Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic

[Simon Moon]

It stands to reason that if you define something you exclude everything else that does not meet that definition. Does this mean you are making some sort of claims about everything else that does not fit the definition or does it give the everything else so sort of status that it did not have before? No, that's silly. 

But here's the problem specifically with KCA.

The set of everything that begins to exist, contains everything we encounter in the universe.

Besides your god, what else is in the excluded set of things that do not begin to exist?

If your set of exclusions (things that do not begin to exist) does not contain anything but your god, then you are smuggling the conclusion into the first premise.

[I_am_not_mafia]

But here's the problem specifically with KCA.

The set of everything that begins to exist, contains everything we encounter in the universe.

Besides your god, what else is in the excluded set of things that do not begin to exist?

If your set of  exclusions (things that do not begin to exist) does not contain anything but your god, then you are smuggling the conclusion into the first premise.

Not sure how anyone could express that more simply.

[RoadRunner79]

It stands to reason that if you define something you exclude everything else that does not meet that definition. Does this mean you are making some sort of claims about everything else that does not fit the definition or does it give the everything else so sort of status that it did not have before? No, that's silly. 

But here's the problem specifically with KCA.

The set of everything that begins to exist, contains everything we encounter in the universe.

Besides your god, what else is in the excluded set of things that do not begin to exist?

If your set of  exclusions (things that do not begin to exist) does not contain anything but your god, then you are smuggling the conclusion into the first premise.

There are a few issues with your argument.

1. The number of things to which the premise applies doesn't effect the logic, on which the conclusion is based.
   
2. You are making a different argument than the one that is being presented (which it is frowned upon to make up an argument just to knock down yourself).  However you will often see a relation between the conclusion and the premises.  It's the relation between these things, that make the conclusion follow from the logic.
   
3. The immediate conclusion to the syllogism that you are talking about is that - the universe had a cause.  So while the logic is flawed, your argument doesn't seem to apply (assuming that you are trying to accurately represent the KCA as presented by Steve or Dr. Craig.
   

[SteveII]

It stands to reason that if you define something you exclude everything else that does not meet that definition. Does this mean you are making some sort of claims about everything else that does not fit the definition or does it give the everything else so sort of status that it did not have before? No, that's silly. 

But here's the problem specifically with KCA.

The set of everything that begins to exist, contains everything we encounter in the universe.

Besides your god, what else is in the excluded set of things that do not begin to exist?

If your set of  exclusions (things that do not begin to exist) does not contain anything but your god, then you are smuggling the conclusion into the first premise.

A couple of things. One, an inductive argument is going to have, within its premises, mention of the subject (or in this case, it's negation) it is arguing for. There is no inherent logical problem nor is there a fallacy in this fact alone. I am not sure if you have a logical reason for thinking this important in this case or that you just think it should not happen in general. I would point you back to the All Men are Mortal...Socrates is Mortal argument. 

Two, not that it matters for the argument but a Platonist would say that a number of abstract objects would be included in the set of things that do not being to exists. Many mathematicians are Platonists. Another is people like Polymath and Grandizer think the universe exists infinitely in the past so did not begin to exist. It could also be another argument that there is nothing in that set. It's really not the question the argument was designed to analyze.

[LadyForCamus]

Um, snowflakes don't begin to exist. They are a re-arrangement of existing matter. If the sense in which you're using 'begin to exist' includes snowflakes forming, then it includes our universe transforming from a previous state of existence.

I think it's fair to say that a definition of an object can become apparent, in other words there is a point where you would say the water formed into what we would call a snowflake.  It's a definition that's realised rather than matter becoming to exist.

Yep.  The point at which our brains can recognize an object as it’s defined, like a snowflake, is probably the most coherent concept of ‘beginning to exist’ that humans can come up with.  But, it doesn’t follow that our ability to define and recognize objects necessitates that all objects must have an objective, singular cause.

[Jenny A]

Remember, the premise does not have to be 100% proven. It just has to be more likely than not. On this point, I would say it exceeds that threshold and is near the "almost definitely true" end of the spectrum. 

I remember no such thing. And I'm going to start here, because I find this statement flabergasting.

