Does the first cause theory depend on special pleading?

[achilles12604]

No less than 3 (cog,goat and duke) non -theists have accused me of using a logical fallacy of special pleading with regard to my idea of the first cause theory.

HISTORY:

From The God Hypothesis

Concerning this topic I put forth the following:

If the universe did begin, it must have had a cause. Nothing comes from nothing. If nothing happened or existed, then nothing would be the result. Obviously something happened because we are here. So something changed. Changes require causes.

This cause had to have certain requirements.

1) It must have been space less or at the very least outside of the confines of this universe.

2) It must have been timeless. Time it is shown by Einstein and others after him directly interacts with matter and space inside this universe. It is a factor which exists inside this universe. If there was no universe then there would be nothing to interact with. Hence the cause of the universe must be timeless.

I followed this with :

First you need to define a person. Then define the start of the person.

then you can identify the cause of that start. What you have done is list a series of results of different causes. But each of these steps had a cause which allowed it to be so. Likewise each of these steps would not have occurred except that something took place. Without that something, the step would not have occurred.

Let’s say (because I am personally against abortion) that a person exists after conception. Before conception it is not a person but rather two sets of genes.

The genes come together and combine DNA which begins the growth process.

Strictly speaking the combining of the DNA is what caused the person to exist.

Quote:
Why must the existence of the universe have a cause? I'm not particularly well versed on universe theory, but I am aware that there is a line of thought whereby this universe is one in a long line of universes that expand, collapse, expand, collapse. Do they need a cause?


I am familiar with this theory. It is no longer accepted by scientists in every secular area of society (not to mention Christian).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_theory

Each step has a cause all the way back to the formation of the universe. So we are back at the "first cause".

I am making one assumption. That the universe did have a cause. However I am making this assumption based on 100% of the observable data ever collected or witnessed by mankind since our existence. There has never been an occurrence which did not have a cause.


If the universe was uncaused, and yet began, then you must explain how nothing changed, and yet the universe changed. It is a logical impossibility. Either the universe (or something which became the universe) changed, or nothing happened. But we know something happened, so something changed. Changes require causes. And around we go.

To this I received the following replies:

Cogitoergosum wrote:
What caused God to exist?
Or are you going to invent a special plea for GOD.

achilles12604 wrote:

Now if the universe began to exist and thus needed a cause, this cause had to meet certain criteria.

Criteria that you will invent to fit GOD.

Duke of Vandals wrote:

Cogitoergosum wrote:
What caused God to exist?
Or are you going to invent a special plea for GOD.

Cogi has asked an important question one which Christians do create special pleas for.

Goat Wrote:
You then declare God to be the one thing that 'always' existed, thereby giving
God an attribute that is not given to anything else. Because you say evertying was 'caused' to exist but god, you are using the logical fallacy of "Special Pleading".

From http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... ading.html

Quote:
Special Pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while taking herself (or those she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:


You are giving the special attribute to God of 'not being caused', and evertying else to 'have a cause'. There is no reason to do that, except to try to 'define' god into place.

So let’s investigate the possibility of me using a special pleading in my logic.


Using Goats link to special pleading fallacies we get the definition of special pleading.

Description of Special Pleading

Special Pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while taking herself (or those she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Person A accepts standard(s) S and applies them to others in circumtance(s) C.
2. Person A is in circumstance(s) C.
3. Therefore A is exempt from S.

The person committing Special Pleading is claiming that he is exempt from certain principles or standards yet he provides no good reason for his exemption. That this sort of reasoning is fallacious is shown by the following extreme example:

1. Barbara accepts that all murderers should be punished for their crimes.
2. Although she murdered Bill, Barbara claims she is an exception because she really would not like going to prison.
3. Therefore, the standard of punishing murderers should not be applied to her.

This is obviously a blatant case of special pleading. Since no one likes going to prison, this cannot justify the claim that Barbara alone should be exempt from punishment.

Using their breakdown I will hence forth apply it in this manner:

G = God
U = Universe
CTC = criteria for cause


The claim made by these three non-theists is that I am using special pleading in reference to God.

The case I made about the universe is that anything which begins to exist must have a cause. Despite goat's demands that I prove this, it is a universally accepted scientific theory. If goat wants to debate this universally accepted fact then start a thread on it and I would like Goat to back up his demand for proof with at least ONE scientific source (author, magazine, anything at all) which agrees with him claim that something can in fact come from nothing and that things spontaneously occur without any reason what so ever.

Moving on with THIS topic, I made the following claims:

1) Anything which begins to exist, must have a cause.

2) The universe began to exist.

3) Therefore the universe must have a cause.

So long as my one assumption (anything that begins to exist must have a cause) is correct, this logic follows along correctly. So there is no fallacy here.

Next I wrote that the cause for the universe must have several attributes.

