The Kalam Cosmological Argument

[For_The_Kingdom]

Now, moving right along..to my second analogy..

The Sandman: imagine there is a particular man, with an infinite amount of sand at his disposal. The man can never run out of sand, because he has an INFINITE amount. Imagine the man is standing above a bottomless hole (or pit)..and what is meant by bottomless? Well, if something was to fall in the hole, it would fall forever and ever, because the hole is bottomless..no foundation.

Got it?

Now, suppose the man is shoveling sand into the bottomless pit..and imagine the man was shoveling sand into the pit for eternity...he never began, and he never stopped..he has been shoveling for eternity.

The man's goal is to keep shoveling until he has successfully filled the entire hole with sand, until the sand reaches the top of the hole, and is thus, FILLED.

The million dollar question is; how long will it take the man to fill the hole with sand?

Answer: the man will NEVER fill the hole with sand. Why? Because the hole is bottomless, that's why. If you can't reach the bottom, from the top...then how can you reach top, from the bottom??

Hmm.

This example is analogous to the reality of our world...if you can't go back in time (a past boundary), then how can you possibly reach any present point?

The man shoveling: Represents the PRESENT moment in time, as the man is presently shoveling.

Bottomless hole: Represents past eternity, of which there is no beginning to time.

Sand: Represents events in time, and as the sand is traveling in the hole, this is analogous to going back in time.

The ONLY possible way to fill the hole entirely with sand, is if there is a BOTTOM FOUNDATION to the whole. If there is a foundation at the bottom, the sand can successfully reach the man at the top, where he is PRESENTLY shoveling.

Likewise, the only POSSIBLE way for us to reach the present moment if there is a past boundary/foundation/beginning of time. If there is a past boundary, the events which led up to today can successfully...led up to today.

One final problem with the concept of an actual infinity..is the quantities itself. Think about it, if the past is eternal, that would mean..

That the total amount of seconds amounts to infinity..
The total amount of minutes amounts to infinity..
The total amount of hours amounts to infinity..
The total amount of days amounts to infinity..
The total amount of weeks amounts to infinity..
The total amount of months amounts to infinity..
The total amount of years amounts to infinity..
The total amount of decades amounts to infinity..
The total amount of centuries amounts to infinity..

and finally..

The total amount of millenniums amounts to infinity..

There is an obvious problem here, because each of those intervals/measurements of times, each one has different values!!! Yet, all would have the same value if they are infinite!!

This is an obviously clear absurdity..which can not reflect reality.

In closing, there are many different ways one can demonstrate the absurdities which comes come an actual infinity...the point of this thread is to prove, that an absolute beginning is necessary..and by "beginning", I mean a "beginning of all beginnings".

There had to be ONE, SINGLE, INITIAL action, which all other actions resulted from. There is just no way out of it. Neither science, nor any scientist can help you here. Neither philosophy, nor any philosopher can help you here. Neither math, nor any mathematician can help you here.

And finally, God himself, he can't even help you here. God can't neither fill the hole with sand, or reach equal distance of infinity.

So, in conclusion; the universe began to exist, because it is logically impossible for any thing within "time", to exist eternally within time. So, if nothing "within" time can be eternal, it follows that the universe itself cannot be eternal, for the same reasons that everything WITHIN the universe cannot be eternal.

You cannot have an eternal universe with only finite parts (events) within the universe. If the parts are finite, then so is the universe.

Oh, and btw, save all of the "But, what about God, God also would have to have a beginning"...save all of that talk, because the universe is the subject of interest right now.

So, as I've just proven, on logical grounds...that it is absolutely, positively necessary for the universe to begin to exist.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 26 by Divine Insight]

You know, DI..nothing will make me more happier than actually dissecting everything in your post. But there is a problem with me doing that...and the problem is; I would be responding to complete and utter irrelevancy.

Now, I invite you to explain to me (please) what does entropy have to do with ANYTHING that I said.

The irrelevancy of your objection (based on entropy), is REAL.

You do understand that entropy is the cause of the arrow of time, right?

Without entropy there would be no arrow to time. In other words events that occur in time that does not have the property of entropy cannot be said to occur "before" or "after" each other. In other words, without entropy there is no "past" or "future", all that would exist is an ever-changing "now".

