The KCA!

[POI]

For Debate: Does the Kalam Cosmological Argument provide sound reasoning for the assertion of a 'prime mover'? If so, does it happen to say anything about what this "prime mover" could even be? If the KCA is instead not good reasoning at all, please explain why?

[SiNcE_1985]

^^

[SiNcE_1985]

You have been appealing to WLC this entire time. Remember? "It's his baby" and all that? I would be happy to provide a quote if you like?

Um, because we are sitting here debating/talking about an argument that he formulated, which is the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

You make it seem as if we were talking about archery, and I randomly just pulled the KCA out my #$ or something.

The point of the video (if you had bothered to watch it) is that the actual scientists who have put forth some of the theorems (and/or who are working in the field) that WLC likes to reference, are explaining that WLC doesn't actually understand what he is pointing at. So you are appealing to WLC who is appealing to some science. The video is "from the horses mouth" so to speak and directly from the scientists involved in what WLC is pointing at. I get that this would be rather inconvenient for you to watch, so feel free to ignore it as I already mentioned in the initial post.

Dude, I dun seen WLC stand before an audience full of scientists/physicists, give a presentation on the KCA (only the cosmology/science which supports P2), and after the presentation accept questions from these scientists, some of which includes the late physicists Victor Stenger.

So, WLC doesn't shy away from any scientist and is well-versed in the science in so much as it relates to the points that attempts to prove.

So, no one is fazed by your little video.

I wasn't trying to support 'my position'. I was pointing to a video that shows the scientists in question position on the theorems WLC is using for his support.

Then, they need to take it up with him.

If you can find a video with the scientists involved in the theorems WLC is using and they support WLC, then please do post it. Though it would be odd to see the same people disagree in one video and then agree in another. If you got it though, please share. I don't have a faith position to protect here. Just looking for the facts.

Alexander Vilenkin stated in a personal email correspondence with WLC, that WLC accurately represented his theorem (BGV theorem).



Check the reference in the video.

Then you have him explaining/presenting the theorem here...

I wasn't looking for a savior, just the actual scientists who put forward the theorems WLC is talking about. Maybe they supported WLC's position. Oops.

Then you have Alan Guth (the "G" of BGV) stating that the universe cannot extend backwards to infinity past.



I dont normally post videos, but you asked.

So go on ahead and conduct your little research, trying to find counter-videos to go against these.

Guth already stated in the video that the fact that the universe began to exist is uncontroversial.

The question is then, what could have caused it.

[benchwarmer]

So, no one is fazed by your little video.

Well, it's not my video, nor is it "little", but I guess belittling is part and parcel of your debate style.

If you had watched the video I mentioned (and checked the dates of what you posted and maybe realize science isn't static) you would realize your error.

I'm happy to let readers who have watched both what you posted and what I posted make up their own minds.

[benchwarmer]

No. Our current universe is the result of whatever happened at time = 0 (where time in our universe started at the expansion of whatever was at the initial state). Whatever that initial state was, it wasn't our universe.

Um, you hypothesized an eternally existing universe, with eternal energy.

Until you can actually steelman my actual position, there is clearly no point in addressing anything else.

I have NOT hypothesized an eternally existing universe. You know I haven't said that because I've clarified it a few times and even asked you to quote me.

I HAVE said that it may be possible that the energy that makes up our current universe may be eternal. Just like you will posit that your God is eternal.

Is the metal that makes up your bicycle your bicycle?

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to substitute 'energy' for metal and 'bicycle' for universe in the above in order to understand what I mean.

[historia]

I'm not looking for 100% certain. I'm looking for where our current, observable data leads.

Okay, good. I'm going to hold you to this.

I have been, admittedly, making something of a preemptive argument above on this point to try to keep you from simply retreating back into "we don't know" any time we are confronted with uncertainty.

The main point is that we don't know (i.e. we have no observable data) about what can happen outside our closed system we call the universe. We are simply guessing.

Our background knowledge is based on more than just observable data. A significant portion consists of inferences about things we can't readily observe drawn (with varying degrees of certainty) from things we can. All of history -- e.g., what you might read in a history textbook -- is nothing but inferences. Theoretical physics -- postulating string theory, higher dimensions, the multiverse, etc. -- consists mostly of inferences.

