The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.

[Fake Messiah]

I did say before that it is nonsense (soundbites) and if you can not see it yourself then there is something else going on. Like, what exactly are you doing here? You claim to be an atheist and yet topic after topic you are trying to show us how theist arguments make sense. So if you think that theist arguments for the existence of god are not a failure then how are you an atheist? And if you think that they are a failure but are arguing the opposite, then you are just trolling.

What I'm trying to get from you is how is it nonsense? You can't just resort to brief dismissals and ad hominem and think that invalidates whatever argument I may be making.

What I dismiss is trying to talk to a troll who makes arguments for god that if you wear a sock on a different leg constitutes a different universe.

[GrandizerII]

What I'm trying to get from you is how is it nonsense? You can't just resort to brief dismissals and ad hominem and think that invalidates whatever argument I may be making.

What I dismiss is trying to talk to a troll who makes arguments for god that if you wear a sock on a different leg constitutes a different universe.

I'm not trolling, dipshit. And it's a fair point to make: if anything could have been different in the universe, the universe (being the superset) could have been different, therefore the universe is contingent. You don't have to agree with this point, if you're a necessitarian or modal realist or whatever, but this is the common-sense view (whether you like it or not).

[Belacqua]

if anything could have been different in the universe, the universe (being the superset) could have been different, therefore the universe is contingent. You don't have to agree with this point, if you're a necessitarian or modal realist or whatever, but this is the common-sense view (whether you like it or not).

What you're talking about here isn't even a religious idea. This type of contingency doesn't address the whole universe being contingent on a single cause (which people might conclude is God), but that everything in the universe is contingent on other things, and could have been different. 

And it's not just socks, it's much smaller things than that, including observed quantum events. This is from the Wikipedia page on the "Many worlds interpretation." 

every observation can be thought of as causing the combined observer–object's wavefunction to change into a quantum superposition of two or more non-interacting branches, or split into many "worlds". Since many observation-like events have happened and are constantly happening, there are an enormous and growing number of simultaneously existing states.

...which is way over my head, science-wise, but seems to say that not only are there a hell of a lot of states of the universe, but that each of them is contingent on "observation-like events." 

So lots and lots of contingency there, and no God-talk at all.

[GrandizerII]

if anything could have been different in the universe, the universe (being the superset) could have been different, therefore the universe is contingent. You don't have to agree with this point, if you're a necessitarian or modal realist or whatever, but this is the common-sense view (whether you like it or not).

What you're talking about here isn't even a religious idea. This type of contingency doesn't address the whole universe being contingent on a single cause (which people might conclude is God), but that everything in the universe is contingent on other things, and could have been different.

There doesn't have to be a cause even, at least strictly logically speaking. The universe could simply be a contingent brute fact, and that's that (as Bertrand Russell would say)

Even if it was made clear there is no God, no first cause, no anything of that sort, it would still be bizarre to think of the universe as necessary (in the sense of it couldn't have been otherwise). Although I'm happy to grant that this would be a logical view, and in fact I hold (provisionally) to an extreme view on modality myself.

So it's not that I have a problem with an atheist saying the universe is not contingent, I just want to be clear there are implications to consider if an atheist does think that way, and so one shouldn't just say "well, the universe is necessary, so there" just simply as a throwaway response to a contingency argument for God. Be aware of the implications of your view, and own it.

And it's not just socks, it's much smaller things than that, including observed quantum events. This is from the Wikipedia page on the "Many worlds interpretation." 

every observation can be thought of as causing the combined observer–object's wavefunction to change into a quantum superposition of two or more non-interacting branches, or split into many "worlds". Since many observation-like events have happened and are constantly happening, there are an enormous and growing number of simultaneously existing states.

...which is way over my head, science-wise, but seems to say that not only are there a hell of a lot of states of the universe, but that each of them is contingent on "observation-like events." 

So lots and lots of contingency there, and no God-talk at all.

I think a better example would be the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum events. Under that interpretation, things certainly could have happened differently but didn't (which is very in line with the idea that the universe is contingent). Many-worlds interpretation appears to be some metaphysical form of modal realism (all possible worlds are real, although you only experience one of them), and therefore is more of a necessitarian view than otherwise. But I get what you mean here. At least relative to the universe that we're in, things could be said to be contingent.

[LinuxGal]

Many-worlds interpretation appears to be some metaphysical form of modal realism (all possible worlds are real, although you only experience one of them), and therefore is more of a necessitarian view than otherwise.

