Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, is one of those people you read and then wonder, “How does anyone ever take him seriously?”
A prime example of what I’m referring to is an article for Big Questions Online in which Shermer considers the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Out of ten possible answers given, guess which is the only one he considers to be untenable?
1. God
The theist’s answer to the question is that God existed before the universe and subsequently brought it into existence out of nothing (ex nihilo) in a single creation moment as described in Genesis. But the very conception of a creator existing before the universe and then creating it implies a time sequence. In both the Judeo-Christian tradition and the scientific worldview, time began when the universe came into existence, either through divine creation or the Big Bang. God, therefore, would have to exist outside of space and time, which means that as natural beings delimited by living in a finite universe, we cannot possibly know anything about such a supernatural entity. The theist’s answer is an untestable hypothesis.
How can Shermer, who has been a professional skeptic for almost twenty years, be so incompetent? A college freshman who has read a few anthologized excerpts from Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica could point out how Shermer completely misunderstands the relation between God and the universe.
What is not surprising, of course, is that Shermer seriously considers one of the dumbest possible answer to the question: The universe creates itself out of nothing. Shermer calls this auto-ex-nihilo. (As Dave Barry would say, I’m not making this up.) Perhaps someone should point out to Shermer that Aquinas has already explained why that’s not possible. Maybe we should take up a collection and buy him a copy of the Summa.
Sometimes I wonder whether we should ask God to give us a better class of atheists or whether we should thank him for the intellectually incompetent ones we have.
(Via: Stephen Windham)
October 25th, 2010 | 4:01 pm
[...] Carter takes on the Shermer article I linked to here. Posted in Atheism, Philosophy, Religion, Science | No [...]
October 25th, 2010 | 4:27 pm
God is untenable because the hypothesis is untestable? Is Shermer even aware of the assumption he has made? Only science has the answers? So he ignores the God that Is in favor of a god that doesn’t tell him what to do. So many atheist arguments end up deeply circular.
October 25th, 2010 | 4:45 pm
He probably could not endure Thomas’s scholastic method of turning a proposition inside out. But he could certainly read Mortimer Adler’s How To Think About God which answers the question in exactly the way that renders his nonsense. God exists because nihil means nihil; it cannot create anything, not even more nihil.
October 25th, 2010 | 5:19 pm
You don’t necessarily have to be intellectually skilled to be a skillful evangelist. Shermer is a skillful evangelist for what he believes, or doesn’t believe. He communicates atheism to the young and inexperienced.
(Maybe evangelist is the wrong word. Is “dysangelist” a word?)
I heard him once. He made at least one wincingly bad philosophical error. But he was articulate and relatively charming in manner, and so he might be effective in what he does.
October 25th, 2010 | 5:42 pm
If the universe creates itself out of nothing then, to paraphrase:
(the universe), therefore, would have to exist outside of space and time, which means that as natural beings delimited by living in a finite universe, we cannot possibly know anything about such a (natural) entity.
October 25th, 2010 | 6:44 pm
Why wouldn’t you want a testable hypothesis? There’s two good reasons for wanting them.
First, unaided human intuition, without the ability to test it, has never been a good guide to the universe. Name one person who anticipated Relativity of Quantum Mechanics from first principles, without having seen perplexing experimental data. (You remember QM, which posits ‘virtual particles’ which appear ex nihilo and return to same?)
Second, if you tell me your hypothesis is not testable, you’re saying to me, ‘It doesn’t matter if my hypothesis is right or wrong. You’ll see the exact same things either way.’ Isn’t that exactly the chin Ockham’s Razor was made to shave?
October 25th, 2010 | 7:31 pm
Thank him and then ask they he take them quickly to his bosom for post-graduate instruction.
October 25th, 2010 | 8:31 pm
Don’t waste your money, Joe, on aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, it might merely serve as a good dust collector on Shermer’s desk.
Shermer is a social psychologist, not a philosopher, and, well, it shows.
October 25th, 2010 | 9:55 pm
I don’t think Shermer is the dumb one here. Creation from nothing is very possible. Quantum Mechanics outlaws the state of nothing. The evolution of the universe is allowed because the positive mass energy of the universe is balanced by the negative gravitational energy resulting in a universe where the total energy sums to zero. The energy conservation laws are never violated.
Think of the evolution like this:
0-0=0 (universe and time does not yet exist)
1-1=0 (Quantum event triggers the big bang)
2-2=0 (universe continues to evolve)
etc.
E-E=0 (current state of universe where first E is energy of mass (and motion) and the -E is the balancing negative gravitational energy.
Best Regards, Todd
October 25th, 2010 | 10:05 pm
Ray Ingles: What is “Relativity of Quantum Mechanics”?
October 25th, 2010 | 10:19 pm
Todd Green: If “Quantum Mechanics outlaws the state of nothing”, then how can “Creation from nothing [be] possible”? There could never have been any “nothing” from which something arose.
October 25th, 2010 | 10:28 pm
Ray writes:
“Second, if you tell me your hypothesis is not testable, you’re saying to me, ‘It doesn’t matter if my hypothesis is right or wrong. You’ll see the exact same things either way.’ Isn’t that exactly the chin Ockham’s Razor was made to shave?”
Who says that every belief that one can rationally accept must be a testable hypothesis, since, after all, that claim itself is not a testable hypothesis? Moreover, the belief that it is more intellectually virtuous to be rational than not does not depend on a testable hypothesis, since the belief is logically prior to testing an hypothesis. That is, reason is a necessary condition for the entire enterprise of hypothesis testing, and thus cannot depend on the testing of an hypothesis.
October 25th, 2010 | 10:40 pm
Todd:
“Nothing” is the absence of everything. So, your nothing is not really nothing. It’s something.
You write: “The evolution of the universe is allowed because the positive mass energy of the universe is balanced by the negative gravitational energy resulting in a universe where the total energy sums to zero.”
That’s like saying that when the temperature outside is 0, there is no temperature.
Think about it, if there is nothing, then no efficient or material causes exist. The non-existence of such causes means that no effects will arise. Non-being cannot bring about being, just as space cannot, by itself, result in density. If there is no there there, then there can be no this there.
October 25th, 2010 | 10:46 pm
JB: “Creation from nothing” is a term of art in philosophical theology and refers to the utter contingency of the universe upon an eternal and necessary First Cause. That is, “the nothing” means the absence of any contingent material, efficient, formal or final cause.
See here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04470a.htm
October 25th, 2010 | 11:08 pm
JB- “Relativity of Quantum Mechanics” is what you get when you type “Relativity or Quantum Mechanics” on a phone keyboard.
October 25th, 2010 | 11:13 pm
Francis Beckwith – At what point did I say Ockham’s Razor was a hypothesis?
It’s a pragmatic heuristic. There are an uncountable number of theories that account for a given set of data. It’s only pragmatism that you accept the simplest accounting.
You are free to accept something more elaborate – but it’s an aesthetic choice, that’s all. If the more elaborate one made any practical difference, it would be the simplest accounting, and the ‘simplest accounting’ would be falsified.
October 26th, 2010 | 2:35 am
Francis Beckwith: Yeah, I know what it means in philosophical theology. I was responding to Todd Green. He was at once claiming (1) that quantum mechanics can create something from nothing and (2) that it outlaws the possibility of there being nothing. No doubt quantum mechanics is a marvelous theory, but it can’t do both. Either there was once nothing out of which the laws of quantum mechanics created something, or there has always been something, because the laws of quantum mechanics disallow the possibility of there being nothing.
October 26th, 2010 | 2:42 am
(cont.) Of course, there are other possibilities than just those two. My point is simply that 1 and 2 are inconsistent with each other.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:35 am
The fact that you even dare to mention Aquinas shows how far above your intellectual level Shermer is. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica is an utter joke in philosophical circles. It is full of fallacies of ontological reasoning, tautologies, and, when he can’t determine a conclusion, he just assumes god exists. As a philosophical work it is absolutely junk.
And yes, it is a heuristic principle of the scientific method that any theory posited to explain something which cannot be tested, may be summarily dismissed. There is no difference between “god” and any other dualistic concept. They’re all nonsense and fall apart under basic philosophical scrutiny. The next time you want to pretend to play with the big boys, I suggest you do some research and have something besides Aquinas to back you up.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:36 am
It’s amazing how some folk still cling to a belief in the supernatural, and go on to insist that this supernatural has some interaction with the natural world – despite zero evidence of such interaction.
We truly are stone-age brains in a space-age world.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:38 am
Still not sure why Shermer is wrong. All you’ve done is post another “God of the Gaps” argument.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:40 am
Can I suggest that those unable to accept that “something can come from ‘nothing’” read Stephen Hawking’s latest book, “The Grand Design”? Perhaps not an easy read for anyone completely ignorant of relativity and quantum mechanics, but definitely accessible if you put in a little effort.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:56 am
I liked Shermer’s listing of the causes of the universe having not seen anything like it before. Coincidentally I am reading a book by Neil Turok on related matters called Endless Universe so the list is timely for me.
However it seems impolite for ‘First Things’ to label the article as dumb, bordering on an ad hominem, as clearly there is so much to be found in that particular queue of much lower quality or grade.
Here in Europe we do see surveys that illustrate America’s obsession with religion, but Acquinas’s Europe has moved on and scores a more rational and sceptical understanding of life.
October 26th, 2010 | 4:05 am
Given the complexity of the scientific hypothesis about the origin of the universe, I can understand why people lose siht of the God we are really talking about. The God that gets angry, listens to prayers, fights with kings, other gods and humans, the god who impregnates virgin women, and promises the same for those who defends him, the god who talks to snakes and crazy cherubims and unicorns! My bet is even if the scientists prove a God, its not going to be this kind.
We will surely have to re-write our Bibles and Qurans.
October 26th, 2010 | 4:43 am
Dr. Shermer, certainly doesn’t own anyowe an answer on how the universe started. The burden of proof is on the proposers of a Creator. Period. No a-priori arguments allowed, therefore Aquinas would have nothing to say. Even if the evidence for a first unmoved mover was provided, there’s long long way between that, and the Christian God. Take some lessons in logical thinking, Christians and drop the non-sequiturs. Here’s my short article on the topic. Leave your comments:
http://ciro-galli.blogspot.com/2010/10/if-there-were-creator-version-20-5.html
October 26th, 2010 | 8:36 am
Instead of calling Shermer names and making arguments that appeal to authority, why don’t actually *explain* why Shermer’s answer is wrong? I don’t claim that *you* are wrong, but you could at least try to make a cogent argument.
October 26th, 2010 | 8:59 am
I think that I understand the problem. The Theists on this post seem to think that Shermer “has made assumptions”.
The truth is that he has made no assumptions. Aquinas assumes far more, and this is what makes his assertions incorrect….
October 26th, 2010 | 10:11 am
Let’s see: Aquinas proposes “a priori” arguments, “ontological” arguments, and “tautologies.”
Well, no. He proposes “a posteriori” arguments, “cosmological” arguments, and syllogisms, not tautologies.
Other than that, the critics of Aquinas here have him just about right.
October 26th, 2010 | 10:16 am
Mr. Carter: I see that dishonest thing you did with the words “untenable” and “untestable”? Shermer didn’t say that the god theory is “untenable,” either in the secton you quoted here or in the full text of his article that you link to. He simply said that it is “untestable.” Now, you don’t seem to offer a basis for disagreeing that the god theory is indeed untestable, so you must explain — why do you consider it a tenable pursuit to base your life and actions on untestable theory?
October 26th, 2010 | 10:18 am
Some have said, “What’s wrong, specifically, with Shermer’s approach?” Here is one problem, not perhaps the central problem, but one that jumped out at me: Shermer writes, “God, therefore, would have to exist outside of space and time, which means that as natural beings delimited by living in a finite universe, we cannot possibly know anything about such a supernatural entity.”
