Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[Fake Messiah]

God is generally presented as a first cause. If the theist manages to establish the existence of God as a first cause, it's moronic to ask "who created God?" after that. There is no special pleading in this case.

What is moronic is talking to a moron like you. Fuck you asshole.

[Angrboda]

I didn't invalidate your argument for no reason but because it contained an example of the fallacy of equivocation which makes your argument invalid.  

How can it be equivocation if I explicitly said, repeatedly, that time belongs to the spacetime...? Any sane mind can apprehend the idea of a succession of causes of effects. The fact that you need the additional time dimension to accept this possibility is simply your lack of imagination, nothing else.

And surely you must have noticed, you're repeating the word "equivocation" quite a lot recently.

Since it, fluxnaub, has nothing to do with time, temporality, "prior", or any related temporal concepts then it's pointless as an object tion to Hawking-Hartle. 

Um.. Nobody here is objecting to Hawking-Hartle's model, I am not sure to whom you're writing this. This model suggest that, simply put, there was only space and no time near the beginning of the universe.

More importantly, this model implies that the universe didn't exist forever.

https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lect...ng-of-time
Quote: "In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago"

Quote: "In fact, James Hartle of the University of California Santa Barbara, and I have proposed that space and imaginary time together, are indeed finite in extent, but without boundary."

So this model is not exactly on your side, as you might have noticed.

This is just a bare assertion and can be dismissed if you can't support it.  Do you have an argument or evidence that something caused spacetime?

I simply used the causality principle, which you seem to have conceded to. Or am I mistaken?

I'm not the one arguing semantics, but seeing as you've doubled down on causal order not requiring temporal order

Exactly. There can be a causal order without the need of time. 

 If a cause does not need to temporally precede its effect, then it's possible that something created within this universe caused our universe to exist, forming a sort of temporal loop.  I don't have a problem with that if you don't.  You've provided yet another way the universe can exist without a creator.

Seriously, @Angrboda ?

If you use the word "temporally", then you are placing yourself inside the universe, in which case a cause has to temporally preceed the effet.

Outside the universe/spacetime, there is no temporal order anymore, and we're left with causal order.

Well, you are clearly arguing that causality within the universe obeys different laws than it obeys outside the universe, so I have to wonder where you are getting your information about causality outside the universe from? You can't use causality within the universe as a model, because you've denied that one can form an induction from intra-universal causality because the two do not behave identically.

But that's a small matter, as I was more concerned with your statement, bolded below, which you made:

The word "prior" here is, as explained before, in a causal sense. If causality holds outside of spacetime, then something (X) caused the spacetime. A new definition of a "time" or, even better, a sequence of events, is simply the sequences of all causes and effects that ever happened, and we assign to each element of this causal chain a rank i. If A causes B, and B causes C, then A would "happen" at rank i=0, B at rank i=1, etc. This is really simple and there is nothing incoherent about it.

This is just a bare assertion and can be dismissed if you can't support it. Do you have an argument or evidence that something caused spacetime?

First, what justification do you have for thinking that causality operates outside of spacetime? You seem to be advancing a full-fledged physics about things beyond this universe that I don't believe you can support. Second, what "principle of causality" are you referring to here? And third, what argument or evidence do you have that something caused spacetime?

I'll respond to the rest of this later after you have clarified these matters.


ETA: Oh, and if outside spacetime a cause does not need to precede its effect, there are additional loops that can be created, such as two universes creating each other.

[Jehanne]

Of course, Klorophyl doesn't know logical fallacies. Personal incredulity is when someone is making a conclusion out of his own lack of education about the subject for which there is available data, like "eye could not evolve because there can not be a half eye."

That's not the general definition of personal incredulity, one can also commit the fallacy when arguing about abstract objects or metaphysical entities, there doesn't have to be "data". Saying that an omnipotent being can't do anything without time, simply because you can't think of how he would do it, is a textbook example of this fallacy.

What Jehanne is doing is simply testing your claim which is to you a sacrilege.

Jehanne thinks that action is impossible without time by appealing to her own lack of imagination. What do we call that, I forgot?

Can God construct on a flat surface a triangle whose internal angles do not sum to 180 degrees?

[polymath257]

God is generally presented as a first cause. If the theist manages to establish the existence of God as a first cause, it's moronic to ask "who created God?" after that. There is no special pleading in this case.

It is if you are claiming a first cause must exist. And that there is only one.

