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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This is the regrettable stage of the debate when one debater accuses the other of not understanding.
I. Validity and Soundness of the Argument
Dr. Carrier writes,
Dr. Alvaro misunderstands my point. His argument succeeds only if both premises are always true—in all possible conditions. Otherwise, Proposition 3 is not deductively the case.
Dr. Carrier uses following argument,
- Clowns own lizards.
- Joey is a clown.
- Therefore Joey owns a lizard.
to shows that,
Proposition 3 only follows if Premises 1 and 2 are always true. If some clowns don’t own lizards, or Joey sometimes isn’t a clown (but, say, an accountant), Premise 3 cannot follow.
But that is incorrect. The argument is formally valid and, thus, the conclusion follows by logical necessity—even if the premises are false. Rather, that is what we call an unsound argument, i.e., logically valid with at least one false premise. But it’s not a good argument.[1]
Whether all clowns own lizards can be (relatively easily) falsified, but the Kalam is different. We cannot prove with 100% certainty whether the premises are true. I applaud Dr. Carrier’s confidence when he declares that,
it cannot be the case that P1 [of the Kalam] is “always” true.
But where is Dr. Carrier’s evidence that P1 is not always true? Dr. Carrier may not dismiss the truth of P1 by simply saying that he can “imagine” a possible world in which objects spontaneously materialize from nothing or that scientists have not yet ruled that possibility out. He needs concrete evidence—but there is none. Conversely, we have excellent evidence for P1. Therefore, P1 is true.
Moreover, there is almost nothing that we know with 100% certainty, e.g., Dr. Carrier cannot cannot disprove that he is a brain in a vat. But then, according to Dr. Carrier’s logic, the possibility that he is a brain in a vat counts as evidence that he is—therefore, he is a brain in a vat!
I have shown that we have excellent evidence that the premises of the Kalam are more plausibly true than their negations.
II. Evidence for P1
1. It cannot be denied that all things that begin to exist come into existence by something else. To falsify this, bring me an object that came into existence by nothing.
2. We have zero evidence that, sometimes, things come into existence by nothing—zero! Furthermore, it is metaphysically impossible.
3. If things could come into existence by nothing, then anything could. But then,
- Why don’t things come into existence by nothing all the time?
- Why did it happen only once? According to Dr. Carrier, it seems, after the materialization of the universe from nothing and by nothing, this bizarre phenomenon stopped.
- Why did it stop?
4. Out of nothing, nothing comes. When Dr. Carrier defines “nothing” as a state, he slyly assumes that the universe is eternal.
II. Evidence for P2
1. Actual infinity is a concept in infinite set theory, but it’s not physically instantiable. If you think it is, show me an example. Dr. Carrier’s fingernail example is very cute but modally fallacious. Simply put, it’s a modal operator shift fallacy—i.e., deriving necessity from possibility.
2. An actual infinite number of events cannot be traversed (that’s my staircase example).[2]
3. The universe—space, time, matter, energy—came into existence a finite time ago. There is no state prior to that. And even if there were one, it would have to be finite in the past. All the alternative models you have read about are quite imaginative but amount to zero evidence. Maybe one day scientists… Well, “maybe” is not evidence. Dr. Carrier resorts to an ad hominem attack:
Dr. Alvaro must be reading physics books from thirty years ago.
That’s just silly. On the contrary, I keep abreast with the current research in cosmology and cosmogony, and I confer with my physicist colleagues at my university.
Therefore, it follows that the universe came into existence by something else.
III. Conclusion
People who reject the Kalam endorse either of the following:
(a) The universe is eternal.
(b) The universe came into being from nothing and by nothing.
Which of the two does Dr. Carrier endorse? Maybe he’s afraid to stick his neck out. However, so far, Dr. Carrier’s argument has been the following: Science has not yet disproved that the universe might be eternal or that things could materialize from nothing. Therefore, the universe came into being by nothing and from nothing because “nothing” has no rules and turns into something.
I often wonder about the genuineness of atheists’ claims. There is something diabolical (pun intended) about atheism. Atheists will go to great lengths to deny the existence of a god—even as far as maintaining the absurd position that the universe is, well, just there, willy nilly, or that reality can choose to begin to exist from nothing, by nothing, and for no particular reason, and accidentally fine-tune itself for intelligent life.
