Seeing as I was unable to say it any better than Epicurus, I’ve decided to simply endorse his argument.
“If people want to believe in the multi-verse that is fine, but believing in it is very much a religion in and of itself. It will never been proven and requires blind faith to believe in its existence. At that point I have to ask, why not just believe in God?”
Chris @ that point ^ I have to ask myself… “Why do we have to believe in either one?”
Who gets to define “realistic”? The math works, therefore it says something about reality (and not just the Big Bang; imaginary numbers are used all over the place); doesn’t that make it “realistic”, by definition? The fact that imaginary numbers are called “imaginary” seems to befuddle some people (rather like the term “theory”, as in “theory of evolution”, confuses creationists)—whoever named them (Gauss?) could have just as well called them “zurplian” numbers.
Sorry I’ve been away for a little while. Just to let y’all know, I’m back baby! At least for this week.
You can call it sidestepping it or you can call it solving it. I solved it. Changes what timeline? In timelessness there is no timeline. A timeless creature does not exist now, then, and in the future, because there is no ‘now’, then’, and in the ‘future’.
So there is no anticipation. There is only agent causation.
You want evidence that you won’t let yourself have. Such is the conundrum when one embraces an epistemology that continually begs the question.
I never discounted empiricism. Some things, however, can be known only through a priori.
Define non-standard proposition.
That’s self-evident with or without the competing theories. The question is, which theory has the best evidence?
I never claimed God could not be understood. That’s the deistic conception of God. Imagine a timeless, eternal man. He could be sitting for eternity, but when he freely wills to stand up, a temporal effect is created.
If a cause is powerful enough to create the universe, then he is powerful enough to create a temporal effect. You can call it absurd, but there is nothing contradictory or logically impossible about it. I submit that God can do anything that is logically possible. He cannot just ‘do anything’. All my models are logically possible and are backed by good evidence.
Now I’m going to sketch a little more of the teleological argument out, noting your objections.
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The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
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It is not due ot physical necessity or chance.
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Therefore, it is due to design.
Premise 1: This is uncontroversial. When I say fine-tuning, I mean that the constants and quantities are ‘just right’ for the existence of intelligent life. If you can think of another alternative to add to physical necessity, chance, or design, please state it now.
Premise 2:
a) Physical necessity: With physical necessity, the constants and values had to be the way they were because there was no other alternative. They simply had to be life permitting and that’s that.
This is pretty implausible if you look at it closely. If we accept this line of reasoning we hae to believe that a life-prohibiting universe is virtually impossible. But what if the primordial matter and anti-matter had been slightly different in their proportions? Or what if the universe expanded a little more slowly? What about if the entropy was only a tad bit greater? Any change, no matter how slight, would’ve made the universe life-prohibiting.
The person who holds this position must be believe that no other alternative was possible. This is self-evidently false.
b) Chance: The appropriate analogy to illustrate the fine-tuning of the universe is a sort of cosmic lottery. A single white ball to represent a life allowing universe is mixed in with a billion billion billion black balls, representing life-prohibiting universes, and a ball is selected randomly from the collection.
Of course, balls do have to come out, and any ball that comes out also be fantastically improbably. However, the ball will almost certainly be a black ball and not a white ball. What is the chance that a white ball would be chosen?
Those are the odds if you are to use ‘chance’ as an alternative to design.
I submit that with physical necessity and chance eliminated, design is the only alternative.
What this theorem says is that the universe at one time came into being. It shoots down the eternality of the universe. Now as for these other theories, I’ve all addressed the epkyrotic, string, and white hole theories. However, no matter how implausible these theories are and no matter how little evidence there is for them, you seem to keep holding on to them.
That’s fine. That only shows that I’ve won. My theory has the best evidence and is the best explanation for fine-tuning. Moreover, just because we don’t always know ‘how’ he did something is in no way a defeat against the proposition that he did do something. We only have to asses the claims.
What is magic to a powerful being? Your criticism is nonsensical. If the universe came into being, then there was nothing before it. If, as you my claim, that there was a ‘different’ kind of matter and time before, then the same reasoning applies to it as well. It only pushes back the problem one more step, since that previous matter, space, and time must’ve had a cause as well. I’ve already well established that matter and time are not eternal, but if the scientific evidence is simply just not good enough for you, then I will argue philosophically.
But just before I introduce a new argument against the eternality of the universe, let’s suppose it isn’t eternal.
We’d have two views.
Theism: there exists a cause timeless, changeless, immaterial, personal, and tremendously powerful and intelligent. The efficient cause of the universe.
