We are here debating the Kalam Cosmological Argument from a deistic rather than theistic perspective. Carlo Alvaro is taking the affirmative; Richard Carrier the negative. See our initial entry for all the details, including an index to all entries yet published.
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Dr. Carrier demands that I prove that P1 and P2 are true. I already did it multiple times. Instead, Dr. Carrier chooses to ignore what I said.
Evidence that P1 is true:
1. All finite things (planets, thoughts, humans) come into existence by something else.
2. We have zero evidence that finite things come or could come into existence by nothing.
3. If anything could come into existence by nothing, then anything could—even now!
Dr. Carrier ignored my questions:
– Why don’t things come into existence by nothing all the time?
– Why did it happen only once for the universe?
– Why did it stop?
Dr. Carrier incessantly repeats that P1 is not “always” true. But how does he know? I have asked the same question many times, but he keeps ignoring it: How do you know? Where is your evidence that, sometimes, P1 is false. His evidence must not only show that any finite object could (logically speaking) come into existence by nothing. Also, he must show an object that came into existence by nothing. Otherwise, His imagining that, sometimes, P1 is false is irrelevant.
4. Out of nothing, nothing comes.
Dr. Carrier offers the following argument. Now, a gentlemanly and formal debate ought to be governed by the principle of charity. As such, I will assume that Dr. Carrier meant something different, otherwise the following argument is a disastrous piece of reasoning. He writes,
P1 only obtains when causal systems exist. That is why we do not see it violated in our world: our world is a contingent causal system. But if that system has to be produced by something else (per P1), then that something else cannot already have been governed by P1. Because it produced P1. Therefore, it cannot have obeyed P1. P1 is therefore false in all conditions required for P3 to be proved by it.
Let me explain. P1 clearly asserts that those things—and only those things—that begin to exist are brought into existence by something else. But it does not assert that everything is brought into existence by something else. Hence, that “something else” that brought the universe into existence, let’s call it X, has two options:
- Option 1: X was brought into existence by something else.
- Option 2: X is eternal.
The Kalam does not argue that everything is governed by P1. Rather, it argues that because finite things are governed by P1, there must be an X that is not governed by P1 and X is eternal. Why? Because if X was brought into being by something else, say Y, then Y must be eternal otherwise the process would go on ad infinitum. But the process cannot go on ad infinitum because it would imply an actually infinite number of events—which is impossible. In a nutshell, only things that begin to exist are brought into existence by something else. The god that brought the universe into existence is eternal. Ergo, it was not brought into existence by anything else.
And Voilà! The foregoing proves that P1 is true.
Evidence that P2 is true.
1. Actual infinity cannot obtain in the physical world. Actual infinity leads to logical contradiction. Logical contradictions do not exist; therefore, actual infinity does not exist.
Dr. Carrier can continue saying that mathematics proves the existence of actual infinities until the cow comes home. Such assertion proves zero. I already demonstrated that actual infinity is physically impossible plus there is not one example of actual infinity. Hence, P2 is true.
2. You cannot traverse an actual infinity. Hence P2 is true.
3. The universe—space, time, matter, energy—came into existence a finite time ago. Dr. Carrier keeps attacking me repeating that my understanding of the Big Bang is obsolete. I teach in the same university where Michio Kaku teaches. Careful now! I am NOT saying that I am better than Dr. Carrier or that Michio Kaku agrees with me. My point is that I teach in a university that employs eminent physicists. I often talk to them about this. What do they tell me? They tell me that the Big Bang theory says that there is no spatiotemporal dimension prior to the singularity. Thus, not only Dr. Carrier’s assertion that my knowledge of the Big Bang is obsolete is an ad hominem attack, but it also attacks eminent physicists.
Furthermore, Dr. Carrier accuses me of endorsing the false dichotomy that either the universe came from nothing, or a deity did it. I protest! I never implied that those are the only possibilities. Rather, those are the typical things that atheists say. I am open to whichever possibility you endorse. But as I noted, Dr. Carrier seems afraid of committing himself to a particular view (At any rate, I fail to see how these other possibilities refute Kalam).
And Voilà! The foregoing proves that P2 is true.
A quick recap:
1. I have presented overwhelming scientific and philosophical evidence that P1 and P2 are true.
2. Dr. Carrier has been able only to doubt the scientific and philosophical evidence, but not able to show evidence that refutes my evidence and supports his claims.
Specifically:
(a) Not able to give evidence that an actual (not a potential) infinity can exist or does exist.
