Uncreated Creator Argument

It's also possible that causality is a property of our universe, a side effect of time if you will, not just a principle. So there was no causality "before" the universe, but as soon as the universe began to expand, time and causality, hand in hand, came in to play.

Hi, Straggler. Honestly, I don't even know what "quantum fluctuations" means, but, yes, it sounds like something that would be counter-intuitive. ----- Help me out a bit, then, because I'm clearly out of my element here.Are there rules that govern the formation and behavior of physical principles?
Or, can principles just pop up arbitrarily?
Can the rule that nothing comes from fiat have come from fiat itself?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler.Sorry for the tacky double-response, but something just came to me: Surely parsimony is irrelevant to things that have no cause.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Why? Whether it has a cause or not, choosing the agent that requires more assumptions than one that doesn't still doesn't make sense.Edited by Perdition, : Close the quote box...

They are very counter-intuitive!!! Quantum Fluctuation Aha.....Now we come to the meat of the subject in my (admittedly limited) opinion...Is "something from nothing" a reasonable argument against "something" existing? Well no. Actually probably not.But the question as to what makes THE universe or, pre-universe, or possible universe or whatever it is the hell that we are talking about follow laws that allow for the spontaneous creation of THE universe that we now know to exist.......Well that is a possibly deeper question.Whether or not it is a valid question I am not sure. Is it more valid than asking what came before T=0?I dont know.But I agree with, what I believe to be the sentiment behind your question, that it is an interesting question worthy of consideration on philosophical grounds of some sort if nothing else.Why would we not conclude that the universe is ultimately the result of natural causes given all of the other things that we have attributed to non-natural causes have been refuted? Why is the universe "different"?But even I agree that this is a limited argument.The logicality of the universe is a fine question in my opinion. And whilst it ultimately, also in my opinion, offers little respite for the theist, it is a valid line of questioning given the evidence available.But even having said all that the Occam's Razor argument kind of opposes the idea of any supernatural being complex enough to create the physical universe. No?

You're still assuming that the Universe "was brought into existence."Time is a component of the Universe. Thus, the Universe has literally existed for all time - at every time coordinate, the Universe exists.The Universe simply exists. If there is a "cause" behind the Universe, either our concept of time is completely off, or there is an additional time-like dimension in which our Universe rests. In any case, asking what "caused" the Universe assumes that there is anything other than the Universe, which is an unfounded assumption. The Universe can simply be.

Hi, Rahvin. I didn't assume anything: I presented two possibilities, and asked if there were any others.----- How is this not special pleading?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

How is it special pleading? I never claimed that all things required a cause without exception.All of the objects we observe exist as the end (so far) result of a chain of causality reaching back to the beginning of time.The Universe itself, so far as we know, may or may not exist in a time-like dimension allowing for any such chain of events.Remember, our perception of time is illusory, based on the fact that the electrochemical reactions in our brains that collectively form our consciousness require increasing entropy over the dimension of time. This is why we experience time as a chain of events in the direction of increasing entropy. But time is just another dimension, like width or length. The Universe exists at all points of time, and adjacent points are related - this gives us the illusion of causality, because we experience those points sequentially.Why does the Universe then require a "cause," if there is no earlier coordinate of time to provide a causal event? Why does causality apply to the very structure that results in the concept?Let's use the usual globe example that we use all the time for creationists. In this case, let's use one that has raised features representing mountains. As one moves North to South (representing time), you'll notice that the globe has different features at certain coordinates of space and time, and that these features seem to be related to one another - the textures mountains do not suddenly go from sea level to their maximum height instantly, but rather are preceded by similar features at previous coordinates in space and time. If you could only experience time in that single direction, you might say that the textured areas represented chains of causality. From the "outside," we see that the structure simply exists, and each point is related to adjacent points.I don't think all things require a cause. I think that all things inside of time adhere to causality, because since matter/energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so long as lesser and greater coordinates of time exist, each unit of matter/energy has a past and a future.Since the universe does not exist inside of time any more than a globe exists inside of longitude, causality ceases to have meaning.Special pleading requires that I arbitrarily choose to exclude something from a mechanism that applies to other functionally identical somethings. In this case, there is nothing arbitrary about it - the Universe itself is demonstrably not the same as the matter/energy that partially comprise it. Causality may apply (if our concept of time is incorrect, or if additional time-like dimensions exist "outside" of the Universe), or it may not. We have insufficient information to make such a determination, and so to assert that the Universe itself necessarily must adhere to causality, a concept that makes absolutely no sense without the dimensions of the universe itself, is completely unfounded. It's akin to insisting that latitude and longitude exist "outside" of the globe, and that there is something farther North than the North Pole.This, of course, is all my understanding of time. cavediver or Son Goku are more than welcome to point out any errors in my comprehension.

Hi, Rahvin.Ah! An explanation that makes sense!In a nutshell, you are saying that causality is just the way we perceive movement through time? It sounds good enough. I'd ask for the evidence for it, but I don't think I could understand it even if it was provided for me, so I won't ask.This raises so many questions that I don't even know where to begin.For instance, how can there be a "beginning of time" (which should also be the "beginning of length," the "beginning of height" and the "beginning of width")?
Spacetime is supposed to be growing larger, right? Surely there has to be a "meta-dimension" through which it is growing, right?
My baby is growing taller (through the dimension of height) and wider (width): so, wouldn't growth in a dimension imply that same kind of relationship with some other metric?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi Bluejay, Time "begins" when space "begins" to make sense mathematically.To the best of current technology, spacetime makes sense at above Plank scale. Smaller than that and our mathematics that explains the geometry of spacetime stops working properly.So, if I'm correct with the above explanation, time would "begin" to make sense to us at above Plank scale. As I understand it it's the observable universe that is expanding.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

See, there is where you stopped relying on observations and started attributing your personal thoughts as reality. We have no indication or proof that there is any sort of "meta-dimension"; just because it is easier for you to think about it growing into something does not mean it actually works that way.

