Understanding the Kalam Cosmological Argument

[The Tanager]

My desire in this thread is to discuss what the Kalam Cosmological Argument actually claims rather than assessing the truth of the conclusion. That's why I've put it in the philosophy section rather than the apologetic section, but maybe I'm wrong there. I've been reading Dan's Barker book godless and believe that he does not have a good grasp on what the argument says. You don't need to have read his chapter on it (chapter 8) to discuss the ideas he brings up, and the topic does not need to stay on Barker's understanding alone.

First (group of) question(s) for discussion: Do you agree with Barker that the "old" cosmological argument claimed that everything has a cause and, seeing that this fails, theists have changed the argument to try to "get God off the hook"? The attempt he then focuses on (while quickly speaking of two others) is the Kalam's addition of "that begins to exist" to make the key phrase everything that begins to exist has a cause. If you agree with him, what source(s) does this more "primitive" version of the argument come from?

[wiploc]

First (group of) question(s) for discussion: Do you agree with Barker that the "old" cosmological argument claimed that everything has a cause and, seeing that this fails, theists have changed the argument to try to "get God off the hook"?

That's how I think of it.

The attempt he then focuses on (while quickly speaking of two others) is the Kalam's addition of "that begins to exist" to make the key phrase everything that begins to exist has a cause. If you agree with him, what source(s) does this more "primitive" version of the argument come from?

The regular version strikes me this way:

P1: Everything has a prior cause.
P2: No, that's not true; that would lead to infinite regress.
C: Therefore my religion is true.

I'm paraphrasing, of course.

Here's a paragraph from a Wikipedia essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways_(Aquinas) on Aquinas's "Five Ways."

In the world, we can see that things are caused. But it is not possible for something to be the cause of itself because this would entail that it exists prior to itself, which is a contradiction. If that by which it is caused is itself caused, then it too must have a cause. But this cannot be an infinitely long chain, so, there must be a cause which is not itself caused by anything further. This everyone understands to be God.

Let me just paraphrase that again:

P1: Things are caused.
P2: Not so much.
C: I declare myself the winner.

And, yes, I assume that the Kalam version resulted from the problems of this version.

[Divine Insight]

I view it as follows:


1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. The universe has a cause.


We don't know whether #1 is even true. According to Quantum Mechanics many things may begin without any specific cause. Quantum Mechanics speaks in terms of pure probabilities, which may not require a specific cause. We just don't know. So we can't truly say that #1 is necessarily a true statement.

Number 2 states that the universe began to exist. Again this is something we cannot confirm. For all we know it has always existed and the observed evidence for the so-called "Big Bang" was nothing more than a transformation. So we don't even know that #2 is true.

Also, concerning #2, many physicists have speculated that the universe may have begun as a quantum fluctuation. And we just saw that in the case of #1 quantum fluctuations do not necessarily have a cause beyond mere chance and probability.

So it's a bit of an unwarranted conclusion to jump to #3 proclaiming that the universe necessarily had a "cause" beyond a pure random chance fluctuation of a quantum field.

Or to put this another way, the "cause" of the universe may have indeed been nothing more than a pure random fluctuation of a quantum field. In other words, there's no need to proclaim that some purposeful intelligent agent was involved.


Some theists have taken this argument to the extreme, for example William Craig asserts the following without any compelling reasons:


1. The universe has a cause;
2. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;

Therefore,

3. An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.

IMHO, Craig is going far beyond anything that can possibly be known to try to describe a personal Creator that will support his favorite religious theology.

I see no reason to accept Craig's extremely unwarranted conclusions here. But far more than this I reject Craig's favorite religious theology (Christianity) due to the many self-contradictions contained within that theology itself.

In other words, even if I were going to accept that some intelligent self-sustaining eternal entity has always existed and brought the universe into existence that alone would not lead me to Christianity. To the contrary, IMHO, there are far more reasonable theologies available. Some of the Eastern Mystical philosophies are far more compelling than Christianity, IMHO.

So there's no way that the Kalam Cosmological Argument would lead me to Christian theology even if the cosmological argument was compelling, which it isn't.