(disclaimer: before beginning I would like to point out that I am aware of the multiverse theory and that this totally unproven theory allows for the cause of THIS universe to be within another space and time. But then the problem is simply moved out one more universe so for the sake of moving the topic at hand along, I am going to assume only this universe exists)

1) It must be space less. By this I mean it must be outside the confines of the universe it created. This is because the cause of the universe can not depend on the universe's existence. Since the universe (remember my disclaimer) encompasses all matter, anything without anything, (no matter, space,etc) can be defined as space less.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_a ... 0902a.html

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/as ... AST224.HTM
Author: janette l gubala
What is beyond space?

Response #: 1 of 1
Author: asmith
Nothing! Either space goes on forever (is infinite) or it comes back around
in some kind of closed loop, but the way we understand space right now, it
is impossible for it to have any edges, and so there is no direction you
could point and say "50 yards in that direction space ends". Since there
are not any ends, there is not really any way to understand what "beyond"
means. But there could be other things that "exist" that are somehow
outside our own universe - parallel universes!

2) It must be timeless since without reference to space, time is meaningless. Einstein’s theories show us the direct correlation of time and matter.

Now the universe does not fit these two criteria for obvious reasons. Therefore going back to my original point, the universe (U) can not fit the criteria for the cause of the universe (CFC).


Christian theology presents a God which does fit these criteria however. We portray him as both outside space and timeless. Also the design of God came BEFORE the criteria for creation.

So the argument we are just designing God to fit the criteria isn't valid since God pre-dates the criteria.

We can not be molding the criteria to fit God because the criteria for the cause of the universe is fixed. For example I could not make the claim that being 5'5" was a criteria for the cause of the universe because it invalidates the logical order of things because for anything to be 5'5" it must have something to compare to and it must already exist, both of which are impossible without the universe's existence.

So we Christians present a God whose characterizes were in existence before the question about the criteria for cause of the universe was asked. It is just a happy coincidence that the criteria of God and the criteria for the cause of the universe are the same. (or is it?)



IS MY ARGUMENT SPECIAL PLEADING?

The person committing Special Pleading is claiming that he is exempt from certain principles or standards yet he provides no good reason for his exemption.

This is the key sentence in deciding if I am guilty of special pleading or not. The standards I have set for the universe and deny for God fall into my first premise:

[center]Whatever begins to exist requires a cause[/center]

I say that this premise DOES apply to the universe and it DOES NOT apply to God.

Here is my reasoning for this.

Why it does apply to the universe:

Within this universe, every experience and experiment conducted by mankind shows that if nothing happens, then nothing happens. If you do not plant a seed, then a tree will not grow. However if a tree does grow, then a seed MUST have been planted. There is no alternative. Since this rule is consistent throughout the entire universe, it is logical to think that this same law applies to the universe itself. In addition to this we have evidence of such a beginning. We have discovered the once hypothetical background radiation which would have followed an explosive beginning to the universe. Red light shift indicates that all other galaxies are moving away from us. This would be very likely if the universe did have an explosive beginning but unlikely if the universe always was.

Why it does not apply to God:

Did God begin to exist? Scientifically there is no answer. The only answer can be found in theology and that answer is no.

It is important to remember here that I am not changing or reinventing God so he fits with the criteria of this argument. The idea that God was eternal dates back to at least the writing of genesis which is well before the BCE./CE switch. So I am not fitting the facts to God, not am I fitting God to the facts. They are both the same.

Once again the CFC of the universe is fixed. If the universe began (which is an accepted analysis of science), then its cause must fall within certain guidelines, which I established. The fact that the God described in the bible happens to fit these guidelines is not the product of theology but rather of coincidence.


CONCLUSION:

With my reasons for applying the criteria to the universe and not to God in mind I can safely say that I have not committed the logical fallacy of special pleading.

The only case in which I would have done this is if God was supposed to be held to the same standards as everything else within this universe. From Goat's source :

[center]2. Person A is in circumstance(s) C.[/center]

But the God of Christianity does not fit into the circumstances applied to the universe. The laws of the universe don't apply to God simply due to his nature.

Looking at this from the other side, if the laws of this universe applied to God, then god could not have been the first cause because he would be dependent on the universe. But then we are still left with the problem of the cause of the universe.

In essence what I am trying to say in as lengthy manner as possible is that whatever caused the universe, IS NOT bound by the laws of this universe. Therefore, I can not be guilty of special pleading because person A (God) is not in the circumstances described for and applied to the universe itself.

[achilles12604]

Back to your dilemma. Now I must review what was already written because I have forgotten what this threads origin was.

The original OP was whether or not the first cause argument itself was a special pleading.

You argued that it was because I crossed the line from scientific analysis to metaphysical theory because it was unable to be tested using the scientific method.

I have rebutted that any argument would fall under this problem because each of these theories is equally unfalsifyable. I also pointed out that the first two theories presented by goat and Finalenigma contained specifics which were either logically impossible, or else a special pleading of their own. I also pointed out that your string theory is absolutely as un-provable as "god" and in fact scientists do not believe they will EVER be able to test strings. So from that perspective total conformation of the string theory may never occur which leaves it in the same place as a multiverse theory, alien theory or "god" theory.