In my view, a deistic god that transcends time and space brought the universe into existence, though I do not believe that this god has a relationship with humans.[3]
I do not argue that the Kalam is sound because I believe in a god; rather, I believe in a god because the Kalam is sound. In order for me to give up such a belief, I would have to go against established scientific and philosophical facts and believe either that the universe is eternal or that the universe came into being from nothing and by nothing—both of which are absurd and unsubstantiated propositions. Yet again, in his latest reply to my argument, Dr. Carrier offered only more suppositions and speculations. As a result, he has failed, once again, to show that the Kalam is an unsound argument.
Endnotes
[1] See my Logical Thinking Course on Academia.edu: Sec. 3. Good arguments.
[2] I recommend reading my “Stairway Paradox” on page 7 of my paper and Alexander R. Pruss’s Infinity, Causation, and Paradox; also you may watch Dr. Bill Craig’s YouTube video “Worst Objections to Kalam Cosmological Argument” especially objection #4 & #5.
[3] The details of my argument are presented in my book Deism: A Rational Journey From Disbelief to The Existence of God.
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Read Dr. Carrier’s Third Reply to Alvaro
Is there not a misunderstanding about the word Nothing ? If i had to give a analogy, the nothing of Alvaro is the inside of a box and Carrier nothing is when there is no box at all. All of Alvaro proof of P1 are inside the box. Carrier is saying that P1 is dependent of the box, if there is no box, P1 just doesn’t exist.
Indeed. There are many different kinds of nothing. So one has to specify which one one is speaking of. But to be fair, what Alvaro is saying is that either there is something or there is absolutely nothing, which lacks even a capacity to produce something. That is actually logically contradictory (it entails both the presence and absence of all actualities, including the actualities needed to prevent a potentiality becoming an actuality). Which is why I link to an article explaining the only logically coherent nothing that could predate an instantiation of P1, which does indeed entail the potential to create something. Alvaro is still not following that distinction.
So, yes, on his vocabulary, it would be something. But since it is the most nothing any nothing can be, it is the only state that can exist without anything else to produce it: it is the most nothing logically possible, and therefore is not a contingent state but a logically necessary one: once you get before, and thus remove, every contingent thing produced, my nothing field-state is all that is left; there is no further back you can go to anything more nothing than that; and yet that final nothing state entails both P1 is false and that our universe would exist.
Alvaro is not listening carefully and so has not yet understood this is what I am saying or why it is correct. Hopefully that will change as we proceed.
Dr Carrier, I have wondered why one cannot cite examples from physics that refute P1? I) Virtual particles which are stochastical and causeless coming into existence ii) the spontaneous creation of new vacuum with its energy state in intergalactic space. These are not only without prior states bringing them into being, they are also the only examples of new creation ( apart from the universe) as all else is just transformation of pre-existing stuff. Genuinely curious why this argument is not used.
Virtual particles do not refute P1 (Alvaro makes this point in his peer-reviewed paper we were debating, linked in the description in the first entry to this debate) because they have contingent properties (only certain particles can spontaneously form, only in certain ways, and only by certain rules), and therefore something is causing them in the ontological (not deterministic) sense. Same for an expanding vacuum (Alvaro only used the virtual particle example, but the same logic applies).
Another way to put it: P1 says “All things that begin to exist came into existence by something else,” and therefore it says “The laws governing virtual particles and vacuum expansion came into existence by something else—if they began to exist.”
So one can challenge this by pointing out that we do not know that “the laws governing virtual particles and vacuum expansion” began to exist (they could be past eternal or logically necessary and thus “eternal” in his own sense); and even if they did, we do not know what is necessary to have brought them about or even if anything is necessary to bring them about (they could be a product of random spontaneous events ungoverned by any contingent physics—but some other logically necessary physics, such as the Lincoln-Wasser model I explicated in my nothing-field-state article).
In neither case can we cite established science as directly proving the point, because science has not solved either of these questions (we do not have any evidence the past is finite or not finite; and we do not have any evidence yet as to what logically necessary physics, if any, underlies all of reality). But science has many plausible hypotheses in these respects (perfectly coherent first-cause models lacking deities; perfectly coherent past-eternal models; and perfectly coherent spontaneous generation models; and even perfectly coherent ontological necessity models, e.g. see Superstring Theory as Metaphysical Atheism). These are all (or follow from) peer-reviewed, published theories by expert cosmological scientists. So one cannot say “these things are not possible,” and therefore one cannot sustain P1 or P2 on present scientific evidence: the present state of the field rejects both.
