(March 19, 2018 at 9:01 am)Mathilda Wrote:

(March 19, 2018 at 8:39 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:  I've seen the same person argue, that things don't need a cause to begin to exists.

Who has said that? Me? I've been arguing that the word 'cause' is linguistic shorthand that religionists use for equivocation. It is a useful abstraction so we don't have to describe the all the relevant features of the environment. The KCA only works for people who don't realise this and who seem to think that everything begins to exist because of a single cause and while forgetting about the time between not existing and existing.

I don't see anyone arguing any of that.

Quote:For example:

What causes a snowflake to exist?

You mean they don't just poof into being without cause?

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(March 19, 2018 at 9:08 am)Grandizer Wrote:

(March 19, 2018 at 8:39 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: I've seen the same person argue, that things don't need a cause to begin to exists.

You mean Steve, right? Steve doesn't believe that [material] things that begin to exist demand a material cause.

And you think that is the same thing?

(March 19, 2018 at 9:11 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:

(March 19, 2018 at 9:08 am)Grandizer Wrote: You mean Steve, right? Steve doesn't believe that [material] things that begin to exist demand a material cause.

And you think that is the same thing?

Great, we're ... hopefully ... getting somewhere with this. What is your reasoning that this is not the same thing?

(March 19, 2018 at 9:11 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:

(March 19, 2018 at 9:01 am)Mathilda Wrote: Who has said that? Me? I've been arguing that the word 'cause' is linguistic shorthand that religionists use for equivocation. It is a useful abstraction so we don't have to describe the all the relevant features of the environment. The KCA only works for people who don't realise this and who seem to think that everything begins to exist because of a single cause and while forgetting about the time between not existing and existing.

I don't see anyone arguing any of that.

I've been arguing that all along.

(March 19, 2018 at 9:11 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:

(March 19, 2018 at 9:01 am)Mathilda Wrote: What causes a snowflake to exist?

You mean they don't just poof into being without cause?

No. They don't poof into existence.

What causes a snowflake to exist?

(March 18, 2018 at 11:39 am)Jenny A Wrote:

(March 18, 2018 at 9:03 am)SteveII Wrote: That was a long reply that you answered with 3 sentences. You have simply restated the question the KCA is asking. Which premise are you objecting to? 

I am objecting to the fact that the phrase "begin to exist" is used to describe one kind of change in premise one and another in premise two.  Premise one concerns change within the universe.  That kind of change involves only the change in form of pre-existing matter and energy.  Premise two refers to the creation of matter and energy.  We know that changes in the form of matter and energy within the universe requires causes.  We do not know if the creation of matter does.

Regarding, "begins to exist", that can be dealt with in two ways.

1) is to provide a univocal meaning of the phrase in both premises. So, let's go with comes into being. 
2) is to provide a more detailed meaning that would apply to both premises: x begins to exist if and only if x exists at some time t and there is no time t' prior to t at which x exists.

either one eliminates your objection. 

Quote:Similarly, while we can postulate about cause and effect within the universe, we cannot postulate from knowledge about the rules of cause and effect (If any) outside the universe.  Premises based on cause and effect within the universe cannot be used to describe event outside the universe, as we have no way of knowing  if they are true outside of the universe.

We are not talking about cause and effect in the sense of governing laws. We are talking about a principle or concept that there is an order to all reality. There is no reason at all to think that absent our particular universe there can be a reality that has no structure. Is it even logically possible?-- I'm not sure it is. But since the KCA is an inductive (a probabilistic) argument, the premises only have to be more likely than not for the argument to be successful. You have literally nothing to undercut all of the reasoning on a causal principle other than "well...maybe".

(March 19, 2018 at 11:39 am)SteveII Wrote: 2) is to provide a more detailed meaning that would apply to both premises: x begins to exist if and only if x exists at some time t and there is no time t' prior to t at which x exists.

Things don't poof into existence in an instant.

This was the whole point of me when asking you exactly when something or anything begins to exist.

Right, there's a difference between "begins to be in a certain formation" and "its consistuent parts appear out of nowhere".

The latter is not something we observe, but that doesn't mean we can rule it out either. The former isn't "beginning to exist" in a literal sense. All we're doing there is describing things as they move around and change form over time.

(March 18, 2018 at 12:23 pm)possibletarian Wrote:

(March 18, 2018 at 8:51 am)SteveII Wrote: Your last sentence is the proof.



A novel or a symphony is something newly created that is not the same as the material object that might contain them. It did not exist before, it is not a reformulation of matter. It is new information. There is no way around this, you have a newly created immaterial object. Insisting that it is material because it relies on material things to exist is just pointing out a feature of our universe.

