@VyckRo only if you do not understand reasoning and logic in the first place. Then yes, he may have embarrassed himself in your eyes. If you have an education--then no he hasn't.
The problem of thunderfoot is that he thought that Craig's premises are said to be true because they're intuitive, when in fact Craig has his arguments for them. To negate causation is to negate science, and thunderf00t said nothing about Craig's arguments for the premises, so he didn't even get close to debunk anything Craig said. Logical deduction is the method that theoretical science uses to create models, so to say that it's wrong is almost childish.
@MrBeiragua The problem is that craigs premises cannot be taken as universal truth ... we just don't know (yet) even what happened at time = 0, science hasn't gone there yet ... but you can use "the universe began to exist" as a premise and make conclusions from it ?? nope ...
@symelian That's true. I'm not saying that the kalam is "undebunkeble", I do really think Craig is wrong about infinity, time and begining of the universe. There are even theist that have good arguments against Craig's premises. The problem, as I said, is that thunderf00t doesn't even get close to those arguments. He just used plain and ineficient skepticism. I do really believe that kalam's premises are wrong, according to Wes Morriston's critics.
"You don't have to start with intuitive truths as premises in deductive arguments. You can start with whatever premises you want."
Deductive arguments can explain universe's origin, just like deductive arguments can explain relativity, but the problem is that it is too simplistic to just say "everything is contingent" and therefore the universe is contingent given that we know how complex quantum mechanics is. Deduction might well lead to the answer, but not given current science.
Well, what tfoot did was show how deductive arguments cannot be used to understand certain aspects of science. For instance, before relativity, no one would have ever thought of concepts like length contraction, time dilation, relativity of simultaneity etc. because they're highly counter-intuitive. Relativity has proved our intuition based inferences to be quite erroneous. Yet WLC applies this very human intuition to something as immensely complicated as the "beginning" of the universe...
@ApatheticOmniscience That's not true either. Deductive arguments often lead to counter intuitive conclusions. Watch alifeofreason's video response to Thunderf00t. He deals with that.
@owchywawa His account is closed... "This account has been suspended due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's Copyright Policy."
-So you're going to have to explain this to me because I really don't see your point... I mean, if such arguments establish intuitive "truths" as premises, it seems, by definition, it can't reach a "counter intuitive conclusion" such as relativity.
@ApatheticOmniscience Basically, he mentioned Spinoza (someone Einstein said he most agreed with on God btw). Spinoza's entire method is deductive, and yet it leads to counter intuitive conclusions.
You don't have to start with intuitive truths as premises in deductive arguments. You can start with whatever premises you want.
Notice how Thunderf00t brands Craig a "creationist"? That seems like an attempt to lump him with fundamentalist ignoramuses like NephlimFree and Kent Hovind. Although Thunderf00t is so down right bigoted he probably doesn't see any difference.
Craig is not a young earth creationist nutbag NephlimFree is. Craig has real qualifications in philosophy and theology, NephlimFree (as far as I know) does not. Craig doesn't deny the Trinity. Craig listens and responds properly to his opponents where as NephlimFree doesn't even comprehend what his opponents' arguments are. They could not be more different.
@ukchristian28 Perhaps calling someone a "creationist" doesn't explicitly differentiate between YEC nuts (ex Neph, Comfort) from the rest of the creationist nuts (ex Craig, Noll). But aren't they all "creationists"? The 2 little lumps (YEC and OEC) aren't that different looking from outside the great big lump of creationists.
You really missed the boat here. Its very embarrassing. Without knowledge of relativity our natural experience would tell us that pushing anything move at the speed of light would go faster. But we now know that not to be true. So Craig applying observations to the big bang, a place where we have no data other than things are MUCH different falls to dust.
To be frankly, I don't really get how you guys can produce so much babbling about this. We currently have a quite solid understanding of the universe in a certain energy range, supported by lots of observations and experiments, yes. But beyond that, things are unknown, and we even know that there must be a whole bunch of weird physics yet to be discovered. So how can you in all seriousness claim that causality is something that applies even at the greatest energy level, the big bang?
@owchywawa only for events after the big bang, we have absolutely NO data on anything external to the universe, thus we cannot comment on it scientifically, except with a through hypotheses.
You can't really make logical deductions about something for which you have NO experiences or information to base it on.
Since time is a dimension OF the universe, your argument doesn't work.
Intuition has failed us a hundred years ago,Math is our only guide now. And maybe,yes maybe, our thinking is too limited to get a grasp on the deepest layers of the onion and will ultimately fail us too.
I hope I got my point across now.
(This is why I get stomach ache around philosophers.They tend to speak about nature with a certainty,they do not have.Trying to wrap one's brain around the weirdness that is nature is by far the most humbling experience I ever had.)
So pls do not go out on a limb by claiming that the universe has to be something or that we have to assume something about it in certain energy scales that we do not know anything about yet. Physics can work nonetheless.
This is really the crux here: our thinking and intuition has adapted in a very small energy range, and everything outside of this little bubble of emergent phenomena becomes more more weird the further out we go.
And pls remember that time, space and gravity are intertwined that the we currently do not have a working quantum level description of them.
In very high energy scales (near the plank scale), time will start to behave differently, and maybe even differently from all that we can currently think of. For sure, that will have effects on causality, and might utterly shatter your pitiful little understanding of it.
No man, I can very well imagine that the universe has certain states that allow for violation of causality, retro-causality or that even completely lack a causal structure, but also produce certain effects (on the normal spacetime) that could be observed (maybe even give rise to spacetime itself) and thus analyzed by physics. And yes, the big bang and its immediate aftermath is one of them.
"It's presupposed" - Wrong. Presupposing causality at all levels would cause an infinite regression, which is the reason nobody with a clear mind ever supposes everything has a cause.
We would first have to find something that ever "began to exist" ex nihilo, something we're not certain the Universe ever did (though we're coming closer to knowing) and we're pretty certain nothing else ever did.
There is no infinite regression if you accept matter is eternal too.
The point Craig makes is that matter is not eternal and was created ex nihilo.
The first part of the argument, properly said like it is thought to be is "Everything that begins to exist from nothing has a cause" even though we have no example, and can't even prove the universe ever began to exist from nothing.
@Xgya2000 Well, if our idea of causation was derived from experience, then that would be a problem, but it isn't. Your same objection could be applied to any case.
If it isn't derived from experience or knowledge, how can you demonstrate its validity?
If the first premise is not demonstrably valid, then the conclusion is flawed.
I would of course make the same objection to any case aside from the "Do I exist?" question, for which I assume nobody will ever be able to prove it, thus making any position just as valid.
@Xgya2000 You can prove your own existence (I think therefore I am), but I was talking about causation in general. You cannot prove that anything is the cause of anything by empirical means. So, complaining about that only when it comes to God is just a double standard.
Sure, one cannot analyze the full causes, but one can know "This is part of what caused that" empirically, test it, prove that the exact same cause on the exact same causee will do the exact same thing.
If nothing we ever met began to exist, then the premise "everything that begins to exist..." is null. Of course, it could be true, but since it is not demonstrated, then it cannot be granted, thus the argument that follows from it is void.
@Xgya2000 If the first premise is unproven (as you claimed) or there is no evidence for it, I just hope that you won't be surprise if there is an elephant pop into your bedroom right now without a cause. By the way, according to your last statement, I never began to exist; I existed and lived with dinosaurs during Jurassic age! Were you there too?
Show me an elephant that ever began to exist. Oh, said elephant must not have come from sperm fertilizing egg, or through changing the materials that already existed to conveniently shape an elephant.
Yup. You and I were there, in a different form. The molecules that make up our bodies are eternal, so you and I were most likely once dinosaur dung.
Did the singularity (aka everything) "begin to exist"? Nobody knows for sure yet.
@Xgya2000 Oh great, we already had this conversation in a dinosaur dung, right? Oh, there were even youtube, computers, and cars in Jurassic age! I'm sorry pal, but that is absolutely absurd. Granted, molecules and materials that form me already exist way back then, but that doesn't make me exist with you in a dinosaur dung. Descartes says "I doubt, therefore, I exist." I'm doubting and thinking that your claim is absurd, therefore I exist. You don't think that a dung can think, do you?
I don't think that dung can think. However, I think it is a molecule, and as such, can reorganize to form new things.
So, you think the Universe doesn't exist (as far as we know, the Universe doesn't think)? Do rocks exist? Even if they don't doubt?
"Granted, molecles and materials that form me already exist way back then". Same could go for the Universe. This "organization" is actually caused by natural forces, so nothing outside is needed.
@Xgya2000 You totally missed my point. There is nowhere that I suggest that the universe doesn't exist because it doesn't think. The fact that I think proves my existence here and now, not when I was a Jurassic dung (yes, a dung doesn't think!). You discarded all my point about the absurdity of thinking that computers and cars already exist in the Jurassic age. Tell me how does that make sense?
"Descartes says "I doubt, therefore, I exist." I'm doubting and thinking that your claim is absurd, therefore I exist. You don't think that a dung can think, do you?"
You pointed out that dung can't think, therefore, it couldn't exist.
I pointed out that many things that do not think actually exist.
I discarded the point because it is moot: Computers and cars were present in the Jurassic, just in another form. What the Kalam discusses is creation Ex Nihilo.
@Xgya2000 Oh boy, you just put words in my mouth again. I never say a dung (or the universe) couldn't exist because it can't think. My whole argument from Descartes is the argument for my existence, that a dung (or whatever in the Jurassic age) is not who I am. Did my conscience exist in the dung? Absolutely not! (unless a dung can think). If a computer and car really exist in the Jurassic, what in the world in the Jurassic age constitute and make it called a computer? It didn't even exist yet.
