Materialists......

[MRC_Hans]

Yes, but this isn't actually an answer to the question. It is an I-O-U, promising an answer at some time in the future. The problem with this is that I don't believe it is possible to honour this particular I-O-U.

It's not an IOU, it is simply an acknowledgement that we do not know the answer, but that it may be knowable.

Science must accept that the existence of the Universe, as opposed to its potential non-existence, is a brute fact. It is not correct to say "we have yet to find an explanation".

Ehr, yes. Last time I looked, science did not refuse to accept the exisence of the universe.

No explanation is possible for the following reason: Nothing can come from Nothing.

Corrrection: We don't know if an explanation is possible. And strictly speaking, we don't know if nothing can come from nothing.

If one starts with absolutely nothing, and that means not even the potential for something, then nothing can ever follow it. It doesn't matter how long you try to find an explanation using empirical science - because what you are trying to do is work backwards to absolute nothingness.

1) As mentioned, we don't know for sure that nothing can come from nothing. It makes sense in the present state of the universe, but that doesn't mean is has to be an universal truth.

2) We don't know if the universe has to come from nothing. Once we get back to the big bang, our normal concepts of "being" cease to make sense, based as they are on time and space.

3) If we are to take your premises at face value, then they are fatal to ANY philosophy. According to them, the universe cannot exist in any way.

Yet, it appears to do so.

This doesn't look like a problem from the POV of materialistic science, because you see no reason why progress in the vague direction required is impossible. But it is a fatal problem if one takes into account the place you are trying to progress to.

There is no need to assume your opposition is unable to spot what's under their noses.

The only way to answer the question is to open the possibility of a reconception of nothingness, and any such reconception is going to end up being at least partly metaphysical in nature.

Metaphysical or not, is it something or nothing? Either way, from whence did it come?

Hans

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Corrrection: We don't know if an explanation is possible. And strictly speaking, we don't know if nothing can come from nothing.

Oh yes we do. It is a logical fact. You do not need empirical science to tell you that if there was absolutely nothing, including absolutely no potential for anything (i.e. absolute nothing instead of a "pregnant void") then nothing can follow it. Why do people have so much trouble grasping this most basic principle? You can say "We can't be sure" as many times as you like. It doesn't make it true. We can be 100% sure. Nothing comes from Nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

1) As mentioned, we don't know for sure that nothing can come from nothing.

Mentioned before, but completely wrong.

It makes sense in the present state of the universe, but that doesn't mean is has to be an universal truth.

It's got nothing to do with the present state of the Universe. It is indeed a universal truth.

2) We don't know if the universe has to come from nothing. Once we get back to the big bang, our normal concepts of "being" cease to make sense, based as they are on time and space.

Your normal concepts of "being", maybe.

3) If we are to take your premises at face value, then they are fatal to ANY philosophy. According to them, the universe cannot exist in any way.

No they aren't. How do they damage a philosophical position which denies that a state of absolute nothingness can ever have existed?

Metaphysical or not, is it something or nothing? Either way, from whence did it come?

The Universe? The question is not where it came from or when it came into existence. The question is how it manages to exist at all.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/#3.1

[notes added by Geoff]

1. A contingent being exists (a contingent being is such that if it exists, it can not-exist) [NOTE: This includes all the objects in the Universe, including us]

2. This contingent being has a cause or explanation of its existence.
The cause or explanation of its existence is something other than the contingent being itself. [NOTE: All contingent things must have a cause]

3. What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.

4. Contingent beings alone cannot cause or explain the existence of a contingent being.

5. Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.

6. Therefore, a necessary being (a being which, if it exists, cannot not exist) exists.

It must be further noted that sort of explanations which talk about "an unstable quantum singularity" as the origin of the Universe might just as well accept (6) without arguing, since they are already claiming the existence of something which is indistinguishable from a neccesary being - because such a singularity, if it exists, cannot not stop existing. This is what is meant by "neccesary". EDIT : In the above quote, "cause" does not mean "temporal cause". It means "logical cause" or "sustaining cause".

 

[DreadNiK]

That is no more than an admission that you cannot answer the question. This is satisfactory only to atheistic materialists who have little choice but to claim that there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing, and no reason why the Universe exists. It is at times like this that atheists/materialists really do need to think about how their position looks to other people, notably to philosophically-minded theists. You are quite clearly happy to say "Maybe there is no explanation for the existence of the Universe. Maybe there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing." But I hope you realise how weak and ineffectual this response looks to a person with no interest in defending materialism/atheism. I think the theist (or interested agnostic) has every right to consider it an inadequate response.