(b) Not able to give evidence that a finite object can come into being, or came into being, by nothing.
I have presented both philosophical and scientific arguments that P1 and P2 of the Kalam must be true. Thus, I demonstrated that Kalam is sound. Therefore, the conclusion must be true, which means that the universe was brought into being by something else—a god.
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Read Dr. Carrier’s Closing Statement
• Dr. Alvaro: P1 of your Kalam as originally presented in your first post reads “all things that being to exist came into existence by something else.” Now you qualify P1 with the adjective “finite.” I don’t know if that qualification moves the goal post for against either position, but I wanted to point that out to see if it matters. And if I may: As to P2: since mathematics submits that infinity is possible, then because that possibility exists as conceptional evidence-with mathematics being the highest level of proof in a hierarchical structure for adducing the truth of any given claim-then the Kalam is ineffectual to prove its conclusion, and therefore the argument is more properly an inductive rather than a deductive one, as Dr. Carrier keeps insisting. I’m no philosopher, and I’m nowhere as intelligent or informed as you two gentlemen, but I do welcome any correction to my thinking from anyone!
It is not a qualification. Finite and “all things that begin to exist” are synonymous. Because each debater is allowed to write no more than 1100 words, finite helps the word count.
Mathematics does not say that actual infinity is possible–Dr. Carrier does! First, when you argue that the conceptual possibility for actual infinity entails the necessity of physical infinity, you commit the modal fallacy. Please take any advanced logic textbook and you will learn this.
Second, if you believe that all mathematical truths are by necessity physical truths, then you might believe that negative entities exist or that triangles exist.
About deduction. Consider this argument.
If there is an apple on my table, I own of an apple.
There is an apple on my table.
Therefore, I am own of an apple.
Assume that all the premises are true. This is a valid, deductive, and sound argument. Now how do I prove to you that the premises are true? Well, I will have to show you my table with an apple on top. But how do I prove to you that what you are looking at (a) is a table with an apple on top and (b) that the table and the apple are not figments of your imagination? In fact, how do you prove to you that I exist and you exist and the world exists?
That is a deductive argument and, yet, in order to establish the truth of the premises, you need to accept certain facts that are confirmed or disconfirmed on the basis of inductive judgments.
Almost everything can be doubted. It is a matter of inductive strength.
Hence, the Kalam need not be inductively formulated.
Hope this helps
Actually all the world’s mathematicians and theoretical physicists say this. I am just listening to them.
And yet no evidence a god exists or is needed.
Alas.
No. Mathematics does not say that actual infinity exists. No scientist says that. Stop with the word salads. Or quote a source. Mathematics itself is merely imagination with logical consistency. And there is nowhere imagination is equivalent with actual reality in observable existence, no matter how consistent it looks. Provide an actual proof where logical imagination is equivalent with facts in the physical world that can be observed. That is what Dr Alvaro is challenging you to do!
I have cited dozens of scientists and mathematicians who say actual infinities can exist. Alvaro and you have cited none who say they can’t.
The notion that they can’t is a quaint amateur notion rejected by all experts in transfinite mathematics and theoretical physics.
This is not about “imagination.” It is about logical consistency and formal proofs. Follow my dozens of sources cited in this debate. Read them all. You will find endless formal proofs of the possibility of actual infinities.
The debate is over whether the Kalam is sound and not on the existence of God.
And yet from the Kalam you conclude the following:
I understand that you’re not saying that it is proves a “God”, but you are saying that the argument proves a “god”. Please explain why you insist on calling it that (as supposed to something more generic like “causal agent”. How does the Kalam prove that the universe was intelligently designed. It seems to me you might be trying to steal some bases here.
Dr. Alvaro: In your opening statement, you wrapped up by stating:
This seemed to me, as a reader, to hold out the promise that at the appropriate point in the debate you would include that “interesting analysis,” or at least a precis thereof. Are you saying that was not your plan, and in fact your final point is merely “something else”?
If so, then even if a reader agrees with your support of the Kalam, on what grounds should that reader not assume that its conclusion merely points to an object, law, or force of nature? That would seem to be an extremely ambiguous and unsatisfying topic around which to have centered the debate in the first place.
The Kalam is supposed to be an argument for god.
If all it is is an argument for a tautology (“if everything began, there was a first thing”) this has been a phenomenal waste of time.
And that would not explain why you keep saying this gets us to god (e.g. “the conclusion must be true, which means that the universe was brought into being by something else—a god” is a false statement if this is not what your Kalam proves)
I’m sorry, but “Why don’t things come into existence by nothing all the time?” is toddler-level logic. It’s the same as a creationist thinking that “why are there still monkeys?” is some sort of gotcha.