So I certainly don't see the Kalam Cosmological Argument as supporting or benefiting Christian theology in any way.

I don't claim that there cannot be a supreme being. I don't rule that out. But I will claim that it makes absolutely no sense , to me, that an all-wise supreme being would behave or interact with humans in the manner described by Christian theology.

So even if I embrace the idea of a "God", Christian theology would still be out of the question.

So the idea that the Kalam Cosmological Argument somehow supports Christian theology is not compelling anyway.

[wiploc]

1. The universe has a cause;
2. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;

Therefore,

3. An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.

IMHO, Craig is going far beyond anything that can possibly be known to try to describe a personal Creator that will support his favorite religious theology.

I see no reason to accept Craig's extremely unwarranted conclusions here. But far more than this I reject Craig's favorite religious theology (Christianity) due to the many self-contradictions contained within that theology itself.

In one of Craig's debates, it is suggested that he skips a step in there. All the KCA could prove--if it worked at all--would be that the universe had a cause. All that beginninglessness, changelessness, immateriality, timelessness, spacelessness, and powerfulness are unproven.

Craig's response was to agree. According to him, these are things we know about god from other arguments. The only thing the KCA proves is that there was a cause.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to post 2 by wiploc]

Good to hear from you again. What sources do you get that take from? Is it from talking to theists (in life and online) or from published authors?

Here's a paragraph from a Wikipedia essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways_(Aquinas) on Aquinas's "Five Ways."

In the world, we can see that things are caused. But it is not possible for something to be the cause of itself because this would entail that it exists prior to itself, which is a contradiction. If that by which it is caused is itself caused, then it too must have a cause. But this cannot be an infinitely long chain, so, there must be a cause which is not itself caused by anything further. This everyone understands to be God.

Let me just paraphrase that again:

P1: Things are caused.
P2: Not so much.
C: I declare myself the winner.

And, yes, I assume that the Kalam version resulted from the problems of this version.

I don't see this saying "everything has a cause" (but maybe you were just moving on to a different point?). Aquinas starts with our observation of things that are caused. We only observe caused things, not any uncaused things. He's asking if this can be true. He concludes that it cannot be. We have three options to explain this: (1) self-causation, (2) an infinite chain of caused things, and (3) the existence of an uncaused, first cause that we simply do not observe.

Self-causation is nonsense because the end result would have to exist prior to it coming into existence. The wikipedia article talked about plant growth here. A plant's plant growth cannot be the cause of itself growing 1 cm. A 7cm tall plant cannot cause it's 6cm version to become 7cm tall because the 7cm state does not exist at that time. What doesn't exist cannot effect anything.

An infinite chain of efficient causes (option 2) is nonsense as well. The relationship of causation Aquinas has in mind is this: First Cause - Intermediate Cause(s) - Ultimate Effect. There can be an infinite amount of intermediate causes. But, say an infinite amount of gears, cannot start themselves moving, there needs to be some kind of power (first cause) responsible for all the gears (no matter how many gears there are) being in motion, which result in the effect of tracking time or moving the car or whatever. But if the first cause of that whole system is itself caused, then it requires a first cause as well and it is an intermediate cause in the big scheme of things.

So, the existence of some uncaused, first cause is logically necessary as the only option left. And then he claims that God is the only concept that fits this. Taken on its own, this seems to be assumed, but I think Aquinas does argue for it more fully when taking all five ways together along with the objections and replies he offers in the Summa, saying neither materialism nor human will can explain the five ways adequately. I also think the format of the Summa (a textbook meant to be accompanied by a professor discussing different elements more deeply than the text has space for) needs to be accounted for. Regardless of that, I don't see how Aquinas argues that "everything has a cause" at all there. He's arguing to the conclusion that there must be something that doesn't have a cause.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to post 3 by Divine Insight]

I'm trying to keep my comments to the analysis of understanding what the Kalam is claiming, rather than a full blown case for or against its soundness (although I understand this often does respond to the critique itself and there is no way around that).

