A Regressive Fine Tuning Argument
1. The universe is fine tuned for life so there must be a fine tuner
2. The fine tuner’s environment must be fine tuned for life so that implies another fine tuner
3. An infinite regress of fine tuner’s is impossible*
4. So there must exist an uncaused fine tuner who’s environment is in itself not fine tuned
5. This fine tuner must be very special (to be uncaused and to not need a fine tuned environment)
*All infinite causal regresses are impossible:
A. Assume an infinite causal regress exists
B. Then it has no first element
C. If it has no nth element, it has no nth+1 element
D. So it cannot exist
A Note On Fine Tuning
The atom is a prime example of the fine tuning of our universe for life. The strengths of the forces (strong nuclear force and electromagnetic) and masses/charges of sub-atomic particles all have to be set to close to their current values in order for atoms to hold together; if the forces were different, atoms would not form or be stable, or if they would form, it would only be the simpler elements (no carbon so no life).
The fine-tuning of the atom allows the wonderful range of matter we experience in the world today (the elements all 100+ of them). Then we have the remarkable chemical bonding process that give rise to the hugely diverse range of chemical compounds in the world, many of which are essential for life (water, amino acids, RNA. DNA).
The atom seems like a toolkit for construction of advanced matter and life. Contrast our universe to the vast majority of hypothetical universes; particles would just bounce off each other endlessly without any cohesion because the forces and particles where not fine-tuned such that atoms and compounds would form. Or there would be too much cohesion and everything would end up in a single black hole. We have a very fine balancing act between these two extremes.
The Weak Anthropic Principle
The weak anthropic principle states that it is necessary for the universe to be life supporting (because we are here). It does not address why the universe is life supporting. The two possible reasons are: a massive fluke or a fine tuner. The second is much more probable than the first IMO.
The Strong Anthropic Principle
The strong anthropic principle proposes a multiverse of universes all with differing physical constants such that the vast majority of universes would not support life (but we get lucky and ours does support life).
But in any reasonable form of reality, all of the universes in the multiverse are probably be made from similar stuff and go probably through a similar evolutionary processes - so they should all end up life supporting.
2. The fine tuner’s environment must be fine tuned for life so that implies another fine tuner
3. An infinite regress of fine tuner’s is impossible*
4. So there must exist an uncaused fine tuner who’s environment is in itself not fine tuned
5. This fine tuner must be very special (to be uncaused and to not need a fine tuned environment)
*All infinite causal regresses are impossible:
A. Assume an infinite causal regress exists
B. Then it has no first element
C. If it has no nth element, it has no nth+1 element
D. So it cannot exist
A Note On Fine Tuning
The atom is a prime example of the fine tuning of our universe for life. The strengths of the forces (strong nuclear force and electromagnetic) and masses/charges of sub-atomic particles all have to be set to close to their current values in order for atoms to hold together; if the forces were different, atoms would not form or be stable, or if they would form, it would only be the simpler elements (no carbon so no life).
The fine-tuning of the atom allows the wonderful range of matter we experience in the world today (the elements all 100+ of them). Then we have the remarkable chemical bonding process that give rise to the hugely diverse range of chemical compounds in the world, many of which are essential for life (water, amino acids, RNA. DNA).
The atom seems like a toolkit for construction of advanced matter and life. Contrast our universe to the vast majority of hypothetical universes; particles would just bounce off each other endlessly without any cohesion because the forces and particles where not fine-tuned such that atoms and compounds would form. Or there would be too much cohesion and everything would end up in a single black hole. We have a very fine balancing act between these two extremes.
The Weak Anthropic Principle
The weak anthropic principle states that it is necessary for the universe to be life supporting (because we are here). It does not address why the universe is life supporting. The two possible reasons are: a massive fluke or a fine tuner. The second is much more probable than the first IMO.
The Strong Anthropic Principle
The strong anthropic principle proposes a multiverse of universes all with differing physical constants such that the vast majority of universes would not support life (but we get lucky and ours does support life).
But in any reasonable form of reality, all of the universes in the multiverse are probably be made from similar stuff and go probably through a similar evolutionary processes - so they should all end up life supporting.
Comments (268)
I think if you were to write a computer program that generated universes at random, with random forces, random standard model, random initial conditions, you'd fine that the vast, vast majority of universes generated were not life supporting. The vast majority of universes generated would simply not support complex matter (like the atom).
Another example is the fine balance we have between gravity and the expansion of the universe. Gravity is required at its current strength / direction of action / range for life (nuclear fusion, planets) but leads to equilibrium. That tendency is counteracted by the expansion of the universe. Both gravity and the expansion of the universe are therefore likely fine-tuned.
I think if you coded it using non-linear equations tuned to the proper set of fractal attractors iit probably would work...
Yeah, okay. I may grant you that... but what is not a miracle about consciousness and what is it exactly? I'm not giving an argument here. I'm asking an honest question that has no satisfactory answers to date.
Those properties do not evolve; they are effectively set in stone by the initial rules and conditions of the universe.
I'm pretty sure that is an open question, and not an established fact as you are suggesting. In any case, the property could still emerge by the process I describe, up to the point at which (as you suggest) it is set in stone. There were definitely no chemical processes going on in the early universe, the conditions simply wouldn't allow it.
:clap: :100:
'Logic & facts' do not persuade either [i][url=https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/346867]
woo-bots[/url][/i] or trolls; nonetheless I applaud the effort, especially when it's succinctly lucid and scientific.
Are you a materialist?
Emergent properties are not explanations, they are facts. Trying to explain them away reductively is the mistake.
Calling them "emergent" and not fundamental is the mistake.
Quibbling. If you don't disagree that the property is a holistic feature and more than the sum of component elements.
:up:
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
I see. Like ... 'walking doesn't arise from legs' or 'singing doesn't arise from lungs', etc.
:roll:
Quoting Devans99
Of course you have. :yawn:
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
Before all else I'm a freethinker; and to paraphrase:
... and favored by atavistic cognitve biases.
:death: :flower:
Walking is what legs can do. Singing is what a conscious person with a body can do. They do not "arise". Consciousness is a phenomena not akin to walking or singing. A dead corpse cannot walk or sing. It takes consciousness which is fundamental to reality. Conscious experience "arising" from brains is invoking magic.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
:chin:
Explain how you know this to be the case.
.
Because my conscious experience involves sensations of walking and singing. It is prior to the doing.
It's a necessary a posteriori truth knowable through experience.
In other words, it's an induction (i.e. cognitive bias, or as Hume says "habit of thought"), and as such, begs the question how do you know this? (to wit: 'I know X because X is known through (my) experience ...) :confused:
Nope. I would venture you know it through your experience, too, if you’re being intellectually honest. Truths are known either through experience (a posteriori, and as all experience is private, all a posteriori truths are privately known and communicated consciously by a thinking agent) or they are known by the meanings of the definitions of the terms used (a priori). This is Saul Kripke stuff. It is a necessary truth because experience cannot be conceived to exist without consciousness.
Kripke is a rockstar. Why do you think NYU where he taught was the number one ranked graduate school for philosophy? Kripke makes a lot of sense.
So the premise, “A bachelor is an unmarried man” is untrue? That’s strange.
Quoting Devans99
Life (e.g. human being) fine-tunes her models of the universe - otherwise known as reflective equilibrium, a rarefied, special (cognitive) mode of adaptive behavior. And nothing that purportedly 'transcends' the universe, however, logically follows from life's fine-tuned, or anthropic, models of the universe (Hume, Kant ... Stenger, et al).
Question begging non sequitur.
Explain why this "uncaused fine tuner" is not its own environment aka "the universe" (or nature itself).
Why multiply inexplicable (thereby question begging) entities needlessly? (Occam) All this 'kalam' amounts to is just a(nother) Woo-of-the-Gaps emotional crutch. :point: :fear:
No more "special" than any formal object or (other) fictional construct.
:roll:
Quoting Devans99
:yawn:
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
Goooooood luck with that ... and your Ark.
Wow...still at this kind of thing, Devans.
Okay...I admire your tenacity.
Question:
Any chance we can get a P1 and P2 that gets us to"
Therefore, the universe is fine tuned for life so there must be a fine tuner?
I cannot see how you got there.
Still building it in my back yard. And good luck with your alcoholism!
Why not? What if each fine tuner (fine tuna?) is indexed by an integer, like so:
[math]\dots, -4, \ -3, \ -2, \ -1, \ 0, \ 1, \ 2, \ 3, \ 4, \ 5, \dots[/math]
Each tuner tunes the tuner directly to their right. So -4 tunes -3; -3 tunes -2; and so forth.
You will note that every tuner is tuned; and that there is no untuned tuner
You and William Lane Craig should meditate on this model.
Quoting Devans99
D. So the infinitude in A can't be numbered so
Quoting Devans99
If the universe of this very special fine-tuner isn't itself fine-tuned for life then how did it ever come into existence as life? I guess that a universe has the right conditions for life aka fine-tuned universe doesn't imply a conscious fine-tuner. If that's the case then why can't this universe be the one that didn't have fine-tuner?
Also, what you said above contradicts what you say below:
Quoting Devans99
I don't know if what you said makes sense. If there is no first tuner, then there can't be a second or a third, etc.? An infinite regress here precludes a first fine-tuner and so there can't be a second or a third and so on.
Using the infinity of integers doesn't succeed in solving the problem that there is no first fine-tuner.
Why not? To me it seems like this is the solution to the first mover problem. Everyone's moved yet there is no first mover.
What law of nature says that movers or tuners must be modeled by the natural numbers but not the integers?
:up:
Z = {...-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3,...} or Z = {...-4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4,..} or Z = {...-2, -1, 0, 1, 2,..}
Notice that though Z is the same set we can list it in different ways: the actual number listed in the first is -3, the second lists -4 and the last lists -2. As you can see this implies that there is no first element and we can arbitrarily choose any number to be explicit in the list as shown above.
I find that Infinite regress is usually employed on the basis that there is no first in a sequence, the fact of which then implies something else whatever that may be. It boils down to a belief that there must be a first. It makes sense why a first is required; a first represents a beginning and if there is no beginning how is the now definable. Consider the fact that if we were to add we would never reach the end because the positive half of integers goes to infinity. Similarly, since you used integers, consider negative infinity. To reach any point from negative infinity we need to add but quite unfortunately adding any finite number to negative infinity still yields negative infinity which in plain language means no point in a sequence that "begins" at negative infinity can ever be reached. This is, to my understanding, the point of an infinite regress.
Getting back to your use of integers, any point in the sequence can be considered a first and that means -4 is a first AND - 3 AND -2 is a first which is a contradiction, right. In other words it has no first and that means the problem with it is the same problem an infinite regress faces to wit that we can't reach any point after negative infinity.
Rubbish. The universe must be life supporting, from the get-go (the Big Bang) in a fundamental way (the standard model and four forces must be fined tuned). So there is simply no room/time for adaptive/evolutionary behaviour before this - there is no 'before' to do it in.
Quoting 180 Proof
I'd imagine it is in an environment of its own somewhere beyond spacetime. But that environment cannot be fine tuned in itself, leading to the conclusion it must be something special.
Quoting 180 Proof
Because its a proof and I have to cover all the logical possibilities.
Quoting fishfry
All infinite causal regresses are impossible as I pointed out in the OP:
A. Assume an infinite causal regress exists
B. Then it has no first element
C. If it has no nth element, it has no nth+1 element
D. So it cannot exist
In your example, imagine trying to define the negative integers starting at the left '...'. Its impossible - there is no start point.
Quoting TheMadFool
It never came into existence, it exists permanently, timeless and uncaused. So it must not need a fine tuned environment.
It looks highly probably that this universe did have a fine tuner though; there are about 20 constants that need to be at or near there current values for life to be possible.
I am amazed you are disagreeing with me. It does not matter if it the elements can't be numbered (which they can), all elements are directly or indirectly dependent on the missing first element; so the whole thing cannot exist. An infinite causal regress is like a house without any foundation.
Returning to a question I think I asked you earlier:
Do you believe a greater than any finite number of days has passed?
If yes, what is your justification for believing so?
I agree that if one assumes the universe is fine-tuned for life, this entails a fine-tuner. The problem is that you cannot show that the universe was likely to have been fine-tuned for life. Your unstated premise is that life was a design objective.
Life exists as a consequence of the universe's properties. Had the properties differed, there would be no life. So what? Just because something exists does not mean it's existence was planned.
In general, suppose the universe had a different set of properties, and this resulted in objects of type X. The mere existence of X objects does not imply X objects were a design objective rather than merely being an unintended, accidental consequence.
I ask my question again...because your initial premise seems like nothing more than begging the question. You are essentially starting your argument with: There is a god.
Then you'll need a proof without going by that.