@kapooktu What you're saying is like you are in the middle of the jungle, looking at trees and saying "oh chairs, tables, and houses already exist in this jungle. It is just the matter of having someone to cut down trees, reconstruct and rearrange them to make chairs and houses." But you see the whole jungle could have well transformed into dust if the fire burns down the whole thing. Your furniture can't even come into existence.
Yup. It's saying "There is enough wood here to create chairs and houses". The Kalam argument is not about the universe being reorganized to look like a universe, but being created ex nihilo.
If the creator did not in fact create matter, but just reorganized it, then the matter did not "begin to exist", thus matter is uncaused.
@Xgya2000 please stick on the topic. I'm talking about the existence here. You're basically saying that the chairs and houses already exist, even though there is none in the jungle yet, which is absurd. There is enough wood to create chairs and houses, ok but if there's no carpenter, the chairs and houses do not exist. You need a cause for anything that begin to exist, and that's what the first premise of the Kalam (that you object) says, man.
@Xgya2000 ""if there's no carpenter, the chairs do not exist" Agreed" Then, you agree that the first premise is true. Even if matters does exist eternally, it doesn't invalidate the first premise, "whatever began to exist has a cause." Matters are not even in the category of the premise! While matters might exist eternally, chairs, houses, or a being do not exist eternally; they began to exist some point of time with causes. That's why rejecting the first premise is just purely absurd.
@kapooktu Instead of refuting the first premise, perhaps you should refute the second premise, "the universe began to exist," so you can reject the conclusion "the universe has a cause."
@kapooktu And even if there was no fire, and you eventually have someone to cut trees down and make furniture, you still need a cause (the workers and carpenters) to bring it into existence.
@Xgya2000 You're just playing with words. I'm not talking about "creating" things here. I'm talking about the "existence" and the "cause" of things. You basically said you and I always exist (even in the Jurassic Age). The qualities, functions, and attributes that constitute the existence of you and I were not even there. Your objection to the first premise is just plain absurd.
I'll agree about the existence of us as we are now. Just agree that the matter that constitutes us always existed in one form or another.
Since going beyond the singularity is speculating, then, the singularity, at some point, WAS the Universe. Which means the Universe never began to exist, because, by definition, the Universe IS everything that exists. Even the singularity, which basically was everything at once.
@Xgya2000 I've never disagreed with you that the matters that constitute us existed before us in one form or another. (I even granted it) All I care is the validity of the first premise that you objected (whatever begins to exist has a cause), and I'm glad that you at least agree with our existence now (rather than saying that we existed during the Jurassic age). Because going around and saying that nothing ever begins to exist is just utterly nonsense and absurd.
"a dung is not who I am" - Nope, but the Kalam has nothing to do with you, but the Universe (which is, by definition, all that is known to exist). Did the matter in the Universe have a beginning? Not as far as we can tell.
You, as you exist now, might have had a beginning. The matter that constitutes you? Not so much.
Which is the reason I say creation ex nihilo (claimed by the Kalam) is not proven, so the first premise is wrong.
@Xgya2000 Let's focus on your objection to the first premise of the Kalam: whatever began to exist has a cause. The whole point here is that your assertion that nothing that we observe never began to exist is just absurd. Sorry, I don't see anywhere where the first premise suggests creation ex nihilo. It is simply a logical statement that I think we observe everyday. Anyway, I would like to know your cosmology. Do you hold the Big Bang Theory?
I hold the Big Bang Theory to be accurate. The Big Bang model doesn't go beyond the point of the singularity.
If the Universe (everything that exists) ever "began to exist" - I.e: Matter can be created or destroyed - we don't know yet. Sure, it changed shape, transformed and enlarged.
Are you saying this "god" you're talking about did not create the universe, but just shaped whatever matter was already around?
@Xgya2000 If you look carefully what I've argue so far, you'll find that I have no argument whatsoever about god. All I want to point out is your rejection of the first premise of the Kalam to escape its conclusion is just absurd. By the way, the Kalam doesn't address beyond the point of the singularity either. It comes to speculations when you start to talk about the cause of the universe prior to the big bang. We can talk more about it. I just hope that you'll reconsider the first premise :)
If the conclusion is "Therefore god exists" and the version of the Kalam you point to doesn't go beyond the singularity, then basically, this is a non sequitur. The first cause for the singularity's expansion doesn't even need to be thinking
I'll reconsider the first cause if you can somehow accept that either A: the singularity was always there, and the first cause simply acted upon it, or B: it was somehow created from something else.
@Xgya2000 The conclusion that I referred to is the first conclusion "Therefore, the universe began to exist" deriving from the first two premises. I have discussed nowhere about the second conclusion cause your rejection for the first premise is just enough. I am indifferent if you reconsider the first cause or not. Accepting A or B or not, it is not relevant. I just hope that you reconsider the first premise, "whatever begins to exist has a cause." That's all.
Using your definition of "existing" (being present as is), I'll actually grant you the point.
Anything that begins to exist has a cause.
The flaw in the argument is that the constituents still existed before. Which means you existed "in some form" - That was my first argument.
If this wasn't true, you'd stop existing and begin existing every split second, as your body changes, and what you call "you" becomes older and different.
@Xgya2000 Ok, so you said earlier that I was a dung and now you say that dung wasn't I anymore. Contradiction? Perhaps I'm not in the position here, but if you think that matters in the universe don't have a beginning, you are refuting most of the cosmologists who hold the Big Bang Theory. Your refutation of the conclusion to refute the premises is just plain wrong. The premises of the argument could have well be true, even though the conclusion is false.
You and I still are dung. Just transformed into something else.
The Big Bang cosmology doesn't go beyond the singularity. Anything else is speculation; interesting speculation, but speculation still. Though the reason for the singularity expanding is most likely a quantum fluctuation.
@Xgya2000 LOL. You are very welcome to be a dung, but sorry I am not a dung. I came into existence 24 years ago, not 200 million years ago. You're also very welcome to refute the Big Bang cosmology and speculate about it including a quantum fluctuation. But that doesn't change the validity of premise one.
Thunderf00t's whole point was that extrapolating intuitive logic into yet untested situations can lead to wrong conclusions; and the example of the pushed can demonstrated quite well how this can happen if caution is thrown to the wind. Of course, we can arbitrarely demand that causation be exempted from such cautionary approach, but what justification could one give for doing so?
@dXoverdteqprogress I don't know what you mean by intuitive logic. Do you mean a deductive argument? I mean, you know science can sometime lead to wrong conclusions right? This fact doesn't really discount logic any more than it does science.
@owchywawa Yes, deductive argument... And yes, hypothesis in science can be wrong. However, scientific approach to discovering what is true about the universe is more reliable -- when applied to the physical world -- than deductive arguments. Thunderf00t's example with the can serves very well to demonstrate that.
the two sentences @ 1:44 are indeed compatible. they are in fact two sides of the same coin. TF was not trying to argue w/ WLC on this point; he was highlighting that in order for a logical argument to hold true, the premises must be true. Therefor all you need to do to prove a logical argument wrong is disprove any of the premises; which TF proceeds to do.
What I got from the thunderfoot video is that he was arguing that craig was relying on intuition way too much and that our intuition is often wrong, as in the case of the speed of light example. What do you think?
Craig's statement is that if the premise is true, than the conclusion must also be true (basically a rewording of good ol' "cum hoc ergo propter hoc"). Obviously this is bunk.
TF's statement that if the premise is wrong, the conclusion will very likely also be wrong. This is pretty obvious if you think about it. If your premise is wrong, then any conclusion you draw from that premise will probably also be wrong because it was logically built upon false information.
@parsonman05 Well, yeah, using the resurrection. The thing is that the cosmological argument is supposed to prove a general transcendent creator and the resurrection is supposed to prove Christianity. The problem is when you ask how the cosmological argument proves Christianity. That is a silly question.
I think that this video is biased in many respects in that you do not cover William Lane Craig's conjecture that the Kalam cosmological argument proves that the biblical God created the universe. The argument itself is not mutually exclusive to one religion and by his logic and implication, can be used to prove the existence of any God. Yet, William Lane Craig has refused to use the same 'logical arguments' which 'naturally follow' to prove the existence of the self-same God which he worships.
@JohnSmith88823 he has tried several times but never has been able to bridge the gap between Deism and Christianity without employing a little sleight of hand where he is talking about christianity before you even know it, makin the lowest common denominators think his entire argument was in favor of Christianity from the start.
@JohnSmith88823 The only way I know WLC argues for Christianity is by the resurrection. He only uses the Kalam Cosmological argument to prove a transcendent creator.
The term 'creator' is presumptuous, for it could be a causative agent or something incomprehensible by humans that caused the beginning of the universe. More importantly though, I think you should do a video covering William Lane Craig's errors, or in the least, critique his flawed position. I am not a scientist; just a mere chemistry student, and I am of the opinion that the universe was created, but to say that a creator did it is in some ways misleading.
What thunderf00t was conveying in the video was that William Lane Craig's logical model is flawed. He is not making scientific predictions, whereas William Lane Craig is. There is a distinction between the two, and what William Lane Craig is doing is that he is trying to downplay the complexity of scientific issues so as to explain natural phenomena by way of a philosophical argument which is merely three lines long and unsupported by any scientific literature.