No, that is not correct. I argue that “nothing” does not denote a state. It is like saying nobody. If I said “Nobody came to my house last night” I do not mean that somebody came! Conversely, Dr. Carrier’s definition of nothing is something like a state.
Hence my prior comment.
As I note in today’s reply, this is a false dichotomy. There are “somethings” by Alvaro’s own broad definition of “something” that are describably nothing, and are thus not absolutely nothing—and therefore, are not a god or deity in any sense, nor possessed of any contingent property we have to explain.
Correction: This entry went up for a couple of hours without the endnotes. My apologies for the error. It has been rectified. If you had already read it before that, do please re-check it all to consult the endnotes.
I don’t think that’s a pun. It’s a common theist, usually Christian claim, attempting to accuse the atheist of dishonesty with no evidence. There is no evidence for any gods, including whatever Alvaro imagines there to be.
Why is it “absurd” for the universe to simply be? Reality doesn’t have to “choose” anything and again, it may simply be. The theist must claim that their god must “simply be” so they do have a problem.
And no evidence for “fine tuning” aka creationism. If the universe is fine tuned for intelligent life, aka humans so far, why did some entity “choose” constants that make the sun give this intelligent life, and other life, cancer? Make DNA so it fails often and horribly? Make the human body, ostensibly the creature that this entire universe is built for, to guarantee that thousands of humans choke to death every year?
…without time or space how can this entity start something?
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People who reject the Kalam endorse either of the following:
(a) The universe is eternal.
(b) The universe came into being from nothing and by nothing.
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To be more precise, rejecting the Kalam merely requires acknowledging that an eternal [all-that-exists] is logically and scientifically plausible, which defeats P1 (due to the “always” condition). So long as an eternal physical reality is scientifically possible (and it is, per Hawking, Penrose, Hartle, Hertog, Deutsch, etc), P1 will remain unsupported speculation. And as you know, you cannot get to a sound conclusion on mere speculation. Thus, Kalam is defeated.
And I’ll reiterate that atheists are perfectly comfortable positing that our local Big Bang had a cause. The problem with the Kalam is that it does nothing to connect that hypothetical cause to an intentional universe-creating agent. There is certainly nothing about consciousness that would exempt it from rules pertaining to eternality or something-from-nothingness. This alone makes the Kalam useless as an argument for theism.
Also, “rejecting the Kalam” does not require accepting (a) or (b). One need merely conclude its conclusion is unknown.
Alvaro is thus building another false dichotomy. Saying the Kalam is unsound is not identical to saying its conclusion is false. It is simply saying its conclusion is not known to be true. That is compatible with also agreeing its conclusion is not known to be false, either.
It is only additionally the case that we can establish its conclusion is not likely to be true, or not likely to be true in any sense other than trivially (and thus incapable of establishing deism).
Dr. Carrier makes a statement in his second Reply that I meant to address but never did due to the lack of space. The issue is whether there exists a genuine distinction between strict and broad logical possibility. Dr. Carrier says the following:
This is not a “bogus” distinction because “logical possibility” can mean two things. Something can be logically possible in the sense that it doesn’t involve an obvious contradiction. For example, a round square is an impossibility. You cannot even imagine (picture in your mind) something that is, at the same time, wholly square and wholly circular. In logic we say this is “nomologically” impossible.
However, there is no evident contradiction in the proposition, “This iron bar could be transparent.” I can imagine this very bar of iron to be transparent. Thus, it is in the ordinary sense of logic, strictly logically possible. Nevertheless, it is nomologically or metaphysically impossible. This is what is meant by broad logical possibility.
Now, the point that is relevant for the first premise of the Kalam is that it is possible in the ordinary logical sense that an object like a pizza or a stone comes into being from nothing and by nothing. But it is nomologically (metaphysically) impossible because out of nothing, nothing comes. And when I say “nothing” I do not mean an empty box! I mean not anything!
I have addressed this in my replies. Every logical possibility is a proposition that describes a physically possible state.
Therefore, there is no relevant distinction here between “kinds” of logical possibility.