Ok, first string theory irrelevant: ancient. megaverse theory more approp but still irrelevant to this thread. Dont' recall how it got in here, but regardless, it is theoretical physics. So irrelevant. But still not special plea. I am not comparing it to the scientific theory. Oh yeah, we got here because of entropy. But entropy and M theory aren't really interrelated so if I was claiming they were, my mistake. We aren't evaluating the cause or effect of the big bang theory so entropy belongs in a whole separate forum. My apologies for expanding on it here.

Actually I think entropy came into the picture when FinalEnigma put forth the theory of a constantly re-newing universe which would negate the necessity for a cause of the universe as it was eternal. But I won't readdress this now since we have re-hashed it several ways.

Now, you haven't addressed my presentation of your special plea. You are saying the universe must have had a first cause. Can you create a plan to prove it hasn't always been in existence? If you plan to use the big bang theory, then you must use the scientific standards to prove this. Correct? Ok. Now you are saying that God has always existed, correct. Can you prove he has always existed? If your plan is to provide proof by scripture, then you are using two completely different standards of proof to support one claim. Now you can say that scripture supports the universe coming into existence (likely not by big bang, but rather designed). But can you use science to prove God has always existed? Here is your special plea. The universe fits the criteria of both standards to prove it came into existence, but God is exempt from the scientific standard of proof that He has always existed. Why?

I believe that looking at the definition and build of a special plea argument would be helpful here.

Description of Special Pleading

Special Pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while taking herself (or those she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Person A accepts standard(s) S and applies them to others in circumtance(s) C.
2. Person A is in circumstance(s) C.
3. Therefore A is exempt from S.

The person committing Special Pleading is claiming that he is exempt from certain principles or standards yet he provides no good reason for his exemption. That this sort of reasoning is fallacious is shown by the following extreme example:

1. Barbara accepts that all murderers should be punished for their crimes.
2. Although she murdered Bill, Barbara claims she is an exception because she really would not like going to prison.
3. Therefore, the standard of punishing murderers should not be applied to her.

This is obviously a blatant case of special pleading. Since no one likes going to prison, this cannot justify the claim that Barbara alone should be exempt from punishment.

Ok for the special pleading to occur in my argument there are specific conditions which must be met.

1) I accept standards (S) as applicable to everything within the universe.

2) God (G) must be constrained by standards (S)

3) I claim (G) is able to perform outside of (S)

It is point 2 I do not agree with. I do not believe God is constrained by (S).

For that matter I do not believe it is POSSIBLE for the first cause to ever be constrained by S.

If S are the standards set by this universe, specifically the LCE (law of cause and effect), then any first cause must automatically be outside of S since LCE wouldn't exist at the time necessary for creation.

Perhaps a timeline would help.

-------------------First Cause -------- creation of universe including LCE ----------

For FC to be constrained by LCE the timeline would HAVE to look like this . . .

---------Universe exists --------- First cause -----------

But the FC can not come after the universe exists. Therefore my FC can never be confined by standards S.

Therefore premise 2 of the special pleading fallacy can never apply to FC for this universe. They must be separate and exclusive of one another.

Now it is possible for this to also exist



---------alternate S2 in another universe -------- FC obeying LCE for alternate S --------------Creation of this universe with standards S1----------

This is a possibility, but it still doesn't violate special pleading because S2 came before S1's existence. Also if this model were accurate then you would need to determine FC for S2's universe. But since we are totally unable to test S2 it becomes another option along with God, et al.


My argument can not logically be special pleading by the definition given above.


As for my conclusion, It does not fall victim to special pleading since I am not demanding that "god" be the only answer. It does however fall prey to non-falsifyability. But since we have now left the physical realm and entered the theoretical realm, the need for the ability to falsify the components of my conclusion no longer exists since I am simply putting it forth as a possible theoretical solution.

[Furrowed Brow]

1) Anything which begins to exist, must have a cause.

2) The universe began to exist.

3) Therefore the universe must have a cause.

I’ve been looking at the basic argument again Achilles. I have previously posted at 36 as to why 1) is false. However you can still argue validly from a false premise. The argument then is just unsound. I think the point here is that whether the argument is sound or unsound is beside the point, it is still valid.

However 2 is also a presumption. Metacrock/Schweppes have tried to offer an argument whereby an infinite regress is absurd therefore the universe had to have an ultimate origin. Maybe in this long thread you have offered your version, but 2 can never be proved with logic.

If you do not plant a seed, then a tree will not grow. However if a tree does grow, then a seed MUST have been planted. There is no alternative. Since this rule is consistent throughout the entire universe, it is logical to think that this same law applies to the universe itself.

This argument is deductively invalid. A rule found to be empirically consistent is still only ever contingent. Thus 1 and 2 are putative but contingent premises, they may look unavoidable conclusions, but they are not logical truths. To make this part of your argument valid you need to put some “Ifs” in.