Atheism/agnosticism: The universe came into being out of nothing, by nothing, and for nothing.
I submit, along with the fine-tuning of the universe, which view is more plausible? Which sounds more like magic? I’d submit that the second view is more like magic. Even a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat at least has himself, a wand, and a hat. The second view is worse than magic, since not only is there no material, no time, and no space, but there is no efficient cause at all!
Keep in mind that these other you’ve mentioned theories either try and posit that the universe is eternal, or they have some way of conjuring up a universe out of nothing. Those are the two alternatives. Even swirling mathematical points in the universe is not nothing, nor can mathematical points cause things to be.
But let’s say that the universe is eternal. I’ll address that now.
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An actually infinite number of things cannot exist.
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A beginningless series of events in time entails an actually infinite number of things.
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Therefore, a beginningless series of events in time cannot exist.
- An actual infinite is collection of members whose number is greater than any actual number. A potential infinite is a collection that is constantly increasing, but never actually reaches infinity. It can never get there.
I’ll illustrate with a collection of marbles. Can you ever say that an actual infinite number of marbles could ever exist in the actual world? You could take one away and they’d still have the same amount. It’s literally physically impossible for an actual infinite of things to exist. Only potential infinites can exist, e.g, a large collection of hundreds of thousands of marbles with marbles being added to it constantly.
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If the universe never began to exist then before this event right now there have been an actually infinite number of previous events.
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If the first two premises are true, then the conclusion logically follows, inescapably, I might add. Therefore the series of past events must be finite and have a beginning. The unvierse, of course, is not distinct from these events, therefore it began to exist.
I look forward to your responses.
You can call it sidestepping it or you can call it solving it. I solved it. Changes what timeline? In timelessness there is no timeline. A timeless creature does not exist now, then, and in the future, because there is no ‘now’, then’, and in the ‘future’.
I am gona go ahead and keep calling it side stepping. If you mean immortal, that is another thing than timeless. Imortal, cannot die, nor become non-existent. Timeless, is not subject to the normal flow of entropy. Now, then, and the future are one thing to something that is without time; timelss. If there is no now, then, nor the future, then it doesnt exist at all.
You want evidence that you won’t let yourself have. Such is the conundrum when one embraces an epistemology that continually begs the question.
No, the evidence is not the problem. The problem is that your prayer to your magic wizard does not repeat it with any kind of accuracy. I posit that the wizard is not the cause of the “miracles.”
He could be sitting for eternity, but when he freely wills to stand up, a temporal effect is created.
If he is subject to entropy (meaning he has to wait for stuff to happen, just like us) he is not timeless, he is just immortal.
ou can call it absurd, but there is nothing contradictory or logically impossible about it
Yes, there is. You just refuse to see it.
This is pretty implausible if you look at it closely. If we accept this line of reasoning we hae to believe that a life-prohibiting universe is virtually impossible. But what if the primordial matter and anti-matter had been slightly different in their proportions? Or what if the universe expanded a little more slowly? What about if the entropy was only a tad bit greater? Any change, no matter how slight, would’ve made the universe life-prohibiting.
What if, what if, what if. What if a magic wizard farted and created the laws of gravity. We can what if all day, it doesn’t change anything.
I submit that with physical necessity and chance eliminated
You are very quick to eliminate things, even with out any evidence to show that it is eliminated, save your highly fallible logic.
However, no matter how implausible these theories are and no matter how little evidence there is for them, you seem to keep holding on to them.
How many times must I say that I care not for untested and unproven views on cosmology? I just bring them up because they are more plausible than your wizard theory. Wizard theory; all logic. Magic multiverse theory; logic and math. True cosmology; evidence, math, and logic.
That’s fine. That only shows that I’ve won. My theory has the best evidence and is the best explanation for fine-tuning. Moreover, just because we don’t always know ‘how’ he did something is in no way a defeat against the proposition that he did do something. We only have to asses the claims.
Blinded by the light! Wrapped up like a douche another runner in the night. Blinded by the light!
lol, you probably win a lot of arguments when you never refute your objectors position, and just side-step into eternity wherein you can run through a field with your magic wizard.
I’ve already well established that matter and time are not eternal, but if the scientific evidence is simply just not good enough for you, then I will argue philosophically.
Nobody said the multiverse, or the branes were expansive. If not expansive, not subject to any creation necessarily. Me talk with not grammar good, maybe thoust understand better.
And it has been me trying to subject you to scientific evidence. You are all philosophy, and then you use scientific evidence only when it backs up your a priori reasoning. Anything contradictory gets dismissed, even tho you yourself have done no science on the subject at all. It is quite amusing really.
