A universe without God.

[Flatworm]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Quantum waffle.

A primal-cause exhibits free-will. It has to, otherwise it cannot be the primal-cause of the effects it produces.

Again, this is not an argument, but an unsupported assertion. You are saying that a primal cause must have free will, because otherwise it could not be a primal cause. This is circular.

We're discussing the [potential] energy of a primal-cause here.

Isn't it pointless to discuss energy outside the context of the universe?

The flow of this energy (the yields of this energy), are determined by the primal-cause itself (being the sole cause of the effects).
Hence, the primal-cause has free-will, meaning that it has free (indeterminable) energy to act however it likes.

Once again, you are assigning free will to a primal cause, rather than giving any logical reason why a primal cause must have free will.

My post headed "quantum waffle", posted earlier today, explains how philosophy could have predicted the essential indeterminism of nature's energy/being long before science ever did. The existence of a God would necessitate that this be true.
Quantum mechanics is actually a proof that the energy of existence proceeds from a source with absolute free-will. Really, it is.

Sure it is, you just have to assume that the primal cause must have free will, then stick your fingers in your ears and hum loudly.

If you take away free-will from a primal-cause, then what else causes it to produce the effects it creates?

It doesn't have a cause- if it had a cause, it wouldn't be a primal cause, now would it?

Without free-will, you automatically transfer responsibility for the creation of the effects from the primal-cause to something else beyond its control. Reason cannot accept that something can be a primal-cause if it doesn't have absolute sovereignity over the effects that it produces. Taking away free-will takes away that sovereignity.

So this is the root of all this confusion- you are assuming that free will is a primal cause- not that a primal cause must have free will. Again, this is an assertion without support.

Time = change.

Not quite true. See General Relativity.

Something can exist before change (time) is
effected. Indeed, clearly, this must be the case: for change to occur, something must exist from whence it can occur.

Try to listen to what you're saying. How can there logically be a time before time began? If indeed time had a beginning, you cannot look beyond that and ask what caused it, or what was there before. There would be no "before".

I already did it in a manner which should suffice:

Perhaps for you. I require more than dogmatic assertions for me to accept your ideas as true.

If we apply reason to the term "primal cause"

I'm still waiting for you to apply reason to the concept of primal cause. Once you stop gracing us with absurdities such as "time before time", and "the cause of the first cause", and stop making assumptions and presenting them as logical deductions, we can start making progress in this discussion.

It's just a matter of deduction. A primal-cause has no external needs = no external abode = is not finite in nature = is essentially boundless.

My italics. Another assumption you make without support, because it fits your presuppositions about primal cause.

A primal-cause creates everything within it... thus we have an omnipresent cause. Being the sole cause of all effects, a primal-cause is also omnipotent.

An invalid argument, because it is not accepted as axiomatic that effects are necessarily contained within their cause, or that causes must endure as long as their effects do.

"There can be no yield or effect that is dependent upon the culmination of an infinite number of other effects that have no origin. This post, for example, cannot be the yield of an infinite number of past effects without an origin. Something must have instigated the primal-act of events which culminated with this post. Therefore, there is a primal-cause.

Please counter.

It is possible that the universe has undergone an infinite number of expansion/collapse cycles extending an infinite time in the past. There would therefore be no first cause, and your assertion that this scenario is impossible is completely
unsupported.

Edited for formatting

 

[Zero]

Why do you keep repeating this nonsense? Why don't you make your point in a manner which I can understand, and then I will respond.

You first.

 

[El Greco]

Flatworm, how do you do it ? I mean, do you take sedatives or something ? How can you remain so calm when you know that after two pages you will be asking the same questions and will be getting the same "answers" ?

 

[DarkMagician]

If that's the case, why does the universe proceed towards localised order through particles; atoms; stars; molecules/compounds; planets; galaxies; life itself? If the amount of entropy in a system always increases, then such progressive order should be impossible. Hence, can somebody explain to me how that statement of yours can be absolutely true. I'm not a physicist, so perhaps there's something I'm unaware of. But rationally-speaking, a universe which proceeds towards yielding localised order on a vast scale is not a universe which is always progressing towards maximum entropy.

What are you talking about?

