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Cogito ergo sum

Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!

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  • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post

    2. Show that T isn't a problem.
    “Show” that a conclusion to a deductive argument based upon an assumed premise, i.e. an axiom, is true.

    If you think there's been no progress in metaphysics since Aristotle,
    Aristotle was the father of metaphysics and yet nearly every metaphysical argument and conclusion he made about the physical universe was wrong; metaphysics cannot, generate new truths. Whatever “progress in metaphysics” there may have been cannot get around this indisputable fact.

    Nearly? So SOME metaphysical arguments have GENERATED new truths about the physical universe? Really?
    Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. That Aristotle got it right occasionally was more accident than methodology.

    Can? Hmmm. Is this a modal claim?
    Modal Logic has nothing to do with this discussion; it’s based on, situations which need not be actual...it’s merely just another of your diversionary tactics.

    Hmmm. All it can do is reformulate a truth in a model . . .
    "A scientific theory is a synthesis of well-tested and verified hypotheses about some aspect of the world around us. When a scientific hypothesis has been confirmed repeatedly by experiment, it may become known as a scientific law or scientific principle. Such models make predictions which can be either verified or falsified".

    http://aether.lbl.gov/www/classes/p10/theory.html

    Science has this ability, metaphysics does not. It can only reformulate the truths contained in our existing models, theories and laws. It has no means of making testable predictions. IOW: Science can put a man on the moon, metaphysics cannot.

    Sure. Throwing around a lot of controversial vocabulary. You still haven't told me what you mean by 'truth'. This a HUGE issue in philosophy of science. Another thing. Do you think modeling is necessary for science? Sufficient? Another thing. Do you know data underdetermine theories? How do scientists decide on which theories to cling onto if data doesn't determine the truth of a theory? Predictive success isn't always applicable. I could go on, but you're incompetent and the factory blows up and your neurons go on strike. Oh, and laws. Another biggie you just toss out there like it's no biggie. Tell me. Why were logicians trying so hard to express laws of nature in formal logic? Did the logicians call the physicists to ask how to do this? What about when the philosophers were working on a logic of confirmation theory, while attempting to quantify degrees of confirmation according to a logic of probability theory? Such logics were probably just reformulating truths . . . . in . . . . which physical theory? Which law of nature? What model?
    Metaphysics and logic is indispensable to scientific modelling as I’ve repeatedly said. They are the glue that holds the scientific structure together, ensures its self-consistency, and helps us prevent errors of false inference. But I repeat: Metaphysics, Logic and Maths do not, and cannot, generate new truths about nature. For this you need science.

    So you said. And so you've said twenty thousand times. Remember that pesky demarcation problem I keep bringing up?
    The bottom line is that metaphysics, logic and mathematics (although of inestimable value), cannot alone can tell us anything new about the real world. For this you need science, as a great mind like Aristotle would have realised if he’d been alive today.
    “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
      . . . metaphysics cannot, generate new truths.
      Metaphysics at its best can be used as a tool to discover non-physical truths. At its worst, proposes non sense. Only what is true is valid. The issue then is what methodology for testing metaphysical truth claims can be used?

      There are two possibilities: 1) All current causes are from an infinite secession of causes where there were never any first cause. 2) A unique origin of for all causes.

      In common theology the first is disallowed.

      Premise 1) There was never nothing.
      Premise 2) There is uncaused existence.
      The question: The origin or non origin of causes.
      . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

      . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

      Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

      Comment


      • Okay, I'm done attempting to teach you anything. Time to reduce your ignorance to ashes.

        Originally posted by Tassman View Post
        “Show” that a conclusion to a deductive argument based upon an assumed premise, i.e. an axiom, is true.
        Easy!

        Here's an argument relevant to the thread!
        1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause (metaphysical premise).
        2. The universe began to exist (physical premise).
        C. Therefore, the universe has a cause (physical conclusion).

        So far, so valid! The conclusion follows necessarily. Before your A.D.D. kicks in and you give me another dumb IEP link to the distinction between validity/soundness, I WILL provide reasons for the premises. And I'll explain in detail the methodology I'm employing no matter how much you whine that I type too much. You're like one of those idiotically impatient dining guests that orders a darn roast and complains and whines when the food isn't brought out in 2 minutes. Well, life-lesson, Tass: knowledge is hard-won; thinking in a stupid, in-a-can, fast-food, happy-meal way is going to leave you a pathetic purveyor of tired and hackneyed, bumper-sticker crap about as worthy as graffiti spray-painted under some forgotten overpass in some God-forsaken part of the burbs in fly-over country.

