Theli

Perhaps we should start a new thread, and continue the endless arguments over there...
There was just about to be some stonethrowing between Albert and Mason anyway so it might be a good time to move to another thread.

David Gould

I do not really ahve any constructive criticism as I totally agree with you.

However, there is a weakness in the argument.

If time did not begin with the Big Bang - the Big Bang occurred at a point in time, for example - the argument fails.

I do not think that scientists have conclusively proved that time began with the Big Bang. Certainly the evidence weighs heavily in that direction but the Big Bang is very difficult to analyse (understatement).

One other attack theists might make against you is that while time as we know it did start with the Big Bang, some other temporal dimension did.

Thus, the Big Bang could have been caused on this other timeline.

However, like you I argue that a cause must occur prior to its effect and positing another time dimension does not help us in this regard as it impossible and meaningless to derive priority or otherwise from two different time dimensions.

This is clear if you look at a graph of (x,y) coordinates, where x is one time dimension and y is another. If you have the x coordinate of one point and the y coordinate of another it is impossible to determine priority.

If our time dimension came into existence with the Big Bang, there can be no prior thing to it, regardless of the existence of other time dimensions.

Good work with this - both you and Datheron have given me much food for thought.

edited to add: why do you think P1 is the weakest link in the argument? I am missing something.

[ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: David Gould ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

OK Code Mason,
I'll take you at your word and assume you are on the level with me, not just contradicting for the sake of contradiction. I apologize for losing my temper with you. I felt you we not being sincere.

I expounded at length why an infinite God cannot have a state, how a state is a function of finiteness. Your non-response was:


This is the logical equivalent of: If not-A then A.

You can't get more illogical than that. Ergo, I lost it. Now you approach it from a different angle:


The operative phrase is "to our frame of reference." To which I say yes, everything that you say that follows is correct, but so what?

To a slug's frame of reference desserts don't exist. So what? It's a given that in a theological argument we are stretching our frame to accommodate what is beyond our frame of reference because God, by definition, is not in our frame of reference.

You say:


Philosophy has nothing to do with Dictionary definitions; it has everything to do with self-consistent and intellectually precise definitions. Those who think that the common dictionary definition of a word is the conclusion of and not the beginning of the yellow brick road just don't get it.

The nub of our disagreement is expressed by your assertion:


To the contrary, there is no other way to conceive of creation except as being continuously created. You’re problem is that you are thinking of secondary creations, such as man or pots created from the slime.

When the Church speaks of creation, She speaks of primary creation, the stuff, if you will, of creation from which all other forms of creation evolve, devolve, revolve or what have you. This primary creation is created again and again each quantum moment. We recognize each new creation as movement. But each movement is actually the next ex nihilo creation. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Theophage

David, thank you for your response. I like what you say about the idea of a tangenital timeline (e.g. Hawking's imaginary time) and I agree.

However your comment about the Big Bang seems inappropriate:

If time did not begin with the Big Bang - the Big Bang occurred at a point in time, for example - the argument fails.

As stated previously, my argument does not depend upon any particular cosmological theory such as the Big Bang. For the argument, I define the universe as all that exists (or ever existed) not merely our incarnation of it since the Big Bang.

Thus, as lond as there was no point in time to the total Universe (present universe + any previous universe) P2 is still valid and my argument still stands.

Thank you for alerting me to this potential problem of defintions, I will revise my presentation of the argument in the future to include a clarification of it.

Daniel "Theophage" Clark

[ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: Theophage ]</p>

rainbow walking

Let me post this since I've already composed it and then I'll get to your latest reply.

rw: (P1) assumes that the cause must reflect the attributes of the effect (the universe), especially in relation to time.

Theophage: Here we disagree. I never said nor implied anything about causes needing to reflect attributes of the effect (how would that work anyway?), I simply said that the relationship which we call "cause and effect" is necessarily a temporal relationship. Specifically a temporal relationship where the cause must be prior to the effect. If there is no way for something to have a prior cause (as in the case of the universe) then it simply cannot have a cause, period.

Rw: Allow me to clarify. Byeffect.I mean the UNIVERSE.

TIME, as divisible by POINTS, is an attribute of that effect.

(P1) postulates the CAUSE to be contingent on divisible time, one of the attributes of the EFFECT, (the UNIVERSE), where you state there MUST be a POINT of TIME prior to the CAUSE for the CAUSE to operate.

FIRST CAUSE needn’t be stamped with the signature of a POINT in TIME prior to the EFFECT.

The relationship between cause and effect in this universe relies on POINTS in time. But this reliance is only an attribute of the temporal. If, prior to the TEMPORAL, time existed in its entirety indivisible, then the FIRST CAUSE becomes the FIRST divisible POINT in time.

No prior cause is needed to account for a prior POINT in time as time was indivisible. The only POINT in time that requires a cause is that POINT in time that became the transition from the indivisible to the temporal and divisible.

David Gould

Okay, I understand a little better now.

However, the theist could simple alter their definition of 'creation of the universe'. They could state that the arrangement of matter and energy that we see around us was what God created and that the point of time of God's 'will to create' exists at some point on an infinite timeline.

In other words, time could have always existed. The creation moment is simply the point along that time line where God chose to create the matter and energy we see today.

This of course means that God did not create time. I think this is a problem for theists of the Christian variety.

If matter and energy define time then matter and energy would have had to exist prior to the creation moment for there to be a time line.

This implies that God did not create the universe at all but simply rearranged the matter and energy in it to do what he wanted.

This seems to make God a limited demiurge type being - or even simply an advanced intelligent being who is out there somewhere, bound by the same laws of physics as we are, although of course with a far greater understanding of them.

