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

[SteveII]

This is the KCA

P implies Q 
P 
therefore Q

1. Everything that begins to exist (P) has a cause. (Q)
2. The universe began to exist. (P)
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. (Q)

Nope. Definitely not Affirming the Consequent. 

Nope.

This is the KCA

P implies Q
R
therefore Q

You are assuming that 2, the universe, began to exist for the sake of your argument.

As Mister Agenda said, you are asserting without backing it up with evidence.

Fact is that YOU DON'T KNOW THAT THE UNIVERSE BEGAN TO EXIST.

So what you are actually doing is:

1. Everything that begins to exist (P) has a cause. (Q)
2. The universe began to exist. ( R )
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. (Q)

An perhaps if someone who is better equipped at discussing logic and philosophy brings that up, I might address it.

[I_am_not_mafia]

An perhaps if someone who is better equipped at discussing logic and philosophy brings that up, I might address it.

Like you addressed Mister Agenda who made the same point?

Reading a few dodgy books on apologetics doesn't give you formal training in logic. You're just making an excuse not to answer questions that destroy your argument. Like for example, what causes a snowflake to exist. Or the fact that logic, like any computer program is GIGO.

If it was possible to prove things about the real world using symbolic logic in the way that you are attempting (and failing) to do then we would have developed Artificial Intelligence decades ago. There is a reason it is called classical AI and there is a reason why it got replaced with new paradigms that can cope with noise and the fact that the world cannot be partitioned off neatly.

Why are you even here if you aren't willing to tackle any counter arguments that refute your armchair philosophy? You might as well stay in your own echo chamber on facebook. It's not like you're listening to anything anybody says to you. You just keep repeating the same flawed argument again and again ...

[SaStrike]

Oh this is still going on.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and yet still no gods to be seen.

[Angrboda]

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. 

What it means for material to "hold information" is an important question. If there is a clear sense in which the phrase is meaningful, I would grant that it's probably not valid to say that the information is the same thing as the material. It would be an illogical leap to therefore conclude that the idea, symphony, or whatever is immaterial. It's really not understood how we make sense of the meaning of things like language, yet it's possible that language and meaning exist as a closed system of material effects in which the meaning of an utterance exists as a process in the brain, and that the effect of finding things meaningful is a consequence of sharing similar brain processes among language speakers. In that case, the "meaning" of an utterance only exists as a behavior of the system, and has no independent existence beyond that behavior. The behavior of a system is fully described by efficient causes existing between material components, so to speak of that behavior as something immaterial is simply wrong. If symphonies and novels and ideas only exist insofar as they are material processes of a system of brains and such, then your conclusion that immaterial things exist is also wrong.

I don't recall what the point in bringing up the immateriality of symphonies and such was, but it seems to rest on a non sequitur. I don't see any reason to necessarily conclude that a symphony is anything more than stuff doing what stuff does. The tendency to view symphonies and such as non-material is a hangover founded upon our ignorance of the nature of human cognition.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Because Stevell likes his wikipedia links so much ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information

Thus the concept of information becomes closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, education, knowledge, meaning, understanding, mental stimuli, pattern, perception, representation, and entropy.

Oh look. Room for equivocation. What a surprise.

[Angrboda]

The universe by definition is a contingent object.

The universe may or may not be contingent. Regardless of which happens to be the case, its contingency cannot be established "by definition" alone. If you're asserting the universe is contingent based simply on a definition, then that's a problem.

[GrandizerII]

I don't recall what the point in bringing up the immateriality of symphonies and such was, but it seems to rest on a non sequitur.  I don't see any reason to necessarily conclude that a symphony is anything more than stuff doing what stuff does.

It was a challenge to one of the premises of the argument I presented earlier: the premise that everything that begins to exist must have a material cause. Steve seems to think that if he can demonstrate that some objects we're familiar with do not have material causes, then material cause (unlike efficient cause) isn't so essential. Fair enough, but the best he can point to in this case are abstract objects like symphonies, and as you have just argued, that itself is problematic a counter to use.