Well, except for two things: We as rational beings can infer God’s existence and some attributes from examining the world around us (Aquinas’s empiricist, cosmological approach). Secondly, if God contains all space and time and is all-powerful, He could reveal Himself within space and time without Himself being bound by it. Theists of all types, including Aquinas again, believe He has done so.
So Shermer’s simple, dismissive formulation doesn’t accomplish what he thinks it accomplishes.
October 26th, 2010 | 10:21 am
Cliff, take a deep breath, then take two aspirin and call God in the morning.
October 26th, 2010 | 10:53 am
Andy Still not sure why Shermer is wrong. All you’ve done is post another “God of the Gaps” argument.
It’s odd that so many people refer to the “God of the Gaps” argument when I have never, ever seen it used by any Christians (some sloppy theistic evolutionist arguments might resort to it, though I’ve never seen it done). All I can figure is that most people have no idea what a GotG argument is. But I’ll let philosopher Alvin Plantinga explain why it doesn’t apply in this case:
Margaret Can I suggest that those unable to accept that “something can come from ‘nothing’” read Stephen Hawking’s latest book, “The Grand Design”? Perhaps not an easy read for anyone completely ignorant of relativity and quantum mechanics, but definitely accessible if you put in a little effort.
Can I suggest that anyone who thinks that “something can come from nothing” doesn’t understand relativity or quantum mechanics?
Paul However it seems impolite for ‘First Things’ to label the article as dumb, bordering on an ad hominem, as clearly there is so much to be found in that particular queue of much lower quality or grade.
I don’t think it is so much impolite as simply accurate. Just because there are dumber claims does not make Shermer’s any better. But I agree it does border on ad hominem. What keeps it from crossing over is that I’m not saying “Shermer is dumb, ergo his argument can be dismissed” but rather Shermer’s argument is dumb, ergo it can be dismissed.” It’s not a strong argument, but its not a fallacy.
Ciro Galli Dr. Shermer, certainly doesn’t own anyowe an answer on how the universe started. The burden of proof is on the proposers of a Creator. Period.
That’s not the way argumentation works. The burden of proof lies on the person making the original assertion, which in this case, is Shermer.
No a-priori arguments allowed, therefore Aquinas would have nothing to say.
Why aren’t a priori arguments allowed. Something has to exist a priori for the answer to the question to be comprehensible. That is why almost all of the items Shermer lists are based on a priori claims.
Even if the evidence for a first unmoved mover was provided, there’s long long way between that, and the Christian God. Take some lessons in logical thinking, Christians and drop the non-sequiturs.
Oh good grief. Why not go read some Aquinas and then come back and make that claim. Aquinas shows rather clearly why the “first mover” had to be the same as the Christian God. You may not agree, but his argument is logical.
This is why no one takes atheists seriously. They tend to be philosophically naive but think that because they say something is illogical that is somehow makes it so.
John Instead of calling Shermer names and making arguments that appeal to authority, why don’t actually *explain* why Shermer’s answer is wrong? I don’t claim that *you* are wrong, but you could at least try to make a cogent argument.
Okay, seriously people, this is getting annoying. If you are going to claim that someone is committing a logical fallacy then please try to understand what that fallacy really is.
An appeal to authority is a fallacy when a person argues that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative.
My claim was not that Aquinas is correct because he is an authority on the question being considered but rather that he has made extensive arguments that rebut significant portions of the claims begin made, and those arguments should be taken into consideration.
I don’t claim that *you* are wrong, but you could at least try to make a cogent argument.
Yes, I could make a cogent argument and it is obvious to me now that I need to do so. I had assumed that most FT readers had taken Philosophy 101 and were familiar enough with Aquinas’ arguments to be able to see why Shermer’s claims are naive. This was a throwaway post for our regular readers. I didn’t expect that it would be linked to by another site (assuming that is where the atheist are coming from) and that I would need to explain it in more detail.
Jennifer Mr. Carter: I see that dishonest thing you did with the words “untenable” and “untestable”? Shermer didn’t say that the god theory is “untenable,” either in the secton you quoted here or in the full text of his article that you link to.
I can only assume that you do not know the definition of untenable, so let me explain: incapable of being defended, as an argument, thesis, etc.
No if you would have read to the bottom of Shermer’s article, you would see the part where he implies that theistic arguments are untenable:
October 26th, 2010 | 10:56 am
A question for those “cultured despisers” who seem to come out from under the bridge on the FT website with greater and greater occurence. Do you really think an impolite use of the lower case does anything to advance your argument? Does it make you feel all brave and transgressive? Do you go onto Islamic sites and refer to “allah?” or do you lack the testicular fortitude so to do? Are the Christians here at times rumbustious in talking about those who “don’t believe in God and really hate Him?” Undoubtedly. I myself have been guilty, if not here then elsewhere. A sin I need to confess to God and ask for the grace to overcome. But I do not go onto VillageAtheist.com, or where ever it is you all break out your secret decoder rings and play to pick fights. Are there points to be raised? Yes. but puerile “transgressiveness” aids not your cause.
BTW- I really love dysevangelism as a neologism.
October 26th, 2010 | 11:24 am
Link: http://meinwords.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/
Mr. Apologist wrote: “The first was originally posed by Martin Heidegger: ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’”
Mr. Apologist nowhere shows this to be valid question; instead, he simply assumes that it is valid, and expects it to have a valid answer. It will be clear to those who have a firm grasp of Objectivism, that this fellow has not thought very carefully about this subject.
For one thing, Objectivism will view such questions as “why does existence exist?” as essentially fallacious. For no matter how one will want to answer such a question, one would have to appeal, at least implicitly, to that which exists (or to what supposedly exists). Otherwise, one would put himself in the dubious position of assuming that the appeal to non-existence somehow explains existence. (The trend in philosophy since Plato, and perhaps long before him, is to posit some form of consciousness as the “answer” to such questions, even though this tactic is irrescindably incoherent.)
Thus, by posing this question and assuming that it is valid, Mr. Apologist implicitly (but unavoidably) commits himself to the fallacy of the stolen concept. If we ask why something is, but simply turn around and posit that something in our explanation of that something, what mileage have we gained? Indeed, we’re back to where we started, yet we don’t admit it to ourselves. This is what Mr. Apologist does in assuming that the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (or “Why does existence exist?”) is a valid question. One will have to assume the fact of existence in order to answer the question. But in so doing, he will have to deny the fact of existence in order to validate his assumption that there must be a reason why there is something rather than nothing. He must assume the very concept his argument wants to deny, thus ‘stealing’ it from the objective hierarchy of knowledge, and rendering invalid any conclusion he hopes to draw from his argument.
Existence exists. We must start somewhere. The theist wants to start with a form of consciousness. He wants to posit a mind (albeit supernatural) which is responsible for creating all its objects. This is called metaphysical subjectivism, a view which holds that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness.
Some may object to my characterization of the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” as fallacious, contesting that there is no such thing as a fallacious question. However, it is true when we examine issues in epistemology and logic, that there is a such thing as an invalid question. The fallacy known as ‘complex question‘, for instance, is a species of invalid question. It is a question which operates on a false assumption and expects the reader to accept that false assumption in order to answer it. The typical example is the question “Have you stopped beating your wife?” The question assumes that one is a married man and that he beats or has beaten his wife; indeed, it implies such beatings are a regular occurrence. Contrary to these assumptions, however, it could be the case a) that he is not married, or b) that he is married but has never beaten his wife. Since the question is asked in a manner in which a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response can be the only appropriate reply, one cannot answer it on its own terms and avoid affirming its erroneous premises. One would implicate himself simply by answering. The question is fallacious because it leads one to accept a false premise, assuming either a) or b) are the actual case, if he should choose to take it seriously.
Likewise, a question which leads one to commit a fallacy in order to answer it is also invalid. If taken seriously, the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” will lead one to commit the fallacy of the stolen concept; indeed, the fallacy of the stolen concept is unavoidable on the question’s own terms, as we saw above. One would have both to assume and deny existence in order to address the question. If Heidegger did not recognize this, it was principally because he was not operating on a fully rational philosophy. Yet, today we have theists assuming this question is valid all the time in the construction of their apologetic ruses. What is it that theists want to posit in response to their invalid questions so as to appear to satisfy them? Of course, they assume that the only logical answer is to assert a universe-creating, reality-ruling form of consciousness, which they call God, and delight themselves with this as their answer, never allowing themselves to recognize that the question leads them to accepting a stolen concept, and assuming that their arguments justifying this illicit move make it valid.
October 26th, 2010 | 11:32 am
Joe Carter –
I, um, have looked into Aquinas. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite as impressed as you.
For example, three of his “Five Ways” depend critically on his claim that an infinite regress (of movers, or causes, or ‘contingencies’) is impossible. It’s not at all clear that this is the case.
We accept infinite “progress”, for example. We have no problem imagining time going on infinitely into the future. (Especially theists, who usually say they’ll be there.) We have a hard time imagining space being finite – “What happens when you get to the edge?” children ask. (My five year old asked me this very question two days ago.) “What’s after that?” We don’t reject infinite sequences in that case – in any direction. Why suddenly insist they are impossible when it comes to the past?
Part of the problem comes from our normal understanding of time, that it proceeds by ‘addition of successive moments’. That’s intuitive… but it appears to be wrong. In Relativity, time really is an actual, physical dimension. The past exists, a literal distance away – one second ago is one light-second away, 186,000 miles. And experiments bear this out – it’s hard to explain the relativity of simultaneity any other way. As Einstein put it, “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”. If time is like space, then the problem with ‘infinite regress’ vanishes.
I’m fully aware that “according to serious theism, God is constantly, immediately, intimately and directly active in his creation: he constantly upholds it in existence and providentially governs it.” However… what’s the evidence for this? Or is this another untestable claim? If this were true, what difference would we see from a state of things where, say, mass-energy was self-existent?
October 26th, 2010 | 11:47 am
When quoting Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (or the bible for that matter) as the basis for your argument, you might as well be quoting Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. Fiction is fiction no matter what form.
October 26th, 2010 | 11:49 am
Since Shermers is so dumb, please tell the readers which God is responsible for the creation of the Universe; and why that god or that set of gods?
Thank you!
I’ll be watching for replies.
October 26th, 2010 | 11:49 am
Ray Ingles For example, three of his “Five Ways” depend critically on his claim that an infinite regress (of movers, or causes, or ‘contingencies’) is impossible. It’s not at all clear that this is the case.
What Aquinas claims is impossible is an infinite regress of movers (efficient causes). To say that an infinite regress of movers is possible is to claim an infinity of something that is both unmoved and moved or both caused and uncaused. This is clearly illogical.
We have no problem imagining time going on infinitely into the future. (Especially theists, who usually say they’ll be there.)
A timeline that has a starting point and goes toward infinity is not the same as an infinite timeline. As Hilbert’s paradox shows, an actual infinite set of points on a timeline would mean that every point in time has already occurred and yet more time could be added.
However… what’s the evidence for this? Or is this another untestable claim? If this were true, what difference would we see from a state of things where, say, mass-energy was self-existent?
If mass-energy was self-existent, then it could not cease to exist. But that has been disproven (presumably) by the Big Bang theory.
October 26th, 2010 | 12:00 pm
Freethinker When quoting Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (or the bible for that matter) as the basis for your argument, you might as well be quoting Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. Fiction is fiction no matter what form.
I’m often chastised by my fellow Christians for claiming that atheists are willfully ignorant. But I think this is an empirically verifiable claim. Consider the comment listed above. Obviously, the guy has never read Aquinas but thinks that comparing him to Dr. Seuss is a clever rebuttal.
This is the type of argument that is made by roughly 90 percent of the atheists you’ll encounter on the internet. Some of their arguments will be slightly more sophisticated, but usually they rely on assumptions about philosophy that were dispelled in the Middle Ages.