1) If anything which begins to exist, must have a cause.

2) If the universe began to exist.

3) Then the universe must have a cause.

So when we get to.

…the cause for the universe must have several attributes….

1) It must be space less….

2) It must be timeless since without reference to space, time is meaningless….

You have not shown that a spaceless/timeless cause is impossible. Your argument relies on some putative origin of the universe falling outside space/time, and thus not being bound by space/time. But you require a further argument to show that causality is itself bound by space/time. Whereas you have only made the invalid claim

..this rule is consistent throughout the entire universe, it is logical to think that this same law applies to the universe itself.

Even if this were a valid argument, you have not shown why causality does not extend beyond the limits of the universe. And it is at this juncture that I think special pleading comes into play.

However, before you even get to the argument of special pleading. I do not think your premises are sound.

[achilles12604]

1) Anything which begins to exist, must have a cause.

2) The universe began to exist.

3) Therefore the universe must have a cause.

I’ve been looking at the basic argument again Achilles. I have previously posted at 36 as to why 1) is false. However you can still argue validly from a false premise. The argument then is just unsound. I think the point here is that whether the argument is sound or unsound is beside the point, it is still valid.

However 2 is also a presumption. Metacrock/Schweppes have tried to offer an argument whereby an infinite regress is absurd therefore the universe had to have an ultimate origin. Maybe in this long thread you have offered your version, but 2 can never be proved with logic.

If you do not plant a seed, then a tree will not grow. However if a tree does grow, then a seed MUST have been planted. There is no alternative. Since this rule is consistent throughout the entire universe, it is logical to think that this same law applies to the universe itself.

This argument is deductively invalid. A rule found to be empirically consistent is still only ever contingent. Thus 1 and 2 are putative but contingent premises, they may look unavoidable conclusions, but they are not logical truths. To make this part of your argument valid you need to put some “Ifs” in.

1) If anything which begins to exist, must have a cause.

2) If the universe began to exist.

3) Then the universe must have a cause.

So when we get to.

…the cause for the universe must have several attributes….

1) It must be space less….

2) It must be timeless since without reference to space, time is meaningless….

You have not shown that a spaceless/timeless cause is impossible. Your argument relies on some putative origin of the universe falling outside space/time, and thus not being bound by space/time. But you require a further argument to show that causality is itself bound by space/time. Whereas you have only made the invalid claim

..this rule is consistent throughout the entire universe, it is logical to think that this same law applies to the universe itself.

Even if this were a valid argument, you have not shown why causality does not extend beyond the limits of the universe. And it is at this juncture that I think special pleading comes into play.

However, before you even get to the argument of special pleading. I do not think your premises are sound.

I'm actually replying to post 36 right now but I have lost a pertinant thread so I might not be able to complete my reply until tonight. sorry. I am so disorganized. You should see me desk

[achilles12604]

Hi Achilles,

1) Anything which begins to exist, must have a cause.

2) The universe began to exist.

3) Therefore the universe must have a cause.

So long as my one assumption (anything that begins to exist must have a cause) is correct, this logic follows along correctly. So there is no fallacy here.

Well I think it can be shown that you 1st assumption is questionable. I started a thread a whle back Is it really possible to get something from nothing?

Def 1: nothing = no things and no principles.
Def 2: nothing = no things and the principle "you cannot get something from nothing".

The first question is: where did the "you can't get owt from nowt" rule come from? Is this a principle that belongs to logic or empiricism?

I say it is empirical.

The second question: is not def 1 a more minimal possibility than Def 2 and therefore closer to being absolute nothing.
I say it is.

So I think on a point of logic that for "anything to begins to exist must have a cause" is questionable. The assumption relies on the principle "you can't get something to exist from nothing". But that principle in turn relies on the principle "anything that exists must have a cause". That piece of reasoning being circular.

However I suggest the "you can't get something from nothing rule" is merely putative, and places a restriction on "nothing" the legitimacy of which is not proved, nor is it actually needed. Thus Occam's razor can be applied.

To stave off Occam's razor I think you will need to do more work to support your assumption and show it is necessary. Otherwise I'll stick to my guns :2gun: and say not everything that begins to exist is caused.

Ok thats cool

Can you give me an example of something which began but was uncaused? If so I will drop this entirely right now.

Well the universe. I’d also say Free Will but that is a whole different debate I have had with Bugmaster. Then we could look at things like virtual particles, and quantum fluctuations. Science does not stand against uncaused events. It only maintains certain principles should not be violated like conservation of energy, momentum etc. The principle that you can't get something form nothing is neither a logical principle or a physical law. A virtual particle can pop into existence and travel no further than its Compton wavelength before it pops out of existence. It can do this because Heisenberg uncertainty principle allows the law of conservation of energy to be suspended for the probability of duration T and Energy E that when multiplied are not greater than h. So here science applies principles that limit a behaviour, but not the cause of the behaviour.

