Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: November 24, 2024, 8:15 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Argument for a Beginningless Existence
#11
RE: Argument for a Beginningless Existence
(April 17, 2015 at 11:49 pm)bennyboy Wrote:
(April 17, 2015 at 10:42 pm)Surgenator Wrote: The potential for change already assumes a something.
If you want to talk about infinite regression, we can talk about that.
What's wrong with that? Given that something exists, either it always existed, or some potential must have existed which enabled it to come into existence. What other possibilities could there logically be?
I think we have to accept that either infinite regression or universal eternity is the reality, and we are philosophically fucked as soon as we try to address that.

Surgenator is trying to show that I am presupposing my conclusion within my argument. If true, this would be a logical fallacy (specifically, begging the question or circular logic). However, I do not believe that the argument does this, and I tried to say why I think it does not make this presupposition in my previous post.
Reply
#12
RE: Argument for a Beginningless Existence
(April 17, 2015 at 8:16 pm)noctalla Wrote: I don't know if this argument has been made before (it probably has) but I thought I'd present it here and solicit some critiques. The argument is neither atheist nor theist in nature, but attempts to address the issue of first cause vs. infinite regression. 

[i] the Universe Exists. 
[ii] It could not have been the case that there was a state of affairs in which the Universe did not have the potential to exist (or the Universe would not currently exist). 
[iii] This potentiality, whatever its properties, cannot be absolutely nothing.
[iv] Therefore, something has always existed.

I would agree that absolute nothingness has no potentiality to change into something because to "have" any attributes implies a substratum upon which a change of any sort is able to occur, and whatever this substratum is, by definition it certainly cannot be said to be absolute nothingness (since to be anything is to be something). I don't think that your conclusion is necessarily incorrect, and it seems to follow from your three premises, but I might take fault with [ii]. Things get a bit thorny when you begin to speak about a "state of affairs" prior to the Singularity. Either it represents the boundary of all being, in which case there literally is nothing beyond it to ponder, or it represents a discontinuity so radical that any material or spatio-temporal antecedents to the big bang lie outside the scope of any possible investigation. 
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#13
RE: Argument for a Beginningless Existence
I don't wish to stamp all over discussion, but it's my opinion that applying standard thinking techniques is going to fail hard when we approach the extremes of the universe. All of science has come up against a hard barrier, and trying to waltz through it with a pipe in your mouth is definitely fun, but in the end it's just speculation. By all means go ahead, but I'm just noting that I don't see anything real that can possibly be gained through such discussion.

Reality is complicated, and if we don't have something we can get our grubby mits on, we have no way of knowing if we've run a marathon in the right or wrong direction.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
Reply
#14
RE: Argument for a Beginningless Existence
(April 17, 2015 at 8:16 pm)noctalla Wrote: I don't know if this argument has been made before (it probably has) but I thought I'd present it here and solicit some critiques. The argument is neither atheist nor theist in nature, but attempts to address the issue of first cause vs. infinite regression. 
[i] the Universe Exists. 
[ii] It could not have been the case that there was a state of affairs in which the Universe did not have the potential to exist (or the Universe would not currently exist). 
[iii] This potentiality, whatever its properties, cannot be absolutely nothing.
[iv] Therefore, something has always existed.
Excuse me for not answering earlier, but I had to sleep and other pressing needs.
I don't know what potentiality to exist means. Could you elaborate? Also, do you assume time to exist independent of the universe?
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

Reply
#15
RE: Argument for a Beginningless Existence
(April 18, 2015 at 2:35 am)robvalue Wrote: I don't wish to stamp all over discussion, but it's my opinion that applying standard thinking techniques is going to fail hard when we approach the extremes of the universe. All of science has come up against a hard barrier, and trying to waltz through it with a pipe in your mouth is definitely fun, but in the end it's just speculation. By all means go ahead, but I'm just noting that I don't see anything real that can possibly be gained through such discussion.
Reality is complicated, and if we don't have something we can get our grubby mits on, we have no way of knowing if we've run a marathon in the right or wrong direction.
I don't disagree, but when it comes to concepts or definitions that are so basic, such as "being" or "not-being," "is" or "is not," "motion" or "rest," "change" or "persist," etc., it seems to me reasonable to ask what these mean in relation to the totality of being, refining our ideas as the material world is further apprehended, of course (Ironically, as far as science has come from the ancient Greeks, the questions they asked are the ones physicists, mathematicians, cognitive scientists, etc. continue to debate).  
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#16
RE: Argument for a Beginningless Existence
Something always had to exist is obvious fact everyone who sincerely reflects knows. The thing it's either the building blocks of the universe always existed in some form or another, or a Creator who brought the universe into being existed. The fact that time is temporal by logical arguments (see the thread about eternal originator to time) and material universe will go back to the first point of time and time being a property of the universe, then it obviously was created by a Creator who is eternal. To believe time just appeared and automatically started on a eternal material thing is illogical, rather it's initial start would be the first point of time, call it time zero, but it had to have an eternal originator, because no point of time expands back forever.
Reply
#17
RE: Argument for a Beginningless Existence
@Mystic