At3p Since Shermers is so dumb, please tell the readers which God is responsible for the creation of the Universe; and why that god or that set of gods?
To the first question, the answer is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
To the second question, the answer is because:
1) There can be only one God.
2) That God has revealed himself to man through both general and special revelation.
I assume that this simple answer will suffice since you are expecting an answer that can fit into a comment thread.
October 26th, 2010 | 12:01 pm
“Either there was once nothing out of which the laws of quantum mechanics created something…”
Here is a direct example of the circularity of the reasoning involved. If the laws of quantum mechanics exist, then there isn’t “nothing”. Imagining an utter void seems beyond the capability of those who insist on science as the only arbiter. Perhaps that’s why we were given in order of presentation: the Steady State theory, the Oscillating Universe theory, and most recently the Multiverse theory. My point is not that these are not true (though the first two are no longer believed in) but that we felt the need to insure an “eternal” physical universe.
Science is and will continue to be enormously useful. Testable hypotheses, however, require predictability. If we insist on predictability for everything then we all become irrelevant. Why? Because we then can make no choices. We are deterministic and Shermer’s argument is only that which he had to say because of the way his atoms aligned.
October 26th, 2010 | 12:16 pm
I sometimes wonder if those who worship science accept broad evidence that does not lead to a testable hypothesis. An enumeration of all the gods we humans have imagined is seen as an argument against God. “Which god?” is asked as if it clinches the argument. Does not one of them wonder why we humans keep trying to find God?
Science is not a very satisfactory God, though it is an inert one.
October 26th, 2010 | 12:37 pm
Joe Carter –
Hold up, that doesn’t follow. Who’s saying that an infinity of movers isn’t moving? Everything in an infinity of causes has a cause – the prior cause. Aquinas (and you, apparently) insist that there must be a termination point… but why?
Long ago (yes, yes, thousands of years ago, not in Columbus’ time, I know and I’m not claiming that) when people thought the Earth was flat, you had two options – either it went on forever, or you came to an edge. Only when the insight came that the Earth was round could the true answer come up – “neither, the Earth’s surface is finite but unbounded”.
When dealing with something so far removed from human experience as ‘origins of universes’, why should we trust human intuition? It’s been wrong before – heliocentrism, continental drift, atomic thory, the germ theory of disease, molecular biology, evolution, relativity, qm – all huge surprises. Why should we think that we have any handle on it now?
Hilbert’s paradox shows that infinities are counterintuitive. That has nothing to do with time in General Relativity – where time is, in a sense, an illusion of our perspective, and the past, present, and future ‘already’ exist. (The concept’s a lot easier to talk about with math.) Hence, y’know, my quote of Einstein.
You should be familiar with the idea, anyway. You’ve read Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”, right?
Um… Big Bang theory hasn’t shown that mass-energy has ever ‘ceased to exist’. We haven’t ever seen mass-energy cease to exist – conservation of mass-energy is actually pretty fundamental to our model of the universe. The Big Bang is technically just as far back as we’ve been able to push our understanding of the mass-energy we see. (Well, technically, a few femtoseconds after the Big Bang is as far as we’ve gotten.)
October 26th, 2010 | 12:44 pm
The concept of ‘nothing’, in the phrase “something from nothing”, only exists in our minds. Philosophers, among others, but they in particular, have this problem, I’m speculating due to their reliance on thought experiments as their preferred method of epistemological discovery, that they treat concepts such as this as empirically valid ideas. Sure, it seems logical to say that before ‘something’ there could have been ‘nothing’, but only in a logical framework of human construction where the concept of ‘something’ is automatically contrasted with the concept of ‘nothing’. An analogy would be the notion of real numbers existing in mathematics (in our minds), but not necessarily in the universe. Our minds grasp these concepts, then we create symbolic representations of these concepts, and finally we treat these concepts as actually existing in the real world. Don’t believe everything you think!
So, just because you cannot logically think of a solution to how ‘something’ can arise from ‘nothing’ does not mean there was ever a ‘nothing’ to begin with. I’m not necessarily saying the universe always existed or is infinitely cyclical or something like that, I’m trying to state a more subtle proposition, that the actual question of ‘something from nothing’ is misconceived, and language betrays us in our thoughts on this subject. Instead, science gives us empirical models of the cosmos that bypass this ‘something/nothing’ distinction. Just because we can think about the idea of ‘nothing’ does not mean such a state is valid.
October 26th, 2010 | 1:12 pm
An infinite regress is impossible becauase anything in a series that can be added to cannot actually be infinite. That isn’t merely a ‘philosophical’ consideration, but a fundamentally logical one. Presumably all rational thinking is at least logical?
October 26th, 2010 | 1:34 pm
The mental gymnastics required by the theists to justify their comments are incredible. Here’s a great essay on why theology is useless:
http://machineslikeus.com/news/why-theology-useless
October 26th, 2010 | 1:36 pm
Jack Hudson –
First off, Joe just pointed out Hilbert’s paradox – which shows that infinities can be added to. But that’s not the critical point here.
As I wrote before: Part of the problem comes from our normal understanding of time, that it proceeds by ‘addition of successive moments’. That’s intuitive… but it appears to be wrong. In Relativity, time really is an actual, physical dimension. The past exists, a literal distance away –one second ago is one light-second away, 186,000 miles. And experiments bear this out –it’s hard to explain the relativity of simultaneity any other way.
In other words, the idea that time is a series that is being ‘added to’ is wrong.
October 26th, 2010 | 1:50 pm
@haig: You misconstrue the argument. It is not “something from nothing” but “something instead of nothing”. We theists postulate God as to the why and extrapolate his properties to escape the circles of the science god. We also believe we have help in what we call Revelation, the idea not the book.With a God in place, who is certainly not nothing, the next step becomes possible. The “ex nihlio” we talk about is the “nothing” except for God. It’s all superstition, of course, though we manage to find a satisfying if only partially known answer while avoiding the scientism merry-go-round. And we get science, true science, for free! With all of it’s uncertainty. But that’s kid’s stuff compared to trying to wrap our heads around God.
October 26th, 2010 | 1:58 pm
@Matt: I thought ad hominem should be ruled out? I took a look. Talk about mental gymnastics! Did the author really intend to prove John Shook’s point?
October 26th, 2010 | 2:04 pm
Well, actually Hilbert’s Hotel doesn’t shiw that in reality that an inifinity can be added to – obviously no such Hotel could actually exist, which is why it is a paradox. An actual infinity is impossible, for universes or hotals – and this has nothing to do with time per se, but an infinite set of objects or set of events, which is what is being proposed.
October 26th, 2010 | 2:11 pm
Jesus, this isn’t complicated.
the existence and character of God represent untestable hypotheses. so what? we understand most of cosmological history. so what? to go from here and say “since we cannot scientifically test God, He does not exist” is a priori reasoning. so is “therefore He is unimportant” or “therefore we cannot know Him” or “therefore God relates to time in this and this way.”
madness, all of it. all of these statements reflect choices and preference rather than substance. and as such they will always reflect the speaker’s willingness to believe that their preferences are the logical consequence of overarching first principles. “I choose not to believe” is infinitely more honest.
October 26th, 2010 | 2:13 pm
Another thought, which I elaborate on in my blog post on the subject – Schermer undermines the entirety of the rest of his proposed theories by claiming in his first paragraph that if the observer is “living in a finite universe” and the proposed cause of the universe exists “outside of space and time”, than we could know nothing about the cause. If true, that basically undermines every cosmological theory he proposes, and renders them all equally untestable and presumably unscientific.
October 26th, 2010 | 2:22 pm
@Mike: “You misconstrue the argument. It is not “something from nothing” but “something instead of nothing”.
Makes no difference to my argument whether it is ‘from’ or ‘instead’, the point remains that ‘nothing’ is only a concept. There is not ‘nothing’ because we don’t even know if such a state is possible, there doesn’t have to be a ‘nothing’ just because we can envisage it. The null hypothesis is that we observe reality and we call that ‘something’, the onus is on you to state why we should even consider the idea that a ‘nothing’ is even a valid converse to this ‘something’. It follows that without the need to explain why we have ‘something’ at all, there is no need to explain the ‘why’ of its creation, or the need of a creator, and so, though I do understand why a theist would press this misconstrued issue for their own justifications, I stand by my assertion that it is nevertheless unsound.
October 26th, 2010 | 2:29 pm
“A question for those “cultured despisers” who seem to come out from under the bridge on the FT website with greater and greater occurence. Do you really think an impolite use of the lower case does anything to advance your argument? Does it make you feel all brave and transgressive? Do you go onto Islamic sites and refer to “allah?” or do you lack the testicular fortitude so to do? Are the Christians here at times rumbustious in talking about those who “don’t believe in God and really hate Him?” Undoubtedly. I myself have been guilty, if not here then elsewhere. A sin I need to confess to God and ask for the grace to overcome. But I do not go onto VillageAtheist.com, or where ever it is you all break out your secret decoder rings and play to pick fights. Are there points to be raised? Yes. but puerile “transgressiveness” aids not your cause.”
The website is called twitter. I find your sensitivity to capitalization to be hilarious. Really. You seriously care that much that you take someone writing “god” to be personally offensive?
No atheists here are picking fights. The true transgressor is the person calling other people dumb in the title of their article. Joe may insist that it is not technically an ad-hominem but I think we can all see that as the cop-out that it is.
One must wonder about the validity of the opinions of someone who thinks that “go read some ____” is a good response to anything.
October 26th, 2010 | 2:55 pm
I’m assuming Joe Carter is a troll. There’s simply no way someone can respond to the question “which god is the right god?” with “1) There can be only one God. 2) That God has revealed himself to man through both general and special revelation.”
This is one step removed from saying “it’s in the bible, so it must be true.”
An unmoved mover? How about gravity? Is gravity god?
October 26th, 2010 | 3:00 pm
Michael,
“No atheists are here picking fights”? Riiiight. Laughable.
Look we crazy theists often love a good fight (after all the conservatives among us are all warmongers)… That’s what comment boards on blogs are (partly) for, but spare us the “I just came here to identify the ‘true transgressor’ ” silliness. A whole gaggle of your tribe showed up to taunt and wheedle and scoff (not counting Ray Ingles who is a regular) at about the 3:30 a.m. mark. They came for a fight and got one. No big deal, but don’t (now that they are getting their clocks cleaned) try to say they didn’t.
Even weirder is this comment:”One must wonder about the validity of the opinions of someone who thinks that “go read some ____” is a good response to anything.”
So if you want to fix your car and I say “go read some Chilton’s” or if you want to learn about the New Atheists and I suggest reading Dawkins or Hitchens I am exposing myself to the charge “invalid opinion”? Passing strange that.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:00 pm
Michael B No atheists here are picking fights.
I should point out that atheists are always welcome at FT. But you should keep in mind that atheists are not always the intended audience for certain posts (like this one).
If you walk up to someone having a conversation, you may be free to listen in but you shouldn’t criticize the conversants for not initially addressing your concerns. You have the right to ask for clarification, of course, but that does not mean that the original people are obligated to address your concerns in the manner which you prefer.
For example, the conversation was going something like this:
Me: Look at this dumb argument by Shermer. Can you believe this guy is expounding on this subject and yet he creates such a strawman version of theism. Hasn’t he ever read Aquinas, who clearly explains all this already.
Intended Reader: I know, right? It’s ridiculous.
(Atheist Reader stumbles along and joins the conversation)
Me: Hi there.
Atheist Reader: You aren’t making a very good argument.
Me: Well, no, I’m not really making an argument at all. I’m referring to a rebuttal of the premises Shermer relies on that was already made by Aquinas.
Atheist Reader: What’s that argument?