From Frequently Encountered Criticisms in Evolution vs. Creationism 1.5

In the first place, the Big Bang is not a disordered explosion, but the smooth expansion of spacetime and almost perfectly uniform distribution of matter. In fact, the distribution of matter in the early universe was so uniform that until the results came in from the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer), cosmologists were hard-pressed to explain how this matter could eventually clump up into galaxies. COBE revealed very tiny irregularities that became the "seeds" around which galaxies formed by gravitation (Gribbin 1993). And herein lies the second problem with the creationist claim: systems like galaxies form by dissipating gravitational energy, thereby increasing the entropy of the universe. There is thus no contradiction with the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Just because you see a "violation" of the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't mean it's an actual violation.

Another sign you don't know a single thing you talk about.

Translated = the only way to increase the order in a system is to have a cause or force to effect that order. Is that what you mean?

One of the few things you've got right so far.

http://www.math.umd.edu/~lvrmr/History/Recurrence.html
snippet:
"If you play bridge long enough you will eventually be dealt any grand-slam hand, not once but several times. A similar thing is true for mechanical systems governed by Newton's laws, as the French mathematician Henri Poincare (1854-1912) showed with his recurrence theorem in 1890: if the system has a fixed total energy that restricts its dynamics to bounded subsets of its phase space, the system will eventually return as closely as you like to any given initial set of molecular positions and velocities. If the entropy is determined by these variables, then it must also return to its original value, so if it increases during one period of time it must decrease during another."

Note the highlighted parts. The theorem relates, apparently, to perceived matter with definite position in space and time.
So here's the first problem for you to address: it is known that no thing possesses absolutely definite form in spacetime. So, things that possess no definite form in spacetime will have a difficult time returning to their past states, since no such state actually existed, except within our perception. This realisation alone brings down your house of cards.

Huh?

You go off talking about perceptions. Why would there need to be a definite form to go back to past states?

Try playing Boggle. Seeing all of those dice roll in that container.
Do the positions of the dice have a definitive "form"? No.
Can the positions of the dice go back to a previous form? Yes.

What are you talking about? Are you implying that the changing order of a system occurs without a cause or force(s)?

This "game" you played took you into an offside position.

Let's grade your performance
9.0
1.0
1.0

In short, go "sleep with" yourself.

 

[Yahweh]

Lifegazer, a quick question:

What causes radioactive decay?


That was merely a leading question, but the answer is "nothing". Radioactive decay occurs spontaneously, it is a phenomena which is acausal.


And what causes vitual particles to pop into existence?

Quantum Fluctuations.

But then what causes those Quantum Fluctuations? The answer is "nothing", they occur spontaneously.

In quantum mechanics there are effects such as quantum tunneling, radioactive decay of an atom and the probability function collapse that might be considered acausal.

Keep in mind, Lifegazer, that you may in fact be right. There may have been a "primal-cause". However, you are very much begging the question by presupposing that primal-cause was supernatural.

 

[Dancing David]

If that's the case, why does the universe proceed towards localised order through particles; atoms; stars; molecules/compounds; planets; galaxies; life itself? If the amount of entropy in a system always increases, then such progressive order should be impossible. Hence, can somebody explain to me how that statement of yours can be absolutely true. I'm not a physicist, so perhaps there's something I'm unaware of. But rationally-speaking, a universe which proceeds towards yielding localised order on a vast scale is not a universe which is always progressing towards maximum entropy.

Well first off lets get something straight, just for your information which seems to be limited to trashing string theory (and how dare you presume god's right to play with string!), the universe starts off in this undifferentiated state where none of the 'things' exist because the universe is too small and hot for them to differentiate. So get the notion of Victorian Progress out of your mind.
Second any scale of complexity you look at comes at the expense of creating entropy. Which is self evident if you think about it. Take the phone system , a marvel of creating entropy, we take a concentrated element in the arths crust (copper) and spread it far and wide acreoos the face of the earth evenly dispersing it:entropy. At every stage in the creation of the phone system some ordered system is robbed of energy and disordered to create a smaller amount of order:entropy. The use of the phone system is through the use of the order to disorder energy again and just creates more:entropy.

When you eat a loaf of bread it is very ordered, but that is because you are not thinking of all the energy that was used and wasted to create that loaf of bread, like the growing plant, the fertilizer, the harvest, the processing the cooking, the shipping, each step requires that something ordered become disordered for the change to occur. the trick is that you always end of up with more total disorder in the end.


