Summations Only

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Why is it more absurd to posit that there is no exception to the rule of cause and effect than it is to posit that there is an exception? The first having a near infinite line of corporal evidence while the later has only logical deduction as support. It seems to me that both lines are at least equally valid.

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I am not proposing an exception to the "law" of cause and effect. What I find absurd is the idea that it is a logical rather than an empirical claim. Since you seem to agree that the basis for cause and effect is empirical, you are not disagreeing with my actual claim.

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You are correct. What you have written does not make sense. It appears you may be attempting a double circular reasoning argument. Would you care to try again?

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In that case you agree with my point, and therefore your objection has no basis in anything I have written. I suggest that you go back to the OP and try to read it again.

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Assuming the hot big bang is correct for the sake of argument, explain your reasoning.

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The hot Big Bang is not relevant to my simple point.Something that exists at the first moment of time cannot be said to come into existence because there is no prior point in which it did not exist.Since it did not come into existence it does not need a cause to make it come into existence. (I.e. if it has a cause, that cause must do something else)Can you understand that much? I want to go slow because I wish to avoid your bizarre misreadings. Or at least to make it even more clear that you have no excuse for them.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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Well, it does all that I required of it: it's something that we would wish to call a cause without a sequence where cause precedes effect.

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Then obviously you didn't require it to refute my argument. Which doesn't assume "a sequence where cause precedes effect".

I chose to clarify how your example relates to my argument. And, well, things went on from there.

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I agreed with you only in the sense that what you wrote did not make sense. Let me try to explain your error once again.

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Your logic shows an unexamined and false premise. Your unexamined premise is "Nothing exists outside of the material realm of space and time."

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The only error you are showing is yours. My argument does not use any such premise. If you imagine that one of my premises implicitly makes this assumption then you will have to show it. And please only deal with premises that are actually present in my argument, not those that are solely present in your imagination.

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I think I have already demonstrated your unexamined, implicit and false premise but I will try again. Your argument can be reduced to this simple syllogism.

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Simply asserting that my argument is circular because it "assumes" something that is NEITHER a premise nor the conclusion shows nothing.

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1. No timeless state or timeless and immaterial beings (such as Universe Designer or Creator God) exist prior to the beginning of time. (This is your unexamined, implicit and false premise.)

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This is not part of my argument at all. However since it is necessarily true (nothing can be temporally prior to time in the general sense since temporal priority is based on a measure of time) it really doesn't matter.Let us also note that just a little while ago you were asserting that the "circular argument" premise was: Which does NOT assume that there is anything temporally prior to time.

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2. Everything that exists at the first moment of time came into existence simultaneously with time and so there is no prior moment in which they did not exist.

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This is also inaccurate. It is better stated:Nothing that exists at the first moment of time came into existence AT ALL because it was never the case that they did not exist.

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3. If we take these objects to have a beginning, then it is one different from everyday beginnings.
4. Therefore, the claim "Everything that begins to exist has a cause" is suspect, false or needs a more rigorous definition.

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You will note that this stands on it's own. You will also note that the conclusion is NOT the "premise" which you added, which is in itself enough to refute your claim of circular reasoning.I will also note that you omit supporting parts of the argument.

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You have denied that you have the unexamined premise I have identified. This is a testable hypothesis.

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Yes. You can read the argument and find that there is no such premise. Message 1. Or we can simply look at your so-called reconstruction and see that if we leave out the extraneous premise 1 (your addition) and correct premise 2, the argument still works, even without the parts you omitted.

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Since the possibility of a timeless state and timeless Designer/Creator prior to the big bang is binary, you can try to make your argument while explicitly stating your belief in the possibility of Designer/Creator.

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My tests are better since they don't require adding adding self-contradictory premises.

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1. It is possible a timeless state inhabited by a timeless and immaterial being (such as Universe Designer or Creator God) existed prior to the beginning of time at the big bang.

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In other words you wish to smuggle in the self-contradictory notion of a state temporally prior to time. And that is really what this "test" is about. Nothing to do with the possibility of a timeless and immaterial creator.Just to encourage a proper understanding of logical fallacies, ASSUMING a contradiction is a logical fallacy (and therefore your new premise invalidates your argument). Not assuming a contradiction is perfectly fine.

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You see? Without your unexamined premise, your argument does not hold up, it is pure nonsense.

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Let us note that the possibility of a timeless and immaterial creator is irrelevant even to your argument. The only part of your premise that matters is the assertion of a state temporally prior to time. But since that is a logical impossibility including it invalidates the argument.I'm sure that you think that you were trying a clever trick there, but it falls apart. Even your "reconstruction" is enough to refute your argument.

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I take this to mean that you do hold to the unexamined, implicit and false premise which I identified earlier.

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By which you mean the logically necessary statement that there cannot be anything temporally prior to the first moment of time.

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You suffer from the misapprehension that only the physical realm is real or can have the property of time. What is truly needed is a better definition is the timeless realm in which the Designer/Creator inhabits.

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You seem to be confused. A timeless realm by definition cannot include time.