Me: Oh, wow, well, it’s a bit too complex to adequately summarize in comment thread, at least in a way that you’d find convincing so. . .
Atheist Reader: Your argument is invalid.
Me: Whuuu. . . ?
The true transgressor is the person calling other people dumb in the title of their article.
Let’s take a look at the title: “The Dumbest Answer to the Biggest Big Question of All”
Do you see anywhere in there where I call anyone dumb? No. The reason is because I’m saying the argument is dumb, not the person.
Is the argument that something can come from absolute nothingness a dumb argument? I think so. In fact, I think most people agree since some are trying to say that the “nothingness” is really “somethingness” (despite that not being Shermer’s claim).
Joe may insist that it is not technically an ad-hominem but I think we can all see that as the cop-out that it is.
One of the things that I’ve always appreciated about arguing with atheists is that they understand the need to apply logic to arguments, including pointing out logical fallacies. Likewise, the thing that always frustrates me about arguing with atheists is that they rarely understand what logical fallacies really are or how they work.
You seem to think that I was being insulting to Shermer and therefore I must be committing an ad hominem. An ad hominem attempts to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise.
If I were to imply that the reason Shermer’s premise is invalid is because he is dumb/an atheist/a skeptic, etc., then yes, it would be an ad hominem. But the closest I come is saying that Shermer is unaware of solid counter-arguments to his premise. That is not a logical fallacy.
One must wonder about the validity of the opinions of someone who thinks that “go read some ____” is a good response to anything.
Ah, now you’ve given us a good example of something that comes close to being an ad hominem (but still hedges a bit).
Your claim takes the form of:
You can dismiss the validity of Person X’s opinions because they think “go read some _____” is a good response.
That would be an ad hominem.
As to your point, I’m not sure what is wrong with it. Surely you don’t assume that all arguments can fit into the limitations (both of space and reader attention) that of a blog comment thread, do you? Of course not. So “go read ____ because it fully explains the point” is a perfectly valid response. If it weren’t then we’d have no need for colleges and universities. Everything that people needed to know in life could be fit into a blog comment thread.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:04 pm
Jack Hudson –
(Emphasis added above.)
It’s not ‘obvious’ to me that an actual infinity couldn’t exist. Why are they ‘impossible’?
(Isn’t God an actual infinity? Are you saying it’s obvious that God is impossible?)
October 26th, 2010 | 3:40 pm
off topic: I’m a firm believer in infinity and singularity being impossibilities. There is new evidence to support the theory that singularity doesn’t occur in black holes, but rather other universes:
http://www.tgdaily.com/space-features/49265-our-universe-may-be-inside-a-black-hole-says-physicist
October 26th, 2010 | 3:42 pm
No, God is not an actual infinity, in that He is not a set of infinite objects or events, as would be a series of universe previously existing (or events leading up to the current universe).
October 26th, 2010 | 3:43 pm
Dear Ray Ingles: You wrote: “Everything in an infinity of causes has a cause – the prior cause. Aquinas (and you, apparently) insist that there must be a termination point… but why?”
Look at it this way. Let’s suppose I wanted to borrow a dollar from you. You reply, Okay, but I’ve got to borrow it from Sue. And Sue has to borrow it from Jim. And so on to infinity.
Do I ever get my dollar?
Now let’s suppose that I actually do have the dollar, which I got from you, which you borrowed from Sue, and back to Jim, and so on. The fact that I have the dollar NOW indicates that the infinite regress of “borrowers” is impossible; otherwise I would not have the dollar now.
The universe as it exists now is in existence. Because it is currently in existence, an infinite regress of “causes” would be likewise impossible. If the regress of causes were in reality infinite, the current state of the universe would never be arrived at–much as I would never get my dollar.
Here’s the neatest part of this argument: Aquinas assumed, with Aristotle (although Aquinas did not personally believe this), that the universe was eternal. (He simply assumed it for the purpose of taking the most difficult case.) But the universe’s being eternal does not affect the argument. In other words, even if the universe existed eternally, it still requires a cause–which cannot be explained by an infinite regress of causes. It would have to be a currently existing, ongoing cause.
This is what others are referring to on this thread when they point out that classical theology thinks of God as the perpetual, eternal, ongoing Cause of the universe–not a watchmaker who cranked the whole thing up way back when.
Regarding Hawking’s “The Grand Design”–he argues that the universe could bring itself into existence given the prior existence of the laws of gravitation. That exception there at the end is a mighty big exception, I think: “The universe could bring itself into existence–as long as some of the features of the universe already existed.” Even if this is proven to be scientifically accurate, it doesn’t rebut the theist’s argument from causation.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:44 pm
If there actually is no God, then Mr. Shermer’s answer is the Biggest Big answer to the Dumbest question of all. Okay, well maybe it is not the Biggest Big answer, but it is an intelligent answer to a dumb question. When you are trying to answer the Dumbest question of all time it is hard to phrase it so believers in the question take it seriously.
To continue the Dumb/Big tone of the article, consider the question, “Does Santa Claus exist?” If the answer is yes then this is a really Big question, and NOT setting out milk and cookies on Christmas Eve would be a dumb thing to do. If the answer is no then this is a very irrelevant question, and setting out milk and cookies is a dumb thing to do.
Because there is no demonstrable evidence that God exists, anymore than Santa Claus, is why atheists don’t take theistic apologetics seriously. You are asking a very irrelevant question, and your attempt at using logic, with your otherwise very intelligent brains, to try and prove the existence of your invisible friend makes your apologetics look as dumb as trying to prove the existence of Santa Claus.
October 26th, 2010 | 3:45 pm
“I should point out that atheists are always welcome at FT. But you should keep in mind that atheists are not always the intended audience for certain posts (like this one).”
Tough, mate, You post on the Internet, it’s public.
And besides, this raises the question, why bother preaching to the choir?
As for rebutting your arguments, I won’t bother. I’m not well-read enough to quote other people’s opinions, and there’s no point in sharing my own as it’s obvious to any reasonable person that you’re not about to change yours.
It makes me laugh though when theists try to use reason. There’s plenty of evidence that, if provided, would convince atheists of the existence of a god. What evidence would convince a theist that no god exists?
October 26th, 2010 | 3:53 pm
Not trying to be snarky, but this really struck me: Read my post, just above; then Mike R’s post; then baz’s post.
Atheism proclaims its use of reason. Theism demonstrates it.
IMHO.
October 26th, 2010 | 4:01 pm
baz Tough, mate, You post on the Internet, it’s public.
I think you missed the point. Just because something is public does not mean that everyone is a fitting audience. Ten-year-old girls are welcome to read these posts too but that does not mean I’m going to write everything on a level that they understand.
It’s no crime not to have read Aquinas. But since many FT readers have, there is nothing wrong with referencing that shared knowledge.
Let’s say you go to a website about television and read a recap about a show like Mad Men. Would you complain that the blogger didn’t adequately explain what the show was about for people who had never watched it? No, because the writer assumes there is a basic level of knowledge that can be safely referenced in their post.
And besides, this raises the question, why bother preaching to the choir?
I didn’t realize I was preaching at all. It was more of a “Look at this silly thing” type of post.
I’m not well-read enough to quote other people’s opinions, and there’s no point in sharing my own as it’s obvious to any reasonable person that you’re not about to change yours.
Well, it depends on what the opinion is. I change my opinion quite often on a wide range of issues.
There’s plenty of evidence that, if provided, would convince atheists of the existence of a god. What evidence would convince a theist that no god exists?
To start with, we’d need counter-evidence that provided a sufficient defeater for the evidence we do have for God. Stripping away all of our reasons for believing in God would be the first necessary step to get us to a point of neutrality. But from there, I’d say you’d have to show that the reality is radically different that the one we live in.
It isn’t as though God is a factor that can be pulled out of the equation and nothing changes. To a theist, just about everything—including existence—is affected by God’s existence. So you’ve have to explain how what we accept as reality is not in fact reality at all (e.g., we could be living in the Matrix).
(For what it’s worth, I contend that all atheists know God in some sense, but it is only due to their willfully ignoring evidence that causes them to claim otherwise. You don’t have to agree, of course, but that is why I think that the God-soaked reality is the same for all people, whether they choose to recognize it or not.)
October 26th, 2010 | 4:18 pm
Craig Payne –
What if each person takes half as long to ‘pass the buck’ as the previous person in the ‘chain’? Abe takes ten seconds to borrow from Bob, who takes five seconds to borrow from Cora, who takes 2.5 seconds to hit up Doreen… The answer is you get your dollar in twenty seconds. (There’s a chapter in Douglas Hofstadter’s “Goedel, Escher, Bach” that uses a very similar illustration.)
But, again, the idea that time adds up by successive moments is the issue. If time is like space, there’s no inherent problem with it going off forever in all directions. It’d be like saying the Earth couldn’t be at a particular point in infinite space because it could never get there. Again, in Relativity time is exactly like space in this sense. We perceive time as passing, but that is, as Einstein put it, an “illusion”, a trick of our perspective.
October 26th, 2010 | 4:19 pm
Michael B-
You miss my point. I am not so much offended by the rudeness of atheists as I am amused. When you & Baz and others go off and attempt to pick a fight on some Islamic site, then I will laud you for your courage. It’s your playing at tigers that is risible. Having done evangelism professionally, I can tell you that starting out from a point of derision is not going to win the argument for you. When I am in someone’s home, literally or figuratively, I attempt to be polite. Momma always said “si fueris Romae, Romano vivitomore.” Or we could go into the whole honey/vinegar dichotomy. Are you & others actually trying to get me and other apparently benighted Theists to see the light of reason? Or are you just looking for a quick hit of endorphins from your intellectual act of counting coup here at FT? If the former, I merely politely point out that the tactics currently employed will fail.
October 26th, 2010 | 4:27 pm
Craig Payne –
I’ve seen that assumed or asserted… but I’ve never seen that actually, explicitly defended. Is that supposed to be a self-evident axiom or what?
October 26th, 2010 | 4:40 pm
@haig: Another circular argument. In paraphrase, we don’t need to consider the concept of nothing because we have never encountered nothing. Science does indeed have limits, but not only do we not have to live within them, we have no choice but to deal with a vast variety of things that science has very little to say about: unpredictability is just the beginning.
Of course, science starts with observation, even of the unpredictable.
October 26th, 2010 | 5:11 pm
As a former agnostic, I became aware that there were some realities I was cognizant of before I became completely convinced of them.
I submit this gentle challenge to those atheists and agnostics who wish to consider it – why do you throw out your cognition on one account, and then in the next breath rely exclusively upon it to reason out your origins?
Why is my sense of the transcendent considered – by Shermer – something “I turn to…to fulfill an emotional need for certainty and comfort.” How is he certain of this? Upon what grounds? Why is *this* aspect of the human person considered by so many ‘skeptics’ to be inherently and unquestionably faulty, worthy of immediate dismissal? Why is this tenant of skeptics so often unchallenged by skeptics?
The courageous intellectual will take his intellect and his sense of the transcendent at face value and follow his thoughts on these questions wherever they lead.
I recommend a good weekend in a cabin – apart from television, radio and internet – to consider it.
October 26th, 2010 | 5:11 pm
this business with infinities seems awfully imprecise.
for example, the set of natural numbers (1,2,..) is infinitely large. so is the set of positive rational numbers (r=p/q), which you could imagine obtaining by adding an infinite number of elements to the first set. the second set, however, has a group structure that the first lacks.*
more simply, you could add the element {0} to the set of natural numbers. or the element {box}. whatever.
*of course, both sets are countably infinite and so there exists a map relating each element of one set to each of the other.
—
ray, I’m not grasping your point about time in relativity in relation to causation. would you mind clarifying?
October 26th, 2010 | 5:38 pm
Dear Ray Ingles: You wrote, “I’ve seen that assumed or asserted… but I’ve never seen that actually, explicitly defended. Is that supposed to be a self-evident axiom or what?”