More likely than not is not the standard for premises in syllogisms. (I'll get to whether your premises exceed that standard in minute). If your standard is, "more likely than not," then you are obliged to add more likely than not to each conclusion following from that premise. If more than one of your premises is merely "more likely than not" the chances of the conclusion following from those premises will fall below 50%. For example, if the chance premise A is correct is 51% and the chance premise B is correct is also 51%, then the chances that they are both correct is just 26%. Even if the chances that each premise is correct are 70% the chances of both premises being correct drops to 49% and thus becomes less likely than not.

The most common use of the more likely than not standard (sometimes referred to as the preponderance of the evidence) is in the British and British based civil law system. It is not considered sufficient even in civil cases for the award of punitive damages. For punitive damages the standard is clear and convincing. Nor yet in criminal cases where the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. The reason civil cases use the very low standard of more likely than not is because in civil law cases the defendant will be unjustly injured by any award of damages against him, if he did not injure the plantiff. On the other hand if the defendant did injure the plaintiff, it would be unjust for the defendant not to compensate the plaintiff. Since one party or the other will be injured, we must decide between two competing interests and not deciding is in effect a decision for the defendant. So we choose the lowest standard of proof so that we have the best chance of doing right.

But that does not mean the jury is instructed to find each element more likely than not not, as that would not necessarily result in the defendant being more likely than not responsible for the plaintiff's injury.

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I'm not sure you do see my point.  We say a man painted a hose and therefore he is the cause it's new color.  Fertilization is why an embryo is formed, trees grow from nuts, erosion levels mountains, rivers cut valleys.  It is these examples of an orderly universe from which we deduce cause and effect.  None of these examples involve the creation of new matter.  No new matter is introduced into the world by the birth of a baby, the eruption of a volcano, or by building a house.  All of these things are just rearranging the molecular furniture.  And at least at the macro level, every such transformation appears to have a cause or really many causes. And as long as we are just talking about rearanging the furniture, that everything has a cause or causes is a reasonable premise.

But the beginning of the universe is a a real beginning to exist.  It is the beginning of time, matter, and energy.  In effect it is the beginning of objective reality.  Calling both (1) the creation of matter, and (2) the rearranging of matter "beginning to exist" is not inappropriate.  They are fundamentally different things.  So yes it every much matters (no pun intended).

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Extrapolating the rules for matter coming into being from the rules about how to rearrange matter is not possible.  It is a category error.

This is the point at which you are not understanding me. I am not extrapolating rules.  That would actually be a composition fallacy and not a category error--but that is beside the point. Premise 1 does not say: Everything that begins to exist in the universe has a cause. It it making a general statement that is meant to apply to all possible worlds, all possible universes, all possible states of reality that may have come prior to a particular universe. It is a metaphysical statement that applies to any existence -- not a scientific one which would only apply within our universe. 

WLC, the foremost authority on this argument, said it this way in an article:

Objection #4: The first premise is based upon the fallacy of composition. It fallaciously infers that because everything in the universe has a cause, therefore the whole universe has a cause.

Response to #4: In order to understand this objection we need to understand the fallacy of composition. This is the fallacy of reasoning that because every part of a thing has a certain property, therefore the whole thing has that same property. While wholes do sometimes possess the properties of their parts (for example, a fence, every picket of which is green, is also green), this is not always the case. For example, every little part of an elephant may be light in weight, but that does not imply that the whole elephant is light in weight.

Now I have never argued that because every part of the universe has a cause, therefore the whole universe has a cause. That would be manifestly fallacious. Rather the reasons I have offered for thinking that everything that begins to exist has a cause are these:

1. Something cannot come from nothing. To claim that something can come into being out of nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you've got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise (1) you've got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause.
2. If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn't come into being from nothing. Think about it: why don't bicycles and Beethoven and root beer just pop into being from nothing? Why is it only universes that can pop into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can't be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn't have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, since there isn't anything to be constrained!
3. Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise (1). Premise (1) is constantly verified and never falsified. It is hard to understand how any atheist committed to modern science could deny that premise (1) is more plausibly true than false in light of the evidence. [7]

