Headache

It is, but it is not supporting your ideas at all, you understand that?

figuer

Are you sure? I wonder what "my ideas" are according to your perception.

1. I stated that the general initial-BB model did not invalidate theism per se (I am atheistic, that was a simple observation).

2. I questioned the statement that time and space began with the BB.

This is the sum total of my ideas in this thread. My exchange with Dante Alighieri is more about his ideas than about mine.

I am rather inclined towards the idea of a cyclyc universe than to the initial-BB model.

Dante Alighieri

Nope. I explicitly acknowledge that we don't know whether or not the singularit was an initial event, let alone whether a singularity even existed (this is the great disagreement between relativistic and quantum cosmology).

Per the Copenhagen interpretation, certain quantum phenomena are uncaused. However, it's pretty obvious (I think) even if the Copenhagen interpretation were false, if there were an initial event, then it would be uncaused.

I never said that there actually is an initial event. I said that if there had been one, it would be uncaused. I was contesting figuer's argument that initial events are logically impossible; I was not arguing that it was actual that there is an initial event.

I wasn't speculating, since I wasn't offering that the universe had an initial event at all. You are accidentally misconstruing what I am arguing. I am arguing that it is not impossible, for there to be an initial event, not it is actually the case that there is an initial event. Given our difficulties to reconcile quantum and relativistic cosmology, the best we can do is remain agnostic on the matter.

An event is initial if and only if it is first event, in which there are no events prior to such an event and that the set of past events is finite: Think of, for instance, the set {1,2,3...}; if we take some event, say, 5, the set of past events is {1,2,3,4}.

Yes, but such universes would not be "re-creations" of time (which seems pretty incoherent if we understand time to simply be the asymmetric relations that hold between events), but continuations of it.

I know. From the fact that it never came into being, you deduced that it "came from nothing" which means of course that such an event is logically impossible, since "nothing" is not a state of affairs.

I pointed out the immediate incoherence in such a view, since that would deny that there is or is not a first event because, if we applied your same argument, that there is no first event doesn't have antecedents either (its necessarily true that neither conjunct can have any antecedents), so, per your argument, it would also disprove that there is no first event. Which is to say, such a view entails the falsity of a tautology: a necessary truth--"Either there is a first event or it is false that there is a first event." In other words, ~(p & ~p). Of course, the falsity of a tautology is a contradiction: (~p v p).

So, there must be something wrong with your view. And the thing that is wrong is you confuse "nothing" as a weird sort of "something."

You are ascribing "somethingness" onto nothing, since nothing is no state of affairs whatsoever (it is of course, utterly incoherent), since only something can be an antecedent; to be an antecedent is to consist of a state of affairs, an event; and "nothing" is not a state of affairs or an event. So, you are confusing "nothing" as a something accidentally by translating the proposition "There are no antecedents to x" as "Nothing is an antecedent of x." What that really translates to is "No antecedents is an antecedent of x;" which is to say that you are saying that there is some state of affairs (nothing is not a state of affairs! it is utterly incoherent) such that it is both an antecedent and not an antecedent, for if there are no antecedents, then it can't be an antecedent and you say that it is an antecedent. In any case, only things can have properties or relations in the first place (and being an antecedent is a relation) and nothing is not a thing.

Moreover, negative existential statements do not name any positive fact; so, there's a general metaphysical/logical problem with your treating of "no antecedents" as a relation.

figuer

No, you are ascribing somethingness to my nothing...my nothing is "no state of affairs whatsoever".

Dante Alighieri

I don't get your point. Are you saying that "no state of affairs" is a state of affairs? (Which goes to show just how incoherent "nothing" really is) In any case, if nothing isn't a thing in the first place, it can't be an antecedent.

And therefore, there is no logical impossibility in there being a first event as there is no such impossibility of there not being a first event.

RAFH

Well, start reducing.

We have only your assertion the mathematical equation is coherent. So until it can be evaluated, your statement remains incoherent.

Dante Alighieri

Ach, I messed up pretty bad here. I meant ~(p v ~p), which entails (~p & p), which is a contradiction. What I originally wrote were tautologies in the first place.

SophistiCat

You snipped the beginning of the sentence: "If the arguments in this paper are sound, then God does not exist if big bang cosmology, or some relevantly similar theory, is true." This isn't a premise - this is a conclusion. You should read the argument and then decide whether you agree or disagree with the argument.

And note that Smith qualifies his statement with "if Big Bang cosmology, or some relevantly similar theory, is true." This is an important qualification. If your objections have to do with the Big Bang cosmology (as Smith presents it), then they are irrelevant.

Tuffa Nuff

It's an oldie but it's relevant. If you keep looking for causes and antecedents, and you put some theological being as the cause and antecedent for the universe, then you need to find the cause and antecedent of that god, which contradicts theology as I understand it.

If God supposedly is the original cause, this breaks the flow of logic backwards, (the one saying that everything must have an antecedent cause).

If we say a god created the universe without an antecedent cause for that god, why is that any more valid than saying that the universe began without any god, and without any antecedent cause?

If there was no beginning, as figuer suggests, this solves the causal problem, and eliminates the theological gods, (at least those which I have come across, anyway).

Alf

Although I agree with you in part you are mistaken in one important aspect.

If there was no before big bang then it is not true that the universe came into being out of nothing. If there was no time before big bang then there was no time in which this nothing could exist. Put another way - as long as time existed there has always been something and there never was nothing. How then could the big bang come out of nothing when there never was this nothing?

Alf