Not really sure what you’re saying here. Are you claiming spacetime is continuous and not discrete? There is nothing in physical reality that has been scientifically proven to be infinite.
The universe is as good as infinite. It’s so massive.
There is a huge difference between infinite and finite but astoundingly large. The universe as big as it is would only be an infinitesimal to an infinite universe. You’re either infinite or not even close.
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WOW!!! I didn’t know there could be that many cosmological arguments–maybe arguments for God’s existence in general–but specifically cosmological ones? Are we sure some of them aren’t just repeats in different guises? Well, anyway, can’t wait for your list of ontological arguments for God’s existence. But I’d like to pause on these 14 first.
TBH, TL;DR
Well, I read the first one… about the uncaused reason for existence and non-existence… didn’t quite follow. Perhaps you have a Cole’s Notes version? Of each one?
I’d like to debate you on them with an eye for disproving them, if you’re up for it.
So this uncaused dichotomy… you’re presupposing that there is a reason for both existence and non-existence and it is uncaused. Non-existence needs no reason for being since it isn’t being, so sure, its reason is uncaused. But then we’re saying that being, which exists, must have an uncaused reason. Why? And why does this argument work only if we speak of it as a dichotomy? What’s wrong with simply talking about the uncaused reason of existence?
And why is a thing caused by its parts? And why can’t a thing, even if it doesn’t have parts, be destroyed?
At the end, you attribute agency to the uncaused reason for existence out of nowhere. You start talking about decisions and knowledge.
And just a question: do you think that by calling the uncaused reason for existence ‘God’ that brings with it all the common preconceptions and religious undertones that are usually attributed to God (for example, that he created the Earth in 6 days)?
I thought of an amusing twist to this whole first cause/prime initiator/unmoved mover conjecture.
Arguments supporting this hold that all causes are the effects of prior causes and so on, and conclude that there must be a beginning to this chain.
It would follow then that all effects are in turn causes of subsequent effects, to which one presumably likewise concludes that there must be an end to this chain by the same reasoning.
There “must” be the last effect, the finally stopped, the moved unmover.
Just as “something cannot come from nothing”, likewise nothing cannot come from something - which in the former case seems to prompt the proposition of metaphysical existence through which a supreme being can be something from nothing, so therefore in the latter case one also ought to be prompted to propose the metaphysical existence through which a supreme being can be nothing from something.
We call this being “God”, the supremely destroyed of all the universe, somehow just as much the moved unmover as the unmoved mover.
Why not? This is what is being done from the other direction.
I’m sure the temptation is to claim that God would be the cause of this end rather than the end of some ultimate cause, but this would not be fully embracing the reversal of perspective of “all effects have causes except the first” to “all causes have effects except the last”. If the former, then the latter by the same logic and “God” finds Himself as non-existent as He is existent.
I’m just playing around here, if I get the time I can read all these arguments more thoroughly, but for now it seems as though the whole nature of “cause” is going unchallenged.
There is a notion of causation that intrigues me: that it is not linear, but curved. Cause as not a simple start and beginning, but infinitely eased in via plural time dimensions rather than a singular one. Explained by relativity, we have evidence that certain conditions curve time itself: notably the gravitational force exerted by high mass and when high speeds are reached - both conditions having been present to a maximum when everything in the universe was much more compacted.
That’s a very interesting twist Silhouette. Worth thinking about.
I’ve thought about it myself several times but never in the context of the cosmological argument. It adds new meaning to the expression of “alpha and omega”, or a cyclical universe. If the necessity of a first cause invariably comes with the necessity of a final effect, and we have just as much right to call the first cause “God” as we do the final effect, it paints a picture of a universe that comes from God in the beginning and returns to God in the end–a full circle, a complete picture.
