(May 24, 2018 at 2:15 am)robvalue Wrote: I respect that he admits that we can learn nothing about this cause. Trying to call the cause "God" is a shifty play though (I'm not sure if he's doing this or not) as it tries to sneak in sentience and grandeur without justification.

I'll add to my questions:

Why can't there be ten eternal things, with one/all of them causing everything else?

We can learn a few things.

1. As stated, the grounding cause is eternal in nature, with "eternity" meaning "simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life." One important consequence is that an eternal being cannot die or corrupt (go out of existence). Hence God, having created the universe, still exists now.

2. God's ad intra immutability follows from eternity.

3. For an eternal God, all 4 time periods -- past, present, future, and timelessness -- are united in a single moment of boiling divine life. There is nothing in God's past to regret; or in His future fearful and uncertain. Hence if happiness can be predicated of God, then God is very happy, since His life is so uniquely poignant and complete.

And so on.

.....and it shits the bed, lol.

(May 24, 2018 at 2:30 pm)Khemikal Wrote: The laws of physics are based upon observations - and they;re provisional.  If you're imagining that theres a "law of no infinite regress"...what possible observation might that be based on?

There are a priori truths, including necessary truths. "2 + 2 = 5" is impossible or false in every possible world. "There is no infinite regress" of causes may well be a deductive a priori truth.

I'm inherently suspicious of what others decide to coin as a priori truths..myself.  It;s a term of art, and they generally skirt the line or fall well into the camp of "because I said so".  

I wish the universe worked on my sayso, as you may have noticed from my convo with Rob earlier....and..not for nothing, I observe that it doesn't. You'll have to do far better than just say so, for me to think theres some law of no infinite regress, particularly if you want me to accept it as equally valid as..say, the laws of physics..and even then I;d still consider it provisional.

You;ve got alot of work ahead of you. Good luck.

(May 23, 2018 at 10:19 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: Read Spinoza if you're really stuck on the PSR. The only attribute required for a first cause is that it is itself uncaused (or perhaps self-caused). It is erroneous to think that a first cause needs any other attributes than that.

I think you are wrong on this one (and I think we have been over this). We can infer several things from a first cause:

Changeless/timeless: two things, but they go together. To be in a timeless state, there can be no change. Since time itself came into existence at the first moments of the universe (or whatever predecessor you prefer), prior to that must be a timeless state.

Immaterial: Since space came into existence at the first moments of the universe, the cause must not be made of at least the material in our universe. Material/physical object need space in which to exists and then you have the issue that if space exists, then time exists.

Personal: If the cause of the universe is timeless, then why is the universe only 14 billions years old? Why isn't it as permanent as its cause? The answer to that is that the cause of the universe must be endowed with a freedom of the will. Only persons have a freedom to act separate from any prior conditions. Only free will could get an effect with a beginning from a cause that is permanent. 

Can you think of a cause that would avoid these conclusions?

Correction...the present state of this universe is only x years old. Marred by an event which we are incapable of peering beyond, at least at present.

(May 24, 2018 at 6:42 pm)SteveII Wrote: I think you are wrong on this one (and I think we have been over this). We can infer several things from a first cause:

Immaterial: Since space came into existence at the first moments of the universe, the cause must not be made of at least the material in our universe. Material/physical object need space in which to exists and then you have the issue that if space exists, then time exists.

Personal: If the cause of the universe is timeless, then why is the universe only 14 billions years old? Why isn't it as permanent as its cause? The answer to that is that the cause of the universe must be endowed with a freedom of the will. Only persons have a freedom to act separate from any prior conditions. Only free will could get an effect with a beginning from a cause that is permanent. 

Since the first cause is not physical, God is not ultimately a body; since it is not teleological, He is not ultimately a spirit; since He is distinct from the universe, He does not keep it in being as an Aristotelian cause.

Rather, God is as much above spirit as spirit is above body. God is goodness, and His mode of causation is "self-diffusion" thereof: neither physical nor teleological but of a unique 3rd kind. We cannot understand it but can judge God as good.

You seem to be getting massively ahead of yourself.

Khem has responded well so I don't need to add much to that, thanks

It's one thing to say, "These are my assumptions based on my observations, which may or may not be correct, and here's a conclusion that follows based on the probability that they are". It's another to say, "These assumptions are correct, and here's the conclusion that follows and is definitely true."

In the latter case, you are building your whole argument on statements that cannot be false. That means you must know everything about reality in order to say it can't be false. (If it literally can't ever be false, just because of the way it is worded/defined, then it's just a tautology which actually tells us nothing.)

I covered the mathematics side earlier. You have to be careful not to conflate abstract, theoretical maths / set theory with applied maths. In the former, 2 + 2 = whatever you want, according to whatever rules you set up. The results of your system may or may not have any practical use, or even be internally consistent. That doesn't stop you though. In the latter case, we are trying to model reality with mathematical models. The symbols take on more meaning than just their abstract set theory counterparts. There's no guarantee that any rules from the latter hold up in the former uniformly, even if they do so for many observations. Again, it would require knowledge of the whole of reality.

How do we address all these issues? We use the scientific method. We produce provisional models that make testable predictions. Applying basic arithmetic to "counting" objects in reality is about the most basic example of this; so basic that people frequently conflate the abstract and real because of it.

Blah, blah, blah.... wow. I'm a real boring bastard. Maths is my background.

(May 25, 2018 at 12:01 am)robvalue Wrote: Khem has responded well so I don't need to add much to that, thanks ...

Is this where atheism is at these days? You'd rather deny that 2 + 2 = 4 than accept a theistic conclusion?