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

[robvalue]

Odin remains unimpressed.

[The Valkyrie]

Odin remains unimpressed.

More importantly.

Odin remains.

[Amarok]

Odin is very unimpressed

[I_am_not_mafia]

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

This is the same form of construction as the KCA.

Difference is that we know that Socrates is a man. We do not know that the universe had a beginning.

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Just to really fuck things up for everyone, newscientist magazine has recently been describing efforts by physicists to explain quantum weirdness using the concept of retrocausality.

Unfortunately link is behind a paywall. I have a copy of the magazine but would need to scan the article.

Quantum time machine: How the future can change what happens now

But if the theorists going back to the future with retrocausality can make it stick, the implications would be almost as mind-boggling. They could not only explain the randomness seemingly inherent to the quantum world, but even remake it in a way that finally brings it into line with Einstein’s ideas of space and time – an achievement that has eluded physicists for decades. “If you allow retrocausality, it is possible to have a theory of reality that’s more compatible with lots of things that we think should be true,”

Whether or not it is correct, point is that every day intuitions about how the world works (e.g. begins to exist, cause) do not apply to the quantum scale (e.g. photons do not experience time), and therefore also do not apply to the first moments after the Big Bang when there was no matter, only energy and quantum fluctuations. (Matter formed quickly afterwards and stayed with us ever since just being rearranged over time in different ways.)

[Amarok]

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

This is the same form of construction as the KCA.

Difference is that we know that Socrates is a man. We do not know that the universe had a beginning.

---

Just to really fuck things up for everyone, newscientist magazine has recently been describing efforts by physicists to explain quantum weirdness using the concept of retrocausality.

Unfortunately link is behind a paywall. I have a copy of the magazine but would need to scan the article.

Quantum time machine: How the future can change what happens now

But if the theorists going back to the future with retrocausality can make it stick, the implications would be almost as mind-boggling. They could not only explain the randomness seemingly inherent to the quantum world, but even remake it in a way that finally brings it into line with Einstein’s ideas of space and time – an achievement that has eluded physicists for decades. “If you allow retrocausality, it is possible to have a theory of reality that’s more compatible with lots of things that we think should be true,”

Whether or not it is correct, point is that every day intuitions about how the world works (e.g. begins to exist, cause) do not apply to the quantum scale (e.g. photons do not experience time), and therefore also do not apply to the first moments after the Big Bang when there was no matter, only energy and quantum fluctuations. (Matter formed quickly afterwards and stayed with us ever since just being rearranged over time in different ways.)

If socrates even existed . And what would happen if we observed socrates drink a absolutely lethal dose  of hemlock and not die ? Would we conclude socrates is still mortal?

[RoadRunner79]

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

This is the same form of construction as the KCA.

Difference is that we know that Socrates is a man. We do not know that the universe had a beginning.

---

Just to really fuck things up for everyone, newscientist magazine has recently been describing efforts by physicists to explain quantum weirdness using the concept of retrocausality.

Unfortunately link is behind a paywall. I have a copy of the magazine but would need to scan the article.

Quantum time machine: How the future can change what happens now

But if the theorists going back to the future with retrocausality can make it stick, the implications would be almost as mind-boggling. They could not only explain the randomness seemingly inherent to the quantum world, but even remake it in a way that finally brings it into line with Einstein’s ideas of space and time – an achievement that has eluded physicists for decades. “If you allow retro-causality, it is possible to have a theory of reality that’s more compatible with lots of things that we think should be true,”

Whether or not it is correct, point is that every day intuitions about how the world works (e.g. begins to exist, cause) do not apply to the quantum scale (e.g. photons do not experience time), and therefore also do not apply to the first moments after the Big Bang when there was no matter, only energy and quantum fluctuations. (Matter formed quickly afterwards and stayed with us ever since just being rearranged over time in different ways.)

I've seen some "retro" causality, which where making philosophical arguments which where fairly bad.  Kind of reminded me of a thought experiment someone came up with in a classroom, that went too far.  

I've also have seen some recently, that are talking about quantum entanglement, and a faster than a light link, which they then call call retro-causality.  This however has more to do with relativity and the frame of reference (from my understanding),  saying that something faster than light would be going into the past.  Here, I think I would only quibble with some of the descriptions, and possibly leading some to think something that its is not.