"Time is temporal" is redundant. Time may be eternal. There is no logical argument or empirical evidence that precludes the possibility that time only exists in instants rather than instants in time. You have no evidence that time is a "property" of anything other than internal and external records in which your mind constructs a continuous line from A to F and presumes ABCDE to no longer exist in some sense. There is no more reason to think that the moment you perceive as "now" requires a Creator than the "now" we conceive as an event in the deep past. Now simply is. Past and future are concepts we rely on to measure duration, and that is itself largely ambiguous.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#18
RE: Argument for a Beginningless Existence
@Alex K - I am reluctant to put forth any particular attribute that the potentiality itself may have, other than non-nothingness. To do so would be making an argument from ignorance, as I have no evidence on which to draw. If someone were to object to the argument on the grounds that the proposed potentiality is a logical absurdity, I could put forth candidate scenarios for what the potentiality might look like. This could take the form of a God or it could be some sort of multiverse of the type Lawrence Krauss describes in A Universe From Nothing (he answers a question about universe producing quantum fluctuations at about 57:33 in this lecture entitled A Universe From Nothing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EilZ4VY5Vs). My argument is not meant to address particular attributes of the potentiality. That is a question I hope, in time, science will answer.

As for any assumption that time exists independent of the universe, I tried to be as careful as I could, not to assume any particular temporal properties of the universe. Time may exist outside of our observable universe (if there is a multiverse for example) Or it may not. I think the argument stands in either case.

@Nestor - I am being intentionally vague when I use the term 'state of affairs'. I tried to chose a term that did not carry a burden or make any assumptions about time (as I explained above). You state: "Either it represents the boundary of all being, in which case there literally is nothing beyond it to ponder, or it represents a discontinuity so radical that any material or spatio-temporal antecedents to the big bang lie outside the scope of any possible investigation." I'm not sure I agree. There may be other options. Proposed models of origins in theoretical physics might one day be validated by experimental data. One hopes anyway.

@MysticKnight "Something always had to exist is obvious fact everyone who sincerely reflects knows." - I don't agree with this. I think we shouldn't assume that those things which appear obvious are in fact true, even upon sincere reflection. They still need to be supported with evidence and argument. Let's not forget we are human and we can make mistakes. Not everyone who sincerely reflects on something comes up with the right answer. History is littered with obvious facts that have turned out to be wrong. Let's not commit hubris.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Proving the Existence of a First Cause Muhammad Rizvi 3 935 June 23, 2023 at 5:50 pm
Last Post: arewethereyet
  The existence of God smithd 314 28361 November 23, 2022 at 10:44 pm
Last Post: LinuxGal
  Veridican Argument for the Existence of God The Veridican 14 2545 January 16, 2022 at 4:48 pm
Last Post: brewer
  A 'proof' of God's existence - free will mrj 54 8534 August 9, 2020 at 10:25 am
Last Post: Sal
  Best arguments for or against God's existence mcc1789 22 3603 May 22, 2019 at 9:16 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  The Argument Against God's Existence From God's Imperfect Choice Edwardo Piet 53 10044 June 4, 2018 at 2:06 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God Edwardo Piet 58 15768 May 2, 2018 at 2:06 pm
Last Post: Amarok
  Berkeley's argument for the existence of God FlatAssembler 130 17397 April 1, 2018 at 12:51 pm
Last Post: Pat Mustard
  Arguments for God's Existence from Contingency datc 386 53137 December 1, 2017 at 2:07 pm
Last Post: Whateverist
  A good argument for God's existence (long but worth it) Mystic 179 38015 October 26, 2017 at 1:51 pm
Last Post: Crossless2.0



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)