Infinite Tortoise Problem (Turtles all the way down)

[otseng]

"A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
"At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
"The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

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

The first cause problem is often used as an argument against the existence of a god.

"If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument."

"If God created/designed everything, then what created/designed God?"

For debate:
Is it infinite turtles all the way down?
Is it logical to use this argument against the existence of God?

[QED]

But that's only half the trouble. Even if you somehow managed to logically prove that a natural explanation will never be found, you'd still have to prove that the supernatural one is true -- and that is a monumental task, since you're dealing with someone (i.e. myself) who doesn't believe that the supernatural world does, or can, exist. From my perspective, it is more likely that the origin of the universe is unknowable yet natural, rather than supernatural.

I simply can't conceive of anything being supernatural as it seems to me that whatever is must be of something and when identified, becomes natural. The supernatural becomes confined to all that cannot be realised or identified outside the imagination of the mind. In my previous post I mentioned focusing on inconsistencies. The theist will attempt to point to the many natural inconsistencies which signal gaps in our current knowledge but these can never be filled in with something as insubstantial as imagination. I think it is better to leave them pending.

[otseng]

Sunrise, lightning, the Evening Star and the Morning Star, the motion of the planets, St. Elmo's Fire, life... all these things and many others were assumed to have supernatural origins, and one by one the supernatural explanations (En, Thor, Ishtar, YHVH, etc.) were replaced by natural ones.

Certainly.
And also, I'm not saying we should use the excuse "God did it" for all things that don't currently have a natural explanation. But for the cause of the universe, I'm willing to stick my neck out on this one and say that I believe there will never be a natural cause to be found for this.

Well, from my atheistic perspective, this is an extraordinary claim. You can certainly say, "we may not find the answer in our lifetime", or "it's highly unlikely we'll ever find the answer", but "never" is a much stronger word.

Yes, it's a strong word. And one I'm willing to make.

IMO, the only way you could claim that a natural explanation could never be found, would be to somehow logically prove that a natural explanation is impossible a priori, and I haven't seen you do that. Furthermore, the sheer weight of evidence -- i.e., the number of natural explanations we have for events that were previously thought to be unexplainable -- leads me to be even more skeptical of your claim.

Well, ultimately time will tell.

But that's only half the trouble. Even if you somehow managed to logically prove that a natural explanation will never be found, you'd still have to prove that the supernatural one is true -- and that is a monumental task, since you're dealing with someone (i.e. myself) who doesn't believe that the supernatural world does, or can, exist. From my perspective, it is more likely that the origin of the universe is unknowable yet natural, rather than supernatural.

My bet is not proving that my position is true, but demonstrating that my position is falsifiable. That is, finding a natural cause to the universe will completely falsify creationism for me.

That is actually a completely different debate. Evolution can be true even if a god created the Universe; in fact, abiogenesis (which the evolutionary theory doesn't deal with, one way or another) could also be true in this case.

Yes, this is a different debate.

In that case, we should be able to measure the supernatural (directly or indirectly); but if it could do that, it would just be natural, not supernatural.

Measure is not perhaps the best word to use. Perhaps detect would be better.

What's the difference, scientifically speaking ?

Measurements mean distance, weight, volume, size, etc. So, yes, only natural things can be measured.

Detecting is more along the lines of discovering the existence of something. It would involve observing physical things and reasoning what can we infer from it.

Back to the water world analogy. The fish could observe that on the glass there are regularly spaced horizontal lines on it. On closer inspection, the lines are made of bubbles. Then one fishes hypothesizes that this is a remnant of the "Big Fill" when the water world came into existence. The same amount of water was added to the water world to create each line. And that something from the non-water world had added it.

Yeah. Imagine how much further he could've gotten in his studies if he didn't stop halfway...

Halfway? How can you say "how much further he could've gotten"? It'd be purely conjecture to guess what he "could've done".

[Bugmaster]

IMO, the only way you could claim that a natural explanation could never be found, would be to somehow logically prove that a natural explanation is impossible a priori, and I haven't seen you do that...

Well, ultimately time will tell.

Perhaps, but I'll remain unconvinced until then, unless you can do better :-)

My bet is not proving that my position is true, but demonstrating that my position is falsifiable. That is, finding a natural cause to the universe will completely falsify creationism for me.

How so ? You could simply argue that God created the Big Bang, or the multiverse, or the superstrings, or whatever other natural explanation wins out in the end. It would be logically consistent with your current approach to do so.

