The Fallacy of Composition and the Cosmological Arguments

[MaxVel]

Fool, keep your drivel to yourself!
People should answer my points and when they put forth drivel, I find they deserve no respect! To all fools, the same!

The irony is palpable....


...thanks for giving us a reason why you deserve no respect.

[gerry]

I like for you for us all to talk about what it is for a human to prove to another human that something exists in the actual objective reality of existing things, like for example the nose in the face of people.

What you and I do is to bring a person a human like yourself and me and him together and point to and touch his nose and us all three touch each other's nose and also our nose, and also any two touch the nose of the third with him at the same time touching his own nose.


That is what it is to prove for certainty that there is a nose in people's face, as we go about touching each other's nose, and together everyone touching anyone's noses: in order to prove to whomever demanding to prove to him that there is a nose in people's face.

You get the idea, of course you do!

That goes for everything that humans can see at least see and all agree that they are seeing the same thing, like the sun in the day sky and the moon in the night sky.

But what about things which people cannot at least see with their eyes, like as I said the sun and the moon in the sky, and also the stars at night?

Like black holes and particles in particle physics, etc. etc. etc.

How can we bring people to get to be aware of a black hole like we are aware of the sun and the moon and the stars?

Well, we have to ask particle physicists how they come to be aware of the existence of black holes, particles, waves, forces, fields, and yes, laws of nature and laws of physics, and multiverse, and strings, and branes whatever.

These people must have had experience of such things they talk about as to impress us ordinary non-particle physicists with their knowledge of the existence of all these such things.

So, we ask them:

• Sirs, with all due respect, please tell us what experience entitles you to talk as to take for granted, to talk about all these things of black holes, particles, forces, fields, etc. etc. etc.?

From my own experience with asking such people that question, they will tell us that they don't really experience those things the way everyone experiences the nose in everyone's face as to be certain of its existence.

But from the experience of the nose in our face they use what I will call cogitation which is another word for thinking they come to the existence of black holes, particles, forces, fields, etc. etc. etc.

And that is their proof of the existence of black holes, particles, forces, fields, etc. etc. etc.

Now we ask them, can you not also cogitate all the way to the existence of God from the existence of the nose in people's face?

They will ask us what we mean by God, so I tell them that my concept of God is the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe, and if they follow my cogitation I can prove to them the existence of the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe, from the existence of the nose in people's face.

So, how do I do that?


What do you guys here think?



Gerry

[Chrawnus]

What do you guys here think?

I think you and Griggsy are two sides of the same coin.



And I'm planning to revisit this thread sometime in the (far) future, so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't hijack this thread with your off topic posts.

[Chrawnus]

Apparently the far future wasn't very far off. I'll respond to robertb's post since I promised I would, but after that I think I'll steer this discussion in another direction, because it seems like this has become too much about the definition of the word universe, rather than an analysis of the Fallacy of Composition, and the transferability of properties from the parts to the whole.

If there was only one grocery bag filled with groceries in existence, then it would be the "single collection of all groceries" by definition.

The analogy that I made is correct even though the universe is not, in fact, a grocery bag, thus why it is an analogy. So, even if, per your example, all of the groceries were red, it wouldn't effect the colour of the grocery bag itself. Even as a red grocery bag does not effect the colour of the individual groceries contained within the bag.

The main problem I have with the definition of the universe as "the set/collection of everything that exists" (other than it being problematic from a theistic POV because God is part of everything that exists while not being a part of the universe in a theistic worldview) is that it allows for the type of pseudo-rational wordplay which you gave an example of in this post:

1. The universe is the set containing everything that exists.

2. Nothing exists

3. Therefore the universe is the set containing everything that exists, which is nothing.

If you define the universe as the set containing everything that exists, and nothing exists, then it would of course be correct to say that "the universe is the set containing everything that exists, which is nothing" I.e an empty set. The main problem is that if you define the universe as an empty set, then most rational people will conclude that that is essentially the same as the universe being non-existent (except if you're the sort of person who believes abstract concepts such as sets and collections can exist independently of minds, but in that case the universe would remain as nothing more than an abstract concept, not a physical reality.).

I.e, to say that the universe can be defined as an empty set (in the hypothetical scenario where there is nothing that exists) is nonsensical, unless you ascribe to platonic realism (i.e the idea that abstract nouns can exist other than as concepts in the mind), or (this position being untenable for atheism) unless you believe that there exists a mind outside of the universe in which the concepts of sets and collections are upheld.

