What part of "I give up" didn't you understand? I give up!

For just one example from our good friend mr wiki.

Good, because either way, it is an argument based on ignorance, and it is just a prefrence of which ignorant answer you prefer more.

You're talking about the lack of forces interacting between bits of matter. There can't really be gravity if there's no matter. That's not a change in anything. That's perfectly consistent with our understanding of physics.

Quick, he's down, kick him a few more times!

Here and here.




So, apparently, singularity or no singularity is important for your reasoning after all.


You're probably thinking about Higgs field, but it still doesn't say anything about 'before' Big Bang, or it's exact moment. It's all about 'after'.
Also, there is still no convincing enough evidence for its existance (yet, hopefully).

Actually, if you've read my posts, I have been using Occam's Razor. I believe that the external cause is demanded by Occam's Razor as the least complicated answer. All of the other theories require the suspension of the natural laws as we know them, which seems overly complicated. This theory requires only a dimension which we have not experienced - and, as I have repeated many times now, nothing outside of spacetime truly requires a cause, so the objection of "the cause must have a cause" is not valid. I have heard it many times, and it seems to be the primary answer of any atheists I have spoken with when discussing the Original Cause, but it is simply not a valid objection in this case since this theory explains it simply enough.

I am suggesting that I believe this theory requires the fewest elements of all of the theories, and so is demanded by Occam's Razor.

I don't actually have a 12-step plan against atheism, I am simply re-visiting the path I took to confirm my faith. It also will not result in accepting Jesus as savior. The best I am hoping for is to successfully defend this position:

Given all known possibilities, the most likely possibility is that there is an entity outside of spacetime who carefully designed the Universe, interacts with it throughout different points in time, cares personally for the entities within the universe, and sent his "son" Jesus Christ to save them.

I will be breaking that statement down into its parts, and attempting to defend why each part is more likely than the alternatives (i.e. this thread is addressing why I believe an entity outside of spacetime is likely), each building on the last. Next, I will begin a different thread to discuss why it is most likely that said entity carefully designed the universe and thus is "conscious" rather than an undefined force.



Interesting...apparently, there is not a clear agreement as to whether cause and effect can occur simultaneously. While the source you cited says it is impossible, there are several other books and articles that say otherwise, for example this book. A quick search will show a few other scholars who disagree, including Dr. Myles Brand, Dr. Baruch Brady, and Dr. Douglas Gasking. Unfortunately all of the articles which I could find require a paid subscription and I'm cheap, so I'll just post the names here for anyone who is interested to look them up.

Apparently the primary difference is whether people decide to accept the Hume-suggested theory of causality, or the theory suggested by Kant. It almost goes without saying that many physicists accept Hume's model, while the many philosophers accept Kant's. There doesn't seem to be any experimental evidence to support either one - nobody has been able to measure how much time it takes for this "information" to be passed on, so I would argue that it is a philosophical question and not a scientific question. It seems to depend primarily on how you wish to think about it philosophically.

There is an article that discusses the different theories of causality here: Causality.

I suppose since there is no experimental evidence either direction, the best I can say is that simultaneous causality can not be ruled out.

I think the statement "beings don't require a cause, but events require a cause" is quite cheesy. The universe could be a "being", not an event, if you choose to mangle linguistics that way. Defining an extratemporal force that has always existed as a being and not an event is quite slippery. You could justifiably do it the opposite way around.

I am also not convinced that events require a cause and beings don't. What's the justification for saying something like that? Every single other being requires a cause for its coming about in the first place.

Your theory includes two major elements: The Universe and some sort of supernatural First Cause. How is that less elements than the theory that includes just the Universe?

You may continue to abuse that long-deceased horse about the laws of physics "changing", but that just shows you don't understand physics. It's not a change in the laws; it's a change in the Universe's state. The Universe behaves differently in the Singularity than it does right now. Since what you are ultimately postulating is a big, intelligent, personal entity, I don't think it's more complex to propose an Universe with laws that can change according to situation. We know, for example, that time behaves differently if you accelerate too close to the speed of light. It's not at all untenable or "more complex" to say that gravity and the electromagnetic force behave differently in the singularity. It's not as if the forces changed; just that at the very extremes of existence, they're actually the same force acting in four different ways. You read the text on Wikipedia and took it to mean that somehow the way the Universe works changed. What Physicists actually claim is that, at certain energy levels and scales, the four forces are identical in orientation and strength - Thus they're "unfied." This is from high school mechanics, by the way. You know that when two forces push in the same direction, the effect can be expressed as a single force.


I know. I enjoy watching you wrestle with reality. I want to see the next part in your multi-part series about self-delusion.

Which is more plausible an event? Jesus was born with just Mary, or Jesus was born through Mary and Joseph.

With your logic, occam's razor follows that Jesus must have be born just based on Mary, because adding Joseph is adding elements. And there is no evidence to support the claim in either direction.

Total nonsense.