FYI, not that it matters much, I harbor no particular personal belief either way.
I'm just pointing out that your suggested proof still doesn't work.
Quoting jorndoe
Did you not read the section of the OP about fine tuning?
I do not believe God is omnipotent. He can't just wave his hand and it be so. He must have generated the universe from something. The Big Bang was probably caused by some sort of device that led to a chain reaction causing all the matter/energy in the universe and the emergence of the 4 forces and the standard model. The device was specified such that a life supporting universe would be the result (IE God did all the calculations first and designed an appropriate device to generate a life supporting universe).
What's with the universal self-elevating self-importance anyway?
[quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth]
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
[/quote]
By heat death, there will be an unfathomable amount of time (even compared to 14 billion years), ruled by the lonely photon in deep cold. Heavier elements that came out of supernovae will have decayed, and perhaps even black holes will have "evaporated" (Hawking radiation).
The universe seems mostly "designed" or "fine-tuned" as/for vast, open (increasing) spaces, lots of radiation, rocks here and there, gases and suns, maybe some massive gravity wells whose gravity are so strong that light can't escape — and freezing lonely photons.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/Antitheistnz/status/991983511820156928[/tweet]
It is extremely unlikely for a randomly specified universe to support life. There are about 20 fine tuned constants that have to be at or near their current values for life to be supported.
Quoting Relativist
But X in this case is life - the prime reason anyone would create a universe. Consider what the chances are that the universe is a creation. Let us take it as 50%/50% (unbiased). If the universe is a creation, then it was created by something intelligent. What other goal would an intelligent creator have apart from the creation of life (=information)?
Then there is the universe supports life by accident. Say a billion to one chance.
Which is the more probable explanation:
- A 50% chance that the universe was created for life
- A billion to one chance that it is life supporting by accident
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7415/circular-time-revisited/p1
You should ask yourself what are the ingredients needed for life. First a stable, very long lasting energy source is required. It is difficult to see how one could do better than the stars. Then living surfaces are required, again it is difficult to see how one could do better than the rocky planets.
A game you can play is to pretend to be God and say 'how would I design a universe fit for intelligent life?'. I don't believe you will come up with any model better than our universe.
That is the point of my argument - God cannot be fine tuned and must be uncreated - so he must be something very special.
The guy was absolutely positive that a god exists (the god he envisioned, of course) and was determined to present an argument that could be used to support, "Therefore there is a GOD."
The problem with his argument...which is the same as the problem with yours, is that he was trying to do what Aquinas did with his first argument...an ontological argument that depends completely on begging the question.
His didn't work...Aquinas' didn't...and yours doesn't.
One cannot get to "at least one god exists" using logic, reason, math, or science. It simply cannot be done. In fact, one cannot even get to "it is more likely that at least one god exists than tahat there are none" using those means.
The strong atheists essentially try to use your argument in reverse. They fail also.
BOTTOM LINE: If you want to assert that a GOD exists...do it. Just assert it...don't try to sell it. Same thing goes for the atheists. If they want to assert there are no gods...do it. Just don't try to sell it.
Everything works out so much better that way.
1. So you agree infinite causal regresses are impossible? (see the argument in the OP).
2. So all causal regresses in existence must be finite causal regresses
3. That implies the existence of at least one uncaused cause.
4. To be able to cause something without being effected in anyway requires intelligence
Then we have the start of time. Do you believe that a greater than any number of finite days have elapsed? If no then you must agree that a start of time is required. That also requires an intelligent, uncaused cause.
Then the fact the universe is not in equilibrium means the universe cannot just be a dumb mechanical system; there must be something intelligent and permanent in the universe that is and always has kept us out of equilibrium.
Then we have the fine tuning argument in the OP.
Then we have the huge, suspicious, looking explosion that is the Big Bang.
When these arguments are taken together, one has no choice but to assign a high probability that there is in fact an intelligent creator of the universe.
Not "atemporal", then. "Atemporal" mind doesn't make sense anyway.
Quoting Devans99
You can come up with falsifiability that we can go out and check tomorrow? (y) (the more the better)
Quoting Devans99
You'll have to come up with a different argument for that ? one. I'll suggest that you'll have to go by evidence.
Anyway, "the universe turns out fine-tuned to be exactly what it is" doesn't really say much. Kind of tautological. An estimate would have to compare against all possible worlds (cf modal realism). Not sure how you'd go about that.
I do not do "believing" on these kinds of issues, Devans.
They are beyond human understanding...and any "belief" would be nothing more than a blind guess.
I'd be more than willing to flip a coin on this...if you truly see any value to it.
Anyone truly assessing the totality of the evidence for and against the notion of an "intelligent creator of the universe" should come away with a very loud, "I DO NOT KNOW."
To suppose that one "has no choice" but to conclude one way or the other...or that is is "highly probable" one way or the other...is absurd.
That is a tough one for people like you to accept...just as it is a very tough one for the atheists in my other forum to accept.
Both you and the others like you...and those atheists that I mentioned...would do well to get over it...and accept the "I DO NOT KNOW."
Something must exist permanently (or else there would be nothing) and nothing can exist permanently in time (it would have no initial state so no subsequent states). 2+2=4, something atemporal is the only possible answer. I can't explain exactly how atemporal works but it is a logical requirement.
I have already brought to your attention the large number of arguments that there is a start of time, so these also points to the existence of something atemporal.
We know that atemporal things exist in our universe (photons) - so there is empirical evidence for the atemporal.
Quoting jorndoe
If you were to write a computer program that generated universes at random (random initial conditions, forces and standard model), then the vast, vast majority of such universes would be lifeless I think.
So your estimate for the question 'Is there an intelligent creator of the universe?' is 50%.
Mine is more like 95%. I am entitled to my own opinion, as are you, but I suggest that the evidence available should allow you to reach a more refined probability estimate than 50% (= 'I do not know').
No.
I am not making an estimate at all. I am giving a definitive answer.
I DO NOT KNOW.
I understand that. There are at least five people in the other forum where I post who feel the percentage is even higher...IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.
They...and you...are not actually doing any calculating. You are simply stating your individual biases...your blind guesses about the REALITY.
Absolutely. Do not think I am attempting to deny you that opinion. I respect it.
Okay...but in which direction???
Here is my personal take:
[b][i]I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't.[/b][/i]
Change the "gods" to "intelligent creator."
What on Earth do you see wrong, illogical, or unreasonable about that?
1. Start at 50%/50% for the unknown boolean question ‘is there a creator?’
2. Time has a start. 50% probability of a creator due to this gives: 50% + 50% * 50% = 75%
3. Universe is not in equilibrium. 25% probability of a creator giving: 75% + 25% * 25% = 81%
4. Causality based arguments. 25% probability of a creator giving: 81% + 19% * 25% = 85%
5. Fine tuning. 50% probability of a creator giving: 85% + 15% * 50% = 92%
6. Big Bang. 25% probability of a creator giving: 92% + 8% * 25% = 94%
So I said above 95% chance of a creator, when I run the numbers I get 94%. Not too bad.
50% chance of eggs, 50% chance of bacon.
I look at my bed.
No eggs, no bacon.
What went wrong?
Maybe I had salad or marmite sandwiches instead...
I guess that makes the probability of eggs and bacon and marmite sandwiches 1/16 now!
You're missing the point: you are implictly treating life as a design objective. Indeed, if the goal was to have life, the designer needed to carefully tune those parameters. But that doesn't prove life was a design objective. Low probability things happen all the time purely by chance.
Quoting Devans99
Sure -IF someone created the universe, life is a plausible objective. But you can't assume a creator if you're trying to prove there's a creator.
There are 2 possibilities: 1)life was an unintended consequence of the universe's properties. 2) life was a design objective.
You haven't given a reason to think #2 is more likely than #1.
Quoting Devans99
That's nonsense. It's a naive use of the Principle of Indifference.
1. Is the universe life supporting by chance? That seems very unlikely. A billion to one shot maybe.
2. There is separately (say) a 50% chance of a creator. If there is a creator then there is a 100% chance he is interested in life. That gives the chances of a creator who is interested in life at 50%
So [2] is more likely than [1].
P (Is there a creator | inconsistency of creator concept ) = 0
There, equal validity to everything you've said. Therefore there's no creator.
Your lack of valid, let alone sound, arguments, D99, is, in part, in what my counter-arguments consist. My "illuminating" posts contain objections to which you fail to reply, links to prior posts and other sources from which you are apparently incapable of learning, and references to other thinkers on the various problems with "fine-tuning" or "anthropic principles" with whom you're abundantly ignorant as evidenced by your pseudo-arguments. That you're in denial of, or too intellectually disingenuous to acknowledge, that, is telling, D99, as others also keep pointing out.
"Devan is wrong about all conclusions he tries to derive from maths" or "Devan is right about some conclusions he tries to derive from maths", it's 50-50, boolean outcomes...
If you have any more counter arguments, I'd be interested in hearing them. By the tone of your last post, I have to assume you don't
What % probability do you assign to the unknown boolean question 'is there a creator' (before hearing the evidence). Is it:
1. 0% chance of a creator. That would be bias towards there not being a creator
2. 100% chance of a creator. That would be bias towards there being a creator
3. 50% chance of there being a creator. Unbiased.
Consider a random number generator that generates numbers between 1 and a1 billion. The number 379,219,771 is generated. It's odds were 1 in a billion. Should we be suspicious that the generator was not truly random?
[Quote]2. There is separately (say) a 50% chance of a creator. If there is a creator then there is a 100% chance he is interested in life. That gives the chances of a creator who is interested in life at 50%[/quote]
The principle of indifference can only be applied when the probabilities are symmetrically balanced, as in the probability of a coin coming up heads or tails. The existence/non-existence of a creator is not symmetrically balanced. How likely is it that the supernatural exists? that intentionality can exist without a physical basis? that an intelligence is omniscient/omniscient (or at least sufficiently knowledgable and powerful) to act? I could go in, but the point is that the POI is not applicable.
So [2] is more likely than [1].[/quote]
Assuming that your main goal is to justify your intuitive belief, and not merely the "fine tuning" version, which you yourself cite as evidence, my question is this: If we allow that the universe was created, what then? Let's say God did create the universe so that it evolves according to emergent-evolutionary principles. What's next? Do we stop trying to comprehend and study natural processes? What's next?
You are loading the question with evidence. My approach is to start at 50%/50% for analysing an unknown boolean proposition and then adjust that estimate in light of evidence.
In this case, I do not think you have valid evidence against a creator. Supernatural is a rather loaded word with all sorts of connotations to ghosts and unexplained phenomena. The creator of the universe is technically supernatural because he is separate from (our) nature. But that does not mean he is an illogical or magical being; I believe God is constrained to be something logical (contradictions do not exist in reality) and reasonable. I do not believe in the 3Os for example. Think more of a timeless astrophysicist than a magical being.
I hold a deist viewpoint. Atheism=Science. Theism=God. Deism=Science+God.
So I believe God was the creator of the universe only rather than the theist view that he is actively involved in the universe. So science is in no way invalidated by the existence of God. I believe that God must be a logical/reasonable entity that has to abide by the laws of logic. He was responsible for the creation of the universe and nothing more. God is playing a giant game of Conway's game of life with the universe I think. So the living surfaces for life are the rocky planets. The energy source for life is the stars. And evolution is God's mechanism for developing intelligent life.
If pushed, almost 0%, it would be very surprising for me. It necessitates a lot of hypothesis with vaguely specified mechanisms relying upon incredible contingencies with no reason to believe them over natural explanations. For me to make any sense of it, I'd want there to be at least a description of the creation mechanism before I even felt comfortable assigning any probability to that outcome whatsoever, never mind quantifying over creation mechanisms like this would require. Consider; you are assigning a probability to a proposition rather than an event, I wanna know more about the proposed events of creation.
You're also using the principle of indifference to bracket knowledge we have, rather than assigning it after analysing what knowledge we have and concluding a total absence.
I get that. Science points us down roads of further discovery of unknowns. If we allow your Deist assertion, where does that go? What do we discuss next? Does it impose a direction on our subsequent thoughts and inquiries?
But fundamentally, nature cannot have existed forever - it would have no initial state so no subsequent states - so it must be a creation. That implies a creator. I summed up the main evidence here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/371470
Quoting fdrake
That is sort of difficult to achieve 14 billion years later. But I imagine God worked out the requirements for a life supporting universe and then built some sort of device (IE bomb) that would result in a life supporting universe. The Big Bang is the remaining evidence of this.
Not bad at all.
Here is my probability estimate for the same proposition.
4 to 1 that there is no "creator."
I flipped Mr. Coin (the coin I use to resolve football bets) 5 times...4 times it came up tails...and I had designated "tails" to be the "no" side.