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Let's accept for a moment the accuracy of the colliding branes theory. If colliding branes were generating innumerable universes, each would have its own spacetime. Is it possible one universe could have been formed "prior" to another? Of course! Each universe would have no direct time relationship to another but it is conceivable that some being could be outside of all these universes and He could identify which universe came into existence first and which last.

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This doesn't address the point. Temporal priority requires time.As I have stated in other posts in this thread we can postulate other time dimensions which would allow there to be a first moment of "our time" and a temporally prior state (prior in a different time dimension). But this is not what you want - because that leaves open the possibility that the cause is temporal, working in the other time dimension. That is why that possibility has not been discussed in detail here.

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In the physical realm of our universe, time is a function of the universe. But that does not preclude the possibility time does not exist elsewhere. Even a timeless realm could have an arrow of time without beginning or end.

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So you are saying that it is possible that a timeless realm is NOT timeless ? By definition that cannot be.

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By timeless, I mean outside the spacetime of our universe.

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If you mean that then say that. Don't say "timeless" unless you mean "timeless". Especially when you are talking about an area where many people say "timeless" and mean it.And you certainly ought not to argue that other people are making circular arguments when all that is going on is that THEY mean what they say. Unlike you.

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It is not possible to know the exact nature of this timeless realm

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Which in fact, could simply be another region of spacetime.And if we consider the implications of that, it seems that when you argue for a "timeless' and "immaterial" creator you really mean "a cause outside of our spacetime that could easily be temporal and material". That's really not very helpful or likely to lead to productive discussion.

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My argument for a timeless and immaterial creator was based on the big bang as the beginning of the material universe and a finite spacetime.

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More accurately it required the assumption that our spacetime was the only spacetime. I was willing to go with that for the sake of argument and because it seemed a reasonable possibility. But you've already admitted that your argument requires an "external" time dimension so you're left with no argument against an external spacetime. Which was always a possibility anyway.Assuming time without space is a step further than I'm willing to go without actual argument. Given the connection between space and time in modern physics it seems somewhat unlikely to me.

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The main focus should be on the immaterial realm because that is easier to grasp.

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I'd start with producing a solid argument for it. So far you haven't got one.

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You have not risen to this challenge so I will do it for you.

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Because there is no point to it. THe matter has already been covered in earlier posts stating that the argument assumes an absolute first moment of time.I will only comment that your "reworking" is clearly self-serving, as well as inaccurate.

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As you can see, the argument is not logically consistent.

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Of course if you assume a contradiction you get an incoherent argument. That's why your reworking is pointless.

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One may argue that we do not know if an immaterial being exists in such a realm as in premise 1, but the existence of such a being has not been disproved. If you argue it is not possible for a Designer/Creator to exist, then you are committing circular reasoning.

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I see that you still fail to understand the concept of circular reasoning. Again it is quite simple. The conclusion of an argument must also be a premise. If that is not so there is no circular reasoning.And of course as we know there was nothing wrong with my actual argument. Your only "valid" objection (and there is a reason for those scare-quotes) was that when I use the word "timeless" I actually mean it. Unlike you, who went through an entire thread and a good part of this one before explaining that you were using your own private meaning (something you should have explained right at the start).So, instead of wasting time with these trivialities of obvious points already dealt with, misrepresentation and attempts to justify false charges made in the past we come to the real, relevant point.How do you justify the claim that there is a spaceless realm, with a different time dimension external to our spacetime? It does not follow from Davies' argument since Davies was arguing the position that our spacetime was all that there was. So where is the support for this assumption ?

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I don't see how I'm assuming a contradiction when you say you are willing to postulate a prior period of time in a different time dimension. I also don't see how it can be a contradiction unless there is a circular argument.

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The fact that I am willing to postulate something is irrelevant. The argument deals with the case where there is no prior time in any time dimension. Assuming otherwise creates a contradiction.

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I have pointed out in earlier posts that this thread arose from my earlier thread started at Message 1. I could make your implicit conclusion explicit in the argument if that would make it more clear for you. Although, I think it is already clear or you would not have said I was assuming a contradiction.

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No, you can't make it clearer because it isn't there. The fact that you have implicitly conceded that my argument is sound is evidence of this. All you can do is deny the premise that there is no prior moment of time (in the absolute sense).

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So your questions return to the earlier thread. As I said there, Davies is a mathematical physicist. His technique for examining the big bang is mathematics. Once he hits infinity, he can go no further. But that does not mean logic is prevented from going further. I quoted Davies mainly because I wanted to make clear that a singularity cannot exist as a singularity for any moment in time because it will immediately begin to rapidly expand. From the very first moment of the big bang, we had matter, energy and expansion of space-time. "Prior" to the beginning at the big bang (and I understand this is where you have trouble), Davies is not willing to discuss. "Prior" has no meaning inside our universe, but logically speaking it can have meaning from a perspective outside our universe. By the way, I did not use the term "spaceless realm," I used "immaterial realm." I'm not certain the two terms are equivalent.

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This is untrue. You quoted Davies to support your claim of a "timeless immaterial" cause. But you've now admitted that - contrary to Davies you assume an additional time dimension (Davies can't be assuming that because it would just reinstate the problem that he is trying to solve!)And while it is true that "immaterial " and "spaceless" are not synonymous your argument relies on the absence of space to conclude immateriality. So your argument does require that your hypothetical realm lacks space.

