A former agnostic, with doubts?

[Madness20]

Crap, i was building extensive replys on a wordpad document this week, but it seems i forgot to save it and lost it in a power shutdown xD. I'll try to be synthethic this time.

Argument for first cause:
Universe has a cause - we all agree on that.

Not necessarily. Again, it's entirely possible you're forcing a temporal framework upon a system that is incompatible with it. What if causation began with the big bang? What then?

Not to mention that, in cases like this where we don't have sufficient evidence to make a determination about causes and what have you, the honest answer to give is "I don't know," not "I know there was a cause."

The causation beginning with the big bang, would make the universe an "uncaused" causual loop, is that what you are suggesting? Wouldn't that be contradiction?

Now what i'm transposing too, is that whatever created the universe, let's call it multiverse, either had a cause(begin), or always existed. By infinite regression, we'll either have a systematically continuously transcending infinite of causation, or an eternal "supreme" entity that created everything. Either way, one of them has to be the answer if we suppose every statement is correct.

What is the justification for asserting that the cause need be an "entity"? Couldn't an unconscious cause work just as well within the framework you've suggested?

I call it an entity as an existence, i could as well call it a thing. The "thing" is, this "thing" either is continuously transcending infinite, or it has a supreme. Your choice. xD

Exactly because "nothing" is defined as non-existence, and obviously couldn't exist. Something always was there, somehow. And the moment you define something can't come from "nothing" you simply can't accept there isn't something as eternity, in fact in terms of physics we know such thing as infinite time distortion is possible.
If you don't agree with this, i'd like to see you arguing how can something come from nothing.

Our own "time" was created in the big bang, but nothing contradicts that time exists outside the universe, and the fact that we know both space and time can infinitely distort, and they behave like something we call "branes"/dimensions, and also according to string theory, these dimensions and more exist outside the universe, and created our universe the same way as it "probably" created infinitelly more. We're just on our own spacetime distortion "bubble".

And again, no evidence= I don't know, regardless of the speculation.

No evidence for what? That some kind of arrow of time must preceed the Big Bang? This is the obvious conclusion, like Tobie said, if the universe shifted from 2 different states, something must have allowed that shift, which is an analogy to time must have passed somehow.

Welcome!

- The universe requires a cause.
...
- Whatever primary cause the universe has, it must be eternal.
...
- The primary cause, created everything.

As soon as you decide that you're okay believing in things that are eternal or "outside of time", I have to ask you: how do you know the universe isn't eternal? I certainly have no proof that it is, but we have no proof of any gods, either. You have to assume them in your premise to reach them as a conclusion with the cosmological argument.

We know there is a universe. We don't know there are any gods. Why add extra assumptions to the equation?

Well, according to all recent theorys/facts, the universe we live in is finite and was created. So it's obvious that "this" precise universe is not eternal per se. So if this universe isn't eternal, something beyond it must be.
And i'm not certainly arguing for the existence of gods as there's no definition of a god, i'm arguing for the existence of something "supreme" to the universe, that is eternal, creating and the primary cause of everything else, which can be a posteriori called as God.
If we assume the existence of an eternal supreme being to the universe can be true, then God could be possible, not the other way around.

- Intelligence/Determination
...
There's just one way i would adjectivate the complex organization of our universe: brilliantly suspiciously organized.

Yes, the universe has a lot of amazing, predictable qualities which can be described using systems. Note: we are intelligent and we can create predictable systems. That does not necessarily mean that any predictable system must have been created by some intelligent thought.

Framing it that way is easy and comfortable from our point of view, but that's not a valid logical conclusion to make.

But that's exactly my point, isn't it incredibly weird that a "randomly" generated universe would have this scale of predictability and precision, to the point that the universe itself functions with strict casual laws and effects, and these same laws organize themselves into all the different dependencies of the universe and on life forms?
Isn't it weird that we have a well defined causual system and timearrow, when presumably our universe could and should be way more chaotic?

[Esquilax]

The causation beginning with the big bang, would make the universe an "uncaused" causual loop, is that what you are suggesting? Wouldn't that be contradiction?

