessity (just 'exist' is sufficient).
Quoting Miles
Like I say, I do not think that's true. These terms 'necessary' and 'contingent' have just appeared at a certain point - I did not introduce them - and they seem to be referring not to actual necessity and contingency, but to other things. So, what you are calling 'contingent' are 'events'. But 'contingent' doesn't mean 'events' or 'set of all events' or whatever. And what you are calling 'necessary' are the substances that exist and are the ultimate causes of all events. But that is a strange use of the word 'necessary'. So again, I think what's happening is that completely different notions are being conflated.
If there are events, those events have causes. It doesn't matter whether the events are occurring contingently or of necessity - the same applies either way.
And there are no actual infinities of anything, so if there are events then ultimately their causal chains must trace to instances of substance causation, not event causation.
Again, no mention of contingency or necessity - for what I have just said is true regardless of whether the events are occurring contingently or of necessity.
And the substances that are doing the causing exist. That follows, but what does not follow is that they exist necessarily.
Quoting Miles
That, I think, does not follow. Here's what follows given my assumptions (those being 'every event has a cause' and 'there is no actual infinity of anything'). Given there are events, we can conclude that in this world there are substance causes. That is, there are substances and some of these substances cause events. Whether these substances exist of necessity or not is not something we can conclude from this argument. You are, it seems to me, committing the very mistake you highlighted earlier. You are going from 'given X, Y must exist" to "Y exists of necessity". Given that there are events, substance-causes must exist. But it does not follow from this that the substances in question exist necessarily.
So, in my view all of these things can be established:
There are substance-causes
The substance causes are simple
The substance causes are self-explanatory.
But I do not think any of that entails that they exist of necessity.
Quoting Miles
Because I do not want my view conflated with similar-sounding but distinct views - views I would not defend - I must take issue with what you've just said.
My argument for the actual existence of simple things is not that complex things are contingent. I have not made such a claim.
My argument is this: anything that exists must be made of something. But nothing can have infinite ingredients. So, some things that exist must be made of themselves and nothing else. Those things will be simple things - for that's just what a simple thing is. A simple thing is something made of itself and nothing else.
Simple things will not be material things. For material things are extended in space and anything that is extended in space is divisible and is thus composite.
So, simple things are immaterial. That is, they lack extension.
I have arrived at these conclusions without mention of contingency. Everything I have said holds true even if the complex things exist of necessity. So contingency and necessity are not the issue.
The existence of a simple thing is self-explanatory. Why? Because once we truly appreciate that we are talking about a simple thing, it's existence is explained. For instance, we cannot ask "what brought it into being?" for this thing, being simple, is not made of anything and thus is not the kind of thing that can be constructed. And we cannot sensibly ask "why does it continue to exist?" for again, being simple, there is nothing into which it can be deconstructed.
Thus, the nature of simple things explains their existence at least in so far as continuing to ask about their existence does no more than betoken a lack of understanding on the part of the questioner.
It is a short step from here to the conclusion that the substances that exist and are causally responsible for all else must be among these simple things. For the substances that exist and are causally responsible for all else clearly cannot themselves have been created, for that would set us off on the very regress that positing them was meant to stop. So, the substances that exist and are causally responsible for all else are uncreated things.
Well, the uncreated things are the simple things. For it is simple things alone whose existence is self-explanatory, and thus simple things alone that do not raise the question "what caused it to exist?"
Simple things exist. And simple things - some of them, anyway - are causally responsible for the existence of all else.
Thanks for the reply at this late hour. I must say at first glance I cannot see where you are substantially disagreeing with me apart from a couple of points which I address below:
The use of contingency and necessary is the following: contingent just means dependent on a causes/s. Necessary comes in because a set of an ‘actual’ caused event makes it necessary that some non-event/s caused them. Not that it is a necessary non-event (which is the conflation I eluded to earlier). But given we have an actual set of caused event it followed they were causes by some non-event/s. necessarily. No other option about because we have the set of caused things that demands such a being.
Put differently; you cannot both confirm that ‘if we have a house, we will have a foundation’ and deny ‘we have a house therefore we necessarily have a foundation’. This as I said doesn’t say ‘we have a necessary foundation’. It just says given we have a house, and given our own claim that all houses have a foundation, then we cannot fail but to have a foundation.
I agree with you, we can drop the notions of contingency and necessary and just talk about caused and un-caused, but then something goes missing when we want to say ‘now given we have a house it means we necessarily have a foundation’. Whether you like the terms or not, talk of necessity means given the world of events means we ‘cannot fail’ but to have a non-event causing it, meaning it is necessary that this is to in this world. Now, you can switch ‘necessary’ with ‘cannot fail’, I have no issue with that but both mean the same thing. You pick.
Then to say ‘some substances’ meaning multiple just begs the question as we have outlined a possible argument why it needs to be one in number and not multiples.
There are certain possible objections to the argument I have presented and I don’t think it is valid, but not as you stated them above.
I think, perhaps, we are just using these terms differently. I would not use 'contingent' to mean that, for that rules out the possibility of deterministic causation. In a deterministic universe every event that occurs is necessary, yet it's occurrence depends on causes.
I would not talk of caused and uncaused, but of 'event-caused' and 'substance-caused'. Event causation can be indeterministic or deterministic, and I take it that the same would be true of substance causation too. Hence why I think it just confuses matters to keep talking of contingency and necessity.
So, the first-cause argument establishes not the existence of some 'necessary' existent, but the existence of a substance-cause or causes.
Quoting Miles
I suggest we drop all talk of necessity and its cognates, just to see if that's (ahem) possible. Obviously I am guilty of sometimes using such terms for convenience, but as I don't think anything - anything at all - is necessary (a view I hold tentatively and will drop at a moment's notice if it becomes incoherent), let's just say that something 'is' the case, rather than 'must' be.
So, if I am being tediously accurate, I would not that every event 'must' have a cause, but that every event 'does' have a cause. And I would say not that if events exist, some substance causes 'must' exist, but that if events exist, then some substance causes 'do' exist, and so on. Whether it is possible to talk this way throughout, I am not sure. But it seems to me to be an interesting experiment.
I do agree with you that these terms are toxic.
My main point however is that it is unavoidable to say ‘there must be’. As I said before if we agree all houses have foundations, and then also agree we do in fact and actually have a house, then it follows, unavoidably, that there must be a foundation. It is working the problem backward.
Basically what we are saying is that ‘given we have some current conditions, and given these conditions depend on an X then it means we must have an X since our current conditions demands it’. It doesn’t mean the X is some necessary being that would exist even if conditions where different, which would the conflation you and I agree on. Which would be equal to saying ‘we don’t have a house but must have a foundation’. This is not what we are saying.
And I do appreciate you reaching some of the conclusions, such as simplicity, in your own way rather than echoing other people’s views. I applaud that and this is how it actually should be.
These debated are very enjoyable and helpful to me. I hope to you and others too.
Speak soon
I agree we should take phenomenological views out of the matter, because what everyone is stating is metaphysical. Another thing, let's clean up the semantics and terminology. The main standpoints that everyone is taking is too vague to be effective. t.
Immanence- Are the causal relata immanent, or transcendent? That is, are they concrete and located in spacetime, or abstract and non-spatiotemporal?
This question is connected to the question of category. If the relata are transcendent, then they are facts. If they are immanent, then they are events, or one of the other candidates such as features, tropes, or situations.
In practice, one finds two main arguments on the question of immanence. First, there is the argument from pushing, which maintains that the relata must be immanent so as to push things around. Second, there is the argument from absences, which maintains that the relata must be transcendent so that absences can figure in causal relations.
Pushing: The main argument for immanence is that only immanent entities can interact. This argument is nicely summarized by one of its opponents, Bennett: “Some people have objected that facts are not the sort of item that can cause anything. A fact is a true proposition (they say); it is not something in the world but is rather something about the world, which makes it categorically wrong for the role of a puller and shover and twister and bender.” (1988, p. 22; see also Hausman 1998) According to the pushing argument, only concrete spatiotemporal entities can be causes and effects.
These substances that youre talking about have anything to do with, the gaps in cause and effect possibilties?