Goodness no one is saying that the symphony is made of the same material as the object that might create them, just like no one is saying that a symphony is brain matter re-arranged.  If I create a Mandelbrot on my computer and print it out or look at it on the screen would you claim I was inferring that the computer had re-arranged it's matter ?

but a symphony just like the Mandelbrot is entirely created in, stored and distributed by the material world, if not, when does it leave those confines ?   Music is simply a re-arrangement of notes, just because it's the first time we have heard it in that arrangement does not mean we have not heard its constituent parts before, in fact it's probably vital for our enjoyment of it.

Our universe and everything in it is material (so far as we know) to say it's a feature really is redundant.

I'll use your post to summarize several of them.

Yet, the new thing, whether it be an idea, a novel, a symphony or a Mandelbrot is created. It begins to exists. They are not the same thing as the material that is holding the information (Therefore we have examples of things beginning to exits that are not themselves material. So, a material cause is not needed, only an efficient cause is needed. 

Quote:

• Matter: a change or movement's material "cause", is the aspect of the change or movement which is determined by the material that composes the moving or changing things. For a table, that might be wood; for a statue, that might be bronze or marble.
  
  
• Form: a change or movement's formal "cause", is a change or movement caused by the arrangement, shape or appearance of the thing changing or moving. Aristotle says for example that the ratio 2:1, and number in general, is the cause of the octave.
  
  
• Agent: a change or movement's efficient or moving "cause", consists of things apart from the thing being changed or moved, which interact so as to be an agency of the change or movement. For example, the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, or a person working as one, and according to Aristotle the efficient cause of a boy is a father.
  
  
• End or purpose: a change or movement's final "cause", is that for the sake of which a thing is what it is. For a seed, it might be an adult plant. For a sailboat, it might be sailing. For a ball at the top of a ramp, it might be coming to rest at the bottom.
  

The four "causes" are not mutually exclusive. For Aristotle, several answers to the question "why" have to be given to explain a phenomenon and especially the actual configuration of an object. For example, if asking why a table is such and such, a complete explanation, taking into account the four aitias, would sound like this: This table is solid and brown because it is made of wood (matter), it does not collapse because it has four legs of equal length (form), it is as such because a carpenter made it starting from a tree (agent), it has these dimensions because it is to be used by men and women (end).

So, the only type of cause that every effect has is an efficient cause. Read that sentence again. This is the key. 
Why are we talking about this and why does it matter? Because the objection of the KCA that most of you wanted to debate was that you think all causes mentioned in Premise (1) have material causes and then you observe that Premise (3) is not talking about a material cause. If this were true, that would be equivocating. However, as I have shown above, not all causes in Premise (1) have material causes. But all causes do have a sufficient cause. So using that sense of the word cause, both premises are talking about the same thing. No equivocation. 

For reference, the KCA:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

(March 19, 2018 at 12:18 pm)SteveII Wrote: [quote='possibletarian' pid='1718611' dateline='1521390205']

Goodness no one is saying that the symphony is made of the same material as the object that might create them, just like no one is saying that a symphony is brain matter re-arranged.  If I create a Mandelbrot on my computer and print it out or look at it on the screen would you claim I was inferring that the computer had re-arranged it's matter ?

but a symphony just like the Mandelbrot is entirely created in, stored and distributed by the material world, if not, when does it leave those confines ?   Music is simply a re-arrangement of notes, just because it's the first time we have heard it in that arrangement does not mean we have not heard its constituent parts before, in fact it's probably vital for our enjoyment of it.

Our universe and everything in it is material (so far as we know) to say it's a feature really is redundant.

Quote:I'll use your post to summarize several of them.

Yet, the new thing, whether it be an idea, a novel, a symphony or a Mandelbrot is created. It begins to exists. They are not the same thing as the material that is holding the information (Therefore we have examples of things beginning to exits that are not themselves material. So, a material cause is not needed, only an efficient cause is needed. 

Yes we know they are not the same material as the thing that created it we have already established that.. twice, again no one is claiming that what we see is a part of the computer or brain become unstuck.

Until it appears as a pattern on a printer, screen or sound or written down, it is electrical pulses it never breaks free of our material world the same is true for the brain as in the computer, and just like in a brain or a computer if those  pulses are shut off before being transferred the idea cannot persist, it is a part of those pulses.  They at no point become immaterial.

(March 19, 2018 at 12:28 pm)possibletarian Wrote: Until it appears as a pattern on a printer, screen or sound or written down, it is electrical pulses it never breaks free of our material world the same is true for the brain as in the computer, and just like in a brain or a computer if those  pulses are shut off before being transferred the idea cannot persist, it is a part of those pulses.  They at no point become immaterial.

Exactly. Energy never retains a persistent pattern without the use of matter.