OK, how do you support that P(T|T&C)>P(T|U)? What is your event space? What measure do you use on it?

And, more specifically, what are the probabilities of P(T|U&(not C))? How about P(U&(not C))? Without those, it is impossible to compare those relative probabilities.

But you are going further and claiming that P(T|U&C)>> P(T|U). How, precisely, do you justify that claim?

First of all, P(non C) is exactly zero. Because the fact that the universe obeys life-permitting conditions is indisputable, and is generally conceded by both the theist and the atheist, therefore P( C )=1, from which we get P(non C)=0. Since the probability of non C is zero, the probability P(U&(not C)) is zero, and the probability P(T|U&(not C)) is undefined. It's impossible to condition on an event of probability zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditiona...ility_zero

Sorry, I got turned around on the terminology. I was thinking C=creator. My bad.

Now for the justification that P(T|U&C)>P(T|U), that's because the existence of a finely tuned universe makes it more probable that an intelligent designer exists as opposed to a "less tuned" universe or some random vacuum. If you have in front of you a work of art next to a random paint splatter, it's clear that the probability of an artist existing is vastly superior for the work of art, given the skillfulness displayed in the first object.

How does it make it more probable that an intelligent designer exists? More specifically, you need to know the probabilities P( (not T)& U & C)
and P( (not T) & U). On what basis do you estimate their relative size compared to P(T&U&C) and P(T&U)?

The ink splatter compared to the piece of art *presupposes* laws of nature. If the laws were different, it could be more likely to form 'art' than 'splatter'.

For example, the formation of certain structures is MUCH more common via gravity than it is without it. Also, evolution naturally produces high levels of adaptive structure without intelligent intervention. That would make the probabilities P( (not T)&U &C ) much larger than might originally appear.

So, what makes you think an intelligence is more probable than the lack of such given the conditions we ACTUALLY

I disagree. I don't think there *can be* a coherent 'explanation' for something like that. It is like asking for the cause of causality. The question itself makes no sense.

Why ? That's not the same thing. If a very unlikely scenario occurs, like shooting thousands of bullets at point-blank range and still missing, it demands an explanation. How is this request incoherent?

And to expect an answer to that question means that you already have some regularities. And those regularities *are* examples of natural laws.

You simply cannot have any actual explanations without natural laws of some sort. So to e ven ask for the cause of natural laws is a category error.

It's true that we can't have a physical or natural explanation without natural laws, but this is not the issue. We're not looking for some scientific theory of the universe's existence, nobody can hope to apply the scientific method beyond the observable universe, however we still have the ability to think logically about what caused the universe with all its natural laws, given that the principle of causality is universally valid.

Again, isn't it problematic for you to allow for violating causality? 

What makes you think that 'prior in a causal sense' that isn't 'prior in a temporal sense' is even coherent?

It's perfectly coherent. Take the model of simultaneous causation, let's say A causes B, and B causes C, and both these operations happen simultneously. In this case A is prior to B/B prior to C in a causal sense, but no time has elapsed in this model.

Why would you even think it is *possible* for spacetime to have a cause?.

Because it's irrational to suspend the principle of causality for the spacetime itself.

And, in your scenario, the 'rank' is simply a notion of time. Nothing else. Time is the rank function (to the existent a rank function can even be defined).

Not necessarily, time is a rank function, but not any rank function should be time. As above, you can have a chain of causes and effects arising simultaneously, in which it's meaningless to speak about time, but you can still assign ranks to every element of this chain. There is nothing incoherent about doing it.

And, again, time only makes sense within spacetime, so that rank function is *part of the geometry of the universe*. because of that *there is no rank outside of spacetime*.

As above, a rank function doesn't necessarily have to be time.

---

At work.

Ah the 'Impossible odds' talk.

 Just like a lottery where they sell a million tickets. A person only has a 'One in a million' chance of winning.

However , that there WILL be a winner is a hundred percent chance.

Invalid analogy.

In the case of a lottery, someone prepared beforehand the prize the winner will get. Also, playing the lottery is a vastly simpler process than, say, protein synthesis.

---

The claims that existence warrants justification is just that, a claim, not a given.

For me, reality/existence/ everything just is.  For me, a fact justifies its own existence. It may imply many things, but it infers nothing but itself .

Congratulations, you just flushed the entirety of science down the toilet. 

All science is based on an inference to the best explanation(or abduction) of some aspects or phenomena in reality. If you think reality justifies itself, you just rejected science.