It’s not self-evident, but is evident from observation. When things change, come into existence, pass out of existence, etc., there is always a cause. (By the way, I was at least trying to actually, explicitly defend that proposition in my previous post.) Some philosophers defend this as the “principle of sufficient reason.” Explaining any kind of mechanism of the universe’s possible origin is not the same thing as explaining a cause of the universe. I realize that many modern scientists are content with material and efficient causation explanations, but perhaps that just means they are not sufficiently curious.
But I do have a question for you, related to your point about relativity. Why is the perception of time as a succession of events false? I understand it is related to our perspective; but what makes that necessarily false?
October 26th, 2010 | 7:39 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by GodExposed.net, Michael Shermer. Michael Shermer said: My essay on why there is something instead of nothing is hammered by Xians here (but w/some excellent letter rebuts): http://bit.ly/9EIbEe [...]
October 26th, 2010 | 7:56 pm
@Mike: “Another circular argument. In paraphrase, we don’t need to consider the concept of nothing because we have never encountered nothing.”
Firstly, your paraphrase mischaracterized my argument, but it is a subtle, yet important, error and I see how you are confused. I did not say we don’t need to consider the ‘concept of nothing’, in fact, that is the opposite of my argument, I am saying we absolutely need to consider ‘nothing’ as only a ‘concept’ that human minds have thought up, not something that occurs outside our minds in nature as an empirical phenomenon. Secondly, how is this argument circular, for consider the similar, perfectly valid, argument ‘we don’t have to consider dragons because we haven’t encountered dragons’. That is not circular, and it would be equally erroneous to ask the question of why there are no dragons instead of dragons. Dragons exist only in the mind as an imagined concept.
>”Science does indeed have limits, but not only do we not have to live within them, we have no choice but to deal with a vast variety of things that science has very little to say about:unpredictability is just the beginning. Of course, science starts with observation, even of the unpredictable.”
Sorry, but science has a lot to say about unpredictability, and just because everything cannot be predicted does not mean this is some defect of science which then needs to be supplanted with non-scientific reverie. Limits to how much we can possibly know about reality is no excuse to make up your own answers.
October 26th, 2010 | 8:57 pm
Dear Haig: You wrote, “I did not say we don’t need to consider the ‘concept of nothing’, in fact, that is the opposite of my argument, I am saying we absolutely need to consider ‘nothing’ as only a ‘concept’ that human minds have thought up, not something that occurs outside our minds in nature as an empirical phenomenon. Secondly, how is this argument circular, for consider the similar, perfectly valid, argument ‘we don’t have to consider dragons because we haven’t encountered dragons’. That is not circular, and it would be equally erroneous to ask the question of why there are no dragons instead of dragons. Dragons exist only in the mind as an imagined concept.”
The two examples are not precisely parallel (it is a subtle but important distinction). “We don’t have to consider dragons because we haven’t encountered dragons” is true. However, in our universe, dragons could exist or could have existed or might exist in the future; they are not any more unlikely than, say, kangaroos. They simply don’t exist.
However, we can’t encounter “nothing” as an empirical phenomenon because, given the fact of our observation, it CANNOT exist. The fact that we are contemplating it indicates that “nothing” does not exist (in a way not applicable to dragons, which could possibly exist sometime). Dragons could exist in nature; “nothing” cannot exist in nature, because nature would therefore be existing already, and hence not “nothing.”
So the question “Why is there something at all rather than nothing at all?” is a valid one. It questions the existence of “nature” itself, in a way the dragon question does not.
October 26th, 2010 | 9:00 pm
Kristan, Craig Payne – I talk a little about what Relativity implies about time here, but google “relativity of simultaneity” for details. Essentially, you can think of those spacetime diagrams as taking different ‘slices’ out of a four-dimensional manifold. It’s hard to explain this observed phenomenon without a four-dimensional manifold.
Or read the chapter “Time and Beyond Time” in C. S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” and consider that Relativity offers experimental evidence that this view of time is substantially correct. (That doesn’t mandate that there is an ‘outside of time’ observer, though.)
October 26th, 2010 | 9:10 pm
Oh, goody! The circus has come to town!
Matt
it is a heuristic principle of the scientific method that any theory posited to explain something which cannot be tested, may be summarily dismissed.
YOS
And it works rather well when dealing with the metrical properties of physical bodies; though less well in biology than in physics, and not at all in social “science.” And is essentially irrelevant to art and the humanities, to justice, courage, beauty, etc.
+ + +
Auke Slotegraaf
It’s amazing how some folk still cling to a belief in the supernatural, and go on to insist that this supernatural has some interaction with the natural world – despite zero evidence of such interaction.
YOS
Some evidence: An objective universe exists. It is ordered. It is rationally ordered. It is accessible to human reason. These are all “predictions” of the God “hypothesis” (assuming we approach metaphysics backwards.) By Carnap’s formulation of scientific logical positivism, that makes God somewhat probable as an hypothesis.
However, metaphysics is more akin to mathematics than to physics. That is, while it starts like physics with observations about the sensible world, it does not reason inductively to hypotheses, but reasons deductively to conclusions. Although I write as a mathematician, not as a metaphysician.
+ + +
Margaret
Can I suggest that those unable to accept that “something can come from ‘nothing’” read Stephen Hawking’s latest book, “The Grand Design”?
YOS
Poor Hawking. He did not show how the universe could come from nothing. He showed how a space-time manifold could emerge from a pre-existing structure of an (admittedly hypothetical) “multiverse” — despite zero evidence, as Auke said — through pre-existing Laws. That is, a quantum shift from the state k=0 to k=1+, where k=number of space-time manifolds.) But that is like saying your new bank account “appeared out of nothing” by ignoring the entire pre-existing structure of banking laws, etc. Hawking’s space-time manifold [not "universe"] did not come from nothing; it came from a quantum state. A quantum state (with all the associated physical laws/formal causes) is not nothing.
Hawking told us that in the beginning was the Law; and all things came to be through the Law and without the Law nothing came to be. I thought he came unwittingly close to the opening of the St. John Gospel. But that’s what happens when those trained in close measurement of physical bodies start yacking in fields outside their expertise.
+ + +
Paul
Here in Europe we do see surveys that illustrate America’s obsession with religion, but Acquinas’s [sic] Europe has moved on and scores a more rational and sceptical understanding of life.
YOS
Yes, she moved on to world wars, genocide, and demographic exhaustion. Europe has moved so far beyond that the Europeans are no longer reproducing themselves. Europe was a great civilization once, and I will miss it when it is gone.
+ + +
Ciro Galli
No a-priori arguments allowed, therefore Aquinas would have nothing to say. Even if the evidence for a first unmoved mover was provided, there’s long long way between that, and the Christian God.
YOS
“Take some lessons in logical thinking” and you will see that neither of your a-priori assumptions is true.
+ + +
At3p
please tell the readers which God is responsible for the creation of the Universe; and why that god or that set of gods?
YOS
There can be only one God. This can be proven logically, if you like, once you have reached the point in Aristotle’s proof where he establishes that the First Mover must be a being of Pure Act and must therefore possess nothing in potency. Suppose there were two Beings of Pure Act. Then one would lack some X the other possessed. But that would place that being in potency to X and so it would not be Pure Act or a First Mover, a contradiction. Modus tollens. A few additional steps gets you to a being whose essence just is its existence. It is Existence Itself — the name it gave itself when Moses asked. And of course, Existence Exists. Other properties proper to the God follow; but a comm box is a poor place into which to copy entire books.
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Matt
Here’s a great essay on why theology is useless: http://machineslikeus.com/news/why-theology-useless
YOS
The atoms that comprise the assemblage we call “Matt” only wrote that because they were mechanically compelled, like a machine, to do so.
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baz
As for rebutting your arguments, I won’t bother. I’m not well-read enough to quote other people’s opinions, and there’s no point in sharing my own as it’s obvious to any reasonable person that you’re not about to change yours.
YOS
A delightful self-parody!
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haig
Makes no difference to my argument whether it is ‘from’ or ‘instead’, the point remains that ‘nothing’ is only a concept.
YOS
So is “species” or for that matter “chair,” not to mention “space-time manifolds” and “pi.” Concepts are how we actually know things.
Pace the other Mike, the phrase is “ex nihilo nihil fit,” not “pro nihilo…” or “ob nihilum…” The term “ex” means “out of [a source]” (versus “ab” which means “out of [a cause]“) So Parmenides’ Principle of Sufficient Reason means “out of nothing [as the source] no thing arises.”
The dictum is a useful guard against the common charism of faith: “It just is!” or “It was caused by chance!” [Chance cannot be a cause of anything.]
Application. Something cannot *become white unless it is first not-white. But ex nihilo nihil fit: “from not-white, white does not arise.” So if something is not white, it cannot become white in and of itself. It must be moved to whiteness by another which is already actually white, either formally [e.g. white paint] or eminently [e.g., bleach].
Similarly, X cannot begin-to-be unless it first is-not. But from non-being being does not arise, since for X to cause X to be, X must already be. So X must be made to be by something already possessing being [existence] either formally or eminently. Eventually, as with κινεσις, we find that esse [the act-of-being] eventually requires that something exists necessarily and does not itself come-into-being. We call this Existence Itself. Quite obviously, Existence exists.
October 26th, 2010 | 9:24 pm
Mike C
There’s simply no way someone can respond to the question “which god is the right god?” with “1) There can be only one God. …
YOS
Of course there is a way to respond. You could provide a proof that there could be more than one. That would be a response. You could also respond, “What is the demonstration of this?” All sorts of responses. You need not give up all reason.
See above for a sketch of the proof of uniqueness. Be careful not to equivocate on the term “god.” Not every entity called by that name is an entity of the same kind. Zeus, for example, is not. That’s why we capitalize the term “God” to designate the necessary being from other purported divine beings ["gods"]. (Which is one reason why attention to spelling and punctuation and the like matter.)
Mike C
An unmoved mover? How about gravity? Is gravity god?
YOS
No.
First, the word translated as “motion” was the Greek κινεσις [kinesis] which means any change from potency to act. A ripening apple is in motion. An evolving “species” is in motion. [Note to A/Ts: Yes, I know about the universals; but I'm trying to keep it simple for the circus.] An acorn planted is in motion to become an oak tree. Etc. The local motion of inanimate bodies is only one kind (and in many ways the least interesting kind) of κινεσις/motion. So gravity is not the be-all and end-all of motion. (There are three other known powers, just on the inanimate plane.)
Gravity is a property of physical matter. No matter; no gravity. Gravity is not itself a thing, but an abstraction from existent things; a story humans tell one another to account for the actual empirical facts of bodies in motion. Currently, the story is that the presence of matter, defined as certain states in the gravitational ether, “warp” space-time, and falling bodies (including “orbiting” bodies) simply follow the geodesics. All models are wrong, as George Box said, but some are useful.
Gravity is one of the four “powers” of matter in formal causality. There is nothing God-like about it. It is not an unmoved mover. Since it is propagated at the speed of light, it has its own local motion. It is not an uncaused cause, since it is caused by the presence of matter (including energy. Even a beam of light has gravity.) Gravity is not a necessary being, for the excellent reason that it is not a being at all, but a predicate of being. The particle of matter has being. Its gravitational attraction no more exists in itself than “sphericity” exists independently of basketballs and the like.
October 26th, 2010 | 9:46 pm
Last catch-up. Sorry, all, for these three long posts.
Ray is genuinely worth answering.
Ray
[Ockham’s Razor is] a pragmatic heuristic. There are an uncountable number of theories that account for a given set of data. It’s only pragmatism that you accept the simplest accounting.
YOS
Agreed. Craig’s Theorem, right? Science is inherently underdetermined. In modern terminology, Bro. William stated that our models should not contain too many variables, because then we won’t understand our own models. Physical reality, he said, could be as complex as God desired.
