First order logic, set theory and God

[Belacqua]

-and to that we can add...if the car disappears when some part burns up...which it doesn't...then a man would disappear when he lost a leg.....which, again, just a friendly psa, we don't.  

I pointed out a little earlier today that there is a difference between essential parts and accidental parts. 

For something like a T-shirt it's easy to see the difference. To be a T-shirt, the thing has to be made of something flexible and have holes for the head and arms. Those are the essential parts; if it lacks those, it's not a T-shirt. (A T-shirt-like-thing with no holes isn't a T-shirt, it's a sack.) The accidental parts are the color, the band logo, the inside label. Those things can change and it's still a T-shirt. 

It's a little less clear when we're dealing with people. No one would argue that a man missing a leg is no longer a man, and the OP doesn't demand that. I think that a man missing all his internal organs is no longer a man, though. A partial corpse is not a person. This could be argued, but since the OP includes function as a part of the system, I'd say that the ability to be alive is an essential part of a person. Lacking that, it's a corpse.

The essential parts of the person are essentially, not temporally, prior to the person.

[GrandizerII]

Rahn already described what was wrong with the above, a few posts back.

Is a blind man no longer a human being because he doesn't have two functioning eyes ?

According to P3, he's not. In fact he doesn't even logically exist until he has every functioning part that makes up a human being.

-and to that we can add...if the car disappears when some part burns up...which it doesn't...then a man would disappear when he lost a leg.....which, again, just a friendly psa, we don't.  If the type of cause we're referring to is the type of cause that makes some dependent x disappear in it's absence, neither car parts nor human parts are those kinds of causes...nor are cars and humans those kind of effects of those causes.  I've got cars out in my yard missing parts, and I've got a chunk lost here and there.

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-this, just for completeness sake, has implications for both non temporal and temporal notions of any first cause - in that if this cause was like car part causes and human part causes...it only needed to exist just long enough to instantiate those effects..and could have blinked out immediately afterward.

If this were the case...then the first cause could very literally not exist in the present.  Entirely like, as Belaqua pointed out.....our parents.  So, if we insist that car parts and human parts -are- the kind of causes we're discussing.....then they are exactly like temporal causal chains in the respect specified.

Couldn't they argue that enough parts need to make up a car in order for the whole to be a car? So a car may not have all the expected car parts but could still be a car if it has enough parts to render it a car (albeit not a "complete" car). And Belaqua does address this part in response to T0 Th3 M4X (if not mistaken) by referring to "essentials" and "accidents".

So I don't think this is sufficient objection to P3 unless I'm missing something else here.

[The Grand Nudger]

The objection is that it's sloppy...haven't even gotten into why the notion of parts is antithetical to first causes.  Is the first cause some -part- of the universe? Did part of the universe cause the universe? What would observations of parts of wholes (itself a problematic concept - the ultimate reason for all of the ambiguity in each of these descriptions of car parts and human parts and essential parts and accidental parts) tells us about something that is not supposed to be a part of anything, itself?

[Belacqua]

So a car may not have all the expected car parts but could still be a car if it has enough parts to render it a car (albeit not a "complete" car).

Once on a highway outside Mexico City I saw a guy driving along in an absolute minimum car. Wheels, tires, chassis, engine, steering. No body, doors, windows, even seats. He was sitting on a wad of foam rubber. Since it was running, I guess we can say it was a car, though the police might not have agreed. 

Take away any of those parts, though, and I think it transitions into something else. Junk, maybe.

[GrandizerII]

The objection is that it's sloppy...haven't even gotten into why the notion of parts is antithetical to first causes.  Is the first cause some -part- of the universe?  What would observations of parts of wholes tell us about something that is not supposed to be a part of anything, itself?

Yes, I was thinking about this just now actually. How do the three Ps inevitably lead to God (who is typically supposed to NOT be a part of this natural reality) as a first cause? I'm guessing there's a point behind P2 that I may have missed ... otherwise, the 3 Ps fail as a collective to prove a first cause God must exist.

[The Grand Nudger]

The point of p2 was to arbitrarily, and incorrectly (again, as rahn commented in that same post) exclude all other causes that could very well be one of the essential whatsits from consideration.

[Belacqua]

The objection is that it's sloppy...haven't even gotten into why the notion of parts is antithetical to first causes.  Is the first cause some -part- of the universe?  What would observations of parts of wholes tell us about something that is not supposed to be a part of anything, itself?

Yes, I was thinking about this just now actually. How do the three Ps inevitably lead to God (who is typically supposed to NOT be a part of this natural reality) as a first cause? I'm guessing there's a point behind P2 that I may have missed ... otherwise, the 3 Ps fail as a collective to prove a first cause God must exist.

The point to P2, if I'm reading it right, is that we can't pick an arbitrary point in an essential chain and declare that that's the cause of what follows on. 

When the OP wants to talk about the First Cause, it requires that we follow the essential chain all the way back. 

So let's say we've got all the car parts. And this is a Marvel Universe movie, so the car parts have some kind of flying nanotech, and when Tony Stark pushes a button they fly together and make a car. Someone might then say that the causal chain begins with the parts and ends with the car. 