Well, I'm suggesting that I don't know, mainly, but the point is that our understanding of causation isn't readily equipped to deal with a pre-big bang world. If there's no time there's nothing for any cause to happen in; this is weird stuff, stuff that we aren't even able to properly talk about without knowing more about the mechanics of it. All I'm saying is that it's unjustified to assume that things progressed in a straight cause-to-effect line before there was linear time. For all we know, the "cause" to the universe could be some innocuous thing that happened after the universe expanded, but still happened to cause the big bang due to reverse causality in whatever was beyond it.

I call it an entity as an existence, i could as well call it a thing. The "thing" is, this "thing" either is continuously transcending infinite, or it has a supreme. Your choice. xD

Or a lot of other things. No need to be making false dichotomies here.

Exactly because "nothing" is defined as non-existence, and obviously couldn't exist. Something always was there, somehow. And the moment you define something can't come from "nothing" you simply can't accept there isn't something as eternity, in fact in terms of physics we know such thing as infinite time distortion is possible.
If you don't agree with this, i'd like to see you arguing how can something come from nothing.

I don't need to do either. I just need to point out, yet again, that the correct position to take when you don't yet have sufficient evidence is "I don't know," rather than assuming based on potentially incorrect fragments of data.

No evidence for what? That some kind of arrow of time must preceed the Big Bang? This is the obvious conclusion, like Tobie said, if the universe shifted from 2 different states, something must have allowed that shift, which is an analogy to time must have passed somehow.

And there you go again, making leaps of logic based on your intuition. I'm always leery of people saying that things are "obvious," because usually they aren't and the person just wants to bypass actually demonstrating their premises, like you have here. You have nothing to suggest linear causation, nothing to discount reverse causation, or even just some third thing we don't know about yet, but for some reason you're still making declarative statements as though you do know.

Get used to the limits of human knowledge. Stop pretending.

Isn't it weird that we have a well defined causual system and timearrow, when presumably our universe could and should be way more chaotic?

Like this, for example: how did you determine that an undesigned universe "should" be more chaotic? How, with your sample size of one, did you decide that? What was your data set? And if you only used the one universe we have, then aren't you begging the question?

Not to mention this entire thing is just a fallacious argument from personal incredulity anyway, but it also fails on its own merits too.

[RobbyPants]

Well, according to all recent theorys/facts, the universe we live in is finite and was created. So it's obvious that "this" precise universe is not eternal per se. So if this universe isn't eternal, something beyond it must be.
And i'm not certainly arguing for the existence of gods as there's no definition of a god, i'm arguing for the existence of something "supreme" to the universe, that is eternal, creating and the primary cause of everything else, which can be a posteriori called as God.
If we assume the existence of an eternal supreme being to the universe can be true, then God could be possible, not the other way around.

Perhaps the part of the universe we can observe is just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm not trying to promote pantheism or push this idea as fact, but I'm trying to say two things:
1) It's fine to not have an answer to the question. Not having an answer isn't a good reason to push for an otherwise unsupported hypothesis.
2) As easy as it is to shoehorn something that could be called "god" into the equation, it's just as easy to fabricate other unsupported causes.

But that's exactly my point, isn't it incredibly weird that a "randomly" generated universe would have this scale of predictability and precision, to the point that the universe itself functions with strict casual laws and effects, and these same laws organize themselves into all the different dependencies of the universe and on life forms?
Isn't it weird that we have a well defined causual system and timearrow, when presumably our universe could and should be way more chaotic?

No, not really. You're putting the cart before the horse. Yes, it could have been an infinite number of other things, but it isn't. The fact that it is this way isn't indicative of any intelligence.

Yes, humans can create complex things and systems than have an intelligent cause. This does not mean that every complex thing or system has an intelligent cause. That's just bad induction.

[Madness20]

The causation beginning with the big bang, would make the universe an "uncaused" causual loop, is that what you are suggesting? Wouldn't that be contradiction?

Well, I'm suggesting that I don't know, mainly, but the point is that our understanding of causation isn't readily equipped to deal with a pre-big bang world. If there's no time there's nothing for any cause to happen in; this is weird stuff, stuff that we aren't even able to properly talk about without knowing more about the mechanics of it. All I'm saying is that it's unjustified to assume that things progressed in a straight cause-to-effect line before there was linear time. For all we know, the "cause" to the universe could be some innocuous thing that happened after the universe expanded, but still happened to cause the big bang due to reverse causality in whatever was beyond it.