Only someone who can’t tell the difference between “space” and “nothing” would make such a terrible argument.
Lol. What an embarrassment this last entry was. At this point, there’s zero reason to continue this “debate”.
Do you really believe so? Because I’ve been reading closely and haven’t come across any such evidence in your posts. You seem to be relying on intuition and outdated or incorrect scientific ideas to support your arguments. Once we reject intuition (which is notoriously unreliable) and include accurate, up-to-date scientific evidence (which Carrier has kindly referenced for your convenience), then it becomes apparent that P1 and P2 are not at all evidenced to be true, at least not necessarily so.
P2 is on especially shaky ground based on modern physics—i.e. a past-infinite universe has been mathematically proven to be a possibility, and the infinite multiverse hypothesis is taken seriously by multiple physicists: watch this interview with Oxford physicist David Deutsch to learn more: https://ytube.io/3ror. Thus we can say conclusively that P3 is not established as a necessary fact nor even a probable one, but is merely possible.
However, as Carrier has said, and you continue to ignore for reasons I don’t understand, it is trivial to say that somethingorother probably existed prior to the Big Bang that gave rise to it. While it’s true that the Kalam’s P1 and P2 fail to demonstrate this to be necessarily so, suggesting so doesn’t conflict with atheism in any way. I myself assume that the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of reality itself.
But your leap from “the universe [might have come] into existence by something else” to “a god” is a non sequitur. As Carrier observed, you have “not even argued [your] proposed first-order thing is intelligent, and therefore a deity”, and he’s right, you haven’t (at least not in this debate). Positing such a god requires assumptions for which there are no empirical supports whatsoever, such as the possibility of a disembodied intelligence, the ability to affect physical change by will alone, the ability to exist either as an infinite mind or to exist “outside of time”, and so on.
And let’s cut to the chase—you cannot make a sound argument that such a being exists or is likely to exist, and Kalam does absolutely nothing to help—you might as well reference a good recipe for pancakes to support your god hypothesis, which would at least make Saturday mornings more pleasant. Heck, you could jettison your clanky Kalam argument entirely and say “I believe a god exists/existed and made the universe” simply as a matter of faith, which is equally as justified on P3 as on a pancake recipe.
Dr. Alvaro:
Dr. Carrier already explained to you that the “nothing” possibility that you are seemingly eluding (abolute nothing in the most possible way one could even possibly imagine) is not the same “nothing” that he and those in the field are talking about when the propose the possibility that the universe could’ve started from a nothing (meaning essentially nothing) like state. I can understand the initial misunderstanding because everyone (and I do mean everyone) outside the field of cosmology (which is most people) misunderstands that.
But I get the sense that you refuse to even acknowledge that much. Doing so wouldn’t mean that you would have to agree with him even still, but at least it wouldn’t come across as a strawman argument.
Hense forward you might want to refer to it as a cosmologically defined nothing state, or an essentially nothing state. Just so we know that you aren’t making a strawman argument (intentionally or not).
Why don’t things come into existence by nothing all the time?
Dr. Carrier never suggested that was something that ever happened WITHIN our universe.
– Why did it happen only once for the universe? -and- Why did it stop?”
For all we know it could’ve happened before and still happening (formations of other unverses through same process). You wouldn’t expect to see that occurence or evidence of that occurence WITHIN our universe.
Also you say that “All finite things (planets, thoughts, humans) come into existence by something else”.
The fact that you needed to qualify that these premise applies specifically to “finite” things, seems to suggest that you acknowledge that infinite things exists (or at least possibly exist). But then you go on to assert that “actual infinity does not exist”.
Please clarify what if anything finite you thing exists (or could exist) inside or outside of this physical world.
If you’re going to say that “god” is finite, and that only an actual “god” could be finite please explain why that might be. Even if you’re convinced that this universe started by some causal agent, please why that causal agent would necessarily need to be a “god” (meaning conscious intentional creator), and not some other cosmological thing along the lines of dark energy or dark matter.
Without even thinking about it rain clouds produce rain that both grows plant life and floods/destroys civilizations. That is if course within our universe. Is it not at least possible that something other than an actual “god” was the causal agent for the creation of our universe. Assuming it was “caused” by something.