Too much trouble to refine it any further...I was not in the mood to flip it even 10 times, let alone the 100 times that would have been necessary to refine it to what you did.
I submit that my method of "calculating" the probability is every bit as scientific as yours...and probably a less biased method.
Where does that leave us?
Here I'd have to disagree. There is barely a consensus as to what knowledge is. However one thing that science has established quite satisfactorily is that there is more that is unknown than known. Moreover science has likewise established its own approximate and ever-evolving nature. Look at historical paradigm shifts.
I suggest that there are types of regularities that perhaps are not evident to trivial observation, that perhaps do become evident through sometimes infrequent idiosyncratic experiences which not everyone has or pays attention to. In that case, it is entirely reasonable that people could find themselves possessed of valid "reasons for believing" in almost anything...anything within "the pale of possibility" shall we say.
Science is mostly unaffected by the question of whether there was a creator (if, as I believe, that creator takes only a passive role in the universe).
I think that cosmology is effected - its currently almost 100% focused on atheistic explanations of the universe. I think that a more balanced focus would be helpful - at least some folks should be developing creator compatible cosmologies. To be fair, eternal inflation, the current favourite model, is actually quite creator friendly, but unintentionally so I think.
Quoting Devans99
The fallible and incomplete nature of knowledge is not evidence for any hypothesis of creation.
To suppose one can refine those percentages logically...
...totally biased.
That isn't what I said. I explained my positive hypothesis.
Hearing is not listening. Besides, "more counter arguments" flood this thread just like your other "creationist" threads yet you incorrigibly cling to your dogmas. Your replies to my, as well as others', counter-arguments are riddled with defects in logic and pocked with pseudo-scientific (i.e. woo-of-the-gaps) nonsense. You can't see the cosmological forest, D99, for the pseudo-philosophical (i.e. kalamic) "beam in thine own eye". :snicker: :ok:
Quoting Devans99
[B]IF[/b] this existence ALL is the result of chance...and if existence if infinite and eternal..
...a billion to one shot amounts to dead certainty.
Biased in favour of the use of probability?
Most of what we know, we know only probabilistically. It think probability is an invaluable tool. Life is not certain and most questions can only be answered with probability estimates. All questions can ultimately be answered with probability estimates. I see no reason to not address important questions like the existence of a creator. We will probably never know the answer to such questions outright; probability is the best we can hope for.
Maybe you could do us all a favour and point out some of these logical defects?
Rather than just throw mud like a small, enraged child.
I didn't give you any evidence. I merely showed that the 2 possibilities you presented are not symmetrical. You're obsessing on exactly one of the items of complexity I mentioned (supernatural), but that's beside the point. The point is that there's no objective basis for assigning prior probabilities to the two possibilities you stated (creator vs ~creator); the POI cannot be applied.
Furthermore, this is false:
Quoting Devans99
There could have been a creator completely indifferent to what his creation might eventually result in.
We have been doing you this favour post after post, thread after thread. Leading you to water, we still cannot make you think ... :sweat:
Quoting Pantagruel
Someone posits something arbitrary, is otherwise logical, and makes a sensible inference; garbage in, garbage out.
But what if the universe is a egg? Therefore the universe has a shell.
There are certain regularities that only become evident through infrequent idiosyncratic experiences which not everyone has or pays attention to. In that case, it is entirely reasonable that people could find themselves possessed of valid reasons for believing that the universe is an egg from almost anything... anything within the pale of possibility, shall we say.
By showing that the 2 possibilities are not symmetrical, you are introducing evidence for/against the proposition. I was assessing the proposition as 50%/50% - before introducing evidence for/against (as a separate step in the probability calculation).
Quoting Relativist
I think we can assume the probability space is normally distributed and so assign a 50%/50% chance of either. Like when we toss a coin 100 times, it comes out heads about 50% of the time. If we knew the yes/no distribution of unknown boolean questions we could use that I suppose. But that is not available so the only unbiased approach for an unknown boolean question is 50% yes, 50% no. Any different from this and you are showing bias one way or the other.
Sample space: {empty set, The universe is an egg}, probability of the universe being an egg, 1! Logic! Mathematics! Probability!
Okay...so let's take my estimate of probability into account.
I am saying that my estimate, as scientifically derived as yours, shows a probability of an intelligent designer to be only 20%. The probability that this is not intelligently designed is 80%.
I ask again: Where does that leave us?
But evidence is built into the question 'is the universe an egg?'. We know eggs are generally small, universes are big etc... So 50%/50% is not appropriate in this case.
There is however, no evidence built into the question 'is the universe a creation?'. So 50%/50% is an appropriate starting point for a probability calculation.
That leaves me as mostly deist and you as mostly atheist. That's your right. Would be interested if you could break your calculation down.
50/50 is impossible in that case. The only consistent assignment of probabilities to that set which satisfies the probability axioms assigns all probability to "the universe is an egg". Therefore, the universe is an egg with probability 1.
You are being glib. Popper points out that it doesn't matter where hypotheses come from. You can't require that a hypothesis be evidentially based, you end up in an infinite regress: what is the evidence for the evidence when you don't already know the law. Why didn't anyone figure out the theory of gravity before Newton? Some people perceive things that others do not.
Tell that to any funding body, ethics committee or practicing scientist.
But there are more possibilities than 'the universe being an egg' that you have not allowed for. The universe could be a radio, a chicken, etc... So this is not a boolean sample space.
'Is the universe a creation?' on the other hand, is a boolean sample space (that is normally distributed as far as we know).
And what do paradigm shifts and the falsifiability criterion have to say about creation hypotheses again?
Quoting Devans99
It consists of two outcomes, the empty set and the claim that the universe is an egg. The empty set has probability 0, the universe is an egg has probability 1. Therefore the universe is an egg with probability 1.
But it is not normally distributed. We know the universe could be a handbag, a truck, a meat clever, etc... so there are many non-chicken things the universe could be. So it is a boolean question that comes loaded with evidence that the answer is 'no'.
'Is the universe a creation' - the underlying sample space is 50% yes / 50% no, as far as we can tell (before taking evidence one way or the other).
All I'm pointing out is that it is possible for someone to have a legitimate reason for believing that there is a higher form of consciousness, different orders of causality, whatever, which they might choose to characterize as a Deity. Personally, I'm neutral on the subject. I do think there is something more going on. So have many thinkers at many points in history. Some of those intuitions have proven accurate and have toppled outmoded belief systems. I have no prejudices as to what that might entail, and am open to that expectation being falsified. However to think that our current belief-system is somehow "more adequate" than any that has gone before is naive, don't you think?
The negation of "the universe is an egg" has probability 0. Why would I consider things of probability 0?
Quoting Devans99
There is no evidence that the universe is not an egg. Literally none. 0 probability.
Quoting Pantagruel
"Therefore it's reasonable to believe the universe was created"? How does this possibly follow?
You weren't able to follow the line of reasoning about the origin of hypotheses, contingent and limited character of knowledge, and the possibility of paradigm shifting?
Maybe the universe was created. How would the statement "The universe was created" in any way contradict anything else that we know about the universe? Think about it.
Just because it is reasonable to come to hold a belief doesn't mean the belief is necessarily true...
Your question is of the form 'Is X a Y?' where there are an almost infinite number of different types of Y. So the answer space is clearly not evenly distributed between Yes and No.
"Is the universe a creation?' however has no skewed underlying answer space.
Why would an infinite causal regress require a first element for it to exist?
I imagined the details linking your statements to each other. You didn't spell them out.
(Hypothesis generation is arbitrary) & (Knowledge is fallible and contingent) & (Paradigm shifts are possible) => (It is reasonable to believe in some creation hypothesis), why?
Quoting Pantagruel
X is consistent with Y is not sufficient grounds for belief in either X or Y.
Quoting Devans99
"Is this universe a created universe?" same statement form.
Quoting Devans99
Demonstrate this.
OK, let's treat what I said as evidence. The fact that you are ignoring this evidence demonstrates assymmetry and bias.
Quoting Devans99
Normal distribution of 2 possibilities (creator, ~creator)? You're just restating your unsupported claim that we should consider these equally probable.
Coin toss outcomes are symmetrical: each possibility is clearly of equal probability. We can't say that about the existence of a creator. Consider the possibility of an elephant in my backyard. There are exactly two possibilities (elephant, ~elephant), and (per your claims) we should ignore evidence (e.g. no elephants have been sighted in the vicnity), so that suggests we should consider the probabilty of an elephant in the backyard as 50%. That's silly.
The first element causes the second element (cause and effect)
The second element causes the third element
The nth element causes the nth+1 element
So in a finite regress, all elements owe their reality to the first element.
By definition, an infinite finite regress has no first element. So therefore nothing in it has any reality; no ultimate cause, so none of it can exist.
I have no evidence for or against the proposition (initially) so therefore 50% yes / 50% no is the correct initial starting point for the probability calculation.
If you refer to my calculation above, I merely start at 50% yes / 50% no and then adjust the numbers in light of the evidence.
You are somehow deriving evidence from the question 'is the universe a creation?' that is causing you to skew your probability calculation from the get-go. It would be better if you could state this evidence separately.
Can you justify this? It seems to me that I can use:
Quoting Devans99
"Is this universe a created universe?"
Because there are an almost infinite number of different types of sort Y. So the answer space is clearly not evenly distributed between Yes and No.
Thanks for the explanation.
So then to what do we owe the reality of the first element, a first tuner, if not an anterior one? Sure a finite regress all elements owe their reality to the first element, but I cannot see how that is true of an infinite one.
But you have statistical evidence (common experience) that there are no elephants in your backyard. So the question does not have a boolean sample space; it is loaded with evidence towards 'no'.
There is no statistical evidence for the question 'is the universe a creation?'.
We merely have arguments one way or the other. I start at 50% yes / 50% no and then weigh in with the arguments for/against.
I kind of see where the "nitpicky logic" tone that a lot of the threads degenerate into comes from now though. Top down I think.
The argument is that infinite regresses are impossible. So that leads to there must only be finite regresses in reality. At the base of each such regress, there must be an uncaused cause; there is no other logical explanation.
To be uncaused means to be beyond time (there is no 'before' for a timeless thing - it has no cause).
There are quite a few ways to show that time must have a start (eg do you believe a greater than finite number of days has elapsed?) and if that is true, then logic points to the reality of something atemporal.
I have a nitpicky logical tone because I wanted to get a clear statement of your position. I apologise if it made you uncomfortable.
Quoting Pantagruel
Yes. I understood that was what you were claiming. What I did not see was an argument linking it to your simultaneous reference of falsifiability, paradigm shifts and the fragmentary and limited nature of knowledge. Can you please explain to me how falsifiability, paradigm shifts and the fragmentary nature of knowledge establish (or should convince me) that a belief is reasonably held when it is not contradicted by anything known?
I’m aware of the argument but I do not see how it makes the case that infinite regresses are impossible. A first element presupposes finitude, so why would we apply it to an infinite regress? I agree that a finite regress would require a first element, but disagree that an infinite regress does.
It may leave you as a deist...but it most assuredly does not leave me as mostly atheist. I'd sooner become a Trump supporter than an atheist...and I would not become a Trump supporter if you held a gun to my head.
Sure...I've got a good memory for someone my age.
First flip was a tails; second was a tails; third was a tails; fourth was a heads; and the final toss was a tails.
Hope that helped.
If you imagine the negative integers:
{..., -5, -4, -3, -2, -1}
Then its clear that you can start at -1 and define the whole sequence because you have a starting point.
However, you cannot start at '...' and define the whole sequence because you have no starting point.
Such is the case with cause and effect, the cause defines the effect so the cause must pre-exist the effect. An infinite finite regress has no initial cause. So each subsequent cause cannot be defined, just like the way it is impossible to derive the negative numbers from '...'.
Glad to hear it (on both counts).
There is created
Or uncreated (existed forever)
Existing forever is impossible. It has no initial state, so it has no subsequent states.
So the universe must be a creation.
You're trying to have it both ways. First you said:
Quoting Devans99
But with the elephant, YOU are introducing evidence for/against the proposition. Which is it - do we consider "evidence" when determining whether or not there's a "boolean sample space", or not?
I think you have to be careful with the question selection, but certain questions can be said to be normally distributed (between yes and no):
1. I toss a coin 100 times. How many heads?
2. Is space discrete?
3. Is the universe a creation?
IE they have no loaded evidence built into the question. Then you can allow for the evidence in follow-on calculations.
As I say, with question [3] above, before assessing the evidence, I think 50% / 50% is correct.
Having thought about it some more, I think you have to define 'creation'. My definition is: something that does not exist in time, and comes into existence (in time) due to some external force.