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Okay, this confirms my first criticism of your argument - that you had an unexamined/implicit premise that there was no prior time in any time dimension

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That you can call this a criticism just shows that you utterly fail to understand my argument.The point of my argument was to show that we cannot safely use "everything that begins to exist has a cause" to infer a timeless cause. Since inferring a timeless cause requires no prior time, this is the situation assumed for the sake of the argument.Looking at precisely the situation I wished to address is NOT an error. If there was a mistake it was believing that you meant what you said.

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But, you see, this is where the logical fallacy of circular reasoning comes in. Let me reformulate your argument for you.

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Well let us remember that circular reasoning requires assuming the premise as a conclusion,. Let us remember that the conclusion is that we cannot safely infer a timeless cause via "everything that begins to exist has a cause"

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1. No timeless state or time dimensions exist prior to the beginning of time at the big bang. (This is your unexamined and implicit premise which we will accept for the sake of argument for the time being.)

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1) Assume for the sake of argument that there is an absolute beginning of time. (this is required to argue for a genuinely timeless cause from "everything which begins to exist has a cause")

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2. Nothing that exists at the first moment of time came into existence AT ALL because it was never the case that they did not exist. (This premise may be self-contradictory but we will not examine it closely for now.)

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Since "coming into existence" requires a prior state of nonexistence this would necessarily be true, given 1.

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3. If we take these objects to have a beginning, then it is one different from everyday beginnings

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Which is clearly true.

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4. Therefore, the claim "Everything that begins to exist has a cause" is suspect, false or needs a more rigorous definition which will exclude it from applying to the first moment of time.

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More accurately:
4) "Everything that begins to exist has a cause" is an intuitive argument and therefore cannot be trusted in situations significantly differing from our ordinary experience (which is what it is based on)5) The obvious reason why a cause would be needed for a "beginning" is to bring the thing into existence. There seems to be no other reason which would always apply.6) Therefore an absolute beginning of time is not only outside of our ordinary experience, it is different in a way that is directly relevant to the inference of a cause from "beginning to exist"

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5. Therefore, one cannot say the big bang supports the idea of a Universe Designer or Creator God.

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This is purely your addition. I am satisfied with the conclusion that we cannot safely infer a genuinely timeless cause via "everything that begins to exist has a cause".Since you aren't actually interested in arguing for a genuinely timeless cause (unlike William Lane Craig or kbertsche) I have to ask why you are flailing around desperately trying to find an error in my argument ? Even with all the misrepresentations you didn't manage to actually produce a genuinely circular argument !

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"The first moment of time" means time came into existence. If time itself came into being, then what existed before time?

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No, it doesn't necessarily mean that at all. In fact since the argument deals with the case where the beginning is absolute, in the context of the argument time did NOT come into existence because there was no prior state where it did not exist.Obviously the only way that something could exist BEFORE time is if the "before" refers to a different time dimension. So you have to step out of the case the argument is covering for your question to even make sense.

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If course, if you are willing to postulate the possible existence of a timeless or otherly timed dimension, as you said you were in Message 94, then your argument becomes incoherent.

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Well no, considering them doesn't make the argument incoherent. The argument simply doesn't address that possibility because assuming other time dimensions where there IS something prior to the beginning of our time negates the argument for a timeless cause. It's only when you try to add it as a premise to the argument that you get incoherence - but that's because you're doing something stupid.

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Perhaps now you can see why Arthur Eddington said the big bang had "insuperable" problems unless we look at it as "supernatural."

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I can see that my argument is being grossly misrepresented by an irrational individual who has great difficulty admitting to his own errors. That does not cause me to think that the Big Bang has problems.

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It is not an argument from ignorance because it is not my argument. We are discussing PaulK's argument. PaulK could strengthen his argument if he could prove an immaterial realm does not exist. He cannot.

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No, I couldn't. The existence or non-existence of an immaterial realm is irrelevant to the argument in the OP. YOUR argument requires the existence of an immaterial realm, and it would be strengthened if you could give a good reason to think that one exists. Apparently you can't.

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I suggest that "begin to exist" is roughly synonymous with:
1) "have a finite age"
2) "have a temporal starting-point of its existence"

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If past time is finite, everything must have a finite age. Which would give you an infinite regress unless past time is infinite.2) is unclear. What is a "temporal starting-point of it's existence" ? If it is merely a first moment in time when the thing exists then it only differs from 1) in the case of an infinite past. If it is something else then it needs to be explained.William Lane Craig has provided his own gerrymandered definition, but he has not supplied the extra argumentation required. For one thing he has failed to even show that our universe has a beginning by his special definition !Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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Can you please provide Craig's definition, and a reference to where he presents this definition?

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I think that is a digression at this point. After all you are supposed to be presenting a purely logical proof that you already have.

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Are you sure that he has not supplied the extra argumentation? (How can you be sure unless you've read everything he's written?)

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I am absolutely certain that he did not do so in the article that I actually read, where he was using that definition ! I am also certain that it would be very difficult for him to argue for it.