We don't know whether #1 is even true. According to Quantum Mechanics many things may begin without any specific cause. Quantum Mechanics speaks in terms of pure probabilities, which may not require a specific cause. We just don't know. So we can't truly say that #1 is necessarily a true statement.

The context of cause for the Kalam is larger than I think we moderns normally give cause. For instance, quantum fluctuations still have a cause. It may not have an efficient cause, but the quantum field itself is a material cause of the fluctuations. If the quantum field does not exist, then the fluctuations could not occur. If that is the case, then this critique is of a narrower understanding of the first premise.

Number 2 states that the universe began to exist. Again this is something we cannot confirm. For all we know it has always existed and the observed evidence for the so-called "Big Bang" was nothing more than a transformation. So we don't even know that #2 is true.

The support for #2 involves science and philosophical argumentation, though. Proponents do claim that our best science points to time and space beginning to exist at some point, but even if science is inconclusive there, we have a separate, rational reason(s) to assert the beginning of the universe.

Or to put this another way, the "cause" of the universe may have indeed been nothing more than a pure random fluctuation of a quantum field. In other words, there's no need to proclaim that some purposeful intelligent agent was involved.

But this just pushes our understanding of "the universe" back another physical level. The second premise, it seems to me, is meant to encompass all of space and time. The quantum field is included in that, whether it is prior to the universe we currently observe or not.

IMHO, Craig is going far beyond anything that can possibly be known to try to describe a personal Creator that will support his favorite religious theology.

Craig's further argument is not for the Christian God, but a more general classical theism. He makes further arguments that he thinks narrows it down to the Christian view. He would need to, of course, (and does) try to counter the arguments against the truth of Christianity like what you speak to.

In one of Craig's debates, it is suggested that he skips a step in there. All the KCA could prove--if it worked at all--would be that the universe had a cause. All that beginninglessness, changelessness, immateriality, timelessness, spacelessness, and powerfulness are unproven.

Craig's response was to agree. According to him, these are things we know about god from other arguments. The only thing the KCA proves is that there was a cause.

I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong, my memory may be, but I remember Craig making distinctions before between the KCA proper and the further argument (that Divine Insight points out), of what we can know about the cause of the universe, which flow out of the KCA proper; as a technical distinction. If time and space began with the creation of the universe, then the cause of the universe would have to be timeless and immaterial, for time and space had not existed before the universe came into existence. The other attributes are said to flow logically as well.

[Divine Insight]

The context of cause for the Kalam is larger than I think we moderns normally give cause. For instance, quantum fluctuations still have a cause. It may not have an efficient cause, but the quantum field itself is a material cause of the fluctuations. If the quantum field does not exist, then the fluctuations could not occur. If that is the case, then this critique is of a narrower understanding of the first premise.

For me these are meaningless philosophical questions. I say they are meaningless in the sense that we could never hope to obtain any answers for them via any verified experiments, or even via pure logical reasoning.

In fact, our very "logic" is based upon our understanding of our physical reality. After all it's not "logical" that two objects should be able to occupy the same place at the same time, or pass through each other like ghosts. Yet Quantum Mechanics tells us that these types of behaviors occur all the time on the quantum level. Therefore we are already talking about observable phenomena that violates what we deem to be "logical". Therefore our logic is lost entirely, and thus are "reasoning" is also lost since our reasoning is founded entirely on what we consider to be logic.

If time and space began with the creation of the universe, then the cause of the universe would have to be timeless and immaterial, for time and space had not existed before the universe came into existence. The other attributes are said to flow logically as well.

But this doesn't follow from logic at all.

In fact, what are we even calling "time". We don't even have a clear consensus on what even constitutes time. Also, the time we experience in our universe obeys entropy. In other words, the dynamic behavior of our macro universe is unidirectional.

This may not be true of all forms of dynamic motion. In other words there may indeed exist concepts of "time" that are not unidirectional. In fact, this appears to be the case for Quantum Fields. Therefore in those domains speaking of "before and after" or "cause and effect" would have no meaning.