Absences: The main argument for transcendence is that absences can be involved in causal relations. Absences are said to be transcendent entities. They are nothings, non-occurrences, and hence are not in the world. Thus Mellor says, “For the ‘C’ and ‘E’ in a true causal ‘E because C’ need not assert the existence of particulars. They may deny it… They are negative existential statements, made true by the non-existence of such particulars,… Here Mellor is arguing that, in the case where rock-climbing Don does not die because he does not fall, Don's non-falling and non-dying are causally related, without there being any events or other immanent entities to relate.
I would guess not, but I am not certain. Zen has quite a bit to say about no-thingness.
Truth is logical, semantical and mathematical, while empirical observations only have statistical certainty. Just because we have not seen it doesn’t prove it can not be, otherwise not so many people would still believe in gods.
Things materializing from another dimension that is normally not part of our universe would appear to come out of nothing, for no reason and without a cause. On the other hand, to exit out of time is to exist never and to be unable to act, which is not only not observed, it is semantic self-contradiction and fallacy in itself to begin with.
1. Assume that a substance has existed forever in spacetime
2. Then it has no temporal start point
3. If it has no temporal start point, it has no temporal start point + 1
4. If it has no temporal point n, it has no temporal point n+1
5. So it does not exist
6. So nothing can exist forever in spacetime
7. So God cannot be immanent within spacetime.
Quoting Zelebg
Just because we only have experience of existence within time, does not mean that atemporal existence is impossible, it is just something that we are not familiar with.
Your logic circuit is malfunctioning. I repeat what I said, try to read it again.
0 = -x + x
This means two things, and it is actually not quite “something comes out of nothing”. I’ll explain in a separate thread…
I do not think it is unavoidable - not at the moment - for we can just replace every 'must be' with 'is'. So, let's agree that all houses have foundations (not that they 'must', but just that they do), and also agree that what is in front of us is a house, then we conclude that this house has a foundation. Not that it 'must' but just that it 'does'. You say it 'must', I say it 'does' - but we both believe equally confidently that it has a foundation.
And rather than saying of this argument:
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
that the conclusion 'must' be true if the premises are, we say instead that the conclusion 'is' true if the premises are.
So I think we can dispense with all talk of necessity with no real loss.
In light of this, I think my arguments show that the following is true (not that it 'must' be true, just that it is in fact true):
Substance-causation is a reality. Some simple substances - at least one, but perhaps more - exist and are the ultimate cause or causes of all else.
Some simple substances exist. They have not been caused to exist, and they are going to continue to exist (conclusions we can reach by just reflecting on their natures). But we can resist adding that they 'must' exist and 'must' continue to exist.
I do not deny that we have apparent evidence of necessity - many of our rational intuitions represent some truths not just to be true, but necessarily to be true. My point is just that the 'necessarily' doesn't really add anything and we can dispense with it.
I do not think that's true. My standpoint is not vague. Nor am I using excessive terminology or using it oddly.
By contrast, you are doing precisely this.
Quoting BrandonMcDade
What are the words 'immanent' and 'transcendent' adding apart from confusion? Also you seem to be confused. I use the term 'material' to refer to an object that is extended in space, and 'immaterial' to refer to an object that is not. But immaterial objects are - or can be - as concrete as any other. Indeed, if anything it is material objects whose concreteness is questionable.
My mind, for instance, appears to be an immaterial object, for it seems to make no sense to wonder what shape, size or colour it has, and my reason represents my mind to be something that is not divisible (which it would not be if it was extended in space). So, my mind gives every appearance of being immaterial. Yet it is as 'concrete' as you like, for it exists with total certainty.
Quoting BrandonMcDade
And again, how is this making matters clearer? It is an odd way of expressing a familiar argument - the argument from first causes.
Events have causes. But if all events have events as their causes, then there is an actual infinity of events. But there is no actual infinity of events. Therefore, not all events have events as their causes. Some events are caused by substances - that is, by objects.
In this simple way we arrive at the conclusion that there are objects that cause events - and are the ultimate causal originators of any and all causal chains.
Note, no mention was made of materiality or immateriality. The same argument could be run whether one is a materialist or immaterialist.
Obviously I think that materialism ultimately does not survive Reason's cold hard stare, but the first-cause argument does not presuppose materialism or immaterialism as its premises are compatible with both.
I do not know what you mean. By a 'substance' I just mean a thing - something that has properties. But I don't know what you mean by 'gaps in cause and effect possibilities'.
My arguments are what they are and I have 5.
The first - a version of the first-cause argument - notes that events have causes. So, if there is an event, then that event has a cause.
Events themselves seem to cause other events. However, not all events can have other events as their cause, for that would set us off on an infinite regress.
Conclusion: some events are caused by substances - by objects - rather than by events involving objects.
The second - which I suppose we might call the mereological argument - notes that things that exist are composed of something. However, if everything that exists is composed of things simpler than itself - that is, if everything that exists has more than one ingredient - then we will be off on an infinite regress of ingredients. Thus, it would seem that some things that exist must be composed of nothing simpler than themselves - that is, they must have no ingredients, but are simple things lacking parts.
The third explores the implications of the second. We know from the second that some substances - some objects - are simple. But material objects are divisible and thus not simple. Thus, the simple objects whose existence the second argument has established, are immaterial objects.
The fourth, like the third above, also explores the implications of the second. Because simple objects have no parts, there is nothing from which they can be created, and nothing into which they can be deconstructed. Thus, a simple object is not the kind of thing that has been created, nor is it the kind of thing that is destructible.
The fifth unifies these arguments. We know that causal chains terminate with substances - that is, the first cause of any and all causal chains is a substance, not an event. These substances are not themselves caused to exist, for that would restart the regress they were invoked to stop. Thus, these substances are self-existent - that is, they have not been created, but exist by their nature. We know from arguments 2, 3 and 4 what these self-existence substances are. They are the simple, immaterial things from which all else is constructed. For nothing else fills the role the first argument created.
Doesn't your reason - your faculty of reason - tell you that nothing comes from nothing?
Doesn't your reason tell you that if something happens, there was a cause of its happening?
Forget how certain you can be of the truth of these representations - they do appear to be true, yes? I mean, the reason of virtually everyone says the same thing about these matters which is why you find this kind of argument - a first cause arugment - being discussed and found persuasive throughout history.
Now, are these representations actually true? Well, what grounds do you have for doubting them? That it is 'possible' they're false? Well, it is far more likely they're true. I mean, it is possible the moon landings were faked, but that's not good evidence they were faked. It is possible you killed Kennedy. That's not good evidence you did.
Perhaps your grounds are that you think physics is philosophy and that only physics is studying reality and anything and everything the majority of physists say - regardless of whether it is about physics or philosophy - is true and you've heard some physicists say "something comes out of nothing".
Well, then you're just confused about what physicists do and what authority to accord a physicist's statement when it is about something outside of their bailiwick.
Perhaps you think it is not true because its truth conflicts with something 'Zen' says. Well, then you have faith in Zen rather than Reason - a faith based on nothing more than your own conviction rather than evidence. That is, you put yourself above Reason, which is foolish given you don't know everything (whereas Reason does).
So, anyway, I wait to hear on what rational basis you doubt the deliverances of your - and virtually everyone else's - reason on this matter.
Hi and thanks for the reply but your argument is invalid my friend, for the following reason;
When we exclude ‘must’ it means what ‘is’ just happens to be that way but could have been different.
But with regards to a chain of events having a non-event cause, we did not conclude ‘it happens to have a non-event cause’ meaning it could have not had such an initiating cause. What we said is that such an infinite chain 'must' end in a non-event initial cause.
This mean given the fact that we have such a set it means we must have a non-event cause, meaning given the current state of affairs it is necessary that there is a non-event cause (corresponding to the current world).
In deductive reasoning if the conclusion was not the necessary conclusion of the premises then in wouldn’t be much use. The conclusion is in fact a ‘must’, given the initial premises.
And I repeat this doesn't mean 'such a non-event cause is a necessary existent' (which is the point you are consistently taking an issue with. We are not making such a conflation, all we are doing is working backward given the current state of affairs not the other way around (in other words given the initial premises of a deductive argument). We are not saying we must have such a non-event initial cause even if this set didn’t exist.
It is as simple as that and I don't think I can explain it any clearer.
Unless we are willing to concede that such a causal chain could very well have had a non-event cause, which would result in an infinite regress, the very point we had initially denied with the introduction of the non-event cause.
