Bill Snedden

But if time began at the big bang, couldn't one still argue that "nothingness" existed prior to the big bang? If that were to have been the case, "time" and "not time" would not have coexisted and the reductio would fail, no?

I've always thought that "nothingness" in and of itself could not exist, because by existing it would be "something". "Something" and "nothing" cannot co-exist, so by reductio...

In addition, doesn't "nothingness" imply the absence of everything? Dimension, space, time, even metaphysical things like "possibility". So if nothingness had ever been instantiated, not even the possibility of something existing could ever have existed. But if it was never possible for anything to exist, then nothing would exist. Clearly, something exists now, so "nothingness" as a putative state of affairs would seem to be a logical impossibility.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Clutch

Correct. Ie, No.

"prior to" is a temporal relation. Hence "prior to the existence of temporal relations" is incoherent.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Bill Snedden :

As Clutch has ably pointed out, "prior to the big bang" is meaningless. Or at least, as meaningful as "north of the north pole."

I agree. If complete nothingness were a possible world, then the truth of the proposition "possible world w1 has obtained" would exist.

luvluv

Thomas Metcalf:

Frankly, I don't buy it. Sounds like another instance of our linguistic inability to "temporally place" any event before the first event. In those cases, I prefer to go with the physical facts as much as they are available.

Time is dependant on space and matter. Space and matter have not always existed. Therefore, time has not always existed.

Main reason I don't buy the ontological argument is that you cannot word play something into or out of existence.

a) Isn't that kind of the point of the cosmological argument?

b) How does naturalism cope with this? Wouldn't that impute necessary existence to something? And what would this thing be?

nermal

I tried to read all this post, I sincerely did. But if I missed someone already posting my point, I apologize. I think the best and most elegant rebuttal of the cosmological argument is parsimony:

1. To pose an unknowable as an explanation to an unknown is trivial, and nothing is gained.
2. If there is nothing to gain by posing a particular explanation, then posing it simply muddies the issue and makes it worse.
3. Therefore, until some knowable or definable explanation can be posed, it's best to leave the question unanswered.

Ed

HRG

Why, exactly ? It is just one of many coordinate functions on the universe.
This is not a physical fact. "Always" can only mean "for all time values which make sense", just as "everywhere on Earth" only means "for all values of geographic latitude which make sense". This is the point of the North-of-the-north-pole analogy.

The most which might be claimed (although not proven) is that the range of time values does not extend from -infinity to +infinity. But this is not a problem, since the same also holds for geographic latitude, and no one bothers.

Time always exists by definition - because the very concept of "always" assumes time.

Regards,
HRG.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by luvluv :

In a very real sense, space and matter have always existed; there was never a time at which they did not exist. They never got created, as it were.

The cosmological arguments usually try to claim that something was created, especially "out of nothing," or that something began to exist. But if there was never a time at which these entities didn't exist, it begins to seem doubtful that it makes sense to say they were ever created.

Well, yeah, "something" exists in every possible world. It doesn't have to be non-natural.

eh

And that something likely is space.

Irishbrutha

Sorry, I've been writing mad papers. I responded offline in WORD a couple of days ago to wiploc's post, but am only now getting back online to post it. I didn't have enough time to use the proper quote format. Again, sorry about that.

“In your arguments below, it is clear that you are making arbitrary choices. You don't make your moves based on logic; you make moves that you think will get you to a belief in god. You can say that you are only trying to show a first cause, but your real motivation is apparent.”


ME: Yawn. Ad hominem. You’re claiming that my motivation will somehow preclude my use of logic. Most arguments are motivated by an intent to show some proposition true. Would you fault Rowe’s Evidential Argument because he wants to believe that God doesn’t exist? Of course not. My argument is either irrational or rational, so argue for that. If it is irrational, then it should be abandoned. But the motivation behind an argument has nothing to do with it. And I would abandon this argument if it failed logically (understand that this does not presume that I would abandon my belief because the Cosmological Argument fails, much more would have to be done in favor of atheism for that to happen). So you see your argument must attack my logic, not my motivation. My motivation has nothing to do with the consistency of the argument itself. And for the record as I’ve already stated above the First Cause is all I need. Would I be glad if the C. Arg. Concluded the Personal, Christian God? Sure I would. Do I need it? No. Moving on.

“I grant the existence of contingent beings; you can give many examples. I hardly expect you to give any reason to believe in necessary beings”

You’re missing the point of what it means to be a necessary being. My parents are necessary entities if I exist. If I’m a son then I must have a father. “Must have” is the quality by which we call something necessary. The necessity of the first cause’s existence is in the very fact that the universe can be called contingent. Now we have to establish the universe’s contingency. That contingency is adduced through another argument. I’ll give it below:
1) All existence is either contingent, impossible, or necessary
2) The universe is not impossible (as it exists), it is not necessary (because its nonexistence is logically possible).
therefore,
3) The universe is contigent.

If it is contingent then it must have a cause. Because there cannot be an infinite regress of causes (for the temporal causal argument I’ll use a different argument than the one I used previously but I do deal with that below) because an infinite set cannot be traversed. We currently traverse the set of causes and their effects, therefore the universe is not eternal. If the universe is not eternal, then there must be a cause at some point which is not contingent. If at some point there is a cause that is not contingent, then it must be necessary. Therefore, the First Cause of the Universe is both Uncaused and Necessary. (That an actual infinite set cannot be traversed is another argument that is fairly well established, yet if you would like me to illustrate further, ask and I’ll do it in another post).