Every logical possibility can be instantiated by changing the laws of physics as required to realize it. See my fire-breathing dragon example. And we are here discussing the state of affairs before any contingent laws of physics are decided upon.
We might not have the ability to change the resulting laws of physics here and now, but human limitations have no bearing on what can, could, or could have been the case. And before a contingently ordered spacetime existed, those limitations didn’t exist, either.
Physics was then open-ended, and thus any logical possibility could have been realized. The only question is what probably would get realized, but that is an inductive and not a deductive argument, and so far, only the latter has been defended in this debate. It is also a hypothetical, not a known (since we do not have much data yet on what was the initial state of reality or even if there was one).
Dr. Alvaro wrote:
So in your mind was that event (our universe that came to be) necessarily the product of intelligent design? Could it have been some other type of causal agent, along the lines of dark energy or dark matter? I want to make sure I correctly understand your purpose and ensistence of calling it a “god” (necessarily). And I’m curious if you think that the Kalaam argument proves that as well, or you have some other reason for assuming that.
Dr. Alvaro wrote:
If that is the case it shouldn’t be too had for you to provide a link to fairly recent article from cosmology substantiating your claim that scientsists still hold true to the belief that the Big Bang was necessarily the start of our universe (space and time).
Ideally something more than “I know some guys”.
Dr. Alvaro states, “It cannot be denied that all things that begin to exist come into existence by something else.” Yes, it can be denied. We simply cannot know this because we cannot claim to have observed everything. At best “The things we have observed with our limited capacity in our universe seem to have come into existence by something else.” But one cannot jump from that to “all things.”
Also note that inserting a god into our universe will create one thing that did not begin to exist by something else. It is self-defeating. And if it is claimed that this god comes from a different reality, then you posit other realities where things do not begin to exist by something else. This is also self-defeating as you then fall into my position that spontaneous creation is possible outside of our space-time and you cannot establish P1 based on observations of our space-time.
I know I said I was going to stay out, but I’m a sucker for a good argument. In Dr. Alvaro’s conclusion he refers to the universe “accidentally fine-tuning itself for intelligent life.” When did fine tuning enter this debate?
If Dr. Alvaro additionally believes his non-theistic deity intervened to create the right circumstances for biological life to exist and sustain itself, doesn’t that necessitate theism? I read his “The Heaven Ab Initio Argument From Evil” that Richard linked, so I know Dr Alvaro thinks otherwise. But it’s one thing to try to prove via the Kalam that an indifferent deity finger-snapped all matter, time and energy into existence, but it’s quite another to talk about that deity also fine-tuning its creation. Even the non-theistic explanations for Fine-Tuned Universe in the Wikipedia entry imply a creator (or illusion or missing knowledge)
Doesn’t fine tuning compel inferences of intentionality, of purpose, of a grander plan perhaps? Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but once you start talking about fine-tuning that necessitates explanation, and explanations involving deities are theistic in nature- theism being defined as that which has explanatory scope in answering the “why” and not the “how.”
That’s a very good question, but not difficult to answer on a deistic account. The deistic god brings the universe into existence and sets the parameters for the universe to evolve into the sort of universe that is fit for intelligent life. But then such a god has no active relationship with humans. I don’t see why this could not be the case. Another possibility is that this god creates the universe for intelligent life to arise so that his creatures will eventually, after their physical deaths, ascend and unite with god and forever exist in a state of eternal bliss. This would explain why evil exists, that is, because this deistic god does not and cannot intervene in human affairs. Hence, no theism is required.
What about c? We don’t know how the universe began. Presenting a false dichotomy is not helpful. I feel like this debate will just be each person repeating the same points ad nauseum. I hope both of you move on to some new perspectives.
I feel like in this reply to a comment you have added a lot more than you added in the main article. It’s interesting to see you flesh out your idea of god. There’s a big difference between a god that creates and life just happens, compared to a god that intended and planned to create the right environment for life to thrive long enough to become intelligent. This is why I prefer a fluid discussion to a static debate.
Dr. Alvaro, do be aware, I (and I think many here) don’t think either of those scenarios are plausible.
If a clockwork universe could be built wherein people could ascend after death to a better clockwork world, then god could just start with that better clockwork world.
