Craig/Carroll debate

[Harbinger]

I used to think that. But I only think thats possible if the universe itself is fundamentally made of some sort of spaceless, timeless stuff. There is also a difference in that Carroll just abandons the concepts of cause and sufficient reason.

I don't believe the universe could be infinite in temporal durations because of the problems with having an actual infinite amount of something. Also the scientific theories which postulate space-time atoms and the like invoke a reality to mathematical objects/information which is interesting--it suggests to me were in a simulation.

But you believe it to be true of a conscious being?

[Myriad88]

But you believe it to be true of a conscious being?

I don't think God would be a Cantorian infinite, as in an infinite collection of something which is what the arguments run against

[guyver79]

Craig accepts the A-theory of time. in which the first moment is a tensed fact--therefore it would be a temporal becoming. Craig offers extensive defenses of that idea. The concepts of causality and A-theory are not, in any way, mere intuitions like 'gut feelings' or 'hunches'. I'd say the person who asks us to so arbitrarily abandon our idea of causality better provide a compelling case rather than just boot it when it serves his interest, and it says nothing either way on the metaphysical concept of causality. That does NOT give anyone carte blanche to bin it when convenient.


Carroll is abandoning the need for cause or sufficient reason. He jettisons the idea when it applies to the universe itself (with an indequate defense imo) simply by presuming the concept of cause only applies to things within the universe, but not the universe itself--that argument is problematic for multiple reasons.


God is NOT comparable to Carrolls reasoning. No defender of cosmological argument has ever said everything needs a cause, therefore God. God was not an arbitrary invocation which is presumed to just end the 'why' questions or just exists reasonlessly.

It's conceptually different. God is said to have a nature which is non-composite and metaphysically necessary. That is a world of differnece to what Carroll was saying.

Errr.....

Everything needs a cause therefore god, that is exactly what the kalam says!

God is the exception?

That's convenient.

Could you show some evidence of the nature of God that could verify this, not what attributes God would NEED, but what attributes God actually has that can be measured and verified.

[Myriad88]

Errr.....

Everything needs a cause therefore god, that is exactly what the kalam says!

God is the exception?

That's convenient.

Could you show some evidence of the nature of God that could verify this, not what attributes God would NEED, but what attributes God actually has that can be measured and verified.

Surely you're not fukking serious.


-maybe try this thread- http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=155045953

[guyver79]

Surely you're not fukking serious.


-maybe try this thread- http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=155045953

I'm sorry myriad, I thought it was you making the claim.

So not everything that exists has a cause?

[Myriad88]

I'm sorry myriad, I thought it was you making the claim.

So not everything that exists has a cause?

I said the arguments for God did NOT state that. As in God's existence is not considered a brute fact or reasonless.

[GregariousWolf]

Surely you're not fukking serious.


-maybe try this thread- http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=155045953

The only thing I learned from that thread:

Dogg be a maximally pimped out motherfcker, yo.

[guyver79]

I said the arguments for God did NOT state that. As in God's existence is not considered a brute fact or reasonless.

I thought you were making the claim that causality has to apply to everything?

Surely there's no exceptions?

How would science work?

(U see what I've done there!?)

[MaximosJ]

Everything needs a cause therefore god, that is exactly what the kalam says!

Nope. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. That's what the Kalam says.

[MaximosJ]

This made me lol a little. Craig thinks the universe was created by a sky wizard that doesn't like it when we touch our peepees.

Thanks for bringing this thread down to the level of derp within the first 10 replies.

[Myriad88]

I thought you were making the claim that causality has to apply to everything?

Surely there's no exceptions?

How would science work?

(U see what I've done there!?)

wot

I said we shouldnt abandon the principle of sufficient reason arbitrarily, as Carroll did.

I accept to make ultimate sense of reality, something would have to be uncaused or impossible to cause. But of course this comes with an analysis of causation, sufficient reason, metaphysical necessity, simplicity, unity etc. It's not just tossing the concepts of cause and sufficient reason overboard when its convenient.


Extensive and elaborate argumentation at the core of most metaphysical systems have been developed to demonstrate why God would have to be the way he is.

The old argument of 'If God can just exist so can the universe" is just fundamentally misguided

[guyver79]

Nope. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. That's what the Kalam says.

But we don't find anything that didn't begin, otherwise we would find eternal bicycles.

[Harbinger]

Thanks for bringing this thread down to the level of derp within the first 10 replies.

You're welcome.

[MaximosJ]

But we don't find anything that didn't begin, otherwise we would find eternal bicycles.

wut

[guyver79]

wot

I said we shouldnt abandon the principle of sufficient reason arbitrarily, as Carroll did.

I accept to make ultimate sense of reality, something would have to be uncaused or impossible to cause. But of course this comes with an analysis of causation, sufficient reason, metaphysical necessity, simplicity, unity etc. It's not just tossing the concepts of cause and sufficient reason overboard when its convenient

I wasn't aware that tossing the concepts of cause and reason is what Sean Carroll did for a living.

