SteveD

No!

My position is that we do not have enough information to determine if they are rational or not.

I think that the two options you have provided:

1) The universe popped out of nothing

and

2) Something has always existed,

Cover all of the possibilities of any possible worldview. I haven't yet seen anyone offer up any other options.

Therefore at least one of them is rational or the universe is fundamentally irrational.

Steve

Wyrdsmyth

When we are attempting to critique naturalism, I think there is something we should all keep in mind. Naturalism, as a worldview, does not provide any kind of absolute doctrinal answers. It is more like a method of assessing what are the most plausible explanations and theories. So in that sense, it is rather closely linked to science. And pointing out gaps in science isn't evidence that science is irrational. There are unknowns in naturalism. For example, we don't know how the universe came to be, or if it came to be, or if it has a "cause." The universe isn't in any way bound by our logic or ideas. Our logic, even when we regard it as impeccably valid, can still lead us to incorrect conclusions if we have faulty premises.

Sometimes I think that some theists regard naturalism as a truncated, and therefore incomplete and perhaps incoherent worldview. I doubt many intelligent theists reject all naturalism, and by extension, science. Certainly, they think there are natural causes, and that we are warranted in looking for them. But the theistic view is often that naturalism is bound by, and part of, a greater worldview that encompasses naturalism, and that we might call supernaturalism.

I think the only way we can assess whether naturalism is rational or not, is not merely to examine it on its own merits, but also to compare it to supernaturalism. For example, we might ask the question, when are we warranted in believing in a supernatural cause? If we can't think of, or even conceive of, an answer that we can all agree on for a given event, then are we warranted in then concluding the supernatural? At what point are we justified in declaring that all natural explanations have been put forth and exhausted? I think these questions are at the core of the assessment of whether naturalism is rational or not. Because, fundamentally, I think what we are asking is if naturalism is 'enough' to explain all of the phenomena that we are aware of. But there is a divide here, at which point I think naturalists and supernaturalists interpret certain conclusions differently. Where naturalists may perceive a gap, or an area of unknown, or of unresolved questions, supernaturalists may perceive a flaw, a lacking, or a justification at that point to bring in supernatural causes as the most plausible explanations. It is this divide, this 'chasm of the intuitions' that is what should engage our discussion here.

The universe exists. So much, we agree on. But did the totality of matter and energy, and the very dimensions of space and time, come into being at a discrete point? This is up for debate and speculation. We may try to impose logical arguments upon the universe, but does that have any bearing on the true case about the universe? What if our logical arguments are valid, yet flawed in a premise? What if we are getting tripped up by our own definitions? Is it rational to speak of a 'before' or 'outside of' time and space, if, indeed we are going to define the universe as the totality of not only matter and energy, but space and time as well? What if the 'Big Bang' was only an explosion of a singularity of matter and energy, but not the absolute beginning or origin point of space and time relationships? What if, for example, the truth about our universe is that it is the latest in a succession of Crunch-Bangs?

As philosophers and deep thinkers, we naturally gravitate towards wanting to get to the bottom of the matter, to apprehend something we might call absolute truth. I think we all have a craving to know, and to feel the matter is settled in our minds. Perhaps this is our nature, as beings that are curious and reflective. We do not like for our curiosity to be thwarted, to be stalled. When it comes to cosmology, we have very little to go on. Let's take a step back from ourselves for a moment. We have math and logic, have had telescopes for several centuries now, and our physics is still developing. We have sent men to our moon, but not even to another planet yet. Yet, we can't help ourselves in speculating about not just our entire solar system or galaxy, but about the entire totality of energy and matter, and even time and space itself. How arrogant are we? Are we not like children not even out of the crib, speculating about what faraway seas and continents are like? But some of those in the crib with us are admitting "We can't say for sure yet, all we have is speculation," while others are already offering absolute answers that they claim come from supernatural sources. They are offering answers about things the rest of us think no one can possibly know for sure, yet, but they seem eminently confident that they are right. They point to the ones who are holding back and waiting for more data as irrational, as having incomplete worldviews. But none of them has yet had a complete view of the world.

bd-from-kg

thomaq:

Since I’m coming into this pretty late it’s unavoidable that some of what I say has already been said (especially in the first part), but here’s my take on this non-problem.

First off, the real alternatives are that time in this universe does not extend indefinitely into the past, or it does.

Both of these alternatives are tenable; there’s nothing “irrational” or illogical about either of them.

As to the first alternative, all attempts to demonstrate something “wrong” with it try to do so by talking about what happened before the first time. This is nonsense. By definition, in this scenario there is no “before” the first time.

It might clarify the situation if you try to think of this universe – the entire space-time continuum – as a whole. Clearly there is nothing paradoxical about imagining it to be finite. And it doesn’t make sense to ask how the whole thing came to be. By definition there cannot be a cause or explanation for the “whole show” or it wouldn’t be the “whole show”.

As to the second alternative, attempts to show something wrong with it invariably talk about the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite. But what reason is there to suppose that an actual infinite had to be traversed? The intuition behind this objection seems to be that one couldn’t get from the first time – the beginning of the universe – to the present. But this is logically incoherent, since the hypothesis under consideration is that there was no first time – no beginning. The interval from any actual time to the present is finite, and thus could clearly have been traversed.