I realize that this is difficult to understand intuitively, Just like Special Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics are difficult to understand intuitively. None the less this link between entropy and time is real.

So how does this apply to your argument?

Well, without entropy it's meaningless to speak about a need to have an infinite number of events stretching back into an infinite "past" before the current event called "now" occurs. This is because it's meaningless to speak of "past" events without entropy. There can be no such thing as a "past" if there is no entropy.

One way to try to wrap our minds around this idea is to simply think of an oscillating symmetric geometric figure. Imagine an ellipse. This ellipse is oscillating, first as a vertical ellipse, and then as a horizontal ellipse. Also imagine that this geometric figure has only two possible positions (like in Quantum Mechanics), it simply makes a quantum leap between these two states. There is no intermediate shapes along the way. It's either a vertical ellipse or it's a horizontal ellipse. And there is also no way to keep a record of what shape it had previously been in.

So all you can experience at any point called "now" is either a vertical or horizontal ellipse. And you can't even say anything about what it was before you saw it.

This thing could then oscillate between these two states indefinitely, but at no point in that time without entropy could you ever say that anything had ever happened prior to the state that you are currently experiencing.

In other words, without entropy, it's meaningless to speak of how many events took place before the one you are currently observing.

Now obviously this is not intuitive. You are no doubt going to want to imagine that you could simply record everything that's happening with a clock and by keeping a record of how many times the object has oscillated. But you can't do that. You would need create a change in entropy in order to do that.

In other words, as humans, we can't even imagine time without entropy, because we have come to so closely recognize time as a change in entropy.

But if you take entropy out of the equation you can still have "changing states" (i.e. time), but that time could no longer be said to have a property of "past" or "future". All that could be said about that time is that it is an "ever-changing" now.

Thus, your complaint that an infinite number of events could not have possibly occurred "prior" to "now" no longer applies.

And yet this is the crux of your argument.

Therefore, entropy has everything to do with your argument.

So it's not that entropy is inapplicable to your argument. It's just that you apparently aren't aware that entropy is what gives time its "arrow" from "past" to "future". Without entropy it's meaningless to even speak about past events. Never mind trying to count them.