We also have no clue what we even mean by "immaterial". What does that mean? Does that mean to not have to obey the Pauli Exclusion principle? Bosons already do that. Therefore bosons must be "immaterial" by that definition. Yet Bosons can be associated with energy, and anything that is energetic can be detected, and thus qualifies by other definitions as being "material". And we have all learned Einstein's famous observation to E = mc² that relates matter and energy directly.

So to propose that things prior to the universe had to be either timeless or immaterial is an unwarranted assumption. They may have been without entropy and thus did not have an arrow of time, but that doesn't mean they were timeless in the sense of not having any dynamic motion at all. They may not have had to obey the Pauli Exclusion principle, but that doesn't mean that they are "immaterial" either.

So there's really nowhere that we can take this. It's anyone's guess. No amount of logical reasoning can produce a meaningful conclusion.

This means that the Kalam Cosomological Argument is meaningless. It has no meaningful basis because it assumes logical conclusions that may not need to apply.

Whether the universe has a "cause" or not is an irrelevant question.

Moreover, let's assume that there had to be some sort of "First Stuff" and that first stuff was the quantum field. It could be that the quantum field always exists in a non-entropic time. A state of dynamic motion that never runs down.

Therefore this quantum field could be said to be the "cause" of the universe as we know it. There is no reason to speculate that this quantum field is intelligent, aware, or had any other properties beyond the ability to fluctuate and cause dynamic behaviors to arise that do need to run back down again. In other words, it can be the cause of our known universe.

That may very well be the case. However, if that is the case than this is all that we can say. That would be the end of the discussion as we could not probe any further into the nature of this quantum field that already behaves in ways that defy our very notion of logic.

In other words, it ends up becoming a dead-end even as a philosophical concept. It certainly could never lead to any indication that there needs to be an intelligence or purpose behind that quantum field.

So the Kalam Cosmological "Argument" is an argument that doesn't lead to any meaningful conclusions.

We could say that our universe must have had a cause. But what's the point in that? We wouldn't be able to say anything at all about the nature of that cause. So we haven't moved forward in any way.

No one is currently claiming that there was no cause for the Big Bang anyway. So who is there to argue with this about?

The only people who would like to make this into an argument are theists like Craig who want to claim that this somehow supports his theology. But let's face it, this doens't support his theology anyway. So there's nothing to be gained there anyway.

Question: Did the universe have a cause?

Answer: We don't know. It makes sense to our way of thinking that it probably did have a cause.

That's where all humans stand at this point in time. Trying to claim that since it may have had a a cause this supports the existence of Fairies it simply ridiculous. And changing "Fairies to God" doesn't change a thing.

There's simply nothing here worthy of argument.

[William]

The Tanager: My desire in this thread is to discuss what the Kalam Cosmological Argument actually claims rather than assessing the truth of the conclusion. That's why I've put it in the philosophy section rather than the apologetic section, but maybe I'm wrong there. I've been reading Dan's Barker book godless and believe that he does not have a good grasp on what the argument says.


[center]Kalam Cosmological Argument:

Form of the argument[/center]

The most prominent form of the argument, as defended by William Lane Craig, states the Kalam cosmological argument as the following brief syllogism:

[center]Whatever begins to exist has a cause;[/center]
The universe began to exist;
Therefore:
The universe has a cause.
Given the conclusion, Craig appends a further premise and conclusion based upon a conceptual analysis of the properties of the cause:[

[center]The universe has a cause;[/center]
IF the universe has a cause, THEN an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who without the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;
Therefore,
An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.
Referring to the implications of Classical Theism that follow from this argument, Craig writes:

"... transcending the entire universe there exists a cause which brought the universe into being ex nihilo [out of nothing]... our whole universe was caused to exist by something beyond it and greater than it. For it is no secret that one of the most important conceptions of what theists mean by 'God' is Creator of heaven and earth."


The Tanager: First (group of) question(s) for discussion: Do you agree with Barker that the "old" cosmological argument claimed that everything has a cause and, seeing that this fails, theists have changed the argument to try to "get God off the hook"? The attempt he then focuses on (while quickly speaking of two others) is the Kalam's addition of "that begins to exist" to make the key phrase everything that begins to exist has a cause. If you agree with him, what source(s) does this more "primitive" version of the argument come from?