Think of it this way. To say that a certain kind of universe is impossible clearly cannot mean that it would violate some natural law; the only intelligible meaning is that it’s logically impossible. But it’s perfectly clear a universe with an infinite past is logically possible. For example, if God exists, He could clearly have created the entire universe – past, present, and future – at one go. And in a universe that He created this way, the past could obviously just as well be infinite as finite. Thus a universe with an infinite past is logically possible.

And again, it doesn’t make sense to ask how a universe with an infinite past could come to be.

But there’s another problem with this line of argument that you seem determined to avoid dealing with: it applies equally to the assumption that God exists (or any other hypothesis about the origin and nature of the universe). I know that you want to discuss “only naturalism”, but if your argument applies equally to any conceivable hypothesis it cannot be considered an argument against naturalism; the most it can be taken to prove is that human reason is unable to cope with questions of this kind.

So what’s the problem? Simply this: the very concept of an “act” or “event” intrinsically involves the concept of time. It might not be this universe’s time, but there has to be a time of some sort (call it quasi-time, pseudo-time, metaphysical time, absolute time, whatever). The statement that Y happened is unintelligible without imagining a state in which Y has not yet happened and another state in which Y has happened; and the second state must in some sense follow the first. In other words, the concept of an event contains the concept of an ordered sequence of states. But as soon as we have an ordered sequence of states, we have time: that’s what time is. Similarly, the statement that X did Y intrinsically involves the concept of a state in which X has not done Y followed by a state in which X has done Y.

Once we realize that God, if we conceive of Him as an agent (and not just a mysterious “fundamental ground of being” or some such meaningless phrase), must exist in some kind of time (let’s call in absolute time), we have the very same problems that you mention. Does this absolute time extend infinitely into the past, or not? (Or to put it another way, is there an infinite ordered sequence of events extending into the past or not?) If not, how do we account for the first instant of absolute time; where did it come from? If so, how could God have traversed the infinite interval leading up to the present moment in his absolute time (or in other words, how could this infinite number of states have come into being sequentially)?

At this point it should be clear that we aren’t dealing with a problem with naturalism, but a problem with the way we think about time (or whatever general name you want to give to any substrate within which events and acts occur).

thomaq

i promise i will respond to these posts, i just have a really busy week at work this week. but thank you all for your input so far.
just a quick side note, it seems people keep pinning me with a "theist tag", i just want to say that i am not trying to offer that as a solution.

thomaq

i havent judged anything of victor stenger. i havent read his book yet. by what you have said, it seems as though he redefines "nothing" as something. which would apparently throw him into option 2a or maybe 2b in my original post. according to the actual meaning of nothing, option 1 of the original post remains irrational (and i think most everyone on here agrees with that). it will be sometime before i can read his book. maybe for the sake of this discussion thread you can offer his views and we can deal with it that way?

thomaq

i am not contradicting myself at all. you are actually making my point for me. let me explain where i think you are misunderstanding me.

if existence (the universe including time) began (big bang), then it is "logically" (not temporally) preceded by nothingness. i am using the word preceded not as a temporal word but as a "logical"word. for example, existence is logically prior to identity. identity relies on an existent, at the same time an existent has an identity. there is no temporal relationship between the two. but there is a logical order between the two. so, IF existence has a beginning, then it is the logical order, that nothingness precedes it.

here you seem to take a semantical issue with the word "beginning" which is fine with me. we can use a different word of your choosing. in order to come up with this word, i have some questions for you:
what happened 13.7 billion years ago? was it a beginning? what was the bigbang?

thomaq

1. let me rephrase then. the universe cannot have existed for an infinite amount of moments. do you agree or disagree? and why?

2. exactly right. i dont think you are reading my post carefully enough. i brought up 2 options of naturalist explanations of the universe. the 2 option has 2 "sub" options 2a and 2b. you seem to be taking my arguments from one of them and applying them to a different one.

thomaq

1. let me rephrase then. the universe cannot have existed for an infinite amount of moments. do you agree or disagree? and why?

2. exactly right. i dont think you are reading my post carefully enough. i brought up 2 options of naturalist explanations of the universe. the 2 option has 2 "sub" options 2a and 2b. you seem to be taking my arguments from one of them and applying them to a different one.

thomaq

ok, it seems to me like you agree that options 1 and 2b dont make any sense and are irrational. (let me know if i am interpreting you correctly). this leaves us with option 2a which implies that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of moments. which seems to be impossible. if an infinite amount of people have to sit down before i can sit down, when will i sit down? the answer is never. if an infinite amount of moments have to pass before we reach the present, when will we reach the present? never. we have reached the present and so there can not have been an infinite amount of moments that have passed. what is your take on option 2a?

Hawkingfan

Along these same lines as above. My problem concerns the following:
There is no such thing as a "moment" in a singularity because time does not exist. Time only exists after the BB. So there are no infinite amount of moments that have to occur before the BB. Another problem with the above example (where event A happens before event B), is that it concerns arrows of time (thermodynamics), specifically the chronological arrow. In a singularity, arrows of time do not exist.