So entropy is not irrelevant to your argument. Your argument is totally dependent upon entropy being in place. Apparently you just aren't aware of this.

~~~~

This might actually become clear to you if we ever move forward to why you think that your God would be exempt to your argument.

So I'm waiting to hear that part of your argument. I would love to know why you think your God could be exempt from entropy. Because this is what you need to have if you are going to claim that your God is "outside of time".

[Divine Insight]

Well, according to Zeno's tortoise paradox there are an infinite number of events even in finite time, assuming space is infinitely divisible.

Then motion would be impossible. Or look at it this way..there are an infinite amount of points between 1 and 2, right?

Well, how is it that you can successfully count from 1 to 2 (bypassing all of the points in between)...yet, if you literally count all of the points between 1 and 2, you will never get to 2?

Don't you find that rather...strange??

I need to chime in on this one because currently mathematicians and our formal mathematics has this all wrong.

This is known as Zeno's Paradox. Zeno was simply arguing that if space is a continuum (i.d. infinitely divisible) then motion would be impossible.

Everyone saw Zeno's argument as being absurd because motion is clearly possible. And they also refused to give up the notion that space cannot be infinitely divisible.

However, they were all wrong and Zeno was indeed right. And physics has even discovered the truth of Zeno's argument in the quantum nature of reality.

Mathematicians still believe they have "solved" Zeno's paradox by having invented Calculus. But that's actually false. Calculus in no way resolves Zeno's paradox. All it does is pretend to resolve it by using a clever mathematical trick to arrive at the result you would get if you did indeed skip over infinitely many points.

And according to Quantum Mechanics, that's exactly how our world works. Our universe is not a continuum, it's a quantum universe.

So Zeno was right all along. Space is not a continuum and we don't pass through an infinite number of points. We actually make a quantum leap over points. The universe is discrete, and this is what Quantum Mechanic has revealed.

So Zeno was right all along, there was never a time when he was wrong.

But unfortunately or modern day mathematicians are all wrong. They didn't solve Zeno's paradox. All they did was figure out a trick to get the answer without having to consider an infinite number of points in between.

Think about it. To pass a Calculus course is there ever a time when you need to actually add up an infinite number of numbers? No of course not. If you had to do that you'd still be doing it! You'd never get to the answer.

The reason you pass a Calculus course is because you have learned a quantum trick to jump to the answer without any need to add up an infinite number of numbers.

So Zeno was always right. And there is no "paradox". It would only be a paradox if motion was possible in a continuum. But our universe clearly isn't a continuum. So it's not a paradox that we can move within a quantum universe.

[For_The_Kingdom]

That question is incomplete - possibly reach any present point from which previous point? In general, you reach the present point from a previous point by passing a finite amount of time, what the exact amount is, depends on what time you have in mind.

But the totality (set total) of all prior points leading to the present point is not only infinite, but each point would have to be traversed.

And you are not going to arrive at any arbitrary point at any finite proper time, if you have to traverse an infinite set total to get there.

Sorry, charlie.The implication is inescapable. It aint happening.

The ONLY possible way to fill the hole entirely with sand, is if there is a BOTTOM FOUNDATION to the whole.

Right, but that's moot since no one is expecting a bottomless hole to fill up.

By "fill up", I mean all of the space in the hole is to be filled...which is analogous to all of the prior days (which led up to today) to be "actualized", or..having come to past.

"Fill" implies starting from the bottom, and there is no bottom.

Right, so the point is; you can't fill the hole because there is no bottom, just like you can never "fill the calendar with with X's", if you wanted to X off every day of the past on your calendar.

The concept of "fill" does not apply to bottomless holes.

Same thing I said above. If I can't "fill" a bottomless hole, then I also can't "fill" my calendar with X's, as I X off past days on an infinite time scale.

The question is why you would think filling a hole is analogous to reaching the present moment.

Bro, if I can't fill the bottomless hole to the top (from the bottom up), then how can the bottomless past (no boundary, no beginning) reach the top (present moment) from the bottom up.

Regardless of whether or not the hole is actually being filled, the sand that is being shoveled is PRESENTLY falling, and the man shoveling the sand is also PRESENTLY shoveling.

Each of those actions represents CONSTANT, PRESENT change..which is analogous to the constant, present change of natural reality.

You said the man shoveling is supposed to be the present moment in time

And?

, not filling the hole.

I didn't say or imply that the hole is actually being filled. I simply said that the man is shoveling sand into a bottomless hole. If the man is foolishly trying to fill a bottomless hole, then that is his business.

The point is, it will never be filled in his present state of shoveling, just like our present moment could never come to foundation-less past.

The only POSSIBLE way for us to reach the present moment from any prior moment is to past a finite amount of time, with or without a past boundary/foundation/beginning of time.

So basically, you are saying that one can traverse infinity, in a finite amount of time..which is about as illogical of a statement that one can make.