William: I assume then that a creator is included as a 'thing', which is why the argument fails?
If the argument were that all things are created things, and that GOD was not created, then GOD is not a created thing.

Theist who have ideas of GOD which allow non-theist argument to 'hook' their GOD, would be very wise to study their idea of GOD and change accordingly. That is primarily why non-theism exists in relation to theism.

The idea that created things always 'begin to exist' (can always be traced to having a beginning) and that GOD has always existed and never 'began to exist' (Can never be traced to having a beginning) has to occur for theists who believe that GOD was never created. This solves the problem of infinite regression.

The real problem with the equation is around the extended idea of GOD. As is clearly evident in theism, there are many ideas of GOD, and most if not all do indeed exist for the purpose of explaining why our universe exists...one can say in this that all theism agrees that GOD created the universe (thus GOD is creative)...the addition to, in this case:

"... transcending the entire universe there exists a cause which brought the universe into being ex nihilo [out of nothing]... our whole universe was caused to exist by something beyond it and greater than it. For it is no secret that one of the most important conceptions of what theists mean by 'God' is Creator of heaven and earth."

is the assumption:

An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who without the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.

... a convenient way in which a theist might slot his/her particular idea of GOD into that position whilst also denying other theist ideas of GOD the same right of assumption?

Above all - this;

"Who without the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;"

William: IF this is to be the case THEN when the GOD is within this universe, The GOD becomes The Demiurge.


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[wiploc]

[Replying to post 2 by wiploc]

Good to hear from you again.

Likewise.

What sources do you get that take from?

Sources? You asked for my impression, my take.

Is it from talking to theists (in life and online) or from published authors?

Yes, from talking to people. I mean, I just quoted Wikipedia. And I've read whatshisname's five ways. And one of Plantinga's books, but not directly bearing on this topic. And I've talked to a whole lot of people on the internet, like you, which I guess could be called "published" posts. But I'll say mostly just from talking to people.

I don't see any conflict between what I've read and what I've heard.

Here's a paragraph from a Wikipedia essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways_(Aquinas) on Aquinas's "Five Ways."

In the world, we can see that things are caused. But it is not possible for something to be the cause of itself because this would entail that it exists prior to itself, which is a contradiction. If that by which it is caused is itself caused, then it too must have a cause. But this cannot be an infinitely long chain, so, there must be a cause which is not itself caused by anything further. This everyone understands to be God.

Let me just paraphrase that again:

P1: Things are caused.
P2: Not so much.
C: I declare myself the winner.

And, yes, I assume that the Kalam version resulted from the problems of this version.

I don't see this saying "everything has a cause" (but maybe you were just moving on to a different point?).

No, no. My take is that the proponent of this argument wants you to think things are caused. At this point, all things. Yes, he'll make an exception later, but you never see this premise phrased to explicitly claim that some things are caused.

The argument wouldn't go anywhere from that limited premise. Suppose we grant that some things are caused and others aren't. How would we get gods out of that?

If some things are caused and others not, then we have no need of a single first cause of everything else.

Aquinas starts with our observation of things that are caused. We only observe caused things, not any uncaused things. He's asking if this can be true. He concludes that it cannot be.

That's a charitable reading. I don't have a problem with charitable readings. They let us investigate whether an argument can be formed in a way that works.

If there is a workable form of the first cause argument, I want to know about it.

But I have no suspicion that the average Christian working at the next lathe or desk shares your sophisticated interpretation.

We have three options to explain this: (1) self-causation, (2) an infinite chain of caused things, and (3) the existence of an uncaused, first cause that we simply do not observe.

That third one seems arbitrary and self serving. You happen to believe in that god, so you put it in the list.

Suppose I worshiped a blue god. I'd say that things that aren't blue need causes. And I'd make a list of possible universal causes that include my blue god, plus other choices that are supposed to be dismissed at first glance by worshipers of the blue god.

My mother and sister-in-law have informed me that god created himself. You obviously reject that yourself, but how do you manage to reject that as absurd while accepting the uncaused first cause? Which is weirder? Which is less palatable?