You can of course now do a U-turn and assert that such a chain doesn’t need to have an initial non-event cause, but this means you have to revise your entire argument and present an argument for how such a chain can ‘in principle’ have a non-event initial cause avoiding the infinite regress.
Regards
Miles
But anyway, my argument is not invalid. It is not me, but others who have introduced necessity and contingency. I haven't mentioned them, except to warn against conflating other things with them.
So, my version of the first cause argument goes as follows. Every event has a cause. I don't think that has to be true. But I think it 'is' true.
There is no actual infinity of anything. Again, I do not think that has to be true, but I think it is true - I am completely certain of it (so certain that I often express this by saying that it 'must' be true).
It follows from this that some events have causes that are not events. It does not 'have' to follow, but it does actually follow. All actual events have causes, and there is not actually an infinity of causes. Thus, some events have causes that are not events.
Every claim there is contingent. Certainly true, but also contingently true - but no less true for that.
Likewise for my other arguments. In each case, take the assumptions to be claims that I think are true, but assume that I do not think they 'must' be. And take ever claim about a conclusion 'following' to be the claim that it 'actually' follows, not that it 'must' follow. They work just as well. For 'true' and 'necessarily true' don't denote a difference in truth. And it is truth that matters, truth that explains.
It seems to me that you are thinking that until or unless we say 'must be so' we have no really explained why something is the case. I think that's demonstrably false, precisely because we can explain why there are in fact some substances that are simple, that have not been created and that are causally responsible for the existence of all else, and we can explain these things without ever having to say 'must'.
That's the conventional definition of a deductive argument, I grant you. And defined that way, I don't believe there are any deductively valid arguments. But what's in a word?
My reason says of some arguments that if their premises are true, then their conclusions are too. It says it of this argument, for instance:
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
I express this by saying that the argument is 'valid'. But why do I need to think that its conclusion 'must' be true? I draw the conclusion, and I am confident - as confident as anyone else, I am sure - that Q is the case, given that 1 and 2 are - yet I do not think it must be true. I do not think 3 must follow from 1 and 2, but I believe no less confidently than you that it does, in fact, follow from 1 and 2.
For an analogy - it is common to confuse causation with deterministic causation. That is, to think that if an event has been caused, it has been determined to occur. This is a mistake. There can be indeterministic causation. An event that has been indeterministically caused has been no less caused than one that has been determined. It isn't that we're dealing with causation in one case, and a lack of it in the other. No, we have causation in both, it is just that in one the caustation necessitated the event, in the other it did not.
It seems to me that we have something analogous going on here. I am saying that valid arguments - or, if you want to build 'necessity' into the definition of valid, then 'arguments of the kind just mentioned above' - are contingently valid. You are saying that they are necessarily valid. But we both think they're valid - we both think their conclusions are true if the premises are, and their conclusions will be true either way. They're no less true for being contingently true.
Quoting Miles
How so? I am using them, even though I do not believe their conclusions 'have' to follow. It is sufficient for them to be useful that their conclusions do, in fact, follow.
Look, forget everything else, matters in this argument are far simpler than this based on basic rules of deduction. You are right, deductive arguments can be sound but not valid, but this is why we have the crucial ‘if’ which enforces a ‘conditional’ validity.
Premise 1 (given the crucial ‘if’) offers a universal premise such as ‘if all Ps are Qs’ (which of course can be contested to be false).
Premise 2, or the middle premise, makes another ‘if’ observation (where the ‘if’ is often omitted) that ‘if some X is in fact P’ (not that it must be P but that we assume it to be P) which again can be contested not to be a true observation.
The conclusion then follows that ‘X is therefore Q’ (given that we take the first two premises to be true).
The characteristic of the conclusion is different that P1 and P2. The ‘therefore’ in the conclusion just means ‘X cannot fail but to Q’ if we have accepted the validity of P1 and P2.
The conclusion isn’t, unlike, premise 2, an observation stating what some X ‘could’ be. It is a conclusion telling us what it ‘needs’ to be, given we have accepted the validity of premise 1 and 2 (presumptions which can be objected to).
This means, X, independent and outside of premises 1 & 2, ‘could’ in fact be an S in a world where either P1 or P2, or both are not true. So the only way where X can fail to be Q is where one or both of the initial premises do not prevail.
So to deny that X cannot fail but to be Q we must first deny P1 or P2 or both (which we are allowed to do and I have said that all along).
Please remember:
The conclusion of such a deductive argument, although necessary true, isn’t some necessary truth. That much we both agree on. It is a contingent truth as you say, but contingent on P1 and P2. Meaning it is necessarily true ‘if’ we accept P1 and P2. Which, as I stated, can either or both be contested.
Nowhere did I say the conclusion is a ‘necessary truth’ regardless of the validity of either P1 or P2 or both. But you insist on claiming that I am guilty of committing this conflation which I have demonstrated repeatedly not to be the case.
All I have said is ‘if’ we accept P1 and P2 then the conclusion cannot fail to be what we have stated it to be.
And as far as translating this to our argument is concerned we can break it down as such with the crucial ‘if’:
P1: ‘If’ all causal chains must be caused by some non-caused cause,
P2: And if our world is in fact a causal chain,
C: Therefore our world cannot fail but to be caused by some non-caused cause.
The only path to avoid the conclusion is to object either to P1 or P2 or both.
This is the only thing we need to focus on to reject the argument. So let’s keep the focus on this.
So we must present at least one arguments to weaken the universality of P1, and at least one argument to weaken the observation made in P2.
And I do in fact think there is a way to make one such decisive objection.
That wasn't my point - I accept, of course, that arguments can be sound but not valid and valid but not sound, but my point was that we do not need the notion of necessity to make sense of what the validity of valid arguments consists of.
Quoting Miles
It doesn't have to mean that. I don't accept that necessity exists, yet I can still distinguish between the conclusion and the premises and make sense of what the 'therefore' means.
Let me clarify what I take rules of logic to be. They are prescriptions. Prescriptions of Reason.
Let's forget them for a moment and focus instead on my prescriptions. Let's say I give my partner a shopping list and on it I write "If they have mars bars, then buy me some". What does it mean? Does it mean that if they have mars bars she 'must' buy me some in some metaphysical sense of that term? That it is now 'necessarily' the case that she will buy me some? No, obviously not. It just expresses a desire on my part - a desire for mars bars.
Now return to the laws of logic. They too are prescriptions. It is just that they are prescriptions of Reason, not of me. And some of them say "If a premise of this form is true, and if a premise of this form is true, then believe that this conclusion is true". In fact, of course, they often say something stronger, namely "then this conclusion 'must' be true", but that 'must' is, I think, operating expressively, just as mine would be if I wrote on the shopping list - as well I might - "if they have mars bars, you 'must' buy me some!". Anyway, clearly prescriptions of this kind are the kind that define valid arguments.
So, when it comes to arguments like this:
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
my reason tells me that if the premises are true, then I am to believe the conclusion is true. I am instructed to do so - told that the conclusion will be true if the premises are. But that does not mean that the conclusion is 'necessarily' true. It just means Reason is adamant the conclusion is true if those premises are, just as I am adamant that my partner should buy me some mars bars if the shop is stocking them.
Compare this to this kind of a claim: "if there are some mars bars in the shop, maybe buy me some" or "if the premises are true, then the conclusion probably is". Well, there's no strong conviction being expressed there.
So about some things Reason is quite certain - she says "If the premises of the above argument are true, then the conclusion certainly is" - and about some other things she is not as certain.
So what you take to be a relation of necessity, I take simply to be Reason expressing her certainty. And anytime you invoke necessity, I will deny it is needed and take it to mean instead that Reason is expressing her certainty that something is the case, or expressing her strong desire that we believe it. And that enables me to distinguish what needs to be distinguished without having to saddle myself with the troublesome notion of metaphysical necessity - a notion that, I believe, we have come by simply by taking Reason too literally.
I am not in danger of forgetting this, but it is not the point I am making. I am denying that making sense of deductive arguments requires invoking necessity. I think it is contingently true that the conclusions of sound arguments are true.
So, to be clear, my claim is that anything you distinguish I can distinguish too without invoking necessity. For our evidence that there is necessity in the world is that our reason represents there to be. But those representations should not be taken literally. Instead, what we have is not actual necessity, but conviction and strong desire (albeit on Reason's part, not ours).