I am about ready to break off all conversation with you, Bust Nak. You are coming across as too disingenuous for me. I understand you have to stay true to your naturalist worldview, but it shouldn't come at the expense of logic/reasoning.

And the more I talk to you, that appears to be the case.

Meh, there are infinitely many integers, there are infinitely many even numbers, yet there are twice as many integers as even numbers. There is nothing absurd here, at worse it's counter-intuitive, not matter how many exclamation marks you use.

Naw, its worse than counter-intuitive, it is logically absurd, and this absurdity remains..regardless many "meh"s you'd like to give.

Second, saying that there are "twice as many integers as even numbers" (whatever that means) is irrelevant, considering the fact that ultimately, they both have the same amount.

Third, my point remains; you have different values for every measurement of time, yet, if the past is eternal, they all equate to the same amount.

That would be like if you had an infinite amount of $100 bills..and I had an infinite amount of pennies..technically, we have the same amount of money, despite the values of our currencies being different.

This is a clear absurdity that cannot happen in reality..and if you can't acknowledge this, then I can't help you, sir. You just go ahead and carry on with you disbelief, while I try to have meaningful dialogues with those who won't let their worldviews conflict with rational, logical thinking.

The only absurdities here are the concept of the "bottom of a bottomless pit,"

On naturalism, the past doesn't have a boundary...in the example, the pit doesn't have a boundary. Yet, you are claiming the pit is absurd, but the boundaryless past isn't?

Fallacious reasoning.

or in this specific case the "beginning of eternity."

Straw man..I never said anything about no "beginning of eternity".

So, in conclusion; the universe began to exist, because...

... We have observed empirical evidence of an expanding universe. Stick to science and abandon your other attempts, they aren't going to get you very far.

My argument is independent of the physical world/universe. So any mention of an expanding universe (or whatever), is irrelevant.

Your P2 is okay, but your reasoning, not so much:

Even if nothing within time can be eternal

Are you granting this? Go ahead, make my day

, it does not mean that the universe itself cannot be eternal

Nonsense. It can't be eternal in time, no.

, because there can be infinite amount of temporary things.

I've already demonstrated why events in time cannot be past-eternal. You can hypothesize whatever you want, but as long as it is within "time", it cannot be past eternal.

One cannot have an eternal universe with only finite parts (events) within the universe, so obvious alternative is to have infinite parts (events) within the universe.

Dude, it is a space-time continuum. The universe is all STEM. You can't have matter without space..and you cant have changes in the matter/energy without time...it is the totality of the four which makes the universe...and you can't have either without the other...not naturally.

[For_The_Kingdom]

Where is the infinite amount of sand which is readily available to the man?

It is scattered about him.

There is a top to the hole. So you are saying that it is infinite in only one direction. How is that infinite?

But that doesn't matter, because infinity in one direction is still infinity..the point is; you can't reach infinity as a destination from any arbitrary point, even if that arbitrary point is the top of the hole.

Well, if something was to fall in the hole, it would fall forever and ever, because the hole is bottomless..no foundation.

Then they would not be falling they would effectively be floating.
But if the sand disappears into the hole then from the perspective of the man shoveling the sand into the hole, the sand simply disappears.

Man, I was understanding you at first, but then...

Obviously gravity is involved in the sand being able to fall, so where is the gravity situated in the bottomless hole and what is causing it?

Irrelevant question to the implication of the analogy.

The man shoveling: Represents the PRESENT moment in time, as the man is presently shoveling.

In that analogy, the man is eternal in relation to the infinite pile of sand.

Fine, we can put it that way, too. Because after all, wouldn't existence (itself) be eternal in relation to time?

Thus you are saying that the present is eternal

Aren't we forever in the present moment?

Bottomless hole: Represents past eternity, of which there is no beginning to time.

Shouldn't the beginning to time be recognized as the eternal man shoveling the infinite pile of sand into the abyss?

But if the man never began to shovel the sand (as stated in analogy), where is this beginning that yo speak of?

Indeed the movement of the sand falling into the abyss is the way to measure the time because the sand is moving - or perhaps it is the movement of the man with the shovel which determines time...

But they (the man/sand) have both been moving for eternity..there was never a moment in time at which sand was NOT falling into the abyss, as there was never a moment in time at which the man BEGAN to shovel.

Sand: Represents events in time, and as the sand is traveling in the hole, this is analogous to going back in time.

I don't think the sand can represent that because its background is the abyss itself - effectively the sand moves within a timeless space so the only thing one could measure is the amount of sand going into the abyss, the amount of times the man shovels the sand into the abyss, the amount of grains of sand going into the abyss, but not 'time' itself...and how can one actually go back in time when the abyss is infinite anyway? If one could imagine oneself on one grain of sand which the man has already shoveled into the abyss, one would not be thinking one is going back in time free falling into a bottomless hole.