Applying the principle of abduction to the universe itself lead us to a creator of the universe, that's the idea behind the a posteriori arguments for God.[/quote]

[Nay_Sayer]

FSM is generally presented as a first cause. If a Pastafarian manages to establish the existence of FSM as a first cause, it's moronic to ask "who created FSM?" after that. There is no special pleading in this case.

[polymath257]

God is generally presented as a first cause. If the theist manages to establish the existence of God as a first cause, it's moronic to ask "who created God?" after that. There is no special pleading in this case.

If the theist shows there is only *one* uncaused cause, that the uncaused cause has a personality (and so *can* design), and, of course, that there is such an uncaused cause. ALL of those are in contention.

OK, how do you support that P(T|T&C)>P(T|U)? What is your event space? What measure do you use on it?

And, more specifically, what are the probabilities of P(T|U&(not C))? How about P(U&(not C))? Without those, it is impossible to compare those relative probabilities.

But you are going further and claiming that P(T|U&C)>> P(T|U). How, precisely, do you justify that claim?

First of all, P(non C) is exactly zero. Because the fact that the universe obeys life-permitting conditions is indisputable, and is generally conceded by both the theist and the atheist, therefore P( C )=1, from which we get P(non C)=0. Since the probability of non C is zero, the probability P(U&(not C)) is zero, and the probability P(T|U&(not C)) is undefined. It's impossible to condition on an event of probability zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditiona...ility_zero

Sorry, my bad. I was looking at C=Creator, not what you had assigned.

Now for the justification that P(T|U&C)>P(T|U), that's because the existence of a finely tuned universe makes it more probable that an intelligent designer exists as opposed to a "less tuned" universe or some random vacuum. If you have in front of you a work of art next to a random paint splatter, it's clear that the probability of an artist existing is vastly superior for the work of art, given the skillfulness displayed in the first object.

That deduction only holds if the laws of nature are such that it is the case. For example, with gravity, a 'splattering' of mass is far *less* likely than a spherical shape once the mass is large enough. So the conclusion in that case would be invalid.

Also, for example, evolution selects for adaptive structures, so the probability P((not T)& U & C) might be a LOT larger than you give credit for.

And that is part of the point: that you need to know P( (not T)&C&U) and P( (not T) & U) and the relative sizes of those compared to P( T&C&U) and P(T&U) to say which conditional probability is larger. Do you have any way to estimate the sizes of those?

More specifically, you seem to think that the laws of nature cannot themselves push towards complexity and structure even though we know many examples of exactly that.

I disagree. I don't think there *can be* a coherent 'explanation' for something like that. It is like asking for the cause of causality. The question itself makes no sense.

Why ? That's not the same thing. If a very unlikely scenario occurs, like shooting thousands of bullets at point-blank range and still missing, it demands an explanation. How is this request incoherent?

It depends on the nature of the bullets, doesn't it? And the natural laws that they obey. If, for example, the bullets are much smaller than the spaces between the components of the material they are show at, the likelihood of a miss becomes much larger.

In the specific case I am talking about, asking about the cause of causality is clearly a problem. But, if causality only exists within the universe (which is what ALL the evidence points to), then asking for the cause of the universe is problematic as well.

And to expect an answer to that question means that you already have some regularities. And those regularities *are* examples of natural laws.

You simply cannot have any actual explanations without natural laws of some sort. So to e ven ask for the cause of natural laws is a category error.

It's true that we can't have a physical or natural explanation without natural laws, but this is not the issue. We're not looking for some scientific theory of the universe's existence, nobody can hope to apply the scientific method beyond the observable universe, however we still have the ability to think logically about what caused the universe with all its natural laws, given that the principle of causality is universally valid.

Well, clearly to test our ideas observationally requires that we do observation.

But we have found through long experience that logic alone is a very poor judge of what is actually possible or even what actually occurs.

For example, Aristotle thought it logically necessary that heavy things fall faster than light things. But, the simple fact is that they do not. And the reason is that Aristotles axioms, which he thought were logically necessary, are in fact wrong.

I can give other examples. Kant thought that geometry was a type of synthetic a priori. He thought that because he couldn't image anything other than Euclidean geometry. of course, it was later discovered that there are MANY types of non-Euclidean geometries and that what Kant *thought* was necessary was actually not so.

In particular, there is very good reason to believe that the notion of causality simply is not applicable 'outside the universe' or even to the universe as a whole (all of spacetime). The reason is that causality is always *within* the universe, so the idea of a cause for the universe is against all observation and logic.