But the thing is, nothing really states there was no time "before"/beyond the big bang, what's is staten, is that as far as we know, the existence of time prior to planck second is basically irrelevant, because our universe had it's own space-time phasing by being born from a singularity, which means that everything was built in an independent spacetime inflation, simillar to what is thought to happen in places like black holes, but at a much greater scale.

For the most advanced set of physics theory's like string theory and quantum mechanics, the most widely accepted idea is that our universe is a simple result of interception of dimensions/"branes" that already existed and, with great probability, create indefinite ammounts of universes with different ammounts of energy and matter and dimensions arrangements.

Also, i disagree with your definition of the possibility of an innocuous cause to our universe being created by the universe itself. If it's caused and causes the universe, it certainly can't be innocuous, and uncreated causal loops simply are contradiction.

I call it an entity as an existence, i could as well call it a thing. The "thing" is, this "thing" either is continuously transcending infinite, or it has a supreme. Your choice. xD

Or a lot of other things. No need to be making false dichotomies here.

I'm unsure it's really a false dichotomy, it could probably be somewhat proved by simple induction in set theory, like this informal example:

Universe is everything or exists some i natural that U C Ui
Ui is everything or exists Ui+1 that Ui C Ui+1

If exists k € N: Any p =\= k : U(p) C U(k)
=> U(k) is a majorant to everything, and it's supreme of U(i)
Which is the same as same as saying that the collection of everything has a supreme collection.

Else U(i) is not majored <=> Any p, exists l € N : U(p) C U(l)

Which is the same as saying every universe is part of a bigger collection - which i called "infinitelly transcendant"

Exactly because "nothing" is defined as non-existence, and obviously couldn't exist. Something always was there, somehow. And the moment you define something can't come from "nothing" you simply can't accept there isn't something as eternity, in fact in terms of physics we know such thing as infinite time distortion is possible.
If you don't agree with this, i'd like to see you arguing how can something come from nothing.

I don't need to do either. I just need to point out, yet again, that the correct position to take when you don't yet have sufficient evidence is "I don't know," rather than assuming based on potentially incorrect fragments of data.

Of course i don't know, but i believe in logics capacity to formulate absolute truths or extrapolations, and "nothing" is an absolute definition of the absence of anything existing - a.k.a. not existing, again, even in physics the closest thing you have to "nothing" is a void of time and space that actually contains an absurd ammount of energy, and that "nothing" has particles generating within it and annihilating themselves all the time. Again, i'm formulating my beliefs, it'd be counterproductive to simply state "i don't know".
And to be honest, i feel that "I don't know" was never actually a productive position in terms of science and obtaining answers, it might be great at refusing to explain your own beliefs, but that's it.
"i bellieve/ i suspect/ i doubt" is actually the position that might benefict and enrich science and metaphysics.

No evidence for what? That some kind of arrow of time must preceed the Big Bang? This is the obvious conclusion, like Tobie said, if the universe shifted from 2 different states, something must have allowed that shift, which is an analogy to time must have passed somehow.

And there you go again, making leaps of logic based on your intuition. I'm always leery of people saying that things are "obvious," because usually they aren't and the person just wants to bypass actually demonstrating their premises, like you have here. You have nothing to suggest linear causation, nothing to discount reverse causation, or even just some third thing we don't know about yet, but for some reason you're still making declarative statements as though you do know.

Get used to the limits of human knowledge. Stop pretending.

I have nothing to suggest linear causation? All science is based in linear causation, it's not me arguing, the fact that we have very consolidate theorys that can simply explain the inflation of the universe through simple causations, it's in itself evidence to say that we do live in a linear causation world. Again, Big bang theory just can't explain anything before planck second, which is a ridiculously small ammount of time, but science has great suppositions that might eventually come to be shown true.
Even in quantum mechanics, despite certain oscilations being stocastic and that can only be described in probability waves, but anyway probabilities become frequences and on a mass scale, quantum uncertainty is irrelevant, and that's why in terms of mechanical physics' everything works just, right. There's also the factor that many of this "uncertainty" is just "theoretical" and might easily be disproved with more information on string theory for example.