There is, in other words, a large epistemological middle-ground here between being 100% certain and 0% certain, between "knowing" with complete certainty and merely "guessing." We should be careful here not to let our rhetoric exclude that middle-ground.

We are trying to establish the meaning of 'begins to exist'. We clearly have different understanding of what this means and we have to leave it up to readers to decide which one they agree with.

On the contrary, what you or I think "begins to exist" means is, frankly, irrelevant.

Recall, the thing you initially set out to do in this thread was to "debunk" the kalam cosmological argument (see post #2). So what matters here is what the the kalam cosmological argument means by "begins to exist." Otherwise you're just "debunking" a straw man argument.

So what does the the kalam cosmological argument mean by "begins to exist"? The quote I gave you from William Lane Craig above provides the answer:

The univocal concept of "cause" employed in premiss and conclusion alike is the concept of efficient causality, that is to say, something which produces or brings into being its effects. Whether such production involves transformation of previously existing materials or creation ex nihilo is completely incidental.

Not helpful in my opinion since it's not 'cause' that's in question, but "begins to exist" which is important.

By defining what the KCA means by "cause," Craig is also necessarily telling us what the KCA means by "begins to exist."

If that's not readily apparent, perhaps I can help explain: "Cause" here should be understood as "efficient cause," which Wikipedia defines as, "that which causes change and drives transient motion . . . In many cases, this is simply the thing that brings something about. For example, in the case of a statue, it is the person chiseling away which transforms a block of marble into a statue. According to Lloyd, of the four [Aristotelian] causes, only this one is what is meant by the modern English word 'cause' in ordinary speech."

The KCA is not principally talking about the stuff an object is made of, but rather it's efficient cause, something that brings an object into being. You, me, my toaster, the Earth, the Milky Way galaxy, and pretty much everything else we have ever observed has an efficient cause -- yes, acting on previously existing atoms -- that brought each of those things separately into being. That's what the first premise is stating: "Everything that begins to exist has an [efficient] cause."

So let's consider what the KCA is stating, on its own terms, rather than imposing on it definitions of our own device. Surely this first premise, as elucidated here, is not controversial, as it is universally confirmed by our observations, right?

What is the thing that ties premise 1 to premise 2 such that the syllogism makes sense?

Syllogisms don't have just one thing that ties the premises and the conclusion together. To understand what the KCA means by "begins to exist" you have to first understand what it means by "cause." And also "universe," I guess, as all three terms are necessary for the syllogism to make sense.

In fact we have observed (which I grant may be limited by our current technology) that energy cannot be created nor destroyed

. . . from within a closed system.

That's what the law of conservation of energy is stating -- that the total energy in a closed system remains the same -- not the much broader assertion you want to make here that energy can never be created or destroyed. And since literally no one is claiming that the cause of the universe (should there be one) could even possibly come from within the closed system of the universe itself, this appeal to the law of conservation of energy as a defeater to the KCA is, again, just misguided.

You have missed my point.

[/quote]

I think I understand the point you're trying to make, I'm just encouraging you to complete your sentences, lest we slide from a narrower, supported point to a broader, unsupported one through simple omission.

Let's grant for a moment there is a prime mover and this is what 'created' our universe. Does this prime mover exist? If yes, it must exist somewhere. Wherever this is we can only guess, but wherever it might be I would assume is in it's own 'system'.

No, the problem here, again, is that you are defining the word "exists" too narrowly. If something can only "exist" if it is located "somewhere" inside of a larger "system," then you are using the word "exists" as essentially synonymous with "an object inside of space-time."

To illustrate why this is too narrow a definition, let's consider, for the sake of argument, the case where neither God nor the multiverse exist. In that scenario, there is nothing beyond the visible universe. The visible universe is all that there is. I trust an atheist has no problem imagining this hypothetical.

And yet, if that is the case, then, on your definition of the word "exists," we would have to say that the universe as whole does not "exist," since it does not reside "somewhere" within some larger "system."

This is true also of the scenario you are imagining above where the "prime mover" resides within some system. We can't say that that system "exists" unless it, in turn, resides somewhere within an even larger system, etc., ad infinitum.

This is simply too narrow a definition for "exists."

