Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic

[The Grand Nudger]

The great thing, though, Matilda..is that you don;t have to.  Just grant them.  Caused things have causes and some causes might somehow be meaningfully immaterial.

Now what.

[SteveII]

That's ludicrously easy a brain is the cause. Unless you can prove the brain is more than matter ?


Even if the brain is = to the imagination (which it is not), that still is not an example of a material cause. Mainly because neither the novel nor the symphony is material. Yet, they exist. 

Oh course a novel and symphony is material, A novel or symphony is created in the brain, written down, then conveyed by material means to another brain, then it is reconstructed in the brain, carried by sound to the hearer as sound waves, or read as a book.

At no point does it loose it reliance on the physical world, if you can demonstrate so, then please do.

Sorry, it's not. Both of those things are ideas. Ideas are not material they are abstract.  Reliance on the material for conveyance does not make them material. 

Thus it is universally acknowledged that numbers and the other objects of pure mathematics are abstract (if they exist), whereas rocks and trees and human beings are concrete. Some clear cases of abstracta are classes, propositions, concepts, the letter ‘A’, and Dante’s Inferno. Some clear cases of concreta are stars, protons, electromagnetic fields, the chalk tokens of the letter ‘A’ written on a certain blackboard, and James Joyce’s copy of Dante’s Inferno. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/

---

I know words are hard, but you really have to try...

Which of the above concepts are hard for you to understand?

Efficient causes.

Look at the quote I used above in response to Astreja . Especially the last paragraph where it pulls it all together.

[possibletarian]

Sorry, it's not. Both of those things are ideas. Ideas are not material they are abstract.  Reliance on the material for conveyance does not make them material. 

But that's the point, can you show they are anything but material ?  They don't only rely on material for their communication, but also for their very creation, communication, and understanding.

Do they exist or are created outside of a material brain? if so can you demonstrate this ?
Can you give an single example of abstract thought without a brain ?  Can you show they are anything more than material brain pulses. ?

Here is a good debate on the subject for those interested
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/que...bout-ideas

Idea's like poetry and music are simply information created materially and passed materially from one place (or person) to another.

[Jenny A]

I'll start with the inconsistency in the use of the phrase, "begin to exist."
The argument can be reduced to this:

1 Everything that did A must have had B
2 C did A
3 Therefore C must have had B

In order for this argument to work, A must mean the same thing in both premise 1 and 2.  You use the phrase "that begins to exist" for A in both lines.  But, begin to exist does not mean the same thing in both lines.  

Line one refers to the type of coming into existence that we observe around us.  People are born, sedimentary rocks are formed, wood burns to ash, trees grow, houses are built, metal is cast, and so on.  None of these things involve new matter/energy coming into existence.  They all merely involve rearranging  existing matter into new configurations.  Matter might become energy or vice versa, but no new matter or energy is created out of nothing. This is the transformation of existing matter and energy only.  It is not an ultimate coming into existence. And each of these transformations of existing matter and energy follow the laws of the universe. No new physical laws are created by these transformations. So while, beginning to exist might be a good loose way of describing these transformations,  they don't involve new matter/energy comming into existence.  

It's intuitively obvious to us from observation that every transformation of  this kind has a, or more likely many, many causes.

But line two refers to the creation of all the matter and energy there is, plus all of the laws governing it. This is a completely different type of beginning to exist.  You and I have never seen anything begin to exist in this way.  Unlike "begin to exist" in line one which is really just a transformation, this really is beginning to exist.  It is nothing like the beginning to exist of line one. It is the difference between carving a stake out of a stick and having a stick magically pop out of the air made out of entirely new matter. Even that doesn't cover it unless the stick comes with its own brand new set of physical laws.

Extrapolating from our knowledge about the transformation of existing matter and energy to the actual creation of matter and energy is a leap because we know nothing about the actual creation of matter and energy except that it all came from a single point in space.

First, you can break any causal concept into four parts: material, formal, efficient, and final. 

• 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.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes

Since the argument is talking about 'cause' in a broader sense, the argument uses the concept of agent or efficient cause. Your whole objection deals with a material cause which when talking about things outside of our universe, is an inadequate concept. If it helps, you can just insert the word 'efficient' in front of cause in both (1) and (3)

I would reformulated lines one and two to better describe what is actually being described by, "beginning to exist."

1. Each transformation of one configureation of matter  and/or energy into a different cofigurations matter or energy has a cause or causes.
2. The universe began with the creation of all matter and energy
3. Therefore the universe has a cause or causes

Number three no longer follows from numbers one and two.