Another minor quibble I have with the definition of the universe as "everything that exists" is that it leads to the absurd conclusion that the universe is not part of "everything that exists", unless you want to argue that a set can be a part of itself (which it can in naive set theory, but we're not exactly talking mathematics here.) This of course leads to the nonsensical conclusion that the universe is not part of "that which exists", but rather "that which does not exist". I.e, defining the universe as "the set of everything that exists" leads to the absurd notion that the universe doesn't exist, unless you believe that the set "the universe" contains itself as an element in that set.

However, the above is only a minor quibble, because the problem can easily be rectified by defining the universe not as "the set of everything that exists", but as "the set of everything that has a physical reality". This however, only takes care of the "the universe being non-existent unless you believe a set containing itself as an element can exist problem", but it doesn't solve the other problems which I listed above.

I realise that the above doesn't touch upon your grocery bag analogy that much, but I'd rather analyse the idea of the universe being a set or collection, rather than examining an analogy, because it matters far more whether or not there are problems with a concept, rather than if there are any good analogies for that concept.

All the parts of the universe are not expanding. In fact, none of the "parts" of the universe are expanding. The universe, itself, is expanding.

Not that I ever claimed that all parts of the universe were expanding. I was giving a hypothetical scenario, not a description of reality. So, let me ask the question again, this time making clear that this is a hypothetical scenario, and not an assertion of how reality works:

"If all parts of the universe are expanding, or even if just all the empty space in the universe is expanding, does that mean that the universe as a whole is expanding? "

"Physical reality (as a whole)" is exactly the same as saying "the single collection of all things"...

Not unless you beg the question that materialism is the correct worldview.

There is no 'bait and switch'. Set and collection are merely synonyms of a singular group.

I wasn't talking about baiting and switching between the words set and collection, because I do realize that these two words are synonyms. What I was alluding to was the fact that defining the universe as a set or collection gives you the opportunity to use concepts which are well-defined in mathematics (such as the "empty set") and applying them where it's not clear at all what they mean, for example, when they are used to refer to physical reality. Now that I think about it, baith-and-switch" might not have been the appropriate word for it, but I'll chalk that up to me being tired when I wrote the post you responded to.

If something is explainable, what value does adding additional complexity over and above that explanation serve. One would be simply begging the razor, I suppose.

Because it might give you the tools for analyzing when an argument does, or does not commit the fallacy of composition.

-----

This will be my last post regarding the definition of the word "universe", unless someone wants me to clarify something that is unclear in the above post. I will not however, engage in any arguments about what I wrote above, merely clarification. So if anyone wants to argue about the meaning of the word universe they can do it with someone else, and (preferably) in another thread.

So, to make it clear (in regards to the discussion of the word "universe": I will answer posts asking for clarification, but I will ignore posts where the writer is only out to argue about what the proper definition of the word universe is. This is not because I believe that I have won the debate over this issue, but because it has moved us too far from the original intent of this thread.

In my next post I'll try and write down my thoughts regarding this article...:

http://www.illc.uva.nl/j50/contribs/eemeren/eemeren.ps (The article requires that you either have a program that can read postscript-files, or something that can convert them from ps to pdf-files, such as Adobe Acrobat Distiller. If you're a person who's interested in reading the article, but have neither, then PM me, and I'll send you a converted pdf file by any acceptable means.)

...and whether or not it answered any of the questions I had in the OP.

[gerry]

[...]

The main problem I have with the definition of the universe as "the set/collection of everything that exists" (other than it being problematic from a theistic POV because God is part of everything that exists while not being a part of the universe in a theistic worldview) is that it allows for the type of pseudo-rational wordplay which you gave an example of in this post:

[...]

Well, for myself I don't see anything wrong with defining universe as the totality of existence, which totality comprises both anything at all that exists in the actual objective reality of existing things, and also concepts in the mind of man or anything at all in the mind of man.

In this concept of universe God is a part of the universe after He created the universe: because prior to His creation of the universe God is all the universe, but after His creation of the universe then the concept of the universe as the totality etc. has two components: the uncreated part which is all God and the created part which is the part created by God.

Universe understood as the totality of existence whatever, that should take care of the dodging gimmick of atheists postulating other universes: so that if atheists want to postulate other universes, they can be told to be Occamish and just say that all other universes are daughter universes of the grand all one universe of the totality of existence whatever, and this grand universe consists of two parts, the uncreated part which is all God, and after God's creation of everything that is not God Himself, the part that is created which can comprise all other daughter or baby universes -- that should make atheists happy or unhappy because they will feel that the rug is being pulled from under their feet.



Gerry