Existing forever in time is impossible. There would be no initial state, so it no subsequent states. So nothing can exist forever in time. So therefore everything in time must be a creation (everything requires an external force to create it).
Sure. Paradigm shifts illustrate that even our most "certain" beliefs are subject to revision. So you may be "certain" that the universe wasn't created because of...well, science, I presume. As I said I don't see any overt contradictions there. You still haven't broached that one.
Likewise, the contingent and limited character of knowledge goes to the same point.
As far as falsifiability, I wasn't arguing that specifically, I guess my reference to Popper sent you there? What I did note was Popper's (correct) position that you can't account for novel hypotheses by evidence, because you would be in an infinite regress. It doesn't matter where the hypothesis comes from. It was a general statement of the fact that not every belief in life is scientific, and it is possible to have a reasonable belief which is nevertheless false. Look at children. They develop "superstitious" beliefs about things, but in light of their limited knowledge those beliefs can be seen as "reasonable." You consistently return to the specific case about the created universe, but it's about the general case of believing and I think I have already restated that cogently in several ways now.
Bottom line, people have different beliefs. Do you honestly think that everything you believe is true? I also made reference to Newton, and how different people have different abilities when it comes to grasping evidence. If A and B disagree, no amount of logic is ever going to reconcile that. That's why I am asking. Ok, if the universe was created, what does that change? That's pragmatism. Or pragmaticism if you prefer Peirce (I do).
edit: that a belief IS reasonably held? Not necessarily. But could be reasonably held. That's sufficient.
Good point. Look at our culture through the ages:
- 2000 years ago maybe 10% (?) of what we knew was actually correct
- 100 years ago maybe 50% (?) of what we knew was actually correct
- Now maybe 60% (?) of what we know is actually correct
So we need to keep an open mind as to our believes.
This is all I am saying. Nothing more. Especially when it comes to establishing a dialog. If we fundamentally disagree, we need to find a common ground not try to persuade one another to alter our viewpoints.
These notations designate the same ordered set.
The point is that there's no reason that there must be a first element in an ordered set of causes. The first-mover argument assumes what it's trying to prove. How do you know there's not an infinite regress of causes? "It's turtles all the way down."
I just showed you a model of infinite causal regress. It's the plain old integers. What law of nature says it can't exist? On the contrary, it probably does exist. What caused the big bang? Random quantum fluctuations in the vacuum state of the pre-universe. What caused that? What caused the laws of physics? What caused that cause? You never get to the bottom.
It seems to me that "There can't be an infinite regress therefore God" is a terrible argument. How do you know there can't be an infinite regress? The integers are a model of infinite regress.
To my understanding, paradigm shifts occur when privileged statements and techniques at the centre of a research paradigm get revised. It is rare that a statement or technique is part of the core of a scientific research program, nevermind things as far removed from core scientific theory as creation myths. Let's focus on statements as they are relevant here. The revision of a privileged statement seems to occur when the range of phenomena to which that statement is accurate is limited by some discovery which cannot be explained well by other means.
I see little to no relation between the privileged statements at the core of scientific research programs and creator hypotheses. This would require that they have content amenable to scientific study alone; and I do not believe that. In that regard they are consistent with the claim, but they also give me no reason to believe it. If it were stipulated that creator hypotheses were indeed related to the privileged statements at the core of privileged research programs and were in conflict with them; this would be evidence of the falsehood of the creator hypotheses. In general I would not give the status of even being plausible to any creator hypothesis if it were treated with the required pedantry for scientific claims.
A counter example to the claim that "X is consistent with Y entails X may reasonably be believed given Y" is two irrelevant statements, "apples are sometimes green" and "pigs are sometimes quite pink", and I am not in the business of believing apples are sometimes green because pigs are quite pink. Consistency alone won't do for justification.
Quoting Pantagruel
The most common example of a paradigm shift that motivates this intuition is the shift from Newton's model of gravitation to Einstein's; the two theories are quite far apart conceptually, and it would be implausible to find sufficient hints toward general relativity in Newton's model. What happened here (per Rovelli's book The Order of Time) is that Einstein noticed that special relativity falls out of a peculiarity of Maxwell's equations breaking down when attached to a moving coordinate system; which motivated the equivalence principle in special relativity, which motivated a localisation of the principle in general relativity and a relationship of this principle to massive objects.
Per the example, hypothesis generation occurs through a consideration of both theory and experiment; the theory suggests networks of coherent statements (perhaps under some motivating assumptions and framing devices)- new theory research brings out new implications or reveals network blind spots, experiments provide interesting measurements; new experiments test theories, provide phenomena for theory to account for at a later date and furthermore constrain what theoretical implications are plausible to given the experiment. The two can be done in tandem and interweave (as is typical in "series of experiment" theory generating papers in psychology.)
The majority of (declarative) knowledge does not work like science as regards the theory construction/experiment, of course. For this reason, the stipulated properties of scientific methodology are likely not to be as relevant for non-scientific knowledge; we don't constantly run research programs in first person, or in our friend groups. What remains, for me at least, is a network of items of (declarative) knowledge which are linked by argument and evidence in a broader sense.
In that regard, I find it implausible that the universe was created by beings with inconsistent properties, or with properties that have sufficient tension with the above scientific or more informal networks, or elaborations/relations using the two. Creator hypotheses lay in that hinterland of (the conceptual consequences of) scientific and non-scientific claims taken together.
A being "outside the universe" would not exist, as the universe is all that is, a transcendent being would similarly be outside the universe, a transcendent and immanent being is inconsistent (but wait, it just has transcendent and immanent descriptions without having parts blah blah...). The stories of holy books have a terrible habit of getting dates wrong, and their creation myths should be treated as simply allegorical, nice fiction, or plain wrong when considering what it would mean for there to be an agent at the start of the universe and/or outside the universe (assuming time has a first point, even though it radiates out as part of spacetime and we know that "when something first happened" is frame dependent), are wrong on the geology etc...
What remains after all that is no reason to believe in any creation hypothesis, and much reason to believe that almost all are false. The claim simply doesn't fit with what is known and what can be reasonably inferred.
Quoting Pantagruel
Yes, scientific knowledge does not exhaust knowledge, and all knowledge is fallible.
We can find the reasons someone believes a claim to be understandable even when they are not reasonable.
Meta-time has existed as long as meta-universe. Meta-time goes both forward and backward at the same time, so it doesn’t go anywhere and thus it is always “now”, but every now and then meta-universe creates some kind of little mini-universe, such as ours, and then baby-time particular for that baby-universe begins.
You could say meta-universe exist “beyond” (our) time and space, in so much that it contains it, and you can call it god, but meta-universe doesn’t care, it’s too busy worrying about meta-meta-universe.
You are construing everything literally and narrowly, instead of addressing the general principle which I over and over reiterated. As I suggested, there are plenty of beliefs that are non-scientific.
Quoting fdrake
Do you mean with what you know? Or with what someone else told you that they know? If you think it possible to precisely and exhaustively describe the scope of human knowledge I'd say that's the most implausible thing I've heard yet. I know that claim is weak. The claim that the universe was created? I know neither the strength nor weakness of that claim can be established. It's a metaphysical claim. Are you saying that all metaphysical claims are unreasonable? Do Forms exist? Who knows? They are widely debated though. They're hypotheses.
So your beliefs are reasonable? Were you ever wrong? Hmmm. And when you were a small child? At what point does one become "reasonable?" My own views have switched from Idealism to Scientific Realism. Were my previous beliefs "unreasonable"? The fact that someone believes it means it is reasonable...for that person. It's how that belief plays out that determines whether its "extension" is also reasonable.
Quoting Devans99
Sure- when we have prior knowledge of the probabilites, as in a coin toss. When else is it reasonable?
If applying the Principle of Indifference (that's what is called when you apply equal probabilities to a set of possibilities), to a yes/no question is reasonable then the order and mix of questions should result in the same conclusion. Let's test that with a different sequence of questions:
1) Does the supernatural exist? (P=.5)
2) Can an unembodied mind exist? (P=,.5*.5)
3) Can material come into existence without prior material? (P=.5*.5*.5)
4) is it possible for a mind to plan something as complex as a universe? (P=.5*.5*.5*.5)
5) Was there an intent to create life? (P=.5*.5*.5*.5*.5)
Clearly, this doesn't lead to the same conclusion as in YOUR questions. Are any of my questions unreasonable?
It's impossible for it to be, as you say, turtles all the way down because we're at a particular position in the sequence, right? There must be an ordinal number, as in nth number, that marks our position in the sequence. What is that number? There is none as I illustrated with the various ways the set of integers Z can be written.
Another way to look at it would be that every number in the sequence of integers corresponds to the ordinal number infinity itself; after all we can only reach it after "beginning" at negative infinity by completing an infinite number of steps. It's my humble opinion that the infinite regress technique basically relies on the inability to complete an supertask as this is; to "begin" at negative infinity and reach any finite position in the sequence is impossible.
I hear this being mentioned a lot - that the universe is cold and inhospitable. However, one can always explain the vast distances in the universe being necessary to prevent supernovae from snuffing life out in the star systems, the radiation that permeates the vacuum is necessary because we need stars and stars radiate and the last part, that the universe is devoid of life is devoid of life is incorrect. We don't know if there's life out there or not? According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, life on earth is composed of the most common elements in the universe to wit Hydrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen and the rest of the universe will likely have a similar composition; if life could evolve in the solar system, why couldn't it evolve in different star system?
Now does fine-tuning look as bad as the twitter feed you posted makes it out to be?
What is your definition of fine tuning? Is the definition necessarily associated with life; for example we can only say a universe X is fine-tuned if there's life in it? If yes then the universe that the uncaused first fine-tuner exists/existed in must be fine-tuned. If no then why do you say that our universe is fine-tuned? After all your claim that our universe is fine-tuned seems to turn on there being life in it.
Not at all. What law of nature says the collection of causes must be well-ordered? I agree it's intuitively appealing that there must be a first cause; but that's not a proof. Let me give you an example. The integers mark the years according to the Western calendar. We're currently at 2020. Ok, we're here. No question about it. And there was a year before that and a year before that, going back forever.
This is difficult intuitively; but there's no principle of nature that says it can't be so. And after all, God is not a principle of nature either. People who deny the possibility of infinite regress are reasoning with their emotions, not with logic.
Quoting TheMadFool
The set of integers is not well-ordered so you can't claim that. It's false. You want to try to make [math]- \omega[/math], so to speak, your "first element." But that is not the model. The model has no first element. It's like Peano in reverse. Every integer has an immediate predecessor as well as an immediate successor. Again, it's only your intuition that's objecting. You haven't got an actual argument. You can't. How do you know the universe isn't an infinite regress of causes?
Quoting TheMadFool
No. You are trying to reach an integer from the "beginning" on the left. You can't do that in the integers. You surely know that. There was no beginning. There was no first cause. How do you personally know that the universe isn't like that? There is no negative infinity in this model. There's no negative infinity in the integers.
Do you have this same complaint about the number line itself Of course you don't. It would never cross your mind. Start at zero and you can always move a unit to the right or a unit to the left.
And why is it that you can always move a unit to the right but not to the left? My model has nicer symmetry. You have no fundamental explanation as to why you can move forever in one direction but hit a wall if you go too far in the other. You're making that up. You have a feeling but not a logical argument.
For a contemporary theory, if only a speculative one, consider Roger Penrose's cyclic universe. He posits an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches. Who's to say he's wrong? There doesn't need to be a first cause. It IS turtles all the way down.
Quoting Devans99
... ergo an 'infinite causal agent' exists??? :rofl:
Infinite regress always occurs in a rational argument so intuition doesn't come into play here. Either the regress itself is problematic or it leads to a contradiction which is then employed to prove a point, whatever that maybe
Quoting fishfry
Well, if the universe had no beginning then the past is infinite. So here we have the past as negative infinity as that's what you mean using the integers. Now consider the now to be any number on the integer number line: -3567, -9, 0, 1, 2019, etc. How do we reach these points? We'd have to pass through a positive infinity of time to reach these points. Now, is that possible? Of course not. Why? Think of the positive infinity {0, 1, 2, 3,...}. Can we pass through this positive infinity of time to reach any point that can be considered the present? Impossible, right? There has to be a beginning. It's not turtles all the way down.
A good example of one of Kant's antinomies, which lead us to conjecture about things that might be, or must be, on the basis of what we observe, but which are forever beyond reason's capacity to resolve. 'We can't explain it, therefore there must be ....'
A better approach is simply to observe that knowledge is generally built on an order which must be presumed, but can't be explained. That suggests something beyond the order, but it's not something we can ever know, by definition. So I think, philosophically, the lesson is to stay with that sense of 'not knowing' rather than trying to rush to judgement about something which, by definition, is not knowable - which is very much in keeping with Kant's approach.