What's the difference between a conclusion that is entailed and one that is merely made likely true? Well the conclusion that is entailed is one Reason is now certain is true, or categorically wants us to believe, whereas the conclusion that is merely made likely is one that Reason thinks is now probably true, or to some extent wants us to believe. (I do not mean that Reason is certain 'because' it is entailed - no, I mean the entailment is no more or less than Reason expressing her certainty....so 'what it is' for a proposition to be entailed by others is for those others to be making Reason certain that it is true).
So, just to be clear, although I accept that it is indeed a fallacy to go from thinking that if all houses have foundations, and this is a house, then necessarily it has a foundation to thinking that therefore foundations exist of necessity, that is not the point I am making here. You seem to think that is the point I am making, but it is not.
I am denying that necessity exists and denying that we have to invoke it to make sense of what needs to be made sense of - denying that we need to invoke it to be able to distinguish the valid from the invalid.
Well, I agree that all of this necessity talk is by-the-by, interesting though it is, as we both accept that this argument's conclusion is true if the premises are:
1. If every event has a cause, then some events are substance-caused
2. Every event has a cause
3. therefore some events are substance-caused
It really doesn't matter that I think the argument is contingently sound. I think the premises are true and I think the conclusion is therefore true. And if you can give me reason to doubt a premise then I will cease to be so sure the conclusion is true.
Is reason axiomatic? How do you think it develops or arises in the human mind? Can it change as a culture changes?
I don't practice Zen. Look it up on Wikipedia.
A. Ultimately, God's first action (be that creation of spacetime or whatever) has to be uncaused. So this action counts as an event and it has no cause. So you terms, think of the substance moving on its own with no prior reason; this is not caused by the substance, it simply has no cause.
B. I do not see that you have proved substance causation; God could be composed of parts that all exist timelessly.
C. I feel it is remiss to leave out the start of time from such arguments as it has a pivotal role.
It won't be uncaused - if there can be events that are uncaused, then we do not need to posit God, we can just say that some events just occur uncaused. So God's first action is caused, it is just that it is caused by God the object, rather than by some event.
Quoting Devans99
I do not follow you. You mentioned God, not me - I don't think the first cause argument can get you all the way to God.
What the first cause argument does is demonstrate the existence of substance causation. If there are any events - and clearly there are - then there are substance causes, because all causal chains are going ultimately to trave to such causes.
That has been established by it following from these claims: every event has a cause; there is no actual infinity of events; there are some events.
Quoting Devans99
No it doesn't, as I've just shown. We can run the argument without having to mention time. Time throws up a host of philosophical problems so introducing it into the argument does nothing but make matters an order of magnitude more complex than they need to be.
Then why did you mention Zen? If neither you nor I know anything about it, why mention it as if it had some importance? And why would I look it up on Wikipedia? A) I am not remotely interested in it (you - you - mentioned it) and B) Wikipedia is unreliable and not peer reviewed.
Quoting jgill
No. Note sure. Yes.
IE no substance can exist forever in time - it would have no temporal start.
But as I've already argued, that's false by your own lights - God, having created time, would exist in it, yet God is uncaused.
You could insist that God does not exist in time, but you'd need an argument to show that. And so far as I can tell, your only argument is that he created it. But that fails because creating something does not preclude one from being in it. I create a cave, I am in a cave.
My friend you are making an error precisely related to what makes an argument either valid or sound, or both. This is exactly where soundness vs validity comes into play.
First things first;
The ‘if’ in deductive reasoning secures the validity of the conclusion regardless of what P and Q stand for.
Therefore to see whether the argument is in fact sound we then drop the ‘if’ and see whether the first statement is in fact true, and thus question the truth of the conclusion.
Now the crucial point in reply to your example:
Your ‘if there are mars bars in the shop then buy me some’ isn’t describing some state of affairs that can be used as a general principle. It is neither true nor false, precisely because it is not describing a state of affairs. So it is of no use in any argument. It merely is describing one state of affairs and one request. So we need to re-write it as:
P1: If there are any mars bars in the shop she will buy me some (describing a state of affairs that is either true or false, the same as ‘whatever goes up will come down’)
P2: There are mars bars in the shop (or X goes up).
Conclusion: She will necessarily buy me some (or X will necessarily come down).
You will rightfully object that she very well may not buy you any mars bars (or that not everything that goes up will come down). And here we say these arguments were valid but not sound because at least one of P1 and P2 wasn’t true. A sound argument is one where the conclusion isn’t just valid but true, and for a conclusion of an argument to be true its premises must be true. This means we will start by questioning the truth of P1 (which is what I suggested we do with our own argument).
But truth or falsehood doesn’t apply to your mars bar statement because you are not asserting a state of affairs (be it concretely or abstractly).
You may wish to reject the structure and force of a deductive argument but the point remains that in both valid and sound arguments the conclusion is implied by the premises, such that to deny the conclusion would be to a contradiction.
Which brings us to what Aristotle would call the first principle of thought, the law of non-contradiction. We cannot accept that something is both A and not A at the same time and in the same respect.
To deny the implied conclusion of a deductive argument would be a contradiction in the same spirit as some x is A and not A at the same time in the same respect.
You now may wish to insist that something is A and not A at the same time and in the same respect but to demonstrate how this can be so you will come full circle to the law of non-contradiction (interesting process, check it out on-line).
In summary: Your mars bar statement isn’t asserting some general observation or some general principle which could be subject to criticism as a principle in order for us to draw a conclusion from. It is a statement that is neither true nor false. ‘Please sit here’ doesn’t describe the world hence it is neither true nor false.
But such statements can be turned into state of affairs if we describe them as the mental state of the person making the request and in that respect we can say they are either true or false.
As a mental state we can re-write them as:
P1: If there are mars bars in the shop I desire her to buy me some.
And you can see how the 2nd premise and conclusion will look like. And following everything we have said above it means we can question the truth of P1 in a number of ways.
So, you take the laws of logic to be descriptive. I take them to be prescriptive.
You take 'must' to mean 'will necessarily be the case' whereas I take it to be expressive of a strong desire.
When Reason says of the conclusion that it 'must' be true, she is not saying that it is necessarily true, but is expressing her conviction that it is true, just as I would be expressing my commitment to being honest if I said "I must be honest!"
It really doesn't matter, of course, because your objection to a premise in the argument should work either way.
My point is just that the ambiguity over whether words such as 'necessary' 'must' 'always' and so on are functioning expressively or descriptively allows me to make all the distinctions you make, but just to do so in an expressive way. Hence how I can avoid having to accept the reality of necessity.
I do not follow you here - they retain all of their force. I think a sound argument establishes that its conclusion is certainly true.
Something can be certainly true without having to be necessarily true. It is certainly true that I exist. It is not necessarily true that I exist.
I am every bit as certain as you are that the conclusions of sound arguments are true. It is just that you think they have to be, given the truth of the premises, whereas I think they just most certainly are, because Reason is telling me that they are.
Quoting Miles
Yes, prescriptions can't be true. But descriptions of prescriptions can be. It is true that I have said "if there are mars bas in the shop, then buy me some". And we can reason about prescriptions of this sort:
1. If there are mars bars in the shop, then he wants me to buy some.
2. There are mars bars in the shop
3. Therefore he wants me to buy some.
Quoting Miles
I think it is true that if a proposition is true, it is not also false. I just don't think it has to be.
Why does it matter whether I think it is just 'true' as opposed to 'necessarily true'? I am as confident as you are that no true proposition is also false. And if you show me that my position contains a contradiction, I will abandon it as surely as I would if I believed the law of non-contradiction is necessarily true.
I never said I knew nothing about the practice. In fact, I do. I do not practice it now, however. As for importance, serious devotees reach a mental state in which empty awareness or no-thingness becomes "real" and may seem, to a non-devotee, to conflict with pure reason. Something arising from emptiness is not necessarily nonsensical.
Is it possible there are aspects of reality that may be beyond what we consider reason?
Quoting jgill
No, I don't think so, given that Reason determines what's true and thus reality is a creature of her will.
We can’t just start an argument with a statement that is neither true nor false and draw conclusions from it. Because the conclusion will be neither true nor false. And statements like ‘sit here’ or ‘buy me a mars bar’ are neither true nor false. That’s that.
I make this point because we need to stick to valid forms of argument in order to make progress. You can choose the form but it needs to offer a structure to reach conclusions.