What is magic to a powerful being?
Your wizard who is timeless yet not timeless (if she chooses to be), immaterial yet material (if she chooses to be). Believeing, against all evidence to the contrary, that prayer to an illogical wizard can break the laws of physics.
Im not going to address the rest of your response as I never posited a finite, nor infinite universe. I posit that you take your theory as all-encompasing truth. Even tho your evidence is scant and illusory.
Chance: The appropriate analogy to illustrate the fine-tuning of the universe is a sort of cosmic lottery. A single white ball to represent a life allowing universe is mixed in with a billion billion billion black balls, representing life-prohibiting universes, and a ball is selected randomly from the collection.
Of course, balls do have to come out, and any ball that comes out also be fantastically improbably. However, the ball will almost certainly be a black ball and not a white ball. What is the chance that a white ball would be chosen?
Those are the odds if you are to use ‘chance’ as an alternative to design.
I submit that with physical necessity and chance eliminated, design is the only alternative.
And what do you suppose the chances of a all powerful timeless designer is? You simply magnify exponentially the problem you are trying to solve. Given a great enough amount of “tests”, any outcome becomes practically certain. The “white ball” singularity has a greater chance of happening than does the being which is able to create a “white ball” singularity.
Timelessness is immortality because timelessness implies changelessness.
You keep trying to superimpose a timeline on timelessness. I don’t think you’re getting it. Your claim that if there is no past, present, and future, then it doesn’t exist.
Have these five pages been for nothing?
Entropy? Before the universe began to exist? I don’t think so.
That’s probably your worst response out of all these five pages. Not only do you line it with an ad hominem, it is essentially a non-response. My teleological argument stands because you have absolutely no objections.
All you have is ridicule. I’m fine with that. No objections? I win.
Fallible logic? Oh, dear me. Please show me. This is not a proper objection. This is not any kind of objection at all.
You’re trying to cling to a sort of agnosticism by plugging your ears and going ‘la la la la la’. You’re embarassing yourself when you talk about plausibility, you hardly read my post, you didn’t refute any of my arguments, and you still question beg in every reply.
Hot tip: calling evidence ‘scant and illusory’ doesn’t make it so.
Hot tip #2: ad hominems aren’t real objections.
Hot tip #3: if you don’t have any substantive objections, then my arguments go through.
The reason I’m using philosophical arguments is because you think by magically quoting other people with magical theories, then my scientific evidence somehow is reduced to the same level as these other theories.
Here’s a challenge: find me three current atheists that argue the way you argue. You won’t, because everyone has abandoned this type of sola empiricism because it’s self refuting and it begs the question. Yet it’s still there in all of your posts. You can’t seem to see it.
This is probably one of my last posts. I wish we could have a neutral observer to declare a winner here.
Sam,
That’s one of the arguments posited by Dawkins.
It basically goes something like this. If the world is complex and improbable, then the creator must be equally complex and thus more improbably.
Except this argument falls apart. The creator in the Bible is not complex, but simple. Immaterial objects do not work the same as material and thus are on completely different levels of what one might call ‘complexity’.
Then why is the same not true of the multiverse, or the strange foam in which universes form?
Multiverses still require causes. ‘Strange foam’ requires a cause as well.
We seem to have narrowed it down to three options:
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The universe is eternal
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The universe came into being uncaused out of nothing, by nothing, and for nothing. Saying that there was previous matter and a different kind of time before the universe began only pushes it back one more cause. You would end up with an infinite regression which is impossible.
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The universe was caused by a timeless, changeless, powerful, and intelligent being.
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The universe is not eternal. It most certainly is not eternal. There is no way I’m going to repeat myself for the fiftieth time here. For any new readers, you can look on the past 5 pages where I’ve already shown evidence that this view is patently false.
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Why undermine the law of causality? Ex nihilo nihilo fit. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Nothing comes uncaused, that is.
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The best explanation.
Any of those other theories will fit into one of these three options. If it doesn’t, then I can refute it. I’ve already refuted half of the theories that have been already posted, but for some reason seem to keep popping up as ‘alternatives’.
Multiverses still require causes. ‘Strange foam’ requires a cause as well
Oh, I see, only you get to posit something which is timeless and causeless. Awesome.
You’re missing my whole argument. I must repeat myself yet again.
It doesn’t matter if the multiverse exists or not. This universe that we are living in cannot be eternal because it is expanding, because of the Big Bang, and because of the philosophical argument I gave above. I’m tempted to give another argument, but I think it’ll just fall on deaf ears.
