thomaq

i am not appealing to the first law of therm. and i said that nothing existed including potentiality not vise versa. and i already said that for the sake of argument i would abandon causality and not demand it.


the possibilty of random occurences did not exist either. the possibility of possibility did not exist. if the possibility of possibility did not exist then it would be impossible for anything to exist at all.

Just_An_Atheist

Actually, there is one more alternitive, although I'm not sure whether it is sound. Quentin Smith wrote an article entitled "Time was Caused by a Timeless Point." He introduces the idea that the initial singularity is "metaphysically necessary", and caused the universe to exist. (By metaphysically necessary, I mean that the singularity exists in all possible worlds.)

Tenek

Yes, it doesn't "make sense", it doesn't "seem right", I "don't think it can happen". But there it is nonetheless. I can't go out and state that infinite time preceding me is impossible. I might not understand it well enough to comment.

I'm touched that I'm the one misunderstanding infinity. What makes you think you understand any better?

You seem to expect it, though, given that the OP arguments relied on plausibility and intuition.

I can only trace reality back so far even with the best scientific inquiry. Past that, it's all speculation, and not particularly educated - would seem that all we can get out of the first 10^-something seconds is "Boom! Stuff."

Just_An_Atheist

I pointed out that your "Law of Potentiality" would not hold at all, because laws don't apply to nothing at all. I merely used the "first law" as an example.

ComestibleVenom

The problem here is that you are using a form of explanation that is totally inadequate to the task. The questions you ask lead to an 'atheist' or 'theist' dilemma and trap themselves in their own answers.

Mu, unask the questions. You cannot speak of a time at which there was no law, because physical laws are logically prior to time. Accordingly, to get to a broader understanding of our place in the universe, we cannot ask explanatory questions in a merely temporal frame.

The universe could well be, for instance, finite and unbounded. When we are dealing with such systems, our metaphysical intuitions serve us less well than do scientific descriptions.

Lobstrosity

How is this a dilemma for atheism? This would be a dilemma for every belief system, so I don't see why one would wish to single out atheism.

Autonemesis

Not in the sense you mean.

What does it do to your false dilemma if the answer to that question is "maybe" or "probably"?

Nope. To the degree that quantum mechanics is validated theoretically and empirically, the dilemma you propose is shown to be too simplistic. Reality turns out to be more quirky than your dilemma assumes.

Tenspace

Maybe more appropriate to call this a dilemma in our quest for knowledge. No need to look at it through bible-colored glasses, eh?

Thomaq, use this as an opportunity to expand your knowledge. May I suggest:

"The Elegant Universe", by Brian Greene

I think this will go a long way in helping you understand where we are in our search to answer these most fundamental questions.

Ten

rainbow walking

thomas: option 1: the universe existed and things in the universe changed in relation to each other (time existed). this seems implausible because it means that an actual infinite amount of time would have to pass before we reach the present. if i was standing up, and an infinite amount of people had to sit down before i could sit down, i would never sit down. if an infinite amount of moments would have to pass before we get to the present, we would not have a present.

rw: Hi thomas, Perhaps the reason we have such a difficult time wrapping our minds around an infinite universe with a finite number of changes has to do with our linear view of time relative to infinity. We tend to look at time as a series of events that occur one after another, (as in the case of your examples above) when, in fact, all across the universe there are an almost inumerable number of events occuring simultaneously every moment such that time may have more of a wave effect than a particle effect. But we are more intuitively accustomed to viewing time as a series of linear events due to the cause/effect relationship inherent in events and the forward motion of these events as they occur.

Jobar

Very well said. Welcome to the boards, by the way- neat handle!