From stephen Hawkings:



and

From Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman

Quite the contrary, there is plenty of evidence for temporal causality (more, every occurence of causality we observe is temporal except the still unexplained QM behaviour) but not a single one for simultaneous causality. If you choose philosophical point of view over scientific one (which is backed up by evidence), you can't hold on to the idea that the theory you agree with is most likely.

@Daganev
We've been there already - since we can't apply physics to singularity, discussion about it seems to be moot.
I've never heard of peculiar movements, but it is not needed for them to have never met up, provided the spacetime expansion in the first phase of Big Bang was fast enough. And, afaik, it is still uncertain (no matter how weak that certainty would be) how fast it was.

Just because I know too few people check sources around here:

The link goes directly to the publication of "Philosophical Quarterly." It is peer reviewed by philosophers. The author, Michael Huemer, is a major proponent of a school of thought known as Phenomenal Conservatism, which basically teaches that you should trust your gut instinct. The article abstract says that all causes and effects are simultaneous--a fairly extreme and untypical claim which, judging by the medium, is not going to be supported by anything empirical.

Dr. Myles Brand is the director of the NCAA and has several degrees in philosophy, all from colleges either not known for their rigor in philosophy or programs I personally know have extremely bad programs in philosophy. Ohio State, lol. No background in physics. Lots of background in politics.

Dr. Baruch Brady deals with the social and legal implications of neuroscience. He also has no peer reviewed articles dealing with causation, even in terms of neuroscience. I'm going to call name dropping BS on this one.

Dr. Douglas Gasking is a philosopher who specializes in ontological disproofs of divinity. Aside from also not having a background in cosmology, he thinks you're delusional.

Carry on.

Though I'm not really sure what this has to do with cosmology, you can have instant cause and effect, can't you? If you have two quantum level particles with indeterminate but opposite states (say two quarks - one with spin up and one with spin down, but neither known), the act of measuring one will set the state of the other no matter how far away in the universe it is. There is no delay as some form of 'information transfer' happens, it is simultaneous.

That's why I keep making disclaimers about quantum mechanics, however the mechanism behind quantum entanglement has not been discovered yet. Maybe it's true that information is being transferred instantly even though they are separated, but there are also other theories, not all of which postulate breaking down locality.

EDIT
Also, first discoveries involving quantum entanglement 'shocked' physicists. Why would they be so surprised if there was other evidence for simultaneous causality?

One more thing, there have been experiments showing that in the quantum world events can depend on other events that occur in the future. Now, that surely breaks the law of causality no matter what definition you take. I'll try to dig it somewhere on the net tomorrow, I hope I remember it right.

@Shiri
I am not calling the Universe an event. I think we can agree, though, that the beginning of the universe is an event and not a being. The beginning of any entity is an event, and so the beginning of any entity requires a cause. I say every single other being requires a cause only in that every other being has a beginning. Beginnings require causes, beings do not. If there is an entity that never had a beginning (i.e. outside of spacetime) then it follows that it also does not require a cause.

Simple observation shows that entities do not require a cause in and of themselves. To make that case, we would have to come up with causes for all kinds of things. What causes this computer screen to remain in existence rather than disappearing? Every entity which exists would require a continual cause, rather than just a cause for its beginning.

@Verithrax


I know you are smarter than this, so I can only assume you are stringing me along. You are limiting your definition of element to only physical elements, when we both know that all aspects required for a theory to be true should be counted. In addition, you are ignoring the "sub-elements" which must be accepted for each theory - more specifically, Occam's Razor is weighted toward the status quo. Any element which is different than the status quo must be separated into its sub-elements and counted. So, for example, you might say "the Law of Causality did not apply in the beginning" as one element for your theory, and compare that to "the Law of Causality did apply in the beginning" as an element of my theory. However, since the application of the Law of Causality is the status quo, it is not that simple - your theory would have to include the assertions that there are some situations in which the laws of physics do not apply, and there are some situations in which the laws of logic do not apply.

All of that is a long, drawn-out explanation to point out that you are trying to play games. Let's stick to productive discussion!

I don't mean this offensively, but I'm beginning to wonder if you are reading my posts. Here are a few problems with your statements here:

1. There is no evidence for a Singularity. What you are suggesting is that the Laws of Physics did not apply at some point in time - not only in the "singularity" (for which there is no evidence), but also just afterwards.
2. I am not now postulating a big, intelligent, personal entity - I am postulating some external entity. This thread should be focused on that - do not bring your presuppositions about God or anything else to this thread. Your typical, tried-and-true atheist-vs-God arguments don't apply to this thread.
3. While it might be acceptable to say that the laws of Physics might be flexible closer to the beginning (in fact, I have made this case for gravity before), it is much more difficult to make the same case for the laws of logic. Causality is also a law of logic, which is not directly based on physical study.
4. The majority of what you say is related to electromagnetic force, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and gravity all being conceptualized as one underlying "force." I have no problem with any of this, and I don't even think this topic has come up so far in this thread. We are talking about Causality.



