Datheron

I was reading a reply from Farseeker just now, and a reply made by Synaesthesia, and it got me to thinking about the Cosmological Argument, the Big Bang, and the causal relationships hidden within. So, here's another look at the argument.

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First, a quick description of the scenario and argument. We can observe that our Universe exists; therefore, it requires a cause for existence. The Big Bang is generally accepted to be that cause. The Cosmological argument argues further (to my understanding) in that it places God as the cause for the Big Bang, and therefore the ultimate cause of the Universe. A simple diagram:

(God -&gt Big Bang -> Universe

where the question being asked is whether it is truly God that causes the Big Bang.

Now, when asked what caused God, the usual answer, as far as I can tell, goes about by either saying that God isoutside the Universe (and hence does not follow the laws of causality), or that he is simply a cause, and not an effect (thereby not needing a cause).

However, the argument hinges on a crucial assumption - that the Big Bang is a part of the Universe. As Synaesthesia pointed out in his post, that is not the case. If the Big Bang was indeed a part of the Universe, and yet is the cause of the Universe, then we have violated the laws of causality, which state that an effect cannot be its own cause. In that case, it must be that the Big Bang is outside the Universe, which means that it is immune to any logical law in this Universe. It is therefore not necessary for the BB to have a cause.

A quick note. The Big Bang itself cannot be observed. The usual visuals that accompany the words "Big Bang" are only possible if we were outside the Universe. We certainly may be inside, but we cannot observe the expansion directly; we can only observe the effects and results of that expansion. Further evidence that the BB is, in fact, not a part of our Universe.

In short, there is no good reason to believe that the BB is insufficient as the "First Cause" and have it replace God in the Cosmological Argument. Once the misconception that the BB is somehow still within the Universe is clarified, it holds the exact immunities that God holds, one of which is ignoring causality. I can think of nothing, on the top of my head, that we within this Universe can observe of the BB itself.

We can always speculate, but that defeats the purpose of the argument as it is, which requires a logical progression, not a simple probability/possibility assertion. In either case, the counter seems fairly cut-and-dry...any fallacies?

FarSeeker

In my Star Trek club are 2 gentlemen who are well skilled in magic (slight of hand). What they can do with props compares well with what you do with words.

The "Big Bang" was a snide title given to the theory that this universe (our "space-time continuum") began with an "explosive" expansion from a singularity by a scientist who dislike the theory because it sounded too much like Genesis. So the BB refers to expansion, not the cause. But you appear at least to be attempting to obscure that detail.

The BB (expansion) can be observed in the movement of gallaxies, distribution of background radiation and many other scientific observations.

>consult for more info:
<a href="http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/acosmexp.html" target="_blank">http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/acosmexp.html</a>

Science can only deal with the natural/material realm (Gould). The BB can be observed. Therefore the BB is part of the observable universe and requires a cause. What preceded the BB -- by definition of sigularity -- cannot be observed, but that just means the Laws of Science don't work there.

Be Back soon, Comp lab is closing for the night.

Tercel

Hmmm... I see no reason why things should be exempt from causality soley on the basis that they are outside our universe.

I'm not sure that this makes sense... or at least it doesn't seem to be a answer to the question beyond reasserting the conclusion.

Why should things outside the universe be immune to all logical laws in this Universe??? If forces outside of this Universe were indeed responsible for this universes' conception then surely we would expect all logical laws that apply outside the universe to be passed on to us?

Why not? I think that 100 quintillion tonnes (or however much) of matter exploding into being out of nothing is just a little too big and arbitrary event to swallow as being without a cause. If we are to believe that nothing caused it, then why did it occur? Did it perhaps bring itself into existence by its own merits?
I can see why the rather simple concept of god as the Greatest Possible Being (or as Anselm put it - "The greater of which cannot be conceived") might exist by its own merits. The idea seems simple, eligant and thus quite possibly a logical necessity. But hundreds of quadrillions of tonnes of energy and matter flying in random directions out of nothing? I really fail to see how that is in any way eligant or simple or has any chance whatsoever of being the point at which we 'no longer need to ask "Why?" as to its existence because its nature alone is enough of an answer'.

How can such an apparently random, unecessary and arbitrary event as the Big Bang even be considered as sufficient to fill the role of "First Cause"?
While I certainly do not believe that the Cosmological argument succeeds in proving god as the first cause... the alternative of BB as first cause makes god look a truly believable option.

Tercel

bgponder

Hi Y'all,


Whether or not you consider the Big Bang sufficient to fill the role of first cause, you cannot deny that evidence exists that is best explained by its occurrence, thus the persistence of the theory. That is, of course, the way science works, as opposed to accepting mythology as true, first, and then attempting to structure this "truth" according to the way the world is observed to work, as is the case with St. Anselm, as brilliant as he was.

Farseeker, you seem to me to be engaging in a bit of obfuscation yourself:

(emphasis mine)

It is obvious to anyone but an idiot that Datheron is not referring to the effects
that can be observed due to the "explosive" (indeed) event that must of necessity have preceeded such effects. Datheron is not an idiot, you are not an idiot, so you are quibbling and attempting to redirect with equating BB to its observed effects.