Here's a more exact analogy to our discussion using this same example:

Let's say the fish tank holds 10 gallons of water and is full. If you are inside the fish tank, you cannot add any water, since the tank is already full. Likewise, you cannot remove any water, since there is no place inside the tank the water can be 'removed' to. Assuming for a second the tank is completely sealed so no water evaporates, the total water in the tank remains the same.

Your argument is like saying that, because we cannot add or remove any water from within the tank, no one can create water outside the tank. But that's obviously not the case, as humans have the technology to combine hydrogen and oxygen atoms to form water, and can do so outside the tank. So, too, with the law of conservation of energy: it constrains what can naturally occur from within a closed system, not what may or may not obtain outside of one.

Ok, so what you are admitting here then (using this analogy) is that the 'prime mover' is not really creating anything, but simply rearranging some preexisting energy.

Well, no. An analogy is, by definition, a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect. The particular aspect I am comparing here is the idea that what obtains in a closed space does not necessarily obtain outside that space. Anything else in the analogy is simply part of the "unlike things" inherent to any analogy.

Once time rolls back to 0, we have nothing to scientifically support what happened there. At that point it's just hypothesizing and looking for answers.

Sure, that's why we have fields like cosmology and theoretical physics, as they are good at doing just that.

And, if you delve into the scholarly literature of the KCA, you'll see it gives a lot of attention to different theoretical cosmological models and what they might tell us about the possibility of the universe being past-eternal.

Our universe became "our universe" at the beginning of the expansion. Whatever it may have been before is the open question and whatever that thing was (or may have been) is the issue.

I don't disagree. And, keeping in mind that the KCA is concerned with efficient, rather than material, causes, we would have to say that the above summary indicates that the universe began to exist at the Big Bang and therefore likely has an efficient cause for it beginning to exist, right?

[SiNcE_1985]

Until you can actually steelman my actual position, there is clearly no point in addressing anything else.

You've made your position clear.

The problem is, it is logically unattainable.

I have NOT hypothesized an eternally existing universe. You know I haven't said that because I've clarified it a few times and even asked you to quote me.

I quoted what you said, and what is/was meant by what you said.

Words have meaning.

You've made a statement, of which you quite frankly weren't prepared to stand on.

I HAVE said that it may be possible that the energy that makes up our current universe may be eternal.

If the energy that makes up our universe is eternal, then the universe itself is eternal.

Point blank, period.

Just like you will posit that your God is eternal.

This is addressed in the KCA.

You've been constantly called out on bringing up points that no one who is familiar with the argument will bring up.

Educate yourself on the argument, then come back to the field.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to POI in post #1]

As we seem to just be going around in circles and I've presented my objections to the KCA as clearly as I can, I'm going to let my current interlocutors have the last word. I'm happy to let readers take what they will from my input.

I think historia presented some nice counter debate so thank you for that.

[POI]

[Replying to POI in post #1]

As we seem to just be going around in circles and I've presented my objections to the KCA as clearly as I can, I'm going to let my current interlocutors have the last word. I'm happy to let readers take what they will from my input.

I think historia presented some nice counter debate so thank you for that.

Yea well, here's my position on this matter....

I have absolutely no idea if we were 'created', or are a product of 'naturalism'? I tried offering alternative positions and also informed my interlocutor that I'm 50/50. And proving the KCA merely pushed us to generic deism alone, which is basically 'proving' some impersonal creating force. I may not know how we got here, or if our life has any actual 'meaning', other than maybe what we apply to ourselves, but I'm pretty sure we can cross Christianity off the vast list of possible assertions.... Which is one of the many reasons I debate Christians and ask why they believe what they believe.

[marke]

For Debate: Does the Kalam Cosmological Argument provide sound reasoning for the assertion of a 'prime mover'? If so, does it happen to say anything about what this "prime mover" could even be? If the KCA is instead not good reasoning at all, please explain why?

Nobody can seriously doubt that for the universe to have begun it had to have a designer and a creator.

[POI]

For Debate: Does the Kalam Cosmological Argument provide sound reasoning for the assertion of a 'prime mover'? If so, does it happen to say anything about what this "prime mover" could even be? If the KCA is instead not good reasoning at all, please explain why?

Nobody can seriously doubt that for the universe to have begun it had to have a designer and a creator.

How do we know materialism didn't always exist in one form or another?