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Correcting the Cosmological Argument
The negation and correction of the cosmological argument for God.

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Correcting the Cosmological Argument

Cheshire
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 11/05/09 - 01:43 PM:	#31
rigelrover wrote: Possibility requires a rational account of what is possible. This constitutes an antecedent condition (whether it is temporal or not). We run into the same problem here as before. I disagree. I think possibility is an intrinsic quality. In example, heads or tails is the possibility of a coin, before a toss. A coin that is not tossed retains it's heads or tails possibility without anything else acting on it. An outcome requires an event, but possibility does not. Is this making any sense or does it sound like I'm speaking in riddles? I can't honestly tell. A lot of the issue surrounding self-creation is based on the assumption of "an object at rest". We have to realize that motion and not rest is the universal state of existence. An object at rest is always moving relative to something else. So, self creation can be rationally explained by possibilities in motion - in the atypical context of infinity. Edited by Cheshire on 11/05/09 - 01:52 PM
Or not.

rigelrover
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 11/05/09 - 03:09 PM:	#32
Cheshire wrote: I disagree. I think possibility is an intrinsic quality. In example, heads or tails is the possibility of a coin, before a toss. A coin that is not tossed retains it's heads or tails possibility without anything else acting on it. An outcome requires an event, but possibility does not. Is this making any sense or does it sound like I'm speaking in riddles? I can't honestly tell. An intrinsic quality of what? If it is an intrinsic quality of nothingness (which it appears to be), what accounts for this. It is easy to say that nothing does, but consider you example. The concept of the coin (having a heads and tails sides) allows us to rationally account for the nature of its possible states. No coin-concept, no reason to maintain that any possible state will hold for the coin. What accounts for the possibility in nothingness, another intrinsic law perhaps? Chesh wrote: A lot of the issue surrounding self-creation is based on the assumption of "an object at rest". We have to realize that motion and not rest is the universal state of existence. An object at rest is always moving relative to something else. So, self creation can be rationally explained by possibilities in motion - in the atypical context of infinity. You may be right, but I am not sure I follow, or that this follows from the discussion we are having. Can you expand what you are saying a little?
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

Cheshire
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 11/05/09 - 04:38 PM:	#33
rigelrover wrote: An intrinsic quality of what? If it is an intrinsic quality of nothingness (which it appears to be), what accounts for this. It is easy to say that nothing does, but consider you example. The concept of the coin (having a heads and tails sides) allows us to rationally account for the nature of its possible states. No coin-concept, no reason to maintain that any possible state will hold for the coin. What accounts for the possibility in nothingness, another intrinsic law perhaps? It seems like empty space has it's own intrinsic possibilities and we're both one of them. rigel wrote: You may be right, but I am not sure I follow, or that this follows from the discussion we are having. Can you expand what you are saying a little? I'm undereducated and speculating, but take your 'self-tossing nothing coin', and eventually you end up with a universe.
Or not.

rigelrover
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2 of 3 people found this post helpful Posted 11/05/09 - 04:45 PM:	#34
Cheshire wrote: It seems like empty space has it's own intrinsic possibilities and we're both one of them. take your 'self-tossing nothing coin', and eventually you end up with a universe. Exactly! We are starting to see things in the same light! Also, empty space is quite different than nothing at all. Edited by rigelrover on 11/05/09 - 04:52 PM. Reason: didn't mean to sound so glib...
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

Quiet Observer
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1 of 2 people found this post helpful Posted 11/06/09 - 08:17 AM:	#35
reincarnated wrote: The problem is that this doesn't work. If you are arguing that "everything must have a cause, therefore God is the cause" then the same argument applies to God - who or what is the cause of God? If your reply to this is that "God needs no cause" then I apply the same argument to the original question - if God needs no cause to exist, why then do you say the universe needs a cause to exist? This is the source of the dilemma between accepting naturalism and positing some meta-naturalism. Some accept that our universe is all that is the matter; that whether there exists anything apart from empirically reachable phenomena is a null question. From the inside, natural law will commit us accounts of everything (as far as we wish to pursue it). Yet this very acceptance also commits us to accepting that something must account for natural law; that it is intelligible and that it is stratified.