Isn't it weird that we have a well defined causual system and timearrow, when presumably our universe could and should be way more chaotic?

Like this, for example: how did you determine that an undesigned universe "should" be more chaotic? How, with your sample size of one, did you decide that? What was your data set? And if you only used the one universe we have, then aren't you begging the question?

Not to mention this entire thing is just a fallacious argument from personal incredulity anyway, but it also fails on its own merits too.

Ok, this, i accept it's a fallacy, but the "logical" nature of our universe still isn't logical if we don't consider that logic certainly extends beyond it, and universes too.

Even in consideration that this is an "oasis" of logic, total symmetrys, special entropical entity with perfect causation chains, stable higgs fields, the forces stabilities, stable atomic connections that allow the complexity and total replication of organic matter and every other "special" event to our universe, in comparison to other possible universes, we're assuming an ever replicating machine trying to recombine itself into different sets of logics or lack of it, which in itself, is an unexplainable "intent"/determination, unless we recognize there is "intent"/determination indeed.

That there is a great dose of "intelligence" in the way our universe organizes, it's undeniable in my opinion, and i'm not necessarily implying the intelligence might be evidence for a god, but certainly is evidence for a "greater" design that our universe is just a partition of. Even without a god, i must say again, it's brilliant.

[Mudhammam]

That there is a great dose of "intelligence" in the way our universe organizes, it's undeniable in my opinion, and i'm not necessarily implying the intelligence might be evidence for a god, but certainly is evidence for a "greater" design that our universe is just a partition of. Even without a god, i must say again, it's brilliant.

So long as you acknowledge the equivocal use of words such as "intelligence," "design," and "brilliant" in application to natural laws and processes, I'm inclined to agree; it is an entirely valid emotive description, just not an empirical or rational one.

[Chas]

Again, i'm formulating my beliefs, it'd be counterproductive to simply state "i don't know".
And to be honest, i feel that "I don't know" was never actually a productive position in terms of science and obtaining answers, it might be great at refusing to explain your own beliefs, but that's it.
"i bellieve/ i suspect/ i doubt" is actually the position that might benefict and enrich science and metaphysics.

It's already part of science.

I believe == It has been shown beyond reasonable doubt.
I suspect == I have a hypothesis about ...
I doubt == There is some evidence against that
I don't know == There is insufficient or contradictory data

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That there is a great dose of "intelligence" in the way our universe organizes, it's undeniable in my opinion, and i'm not necessarily implying the intelligence might be evidence for a god, but certainly is evidence for a "greater" design that our universe is just a partition of. Even without a god, i must say again, it's brilliant.

I deny it. There is no good evidence of design.

[The Grand Nudger]

i can't help but find curious how at least 3 of the most common atoms in the universe generate life

Elements, you mean? Which ones are you referring to? Chances are it's not really that curious......but, that's assuming you're talking elements (a sizable portion of why it's not all that curious is actually contained within the statement you made about how curious you find it to be). Not sure what you mean by "generate life" either, but I don;t think that's all that important to harp on, so.

[bennyboy]

The primary cause doesn't work, because it's a shell game. It goes something like this: the universe exists so it must have been created. But if something created the universe, what created it? Well, we need something that exists without needing to be created-- the prime cause.

This then goes to deism: since whatever caused the universe cannot be OF the universe, it is separate. How could something outside spacetime be responsible for a creative act? The answer is that it cannot be a physical entity, because physical causality requires an established spacetime framework, and must therefore be a spiritual one, aka God.


There are two problems: 1) We don't know that the universe is not eternal, and therefore don't know if it WAS created at all. 2) Creating a philosophical mystery to solve a philosophical mystery is cheating. You are saying, "Let X be that which exists but which never needed to be created, and that X can be the creator of the universe." But if you're cheating, why not just do it at the level of the universe: "The universe exists but never needed to be created." Why invent a new quantity, or worse, a new mythology, when all you're really trying to say is that somewhere, somehow, black is white and up is down?

A simpler solution is: Holy fuck! The universe is full of paradoxes! rather than "Paradoxes are impossible, so let's invent an impossible solution."