A new causal argument for the existence of a supreme being

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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I have a complete causal argument for the existence of a Supreme Being, to which I will only present here the premise as follows:

The ultimate beginning to all things (that is, the universe) is not nothing, but rather, it is an Absolute void.
Before defining this concept further, however, one might ask: Why would an Absolute void constitute a logical premise, over other possible beginnings?
There is something that we can call our natural, intuitive need to press the question concerning the origin of all things as far as logically possible. Therefore, all complex conditions are open with regard to this question: “What brought about these conditions?” or “From where did these more complex conditions originate?” The only possible premise that escapes our natural, intuitive need to ask this question is an Absolute void. It makes little or no sense to ask, “From where did this Absolute void originate?” but it does make sense to ask, “From where did super strings originate?”
This is why the ultimate answer to the question of the origin of all things can only come from metaphysics, not from physics. Physicists must postulate as a premise, some condition, however simple, that is itself left open to question regarding its origin. They cannot provide a solution, in other words, that satisfies our natural, intuitive insistence on pressing the question of the ultimate origin of all things as far as possible.
The premise of an Absolute void must then be defined further, if it truly represents the most logical beginning that is available for our reflection. It is impossible though for our finite minds to grasp the totality of an Absolute state (even an Absolute void), for there are no finite boundaries or conditions that we can impose on our idea of such an Absolute state. This concept therefore presents to us not just one idea (this being the common sensed dictionary definition of nothing) but rather it presents the two following, a priori, and necessarily related ideas: A) The external, infinite, objective state of an Absolute void, and this only and necessarily in relation to B) The internal, finite, subjective idea that we possess of A.

This presents the simplest of possible beginnings. The only philosopher to have postulated anything analogous to such a beginning was Hegel, in his “Science of Logic” where he speaks of “a bare beginning as such.”

I’ve written an essay putting forth this same premise in answer to Kant, called “Beyond Kant and Hegel,” (published in the March 2013 issue of “The Review of Metaphysics”). The essay provides more quotes of Kant and Hegel than I can provide here in support of this premise. But my argument is that these A and B representations fall in line with Kant’s critical demands, and they provide a resolution to Kant’s first antinomy that is somewhat similar to the solution that Hegel presents; but they offer something more than Hegel in that they provide the grounds for a complete causal argument in response to the challenge presented by Kant in his critical philosophy.

I am presenting this post only to gather what others might have to say about this.
For one to see any sense in such a premise they might need to be open not only to metaphysics as a viable means toward answers to the most difficult cosmological questions, but to what cosmologists have discovered, that is, that our universe has not always simply existed, but it had a beginning some 13-14 billion years ago. Their findings overturn Kant’s proof for his antithesis (which has it that the universe had no beginning) of the first antinomy, which put simply is: “only nothing can follow from nothing.” My contention is that Kant’s proof of his antithesis rests on the common sensed dictionary definition of nothing. The A and B representations provide a critical redefinition of nothing that is fundamentally important in that it overturns this common sensed notion that stands as an obstacle on the path of pure reason (and metaphysics).

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The whole knowing god thing is arrogance. Plain and simple. Humans are arrogant creatures. They make huge universal assumptions.

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 Yes and in science, we make smaller assumptions, called theories.  Just the chip off the old block.  But why arrogance?
4

Why arrogance? It’s simply some people’s nature to be highly arrogant.

Scientific theories are different than saying you know with exactitude the creator of all.

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I don’t get it. Are you saying there’s a difference between these two? If so, we must be conceiving a difference, which means we have two different concepts. How, then, can B be the idea of A?

How so?

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And both questions are the product of conjecture. There is a difference between belief based on guessing and tested and proven knowing. Metaphysicians have a little built-in problem…

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It’s a matter of two’s. There is literally 2 of everything. Even two beings to mate to regenerate, two eyes, two hemispheres of the brain, digital information systems,

   Does this binomial state of reality mean something?   (Yes/no)


    There are 2 kinds of informational exchange : projecting, receiving (Yes/no)


   The brain, designed or evolved, serves what purpose (if any).1 To receive data through sense
                    & to convert data to form
                     Language is a formal arrangement
                     Of signs indicating. The preception 
                      Data.  Data is received from TWO 
                     Eyes.  The neural energy then is 
                     Stored as signs. This storage is the 
                      Memory.  The memory then inter-
                      Prets the data stored a signs.  The. 
                      Signs are then expressed as sign-
                      Als to make theories,  the theories
                      Are then used to create general 
                      Laws.  Laws are a higher form of 
                      Sign, then language. Laws are com
                      Verted to formulas.  Formulas are 
                      Yet still a higher form of sign.  
                       Forms are prescriptions to 
                        Duplicate similar data, which are
                        Perceived.