Not really. I wouldn't say materialists claim there is no reason, just that a) there is no evidence of a reason and that b) 'reason' is a human construct.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Oh yes we do. It is a logical fact. You do not need empirical science to tell you that if there was absolutely nothing, including absolutely no potential for anything (i.e. absolute nothing instead of a "pregnant void") then nothing can follow it. Why do people have so much trouble grasping this most basic principle? You can say "We can't be sure" as many times as you like. It doesn't make it true. We can be 100% sure. Nothing comes from Nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

To make your logic fit, you are already refining the definition of nothing to include "no potential for anything". However, neither our language nor our mind can really grasp such a concept. The idea of that kind of nothing is really a paradox, because it can obviously not exist, since it is per definition non-existent. Thus, we can short-circuit the whole argument and conclude that "something must exist".

How do they damage a philosophical position which denies that a state of absolute nothingness can ever have existed?

Which philosophy claims that a state of absolute nothingness must have existed?

It must be further noted that sort of explanations which talk about "an unstable quantum singularity" as the origin of the Universe might just as well accept (6) without arguing, since they are already claiming the existence of something which is indistinguishable from a neccesary being - because such a singularity, if it exists, cannot not stop existing.

Which version of materialism excludes the existence of a necessary being? The question is whether such a being is metaphysical.

Your normal concepts of "being", maybe.

I look forward to you explaining the character of being without reference to either time or space (and making sense).

This is what is meant by "neccesary". EDIT : In the above quote, "cause" does not mean "temporal cause". It means "logical cause" or "sustaining cause".

Obviously, otherwise it would be wrong.

It is not difficult to argue that logically, "something" must "always" be "existing", and I haven't noticed any materialists claiming that this cannot be the case.

The crunch of the matter is whether this something is a higher being or an extension of what we can now perceive as a physical universe.

.... And I really haven't ever seen any conclusive arguments for either.

Hans

 

[UndercoverElephant]

To make your logic fit, you are already refining the definition of nothing to include "no potential for anything".

Correct. But this is entirely valid. If what you have is an unstable singularity which has the potential to become a Universe then you don't have absolute nothingness, do you? Instead, you have an unstable singularity that can potentially become a Universe.

However, neither our language nor our mind can really grasp such a concept. The idea of that kind of nothing is really a paradox, because it can obviously not exist, since it is per definition non-existent. Thus, we can short-circuit the whole argument and conclude that "something must exist".

Otherwise stated as "Existence is neccesary." Which is my own position.

Which philosophy claims that a state of absolute nothingness must have existed?

None, explicitly.

Which version of materialism excludes the existence of a necessary being? The question is whether such a being is metaphysical.

Neccessity of being is a metaphysical property. As for which versions of materialism exclude the existence of a neccesary being, the answer is all of them.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

The necessary beings problem
(Cf. Jackson 1998) Imagine a necessary being -- that is, a being which exists in all possible worlds -- which is essentially nonphysical. (Some theists believe that God provides an example of such a being.) If such a non-physical being exists, it is natural to suppose that physicalism is false. But if physicalism is defined according to (2), the existence of such a being is compatible with physicalism. For consider: if the actual world is wholly physical, apart from the necessary non-physical being, any minimal physical duplicate of the actual world is a duplicate simpliciter. Since the non-physical being exists in all possible worlds, it exists at all worlds which are minimal physical duplicates of the actual world. So we seem to face a problem: the existence of the non-physical necessary being entails that physicalism is false, but the definition of physicalism permits it to be true in this case.
This problem is not so easily answered as the previous three. Lying behind the problem is a deeper issue about the correct interpretation of necessity and possibility -- the modal notions one uses to formulate supervenience. On one way of interpreting these notions, the existence of a necessary being of this sort is incoherent. A reason is that it would violate David Hume's famous dictum that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences -- the being is distinct from the physical world and yet is necessitated by it. On another way of interpreting these notions, however, there is nothing incoherent in the idea of such a being. The correct way to think about modal notions, however, is a topic that is well beyond the scope of our discussion here. The problem seems to be that the supervenience definition of physicalism in effect presupposes something like Hume's dictum, in that it uses failure of necessitation as a test for distinctness. But this means that someone who denies the dictum will have to find an alternative way of formulating physicalism.

