Warning: long post
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It's not disingenuous in the slightest.
Remember how I started with this?
The original proposition was that eith something is infinite or "caused". Caused is such a crap word and you got a bit fixated on it so I tried to be more accurate and ammended the proposition to "A thing is either infinite or else its existence is contingent on the existence of something else."
Are you saying you now agree with the ammended proposition?
I do not: a thing can be both finite and not have its existence contingent on anything else.
I presume by 'infinite' you mean 'exists forever', or 'there is no time when it does not exist'.
What I agreed with was the following:
- X is everything (i.e., it's a set).
- Y is something (i.e., it's an element in X).
- Therefore, for Y to exist, X must also exist.
The problem I had is that X
must exist. It cannot possibly
not exist. Thus, the argument is disingenuous: it is only true because the premises are defined in such a way as to yield that result. A more general case (X is the universe, Y is some event in the universe) would not necessarily yield the same result.
The existence of an event in the universe is only contingent on the existence of the universe because we have defined the latter to be "an event
in the universe". The event itself could just as happily occur elsewhere (perhaps a particle-antiparticle pair create a miniature universe unto themselves, before annihilating each other).
The point is that not everything requires something else to occur. Radioactivity requires a radioactive particle, but the decay itself is not triggered by anything: it is a wholly probabalistic affair.
This has consequeces for the Kalam argument, which Wikipedia summerises thusly:
"Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig has recently revived the argument and formulates it as follows:
- Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
- Premise 2: The universe began to exist.
- Conclusion 1: Therefore, the universe must have a cause.
Craig asserts that the first premise is "relatively uncontroversial". He defines "begins to exist" as "comes into being,"
and argues that we know from metaphysical intuition that things don't just pop into being uncaused. According to Craig, this establishes premise 1."
Emphasis mine. "Metaphysical intuition"? Please.
That it is correct and I would like some empirical evidence to prove it otherwise.
You will be waiting
The universe had an age t=0 according to what I have read, ie. Stephen Hawkings "Briefer History of Time".
Could you cite chapter and verse? I have copies of his
Brief History,
Briefer History, and
Universe in a Nutshell; I'd like to check.
Maybe only time had a beginning, but can the universe, or anything, be said to exist outside of time?
Does it mean anything to say the universe existed at t= -1s?
Do we have any evidence for this?
No. We have no evidence that a "t=0" moment ever existed.
Given the lack of evidence and also the philosophical problem posed, Occam's Razor would suggest that the likeliest answer is that the universe had a beginning.
Your response?
I disagree with your use of Occam's Razor: positing a beginning is less simply that positing nothing at all. Since we have no evidence whatsoever about the first moments of the Big Bang, it is fallacious to deem it t=0.