leroy
Well-Known Member
And what is the justification for that affirmation?
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"IF The Big Bang Is True Then How.....?"
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
The definition of the term 'cause': requires an initial condition to give rise to the effect over a course of time through the action of the laws of physics.
leroy
Well-Known Member
Well that is only true according to that particular definition, but that does nothing to show that the idea of God creating the universe and time at T=0 is incoherent.
So what alternative definition do you propose that makes it coherent?
Ill-defined notion of causality.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
ok so care to spot a specific logical faLlacy made in the KCA?[/QUOTE]
So many angles to approach this...
P1: whatever begins to exist has a cause
P2: the universe has a beginning
Conclusion: the universe has a cause
Conclusion follow up in some versions (I'll include it here, since you didn't specify a vesion): that cause is god
First, P1 is an appeal to intuition. Which actually already seems to fail at the quantum level.
P2: I'll grant this for the sake of argument, but I can just as easily note that this is also not a demonstrated trueism.
Conclusion: universe has a cause. This doesn't follow. First of all, "causality" is a phenomenon that depends on the physics of the universe. And at that, it only seems to apply in classical physics. It's not that cut and dry in quantum physics. In any case, you can't invoke phenomenon that depend on the universe existing, in a context where the universe does not exist!
If you remove the universe from existance, you also remove the physics of the space-time continuum. You even remove time itself and causality is necessarily a temporal thing. Causes preceed effects. There's no "before time" just like there is no "north of absolute north".
Now, as for the follow up conclusion.... Let's assume for the sake of argument that I grant the premises as well as the conclusion that the universe has a cause. Okay. So something caused the universe. So what? How does it follow that this cause was god? Why can't it be a natural phenomon itself that caused the universe?
All in all, I think this argument is extremely problematic even without the follow up conclusion.
And even if I'ld grant it in its entirety, all it gets you to is that the universe has a "cause". It doesn't get you anywhere near a god whatsoever.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
No. It's what causality means.
It's exactly the type of causality that is invoked in premise one: the causality we observe as it occurs in the universe.
THAT causality, is a temporal phenomenon.
If you wish to claim that it is "some other type" of causality, then it only gets worse... because now you are invoking a type of "causality" that is completely unknown as it has never been observed or demonstrated.
"creating". A temporal verbe.
leroy
Well-Known Member
So many angles to approach this...
P1: whatever begins to exist has a cause
P2: the universe has a beginning
Conclusion: the universe has a cause
Conclusion follow up in some versions (I'll include it here, since you didn't specify a vesion): that cause is god
First, P1 is an appeal to intuition. Which actually already seems to fail at the quantum level.
.[/QUOTE]
Ok lets start with your first objection
And the answer is NO the premise is not supported “just by intuition”
These are 3 arguments in support of premise 1
So why aren’t these 3 reasons sufficient to conclude that premise 1 is at least more likely to be true than wrong.?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
This claim is unsupported and can't be demonstrated.
Fallacy. This is a different claim.
Something cannot come from nothing.
Something can come from nothing.
These are 2 different claims. Both require evidence. Neither has any.
This is not true at all. Again, these are two different claims. Not accepting the claim "something cannot come from nothing" as a true-ism DOES NOT IN ANY WAY mean that I accept the claim that something CAN come from nothing. Just like me not accepting the claim "a god exists" as true, does not in any way mean that I accept or make the claim that a god does not exist.
I already addressed this fallacy. You are now talking about origins of macroscopic objects in classical physics IN the universe, invoking the causality phenomenon of classical physics as it applies IN the universe... and then trying to pretend as if this phenomenon still applies when you remove the universe.
I don't know if universes can come into being from nothing. You are the one who's pretending to know this by simply declaring it in premise 1 of the argument. I'm just saying that you can't demonstrate premise 1.
How did you determine that if you remove the universe, that "nothingness" is what you're left with?
What do you even mean by "nothingness"?
Why do you insist on pretending to know about and understand such conditions and make claims about what it can and can't do?
Only IN the universe and even then, only at the scale of classical physics in terms of the laws of motion etc. Not so much in quantum physics and its unintuitive weirdness.
Somehow, I knew this was ultimately going to lead to William Lame Craig.
So predictable.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
This is all involves a quaintly Newtonian view of time. Did the universe begin to exist? Either time started at the BB or it didn't. If it didn't then we can't really conclude that the universe began to exist in any sense at all. If it did, then there was literally no before - not that there was nothing before but "before" simply does not refer to a time.
Either way, there was never a time at which nothing existed for the universe to appear from. It wouldn't even make sense because time is not nothing. If the GR view of time is substantially correct, then time is just an internal (observer dependant) direction through the space-time manifold. Looking at the past direction for an explanation as to why it exists is arbitrary at best. The manifold (as a whole) just is. Time is part of the universe, so the universe as a whole cannot have a cause in the conventional sense.