Then we can look at this another way. What we really mean by cause and effect. Is this just a conceptual tool for understanding the world which let us make sense of it - but that is the extent of the role it plays. Say you type a response to this post. Did this post cause you to type a reply, did your motivation for defending your position cause you to type, did neurons firing in your brain cause you to type. etc etc. What exactly is a cause? They can’t all be the cause - can they? Or is talk of “causes” just a way of interpreting events? Causes thus belonging to interpretative frameworks and not ontology.

My apologies. I don't think I have responded to this yet. Imagine that with all this confusion.

For some reason I was looking into virtual particles earlier. . .

Oh yea. goat.

Ok I found it. Let me cut it down a bit.

Goat wrote:
Examples
1) Radioactive decay.
2) Virtual particles.
3) A single light particle going through one of two slits.

You could say these are 'spontanious' events that are probablistic in nature , rather than deterministic in nature.

It might be counter intuitive, but we have repeatable and verifiable experments that lead many variations of the QM theory to the conclusion that there are 'uncaused effects'.

Examples
1) Radioactive decay.

Radioactive decay has a cause. Yes it is random, but it still has a cause. In fact here is a HIGH SCHOOLER who is able to grasp the cause.

http://scied.gsu.edu/Students/Cox/radiocas.htm

And a slightly "higher" source

http://www.arpansa.gov.au/basics/radioactivity.htm

2) Virtual particles.

Perhaps you should explain how virtual particles dont adhere to LCE. I am curious since these particles are currently hypothetical, how it is you have tested them to determine if in fact they do obey LCE.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Q ... icles.html

Here is a section of an article which deals with them directly. Notice how it explains exactly how these theoretical things operate within the principle of causality.

Do they go faster than light? Do virtual particles contradict relativity or causality?

In section 2, the virtual photon's plane wave is seemingly created everywhere in space at once, and destroyed all at once. Therefore, the interaction can happen no matter how far the interacting particles are from each other. Quantum field theory is supposed to properly apply special relativity to quantum mechanics. Yet here we have something that, at least at first glance, isn't supposed to be possible in special relativity: the virtual photon can go from one interacting particle to the other faster than light! It turns out, if we sum up all possible momenta, that the amplitude for transmission drops as the virtual particle's final position gets further and further outside the light cone, but that's small consolation. This "superluminal" propagation had better not transmit any information if we are to retain the principle of causality.

I'll give a plausibility argument that it doesn't in the context of a thought experiment. Let's try to send information faster than light with a virtual particle.

Suppose that you and I make repeated measurements of a quantum field at distant locations. The electromagnetic field is sort of a complicated thing, so I'll use the example of a field with just one component, and call it F. To make things even simpler, we'll assume that there are no "charged" sources of the F field or real F particles initially. This means that our F measurements should fluctuate quantum- mechanically around an average value of zero. You measure F (really, an average value of F over some small region) at one place, and I measure it a little while later at a place far away. We do this over and over, and wait a long time between the repetitions, just to be safe.

.
.
.
------X
------
X------


^ time
------X me |
------ |
you X------ ---> space

After a large number of repeated field measurements we compare notes. We discover that our results are not independent; the F values are correlated with each other-- even though each individual set of measurements just fluctuates around zero, the fluctuations are not completely independent. This is because of the propagation of virtual quanta of the F field, represented by the diagonal lines. It happens even if the virtual particle has to go faster than light.

However, this correlation transmits no information. Neither of us has any control over the results we get, and each set of results looks completely random until we compare notes (this is just like the resolution of the famous EPR "paradox").

You can do things to fields other than measure them. Might you still be able to send a signal? Suppose that you attempt, by some series of actions, to send information to me by means of the virtual particle. If we look at this from the perspective of someone moving to the right at a high enough speed, special relativity says that in that reference frame, the effect is going the other way:

.
.
.

X------
------
------X



you X------ ^ time
------ |
------X me |
---> space

Now it seems as if I'm affecting what happens to you rather than the other way around. (If the quanta of the F field are not the same as their antiparticles, then the transmission of a virtual F particle from you to me now looks like the transmission of its antiparticle from me to you.) If all this is to fit properly into special relativity, then it shouldn't matter which of these processes "really" happened; the two descriptions should be equally valid.

We know that all of this was derived from quantum mechanics, using perturbation theory. In quantum mechanics, the future quantum state of a system can be derived by applying the rules for time evolution to its present quantum state. No measurement I make when I "receive" the particle can tell me whether you've "sent" it or not, because in one frame that hasn't happened yet! Since my present state must be derivable from past events, if I have your message, I must have gotten it by other means. The virtual particle didn't "transmit" any information that I didn't have already; it is useless as a means of faster-than-light communication.

The order of events does not vary in different frames if the transmission is at the speed of light or slower. Then, the use of virtual particles as a communication channel is completely consistent with quantum mechanics and relativity. That's fortunate: since all particle interactions occur over a finite time interval, in a sense all particles are virtual to some extent.