Now, from what I understand your claim is that we can just say ‘is’ or ‘is not’ rather than ‘can’ and ‘cannot’. In other words you wish to replace ‘how something must be’ with ‘how something is’.
OK here is a demonstration why this cannot always happen:
If I asked you ‘is this object a squared-circle?’ what would you reply?
In your system of thought you will say ‘it is not’.
I will say on what grounds do you say that, and you will say well I have examined it and it is not.
I will then say maybe your examination was not correct so is it possible that you are wrong and is it possible that X is a squared-circle?
Your reply surely is that ‘no it cannot be because nothing can be squared-circle’.
And this is how you move from ‘is not’ to ‘it cannot be’. And ‘cannot be’ means never, it necessarily cannot be. Not that it happens not to be but it might have been. No, it cannot be because nothing can be a squared and a circle at the same time in the respect. So no matter how many years to examine it and with what apparatus or with what system of thought, X will never be a squared-circle.
To suggest its possibility is to suggest a contradiction.
The only path to dismantle the original God or first cause argument is to reject its key premises. And remember it had two halves; the 1st half concluded that a causal chain needs a first uncaused cause, and the 2nd half defined the uncaused cause as something simple and unique in number.
And no point saying ‘well we will just accept the conclusion until some other argument comes along to reject it and that the conclusion is not necessarily true because one day it may be proven wrong’. That is not in the spirit of a philosophical or scientific enquiry.
By the way I might be less active for a few days as I need to work on a painting, my second main passion, which I have neglected recently due to my philosophy research.
But this forum is great and I thank you for all your replies.
Yes, I agree with all of that. I have not said otherwise.
I think there are true propositions.
I think no true proposition is also false.
I think prescriptions are not true or false.
I think valid arguments, if sound, have certainly true conclusions.
And every argument that you think is valid, I am confident I will think is valid too.
I just don't think anything I have just said is necessarily true. I don't think anything is necessarily true.
At one time it was reasoned that a bolt of lightning was due to an action by Zeus. It might appear then that "reason" is not necessarily the test of truth. :gasp:
One question; how do you copy sections from previous comments? I haven't worked it out yet
OK. Now that I see the thread is theological I understand. Carry on! :cool:
If you create a painting, do you exist in it?
Quoting Bartricks
- God can't exist in time because he'd be subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics and therefore dead.
- God can't exist eternally in time because he would have no start to his existence (would you exist if you were not born?)
- God can't exist non-eternally in time because there would be nothing before God to create him.
Also, if you consider that time must have a start:
1. Assume time has no start
2. Then there is no first moment
3. If there is no nth moment there is no nth+1 moment
4. But we have moments (contradiction)
5. So time must have a start
Then something must start time. That must be God.
Yes, that's right. Nevertheless, I still think some claims are certainly true, and others only likely true, and others false.
I should stress that I accept that necessity appears to exist - our reason represents many truths to be necessary - and that the burden of proof would be on me to argue that it does not in fact exist. But I take it that at the moment it is simply the coherence of my position that is in question, rather than its plausibility.
So take square circles. I think they certainly do not exist. But I do not think they 'necessarily' do not exist. Still, I am absolutely certain they do not exist. By contrast, a square object the size of the moon is something I think very likely does not exist.
Importantly, then, we're both convinced that there are no square circles, it is just that you think there can't be any such things, whereas I think there just certainly aren't.
Quoting Miles
That's not quite how it'd go. I would indeed say that the object is certainly not a square circle, but I would say that without examining it. For I know it is not a square circle on the basis of my reason: my reason represents Reason to be adamant that there are none in the world - indeed, represents Reason to find them utterly inconceivable. (Whereas, by contrast, about square objects the size of the moon it says nothing at all about their actual existence - hence why where they are concerned I have to rely on empirical inquiry).
If you were to ask me if it is possible that the object is a square circle, I would say no. For I believe the proposition "there are no square circles" is true and so I am certain that it is not a square circle. But if you were to ask me the slightly different question "is it possible for there to be square circles" I would say yes.
For an analogy: if you ask me if it is possible that I do not exist, I would say no. But I am not thereby saying I think I exist of necessity. I am just certain I actually exist. If you asked me if it is possible for me not to exist, by contrast, I would say "yes".
Quoting Miles
No, it is to suggest the possibility of a contradiction. And although I am certain that no contradiction is true, I accept that it is possible for a contradiction to be true.
Quoting Miles
Yes, although I am not arguing that it is unique in number - that's what others are arguing, not me. I am arguing that there are uncaused causes - substance-causes - and that these substances (of what number I do not know) are simple, uncreated, immaterial entities.
I think it does not matter that I am a necessity sceptic, for the issue is whether the premises are actually true, not whether they have to be.
Quoting Miles
I think that's very much in the spirit of philosophical inquiry. I mean, I'm never going to rest on my laurels or be complacent. I can't think of an approach more in the spirit of philosophical inquiry, as my mind is permanently open.
No, but if you create time then you do exist in it, for there is now a now and you are in it. For if you have created time yet do not exist in the present moment, then you do not exist. For what is it not to exist apart from not existing in the present moment?
So, if God exists in the present moment, then God is in time - which is consistent with God having created time. Which he did.
Good news we are making progress. But I have to say I don’t really follow your comments about necessity. Your comments are contradictory at times and this is what I can summarise tonight:
For the last few days the one point you have consistently made is that there is no need for necessity, and that you can use ‘is’ and ‘is not’ instead of ‘must’ and ‘cannot be’ since the latter two imply necessity. The point you have been making was about all assertion in general.
In my view you definitely need to let go of this need to get rid of necessity.
If your position is that everything is possible (in order to avoid that somethings are impossible) then you are in for a shuck: for the statement 'everything is possible' means 'impossible is also possible' which is a contradiction, unless of course you mean 'impossible is not possible' in which case somethings are not possible. You can make a final retreat and say 'something are possible' which open the door for some things to be impossible, hence they are not possible necessarily (which is what makes them impossible). And that is just that, no escaping the conclusion. And no point saying 'well this is certainly true, but maybe it doesn't have to be true, although it might be true, and so on and so on.
And I gave the example about the squared-circle as one case where the notion of necessity is unavoidable.
And it is your position on this matter which is really unclear an confusing and contradictory.
You say:
Quoting Bartricks
To say "they certainly do not exist" just means they can't exist. Because you are making a sweeping statement without having first searched every inch of the universe to see if they do in fact exist or not. What you therefore mean is they can't exist. Unless you retract your statement "they certainly do not exist".
And later you say:
Quoting Bartricks
But then you say:
Quoting Bartricks
In the first statement you eliminated the possibility. Because to say 'it is impossible for X to be a squared circle' just means 'no X can be a squared circle'.
But in the second statement you say 'it is possible for some X to be a squared circle'. ?????
And then you think by introducing 'certainly true' the problem gets any easier. I think there is a confusion here between 'certainty' and 'certainly'. If not then your notion of 'certainly' becomes pointless and adds no value or extra information to the sentence.
And then you talk of what reason demands and that according to reason it is inconceivable but it doesn't mean it is not possible and so on.
But reason is our faculty as rational beings.
And then you talk about how truths such as 'squared circles are impossible' cannot tell us anything about objects that actually exists such as their size and so on. Sure, perhaps so. But my point was to demonstrate there are different types of truths and some are necessarily true, not that all are.
You also give the example of the 'whether you exist' question and you are again getting confused between necessary truth and true necessarily.
If I am having a conversation with James then it means there exists a James for me to have a conversation with, which means if the first part of my statement is true then the second part is true necessarily. Not that the second part is some necessary truth regardless of my first statement.
As I said you definitely need to let go of this need to get rid of necessity because your arguments are missing the target. I would understand your insistence if we were somehow conflating between necessary truth and true necessarily, in which case you could target your arguments better at that conflation. But this has never been the case here.
Anyway, I don't think there is much I can add to this. I have gone over all this in my previous comments.
I think it would be useful for you to contemplate about what makes a statement true, the truth maker so to speak.
Apologies I didn't get a chance to properly read your comment about the God argument, I will do that at some point tomorrow.
Quoting Miles
There is no contradiction there, so far as I can tell. It is possible for there to be necessary truths, there just aren't any. So I do not say it is impossible for there to be necessary truths - which would be contradictory. Rather, I say that there are, in fact, no necessary truths.