Without seeing your article, it sounds like they are looking for funding, and still have a ways to go yet.

Difference is that we know that Socrates is a man. We do not know that the universe had a beginning.

And if you get new information, then it would falsify that premise.  However the consensus seems to be, that the universe is ~14Billion years old.  If nothing else, it seems that there is more reason and evidence than not that the universe did have a beginning.  But some seem to not like that answer.

[polymath257]

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

This is the same form of construction as the KCA.

Difference is that we know that Socrates is a man. We do not know that the universe had a beginning.

---

Just to really fuck things up for everyone, newscientist magazine has recently been describing efforts by physicists to explain quantum weirdness using the concept of retrocausality.

Unfortunately link is behind a paywall. I have a copy of the magazine but would need to scan the article.

Quantum time machine: How the future can change what happens now

But if the theorists going back to the future with retrocausality can make it stick, the implications would be almost as mind-boggling. They could not only explain the randomness seemingly inherent to the quantum world, but even remake it in a way that finally brings it into line with Einstein’s ideas of space and time – an achievement that has eluded physicists for decades. “If you allow retrocausality, it is possible to have a theory of reality that’s more compatible with lots of things that we think should be true,”

Whether or not it is correct, point is that every day intuitions about how the world works (e.g. begins to exist, cause) do not apply to the quantum scale (e.g. photons do not experience time), and therefore also do not apply to the first moments after the Big Bang when there was no matter, only energy and quantum fluctuations. (Matter formed quickly afterwards and stayed with us ever since just being rearranged over time in different ways.)

I have to wait to go to campus to see what is behind the paywall, but my experience with things along this line tends to be that they are trying to keep classical notions of particles and such while maintaining QM.

The problem with this is that we don't explain a more precise theory in terms of the less precise theory. And classical physics is the less precise theory in this context. So classical notions of particles that have definite trajectories and properties when not detected are problematic from the get-go.

Now, I don't know what specific situation this article addresses, but I have seen claims of retro-causality before used to describe what are known as quantum erasers.

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

But, once again, the illusion of retro-causality is produced *only* because a classical description is insisted upon. The quantum description, on the other hand, perfectly well satisfies the requirements that causality (for the probabilities) only occur in the past light cone. It is forcing the OLD description on a situation where the NEW description is much better in all ways.

I will update this later once I read the actual article.

---

Difference is that we know that Socrates is a man. We do not know that the universe had a beginning.

---

Just to really fuck things up for everyone, newscientist magazine has recently been describing efforts by physicists to explain quantum weirdness using the concept of retrocausality.

Unfortunately link is behind a paywall. I have a copy of the magazine but would need to scan the article.

Quantum time machine: How the future can change what happens now


Whether or not it is correct, point is that every day intuitions about how the world works (e.g. begins to exist, cause) do not apply to the quantum scale (e.g. photons do not experience time), and therefore also do not apply to the first moments after the Big Bang when there was no matter, only energy and quantum fluctuations. (Matter formed quickly afterwards and stayed with us ever since just being rearranged over time in different ways.)

I've seen some "retro" causality, which where making philosophical arguments which where fairly bad.  Kind of reminded me of a thought experiment someone came up with in a classroom, that went too far.  

I've also have seen some recently, that are talking about quantum entanglement, and a faster than a light link, which they then call call retro-causality.  This however has more to do with relativity and the frame of reference (from my understanding),  saying that something faster than light would be going into the past.  Here, I think I would only quibble with some of the descriptions, and possibly leading some to think something that its is not.

Without seeing your article, it sounds like they are looking for funding, and still have a ways to go yet.

Well, because of relativity, if some signal is going faster than light in one frame, it will be going into the past in some other frame. So, in that other frame, there would be retro-causality. The point is that in relativity ALL frames of reference are equally valid: there is no such thing as absolute motion. And, any points that are spacelike separated will not be consistently past or future from one another between reference frames. In other words, if A and B are spacelike separated (i.e, faster than light to get between them), then there *will* be one frame where A is earlier in time than B and another frame where B is earlier in time than A.

The only way to avoid this is to require all causes to be from the past light cone. In other words, that effects travel no faster than light.

[possibletarian]

Odin is very unimpressed

Odin is very wise.