Ok in this cut and paste is included reasons why virtual particles do not violate the principle of causality. I'll let it speak for itself. In short, a virtual particle doesn't violate the principle established for matter and energy, specifically with regard to LCE.

[Furrowed Brow]

Hi Achilles,

1) Anything which begins to exist, must have a cause.

2) The universe began to exist.

3) Therefore the universe must have a cause.

So long as my one assumption (anything that begins to exist must have a cause) is correct, this logic follows along correctly. So there is no fallacy here.

Well I think it can be shown that you 1st assumption is questionable. I started a thread a whle back Is it really possible to get something from nothing?

Def 1: nothing = no things and no principles.
Def 2: nothing = no things and the principle "you cannot get something from nothing".

The first question is: where did the "you can't get owt from nowt" rule come from? Is this a principle that belongs to logic or empiricism?

I say it is empirical.

The second question: is not def 1 a more minimal possibility than Def 2 and therefore closer to being absolute nothing.
I say it is.

So I think on a point of logic that for "anything to begins to exist must have a cause" is questionable. The assumption relies on the principle "you can't get something to exist from nothing". But that principle in turn relies on the principle "anything that exists must have a cause". That piece of reasoning being circular.

However I suggest the "you can't get something from nothing rule" is merely putative, and places a restriction on "nothing" the legitimacy of which is not proved, nor is it actually needed. Thus Occam's razor can be applied.

To stave off Occam's razor I think you will need to do more work to support your assumption and show it is necessary. Otherwise I'll stick to my guns :2gun: and say not everything that begins to exist is caused.

Ok thats cool

Can you give me an example of something which began but was uncaused? If so I will drop this entirely right now.

Well the universe. I’d also say Free Will but that is a whole different debate I have had with Bugmaster. Then we could look at things like virtual particles, and quantum fluctuations. Science does not stand against uncaused events. It only maintains certain principles should not be violated like conservation of energy, momentum etc. The principle that you can't get something form nothing is neither a logical principle or a physical law. A virtual particle can pop into existence and travel no further than its Compton wavelength before it pops out of existence. It can do this because Heisenberg uncertainty principle allows the law of conservation of energy to be suspended for the probability of duration T and Energy E that when multiplied are not greater than h. So here science applies principles that limit a behaviour, but not the cause of the behaviour.

Then we can look at this another way. What we really mean by cause and effect. Is this just a conceptual tool for understanding the world which let us make sense of it - but that is the extent of the role it plays. Say you type a response to this post. Did this post cause you to type a reply, did your motivation for defending your position cause you to type, did neurons firing in your brain cause you to type. etc etc. What exactly is a cause? They can’t all be the cause - can they? Or is talk of “causes” just a way of interpreting events? Causes thus belonging to interpretative frameworks and not ontology.

My apologies. I don't think I have responded to this yet. Imagine that with all this confusion.

For some reason I was looking into virtual particles earlier. . .

Oh yea. goat.

Ok I found it. Let me cut it down a bit.

Goat wrote:
Examples
1) Radioactive decay.
2) Virtual particles.
3) A single light particle going through one of two slits.

You could say these are 'spontanious' events that are probablistic in nature , rather than deterministic in nature.

It might be counter intuitive, but we have repeatable and verifiable experments that lead many variations of the QM theory to the conclusion that there are 'uncaused effects'.

Examples
1) Radioactive decay.

Radioactive decay has a cause. Yes it is random, but it still has a cause. In fact here is a HIGH SCHOOLER who is able to grasp the cause.

http://scied.gsu.edu/Students/Cox/radiocas.htm

And a slightly "higher" source

http://www.arpansa.gov.au/basics/radioactivity.htm

2) Virtual particles.

Perhaps you should explain how virtual particles dont adhere to LCE. I am curious since these particles are currently hypothetical, how it is you have tested them to determine if in fact they do obey LCE.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Q ... icles.html

Here is a section of an article which deals with them directly. Notice how it explains exactly how these theoretical things operate within the principle of causality.

Do they go faster than light? Do virtual particles contradict relativity or causality?

In section 2, the virtual photon's plane wave is seemingly created everywhere in space at once, and destroyed all at once. Therefore, the interaction can happen no matter how far the interacting particles are from each other. Quantum field theory is supposed to properly apply special relativity to quantum mechanics. Yet here we have something that, at least at first glance, isn't supposed to be possible in special relativity: the virtual photon can go from one interacting particle to the other faster than light! It turns out, if we sum up all possible momenta, that the amplitude for transmission drops as the virtual particle's final position gets further and further outside the light cone, but that's small consolation. This "superluminal" propagation had better not transmit any information if we are to retain the principle of causality.

I'll give a plausibility argument that it doesn't in the context of a thought experiment. Let's try to send information faster than light with a virtual particle.