[LadyForCamus]

You are not differentiating between our inductive experience and our inductive reasoning. They are not the same thing. For the past nearly 100 years people have dedicated their lives to figuring out what might have come before our universe. A super-obvious assumption MUST be present to even begin that enterprise: that there exists, as an objective feature of reality, a Causal Principle.

Are you saying that The Causal Priniple is not born out of our inductive experience? If not, then why do its proponents assume it’s an obvious truth? What about the principle makes it obvious other than our direct experience of a universe that we can best describe in terms of causal chains? Isn’t that what human intuition is, after all? Instinct derived from our aggregate experiences? We are forever limited to our experience as beings within this universe, and as constituents of it.  I don’t see any way we can soundly reason beyond that experience. I agree with you that there are probably objective features to reality, but I don’t see that a positive case for the CP as an objective feature has been sufficiently argued.  ‘Everything that exists in the universe has a cause, therefore things we don’t know about, or may never be able to know about, also have to have causes’ is still a composition fallacy.  

When debating something like this, one possible goal is to show the high intellectual price your opponent has to pay for objecting to a premise. This is one such case. Let's see:

A) Because the KCA is a inductive argument and the premises are probabilities, what you are actually claiming when you say Premise (1) is false is that it is more probable that it is false.

I feel like you’re talking past me.  I’m not asserting premise (1) is false.  I’m saying you have no way to demonstrate or justify that assumption is an obvious truth, or that it’s more likely true than not.  If you can’t, then the argument is stalled at (1). Even if I grant you (1), you’re now stuck at (2).  ‘I set them up unjustified, and if you can’t knock them down, I win’ is not how this works.  The onus is on you.

That a causal principle is not an objective feature of reality is more likely true.  You have to propose that it was at least possible for our universe to just pop into being. But what makes universes so special that only they can pop into being? Why doesn't just anything pop into being today?

First of all, this is the same composition fallacy, restated.  Things within our universe can’t pop into being, therefore the universe it’s self cannot.  I’m not even sure what you mean by, “pop into being”.  Jehanne just put up a thread with some current scientific hypotheses describing an eternal, infinite universe, despite your foot stamping about the math.  

state of existence cannot be described coherently without a causal principle.

You must mean that we humans cannot describe our experiences within the universe without using causal principles in our descriptions, right?  That, I would agree with.  But, how can we possibly reason beyond that?  

Go ahead, try to describe such a state of affairs. What can or cannot happen when you need no prior state for absolutely nothing (or is it everything)? I'm interested to hear you try.

An eternal universe.  Infinite space and time.  No beginning, and no end.

Nope. Cosmogony has large amounts of metaphysics built in.

I’m not sure what you mean here.

[I_am_not_mafia]

I don't recall what the point in bringing up the immateriality of symphonies and such was, but it seems to rest on a non sequitur.  I don't see any reason to necessarily conclude that a symphony is anything more than stuff doing what stuff does.

It was a challenge to one of the premises of the argument I presented earlier: the premise that everything that begins to exist must have a material cause. Steve seems to think that if he can demonstrate that some objects we're familiar with do not have material causes, then material cause (unlike efficient cause) isn't so essential. Fair enough, but the best he can point to in this case are abstract objects like symphonies, and as you have just argued, that itself is problematic a counter to use.

Thanks Grandizer. I was wondering why he was going on non-material causes.

Of course the problem is that all matter has energy. Stevell is talking about material causes. Does he mean a cause that requires matter? Or causes that consist only of matter?

If the latter, then Stevell is effectively arguing that symphonies and books weren't caused by matter at zero Kelvin.

The words 'no', 'shit' and 'Sherlock' spring to mind. But of course that would be stupid. So apparently a 'material cause' is:

[*]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.

So yeah, only taking into account the material.

Maybe Stevell would like to give us a solid (haha!) example of a material cause?

What type of cause is behind electricity for example? Material, form, agent or purpose? You know, things may have moved on since Aristotle. All four definitions of cause looks utterly arbitrary and useless for the modern world. Is there any practical use any more for talking about causes in this way?