        Anyways, I'll assume you think that 1 is the assumed premise or axiom, but it's really not, since I'm about to provide reasons for it, and you defined an axiom as a self-evident truth that 'requires no proof'. And besides, the mere presentation of an argument, in short-and-sweet deductive form is, like, half the darn battle! Reasons and argumentation are then offered for the premises. But first, a couple of things; since 'self-evidence' is an epistemological category, then a person S knows a self-evident proposition P only if P is known without the need for proof! If S can know P without proof, then P can be a known, true proposition about the world! That's what knowledge means! So, what's the problem!? Second, premises in deductive arguments that are metaphysical is nature are not known with certainty, and neither is any darn premise in a deductive or inductive argument used in science! Reasons are always provided that either raise the probability or increase the plausibility of a premise. There are standards of probability and plausibility that become relevant here. Science does this. Metaphysics does this. The soft sciences do this. Demonstrative certainty is a property of PREMISES in an argument is singularly obtuse. So, whatever your repeated instances of "show, show, show, show, show" mean, they CAN'T mean 'show using premises that are themselves demonstrated with absolute certainty'. The bar isn't that high in metaphysics, and it's not this high in physics either, as I'll demonstrate.

        So, for example, in the philosophy of science, you have what are called covering-law or inferential models of explanation, which involves the logical form of the explanation and the nature of an explanation's premises. As for logical form, physicists in particular, and scientists in general, in either providing a deductive or an inductive argument for a conclusion (i.e. a phenomenon, etc . . .), there is either the deductive-nomological variety or the inductive-statistical variety. THIS IS WHERE THE NATURE OF THE PREMISES IS IMPORTANT. In the former, at least one premise in the argument is a universal generalization! This premise makes up a part of the explanans. Whereas in the latter, you have at least one statistical generalization in the explanans.

        Physicists and philosophers of science have since TWEAKED the deductive-nomological models of explanation into something called the realist (or causal) model of explanation. This literally is the modus operandi of THEORETICAL physics. I've seen it with my own eyes. Physicists literally GO BEYOND our observations and construct models attempting to EXPLAIN what we observe by appeal to THEORETICAL entities and processes. This is done in order to EXPLAIN WHY the stuff we CAN OBSERVE behaves the way it does, or exists, or has the nature or structure it has. But EITHER WAY, before and after the 'tweaking', the deductive-nomological models of explanation USED BY PHYSICISTS have a UNIVERSAL GENERALIZATION AS A PREMISE IN THE EXPLANANS! That's EXACTLY what the Kalam argument has as premise 1!!!

        ON TOP OF THIS, in theoretical physics, when constructing models of theoretical entities and processes to explain observational phenomenon, this oft-repeated 'testability', 'verifiability', 'repeatability' criterion you have goes out the window! So, for example, in the Ideal Gas Equation (PV = nRT [P is pressure, V is volume, T is temperature, n is the number of moles of gas present, and R is the ideal gas constant]), we have a DESCRIPTION of the regular correlations of P, V, and T (which we can OBSERVE) in gases, and, on that basis, I can DEDUCE what the temperature of the gas is just by knowing the pressure and the volume. But all this explains is the regular correlation of P, V, and T; IT DOESN'T EXPLAIN why the behavior is as it is. Theoretical physicists then come along and construct a MODEL where we can VISUALIZE the theoretical entities/processes that are otherwise UNOBSERVABLE that CAUSE the regular correlations to behave as they do. This is the CAUSAL MODEL OF EXPLANATION, used ALL THE TIME by theoretical physicists. Many times, the construction of such models make ABSOLUTELY NO APPEAL TO NATURAL LAWS! To take but one example is that dark matter and energy is theoretically postulated to CAUSALLY EXPLAIN the disturbances and perturbations in the gravitational fields at the edge of what the standard model of particle physics has been able to tell us about that 5% of matter we can observe. And this is ESPECIALLY the case when we do HISTORICAL science, instead of EMPIRICAL science. The former is about EXPLAINING UNREPEATABLE SINGULARITIES IN THE PAST. New flash: you CANNOT subject such singularities to repeated testability. The realist (or causal) model of explanation was DESIGNED to deal with doing historical science, along with causally explaining observables via unobservable, theoretical entities/processes.

        THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF MODEL OF EXPLANATION USED IN ARGUMENTS FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE FROM OBSERVATIONAL PHENOMENON!

        These MODELS that theoretical physicists use are NEVER proven or disproven. Because that's never the point. It's in a myth in the scientistic, popular imagination. MODELS are accepted on the basis of the explanatory virtues attaching to various, competing explanations, and because the theories postulated by the models are ALWAYS underdetermined by the data used to support them, such models can never be DISPROVEN either.

        I do think 1 can be known self-evidently, but since you said axioms "require no proof" (assuming that they may have proof), I'll go ahead and provide reasons for 1, assuming (since you won't talk about it or mention it when I bring it up, and cry like a two year old if I type more than a couple paragraphs [hint: I don't care anymore, since I'm not technically talking to you anymore.]).