Suppose that you and I make repeated measurements of a quantum field at distant locations. The electromagnetic field is sort of a complicated thing, so I'll use the example of a field with just one component, and call it F. To make things even simpler, we'll assume that there are no "charged" sources of the F field or real F particles initially. This means that our F measurements should fluctuate quantum- mechanically around an average value of zero. You measure F (really, an average value of F over some small region) at one place, and I measure it a little while later at a place far away. We do this over and over, and wait a long time between the repetitions, just to be safe.

.
.
.
------X
------
X------


^ time
------X me |
------ |
you X------ ---> space

After a large number of repeated field measurements we compare notes. We discover that our results are not independent; the F values are correlated with each other-- even though each individual set of measurements just fluctuates around zero, the fluctuations are not completely independent. This is because of the propagation of virtual quanta of the F field, represented by the diagonal lines. It happens even if the virtual particle has to go faster than light.

However, this correlation transmits no information. Neither of us has any control over the results we get, and each set of results looks completely random until we compare notes (this is just like the resolution of the famous EPR "paradox").

You can do things to fields other than measure them. Might you still be able to send a signal? Suppose that you attempt, by some series of actions, to send information to me by means of the virtual particle. If we look at this from the perspective of someone moving to the right at a high enough speed, special relativity says that in that reference frame, the effect is going the other way:

.
.
.

X------
------
------X



you X------ ^ time
------ |
------X me |
---> space

Now it seems as if I'm affecting what happens to you rather than the other way around. (If the quanta of the F field are not the same as their antiparticles, then the transmission of a virtual F particle from you to me now looks like the transmission of its antiparticle from me to you.) If all this is to fit properly into special relativity, then it shouldn't matter which of these processes "really" happened; the two descriptions should be equally valid.

We know that all of this was derived from quantum mechanics, using perturbation theory. In quantum mechanics, the future quantum state of a system can be derived by applying the rules for time evolution to its present quantum state. No measurement I make when I "receive" the particle can tell me whether you've "sent" it or not, because in one frame that hasn't happened yet! Since my present state must be derivable from past events, if I have your message, I must have gotten it by other means. The virtual particle didn't "transmit" any information that I didn't have already; it is useless as a means of faster-than-light communication.

The order of events does not vary in different frames if the transmission is at the speed of light or slower. Then, the use of virtual particles as a communication channel is completely consistent with quantum mechanics and relativity. That's fortunate: since all particle interactions occur over a finite time interval, in a sense all particles are virtual to some extent.

Ok in this cut and paste is included reasons why virtual particles do not violate the principle of causality. I'll let it speak for itself. In short, a virtual particle doesn't violate the principle established for matter and energy, specifically with regard to LCE.

Your sources are showing how virtual photons can impart some force or other. Thus in theory they can play a part in a causal explanation - as the cause. However, there is no restriction on a virtual particles popping into existence, travelling some distance less than its Compton wavelength and popping out of existence again. We can knock this one about virtually forever.

However, the real point here is that you are asking for an empirical example of a phenomena that breaks with the rule of seed/tree causality which is itself a rule drawn from induction. Which is a fair request. But that does not make seed/tree causality a logical truth. And that is my major gripe against your whole argument.

This gripe is however a side issue to the charge of special pleading. For even if you are proved correct and there are no exceptions to the rule within the universe, you still need to prove that seed/tree causality is limited to and extends no further than space/time. Which you can't do because the rule is inductive.

[achilles12604]

However, the real point here is that you are asking for an empirical example of a phenomena that breaks with the rule of seed/tree causality which is itself a rule drawn from induction. Which is a fair request. But that does not make seed/tree causality a logical truth. And that is my major gripe against your whole argument.

This gripe is however a side issue to the charge of special pleading. For even if you are proved correct and there are no exceptions to the rule within the universe, you still need to prove that seed/tree causality is limited to and extends no further than space/time. Which you can't do because the rule is inductive.

On this we agree. In fact I think I have written a couple times that an alternate theory which would be plausible is that the FC of this universe did need a FC of its own. This of course would depend on the particular standards and laws of the universe in which the FC existed.

Now if in fact the FC of this universe (FC1) required a cause of its own, then the problem would perpetuate since that would establish the premise that the LCE for that universe was similar to ours in that any effect requires a cause so now you would need to discovered the FC for universe 2.


So long as the FC of the next universe requires a cause of its own, we can assume that the LCE applies to that universe just as it does to this one and the cycle continues.

An option to break this cycle is to have a FC1 or FC2 which did not require a cause. But then you are turning back into my argument since this is in essence what I am claiming is true about "god", String theory, infinite regression, etc.

Each of these solutions is able to disrupt the cycle of FC however, each on of these solutions also exhibits properties which violate our understanding of the universe and each is equally un-testable.

If the future I reserve the right to go with any of these option as technology has the potential of examining them closely, however for the moment my estimation of the simplest explanation is that our universe is the only one, it had a beginning, it required a cause for its conception and that cause necessarily possesses characteristics which are outside the laws and understanding of this universe.

As renowned atheist Richard Dawkins said,

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -6,00.html

TIME: Could the answer be God?

DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.