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Ray
three of [Aquinas'] “Five Ways” depend critically on his claim that an infinite regress (of movers, or causes, or ‘contingencies’) is impossible. It’s not at all clear that this is the case. We accept infinite “progress”, for example. We have no problem imagining time going on infinitely into the future.
YOS
We can imagine a unicorn, too; but that does not obligate unicorns to exist. Instead of imagination, perhaps we should try the intellect. I’m not sure what infinite “progress” is beside a slogan, like “excelsior!” I think non-mathematicians confuse infinity with “a whole lot of stuff.” Aristotle had no objection to conceptual infinities, like the number line, etc.
But you’ll be happy to learn that Aquinas agreed with you that there could be physically realized infinities. He famously assumed the world was eternal in his proofs, not because he wanted to do the toughest proofs, but because of the medieval rule that you could not use Revelation in a proof in philosophy. In those days, before the Big Bang or the Heat Death, there was no philosophical proof that the world had a beginning or would have an end; and so he did not reject the hypothesis.
An accidentally-ordered causal chain might proceed to infinity. It is the essentially-ordered causal chain that requires a first cause. A simple, analogous example: The music of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A is being moved by the vibrating air column in the clarinet, which is being moved by the vibrating reed, which is being moved by Sharon Kam.
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr3aB4v8hXI[/url]
Note that [i]none of the causes in the sequence[/i] possess causal power on their own. If Sharon Kam were to stop playing even for an instant, the reed will not vibrate, the air column will not vibrate, the music will not progress. It would be foolish to argue that we have understood the Concerto merely because we have described in fine detail the frequencies of the sound waves in the air and have discovered “laws” of scales, keys, harmony and counterpoint, and so “have no need of the Kam hypothesis.”
An essentially-ordered sequence must have a first cause because all the other elements in the series lack causal power on their own and are “instruments” in an analogous sense to the clarinet. Even in an accidentally-ordered sequence — say, an infinite sequence of forwarded emails — there must be a first cause — that produced its content.
Note that a “first” cause is first in logical priority, not first in time sequence. An eternally-existing universe would still be caused.
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Ray
In Relativity, time really is an actual, physical dimension.
YOS
Einstein also said that time [and space] have no objective existence at all, but are simply consequences of the existence of matter. Along with his idol Mach, he regarded space and time as metaphysical intrusions into what ought to be [i]empirical[/i] science. In particular, time is the measure of change in mutable being. No matter, no change (“motion” or “κινεσις”); no change, no time. He was anticipated in this not only by Aquinas, but by Augustine, who wrote “With the motion of creatures, time began to run its course. It is idle to look for time before creation, as if time can be found before time.” In case anyone was looking for an example of pure reasoning anticipating an empirical finding.
Ray
General Relativity – where time is, in a sense, an illusion of our perspective, and the past, present, and future ‘already’ exist.
YOS
And so Parmenides makes his reappearance. This is precisely what he and Zeno and the rest were demonstrating by the paradoxes of Achilles and the Tortoise, etc. It is also what Pope Benedict referred to when he wrote that creation is not like a craftsman fabricating clever things, but creation-in-motion; that is, creation of the whole being, including its time dimension. Aquinas and Augustine, of course, said much the same thing. They didn’t have words like “space-time manifold” or “distortions in the field of Ricci tensors” but they knew that from outside space-time everything would be simultaneous – which is why creation is something happening “right now” and not only at some remote time in the past.
Just as Nicholas Oresme knew the principle of relativity in the 14th century.
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Ray Ingles
What if each person takes half as long to ‘pass the buck’ as the previous person in the ‘chain’? Abe takes ten seconds to borrow from Bob, who takes five seconds to borrow from Cora, who takes 2.5 seconds to hit up Doreen… The answer is you get your dollar in twenty seconds.
YOS
What dollar? Where’d it come from?
Dude, it’s not a [i]math[/i] problem.
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Craig Payne –
…even if the universe existed eternally, it still requires a cause–which cannot be explained by an infinite regress of causes. It would have to be a currently existing, ongoing cause.
Ray Ingles
I’ve seen that assumed or asserted… but I’ve never seen that actually, explicitly defended. Is that supposed to be a self-evident axiom or what?
YOS
1. If you find a hammer in the refrigerator and ask “Why is the hammer in the refrigerator?” would you regard “We have always kept it in the refrigerator” to be an adequate response?
2. [b]Plato’s Foot.[/b] Suppose an Eternal Foot is planted in the Eternal Sand. Beneath the Eternal Foot is an Eternal Footprint. The Footprint has always existed; yet it is certainly caused [by the Foot.] The Foot is thus logically prior to the Footprint, even though neither is prior in time to the other.
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[i]Michael Shermer said: My essay on why there is something instead of nothing is hammered by Xians here [b](but w/some excellent letter rebuts)[/b][/i]
YOS
Must have missed those. :-D
October 26th, 2010 | 10:02 pm
“Francis Beckwith – At what point did I say Ockham’s Razor was a hypothesis?
It’s a pragmatic heuristic. There are an uncountable number of theories that account for a given set of data. It’s only pragmatism that you accept the simplest accounting.”
So, Ockham’s Razor does not actually provide any assistance in knowing reality? It’s just a useful fiction–a pragmatic heuristic, as you call it? Suppose I employ mathematics in figuring out how much cash I have in savings. Math, in that case, is not merely a pragmatic heuristic. Rather, it tells me something about reality. It is a non-physical abstract object with which I have mental contact when I assess my bank assets.
Ockham’s Razor is, in brief, the claim that one ought not to multiply entities beyond necessity when trying to explain a phenomenon. It is not, as some mistakenly claim, the belief that one ought prefer the simpler explanation, since a simpler explanation may diminish the entities necessary to account for some phenomenon.
But when it comes to Thomas’s Five Ways, Ockham’s Razor is only violated if the case is unsound, not merely because Thomas postulates a First Cause, Unmoved Mover to account for the contingent universe. To appeal to OR prior to assessing the argument’s quality is in fact to beg the question, since postulating God would only be unnecessary if the arguments don’t work.
Thus, OR’s is not relevant to assessing the quality of Thomas’ argument.
October 26th, 2010 | 10:22 pm
Craig Payne –
Ah, but “the universe has a purpose” is something that needs to be demonstrated or proven. If one assumes that it has a purpose, you’re sneaking in the assumption of a purposer. Why do you assume the universe has a ’cause’ the same way something inside the universe has a cause?
You can’t just ask, “What’s the purpose of the universe?” At the very least, you have to add “, if any…” to the end of that question. So far, I haven’t seen a good demonstration or proof that the universe accomplishes or assists toward some purpose.
October 26th, 2010 | 10:39 pm
Francis Beckwith –
Can you show me what dictionary equates ‘heuristic’ with ‘fiction’? They are not equivalent. (I’ll grant ‘pragmatic’ and ‘useful’ are functionally equivalent.)
No, math doesn’t tell you something about reality. Math is a useful tool for modeling reality. The math we use changes depending on what we find in reality. For the longest time, people thought Euclidean geometry was Truth, and the variations were just fictions. Now, it turns out that hyperbolic geometry is a closer fit.
Right. You don’t have to prefer the simpler one… but why bother with anything more complicated? The point is the simplest one accounts for everything. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be an accounting. You can add filigrees on top of it if you like… but by definition they are not necessary.
I didn’t say the five ways violated Ockham’s Razor.
No, really. Go check.
I was responding to Joe Carter’s (and Mike Melendez’s) comments about ‘untestable’ vs. ‘untenable’.
October 26th, 2010 | 10:40 pm
The idiocy of this argument astounds me. Theist HAVE to believe god created the universe or their world view would be shattered. Nothing makes sense to the theists except within their paradigm. To site Aquinas or anyone else as “solving” this problem is sophomoric at best. You can’t solve a problem when you already have your answer.
You can throw any religious author into your argument to make you SOUND more intelligent. But it only makes sense to people who BELIEVE what YOU BELIEVE. Who share your PARADIGM (see…I have read Kuhn and Popper). Believe what you want to believe. That is fine. But to suggest the the argument has been solved because some “great” theologian has decreed it so would make a 4 year old go “Really?” (assuming you already didnt take that 4 yr old to Sunday School to indoctrinate him/her already)
October 26th, 2010 | 11:00 pm
YOS –
Right. Same with Gods… :)
Well, the Big Bang doesn’t prove that the universe (or, at least, the mass-energy that makes it up) had a beginning, either. As I said, it’s just the furthest back we’ve been able to push our understanding, so far. As to Heat Death… well, given infinite time, quantum fluctuations will coalesce the mass-energy again. :)
Of course, the question is whether the universe represents an essentially-ordered causal chain, isn’t it?
Ah, there’s the assertion again.
If people are going to use mathematical analogies, expect responses couched in mathematical analogies.
And a hammer is validly analogous to a universe because…
Did the Eternal Foot move the Eternal Sand? Oh, wait, Eternal Sand doesn’t move…
October 27th, 2010 | 5:45 am
Ray Ingles said:
“Of course, the question is whether the universe represents an essentially-ordered causal chain, isn’t it?”
No, the universe is what is caused, not the causal chain. The question is what (now, in this instant) causes the universe to be. If you really think that the universe is causing itself to be, then, by definition, the universe is God. Except, our experience of the universe (cars, people, dogs, fire hydrants) is that they are contingent, i.e. they do not seem able to cause themselves.
October 27th, 2010 | 8:27 am
Dear Ray (I assume we are on a first-name basis by now): You wrote, “Ah, but “the universe has a purpose” is something that needs to be demonstrated or proven. If one assumes that it has a purpose, you’re sneaking in the assumption of a purposer.”
Yes, I am, because the universe exhibits purposes (Aquinas’s fifth argument). Student study IN ORDER TO learn, because they have intelligent purposes. Acorns drop from oak trees in order to produce other oak trees, but acorns have no intelligent purposes. The purpose or teleological end comes from a purposer.
I know scientists now reject the idea of purposeful nature. However, they “sneak in” the language all the nature, e.g.: “Sea turtles swim ashore in order to lay their eggs,” etc.
You also wrote, “Why do you assume the universe has a ’cause’ the same way something inside the universe has a cause?”
This is a potential problem, since it might lead to the fallacy of composition. However, composition is not strictly speaking a logical fallacy, but a material fallacy. Under certain circumstances, it could be correct: “Every part of this machine is made of steel; therefore, the machine is made of steel.”
Similarly, “Everything in the natural universe appears to be contingent, to require an ‘outside’ reason for its existence; therefore, the natural universe itself is contingent and requires an ‘outside’ reason for its existence.”
October 27th, 2010 | 8:28 am
Oops; that was supposed to be scientists “sneak in the language all the time,” not “all the nature.”
October 27th, 2010 | 9:32 am
“Theist HAVE to believe god created the universe or their world view would be shattered.”
Yet another circular argument. Here the circle is not completed as it says the wrong thing.
“Atheists HAVE to disbelieve god created the universe or their world view would be shattered.”
The circle eats it’s own tail.
October 27th, 2010 | 10:01 am
Shermer is quoted as saying “My essay on why there is something instead of nothing is hammered by Xians here.”
“Xian” is a made up term. An abbreviation of an existing term, “Christian”. But only a particular set of people use it, along with the unnecessarily long “christianist”. Both demonstrate either a belief in the magic of words or simple prejudice. I believe the latter is more likely. The funny thing is “Xian” seems a decent abbreviation to me, pointing directly to the common word’s Greek roots. “Christianist”, on the other hand, is an absurb construction. To work through the roots, it means “a follower of the follower of the anointed one”.