rigelrover
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1 of 2 people found this post helpful Posted 11/06/09 - 08:54 AM:	#36
Quiet Observer wrote: This is the source of the dilemma between accepting naturalism and positing some meta-naturalism. Some accept that our universe is all that is the matter; that whether there exists anything apart from empirically reachable phenomena is a null question. From the inside, natural law will commit us accounts of everything (as far as we wish to pursue it). Yet this very acceptance also commits us to accepting that something must account for natural law; that it is intelligible and that it is stratified. You could even go further and say that if a super-natural agent or reagent instantiated a reason for a natural phenomenon, a closed system of what is real would remain in tact by maintaining a difference relation between natural phenomena. That is, a natural law, i.e. a regularly expected universal property of all empirically sensible things (e.g. cosmological constant, space-time continuum, gravitation, EM fields, etc.) arises precisely as an observable phenomenon because there is a meta-natural relation via a super-natural agent.
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

Cheshire
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Posted 11/06/09 - 11:40 AM:	#37
rigelrover wrote: You could even go further and say that if a super-natural agent or reagent instantiated a reason for a natural phenomenon, a closed system of what is real would remain in tact by maintaining a difference relation between natural phenomena. That is, a natural law, i.e. a regularly expected universal property of all empirically sensible things (e.g. cosmological constant, space-time continuum, gravitation, EM fields, etc.) arises precisely as an observable phenomenon because there is a meta-natural relation via a super-natural agent. Are you suggesting God acts only by way of natural laws? Instead of creating earth he creates gravity?
Or not.

rigelrover
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Posted 11/06/09 - 12:10 PM:	#38
Cheshire wrote: Are you suggesting God acts only by way of natural laws? Instead of creating earth he creates gravity? Not exactly. Edited by rigelrover on 11/07/09 - 12:36 PM
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

Cheshire
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Posted 11/10/09 - 04:24 PM:	#39
rigel wrote: 1) Empty space is not the same as nothingness. 2) Something must still preclude that which does come from nothing; i.e. that which is particularly formed vis a vis the potential of nothingness. Also note that there are logically possible accounts outside of this 'one sided issue'. One, for instance, is that natural law exists precisely because agency exists (but see your thread for more on that). Both 1+2; Nothingness is an abstract concept much like God. Universes do not emerge from abstract concepts.
Or not.

rigelrover
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Posted 11/10/09 - 04:42 PM:	#40
Cheshire wrote: Both 1+2; Nothingness is an abstract concept much like God. Universes do not emerge from abstract concepts. + I am not quite sure what you are getting at with 'Both 1+2'. In order for the self-creating universe theory to succeed 'nothingness' is seen as an objective state (e.g. a zero entropy state). So the scientific theory depends upon objectifying nothingness. This is no problem for the cosmo argument (if it proves to be a publicly accepted objective fact about the nature of our universe). The argument addresses more than what at face value seems to be a mistaken observation: 'the universe comes from something'; it does not fall short of itself by iteratively searching for 'that which caused God', etc.; it points to the fringe of our language game centered on the causal nature of reality. The question is: where does natural law come from?, because, you see, a self-creating universe is still a natural law abiding phenomenon. Here is a possibly consistent, but not verified hypothesis: novel natural laws arise precisely when external agents act. That is agency is the only way to break the symmetry of homogeneity. We look at the spontaneous breaking of local homogeneity this way; no problem. We look out a little farther, and this spontaneity disappears (as if intention is an illusion). We step back again and realize that local spontaneous change in state can occur vis a vis quantum fluxations. But we back up again and realize that spontaneous change in natural law has no final empirical explanation (so instead we may consider things like the possibility in the previous paragraph). Don't stop here. If you can step back again we can perhaps learn more. Is the universe a necessary state? If so what are the implications (after all it is the kind of universe that has conscious curious beings in it? Is it contingent? If so what preconditions allow for the actualization of a discrete possibility within the realm of contingency?
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

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