(October 9, 2018 at 8:07 am)polymath257 Wrote:(October 8, 2018 at 2:27 pm)SteveII Wrote: I am happy to discuss each point with you in as much detail as you like. However, I am not going to have dueling Amazon book links. Pick one and give me the basics.
I'll start on the one you did actually expand on. The reason there must be a first cause is that a infinite amount of past causes/effects is not logically possible. There is no such possibility as an actual infinite number of anything in the real world. If there were an infinite number of past events, we could never have gotten to the events of today because there would still need to be an infinite amount of events that need to pass before we can get to today.
No scientist has ever had a theory where things come into being ex nihilo.
There is no *logical* contradiction to an infinite regress. There is also no *logical* contradiction to an actual infinity in the real world. Both of those are positions taken because of an adherence to Aristotelian philosophy that has been superseded by Cantorian logic.
Where you not just recently saying that these axioms are just made up, and need to see if they correspond to the real world? As well; how does this show that the issue with the logic against having an acutal infinity and against an infinite regress? It seems that you just assume that the numbers and axioms (which you admittedly make up) so; I don't see how this is supersedes anything and gets around the issues of traversing an infinite regress.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin
If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther