Creation and Causality

[apogee]

You first need to understand logic before you can attempt to understand nihilism, and so far it's not looking very good. The fact that your signature professes adoration for logic is right in line with my expectations in light of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

You do realise this is an Ad hominem right? Which I guess is a step up from saying "You are an idiot" but it really is circling the drain.

 

[Chriliman]

Lol hey, I'm not grumpy. I haven't put anyone on my ignore list. Irrational Christians put themselves on my ignore list.



Let me clarify what I meant by inserting some words:

The eternal existence of physical material would render God's existence moot. Given eternity in a Godless reality, all possible outcomes must occur. If an outcome does not occur in an eternity, then it's not a possible outcome. Our universe is obviously a possible outcome, so it must occur and God is not necessary. Thus God's existence is moot.

You said “Our universe is obviously a possible outcome, so it must occur and God is not necessary.” I bolded that last bit because you’re speaking as if it’s a fact that God is not necessary, but it’s not a known fact, you must take that on faith. It may be that our reality is merely a possible outcome of an eternity of possible Godless outcomes, but it takes faith to believe that. Even if that’s true it doesn’t mean an eternal God can’t ever interact with said reality. It may be that certain aspects of our reality were not created by God, but that doesn’t preclude Him from interacting and making things the way he wants them to be.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

The point at hand? - perhaps you can tell me where I misunderstand....

That generally you think that the role of the Skeptic is to act as the intellectual equivalent of a food critic, morally obliged to sample and consequently spit out the Christian's assertions, whilst evaluating how well they sit on the palate. Whereas the role of the Christian is to scurry around like a scullery maid, frantically searching for new and exciting morsels to try (no matter how half-baked they are) in a vain attempt to convince the poor critic to partake in a nourishing meal.

Pretty spot on.

But that in this case the Christians meal is so half-baked, that even the Skeptics lack of a meal is more nourishing.

No... by your analogy, the skeptic is also making a meal here in this thread.

or more precisely that this:

“The universe is a finitely large hypersphere of the smallest possible size that is consistent with the observation that the universe is strictly larger than the observable universe. Further, the bulk space, which is the space wherein the multiverse resides, does not exist. All that is, was, or ever will be is just our universe. So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause.”

is inherently a more satisfactory explanation than "the universe was created by God" because it (allegedly) asserts the inexplicable existence of just one entity, rather than two.

Right.

It doesn't.



There are no arguments, only varying assertions.



Do you?



There are no explanations, only varying assertions.



hmmmm, one of these is indeed an explanation, the other is an explanation interrupted by a redundant assertion. Any guesses which is which?

Hmmm yes you're right, I was too loose with the word "argument." Still, my larger point is unaffected. Let's start off with this:

Person A asserts X. Person B asserts X and Y. Which is more likely to be correct, regardless of what X and Y are?

Answering that will get us on track.

You do realise this is an Ad hominem right? Which I guess is a step up from saying "You are an idiot" but it really is circling the drain.

Ok so you've now blundered.

The ad hominem fallacy is the use of personal attacks in place of an argument. It's of the form, "[Personal attack], therefore your argument is wrong." I never concluded that you were wrong from the thing that you are perceiving as a personal attack. I was saying that you don't understand logic. Furthermore, you made no argument but rather an assertion, and in light of everything that you went to great lengths to clarify, you should not accuse me of improperly attacking an argument when you merely made an assertion. Incidentally, this blunder of yours only further illustrates that it was more of a correct assessment than a personal attack.

Now, if you hadn't capitalized the "a" in ad hominem, then I'd perhaps have no grounds for saying what I said. An ad hominem is just a personal attack... technically... although no one says that. An Ad hominem is either an improperly capitalized term from a forum user obsessed with semantics or it is intended as shorthand for the ad hominem fallacy. The latter is, as I showed above, invalid in this context but consistent with what I've seen from you in the area of logic.

Now you can admit that you were wrong like I did about the argument/assertion issue, indicating that you value truth over your ego. In that case, you're worth talking to... for now. Or you can refuse to admit the obvious, placing your ego above the truth, rendering yourself and this entire conversation as worthless. Which will it be? If it's the former, I insist that you cease these semantic games or else prepare to be humbled even further.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You said “Our universe is obviously a possible outcome, so it must occur and God is not necessary.” I bolded that last bit because you’re speaking as if it’s a fact that God is not necessary, but it’s not a known fact, you must take that on faith. It may be that our reality is merely a possible outcome of an eternity of possible Godless outcomes, but it takes faith to believe that. Even if that’s true it doesn’t mean an eternal God can’t ever interact with said reality. It may be that certain aspects of our reality were not created by God, but that doesn’t preclude Him from interacting and making things the way he wants them to be.

Read it again. Everything stated is based on the assumption that physical material is eternal. I don't hold this assumption, but merely expounded upon it.

 

[Moral Orel]

Nihilism, as I mean it, is the rejection of truth. People often get stuck in the loop of, "If there is no truth, then that is a truth, so truth must exist." They say this utterly oblivious to the observation that the law of non-contradiction itself is among the truths that are rejected, making their point meaningless.

Nihilism's rejection of the law of non-contradiction does make nihilism useless, since said law is so useful to us, but nihilism doesn't have to be useful to be correct. Ultimately, all of mathematics can be reduced to axiomatic statements (assertions which cannot be proven and are assumed to be true) and primitive terms (symbols which have no meaning). This is unavoidable. Ultimately, mathematics is just the pushing of symbols. It's the meaning that we ascribe to the symbols that gives it power. For example, the number 2 has no units. It is meaningless, which is what allows us to give it any meaning we want. 2 firetrucks, 2 jugs of milk, whatever you like. Now if we do arithmetic with meaningless numbers and arrive at the number 2, it can apply in any context.

Hmmm.... How do you know that the law of non-contradiction isn't true? I get that we can't prove it true, but can you prove it false?

If you dispute any of this, feel free to prove the law of non-contradiction without appealing to other axioms. Or take any axiom you like as the first axiom and prove it. Or take the first symbol in mathematics and define it without appealing to other symbols.

Now that would be shifting the burden of proof, nice try.

With regards to morality, I think you strawmanned nihilists a bit. I would phrase it like this: murder is as offensive to my empathy as a spoonful of salt is to my taste buds. This is really all that can be said. There's no convincing a psychopath that murder is wrong because to them it isn't.

I basically agree with this. It's a little too equivocating for my taste though (pun intended). I would do more, and go to greater lengths, to prevent a murder than I would to stop someone force feeding me a spoonful of salt... Depending on who was getting murdered... I would definitely say "murder is offensive to my empathy in the same way that a spoonful of salt is offensive to my taste buds".

Now, to be fair, I argued with the presentation of nihilism I was given. If someone wants to draw extra conclusions, or add premises, I go after those too. So when someone says, "nothing has value, there's no reason for anything" I respond with ice cream, chocolate ice cream.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Hmmm.... How do you know that the law of non-contradiction isn't true? I get that we can't prove it true, but can you prove it false?

I'm not saying it's false. I'm rejecting the idea that it has a truth value on the basis that it is ultimately a string of undefined symbols:
~(A•~A).

Now that would be shifting the burden of proof, nice try.

Let me get this straight. I'm asking you to prove something, and I'm reversing the burden of proof? So it's reasonable to just assume it is true until proven otherwise? No, I think you're the one reversing it.

I basically agree with this. It's a little too equivocating for my taste though (pun intended). I would do more, and go to greater lengths, to prevent a murder than I would to stop someone force feeding me a spoonful of salt... Depending on who was getting murdered... I would definitely say "murder is offensive to my empathy in the same way that a spoonful of salt is offensive to my taste buds".

Ok.

Now, to be fair, I argued with the presentation of nihilism I was given. If someone wants to draw extra conclusions, or add premises, I go after those too. So when someone says, "nothing has value, there's no reason for anything" I respond with ice cream, chocolate ice cream.

Such a person is possibly in a state of depression and is not speaking on behalf of a nihilist like me.

 

[Moral Orel]

I'm not saying it's false. I'm rejecting the idea that it has a truth value on the basis that it is ultimately a string of undefined symbols:
~(A•~A).

Okay. Let's take it back a step, because I know I can't prove the law of non-contradiction.
You said:
"Nihilism, as I mean it, is the rejection of truth."
So you aren't asserting that things are false, but what does it mean to "reject truth" specifically? What, if anything, can you know to be true?

 

[Project Panda]

It seems that one reason for the breakdown in communication between Christians and atheists is that each side is playing a different game in the same conversation. As a skeptic, the atheist's goal is to refute bad explanations, even if that means there is no explanation left to choose from. Conversely, the Christian's goal is to make an inference to the best explanation available, even if it is problematic. So when the atheist says "prove it" and the Christian can't, the atheist claims victory; and when the atheist says "I don't know" the Christian claims victory.

However, I'm convinced that the Christian position is so weak, particularly on the topic of creation and causality, that the atheist can play the Christian's game and still win.

While the skeptical atheist's actual position is "I don't know" when it comes to unresolved cosmic questions, let's nevertheless saddle the atheist with something so that they are playing the Christian version of the game. For simplicity, we will burden the atheist with the position that reality is as follows: The universe is a finitely large hypersphere of the smallest possible size that is consistent with the observation that the universe is strictly larger than the observable universe. Further, the bulk space, which is the space wherein the multiverse resides, does not exist. All that is, was, or ever will be is just our universe. So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause.

The Christian position seems to be this: God created the universe (and also other realms beyond the universe) out of nothing by speaking such things into existence. I do not know of any explanation that is more specific than this.

So which is a better explanation?

As I understand it, this would be the typical Christian assessment of the atheist's position:

It is nonsensical to assert that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause. Something cannot come from nothing.

The problems with this assessment are, first, that the Christian tacitly asserts that God exists for no reason and with no cause, which is the special pleading fallacy. Identifying the fallacy is already sufficient grounds to ignore the rebuttal until it is amended, but it can also be said that the second objection is inadequate. We have not, and presumably cannot, observe nothingness, so there are no empirical grounds to say what can or cannot occur. Further, we know that nothingness entails a complete lack of rules or governing principles, so the governing principle "something cannot come from nothing" cannot apply to nothingness by definition. This point was made to Dr. William Lane Craig, and he responded with, "Then why aren't we seeing tricycles popping into existence randomly?" The answer, of course, is that empty space is not nothingness and so any expectation we might have about nothingness is irrelevant—in fact, Craig should be well aware of this because he has criticized Dr. Lawrence Krauss for equivocating empty space with nothingness. Let me clarify, though, that I'm not positively claiming that something definitely can come from nothingness, but rather that it cannot be ruled out.

The real reason that "nothing cannot come from something" is asserted presumably relates to the issue of causality. With regards to nothingness, there is nothing that can cause anything to occur; on the other hand, if a God exists, however inexplicable his existence may be, then there is at least an agent that can cause something to occur. This is, I believe, why Christians think that God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe.

However, this is not how causality works. An agent performing the causal influence is only half of what we would call an event that involves causality. There must also be a thing that is acted on; otherwise there is no effect. Billiard balls are often used as an example of causality, but a billiard ball flying through empty space devoid of interaction is not causing anything to occur. Another billiard ball is required for causality to have meaning because there is no cause without something that gets effected.

Absent creation, when the sum total of all existence was just the Christian God, what was available for God to act upon? Did God act on himself? Then we are all made of the stuff of God, and I don't think Christians take this position. Did God act on the universe before the universe even existed? How does that make sense? Did God act on nothingness? Nothingness is not a thing that can be acted on, and "acting on nothingness" is the same as acting on nothing, which is the same as doing nothing, which is the same as not causing anything to occur. God himself, nothing, and the universe itself seem to be the only conceivable choices of what we can even discuss as candidates for what God acted on, and none of them work.

Here are two definitions of causality that I know of:

PHYSICS

A system is a region of space.

A state is the arrangement of matter and energy in a system.

Causality is the process by which a system transitions from one state to another over a period of time.

ANTIQUITY

Aristotle proposed four causes, two of which are relevant here: efficient cause and material cause. For a marble statue, the material cause would be a marble slab, and the efficient cause would be the sculptor or the chisel. Causality requires both the efficient cause and the material cause. A causal event lacking one or the other is impossible to even describe.


You are free to come up with another definition of causality, so long as it models reality as we know it. The Christian's task is to think up a form of causality which is consistent with both what we observe in reality and also creation out of nothing. As far as I can see, this is impossible. It must be said that God's creation event did not involve causality, and that is extremely problematic to Christianity. Allow me to explain.

First, why is it that God's creation event did not involve causality? Well, let's consider the first model of causality. In that case, absent the universe, time does not exist and thus causality trivially does not exist by definition. If you want to posit the existence of some extra dimension of time that envelopes the universe, and that God performed an action of causality in that dimension of time, then that only pushes the problem back a step. At some point, if God is indeed creating everything out of nothing, there is a creation event where God creates time itself and this action is necessarily absent of causality under the first definition. Under the second model of causality, creation out of nothing is impossible by definition because there is no material cause.

Note that I am assuming God's omnipotence is limited to that which is logically possible, so I am talking about a God that cannot create a square circle or a one-ended stick. If you do believe that God can perform logically impossible tasks, then you must explain why God did not simply forgive us all as an act of will instead of sending his son to die, because God could have forgiven us all as an act of will even if it is impossible to do so. Right? Theologically, the only Christian God that makes sense is one that is unable to perform logically impossible tasks. I know that the "theory" of atonement is quite off topic, but it is a central issue of Christian theology and I cannot simply allow Christians to start a fire there just to put out a fire here.

Now, I did say above that I am not ruling out the possibility of something coming from nothing. Which is to say that I am not ruling out the possibility of things coming into existence by some means other than causality. So it then follows that God could have also used some means independent of causality to create the universe. The problem here, though, is that we have no way of explaining what that entails, and there are absolutely no grounds to say that God is necessary for the process. If the Big Bang was not caused, why is God needed? Even given unlimited power, it is impossible to describe how God could create something without invoking causality just like it is impossible to describe how God and his unlimited power could create a square circle.

So why did I say in the beginning that the atheist can play the Christian's game and win? It's because the Christian's explanation for the origin of the universe is necessarily worse. The Christian cannot account for God's existence (because God exists for no reason and with no cause), then insists that God is necessary for creation to occur, yet cannot explain, even given God's unlimited power, exactly why God is necessary for the process or what God did. While the atheist is saddled with the argument here that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause, the Christian—whether or not they know it themselves, and whether or not they want you to know it—asserts that God exists for no reason and with no cause, and that he, without the invocation of causality, spoke the universe into existence, which is to say that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause.

So the Christian has an extra assumption which explains nothing, and assumptions that explain nothing are supposed to be dropped. In logic, assumptions, while necessary, are a liability and should be limited to the best extent that is possible. So the Christian's argument can be improved by removing God from it, and doing so would make it effectively identical to the atheist's argument. The atheist's argument has no unnecessary components to it, and it does not make any assumptions that aren't already made by the Christian's argument. If the Christian's argument has to be improved just to be on par with the atheist's argument, then it follows that the Christian's argument is inferior to that of the atheist.

I could only read a small portion of your post, this is because Christianity plays a very unique roll in shutting off the learning process. It's still difficult for me to absorb complex information, but I'm sure in time that will change.

Thank you so far.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Okay. Let's take it back a step, because I know I can't prove the law of non-contradiction.
You said:
"Nihilism, as I mean it, is the rejection of truth."
So you aren't asserting that things are false, but what does it mean to "reject truth" specifically? What, if anything, can you know to be true?

Rejection of truth doesn't entail that things are false. Saying that X is false is just another way of saying that not X is true. But I'm rejecting the notion of truth.

The problems with truth are many. First, as a formal notion, it is primitively undefined. Secondly, all statements unavoidably reduce to undefined terms (since the primitive symbols in mathematics are inescapably undefined). A statement that is comprised of undefined terms is meaningless, which means that all statements expressed in the formal language are ultimately meaningless, which means that any truth value we place on them—even assuming that truth itself is well defined, which isn't the case—will still be meaningless.

Let me illustrate this with 2+2=4. First, observe that modern mathematics is defined in terms of sets. We start with the notion that things can be grouped into sets. Elements are members of a set, and a set is a collection of elements. To avoid the circularity there, we say that elements are members of a set and the set is undefined (i.e. the set is a primitive notion). Note that spoken languages do not avoid circularity, as they don't have primitive, undefined terms. Circularity or undefined terms: pick your poison.

Anyway, having a notion of a set does not imply that any such entity exists. Axiom #1, which is to say assertion #1, is that there exists an empty set, which we denote as {} or Ø. Now at least one set exists, and we can talk about sets in general. We define equality as follows: if A is contained in B and B is contained in A, then A=B. By set containment I mean that A is contained in B if and only if (iff) all the members of A appear in B. We then define the successor function, s(X)=Xunion{X}. So for example, if X={a,b,c} then s(X)={a,b,c}union{X}={a,b,c,X}. Now we are able to start defining natural numbers.

We define Ø=0, s(0)=Øunion{Ø}={Ø}=1, s(1)={Ø}union{{Ø}}={Ø,{Ø}}=2, and so on. Note that sets are unordered, and we define an ordered pair (a,b)={a,{b}}, which means that 2=(Ø,{Ø}) and n is the ordered n-tuple (Ø,{Ø},{Ø,{Ø}},...). We define N as the set of all natural numbers. Finally we can define addition as the function +:N×N→N such that +(a,b) is a successions of Ø followed by b successions of Ø, and we write +(a,b) as simply a+b. Hence 2+2=4... but this is all predicated on the assumption that Ø exists, and this assumption cannot ever be proven. Mathematicians tentatively grant this assumption but are aware that it's not something that "must" be true.

So... at the end of all this, is it true that 2+2=4? Well, it depends on how many assumptions you can swallow. I reject this as some kind of unalterable, absolute, cosmic truth because it's just a string of undefined symbols. I accept that within the system of these undefined symbols, certain strings of symbols are deemed true, others false, still others as undecidable from the axioms, while the rest are gibberish. 2+2=4 is only true in certain axiomatic systems, provided the observer accepts the axioms (at least conditionally or tentatively). Outside of the system that is expressing 2+2=4, the equality cannot be said to be true or even meaningful. Christians love to say that something like 2+2=4 is an "absolute" truth, which is to say that it is true in any system, in any context, and nothing could be further from the "truth" (whatever that is!).

Edit: fixed a syntax error.

 

[Chriliman]

Read it again. Everything stated is based on the assumption that physical material is eternal. I don't hold this assumption, but merely expounded upon it.

You have to hold the assumption in order to expound upon it, but I understand you’re exploring different possibilities and not really commiting to any indefinitely.

 

[apogee]

Hmmm yes you're right, I was too loose with the word "argument." Still, my larger point is unaffected. Let's start off with this:

Person A asserts X. Person B asserts X and Y. Which is more likely to be correct, regardless of what X and Y are?

Answering that will get us on track.

Assuming that X and Y are propositions with equal probabilities of being true then clearly

Person A has a 50% chance of being correct, whereas poor
Person B has merely a 25% chance

However, lets flesh this out a bit:

X = The Universe just exists for no reason
Y = God just exists for no reason

Person A:

X = The Universe just exists for no reason


Person B:

X = The Universe just exists for no reason
Y = God just exists for no reason


Whereas:
Person C: steps out of the taxi and declares
Z = The Universe was created by God, who just exists
(which entails a rejection of X and a modification of Y).
but is no more, or less, likely than assertion X of being correct.

Ok so you've now blundered.

I have absolutely no problem with admitting that I’m bit of a novice (if you’ll excuse the religious imagery here) to this form of discussion and am happy to bow to your superior knowledge on the matter.

You’re completely correct that I did make an assertion rather than argument and are perfectly at liberty to make your own assertions, however unflattering.

I wouldn’t be much of a Christian if I valued ego above humility.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Assuming that X and Y are propositions with equal probabilities of being true then clearly

No. We don't have to know anything about the probabilities of X and Y being true.

P(X·Y)<P(X) no matter what.

Person A has a 50% chance of being correct, whereas poor
Person B has merely a 25% chance

You're assuming that both X and Y have a 1/2 chance of occurring, and I'm not sure why or what your point is in doing so.

However, lets flesh this out a bit:

X = The Universe just exists for no reason
Y = God just exists for no reason

Person A:

X = The Universe just exists for no reason


Person B:

X = The Universe just exists for no reason
Y = God just exists for no reason


Whereas:
Person C: steps out of the taxi and declares
Z = The Universe was created by God, who just exists
(which entails a rejection of X and a modification of Y).
but is no more, or less, likely than assertion X of being correct.

The entire point of the OP is that I've shown Proposition Z to be nonsensical.

I have absolutely no problem with admitting that I’m bit of a novice (if you’ll excuse the religious imagery here) to this form of discussion and am happy to bow to your superior knowledge on the matter.

You’re completely correct that I did make an assertion rather than argument and are perfectly at liberty to make your own assertions, however unflattering.

I wouldn’t be much of a Christian if I valued ego above humility.

I'm glad we can focus on the meat of the OP then.

 

[apogee]

No. We don't have to know anything about the probabilities of X and Y being true.

I agree, but you asked me to evaluate, so I was just inserting some arbitrary values, as a starting point.

You're assuming that both X and Y have a 1/2 chance of occurring, and I'm not sure why or what your point is in doing so.

I'm just assuming that in the absence of any other factors, true or false are equally likely to be correct.

P(X·Y)<P(X) no matter what.

I think that in the case of P(X)

where:

X = “The universe is a finitely large hypersphere of the smallest possible size that is consistent with the observation that the universe is strictly larger than the observable universe. Further, the bulk space, which is the space wherein the multiverse resides, does not exist. All that is, was, or ever will be is just our universe. So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause.”

then P(X·Y) is what you guys would refer to as a man made of straw, at least as a representation of any Christian position, namely because I know of no Christian who would ever hold to X in it's entirety.

But that's ok, because all we need to do is break it down a little, so that X becomes:

X1

“The universe is a finitely large hypersphere of the smallest possible size that is consistent with the observation that the universe is strictly larger than the observable universe. ”

X2

“Further, the bulk space, which is the space wherein the multiverse resides, does not exist. All that is, was, or ever will be is just our universe. So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause.”

and Y simply becomes

X3

“Further, God, who is the medium wherein the multiverse/universe resides, is sentient. All that is, was, or ever will be, derives from Him. So it is being said that something has come from Him for His reason and with His cause.”


So really what we have is not P(X) vs P(X.Y)


It is P(X1.X2) vs P(X1.X3) or to simplify


P(X2) vs P(X3)


Alternatively, we could refer to (X1, X2 and X3) with (X, Y and Z) if you prefer because it’s a bit more readable.

and then it simply becomes

P(Y) vs P(Z)

The entire point of the OP is that I've shown Proposition Z to be nonsensical.

I think it is reasonable to say that objection formerly applied to Proposition Z is largely unchanged as it applies to the new Proposition Z / X3. However, it seems to me, that it would apply just as much to Proposition X2 / Y, so on this basis, I would simply remove it from both sides of the equation.

Clearly all of the above is the result of my attempting to assign values to your argument, which leaves scope for you to argue that I am possibly creating a straw man - I absolutely do not want to do this, so would rather invite you to assign your own values (and I'll attempt to play the food critic as suggested, rather than the perpetual scullery maid - it's clearly habitual behaviour here).

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I agree, but you asked me to evaluate, so I was just inserting some arbitrary values, as a starting point.

I didn't ask you to pull random numbers out of thin air. Certain statements in mathematics are always true, for any x. For example, |x|<|2x|. You don't need to know what x is to agree that what I said is true. The same goes for what I said about probability.

I'm just assuming that in the absence of any other factors, true or false are equally likely to be correct.

That's a terrible assumption to make.

I think that in the case of P(X)

where:

X = “The universe is a finitely large hypersphere of the smallest possible size that is consistent with the observation that the universe is strictly larger than the observable universe. Further, the bulk space, which is the space wherein the multiverse resides, does not exist. All that is, was, or ever will be is just our universe. So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause.”

then P(X·Y) is what you guys would refer to as a man made of straw, at least as a representation of any Christian position, namely because I know of no Christian who would ever hold to X in it's entirety.

You're changing Proposition X now. Originally you had it as:

"X = The Universe just exists for no reason"

Now you changed it to the position with which I saddled the skeptic, and obviously that position is incompatible with Christianity because Christians believe in a spiritual realm. I addressed this in the OP:

"The Christian position seems to be this: God created the universe (and also other realms beyond the universe) out of nothing by speaking such things into existence."

And again, for what is easily the third time now, I have shown in the OP that Christians unwittingly claim that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause. Christians can deny that they claim this, but this statement logically follows from the body of their argument.

But that's ok, because all we need to do is break it down a little, so that X becomes:

X1

“The universe is a finitely large hypersphere of the smallest possible size that is consistent with the observation that the universe is strictly larger than the observable universe. ”

X2

“Further, the bulk space, which is the space wherein the multiverse resides, does not exist. All that is, was, or ever will be is just our universe. So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause.”

and Y simply becomes

X3

“Further, God, who is the medium wherein the multiverse/universe resides, is sentient. All that is, was, or ever will be, derives from Him. So it is being said that something has come from Him for His reason and with His cause.”

What is Proposition X3? Where did you derive that? God is a medium now? Also, if God caused the universe, what did he act on in order to do so? I brought this up in the OP and you not only give no answer here, but indicate that you are totally unaware the topic was mentioned at all.

So really what we have is not P(X) vs P(X.Y)


It is P(X1.X2) vs P(X1.X3) or to simplify


P(X2) vs P(X3)

No. Once again, Proposition X3 is nonsensical as demonstrated in the OP.

Alternatively, we could refer to (X1, X2 and X3) with (X, Y and Z) if you prefer because it’s a bit more readable.

That's just confusing because we had already defined Propositions X, Y, and Z. You had actually defined two different Proposition Xs, and now you're trying to make a third Proposition X. There are other letters we could use.

and then it simply becomes

P(Y) vs P(Z)



I think it is reasonable to say that objection formerly applied to Proposition Z is largely unchanged as it applies to the new Proposition Z / X3. However, it seems to me, that it would apply just as much to Proposition X2 / Y, so on this basis, I would simply remove it from both sides of the equation.

No, the objection made to Proposition Z/X3 is about causality. I'm saying that God could not have caused the universe to come into existence out of nothing. By definition it's impossible, like a one-ended stick, and for the love of Ba'al don't get tripped up on that issue again. The objection to Proposition Z/X3 absolutely does not apply to Proposition X ("X = The Universe just exists for no reason") because Proposition X explicitly states that the universe was not caused to exist.

Also, what equation are you talking about?

Clearly all of the above is the result of my attempting to assign values to your argument, which leaves scope for you to argue that I am possibly creating a straw man - I absolutely do not want to do this, so would rather invite you to assign your own values (and I'll attempt to play the food critic as suggested, rather than the perpetual scullery maid - it's clearly habitual behaviour here).

Again, it doesn't matter what the values are. The probability of event N occurring is necessarily greater than or equal to the probability of both events N and M occurring, no matter what N and M are.

 

[Moral Orel]

Rejection of truth doesn't entail that things are false. Saying that X is false is just another way of saying that not X is true. But I'm rejecting the notion of truth.

The problems with truth are many. First, as a formal notion, it is primitively undefined. Secondly, all statements unavoidably reduce to undefined terms (since the primitive symbols in mathematics are inescapably undefined). A statement that is comprised of undefined terms is meaningless, which means that all statements expressed in the formal language are ultimately meaningless, which means that any truth value we place on them—even assuming that truth itself is well defined, which isn't the case—will still be meaningless.

It's like I agree with you, but you find it more significant than I do. We assign meaning to things, truth is relative to how we define it, there is not cosmic, absolute truth out there... But we define the word "true" so I don't see why it is meaningless. We gave it meaning when we defined it. Maybe it doesn't have an all encompassing definition, like you pointed out with the math. But you said 2+2=4 is true in certain systems, that we define, so why is truth being defined by us significant in some way?

Let's try an illustration, and maybe if you can point out the distinction, I'll understand your position better. Instead of talking about "truth" let's pick something simpler. I show you this picture:

And I say that the word "apple" refers to the object in this picture. Give me the benefit of the doubt for a moment, and imagine we're in person, and I have this apple, and all I have to do is point to it and say "apple" so we can dismiss all the extraneous defining that goes into my long winded description here. Also, I'm not defining it broadly, so that anything that resembles an apple is an apple, I mean this apple and only this apple, and you don't have to know anything else about it.

I would say that "apple" is no longer meaningless.

Ultimately the phonetic utterances of the word "apple" reduce to meaningless random noises, so do you reject the notion of "apple"? Maybe I'll understand the significance of nihilism better if you can show me the difference between "truth" and other things.

 

[Tinker Grey]

1 ocean + 1 ocean = ...

 

[Nihilist Virus]

It's like I agree with you, but you find it more significant than I do. We assign meaning to things, truth is relative to how we define it, there is not cosmic, absolute truth out there... But we define the word "true" so I don't see why it is meaningless. We gave it meaning when we defined it.

We have no choice but to either be circular and define true as "not false" and false as "not true", or we can leave true as a primitively undefined notion and take false to be "not true." There only other option is an infinite regress of terms.

Maybe it doesn't have an all encompassing definition, like you pointed out with the math. But you said 2+2=4 is true in certain systems, that we define, so why is truth being defined by us significant in some way?

The problem here is that Christians fallaciously extend upon this notion by saying that God or Jesus is some kind of ultimate cosmic truth, a claim that is simultaneously nonsensical at its core but reasonable to the layman.

Let's try an illustration, and maybe if you can point out the distinction, I'll understand your position better. Instead of talking about "truth" let's pick something simpler. I show you this picture:

And I say that the word "apple" refers to the object in this picture. Give me the benefit of the doubt for a moment, and imagine we're in person, and I have this apple, and all I have to do is point to it and say "apple" so we can dismiss all the extraneous defining that goes into my long winded description here. Also, I'm not defining it broadly, so that anything that resembles an apple is an apple, I mean this apple and only this apple, and you don't have to know anything else about it.

I would say that "apple" is no longer meaningless.

Ultimately the phonetic utterances of the word "apple" reduce to meaningless random noises, so do you reject the notion of "apple"? Maybe I'll understand the significance of nihilism better if you can show me the difference between "truth" and other things.

Let's say that pointing and grunting to define things like this is valid. Further, let's say that it works. Either I'm not confused by a green apple, or you're afforded as many points and grunts as you want. Let's suppose further that you can even establish definitions of abstract notions, such as the notion of truth. Doing this defeats one of my nihilistic claims: that definitions are meaningless. But that doesn't actually do away with nihilism.

I grant you that language is well defined... where do you go from there? Mathematics and logic is literally nothing but assumptions (axioms), definitions, and the conclusions that follow. But the conclusions are conditional and dependent on the axioms. Nothing can actually be shown as true from assumptions and definitions.

Münchhausen trilemma - Wikipedia

 

[Nihilist Virus]

1 ocean + 1 ocean = ...

Are you in Z/2Z? In that case the answer would be 0 oceans.

 

[apogee]

I didn't ask you to pull random numbers out of thin air. Certain statements in mathematics are always true, for any x. For example, |x|<|2x|. You don't need to know what x is to agree that what I said is true. The same goes for what I said about probability.

I’m not a mathematician, and I’m certainly not a mind reader, so unless you wish to specify a format for answering your questions, I’d suggest you dial back the condescension, or else take your questions to Mathematics Stack Exchange

That's a terrible assumption to make.

I don’t think any cute kittens died in its making.

You're changing Proposition X now. Originally you had it as:

"X = The Universe just exists for no reason"

I’m changing nothing, the above statement was never anything other than my simplification of your skeptics position.

Now you changed it to the position with which I saddled the skeptic, and obviously that position is incompatible with Christianity because Christians believe in a spiritual realm. I addressed this in the OP:

"The Christian position seems to be this: God created the universe (and also other realms beyond the universe) out of nothing by speaking such things into existence."

A more specifically Christian position would be this:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made."

Although how you’re ever going to interpret that, is anyone’s guess.

Christianity is not actually that concerned with the specifics of cosmology, and I would suggest it is unreasonable to expect first century (or 21st Century) Christians to present a satisfying contemporary account of how our universe occurred, when the greatest philosophers of the age, were apparently of the opinion that all matter was composed of earth, water, air, and fire (apart from Aristotle - who added aether)

I have little doubt that the wisdom of this age will seem similarly lacking in the future.

And again, for what is easily the third time now, I have shown in the OP that Christians unwittingly claim that the universe exists for no reason and with no cause. Christians can deny that they claim this, but this statement logically follows from the body of their argument.

What Christians wittingly or unwittingly claim, is irrelevant to the nature of reality. If there is a God then I guarantee Christians do not fully understand Him.

What is Proposition X3? Where did you derive that? God is a medium now?

I pulled it out of the aether, ex nihilo, mostly as a placeholder really.

Also, if God caused the universe, what did he act on in order to do so? I brought this up in the OP and you not only give no answer here, but indicate that you are totally unaware the topic was mentioned at all.

Anyone's guess, perhaps Himself, or perhaps you misunderstand the scope/nature of causality.

No. Once again, Proposition X3 is nonsensical as demonstrated in the OP.

nonsensical =/= incorrect, do I have to mention photons again? X2 is no less nonsensical.

That's just confusing because we had already defined Propositions X, Y, and Z. You had actually defined two different Proposition Xs, and now you're trying to make a third Proposition X. There are other letters we could use.

Or else we could just use words, instead of meaningless placeholders.

No, the objection made to Proposition Z/X3 is about causality.

I'm saying that God could not have caused the universe to come into existence out of nothing. By definition it's impossible, like a one-ended stick, and for the love of Ba'al don't get tripped up on that issue again. The objection to Proposition Z/X3 absolutely does not apply to Proposition X ("X = The Universe just exists for no reason") because Proposition X explicitly states that the universe was not caused to exist.

The nature of the objection is the same (that it is nonsense) the specifics are irrelevant. Although you neglected to mention this bit of text from the skeptics declaration of faith "So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause." - which is clearly every bit as absurd as you allege the other statement to be.

Also, what equation are you talking about?

I said equation....I meant expression. - my bad

Again, it doesn't matter what the values are. The probability of event N occurring is necessarily greater than or equal to the probability of both events N and M occurring, no matter what N and M are.

Humour me, I'm unclear as to what N and M are referring to, are we talking about actual events here? or are we talking about propositions, and if so which ones, it's all very confused.

You seem to have taken significant exception to my recycling of these placeholders, so i suggest that their contents certainly matter to you.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I’m not a mathematician, and I’m certainly not a mind reader, so unless you wish to specify a format for answering your questions, I’d suggest you dial back the condescension, or else take your questions to Mathematics Stack Exchange

I wasn't asking any questions in the block you quoted, and I wasn't being condescending. I don't know what you're talking about.

Furthermore, you started off by derailing this thread with irrelevant nonsense and even now when you're trying to be on topic you are unable because you haven't bothered to read the OP, despite claiming to have done so three times.

I seriously doubt you're going to read the OP at this point, let alone actually contribute to the thread, so if you want to leave because your feelings are being hurt then feel free.

I don’t think any cute kittens died in its making.

Good to know. Still a terrible assumption.

I’m changing nothing, the above statement was never anything other than my simplification of your skeptics position.

Again, in the OP I've shown that both sides ultimately profess the original Proposition X. You then twist Proposition X into a non-Christian proposition and claim to have changed nothing.

A more specifically Christian position would be this:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made."

And that explains what?

Although how you’re ever going to interpret that, is anyone’s guess.

Exactly. It explains nothing, so for someone to draw an explanation out of it one would have to make their own inferences.

Christianity is not actually that concerned with the specifics of cosmology, and I would suggest it is unreasonable to expect first century (or 21st Century) Christians to present a satisfying contemporary account of how our universe occurred, when the greatest philosophers of the age, were apparently of the opinion that all matter was composed of earth, water, air, and fire (apart from Aristotle - who added aether)

OK, so you concede the point of the thread then?

I have little doubt that the wisdom of this age will seem similarly lacking in the future.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is hard at work again.

What Christians wittingly or unwittingly claim, is irrelevant to the nature of reality. If there is a God then I guarantee Christians do not fully understand Him.

Awesome. Now let's get back to looking at which side has a better explanation for the Big Bang.

I pulled it out of the aether, ex nihilo, mostly as a placeholder really.

Do you make stuff up about God often then?

Anyone's guess, perhaps Himself, or perhaps you misunderstand the scope/nature of causality.

Feel free to expound on what it means for God to act on himself, and feel free to define causality for me.

nonsensical =/= incorrect, do I have to mention photons again? X2 is no less nonsensical.

And I covered that in the OP too:

"Now, I did say above that I am not ruling out the possibility of something coming from nothing. Which is to say that I am not ruling out the possibility of things coming into existence by some means other than causality. So it then follows that God could have also used some means independent of causality to create the universe. The problem here, though, is that we have no way of explaining what that entails, and there are absolutely no grounds to say that God is necessary for the process. If the Big Bang was not caused, why is God needed? Even given unlimited power, it is impossible to describe how God could create something without invoking causality just like it is impossible to describe how God and his unlimited power could create a square circle."

Or else we could just use words, instead of meaningless placeholders.

Placeholders are only meaningless when you use the same placeholder to represent different things, as you've done.

The nature of the objection is the same (that it is nonsense) the specifics are irrelevant.

No. Re-read it please.

Although you neglected to mention this bit of text from the skeptics declaration of faith "So it is being said that something has come from nothing for no reason and with no cause." - which is clearly every bit as absurd as you allege the other statement to be.

You lost me. You say that I neglected to mention something, and then quoted me in mentioning the thing that I neglected to mention. Also, it's not a skeptic's declaration of faith as I took the time to mention in the OP:

"While the skeptical atheist's actual position is "I don't know" when it comes to unresolved cosmic questions, let's nevertheless saddle the atheist with something so that they are playing the Christian version of the game."

I said equation....I meant expression. - my bad

I think it is reasonable to say that objection formerly applied to Proposition Z is largely unchanged as it applies to the new Proposition Z / X3. However, it seems to me, that it would apply just as much to Proposition X2 / Y, so on this basis, I would simply remove it from both sides of the equation.

So you are removing something from both sides of the expression? Makes even less sense now.

Humour me, I'm unclear as to what N and M are referring to, are we talking about actual events here? or are we talking about propositions, and if so which ones, it's all very confused.

I named them events N and M. I don't know how to make it any more clear than that. Also it would make no difference if they were propositions.

You seem to have taken significant exception to my recycling of these placeholders, so i suggest that their contents certainly matter to you.

Obviously. They're all different statements. That has nothing to do with my statements about probability.

I think we can just be done. Go ahead and have the last word. I'm past the point of caring. You are pretending to know things that you don't understand, and you are telling me that you've read the OP multiple times which is clearly false. I have better things to do. It's basically impossible for you to contribute to this conversation unless someone else takes over your account and types for you.