Hawkingfan

ok, there is now another thread concerning this in the Science & Skepticism forum. I renamed it "Naturalism and the Big Bang" instead of the philosophical "Naturalism Irrational?" I PM-ed Jesse.

bd-from-kg

thomaq:

1. Sorry about the mix-up in names. Doubting Didymus is a moderator in the Morality forum with whom I'm having a discussion on an entirely different subject.

2. Needless to say, I disagree with Bill Snedden.

[Note: I’m assuming here that everything after “here is a quote from Bill...” is the quote from Bill rather than a quote followed by further comments by you. It would be helpful if you would learn to use URL code to clearly mark off quotations.]

He says:

This is meaningless. The meaningful statement would be:

P2': There is an initial time – i.e., a time that precedes all other times.

This is either meaningless or trivially false, depending on exactly how one interprets it. Moreover, C2 does not follow, even formally, from P1 and P2, much less from P1 and P2'.

This is meaningless. There was not, and could not have been, a "point [i.e., time] before the universe existed".

The same applies to:

3. Anyway, you can hardly endorse Bill's line of reasoning, since he concludes "... then there must have been some point when nothing existed," whereas you say:

But Bill is clearly talking about what preceded the universe temporally. If you now think that the concept of something temporally preceding the universe is meaningless (or at least unintelligible to humans), you must reject Bill’s entire line of thought here as hopelessly confused (as I do).

4. You still don’t seem to understand the basic point. If, when you use words like “possible” and “must”, you’re referring to logical possibility and logical necessity, your argument is refuted very simply by noting that it is possible to imagine, without self-contradiction, either a universe with an initial time or a universe without an initial time. (And clearly one of these, at any rate, must be logically possible, since the universe exists.) But if you mean something other than logical possibility and logical necessity, you have yet to explain what this other meaning is. In my opinion there is no other meaning that could conceivably apply to discussions about the origin and nature of the universe. But feel free to prove me wrong by defining such a meaning.

Bill Snedden

Boy I'm glad I looked in here. You might even say it was providence...

It should be made clear that the while the post attributed to me by thomaq is indeed mine, the ideas contained therein are not.

In the post he quotes, I was attempting to strengthen the form of an argument that had previously been put forward by someone else (thomaq himself? I can't remember now) in order to demonstrate that the existence of "nothingness" was a necessary conclusion given the premises.

I added the two premises 1a and 2a to make explicit some material implications of the original premises to make that point. I think the argument is in valid form, but I don't think it's sound.

For myself, I would certainly agree that it is meaningless to talk of "before" the currently observable universe as time itself is constrained within its boundaries. I would also stipulate that it's meaningless to talk of the existence of "nothing".

I don't know if it's meaningless to speak of "logical priority" and the "universe", if "universe" is understood to mean something more than what we currently observe and label as the universe, but that's not the issue WRT the argument that was posted.

Just wanted to set the record straight!

Bill Snedden

bd-from-kg

Wordsmyth, Hawkingfan, et al:

It seems to me that many of you are missing the point of thomasq’s OP. The original argument seems to be directed at showing that all naturalistic hypotheses about the origin/ultimate nature of the universe are necessarily “irrational”. Given this thesis, it doesn’t matter what (if anything) science has to say on the subject. For example, the question of whether there is a “multiverse” or “metaverse” – some kind of substrate which produced the Big Bang – is irrelevant. If there is such a substrate (and many cosmologists say that the evidence suggests that there is) it just expands the meaning of “the universe” to include this substrate and anything – including all space-time continua – that arose from it. To deal with this kind of hypothesis, perhaps it would be helpful to distinguish between “the universe”: the space time continuum that we can observe directly because we’re part of it – and “the Universe”: roughly speaking, “everything that exists”. (Theists might want to try to distinguish between “supernatural” and “natural” entities that exist and exclude that former from the definition of “the Universe”, but I have no idea how to come up with a theoretical definition of “supernatural” that allows the existence of supernatural entities to be amenable to some kind of empirical verification yet distinguishes them from “natural” ones – especially if we’re allowing entities that are outside this space-time continuum to qualify as “natural”.)