Note well that the third reason is an appeal to inductive reasoning, not reasoning by composition. It's drawing an inductive inference about all the members of a class of things based on a sample of the class. Inductive reasoning undergirds all of science and is not to be confused with reasoning by composition, which is a fallacy.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/l...e-them-up/

That is where we disagree. The concept that something cannot come from nothing is an empirically based idea. Craig asserts it as an empirically based idea in his third reason, "Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise." It comes from observation of things within the universe. (Interestingly, it may not be true even within the universe at the quantum level. https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...icles-rea/) For this inductive reasoning to follow, one must take it as proof that the universe was made of something that predated the universe.

Let's take a look at Craig's other arguments for the premise that something cannot come from nothing

[I]f something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn't come into being from nothing . . . Why is it only universes that can pop into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can't be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn't have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, since there isn't anything to be constrained!

Interestingly, it still seems Craig is asserting that the universe was created from something. The actual argument doesn't work though. The discriminating factor could simply be that something only comes into being in actual nothingness. The universe is something, so things cannot spontaniouly begin to exist within it.

But let's assume for a moment that Craig is right that something can never come out of nothing. Lets take that a little further, as I did before:

You could of course argue that the universe is made up of pre-existing matter.  But if you go that way, then you will have to add all existing matter to the set of things that did not begin to exist in which case under your formulation, matter being eternal  would not need a cause.)

To which you responded

I wouldn't go that way.

I don't think Craig would go that way either. But all of his arguments in favor of the premise that all things that begin to exist have a cause are nothing more than arguments that something cannot come out of nothing. Coming into existence in his arguments is merely assuming a new form. It's a rearangement of the existing molecular furniture. Matter can only come from matter is the jist of his argument not that all matter has a cause. If matter cannot come from nothing, than the obvious conclusion is that the matter that makes up the world in this universe has always existed whether it was a universe or not. Other than it doesn't require God, what troubles you about this conclusion?

The idea that matter is it's own first cause of its current form is no less logical than that was also a preexisting thing that created the existing universe out of prexisting matter. In fact it's more likely as it only requires stuff that we know exists to have existed eternally and not that a thing we don't know exists to have existed externally.

If you reject the notion that the universe is made of preexisting stuff, than you are back to comparing what we know about the transformation of stuff from one form or another to the actual creation of stuff. Adding a magician (or god) to create stuff out of nothing is not helpful. It's merely a place holder for we don't know how stuff is created.

I won't think what we know about the transformation of stuff has any application to the actual creation of new material or whether the material out of which the universe is eternal.

There are several possibilities:

(1) The material out of which the universe is made is eternal and it's interactions with itself are it's own cause; or

(2) Something, i.e. the material out of which the universe is made, can begin to exist spontaneously, but actual nothing is required for spontaneous existence which is why stuff doesn't spontaniouly exist within the universe;

(3) Only the smallest most basic particles can spontaneously begin to exist. The universe began from the spontaneous generation of micro particles. That has the advantage of considering the spontaneous creation of virtual particles observed by physicists.

(4) A prexisting agency (you can call it god if you like, but I wouldn't as it's only attribute appears to be the abilty to create matter) of some kind created matter out of nothing.

(5) A preexisting agency of some kind created the universe out of prexeisting matter.

Of the five, I find 4 or 5 the least likely because they require the existense of something beyond what we know to exist.

[Amarok]

Craigs assertion that something cannot come from nothing is just that 

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/468

[Jenny A]

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But here's the problem specifically with KCA.

The set of everything that begins to exist, contains everything we encounter in the universe.

Besides your god, what else is in the excluded set of things that do not begin to exist?

---

If your set of  exclusions (things that do not begin to exist) does not contain anything but your god, then you are smuggling the conclusion into the first premise.

A couple of things. One, an inductive argument is going to have, within its premises, mention of the subject (or in this case, it's negation) it is arguing for. There is no inherent logical problem nor is there a fallacy in this fact alone. I am not sure if you have a logical reason for thinking this important in this case or that you just think it should not happen in general. I would point you back to the All Men are Mortal...Socrates is Mortal argument. 