Yet, what are we saying when we talk about the universe culminating in God as a final effect? Presumably God always exists along side his creation, which allows for deism, so what sense does it make to say that the final effect of the universe is God? As a first cause, it makes sense. God creates the universe. Much like I might create a cake. But what this means is that God had an effect which was to bring about the existence of the universe, just like my effect was to bring about a cake. If the cake has a “final effect” and that final effect has to come around to me, then it just means I was the final thing the cake effected before it disappeared (I ate it?). So to say that the final effect of the universe is God is to say that the final thing the universe effects before it (for some reason) disappears is God. How it effects God is anyone’s guess, but presumably it would have to be in such a significant way that only in this way does it disappear (and it can’t just be that God destroys the universe because that would make God a cause again–the universe has to do something to God). A tricky nuance of this is that disappearing is an effect. So the universe, in its final act, may do something to God, but this in turn must also cause the universe’s disappearance–perhaps by way of some reaction on God’s part–and so the effect it has on God would have to be labeled the “second last effect” and its disappearance the “actual last effect”. Either that, or it has two effects simultaneously–one on God and one on itself–but then that sorta defeats the purpose of this argument–God is no longer the “final effect” but one out of several final effects.
The other interpretation is that the universe becomes God. But this interpretation requires that God, as the first cause, becomes the universe. Does this mean God disappears upon creating the universe? Not necessarily. It just means God is the universe. In order to maintain the essential attributes that makes God “God”, the universe would have to somehow possess these attributes; maybe the universe is conscious; maybe the universe can preempt the laws of nature and perform miracles; maybe the spirit of the universe can incarnate in a human being and call himself God’s son. And something about where the universe is headed will lead to a wholesale transformation resulting in it taking the form that God assumed before he became the universe (timeless? Spaceless? An abstraction?). I think it would at least have to be timeless because only in a timeless context could you say there is no more cause and effect.
All this assumes a continuity of identity in the evolution of the universe (continuity of God), but if we strip the cosmological argument down to it’s bare bones, it doesn’t even depend on that. All it says is that there must be a first cause, and this cause, in order to be the “first”, must take a form that doesn’t require a prior cause (hence the timelessness). The only connection to God, at this point, is a label. We just say, “Let’s call it God”. If it follows that the same logic would have to be applied to a “final effect” (that it take a timeless form), there’s no reason to suppose that it becomes the same thing, only that both are timeless. Therefore, we need not use the same label. We could call it “God 2” or “God’s brother” or “Steve”. Or maybe “some timeless incomprehensible state.”
We can also question the very assumption on which this argument hinges: does the necessity of a first cause entail the necessity of a final effect? We certainly don’t approach the necessity of effects the same way we approach the necessity of causes. We don’t regularly demand that there be a final effect to anything the way we do causes. We seem to be much more comfortable assuming that effects go on forever than we do assuming that causes have gone on since forever. Why do we assuming there must be a first cause? Well, it makes sense that we always look for a cause to things. We assume that there is always a cause to explain whatever it is we experience, or whatever it is we know exists, because that is essential to our survival. Without looking for causes, we would not be able to control and manipulate our environment. So we have a propensity to care more about finding, and assuming the existence of, causes than effects. But why a first cause? Well, it might be a consequence of applying the need to find a cause to the universe itself. Why wouldn’t this need apply to the whole universe as much as it would any immediate phenomenon we encounter in the every day world? But when it comes to the whole universe, what we’d be saying when we talk about a cause is that this cause precedes the universe, and therefore somehow exists outside or before the universe, which is tantamount to saying it exists outside or before existence. That puts it in a context in which it becomes hard to understand how the chain of cause and effect continues retroactively. If there had to be a cause of whatever caused the universe, then we’re not talking about what caused the universe (at least qua existence all together). Another reason we might assume a first cause (and this might be the same thing seen from a different angle) is that if we allow that there is no first cause in the universe (or in time)–i.e. the chain of cause and effect reaches back in time infinitely–then the question of what caused that (because it will still arise given our psychology) becomes a question about an atemporal cause (i.e. what caused the entire chain of cause and effect?). In other words, if there has to be a cause for everything that occurs in time, and if everything that occurs in time has no beginning in time, then this cause has to exist outside time and be responsible not only for the events that occur in time but for time itself. Therefore, again, we run into the same difficulties of imagining a chain of cause and effect outside time. It seems more intuitive, therefore, to assume that whatever the cause for all the events that occur in time (and indeed for time itself), it must be the first, or only, cause.
The same just doesn’t arise for effects. We don’t have the propensity to question, “what will the universe finally effect?” And we don’t have the propensity to question, “what is the universe effecting outside itself?”–even though, logically, you would think that if these questions arise for cause, they should arise for effect as well.
