First order logic, set theory and God

[Angrboda]

No, I wouldn't have.  The existence of a fallacy indicates that your conclusion doesn't follow from the premises.  That's how logic works, dumbass.  I could have pointed out other errors, but there was no need to do so having established the one.  A point that apparently sailed over your head.

Are you really this stupid?

In all honesty, the impression one gets by reading your posts is akin to a douche on a futile endeavor of throwing around "fallacy" this and "fallacy" that, and not even understanding what they're talking about. Perhaps you should understand that you don't get the decisive edge in an argument by simply brandishing retardedly your "Fallacy" wand at every chance you get and cramming your goddamn post with an impressive-sounding Latin term. Ironically enough, you're just as guilty of committing the fallacy of supposing you can defeat an argument simply by appealing to a named fallacy. You fucking dunce.

So, in other words, you really are this stupid. In the first place, I didn't just throw out the term fallacy, I gave the reason why it was fallacious, namely that it doesn't prove God exists, but rather that something that isn't necessarily God exists. The use of the Latin phrase is merely a shorthand for intelligent people to convey exactly what kind of error is involved and so convey why it is an error. Since you apparently aren't intelligent, it does not convey much to you. Feel free to name the fallacy that you think I've committed by pointing out the problem with your argument and naming the species of fallacy it is. I expect that you won't, and instead we'll hear more moronic bluster about how a fallacy is not fatal to a logical argument. Good luck with that, loser.

[Rahn127]

The phrase "began to exist"

I used this analogy in another thread but I like ice, so I'll use it again.

A cup of water is left outside over night and on this particular night, it got cold enough to create a little ice in the cup of water.
First question ....When did the ice "begin to exist" ?
Was ice "created" ? When creationists say the universe was created, would they also say that the ice was "created" ?

A baseball bat can be whittled down from a tree branch.
The branch existed the entire time, so when did the branch stop existing and the baseball bat began to exist ?

[brewer]

Still waiting for god to show up.

[Pat Mustard]

Re Thomists, if they are against the chain of causality argument as you suggest, then they are against Aquinas, as that is his first cause argument, ie that everything must have a cause, therefore god (and don't ask about god's cause).  This is because Aquinas restated Kalaam for a christian audience.

My reading would indicate something different. I checked the ultimate cause of all truth (Wikipedia) just now. Their summary of Kalam is this way:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
2. The universe began to exist;
Therefore:
3. The universe has a cause.

I may be wrong, but I see that as a temporal beginning. 

Aristotle thought the universe had no temporal beginning; it was eternal. Aquinas reasoned that neither science nor logic can show that the universe began. If we think that it had a temporal beginning point, as in a literal reading of Genesis, we have to take it on faith. 

But I'm pretty sure that Kalam goes for a temporal first cause, whereas Aquinas/Aristotle is talking about a non-temporal, essential series.

Here is how it was explained to me by a guy I chat with on line sometimes. He's at the University of Chicago, and is a leading expert on Aristotle:

Try: an essentially ordered series vs. a temporally ordered one.

e.g. Parents are temporally and necessarily prior to their children. Even should the parents die/vanish, the children remain (temporally ordered series)

Space-time is essentially and necessarily prior to carbon atoms. Should space-time vanish, so too, simultaneously, do any and allcarbon atoms vanish (i.e. there can be space-time without carbon atoms, but there can't be carbon atoms without space-time)

Your reading is wrong. Aquinas' three points are the same as the Kalaam points, except god replaces allah.

[Belacqua]

Your reading is wrong.  Aquinas' three points are the same as the Kalaam points, except god replaces allah.

The Stanford Encyclopedia backs me up on this. What they say confirms what I have read elsewhere.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmo...-argument/

Philosophers employ diverse classifications of the cosmological arguments. [...] The first, advocated by Aquinas, is based on the impossibility of an essentially ordered infinite regress. The second, which Craig terms the kalām argument, holds that an infinite temporal regress of causes is impossible because an actual infinite is impossible, and even if it were possible it could not be temporally realized. The third, espoused by Leibniz and Clarke, is overtly founded on the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Craig 1980: 282–83).

I added the bolding. And from the same source:

In Aquinas’s version, consideration of the essential ordering of the causes or reasons proceeds independent of temporal concerns. The relationship between cause and effect is treated as real but not temporal, so that the first cause is not a first cause in time but a sustaining cause. In the kalām version, however, the temporal ordering of the causal sequence is central, introducing issues of the nature of time into the discussion.

[Paleophyte]

(1) Arguments aren't evidence. Can you imagine a murder trial where the prosecution failed to demonstrate that anybody had been killed?

(2) I'll entertain an argument from First Cause as soon as somebody can show me how a cause can exist without space-time. Kindly try not to use nouns or verbs while explaining how that is possible.

[Belacqua]

(1) Arguments aren't evidence. Can you imagine a murder trial where the prosecution failed to demonstrate that anybody had been killed?

Some things are proved through logic, and some things are proved through evidence. 

Just because murder trials are proved (in large part) through evidence, doesn't mean that logical syllogisms work the same way.

Although in fact, simple logic will be used throughout a murder trial. 

~ A man can not be in two places at the same time.
~ The suspect was in Chicago and the murder was in New York.
~ Therefore, the suspect is innocent. 

It's so simple it may not even look like logic, but without logic we wouldn't have the correct conclusion. 