Again, isn't it problematic for you to allow for violating causality? 

Not at all. Causality is, first of all, a very vague principle. To become more specific about it naturally leads to certain types of physical laws. And those laws need to be *tested* against observation. it may well be that causality is NOT universal or that it simply doesn't act in the way everyone *thinks* is necessary.

More specifically, quantum mechanics is a non-causal physical theory that works incredibly well. because of that, I am more than willing to think that non-causality happens with some frequency.

What makes you think that 'prior in a causal sense' that isn't 'prior in a temporal sense' is even coherent?

It's perfectly coherent. Take the model of simultaneous causation, let's say A causes B, and B causes C, and both these operations happen simultneously. In this case A is prior to B/B prior to C in a causal sense, but no time has elapsed in this model.

You will have to show an example of such. In this case, I would simply say that A occurred before B, which occurred before C. And that *defines* time in this case.

Why would you even think it is *possible* for spacetime to have a cause?.

Because it's irrational to suspend the principle of causality for the spacetime itself.

I disagree. ALL causality we have ever witnessed in within spacetime. That makes it highly unlikely that it is coherent to talk about the 'cause of spacetime'.

This is not 'suspending the principle' any more than claiming there is an uncaused cause 'suspends' that principle.

More to the point, the question arises whether spacetime 'began to exist'. In particular, was there an event in which spacetime did NOT exist? if not, then the same argument for KCA applies to the universe (which we know exists) and not to God (which we do not).

And, in your scenario, the 'rank' is simply a notion of time. Nothing else. Time is the rank function (to the existent a rank function can even be defined).

Not necessarily, time is a rank function, but not any rank function should be time. As above, you can have a chain of causes and effects arising simultaneously, in which it's meaningless to speak about time, but you can still assign ranks to every element of this chain. There is nothing incoherent about doing it.

I disagree. A rank function of the type you claim would be a *definition* of time.

And, again, time only makes sense within spacetime, so that rank function is *part of the geometry of the universe*. because of that *there is no rank outside of spacetime*.

As above, a rank function doesn't necessarily have to be time.

So now you want to have two rank functions? We certainly know time is one such. Why the extra assumption of another? Doesn't the new rank function simply give an alternative definition of time?[/quote]

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@Klorophyll

"God is generally presented as a first cause. If the theist manages to establish the existence of God as a first cause, it's moronic to ask "who created God?" after that. There is no special pleading in this case."

Interesting claim. Can't say I've come across it before. Possibly because "it's moronic to ask---" is an ad hominem fallacy. As far as I'm aware, to claim god is pre existing/ self created is indeed special pleading. However, I might be wrong, be thrilled if you could demonstrate the truth of your claim .

[Rahn127]

Gods can't exist because the pre universal god devourers consumed them all.

Everybody knows that.

[Anomalocaris]

The more pertinent question is why posit a particular “god” equipped with attributes that makes it vitally important to ram him down other people’s throats to be that actual “first cause”?  

it seems to me an infinite number of other first causes that can be dreamt up that are completely devoid of any specific worship-worthy attributes that would serves the alledged intellectual purpose of Christian “first cause” just as well, more plausibly, and far less repulsively, than that blatantly contrived baroque horror called the Christian god.

The more Christian spin what seem to them, idiotically, impressively elaborate and ornately impenetrable web of defense around this particular supposed first cause that so happen to be dear to their fragile and warped sense of self worth, the more that hollowness in the center of cobweb dominates the entire appearance of the contraption to the outside observer.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Ah the 'Impossible odds' talk.

 Just like a lottery where they sell a million tickets. A person only has a 'One in a million' chance of winning.

However , that there WILL be a winner is a hundred percent chance.

Invalid analogy.

In the case of a lottery, someone prepared beforehand the prize the winner will get. Also, playing the lottery is a vastly simpler process than, say, protein synthesis.

---

So Klorphyll not understanding the analogy and now possibly going for the fallacy of incredulity, which they'll deny doing.

Fortunately here's a Youtube I prepared earleir (Found) that has a student of biology/cancer explaining why a different expert in a different feild is wrong about the assertion of 'Too complex, threfore deity".







Ther are other vids of other knowledgable people explaining by Dr Tour is simply wrong about his ideas.

Not that Klorophyl will acknowledge/accespt. I wonder what they'll reply with this time?



Not at work