Two, not that it matters for the argument but a Platonist would say that a number of abstract objects would be included in the set of things that do not being to exists. Many mathematicians are Platonists. Another is people like Polymath and Grandizer think the universe exists infinitely in the past so did not begin to exist. It could also be another argument that there is nothing in that set. It's really not the question the argument was designed to analyze.

Syllogisms cannot be used to prove the existence of things. There's nothing wrong with the Socrates is mortal syllogism because it does not attempt to prove the existence of immortals.

All men born of women are mortal
Socrates was not born of a women
Therefore Socrates is immortal

Anytime a syllogism provides new facts about the world instead of sorting out the facts we have, it involves a fallacy of some kind.

[LadyForCamus]

I understand your point. You are pointing out the difference between inside the universe and outside the universe and then insisting that it matters. You don't give reasons why it matters. Later on, you just say it is a category error. It's not, because I don't need a specific kind of cause to be true or to create "sets" with them. All that is needed to span any difference is that a causal principle is an objective feature of reality. This would apply both in and out of the universe. There are good reasons to believe this exists and no good reasons to think that it does not.

`

I'm not sure you do see my point.  We say a man painted a hose and therefore he is the cause it's new color.  Fertilization is why an embryo is formed, trees grow from nuts, erosion levels mountains, rivers cut valleys.  It is these examples of an orderly universe from which we deduce cause and effect.  None of these examples involve the creation of new matter.  No new matter is introduced into the world by the birth of a baby, the eruption of a volcano, or by building a house.  All of these things are just rearranging the molecular furniture.  And at least at the macro level, every such transformation appears to have a cause or really many causes. And as long as we are just talking about rearanging the furniture, that everything has a cause or causes is a reasonable premise.

But the beginning of the universe is a a real beginning to exist.  It is the beginning of time, matter, and energy.  In effect it is the beginning of objective reality.  Calling both (1) the creation of matter, and (2) the rearranging of matter "beginning to exist" is not inappropriate.  They are fundamentally different things.  So yes it every much matters (no pun intended).

Extrapolating the rules for matter coming into being from the rules about how to rearrange matter is not possible.  It is a category error.

(You could of course argue that the universe is made up of pre-existing matter.  But if you go that way, then you will have to add all existing matter to the set of things that did not begin to exist in which case under your formulation, matter being eternal  would not need a cause.)

Remember, Jenny:  it’s only a category error when atheists are asking the theist for an explanation of what god is made of, and how he functions.  But, as long as the theist can effectively equivocate by using nondescript language like, ‘beyond the universe’, suddenly we can know all sorts of facts about its objective features.  😏

It’s funny how we can “know” all the things that god is not; time-less, change-less, space-less, cause-less; but we can’t ever know exactly what he is.

Edit:

@steve

I’m very interested in your explanation for how events can happen absent time.

[RoadRunner79]

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A couple of things. One, an inductive argument is going to have, within its premises, mention of the subject (or in this case, it's negation) it is arguing for. There is no inherent logical problem nor is there a fallacy in this fact alone. I am not sure if you have a logical reason for thinking this important in this case or that you just think it should not happen in general. I would point you back to the All Men are Mortal...Socrates is Mortal argument. 

Two, not that it matters for the argument but a Platonist would say that a number of abstract objects would be included in the set of things that do not being to exists. Many mathematicians are Platonists. Another is people like Polymath and Grandizer think the universe exists infinitely in the past so did not begin to exist. It could also be another argument that there is nothing in that set. It's really not the question the argument was designed to analyze.

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Syllogisms cannot be used to prove the existence of things.  There's nothing wrong with the Socrates is mortal syllogism because it does not attempt to prove the existence of immortals.  

All men born of women are mortal
Socrates was not born of a women
Therefore Socrates is immortal

Anytime a syllogism provides new facts about the world instead of sorting out the facts we have, it involves a fallacy of some kind.

Are you getting this principle from somewhere else or is this something you came up with yourself. I haven't seen this as a standard philosophical principle, I'm trying to understand it. Do you know why this is.

The phrase, "it involves a fallacy of some kind" doesn't inspire confidence as a solid principle.