“Me: There cannot be an infinite regress of causes because the chain of cause and effect would as a whole be both potential and actual at the same time,
wiploc: I'm not following you here. Can you rephrase? “


My mistake here. I equivocated a principle of the Current Causal Argument with the Temporal argument. This argument basically says that we are all currently contingent which means we must have a currently existing cause. (Aquinas wrote it, fits well with an infinite concept of God outside of time). That cause may be contingent as well, but this cannot go on forever. Because if there is an infinite regress of current causes then the chain of causes and effects is both potential and actual at the same time (this refutes the idea that the "chain" is a mental construct) So in answer to your next question, which is:

“And would this still apply if an outside-of-time god made the whole universe at once, including the whole infinite time of it?”

This argument assumes a First Cause that is outside of time and currently causes the entire set of causes and effects we call our “universe” both in its spatiality and timeline. On the whole this argument is not the best one to present as it is difficult to get our arms around it. But I believe it is valid. It is not necessary, however, if we look at the temporal-oriented causal argument.

“2nd Law… doesn't apply to the big bang. So 2nd Law would not necessarily preclude, say, an oscillating universe in which big bangs were followed by big crunches throughout eternity.”

Ok, but you still have to account for the impossibility of traversing an infinite set.


“ ME: The only conclusion then that is reasonable is that there is a first uncaused cause to the universe's existence.


You: Here you've taken a wild leap.”

Hmmm, don’t see it. Please explain the leap.

“If we are resorting to paradox anyway, why can't the first cause be itself caused, perhaps by the last effect?”

Paradox? Where? Because The First Cause is not an effect, and only effects must have causes.

“If we can have one uncaused thing, why can't we have lots of them?”

I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be able to. After all I’m only implying that there is a cause to the universe (the nature of that cause will be determined later). In fact Christianity posits three persons that are one being, so… have fun with it.

“If you aren't going to let us break the chain of causation before the beginning of time, why should you want to break it there? If you style your first cause as "outside time," then why don't we have an infinite chain of causation outside time? Your "first cause" god could be caused by a "first-minus-one" god, who could be caused by "first-minus-two," etcetera. You ought to like this idea, since the more gods there are, the more likely it is that one of them resembles the one you worship, right?”

Outside of time and inside of time does not affect infinity and its logically necessary properties. An infinite set of God-caused-God’-caused-God’’,etc. still will have the difficulty of being actually and potentially infinite. Imagine the hotel (from the example of some writing that I don’t remember right now) with an infinite number of rooms. It is full. I come up to it and ask for a room. Do they have a room for me? Of course, they have an infinite number of rooms. So now there is a hotel with an infinite+1 number of guests? No there is now a hotel with an infinite number of guests before and now still has an infinite number of guests. The problem this example illustrates is that infinity must be an actually complete set. It cannot be added to or taken away from. Thus before I came it was potentially and actually infinite. This is logically impossible. By very definition potential excludes the possibility of something’s being actual. It is the same case with an infinite chain of god’s creating each other. The chain of causes and effects would be both potential and actual every time a new God is created. (I sort of wanna say that the impossibility of traversing an infinite set applies here as well, but I'll leave it at that)

“If every dessert you ever saw was cake, would you take that as evidence of pie?”

This does not follow from my statement that contingent beings require a necessary being. In fact I have no idea what it follows from, nor what it attempts to construe.

“See, you are trying to prove god. Therefore you assume your first cause is a being.”

I dealt with this assumption above. It need not be a being, insert the word “cause” in every place I used “being”. Craig will make an argument that it must be a being, and that’s where I’m getting the terminology from, but again I am not necessarily positing that.

“One could make just as strong an argument that uncausedness is irrational. If your argument isn't stronger than the opposite argument, its logical weight is zero.”

The difference between irrational and not justified is huge. Uncaused existence is not logically impossible. Traversing infinity is. Causality is simply an unjustified belief, as Hume told us. An uncaused entity’s existence breaks no laws of logic. Let me put it to you this way. There exists a possible world in which uncaused entity’s come into existence uncaused. There does not exist a possible world in which infinity can be traversed. But we have really good reasons to believe that causality is a consistent occurrence in the actual world. However you can deny this consistency (in fact you would be on better grounds than I were you to do so from an empirical standpoint) but by claiming that causality is not a necessary aspect of existence, you forfeit the ability to do science, and all claims about uniformity in nature. The First Causes uncausedness does not contradict rationality, in fact it is through deduction about the logical properties of existence that we deduce its necessity.

Your next couple of objections, wiploc, all pertain to my above comments on necessary and uncaused. I refer you to them as well as to my final comments.

Finally, you (wiploc, that is) state, “Either things need causes or they don't. Pick one.”

All contingent existence requires a cause (contingency entails effectuality). In other words, all effects need causes. That there is a cause temporally first is a necessary deduction once the irrationality of infinite regress is established. This First cause can in no way be contingent or it would require its own cause (this is simply a corollary of the irrationality of infinite regress). If all existence is either contingent (possible), impossible, or necessary, and the first cause cannot be contingent, it is not impossible, then it must be necessary. Btw, I take back what I said about a necessary being existing in all possible worlds. By definition it does.
-Shaun

luvluv

I still don't buy it guys, and I truly hope you don't either. It's all wordplay to cover for the physical facts. It's a word game. Wittgenstein would be appalled.

Our sense of time is, in a Kantian-sense, "irremovable spectacles." Since we cannot conceive without a notion of time, we cannot concieve the absence of time. Therefore our language has no way to speak of a time "before" time. Nevertheless, no time in any meaningful sense if there is not matter or space.

Again, that's a word game. I'm not going to go around and around with this issue with you, but if that's the best you've got, I'm pretty satisfied with my conclusion. Cosmologists are more realistic about this then philsophers, and they clearly see the Big Bang as indicative of a creation event.

With all due respect, the counter examples you folks are giving strike me as absurd, and I'm betting you are postulating examples and possibly scenarios which you otherwise would never find even remotely tennable, except as an alternative to God.