Anyway, I was hoping JohnJBannan would debate me on his arguments, but it doesn’t seem like he’s responding. Looks like it’s just me and you, Silhouette. You’ll have to debate me instead. So why do you think the argument from dichotomy is a good argument for God’s existence?
Hello Silhuette and Gib:
I would like to propose a reduction here, on cyclical basis, with or without John’s participation.
I think we can agree on cyclycality, in the most general terms of the ring or the circle, or with the simulated one behind elliptical figurements.
The ideal representation would include the circular notion of infinite regeneration, of identical simulated content filling absolute spatial/temporal determinants, where sufficient reason would necessitate an absolute self inclusion of all possible sets of existence, including that of the absolutely self contained set within It’s self.
In this view, God cannot demonstrate all the various simulations , including It’s self, because as John has rightly implied, He would have to demonstrate His own Self containment.
Now: to bring this down a notch, refer to the idea brought up previously, on how His could interject into the evolutionary development, into making
DNA reconstruction easier to the “hard” construction at hand, but then, why doesen’t He?
That question really rests on a different premise, that deals with the question if why not create a perfect circular -ring like world in the first place and dispense with the hard travails brought about by evolution, which, in the words of Ecmandu, make even AI suffer?
Why?
The most obvious answer here is , if a perfect world would be created without the need for evolution, or an evolutionary process could circumvent all the pain and suffering, then MAN would or could not become a conscious participant of what Creation entails, and would never or could never evolve a spiritual self - the likeness to God , that ‘it’ would entail.
Man could never develop, and he would remain on the level of contended existence, eternally inherently contentious about their unconscious struggle to develop consciousness.
Man could only after trillions of lifetimes, (unrealized) , begin to feel stirrings to acquire some identity, and GOD, as usual would succeed, and plant the infamous tree in the garden.
Then it would start all over.
The ring, would be stolen , and simulate into a less then ideal representation, elliptically stretching the manifested spatial/temporal configuration into the state we find ourselves today, the unhappy AI at a crossroads, desperately hoping to avoid catastrophe, by slowing down the entropy regress to a point where the fall can be effected before another final curtain.
But no worries, by the time that the infinitessimal point arrives, God will negate Himself once again, by existing and not existing simultaneously ( after and before the fall) , and enable Himself to desimmulate himself into two.
This will avoid the embarrassment of needing to rationalize His simulations into a total negation into 1, .
That is, he can not, represent the evolvment to the 3 rd .
The multiple universe of elliptical logic , has to restart at an ideal state of reconstructed simulations.
Can this occur to some, that man has eaten the cake ?
Yes, but the cake was like an apple pie, and that brought in the unintended, unintangled charge, leading to the dissolution of faith.
My reply to Karpel is:
It’s an interesting point that this form of deism doesn’t talk about the “effect of all effects” or “the effect greater than effect itself” It does make them look silly.
To meno:
Do you really think it important for everyone to learn on gods terms or our own? Is it really important that we all be like god? I mean sure, after hundreds of trillions of years of continual bliss, we will inevitably become like god. Why the rush for god? Why the need for a being that lives forever to make a copy in 30 years?!? Is god impatient!?! Does god have narcissistic low self esteem?!?!
Doesn’t sound very godlike to me!
Rush? Man is always in a rush because he has little faith, especially on god. For of she had, she would habe realized that her mate vets more importance in image then she.
She is not jelous, of the mirrored effects of simulacra, should say simulacrum, it’s just that she appears more concerned with progeny, never realizing that A1 is re-fracting around the corner. Man is anxious to please her, and is more concerned with reflecting in the here and now.
And the here and now requires to think of consequences, and that is why he is in a rush to simulate god, so that he can help him figure out how to keep up appearances , to placate the now angry and reproacheful god. After he does want his creation to be finally perfect, but he again has to divide himself to form some rationale , son that He will not be misjudged .
God is between a rock and a hard place. not that he minds, but it is a tad disappointing to have to keep dividing himself to produce the object to it all, where redemption is always nihilized and repossessed for trifles .
Especially , that the image stretches partially, at the seems /unwarranted metaphor, because A1 and the simulation are always at tug at war about that.