Nothing is going to cheapen or demean or relativize science to the point where people start thinking religion can achieve just as much. What are we doing here? Communicating over vast distances, posting our messages, which would have taken pre-scientific messengers weeks. Our messages go out digitally and are received exactly as we wrote them. We're not getting it done by "visions" or "mind-readers" or the "blood of Jesus Christ". Science also does much more for comfort and happiness.
That would be the Scientific Method. Please note that the Scientific method never actually "proves" theories but only supports them. Therefore, the theory that is not negated by any observable phenomenon is kept while the others are modified or discarded.
That methodology has proven quite robust and fruitful, wouldn't you say?
@DawahFilms - And as for the merits of the scientific method they are far superior to religion as science never asserts a conclusion where a theist must assert several dogmatically. And the scientific method relies on evidence which can be presented to all and not in the form of anecdotes but repeatable evidence. Everything you say is lip service to yourself and believers, to everyone else it is meaningless drivel. We're laughing at you, do something about it and think for once.
@Greyclouds40 The problem comes if you try to prove the scientific method using the scientific method. And, if you don't do that, then why not just prove everything else the way you have proven the scientific method?
But... the scientific method ISN'T proven using the scientific method.
That would be a RETARDED thing to say.
The scientific method is proven by /it working/. Any damngod fool can see your television WORKS. It's fruits of the science tree that run our entire civilization as proof that it works.
Invent a TV that runs on prayers and wishes, then come back and talk about worshiping a bronze age desert djinn.
@owchywawa >> The problem comes if you try to prove the scientific method using the scientific method.
I'm sorry, but your reply makes little sense and is not representative of what Thunderf00t actually did. The Scientific Method is a framework for investigation of natural phenomena. It is not a philosophical tool designed for recursive self-interrogation.
We use the Scientific method because it currently works. It is an antagonistic framework that gets results. Simple as that.
It is reasonably to suppose that my body is real because I can see my body, watch it respond to environmental stimuli, and end my own existence by destroying it. In other words, I can perform repeatable tests on it that yeild results.
None of these things are possible with an imaginary being. Until it is possible to verify the existence of a being, perhaps by seeing its power or shaking its hand, then it is not useful to assume it exists for any reason, and therefore unreasonable
@attheveryend Very good. Always insist on your right to get direct proof of this invisible Sky-Pappy or whatever the local story turns out to be. You're worth it. To join any religion today is to be a snivelling masochist, who implicitly admits he's not as moral or pure as the primitive, savage shepherds with sheep doo-doo on their robes who WERE vouchsafed a glimpse of this God person. God should be OUT HERE, not hiding like a little girl in a dumpster afraid of the big girls after school.
@attheveryend What do you mean by "real?" I mean, yeah, we have these appearances, but from that alone we cannot say those appearances represent actual material objects. The reason this matters is because philosophers have used this fact to argue for the existence of God (Descartes and Berkeley for example). Besides, if you say it appears that there is causation, Hume could still argue that it doesn't really appear that way. It's just a habit of thought.
When I say something is real I mean that it exists and is physically actionable, or that you can do something with it or have it do something.
The problem with not assuming that the appearance of reality is real is that you are not "playing along" with the rest of the world. What happens in it does not and cannot matter to you because you haven't accepted it to be real. I see that you don't do this because you make video responses on youtube.
and communicate with what you observe to be other human beings. To argue that you cannot accept what you see to be real is effectively playing a silly game with words, because as soon as you're done talking or typing about it, you go back to pretending the world is real and that there are real consequences for not feeding your body or going to sleep at night. How do you know you need to sleep? Perhaps you went without it and found it sucky. Wait, that would be science...
I would find any argument for a deity based on a logical route that alienates reality to be highly suspect. Any god produced by such an argument surely does not pertain to reality.
Produce such an argument, and I'll be happy to show you what I mean, and why the argument is crapola.
@attheveryend No philosophy I know of claims we should act like the outside world doesn't exist. They only talk about what we can know and how we can come to know it.
Then you should see how arguing that we can't know about causality because we can't know if the universe exists or that we can only investigate the matter through inductive means is not an interesting point of view. All we get around here is inductive means (unless it's mathematical, and only usually at that), so if we're to learn anything, we must assume the strength of the tools we have, at least provisionally. This is what C0nc0rdance has been saying in not so many words.
@attheveryend I wouldn't argue that we can't know about causality, but that we can't know about causality by empirical means. Anyway, if you assume causality provisionally for science, what justification do we have for of all the sudden rejecting causality at the beginning of the universe? I don't think you have any justification for that.
1) Of course we can not specifically know about causality by empirical means, but in order to live we have to *act as if* we can. That is what is meant by provisional acceptance.
2) The critical error you've just made is that justification for the rejection of causality is needed to do so. In order to provisionally accept it at all, there must be some way to test it. The ability to test a cause is justification for provisional acceptance.
2) (cont) Because there is no way presently to test and hypotheses about the pre-big bang universe (or lack therof), there is no justification for provisional acceptance of causality. You see, it is not that we need a reason to reject it, it is merely a special case scenario where it fails to meet the minimum levels of required reason to assume there is any causality at all, unlike what seems to be the rest of the entire observable universe.
In other words, the reason that one should reject causality in the domain of pre-big bang phenomena is because there is no reason to accept causality. There is no way to show how any given thing is not caused--no way to falsify anything. It can be called "not physically interesting" if you like. If we can't do anything with it, then there is no reason to assume literally anything about it, even that it was caused.
@attheveryend I think you are equivocating two ideas. We don't act as if we can determine if there is a connection by empirical means. We act as if we can determine what that connection is between by empirical means. That there is a connection in the first place is presupposed. The empirical world has no say in the matter whatsoever.
You are correct that a causal connection is presupposed. This is what is referred to as a "null hypothesis." The purpose of experiment is to attempt to show that the null hypothesis is false. Thus by process of elimination causality is rooted out in the physical world. Science can never show that there is a causal connection, but it can show which things are not related. It can show that a causal connection is extremely likely, however.
Once the first step of eliminating false causes is complete, then the process attempts to quantify the relationship and tries to understand it. I am not equivocating these two steps because they are necessarily sequential. If the first step is indeterminate, the second step (determining the character of a causal connection), can not be assessed. Once step one is complete, we provisionally accept the remaining cause as the true cause.
But if there is no way to perform the tests denoted in step one, then we can never make that human leap to provisional acceptance of cause. This is why WLC's argument fails, and what T-f00t was getting at. I have a pet term for making this particular leap of reasoning without being able to assess step one in my scientific methodology-- I call it "reaching." When someone asserts as fact that the universe was caused, they are "reaching" for what can not be obtained that way.
@attheveryend Wouldn't you agree, though, that this test doesn't really test the "null hypothesis" (that there is a connect). All that this tests is whether there is a connect between two specified objects not whether there is a cause in the first place. We first assume that there is a connect between two objects, then we try to determine what those two objects are. There's nothing unique about not being able to test the "null hypthesis" under this unique situation.
@owchywawa >> There's nothing unique about not being able to test the "null hypthesis" under this unique situation.
Sure, there is nothing unique about testing that situation; however, it is not a scientific (ie. something that can be investigated using the Scientific Method) phenomenon then.
You start with an assumption, then you try to build on it. This is WLC's logic and it is very weak and, demonstrably, not Scientific.
Without knowing what the two things, say event A and B, *are* that are under scrutiny to determine whether event A causes event B, then it is impossible to determine whether or not what is being scrutinized is actually either event A or B. Without a definition or observation of what event A is and event B is, asserting a causal link between the two is completely incomprehensible. So no, we do not first assume a cause and then figure out what things are. You've got it backwards.
And to address whether or not I agree that any falsifying test does not show the truth of the "null hypothesis," then yes, I agree that one can not prove a cause. But that isn't what is done. What is done instead is that, from a list of all possible causes, the ones that are false are shown to be false. Whatever remains is then accepted because it was not shown to be fase--i.e. it accurately predicted phenomena.
The issue with the null hypothesis with regards to the origin of the universe (that the universe has a cause) is that it is unfalsifiable by any currently known methods. Therefore, it is not something that is at all justifiable to assume for any reason, and is also physically uninteresting to investigate at present. An analog to this reasoning is to assume that lightning is caused by thor. This is unfalsifiable, and thus not interesting to consider. Much better to look at atoms.
In the end, the strength of this model of knowledge is in its ability to accurately predict what will happen given certain initial conditions. Asserting that god created the universe does not give anyone the ability to predict when and where a universe will be created, or how it is created at all. Big bang theory, on the other hand, provides a framework that is testable by the consequences it predictes (expanding universe, entropy and so forth).
@attheveryend You misunderstood what I was saying. Your test doesn't apply to causality. It applies to specific objects. If we didn't find a connection between A and B, we wouldn't assume causality doesn't apply here. We would assume we just haven't found the cause yet. Causality is unfalsifiable by science.
By your logic here, you can safely assume that there is a causal link between literally everything ever, we just haven't found it yet, and no test and show how things aren't caused by others because we just haven't used the right test yet.
I hope that it's clear why this fails rather miserably outside of the "logically possible."
In reality, phenomena are observed, and possible causes are eliminated. In no other fashion can humans obtain knowledge of the physical.
The phenomena of the universe is something we observe, but we have no way of eliminating the possible causes at present. Therefore, it is proper that we do not assume any cause at all, as there is no evidence of any preceding event or any recurring events that cause new universes. The only thing we've observed is that the earlier states of the universe did not look like the current state.
Thats all any honest person can say on the matter.
