h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You are correct in that I forgot to mention that my post refers to the God of theism (Islam, Christianity, Judaism).

However, I say it can this argument can be used to prove that at least a personal, creator God exists. There are other arguments to demonstrate that it makes sense to suppose that this God has other qualities such as omnipotence etc.

OK. I haven't given the details of the argument. Do you dispute that the universe had a beginning? I can supply the argument against you. Ditto for its having a cause and that cause being a personal one.

As to why creationists say what they say; misinterpretation of the bible for the most part, I guess.

No one can ever prove that the universe had a beginning, they can put forward a theory support the theory with evidence but it is still a theory.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Right. Okay. *rolls up sleeves and chuckles sinister chuckle* Time for some of Noggin's metaphysical deconstruction.

The Ontological Argument.
Anselm's argument contains an unstated major premise. Viz: "There exists at least one entity capable of having conceptions." From this we derive "Something exists." And from this we derive "There exists an entity that is the sum total of everything that exists." This is the Universe, whose existence we have now conclusively proved. Nothing exists that is greater than everything.
Perfection: Can we actually talk meaningfully about perfection in the abstract, with no reference to a particular something? Are we talking about a perfect God, or a perfect universe? How are these to be contrasted with an imperfect God or Universe? What standard is being applied?

Necessary additional premise: Our understanding of time is the only one possible. (If God exists outside of time this additional premise must be untrue.) On current understanding the HISTORY of the universe had a beginning, as can be deduced from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but nothing can be deduced for the Universe itself.

A primary task of any metaphysics (including theological metaphysics) is to set the limits of its own application. All possibility of knowledge of God lies outside these limits (Kant). Of what we cannot speak we should keep silent (Wittgenstein).

Noggin

Noggin, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2135779.stm or http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992572 then http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/u/jjkay/pubs/Life_as/text.html




Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Fascinating, Alji, I just had a look! Thanks.

< Necessary additional premise: Our understanding of time is the only one possible. (If God exists outside of time this additional premise must be untrue.) On current understanding the HISTORY of the universe had a beginning, as can be deduced from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but nothing can be deduced for the Universe itself. >>

Sorry, maybe I am just not intelligent enough for philosophy, but I don't understand how God being outside of time means the universe didn't necessarily have a beginning... God is not the universe (though Buddhists may disagree.)

God being outside of time means that our way of experiencing time is not the only one objectively possible. Beginnings refer to our way of looking at time, and may not be meaningful outside of that. Is that clearer?

Noggin


Off to check out Alji's links

Yes, thanks, I understand what you mean... I shall think about whether I agree...

Actually, I'd say that while our way of experiencing time is not the only one objectively possible, it *is* the only one possible to us here and now (though I think a good case can be made for people occasionally experiencing precognition etc. Tho' that's another argument no doubt..)

True, you can't ever prove anything with evidence, because there is always a chance that more evidence will be found which contradicts the original evidence base. However, in maths and logic conclusive proofs are possible. Philosophy lies in between, I think. Anyway, here's my take on why the universe must have had a beginning.

Currently we are at a time we call 'now' which is not itself the beginning (if there was one). Up until now, time has elapsed at a finite rate. If we were to trace time backwards, and however far we went there was no sign of a beginning, we would have to say that the universe is infinitely old. But time actually runs the other way, so however far we had come, we could never have reached 'now'. But we have reached 'now', which falsifies the assumption that the universe is infinitely old. Therefore the universe had a beginning some finite length of time in the past.

As you doubtless know, the evidence points to an age for the universe of something like fifteen billion years give or take a few bill! Both pure reason and evidence therefore point to a universe of finite age. Therefore, it would just be perverse to believe otherwise (in the light of current knowledge and thinking, anyway). And that is why we should accept the first alternative of the Kalam's first disjunction.

I think you get straight to a major philosophical point: is there a better way of thinking about time that we don't or can't achieve? Well we can think about what it is like for God to exist outside of time. I could give you an analogy that I've nicked from Swinburne if you like We also conventionally say that the universe exists in time (or would you want to question that?). This being so, our 'inside time' way of thinking is going to be right for the universe. If there is some other, better way that we don't know and can't do, then you're just giving up on the question - not answering it!

If the HISTORY of the universe had a beginning but the universe itself did not, then I think you are you are using the word 'history' in a rather odd way. As far as I am concerned, my history begins at the moment of my conception - and so do I. How can this be different for the universe? You raise some interesting points but, in the end, I don't think they even establish that the universe MIGHT not have had a beginning.

Hi Noggin. I would refer you to the substantive points I made in my reply to Della (saw her post first!).

Kant and Wittginstein seem not to help in answering these questions but merely to commend giving up. Your paraphrase of old Ludwig (give or take a few 'whereof's and 'thereof's) refers to 'sensations' I think rather than anything deeply metaphysical. Anyway, I prefer to go for it rather than just conclude that philosophy is impossible, and give up.

I shall accept the standard theist assumption that God is outside time. But since He created time and plonked the universe and us into it, it would seem that our way of thinking about it from within ought to do just fine (for things limited to the universe of course - how terribly constraining ).

When we get outside of time we don't have to worry about beginnings and ends, but the universe is not to be found there (ex hypothesi).

>the evidence points to an age for the universe of something like fifteen billion years give or take a few bill! Both pure reason and evidence therefore point to a universe of finite age.

9-Jul-2002 An analysis of 13.5 thousand million-year-old X-rays, captured by ESA's XMM-Newton satellite, has shown that either the Universe may be older than astronomers had thought or that mysterious, undiscovered 'iron factories' litter the early Universe.

An Australian-led team of astronomers has challenged conventional Big Bang theory by finding that large numbers of stars may be living unseen in the space between the galaxies.

http://exosci.com/news/147.html

If you believe eliptical galaxies could be fully formed 3,000,000,000
years after the Big Bang (see Hubble Deep Field in Infrared)

http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/32/content/9832ay.jpg

The red shift theory of distance relies on nothing happening to the energy of the photon over the 12 to 15 thousand, million years it and others have been traveling through space.


Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Thanks for the info. I am interested in astronomy/cosmology although I can't keep up with the latest stuff. However, for the purposes of the present argument, I only need to cite that the conventional scientific view is that the universe is of finite age.

At the moment they are jumping through hoops to get the Big Bang to fit.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

I don't doubt that they will succeed, one way or another. Maybe one or two of auxiliary assumptions will be tweaked a bit.

Posts 370/371: A history is, technically speaking, a narrative of events, and only by extension the events themselves.

Which is exactly what I've been saying. It's when we go beyond those limits that the trouble starts. To show why a question has no sense is not quite the same thing as declining to answer it.

It MAY turn out that we have to revise our history of the universe; if we have to revise it so drastically that our current philosophy becomes obsolete then so be it. We just have to start over.

Noggin

Not quite, but it's a good justification for not attempting to answer it.

I'm quite happy about revising things. We are, naturally, reluctant to abandon the more foundational beliefs.

Ah, philosophy.. it makes my teeth ache! But your proof makes perfect sense to me, Toxxin, and that is why I accept the first alternative of Kalam's first disjunction! (Aside, I'll admit, from just wanting to!)

Well then - on to the second disjunction. Who among us disagrees that everything that has a beginning has a cause?

Comments on the first and third disjunctions always wecome too.

Have you read the entry on Olbers' paradox? Follow up the reference at the end. It appears to require the big bang in order to explain why the night sky is dark!