Similar to the MWI is the epistemological access we have to supernatural things by agency of faith.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

That is, our emotion of assurance in the existence of angels and ghosts and heaven and Hubbard and shit is our evidence of those things.

[GrandizerII]

Many-worlds interpretation appears to be some metaphysical form of modal realism (all possible worlds are real, although you only experience one of them), and therefore is more of a necessitarian view than otherwise.

Similar to the MWI is the epistemological access we have to supernatural things by agency of faith.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

That is, our emotion of assurance in the existence of angels and ghosts and heaven and Hubbard and shit is our evidence of those things.

In a way, MWI is evidence-based. According to some cosmologists/astrophysicists, it is the best explanation of the observations at hand. It's certainly not emotion-based.

[The Grand Nudger]

All of this back and forth, but neither of you have been talking about the universe being contingent, you've been arguing over whether it's contents were contingent. A necessary universe might be filled with contingent contents. Things that could be different, which doesn't actually indicate contingency, but I'm rolling with it.

[LinuxGal]

Similar to the MWI is the epistemological access we have to supernatural things by agency of faith.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

That is, our emotion of assurance in the existence of angels and ghosts and heaven and Hubbard and shit is our evidence of those things.

In a way, MWI is evidence-based. According to some cosmologists/astrophysicists, it is the best explanation of the observations at hand. It's certainly not emotion-based.

You are conflating the multiverse with many worlds.  I blame Marvel / Disney.

Many worlds simply asserts the universal wavefunction has components that evolve into non-overlapping regions of phase space (via decoherence), where, for example, Erwin's poor cat is dead and Erwin sees she's dead, and another trajectory where the cat is alive and Erwin sees she's alive. 

Among many problems with that, the biggest one involves the conservation of energy.  If both branches are real, then you've manufactured energy from the void.

The next biggest problem is how to recover the Born rule.  Suppose the wavefunction yields a probability of 0.7 for spin up and 0.3 for spin down.  In every measurement, the universe only splits into two branches. one for spin up and one for spin down.  At the end of many such branchings the universe does contain an experimenter who concludes the probability is 0.7 vs. 0.3 but that case will be atypical, do you see?  A random sampling of branches would be overwhelmingly populated with experimenters who concluded the probabilities were 0.5 and 0.5.

In any event, we have no access to these other branches to solve the energy problem or the probability problem so that's why I compared MWI to faith.

[LinuxGal]

All of this back and forth, but neither of you have been talking about the universe being contingent, you've been arguing over whether it's contents were contingent.  A necessary universe might be filled with contingent contents.  Things that could be different, which doesn't actually indicate contingency, but I'm rolling with it.

As Aquinas would have it, God, being immaterial, is not individuated by anything distinct from his nature, and so there is no real distinction between God and his nature.

As the Bible would have it, God not only has parts, he has back parts.

Exodus 33:23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

Normally this would be irrelevant but Aquinas is so fond of proof-texting.

[GrandizerII]

In a way, MWI is evidence-based. According to some cosmologists/astrophysicists, it is the best explanation of the observations at hand. It's certainly not emotion-based.

You are conflating the multiverse with many worlds.  I blame Marvel / Disney.

I'm talking exactly about the MWI of quantum mechanics. And MW is a form of multiverse.

Many worlds simply asserts the universal wavefunction has components that evolve into non-overlapping regions of phase space (via decoherence), where, for example, Erwin's poor cat is dead and Erwin sees she's dead, and another trajectory where the cat is alive and Erwin sees she's alive.

Yes, parallel worlds. How is this not a multiverse?

Among many problems with that, the biggest one involves the conservation of energy.  If both branches are real, then you've manufactured energy from the void.

Maybe, can't say I'm qualified to address this one.

The next biggest problem is how to recover the Born rule.  Suppose the wavefunction yields a probability of 0.7 for spin up and 0.3 for spin down.  In every measurement, the universe only splits into two branches. one for spin up and one for spin down.  At the end of many such branchings the universe does contain an experimenter who concludes the probability is 0.7 vs. 0.3 but that case will be atypical, do you see?  A random sampling of branches would be overwhelmingly populated with experimenters who concluded the probabilities were 0.5 and 0.5.

Again, I don't know all the intricate details of MWI to address this, but I can have a think about this and get back to you on this later if needed.

But at the moment, I'm more interested in discussing further the question of contingency of the universe, not which interpretation of quantum mechanics is the best account.