@attheveryend I never said we can safely assume anything. Empiricists must either accept causality as an assumption, or accept skepticism. You seem to accept that causation is presupposed, but then you go on to argue that causation can be falsified, but how can a causal connection be falsified? Yeah you can show that A is not the cause of B, but you cannot show that B doesn't have a cause without viewing all possibility. Which is piratically impossible.
Everything you just wrote here is correct. Showing that A is not the cause of B is falsification of cause. Not being able to show that B doesn't have a cause is indeed impossible.
But one must recognize that it is equally impossible to assume a cause without warrant. In science, we pressuppose cause in order to disprove it. Where we can not disprove a causal link is where we derive our empirical laws, but in both cases a test is possible and events are witnessed.
So here's the crux of the matter. The inability to disprove cause says absolutely nothing about whether or not a cause can be assumed where no test is possible. This is why we can neither assume cause nor dismiss it, which is the appropriate stance with regards to the untestable--i.e. that you can not assume any untestable event has a cause.
I should like to ammend this statement to clarify that science is able to provisionally assume cause where cause is unable to be disproven specifically because the events were testable and yielded a repeatable result. In such a manner was shown the extreme likelihood of causality, and thus warrant for provisional acceptance. No good scientist is every 100% sure of anything, but we can be pretty damn close.
Notice here, that being unable to assume cause is not the same as assuming no cause. Thunderf00t does not assume no cause in his argument, he simply posits that the assumption of cause is inappropriate.
There are more than two "eigenstates" we'll call them on the matter. You can assume no cause, you can assume cause, or you can assume nothing. Reasonable, honest people choose the latter because there is no good reason to do elsewhat.
Science proves which things are not the cause. If science is able to eliminate every impossible cause, then whatever remains is said to be true. Thats how it works. Thats what is meant by "null hypothesis." First we say that bats cause rainbows. then we show that bat's don't cause rainbows. Then we have one less possibility for the explanation of rainbows. Then we move on the the next possible cause and start over.
@attheveryend I hope you're not saying I think science proves causality, because that's what Thunderf00t was saying not I. I actually argued against science proving causality.
"If science is able to eliminate every impossible cause, then whatever remains is said to be true."
That particular post was not in response to a position I think you specifically hold. It seems to be a general idea that folks seem to have by my observation of the comments of others.
Tfoot gave strong arguments about extrapolating "causation" to the very small and energetic.
I think that it could also be said that we haven't actually observed anything to "come into existence." An argument such as, "a car doesn't come into existence without a car maker," fails since all the material to make the car already exists. I mean we have literally not observed a universe come into existence, ergo the premise "whatever begins to exist has a cause" is unsupported.
@AnonConda That premise doesn't depend on empirical evidence. That was my entire point. You and Thunderf00t are starting from the position that we have to use empirical evidence.
what you say is true, but if you study the assumptions of quantum electrodynamics, and how accurately the theory predicts experiment, you will see that it is very, very likely that things regularly spring out of nothing and then annihilate again over and over so long as this happens fast enough so that we can't notice it.
And god said "let there be virtual particles" and they were good.
The yes quantum mechanics predicts what you said, and as convenient as it would be to say "look here's something that comes into existence without a cause," it would be almost as dishonest as Craig's argument. You know, because extrapolating what works for insignificant virtual particles may not necessarily work for something as significant as all the matter & energy in the universe.
What does it mean to say that something "caused" something else to exist? The idea is incoherent.
Every physical effect of which we are aware assumes the existence of the affected object. One object cannot affect another object unless both objects ALREADY EXIST.
I wish proponents of creation ex nihilo would stop referring to it as causation. They won't, of course, because otherwise they'd have to admit that their "explanation" is, at heart, nothing more than an appeal to magic.
@ClumsyRoot Yeah, and the universe would be the result of God. I don't think anyone is arguing the universe comes from nothing because it comes from God. They just mean it doesn't come from preexisting matter.
Obviously, invoking an undetectable being acting in unknown ways does not EXPLAIN anything, which is why apologists try to use the causation argument. Which, as I pointed out, does not work, since it is illogical to speak about something coming into existence as an EFFECT.
Science does not presuppose causation, people mistakenly do in some instances, that is what the old men at the end of your vid are talking about. T-f00t is explaining exactly what you are complaining about. Craig tries to put in an "always" where one does not belong, and T-f00t explains why the beginning of the universe is one exception to Craig's "always"
@jmdnarri They were saying that causation is necessary for our understanding of the world. If causation isn't presupposed by science, then you either have to prove it, or we can't say anything is the cause of anything. If the latter, then we can't say that, for example, evolution is the cause of the diversity of life. Science would be hopeless.
@owchywawa causation CAN be proved, but that doesn't mean that every instance of correlation proves causation. Science works to isolate the causes of events to prove causation, it does not presuppose it every time there is a correlation.
Man is born from vagina. Man assumes all things must be born from "vagina" because man thinks he is special and Man had a beginning. Man can never fully accept perhaps everything always existed.
I don't think a Humean skepticism of causality is a good refutation of Thunderf00t's argument in this case. The reason is that WLC appeals to science in his argument ("Big Bang, therefore the universe had a cause!"), so he assumes causality. Tf00t takes that idea of applying science to theology and says, "Wait, you can't use science, 'cause our scientific understanding doesn't support linear causality in Big Bang conditions". Tf00t is only working within the framework that Craig gives him.
@36ss36 WLC doesn't just assume causality. Look up his position and if you find a claim that causation is assumed, then let me know. I have and he uses a few different methods to support the claim. Besides, come on, Thunderf00t thinks we can only use science. Science works right? I don't see how you guys can argue science isn't the foundation of his knowledge.
[ I don't see how you guys can argue science isn't the foundation of his knowledge]
Because science is not defined, in any manner, as subjective intuition. However, subjective intuition is the exact definition of mysticism.
Intuiting a divine, all powerful being by 'feeling' him is mysticism. Crediting all creation to said being because it feels right is just more mysticism.
Science begins with observation. Let me know when Bill sees a god create something.
@owchywawa Doesn't the whole Kalam argument take the form, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause"? WLC has supported the second premise by saying that Big Bang theory implies a cause. Tf00t says that the first premise is thrown into doubt by quantum and relativity theory. They both use science to support their arguments, which is why I don't think a Humean skepticism of causality is the best tactic--it's too broad a brush.
T.Fool has started a entire crusade against the entire William Craig, but so far only succeeded, embarrassed himself.
VyckRo 1 month ago
@VyckRo only if you do not understand reasoning and logic in the first place. Then yes, he may have embarrassed himself in your eyes. If you have an education--then no he hasn't.
ciuacoatl 1 month ago
@ciuacoatl
The problem is when you have highly educated then you begin to see through this T.Fool smoke!
VyckRo 1 month ago
@VyckRo so you support Thunderfoot then.
ciuacoatl 1 month ago
The problem of thunderfoot is that he thought that Craig's premises are said to be true because they're intuitive, when in fact Craig has his arguments for them. To negate causation is to negate science, and thunderf00t said nothing about Craig's arguments for the premises, so he didn't even get close to debunk anything Craig said. Logical deduction is the method that theoretical science uses to create models, so to say that it's wrong is almost childish.
MrBeiragua 2 months ago
@MrBeiragua The problem is that craigs premises cannot be taken as universal truth ... we just don't know (yet) even what happened at time = 0, science hasn't gone there yet ... but you can use "the universe began to exist" as a premise and make conclusions from it ?? nope ...
symelian 2 months ago
@symelian That's true. I'm not saying that the kalam is "undebunkeble", I do really think Craig is wrong about infinity, time and begining of the universe. There are even theist that have good arguments against Craig's premises. The problem, as I said, is that thunderf00t doesn't even get close to those arguments. He just used plain and ineficient skepticism. I do really believe that kalam's premises are wrong, according to Wes Morriston's critics.
MrBeiragua 1 month ago
you're confused, o -- and you appear to understand neither basic logic nor science... I should have been able to vote this down at least twice.
Hardryv 2 months ago
"You don't have to start with intuitive truths as premises in deductive arguments. You can start with whatever premises you want."
Deductive arguments can explain universe's origin, just like deductive arguments can explain relativity, but the problem is that it is too simplistic to just say "everything is contingent" and therefore the universe is contingent given that we know how complex quantum mechanics is. Deduction might well lead to the answer, but not given current science.
mtanti87 2 months ago
Well argued
RevDevilin 2 months ago
Damn it man! You really are an Idiot. All your video does is tell the world that you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
TacticalAtheist 2 months ago
Well, what tfoot did was show how deductive arguments cannot be used to understand certain aspects of science. For instance, before relativity, no one would have ever thought of concepts like length contraction, time dilation, relativity of simultaneity etc. because they're highly counter-intuitive. Relativity has proved our intuition based inferences to be quite erroneous. Yet WLC applies this very human intuition to something as immensely complicated as the "beginning" of the universe...
ApatheticOmniscience 2 months ago
@ApatheticOmniscience That's not true either. Deductive arguments often lead to counter intuitive conclusions. Watch alifeofreason's video response to Thunderf00t. He deals with that.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa His account is closed... "This account has been suspended due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's Copyright Policy."
-So you're going to have to explain this to me because I really don't see your point... I mean, if such arguments establish intuitive "truths" as premises, it seems, by definition, it can't reach a "counter intuitive conclusion" such as relativity.
ApatheticOmniscience 2 months ago
@ApatheticOmniscience Basically, he mentioned Spinoza (someone Einstein said he most agreed with on God btw). Spinoza's entire method is deductive, and yet it leads to counter intuitive conclusions.