        NOW, consider premise 1 of Kalam. Accepting this universal generalization has ALL the hallmarks of being a premise that is VERY PROBABLY the case, and WAY MORE plausible than its denial, which, in Aristotle's square of opposition, is 'at least one thing does not have a cause.' First, this universal generalization is compatible with literally ANY KIND OF metaphysical or physical analysis one would like to give of 'causation': probabilistic, mental (if you're an idealist!), counterfactual, nomological, classical, medieval, Humean, state-state, event-event, agential, emergent, backward causation via closed-timelike-curves, postive, negative, neutral, mixed, contextual, path-specific, singular, general, interventional, immanent, transcendent, proximate, distal, and on and on. This is a HUGE theoretical virtue for a universal generalization to have. The ONLY methodological constraint on such an analysis is that it can't violate the AXIOM that 'something can come from nothing', where 'nothing' is 'non-being', not Krauss's quantum vacuum crap, but no 'thing', there 'thing' universally quantifies over CLASSICAL and NON-CLASSICAL things: so, bye-bye Krauss.

        Second, that AXIOM [something can't come from nothing, or "out of nothing, nothing comes"] is based on a priori intuition. Here comes Tass! OH MY GOSH! A PRIORI INTUITION IS AWFUL. I can't SHOW IT. I can't use scientific methodology to demonstrate it! Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! Well, simmer down, idiot. A priori intuition, like self-evidence (mentioned above) is an EPISTEMOLOGICAL category; in other words, it's a WAY OF KNOWING about reality. And in this particular, this AXIOM has been CONFIRMED so many different times in EXPERIENCE that to doubt it is just seems ludicrous. We would need OVERWHELMING evidence from physics that this AXIOM needs to go, and that my a priori intuition was unreliable. Is that what we get? A BIG, FAT no. All we get, over and over and over and over again, is quantum this, and quantum that, and quantum blah, blah, blah, and quantum yadda-yadda, many times from people that have read a LICK of the literature on the topic AT ALL. They just automatically assume that ALL TYPES of causation, or ALL TYPES of emergence, relate to CLASSICAL objects or pertain to relations whose processes are analyzed CLASSICALLY, when that's not ALL the types of processes and objects that the AXIOM quantifies over. It quantifies over EVERY KIND OF EMERGENCE, PROCESS, and OBJECT, whether classical or non-classical.

        Third, premise 1, because it's a METAPHYSICAL principle, applies to ANY classical or non-classical thing. Classical or non-classical BEING cannot come from NON-BEING. This is a metaphysical principle that justifies the UNIVERSAL GENERALIZATION in ANY deductive/nomological version of the covering-law or inferential model of explanation! If physicists won't explicitly say it, it's LATENT! So, for example, if an experimental physicist is constructing a deductive version of the covering-law model of explanation to explain the regular correlations of the properties of a wire and its metallic properties with the the activity of conducting electricity, such a physicists' argument will take the form of:
        1. All metal conducts electricity (universal generalization)
        2. This wire is metal.
        C. This metal wire conducts electricity.
        1 CANNOT be demonstratively proven or SHOWN (as you like to say). It can be rendered more probable or plausible than its denial. That's it. The SAME EXACT RULES APPLY to premise 1 in Kalam. BOTH premises are known a priori. Each NEW and our PAST experiences render it more and more probable, and its denial less and less plausible. But the generalization CAN'T BE SHOWN with DEMONSTRATIVE CERTAINTY, which DOESN'T MEAN we can't KNOW IT, or have GREAT REASONS for believing it. IF YOU THINK this stupid shown-point does ANYTHING to metaphysical arguments that have these so-called AXIOMS for premises, this would apply to EVERY, SINGLE deductive/nomological version of the covering-law or inferential model of explanation used by theoretical and experimental physicists EVERY, SINGLE day. Good luck with that one!

        Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

        Well, other than the fact that ALL the cosmological evidence points to this (notwithstanding, 'fairy tale physics'), we have another METAPHYSICAL argument that, IN PRINCIPLE, necessitates the truth of the premise. More and more theoretical physicists have been CONVINCED by these philosophical arguments, and are USING THEM (in a PERFECTLY SCIENTIFIC WAY), in the FORMATION of scientific ideas, to guide scientific research projects GOING ON RIGHT NOW in conferences in the Anglophone world attempting to CONFIRM the theory that the universe had a beginning from the hard sciences. That has precedent ALL OVER the history of science: Copernicus had his revolution because Ptolemy wasn't committed to Platonic virtues in explanatory hypotheses, or (since you'll miss the point and just give the Pavlovian response that Platonic ideals aren't real and neither are metaphysical principles!) physicists have actually been committed to, and WITHIN THEIR RATIONAL AND EPISTEMIC RIGHTS in accepting the METAPHYSICAL idea that "action at a distance is impossible" (this has GUIDED RESEARCH [even if it wasn't SHOWN to be demonstrably true, since this SHOWING is neither necessary nor sufficient to KNOW SOMETHING), and this has let physicists to SEARCH FOR some mechanistic interface (like gravitons, etc.) between the distant bodies to permit gravity to behave via "contact", rather than at a distance. The search continues!
        1. An actual infinite cannot exist (metaphysical AXIOM)
        2. An infinite temporal regress of physical events is an actual infinite (DEMONSTRATIVELY true tautology)
        C. An infinite temporal regress of physical events cannot exist. (A TRUTH ABOUT THE WORLD!)