Instead you have:

1. Everything that did A had a B
2. C did D
3. Therefore, C had B

It is a broken syllogism.

As I explained above, you are zeroing in on one aspect of causation that is obviously too restrictive when talking about thing that may have happened prior to the first moments of the universe. 

1. Everything that begins to exist has an efficient cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has an efficient cause.

BTW, this is spelled out in the extensive writings on the KCA.

No, that changes in the form of matter and energy have causes is appaerent. That matter or energy coming into existence must have a cause is not. Give me just one example of anything causing matter or energy to be created out of anything but existing matter and energy.

[GrandizerII]

You say "efficient cause" is necessary because intuition, then I say "material cause" is also necessary because intuition!

Everything that begins to exist must have a material cause.

If the universe began to exist, then it must have had a material cause.

However, if the universe is "all there is", then it could not have had a material cause.

Therefore, the universe did not have a beginning to its existence.

Therefore, the universe is eternal (and necessary).

Therefore, no [logically problematic] Creator God needed.

What was the material cause of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina or Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony? These things began to exist (along with like 4 trillion other examples I could give).

You're talking about the sound waves and words on paper, or the abstract parts? Be clear on what you're referring to here when you say "Anna Karenina" or "Fifth Symphony".

There are other problems with you list, but let's start there.

I'm sure there are problems with the argument; this is because we're going along with outdated notions of causality/movement. As such, your "efficient cause" argument is problematic in various ways as well.

---

So this is even more interesting. There is no material cause to a novel or symphony (only an efficient cause). Both are abstract objects. Yet they can be a cause of their own once read or heard. You can be compelled to act by a novel or emotionally moved by a symphony. In the same way, ideas (conveyed through language) are not material and yet can have so much causal power. So not only is it possible that the immaterial is the efficient cause on the material (us), but it happens constantly.

But concrete/material objects do require material causes (according to human intuition, at least). If the universe is considered to be material and concrete, then Aristotelian-based logic necessitates that it has always been because it couldn't have had a material cause external to it.

If, however, the universe is an abstract collective of material things, then it seems like it doesn't need a material cause after all. It just is, and always has been (in one form or another).

EDIT: One could also argue abstract objects that begin to exist have their "material cause" in the mind itself. Or that abstract objects emerge from the material objects that they are linked to.

[Astreja]

Here's a question, if there exists a copy of a novel (in some forgotten place) that no one has seen or heard of in a 1000 years, does the abstract object exist? Or, is it merely a potential while it sits dormant before a mind resurrects it from the pages? Hmm...

I'd tend to go with "potential," as the author and any contemporaneous readers are deceased and no one else has read it yet.  Not much you can do with an unperceived abstraction:  In the eyes of the living it doesn't exist.

[Amarok]

Abstracts only exist as descriptionion of of material things

[robvalue]

Are we now at the stage where god is an abstract concept? I'm never going to argue with that. It usually ends up that way with this kind of pseudo-science philosophy.

The thing is, abstract concepts have no agency. At least, it's never been demonstrated that they do. They are just our interpretations of reality that only literally exist within physical configurations, such as in our brains or on paper. In that way, God is right where it belongs, in the brain of the believer, or in their books.

Some abstract concepts relate to things that literally exist, and some don't. So the theist's work is still ahead of them to prove it's the former in god's case.

God is Odin of course, so Steve has fallen into our cunning trap here.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Efficient causes.

Look at the quote I used above in response to Astreja . Especially the last paragraph where it pulls it all together.

Oh look it happened exactly as expected ...

Oh look, another nebulous term that is not properly defined.

How do you know this?

I bet the answer will be logic.

That's all you have Stevell. Bullshit abstract terms that allow you to equivocate and conflate.

Anybody can argue for anything they want using such terms. For example, that Ford C-Max cars are telepathic, the existence of pixies, for the existence of another religion's god. And if religionists had any solid evidence at all then they wouldn't bother with such nonsense, they'd say, look, this is my god here.

[downbeatplumb]

So this is even more interesting. There is no material cause to a novel or symphony (only an efficient cause). Both are abstract objects. Yet they can be a cause of their own once read or heard. You can be compelled to act by a novel or emotionally moved by a symphony. In the same way, ideas (conveyed through language) are not material and yet can have so much causal power. So not only is it possible that the immaterial is the efficient cause on the material (us), but it happens constantly.

Functioning brains produce novels and symphonies and of course brains are physical things.