[achilles12604]

I just had another thought about virtual particles.

With regard to virtual particles, is it, or is it not true that they are a theoretical and untested hypothesis?

Now this next part is important to read correctly because I can be very easily misunderstood. I personally do not doubt the existence of virtual partilces. This being said, while I can very easily accept the existence of virtual particles, dispite thier lack of study, I can not accept that anyone here can be sure that these particles are in fact uncaused. We are unsure of virtual particles existence, much less their characteristics. So isn't it just as plausible that if they do exist, the do in fact have a cause which is of yet unknown? If this were the case then the LCE of the universe would remain intact and there would be no violation.

Honest and open question . . .

Are we sure that virtual particles do not in fact have a cause which we are unaware of? After all it was once believed that flys spontaniously appeared until studies were conducted and fly's eggs were discovered.

[Cathar1950]

I wonder if Chaos, freedom, or possibility is the norm while order, cause and effect are the exceptions. In one sense order is limits.
We may have it all backwards and it looks the same anyway you look at it.
Honest I didn't do any drugs.
Does diphenhydramine count as a drug?

.

[Goat]

I just had another thought about virtual particles.

With regard to virtual particles, is it, or is it not true that they are a theoretical and untested hypothesis?

Now this next part is important to read correctly because I can be very easily misunderstood. I personally do not doubt the existence of virtual partilces. This being said, while I can very easily accept the existence of virtual particles, dispite thier lack of study, I can not accept that anyone here can be sure that these particles are in fact uncaused. We are unsure of virtual particles existence, much less their characteristics. So isn't it just as plausible that if they do exist, the do in fact have a cause which is of yet unknown? If this were the case then the LCE of the universe would remain intact and there would be no violation.

Honest and open question . . .

Are we sure that virtual particles do not in fact have a cause which we are unaware of? After all it was once believed that flys spontaniously appeared until studies were conducted and fly's eggs were discovered.

Yes, virutal particles have been tested for.
http://sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm ... 414B7F0000

http://digitalphysics.org/Publications/ ... shyk/EMQG/

[achilles12604]

I just had another thought about virtual particles.

With regard to virtual particles, is it, or is it not true that they are a theoretical and untested hypothesis?

Now this next part is important to read correctly because I can be very easily misunderstood. I personally do not doubt the existence of virtual partilces. This being said, while I can very easily accept the existence of virtual particles, dispite thier lack of study, I can not accept that anyone here can be sure that these particles are in fact uncaused. We are unsure of virtual particles existence, much less their characteristics. So isn't it just as plausible that if they do exist, the do in fact have a cause which is of yet unknown? If this were the case then the LCE of the universe would remain intact and there would be no violation.

Honest and open question . . .

Are we sure that virtual particles do not in fact have a cause which we are unaware of? After all it was once believed that flys spontaniously appeared until studies were conducted and fly's eggs were discovered.

Yes, virutal particles have been tested for.
http://sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm ... 414B7F0000

http://digitalphysics.org/Publications/ ... shyk/EMQG/

Your first source was more to the point than the second, but thank you for providing a source concerning the existence of virtual particles.

Now my second question remains. Are you sure that these particles occur without cause?

Your source gives a good indication of the source of these particles...

Quantum mechanics allows, and indeed requires, temporary violations of conservation of energy, so one particle can become a pair of heavier particles (the so-called virtual particles), which quickly rejoin into the original particle as if they had never been there.

So if virtual particles come from other particles, then they actually come from something and not from nothing. This could easily mean that in addition to coming from a known source, that known source could also contain here-to-fore unknown causes for the particles.

This source explains it in fairly simple terms.

In short, my understanding of virtual particles is that they are the by-product of one particle's decay or loss of some energy. What is produced is a photon and a virtual particle which is very quickly absorbed by another particle. In short it a momentary transfer of energy between particles.

If I am totally off someone let me know.

This process seems to me to be fairly similar to radioactive decay. Since we are aware of the cause of radioactive decay

Atoms found in nature are either stable or unstable. An atom is stable if the forces among the particles that makeup the nucleus are balanced. An atom is unstable (radioactive) if these forces are unbalanced; if the nucleus has an excess of internal energy. Instability of an atom's nucleus may result from an excess of either neutrons or protons. A radioactive atom will attempt to reach stability by throwing off nucleons (protons or neutrons), as well as other particles, or by releasing energy in other forms.

Why should we immediately assume that there is no cause for virtual particles?

Cause of radioactive decay is simply an unbalanced nucleus. I would suggest that with further study we may very well discover a "cause" for virtual particles as well. I certianly don't believe we should dismiss it as "it just happens without any reason", especially since our understanding of this field is so new.

It appears we have switched places momentarily. Usually the Christian is the one arguing that "god did it" and there was no reason for it. Now you are saying there is no reason, "it just happens" and I am saying "wait, we can still find an explaination.

How funny.

Incidentally thank you to everyone who is participating. My knowledge of this area is small, but I am learning.