bahman wrote: ↑Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:23 pm
VVilliam wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 1:28 am
How can we know if the universe was created or that it created itself?
1) The act of creation is impossible (
the argument)
2) There is a beginning (
the arguments)
3) Therefore the universe popped out of nothingness or the universe just existed at the beginning
I've already commented on some of what you said before but like how this particular statement sums up your ideas with the appropriate links to each. Let me take these each at a time now and try to critique or credit what I interpret these with my own additions where necessary.
On (1),
Creation is impossible
Your argument:
bahman wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 5:52 pm
There are two states of affair in act of the creation, nothing then something respectively. One state of affair follows another one. This act requires time. Time is a part of the creation itself. Therefore, the act of creation is impossible since this (the act requires time and time is a part of creation) leads to regress.
Creation is not formally defined (though you may have done this in that thread). I believe this is at least easy to infer though.
My interpretation of your argument given charity to missing premises:
(1) By creation, you seem to mean "the absolute original causation from the state of absolutely nothing; [Definition of creation]
(2) With absolutely nothing, not even time 'exists'; [Implied by the Definition of Absolutely Nothing]
(3) The act of such absolute causation (creation) is an action which implies it requires time prior to time's origin;
(4)Time's cause then begs the meaning of absolute creation circularly;
(5)Circular meanings cannot be interpreted meaningfully and thus default to mean 'false' and thus 'impossible'.
(6)Thus creation as a time-dependent concept cannot be true in principle. That is, "creation" is impossible. [Conclusion]
I've given some extended liberty to add some things here that I believe are understood but you may possibly disagree in wording.
It might be better to point out the 'meaninglessness' of saying that something 'exists' if it does not involve time. However, the 'regression' points to infinite steps which means that existence is always time-dependent and never not true. Thus this would go against your main intention of proving that there is an actual 'beginning' later.
If there is no origin to time from a state of absolutely nothing can occur, it means anything where no time exists, including any state of 'nothingness' prior to it. You'd have to interpret this to require that there is no such thing as an absolute state of nothingness TO come from, which goes against your second argument I'll be addressing after this.
I DO know that in context to the rest that you are attempting to argue similar to my own points against the idea that things WITHIN time cannot speak about what is outside of it as 'existing' but it does not MEAN that there is no outside apriori state of no time absolutely. We just find it '
ineffible', meaning that it cannot in principle be argued true NOR false. This is what I think would be a better argument for this point to set up because it just establishes THAT the states with no time can be certain to be ruled out. It COULD be true but we just cannot determine its truth nor falsity.
So, I would alter this particular argument as:
My argument wrote:
An 'origin' from the state of absolutely nothing is ineffible.
(1)Given Absolutely Nothing as a possible (candidate) for a state, it cannot 'cause' anything for lacking anything, including a mechanism to 'cause' anything.
(2)For something to be PROVEN to change from such a state requires we can witness both states.
(3)The lack of proof though does not in itself mean that the possibility of it being true exists but that it may be in principle unable to be proven nor disproven, and thus, is called ineffible
(4)Therefore, an 'origin' from the state of Absolutely Nothing is ineffible. [conclusion]
The advantage of this is that it does not lead to the mistake of your 'regression' to imply the contradiction that time NEVER NOT existed, itself an unprovable claim and that contradicts your intended combined larger argument.
Your second argument is to assert a beginning based on two points:
There are two proofs for this. A) The physical argument (the second law of thermodynamics) and B) The metaphysical one (the logical one).
Proof of A: Heat death is the final state of any close system eventually. This is due to the second law of thermodynamics that states that entropy (disorder) increases in any close system. We are not in heat death therefore there was a beginning.
Proof of B: There are two scenarios for the eternal past (eternal past being whatever that exists in past): 1) One can reach from the eternal past to now or 2) One cannot. In the first case, we have a beginning since we just need to look at the past to see the eternal past. In the second case, we cannot reach from the eternal past to now, therefore, there is no beginning. We however are at now. Therefore there is no eternal past. Therefore the second case is wrong. We are left with (1) that is plausible. Therefore, there is a beginning.
I did respond in that thread but do not recall you responding. But obviously you felt here in this thread that it still stood. So let me critique it again here for completion.
A 'closed' system is finite or "bounded", meaning that the whole can be treated as 'finite' if you have external known points outside that confine the infinite as one
whole. We use the term Universe to describe this concept. But while we understand the meaning of this whole, we cannot be certain THAT something exists beyond to define this as 'bounded' with certainty. If it is the case that nothing lies outside, then the internal state is infinite because the whole is also a proper 'part' of itself, especially if we are confined to time. This means that you can imagine getting to the edge of this Universe but if you were to attempt to reach out to its 'present' size, as you attempted to touch this boundary, it would be extended by the time you could possibly reach it and so could NOT actually touch it.
In physics, the closed system regarding entropy assumes that there is and was some FIXED amount of energy in the Universe (via Big Bang version cosmology). Unlike the Steady State version that treats the DENSITY of energy constant but NOT FIXED by any finite amount, the present Standard Model takes the view that given this 'fixed' energy exists AND that space itself continues to expand, then and only then does entropy decrease. So the Standard Model argues that there WILL be heat death in direct defiance of your position.