Bro, the sand is a physical entity that is moving, and the movement alone signifies change..and the change signifies time. This is analogous to physical reality, with all of the matter in the universe in a constant state of change...in time.

So the man has been shoveling for eternity and the hole is infinite, the beginning has to be the point where the hole starts.

It is a beginning "in time", as opposed to any beginning "of time". Each shovel represents a discrete moment in time, but ultimately, there is no initial beginning point to the whole she-bang.

And where there is a beginning at one end, means that even if something then remained forevermore, it is not infinite because of that starting point.

There is no initial started point...there is no beginning of all beginnings in this scenario.

[William]

[Replying to post 44 by For_The_Kingdom]

There is no initial started point...there is no beginning of all beginnings in this scenario.

Okay so you are trying to create an analogy in which time does not exist, everything in the analogy, while being different aspects, is still all the same timeless thing.

The man is the shovel is the sand is the hole is the abyss because all these are equally timeless, eternal, infinite.

The present is really all that is, and the movement is not itself representative of time, because there is no time.

The confusing thing is the entrance to the hole and the bottomless pit...why are these part of the analogy?

Is it because of the sand and the shovel? What is the man attempting to do?

Also, where does the sand come from?

Obviously it is just there and is infinite, but then I have to wonder as to the existence of the man, because the man is not the sand so how can the man and the sand and the shovel coexist in the same space?

Even that the space has to be infinite, it also has to be full of sand. One could argue that it cannot ever be full because *infinity* but it must be full if there is an infinite supply of sand.

Even if one took the man and shovel out of the analogy, there is still the problem of the hole in which the sand falls into...the existence of the hole tends toward showing that the sand is not infinite, because there is a hole in which it drops into...and the hole is also infinite, so we have a problem.

How can both the infinitely empty hole and the infinite quantity of sand co-exist without cancelling each other out as far as the idea of infinity goes?

Each acts as boundary for the other.

And boundary = 'not infinite'.

Actually - upon reflection, it may be that we cannot have one without the other, because alone these are not infinite. One cannot have an infinity of sand without a hole in which the sand can fall through into an infinity of space, thus the two systems would actually be just one system which is infinite. Two aspects of one system.

[Guy Threepwood]

We both agree that a watch does not tell the correct time by pure 'blind chance' nor does it do so by creative intelligence- but by it's design.

Whether or not that design blundered into existence by pure blind chance or creative intelligence... that's a separate question

Fine Guy. So since you are demanding that everything that does anything that isn't purely "blind chance" it must have been designed, then how do you explain the existence of a purposeful intelligent God?

By your very own argument that God then must have necessarily been designed.

If you allow for anything other than this then you necessarily flush your very own argument down the toilet.

Likewise as above, if everything was ultimately created by a spontaneous accidental mechanism, what spontaneous accidental mechanism created that?

Same apparent paradox, yet here we are. My point is that when you arbitrarily remove creative intelligence from the pool of possibilities, you corner yourself with another distinct paradox- without any creative mechanism, you will always need another 'machine' to 'automatically' create the current one.

Creative intelligence is the only phenomena we know of that can solve this paradox, and create genuinely novel systems, act according to anticipation of the future, rather than simply react to the past

[Divine Insight]

Creative intelligence is the only phenomena we know of that can solve this paradox, and create genuinely novel systems, act according to anticipation of the future, rather than simply react to the past

How in the world does this solve the paradox?

All you are saying that nothing that exists that appears in any way to have been intelligently designed cannot be explained without resorting to an intelligent designer.

Yet, you are willing to give the "original intelligent designer" a pass of exemption from your argument.

Exactly how is that supposed to work?

I'm afraid that an unexplained "First Designer" is no explanation at all. Especially when this "First Designer" stands in stark violation of the very argument you gave as an attempt to justify it.

It's far more rational to acknowledge that simple systems can naturally evolve into more complex systems with no need to have any intentional designer behind them.

In fact, this latter explanation, which is "Naturalism", actually does make sense.

Yet you would rather scrap the sensible explanation in favor of no explanation at all.

By your argument your "First Designer" would have needed to be intentionally designed. So if you think your argument doesn't require an infinite regression of first designers, then you aren't thinking your argument through to its logical end.

Sadly, for humans who would like to believe that there is more to life than a mere random start there just is no logical arguments to support that dream.

Hey, no one would be happier than me if a magical wizard God could make sense. But the fact is that it doesn't.

[Guy Threepwood]

Creative intelligence is the only phenomena we know of that can solve this paradox, and create genuinely novel systems, act according to anticipation of the future, rather than simply react to the past

How in the world does this solve the paradox?

All you are saying that nothing that exists that appears in any way to have been intelligently designed cannot be explained without resorting to an intelligent designer.