October 27th, 2010 | 11:33 am
Carlo –
Why use that word? Why not say ‘the universe is Plebny’? Using the term ‘God’ brings in all kinds of connotations and associations that simply don’t apply – or at the very least, would have to be demonstrated to apply.
Cars, people, dogs, and fire hydrants are arrangements of mass-energy, and exist – depending on how you define exists – at a different ontological level than the mass-energy that make them up.
But that mass-energy meets all the criteria we can come up with for a self-existent and eternal something. We’ve never seen it be created or destroyed (on the macro level, anyway – QM is a strange beast) and we don’t see any evidence that’s ever happened.
October 27th, 2010 | 11:36 am
Mike Melendez –
And nobody uses abbreviations on Twitter! :)
But as a comparison with “Islamist”, say, its meaning is pretty clear. Whether it actually applies to any one person is up for debate, of course.
October 27th, 2010 | 11:50 am
Craig –
I prescribe a dose of Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”. The idea that individual things within the universe can have purposes (and other things can be usefully modeled as if they had purposes) does not imply that the universe simpliciter has a purpose or purposes. That’s committing the fallacy of composition.
As I noted to Carlo, all the arrangements in the universe appear to be contingent in some sense, but the mass-energy that makes up those arrangements doesn’t appear to be. If you can violate the conservation laws, I (and the Nobel committee) would love to see your evidence. :)
October 27th, 2010 | 1:08 pm
ray,
I’m familiar with relativity. if you will, I’d like you to clarify your claim about casuation. relativistic theories are still causal, after all.
kristan
p.s. the ‘strangeness’ of quantum theories does not inhibit their treatment of symmetries. translation-invariant quantum theories still have conserved energy and momenta.
October 27th, 2010 | 2:07 pm
4 Dimensions? Buuuuuut there’s 11.
October 27th, 2010 | 2:40 pm
It’s interesting that no atheists have refuted the charge (made a few times now) that Shermer contradicts his argument in the first paragraph when he says that, “natural beings delimited by living in a finite universe” cannot know anything about something that exists “outside of space and time”.
If that is true then only one of the following is true:
- Shermer is right, in which case neither science nor religion can say anything scientifically certain about the origin of the universe, because all ideas about the universe are equally untestable.
- Shermer is wrong, in which case various ideas about the origin of the universe can be considered, including the idea that God was the originating cause of the universe.
Either way, there is no reason to treat the idea that God created the universe any less seriously than other ideas about its origins, rendering Shermers’s entire article moot.
October 27th, 2010 | 3:11 pm
Brad
To site [sic] Aquinas or anyone else as “solving” this problem is sophomoric at best. You can’t solve a problem when you already have your answer. …to suggest the the argument has been solved because some “great” theologian has decreed it so
YOS
You’ve gotten your “because” in the wrong place. The argument is not correct [i]because[/i] Aquinas made it. It should be obvious to anyone devoted to logic and reason that it is not [i]false[/i] because Aquinas made it, either. Calling it “sophomoric” does not address the points of the argument, let alone refute them. A fine crop of fideistic atheists we have here.
Citing Aristotle and Aquinas is no more sophomoric than putting footnotes or references in your technical paper. It saves time, and you don’t have to reproduce a hundred pages of text in a comm box.
October 27th, 2010 | 3:12 pm
Brad
You can’t solve a problem when you already have your answer.
YOS
How much is 3+7?
October 27th, 2010 | 3:45 pm
Jack Hudson –
I’d say that Shermer is right for the wrong reason. It’s certainly an intelligible possibility that the univers we see was assembled/initiated/created by one or more intelligent causes, and – depending on the properties of the creator(s) involved – might have testable consequences.
But if the creator(s) are proposed to be supernatural… well, in my experience, the ‘supernatural’ ends up being a code word for ‘unknowable’, ends up meaning ‘untestable’: http;//ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/unknowable.html
October 27th, 2010 | 4:06 pm
Not to be too persnickety here, but wouldn’t the ordinary definition of supernatural (‘of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe’) apply to every potential cause of the origin of the universe?
It would seem you have stated the same contradiction in different words.
October 27th, 2010 | 7:52 pm
Your characterization of Shermer is wrong. To say that someone who disagrees with you is incompetent simply because they disagree with you is a weak move. Ad-homs are not arguments.
For my second point, can you ask yourself where in history has God ever been the best answer for why anything exists and if you concede that he never has been then why would you think he would be in the future? It seems to me that saying God is the best explanation for x item we don’t know is exactly what the Greeks used to do until we understood things like lightning.
October 27th, 2010 | 10:14 pm
YOS –
We can imagine a unicorn, too; but that does not obligate unicorns to exist.
Ray
Right. Same with Gods… :)
YOS
Excellent. Now, if you can provide a deductive proof that the essence of what we call “unicorn” [i]must[/i] exist, based on sensory experience with the world….
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YOS
In those days, before the Big Bang or the Heat Death, there was no philosophical proof that the world had a beginning or would have an end…
Ray
Well, the Big Bang doesn’t prove that the universe … had a beginning, either. As I said, it’s just the furthest back we’ve been able to push our understanding, so far. As to Heat Death… well, given infinite time, quantum fluctuations will coalesce the mass-energy again. :)
YOS
The desire for an eternal universe runs deep, and I suppose we can always tell a story in which it turns out so. It’s untestable, of course. But we need not have empirical evidence of it, only a mathematical model, right? When you live inside an open set, you may approach the boundaries arbitrarily closely and never actually reach them.
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YOS
It is the essentially-ordered causal chain that requires a first cause.
Ray
Of course, the question is whether the universe represents an essentially-ordered causal chain, isn’t it?
YOS
No. The “universe” is not a “thing” (or “substance” in the old talk) but rather a collection of things. As a “set” it has no more physical existence per se than “dog” has. Rover and Fido, this dog and that dog and the other dog exist per se. But “dog” is a concept that we abstract from the world. Same with “universe.” It is not a causal chain at all, although we may discern causal chains within it. But as Aquinas said, accidental chains (A begets B who begets C, etc.) may go on ad infinitum. If, as you contend, Science is proven wrong yet again and the space-time manifold did not have a beginning, all of his proofs still stand.
I notice you skipped over the main point.
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YOS
Note that a “first” cause is first in logical priority, not first in time sequence. An eternally-existing universe would still be caused.
Ray
Ah, there’s the assertion again.
YOS
Keep reading.
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YOS
What dollar? Where’d it come from? Dude, it’s not a math problem.
Ray
If people are going to use mathematical analogies, expect responses couched in mathematical analogies.
YOS
It’s not that, dude. You think you “solved” the problem of the eternally-loaned dollar by citing a convergent series of lending times. (A physically impossible series, but what the heck.) But the question is not how fast they can pass the buck, but where did the buck come from in the first place?
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YOS
If you find a hammer in the refrigerator and ask “Why is the hammer in the refrigerator?” would you regard “We have always kept it in the refrigerator” to be an adequate response?
Ray
And a hammer is validly analogous to a universe because…
YOS
It is not analogous to a universe. The analogy is to citing “always existed” as if it answered the question. But Aquinas assumed that the universe always existed when he prepared his proofs.
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YOS
Beneath the Eternal Foot is an Eternal Footprint. The Footprint has always existed; yet it is certainly caused by the Foot.
Ray
Did the Eternal Foot move the Eternal Sand? Oh, wait, Eternal Sand doesn’t move…
YOS
Having trouble with infinity? The Foot was *always in the Sand. The Footprint was *always beneath the Foot. There was no “coming into being” of the Footprint in time. Yet, the Foot is clearly the cause of the Footprint.
October 27th, 2010 | 11:18 pm
YOS –
Um… you may recall that this discussion is about the validity of a class of such proofs. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
I’m fine with the “Kam Hypothesis”. But then there’s the “parents of Kam” and “grandparents of Kam” hypotheses…
“But, again, the idea that time adds up by successive moments is the issue. If time is like space, there’s no inherent problem with it going off forever in all directions.”
Did you notice that part? I paraphrased Hofstadter for fun. The above started the real answer.
Are you quite sure the ‘buck’ is analogous to causality? I’m totally okay with causality being a local condition rather than a global one.
How do you know your intuitions are valid about eternal things? How much experience do you have with them?
You can assert that. But if the sand was always there in that position, how could the Foot have ’caused’ it to be in the shape of a footprint?
Why are you applying temporal intuitions to eternal things? How do you justify that?
October 27th, 2010 | 11:24 pm
Dear Shermer Is RIght: You wrote, “Your characterization of Shermer is wrong. To say that someone who disagrees with you is incompetent simply because they disagree with you is a weak move. Ad-homs are not arguments.
For my second point, can you ask yourself where in history has God ever been the best answer for why anything exists and if you concede that he never has been then why would you think he would be in the future? It seems to me that saying God is the best explanation for x item we don’t know is exactly what the Greeks used to do until we understood things like lightning.”
I am betting myself that you did not read the thread at all before you posted.
Am I correct or incorrect?
October 28th, 2010 | 11:56 am
YOS
Now, if you can provide a deductive proof that the essence of what we call “unicorn” must exist, based on sensory experience with the world….
Ray
Um… you may recall that this discussion is about the validity of a class of such proofs. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
YOS
The conversation ran thus:
YOS – We can imagine a unicorn, too; but that does not obligate unicorns to exist.
Ray – Right. Same with Gods… :)
But unlike unicorns, there are deductive proofs that an unmoved mover and an uncaused cause must exist. You may reject the proofs, but it does mean that unicorns are not “same with” God.
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Ray
I’m fine with the “Kam Hypothesis”. But then there’s the “parents of Kam” and “grandparents of Kam” hypotheses…
YOS
Except that Kam’s parents, etc. are only accidentally ordered to the motion of the sound waves we call Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. If you wish to continue the essentially ordered series, you must continue to Kam’s breathing, her diaphragm, the nerves, the motor neurons, the electrochemical reactions in the synapses, and so on.
If any one of these were to cease even for a moment, the music would cease. But Kam’s parents could disappear in the middle of the concert, and the music would continue. (In fact, begetting was the very example Aquinas gave as a chain of movers that could continue forever.)
Each element in an essential chain receives its power to cause motion only because of the concurrent operation of previous causes. That is, the chain “drills down” in the present progressive tense. It does not regress backward in time. If the neurons stopped firing right now; if Kam stopped breathing right now; if the reed ceased vibrating right now — the music would stop.
Since each intermediate link is powerless to cause the music, we can for all practical purposes combine them into a single “instrumental cause.” But there must be a first cause that sets them into motion, because otherwise none of them would be moving.
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Ray
“But, again, the idea that time adds up by successive moments is the issue. If time is like space, there’s no inherent problem with it going off forever in all directions.”
YOS
Indeed. Aquinas assumed it did. So did Newton. Then along came Einstein and Planck. If time is like space, and space is quantized, then why not time be also quantized?
+ + +
But the question is not how fast they can pass the buck, but where did the buck come from in the first place?
Ray
Are you quite sure the ‘buck’ is analogous to causality? I’m totally okay with causality being a local condition rather than a global one.
YOS
The buck is not analogous to causality. It is simply a being that is successively loaned from person to person. You may as easily substitute any object — hey, let me borrow your hammer. Such a series of loans can go on infinitely, since it is accidentally ordered. After Adam loans the hammer to Betsy, Adam could disappear from the universe and the sequence would continue. The question is where the hammer comes from. If the hammer were to disappear, the sequence of borrowings would have to stop.
A similar analogy is the forwarded email. An email might be forwarded an infinite number of times, but clearly it must have an original composer.
This may help:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/08/edwards-on-infinite-causal-series.html
+ + +
Ray
How do you know your intuitions are valid about eternal things? How much experience do you have with them?
YOS
Some experience with eternal, but in mathematics most of my experiences have been with the infinite: limits, Cantor transfinites, etc.