(2) I'll entertain an argument from First Cause as soon as somebody can show me how a cause can exist without space-time. 

The First Cause argument is intended to address whether space-time can exist without a cause. People who are persuaded by the argument think that space-time requires a cause. 

To counter this, we first have to know accurately what the argument consists of. 

All I've been saying on this thread is that the Aristotelian/Thomist argument addresses an essential sequence, not a temporal one.

[dr0n3]

My point is that first order logic doesn't describe reality very well.

There is an awful lot of fundamentally important stuff that it cannot describe at all. Making your so called proof worthless if you are trying to say something about the nature of reality. For example thermodynamics, complexity and chaos.

It is not grounded in reality any more than the English language.

Which completely misses the point I am making in that reality is continuous whereas your arguments of causality are discrete.

As I said, your description of reality is not sufficiently powerful enough to say anything worthwhile at all.

You're making an awful lot of assumptions here.


First, on what basis is first-order logic inefficient at describing reality ? What are the "fundamentally important stuff" that it cannot describe, from an ontological perspective? How do you define the nature of reality? More importantly, what makes you think that the structure of reality and logical abstractions aren't intricately related ? Is reality merely encompassed through empiricism and sensational perception or is it derived through primary rational notions such as 'cause','effect', 'substance', 'necessity', 'existence', ect.. or is it both? I could go on and on Mathilda. A wise lady once said - "Assumptions are quick exits for lazy minds."

In all honesty, the impression one gets by reading your posts is akin to a douche on a futile endeavor of throwing around "fallacy" this and "fallacy" that, and not even understanding what they're talking about. Perhaps you should understand that you don't get the decisive edge in an argument by simply brandishing retardedly your "Fallacy" wand at every chance you get and cramming your goddamn post with an impressive-sounding Latin term. Ironically enough, you're just as guilty of committing the fallacy of supposing you can defeat an argument simply by appealing to a named fallacy. You fucking dunce.

So, in other words, you really are this stupid.  In the first place, I didn't just throw out the term fallacy, I gave the reason why it was fallacious, namely that it doesn't prove God exists, but rather that something that isn't necessarily God exists.  The use of the Latin phrase is merely a shorthand for intelligent people to convey exactly what kind of error is involved and so convey why it is an error.  Since you apparently aren't intelligent, it does not convey much to you.  Feel free to name the fallacy that you think I've committed by pointing out the problem with your argument and naming the species of fallacy it is.  I expect that you won't, and instead we'll hear more moronic bluster about how a fallacy is not fatal to a logical argument.  Good luck with that, loser.

God damn it, there goes another full bucket of puerile verbal diarrhoea, you seem to get the thrill out of it... but sadly, time is of the essence and I just can't be arsed to thwart each and every one of your piss-poor scattershot ad hominem attacks.

However, I must admit that GIF caught my attention and quite honestly - I'd love for you to name me your price.

[Paleophyte]

(1) Arguments aren't evidence. Can you imagine a murder trial where the prosecution failed to demonstrate that anybody had been killed?

Some things are proved through logic, and some things are proved through evidence. 

Arguments may prove that something may exist. Evidence shows that it does.

Although in fact, simple logic will be used throughout a murder trial. 

~ A man can not be in two places at the same time.
~ The suspect was in Chicago and the murder was in New York.
~ Therefore, the suspect is innocent. 

It's so simple it may not even look like logic, but without logic we wouldn't have the correct conclusion. 

Thank you for the fine example. In step 2 you use the evidence that the suspect was in Chicago. Remove that evidence and the argument is worthless.

(2) I'll entertain an argument from First Cause as soon as somebody can show me how a cause can exist without space-time. 

The First Cause argument is intended to address whether space-time can exist without a cause. People who are persuaded by the argument think that space-time requires a cause. 

How can space-time have a cause when space and time are necessary for causality?

All I've been saying on this thread is that the Aristotelian/Thomist argument addresses an essential sequence, not a temporal one.

So you're going by logical priority rather than temporal sequences. That still gets you back to space-time. Without that you don't have existence. You likely don't even have the very logic that you are trying to apply. Space-time is logically necessary for everything else.

The Argument(s) from First Cause are lovely examples of why you can't apply "common sense" to the least common event in the history of history and expect the answers to make sense.

[Belacqua]

Space-time is logically necessary for everything else.

Yes, I think so too. If by "anything" you mean "anything that relies for its existence on space-time." We don't want to beg the question by beginning with the axiom that there is nothing else. 

The first cause arguments work on whether we have to stop with the brute fact "space-time just exists, period, no further cause is required." Or whether it makes sense to argue that space-time, too, is caused. 

The Argument(s) from First Cause are lovely examples of why you can't apply "common sense" to the least common event in the history of history and expect the answers to make sense.

When you say "event," are you referring to the Big Bang? Because that brings us back to a temporal example. Causes considered as essential sequences work as well with or without a Big Bang. Although if by "event" we are referring to the ongoing sustaining of existence -- an event that lasts as long as the universe does, then that's OK with essential sequences. 

Granted, it seems like common sense to say that it's silly to talk about uncaused causes essentially prior to space-time, or actus purus, or what have you -- things which we can't picture and can't have empirical evidence of. Nonetheless, if logic indicates that such a non-common-sensical thingy is indicated, we have to consider it. As you rightly say, common sense may be a limitation in non-intuitive cases.