[Myriad88]

I wasn't aware that tossing the concepts of cause and reason is what Sean Carroll did for a living.

It's not. Which is why he should be more careful, philosophically.

[Lucretius]

Accepting the first premise of kalam, we find the second unwarranted.

The universe begins to exist is false. No model predicts the universe began - only that spacetime arose in it's current form 13.7 billion years ago. Every quantum gravitational model we have never has a point in which "nothing" - as a philosopher would have it - exists. The laws of physics, at minimum are treated as fundamental. Is it a presumption? Yes - but more warranted than God because we know the laws of physics exist and are capable of producing all we see around us.

(I'll take a look at your links on the bus ride this morning myriad)

[guyver79]

It's not. Which is why he should be more careful, philosophically.

Why?

Like he said language like that isn't applicable.

[MaximosJ]

But we don't find anything that didn't begin, otherwise we would find eternal bicycles.

guyver, were you being serious here?

[Lucretius]

guyver, were you being serious here?

Pretty sure he was being facetious - Craig made that argument in the debate, and it was so fantastically bad (as Craig might say) that it bore repeating.

[Lucretius]

Quantum gravity models have not been ignored by proponents of the kalam. The blackwell has a 60 page section authored by a professional physicist, which deals with those models and their implications for the kalam.

Causality is also not intrinsically tied to matter, or spatio-temporal precession. For example, there is a possible world in which there is nothing but me dreaming an entire universe. Nothing is actually physically real, but there are still identifiable causes and effects.

Or, for an example of atemporal causality, imagine I walked into a stasis chamber wearing a hat, sat down, and clenched my fists. I remained in stasis for 10 million years. The position of the hat in space, my fists, and my lap all have causes despite no explicit time passing.

I don't think Carroll appreciated the a priori defenses of causality.

Just saw this: there are flaws in both positions - namely that they still both involve time. Your non-spacetime causal model involves dreaming which is tied to brain activity which is wholly temporal. You cannot "dream" without time.

Next your acausal spacetime also uses time to set up the guy in the stasis chamber - which explains why later - after nothing has changed - why his hat etc are the way they are. Everything still required time, and further shows how linked causes are to time.

[MaximosJ]

Pretty sure he was being facetious - Craig made that argument in the debate, and it was so fantastically bad (as Craig might say) that it bore repeating.

Ah, okay. Any idea where in the video?

[Lucretius]

Ah, okay. Any idea where in the video?

Exact time no - but not in the first half, either in rebuttals or Q&A

[MaximosJ]

Exact time no - but not in the first half, either in rebuttals or Q&A

Okay... I'm disinclined to believe that he said this, but I'm looking for it. You're not thinking of the part around 1:57-1:58 where Craig says roughly that, if the universe can pop into existence out of nothing, then you ought to expect to find other things popping into existence out of nothing, right?

[Lucretius]

Okay... I'm disinclined to believe that he said this, but I'm looking for it. You're not thinking of the part around 1:57-1:58 where Craig says roughly that, if the universe can pop into existence out of nothing, then you ought to expect to find other things popping into existence out of nothing, right?

That is the same point, but he repeated it at some time, I believe during the Q&A - where he indeed used a bicycle as an example of something that can "pop into existence" if a universe can. If you can't find it by tonight when I get home I can take a look.

[MaximosJ]

That is the same point, but he repeated it at some time, I believe during the Q&A - where he indeed used a bicycle as an example of something that can "pop into existence" if a universe can. If you can't find it by tonight when I get home I can take a look.

Oh, okay. But that isn't what guyver said... guyver said that if there are things that are eternal (didn't begin to exist), then we should expect to find eternal bicycles. That's quite different from saying that it seems that, if things can just pop into existence from nothing, then we should expect to find things other than universes (e.g., bicycles being one possibility, buildings and horses being other possibilities) popping into existence from nothing, too. To say that something can pop into existence from nothing is to say that something can pop into existence without the antecedent circumstances playing any role in its popping into existence. But if things can pop into existence without the antecedent circumstances playing any role, then it might seem that they could do so now just as well as earlier, since the antecedent circumstances simply don't seem to matter.

That's at least somewhat reasonable. Now, you might think that, given that it was the universe that popped into existence from nothing, and given that the universe has laws that preclude anything else popping into existence out of nothing within it (if it does have such laws), then we shouldn't expect to find things popping into existence out of nothing anymore. That's a response with some plausibility.

The response to guyver's claim was "wut" because guyver's claim was much more ridiculous. I still can't find Craig making that claim anywhere.

[guyver79]

Oh, okay. But that isn't what guyver said... guyver said that if there are things that are eternal (didn't begin to exist), then we should expect to find eternal bicycles. That's quite different from saying that it seems that, if things can just pop into existence from nothing, then we should expect to find things other than universes (e.g., bicycles being one possibility, buildings and horses being other possibilities) popping into existence from nothing, too. To say that something can pop into existence from nothing is to say that something can pop into existence without the antecedent circumstances playing any role in its popping into existence. But if things can pop into existence without the antecedent circumstances playing any role, then it might seem that they could do so now just as well as earlier, since the antecedent circumstances simply don't seem to matter.