The idea is that from preception to prescriptions the process is one of receiving information,

Therefore the goal of human evolution is one of receiving and converting data to create tools and mechanisms to extend the survival instinct.

This one way progression of reception, produces what we call knowledge. Do we at any time create knowledge without reference to the receptive process of the acquisition of knowledge? Do we ever really know things except by this process?

The problem with knowledge, is the fact, that memory pegs data in various levels, schema,places, they get filed away, often forgotten for lack of usage. This forgetting creates an effect of
The forgotten item being gone, like it was something. They speak of it as having been lost, as if it was some-thing.

But this some thing is still there, outside consciousness and inside within, as a potential thing to be recalled.

And this is knowledge. The recall from inside, if forgotten, the whole scheme has to be started from the beginning. It’s all out there. All that out there, is the void, of becoming through reassembledge, re learning. It is always there. We don’t make it happen, we only reassemble it. If you’re a Neo-Platonist, you will believe that this potential eternal becoming is what may be called God. This totality was never created, it is the void that is. Just is. It’s is ness is an assemblage. Beneath that assemblage is the void of possible becoming. It exists, but it’s existence emerges from the void. The void is not a concept of what is, it is the what the “what is” emerges from. Thought is this assemblage, and assembler. The void is a disassembledge which pretty well mirrors Sartre’s nothingness, except his nothingness is a concept. It has no ground. Sartre’s nothingness is an assemblage.

8

I may be missing something… What’s the problem with this? The difference between signifier and referent isn’t a fundamental problem with language, and a photograph of a painting is not the painting.

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The point is that as soon as you posit that there is a difference, then B is no longer the right concept of A. The way he expressed A above is now the proper concept of A.

From this, an infinite regress awaits. If we now have the description given above as the right concept of A, then it won’t take long before we reflect on it and recognize it as just a concept. Then we’ll make the same old distinction: there’s the concept of A, and then there’s the real thing A.

This is just the Kantian mistake all over again, only one further step in the infinite regress. Kant started out by making a distinction between the phenomenal appearance of an object and the object-in-itself. He defined the latter as inconceivable, but then we soon realize that in talking about the “object-in-itself” we have formed a concept of it. So then we say “well, that’s just a concept, and it doesn’t really represent properly the real object-in-itself, which remains inconceivable as always.”

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But that’s… you can’t… I don’t even… Conceivable means you can form a concept of it. Not form a concept that is the thing conceived.

I think there’s too much being asked of representation, here. A postcard of the Statue of Liberty is not the Statue of Liberty. But it is definitely a postcard of the Statue of Liberty. It is so because it has a representation of the Statue of Liberty on it.

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 So the same problem recurs: too much is being asked of representation to describe it, so then, how could it have arisen in the first place?  The ontological argument in reverse.  But in this sense, it's a sine non qua.
12

This premise appears to me as an analysis and definition of “Absolute void”.
That is, a concept which is not nothing, but as close to it and as otherwise empty as possible, kind of like a “0.000…001” in numerical analogy.

I find it highly problematic when people start proposing the conception of a concept that cannot be conceived, re: “It is impossible though for our finite minds to grasp the totality of an Absolute state (even an Absolute void)”, and when definitions of infinites are attempted (this is the same reason why I reject the notion of such numbers as “0.000…001”).

You cover this later on, but I am also wary of loaded questions such as “from where did this Absolute void originate?” This is an incomplete version of the question “given an origin of this Absolute void, what/where is it?” Your solution is to turn to scientific theories concerning the beginning of the universe. I can’t help notice, earlier on, that you claimed “the ultimate answer to the question of the origin of all things can only come from metaphysics, not from physics”. I happen to agree that science cannot answer questions about “the origin of all things”. If you were to be consistent with this claim about science, you leave open the unexplored possibility that the universe had no origin.