I look forward to you explaining the character of being without reference to either time or space (and making sense).

If I feel an unspecified anxiety, directed at nothing in particular, then my anxiety has a sort of Being but it is not spatio-temporal.

Numbers also exist non-spatio-temporally.

It is not difficult to argue that logically, "something" must "always" be "existing", and I haven't noticed any materialists claiming that this cannot be the case.

The crunch of the matter is whether this something is a higher being or an extension of what we can now perceive as a physical universe.

If it is a neccesary being then I don't see how it can just be "an extenstion of the physical universe." It's the other way around. The physical universe is an extension of it.

 

[Belz...]

That is exactly what underlies it. A timeless, dimensionless, totally indestructable singularity. A neccesary being, in other words.

Oh! Well, if you consider a mindless, totally-chaotic thing to be a beign, then I suppose we can set aside my earlier statements.

That is no more than an admission that you cannot answer the question. This is satisfactory only to atheistic materialists who have little choice but to claim that there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing, and no reason why the Universe exists.

I'm with Hans on this one. Science doesn't claim that there was NOTHING "before" the universe. You're probably right about the nothing from nothing, but I think it's a strawman.

It must be further noted that sort of explanations which talk about "an unstable quantum singularity" as the origin of the Universe might just as well accept (6) without arguing, since they are already claiming the existence of something which is indistinguishable from a neccesary being - because such a singularity, if it exists, cannot not stop existing. This is what is meant by "neccesary". EDIT : In the above quote, "cause" does not mean "temporal cause". It means "logical cause" or "sustaining cause".

The difference between the posited singularity and a god is that the former is the simplest "necessary beign" you can possibly imagine: it has no dimension, no laws, no matter or energy per se. God, on the other hand, is pretty much the most complex beign you can imagine. Occam and all.

 

[Tricky]

That is no more than an admission that you cannot answer the question. This is satisfactory only to atheistic materialists who have little choice but to claim that there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing, and no reason why the Universe exists. It is at times like this that atheists/materialists really do need to think about how their position looks to other people, notably to philosophically-minded theists.

If their position is valid, as I believe it is, there is no reason why they should worry about how it looks to philosophically-minded theists. Certainly "we don't know" is more direct than "we know there must be something but we don't know what it is."

You are quite clearly happy to say "Maybe there is no explanation for the existence of the Universe. Maybe there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing." But I hope you realise how weak and ineffectual this response looks to a person with no interest in defending materialism/atheism. I think the theist (or interested agnostic) has every right to consider it an inadequate response.

LOL. Yes, they have every right to consider it the words of Satan. You have a "right" to any beliefs you wish. But fear of being "weak and innefectual" is a poor excuse for making up reasons.

To call our ignorance of the "orgin of everything" an "essential being" is but giving a name to our ignorance.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That is no more than an admission that you cannot answer the question. This is satisfactory only to atheistic materialists who have little choice but to claim that there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing, and no reason why the Universe exists.

Sorry, there just doesn't have to be a reason.

It is at times like this that atheists/materialists really do need to think about how their position looks to other people, notably to philosophically-minded theists. You are quite clearly happy to say "Maybe there is no explanation for the existence of the Universe. Maybe there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing." But I hope you realise how weak and ineffectual this response looks to a person with no interest in defending materialism/atheism. I think the theist (or interested agnostic) has every right to consider it an inadequate response.

Sorry, but there doesn't have to be a reason. Notice how pleadingly childish it appears when someone just has to have a reason.

Note that I am not saying there absolutely is no reason. However, if there is a reason, it just pushes the issue down one level.

~~ Paul

 

[DreadNiK]

Sorry, there just doesn't have to be a reason.


Sorry, but there doesn't have to be a reason. Notice how pleadingly childish it appears when someone just has to have a reason.

Note that I am not saying there absolutely is no reason. However, if there is a reason, it just pushes the issue down one level.

~~ Paul

It may be interesting to have a split thread that works on the assumption that there does have to be a reason. Imo

 

[MRC_Hans]

Correct. But this is entirely valid. If what you have is an unstable singularity which has the potential to become a Universe then you don't have absolute nothingness, do you? Instead, you have an unstable singularity that can potentially become a Universe.

I did not claim it was invalid. I claimed it was a paradox. So potential is the necessary being.

Otherwise stated as "Existence is neccesary." Which is my own position.

Existence assumed necessary. Since we cannot grasp non-eixistence we can't be certain.

