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

[SteveII]

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 cause and effect? 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 we know about 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. 

I am saying that while we can look to our inductive experience as a guide, people who think about such things like before the universe are also using inductive reasoning. You seem to think the only tool that can be used is experience. However, since they know that the our laws of physics do not necessarily apply to other states of reality, they are reasoning into a lot of assumptions. 

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.

I thought that was what you were thinking--that's why I brought it up. The onus is not on me if the position is that these are near universally held beliefs. There is a good reason why most challengers to the KCA do not try to attack Premise (1). Being skeptical of Premise (1) carries a high price because to make any headway against the argument, you can't just bring up the objection, you have to say that the Premise (1) is not likely. Simply bringing up a remote possibility does nothing to an inductive argument. 

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. 

If you want to go with questioning a causal principle as an objective feature of reality, you have to answer questions like why only universes pop into existence and why not other things like dogs, pasta, and VW Beetles. They are infinitely more simple than universes. 

Your second sentence would be an objection to Premise (2). To that, I say there is the math problem about an infinite series of causes as well as the most promising and well-received models do posit a universe starting a finite time ago. Again, simply putting up a possibility does not get make Premise (2) unlikely. That is a much bigger task because I will continually trot out the majority of the cosmologists and their take on things. And like I said above, I can throw in the rather significant infinity problem to push it way over the top. So, I have both scientific grounds and philosophical grounds to support Premise (2). Jehanne has a fringe theory and an uphill philosophical battle to contend with. 

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? 

I don't think we are too far off. Just you think that your objections carry more weight than I think they do. 

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.

I’m not sure what you mean here.

You can't describe a structure to a state that has no causal principle. The only law would be that there are none. I really don't see how anything could exist without a causal principle. You can't have matter, movement, or enduring through time. I am not sure you can even have what would pass for space without a causal principle. The very question of whether anything could exist without it seems legit. This is why I claim that a causal principle seems to be an objective feature of reality/existence.