(That's the real meaning of agnosticism, although one that shades into apophaticism, another thing altogether.)
Quoting fishfry
Hindus or Buddhists certainly wouldn't.
You are missing an important point; cause determines effect, so when using the negative integers to discuss causality, it must be the case that -2 exists before -1, -3, exists before -2 etc... So therefore something causal with the structure of the negative integers cannot exist as an infinite causal regress:
{ ... -> -5 -> -4 -> -3 -> -2 -> 1- }
It's not valid to write ... -> -5 as '...' is undefined then -5 is also undefined.
There are no examples of anything with the structure of the natural numbers in nature and actual infinity leads to absurdities (see https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7379/infinite-bananas/p1) so we can be sure actual infinity does not exist (no evidence for it and its logically impossible).
Quantum fluctuations are a red herring. If something cam from nothing naturally and time was infinite then matter density would be infinite - which it is not. Something does not come from nothing. That would be in violation of the conservation of energy and would be best classed as magic.
The universe is a creation because:
1. Anything existing in time forever is impossible. It would have no initial state so no subsequent states
2. So everything in time is a creation
3. So there is a creator or creator(s)
Or
1. time has a start
2. so time must be a creation
3. so there must be a creator(s)
Quoting fishfry
No the integers are not an accurate model of an infinite causal regress because they do not reflect the cause-effect dependancy of infinite causal regress. A better model is pool:
1. The cue hits the white ball
2. The white ball hits the black
3. The back goes in the pocket
Notice how if we remove the first element [1] in the finite regress, then the other elements ([2] and [3]) all disappear. So a causal regress depends on its first element for existence. An infinite causal regress has no first element (by definition) so they simply can't exist.
That leads to the conclusion that all causal regresses in nature must be finite; implying an uncaused cause at the base (something timeless).
Quoting fdrake
OK maybe it is clearer to say that the creator created spacetime but the creator is part of a wider universe of unknown characteristics. He would thus be transcendent but not immanent.
Quoting Relativist
[1] Is 100% IMO, spacetime is a creation, so 'super-spacetime' must exist
[2] Who says God is an unembodied mind? He may have a body. I do not know.
[3] Material could timelessly pre-exist the creation of spacetime. God could have used that in creation of the Big Bang
[4] I think this is 100% yes. God might have done a few prototypes first
[5] Is 100% IMO. What other motivation could he have?
Quoting TheMadFool
You cannot fine tune the uncaused cause's environment - it is timeless - there is no 'before' in which to do any fine tuning. Infinite regresses are impossible, so the fine tuning argument ultimately leads to something that must exist in a non fine tuned environment - something remarkable.
Quoting fishfry
Do you believe that a greater than any finite number of days has passed?
Quoting Wayfarer
It is a favourite hobby of mine to try to prove the existence of God. Because it is difficult/impossible, it makes a great pastime.
Thanks, Dev. Happy you feel that way.
Glad we have that particular thing in common.
And it could lead to world fame. Imagine the accolades for having accomplished what the finest minds that have ever existed on planet Earth have failed to do. (Aside: Ya gotta be careful when that element is part of an equation. It tends to become the most important element.)
In any case, I doubt the task is "difficult/impossible." More likely, it is just IMPOSSIBLE.
My bet...there is no way to arrive at "therefore there is at least one god" using logic, reason, science, or math. Same thing holds for "therefore there are NO gods."
In fact, every indication is that one cannot get to "therefore it is MORE LIKELY that there is at least one god...than that there are none" or "therefore it is MORE LIKELY that there are no gods...than that there is at least one"...using those things.
One only arrives at those conclusions by "faith"...which is to say, a combination of a blind guess (usually referred to as a "belief")...coupled with an insistence that the blind guess is correct.)
The fallibility, incompleteness and contingency of knowledge entails absolutely nothing about whether the universe was created by an agent or not. An attitude of epistemic humility is consistent with conservative speculation, accounts requiring an agent before the beginning of the universe are anything but. They are riddled with:
(1) Logical contradictions (x exists outside of existence)
(2) conceptual error ("before" time, causally precedent events are required for all events except the origin of causation, conceived as an event within the series it generates)
(3) Obfuscations (equivocating between what is well justified to believe and what is believed),
(4) Invalid arguments: fallibility of knowledge => reason for belief in any creator.
(5) outlandish generalisations (deriving simultaneously vague and unsubstantiated guesses about the origins of the universe from unknowns or the fallibility/contingency of knowledge or mystical experience)
(6) falsehoods combined with all of the above (eg what we know about the biological systems required for agency do not exist before the origin of atoms, causation as a linear series moving forward in a universal time being an approximation that only works for sufficiently large, slow and light objects).
Creator hypotheses tend to evaporate into the hot air they are when stated and analysed.
Anyway let's drop as it has become a question of the legitimacy of metaphysical claims in general which I'm not prepared to argue at this time. :)
"The universe was created" is either vague and unsupported or entails things which are implausible given what we know. Was it an agent? Before the advent of stable systems capable of supporting agency? No, "like that but not".
You're treating the claim "the universe was created" like it doesn't require any further explication - a description of how. Like a description of how is too much to ask. The reasons I don't believe it was created are because descriptions of how are implausible given what we know (for previously stated reasons; logically contradictory, equivocating, unsubstantiated, conceptually confused, inconsistent with little we do know about how the universe works), and if someone doesn't feel the need to say how, I have absolutely no reason to believe them.
The issue is usually approached like the legitimacy of a creator comes from a hole in knowledge (dark matter, how far our universe description goes back does not include "the first instants") OR conceptual confusion (alleged regresses, prime movers not needing their own causal explanation, necessary to exist because a stated conceptual problem is allegedly impossible to solve without them, bad interpretations of science or pseudoscience (woo lives here) ). Then "a creator exists' is stipulated to be the end of the matter; as if no more questions need to be asked; as if how they did it need not be stipulated along with that they did it for the account to make sense.
Quoting Pantagruel
This treats a person being reasonable as the same as a statement being reasonable. A reasonable person can have unreasoned or unreasonable beliefs; a person knowing how to reason in general does not entail that that person applies the competence in forming/supporting every belief they have. A better account stratifies the competences into domains, people know how to reason about some things but not others.
When it comes to creator hypotheses, people often short circuit; they stop asking questions about how because apparently they have established that, and apparently that's that. When you start asking how questions, the claims are shown to be the confused and unsubstantiated drivel that they are.
Quoting Pantagruel
It's not about that at all, to me. Metaphysics in general is fine. It's simply because creator hypotheses are unsubstantiated on all of the details (and thus there's no reason to believe them), conceptually confused, entail logical inconsistencies or are implausible given what we know.
People who believe they have demonstrated the existence of a creator would sooner believe their conclusion than examine the conceptual content of their own writing (assumptions, inferences, interpretations); questions cease. Why not pursue the next one instead?
In the sense that it is a metaphysical claim, it doesn't. This is an idea whose origins predate science certainly, probably recorded history. It is an idea that has "historical content" (forgive me, I'm just finishing off R.G. Collingwood's "Philosophy of History" which talks a lot about the self-creation of the mind as historical knowledge). As such, I don't think, prima facie, it requires any more justification than that. As I said, I'm not really into doing a "deep-dive" at this time.
Because something has been believed historically and had social institutions devoted to that belief does not entail it is well justified given what we know (even as part of a metaphysics). This is just as true for phlogiston, the theory of humours and homeopathy as it is for creator hypotheses and their associated worldviews.
Wow. You have a real issue with this, don't you? Many people (myself included) have an inkling, an expectation, a hope, that there is more to life than meets the eye. The things that happen to people qua people don't resolve into scientific terms. Life is complex and multi-dimensional. Do you really think that what we know exceeds what we don't know?
That's all I have to offer.
You're allegedly proving the existence of a creator, so you can't assume it.
[Quote][2] Who says God is an unembodied mind? He may have a body. I do not know.[/quote]
You can follow both possibilities, and consider the probabilities. If he's material, and performing acts - he's expending energy; if the material and energy of the universe "must" have been created, then this material, energy-expending "god" must have been created.
[Quote]
[3] Material could timelessly pre-exist the creation of spacetime. God could have used that in creation of the Big Bang[/quote]This implies he didn't create the universe, he just played a role in shaping it - but this raises other questions: can energy come into existence, violating conservation of energy?
[Quote]
[4] I think this is 100% yes. God might have done a few prototypes first[/quote]
There is zero basis for your claim that it is possible.
[Quote]
[5] Is 100% IMO. What other motivation could he have?[/quote]
Artistic pleasure; the joy of problem solving; scientific experiments to see what might result.
Your answers reveal your bias, and it demonstrates that your approach of applying the Principle of Indifference(POI) to carefully selected loaded questions also reflects bias. Compare this to a case where the POI is applicable, like coin flips: there is no alternative set of questions that leads to a different result.
No, not at all.
A non-cognitive explanation for holding a belief describes a cause for it but is not a justification.
No. What we know however limits what we can reasonably believe.
Who said it has to be justified? A belief is essentially a hypothesis. Justification goes beyond the hypothesis to its proof. Again, per Popper, the origin of a hypothesis doesn't matter.
For claims like "there was a creator of the universe", which already play part in conceptual arguments and constrain empirical matters, the ability to justify them is presumed. If someone wants to behave as if they know there was a creator in such contexts, it's a performative contradiction (treating the claim cognitively until their ability to justify the claim ceases) and a conceptual error (knowledge claims need justifications) to suspend the need for justification.
If a statement need not be justified in principle (in any context), it is not known.
Quoting Pantagruel
Hypotheses are implausible (and sometimes demonstrably false/wrong) when they contradict what we know, entail contradictions and require conceptual confusion and equivocation to articulate. I hypothesise that 1+1=3, but wait that's implausible. I hypothesise that the Earth is flat, or is that a matter of metaphysics? I believe that the universe is an egg and was hatched by the Great Chicken, it's fine to believe because justification is not required.
Non-cognitive motivations make far more sense in most cases for belief in a creator or finding it plausible (well, more strongly, "seeing" the attraction). Questioning the claim's plausibility is felt to come along with questioning necessary human emotions, like hope and love and wonder.
Quoting Pantagruel
Like this. As if wonder goes away with questions and explanations rather than promoting them in the first place.
(Otherwise, I'm lost).
You keep coming up with sweeping statements like
Quoting fdrake
Nonsense. A belief is a belief, it isn't knowledge. You don't accept any forms of justification (historicity, tradition, intuition) which clearly are sufficient to the foundation of a belief qua belief. I believe you are of the "last word" school of philosophy, so be my guest.
No, a reasonably held belief has a justification for it. Arbitrary beliefs do not. A justification is not required for a belief to be a belief, but it is required for a belief to be reasonably held. X knows that P surely looks something like X reasonably believes that P!
Quoting Pantagruel
Quoting Pantagruel
Quoting Pantagruel
History, culture and intuition in general serve as belief promoters but not belief justifiers. They may cause us to have beliefs, but do not thereby justify holding those beliefs.
"Epistemic coherentism – Beliefs are justified if they cohere with other beliefs a person holds"
OK let's leave this one a 50%.
Quoting Relativist
I think this question overlaps with question [1] so it is not right to consider it separately in the probability analysis. I also think you are assuming that God must follow your common experience of what applies within spacetime. God is from beyond spacetime so I not believe that temporal constraints such as energy expenditure would apply. We as humans are only familiar with a tiny fraction of what might exist and trying to say that everything in existence must follow the tiny fraction (of what we know) is a fallacy.
Quoting Relativist
I don't think this is relevant to the probability analysis of: 'is the universe a creation?. The material may or may not have pre-existed the universe timelessly. By 'creation' I mean creating spacetime; whether it was done with pre-existing material is not relevant to the probability analysis.
Quoting Relativist
We run simulations of the universe on our computers, so it is not even beyond our very limited abilities; why then should it be beyond God's? I think this is therefore 100% yes.
Quoting Relativist
Whether there was intent to create life is not relevant to the existence of a creator so this point does not belong in the probability analysis.
So I still get the initial probability of a the universe being a creation as 50%. To which all the positive evidence that the universe is a creation must then be added:
1. Nothing can exist 'forever' in time - It would have no initial state so no subsequent states
2. So everything in time is a creation
3. So there must be a creator
And
1. Time has a start
2. So time must be a creation
3. So there must be a creator
And
Universe is not in equilibrium / Causality based arguments / Fine tuning / Big Bang
That is quite a lot of evidence in favour of the universe being a creation.
Has lots of flavours. None I'm aware of which substitute in:
Quoting Pantagruel
persons for systems of belief which are held, negotiated and challenged socially. If you relativise it to persons in that way, justification of a claim is entailed just by a person having a system of beliefs which coheres with it in some sense. This makes justification a personal matter, rather than a social one.