        Wow! Look! I did it again! I GENERATED a truth about the world from a metaphysical axiom! That was soooo hard. Does it end there! 1 is a universal generalization: it can be re-phrased - All those collections of things that are actually infinite are included in those things that cannot exist. This is KNOWN via a priori intuition pumped by the metaphysical methodologies of conceptual analysis and thought-experiments [USED IN SCIENCE AS WELL! - Newton's Bucket Argument, Einstein's Train and Elevator Thought-Experiments, etc . . . ]. Conceptual analysis goes into what an actual infinite is [hint: don't ask the moron Shunyadragon], what a 'physical event' is, what 'existence' is, why the universe is a species of a collection of physical events, etc. Because a physical event is measured as a change in space/time, and all changes take time (so no instantaneous events), any of these events are going to have finite, nonzero duration according to the relation earlier than, it follows that if the universe had a beginning, then there was, in the past, an event that occupied a nonzero, finite temporal interval that was the VERY FIRST event, where NO OTHER equal interval came before it. Now, you have the thought-experiments: Hilbert's Hotel, books with a countably infinite collection of pages whose width is halved with each subsequent page (could you turn the book over?), libraries with infinite collections, etc . . . Absurdities stack upon absurdities and you end up with a STRONGLY SUPPORTED a priori intuition that premise one is probably, metaphysically impossible, and that its denial is way more implausible than its affirmation. The second premise is easy: if the series of past events went were infinite, then, since today has arrived, an actual infinite series of events have elapsed, and all the absurdities from the thought-experiments would APPLY TO IT! Thus, IN PRINCIPLE, such an infinite series of past events CANNOT have occurred.

        Conclusion: The universe has a cause. ---- Follows necessarily. Mic drop. A truth generated about reality (which you won't define), and NO REASON you can give can overturn that without overturning the very explanatory methodologies used in sectors of science used all the darn time that are completely rational and knowledge-conducive.

        Aristotle was the father of metaphysics and yet nearly every metaphysical argument and conclusion he made about the physical universe was wrong; metaphysics cannot, generate new truths. Whatever “progress in metaphysics” there may have been cannot get around this indisputable fact.
        Your favorite whipping-boy, Aristotle, is not the only metaphysician that has ever lived, and the logical applications of his methodologies aren't the only applications that have ever been made in the history of science and theoretical investigation. You don't mention examples, but I'm sure you'll mention crap like his views of women, the propriety of slavery, that eels don't reproduce, THAT THE WORLD WAS ETERNAL!, his geocentrism, how bees reproduce, how men have more teeth than women, heavier objects fall faster than light objects, insects are formed spontaneously from the mud, the physical heart is responsible for reasoning, the brain's function is to cool the blood, that we only five senses, that plants are sexless, his views on inertia, that there's only 7 heavenly bodies and that outer space only consists of 54 spheres, his disagreement with any sort of atomism, blah, blah, blah, as if metaphysicians WORKING TODAY aren't aware of all this, and haven't advanced from the primitive applications of methodologies used by him!! Give me examples from metaphysicians working TODAY or, at least, from the contemporary or modern scene that have goofed as badly as Aristotle! Waiting . . .

        Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. That Aristotle got it right occasionally was more accident than methodology.
        Really? What was bad about Aristotle's methodology regarding the nature of violent and natural motion, his deduction of circular orbits from the observational limits of Ptolemy's model, his analysis of buoyancy from the prevailing theories of viscosity and its relation to mass, his deductions of the terminal velocity of an object that it is inversely proportional to the square root of the density of the medium (that terminal velocity is proportional to the square root of the weight divided by the density) depending on the shape of an object? Sure, Aristotle's physics have been largely overturned; but HOW was Aristotle's methodology an issue? Aristotle's physics was THE BEST methodological application of the data at the time, and it took a freaking Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton to overturn it. Even his overturned theories regarding terminal velocity and its relation to the density of the medium SEEM CORRECT on the ASSUMPTION that such a medium is permeated by his theoretical interpretation of air/water. So, even though HE IS WRONG about a lot, he's wrong in the same way that Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and even Einstein [his was wrong regarding his spook-action-at-a-distance hypothesis to demonstrate the absurdity of quantum entanglement] was. And the INTERFACE regarding the nature of their error ONLY happens at that POINT where the ontological scope of their metaphysical theorizing became too wide, and physics corrected; but THIS DOES NOTHING to show that the a model of integration cannot be constructed in which the scope of physics and metaphysics has SPECIFIC boundary conditions and constraints wherein that CANNOT pose explanatory restrictions on the other. For instance, physics is deaf, dumb, and blind on the metaphysical principle of teleology and final causation; a refutation of the existence of such categories is a COMPLETELY metaphysical undertaking. They are COMPLETELY compatible with ANY POSSIBLE future model that physics proposes to construct. And any naive appeal to 'falsification' COMPLETELY IGNORES how Popper's notion has been completely trounced as an all-encompassing criterion to distinguish true from false science.