Can Dr. Alvaro clarify what he means by “scientific arguments?” I ask because in this post I see no reference to any scientific studies whatsoever establishing either the impossibility of infinity or the existence of any type of being which allegedly brought the universe into existence. Instead, this post appears to be entirely an appeal to logic and presumes that no empirical evidence is required to demonstrate any of the propositions. Does Dr. Alvaro regard references to conversations with prominent physicists to constitute “scientific arguments” even if those references offer neither quotations nor even paraphrases of what those physicists said?
From spaceplace.nasa.gov:
The big bang is how astronomers explain the way the universe began. It is the idea that the universe began as just a single point, then expanded and stretched to grow as large as it is right now—and it is still stretching!
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/big-bang/en/#:~:text=It%20is%20the%20idea%20that,and%20it%20is%20still%20stretching!
From Astronomy Today: The Solar System, 9th edition Published by Pearson (November 13, 2017) © 2018 – Eric Chaisson Tufts University – Steve McMillan Drexel University
At present no theory exists to let us penetrate the singularity at the start of the universe. We have no means of describing these earliest of times, so we have no way of answering the question, What came before the Big Bang? Indeed, given the laws of physics as we currently know them, the question itself may be meaningless. The Big Bang represented the beginning of the entire universe—mass, energy, space, and time came into being at that instant. Without time, the notion of “before” does not exist. Consequently, some cosmologists maintain that asking what happened before the Big Bang is like asking what lies north of the North Pole! Others disagree, arguing that one day the proper theory will explain the singularity and allow us to answer the question of what came before.
Um. Dr. ALvaro, you just quoted a kid’s website that describes Hubble’s initial theory in 1927 (“He said that a very long time ago, the universe started as just a single point”). Not modern Big Bang theory.
Thanks for confirming you haven’t read anything about its status from the last thirty years. You are, apparently, in fact, one hundred years out of date in your facts.
Dr. Alvaro wants the universe to either come by nothing or by god. His denial of it makes no sense, it’s right there in his demonstration. I came by that observation without reading it from Dr. Carrier. But nobody, no scientist claims the universe came by nothing, only that it came from a previous quantum field, as postulated by quantum physics. Everything in existence actually proceeds from an earlier state. An adult self proceeds from an adolescent state, etc. That’s therefore the most likely explanation for the universe. There is zero evidence of things coming into existence the way Dr. Alvaro imagines (spontaneous creation by a god).
I was going to point the logical mistakes but it seems to me every paragraph contains such failures. What’s the point of claiming infinity cannot exist to then claim a god is infinite?
If eminent scientists tell you there is no temporal dimension before the singularity (and I agree with them) how do you place an eternal (temporally infinite) god before the singularity (it has to be before since you envision it as a cause)?
I have not always understood some of the arguments from Dr. Carrier, some I agree with, others I don’t understand. But there has not been any argument from Dr. Alvaro that I found to be logical or well argued.
I followed the discussion and didn’t notice Dr. Alvaro say that “The universe either came into existence from nothing or by God.”
We have laws of physics, like Newton’s Law’s of Motion, and the law of conservation of energy that are violated by the spontaneous generation of the Cosmos.
The real question is, “What makes us believe that the universe owes us an explanation?” We simply lack the answer to how the Cosmos came to be. Is Deism any better or worse than, “There have been an infinite number of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.”, or that some unknown process goes through a space we don’t understand splashing put Big Bangs?
God of the gaps isn’t what I believe Alvaro is advancing because he seems more humble than to assert his claim as anything more than a plausible possibility.
I was looking forward to this debate at the start, as it seemed likely to dodge the apologetic pitfalls of many others, but three rounds in it’s become something of an exercise in frustration.
Dr. Alvaro seems to keep repeating his premises, P1 and P2, as sheer assertions, as if insisting harder will make them as obvious to others as he apparently considers them to be. In the process, though, he has repeatedly made a key conceptual mistake that leads him to either misunderstand or ignore important points made by Dr. Carrier (and other commenters).
Specifically, he keeps referring to (generalized, intuitive, experiential) evidence from within our spacetime to support the proposition that P1 and P2 apply, when what he needs to do is demonstrate that they are true as a matter of logical necessity, independent of our spacetime. If they can only be shown to apply within our spacetime, then it’s putting the cart before the horse to insist that they constrain the possibilities for how that spacetime began (assuming arguendo that it did).
How is this critical distinction obvious to Dr. Carrier, to me, and to many other commenters, but not to Dr. Alvaro?