So, premise 1 is dubious because of quantum mechanics and premise 2 is almost certainly wrong because we don't actually know if space-time is finite in the past direction and even if we did, the phrase "begins to exist" isn't really applicable because the space-time didn't begin to exist.
Well, the probability of those to pop into existence is very small because of the size of Planck's constant. We can calculate the probability of such things popping into existence from first principles and the results are very, very, very small.
On the other hand, things like electron-positron pairs *do* pop into existence with no precursors and with no causality.
In other words, your claim is false in detail.
Again, this is also explained by the smallness of Planck's constant. Quantum effects tend to average out for most macroscopic objects. But subatomic objects can, and do appear out of nothing.
As for the universe, one way of looking at it is as such a quantum popping into existence and amplified for other reasons. The initial pop was not caused.
Note that Craig's argument is, essentially, from a position of saying he can't imagine it is true so it mus be false. Again, that really is just an argument from intuition.
Common experience is very poor when discussing the very large or the very small. Our intuitions tend to be very wrong when it comes to cosmology or to atoms.
In particular, Craig is simply wrong about science assuming the origin of the universe is causal. In fact, it is hotly debated both ways.
Because they are all factually incorrect and based on ignorance.
But let's go further.
1. Everything that came into existence has a cause.
First, it is factually incorrect. But, even if the basic idea was true, it is way too general from what we have evidence for. A better description is
1'. Everything that comes into existence within the universe has a cause within the universe.
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2. The universe came into existence.
This requires some clarity. What does it mean to say that something 'comes into existence'? It means there is a process *in time* going from a time when it did not exist to another time in which it did.
Even if the universe had a beginning, it did NOT 'come into existence' because there was no time when it did not exist. Any point in which there was time, the universe also existed.
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3. The universe has a cause.
Well, it is clear that this conclusion does not follow from the modified 1'. The universe is NOT in the universe, so it isn't one of the type of things our evidence says anything about on this point.
And, in fact, pretty much every scientific description of the early universe has it either as uncaused because time began at that point, uncaused because of quantum mechanical effects, or uncaused because the 'singularity' is smoothed over time quantum descriptions and the universe is actually eternal into the past.
leroy
Well-Known Member
I understand all that, what I don’t understand is why are you doing rhetoric and words games to avoid a burden proof. The relevant question is “¿Do you think that things can come form nothing? Based on the evidence that we have to date which scenario seems more plausible for you:
1 Things can come from nothing
2 things can’t come from nothing
Which scenario do you consider more probable to be true?
Well the question is why making an arbitrary exception for the universe? What makes the universe immune to the law of causality?
Not to mention that you didn’t understand the point of the argument,
“Nothingness” by definition is “nothing” it can’t have any properties (otherwise it wouldn’t be nothing) so by definition there cant be anything in “nothing” that would make it discriminate universes over horses, betoken or root beer,
In other words if “Nothing” cant create horses, it follows that “nothing” can’t create anything else (including universes), otherwise it would have a property that would make it discriminate universes over horses and therefore it wouldn’t be “nothing”
In other words the argument is not grounded on “things that have been observed in the universe” the argument is grounded on the claim that “nothing” by definition can’t have any property. So all your “IN/Out the universe” stuff that you are arguing is irrelevant.
Well that is the point, with nothingness (in this context) I mean literally nothing, the claim is that things don’t simply pop in to existence for no reason, even in quantum mechanics particles “pop” for a reason (for example an imbalance of energy)
leroy
Well-Known Member
That is not true, in QM things do have a cause, they don’t come from nothing (in the literal sense of the word) something like an imbalance in the quantum field would be that cause of virtual particles.
Or to put it this way, there is a reason (an explanation) for why particles decay, “appear” “disappear” “spin” etc.
only if you change the definition of "nothing"
Craig argument is that we should trust our intuition unless we have good reasons no to (we all live our daily life based on that premise, and science presupposes that premise to be true)
+ He provides 2 additional arguments
Observations: every single observation confirms that things don’t begin to exist without a cause (not even in QM)
Logical Necessity: “Nothing” by definition can’t have any properties, and given that Beethoven , horses and root beer can’t come from nothing it follows that the universe can’t come from nothing ether (otherwise nothing would have a property that would allow it to discriminate universes over other objects)
You have to justify that arbitrary exception, if everything that begins to exist has a cause why making an arbitrary exception with the universe?
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We went over that before, I would argue that the cause and the effect could be simultaneous (no time between them)
To say that the universe begin to exist simply means that the universe has a finite age ether 13.6B at the big bang, or before. The alternative would be that the universe has always existed
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On the quantum level, the first.