I would introduce ten dimensional superstring theory as an alternative in the first cause argument, but since it is as yet untestable in any way, I would rather not. However, it is a very interesting theory, and the introduction of higher dimensions does unify the known laws, and provides elegance and simplicity.

Peace, cornbread Barry

(edited fer grammer)

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: bgponder ]</p>

Tercel

Well, atheist apologist Richard Carrier <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbang.html" target="_blank">disputes this</a>. I, however, agree with you here - not that I have a comprehensive enough understanding of the arguments behind the BB theory for my support to mean much.

Science makes its own fair share of presuppositions. eg That there is an independent (objectively existing) and enduring physical world which, for the most part, is controlled by regular and uniform systems of causality (or "laws"), and that these systems can be deduced by repeated observations and human reasoning.
That is just a few of the presuppositions science makes, and already some of them are non-trivial. For example it becomes quickly apparent why science arose in a Christian culture who believed the universe to be an understandable and orderly creation by God rather than an Eastern culture who believed the world to be an illusion.
But the list of presuppostions made by Science I listed above certainly isn't exhustive. For a (hopefully annoying ) further example see <a href="http://leaderu.com/offices/koons/docs/natreal.html" target="_blank">this article</a> by Robert Koons on the inconsistency between Naturalism and the scientific presupposition of Reliable Simplicity.

Tercel

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Datheron

FarSeeker,

&lt;shrugs&gt; If I have obfuscated or confused, rest assured that it was not intentional. Otherwise, I would have not asked for any fallacies in my argument.

If you want to correct me on word usage, then fine; I was going off merely what I observe most theists to argue, and that is that the BB entails the initial explosion as well. My argument works even if we make this distinction - that the nameless explosion is itself the cause of the Universe and the subsequent BB, and does not need a cause. Remember that the point was to defeat the Cosmological Argument, that the Universe does require some cause. To that end, I don't see a fatal flaw in the argument. But thanks for the clarification in any case; any "sleight of hand" was purely unintentional.

Datheron

Tercel,

Hm....such a strange time to revive an old thread that would have went by completely unnoticed. Anyhoo, glad for the discussion.

But I don't see any reason why they should. It's much like arguing for the default, basic position of a given system - is it assumed to be lacking in all properties and built up from that, or is it assumed to have all properties and disproved down there onwards? In other words, do we presume existence, or non-existence? I say that the latter is the most prevalent and productive; little green men on Alpha Centuri arguments and such.

&lt;shrugs&gt; This is Ed's explanation of God. You go talk to him about its flaws.

I've re-read my point, and it does seem a bit confusing, so I'll clarify it. There are two possibilities here - that the beginning of the Universe is a part of the Universe, or that it is not. If it is, then we have violated the laws of causality, so therefore it obviously has no bearing on the beginning of the Universe. If it is not, then by the first paragraph, the laws of causality once again have no bearing. In any case, the beginning of the Universe is thus immune to its laws. As a matter of fact, as the reasoning behind this hinges on logic itself, we may very well argue that we have no clue as to the workings of the beginning of the Universe. Alas, all that is required to defeat the CA is the fact that the CA-ist cannot claim that the Universe must require a cause.

But here you make an assumption of purpose, of beauty. Remember that the "nameless explosion" which caused the actual BB (thanks to Farseeker for the correct terminology) was actually a singluarity, of infinite mass and density, so there is nothing special about it once it does expand. I mean, it is certainly nice to think that a perfect being exists and is in control of our lives, but such thinking kept the Copernician model of the heliocentric solar system out of science for much longer than otherwise.

Once again, though, it's an appeal to emotions and homo-centrism. And as such, I can use the heliocentric argument, as above, to counter it. Shouldn't the physical locale of God's chosen creatures be more significant than a corner of an average galaxy? Shouldn't everything indeed revolve around us, instead of having ourselves succumb to rotation around "less significant" bodies? Your argument assumes that life is significant, and that we are significant as the end results of those processes, which are not obvious and not even provable, given that we have no other Universes (or anything else outside our solar system, really) to work with.

Tercel

It was Farseeker, not me, that revived it. But I'm always happy to tell people why they're wrong, so I'll get on with it...

I'm not sure I agree. One of the scientific presuppostions that has served us well is the idea that logic and the natural laws are the same throughout the universe. Now, we are here discussing something outside the universe so I can see good reason why the apparently arbitrary natural laws like gravity most probably wouldn't still apply. But unless we can find a good reason to drop basic ideas like logic or causality I think we should continue with the assumption that they are the same universality.

Who is Ed?

Okay. This possibility obviously hangs on how willing you are to allow things to violate the laws of causality and what you think follows from that. I argue that even if something is its own cause, that it still requires a sufficient explanation as to why it exists and why it is the way it is and not some other way. So it seems to me that if something is going to violate causality and be its own cause of existence, then it's existence must be self-explanatory and not arbitrary.