Note though that the Big Bang version still implies boundaries exist due to assuming that the appearance of a singularity implies an origin. They do not support the idea that time is eternal unless there are other outside worlds beyond this. But that is speculation for those who maintain this model. Regardless, it begs an origin (and possibly) an end. For certain, they believe that there is an eventual expansion but no new energy, thus entropy increases. Yet, the Steady State model does not postulate origins (nor endings), even if they
may exist sometime. That theory supports a 'steady' state of energy distribution. As space 'expands' so too would the energy where space is itself always carries with it energy.
So neither model supports your first argument. You COULD argue for the present more accepted Big Bang theory in the Standard Model but cannot 'prove' anything logical by this. It would only be speculative and dependent upon the singularity. But given others of the present Standard model also argue THAT other worlds are possible, especially with respect to Quantum theories, this would allow for continuity beyond the singularity and so the 'beginning' of this Universe would no longer be treated as having an ABSOLUTE origin. Science cannot thus support your particular argument regarding thermodynamics.
Although your argument-A is out, it was only inductively based but you are attempting to argue apriori, which leaves argument-B, the logical one, potentially viable. Let's look at that.
To repeat for ease of reference:
Proof of B wrote:There are two scenarios for the eternal past (eternal past being whatever that exists in past): 1) One can reach from the eternal past to now or 2) One cannot. In the first case, we have a beginning since we just need to look at the past to see the eternal past. In the second case, we cannot reach from the eternal past to now, therefore, there is no beginning. We however are at now. Therefore there is no eternal past. Therefore the second case is wrong. We are left with (1) that is plausible. Therefore, there is a beginning.
I first find this argument awkwardly stated and as it stands without adding more premises is begging because you are not expressing HOW one can connect the second case to "no beginning". You clearly are intepreting that if one cannot 'reach from the eternal past' that it implies "no beginning" but lack any proof of this condition.
In fact, if the second is interpreted as "IF you cannot remember your infinite past, then you cannot assert a beginning exists with certainty," then this would be more clear and fair. This is precisely my OWN argument. The alternate you give though would be "If you CAN remember your infinite past, you CAN assert a beginning." But this just means that IF you COULD know infinitely everything before your time, you would be QUALIFIED to know WHETHER their is a beginning or not, not that it is a FACT THAT there is a beginning.
When I used this kind of argument, my point was precisely that you cannot even assert knowledge of a beginning UNLESS you could see into the infinte past, something we cannot do. You inferred the opposite AND ignored even the memory beyond the present as admissible. You also beg this particular proof while not noticing it is what you want the other two proofs of the initial three to add value. If this particular argument was valid (yours, that is), it would not require the other two at all or it would be circular.
The difference between your argument and mine is this: yours falsely infers that there IS a 'beginning' while mine argues that you cannot rule out a beginning. Mine is not about determining with certainty a beginning because we can forget it even when it might exist. And I argued then that to QUALIFY whether a beginning does or does not exist, we'd have to at least be ABLE to know all of time(s) ....that is, to BE able to be at this 'beginning' IF IT EXISTS to assert THAT it existed.
So, technically, this argument does not prove 'a beginning' but
may if fixed up, prove that you cannot rule OUT 'a beginning'. We have local evidence of 'beginnings which should suffice to assert it a possibility, but not in absolute closure of one possible in principle. Thus this argument is flawed.
On the last part, "3) Therefore the universe popped out of nothingness or the universe just existed at the beginning", this is written as a conclusion FROM the other two but seems to actually imply a conclusion not mentioned as its own argument separate from the others. Worse, this is conflicting as written. The first part of it is that 'either the universe popped out of nothingness' but does not complement that 'the universe just existed at the beginning.' In fact, the second one is conflicting in that it seems to assert that the infinite universe CAN be its own beginning, which if properly stated should be that the Universe has
no beginning. You are implying that the first part is true but that if not, by some standard, that the 'beginning' is coequal to meaning 'instant infinity' without acceleration, as the first
may imply.
I cannot determine exactly what you meant by (3) because of the 'therefore' is used as the conclusion for what came before, but (1) and (2) do not seem to connect unless (2) stood alone. The argument AS STATED, thus, is not valid nor sound. What I think we might agree on is that AT LEAST, a beginning cannot be ruled out.
My own position argues that a type of origin to time from nothing is static such that if Absolute Nothing coexists with Absolutely Something, then the states as an ordered set can define a 'beginning' as the perspective of the state of Absolutely Nothing OR the state of Absolultely Nothing AND Absolutely Something. In set form, this is
{Absolute-Nothingness, {Absolute-Nothingness, Absolute-Something}}
but
NOT {Absolute-Something, {Absolute-Something, Absolute-Nothingness}}
The latter cannot permit something WITHOUT nothing while the former DOES permit nothing to be able stand alone. And I argue that this is because
Given Something, you can imply Something [Something here is either Absolute or not]
but
Given Absolutely Nothing, if actually true, it would BE a fact which is still at least Something.
So an 'origin' CAN exist but would be static and necessarily CONTRADICTORY. And to me, 'contradiction' IS the force that causes time. Absolutely Nothing does NOT require being non-contradictory, whereas anything else cannot be contradictory following that. The state of something to continuously BE NOT nothing IS the cause of change. If a static Absolute Something were NOT ever nothing, then THAT lacks the ability to STOP BEING what it is and NO CHANGE would occur!
Thus, ONLY Absolutely Nothing can 'originate' or Absolutely EVERYTHING exists, which would still imply Absolutely Nothing in that infinite set.