Your statement seems to show a bias that is hard to find even among the Christian community. I have heard many people criticize Christians for avoiding the evidence and sticking to their beliefs regardless what is under discussion. I find it interesting that you are so openly demonstrating the same bias, while at the same time claiming to pride yourself in empiricism.

@Kashim
You are again over-simplifying things. You say that "there is plenty of evidence for temporal causality," except that it is always an assumption based on what you want to believe. For example, I cited Newton's Third Law as an example of simultaneous causality. You could use the same thing and say "that's not simultaneous, it happened one after another." There is no experimental evidence to support either of us, we can each claim whichever we wish. I could say there are tons of examples of simultaneous causality, and list them all, then we could argue back and forth over whether it really is simultaneous or not. In the end, we will each just believe what we want to believe because there is no evidence to prove/disprove either side.




Yes, the link goes to a publication of "Philosophical Quarterly" - peer reviewed by philosophers. I also made the following statement in the same post, which explains why I quoted philosophers:



As for dropping names, perhaps you should do a bit more research before making accusations. All of those names came from this article which is arguing against simultaneous causality. He lists those people, among others, as his opponents - again, I do not have access to read the entirety of the article to find the specific references. It was sloppy scholarship on my behalf, I apologize for that. However, all of the people listed are philosophers who argue for simultaneous causality, if this article I linked (and other quick research I've done on the other names) is to be believed.

Again - I'm not talking about suspension of the laws of physics, let alone logic. Stop hammering the "The laws of physics were different in the big bang" key. It's not what I'm trying to argue at all. My point is, the laws of physics are by definition constant. The behaviour we observe from the Universe, though, is different from what would be observable in the event of a singularity. We're used to the four fundamental forces being basically independent and separate because we live in energy states and scales that allow for that. At some energy states and scales, the four fundamental forces all appear to act like a single force.

You, like a lot of scientific laypeople, are apparently incapable of separating models from "hard" definitions of reality.

Having established that I postulated no laws of physics that "changed" or anything of the sort, we can safely dismiss your misleading paragraph about physics. Upon which we have, of course, hit the snag of the Law of Causality. However, we have two options here:

I - The Law of Causality did not apply to the start of the Universe; the Universe "just exists."

II - The Law of Causality did not apply to the external agent that created the Universe; the External Agent "just exists."

Occam's Razor obviously removes the External Agent; after all, not only do you have to postulate external agency and the possibility of things existing outside the Universe, you have to postulate that the Law of Causality does not apply to that. This is patently absurd.

In the absence of positive, undeniable evidence for the completeness of the model of what we consider the Universe, I however don't claim the utter non-existence of things outside space as we know it - I just say that postulating such things is silly, and not useful for the development of models for the origin of the Universe.

I'm not suggesting that. Learn to read. Also, your whole thread is based on the premise of the Singularity; backpedaling is bad. Also, there IS evidence for the Big Bang.

What's the point of waiting, if I can clobber your silly notions before you even put them on the table?
They're not "flexible." They're the same, but leading to different behaviour at the macro level. Why is that so difficult for you to get into your head?

You still don't understand any of it. But yes, we're talking about causality. I wasn't the one who dragged quantum mechanics into the discussion.

Well, your little discussion game is rather entertaining. You're trying to build a logical case for the notion that a God killed his son (Who is also himself) to save us from our own sins, which he himself defined as sins, particularly one which we inherited because our ultimate ancestor (Metaphorically or literally) got tricked by a snake (With legs) into eating a non-specific bit of fruit. The idea is just silly.

That's the experiment I was talking about yesterday regarding quantum physics:
Delayed choice quantum eraser - whether backwards causality occurs or not is up to interpretation, as usual with QM.


Way I see it, to support the simultaneous causality you'd have to either reject relativity, accept singularity's existance, or depend on an unconfirmed theories.
Could you elaborate on that? You said earlier that you understand where I'm coming from, maybe I just fail to understand your point of view. What is your interpretation of SC (hah, no more spelling errors) based on physics, not philosophy? Please explain how Newton's Third Law can be considered an example of SC.

Perhaps I am just confused, but I do not see how relativity causes a problem. I can understand your perspective in that I see the point that the transmission of information requires time. However, it is arguable whether the transmission of information is always required in a cause-effect relationship. For example, in my previous example of the fish, a transfer of information takes place between the moment the fish flexes his muscles and the moment he begins pushing on the water. However, I do not see what further exchange of information is required between the moment he begins pushing on the water and the moment the water begins pushing back. We do not have the instruments to be able to measure this response to determine whether it is instantaneous (i.e. no more "information" is required for the water to respond) or it requires some time. At the moment the fish begins pushing on the water, the only information available is the information inherent in that fact - the fish is pushing on the water. If there are no further factors which affect the response of the water, then no further exchange of information needs to take place, and the effect can happen instantaneously (or, more specifically, simultaneously).