October 28th, 2010 | 1:06 pm
Ray Ingles:
I call it God because that’s the philosophical definition of a being that causes itself to be. Esse ipsum subsistens. I assumed you were not interested in a “religious” argument, so I stuck to philosophy.
As for the fact that, as you say, “Cars, people, dogs, and fire hydrants are arrangements of mass-energy, and exist” that totally misses my point. Being and arrangement of mass-energy is not a sufficient reason to exist. I can conceive of lots of such things (e.g. unicorns etc.) that DO NOT exist.
October 28th, 2010 | 10:27 pm
There are claimed proofs thereof, but that doesn’t mean there are valid proofs. And, secondly, the notion that an ‘uncaused cause’ is at all equivalent to ‘God’ (rather than ‘Plebny’ as I offered before) depends on yet further arguments.
And eventually you get to mass-energy… which, as I’ve noted, meets all the experimental criteria we can come up with for something eternal. We’ve never seen any created or destroyed.
So what if it is? The integers and the real numbers may be different orders of infinity, but they are both infinite.
When dealing with infinite, eternal chains – I’m not so sure. Given the record of humans speculating in areas they have no experience with that I’ve already alluded to, I’m mostly sure that whatever the situation turns out to be… it won’t look much like what we expect or intuit.
So, it is/was/ever shall be your foot in the sand?
October 28th, 2010 | 10:34 pm
Carlo –
I was agreeing with you that the arrangements don’t have to exist. An arrangement has to be an arrangement of something.
As I went on to say before, though: “the mass-energy that makes up those arrangements doesn’t appear to be [contingent]. If you can violate the conservation laws, I (and the Nobel committee) would love to see your evidence. :)”
October 29th, 2010 | 11:06 am
Ray Ingles
Sorry, no oiffense, but honestly I don’t think you grasp what the word “contingent” means.
All these arrangements of mass-energy (an expression that explains nothing, by the way, and I speak as a theoretical physicist myself) have no intrinsic reason to be or, in classical terms, that their essence DOES not include their existence. That’s it, that’s basically all that can be said about God at a purely philosophical level. It is strictly “theologia negativa”: that reality is contingent, and thus points to a misterious “beyond” where essence and existence coincides. Of course, revelation is a different matter.
I propose that this conversation has run its course. If I may suggest a reading that helped me very much understand these things (together with many years of reflection) I would strongly recommed Gilson, especially “The spirit of medieval philosophy” or “The unity of philosophical experience.”
October 29th, 2010 | 5:58 pm
Carlo
Odd that all I ever see are assertions of this and not arguments for it. It’s taken as an axiom, but never really argued for. At most, you get appeals to intuitions in areas no human has experience in – and as a theoretical physicist, you should already know how terrible humans are at intuiting without experience or data.
Well, I’ll see if I can get some Gilson on my reading list.
October 29th, 2010 | 8:38 pm
Ray
There are claimed proofs thereof, but that doesn’t mean there are valid proofs.
YOS
“Valid”? They are certainly valid. The question is whether they are convincing. (Recall that these proofs are dialectical determinations, not demonstrations.) Since you already are convinced of the conclusion, no possible argument can persuade you.
“For the usual thing among men is that when they want something they will, without any reflection, leave that to hope, while they will employ the full force of reason in rejecting what they find unpalatable.”
– Thucydides IV, 108
+ + +
Ray
And, secondly, the notion that an ‘uncaused cause’ is at all equivalent to ‘God’ (rather than ‘Plebny’ as I offered before) depends on yet further arguments.
Well, yes. And the notion that a two triangles with equal sides are congruent [prop iv] depends also on further arguments involving prop iii , prop i, post 6 and 1, and axioms 1,5,8.
Actually, the proof of the divine attributes pretty much follows like falling dominoes once you have deduced a being of Pure Act from the fact of κινεσιϛ in the world.
+ + +
Ray
And eventually you get to mass-energy… which, as I’ve noted, meets all the experimental criteria we can come up with for something eternal. We’ve never seen any created or destroyed.
YOS
And still you must account for its existence. Doesn’t matter if its eternal. God is not God =because= he is eternal. He is eternal because he is God. As Aquinas said, there may be other eternal things. If the time continuum is an open set, as Heytesbury’s 14th cent. analysis of beginnings and ends indicated, then we can push our understanding ever closer to 0 without ever reaching it; but that does not make {0} not a bound.
+ + +
If time is like space, and space is quantized, then why not time be also quantized?
Ray
So what if it is? The integers and the real numbers may be different orders of infinity, but they are both infinite.
YOS
Quantization is a response to the claim that time is a continuum and not a sequence of discrete “moments.” He who lives by the time/space equivalence of Parmenides, falls by the time/space equivalence of Parmenides. Gandersauce.
+ + +
Ray
When dealing with infinite, eternal chains – I’m not so sure. Given the record of humans speculating in areas they have no experience with that I’ve already alluded to, I’m mostly sure that whatever the situation turns out to be… it won’t look much like what we expect or intuit.
YOS
Ah, the mystic’s argument. Mathematics is of no use. Logic is of no use.
October 30th, 2010 | 12:12 am
YOS –
“…you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became to be so silly.” – C. S. Lewis
I could just as easily retort that your own convictions are blinding you to the truth… but once one party busts out the Bulverism I think it’s pretty clear the conversation has hit a limit on productiveness.
Be seeing you, I’m sure. :)
November 2nd, 2010 | 8:01 pm
Read Stephen Hawking’s “The Grand Design” and Alan Guth’s “The Inflationary Universe.” Quantum physics demonstrates that something does come from nothing.
Even without quantum physics, you cannot ask, “Where did the universe come from?” and answer that there must be a creator, without then going and asking the question, “Where did the creator come from?” If you say that the creator always existed, why not save a step and say the universe always existed (such as in a big bang–big crunch model of the universe)?
November 2nd, 2010 | 9:14 pm
I don’t often find myself in agreement with Michael Shermer, but he is absolutely right. I really do not see how anyone can argue that ‘oh, but according to Aquinas’ ‘Summa Theologica’, the relationship between God and the universe is…’ when quite clearly Shermer had the ‘god’ of Genesis in mind, and according to the account in Genesis, ‘god’, in the creation of the Earth and all we know, worked according to a very specific timetable (…on the seventh day ‘he’ rested, and so on), and so he is right to point out, ‘but the very conception of a creator existing before the universe and then creating it implies a time sequence.’ The god of Genesis quite clearly operates within the constraints of time.
This being the case, and with all of the other primitive anthropomorphic attributes of this deity (ex. calling out Adam’s name in the garden after eating from the tree, because quite clearly ‘he’ – God – couldn’t find him), one can only conclude that, so far as the question of the existence of god goes, the ones outlined in the Bible are patently false. I say ‘ones’ (plural) because as anyone who has read this book should know, ‘god’ somehow manages to evolve over time, which should not be the case if ‘he’ were really god.
November 3rd, 2010 | 9:33 pm
‘To the first question, the answer is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
To the second question, the answer is because:
1) There can be only one God.
2) That God has revealed himself to man through both general and special revelation.’
- Joe Carter on the 26th of October at 12 noon.
I simply cannot believe that no one has seriously challenged this patently absurd and laughable response from J. Carter.
Let’s take these baseless assertions of the truth apart, shall we?
The claim that there can only be ONE god (not two, or zero, but only one), is based upon what exactly? Common sense? Logic? Evidence?
Have any of the theists, here or elsewhere, provided any evidence of substance to support this claim? After all, as everyone here should know, the burden of evidence indeed does lie with the one making the assertion, whether that be that there are, or are not, any gods.
Is it logical to just assume that if there be gods, there must of necessity be only one? I’ve read the post by ‘YOS’ regarding this issue, and I have to admit that the post in question is completely nonsensical (maybe it’s just me, but it comes across as complete gibberish).
The ‘god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’. Seriously? The same ‘god’ who gives the command ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and then throughout the rest of the Old Testament commands others (the Israelites) to do so? (ex. with the Canaanites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Amalekites… et cetera).
The very same god who likes the smell of burnt offerings (how bloody primitive!), and couldn’t even beat Jacob in a wrestling contest? The one who, for almost every transgression of ‘his’ rules, mandates the death penalty (ex. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’, that sort of thing)?
Revelation? The claim that god has revealed ‘himself’ through various characters via an assortment of methods (ex. dreams) is pure fiction. Why should anyone believe otherwise? Should they believe ‘because it says so in the Bible’? How childish, not to mention PATHETIC!
Oh well, at least J. Carter has said what should have been said by a theist (ANY theist) a long time ago. That is, he believes – or rather, wants to believe – in not just any god, but specifically the Christian one, or what he thinks is the Christian one (there are so many – the Trinity? A bargain, three for the price of one!).
If this post comes across as being insensitive and for this reason is deleted, well, I don’t really care, because for far too long now we have been told to ‘just believe, because the Bible tells us to, and because I said so!’ Enough already!
November 3rd, 2010 | 10:21 pm
‘YOS
There can be only one God. This can be proven logically, if you like, once you have reached the point in Aristotle’s proof where he establishes that the First Mover must be a being of Pure Act and must therefore possess nothing in potency. Suppose there were two Beings of Pure Act. Then one would lack some X the other possessed. But that would place that being in potency to X and so it would not be Pure Act or a First Mover, a contradiction. Modus tollens. A few additional steps gets you to a being whose essence just is its existence. It is Existence Itself — the name it gave itself when Moses asked. And of course, Existence Exists. Other properties proper to the God follow; but a comm box is a poor place into which to copy entire books.’ – 26tth Oct. at 9:10 PM
Baseless assumption number one. There can only be one god. Really? How about zero gods, or something entirely different that we, in our limited imaginations, have yet to dream up? Then of course there is the concept of the Trinity, where three gods co-exist, and are, at the same time, one god (if I’m wrong about this, sorry, but that’s the way it seems to me).
Baseless assumption number two. ‘This can be proven logically’. Well, actually, no, it can’t, because this ‘proof’ is based upon yet another assumption (not an established fact), this assumption being that there was, or is, a ‘prime mover’, and so therefore to claim that this (unestablished) prime mover is also a ‘being of pure act’ is deeply illogical, for you haven’t yet made the case for even one god yet.
‘Suppose there were two Beings of Pure Act.’ …but you haven’t established that there is even one yet. How about doing that first, before you decide to give these (presumably) non-existent entities the kind of characteristics that you seem to feel apply to them.
‘A few additional steps gets you to a being whose essence just is its existence.’
…and those steps are? What? Come on, you can do it! I must admit that my understanding of Aristotle is sketchy at best, so perhaps you could fill me in on the details as to how you arrived at this conclusion.
(sound of crickets chirping)
‘It is Existence Itself — the name it gave itself when Moses asked. And of course, Existence Exists.’
This is – well – I’m just speechless. Maybe it’s because I’m laughing too hard. Moses? The ‘I Am That I Am’ gambit? The Bible is fiction, get used to that fact.
Existence exists? That’s like saying that gravity gravitates, or that radiation radiates. It says nothing of value.
Existence is a state of being that applies to, for example, physical objects. It does not, for it cannot, ‘exist’ on its own in isolation in the ether somewhere, for it is a characteristic of other phenomena in nature. Example, when we say that an apple is red, the colour (‘redness’) is not an abstract ‘something’ that can exist apart from the apple. The same applies to ‘existence’.
Am I clear so far? Hope so.
Overall, your logic is deeply flawed, to the point of being non-existent. If this is the best that the theists can do to support their contention that the god of their choice exists, then there is no future on this Earth for gods of any kind. Atheism is the future.
November 4th, 2010 | 2:51 pm
Why is it controversial to say that God isn’t testable? In what way is it testable? I can’t think of any.
PS-What does Aquinas say about the universe not being able to create itself from nothing?
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