You don't have to start with intuitive truths as premises in deductive arguments. You can start with whatever premises you want.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa Sure you can use whatever you want, but I don't see what that really has to do with WLC's or Tfoot's syllogisms..
ApatheticOmniscience 2 months ago
Notice how Thunderf00t brands Craig a "creationist"? That seems like an attempt to lump him with fundamentalist ignoramuses like NephlimFree and Kent Hovind. Although Thunderf00t is so down right bigoted he probably doesn't see any difference.
ukchristian28 2 months ago
@ukchristian28 What IS the difference between Craig and NephlimFree?
JJLatBIM 2 months ago
@JJLatBIM
Craig is not a young earth creationist nutbag NephlimFree is. Craig has real qualifications in philosophy and theology, NephlimFree (as far as I know) does not. Craig doesn't deny the Trinity. Craig listens and responds properly to his opponents where as NephlimFree doesn't even comprehend what his opponents' arguments are. They could not be more different.
ukchristian28 2 months ago
@ukchristian28 Perhaps calling someone a "creationist" doesn't explicitly differentiate between YEC nuts (ex Neph, Comfort) from the rest of the creationist nuts (ex Craig, Noll). But aren't they all "creationists"? The 2 little lumps (YEC and OEC) aren't that different looking from outside the great big lump of creationists.
JJLatBIM 2 months ago
You really missed the boat here. Its very embarrassing. Without knowledge of relativity our natural experience would tell us that pushing anything move at the speed of light would go faster. But we now know that not to be true. So Craig applying observations to the big bang, a place where we have no data other than things are MUCH different falls to dust.
Its quite simple.
csadler 2 months ago
@csadler The problem, again, is that our notion of causality cannot be derived from empirical evidence.
owchywawa 2 months ago
Comment removed
JCrownwell 2 months ago
To be frankly, I don't really get how you guys can produce so much babbling about this. We currently have a quite solid understanding of the universe in a certain energy range, supported by lots of observations and experiments, yes. But beyond that, things are unknown, and we even know that there must be a whole bunch of weird physics yet to be discovered. So how can you in all seriousness claim that causality is something that applies even at the greatest energy level, the big bang?
SeltsamerAttraktor 2 months ago
@SeltsamerAttraktor Causality is unknown to science. It's presupposed. This is true in all cases; not just the big bang.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa only for events after the big bang, we have absolutely NO data on anything external to the universe, thus we cannot comment on it scientifically, except with a through hypotheses.
You can't really make logical deductions about something for which you have NO experiences or information to base it on.
Since time is a dimension OF the universe, your argument doesn't work.
kelarael 2 months ago
@kelarael Stephen Hawking put it along the lines of "asking what was before the universe is like asking what is south of the south pole"
kelarael 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@kelarael Stephen Hawking put it along the lines of "asking what was before the universe is like asking what is south of the south pole"
kelarael 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@kelarael Stephen Hawking put it along the lines of "asking what was before the universe is like asking what is south of the south pole"
kelarael 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@kelarael Stephen Hawking put it along the lines of "asking what was before the big bang is like asking what is south of the south pole"
kelarael 2 months ago
@owchywawa 4of4
Intuition has failed us a hundred years ago,Math is our only guide now. And maybe,yes maybe, our thinking is too limited to get a grasp on the deepest layers of the onion and will ultimately fail us too.
I hope I got my point across now.
(This is why I get stomach ache around philosophers.They tend to speak about nature with a certainty,they do not have.Trying to wrap one's brain around the weirdness that is nature is by far the most humbling experience I ever had.)
SeltsamerAttraktor 2 months ago
@owchywawa 3of4
So pls do not go out on a limb by claiming that the universe has to be something or that we have to assume something about it in certain energy scales that we do not know anything about yet. Physics can work nonetheless.
This is really the crux here: our thinking and intuition has adapted in a very small energy range, and everything outside of this little bubble of emergent phenomena becomes more more weird the further out we go.
SeltsamerAttraktor 2 months ago
@owchywawa 2of4
And pls remember that time, space and gravity are intertwined that the we currently do not have a working quantum level description of them.
In very high energy scales (near the plank scale), time will start to behave differently, and maybe even differently from all that we can currently think of. For sure, that will have effects on causality, and might utterly shatter your pitiful little understanding of it.
SeltsamerAttraktor 2 months ago
@owchywawa 1of4
No man, I can very well imagine that the universe has certain states that allow for violation of causality, retro-causality or that even completely lack a causal structure, but also produce certain effects (on the normal spacetime) that could be observed (maybe even give rise to spacetime itself) and thus analyzed by physics. And yes, the big bang and its immediate aftermath is one of them.
SeltsamerAttraktor 2 months ago
@owchywawa
"Causality is unknown to science" - Right.
"It's presupposed" - Wrong. Presupposing causality at all levels would cause an infinite regression, which is the reason nobody with a clear mind ever supposes everything has a cause.
We would first have to find something that ever "began to exist" ex nihilo, something we're not certain the Universe ever did (though we're coming closer to knowing) and we're pretty certain nothing else ever did.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 It would cause an infinite regression only if God did not exist. That's the point Craig is making.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
There is no infinite regression if you accept matter is eternal too.
The point Craig makes is that matter is not eternal and was created ex nihilo.
The first part of the argument, properly said like it is thought to be is "Everything that begins to exist from nothing has a cause" even though we have no example, and can't even prove the universe ever began to exist from nothing.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 Well, if our idea of causation was derived from experience, then that would be a problem, but it isn't. Your same objection could be applied to any case.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
If it isn't derived from experience or knowledge, how can you demonstrate its validity?
If the first premise is not demonstrably valid, then the conclusion is flawed.
I would of course make the same objection to any case aside from the "Do I exist?" question, for which I assume nobody will ever be able to prove it, thus making any position just as valid.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 You can prove your own existence (I think therefore I am), but I was talking about causation in general. You cannot prove that anything is the cause of anything by empirical means. So, complaining about that only when it comes to God is just a double standard.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
Sure, one cannot analyze the full causes, but one can know "This is part of what caused that" empirically, test it, prove that the exact same cause on the exact same causee will do the exact same thing.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
You got a nice lightsaber there :/
SeltsamerAttraktor 2 months ago
The Kalam argument fails for a single reason: The first premise ("Everything that begins to exist has a cause") is unproven.
Nothing we ever analyzed ever began to exist in the sense the Kalam entails.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 Analyzing things is irrelevant when it comes to this premise.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
If nothing we ever met began to exist, then the premise "everything that begins to exist..." is null. Of course, it could be true, but since it is not demonstrated, then it cannot be granted, thus the argument that follows from it is void.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 If the first premise is unproven (as you claimed) or there is no evidence for it, I just hope that you won't be surprise if there is an elephant pop into your bedroom right now without a cause. By the way, according to your last statement, I never began to exist; I existed and lived with dinosaurs during Jurassic age! Were you there too?
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
Show me an elephant that ever began to exist. Oh, said elephant must not have come from sperm fertilizing egg, or through changing the materials that already existed to conveniently shape an elephant.
Yup. You and I were there, in a different form. The molecules that make up our bodies are eternal, so you and I were most likely once dinosaur dung.
Did the singularity (aka everything) "begin to exist"? Nobody knows for sure yet.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 Oh great, we already had this conversation in a dinosaur dung, right? Oh, there were even youtube, computers, and cars in Jurassic age! I'm sorry pal, but that is absolutely absurd. Granted, molecules and materials that form me already exist way back then, but that doesn't make me exist with you in a dinosaur dung. Descartes says "I doubt, therefore, I exist." I'm doubting and thinking that your claim is absurd, therefore I exist. You don't think that a dung can think, do you?
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
I don't think that dung can think. However, I think it is a molecule, and as such, can reorganize to form new things.
So, you think the Universe doesn't exist (as far as we know, the Universe doesn't think)? Do rocks exist? Even if they don't doubt?
"Granted, molecles and materials that form me already exist way back then". Same could go for the Universe. This "organization" is actually caused by natural forces, so nothing outside is needed.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 You totally missed my point. There is nowhere that I suggest that the universe doesn't exist because it doesn't think. The fact that I think proves my existence here and now, not when I was a Jurassic dung (yes, a dung doesn't think!). You discarded all my point about the absurdity of thinking that computers and cars already exist in the Jurassic age. Tell me how does that make sense?
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
"Descartes says "I doubt, therefore, I exist." I'm doubting and thinking that your claim is absurd, therefore I exist. You don't think that a dung can think, do you?"
You pointed out that dung can't think, therefore, it couldn't exist.
I pointed out that many things that do not think actually exist.
I discarded the point because it is moot: Computers and cars were present in the Jurassic, just in another form. What the Kalam discusses is creation Ex Nihilo.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 Oh boy, you just put words in my mouth again. I never say a dung (or the universe) couldn't exist because it can't think. My whole argument from Descartes is the argument for my existence, that a dung (or whatever in the Jurassic age) is not who I am. Did my conscience exist in the dung? Absolutely not! (unless a dung can think). If a computer and car really exist in the Jurassic, what in the world in the Jurassic age constitute and make it called a computer? It didn't even exist yet.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu What you're saying is like you are in the middle of the jungle, looking at trees and saying "oh chairs, tables, and houses already exist in this jungle. It is just the matter of having someone to cut down trees, reconstruct and rearrange them to make chairs and houses." But you see the whole jungle could have well transformed into dust if the fire burns down the whole thing. Your furniture can't even come into existence.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
Yup. It's saying "There is enough wood here to create chairs and houses". The Kalam argument is not about the universe being reorganized to look like a universe, but being created ex nihilo.
If the creator did not in fact create matter, but just reorganized it, then the matter did not "begin to exist", thus matter is uncaused.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 please stick on the topic. I'm talking about the existence here. You're basically saying that the chairs and houses already exist, even though there is none in the jungle yet, which is absurd. There is enough wood to create chairs and houses, ok but if there's no carpenter, the chairs and houses do not exist. You need a cause for anything that begin to exist, and that's what the first premise of the Kalam (that you object) says, man.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
"if there's no carpenter, the chairs do not exist" Agreed. But the matter still does.
Where did god take the matter necessary to "create" the universe?
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 ""if there's no carpenter, the chairs do not exist" Agreed" Then, you agree that the first premise is true. Even if matters does exist eternally, it doesn't invalidate the first premise, "whatever began to exist has a cause." Matters are not even in the category of the premise! While matters might exist eternally, chairs, houses, or a being do not exist eternally; they began to exist some point of time with causes. That's why rejecting the first premise is just purely absurd.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu Instead of refuting the first premise, perhaps you should refute the second premise, "the universe began to exist," so you can reject the conclusion "the universe has a cause."
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu And even if there was no fire, and you eventually have someone to cut trees down and make furniture, you still need a cause (the workers and carpenters) to bring it into existence.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
If there was a great fire, I could say "This looks like much wood was burned". Did someone "create fire" or just "burn something"?
Did someone "create a chair" or did they "craft it from wood"?
Did someone "poof you out of nowhere" or did your parents get together?
If the creator "crafts a universe", he didn't "create it". This means both matter and the creator are uncaused.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 You're just playing with words. I'm not talking about "creating" things here. I'm talking about the "existence" and the "cause" of things. You basically said you and I always exist (even in the Jurassic Age). The qualities, functions, and attributes that constitute the existence of you and I were not even there. Your objection to the first premise is just plain absurd.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
I'll agree about the existence of us as we are now. Just agree that the matter that constitutes us always existed in one form or another.
Since going beyond the singularity is speculating, then, the singularity, at some point, WAS the Universe. Which means the Universe never began to exist, because, by definition, the Universe IS everything that exists. Even the singularity, which basically was everything at once.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 I've never disagreed with you that the matters that constitute us existed before us in one form or another. (I even granted it) All I care is the validity of the first premise that you objected (whatever begins to exist has a cause), and I'm glad that you at least agree with our existence now (rather than saying that we existed during the Jurassic age). Because going around and saying that nothing ever begins to exist is just utterly nonsense and absurd.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
"a dung is not who I am" - Nope, but the Kalam has nothing to do with you, but the Universe (which is, by definition, all that is known to exist). Did the matter in the Universe have a beginning? Not as far as we can tell.
You, as you exist now, might have had a beginning. The matter that constitutes you? Not so much.
Which is the reason I say creation ex nihilo (claimed by the Kalam) is not proven, so the first premise is wrong.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 Let's focus on your objection to the first premise of the Kalam: whatever began to exist has a cause. The whole point here is that your assertion that nothing that we observe never began to exist is just absurd. Sorry, I don't see anywhere where the first premise suggests creation ex nihilo. It is simply a logical statement that I think we observe everyday. Anyway, I would like to know your cosmology. Do you hold the Big Bang Theory?
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
I hold the Big Bang Theory to be accurate. The Big Bang model doesn't go beyond the point of the singularity.
If the Universe (everything that exists) ever "began to exist" - I.e: Matter can be created or destroyed - we don't know yet. Sure, it changed shape, transformed and enlarged.
Are you saying this "god" you're talking about did not create the universe, but just shaped whatever matter was already around?
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 If you look carefully what I've argue so far, you'll find that I have no argument whatsoever about god. All I want to point out is your rejection of the first premise of the Kalam to escape its conclusion is just absurd. By the way, the Kalam doesn't address beyond the point of the singularity either. It comes to speculations when you start to talk about the cause of the universe prior to the big bang. We can talk more about it. I just hope that you'll reconsider the first premise :)
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
If the conclusion is "Therefore god exists" and the version of the Kalam you point to doesn't go beyond the singularity, then basically, this is a non sequitur. The first cause for the singularity's expansion doesn't even need to be thinking
I'll reconsider the first cause if you can somehow accept that either A: the singularity was always there, and the first cause simply acted upon it, or B: it was somehow created from something else.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 The conclusion that I referred to is the first conclusion "Therefore, the universe began to exist" deriving from the first two premises. I have discussed nowhere about the second conclusion cause your rejection for the first premise is just enough. I am indifferent if you reconsider the first cause or not. Accepting A or B or not, it is not relevant. I just hope that you reconsider the first premise, "whatever begins to exist has a cause." That's all.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
Using your definition of "existing" (being present as is), I'll actually grant you the point.
Anything that begins to exist has a cause.
The flaw in the argument is that the constituents still existed before. Which means you existed "in some form" - That was my first argument.
If this wasn't true, you'd stop existing and begin existing every split second, as your body changes, and what you call "you" becomes older and different.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 Ok, so you said earlier that I was a dung and now you say that dung wasn't I anymore. Contradiction? Perhaps I'm not in the position here, but if you think that matters in the universe don't have a beginning, you are refuting most of the cosmologists who hold the Big Bang Theory. Your refutation of the conclusion to refute the premises is just plain wrong. The premises of the argument could have well be true, even though the conclusion is false.
kapooktu 2 months ago
@kapooktu
You and I still are dung. Just transformed into something else.
The Big Bang cosmology doesn't go beyond the singularity. Anything else is speculation; interesting speculation, but speculation still. Though the reason for the singularity expanding is most likely a quantum fluctuation.
Xgya2000 2 months ago
@Xgya2000 LOL. You are very welcome to be a dung, but sorry I am not a dung. I came into existence 24 years ago, not 200 million years ago. You're also very welcome to refute the Big Bang cosmology and speculate about it including a quantum fluctuation. But that doesn't change the validity of premise one.
kapooktu 2 months ago
i love bryan magee, everybody should read his book on schopenhauer
hobaleo 2 months ago
Nice video. Thumbs down.
hotkonto 2 months ago
Thunderf00t's whole point was that extrapolating intuitive logic into yet untested situations can lead to wrong conclusions; and the example of the pushed can demonstrated quite well how this can happen if caution is thrown to the wind. Of course, we can arbitrarely demand that causation be exempted from such cautionary approach, but what justification could one give for doing so?
dXoverdteqprogress 2 months ago
@dXoverdteqprogress I don't know what you mean by intuitive logic. Do you mean a deductive argument? I mean, you know science can sometime lead to wrong conclusions right? This fact doesn't really discount logic any more than it does science.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa Yes, deductive argument... And yes, hypothesis in science can be wrong. However, scientific approach to discovering what is true about the universe is more reliable -- when applied to the physical world -- than deductive arguments. Thunderf00t's example with the can serves very well to demonstrate that.
dXoverdteqprogress 2 months ago
the two sentences @ 1:44 are indeed compatible. they are in fact two sides of the same coin. TF was not trying to argue w/ WLC on this point; he was highlighting that in order for a logical argument to hold true, the premises must be true. Therefor all you need to do to prove a logical argument wrong is disprove any of the premises; which TF proceeds to do.
vyyle 2 months ago
pretty sure you don't understand a single one of thunderfoots arguments. Your video does little but illustrate that point
vyyle 2 months ago
What about super ultra mega god? The creator of the creator of the creator of the universe.
ArchNME 2 months ago
What I got from the thunderfoot video is that he was arguing that craig was relying on intuition way too much and that our intuition is often wrong, as in the case of the speed of light example. What do you think?
bryan23271 2 months ago
No.
Craig's statement is that if the premise is true, than the conclusion must also be true (basically a rewording of good ol' "cum hoc ergo propter hoc"). Obviously this is bunk.
TF's statement that if the premise is wrong, the conclusion will very likely also be wrong. This is pretty obvious if you think about it. If your premise is wrong, then any conclusion you draw from that premise will probably also be wrong because it was logically built upon false information.
syn010110 2 months ago
@owchywawa I only found very small part but look for the world debate
youtu .be/gFac6SwZfsA
Now the ball is back to you, Prove this transcendent being is real
parsonman05 2 months ago
@parsonman05 Well, yeah, using the resurrection. The thing is that the cosmological argument is supposed to prove a general transcendent creator and the resurrection is supposed to prove Christianity. The problem is when you ask how the cosmological argument proves Christianity. That is a silly question.
owchywawa 2 months ago
bullshit
euzebiogb 2 months ago
I think that this video is biased in many respects in that you do not cover William Lane Craig's conjecture that the Kalam cosmological argument proves that the biblical God created the universe. The argument itself is not mutually exclusive to one religion and by his logic and implication, can be used to prove the existence of any God. Yet, William Lane Craig has refused to use the same 'logical arguments' which 'naturally follow' to prove the existence of the self-same God which he worships.
JohnSmith88823 2 months ago
@JohnSmith88823 he has tried several times but never has been able to bridge the gap between Deism and Christianity without employing a little sleight of hand where he is talking about christianity before you even know it, makin the lowest common denominators think his entire argument was in favor of Christianity from the start.
ZeerosFate 2 months ago
@JohnSmith88823 The only way I know WLC argues for Christianity is by the resurrection. He only uses the Kalam Cosmological argument to prove a transcendent creator.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
The term 'creator' is presumptuous, for it could be a causative agent or something incomprehensible by humans that caused the beginning of the universe. More importantly though, I think you should do a video covering William Lane Craig's errors, or in the least, critique his flawed position. I am not a scientist; just a mere chemistry student, and I am of the opinion that the universe was created, but to say that a creator did it is in some ways misleading.
JohnSmith88823 2 months ago
What thunderf00t was conveying in the video was that William Lane Craig's logical model is flawed. He is not making scientific predictions, whereas William Lane Craig is. There is a distinction between the two, and what William Lane Craig is doing is that he is trying to downplay the complexity of scientific issues so as to explain natural phenomena by way of a philosophical argument which is merely three lines long and unsupported by any scientific literature.
JohnSmith88823 2 months ago
Nothing is going to cheapen or demean or relativize science to the point where people start thinking religion can achieve just as much. What are we doing here? Communicating over vast distances, posting our messages, which would have taken pre-scientific messengers weeks. Our messages go out digitally and are received exactly as we wrote them. We're not getting it done by "visions" or "mind-readers" or the "blood of Jesus Christ". Science also does much more for comfort and happiness.
Dracopol 2 months ago
@owchywawa
From your video's caption:
> What is needed is a robust epistemology ...
That would be the Scientific Method. Please note that the Scientific method never actually "proves" theories but only supports them. Therefore, the theory that is not negated by any observable phenomenon is kept while the others are modified or discarded.
That methodology has proven quite robust and fruitful, wouldn't you say?
Greyclouds40 2 months ago
@Greyclouds40
Actually science is based on methodological naturalism (empiricism), which is an epistemology.
The scientific method is a "method", in case you forgot the second word of the term.
DawahFilms 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Greyclouds40
Actually science is based on methodological naturalism (empiricism), which is an epistemology.
The scientific method is a "method", in case you forgot the second word of the term.
DawahFilms 2 months ago
@DawahFilms - And as for the merits of the scientific method they are far superior to religion as science never asserts a conclusion where a theist must assert several dogmatically. And the scientific method relies on evidence which can be presented to all and not in the form of anecdotes but repeatable evidence. Everything you say is lip service to yourself and believers, to everyone else it is meaningless drivel. We're laughing at you, do something about it and think for once.
stevenweir76 2 months ago
@Greyclouds40 The problem comes if you try to prove the scientific method using the scientific method. And, if you don't do that, then why not just prove everything else the way you have proven the scientific method?
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
But... the scientific method ISN'T proven using the scientific method.
That would be a RETARDED thing to say.
The scientific method is proven by /it working/. Any damngod fool can see your television WORKS. It's fruits of the science tree that run our entire civilization as proof that it works.
Invent a TV that runs on prayers and wishes, then come back and talk about worshiping a bronze age desert djinn.
rkyeun 2 months ago
@rkyeun Ok, so you prove the scientific method with observation? How do you prove that your observations are true?
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
Are you seriously doubting that televisions work?
rkyeun 2 months ago
@owchywawa >> The problem comes if you try to prove the scientific method using the scientific method.
I'm sorry, but your reply makes little sense and is not representative of what Thunderf00t actually did. The Scientific Method is a framework for investigation of natural phenomena. It is not a philosophical tool designed for recursive self-interrogation.
We use the Scientific method because it currently works. It is an antagonistic framework that gets results. Simple as that.
Greyclouds40 2 months ago
Wow, the majority of the Thunderb0ts who've commented on this video are complete, big fat fucking idiots! Bravo!
thunderbolt94 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
It is reasonably to suppose that my body is real because I can see my body, watch it respond to environmental stimuli, and end my own existence by destroying it. In other words, I can perform repeatable tests on it that yeild results.
None of these things are possible with an imaginary being. Until it is possible to verify the existence of a being, perhaps by seeing its power or shaking its hand, then it is not useful to assume it exists for any reason, and therefore unreasonable
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend Very good. Always insist on your right to get direct proof of this invisible Sky-Pappy or whatever the local story turns out to be. You're worth it. To join any religion today is to be a snivelling masochist, who implicitly admits he's not as moral or pure as the primitive, savage shepherds with sheep doo-doo on their robes who WERE vouchsafed a glimpse of this God person. God should be OUT HERE, not hiding like a little girl in a dumpster afraid of the big girls after school.
Dracopol 2 months ago
@attheveryend What do you mean by "real?" I mean, yeah, we have these appearances, but from that alone we cannot say those appearances represent actual material objects. The reason this matters is because philosophers have used this fact to argue for the existence of God (Descartes and Berkeley for example). Besides, if you say it appears that there is causation, Hume could still argue that it doesn't really appear that way. It's just a habit of thought.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
Yeah, basically you're right.
When I say something is real I mean that it exists and is physically actionable, or that you can do something with it or have it do something.
The problem with not assuming that the appearance of reality is real is that you are not "playing along" with the rest of the world. What happens in it does not and cannot matter to you because you haven't accepted it to be real. I see that you don't do this because you make video responses on youtube.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
and communicate with what you observe to be other human beings. To argue that you cannot accept what you see to be real is effectively playing a silly game with words, because as soon as you're done talking or typing about it, you go back to pretending the world is real and that there are real consequences for not feeding your body or going to sleep at night. How do you know you need to sleep? Perhaps you went without it and found it sucky. Wait, that would be science...
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
I would find any argument for a deity based on a logical route that alienates reality to be highly suspect. Any god produced by such an argument surely does not pertain to reality.
Produce such an argument, and I'll be happy to show you what I mean, and why the argument is crapola.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend No philosophy I know of claims we should act like the outside world doesn't exist. They only talk about what we can know and how we can come to know it.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
Then you should see how arguing that we can't know about causality because we can't know if the universe exists or that we can only investigate the matter through inductive means is not an interesting point of view. All we get around here is inductive means (unless it's mathematical, and only usually at that), so if we're to learn anything, we must assume the strength of the tools we have, at least provisionally. This is what C0nc0rdance has been saying in not so many words.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend I wouldn't argue that we can't know about causality, but that we can't know about causality by empirical means. Anyway, if you assume causality provisionally for science, what justification do we have for of all the sudden rejecting causality at the beginning of the universe? I don't think you have any justification for that.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
1) Of course we can not specifically know about causality by empirical means, but in order to live we have to *act as if* we can. That is what is meant by provisional acceptance.
2) The critical error you've just made is that justification for the rejection of causality is needed to do so. In order to provisionally accept it at all, there must be some way to test it. The ability to test a cause is justification for provisional acceptance.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
2) (cont) Because there is no way presently to test and hypotheses about the pre-big bang universe (or lack therof), there is no justification for provisional acceptance of causality. You see, it is not that we need a reason to reject it, it is merely a special case scenario where it fails to meet the minimum levels of required reason to assume there is any causality at all, unlike what seems to be the rest of the entire observable universe.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
In other words, the reason that one should reject causality in the domain of pre-big bang phenomena is because there is no reason to accept causality. There is no way to show how any given thing is not caused--no way to falsify anything. It can be called "not physically interesting" if you like. If we can't do anything with it, then there is no reason to assume literally anything about it, even that it was caused.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend I think you are equivocating two ideas. We don't act as if we can determine if there is a connection by empirical means. We act as if we can determine what that connection is between by empirical means. That there is a connection in the first place is presupposed. The empirical world has no say in the matter whatsoever.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
You are correct that a causal connection is presupposed. This is what is referred to as a "null hypothesis." The purpose of experiment is to attempt to show that the null hypothesis is false. Thus by process of elimination causality is rooted out in the physical world. Science can never show that there is a causal connection, but it can show which things are not related. It can show that a causal connection is extremely likely, however.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
Once the first step of eliminating false causes is complete, then the process attempts to quantify the relationship and tries to understand it. I am not equivocating these two steps because they are necessarily sequential. If the first step is indeterminate, the second step (determining the character of a causal connection), can not be assessed. Once step one is complete, we provisionally accept the remaining cause as the true cause.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
But if there is no way to perform the tests denoted in step one, then we can never make that human leap to provisional acceptance of cause. This is why WLC's argument fails, and what T-f00t was getting at. I have a pet term for making this particular leap of reasoning without being able to assess step one in my scientific methodology-- I call it "reaching." When someone asserts as fact that the universe was caused, they are "reaching" for what can not be obtained that way.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend Wouldn't you agree, though, that this test doesn't really test the "null hypothesis" (that there is a connect). All that this tests is whether there is a connect between two specified objects not whether there is a cause in the first place. We first assume that there is a connect between two objects, then we try to determine what those two objects are. There's nothing unique about not being able to test the "null hypthesis" under this unique situation.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa >> There's nothing unique about not being able to test the "null hypthesis" under this unique situation.
Sure, there is nothing unique about testing that situation; however, it is not a scientific (ie. something that can be investigated using the Scientific Method) phenomenon then.
You start with an assumption, then you try to build on it. This is WLC's logic and it is very weak and, demonstrably, not Scientific.
Greyclouds40 2 months ago
@Greyclouds40 The issue is that science itself is built upon the assumption of causality.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
Without knowing what the two things, say event A and B, *are* that are under scrutiny to determine whether event A causes event B, then it is impossible to determine whether or not what is being scrutinized is actually either event A or B. Without a definition or observation of what event A is and event B is, asserting a causal link between the two is completely incomprehensible. So no, we do not first assume a cause and then figure out what things are. You've got it backwards.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
And to address whether or not I agree that any falsifying test does not show the truth of the "null hypothesis," then yes, I agree that one can not prove a cause. But that isn't what is done. What is done instead is that, from a list of all possible causes, the ones that are false are shown to be false. Whatever remains is then accepted because it was not shown to be fase--i.e. it accurately predicted phenomena.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
The issue with the null hypothesis with regards to the origin of the universe (that the universe has a cause) is that it is unfalsifiable by any currently known methods. Therefore, it is not something that is at all justifiable to assume for any reason, and is also physically uninteresting to investigate at present. An analog to this reasoning is to assume that lightning is caused by thor. This is unfalsifiable, and thus not interesting to consider. Much better to look at atoms.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
In the end, the strength of this model of knowledge is in its ability to accurately predict what will happen given certain initial conditions. Asserting that god created the universe does not give anyone the ability to predict when and where a universe will be created, or how it is created at all. Big bang theory, on the other hand, provides a framework that is testable by the consequences it predictes (expanding universe, entropy and so forth).