Translated = the only way to increase the order in a system is to have a cause or force to effect that order. Is that what you mean?

the only way to create order is to take the energy from someplace else and disorder something else to create the smaller order.


http://www.math.umd.edu/~lvrmr/History/Recurrence.html
snippet:
"If you play bridge long enough you will eventually be dealt any grand-slam hand, not once but several times. A similar thing is true for mechanical systems governed by Newton's laws, as the French mathematician Henri Poincare (1854-1912) showed with his recurrence theorem in 1890: if the system has a fixed total energy that restricts its dynamics to bounded subsets of its phase space, the system will eventually return as closely as you like to any given initial set of molecular positions and velocities. If the entropy is determined by these variables, then it must also return to its original value, so if it increases during one period of time it must decrease during another."


That relates to a closed system independant of the energy involved. It is likely that every molecule will return to it's original position in a jar of water. less likely that it will return to it's original position and velocity. And even less likely you would call that order.


Note the highlighted parts. The theorem relates, apparently, to perceived matter with definite position in space and time.
So here's the first problem for you to address: it is known that no thing possesses absolutely definite form in spacetime.

that is totaly dependant upon the scale.

So, things that possess no definite form in spacetime will have a difficult time returning to their past states, since no such state actually existed, except within our perception. This realisation alone brings down your house of cards.

No silly rabbit this realization is called entropy. You are such a goof.

What are you talking about? Are you implying that the changing order of a system occurs without a cause or force(s)?

the forces could come from a state of disordered imbalance.


This "game" you played took you into an offside position.

 

[Yahweh]

All effects have causes. A primal-cause is not an effect.
Let's get serious Zero. Stop playing games.
It is the things in our awareness, constituting material-perception, to which the argument applies that all such things, being effects, must have a primal-cause.

Effect: I am curious.

Cause: I dont know why my hand felt warm when I put it close to a rock.


Effect: I feel a slight warmth when I put my hand close to a rock.

Cause: This rock is spewing out alpha particles.


Effect: This rock is spewing out alpha particles.

Cause: The rock contains radioactive metals which are undergoing radioactive decay.


Effect: The rocks are undergoing radioactive decay.

Cause: ... ... ... ...

 

[lifegazer]

"A primal-cause exhibits free-will. It has to, otherwise it cannot be the primal-cause of the effects it produces."

Again, this is not an argument, but an unsupported assertion. You are saying that a primal cause must have free will, because otherwise it could not be a primal cause. This is circular.

It looks like I'll have to take the long route to explain this.
Let's examine our primal-cause, which I will label X. This "X" is assumed to exist so that I can show you why it would possess free-will. So:-
(1)X acts, producing the universe of changing effects (I will label this Y).
(2) X is the sole cause of Y. The creation of Y can only be attributed to X and to no other cause.
(3) X, therefore, possesses free-will. This is deducible from "(2)" since if X possesses no free-will, then other causes are invoked for the creation of the effects produced byX. Clearly, 'other causes' are not an option in relation to a primal-cause. Therefore, the conclusion holds true: X possesses free-will.

Isn't it pointless to discuss energy outside the context of the universe?

The actions of a primal-cause are an exhibition of its energy to effect those events. So no, it's not pointless to discuss the energy of a primal-cause.
Furthermore, since a primal-cause must be omnipresent, everything [perceived] within it must be essentially indeterminate anyway, as confirmed by QM, since everything would actually be a form created by the energy of a primal-cause.

"If you take away free-will from a primal-cause, then what else causes it to produce the effects it creates?"

It doesn't have a cause- if it had a cause, it would be a primal cause, now would it?

The primal-cause is the entity itself which effects everything. It is the primal-cause. The primal-act is the reason for the proceeding [perceived] effects of that primal-cause. The reason for the primal-act is to be found within the will of the primal-cause. I.e., to discover the reason for the primal-act, you would have to ask the primal-cause why it chose (via will) to effect things. The primal-act originates with will/choice.

So this is the root of all this confusion- you are assuming that free will is a primal cause- not that a primal cause must have free will. Again, this is an assertion without support.

Free-will is an attribute of the primal-cause and is the origin of the primal-act.

Try to listen to what you're saying. How can there logically be a time before time began?

X causes Y. X is not in time because X is not affected by time - Y is affected by time. Indeed, Y occurs within X = time occurs within X. X does not occur within time.

If indeed time had a beginning, you cannot look beyond that and ask what caused it, or what was there before. There would be no "before".

"Time" applies to Y - to the effects of time. It does not apply to the primal-cause of Y = it does not apply to X.