Because the best extension of our evidence is that 'everything that begins to exist in the universe and has a cause, has a cause within the universe'. The statement made by Craig is an overly general statement that is NOT supported by the evidence.
A separate argument needs to be made to support the idea that the universe has a cause. But since *all* causes we have ever seen are *within* the universe, this would be a HUGE logical leap.
Good. is that the same as saying that everything is caused? No.
Right, nothing cannot be the cause, but that is different than being uncaused. That is NOT an argument that everything is caused.
Well that is the point, with nothingness (in this context) I mean literally nothing, the claim is that things don’t simply pop in to existence for no reason, even in quantum mechanics particles “pop” for a reason (for example an imbalance of energy)[/QUOTE]
Sorry, but that is a misunderstanding. The non-zero value for the field is *logically equivalent* to the statement that there is a probability that particles will spontaneously appear. The particles are NOT caused by the field. In a sense, the field is the *probability* that a particle will appear.
So, you are, essentially, saying that a particle is caused by the probability it will appear out of nothing.
But there is NOT a 'reason' they appear or disappear when they do. That is uncaused. It isn't a 'fluctuation' in the field. The field in a vacuum isn't fluctuating; it is constant. And it represents a probability that a particle will appear.
Nope. There are no particles there before. After, there are. All there is is a probability that particles will appear.
Science most certainly does NOT presuppose that. In fact, we know way too many cases where intuition has lead us astray to assume intuitions are reliable at all, especially when dealing with thiide of the ordinary human scale.
While false as stated, what we can say is that all causes we have ever detected havebeen *inside* of the universe.
Nobody said that nothing was a cause. I said that there is no cause. There is no 'thing' called 'nothing'.
Because it isn't an arbitrary exception. ALL causes we know of are within the universe. To assume there is a cause outside of the universe is to go way beyond the evidence we have.
And I would saythat the universe has existed for all time. In other words, whenever there was time, the universe existed. And that makes sense because time is *part of the universe*.
So the real question is whether time is infinite into the past or not. Either way, though, it is uncaused.
leroy
Well-Known Member
Yes in this context “uncaused” and from “nothing” are synonymous,
If you feel more comfortable we can reformulate the KCA
Things that Begin to exist don’t come from nothing
The universe begun to exist
Therefore the universe didn’t come from nothing
So with that said, do you accept premise 1?
No. I am not claiming there is a 'thing' called 'nothing' that is causing particles to appear. I am simply saying there is no cause at all. This does NOT require 'nothing' to have a property.
I don't think the universe 'came from nothing'. I think the universe was uncaused. It is NOT a process. Nothingness simply doesn't exist. The universe does.
leroy
Well-Known Member
But you need the field, without the field the particles wouldn’t PoP, the popping of the particles is dependent on the existence of the field, this is what I mean by “cause” sure according to some* interpretations of QM these fluctuation are random which is a very interesting an controvertial topic, but irrelevant, the thing is that the Popping of particles depends on the existence of something else. And my suggestion is that the popping of the universe was also dependent on something else weather if you what to label this as “cause” or not is irrelevant.
I would bet for deterministic intepretations of QM, but in any case the KCA is only concern about “things” “things that begin to exist have cause” probabilities are not things.
So even though I would reject the idea of “probabilities coming from nothing” weather if I am correct or not has no bearing in the validity of premise 1 in the KCA.
Sure and the burden proof has always been carried by the man who claims something contrary to our intuitions. In the absence of such proof we are all justified in trusting our intuitions, and we all do, this is how we all live our daily lives, and this is how scientists do their science.
I am not saying that “intuitions” are a perfect source of knowledge, nor that there are no exceptions, all I am saying that it makes sense to trust our intuitions until proven otherwise.
And all the examples of natural selection that have ever been seen* are from the last 200 years, to say that there was such thing as natural selection millions of years ago is a HUGE logical leap.
If I were to bet, I’ll say that you accept that things have causes outside the galaxy, even though nobody has seen any cause outside our galaxy, and you have no problem in accepting that the galaxy itself had a cause, so it seems to be that you are drawing an arbitrary line in “the universe” just because you don’t like the implications of a cause of the universe”
And all the examples of natural selection are from the last 200 years, we know nothing about what happened millions of years ago, to say that organisms undergo natural selection millions of years ago is beyond the evidence that we have.
Obviously the point that I am making is that if you apply such level of skepticism , you should be skeptical of everything,
Not to mention that the reasons for accepting premise 1 go beyond observations and intuitions, , there is a logical argument that supports premise 1 namely that “nothing can’t have any properties that would exclude universes from everything else.
leroy
Well-Known Member
So you are simply using a different definition of “uncaused”
Premise 1 simply says that things do not begin to exist by nothing