That god is thus refuted by all the standard arguments against god (per Ten Ways the World Would Be Different If God Existed, Bayesian Counter-Apologetics: Ten Arguments for God Destroyed, Is a Good God Logically Impossible?, and How Not to Live in Zardoz).
The only way to get god plausible again is to theorize that he cannot do this, and therefore the reason the world looks exactly like a world undesigned by any god is that god could not make a better one. This is problematized by the fact that we could build a better world (and probability will, when we transition to simulated worlds where we control all parameters: see How Not to Live in Zardoz). Why would your god not be able to do what even we could do?
Hence this still all leaves mysterious your actual explanatory model, which thus renders dubious your entire cosmology: how does a god act so as to do anything; why is he limited to only such outcomes; why can’t he then relocate himself to inhabit and govern spacetime and why wouldn’t he, or at least create a good minder to do it for him; why does he exist or have any of the peculiar properties he does at all, from abilities to knowledge to morals and goals and desires, rather than others or none; how can those properties even be instantiated without anything to instantiate them; and how god can exist when he never exists and exists nowhere, necessitating existing at some point of space and time to exist at all.
Many of these issues are raised by Evan Fales in Divine Intervention: Metaphysical and Epistemological Puzzles. Even though that book is not directly about your kind of god (but an interventionist one), many of the same concerns apply even to a subsequently-non-interventionist start-point god.
Because answering all these problems requires a massive Rube Goldberg apparatus of epicycles within epicycles entailing tremendous unexplained theoretical complexity. Since I can get the observed result with a vastly simpler starting point, deism appears to be eliminated as a plausible explanation altogether.
Am I correct that Drs. Alvaro and Carrier agree that there are only two possibilities for the origin of the universe: either it is eternal or it came into being? If it came into being then there are arguably two further possibilities: it came into being out of nothing or something caused it to come into being. Dr. Alvaro seems to settle on the latter possibility and chooses to call that something “god”. He specifically rejects the other two options, saying “nothing comes out of nothing” and “actual infinities are impossible”.
It seems to me, however, that Dr. Alvaro is simply kicking the can down the road. His god must itself either be eternal or come into being and, presumably, if it came into being, it must have come into being out of nothing. So, my question for Dr. Alvaro is what do we achieve by positing a god? Perhaps the answer is that the god he is positing is “outside of time”. To me, I don’t see a real distinction between this and god being eternal (or at least infinite).
In any event, I do not see any of these solutions as being intuitive. It is hard – if not impossible – to wrap one’s head around any of them. Personally, I find the idea of infinity to be the least difficult to imagine. Apparently, Dr. Alvaro finds the idea of something being outside of time to be. In any event, I see no more reason to say “nothing comes out of nothing” and “actual infinities are impossible” than to say “something being outside of time is impossible”.
Dr. Alvaro may answer for himself here, but for myself:
For the sake of this debate, yes, we are assuming only two states possible, past-finitism and past-infinitism. There is a third condition (eternal finitism, e.g. Hawking’s nutshell cosmology) but I have been assuming that is subsumed under the past-finite model. Also, I assume “came into being” is being used as simply a synonym for “had a first state that was itself not produced by another” and thus even the Hawking nutshell model qualifies.
Your questions are apt. But Alvaro has yet to defend any deity at all, so it hasn’t even come up yet how it escapes being governed by P1 or P2. I don’t doubt there are ways to get it to (since I am myself arguing those conditions don’t always apply). But since I don’t know what his solutions are, I can’t comment on their merits. See my related comment.
I have been trying to steer this debate to any argument for god. But so far Alvaro is defending what appears merely to be an atheist cosmology, and just arguing that physical models with a start-condition are more likely than physical models without one; when scientists have built viable versions of both without controversy, none with anything deistic involved.
There is a good reason the Kalam argument has never passed peer review in an actual cosmology journal.
“Past-finitism” and “had a first state” are not equivalent. Time can be finite in the past and every point in time still have an infinite number of earlier moments in time.
That is true (I have specifically mentioned that fact in comments already), but that isn’t relevant to the distinction Alvaro is making. That condition would be folded under his sense of “past-finite,” because it still has a beginning and thus a first cause (he would also argue actual infinities are impossible and therefore so is that condition, but since it hasn’t been relevant to this debate, this condition hasn’t come up).