I'm still waiting for you to apply reason to the concept of primal cause. Once you stop gracing us with absurdities such as "time before time"

I have never used that term. It's yours. "Time" is just the changes which are occuring within Y. It has no other meaning beyond this... and certainly has no relevance to X.

, and "the cause of the first cause"

First-cause is God itself - the absolute-source of everything. The primal-cause is the reason for the primal-act, and this reason is to be found within the will of X. That's where the original decision was made, to instigate the origin of Y. From that will, came the primal-act which created Y.

"It's just a matter of deduction. A primal-cause has no external needs = no external abode = is not finite in nature = is essentially boundless."

My italics. Another assumption you make without support, because it fits your presuppositions about primal cause.

Those italics are deducible from the former sentences. If a primal-cause is not dependent upon external needs or influences, then there is no external-realm embracing/housing that primal-cause. Thus, the primal-cause is without bounds = not finite. A finite entity must be embraced by something else... To be real, 'nothing' cannot have extension around its surface. So, a finite entity is always embraced/housed by another realm. This cannot apply to a primal-cause = not finite.

"A primal-cause creates everything within it... thus we have an omnipresent cause. Being the sole cause of all effects, a primal-cause is also omnipotent."

An invalid argument, because it is not accepted as axiomatic that effects are necessarily contained within their cause, or that causes must endure as long as their effects do.

A primal-cause has no external abode. Therefore, everything which comes into effect, does so within it.
Whatever is the essence of all things must endure. Or else, the things themselves cannot have existence. God lives.

A primal-cause is existence. Any effects occuring within it are just 'forms' of that primal-cause.

It is possible that the universe has undergone an infinite number of expansion/collapse cycles extending an infinite time in the past. There would therefore be no first cause, and your assertion that this scenario is impossible is completely
unsupported.

By that reasoning, this post is the end-product of an infinity without origin. Clearly, the advocation of an end-product from an infinite-chain is absurd. There is no end to an infinity. Likewise, there is no origin. Infinity is a potential - not an actual/tangible reality.

 

[calladus]

Let's examine existence without God...

Without God, there is no primal-cause for existence. A primal-cause is, by definitive default, the only determining factor of existence. Such a cause has no external needs or influences in the creation of effects occuring within it. If we apply reason to the term "primal cause", it soon becomes apparent that we are in fact talking about God itself.
Hence, without God, there is no primal-cause within existence.

The absence of a primal-cause means that everything in existence is an effect. Who amongst you wants to defend this absurd position? I'll wait for rational responses. If none are forthcoming, I shall destroy the position anyway and show you that there is a primal-cause = there is a God.

So where did god come from?

 

[DarkMagician]

Re: Re: A universe without God.

So where did god come from?

I hate it when people only see the first post of a thread and just joins into the fray with a question that's been shot at them to death.

 

[lifegazer]

Lifegazer, a quick question:

What causes radioactive decay?

I have no idea.
However, if nothing causes radioactive decay, then radioactive decay wouldn't occur, would it?

That was merely a leading question, but the answer is "nothing". Radioactive decay occurs spontaneously, it is a phenomena which is acausal.

http://schoolsite.edex.net/323/science/html/radioactivity.html
snippet:
"The decay constant describes the proportion of atoms in the isotope which will disintegrate within a certain time period. It is impossible to predict which atoms will decay. However, it is easy to state with a high degree of precision, what proportion or fraction of them will decay.
Half life describes the amount of time it takes for the amount of a radioactive isotope to decay by a half. The strange thing is, is that no matter how much of the isotope exists at the start of the timing, it always takes the same amount of time for half of it to decay."

... evidence of imposed order. Hardly the work of "nothing".

 

[lifegazer]

Re: Re: Re: A universe without God.

I hate it when people only see the first post of a thread and just joins into the fray with a question that's been shot at them to death.

Guess what - we finally agree upon something.

Calladus, I answered this question on page 1:
"In this thread, I shall argue that an existence of effects requires a primal-cause = God.

Now, a primal-cause is acausal, by definitive default. Therefore, if a primal-cause exists, it is actually stupid to pursue your line of enquiry. No offense intended, but I must shock you out of the stupor you are in. You cannot ask where a primal-cause came from because the question only has relevance to an effect.
Do you and all the other skeptics in here understand this simple logic?"