His interpretation of infinity (as a thing he rejects, in some inscrutable contrast to existing “eternally,” which he’s apparently fine with) and of big-bang cosmology (which he simply misunderstands) also seem to be grounded in insistent repetition, rather than any coherent responses to the (numerous) article links and scholarly sources he’s been offered, many of which directly, specifically address questions he has asked (and keeps asking, under the apparent impression they’ve been ignored).
Finally, having been handed a generous “let’s move this along” on a silver platter in Dr. Carrier’s last reply, with its conclusion saying (to paraphrase) ‘let’s suppose the Kalam isn’t wrong and there’s a First Something; what can we know about it and why should we attribute to it the qualities of a deity?’, Dr. Alvaro only gets around to addressing that in the final two words of this reply, with the remark “something else—a god.” Which is, once again, merely an assertion, not an argument.
Oh dear….. “1. All finite things (planets, thoughts, humans) come into existence by something else”. The universe is a big place and we have a lot of unknowns to deal with before confidently saying, as a matter of necessity, “All”. It’s a black swan fallacy.
There’s no reason to think that nothingness, (particularly the classical nothingness) is the default condition. Physicists distinguish between a classical nothingness and a quantum nothingness that would in fact have potential to “create something from nothing”. In fact, seemingly, a quantum nothingness continues to create somethings, at least at the quantum level. And, according to physicists, things can happen spontaneously.
We only see a small portion of the universe – the observable bit which is something like 96 billion light years in diameter. The universe as a whole is much larger and could well be infinite. And so there is a possibility as suggested by cosmologists that our big bang could continue for ever or there could be separate big bangs happening.
At the end of the day, either we would have to acknowledge that the universe doesn’t owe us an explanation and 2ndly our best explanation will almost certainly be based upon some brute set of facts that could have been otherwise – a conservative explanation would be, say some minimalist state as close to absolute nothingness as we can imagine or alternatively the most extravagant explanation possible.
“– Why don’t things come into existence by nothing all the time?” By some interpretations of quantum field theory, the proposition is that whole universes are indeed coming into existence all every moment. They are inaccessible, discernible in phenomena like the Casimir effect. This shows they are “real” but there is no significant information available about them. Scare quotes around real as there is much controversy about whether modern science describes reality, or even can describe reality.
I do not venture to endorse such multiverse theories personally, nor of course do I speak for Dr. Carrier. I believe at one point Dr. Carrier categorized that interpretation as placing all universes everywhere all the time? That I do not understand, that seems to be incompatible with general relativity. Nor do I understand how everywhere is equivalent to nowhere when speaking of something unobservable. That seems uncomfortably like the omnipresence of God. I understood Dr. Carrier to hold the uncertainty principle as merely epistemic, not ontological. But there are people who have held QM etc. to be shocking because it implies properties do not exist until observed, that in effect they are created in experiment. That’s one answer to your next question.
At any rate the conservation/symmetry laws or principles seem to me to imply that all global observables forbid the subsequent appearance of something from nothing, answering your next question. And this seems to be true even if you treat such conservation/symmetry more as an epistemic frame of reference, the way in which we identify phenomena as constituting a universe: Everything comes from something that preceded it, as a particle(I can’t think of any principle that identifies a way to single out any one universe as reality, at least not a unique reality, any more than I know of one that can trace the trajectory of a particle—no, I do not understand Bohm— but I’m not even sure that point is relevant here.)
Today, the thing is, though I personally can’t declare such interpretations of QFT etc. to be wrong nor right, how does the possibility that the empirically confirmed principles or equations of QFT may be creating whole new universes at a staggering rate (essentially at every quantum interaction affect P1? Doesn’t P1 have to be probably true, at least….and doesn’t this interpretation leave P1 not probable enough? That P1 is more about the logic and by implication mathematics (insofar as they are distinct) and such interpretations bear on the question of the soundness of P1?
But it seems to me maybe there is an inadvertent ambiguity in the term “evidence?” The singularity of the Big Bang is solidly confirmed by experimental evidence, which seems to me to be the way you’re using the term in discussing P2. But Dr. Carrier maybe is putting more weight on experimentally supported principles or laws and finding a kind of “before” you do not? A biologist studying the history of life who assumes the principles of population genetics may venture further than straightforward fossil evidence directly justifies. (All historical sciences, including those of nature, are well justified by long experience in doing so and I think that’s one thing that makes them historical sciences instead of literary narratives.) And the discussion is at cross-purposes?
If anything could come into existence by god, then anything could—even now!
– Why don’t things come into existence by god all the time?
– Why did it happen only once for the universe?
– Why did it stop?