        Modal Logic has nothing to do with this discussion; it’s based on, situations which need not be actual...it’s merely just another of your diversionary tactics.
        You SPECIFICALLY stated: "It can only reformulate the truths contained in our existing models, theories and laws." CAN is a modal term, dolt. I can't help that you aren't vigilant and careful in the way you indiscriminately and clumsily throw around nomenclature whose usages are cemented in the scholastic canon on the issues. You're a dumb novice. I wouldn't expect anything more.

        "SITUATIONS THAT NEED NOT BE ACTUAL" ---- HMMMM. This is COUNTER-factual, which has to do with POSSIBILITY, which has to do with THAT WHICH IS NOT a property of the actual world, which is MODAL property, you ignorant twit.

        "A scientific theory is a synthesis of well-tested and verified hypotheses about some aspect of the world around us. When a scientific hypothesis has been confirmed repeatedly by experiment, it may become known as a scientific law or scientific principle. Such models make predictions which can be either verified or falsified".

        http://aether.lbl.gov/www/classes/p10/theory.html


        A PHYSICS class! Yes, Tass, dolt. They're going to use a general, working definition of science for practical purposes so as to set a practical foundation for the practice of physics generally. They ARE NOT going to discuss the raging debates in philosophy of science (or philosophy of physics, for that matter) regarding the HUGE controversies swirling around what science is, what a theory is, what it is to be well-tested, what a test is, what verification is, what falsification is, what a hypothesis is, what confirmation is, what an experiment is, what it can show, how it is underdetermined by data, what a law is, what the different explanations of law there are, what a model is, whether models are needed, whether predictions are necessary or sufficient for hypothesis or theory acceptance, and on and on and on. And the answer is simple. THEY DON'T NEED TO ANALYZE ANY OF THIS to PRACTICE science or physics or whatever. But then they don't shut the heck up about why metaphysics can't use the SAME or SIMILAR methodological principles to investigate, explain, and, yes, generate new truths about reality whose explanatory scope will be, in principle, INCAPABLE of conflict with scientific progress, since the scope of scientific methodologies are INCAPABLE of using their models of explanation to come anywhere near refuting it; their domains of inquiry are just on two different planes of explanation. The mode explanation will sometimes overlap in terms of the theoretical entities/processes postulated, and this will only imply that, on a case-by-case basis, we'll need to see how to resolve the conceptual problem. This DOESN'T mean metaphysics is always wrong (e.g. an actual infinite, etc . . .), or that physics will always be right (the history of science is a morass of ever-developing and even of discarding of a multitude of methods and paradigm-shifts).

        I'll ignore the rest of your blather. Like I said, because you won't take the time to read or directly respond to anything I've written [and you'll probably quote the whole post and repeat your stale mantras like nothing was ever said, and because you can't answer it, accuse it of distracting or obfuscating diversionary tactics], I'm not even really talking to you anymore, but to the open-minded people in the thread.
        Last edited by mattbballman31; 03-07-2018, 07:41 PM.
        Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
        George Horne

        Comment


        • Originally posted by 37818 View Post
          You suppose the universe is possibly eternal. How do you define the term "universe?"
          It is possible to define the possibility of an eternal "universe" in two ways. The first is to consider the "universe" as the physical existence that includes our universe and all possible universes and multiverses are possibly eternal, and the beginning of our universe in the Big Bang hypothesis, is one of an infinite number of universes. The second is the possibility that our universe is cyclic or originated as black hole, and both of these hypothesis are considered considered possible.
          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            It is possible to define the possibility of an eternal "universe" in two ways. The first is to consider the "universe" as the physical existence that includes our universe and all possible universes and multiverses are possibly eternal, and the beginning of our universe in the Big Bang hypothesis, is one of an infinite number of universes. The second is the possibility that our universe is cyclic or originated as black hole, and both of these hypothesis are considered considered possible.
            Do you just pull this stuff out of your back-end? Don't you want to progress beyond your trite, disgustingly simple analyses of complex issues? Will you ever wake up and discover that you're ideas are a jumbled school of blind fish?

            First, 'eternal' isn't defined. Past-eternal? Future-eternal? BOTH are against the cosmological evidence.
            Second, even your vocabulary is sloppy and soaked with hopeless generalities. The possibility of an eternal universe? Possibility? Huh? Nothing is defined. Nothing is precise. One can't progress in dialogue with you. Your slippery, conniving method of communication bespeaks a disorganized and stunted mind. What KIND of possibility? What on earth are you talking about? How does this move the discussion forward? You know what else is possible? A string of fairies, hands interlocked, orbiting around all the red dwarfs in every odd-numbered galaxy in every second galactic quadrant in every galaxy, doing the "macarena" with rainbow-colored kilts. Wow. Cool. So interesting. It's possible!

