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

[RoadRunner79]

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I'm not sure how things went from Odin, to the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  However, sometimes I think that things can be lost in the back and forth such as here in the KCA.  So here are a few thoughts on the conversation. 

There are number of fallacious claims, that seem to be flung at the KCA.  Many of them are very much wrong, some plain bad.  I won't go over the bad claims.  One of the stronger claims of fallacy is perhaps the claim that there is equivocation in the phrase "begins to exist".  However I think that this is just a misunderstanding, and at least for myself, I am not using the phrase in two different ways.  The fallacy of equivocation is something like JimBob is Greek, Greek is a language, therefore JimBob is a language.  This is obviously wrong, and the problem comes in that the word "Greek" is no being used in the same way, and there isn't the relationship between the two  premises.  What I have seen (and what I mean) by "begins to exist"  is that it comes into being, or that it was not, and now is.  That which begins to exist, needs a reason or explanation for that beginning.

Now an issue of the discussion.  Steve had mentioned, that the argument is more likely than not.  From which a discussion became about the mathematics and probabilities.   Here I would argue, that there is an equivocation.   That "likely" or "probable" in an inductive or logical sense, is not the same as in the mathematical sense.  I can somewhat understand, the tendency to put numbers on confidence levels, but I have always thought it is a mistake to then take these numbers and start applying them in a math or science type scenario.   The number is based on something tangible but is little more than the persons sense of what is.  I don't think it is accurately representing the situation, to say that 3 our of 5 times the universe had a cause, and the other 2 it just poofed into being without reason. 

Which brings us to the question at hand.  Are things that begin to exist contingent (dependent on) something else for it's existence. Do things just poof into existence without cause or explanation?  What would keep things from poofing into being all the time?  Are there limits to what nothing can do?  For me, I would say that this is not just more likely, but it is close to a basic principle.  I would say, that I am beyond just skeptical of it.  To go agaisnt the principle of ex nihilo nihil fit and not just asking someone to accept a claim without reason or explanation; but, asking them to accept something that at it's core is without reason or explanation.  My belief is that of the early propagators of science, that the universe is logical and that things do not happen without reason (which would include the beginning of the universe).  I not only believe that an effects needs an explanation for the effect, but that it needs a sufficient cause.  This brings us back to the question of what are the limits of nothing? 

So the question is, which do you think is more likely?   Do things poof into existence without cause, or does everything that begins to exist have a reason for that beginning.  Does it make a difference, that this argument is used as part of a larger argument for God (a rhetorical question)? Would you be consistent if nothing was offered in an argument by a Christian?   If we allow for this, then what can we deny?  For me, to go against the principle from nothing; nothing comes, is going to be similar to accepting a contradiction.   Even if observations appear to indicate that this is so, it's just irrational, and there must be a mistake in what we think we are seeing, or our reasons.

First of all, the validity of an argument or proof should not depend upon it's result, be that god, an endless regress, an endless time loop, or things "poofing" into existence out of nothing.  However, as unlikely as I find the idea of an elephant popping into existence in my backyard, I find both the idea of anything existing externally, and infinite regress equally unlikely.  That there is something outside the universe also boggles my mind.  The human mind isn't equipped to consider any of these possibilities in any realistic or coherent way.  Try for example to talk about a timeless space without tenses messing up what it is you are trying to say.  Or try to think of a nothing so nothing that it includes neither time nor space.  

1.  Beyond the Universe, the Flatland Thought Experiment

When we are looking for a cause of the universe (assuming for the moment that it has one) we are postulating about  something on the other side of a singularity.  And what actually on the other side might be beyond our ability to imagine or describe.  By way of illustration, I'm going to borrow a thought experiment from Edwin A Abbott's 1884 novel, Flatland.  Flatland takes place in a universe with only three dimensions, one of which is time.  Space has only two dimentions there.  We visualise such a world as if we are looking down on it as on a blueprint.  But that is not how it would look to the inhabitants of Flatland who do not have the words up or down in their vocabulary.  Nor do they speak of jumping, falling, or flying.  Digging to China is not a Flatland expression.  