I do not think philosophy nor any logical pursuit can answer such a question in its stead, because (which you yourself pointed out) for every postulated effect, questions of its origin are left open. Causation implies an infinite chain of causation. “Absolute void” is merely an attempt to defy the need for causation, whilst retaining the property of existence. This is a requirement for the existence of a supreme being, the framework for which/whom you are trying to set up. Due to the above mentioned problems, you are necessarily going to be unable to do so without either unintentionally contradicting yourself, or intentionally turning away from logic and causation. As I have just pointed out, the properties of logic and causation are incompatible with an ultimate origin. Ultimate origins are necessarily embedded in irrationality.

One final remark concerning the scientific quest for the origin of the universe, I could not help but notice their aversion to the idea of something coming from nothing (which is eventually essential to all arguments for an origin to the universe, including yours - no matter how hard you try to evade it with concepts such as “Absolute void”) yet also their attitude towards infinites as some kind of mathematical “error code”. No wonder they tie themselves in such knots and mystery, disallowing either possible nature of their answer before even asking the question.

My “answer” to all questions like these is that things like the universe do not have a nature in themselves, they are merely open to intepretation. One can either choose to approach things causally and therefore infinitely, such that there is no beginning or end, or they can approach them irrationally and definitely, such that a beginning and end may be conceived. Both science and theism, combinations of the two and even philosophy are going to have to start being more honest with admitting their consequences else be doomed to forever chase their own tails.

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Talk to Kant about this. He’s the one who said the thing-in-itself is inconceivable.

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Quite a conception, I’d say. :wink:

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There is too much being said here that needs digesting, although the argument itself is not given here. Suffice it to say the argument is in answer to the challenge of Immanuel Kant. It goes through a monthly editing, depending on worthwhile and constructive criticisms received from those who actually practice philosophy, as opposed to those who only study philosophy as a side interest. However, sometimes people who have little interest in philosophy can contribute the most, so I’m not discounting anything anyone might have to say. I even take venomous, ad hominem attacks into account, from the perspective of saying to myself something like: “Well, if I wrote something that really made this person heated enough to say this, could I have said it in a way that would either have mitigated or even nullified the heated response?”

All the above proves is that an argument should be given in its entirety. A fair analysis must analyze the whole not just a part.

And the argument is a philosophical argument. So this is the proper forum to post even what’s been posted above. That is, unless the members here are anti-philosophers, which I’m assuming they are not.

The argument is also a system of metaphysics that fits Kant’s definition of a synthetic cognition a priori (from premise to conclusion), and there are ample quotes from Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” and “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics” to support this claim. At the least, the argument will provide something for those interested in Kant to chew on, as one of the most difficult excerpts of all is cited, and interpreted. Kant was farsighted, and the argument gives him due credit for his critical insights. The argument happens to fall in line with Kant’s critical demands. But this again is something for philosophers to decide for themselves. That’s why I’ve chosen “Causal Argument for …” and not some other title.

I’ll try and post a link next month to the actual site where the argument can be found, after the next update. I’ve already used some of the criticisms above in my rewrite, and I thank all the posters.

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Kant asks a preliminary question for metaphysicians: “How are synthetic cognitions a priori possible?”

I believe what Kant means by a synthetic cognition a priori, is a synthesis of pure understanding following necessarily from its premise to its conclusion. There is the following excerpt from Kant’s Prolegomena that supports this view: “Metaphysics must be science, not only as a whole, but in all its parts; otherwise it is nothing at all.”

Do any of the posters above have any insight as to what Kant might be getting at here?

For my art, I’m interpreting this to mean, in going with my overall understanding of Kant’s critical philosophy, a definition of the only kind of metaphysics that Kant sees as legitimate, or valid, and in contrast to those philosophical systems he denounced: most notably, those of Descartes and Berkeley. The kind of metaphysics that Kant hopes his critical philosophy (which he also calls a guide and a sketch book to this end) must meet with his critical demands, and this means it must follow as a synthetic cognition a priori, from start (premise) to conclusion.

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  I think Kant simply says that both the in itself and the for itself are primary modes of understanding. They are not relatin", they are propositionally equivalent.   They are sye synthetic, because they are the apprehensionally (qualitatively) different, , yet they are just seemingly different----the thesis and it's exlusion (the anithesis) are both subsumed in their quality -synthesisis.