Perhaps it will be objected that by allowing the possibility of necessary truths I must accept their actuality as well. But that is to beg the question against me by assuming that there are, in fact, some necessary truths (such as that if it is possible for X to be necessarily true, it is necessarily true).
So I do not think I am contradicting myself. I have not said "never say never" - which is a contradiction - I have said "do not say never".
Quoting Miles
No, that's clearly not true. I gave an example to demonstrate this. I am certain I exist. I do not exist of necessity, however.
So, I am certain there are no square circles. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily true that there are no square circles.
Quoting Miles
No, I think you're confusing certainty with necessity and vice versa. Once more, I am certain I exist, yet I do not exist of necessity.
And take this sum - 18 x 3. What's the answer? Well, if - like me - you are not especially good at mental arithmetic and have just done the sum in your head in the last few seconds, then - like me - you are fairly confident, but not certain, that it is 54. Yet whatever it equals it equals of necessity, yes? (I mean, I don't believe that - but you do). So that's an example of something that is a necessary truth - if you believe in necessary truths, then it is necessarily true that 18 x 3 = 54 - yet that you are not certain about.
So anyway, this tendency to confuse certainty with necessity is, I think, why you are finding what I am saying more confusing than it actually is. For whenever I deny that something is necessarily true, I suspect you think that I lack confidence in its actual truth - whereas in fact I am going to be as confident as the next person in its truth.
So, I am absolutely certain that there are no square circles and no married bachelors and so on - absolutely, 100% certain. But I deny that these are necessary truths and deny that certainty and necessity are equivalent.
I will reply to the remainder in another post as this one is probably getting too long (I am replying as I go along).
That's not my view. The word 'reason' in 'our reason' refers to our faculty - our faculty of reason. But Reason itself is that which our faculty of reason gives us insight into. It is not itself the faculty. That's to confuse a vehicle of awareness with its object. So, our faculty of reason makes us aware of Reason's instructions.
Many of those instructions include musts. But I interpret these 'musts' to be operating expressively, not descriptively, just as they would be if they appeared in instructions of mine. If I said "you 'must' believe me!" or "you must buy me a mars bar" or "you must pay me what you owe me" - then the word 'must' is expressive, not descriptive. Likewise when it turns up in Reason's instructions.
Quoting Miles
My point was to demonstrate that I too can make sense of there being different types of truth without having to make appeal to any actual necessity.
Quoting Miles
I do not see any evidence that this is the case. My arguments make no appeal to necessity. And they are valid. If their premises are true, then their conclusions are. And their premises are true - or at least, you have yet to challenge their truth. And it is challenging their truth that you need to do.
So, take this argument, which I take it we both agree is valid:
1. If there are events, some of those events trace to substance-causes.
2. There are events
3. Therefore some of those events trace to substance causes.
I think it is also sound. If you think it is unsound, then you need to make a case against a premise. It really doesn't matter that I think its soundness is contingent. I do not think it is sound, and its being sound is all it needs to be for 3 to be true.
So I think it is actually you who is missing the target. For rather than challenging a premise, you are taking issue with my belief that there is no necessity in reality and thus that its soundness is contingent.
It is what's true that ultimately matters - I mean, that's what we're interested in as philosophers, surely - and if the argument is sound then 3 is true. It doesn't matter whether its soundness is contingent or necessary - it is the fact it is sound that matters.
Look, the statement you made when you agreed with me that ‘there are no squared circles’ is a general statement without you having checked every inch of the known world. And this is why this statement just means ‘there can’t be any squared circles’. You yourself made a general statement implying necessity.
Unless you now retract that statement and concede there is a possibility that there can be squared circles. And that would mean it is possible for this object in this room to be a squared circle. Because no matter how much you examine some object your examination could be wrong and if it is in fact possible to have some squared circles then maybe you are wrong and this object is an instance of a squared circle.
And then your reply to my previous question ‘is this object a squared circle’ would then have to become ‘maybe it is’ not that “it certainly isn’t” and so on.
And this will open a whole host of other issues for you.
And I repeat:
To say that everything is possible means there cannot be anything other than things that are possible, which again as a general statement is a necessary truth. Unless you say something are possible and something’s are not possible, which brings you to somethings not being possible (hence impossible), and impossible means they necessarily cannot be the case. Another necessary truth.
So I suggest we leave this and go to the God argument at a later time. Because although we are making progress on the notions of necessity and possibility, the frame work in which we are discussing these notions will not have a direct impact on that questions.
I have. What is the truth-maker of a necessary truth?
"There are no square circles" does not mean the same as "necessarily there are no square circles".
It is by reason alone that I am aware of its truth. But that is a claim about how I am aware of it, not a claim about whether it is a necessary or contingent truth.
There is a tendency to conflate truths we are aware of by our reason alone with necessary truths.
If there are necessary truths it is by reason that we are aware of them. But it does not follow that if I am aware of something by reason alone that it is a necessary truth.
So, I am absolutely certain there are no square circles, and I am aware of this by my reason alone. But in saying those things I am not thereby committed to having to say that it is 'necessarily' the case that there are no square circles.
No, you are confusing epistemic possibilities with metaphysical possibilities. There is no epistemic possibility that any object in the world is a square circle - by which I mean I am absolutely certain that there are no square circles in the universe. But square circles are metaphysically possible. That doesn't mean I have to allow that there might actually be some.
You are having trouble accepting that I can be as certain as you are about these things without believing in their metaphysical impossibility.
But that's the problem - you're confusing 'necessarily true' with 'certainly true'. Which is understandable, given that 'necessarily' often functions expressively - that is, we often use it to express certainty.
Your line of thought is not clear again, you need to structure the arguments better.
The distinction between our reason and the faculty and reason and so on, all not clear at all.
It is a mistake to think that our reasoning as a process (faculty or a vehicle) is separate than what we reason we about. Just like any process, our faculty is a potential that becomes actualised when we reason.
Sometimes the problem with forums is before you know it you lose the thread of the original question and the topic becomes very confused.
Over the weekend I will look at your God reply and comment back.
Have a good weekend and speak soon
By the way the below is not true:
Quoting Bartricks
You are constantly making general statements which carry with them force of necessity without which they cannot be general statements.
Oh man, how could you make this assertion:
how can you say epistemically there cannot be any squared circles but metaphysically they can be??? :)
What we can say of metaphysics is what we can know, otherwise we may as well say any thing we like and throw the books in the bin.
:)
Quoting Bartricks
Yes:
Something the negation of which is a contradiction.
I give you another example:
It is a necessary truth that ‘some statements are true and some false but no statement is both true and false at the same time and in the same respect’.
Because the negation of it would mean the same statement could be both true and false at the same time and in the same respect then the reasons we give for it to be true are negated by the reasons we give if for it to be false and vice versa resulting in a contradiction.
I am being as clear as I can.
This, surely, is clear:
1. If there are events, some events are the product of substance causation
2. There are events
3. Therefore some events are the product of substance causation
All you need to do is challenge a premise, which you can do by presenting a similarly clear, deductively valid argument that has its negation as a conclusion.
Likewise, this is clear as well:
1. If any objects exist, some simple objects exist
2. Some simple objects exist
3. therefore, some simple objects exist
I explained why 1 is true, and 2 is self-evidently true. Again, all you need to do is challenge a premise.
And again, this is clear:
1. If some simple objects exist, they exist uncreated
2. Some simple objects exist
3. Therefore some objects exist uncreated
And likewise, all that's needed is a challenge to a premise.
And as I've said, I really don't see why it matters that I think their soundness is contingent - what matters is their 'actual' soundness, not whether it is contingent or necessary.
Quoting Miles
Again, I beg to differ. There is the faculty and then there is what the faculty gives us an awareness of. There is sight, and then there are the objects of sight. Our reason is a faculty and it gives us an awareness of the prescriptions of Reason, among other things.
'Reason' in 'prescriptions of Reason' does not refer to the faculty - how can a faculty issue prescriptions?
Quoting Miles
It's not a mistake. There are prescriptions of Reason. But no faculty issues prescriptions - they're not in that line of work. They make us aware of Reason's prescriptions, but they do not issue them (else how can our faculties of reason sometimes go wrong?). Thinking that our reason issues prescriptions is akin to thinking that our sight sees. No, we see with our sight, but our sight doesn't itself see things. Likewise, we discern prescriptions of Reason with our reason, but our reason does not itself issue those prescriptions.