It becomes justified to believe that one is Frodo Baggins if one believes that one's father is Bilbo Baggins; rather than listen to the rest of our socially distributed knowledge systems refuting it ("He's not Frodo, he's just high.").
Ok Frodo.
No, not an expert. I don't need to be an expert to point out an obvious misconstrual of that type of position. If you would provide me with references that give a coherentist account of justification that make coherence with one's own beliefs to be sufficient for justification, I'd be grateful.
You claimed that some statements don't need justification.
Several posts down the road you presented a flawed definition of a theory of justification which is established in philosophy.
The next post you provided a personal definition of coherentism... that
Quoting Pantagruel
defines your view as someone is justified in believing something so long as believing it doesn't make them a hypocrite. While being a terrible portrayal of coherentism, it is good moral advice, and scarcely relevant to the claim that "there was a creator".
Coherence relations are justificatory relations between beliefs. They consist of (something close to) logical consistency (a logical property that two things can be true at the same time) + explanatory consistency (one claim supports or does not refute another). This is exactly the standard I've been using to argue that beliefs in a creator are unjustified; they entail contradictions and do not fit in with what we know, or are so vague and unspecified that they don't relate to anything at all!
If the supernatural exists, that makes certain things possible that are othewise impossible. If God is natural, it raises other questions - like energy conservation, what he's made of, how he came to exist....The point is that the question of God's existence is complex, and creating some yes/no questions to which you apply 50%probababilities cannot possibly be an objective approach - the specific questions chosen are subject to bias, and the probabilities attached are subjective. Quoting Devans99
We simulate gross behavior and get general results. This simulation entails modelling from a pre-big bang state to the formation of 1st generation stars, to 2nd generation star systems with the building blocks of life and the conditions for abiogenesis- and determining in advance what life would look like. More importantly, when we model physical systems, we are applying known science. Observing and determining how the world works is of negligible complexity compared to designing how the world will work, from the ground up.Quoting Devans99
Quoting Devans99
It is relevant to your fine-tuning argument because that argument treats life as a design objective. Aside from the context of my questions entirely, this defeats the fine-tuning argument you stated.
God as the creator of spacetime cannot, by definition, be of spacetime (be of nature).
God cannot have come into being; he must be timeless: all infinite regresses are impossible, that leaves only finite regresses, so causality must have an uncaused cause at the base. And it is only possible for an uncaused cause to be timeless (no 'before' - permanent existence).
As to whether God is made of some sort of material and whether he is complex or simple, I am not sure.
Quoting Relativist
Agreed, but we are talking about a timeless architect of the universe. If time is not a constraint, it is possible to come up with anything. Maybe he went through 1000s of prototypes both simulated (in computers) and real before coming up with the Big Bang and our version of spacetime.
Quoting Relativist
The meaning of life is surely information - more information of good quality results in a better life. This applies to us and God equally. Which contains more good quality information - a non-life supporting universe or a life supporting universe? It is the 2nd, and that is what a god would seek to create.
In addition, God is constrained by logic to being benevolent. That means given the choice between creating a non-life supporting universe and a life supporting universe, he would always take the 2nd path.
I admit I am unsure about the existence of God. I think he probably exists is maybe as strong as I should state my belief. Multiple logical arguments point to the requirement for a god, but also dictates he must be very alien - timeless and uncaused - which makes me doubt the logic of his existence. I am, I think, basically a materialist but the requirement for God to exist versus the nature of God makes me even question my own materialist outlook. It is a fascinating problem.
...but we have no evidence of anything existing that is not part of spacetime, so you can't just assume it. Without evidence, it's merely a bare possibility - infinitesmal probability. So if we start with this question, we're done: no need to consider anything else. The fatal flaw in your argument is that it's a biased framework - choose questions that are loaded with biased assumptions.
Quoting Devans99
If a material creator exists it's not God - because the same questions arise for the creator's material existence as for the universe's existence.
Quoting Devans99
You're interjecting your prior beliefs about God, which means you're reasoning is circular. My original point stands that your fine-tuning argument depends on the assumption that life is a design objective. Since that entails a designer, you are basically assuming God exists in order to prove he exists; i.e. it's circular.
I'm not trying to convince you God doesn't exist, I'm just trying to help you understand why "proofs" of his existence fail.
If you're seeking a rational reason to believe in God, consider reading Alvin Plantinga's book, "Warranted Christian Belief." It contains nothing that is persuasive to a nonbeliever, but it proposes a rational framework for believers.
Ellipses simply means the pattern continues. How would you write the set of integers? Just like that.
You are confusing your evidence-free intuitions with a rational argument.
Quoting Devans99
If you state that as a premise, then you are assuming what you want to prove.
If you want to believe that time or the universe must necessarily have a beginning, you are free to make that assumption.
I am suggesting that it is logically coherent to make the opposite assumption, and I offer the totally ordered set of integers as a thought-model or analogy.
If you argue against me by simply restating your assumption, that's not an argument.
Why couldn't the universe have simply existed forever? Or for that matter why couldn't it go forward in time a long ways, then loop back to the past, a circular model of time. Take the unit circle in the plane as a model of time. You just keep going 'round and 'round and there's no beginning and no end.
What makes you so sure your model is correct, except for a vague feeling that there must be a first cause. Well then that first cause existed forever. You can't escape this problem by saying God did it.
That's a good point. The first-mover argument is essentially a Christian idea. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That's @Devans99's argument and William Lane Craig's as well. The intuition comes from one's cultural upbringing. Westerners have a hard time imagining forever in both directions. But they are willing to accept forever in one direction as long as it's to the right. Where is the logic in that??
[math]- \infty [/math] is not a point on the number line.
For just a moment, forget that we're talking about time or causality. Just consider the number line of integers:
.., -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...
Nobody complains about it. It goes on infinitely in both directions, but there are no endpoints, Nobody ever says, "Well there MUST be a finite endpoint on the left but not on the right.
Nobody ever says, "How could -4 exist? We'd already need -5 to exist. Etc. And the process could never start."
Nobody ever says that. We take for granted that the integers go right and left forever.
In particular there is no leftmost point that you need to "start from" in order to "reach" -4. Rather, -4 is right there. -4384378437 is there. Every integer is "just there."
Why isn't it possible that time or causality are like that? Just because you have an intuition of a first element doesn't make your intuition right. As was noted recently, Buddhists have a very different intuition about the flow of time. You are simply expressing a Western cultural tradition. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That's essentially why you have such a strong psychological conviction that there must be a "first element."
After all you are not arguing that we could never reach 5 "from the right." Why not? Past and future are symmetrical. Think of the block universe model of physics.
To "reach -4 you start at ANY integer, and either move right or left a finite number of steps. There are no points at plus or minus infinity.
Bottom line you're simply repeating your Western beliefs. But why can't time be eternal in both directions? Why can't it be circular? Who says it can't be these things?
Quoting Devans99
Petitio principii. :yawn:
Akin to ... 'Causality must be caused' or 'A north pole must have a north pole' ... 'Strawberries must be made of strawberry-atoms'. or ... :eyes: :lol:
False. Loops, circumferences, cycles, fractals, etc can be infinitely regressed ... Travel in a straight line, D99, in any direction on Earth and after traveling c24.9k miles you must arrive where you'd departed from because the Earth's surface is finite yet unbounded.
FINITE YET UNBOUNDED.
Suppose a distance of 100 km between points A and B. If we travel from A to B we cover a distance of 100 km. However if we were to travel in the reverse direction, from B to A, we still cover the same distance of -100 km. Right?
Similarly when someone claims that there was no beginning, it implies an infinite past. Mathematically, if we take the present to be 0 on the integer number line then the past extends to negative infinity. That simply means that if we travel back into the past we would be faced with negative infinity and never reach a beginning point. However, like in my example of a 100 km distance between points A and B, if we travel from our past which is negative infinity to the present, point 0 on the integer number line, then we would have to traverse a positive infinity of time to reach the present, point 0 on the integer number line. However, positive infinity is, by definition, an interminable quantity and a task that cannot be completed.
We will never have any evidence of anything existing beyond spacetime because we are limited to space-time only. Without any evidence for or against, you can hardly assign an infinitesimal probability - that would be showing unwarranted bias against the proposition. Unbiased is 50%/50%
Quoting Relativist
No it is not circular reasoning. I have a separate, very reasonable, hypotheses that all intelligent creatures (including any gods) would basically reason in the same way. A mind is a memory plus some logic circuits of some sort - so they must all work in a similar way. Right and Wrong can be defined in terms of net happiness and net sadness and these basic concepts would apply to all creatures. So any mind would be a logical device that understands right/wrong and has a memory. I can also prove that all intelligent creatures are benevolent, so we can add that constraint to the nature of God too.
Quoting Relativist
One can assign a probability to God's existence. Then any proofs help to modify that probability. And I enjoy coming up with proofs. And it is a very traditional philosophical pastime to try to prove the existence of God.
Quoting fishfry
You are failing completely to understand the dynamics of causal regresses. I have given you examples that I child could follow. I am almost at a loss. One more example:
Imagine a perfect, frictionless pool table. The balls are wizzing around and will go on wizzing around for a potential eternity of time. Is this an infinite regress or can we infer an initial state where the balls were set in motion by the player?
Quoting fishfry
It is not logically coherent to assume that time has no start.
Do you believe that a greater than any finite number of days has passed?
Quoting fishfry
If the universe existed for ever and its current state is X, then precisely state X has occurred a greater than any finite number of times in the past. Reductio ad absurdum, the universe has not existed forever.
I think that a circular model is possible, but it still has a start/end of time at the Big Bang / Big Crunch. And a force eternal to the universe would still be required to cause the start of time (the Big Bang).
Quoting fishfry
It's hardly a vague feeling, it's a logical certainty that a first cause is required as all infinite regresses are impossible. A first cause must be uncaused, IE beyond time. That then ties in nicely with the the 8 proofs I have that time has a start - a start of time also implies something from beyond time / causality.
Quoting 180 Proof
Explain why it is 'Petitio principii'.
Quoting 180 Proof
The circumference of the earth is finite as is everything else. Actual infinity is impossible (see https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7379/infinite-bananas/p1) so for this reason, infinite causal regresses are impossible
Then the other reason that infinite causal regresses are impossible is they have no starting element and the earlier elements define the later elements - no first element means no nothing - infinite causal regresses cannot exist. They are like a house existing without its foundation.
Fractals are not examples of infinite regresses; they are iterations that start known, defined, initial conditions. Any infinite regress has no starting point so none of it can be defined.
IMO, I've satisfactorily addressed all your points already.
:lol:
Quoting Devans99
(You're right!) Res ipsa loquitur ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/367663
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/367676
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/367693
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/367710
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/371250
... complains ( :sweat: ) the fly to the flypaper.
I just happened to run across this article this very morning.
In the quantum realm, cause doesn’t necessarily come before effect
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532650-700-in-the-quantum-realm-cause-doesnt-necessarily-come-before-effect/
People's mental model of there being a first moment of time then a next then a next and always going in one direction, is something they picked up when they were eight years old. The very idea of sequential time doesn't even hold up to the scrutiny of modern physics.
There is simply no reason at all that time and causation couldn't be modeled as the integers. Or maybe even as the real numbers ... one moment smearing into the ones nearby, with the concept of "next" being nonexistent.
How do you know causality is discrete at all? Maybe it's continuous. You have no way of knowing what's true. You just cling to an outmoded idea because you won't step back a level of indirection to see the perfectly reasonable alternatives. Buddhists don't agree with your concept of time. Quantum physics doesn't agree with your concept of time.
Why won't you recognize that you have and opinion, and not a fact?
As Bernie said to Liz last night, "I did not ever say that!"
I said that the concept of the world as having had a distinct moment of beginning is a western concept. It's not even my idea. Someone else replied to one of my posts noting that Buddhists would have a very different concept of time and a different mathematical model. So the idea that causation is a well-ordered collection, with a first element, is an assumption that derives from the West's Christianity. That seems to be a nice explanation for why people cling so deeply to the idea that "there can be no infinite regress." As a math major I immediately think of the integers. They have infinite regress.
And for that matter, why are the people opposed to finite regress not also opposed to infinite progress? Why shouldn't there be a maximum integer going to the right? After all to get to 5 from the right we have to get to 6, but first we have to get to 7 ... and that process could never start. So there must be a maximum integer.
You see how ridiculous that argument is. But if you go from left to right, suddenly it's meaningful?
Says who?
But more to the point ... how on earth did you misquote and misconstrue me like that?
If you allow infinite movement to the right, why not to the left? The situation is perfectly symmetrical except for your irrational attachments to false and confused beliefs about time.