In the novel, Flatland is visited by a sphere from outside the two dimensional universe outside Flatland.  Obviously,  the sphere appears to be a circle in Flatland.  It convinces a square that it is from a 3rd spacial dimension by demonstrating it's ability to grow a shrink as it passes through the two dimensional Flatland.

Imagine for a moment Abbott had had a cube visit instead.  If it came through precisely from one corner to the opposite corner, it would grow and shrink like the sphere.  But if it tilted back and forth it would change shape becoming various four sided shapes as it went.  Or image a human who could appear variously as an iregular oval, two iregular ovals, ten much smaller irregular ovals and so on depending on which body part or parts intersected Flatland.

Thier universe could actually be a point thin skin around a very large sphere.  (This idea is mine not Abbotts). If the sphere were small enough, they might eventually figure this out by traveling away from home in one direction  and eventually arrive at home from the opposite direction.  But the concept of sphere would remain mysterious, at best a mathematical explaination that the very best minds could not grasp.  

I'm afraid that imagining either the outside of the universe (if there is such a thing) or a time before the universe began (again assuming that such time existed) is as difficult and fruitless, as the Flatlanders imagining what a third spacial dimension might be.  

2. Existence, Cause, and Agency

What we know of existence, change, and cause/agency comes entirely from our knowledge of this universe.  At the human scale and larger, nothing in this universe poofs into existence out of nothing without cause. In fact no matter or energy is ever ultimately created or destroyed.  Everything was previously something else and will in turn become yet something else later.  Changes in motion and form all happen because of material causes acting on material forms.  The cause is equally and oppositely affected.  Matter and energy is never either created or lost.  There are no immaterial agents anymore than there are things changing without cause. Materiality of the agency is part and parcel of causation. 

And so is time.  Without time, change, and hence causation, are not meaningful concepts.   If Flatland really had just two dimensions, there would be no story because no inhabitant, could move or think, or change in anyway at all. 

Agency or cause without time and matter is just as absurd as elephants appearing without cause. It too is magic.  You won't see it in your backyard, or anywhere else.

3. What Is Eternity and What does it Mean To Be Eternal?

Colloquially, eternity is forever.  But what does forever mean? It could be a timeless, an ever present.   Matter might exist in such a space but not movement or energy.  Or it could be thought of as an infite regress of time.  In that case an infinite regress of cause and effect would appear possible, or even required--if nothing changes, does it make any sense to say time exists?  Or it could be loop of cause and effect in which there is neither a first nor a last cause and effect and yet there are a finite number of causes and effects.  Or we could concede that there was one a first moment in time, and call eternity time from that point forward.  However, unless something was in motion from that very first moment, there would be no time or change in any functional sense.  It would be as static as timeless eternity--in fact it would be a contradition in terms, a timeless place with a beginning.

A sentient being, however unlikely, might exist either as an infinite regression of being or as a always present member of a loop.  It might be in motion at the beginning of time.  But it could not be sentient, changimg, or moving in a timeless space.

4. Extrapolating From What We Know Of Cause And Effect Does Not Lead Necessarily to God.

Here is my own little syllogism:

The present and past forms of all material things each have a past material cause(s).
The universe is a material thing.
Therefore, the universe has a past material cause, and that cause has a past material cause an so on for eternity.

I do not offer this as proof of an infinite godless regression, but only as demonstration of the futility of using our knowledge of cause and effect within the universe to extrapolate what occurred before the universe (assuming there is a before) or outside the universe.

5.  Subatomic Matter Does Not Appear To Behave Like Matter We Perceive 

At the subatomic level, things do appear to begin to exist, cease to exist, and change without  cause(s).  Any extrapolation concerning the cause of the universe (if any) based on what we know about the inside of the universe must take quantum mechanics into account.

6. Our Inability to Know Is Proof of Nothing in Particular

Even when postulating what is outside the universe and beyond what we may ever know, the god of the gaps remains a fallacy.

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Jenny,

Thanks for a well thought out post. I agree it does seem that when you get to things at or beyond the beginning of the universe, that you need to make some sort of jump from what is familiar. And I do realize, that what one might may be willing to concede for one, may not be for another.