            Possibility is nothing but the thin veneer of a necessary condition for the methods of theoretical physics to even get started in attempting to confirm the reality, not to mention the probability, of such a fairy-tale thesis of a past-eternal multi-verse, let alone a solitary universe. There is absolutely no cosmological evidence of a multi-verse. None. Zilch. The past-eternality is our universe, let alone a multiverse, is completely out of the question ever since the BVG theorem pretty much made it disappear over night.

            The only kind of eternality left on the table is Guth's eternal inflation, which needs mechanisms that have NEVER been confirmed or verified. Your mania for verification, I guess, only applies when the supernatural is on the table; but when it helps your pet theories, insecurities, biases, and prejudices, I guess treat methodology like a darn safety-blanket, and wish-fulfillment, cognitive dysfunction like an old, used pacifier. NO ONE CARES WHAT'S POSSIBLE in theoretical physics, ultimately. A cyclic universe is against so much cosmological evidence that I almost had milk coming out of my nose I was laughing so hard. Ever heard of cosmological eschatology? That probably wasn't discussed in the coloring books you peruse, or maybe it wasn't caught by that uncritical filter you have bolted onto that ideological fishing net you use like a goofy twat in your sorry excuse for a waterlogged canoe, where those block-quotes you try to catch are nothing but the drippy, moldy remnants of mistranslated and misapplied piffle that critical minds snicker at, due to the heedless fatuousness with which the subject-matter is clownishly handled.

            But keep it going! See if I care! Spend your whole life in the dark. Be a rotten turkey no one will remember. Actually, I bet a lot of people on here will remember you for being the mouth-breathing schlemiel you always were on these threads.

            AND ONE AMEN FROM WORLD-CLASS SCHOLAR, Dr. Dumbo Tassman. Must be so proud!
            Last edited by mattbballman31; 03-07-2018, 10:28 PM.
            Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
            George Horne

            Comment


            • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
              Okay, I'm done attempting to teach you anything. Time to reduce your ignorance to ashes.





              Here's an argument relevant to the thread!
              1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause (metaphysical premise).
              2. The universe began to exist (physical premise).
              C. Therefore, the universe has a cause (physical conclusion).

              Here’s where you go wrong: The first premise is an assumption, a classic Argument from Ignorance. It cannot be shown to be true in any meaningful sense therefore the conclusion cannot be shown to be true in any meaningful sense. The premises of a metaphysical argument cannot treated like a scientific hypothesis because, unlike science, metaphysics has no mechanism to test the truth of the hypothesis nor can the hypothesis be falsified.

              The rest of your crap is self-justifying bluster. I’ll leave it up to you to splutter out your inevitable, interminable objections. I’m done with your intellectually dishonest self-serving agenda of insulting people for Jesus.
              “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                Here’s where you go wrong: The first premise is an assumption, a classic Argument from Ignorance.
                QUOTE ME FROM ANY LOGIC WEBSITE, or ANY LOGIC TEXTBOOK, how on this blue globe this is an argument from ignorance. YOU DON'T WHAT IT IS!!!

                It cannot be shown to be true in any meaningful sense therefore the conclusion cannot be shown to be true in any meaningful sense.
                I SHOWED it in the last post, Tass. You're just a lazy loser with your super-soaker, sound-bite gun. I SHOWED it, plain and simple. The method of showing is distinct from the kind of showing used in scientific methodologies, and completely in accord with the way universal generalizations work in deductive-nomological models of explanation. YOU HAVE NO RESPONSE TO THIS. You're pathetic.

                The premises of a metaphysical argument cannot treated like a scientific hypothesis because, unlike science, metaphysics has no mechanism to test the truth of the hypothesis nor can the hypothesis be falsified.
                ALREADY ADDRESSED THIS STUPID, IGNORANT talking point. It DOES have a mechanism, and these mechanisms are completely in accord with the non-scientific methodologies governing the formulation of universal generalizations in all ways of going about utilizing the nomological model of explanation. It's the same methodological strategy. I do this for a living, Tass. You're just a pathetic dolt.

