First order logic, set theory and God

[GrandizerII]

Just read the rest of the OP and, surprise to say, it isn't that complicated.

The point behind P2 is to eventually establish that a "first cause" must cause all else (and itself). Thus, avoiding infinite regress.

That first cause the OP calls "God" irrespective of what it is.

So he didn't actually rule out a naturalistic "first cause", only that he reckons that should be called "God" anyway.

[The Grand Nudger]

It might be an infinite regress. dron3 promises that Hatcher's argument avoids such a regress, but I haven't figured out how it does that yet, if it really does. 

By assertion, Bel.  

Aquinas said he could not demonstrate that a per accidens series was not infinite in regress, but he did think he could show that a per se series must culminate in a first mover. So if you'd like an answer to your question you could work on those arguments. If it turns out that they're wrong, you'd at least be able to say why.

The inability to demonstrate that any candidate per se cause does not itself resolve into yet another per se cause without resorting to a circular argument or an axiomatic argument (since we're ruling out regressive arguments).

Cutting through all of this, we do not reject regressive cause because it cannot be, but because regressive cause is not amenable to our system of rational inference - that system being built on finite observations.  If regressive cause is the true state of affairs....it simply can't provide us with the terminus of conclusion we so desperately seek.  It's a limitation of logical systems with respect to their intended purpose, not a limitation of reality.

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Just read the rest of the OP and, surprise to say, it isn't that complicated.

These cause arguments never are.

[polymath257]

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Do we really have any reason to think that infinite phenomena have causes? All phenomena we have observed are finite, so that suggests that we only know about finite phenomena.

I'm not sure what you mean by "infinite phenomena." Are you thinking that a First Cause has to be infinite? 

I don't think we've gotten to that part of the argument yet.

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No, I'm suggesting that the axiom should state:
For all finite B, there is an A with A->B. It is possible that A=B.
All the effects we know about are finite. We have no basis for expacting that infinite systems have causes, Furthermore, for a first order system, you need axioms declaring how to form 'phenomena' like B.
In particular, the system V in your proof is likely to be infinite, so we need not expect it to have a cause. But even worst, in a first order set of axioms, it may not even be possible to talk about V.

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It might be an infinite regress. dron3 promises that Hatcher's argument avoids such a regress, but I haven't figured out how it does that yet, if it really does. 

Aquinas said he could not demonstrate that a per accidens series was not infinite in regress, but he did think he could show that a per se series must culminate in a first mover. So if you'd like an answer to your question you could work on those arguments. If it turns out that they're wrong, you'd at least be able to say why.

It does so by allowing the construction of the system V (a very large collection of events) in the proof. This is likely to be an infinite system, yet it has a cause.

In essence, it takes the whole of the infinite regress, if such exists, and declares that regress itself has a cause.

This is why P1 is suspect

[I_am_not_mafia]

Or..... we're staring at a pile of garbage insisting that a diamond just has to be in there, somewhere...it's only an issue of lumping it up just right.

I rather suspect that if I continue with my original evaluation of the OP as being a 'load of bollocks' then I won't be missing out on much whatever people find.

[Belacqua]

If regressive cause is the true state of affairs....it simply can't provide us with the terminus of conclusion we so desperately seek.

What argument do you use to prove that the true state of affairs must be an infinite regress? 

It may be true that people want to find a first cause just because they don't like infinite regress.

But it may be that you want an infinite regress just because you don't want a first cause. I mean, you come across as someone who really doesn't like the idea. 

I don't know what's true, so I'm happy to listen to real arguments.

[The Grand Nudger]

If regressive cause is the true state of affairs....it simply can't provide us with the terminus of conclusion we so desperately seek.

What argument do you use to prove that the true state of affairs must be an infinite regress? 

It may be true that people want to find a first cause just because they don't like infinite regress.

But it may be that you want an infinite regress just because you don't want a first cause. I mean, you come across as someone who really doesn't like the idea. 

I don't know what's true, so I'm happy to listen to real arguments.

I don't bel.  I don't know that it is.  It's certainly possible, and with respect to some questions it very much seems to be the case. So..when those issues arise..we might do well to grant the notion a little more credence.

However, what I do know, is why we have a preference for one of the other two horns of the trilemma - and that comes down to a limitation of our system of inference derived from our finite observations combined with a desire to know.  Ultimately, that desire may lead us to reject an unsatisfying truth in favor of a more satisfying fiction, as we both agree. I, like anyone else...would love to be able to give these questions their final terminus..to point to the one answer that rules them all. I simply don't have it, and the argument we're discussing gets me no closer to it.

The trilemma points towards the impossibility of proving anything, should we continue the chain of questioning no matter how many answers we receive. I like to take a little bit of every column, myself.

(why would I have anything against first causes....or..do you mean to say -gods-, like a common apologist nutter reading shit in from page 1.., lol ........?)

[GrandizerII]

So ... now that I've fully read the OP, I went through the first two to three pages of this thread, and it turns out that first Jorm and then Khem/Gae already pointed out the one problem that stands out with the argument: that the first cause need not be a supernatural God, even if the OP decides to call it "God" anyway.

So Belaqua, you were being unfair in saying that no one effectively addressed the argument earlier.

Really, that was all that was needed to be pointed out. I admit on the basis of my full reading of the OP, my initial counterargument was overkill.

[The Grand Nudger]

Gods, for their part, are so low on the temporal causal chain and the essential causal chain that their injection in a discussion of the subject is risible.  

They're characters in stories that we tell.  They depend on very much else, and have a severely limited range of effects. If the explanation of things were a road stretching from the west to east coast...we find our own position somewhere very near the eastern seaboard...and gods are right there in the car with us. Which is to say that they aint exactly lounging on the beach in Cali. Neither of us explains much of anything in the grander scheme. Hell, so far as we can tell..we're older than they are..so unless they've got some power we don't know about and didn't possess to grant them in the first place...in addition to the potential for backward causality such that they could create the world they would, many billions of years later, inhabit....

............they're DOA.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Agreed. For me, even if there was a god that kick started it all, we know so much about how things have developed on their own since the Big Bang that a god is completely and utterly irrelevant.

[Angrboda]

So a car may not have all the expected car parts but could still be a car if it has enough parts to render it a car (albeit not a "complete" car).

Once on a highway outside Mexico City I saw a guy driving along in an absolute minimum car. Wheels, tires, chassis, engine, steering. No body, doors, windows, even seats. He was sitting on a wad of foam rubber. Since it was running, I guess we can say it was a car, though the police might not have agreed. 

Take away any of those parts, though, and I think it transitions into something else. Junk, maybe.

That would be arguing function, which is essentially teleological. How do you get essential and accidental properties without notions about what a thing 'should' be? Is a car any less a car because it doesn't have wheels? Only if it needs wheels to function as a car. Otherwise you're just arbitrarily cutting things up into parts and wholes and then the sense of whatever principle this is a part of becomes problematic as there's no determinate way to interpret the principle.