But P2 won't let us do that, because the parts are caused, in their turn, by several things. 

~ Material cause: steel and nanotech
~ Formal cause: design
~ Efficient cause: Tony Stark
~ Final cause: to whisk Gwyneth Paltrow to safety

But I think P2 demands we go back even further, because Tony Stark depends for his existence on causes. Per accidens, he exists because of his parents, grandparents, etc. Per se, he exists because of organic matter and the laws of biology that allow him to exist. And then we follow back: what caused the laws of biology, etc. 

That's a bit silly, but applied to the real world it's important. 

Someone might say that a quantum flux started the whole universe. They would say that the causal chain begins there and continues through what we have now. But if we agree to P2, we're not allowed to begin at this arbitrary point, where something was already there. There was obviously  something quantum there which could fluctuate. More importantly, there were already laws of nature which meant that when the quantum flux occurred, it resulted in a universe. OK, the quantum flux was caused by a previous quantum flux, and pretty soon it's turtles all the way down. 

dron3 promises that Hatcher's proof avoids this infinite regress dilemma. I am hoping to figure that out soon.

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The point of p2 was to arbitrarily, and incorrectly (again, as rahn commented in that same post) exclude all other causes that could very well be one of the essential whatsits from consideration.

That's not correct. Rahn is not understanding the argument.

[GrandizerII]

The point of p2 was to arbitrarily, and incorrectly (again, as rahn commented in that same post) exclude all other causes that could very well be one of the essential whatsits from consideration.

I think Rahn misunderstood P2 and that the OP isn't saying that because gravity (A) causes some planet (B) that A directly causes all the later stuff that happens to it and/or becomes a part of it. I think what the argument is is that A causes B and all the stuff that collectively is B at the time A caused B.

That said, I still don't see the exact point behind P2. Can not the "first cause" cause the set that comprises it? And since it is "self-caused", then P2 could be true but it wouldn't rule out such a "first cause".

Note I haven't actually read the second half of his OP (so maybe I should get to that soon).

[The Grand Nudger]

The point to P2, if I'm reading it right, is that we can't pick an arbitrary point in an essential chain and declare that that's the cause of what follows on. 

-and yet we will do just that in determining that some thing x has no meaningful cause in the way that all other things simply must.

That's the hook of -every- argument from cause.  Assert a rule or set of rules for no purpose other than to assert some x to break them.

When the OP wants to talk about the First Cause, it requires that we follow the essential chain all the way back. 

Back to what, and how do you know when to stop?  

Someone might say that a quantum flux started the whole universe. They would say that the causal chain begins there and continues through what we have now. But if we agree to P2, we're not allowed to begin at this arbitrary point, where something was already there. There was obviously  something quantum there which could fluctuate. More importantly, there were already laws of nature which meant that when the quantum flux occurred, it resulted in a universe. OK, the quantum flux was caused by a previous quantum flux, and pretty soon it's turtles all the way down. 

If it seems like turtles all the way down.., why not go with that...why not accept some form of infinitism?  That's one way out of manchhausens trilemma.  Otherwise, what are we doing? Saying, "it seems like that..but...no..not that, anything but that".

That's how rahn did it, in the rejection of p1, lol. Either the chain of cause extends infinitely, or some things in the chain do. Between two things asserted to have existed concurrently for an indeterminate amount of time, one actual and the other hypothetical..whats our explanation for rational preference in considering one of them the cause of the other...again?

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What we have here, is an argument that asserts something even more inexplicable than the things it purports to explain.

Rejects whatever rule it asserts at any point of convenience.

In which any premise can be rationally rejected.

In which every premise accepted has a rational exception.

Which can be accepted in it's entirety without objection and still won't prove what it purports to report.

That leaves us, even at the end of it, asking precisely the same question as we began with.

Otherwise known as a giant pile of trash wrapped in clumsy and unnecessary formalism to occlude all of the above.

[Belacqua]

That's the hook of -every- argument from cause.  Assert a rule or set of rules for no purpose other than to assert some x to break them.

Certainly not. 

The Aristotelian/Thomist causal arguments have nothing breaking any rules. The argument is that everything that has a cause is caused by something other than itself. Nothing in the chain breaks this rule. 

When the OP wants to talk about the First Cause, it requires that we follow the essential chain all the way back. 

Back to what, and how do you know when to stop?  

In causal arguments, you stop when you get to something that hasn't been caused. 

If it seems like turtles all the way down.., why not go with that...why not accept some form of infinitism?  That's one way out of manchhausens trilemma.   Otherwise, what are we doing?   Saying, "it seems like that..but...no..not that, anything but that".

It might be an infinite regress. dron3 promises that Hatcher's argument avoids such a regress, but I haven't figured out how it does that yet, if it really does. 

Aquinas said he could not demonstrate that a per accidens series was not infinite in regress, but he did think he could show that a per se series must culminate in a first mover. So if you'd like an answer to your question you could work on those arguments. If it turns out that they're wrong, you'd at least be able to say why.