 The qualification. And its ground and (everything that's disqualified). Is the thesis and antithesis---but they subscribe the synthesis of both. Types of knowledge----those begotten by intuition and those that are from experience.  The synthesis includes both types and are propositionally equivalnet because they can be synthesized,or combined ,  I think this is what he means.



 In fact, both types of knowledge have the same ground for him, and analysis through this primary mode of understanding reveals the logical. Necessity to synthesize both typesm,
19

An absolute void is nothing.
Premise is self refuting.
Next!

Not really. As an absolute void is nothing then it is not even a logical premise.

As an absolute void is nothing, then It is not a thing which comes to, from, or at the question it is not only a thing without origin , it is not a thing at all.

No. There can be no metaphysics without physics. Physics provides the underlying basis for metaphysics which is nothing more than a human construction by which we try to understand the physical world.

Even if these claims were remotely true; just because we desire an answer does not indicate that we can find one, and does not even indicate that such an answer is available in any sense. There is no indication that the question is even a valid one.

You are already imposing your answer on the definition of the premise. In other words, you are framing your question to suit the answer you already desire. Ever heard of a circular argument?

Good Luck.
Conclusion.
You start off with a massive claim, and only present a faulty premise.
It does not auger well for the content of the essay.

20

Above there is the comment that metaphysics requires physics. Of course this is true, just as much as theoretical mathematics relates to and requires the empirical world, otherwise, it amounts to nothing at all. This is precisely what Kant says with regard to metaphysics. Any speculative metaphysics, if consisting of a priori principles or judgments, must be able to show how those principles/judgments relate to the empirical world otherwise, otherwise they amount to nothing at all. His refutation of past systems of metaphysics was grounded on this critique. Kant saw those systems (most notably those of Descartes and Berkely) as inapplicable to the world of experience.

if metaphysics needs physics, and I agree fully that it does, then why is it not reasonable to suggest that the big bang (a theory grounded on physics) points back in time to an ultimate beginning, and this points to the continuing relevancy of metaphysics? The universe is, according to cosmologists, some 13 to 14 billion years old. There is enough empirical support for the big bang, besides just the cosmic background radiation, there is the abundance of helium and hydrogen that makes up (is it 90 percent) of the elements in the universe. The only way the abundance of hydrogen could have been generated is inside the big bang. Stars on their own could never have produced this amount of hydrogen. The big bang explains this abundance. No other theory can and this is a finding grounded on the laws of physics.

Is it not within reason then to suggest that there is a possibility for metaphysics with the support of what cosmologists have discovered? Kant outlined his first antinomy in the 18th century. Cosmology was still at that time a branch of philosophy. Kant had no idea that it would evolve into an empirical science nor did he have any idea that science would discover that the universe is finite, and not infinite. A finding that points directly to the thesis: the world has, as to time and space, a beginning.

This is a finding that is fundamentally and critically important to metaphysics.

The first antinomy thesis is supported by physics and cosmology while the antithesis is entirely undermined. It is also only the thesis that points to the possibility of achieving something more in metaphysics. Metaphysics does require physics, but this branch of philosophy of course inspires the greatest degree of skepticism simply because it deals with first principles, and the most difficult problems which by their nature go beyond the scope of what’s possible by means of physics. But the two can still find a meeting point in this finding in favor of the thesis. The reason Kant is relevant here is because of all philosophers he had the most insightful things to say about this much maligned branch of philosophy; for instance: “Metaphysics, in its fundamental features, perhaps more than any other science, is placed in us by nature itself and cannot be considered the production of an arbitrary choice or a casual enlargement in the progress of experience from which it is quite disparate.” And: “That the human mind will ever give up metaphysical researches is as little to be expected as that we, to avoid inhaling impure air, should prefer to give up breathing altogether.” In other words, metaphysics will persist as long as the most difficult of all questions persist. These questions will not cease simply because the vast majority of us are completely skeptical and closed to the possibility of their actually being answers to them.

What I can gather most of all from the above posts is that forum members here prefer hard philosophy over metaphysics, but for me, metaphysics is what philosophy is al about. If you’re going to live your life why take on the easy questions? Why not tackle the most difficult questions? Why allow the skepticism and the negative mindset of the mob dictate to you what you can and cannot accomplish, if you set your mind to it?