And I beg to differ still. I see no reason to drop causality soley because it is outside the universe. True we ultimately don't know - but, like logic, causality seems to be one of our basic assumptions so we assume it works everywhere. Thus a request to exempt things outside the universe from causality I see as special pleading.

The beginning of the Universe is clearly immune to laws that exist only in the Universe. But as I pointed out before, any laws which apply outside the universe will also apply inside it too. We would probably perceive such laws as basic things that it is inconceivable that they could ever be different. eg logic and causality

No, I make neither. I make only those of "eligence" and "simplicity" (both of which are words regularly used in the scientific world with regard to a scientific presupposition) for the reason that anything which exists without a cause must surely be something basic, simple and non-arbitrary.

If it had stayed a singularity and we observed it as such, you might well be able to convince me it didn't need a cause. It satisfies simplicity, basicness, elegance etc.
The fact that it decides to blow itself up into an apparently arbitrary and random universe of which appears to contain a finite amount of matter and be of a finite size makes me more than a little more skeptical about assuming it had no cause.

Tercel

Datheron

Tercel,

I was actually just musing to myself. But let's not get so hostile so quickly, hm? Don't turn Albertian on me.

Are they arbitary, however, any more than logic? What differentiates between physics and logic? I would say that they are very much similar, with physics dealing with matter while logic encompasses non-material things as well. The holder here is that we cannot conceive the lack of logic. All debate jokes aside on how some arguments are without logic, can you conceive of matter with negative mass? Or time at a standstill? Such declarations in physics are backed up by mathematics, but they are foreign and in fact fairly scary to the normal human mind, incomphrensible physically.

Similarly, that is your argument with the extension of logic; we do not know what to think if we are not given the system, so we assume that it exists in order to conceive of the object in the first place. Yet, I see no good reason why we have to do this; we are limited by logic, but that still says nothing about the nature of outer-Universe. You may argue that in doing so, we would not learn anything of the outer-Universe, but is making arguments based on baseless assumptions really "learning"?

Just a theist that I debate with on these boards that apparently has the same ideas about extending laws outside the Universe as you.

First of all, what do you mean by "self-explanatory"? Other than having a definition which satisfies itself (i.e. God = "he just exists"), I don't see any other way to fulfill that requirement. Indeed, I can easily make the requirement if I define the explosion itself to "just be"; there's nothing to stop me from defining that a singularity is perfect, that it has all the properties of God, that it is in fact God. &lt;shrugs&gt; Running around with definitions usually doesn't solve much.

But all of our basic assumptions stop at the gateway to the extra-(or outer-)Universe. We assume that the Universe is consistent, that there are a finite set of physical laws describing its behavior, etc.; these are indeed basic assumptions, but notice how they have no bearing (explicitly) on matters outside the Universe. Similarly, when we have no explicit definition stating such, I don't see why you're given leeway to go as you please. If my intention to stop all laws' functionality outside the Universe is a case of special pleading, then isn't having a God that is causeless also the same? Perhaps even more so?

I think I've answered this sufficiently in the sections above.

Actually, beauty is usually synonymous with elegence in describing physical laws. So you were in fact using that.

But remember that this is an ideal to strive for, not a concrete law of nature. We hope to unify all of physics, we hope to find a GUT, but there is nothing in the world that says that we will find one. By similar analogy, you may indeed hope for a basic and simple "cause of all causes", but this is a "perhaps" and not a "must". Empirical evidence must agree with the theory, or its useless regardless of any beauty that it may have. Hence the acceptance of Quantum Mechanics (the Standard Model) even with its extremely ugly and very arbitary rules.

And the fact that an infinite God decided to make an extremely flawed Universe and having his chosen life be flawed as well is sufficient? No - absolute perfection and simplicity means that we would not exist, for there is no need for us to exist. The very fact that we do is the argument against the "law" that all things reduce to simplistic and beautiful building blocks. Like I said above, it's a very good ideal to strive for, but it becomes apparent very quickly that it's an asymptotic dream.

bgponder

Tercel:

Thank you for the links. They were not annoying in the slightest; I hope that doesn't disappoint you too badly --but I can take the hint, sorry if I've been too asinine.


Carrier's paper was enlightening, and I must confess that my info was old (up to 1994), and the newer things that have been proposed due to COBE seem particularly damning to the die-hard "classical" BBer. It kind of gave me a little thrill that there even seems to be room for some form of a cyclical theory, which I love.

Carrier quotes Steven Weinberg: And, in any case, we would not accept any theory as final unless it were beautiful.
And I would say, at the risk of anticipating yet more ad hoc on BB, that it may yet be
beautified.


Though I said earlier I wouldn't do it, I think it fits here, even though there is no experimental verification whatsoever, to introduce basic superstring just as an idea that can embody how the known universe could have started from an elegant, symmetrical "perfection":

Of course this idea can also be extended to the plain old BB, that the simplest form is observed to be unstable, like hydrogen. I still don't think there is the need for a push from elsewhere--or that God necessarily implies a simple, elegant push--

Peace, cornbread Barry

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: bgponder ]</p>