To get to the number 5, we have to traverse infinity from the right! That's exactly as sensible as what you're saying. You are saying that left and right are asymmetrical. That's a belief, not a fact.
Uh ... yeah, is this a trick question? I don't see the relevance. But yes, I'd say so. Of course tiny fluctuations in the shape of the earth mean that the distance wouldn't be exactly the same. And since all measurement is approximate, we can never know for certain if the distances are the same!
It's a rule of the mathematical idea of a metric space that the distance from A to B is exactly the same as the distance from B to A. But in the real world it's an approximation. You might be a few molecules off.
Why would I ask a trick question? I'm just trying to figure things out.
Quoting fishfry
:rofl: I think I'm missing more than a "few" molecules but that's beside the point. What I want to know is whether the distance AB is the same as the distance BA where A and B are the same points. If the past stretches to negative infinity from the present wouldn't that mean the universe would've to experience positive infinity to reach the present? If B = past and A = the present then the time AB = negative infinity and the time BA = positive infinity. If you agree with me so far and I see no reason to not do so then that would mean a positive infinity of time should've elapsed to reach the present i.e. a completed infinity is require and we know that completed infinity is an oxymoron or, to be explicit, a blatant contradiction. However, I keep an open mind about this: there are more things in heaven and on earth than can be dreamed up in your philosophy
Quoting Devans99
Am I dumb or how is the second proposition valid at all? If the fine tuner is an omnipotent deity (and take any form), why would it need to be "fine tuned for life"?
We are talking about the origin of everything; IE huge amounts of matter; IE a macro, not micro problem. In the macro world the cause always comes before and determines the effect.
Quoting fishfry
Again we are talking about a macro problem in the macro world. Science does not dispute that time is fundamentally sequential at a macro level and micro considerations are not relevant to this discussion.
Besides, I think you are letting fringe scientific ideas about time and causality override your common sense understanding of such ideas. I put more weight in 1000s of years of common sense and experience than one article about what science may have discovered in the murky world of QM.
We can be sure that nothing comes from nothing so macro level causality is unaffected by QM - if something comes from nothing naturally and time was infinite then matter density would be infinite - so the conservation of energy rules.
Quoting fishfry
All 'facts' are 'opinions', just some have more weight than others. Causality based arguments have a huge amount of weight because causality indisputably rules the macro world.
A. Assume an infinite causal regress exists
B. Then it has no first element
C. If it has no nth element, it has no nth+1 element
D. So it cannot exist
And actual infinity is impossible (see https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7379/infinite-bananas/p1).
So we have proved twice that infinite causal regresses are impossible.
That means reality must be a finite causal regress. That means there must be an uncaused cause.
It's like Sherlock Holmes says 'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?' - there must be an uncaused cause because we have eliminated every other possibility.
Quoting Pelle
A fine tuner does not have to be an omnipotent deity. I am not proposing an omnipotent deity, just a deity of some form.
Did you get that from God's lips to your ear? You have an opinion, nothing more.
Quoting Devans99
C is confused. The integers have no first element. But every element has a successor. For every n there's an n+1. It does not have "n-th elements" because it's not a well-ordered set. There's no fifth member of the integers. What of it?
If they are points in an abstract mathematical metric space, yes. If they are physical points, no, for two reasons. One, the earth is constantly changing shape. The effect is tiny but you're asking if the two distances are exactly the same. Second, you have two measurements. Each is only an approximation. You could and most likely would measure two different lengths, that are within error tolerance of each other.
Of course for all practical purposes, we regard the two distances as the same. Why are you asking?
Quoting TheMadFool
No. The past does not stretch to negative infinity any more than 1/x is defined at negative infinity as in your other thread. It's the same model of the integers. Or if time is continuous, the real number line. It doesn't start anywhere. It just is.
Quoting TheMadFool
No. Just as in your 1/x thread, there is no point at -infinity. There is no left hand endpoint to the number line, nor a right hand endpoint. And you see on the number line a point marked 2020? That's where we are. How did we get here? Nobody knows. It's a great mystery. But I see no reason that there must, by logical necessity, be a leftmost point on the real number line. Mathematically there isn't. Nor do I see why time or causation should be any different.
Quoting TheMadFool
I disagree with your thought process entirely. There is no point at minus infinity, either in the integers, as in this thread, or in the real numbers, as in the 1/x thread. You have an incorrect picture of the integer and real number lines. They keep going forever to the left and to the right. It's perfectly symmetric.
If the universe is eternal, then your model fails. Would you agree with that?
So you are making a metaphysical claim, that the universe (or time, or causality, etc.) is not eternal. That's an opinion. You can't possibly claim to know for sure unless God sent you an email about it.
Quoting TheMadFool
Your premises are wrong, your reasoning is wrong, your conclusion is wrong.
But I hope you will answer my question: How do YOU know that the universe is not eternal? Has God spoken to you? Does she have a hot tip for the Super Bowl?
My opinion is at least based on common sense/experience; not on something from nothing hocus-pocus.
Quoting fishfry
Yes and the integers can't exist as an infinite regress with each element defined by its predecessor because there is no ultimate predecessor, that's why we right:
{..., -5, -4, -3. -2, -1 }
It is impossible to start at '...' and define the rest of the sequence.
Compared to something that does have a start, the naturals:
{1 , 2, 3, 4, 5, ... }
We see because there is a first element, it is possible to right out the rest of the sequence starting at the first element. So the naturals could represent a valid causal regress.
Quoting fishfry
The arguments you have already been given, plus:
1. Assume time has no start
2. The state of the universe is given by the precise positions and velocity vectors of all its particles (10^80 or so in the observable universe I read)
3. Call the current state of the universe X
4. How many times has the universe been in state X in the past?
5. A greater than any finite number of times
6. Reductio ad absurdum. [1] is wrong. Time has a start.
"Common sense" intuits That I am the center of the universe ... That the earth is flat ... That the sun goes around the earth (rising, moving east to west, setting) ... That the earth does not turn on an axis ... That hammers fall faster than feathers because they are heavier ... That a vacuum is impossible ... That willing is free ... That self is continuous ... That one's memories do not change ... That what is familiar is usually safer or better than what is unfamiliar ... That there are no coincidences ... That tradition or authority or popularity or mystery justifies beliefs ... That time "flows" ... That quantum actions/events are not (really) real ... :roll: The very parochial, myopic, biased scope of "common sense" engenders the need for the uncommon sensibility of scientific inquiries, aesthetic exercises & philosophical reflections. So full of incorrigible doxa, D99, you are - what Plato says philosophers must strive not to become - a sophist (of a fideistic sort, no doubt).
Suppose B suggests to A that instead of going in the positive direction they should go left, in the negative direction and as and when they reach the smallest number they should talk to each other. Given this new scenario will A and B ever speak? No, for the simple reason that the negative integers are infinite.
Imagine now that A tells B that they should go left, along the negative numbers and once they reach the smallest negative integer they should turn back towards zero and when they return to their starting point, zero they'll have a conversaton. Will A and B manage to talk to each other? No, since they would fail to get to the smallest negative integer; after all negative integers go on to infinity. In very simple terms A and B would fail to reach the starting point for their return journey to zero. My question is that if there is no starting point in negative infinity how can any other point on the number line be reached? If the past is infinite, then time has no beginning. If time has no beginning how can any point in the temporal sequence be attained? Viewed differently, any specific point in time can be considered an end with a point in the past as the beginning. If there is no beginning then there can be no end. Yet, here we are in the early months of 2020. Clearly time must have a beginning.
Nothing in science contradicts the statement 'the macro world is ruled by causality' and the origins of everything is a macro question so my proof holds.
You are living in an atheist fantasy land where actual infinity is possible (it is not) and where something comes from nothing (it does not).
I'm satisfied to agree to disagree.
I don't think I can logically argue against strongly held metaphysical beliefs. Many people find it impossible to accept, even for sake of argument , that there was no first moment of time or first cause. For me, I find myself in 2020 and can clearly remember having once been in 2010. I got here just fine, took me ten years. I don't know how I got here. I was born and found myself at a certain point on the number line; and now lo these many years later, I'm in 2020. That's how it works.
How can you imagine that this somehow proves that causality had a beginning? You are here. That's a given. And later you'll be in the future, though when you get there it will feel like the present. You're just making metaphysical assumptions based on your Western upbringing. God was there "in the beginning." Buddhists don't believe that.
You're perfectly right that you can go as far as you like to the right on the number line and never reach the end, because there is no end. Likewise you can move as far as you like to the left, because there's no end in that direction either.
That's beautifully symmetric. Why do you think the past and the future are asymmetric? There's no evidence for it. Even if you take the big bang, I'll just consider an endless succession of big bangs. Nobody knows the truth about these things.
That's Freethought Materialist Land to you, kid. :naughty:
Strawman. Not only are infinite regresses AND egresses "possible" along circumferences of FINITE YET UNBOUNDED surfaces, they are actually extant (e.g. the Earth's equator). :yawn:
Strawman redux. The vacuum is not "nothing" ... :roll:
We are talking about infinite causal regresses in time. I fail to see how the earth's equator has anything to do with it.
Quoting 180 Proof
The vacuum respects the conservation of energy. No new net matter/energy is created. If matter/energy was created naturally somehow (quantum fluctuations etc...) and time was infinite, infinite matter/energy density would result. So you cannot get something from nothing.
Particularly it doesn't. Finite Yet Unbounded paths, however, do. Just ask Euclid ...
The vacuum is NOT "nothing". 99.9999...% of every THING is empty space, or vacuum. Things (i.e. patterned structures of mass-energy) are created via conserved transformations of mass-energy (e.g. nucleogenesis), even though mass-energy itself is not created (i.e. gained or lost), remaining constant in total.
Caveat: Wikipedia only gives breadth of data, not depth of comprehension. Take a course or two, kid. :confused:
Quoting Devans99
D. So A cannot be numbered so
Repeating a non-sequitur doesn't somehow make it so.
From what I see here in the forum, "a justified belief" is a "belief" being described by the person offering it...and an "unjustified belief" is the one his/her opponent is offering.
In a discussion regarding the existence or non-existence of gods...EVERY "belief" that "at least one god exists" or that "no gods exist" seems to be nothing more than a blind guess disguised by use of the word "belief."
Didn't you show with B and C?
We can label events (A) in whichever way we standardize/choose, indexically, but not non-indexically.
Believe? No, kid; we know it is.
:confused: This question makes no sense. "Always" implies temporality, and time is a metric description of entropy, or changing densities (i.e. complexities) of mass-energy. "Always" only has meaning in terms of mass-energy.
Not my "explanation" :roll: ... We've done this 'reframing the BB in terms of the no boundary conjecture dance' before, kid.
:yawn:
And previously on this thread I've addressed your more egregiously not-even-wrong 'physical' assumptions & invalid arguments.
No
You need to watch PBS Spacetime on YouTube. He had an episode on violation of conservation.
Has Luboš Motl's theorizing been established (verified and not falsified)?
Theories about perpetual motion machines amuse me. If it's always moving, how is there a counterfactual situation of it not moving to theorise against?
It seems the theorist has forgotten the machine is always in motion.
Quoting 180 Proof
Time is more fundamental than that; the speed of light is a universal constant enforced by the laws of the universe and speed=distance/time; so the laws of the universe are intimately time-aware and time is therefore much more than a human invention. It is not s description of entropy; it enables entropy. It is the 4th dimension.
Quoting 180 Proof
Some people will give credence to absolutely anything; in this case, time is assumed to be a complex variable; that's fringe science and you should treat it as so.
I feel you are evading the main questions because you do not have any decent arguments to offer up in defence of your illogical position.
- Do you think time has a start?
- What is the cause of the Big Bang?
- Was there a first cause?
Quoting jorndoe
You are making no sense to me. I fail to see why you cannot appreciate that an infinite causal regress is like a house without a foundation - it is simply impossible - everything depends and derives its reality from the first element of the causal regress (eg the break off shot in pool), if there is no first element then the rest of the causal regress does not exist (eg the balls do not bounce around if the break off shot is not taken). Infinite causal regresses have no first element, so they cannot exist. This is simple stuff; I don't understand why you are not getting it.
In any case, we have already established that actual infinity is impossible (see https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7379/infinite-bananas/p) so infinite causal regresses are therefore doubly impossible.
1) Time. A degree of freedom. The fourth dimension.
2) Start. The furthermost temporal/spacial point(s) of something's extent.
3) Cause. The reason for something happening.
4) Big Bang. The expansion of space that started 14 billion years ago.
5) First. Coming before all others in a temporal or spacial sense
I'm not so interested in your analogies per se, I'm just pointing out that the argument you keep posting doesn't work.