I disagree. It seems to me that the distinction is relevant to Dr. Alvaro’s argument, which appears to me to hinge on there being a minimal moment. Otherwise his premise “(2) The universe is something that began to exist” falls apart. He can’t say that the universe began to exist at the zero time point, if time is isomorphic to the positive reals, because the universe did not exist at all at the zero time point.
Whether there can be a zero time point is a point of contention (it entails actual infinitesimals, which are actual infinities). But either way the outcome is the same: if Alvaro rejects zero-points, then his position entails the smallest initial point of time is nonzero (a time quantum and thus a “first time”); if he accepts zero-points, then his position still entails there is a first point of time. So either way, there is a first point of time. In contradistinction to a past eternality which is defined as lacking any such thing (zero-point or otherwise).
As Leon Lederman – Director of Fermilab, nobel-prize-winner, author of “The God Particle”, and atheist – says,
“Something” has always existed — but, that “something” was either God, or, it was some eternally-existent (and mindless) natural process.
If someone could come up with some actual evidence – not models or predictions of what “might have preceded the Big Bang” – but, actual, verifiable evidence of what did predict the Big Bang, then maybe I’d re-think my current belief that “God did it”. But, as best I can tell, even evidence that something that could be measured and quantified existed before the Big Bang just seems to push the question back a step.
So far, though, in the ongoing debate, my scorecard is showing more points for Dr. Alvaro….
Waiting to see what comes next.
Your logic doesn’t seem sound here. If we have no evidence supporting a beginning, then Alvaro’s P2 is false. How can you say Alvaro has been refuted, by your own quoted authority, yet is winning the debate?
Your question is baffling.
I’ve been through my previous post, and I don’t see where I said “there’s no evidence supporting a beginning”.
All I did was to I quote Lederman saying “Unfortunately there are no data for the Very Beginning. None. Zero.”
That just means “data we’ve collected” – and, nobody has collected any data on that (as Lederman says).
We don’t have any data from the “Very Beginning” and which might support the fact that there WAS a “Very Beginning”, but neither do we have any data that says “there was no Very Beginning at all”, confirming that there was always some form of “nature” (as it were) going on.
Given this complete lack of data about the “Very Beginning” (or whether there even WAS a “Very Beginning”), then the argument is entirely philosophical/metaphysical. And I just think that, on that level, SO FAR (as I indicated) my scorecard shows in favor of Alvaro.
No data for a beginning means no data for P2. Therefore we do not know P2 is true. Therefore we do not know P3 is true. That entails a failure of the Kalam, not a success.
Actually, iron bars are transparent…to neutrinos!
It seems that Dr. Alvaro is strawmanning a lot of science. I’m merely an interested spectator but it seems that the goal of scientific inquiry isn’t to prove that a god exists or doesn’t exist, but rather to slowly learn more about the universe we find ourselves in, using the scientific method. From the work that’s been done it’s now plausible to conclude that the universe exists in its current state due to natural causes. Whether it began to exist or always existed doesn’t seem all that important.
I am an atheist and I go to exactly zero lengths to deny the existence of a god, because currently there’s no good evidence that there is one. There’s a nonzero chance one might be hidden somewhere, sure, but I need not bother denying it.
I often wonder about the genuineness of theists’ claims. There is something diabolical (pun intended) about theism. Theists will go to great lengths to conjure the existence of a god—even as far as maintaining the absurd position that this God is, well, just outside of space and time (where nothing exists), willy nilly, or that they can choose to begin to exist outside of space and time from nothing, by nothing, and for no particular reason, and accidentally be omniscient, all-powerful and all-loving.
Note:
By rephrasing the paragraph from Dr Alvaro, I wanted to show how easily it can be turned on its head to support the opposite ‘side’. Also I am flabbergasted that such a statement as the original one, attributing ulterior motives to a whole group of people for the fault of having the opposite position, could find its way in a formal debate, in lieu of relevant rational justifications for the position at hand.
That statement also makes it particularly hard to believe that Dr Alvaro is a former ‘disbeliever’, as per the title of his book. If the reason is that when he didn’t believe it was due to the exact ulterior motives he attributes to others, I’d like to kindly let him know that not all atheists share them.
Evidence for P1:
1) This is literally just asserting the premise. Add on a shifting of the burden of proof. How is this evidence?