Sorry for the rambling nature of the post - thinking aloud as it were.

David

rainbow walking

Theophage: I'm sorry Rainbow, but I cannot go on with this. Is there a refutation of my argument in there somewhere? I certainly don't see any.
Please try to be more concise and clear next time. I want to hear criticism of my argument, but it has to be criticism that I can make heads or tails of.

Rw: Your argument fails on the grounds that C1 does not follow because (P1) and (P2) are mutually exclusive; specifically (P1).

(P2) is right on and I concur. But (P1) doesn’t lead to (P2) for the reasons outlined above.
Here are your postulates again:

P1) In order for something to have a cause, there must be a point in time beforehand for the cause to operate.

P2) There was no point in time before the Universe existed.

C1) Therefore the Universe cannot have a cause.


Theophage: I would agree that if there was a first cause, that the first cause would contain whatever necessary to bring about the attributes of the universe. It would have to by defintion. But I would disagree with the idea that the first cause would have those universal attributes itself, which is what you seem to be saying here. If this isn't what you're saying, please ignore.
Second, you refer to those attributes as "prior to FIRST CAUSE", but this is clearly a bad choice of words. The first cause by defintion would have nothing prior to it which is exactly why it would not need a cause itself. Try wording it better next time.

Rw: Well, you were talking about “THIS UNIVERSE”. Clearly this universe is comprised of SPECIFIC attributes arranged in a specific manner to account for this universe as an ongoing phenomenon. Space, time, gravity, energy etc. and so on are all attributes of this universe but that in no way means they couldn’t have existed prior to their incorporation into THIS UNIVERSE. They just couldn’t have existed relationally as they now do in the specific manner and state in which they now exist.

Theophage: Your mention of the "attributes" seem to be leading off into an irrelevant tangent. the focus here should be on the fact that there was no prior point in time when the universe, it's attributes, or your hypothetical first cause existed. There can be no prior because the phrase "before time" is meaningless. It's like "north of the North Pole".

Rw: Actually there are many points north of the North Pole. That is the nature of THIS UNIVERSE. Its every attribute is divisible into points and measurable to some degree. But that is the nature of THIS universe. It in no way follows that this nature was inherent in any pre-existent attributes prior to their SPECIFIC combination into this universe. Since there needn’t be a prior POINT in time to the first cause of this universe we are in agreement except this also needn’t exclude the pre-existence of all the general attributes of what would become this universe at the FIRST point in time.

rw: Hence (P1) fails…(P2), on the other hand, supports my rebuttal to the tee. So they are mutually exclusive and do not lead to C1.

I hope this helps. Thanx for your patience.

David Gould

Rainbow Walking,

you wrote: "Actually there are many points north of the North Pole."

I think that you are wrong here. The coordinate system that includes North/South/East/West is one unique to the Earth. There is in that coordinate system nothing North of the North Pole by definition. (Ever heard of the expression 'farthest north').

If you posit that something outside the Earth is further North than the North Pole, you are breaking the definition as the coordinate system does not extend outside the Earth.

This is exactly analgous to the time argument.

David

Albert Cipriani

Theophage argues:


P1 is a tautology between cause and time. It describes causes as subsisting in time. But this is no different than describing time as subsisting in causes. That's why it's a tautology. Allow me to illustrate. Your P1 can be reworded as follows:
1) for there TO BE a CAUSE,
2) there must be TIME prior to the CAUSE
3) "for the CAUSE to OPERATE."

Each phrase makes just as much sense (that is to say, nonsense) inverted, where time and cause swap places as such:
1) for there TO BE TIME,
2) there must be a CAUSE prior to TIME
3) "for TIME to OPERATE."

Indeed, you could substitute almost any word imaginable and derive as much sense out of your P1. For example: for there to be matter (trees, the sun), there must be time/a cause prior to matter (trees, the sun) for the matter (trees, the sun) to operate.

Furthermore, the three phrases of your P1 are circular in that:
#1 assumes the existence of time in its phrase "to be."
#2 assumes the existence of prior time.
#3 assumes the existence of time in its phrase "to operate."

But time is the very thing that cannot be assumed in reference to the creation of the universe. Indeed, you yourself assert its absence in P2.

So all you've done in P1 is roll up cause in a rug of time, then pull the rug out from under it and exclaim as your disingenuous conclusion: "Look, no time! Ergo, no cause." Your first premise is a tautology, straw-man definition, and a circular argument (assuming what it should prove) all rolled up in one.

Now move over. Two can play this game:
P1) For there to become an atheist, there must be rational thought.
P2) But theistic people, by definition, aren't being rational.
C1) Ergo, theistic people cannot become atheists.

-- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Datheron

Theophage,

Hm.....I dunno.

One of the problems that I see here is the fact that you assume logic operates outside the Universe. Much like everything else, I would argue that we really have no idea what makes sense outside the Universe. Therefore, all claims that are based in some law discovered within the Universe may not operate outside.

The point that you bring up, though, disguises deeper meaning. You use the fact that X cannot change to both Y and ~Y (mutually exclusive) and have both exist at the same time, which is a violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction. This leads to the question of what, exactly, works outside a temporal context? What can we safely apply to areas outside our own familiar spacetime, without having everything contradict and denied logically? You say that by example, every cause is temporally before the effect, but that is simply because all examples are still placed in a temporal context. Can we get observational results beyond it, and what can we say reasonably about non-temporal space?

It's uncertainties such as this that I prefer to just place a big question mark over the entire issue and therefore deny any "proofs" that attempt to expand beyond what we can know. I see it much the same as an attempt to rationalize the laws of physics inside a singularity - it may be applicable, but there is no real way of knowing. In any case, such a defense is strong enough to defeat the CA.