Quoting Devans99
The argument I've commented on a few times by now does not prove so.
No.
Consistent with the overwhelming convergence of observational data in contemporary physical cosmology, my understanding is that the BB was a planck-scale event, therefore acausal; or, in other words, the initial conditions of the universe were randomly set (because there couldn't have been other matryoshka doll-like universes ad infinitum (right?) to fine-grain - select - the conditions necessary for this universe). As an explanation, saying 'g/G caused it' is indistinguishable from saying it randomly occurred, and yet, where as the latter follows from contemporary physics, the former - ptolemaic-aristotelian "Uncaused Cause" of the gaps - clearly does not.
No.
Necessarily, due to no beginning or outside to it, it must be every path of events since there is no design point for it to be just one particular path of events. This is akin to the Block Universe.
'What IS', then, can never be still, and is seen not to be, for it continuously transmutes at every instant, nor can it stop because it can never go away. It is powerless over not being.
Not being still makes for all but it to be temporary; its being itself is necessity and thus all that is permanent.
Given that is does what it does, it will ever do that, meaning that it ever turns and returns in its transmutations guided by its laws of nature.
It is not holy, it just is, as like some topological structure that can always be taken back to itself at any point, although ever having to proceed through its transitions.
We, although appearing to progress in a presentist mode of time must somehow be passing through the 'IS', or, probably, we are it. The mind rememberers what has been passed through and thus we seem to be progressing in a presentism mode.
Nice.
So you think that a greater than any finite number of days (or Planck intervals if you prefer) has passed? How has that happened?
Quoting 180 Proof
The BB looks awfully contrived though:
- Unnaturally low entropy at the start
- The way space is expanding in such an unnatural way (just right to stop everything collapsing under gravity)
- The fact that the expansion is speed up is also most unnatural
- Its a suspicious looking singleton; natural events always come in pluralities.
I don't see how anything at Planck-scale could possibly be responsible for something like the BB; there is simply not enough energy at Planck-scale to produce the BB. There is nothing at Planck-scale that could explain the expansion of space.
Quoting 180 Proof
There is nothing without a first cause; it determines and defines everything else in existence.
You are not able to give a satisfactory reason why the argument does not work, so I will keep posting it; it is a sound argument.
Quoting jorndoe
Yes it does. And other arguments do so too. To use one of your own examples:
1. A guy is writing his auto-biography
2. He is being especially dutiful and it is taking a year to document each day of his life.
3. Can he ever finish?
4. No
5. What if we introduce actual infinity and say he lives forever?
6. Then he can finish the auto-biography
7. Reductio ad absurdum. Step 5 must be wrong.
8. Actual infinity is impossible
Quoting tim wood
1) What is your definition then?
2) I am thinking of everything in 4d spacetime mode. So space is analogous to time. So like every object has a spacial starting point(s), it also has a temporal starting point.
3) How about the physical pre-conditions that result in an event happening.
4) -
5) What is your definition then?
God is fine tuned for life, so there must be a god-tuner.
It’s fascinating that you apply logic reasonably well, except to your own statements
The universe must be very special fine-tuner to tune itself, to be uncaused and to not need a fine tuned environment.
So the answer to any of your questions about how could unconscious universe be the same thing you call god is simply because it is a very special universe. It must be, right?
There is no possibility that the spacetime fine tuned itself. The initial conditions and initial laws (those in effect from t=0, the Big Bang) uniquely determine spacetime (IE the standard model, the 4 forces, the expansion of space), so there is simply no time/room for spacetime to fine tune itself - its characteristics are fixed from the get-go and those characteristics are life supporting; hence the very high probability it was fine tuned.
Quoting Zelebg
1. Chances of a very special universe that is life supporting by accident: billion to one
2. Chance of a fine tuner who exists in a non fined tuned environment: considerably higher
So I think, bearing in mind this is a fundamentally probability based argument, have to favour option 2 above. If we then take into account all the other arguments for God (e.g. causality, start of time, equilibrium, Big Bang), then 2 looks like a clear favourite.
Then it must have tuned itself while it was beyond space and time. Of course it’s possible, you should know, it’s simply a special kind of universe.
Why can you not understand that every single illogical thing you say about god can be applied directly to the universe?
God is superfluous proposition that does not answer any questions -- god is fine tuned to create life, so there must be a god-tuner. Do you see?
1. chance that A just so happens to exist and has property B
2. chance that X just so happens to exist and has property Y which is to create A that has property B
Non sequitur.
The length of a circumference can be measured with a finite (natural) number of [units-of-choice] and yet it's unbounded.
Quoting Devans99
Of course you don't. :yawn:
Quoting Devans99
Repeating this uncorroborated and unsound assertion (i.e. g/G of the gaps) doesn't make it so. Besides, "first cause" is jabberwocky like first integer ... or north of the north pole.
A. assume infinite past moments
B. then there's no 1st moment
C. or 2nd ... or nth moment
D. so A can't be numbered with a 1st ... nth moment
E. ?
You allege yours to be a purely deductive proof, yes?
So, show your E (or F) deductively.
Whether A or not, we can (and do) put up a temporal flag pole (say, at 1970-01-01 00:00 UTC) and take it from there. Works fine either way, whether A or not, past and future. In fact, we have to, because we don't know of any definite 1st moment that we can adjust all our clocks to.
What possible motive would there be for spacetime to fine-tune itself for life? There is no such motive; the motive for fine tuning is the generation of a spacetime that supports life must be linked to an intelligent agent that desires spacetime to support life.
Quoting Zelebg
God is not fine tuned to create life; it is a natural instinct for all intelligent beings to desire information and life is information. God created spacetime because he was bored. Put yourself in God's shoes; what else would you do apart from create spacetime?
To express the argument in the OP an bit more succinctly:
1. The universe is fine-tuned for life so there must be a fine tuner (99.999% probability)
2. Can’t be an infinite regress of fine tuners (100% probability)
3. So there must be an uncaused fine tuner in a non-fine tuned environment (99.999% probability)
So you are proposing that time is circular? Even in that case, it still has a start.
Quoting 180 Proof
And you can't explain how it could happen either.
Quoting 180 Proof
It is corroborated and sound; it is simply impossible for causality to exist without a first cause. Imagine a perfect, frictionless, pool table. The ball are wizzing around, they will go on wizzing around for a potential infinity of time. Your claim is like saying there was never any break-off shot by the player; utter nonsense.
But D is just plain wrong - we can run down the list of moments numbering them all.
What about the speed of light speed limit? Speed is distance/time, so something in the universe (the laws of the universe) are intimately aware of time. Hence I say time is a component of spacetime, a dimension - it is not just a human measurement tool - it is part of the universe.
Quoting tim wood
We can use arbitrary imposed coordinate system on space to judge what is the spacial start of each object. With time the coordinate system is less arbitrary as time has a definite direction.
Quoting tim wood
Science still uses cause and effect; a photon collides of a proton; the proton is deflected; the photon causes the proton to deflect. You cannot get away from cause and effect being a totally fundamental concept in science. Does or does not cause and effect rule everything you do or experience?
Quoting tim wood
I am using rational arguments. I merely think God is the most probable explanation. God did not come from anywhere and there is no question of why God exists. God exists timelessly and permanently; there is no 'before' God so there can be no reason for his existence. Everything in time has a cause. God is beyond time and the required cause of everything.
Obviously then god must be fine-tuned to have information deficit, natural instincts and desire to create life, therefore there must be god-tuner.
You are confusing yourself with unnecessary information. The choice boils down to this:
1. A just so happens to exist and has property B
2. X just so happens to exist and has property Y which is to create A that has property B
Do you understand that postulating god, even if it explained the existence of the universe, does not explain god’s existence nor any of its properties, and that you are left with bigger mystery than before?
The charitable bet's on "cannot".
But all intelligent creatures naturally have an information deficit; God is not fine tuned in anyway. Put yourself in God's shoes, an empty universe; what would you do? Create some sort of toy. A life supporting universe is the ultimate toy.
Quoting Zelebg
The whole story of the universe only hangs together if there is a timeless, uncaused cause that fine tunes and creates spacetime; there is simply no other explanation that is as satisfactory in a logical sense as some sort of creator. It's almost certain that time has a start and something timeless and causally effective is required to create time.
Quoting tim wood
I've already told you. Again:
- Its a degree of freedom, like a dimension, only we can only move one way through it
- It is part of the fabric of the universe; not some manmade creation (see the speed of light)
God is fine-tuned to produce life in the same way you concluded the universe is fine tuned. It created life, so it was either fine tuned to do so or it was an accident.
Was there a chance for god to not create the universe?
You do not have an explanation. You just substituted one mystery with another, bigger one. Why does the universe exist - because of god. Why does god exist?
Yet 'the kalam' doesn't sufficiently explain anything in a physical sense.
:yawn:
As for your "logical sense", D99, it's (at best) naïve. Besides the litany of your fallacies myself and others have pointed on this and other threads, your specious argument/s amount to
• A specific mystery ("cause of the big bang") 'resolved' by a general mystery ("uncaused, or so-called 'first', cause")???
• Causality itself (i.e. the cosmos) is an 'effect' of a ... 'cause'??? (via antiquated newtonian "billiards" metaphor of cause-effect ... :roll:)
• An a posteriori conclusion that an a priori premise obtains???
:rofl:
No that's not the case; intelligent creatures are interested in information; IE other intelligent creatures. Its just natural to want to fill the emptiness with something.
Quoting Zelebg
There is no reason for God's existence; he is timeless; there is no 'before' God so there can be no reason for God. Something must have permanent, uncaused existence, else there would be nothing at all and permanent existence is only possible outside of time.
If something looks very unnatural then it probably is unnatural. A massive unnatural looking explosion; the exact opposite of natural equilibrium, expanding at just such a rate that equilibrium is avoided and life is therefore possible. It must have been caused by something and causality requires a first cause. Seems perfectly straight-forward to me. I think you are searching for an answer that does not require a first cause and from your clueless flailing above; it is clear you have no such answer.
Quoting 180 Proof
Causality rules our lives; there is nothing we can be more certain of than causality. Ignoring the pivotal role of causality is extremely foolish of you.
1. Time has a start
2. Universe is not in equilibrium
3. Causality based arguments
4. Fine tuning
5. Big Bang
6. Aquinas 3rd argument
Thats a lot of evidence for a creator of the universe; verses precisely none against that you and others have offered up.
Was there a chance for god to not create the universe?
Oh yes, it is the case. You are merely substituting one word with another and think new word brings in explanation. Wake up!!
God is fine tuned to be exactly in the way of whatever properties you imagine it to have, so fine tuned to be interested in information, thus fine-tuned to create life.
And also, god creating the universe would be artificial, while it is only natural for the nature of the universe to naturally produce life, obviously.
There you go, congratulations! You are free now, enjoy.
My feeling is that there is a 10% chance of no God and a 90% chance of God.
No, all intelligent creatures are basically the same; an information processor (mind) and a memory. All intelligent creatures desire information. So left with a blank, empty universe, any intelligent creature would try to create something to occupy him (IE spacetime). There is no fine-tuning of God.
Quoting Zelebg
It is very unnatural for a universe to create life; nearly all hypothetical universes would not support it.
And I say god is fine-tuned to be intelligent. You think it’s an accident?
I can argue senselessly like you, look: universe is natural and natural universes naturally create life. There is no fine-tuning of the universe.
Creation is artificial, nearly all hypothetical gods and devils would not create universe, while the most of the rest would create heaven or hell right away. Universe is natural, it spontaneously evolved life.
I guess that god of yours is not necessarily the one to create this universe then, not really that one necessary cause without a cause, after all. Too bad. But did you know the chance of the devil is 417%, and can go up to 735% when beyond time and space? I’m afraid to even think what that could mean.
Quoting Devans99
:rofl: No doubt about that!
Oh yeah, I'm "searching"; but clearly you don't "think".
For starters ... read Hume. Read Stenger. Read Deutsch & Rovelli.
The only one "foolish" around here is you, kid, for denying fundamental physical reality (i.e. quantum uncertainty ... to wit: the BB was a planck event, and therefore a-causal (i.e. @ its planck radius 13.8 billion years ago, the universe's 'initial conditions' were set by random 'vacuum fluctuations' re: CMB)) while pimping strawmen to distract(?) from, or compensate(?) for, your inadequate, antiquated, pseudo-scientific woo. :lol:
By that token, if statements "look" stupid then probably they're author is stupid. :razz:
As a famous philosopher once said: Unnatural is as unnatural does, kid - or rather: When nature does it, whatever it is ain't "unnatural".
UPDATE: (flashback)
Planck time. Spontaneous symmetry-breaking (i.e. events). Superset of events (E). Set containing one or more causal events (CE). E?CE