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend You misunderstood what I was saying. Your test doesn't apply to causality. It applies to specific objects. If we didn't find a connection between A and B, we wouldn't assume causality doesn't apply here. We would assume we just haven't found the cause yet. Causality is unfalsifiable by science.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
By your logic here, you can safely assume that there is a causal link between literally everything ever, we just haven't found it yet, and no test and show how things aren't caused by others because we just haven't used the right test yet.
I hope that it's clear why this fails rather miserably outside of the "logically possible."
In reality, phenomena are observed, and possible causes are eliminated. In no other fashion can humans obtain knowledge of the physical.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
The phenomena of the universe is something we observe, but we have no way of eliminating the possible causes at present. Therefore, it is proper that we do not assume any cause at all, as there is no evidence of any preceding event or any recurring events that cause new universes. The only thing we've observed is that the earlier states of the universe did not look like the current state.
Thats all any honest person can say on the matter.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend I never said we can safely assume anything. Empiricists must either accept causality as an assumption, or accept skepticism. You seem to accept that causation is presupposed, but then you go on to argue that causation can be falsified, but how can a causal connection be falsified? Yeah you can show that A is not the cause of B, but you cannot show that B doesn't have a cause without viewing all possibility. Which is piratically impossible.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
Everything you just wrote here is correct. Showing that A is not the cause of B is falsification of cause. Not being able to show that B doesn't have a cause is indeed impossible.
But one must recognize that it is equally impossible to assume a cause without warrant. In science, we pressuppose cause in order to disprove it. Where we can not disprove a causal link is where we derive our empirical laws, but in both cases a test is possible and events are witnessed.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
So here's the crux of the matter. The inability to disprove cause says absolutely nothing about whether or not a cause can be assumed where no test is possible. This is why we can neither assume cause nor dismiss it, which is the appropriate stance with regards to the untestable--i.e. that you can not assume any untestable event has a cause.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend, T-11 hrs
I should like to ammend this statement to clarify that science is able to provisionally assume cause where cause is unable to be disproven specifically because the events were testable and yielded a repeatable result. In such a manner was shown the extreme likelihood of causality, and thus warrant for provisional acceptance. No good scientist is every 100% sure of anything, but we can be pretty damn close.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
Notice here, that being unable to assume cause is not the same as assuming no cause. Thunderf00t does not assume no cause in his argument, he simply posits that the assumption of cause is inappropriate.
There are more than two "eigenstates" we'll call them on the matter. You can assume no cause, you can assume cause, or you can assume nothing. Reasonable, honest people choose the latter because there is no good reason to do elsewhat.
attheveryend 2 months ago
Big Misconception #1:
Science proves causality.
Truth:
Science proves which things are not the cause. If science is able to eliminate every impossible cause, then whatever remains is said to be true. Thats how it works. Thats what is meant by "null hypothesis." First we say that bats cause rainbows. then we show that bat's don't cause rainbows. Then we have one less possibility for the explanation of rainbows. Then we move on the the next possible cause and start over.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend I hope you're not saying I think science proves causality, because that's what Thunderf00t was saying not I. I actually argued against science proving causality.
"If science is able to eliminate every impossible cause, then whatever remains is said to be true."
Assuming, of course, that there is a cause.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa,
That particular post was not in response to a position I think you specifically hold. It seems to be a general idea that folks seem to have by my observation of the comments of others.
attheveryend 2 months ago
Tfoot gave strong arguments about extrapolating "causation" to the very small and energetic.
I think that it could also be said that we haven't actually observed anything to "come into existence." An argument such as, "a car doesn't come into existence without a car maker," fails since all the material to make the car already exists. I mean we have literally not observed a universe come into existence, ergo the premise "whatever begins to exist has a cause" is unsupported.
AnonConda 2 months ago
@AnonConda That premise doesn't depend on empirical evidence. That was my entire point. You and Thunderf00t are starting from the position that we have to use empirical evidence.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
And you and Craig are starting from the position that it is true despite a lack of any evidence.
Even you can see that is a backwards way of thinking. You are a more reasonable than that, at least I think you are.
AnonConda 2 months ago
@AnonConda No, I don't agree with Craig. I think Craig would just say that empirical evidence isn't the only possible kind of evidence though.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@AnonConda,
what you say is true, but if you study the assumptions of quantum electrodynamics, and how accurately the theory predicts experiment, you will see that it is very, very likely that things regularly spring out of nothing and then annihilate again over and over so long as this happens fast enough so that we can't notice it.
attheveryend 2 months ago
@attheveryend
And god said "let there be virtual particles" and they were good.
The yes quantum mechanics predicts what you said, and as convenient as it would be to say "look here's something that comes into existence without a cause," it would be almost as dishonest as Craig's argument. You know, because extrapolating what works for insignificant virtual particles may not necessarily work for something as significant as all the matter & energy in the universe.
AnonConda 2 months ago
What does it mean to say that something "caused" something else to exist? The idea is incoherent.
Every physical effect of which we are aware assumes the existence of the affected object. One object cannot affect another object unless both objects ALREADY EXIST.
I wish proponents of creation ex nihilo would stop referring to it as causation. They won't, of course, because otherwise they'd have to admit that their "explanation" is, at heart, nothing more than an appeal to magic.
ClumsyRoot 2 months ago
@ClumsyRoot Think of it like creating an idea, or spawning in an object in a video game. It's not incoherent.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
New ideas draw upon existing concepts, and "spawning" in a video game results from already existing computer code.
We're talking here about the universe itself; no analogies you provide are likely to be apt.
ClumsyRoot 2 months ago
@ClumsyRoot Yeah, and the universe would be the result of God. I don't think anyone is arguing the universe comes from nothing because it comes from God. They just mean it doesn't come from preexisting matter.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
You're missing the point. Please reread my initial comment.
ClumsyRoot 2 months ago
@owchywawa
Obviously, invoking an undetectable being acting in unknown ways does not EXPLAIN anything, which is why apologists try to use the causation argument. Which, as I pointed out, does not work, since it is illogical to speak about something coming into existence as an EFFECT.
ClumsyRoot 2 months ago
the beautiful red line for dumbasses
bajorjor1 2 months ago
Science does not presuppose causation, people mistakenly do in some instances, that is what the old men at the end of your vid are talking about. T-f00t is explaining exactly what you are complaining about. Craig tries to put in an "always" where one does not belong, and T-f00t explains why the beginning of the universe is one exception to Craig's "always"
jmdnarri 2 months ago
@jmdnarri They were saying that causation is necessary for our understanding of the world. If causation isn't presupposed by science, then you either have to prove it, or we can't say anything is the cause of anything. If the latter, then we can't say that, for example, evolution is the cause of the diversity of life. Science would be hopeless.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa causation CAN be proved, but that doesn't mean that every instance of correlation proves causation. Science works to isolate the causes of events to prove causation, it does not presuppose it every time there is a correlation.
jmdnarri 2 months ago
you literally fail at logic.
machinevos 2 months ago
@machinevos Thanks for clarifying, everyone would probably have taken that metaphorically otherwise.
owchywawa 2 months ago
Oh my noodly appendage, did this get voted down into oblivion.
SPR4GOD 2 months ago
Man is born from vagina. Man assumes all things must be born from "vagina" because man thinks he is special and Man had a beginning. Man can never fully accept perhaps everything always existed.
/the end.
Judicial78 2 months ago
I don't think a Humean skepticism of causality is a good refutation of Thunderf00t's argument in this case. The reason is that WLC appeals to science in his argument ("Big Bang, therefore the universe had a cause!"), so he assumes causality. Tf00t takes that idea of applying science to theology and says, "Wait, you can't use science, 'cause our scientific understanding doesn't support linear causality in Big Bang conditions". Tf00t is only working within the framework that Craig gives him.
36ss36 2 months ago
@36ss36 WLC doesn't just assume causality. Look up his position and if you find a claim that causation is assumed, then let me know. I have and he uses a few different methods to support the claim. Besides, come on, Thunderf00t thinks we can only use science. Science works right? I don't see how you guys can argue science isn't the foundation of his knowledge.
owchywawa 2 months ago
@owchywawa
[ I don't see how you guys can argue science isn't the foundation of his knowledge]
Because science is not defined, in any manner, as subjective intuition. However, subjective intuition is the exact definition of mysticism.
Intuiting a divine, all powerful being by 'feeling' him is mysticism. Crediting all creation to said being because it feels right is just more mysticism.
Science begins with observation. Let me know when Bill sees a god create something.
Dream0Asylum 2 months ago
@owchywawa Doesn't the whole Kalam argument take the form, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause"? WLC has supported the second premise by saying that Big Bang theory implies a cause. Tf00t says that the first premise is thrown into doubt by quantum and relativity theory. They both use science to support their arguments, which is why I don't think a Humean skepticism of causality is the best tactic--it's too broad a brush.
36ss36 2 months ago