Again, the entity I posit is the only thing that can be eternal, because eternality has criteria that the universe does not fit.
You have no basis to claim that the multiverse could not be eternal. You claim that our universe isn’t eternal because it’s expanding. What leads you to believe that the multiverse is as well (whatever that even means)? And what leads you to believe that you could even know what the implications of an expanding multiverse are?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model
it seems that cyclic models would be ‘eternal’
There is absolutely no scientific evidence that supports the multi-verse theory. You have merely supplanted faith in God with faith in an eternal and unconscious multi-verse while denying the logical necessity of a first and necessary cause. Infinity, and therefore the infinite regress, is inherently illogical, because the concept of infinity itself is entirely meaningless (see “Hilbert’s Hotel”). Simply put, infinity + 1 = infinity, thus, infinity - infinity = 1, or 0=1.
The belief that there must be a first cause (what men call god) is, in fact, the only logical position, and it is supported by actual science with real proof.
We have this same exact debate every month or so, and it always gets at least 10 pages…
The set of natural numbers, and therefore any concepts that employ it, are inherently illogical, because the concept of the set of natural numbers is itself entirely meaningless . Simply put, (the count of the elements in the set of natural numbers) + 1 = (the count of the elements in the set of natural numbers) , thus, (the count of the elements in the set of natural numbers) - (the count of the elements in the set of natural numbers) = 1, or 0=1.
or perhaps not
the problem is not with infinity nor with things like ‘natural numbers’, in this specific paradox, infinity minus infinity is an undefined mathematical operation.
infinity is not meaningless, but subtracting ‘infinity’ from ‘infinity’ is meaningless when you are doing arithmetic. its that particular subtracting operation that is meaningless given the context
There is absolutely no scientific evidence that supports the multi-verse theory.
Agreed, just as there is none for God. I don’t believe in either of them because I have no evidence. The point is, it is just as, if not more, plausible as god. You haven’t ruled everything out except God, so quit claiming you have.
You have merely supplanted faith in God with faith in an eternal and unconscious multi-verse while denying the logical necessity of a first and necessary cause. Infinity, and therefore the infinite regress, is inherently illogical, because the concept of infinity itself is entirely meaningless (see “Hilbert’s Hotel”). Simply put, infinity + 1 = infinity, thus, infinity - infinity = 1, or 0=1.
The belief that there must be a first cause (what men call god) is, in fact, the only logical position, and it is supported by actual science with real proof.
This is the most ridiculous claim ever. If there can exist something without a cause (god), then there can exist something without a cause (The multi-verse/singularity). You put yourself in the exact same infinite regression if you claim that god did it (if thats even a problem). Or if you claim that god is timeless, then we could claim the multiverse is timeless. Both of them have absolutely no evidence. So shut up and calculate. This is not a valid route through which you can prove god.
Indeed, the arguments are rather similar, but one (yours) denies the logical necessity for an initial cause. The theists position is essentially this:
- The universe exists
- At one point it did not exist
- Infinite regress is illogical
- Things cannot create themselves
- The universe was created.
You reject point (3) and claim that belief in an infinite regress is just as good as believing in a creator. Essentially, you have no position; you might as well say that things can create themselves. But Menger’s monetary theory was seen as invalid because it could not explain the origin of money; there was an infinite regress. Thankfully Mises remedied this confusion.
But the multi-verse (which has no proof whatsoever) is the thing to be explained. In order to explain it, you must refer to something intrinsically different. You are either taking the argument one step backwards, which is essentially a concession, or you are claiming that infinite regress is possible.
But the God is the thing to be explained. In order to explain it, you must refer to something intrinsically different. You are either taking the argument one step backwards, which is essentially a concession, or you are claiming that infinite regress is possible.
You’re entirely ignoring my argument (see above). I don’t claim that infinite regress is possible. The fact that infinite regress is impossible, and the belief that things cannot create themselves, is what leads me to believe that the universe was created. In order to create the universe it must be intrinsically different from the universe. I’m not trying to explain God, I’m trying to explain how the universe exists. You are talking about something else entirely.
I understand your objection. The conclusion appears to be ad hoc, but it is the only logical conclusion (a reductio). Again, I’m not saying that this creator sent his son to Earth in order to die for man’s sin (though I may or may not believe this). Beliving in God is not illogical and deductions from this premise coincide with what we observe (the same cannot be said for those who believe that things can create themselves).
It’s also funny to me that the atheists are always the ones who appeal to reason and science and yet they always end up rejecting both reason and scientific facts.