Quoting Miles
Well, I do keep saying that it doesn't actually matter whether the arguments are necessarily sound or contingently sound - what matters is 'are they sound?' I think they are.
Quoting Miles
No, you're confusing necessity with other things. "There are no square circles". That's true. "It is necessarily true that there are no square circles." That's false.
I didn't say that - I said that, as far as I am concerned anyway, there is no epistemic possibility of there being any square circles. Which is just another way of saying that I know for certain that there are none. That's entirely consistent with their metaphysical possibility. Again, as I keep saying, there is no epistemic possibility of my existence being illusory - I am certain I exist. Yet my existence is not necessary.
You can't conclude that a truth is necessary from the fact that there is no epistemic possibility of it being false.
I do not dispute that the law of non-contradiction is true. I deny that it is necessarily true.
You think it is necessarily true. So, what's this 'necessity' that makes it true, then?
So, this 'necessity' that you think exists is not part of the world of sense. It is not, then, some feature of the sensible world.
How are we aware of it?
Well, by our reason.
Our reason tells us that some truths are necessary, yes? It does this by making us aware of prescriptions of Reason, These prescriptions - some of them, anyway - tell us to believe that some truths cannot be false. Our reason tells us not just that 2 + 2 = 4, but that it 'must' do. Our reason tells us not just that no true statement is also false, but that no true statement can ever also be false. And so on.
Now, I do not see how you can disagree with me up to this point. I mean, it is surely beyond dispute that necessity is not empirically discerned. And it is beyond dispute that necessity is something our reason tells us exists by representing it to exist.
But I think that the 'musts' in Reason's representations are operating expressively, not descriptively.
So what you take to be really good evidence that necessity exists, I take to be good evidence that Reason is either really certain about something, or really adamant that we believe it.
The problem for you is that you take these representations at face value - and that means you owe a truth-maker. I don't, note. Consider my shopping list again. It said "If there are mars bars, you must buy me a mars bar". That 'must' doesn't require a truth maker, does it? But if you took that 'must' to be descriptive, then it would need a truth-maker.
So, what I want to know from you, is what is the truth-maker for these representations of Reason - the ones that represent certain truths to be necessary.
I do not think you are going to be able to do that. I predict that, as with the law of non-contradiction, you will either just reiterate that it is necessarily true - when what I wanted is the truth-maker, not more confidence in its necessity - or you will simply explain why it is actually true (which, once more, will not tell me what the truth maker of 'necessarily' in 'necessarily true' is).
I have not denied that we can know things.
You are consistently confusing my claims with other claims, quite distinct from mine.
For the record: I think we can and do know many things.
I think there are many truths that we are aware of by reason alone.
I think we can know some things with certainty.
I think the law of non-contradiction is true (well, I'm actually tentative about that - there seem to be counterexamples - but for the sake of argument, I will accept that it is true).
I am doing philosophy, not undermining the need for it.
If the vertical axis of the picture is time and the horizontal is space then creation of a picture does not put you within time. Indeed you as a 3D object cannot exist in the 2D world of the picture.
As I mentioned before check out demonstration or negation of the Law of contradiction. This law is a necessary truth because we use it to demonstrate or to negate it. There are many examples of it.
Also:
Earlier I asked you what you would say if I asked you whether this object in your room is a squared circle. Would you first check it before answering? And you clearly and confidently replied no you wouldn’t check it because you agree there cannot be any square circles.
What you don’t seem to appreciate is that ‘cannot be’ just means ‘it is impossible’. And what you don’t seem to appreciate is that impossible just means there necessary cannot be such an X. Because if this wasn’t the case ‘necessarily’ it would mean square circles are possible after all, hence wouldn’t be impossible.
And if they are possible then it means it is impossible that there cannot be any, and that now becomes a necessary truth, simply as a result of your own statement.
And furthermore if they are possible then maybe the object in your room is a squared circle after all? You never know, you better check? But how would you check? How would you confirm the truth of a statement that is true and false at the same time and in the same respect?
What we therefore have is a circular case. And in every case you are adding the ‘not necessarily’ at the beginning of ‘impossible’ and saying ‘well it is not necessarily impossible’. As though this sentence is now giving us new information. But if it is impossible then it cannot be, and ‘cannot be’ means at all times and in the same respect, never. Never means necessarily.
But then you add ‘it is not necessarily never’ as though you are making a valid statement.
Please forgive my analogy but it is like having a dialogue with a computer that just keeps adding the notion of ‘not necessarily’ to the beginning of every notion including ‘impossibility’.
Impossible just means it is not ‘possible’ which means some way other than possibility, which is necessity.
And forget all this talk about 'certainly there cannot be but maybe they can be' and so on. These don't add any new information to the sentence unless it determines whether something is possible or impossible.
And then what is happening I think is the following:
You seem to think even though there can’t be any squared circles, this is so because of our reason, and that maybe outside of our reason it is possible for there to be such entities.
Kant made this very mistake which brought down the Kantian movement. He talked about the existence (possibly or actually) of something we cannot know, something which is beyond the grasp of our reason. Well, if it is beyond the grasp of our reason then we cannot know anything about it including whether it is possible, impossible, or actually, or potential, and so on.
If it is beyond our reason then we need to end all discussion about it because we can never go beyond reason. Just because we have the concept of ‘outside’ and have the concept of ‘reason’ it doesn’t mean we can talk about ‘outside of reason’. Any such talk will use reason and it is therefore within reason. Even doubting reason is using reason itself.
If according to reason something is impossible, we cannot then say well maybe it is possible outside of our reason. That my friend is a meaningless statement for reasons I gave in the above paragraph.
And then you talk of mistakes in reasoning in trying to explain your views on the faculty of reason vs. our particular reasons.
But we have errors in judgment as we have error in senses. Different organs and parts are involved and sometimes these organs are weakened or something else gets in the way and they do not process the information, sometimes it is lack of familiarity sometimes it is lack of remembering certain facts an so on. Things are not as simple as you outline them.
I am not saying you are wrong, I am just saying you need to go into far more detail to see whether you are presenting a powerful argument.
Maybe start a separate discussion with a new title and focus on how reason works and where error comes from and so on.
(The other thing I can see is maybe you are trying to talk about objective truth, subjective truth, and these in relation to necessity. Maybe what you are trying to say that such truths as ‘there are no squared circles’ are subjective as in subject to reason, but not objectively true. If this is what you mean then the discussion needs to be focused just on these so that we can have targeted discussions).
I appreciate what you are saying.
But forget 'certainty' if it cannot tell you whether something is possible or impossible or actual. To know something goes beyond a particular case, and has a sense of generality, even if we talk purely of sense experiences and not the objects in themselves (whatever that might mean).
I do not understand this point. The law of non-contradiction is true, but it doesn't have to be necessarily true. If it is true, then I am justified in rejecting a view that generates a contradiction. Not because the view in question is necessarily false, but because it is false.
Incidentally, even its status as true is debatable - I mean, "this sentence is false" seems, on the face of it, to be a proposition that is both true and false at the same time. Perhaps it isn't - I am not saying it certainly is - but it 'seems' to be.
That's by the by, of course. The point is that I can draw all the distinctions you can, without having to invoke the reality of necessity.
The law of non-contradiction is - most likely - true, but it can be true without being necessarily true.
Note, the law itself says that no true proposition is also false. It does not say that no true proposition can also be false. It says no true proposition is also false. It does not, in other words, itself invoke the concept of necessity. Which is precisely why I can affirm it without affirming the existence of necessity.
Quoting Miles
No, I didn't say that. I said there are certainly no square circles in reality. I didn't say there cannot be. I said there aren't.
Again, I think you're confusing quite different notions. Certainty and necessity are not the same, yet whenever I express confidence in a proposition's truth you take me to be asserting that its necessity. I am not.
Similarly, to be aware of something a priori is not of a piece with being aware of its necessity. Again, if - if - there are necessary truths, we will be aware of them via our reason, but it does not follow from this that if we are aware of a truth via our reason that it is therefore a necessary truth. I am aware, a priori, that there are no square circles in reality. But that does not mean that it is necessarily true that there are no square circles in reality.