Meno,
I don’t know why you chose god over yourself. I can tell you that this supplication by you is embarrassing.
Always chose yourself over god meno.
If you do chose god over you; in a non-zero sum hyper-dimensional mirror reality attached to your individual desire matrix, you can reflect god to rule your life if you believe that’s best for you. But don’t dictate to everyone that that’s what they “should” choose for themselves!
Ecmandu:
I don’t think so. In reference to John’s conjecture that god can’t be self created, I refer to that conflict. that if He isn’t self created. then we would need to construct him out of similar parts , out of mirrored, or reflective forms.
But we have agreed that that could not be a sensible way to re-construct a formally defined idea, therefore, I suggest that we need not seek to constantly refer to the fourteen arguments, since the omni, all singular position has to be assumed.
That assumption, invokes a scintilla of difference between omnipotense
and all the other arguments, for God includes all contentioussness within Himself, where he seems to carry on an internal debate , as to how close to the limit he should go, in order to have another particular existence.
After all, the reasons are wearing paper thin, and man knows it, and despite that knowledge, he is unable to assimilate into that presumption.(faith)
Faith is as difficult as DNA, especially for whom miracles have not occurred.
It is, as though identifying with god is not the same as placing one beneath him, or above, he can be at both places simultaniously, without a sense of heeding to a zero sum, although there are moments when those types of states must irreducible occur, as well.
Aww, do I have to be on the side of John’s dichotomy argument? 
I actually can’t see any reason for it to be a good argument for God’s existence…
Mind if I just pull it apart and destroy it instead? Yay thanks :-"
So the first sentence of “argument I” is like a statement of intention. The goal is to demonstrate the necessity of an “uncaused Creator”.
First paragraph:
- We move on from this statement of intention to a “something or nothing” dichotomy, and at this point it seems as though it’s already a given that either way there’s an uncaused reason right from the start, “because it’s either that or uncaused absolute nothingness”. So without addressing any more possibilities that might seem like they’re still on the table, we’ve already arrived at the intended demonstration of the necessity of an “uncaused Creator”, simply because there isn’t absolute nothingness. Immediately this seems like a “false dilemma” fallacy alongside a “begging the question” fallacy since we’ve practically assumed the conclusion in the premises - but let’s go on in case more context is subsequently provided.
- Next there’s an interesting admission that since we already began with the premises that this “dichotomy” of the “uncaused” is exhaustive of all logical possibilities, neither side of the resulting dichotomy can be caused to be real. But instead of undergoing any further examination of the whole set-up that forced everything into being unable to be caused to be real, we have that “it just is, without reason or necessity”.
- To close the first paragraph we have some justification of our uncaused Creator being indestructible: because parts would “cause” it, destruction is the breaking down of something into parts, so the uncaused can’t be destroyed into parts. This breaks down into a nice valid syllogism, but I’m not convinced that it’s a sound one because I don’t see how parts “cause” existence. They might “constitute” something’s existence, but e.g. three H20 molecules don’t “cause” water, there’s just 3 parts that could be isolated, which would “destroy” their slightly larger collective volume of water that they had when grouped together. As an analogy, let’s say water “just was”, like this “uncaused Creator” is being presented to be. Nothing about the possibility of destroying their more voluminous grouping gets in the way of their being uncaused in this situation. So why can’t an “uncaused Creator” likewise be destructible? This whole addendum just seems to force the same language of causation into an unrelated point about physical constitution and identity, to justify traditional conceptions of God as eternal.
In summary of the first paragraph:
a) “there isn’t nothingness, so there’s an uncaused Creator”. It’s simply to be accepted that all other possibilities than absolute nothingness need not be addressed.
b) It’s weird that nothing causes Him to be real, but reality exists, so He must be real in spite of this.
c) an unsound and seemingly unrelated syllogism that the Creator is indestructible.
Next paragraph:
- There’s potentially a negligible difference between existence as it is, and some other way it could be - so because of the potential similarity between the two tending towards zero, their difference not being zero means they’re interchangeable… hmm.