The uncaused first cause is palatable only to motivated believers in an uncaused first cause. A self-caused first cause would be equally palatable to people who already believed in it.

And why did you neglect to mention the possibilities of two uncaused first causes, thirty-seven uncaused first causes, and an infinity of uncaused first causes?

Those conclusions don't follow from the premises any more than yours does, so shouldn't they be on the list too?

Self-causation is nonsense because the end result would have to exist prior to it coming into existence.

Only if you believe in causes that precede effects. William Lane Craig denies that. When he gets into the first cause argument, he says that god created time. How can time be an effect if there was no prior cause? And how can there be a prior cause if there was no time before time?

Craig's way out of that hole is to deny that causes come before effects. If he's right about that, then the big bang may turn out to eventually be caused by the Large Hadron Collider.

In which case, we don't need a first cause.

So that form of the argument shoots itself in the foot. Why, then, would he continue to use it? My theory: Because he doesn't know of any form of the argument that actually works.

He would use a good argument if he had one, but he doesn't have one.

So he is forced to field bad arguments only.

The wikipedia article talked about plant growth here. A plant's plant growth cannot be the cause of itself growing 1 cm. A 7cm tall plant cannot cause it's 6cm version to become 7cm tall because the 7cm state does not exist at that time. What doesn't exist cannot effect anything.

Well, Craig may be disappointed, but I'm happy to stipulate that causes precede effects.

An infinite chain of efficient causes (option 2) is nonsense as well. The relationship of causation Aquinas has in mind is this: First Cause - Intermediate Cause(s) - Ultimate Effect. There can be an infinite amount of intermediate causes. But, say an infinite amount of gears, cannot start themselves moving, there needs to be some kind of power (first cause) responsible for all the gears (no matter how many gears there are) being in motion, which result in the effect of tracking time or moving the car or whatever. But if the first cause of that whole system is itself caused, then it requires a first cause as well and it is an intermediate cause in the big scheme of things.

Infinite regress is hard to swallow, but I don't see how you figure it's harder to swallow than something uncaused or self-caused.

And if we granted that some things don't need causes, then, once again, we no longer need a god. Why can't, for instance, the big bang be uncaused? Is that stranger, less palatable, less logical, than an uncaused loving god who tortures people forever? An uncaused omnipotent god who can't defeat iron chariots? An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god who coexists with evil? A god who can be seen but can't be seen?

And yet the desire to believe that Christianity is justified is the only reason that I see for picking the uncaused first cause from your arbitrarily truncated list of implausibilities and saying, "This is the one that looks right."

So, the existence of some uncaused, first cause is logically necessary as the only option left.

No. You arbitrarily shortened your list of possible origins from infinity to just three, and then you picked the one you liked without showing any reason to think it more plausible than the others.

...
Regardless of that, I don't see how Aquinas argues that "everything has a cause" at all there. He's arguing to the conclusion that there must be something that doesn't have a cause.

P1: Some things have causes.
P2: Some things don't have causes.
C: I get to decide what things don't have causes, and I pick my own god.

That's an interpretation consistent with the source material, and also consistent with your theory that a wise professor could fill in the missing premises to make the argument come out right.

Okay, the conclusion is a bit lippy. But what you're really saying is that the argument doesn't work by itself, which is also what I'm saying.

I assume you think you can fill in the missing bits so that the argument works. I also assume you'll be world famous in no time if you manage to do that. (Note: When I say "no time," I'm exaggerating, unlike William Lane Craig who argues that causes literally come no time before effects.)

[The Tanager]

[Replying to post 7 by Divine Insight]

I think you have some on point critiques of the Kalam, unlike Barker. I may not agree with your assessment of the evidence involved in those issues, but I can agree it is addressing the claims of the KCA.

My only disagreement would be concerning the point about the logic of concluding a timeless and immaterial cause. I think it does logically follow that if time and space only come into existence with the universe, then the necessarily prior cause of the universe could not fit into those categories. Now, whether our understanding of time and space is correct is certainly up for debate, as you pointed out.