2) Is this not just a black swan fallacy? You’ve never seen it therefore it’s impossible? Also, Dr. Carrier has laid out evidence against. Quantum mechanics seems to show that causation as humans experience it is not necessarily true.
3) Initially, this is a non-sequitor. If SOME things can come into existence at SPECIFIC times, that does not imply that ANYTHING can come into existence at ALL times.
3a) Ignoring this may already happen at the quantum level, we now exist in a universe that instantiates certain laws. Those laws are why we don’t see everything popping into existence all the time.
3b) We don’t know that it happened only once. Per Dr. Carrier’s argument from nothing, an infinite multiverse is the result, so it never actually stops.
3c) Be sure you are separating the concepts that “it stopped within this universe” and “it stopped everywhere and everywhen”. It stopped in this universe because the start of this universe had a specific geometry and initial state. This prevents things that occur under different conditions (including a true nothing).
4) How can a law like “out of nothing, nothing comes” be instantiated by a true nothing? Aren’t you just importing something into nothing?
Evidence for P2:
1) How many vertices does a circle have, or a sphere? The answer is an actual infinite. Do circles not exist?
2) Your staircase example does not appear to attain. An infinite past never had a starting point. It was not created by successive addition, it was always infinite. And even if one cannot traverse ALL points of an infinite series, that does NOT mean that one cannot traverse a finite series of points within an infinite.
3) Matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed. That’s a scientific fact. At least as much a fact as “the universe began to exist”, yes? But you propose something created all of time, space, matter and energy? There seems to be a problem where you are making a very large claim about the pre-universe that is NOT confirmed by science (no more than a claim of an infinite past). The whole point is that we don’t know. By claiming to know, it is YOU who is going against the science. And mere intuitive philosophy is not sufficient to support the claim.
Honestly, I have to concur with all of Keith’s questions.
He’s spot on.
(I could quibble about the last point, since the evidence indicates the law of conservation of energy is emergent and not fundamental, but the question still bears answering.)
From the Wikipedia entry on Noether’s Theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem):
“Noether’s theorem states that every continuous symmetry of the action of a physical system with conservative forces has a corresponding conservation law.”
“… if a physical process exhibits the same outcomes regardless of place or time, then its Lagrangian is symmetric under continuous translations in space and time respectively: by Noether’s theorem, these symmetries account for the conservation laws of linear momentum and energy within this system, respectively.”
Conservation laws and symmetries are two sides of the same coin. If you have one, then you have the other. If I am reading it right, conservation of energy in our universe means that our physical laws work the same way at all times. Conservation of linear momentum means that our physical laws work the same at all locations in the universe.
I’m not sure what you are asking. Symmetry is just a description of conservation. That’s a tautology. Meanwhile symmetry breaking is also a fundamental feature of modern physics. So this tells us nothing about what will be the case in all possible conditions. What remains symmetrical is contingent (dependent on local physics), not necessary (true for all possible physics, i.e. all possible worlds, not just this one).
See The Role of Symmetry in Fundamental Physics, particularly the section on partial and broken symmetries.
If you want a more meaningful explanation of why conservation laws will always emerge from random background states see my discussion of this very point in All the Laws of Thermodynamics Are Inevitable. If you want a scientific explanation of why and when such symmetries will not hold (and thus conservation laws no longer apply) see my discussion of the Lincoln-Wasser model in What If We Reimagine ‘Nothing’ as a Field-State? (their paper is also linked therein).
In short, universes with symmetries by definition have conserved properties; but which symmetries form is contingently decided (at, possibly, an initial inflation event, i.e. a Big Bang, when a universe “crystalizes” as it cools). States prior to forming any fixed symmetries are ungoverned by symmetries and thus will experience random (“spontaneous”) symmetry breaking; but that will in turn “lock in” some symmetries against others, crystalizing a universe. Some such outcomes are stable enough to then produce a Wong-Hazen cascade, and thus life, and thus observers. Hence why we are here, in a universe abundant in the needed symmetries (and thus conservation).
But even that might be an emergent artifact of randomization without any actual fixed law of conservation, i.e. the appearance of conservation of energy at our scale may be a byproduct of the Law of Large Numbers and regression to the mean, and not a fundamental property. Hence my article on quantum thermodynamics (and the above cited article’s point about apparent or partial, i.e. accidental rather than fundamental, symmetries).
