Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[polymath257]

I disagree. The likelihood is precisely the same: guaranteed in both cases. Either something exists and there are natural laws that describe its properties, or things are random and the laws of probability apply. Either way, there would be natural laws. The only other case is where nothing exists, and we know that isn't the case.

What do you mean by "guaranteed in both cases"..........? Appeal to randomness doesn't explain anything, I don't understand how you can assert such nonsense. Given randomness, it's vastly more likely that... randomness arises, no laws, complete chaos. Given a rational lawgiver, a personal designer, it's vastly more likely that an orderly universe arises. This can't be more straightforward.

How is it vastly more likely? Seriously, why would it be any more likely in the case of a designer (who has to obey their own rules of behavior---in other words, other physical laws).

Imagine that, one morning, you enter the kitchen and find a plate and cup on the table, with breadcrumbs, and some peanut butter on it, plus a pack of sugar, and empty cartons of milk. You conclude that one of your house-mates got up at night to make him- or herself a midnight snack and was too tired to clear the table. This, you think, best explains the scene you are facing. Now,  it might be that someone burgled the house and took the time to have a bite while on the job, or a house-mate might have arranged the things on the table without having a midnight snack but just to make you believe that someone had a midnight snack. But these hypotheses are clearly more contrived explanations of the data at hand.

Based on the laws of physics that we are accustomed to, yes. With different laws, no. You are assuming the laws we work under are the only ones possible.

We apply the same kind of reasoning (i.e. abduction/inference to the best explanation) when it comes to the appearance of design, talk as long as you want about randomness bringng about pretty fish and determining the value of the cosmological constant... it's embarassingly contrived and completely unwarranted.

The difference, of course, is that we know that kitchen plates don't move around by themselves. There physical properties do not allow for that. This means that there has to be something else that moves them.

In the case of the universe and its components, we know that they *do* move around by themselves because they have properties and thereby obey natural laws. For example, gravity naturally and without intelligent intervention, allows for the formation of stars and planets. In spite of their having structure and being orderly, not designer is required for their formation. The natural laws are sufficient.

And no, it's not straightforward that the laws of probability apply. You should first define carefully Kolmogorov's axioms, and, more importantly, define a sample space which includes all possible outcomes. In the case of a coin toss, the sample space would be {Heads, Tails}, it could of course be a much more complicated set in other examples. In the case of a random universe... I don't see how we can meaningfully define a sample space and start assigning probabilities to each outcome.

Well, does this random universe have any properties at all? if so, those properties themselves provide natural laws (what is a property but a potential for a type of interaction?).

if there are no properties at all, then we would not be here at all, so there would be no discussion.

The question, as I see it, is whether, given the fact that a universe with properties exists, is it more probable that it came from a designer or that it did not? This is a different question than whether a designer would make an ordered universe or not.

And the way to tell that relative probability is to have some idea what sorts of universes would come about with a creator and what sorts would come about without one and compare them to the actual universe. And at that point, I see no way to establish the probabilities either way.

Finally, don't forget that any proposed designer has to have some 'rules of behavior'. In this context, those rules of behavior *are* the 'physical' laws that the designer obeys. But that means that such rules are *prior* logically to the designer.

And we know that we are inclined to attribute intentions to things that have none: how many people name their cars or complain about their computers being cranky?

This is a well-known fault in how the human mind works and so it needs to be guarded against. That is quite sufficient to show that appearances are not enough in this case.

That's not a defeater to the principle of credulity. We were ultimately wrong about the luminiferous aether but we weren't wrong when we accepted it, temporarily, as a a plausible explanation. All science is based on the appearances, all scientific explanations are an inference to the best explanation of the available data, and the best explanation might be wrong, but one simply can't have better than the best explanation, nor is justified in going with any other contrived explanation.

Absolutely true. But seldom is the 'best explanation' the one that immediately comes to mind via intuition. And, given our tendency to attribute intention to inanimate objects, it is good to be skeptical of any conclusion of intention unless the evidence is very good.

I see you don't understand basic logic. I am showing how your proposed contradiction is not a contradiction within my model.

So what? A wrong model can also be empty of contradictions .............. You assumed an eternal past on your model and then incorporated a starting point. Nice sleight of hand.

No, I never included a starting point. In fact, that was the whole argument: there need not be a starting point.

Yes, a consistent model can be wrong. But you were claiming an infinite regress is a self-contradiction. If you admit that an infinite regress is *internally consistent*, that is quite enough to show that the Kalam argument fails.

I am going you to ask you again once: Can false propositions yield true propositions ? If you really know anything at all about logic, you would know, above all, that false implies everything.

Agreed/ That is very basic (although standard) logic. And it holds both ways: if the existence of God is false, then the assumption of God would prove everything.

But so what? I am not claiming there has been an actual infinite regress. I think it is *possible*, but I do not know whether there has been one or not.

YOU are claiming such cannot happen. You have proposed a contradiction, but I showed that it is NOT a contradiction in that model. You now seem to be agreeing that the model is internally consistent (but you claim it is wrong). if so, that destroys your argument that an infinite regress is inconsistent.

Your false model being empty of contradictions doesn't prove your case, it only reveals you are confused.

No, my model being free of contradictions shows that having an infinite regress is not self-contradictory. And *that* shows that the Kalam argument fails.

Most things have more than one cause, so it is reasonable to assume that, if the universe is caused, it has multiple causes. That seems like a very good reason.

You should elaborate more on the assertion "Most things have more than onc cause". We know to distinguish between several categories of causes since Aristotle.......

I think it quite obvious. Most events involve an interaction of more than one thing. When there are two things, that means there are at least two causes. And, of course, both of those things have their own causes (usually more than one), and so we get an infinite tree of previous causes, not a line of causes.

And, I am talking about what Aristotle would call 'efficient causes'. The other types of Aristotle enumerated we not longer consider to be causes.

Which we know happens in reality in quantum systems. There is no 'reason' why electron-positron pairs appear out of nothing, exist for a while, and disappear again.

Gosh.. not this again. QM violates determinism, not causality. Besides, as I explained pages ago, an object or particle in QM should be redefined because it doesn't have the same nature as in classical mechanics, QM incorporates probabilistic reasoning. When everything is defined properly, there is no violation of causality.

Then, please describe *exactly* what you mean when you say one event causes another. And, in particular, detail how the time of a muon decay is caused under your understanding.

And I am saying the universe potentially didn't begin to exist. If it is a consistent possibility for your god, then it is also consistent for the universe.

You're not really comparing like with like, you know... God is purportedly timeless, the universe is not.

I disagree. Time is part of the universe. It is *within* the universe. The universe is a four dimensional spacetime manifold.

But that means that the universe as a whole is timeless. it simply exists. All causality is *within* it.

On the contrary, it is unreasonable to think that something as complicated as a lawgiver (especially one that is conscious) can exist without physical laws.

Um.. what? 

The physical laws describe the physical world by definition, that's what 'physical' means. A lawgiver obviously is not physical ... so?

But what does it mean to be physical?

Physical laws describe the behavior of things. We then say that the things they describe are physical. So, the reason electromagnetic waves are physical is that they interact with things in a regular way. That is what allows us to write down physical laws.

A designer has to obey some sort of 'laws of behavior'. And those laws of behavior would be the physical laws for that designer.

there must be a *method* by which the designer puts the design into practice. And that method is, again, a set of behaviors of the materials, and is thereby a set of physical laws.

Remember, physical laws are *descriptive* and not *prescriptive*. that means that *anything* that has patterned behavior is subject o physical laws: the patterns *are* physical laws.