                The rest of your crap is self-justifying bluster. I’ll leave it up to you to splutter out your inevitable, interminable objections. I’m done with your intellectually dishonest self-serving agenda of insulting people for Jesus.
                Fine! See ya! Wouldn't wanna be ya! You're just a lazy idiot that is so used to your baseless, surface-level crap, that when someone comes along, THAT ACTUALLY KNOWS THIS STUFF, DOES IT FOR A LIVING, has CREDENTIALED DEGREES in the area, to challenge you on your stupid crap, you have nothing left! Guys like you have been around forever, and it's just pathetically sad that you don't have the second-order capacity to notice your own cognitive dissonance. I'm a post-graduate student studying the philosophy of science/physics, Tass. But because I know pseudo-intellectuals when I see one, there's nowhere for you to go, since you're so used to picking on religiously-minded people that haven't had the leisure or time to call you out on your bullcrap.
                Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                George Horne

                Comment


                • Originally posted by 37818 View Post
                  Metaphysics at its best can be used as a tool to discover non-physical truths. At its worst, proposes non sense. Only what is true is valid. The issue then is what methodology for testing metaphysical truth claims can be used?
                  Unlike science, there is no method for testing the truth of metaphysical claims.

                  There are two possibilities: 1) All current causes are from an infinite secession of causes where there were never any first cause. 2) A unique origin of for all causes.

                  In common theology the first is disallowed.

                  Premise 1) There was never nothing.
                  Premise 2) There is uncaused existence.
                  The question: The origin or non origin of causes.
                  Through modern physics, natural phenomena have been discovered whose causes have not yet been discerned or are non-existent. The best known example is radioactive decay.

                  Another counterexample is the spontaneous generation of virtual particles, which randomly appear even in complete vacuum. These particles are responsible for the Casimir effect and Hawking radiation.

                  Furthermore, just because most things within the universe require a cause, does not necessarily mean that the universe itself requires a cause; it may be eternal and infinite. Modern science is heading in this direction.
                  “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                    Unlike science, there is no method for testing the truth of metaphysical claims.
                    There's that darn super-soaker! It's fizzing out misty, drizzling, brown-colored acid-water at this point. Yes, there is. Already showed you, you lazy moron. Testing is left undefined. And the typical way it's used in the scientific community in terms of 'testability' is neither necessary nor sufficient for an activity to qualify as science. In one ear, through a wasteland of hallow stench, and out the other.

                    Through modern physics, natural phenomena have been discovered whose causes have not yet been discerned or are non-existent. The best known example is radioactive decay.
                    There's no CAUSE OF RADIOACTIVE DECAY? Are you freaking serious? And how the heck is this even relevant? Did you copy/paste this from your idiotic rebuttal-Google-doc?

                    Another counterexample is the spontaneous generation of virtual particles, which randomly appear even in complete vacuum. These particles are responsible for the Casimir effect and Hawking radiation.
                    ALL THIS DOES IS undermine classical, efficient causality, and does ABSOLUTELY nothing to undermine the maxim that being can't come from non-being. Completely off the mark, per usual.

                    Furthermore, just because most things within the universe require a cause, does not necessarily mean that the universe itself requires a cause; it may be eternal and infinite. Modern science is heading in this direction.
                    Addressed this already in my post you ignored. Being a metaphysical principle, which can be substantiated and shown using the methodologies I already explained to you in the post you ignored, the principle can be shown to be likely and more plausible than its denial using the same methodologies used to support any universal generalization in the nomological models of explanation. Modern science is MOST DEFINITELY not heading in this direction, AT ALL. Fairy-tale physics might be toying with it, but there's ABSOLUTELY NO COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE AT ALL that goes to support a past-eternal or future-eternal universe or multi-verse. It's just not there.

                    You can ignore it. You can fake like it hasn't been said, you cowardly liar. But there's only one side to every fact. So, go run and hide like the coward you are and PRETEND like this stuff hasn't been addressed.
                    Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                    George Horne

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                      I’ll leave it up to you to splutter out your inevitable, interminable objections. I’m done with your intellectually dishonest self-serving agenda of insulting people for Jesus.
                      And on this stupid commentary. Awwwww. Is little Tassy-wassy getting his feeeling hurt because Christians don't swallow down his ignorant ranting on stuff he knows nothing about. Oh, I'll show those Christians . . . . I'm not gonna listen to reason and logic because the Christians are just meeeaaaan to me. Oh, grow the heck up, ya big baby. You obviously have a huge, continental chip on your shoulder, and any semblance of objectivity has gone down the toilet, lost in the vast, labyrinth of a plumbing system that's your screwed up subconscious. You're on that absurd new-atheism bandwagon, where Dawkins calls on atheist to ridicule Christians and simultaneously laying down the hypocritical double-standard of Christians just needing to take it on the chin and put up with your bullying tactics. Go take a walk, and kick a can down the road, you sensitive little wuss.
                      Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                      George Horne

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                        QUOTE ME FROM ANY LOGIC WEBSITE, or ANY LOGIC TEXTBOOK,
                        Look it up yourself, you lazy sod. The Argument from Ignorance is a logical fallacy that claims the truth of a premise is based on the fact that it has not (yet) been proven false...as per the premise for the WLC’s Kalam Cosmological Argument as previously presented by you.
                        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                          Testing is left undefined.
                          So “testing is left undefined” in establishing the premise of a metaphysical deductive argument. Seriously!