If thomasq’s argument is to do what he appears to have set out to do, it must apply to the “Universe”, not just to the “universe”. Unfortunately it seems to be pretty much unintelligible in this context (unless the universe is the Universe). But then, I have trouble thinking coherently about a “substrate” and the role of “time” (if any) in it. If time is indeed a feature only of the space-time continuums spewed out by the substrate and not of the substrate itself, how is it possible to say anything intelligible about this substrate – about what “happens” in it, or what physical laws might govern it? (Of course, if the substrate has its own “time” (i.e., something that orders events sequentially in the manner that seems to be required to make sense of causality) thomasq’s argument can be applied to it directly.

Fortunately thomasq’s argument is invalid on its face, so we need not concern ourselves about such imponderable questions in order to know that we can safely ignore it.

P.S. to Bill Snedden: Thanks for the clarification.

thomaq

i agree Bill, my reason for quoting you was to show that it is credible that "IF" those premises are true, then the conclusion does follow. i totally realize that you disagree with the premises. but the fact that you do believe that the conclusion does follow necessarily from the premises, then you seem to agree that it does make sense to speak of something being "logically prior" to something, not having anything to do with temporally prior to.

Bill Snedden

I realized why you posted what you did and didn't mean to imply that you were "coopting" my post as support for your argument. I hope that's not the way it came across.

However, I would only say that it makes sense to speak of something being "logically prior" if temporal relations are not an issue.

"Logically prior" might not be the best way to say what I mean by that description, but as long as we understand that the "prior" therein is being used in a time-independent sense, then we're okay. I conceive "logical priority" having to do with a relation of dependence rather than causality.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

thomaq

Bd from Kg,
i dont think you fairly represented ANY of my arguments. i presented 3 lines of reasoning, 1,2a,and 2b. you seem to take lines of reasoning from one point and then you apply them to other points and attribute this to me.
1.we all agree that "nothingness is meaningless to even talk about". i think we all agree that something cannot come from nothing. my first point is correct - The universe "sringing into existence out of nothing approx 13.7 billion years ago is irrational. we all agree that "nothingness" cannot be the case. if someone says that "all of existence" had a beginning, then it MUST be "logically preceded" by nothingness. i dont believe that any of us think that "all of existence" had a beginning. and none of us think that nothingness can exists. ("nothingness existing" doesnt even make sense.) so we all agree with my conclusion of option number one.

this post is getting long so i'll give options 2a and 2b their own post..........

thomaq

i am not claiming that they are "necessarily" irrational, just that they seem to be irrational due to my reasons. you have yet to represent my views correctly before you proceed to attempt to "tear" them down.

thomaq

Bd from Kg,

option 2a. the universe has always existed. (for an infinite amount of moments).
Bill Snedden seems to take this option as the true one, by necessity. he argues (let me know if i mis-represent you Bill), that because we ARE in the present, then by necessity we MUST have traversed an actual infinite amount of moments. this is the wrong conclusion to take. it is more rational to say that "because we are in the present, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have traversed an actual amount of moments. again, if an infinite amount of standing people had to sit down before i could sit down, when would i sit down? the obvious answer is NEVER. if an infinite amount of moments have to pass before we can get to the present, when will we arrive at the present? NEVER.
a quote from Bd to Kg:
(i) is incorrect
to say that it is conceivable that god could create a world with an "actual" infinite amount of moments is equally impossible. that is like saying that it is conceivable that god could create a world with married bachelors, square circles and 3 horned unicorns.

i think many physicists agree with this reasoning which is why they conclude that "time" had its beginning at the big bang which leads us right into option 2b.............

thomaq

1. you didnt come across like that at all, i just wanted to make sure i wasnt misunderstood by observers of the thread.

2. exactly