That's at least somewhat reasonable. Now, you might think that, given that it was the universe that popped into existence from nothing, and given that the universe has laws that preclude anything else popping into existence out of nothing within it (if it does have such laws), then we shouldn't expect to find things popping into existence out of nothing anymore. That's a response with some plausibility.

The response to guyver's claim was "wut" because guyver's claim was much more ridiculous. I still can't find Craig making that claim anywhere.

I was mocking Craigs saying that we don't find bicycles pop into existence.

Carroll says that Craig said it in his closing speech.

From Carroll's post debate reflections:

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/...e-reflections/

"Finally in the closing speech WLC finally offered arguments in favor of the idea that the beginning of the universe implies a transcendental cause: (1) it’s a metaphysical principle; (2) if universe could pop into existence, why not bicycles?; and (3) there’s no reason to treat the universe differently than things inside the universe. To me, (1) isn’t actually an argument, just a restatement; and I had already explained why (2) and (3) were not true, and he didn’t actually respond to my explanation. So by the time my rebuttal came around I didn’t have much more new to say. Craig spent some time mocking the very idea that the universe could just “pop into existence.” I explained that this isn’t the right way to think about these models, which are better understood as “the universe has an earliest moment of time,” which doesn’t misleadingly appeal to our intuitions of temporal sequence; but my explanation seemed to have no effect."

[MaximosJ]

I was mocking Craigs saying that we don't find bicycles pop into existence.

Carroll says that Craig said it in his closing speech.

I think Carroll misremembered "bicycles" when Craig said "horses" and "buildings." I don't recall hearing him say "bicycles." Not that that really matters.

Anyway, glad to hear that you were just mocking, but even so, my post above explains why the issues are different (in case you do think they're exactly analogous). With things "popping into existence from nothing," there is at least some plausible initial reason for suspecting that many things would do this if anything could. That's why Carroll had to explain why it isn't so. On the other hand, with things that exist eternally, there is no even initially plausible reason to suspect that other things would also be eternal just because some particular being is. The reason it's initially plausible in the case of things popping into existence out of nothing, but not in the case of eternal existents, is that, if things can pop into existence out of nothing, then things can begin to exist for no reason, without antecedent circumstances playing any role in their existence. The thought is: if there is literally no reason for a thing to begin to exist, and the antecedent circumstances play no role in its coming to exist (since they're "nothing"), and yet the thing still comes into existence, there is seemingly no reason why the circumstances now should preclude other things from also just coming into existence for no reason (since the antecedent circumstances are seemingly irrelevant for things that can begin to exist out of nothing).

Now, I think there may be a plausible response to that concern, and Carroll does, too. But the concern doesn't even get started in the case of eternal existents. There is no even initially plausible reason for thinking that if one thing can exist eternally, other things would also exist eternally.

[guyver79]

Maximos it's around the 1:35:00 mark onwards, Craig also wants to know why Beethoven doesn't just pop into existence too!

[MaximosJ]

Maximos it's around the 1:35:00 mark onwards, Craig also wants to know why Beethoven doesn't just pop into existence too!

Thanks. Just heard it at 1:37:30.

Again, though, the point is that it is initially plausible to think that, if it is true that a thing can begin to exist for literally no reason, so that the antecedent circumstances play no role whatsoever in causing it to exist or to have the properties that it has, and its existence has literally no explanation, then there is seemingly no reason to doubt that such things would continue to pop into existence now (since the antecedent circumstances seem to play no role in whether such things pop into existence or not), and so we might expect that the present circumstances would not preclude their still coming into being out of nothing. There thus still seems to be the remaining explanatory question: why does the universe pop into existence out of nothing, but nothing else (like bicycles) does this? And the answer to at least the first part of that question seems to be, "No reason."

There is no such parallel in the case of eternal existents. If you say that one thing exists eternally, that does not seem to provide any reason for suspecting that other things also exist eternally (e.g., "eternal bicycles"). Just because one thing exists eternally, that does not seem to provide any reason to expect that other things will, too. And there is no analogous explanatory question with "No reason" as an answer. Why does God exist eternally, but (most or all) other things (like bicycles) do not? Well, because things like bicycles are composite objects made of material components that we know to exist in various different configurations that change over time via various material interactions. Those material components need not be together and often come apart. But God is not like this because He is not a material object or a composite object. Etc., etc.

This is a bit of a red herring, anyway, since the KCA does not claim that God is eternal. It claims only that the universe has a cause (since it begins to exist and everything that begins to exist has a cause).

EDIT: You can reply if you want, but I probably won't get back to you, as I'm coming close (if I'm not already there yet) to breaking my Lenten resolution not to spend too much of time getting into protracted debates on these forums.