The First Cause? Prime Mover Argument

[Esquilax]

I'm sure that 20 years down the line, there will probably be a different model of physics again that may itself have very different implications for causality and time and a myriad other things. As truth doesn't change, but scientific consensus and theory do change, scientific consensus and theory cannot equal truth until they reach a point where they cease to change (but how would you ever know that the theory has reached a point where it can no longer change?)

Scientific consensus changes with the available evidence, as it should; it changes in reaction to how our ability to apprehend the truth expands, it follows the truth based on our observations. When our ability to observe expanded so that we could observe that the Earth was not flat, the scientific consensus altered. It altered more when we were able to leave the planet and view how it is from space. The fact that science changes with the evidence is not only its greatest strength, but to do anything else would be a downright ludicrous request, as you would literally be asking that science stands firm in something that's wrong. But to discard the current scientific consensus on the basis that it might be wrong, when it is based on all of the available evidence and observations that we have right now, is simply irrational; you are essentially abandoning all the evidence we have because maybe it's wrong, but you have no indication that it is, you're just assuming... because.

The criticism on the basis of quantum mechanics is fair, my belief is based on causality and time as being conditions for the possibility of human understanding. But I don't see how we can operate any other way. If the universe doesn't operate according to explicable concepts of time and causation then we literally cannot understand why anything is the way it is, or where it would have come from and must therefore remain agnostic about all things, which shoots atheism in the foot just as surely as anything else.

Do you not see an appreciable difference between "we don't know yet," and "can never be known"? The former is all we can establish yet, which is what makes arguments like yours fallacious; you're trying to make conclusions about things we can't yet explain, based upon observations that don't apply to the thing you're talking about.

The scientific world-view has its own irreducible assumptions, such as the assumption that a pattern of correlation can establish causation (I've seen 1 million swans and they were all white, therefore all swans are white). However both world views are consistent, given those axioms, so either can be reasonably chosen as a belief system.

So what you're saying is that "I've seen a million white swans and never seen a black swan, therefore there are black swans," is a more valid observation?

I mean, not that what you said is at all accurate in reference to what science does: the conclusion would better be described as "we have observed a million white swans, and this coloration seems consistent across all swans," with that conclusion being subject to change upon observation of a non-white swan. So... hey, maybe learn about the scientific method before you start telling us about the assumptions it makes?