Measurements mean distance, weight, volume, size, etc. So, yes, only natural things can be measured.
Detecting is more along the lines of discovering the existence of something.

I argue that, if something exists in a way that affects the material world, then its effects on the material world can be measured. I think this is a fairly self-evident statement. For example, electrons are invisible to the naked eye, but you can detect them, and measure their charge. You can't touch a rainbow (long thought to be divine in origin, BTW), but you can measure its spectrum and even discover the composition of a star based on it.

Can you give me an example of something which has an effect on the material world, but whose effects cannot be measured ? To me, this sounds like a contradiction in terms. I'm also trying to cut back on analogies, because when I went down that road with Harvey, I ended up in some mysterious place with smurfs everywhere.

Halfway? How can you say "how much further he could've gotten"? It'd be purely conjecture to guess what he "could've done".

I don't know, it seems pretty obvious that if we have two equally smart people working on the same problem, and person A stops working because he thinks that "God did it", then person B would discover more things than person A.

[otseng]

How so ? You could simply argue that God created the Big Bang, or the multiverse, or the superstrings, or whatever other natural explanation wins out in the end. It would be logically consistent with your current approach to do so.

Or if a natural cause is found for the Big Bang. Then perhaps a natural cause caused that too. And so on down the turtles we go.

So, I guess then the infinite turtles would stop with God.

Seriously, the issue is first cause. The ultimate first cause question (at least for occupants of this space-time dimensions) is what caused this universe. For me, it would end right there. No more turtles for me. It'd be either God or some natural mechanism.

Can you give me an example of something which has an effect on the material world, but whose effects cannot be measured?

I'm not saying that measurements cannot be involved. But, it's much more than measurements. It involves interpreting the evidence (including, but not limited to, measurements) and drawing a conclusion from it.

Halfway? How can you say "how much further he could've gotten"? It'd be purely conjecture to guess what he "could've done".

I don't know, it seems pretty obvious that if we have two equally smart people working on the same problem, and person A stops working because he thinks that "God did it", then person B would discover more things than person A.

How did Copernicus stop working? Did he ever stop his pursuits and simply say "God did it?"

[Goat]

How so ? You could simply argue that God created the Big Bang, or the multiverse, or the superstrings, or whatever other natural explanation wins out in the end. It would be logically consistent with your current approach to do so.

Or if a natural cause is found for the Big Bang. Then perhaps a natural cause caused that too. And so on down the turtles we go.

So, I guess then the infinite turtles would stop with God.

Seriously, the issue is first cause. The ultimate first cause question (at least for occupants of this space-time dimensions) is what caused this universe. For me, it would end right there. No more turtles for me. It'd be either God or some natural mechanism.

That is the thing.. what is if there IS no 'first cause'? I don't see how that can be demonstrated or refuted with our current knowledge.

[Bugmaster]

Or if a natural cause is found for the Big Bang. Then perhaps a natural cause caused that too. And so on down the turtles we go.

How would you know if there's a natural cause for the Big Bang, if you assume that God did it ? You say, "I'll believe that God did it until someone proves otherwise". Fair enough, but let's imagine that everyone subscribes to your worldview. Who would do the figuring out, then ? I'm not saying that your worldview is not self consistent -- it is -- I'm just saying it's not as powerful as mine, unless there's a loophole I'm not aware of.

So, I guess then the infinite turtles would stop with God. :)

Couldn't there be a meta-God that created God ? Just wondering.

The ultimate first cause question (at least for occupants of this space-time dimensions) is what caused this universe. For me, it would end right there. No more turtles for me. It'd be either God or some natural mechanism.

But you just said that there could be a cause that caused the First Cause, and a cause that caused that one, and so on...

Inicidentally, I'm still not convinced that infinite regress is logically impossible. I have a gut feeling, but that's not the same thing as proof (and I'm trying to cut down on gut feelings anyway). Harvey tried to convince me, but I think he ended up trying to prove that infinity is a number, in the end. That did not go well.

I'm not saying that measurements cannot be involved. But, it's much more than measurements. It involves interpreting the evidence (including, but not limited to, measurements) and drawing a conclusion from it.

Again, how's that different from anything else ? Every measurement we make, of anything, requires interpretation, otherwise it's not very useful.

How did Copernicus stop working? Did he ever stop his pursuits and simply say "God did it?"

IIRC he said something to the extent of, "as to the motion of the planets, clearly only God could have arranged them that way, there can't be a natural explanation". I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but that was the gist of it.