Sicknss Unto Despair

because, and i could be mistaken, isn't the popular argument / belief "all events are caused" ? thus, if the universe had an event, "beginning to exist", it would need a cause?

Elvithriel

To give an example of what Just_An_Atheist said, what if time started flowing backward? Would effect come before cause?

Just_An_Atheist

Actually, the popular principle that is appealed to is that something begins to exist if it doesn't exist prior to it's being caused to exist. Since there is no *prior* to our universe if there is a begining, it would follow that our universe didn't begin to exist.

Tenek

Here's something for you to try.

Supposing you have a chessboard with one checker in the bottom left-hand corner, one checker in the square above it, and one checker in the square to the right.

Your goal is to move all three checkers out of those three squares by a series of moves. Each move consists of removing a checker from the board and placing one in the square above it and one in the square to its right. Both squares must be empty or else the move cannot be made. The one in the corner, for example, cannot be used in the first move because the square above and the square to the right are both occupied.

What is the least number of moves required to 'solve' this puzzle? (edit to add - you can extend the board upwards and to the right if you run out of room as long as you like.)


So is heavier-than-air flight. Just because you can't fully understand it, or even because nobody fully understands it, doesn't make it impossible.

How about another one.

Achilles is racing a tortoise. The tortoise starts ten yards ahead of Achilles. They both start, but Achilles moves much faster than the tortoise... but he never passes it. Why? Because any time Achilles reaches the place where the turtle was, the turtle has already moved on. Achilles can get closer and closer to the tortoise but it will always have moved ahead by just a tiny amount.

Or, for example, the room you cannot leave - although it has a door, to get to the door you must first travel halfway from where you are, and then halfway again, and so on ad infinitum.

There are an infinite number of 'moments' in the past *second* but we still made it. Time is not some sort of Great Immutable Thing that can be understood by an animal. I don't even really 'get it' - but modern science has shaken what was previously thought to be obvious.

Again, intuition can tell you that a sharp, shiny object is probably dangerous, but it fails miserably at this level. The universe isn't as easily comprehensible as you'd like.

I don't know where everything came from. How would I? Nobody invited me...

thomaq

i will grant for now, that we can dismiss causation (although i might want to come back to it).
the absence of potentiality is different. for something to be actualized there must first be the potential for the actualization. but in the case where nothing existed, potentiality did not exist and so there cannot be anything actually. also randomness did not exist either and therefore it could not have just happened.

johngalt

Everything in the universe has a causal explanation. The universe however, does not because it is its own cause and effect. Without the universe existing, none of the natural laws and everything else would not exist. We exist because the universe exists.

thomaq

"So is heavier-than-air flight. Just because you can't fully understand it, or even because nobody fully understands it, doesn't make it impossible."



it is possible, but you agree with me that it is implausible?


"Or, for example, the room you cannot leave - although it has a door, to get to the door you must first travel halfway from where you are, and then halfway again, and so on ad infinitum."


jump over to the "Philosophy" part of this forum and check out the thread titled "Actual Infinite". they'll show you how you are misunderstanding infinity.


"Again, intuition can tell you that a sharp, shiny object is probably dangerous, but it fails miserably at this level. The universe isn't as easily comprehensible as you'd like."


i by no means think the universe is easily comprehensible or fully comprehensible. i never meant to imply that.

Elvithriel

I just read the title of this post again.

Whats this question have to do with atheism?

Just_An_Atheist

Actually, lack of potentiality is not so different. What you are appealing to seems to me to be the first law of thermodynamics; that is, that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. Once again, this would have no hold. This idea that lack of potentiality would prevent something from coming out of literally nothing seems to express a principle: If there is a lack of potentiality, then there must be nothing. However, since you've already agreed that there are no laws that belong to nothing, then this principle could not hold either. Demanding causation, and then depriving us of all the elements that seem necessary for causation in the first place seems to be just as counterintuitive as something coming out of nothing.

thomaq

i like ayn rand also