commonsense wrote: ↑Fri May 24, 2024 2:23 pm
I could just as well have said, “If such a thing as a prime mover exists, it would be sufficient but not necessary to perform its functions.” What would be something that would be both necessary and sufficient to perform the functions of a prime mover—whatever those functions may be—is a different matter than the one I raised.
Well, it's essential, if I am to have any chance of understanding what it is you're trying to say.
If you realize that mathematically, there has to be a "Prime Mover," or "First Cause," as I would say, or "Intelligent Creator," as you later put it,
but it's not God, then I think it's quite necessary to ask what entity it is you mean. You say it's "sufficient" to have "performed its functions": but I don't understand what non-God entity you could possibly think is "sufficient" in just this way.
And given that we are in an argument-to-the-best-explanation, it's absolutely necessary for us to be able to compare and discuss the relative plausibility of the various options. If we can't, we're not going to be able to arrive at any such estimation as,
what is the most likely explanation?
3. An infinite regress is no more impossible than an infinitesimally small number.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 23, 2024 9:54 pm
No, that's certainly wrong. We know that much.
Infinity is not "a small number." It isn't even
comparable to some number. In fact, it isn't actually a "real number" at all, mathematically speaking. It's a placeholder concept for an unending or unbeginning entity, or one that recurs without cessation, like the sequence of digits ideally following "3.14..." in
pi. Thus, the one thing it never does is terminate in any "number," whether big or small. That's what makes it infinity.
I stand by my remark.
You really shouldn't. It mistakes "infinity" for "a really small number," and that's just not right. Infinity is not properly a number at all...a fact I first learned in grade 9 maths, actually.