                          IOW it’s an assumption which cannot be established as ‘true’; therefore neither can its conclusion be established as true.
                          “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                            And on this stupid commentary. Awwwww. Is little Tassy-wassy getting his feeeling hurt because Christians don't swallow down his ignorant ranting on stuff he knows nothing about. Oh, I'll show those Christians . . . . I'm not gonna listen to reason and logic because the Christians are just meeeaaaan to me. Oh, grow the heck up, ya big baby. You obviously have a huge, continental chip on your shoulder, and any semblance of objectivity has gone down the toilet, lost in the vast, labyrinth of a plumbing system that's your screwed up subconscious. You're on that absurd new-atheism bandwagon, where Dawkins calls on atheist to ridicule Christians and simultaneously laying down the hypocritical double-standard of Christians just needing to take it on the chin and put up with your bullying tactics. Go take a walk, and kick a can down the road, you sensitive little wuss.
                            Hi Lil Pix, I thought it was you. I think we'll end this nonsense right now.
                            “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                            Comment


                            • You're so entangled in the tar of your own stupidity, it's actually hilarious to watch you become a meme.

                              Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                              Look it up yourself, you lazy sod. The Argument from Ignorance is a logical fallacy that claims the truth of a premise is based on the fact that it has not (yet) been proven false...as per the premise for the WLC’s Kalam Cosmological Argument as previously presented by you.
                              I KNOW what it is, you retarded dolt. Nice selective quoting, dishonest child. I asked you to SHOW (your favorite teddy-bear word you cuddle with every night with your new-atheism-security-blanket) that the first premise commits the fallacy. And you don't. Of course. Like clockwork. I presented reasons for it, and gave you a standard of demonstration in accordance with every, single universal generalization as treated in a nomological model of explanation. You ignored it, because you're a sad, disgustingly pathetic deceiver.

                              So “testing is left undefined” in establishing the premise of a metaphysical deductive argument. Seriously!
                              Decontextualized fake news, liar. I said YOU left the subject (a very complicated one) of what "testing" consists in undefined. If it's in accordance with the normal way universal generalizations are substantiated in the deductive-nomological version of explanation, which is a kind of covering-law model of explanation, then it's fine. And it is. The first premise breaks none of these methodological rules, which I already said, and which you ignored, because you're a disgusting, lying deceiver.

                              IOW it’s an assumption which cannot be established as ‘true’; therefore neither can its conclusion be established as true.
                              Nope, you're an ignorant, lying deceiver. It's not JUST an assumption, it's a self-evident universal generalization constantly confirmed in experience KNOWN via a priori intuition, a legitimate source of knowledge. I'll quote myself, which you'll ignore:

                              1 CANNOT be demonstratively proven or SHOWN (as you like to say). It can be rendered more probable or plausible than its denial. That's it. The SAME EXACT RULES APPLY to premise 1 in Kalam. BOTH premises are known a priori. Each NEW and our PAST experiences render it more and more probable, and its denial less and less plausible. But the generalization CAN'T BE SHOWN with DEMONSTRATIVE CERTAINTY, which DOESN'T MEAN we can't KNOW IT, or have GREAT REASONS for believing it. IF YOU THINK this stupid shown-point does ANYTHING to metaphysical arguments that have these so-called AXIOMS for premises, this would apply to EVERY, SINGLE deductive/nomological version of the covering-law or inferential model of explanation used by theoretical and experimental physicists EVERY, SINGLE day. Good luck with that one!


                              Hi Lil Pix, I thought it was you. I think we'll end this nonsense right now.

                              DESPERATE TASS THINKS I'M A SOCK-PUPPET!!!!!!! What a freaking loser . . . He's running out of places to hide!!!
                              Last edited by mattbballman31; 03-08-2018, 02:53 AM.
                              Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                              George Horne

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post



                                Decontextualized fake news, liar. I said YOU left the subject (a very complicated one) of what "testing" consists in undefined. If it's in accordance with the normal way universal generalizations are substantiated in the deductive-nomological version of explanation, which is a kind of covering-law model of explanation, then it's fine. And it is. The first premise breaks none of these methodological rules, which I already said, and which you ignored, because you're a disgusting, lying deceiver.



                                Nope, you're an ignorant, lying deceiver. It's not JUST an assumption, it's a self-evident universal generalization constantly confirmed in experience KNOWN via a priori intuition, a legitimate source of knowledge. I'll quote myself, which you'll ignore.
                                It’s an axiom, i.e.

                                1. A self-evident truth that requires no proof.
                                2. A universally accepted principle or rule.

                                IOW: it’s an assumption, regardless of accepted practice. Axioms are assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from them. But they remain “assumptions” nevertheless and by definition unproven. Hence the conclusions of an axiomatic-based argument cannot be proven and may well be wrong...as Aristotle found out.

                                Have a nice day. I’m off. Oh, and don’t forget your meds.
                                “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                                Comment

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