Yet, you are willing to give the "original intelligent designer" a pass of exemption from your argument.

Exactly how is that supposed to work?



I'm afraid that an unexplained "First Designer" is no explanation at all. Especially when this "First Designer" stands in stark violation of the very argument you gave as an attempt to justify it.

You just have to apply the same argument to the other side, everything must have originated by a spontaneous mechanism, except the first spontaneous mechanism?

same paradox yet here we are, so evidently it's not really a paradox is it?

It's far more rational to acknowledge that simple systems can naturally evolve into more complex systems with no need to have any intentional designer behind them.

The only systems we know of that can achieve this, with an unambiguous origin, are creatively designed ones. This is an information technology question that Darwin could not have hoped to grapple with, but we are getting a better handle on it.

'a handful of simple immutable laws + lots of time and space to randomly bump around in= lots of jolly interesting results eventually' was the classical/Victorian age model of reality Darwinism was born out of. Post QM and subatomic physics, we know better- it takes a vast array of mind mindbogglingly precise information and algorithms, written in from the get-go to predetermine specific outcomes we see around us

In fact, this latter explanation, which is "Naturalism", actually does make sense.

Yet you would rather scrap the sensible explanation in favor of no explanation at all.

By your argument your "First Designer" would have needed to be intentionally designed. So if you think your argument doesn't require an infinite regression of first designers, then you aren't thinking your argument through to its logical end.

Sadly, for humans who would like to believe that there is more to life than a mere random start there just is no logical arguments to support that dream.

Hey, no one would be happier than me if a magical wizard God could make sense. But the fact is that it doesn't.

The point I was making was that the apparent paradox applies either way, IF you claim a paradox- which clearly there is not, because here we are debating our existence!

So that said- there does not need to be this FIRST either way either.

I mentioned the ring earlier, an object with no beginning, no end, no start, no finish- no 'first atom' yet can be described in perfectly logical & finite terms.

Hawking alluded to something similar with the Big Crunch right? a cyclical system- with a specific 'beginning' (from our perspective), and yet a hypothetically self explanatory one... It didn't seem to pan out according to supernova measurements- and Hawking himself moved away from it- but there was some glimpse of a hypothetical logical solution to the paradox there was there not?

[FarWanderer]

Well, according to Zeno's tortoise paradox there are an infinite number of events even in finite time, assuming space is infinitely divisible.

Then motion would be impossible.

Well, that's what Zeno was arguing.

Or look at it this way..there are an infinite amount of points between 1 and 2, right?

Well, how is it that you can successfully count from 1 to 2 (bypassing all of the points in between)...yet, if you literally count all of the points between 1 and 2, you will never get to 2?

Don't conflate abstract math with the physical world. Your mind can skip from 1 to 2 arbitrarily, but when your body changes location can it skip all the space between?

Don't you find that rather...strange??

That would be the point of calling it a paradox.

Nature does not have to be infinite in time, on naturalism.

If nature is eternal (on naturalism) how is there no "infinite time" element there?

Depends how you define "eternal". If "eternal" means "for all time" and time is finite, then eternity is finite.

If finite in time, nature must simply be uncaused (just like your God).

Um, finite time means it had a beginning.

I didn't say otherwise.

If time itself is finite, then all things are finite in time, and everything has a beginning whether you call it "God" or anything else.

[FarWanderer]

Well, according to Zeno's tortoise paradox there are an infinite number of events even in finite time, assuming space is infinitely divisible.

Then motion would be impossible. Or look at it this way..there are an infinite amount of points between 1 and 2, right?

Well, how is it that you can successfully count from 1 to 2 (bypassing all of the points in between)...yet, if you literally count all of the points between 1 and 2, you will never get to 2?

Don't you find that rather...strange??

I need to chime in on this one because currently mathematicians and our formal mathematics has this all wrong.

This is known as Zeno's Paradox. Zeno was simply arguing that if space is a continuum (i.d. infinitely divisible) then motion would be impossible.

Hi DI, thanks for the comment.

Yes, QM has some very counter-intuitive implications that are also pretty hard to deny in light of its incredible predictive power.

I'm hardly an expert, but the implication of QM seems to be that our world really has a "maximum" level of resolution, where objects occupy discreet "spaces" (like on a game board) on discreet "turns".

I am not entirely convinced of this on a metaphysical level, though (pragmatic/scientific, sure). It raises some strange problems, geometrically. For example, if you have two objects move perpendicular to one another by 1 planck length each, the growth of distance between the objects would be, by the Pythagorean Theorem, the square root of 2 planck lengths, which is not discreet.

As I understand things, QM would register this length as either 1 or 2 planck lengths, not something in between (perhaps because genuine perpendicular movement is impossible?- it's hard to wrap my head around that). As for which value returned, it would be probabilistic. But if that's the case, then I am not so sure how it solves Zeno's problem.