 

[DarkMagician]

I have no idea.
However, if nothing causes radioactive decay, then radioactive decay wouldn't occur, would it?

http://schoolsite.edex.net/323/science/html/radioactivity.html
snippet:
"The decay constant describes the proportion of atoms in the isotope which will disintegrate within a certain time period. It is impossible to predict which atoms will decay. However, it is easy to state with a high degree of precision, what proportion or fraction of them will decay.
Half life describes the amount of time it takes for the amount of a radioactive isotope to decay by a half. The strange thing is, is that no matter how much of the isotope exists at the start of the timing, it always takes the same amount of time for half of it to decay."

... evidence of imposed order. Hardly the work of "nothing".

Then what caused the order?

You have only proved that half-life for radioactive materials exist. You haven't shown its real cause.

You assert that every "effect" has a cause. Then, you assert that an "effect" without an apparent cause must have one or otherwise it doesn't happen.

 

[DarkMagician]

Re: Re: Re: Re: A universe without God.

Guess what - we finally agree upon something.

Calladus, I answered this question poorly on page 1:

So much fixing, so little time.

 

[Yahweh]

I have no idea.
However, if nothing causes radioactive decay, then radioactive decay wouldn't occur, would it?

We observe radioactive decay, we know it occurs, so what in the hell is causing it?

http://schoolsite.edex.net/323/science/html/radioactivity.html
snippet:
"The decay constant describes the proportion of atoms in the isotope which will disintegrate within a certain time period. It is impossible to predict which atoms will decay. However, it is easy to state with a high degree of precision, what proportion or fraction of them will decay.
Half life describes the amount of time it takes for the amount of a radioactive isotope to decay by a half. The strange thing is, is that no matter how much of the isotope exists at the start of the timing, it always takes the same amount of time for half of it to decay."

I am unimpressed.

The rates associated with radioactive decay come as result of unstable arrangements of protons and neutrons. The more unstable the arrangement, the faster the decay is expected to occur. The instability between the strongforce holding together protons and neutrons and electrostatic forces repelling other protons is about as close to a "cause" as you will ever get, there are no immediate causes that account for radioactive decay.

Yet still, the decay itself occurs spontaneously.

It is vaguely reasonable to justify the rates of decay as being indirectly related to the arragement of the protons and neutrons of the neucleus, but the decay itself still remains acausal.


That was a quick chemistry lesson from Yahweh, do you have any objections?

... evidence of imposed order. Hardly the work of "nothing".

Your claim lacks any substance. It is nothing more than a subjective assertion.

 

[Yahweh]

Re: Re: Re: Re: A universe without God.

Guess what - we finally agree upon something.

Calladus, I answered this question on page 1:
"In this thread, I shall argue that an existence of effects requires a primal-cause = God.

Now, a primal-cause is acausal, by definitive default. Therefore, if a primal-cause exists, it is actually stupid to pursue your line of enquiry. No offense intended, but I must shock you out of the stupor you are in. You cannot ask where a primal-cause came from because the question only has relevance to an effect.
Do you and all the other skeptics in here understand this simple logic?"

Your logic begs the question.

You are implicitly assuming the primal cause is supernatural, the primal cause could very well be nothing more spectacular than quantum fluctuations or a virtual particle which happened to pop into existence as they do gallions of times a second.

 

[Iacchus]

Pure surmise and speculation as at this time they are unobservable.

Yep, something from nothing. This is the latest breaking scientific evidence, huh?

No thanks, I'd rather believe that something comes something else.

 

[RussDill]

Are you saying there had to be something there in the first place, or not?

Which of the two sounds more plausible? That something has always been there? Or, that everything arose out of nothing?

And what happens to cause and effect? Don't you believe in that?

who says the universe has not "always been there" and plus, which sounds more plausible, something with desires, intelligence, etc, a complex being, has always been there, or something random, formless, shapeless, etc, has always been there?

 

[RussDill]

In this thread, I shall argue that an existence of effects requires a primal-cause = God.

Now, a primal-cause is acausal, by definitive default. Therefore, if a primal-cause exists, it is actually stupid to pursue your line of enquiry. No offense intended, but I must shock you out of the stupor you are in. You cannot ask where a primal-cause came from because the question only has relevance to an effect.
Do you and all the other skeptics in here understand this simple logic?

sounds pretty circular to me. You make up a term called "primal cause" give some requirements to it, and then prove it by it's own definition that you created.

 

[RussDill]

Two words: ha ha.

Seriously, if you think quantum indeterminism gets you out of this hole, then you're in deep water my slippery friend.
Do you want to argue that quantum events are primal-causes, or what? Bring it on. I've heard it all before.

They are quite clearly, events without causes.