[SteveII]

I understand your point. You are pointing out the difference between inside the universe and outside the universe and then insisting that it matters. You don't give reasons why it matters. Later on, you just say it is a category error. It's not, because I don't need a specific kind of cause to be true or to create "sets" with them. All that is needed to span any difference is that a causal principle is an objective feature of reality. This would apply both in and out of the universe. There are good reasons to believe this exists and no good reasons to think that it does not.

`

I'm not sure you do see my point.  We say a man painted a hose and therefore he is the cause it's new color.  Fertilization is why an embryo is formed, trees grow from nuts, erosion levels mountains, rivers cut valleys.  It is these examples of an orderly universe from which we deduce cause and effect.  None of these examples involve the creation of new matter.  No new matter is introduced into the world by the birth of a baby, the eruption of a volcano, or by building a house.  All of these things are just rearranging the molecular furniture.  And at least at the macro level, every such transformation appears to have a cause or really many causes. And as long as we are just talking about rearanging the furniture, that everything has a cause or causes is a reasonable premise.

But the beginning of the universe is a a real beginning to exist.  It is the beginning of time, matter, and energy.  In effect it is the beginning of objective reality.  Calling both (1) the creation of matter, and (2) the rearranging of matter "beginning to exist" is not inappropriate.  They are fundamentally different things.  So yes it every much matters (no pun intended).

Extrapolating the rules for matter coming into being from the rules about how to rearrange matter is not possible.  It is a category error.

This is the point at which you are not understanding me. I am not extrapolating rules.  That would actually be a composition fallacy and not a category error--but that is beside the point. Premise 1 does not say: Everything that begins to exist in the universe has a cause. It it making a general statement that is meant to apply to all possible worlds, all possible universes, all possible states of reality that may have come prior to a particular universe. It is a metaphysical statement that applies to any existence -- not a scientific one which would only apply within our universe. 

WLC, the foremost authority on this argument, said it this way in an article:

Objection #4: The first premise is based upon the fallacy of composition. It fallaciously infers that because everything in the universe has a cause, therefore the whole universe has a cause.

Response to #4: In order to understand this objection we need to understand the fallacy of composition. This is the fallacy of reasoning that because every part of a thing has a certain property, therefore the whole thing has that same property. While wholes do sometimes possess the properties of their parts (for example, a fence, every picket of which is green, is also green), this is not always the case. For example, every little part of an elephant may be light in weight, but that does not imply that the whole elephant is light in weight.

Now I have never argued that because every part of the universe has a cause, therefore the whole universe has a cause. That would be manifestly fallacious. Rather the reasons I have offered for thinking that everything that begins to exist has a cause are these:

1. Something cannot come from nothing. To claim that something can come into being out of nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you've got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise (1) you've got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause.
2. If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn't come into being from nothing. Think about it: why don't bicycles and Beethoven and root beer just pop into being from nothing? Why is it only universes that can pop into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can't be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn't have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, since there isn't anything to be constrained!
3. Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise (1). Premise (1) is constantly verified and never falsified. It is hard to understand how any atheist committed to modern science could deny that premise (1) is more plausibly true than false in light of the evidence. [7]

Note well that the third reason is an appeal to inductive reasoning, not reasoning by composition. It's drawing an inductive inference about all the members of a class of things based on a sample of the class. Inductive reasoning undergirds all of science and is not to be confused with reasoning by composition, which is a fallacy.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/l...e-them-up/

Remember, the premise does not have to be 100% proven. It just has to be more likely than not. On this point, I would say it exceeds that threshold and is near the "almost definitely true" end of the spectrum. 

(You could of course argue that the universe is made up of pre-existing matter.  But if you go that way, then you will have to add all existing matter to the set of things that did not begin to exist in which case under your formulation, matter being eternal  would not need a cause.)

I wouldn't go that way.

[GrandizerII]

(You could of course argue that the universe is made up of pre-existing matter.  But if you go that way, then you will have to add all existing matter to the set of things that did not begin to exist in which case under your formulation, matter being eternal  would not need a cause.)

I wouldn't go that way.

Of course you wouldn't. Even when common experience seems to confirm the truth of the premise that all [material] things that begin to exist must have a material cause, common experience (or intuition) suddenly isn't so important to you after all. It only matters to you when it serves the premise that you desperately need to be true. Ever asked yourself why that is?