Neccessity of being is a metaphysical property. As for which versions of materialism exclude the existence of a neccesary being, the answer is all of them.

No, just a metaphysical necessary being.

If I feel an unspecified anxiety, directed at nothing in particular, then my anxiety has a sort of Being but it is not spatio-temporal.

Numbers also exist non-spatio-temporally.

Abstractions. Perhaps. However, abstactions have no independent existence.

If it is a neccesary being then I don't see how it can just be "an extenstion of the physical universe." It's the other way around. The physical universe is an extension of it.

Depends on from which end you observe it, I guess. However, that was not my point. My point was that it needs not be qualitatively different from the physical universe.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

It may be interesting to have a split thread that works on the assumption that there does have to be a reason. Imo

Mmmm, we know of acusal events. Or at least we know of events to which we cannot deduce a cause.

Hans

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It may be interesting to have a split thread that works on the assumption that there does have to be a reason. Imo

A reason just for our universe, or reasons all the way down?

If the latter, that's gonna be an awfully long thread.

~~ Paul

 

[DreadNiK]

It would demonstrate something about that assumption, at least, wouldn't it?

 

[hammegk]

Mmmm, we know of acusal events. Or at least we know of events to which we cannot deduce a cause.

Hans

Indeed. Unfortunately those two statements have as much in common as a chestnut horse and a horse chestnut.

One would think the problem might even be observable by a materialist. Apparently not.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It would demonstrate something about that assumption, at least, wouldn't it?

Yes, it would demonstrate that's it's causes all the way down ... or not.

~~ Paul

 

[chriswl]

It must be further noted that sort of explanations which talk about "an unstable quantum singularity" as the origin of the Universe might just as well accept (6) without arguing, since they are already claiming the existence of something which is indistinguishable from a neccesary being - because such a singularity, if it exists, cannot not stop existing. This is what is meant by "neccesary". EDIT : In the above quote, "cause" does not mean "temporal cause". It means "logical cause" or "sustaining cause".

But no one is asking the question, "how does something that already exists manage to keep existing". Only if it suddenly stopped existing would we require some kind of cause, some kind of explanation. The only possible mystery concerning the existence of the universe is how it came into existence in the first place, i.e. "temporal cause". And that's not really a mystery either. There is no logical reason why time couldn't have a starting point.

There is no such thing as a necesary being, it is logical nonsense. You can't define things into existence, existence is not a property that you can specify an object as having.

 

[Soapy Sam]

If I feel an unspecified anxiety, directed at nothing in particular, then my anxiety has a sort of Being but it is not spatio-temporal.

-so if someone chops your head off, the anxiety will still exist?

Numbers also exist non-spatio-temporally.

What do you actually mean by this?

...................................................................................................

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

The Universe? The question is not where it came from or when it came into existence. The question is how it manages to exist at all.

You use old, very old arguments all the time (not trying to demerit your work) and I have not seen that you recon that (well, only force, when I call your attention about it). For example, this thing about existence... Sankara said it already.

Why do I care? because you seem to recon about some philosophers as the foundations of what you say, for example Kant. So why not Sankara?

No more to say, I do not want to derail.

 

[Robin]

That is no more than an admission that you cannot answer the question. This is satisfactory only to atheistic materialists who have little choice but to claim that there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing, and no reason why the Universe exists. It is at times like this that atheists/materialists really do need to think about how their position looks to other people, notably to philosophically-minded theists. You are quite clearly happy to say "Maybe there is no explanation for the existence of the Universe. Maybe there is no reason why there is something instead of nothing." But I hope you realise how weak and ineffectual this response looks to a person with no interest in defending materialism/atheism. I think the theist (or interested agnostic) has every right to consider it an inadequate response.

Only if they haven't really thought about it. Theism only pushes the problem back a notch, it doesn't get rid of it. The question becomes "Why is there a God?". It does not have a satisfactory answer. In fact there can be no reason for God if you think about it.

So you still have a universe with (ultimately) no reason.

It also multiplies the problems - you now have "Why did God create the universe?".

Theists always like to boast that, unlike atheists, they have meaning and purpose to their lives.

They never actually explain what that meaning and purpose is.

Just because there is a God does not mean that there is a reason for the universe.

But at least with the blank sheet of atheism you are free to make your own meanings, even if there was no reason for your existence.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

To call our ignorance of the "orgin of everything" an "essential being" is but giving a name to our ignorance.

Correct.