The choice “either eternal or coming into being” seems a false view to me. The eternal concept implies time exists. How would one define a no-time state? As eternal? As coming into being? Since both proposition imply time, they’re wrong. Space-time proceeds from a no-time, no-space state. Why would that no-time, no-space state be a conscious god? With consciousness being such a late development in our universe, why posit consciousness at the beginning? (Unless we’re the carcass of a dying god, as found in some mythologies but no such evidence).
I read the relevant section of that paper you cited, and your infinite stairway argument still doesn’t convince me. You say, “Where and when did he start walking down the stairs? Certainly not from the beginning since there isn’t any. Since there is no beginning, no first step, he could never have started.” Well, yeah, but so what? The claim that he traversed an infinite number of stairs before today in no way implies that he started, in any sense of the word. That’s kind of the point of an infinite past.
No. No data means “no data collected BY US”. It doesn’t mean that there’s not “information”; it means we haven’t collected that information, thus have formed no set of data.
I have no data on what time it is in Indonesia right now. But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t, therefore, any “time” in Indonesia. It just means I haven’t looked for the information and formulated a data set from it.
I can’t believe you would come up with “No data fore a beginning means no data for P2”. That’s just mind-boggling.
The REASON we have no data for the Very Beginning (as Lederman put it) is because it’s IMPOSSIBLE to go back before time to collect it. We don’t know what was there, before time. You don’t know, I don’t know, scientists don’t know.
Therefore, whatever preceded the Big Bang can only be a mindless-yet-eternal process, or, something mindful-yet-eternal.
Now, as to P1 itself: “Everything that BEGINS to exist has a cause”.
If the universe is eternal, then, it didn’t BEGIN to exist. If “God” is eternal, then “God” didn’t BEGIN to exist.
The Kalam argument is talking about what WE perceive as something that has “come into existence”. We ourselves cannot possibly perceive “existence” in any other way than by OUR OBSERVATIONS. So FOR US, in OUR OBSERVATIONS, we cannot POSSIBLY KNOW of ANYTHING that “comes into existence” except those things we can observe as “being existent” – which can only mean “existent TO US”.
If there is a failure to the Kalam argument, it is that P1 doesn’t “spell out” what is meant by “existence”. It proceeds from the assumption that the only things we can know the existence of are things we observe.
Hence, P2 says simply “the universe began to exist”. This is referring to the universe which we CAN observe – which is the one we live in. We can’t KNOW that there are other universes, because they can’t be observed by us, and will never be observable by us. We cannot go faster than the speed of light such that we could ever get outside our own universe in order to observe some other (supposed) universe elsewhere.
So, the Kalam argument DOES have weaknesses unless we decide to limit ourselves to what can be observed by us – which means – establish-able by science. If we go off on “theoreticals”, saying “this mode.. ” or “this set of calculations…” to attempt to “prove” that there are indeed other universes, then, we’re just off in La-La-Land at that point. And, for a person who believes models somehow “proves” anything at all, well, that person will have a problem with Kalam…
There are too many confusions here.
That there is a time in Indonesia is well supported by data. That is the proper analogy. By contrast, we have no corresponding data supporting P2.
The analogous case would be “is there a time in Brigadoon” when we have no evidence there even is a Brigadoon so as to have a time.
P2 is therefore not true. It “might” be true, but that isn’t what P2 says (P2 is not “maybe existence had a beginning”). In a formal syllogism the premise has to be true as stated. Otherwise it is literally false and the argument is formally unsound (as distinct from invalid).
Meanwhile, I never challenged P1’s meaning. So which objects it would apply to is not something we debated here. I agree it has semantic problems like you suggest (even more than those you mention), and I have debated them elsewhere (just not with Alvaro). So we can’t hold Alvaro to an unreasonable standard: he won’t have replied here to an argument that wasn’t made here.
My argument against P1, which Alvaro never answered, is that P1 cannot apply to itself (it cannot be that the rule described by P1 governed the beginning of that rule), so P1 is not logically necessary, and is therefore contingent, and therefore needs to be brought about by some prior state of affairs (whether temporal or existential), and therefore at least one thing (P1 itself) violates P1. Therefore P1 is literally false (in the terms required by a formal syllogism).