Hi, Phage. It's a little something I like to call inductive reasoning: I have no alternative hypothesis, so the only thing I can do is extrapolate from the null, which I have taken, in this instance, to be the behavior of the four dimensions that I know about.I also phrased my personal thoughts in the form of a question, which should have indicated to you that I wanted to discuss it. Criticism of my usage of inductive logic is not discussion. Unless a suitable, testable alternative can be presented, I have no choice but to use the null hypothesis as the basis for my reasoning.-----And, here's my major point of confusion:You suggest that I should rely on observations. I will show why this is not possible in this discussion. But, let me start at the beginning first.It seems this discussion has not resolved the infinite regression concept of First Cause, but has only generated a new dichotomy. Either (1) causality (or an equivalent phenomenon) applies outside the universe, or (2) it doesn’t.If causality does apply outside the universe, we have to confront the same dichotomy at that next outward layer. We will have to continue confronting the dichotomy at each layer, until the pattern of nested causalities either reaches a singularity, regresses infinitely, or loops back on itself.If causality does not apply outside the universe, then there simply is no explanation for the existence of the universe. In this case, Rahvin is right, and the universe simply exists. If this is the case, then none of our observation-based logical reasoning can say a thing about the outside, even in principle.See, without causation, there is no reason why observational evidence would line up with phenomena, but would just be. And, any phenomenon that might happen outside could simply have no explanation: it could just be (like stuff from Out-space, from the Ender’s Game series of novels by Orson Scott Card (who is a Mormon)).In that kind of environment, a God who creates universes is just as parsimonious as an uncreated universe. Nothing has to be explained, so any possibility can happen without any assumptions at all. Thus, literally everything satisfies parsimony. So, parsimony does not rule out God.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Wouldn’t the departure from the 4 dimensions that you know about be a suggestion that it might not work like the 4 dimensions that you know about? Inductive reasoning would be useful if you had first identified some properties of this hypothesized meta-dimension that were similar to our own; in the absence of any evidence whatsoever the simplest answer is that it isn’t there. Criticism of your use of inductive logic is one of the only forms of acceptable discussion. If I cannot logically criticize your position then what other method do you suggest? Emotional appeal? Perhaps a healthy dose of character assassination?Your question was a direct response to the alternative hypothesis of there not being a meta-dimension; you will note that it isn’t included in the original theory. My opposition to your theory is based on its untestable and unevidenced nature. Your position is seemingly in opposition to what can be tested, so using that as support for your argument seems counterintuitive. This premise requires an unstated premise that there is an outside the universe. This idea appears to be altogether unsupported by evidence and generated from whole cloth out of your unfounded speculation. So far as we can tell there is nothing about our universe that cannot be adequately described without the introduction of an outside, so I don’t see any reason to include that concept.It appears that the entirety of your theory is reliant on a purely speculative location outside of existence where anything and everything can make sense, resulting in what you consider to be support for preconceived beliefs. This is the God of the Gaps argument to a theoretical extreme; even if we were to know everything that there was to know in the universe you would suggest that all that stuff we didn’t know could still be true in some nowhere land.

Hi, Phage.First off, let me apologize for being grouchy and rude in my last post: I had no reason for that. With all due respect, I don't know why I should assume there is a departure. Maybe the fact that I can't see these other dimensions or move through them would mean something, but, as demonstrated by Rahvin, differences in perception between spatial and temporal dimensions does not prevent the same logic from applying, so I don't see why it shouldn't work here too.----- Incorrect: #2 accounts for the eventuality of there being no "outside."Having a non-causal "outside" and having no "outside" at all will both result in the universe "just being." It's the "just being" that I take exception to: it cannot, even in principle, be tested. A non-causal mechanism does not produce evidence, so no observations can be made to either support or deny "it just is."What allows the universe to "just be"?
Why is the same allowance not granted to some other multi-dimensional construct, or to some other type of "thing"?
How is this not special pleading?Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Somewhere down the line we seem to inevitably find the need for either the "uncaused cause" or the thing that is deemed to "just be".We indisputably know (in the sense that we know anything without leaping down philosophical rabbit holes) that the universe "is". Without evidence of anything else existing why would we extrapolate back to conclude that there is an unevidenced something else that exists and "just is" so that we end up with an uncaused cause for our universe? Why take the extra step?If nothing else does parsimony not suggest that this unnecessary? The multiverse, colliding branes etc. etc. are all hypothetical possibilities derived from mathematical extrapolation. If there were any actual physical evidence to support these, or similar, hypotheses then the "allowance" of "just being" would presumably be shifted down the line to such evidenced phenomenon. But All evidence based argument is special pleading in the strict sense. The question that needs to be asked is how valid is the special pleading criteria that is being applied to seperate one concept from another.The accepted validity of objective evidence being required to support a particular concept and the fact that virtually every supernatural explanation ever proposed has been superceded by a natural explanation are both reasons to special plead on the basis of objective evidence and natural explanations.In most cases the validity of this "special pleading" is so accepted that we do not think of it in these terms. But when it comes to seperating any one concept from any other on the basis of evidence that is exactly what we are doing.I would suggest that objective evidence and natural explanations are valid "special pleading" criteria. I would also suggest that in 99% of situations you would agree with the validity of these criteria.Why not this one?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.