thomaq

quote:
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Originally posted by Unbeliever
I would like to point out that,

P1- A cause must precede the effect.

P2- There was nothing at all that preceded the universe, since time itself began at the big bang.

P3- Therefore, the universe cannot have had a cause.
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is that not what he is implying with this? even if i misread him, there are people who keep posting that it is a possibility. i would love it if everyone acknowledged that something cant come from nothing. nothing would make me happier than to let that one go. i believe it was Jet Grind who put it out there again a few posts ago, that something can come from nothing.

thomaq

are you saying that i would be able to sit down if an infinite amount of people had to sit down before i did? or am i totally misreading you?

Deke

Thomaq asks: are you responding to the question of, if an infinite amount of people have to sit down before i can sit down, when will i sit down? if you are referring to that question then there is a perfectly meaningful answer, which is - never.

This analogy is just one of infinite ways (pardon the double entendre) to demonstrate the paradox of infinity. You’re simply saying, “Is there a number so big that no other number is bigger? No.” What does that tell us other than infinity is our label for our human idea that there are “things beyond measure”? The conclusion you are leading to is the only thing ‘bigger’ than infinity is God, or otherwise stated, God is transcendent of measurable things, such as time and space. This is fine, but I’ll state again, this doesn’t make God any more real than the equation, sqrt(i) = -1, makes “i” real.

Thomaq: to say that someday we might understand it differently is to say that someday we might understand married bachelors differently or square circles,etc.

Once upon a time many people thought that the sun orbited the earth. They thought this because if you go outside and watch the sun traverse the sky, it certainly looks like it’s moving and the earth is still. An orbiting sun made perfect sense. Certain discoveries led us to understand this differently. That was my point, it wasn’t a play on words as is married bachelors, square circles, etc.

Anywho, you asked how certain people deal with what you call a ‘dilemma’. You posit the idea that the fact that the universe exists is problematic if there is no “God” to have initiated/created it. I am saying I deal with this dilemma because I don’t view it as a dilemma, I view it as the paradox of infinity. God is one way to deal with this paradox, and leaving it as a paradox is another way. Since I tend to require reasonable evidence for ideas, I am satisfied to leave infinity alone – I don’t need to solve it with an imaginary number.

MHO,

Deke

ComestibleVenom

Were the terms so defined, yes. But that's not how the terms of physics are defined.

thomaq

i am not positing god as a solution for anything, i am simply trying to examine the rationality of naturalism.

thomaq

1. the earth orbiting the sun is a physical occurance. there is no logical contradiction in believing one or the other. one is right one is wrong, but no logical contradiction.

2. is not a play on words, it is an example of logical contradictions. in all possible worlds there is no possibility of there ever being a married bachelor, or a square circle (as we define those terms).

3. do you draw a distinction between paradox and contradiction? is not a paradox something that "seemingly" contradicts but actually does not?

thomaq

please then, show me how my example falls apart. define the terms properly so i can end this line of reasoning.

Unbeliever

What I am saying is that the statements "There was nothing before the universe began" and "The universe bagan to exist out of nothing" are meaningless and incoherent. There simply was no "before" the big bang in which this "nothing" could have existed!There was never any time at all when the universe did not exist, since during every available instant of time there has ever been, the universe was in existence. To say that "A thing began to exist" presupposes that there was a time, prior to its existence, when it did not, in fact, exist. But there was no time, prior to the existence of the universe, in which it did not exist, because there was no "prior" in this case.

thomaq

and if this is the case, then you can not say that the big bang "happened".

scientists have estimated the age of the universe to be approximately (x) amount of years old, have they not?

is there not a finite amount of moments that have existed?

Deke

Thomaq wrote: the earth orbiting the sun is a physical occurance. there is no logical contradiction in believing one or the other. one is right one is wrong, but no logical contradiction.

it is not a play on words, it is an example of logical contradictions. in all possible worlds there is no possibility of there ever being a married bachelor, or a square circle (as we define those terms).

And in all possible worlds there is no possibility of there being a rational number x, such that, x^2 = -1 (as we define those terms). But this didn’t stop humans from coming up with an idea to resolve this apparent ‘impossibility’. Similiarly, it would seem to humans that in all possible worlds there is no possibility of there being effect without cause – in this case, we’re pondering what/who caused the effect of the universe existing. And so we came up with the idea that God is the cause…impossibility resolved.

But this doesn’t make God real, it only makes God a nifty resolution to a paradoxical phenomenon, like “i”.

Thomaq asks: do you draw a distinction between paradox and contradiction? is not a paradox something that "seemingly" contradicts but actually does not?

Yes, to me they are different concepts. A paradox is a question with an impossible answer, a contradiction is a statement or statements, that is internally inconsistent. Examples:

Paradox: What is infinity plus 1? (since infinity is impossible to specify, the question is impossible to answer).

Contradiction: There are no absolutes. (the statement is an absolute statement that there are no absolutes???)

That we live in a seemingly causal universe and that the universe exists is a paradox. How can a thing exist without a beginning? The concept of God is a nifty resolution to this paradox, but that’s all (in this sense of the word).

MHO,

Deke