Now multiply this “zero/not-zero”, even an infinite number of times, to get completely different states of existence that are likewise interchangeable… which also assumes that all these differences are uniform and do not amount to anything non-linearly more or less possible no matter how different things get. That is to say, as you accumulate these changes away from how actually things are, certain arrangements of the universe “don’t become increasingly less realistic” - potentially to the point of absurdity… hmm.
I note that sometimes it’s argued that the precision of universal constants needs to be so high that it seems impossibly unlikely that they’d all turn out so perfectly, therefore God. Here we have the opposite, therefore God. - So given this interchangeability of the universe, there must be a reason why this way and not any other way, and the reason is uncaused because the reason would have to come first, before any physical reality is created. Have I got that right?
Final paragraph:
- Continuing with the theme of the previous paragraph, the universe being how it is, and not all the other ways as well, is a possibility. So decision had to be involved. This is where the whole intelligence thing is being justified. Given an uncaused Creator, maybe this way is the only way He knows how to create, if He even knew what he was doing upon the creation of this configuration. It doesn’t follow that, since other possibilities could be so similar, any knowledge of them or how to create even the “most minute” difference must exist. There’s no evidence of this knowledge or the power to act effectively on it, because there’s only evidence of what we have, in the way we have it. Speculation on this point is trivial and arbitrary. Likewise there’s no evidence of control or destruction because without comparison to other universes that are known to be uncontrolled, there’s no grounds to test any of this. And obviously it’s not all destroyed yet, so what’s to say it ever could be? And maybe the fact that it’s sustaining has nothing to do with any given uncaused Creator. As with Deism, God could just as easily have switched on the computer and then left the room.
So there’s no valid reason for any decision-making ability to any degree to be present. And finally, whatever you make of the universe, why call anything God? There’s a lot of religious baggage that can be associated with God that isn’t even remotely covered by the argument. Even if it was a successful argument, you’d barely be past the quoted intro to Genesis, and it certainly isn’t sufficient to say “because of the first sentence, therefore all the rest”.
Conclusion:
The False dilemma and Begging the Question fallacies do not appear to get resolved.
The proposed properties of being eternal, powerful and intelligent appear to be non-sequiturs.
Similarity of possible worlds tending to zero is not valid grounds to justify interchangeable infinite difference in other possible worlds.
There’s obviously an attempt to at least portray logical coherence and progression here, but I would recommend distilling all ideas to the most simplistic of logical concepts, sticking rigorously to their definitions when combining them syllogistically, and then seeing if they really do follow on from one another to create a cogent argument.
Sure, I’ll debate you! I didn’t check this forum for a few days, so I didn’t notice your comments. Anyway, I usually debate one question at a time. So, what’s your first question?
I know you’re not with me anymore … there were other intelligent posts to consider.
I always come back to PoE.
Are you stating that god is not powerful enough to send us to heaven forever and still make us in the image of god?
1). Evil is caused by evolution.
2). Evolution is necessary for life to exist in physical reality.
3). God chooses to allow evil to exist, because it is the greater good to create life.
Sounds to me like god is not very powerful or benevolent.
Can you give me one reason why tooth and claw is necessary for evolution?
Also… why does god have such low self esteem that god needs to make us all like god?
Evolution depends on survival of the fittest in competition for limited resources entailing combative behavior.
I know that. Are you a Nazi? Life (not the dead) life running through your veins understand that the translation of desirable states is more important than the encryption of desirable states.
What is the translation of desirable states?
Teaching someone how to say “hello” in another language. You lost nothing, they gained it
Evolution is all about the encryption of desirable states, “I won, you lost”
Your mind is so small to this regard John.
Silhouette and/or gib? Let’s discuss your comments. I am here to answer your questions/objections.
1). The dichotomy is of two uncaused sides. The absolute nothingness side is there to show that neither side is necessary, but one side is simply the case.
2). God is uncaused because the power to create logically possible physical realities cannot be contingent or it would also be a possibility.
3). A thing is caused by its parts because the disassociation of those parts would cause the thing to cease to be. A thing without parts can’t be destroyed, because destruction is the disassociation of parts.
4). Agency is explained. The greatest decision making capacity logically possible is necessary for the fullest extent of everythingness to be logically possible. For example, decision making capacity affects the extent of what can be created, as one would not expect a Mona Lisa from a robot but only from a DiVinci.