The First Cause? Prime Mover Argument

[Rhondazvous]

[quote pid='938096' dateline='1431095668']
Not to speak for the OP, but I think the premise is that "things seen in the universe" obey it and that therefore must be things unseen and outside of this category. Seems more like special pleading. But - if the argument were really sound, one might conclude that either nothing can exist or that there have to be other things which violate the premise, while the hitherto known things don't - which is taken as an empirical insight I suppose.

[/quote]

Yes, an even if we look outside the universe, we are still talking about special pleading because there's no reason to do so. We know that mattter cannot be created, yet matter is here. If matter is here then it had to always be here.  Impermanence means only that everything changes not that everything has an ontological beginning, so there's no need to look outside the universe for a cause.

Matter is the god that has always existed. Fermions and bosons. Quarks, leptons, photons and gluons, these are their own causes. Why need we look further?

[JuliaL]

Apology shmapology, let me gripe around a bit will you!

---

And given Braun's history of design of randomly aimed, indescriminate terror weaponry Vergeltungswaffe

Yes, it was randomly aimed. It killed a huge amount of people, but only some of them when it exploded.

If you're referring to the fatality rate among the slave laborers involved in the production chain, I fully agree.  I sometimes probe my own attitudes and actions to see if I can identify similar blindness to others sufferings.  Usually, I try not to think about it because the answers I get are too depressing.

[LostLocke]

I was an Atheist for many years until I began my Philosophy degree.

There's your first problem. Most, not all, but most, of philosophy is a bunch of brain masturbating bullshit.

The argument that swayed me is very simple:
Premise 1) Everything in the Universe is either impermanent, or depends upon something else for its existence. (things are born and they die, the universe tends towards entropy, nothing within the Universe lasts forever)

IN. The important word there is IN our universe. We can not assume that any thing that occurs OUTSIDE our universe, if such a thing even exists which we don't really know for a fact, follows the same rules. If you say that it follows the same rules, demonstrate it.

Premise 2) An infinite regress of finite, impermanent causes seems logically impossible.

The fact that time travels at different speeds depending on the observers' relative speed, proximity to gravitational sources, etc... also seems logically impossible. But it happens. The universe could give a shit about what we think is logically impossible. The fact that infinite regress 'seems' logically impossible has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it actually happens.


I'd go on, but this is getting tedious. We've seen, and debunked this, many times over.

[Rhondazvous]

I think the concept of a beginning is definitely a limitation we've received from being naturally selected as organisms that exist in our physical frame of reference.  We evolved to cling to the classical concept of cause and effect, because that's what allowed us to survive.  But little did we know, the whole time the underlying mechanisms of the universe were acting on entirely contradictory principles.  I think to ask "how did reality begin" is to ask "where does the circle begin and where does it end?" or trying to comprehend a 2D plane with only one side. I don't think we're equipped to understand the answers.

And, unlike the theists, scientists are not content with mystery.  We are always looking for ways to gain knowledge hitherto unknown.Saying we don't know is not the same as saying we will never know.

[Alex K]

"We will never know and I have a fetish for not knowing"

[robvalue]

We'll never know if we are satisfied with a comforting placeholder answer and look no further.

[Aoi Magi]

Grand-Master-Turtle-Snake is the prime mover, because he says so...

[Alex K]

A Turtle as the unmoved mover, sounds plausible...

[Rhondazvous]

"We will never know and I have a fetish for not knowing"

Maybe if we keep studying quantum mechanics. Like the saying goes: as above, so below. As at the beginning, so at the end.

[Cyberman]

A Turtle as the unmoved mover, sounds plausible...

De Chelonian Mobile.