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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29423 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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Or we could posit that there is an infinite, even if we cannot know it; or even that causality and time make no sense outside of our contingent environment, and that speaking of “what caused the universe” or “what came before the universe” is a category error in and of itself.

Even if we accept that there needs to be an explanation for existence — and any argument for this has been terribly, terribly far from convincing — it doesn’t explain why it needs a god; nor does it explain why a “changeless, fully actual thing” would be able to cause the universe to exist beyond “trust me bro”.

The one thing that I'm fairly certain of is that existence cannot be simply explained by an infinite casual chain. Lets say there was an infinite line of people, each has their hands by their side. They all have the command that when the person to the left of them raises their hands, they will raise their hand. If no one has their hands raised, then no one ever will raise their hands. It doesn't matter if they're standing in a circle. It doesn't matter how many infinities of people there are.

(Edit: This doesn't mean that there can't be a infinite causal chain, just that by itself it doesn't answer the question at hand.)

The question of "why something, instead of nothing?" does not rely on the universe having a beginning. It begins with the attempt to explain the existence of a single thing, here and now, that has the potential to be many other things, and going on from there.

You are trying to imagine a first hand raising but there wouldn't be a first hand, hands would just start raising backwards in time infinitely. These arguments about the impossibility of infinite are weird, we know of logicaly consistent definitions of infinte that are extremely counterintuitive (a segment can be divided by two indefinitely, there are as many even numbers as there are numbers). You can't just say "I can't imagine" and expect to be done with it. Maybe the problem is with the infinite, maybe the problem is your imagination.

I'm not saying "I can't imagine." I said, with the starting position of no contingent things, having an infinite amount of no contingent things does not equal a contingent thing. An infinite series of contingent things that don't exist cannot explain existence. That is what I said, that is what I meant.

Your example relies on a "brute fact:" at least one contingent thing exists. And that is an argument that some philosophers make! It may be true. It is a possible solution. The implications of accepting a "brute fact" haven't been fully unpacked yet but from what I understand it is a possible solution.

I see two possible solutions to the problem of existence: classical theism (at least one non-contingent thing exists) or acceptance of brute facts.

So you are making the argument from contingency not from motion? I don't think it matters much, I still think the dismissal of infinites in these types of arguments lack rigor: they were formulated during a period of time where the principle of non-existence of actual infinity was commonly accepted, but this is not the case anymore. Mathematics rutinely deals with actual infinity in a way that is consistent, so you have to justify why this particular actual infinity is impossible.

It doesn't seem you're responding to what I'm actually saying so I'm not sure what productive conversation can be had here. I'm not arguing from contingency or motion. I'm not even making an argument for God. I did not say a particular actual infinity of contingent things is impossible - in fact I explicitly said it's possible and how ("brute fact")!

These types of arguments feel totally disengaged from reality. It reminds me of ancient philosophers' endless attempts to define reality using words, and reason about the nature of words and concepts much more than about the nature of reality itself.

External reality exists and is a much more reliable source of information than attempts to reason from first principles.

This is especially true when what we know of reality contradicts these ideas of infinities. You cannot divide a line an infinite number of times. Even a line the length of the entire observable universe can only be divided 205.2 times before reaching 1 Plank Length, beyond which there is simply no smaller unit to divide the line into. Infinities are useful abstractions, but reality operates in discrete units.

This isn't true. You're thinking about Planck time, which is the smallest unit of time that can theoretically be measured.

In any case, that would constrain the lower bound of infinitesimals, but not large infinities; and there are countless other objections. Especially when it's even more true that attempting to reason to god via "something exists" is torturous, and the methods to link it to the Jewish storm god even more so. At least the atheistic abstract arguments in this vein are doing so because they are dealing with that level of abstraction (countering "something exists...therefore god")!

The argument of @OracleOutlook is (usually) an argument by necessity, "it is logically impossible that god does not exist because..."

Hm, I'm not sure about that. My understanding of plank lengths is that you can go smaller. There are things smaller than a plank length such as singularities, and there are distances measured using fractional plank lengths (otherwise basic geometry would break).

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