Quoting Miles
Again, I do not understand what you mean. Denying that there is necessity in reality is not the same as saying that there is necessarily no necessity in reality. It is metaphysically possible for there to be necessary truths, I just deny that there are any. That's consistent. What would be inconsistent would be saying that necessarily there are no necessary truths. I have not said that it is impossible for there to be necessary truths, I have said there are 'actually' none.
Quoting Miles
First, you are seeing 'cannots' where there aren't any - where have I said 'cannot be'? - and second, that's not actually what 'cannot' means. It is 'one' meaning of the word, not the only one.
The word 'can' is subject to considerable debate. There are conditional and unconditional interpretations of 'can' and 'cannot' and so on. And it often functions expressively, as it does if I were to say "I cannot abide him!" or "you cannot be serious!"
Quoting Miles
I have not said any of the things you're attributing to me. Nothing I have said is 'meaningless'. You're attacking a straw man.
What I have said is that our reason (which is a faculty distinct from Reason and her prescriptions - that later being what it gives us insight into) 'represents' many truths to be incapable of being anything other than true.
What I then said is that these representations are ambiguous because they can be taken to be functioning expressively, not descriptively.
If they are functioning expressively - as 'must' 'always' 'necessarily' typically do when we use them - then those rational representations are not evidence of actual necessity, but rather of Reason's attitudes.
Quoting Miles
You're straw manning again. I have not suggested that anything is simple.
The norms of reason are what our faculty of reason gives us insight into, just as in a similar (but not identical) fashion our sensible faculties give us insight into the sensible world. Our sensible faculties do not 'constitute' the sensible world. Likewise, our faculty of reason does not constitute Reason, or the norms of Reason - no, our faculty of reason tells us about the norms of Reason. But what it tells us can be false. Why? Because its 'tellings' do not constitute the norms of Reason.
Quoting Miles
I am not sure what you mean. Here the issue has become whether necessity is necessary. I am arguing that it is not. I think necessity does not exist - but I have not argued that, just expressed my disbelief in necessity.
So, as I emphasised earlier, I take it that it is the 'coherence' of my view that is in question, not its plausibility. A view can be coherent but implausible. My view is coherent and plausible. But so far I have only sought to show its coherence, because you seem to think that necessity is necessary, and I don't.
But I have not denied - indeed, I've repeatedly stressed - that the existence of necessity seems well supported by our rational intuitions.
All I've done is show that do not 'have' to interpret those intuitions descriptively, and we do not 'have' to appeal to the concept of necessity to argue for things.
Quoting Miles
No, I think what you've said there is confused. 'Objective' doesn't mean 'necessary' so I don't know why you'd think I reject objective truths on the basis of what I've said so far.
I am not trying to say anything other than what I've said. And what I have said is that there are no necessary truths and we do not need the concept of necessity in order to be able to argue for things. In other words, I am saying that one can consistently deny the existence of necessity.
I do not know what you mean. As I have said repeatedly, I think there are many true propositions. I think there's a reality. I think we can know about aspects of it. And so on. What I deny is the reality of necessity. That's not equivalent to denying the reality of things, or truth, or reasons, or Reason, or knowledge.
Hope you having a good Sunday
I think we are getting closer to identifying the symptoms.
The issue is you don’t have a clear notion of necessity even though you are denying it. What I mean is ‘what is necessity for you which you are denying’?
What you mean by necessity seems confused to me and this I think is why you are now getting yourself in all sorts of knots.
My position on it is clear, for me it means 'what is impossible and what must be' vs. 'what is possible'.
Such that talk of necessity is talk of an exclusive relationship between possibility and impossibility. You can drop the concept of necessity if you wish but you would need to take a position whether something is possible or impossible. And as soon as you say something is impossible then it means under no circumstances can it be possible. It doesn’t mean ‘well it is impossible now but it might be impossible under some under conditions even though I don’t really know what those conditions are… and maybe human reason is limited but surely beyond the boundaries of human reason maybe it is possible…’ and so on’. Because if any of that were true it would very simply mean ‘it is possible’ and not impossible.
All this sounds like some confused notion that although something seems impossible to us it doesn’t mean it is impossible in itself and so on,????
And this will lead you saying 'there certainly aren’t contradictions any in reality’ which now makes matters worse, as though we have some realm outside of reality we can talk about. Whatever we talk about is within the boundaries of what reason tells us and whatever we mean by reality automatically falls under reason.
And it keeps going back to this distinction between what we think of some entity and what that entity is in itself. Such that in your view there can’t be any squared circles, due to what reason dictates, but you there could in fact be squared circles in themselves outside of our reason. (and I did address the flaw with this view before).
What usually happens next is that when pressed further people end up saying they don’t know whether some X is possible or impossible, and pressed further they say for any X that x (anything and everything) might be possible or might be impossible. In other words they refrain from committing to whether somethings 'are' possible and whether some things 'are' impossible (because as soon as they make such a commitment they will fall in the above trap). They just say they don’t know. Such that squared circles might very well be possible, they just don’t know.
You could for example say (as you have) we don't know every aspect of the world and contradictions are one such aspect.
But this doesn’t help much either for this is a more flawed position to take.
Speak soon
That's question begging - you're assuming my thinking is diseased and in need of treatment.
Quoting Miles
Haha, well that's an attempt to shift the burden of proof if ever I saw one!
I mean what you mean by it, I am quite sure.
Quoting Miles
Yes, as I thought, I mean the same by it as you do. And I deny its reality.
You keep attacking a straw man though. I am 'denying' that necessity exists - so I am 'denying' that anything is impossible. That is, I believe anything - literally anything - is possible. Yet you seem to be labouring under the idea that I think some things are impossible. No, I think nothing - nothing - is impossible.
Square circles do not exist. There are none - none - in reality. I am quite sure of it. But they are possible. They 'can' exist, they just don't. Absolutely, certainly, don't.
That's a consistent statement. If you think it is inconsistent, explain.
Quoting Miles
You're confident I'm in knots. Why? It's you who keeps confusing different notions and attributing to me things I have not said.
You have confused being certain that a proposition is true with its being necessarily true.
You have confused epistemic possibilities with metaphysical ones. You have insisted that 'cannot' means the same as 'necessarily is not the case'. And you seem to have confused objective with necessary and subjective with contingent (for you suggested that this might be what I am really talking about - despite my never mentioning the terms 'subjective' and 'objective' once). And you have confused a faculty of awareness with an object of awareness - that is, you've confused 'our reason' with the norms of reason that it makes us aware of (which is akin to confusing sight with sights).
So from where I am standing I am not the one who is confused. My view is unconventional, but that does not mean it is confused.
your position is not the same as mine :) :) This is why I keep saying you are confused and it keeps getting more confusing:
For me squared circles are impossible meaning they cannot exist - that is what impossible is. If it could exist it wouldn't be impossible.
If your position is the same as mine but you still insist they 'can' exist then your view is not the same as mine and in your view they are possible???
Quoting Bartricks
This is the most clear indication why you need to revise your position.
I rest my case on this topic.
And also sometimes in Philosophy we need time to think things over and let the arguments to grow on us. This is a good time for both of us to think over what we have learned from these great discussions as I for sure got thinking about a few ideas from our chats.
Where have I said that? Quote me saying it. I haven't. Absolutely haven't. I have repeatedly said that I know there are no square circles not - not - on the basis of observation, but on the basis of my reason. My reason is adamant that there aren't any. And on that basis, I conclude that there are none.
I have not - absolutely not - said "well, I haven't inspected the entire universe, and on that basis I think it is possible for square circles to exist". That's absurd!! I don't know where you've got the idea that that's my view, for I have never - never - said any such thing.
Again, then, I am sure - 100% certain - that there are no square circles in existence.
Why? Why am I sure?
I am sure because my reason tells me, in no uncertain terms, that there are none.
So, I conclude that there are none.
You keep straw manning me - you keep inventing positions and attributing them to me.
I have said repeatedly that we know - know - many things by reason alone, including that there are no square circles and that the law of non-contradiction is true.
Well, now you're being disingenuous!
You asked me what I understood 'necessary' to mean.
On that - on 'that' - our positions are the same.
I mean by 'necessary' what you mean by it.
I deny it exists, you think it does. But we're talking about the same thing - necessity.
Why?
Again, it's you - you - who is confused. You seem to have trouble distinguishing 'certain' from 'necessary'.
If it helps: you are certain my position is confused. But it is not necessarily confused, is it?