There were two claims I made in this thread that seem to be sparking some debate. Rather than continue to hijack that thread, I’m creating this new one.
Here are my two claims:
(1) Supppose you have an infinite sequence of things (I’ll call them “existents”, since that’s the term a poster in that thread used), extending back in time from the present, with each preceding the last. My claim is that this situation doesn’t require there to be some “first existent” that preceeded all the others. It’s analogous to the integers, which extend forever in both directions, but there is no “first integer” (i.e. integer that is less than all other integers.)
(2) I claim that even if time started with the beginning of the universe, a finite number of years ago (say, 15 billion, or whatever the most recent estimate on the age of the universe is), this doesn’t mean that the universe “came from nothing.” In order for it to have “come from nothing”, there would have to be some “time before time” at which there was nothing. But “time before time” is a meaningless statement.
Go ahead, tell me why I’m wrong (or why I’m right.)
Yes, if “time” is a function of the existence and motions of physical matter. However, if we remove the concept of “time” from this proposition, we will see that it merely wiggles around the most basic question of cosmology: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Warning: I am not licensed to practice philosophy in your jurisdiction. Consult your own hired philosopher before proceeding.
Quite possibly true. There isn’t necessarily a First Cause, just because some people want one, or can’t imagine the world without one. But if we’re talking about the physical universe, as opposed to the integers, this still leaves the question of why the whole infinite chain of physical events would exist at all. Nothingness seems so much cheaper to implement, if you see what I mean.
Mathematical “existents” like integers, on the other hand, are a different subset of fish. I’m not sure they can serve as an analogy for physical cause and effect, even though applied mathematics underpins all our knowledge of physics.
(And incidentally, I believe formal mathematics defines the integers by starting with zero and a “successor” operator, thereby generating all the whole numbers first, before later defining the negative integers in terms of subtraction. So in a way there is a Creator for the integers, and his name is Zero.)
My casual understanding of modern cosmology (based almost entirely on what I read here at the board and in popular treatments of the subject) is that, indeed, our universe might be a “newly” created portion of a much larger and older multi-verse. This might mean that time existed before our universe did, that our universe does have a First Cause, but that the multiverse has no cause. All of this seems to be educated guesswork at this point.
Really though, even if this is true, it just bumps the Great Mystery of existence up one level. (Same S**t, Different Dimension.) Even if you eliminate the need for a First Cause, wouldn’t you agree that there’s still a big whopping problem here?
Usually, infinite regress is unacceptable on its face. But even if it weren’t (an assumption I don’t mind disregarding in the least), you have to be sure you want to throw out the other things, like “every existent came from another existent.” Because if every existent came from another existent, where did any existents come from in the first place? Is it turtles all the way down? Then we return to the dissatisfaction infinite regress gives us. Why are we dissatisfied with infinite regress?–
You’re right, but the analogy fails in one crucial respect: if you try to construct the integers, you need a first integer. Similarly with existents: the moment we wonder where they come from (i.e., we wonder about their “construction”, to keep the analogy), the moment the regress becomes completely unacceptable. Now, in the case of integers, it is totally irrelevant where we start on the number line, any recursive function could give us all the integers in one direction. But we still have to “start” the whole thing off.
In any event, we are left with two scenarios: that something came from nothing, or something always was. Both are downright mysterious.
Something Came from nothing, predisposes that a state of Nothing is possible and somehow existed “before” the Something. Something ‘always’ was assumes the existance of time in it’s very wording.
‘Always’ means for all time. Time can only exist in the presence of matter (General Relativity). Ergo matter existed for all time. Ergo something ‘always’ was.
Unless you want to expand always to mean something beyond just for all time?
Sorry, Bippy, this was sort of a hold over from a different thread. In this case, I was mentioning that eternal didn’t mean “for all time” but rather meant “non-temporal”. It is hard to avoid reverting to common expressions that are temporal. Sorry about that.
To which I would opine that all possible realities exist. If there is indeed nothing outside our reality to prevent it, then I see no reason that a logically possible universe wouldn’t simply spring into being due to lack of resistance. Of course the catch is that this would seem to imply that all posssible universes would be closed loop systems, but I don’t think we know enough at this point to rule that out.
It’s more or less analogous to the question of why light speed is as fast as you go. Light has no mass, it propagates as fast as it can, thus light speed is the limit. Reality may simply be the bounding curve of a set of logical rules.
Reading your posts in both threads, but the line above in particular, has made it clear to me (I think) why we couldn’t agree before. We’ve been using somewhat different interpretations of the phrase “comes from nothing.” I’ve been assuming that when you said something “comes from nothing” that this means first there was nothing, and then at some later time there was something. I pointed out that if something was there at the beginning of time (if time started at the birth of the universe), then that thing didn’t come from nothing, because there was no previous time at which there was nothing.
However, I now think that’s not what you mean by “comes from nothing” at all. When you’ve been saying “comes from nothing” you mean “doesn’t come from anything.” (Which is a perfectly legitamate way to interpret the phrase, just not the one I had been using.) Thus, something that was there at the start of the universe still “comes from nothing” in the sense that it doesn’t come from anything. Given this meaning of the phrase, whether there was actually a time where there was “nothing” becomes irrelevant.
This was particularly evident to me when I realized I was talking about integers preceding other integers, and you mentioned what the integers are constructed from. Because of course you weren’t trying to say that there was some first integer that all the others follow, but rather that there has to be an integer assumed to exist for us to construct all the other integers. They don’t all have to follow something sequentially, but something has to exist in order for them to exist.
At any rate, if I am now correctly understanding your meaning when you say something comes from nothing, then I think we agree:
Thanks Erislover you earned a thew chao for that explanation;)
Non-temporal existance is like shooting a black worm in a whole new kettle.
(ie. logical thinking tends to get unstuck without causality or probability, both of which are time (and/or event) specific).
It is not right IMHO to think of non-temporal existance as being similar to existance within an empty are of temporal/spacial existance. The non-temporal is not necessarily boring and empty, maybe it is truly a chaotic fermanent out of which anything (even time and space) can spontaniously errupt.
I’d say that’s a nice way of looking at it, Bippy. There is a substratum of, say, possibility, or perhaps essence, which is atemporal and, from our perspective, completely strange, but from which existence as we know it proceeds. I’d accept that as much as I’d accept anything, just so long as I can pluck a crazy bitch of a goddess from the firmament.
