That there is no cause is not necessarily that there is no explanation, so your argument fails — S

You can't have an explanation for a phenomena which fails to account for its cause.

I am in this case using the standard definition of infinity: 'something larger than anything else possible'. If it grows it implies it was not larger than anything else possible to start with.

So space must be finite.

But there can be no reason for why is there something rather than nothing. And an explanation without a reason is no explanation in my book. So no other explanation is possible apart from 'no reason'.

OK the definition of explanation is:

1. a statement or account that makes something clear.
2. a reason or justification given for an action or belief.

In the case of [2], the reason or justification must temporally precede the action or belief - so my argument holds.

In the case of [1], I see your point, but I think my argument is somewhat explanatory in nature - can't be a reason because there was nothing before that is an explanation of sorts?

Can you describe your interpretation of the question?

But I believe the argument shows that there can be no other answer possible.

The 'why' in 'why is there something rather than nothing?' implies a state of existence prior to the 'something' but there is no such state so no other answer will ever be forthcoming.

I do not follow your analysis.

The reason something existed must preexist the something. If preexistence is not possible, there can be no reason. So why is there something rather than nothing? No reason.

I feel I did - if there is nothing 'prior' to something then something has no cause/reason.

I think in this usage 'cause' and 'reason' are identical:

- is there a reason something existed
- is there a cause of something

Is asking the same question.

I think the reason for something must lie temporally prior to the something.

The thing that existed permanently must be timeless so beyond causation - there can be no prior - so no reason.

I guess it could work the way you say but it's more conventional to associate 'time is just motion' with presentism.

'Time is just motion' is equivalent to 'infinite time' in terms of my arguments (if it does not exist, it is in a sense infinite, if you see what I mean).

In order to conclude that nothing exists if now doesn't exist, you would need to prove nothing exists besides space and time which you obviously don't believe yourself. There may be higher dimensions beyond time and space. — coolguy8472

Presentism seem to preclude such higher dimensions - by saying 'only now exists' - it says to me that all things that exist, exist in the present.

I think the first cause / no infinite regress argument extends to higher dimensions. If there are more time dimensions out there then the start of time argument applies to the top level time dimension (the first time).

The universe does not seem very finely tuned for life to me. Otherwise you'd think SETI would have discovered life somewhere else by now. Most life cannot survive outside of Earth's atmosphere without protection for more than a few seconds. Most of the observable universe is a vacuum. That's a lot of billions of light years of space that's not finely tuned for life. — coolguy8472

I think the failure of SETI is just due to the vast distances involved; we can only just image (large) exoplanets as tiny dots in our best telescopes; how on earth are we meant to pick up their TV broadcasts?

There is lots of empty space I grant you, but the matter is used very well: stars for energy sources and planets for living surfaces. Each star has a habitable zone around it, not sure that can be improved bearing in mind the inverse square law (which I think is a fundamental constraint on how the universe could be designed). The universe looks like a giant laboratory for evolving life to me.

An interesting question is to ask yourself: if I were God, how would I have done things? The same or differently. I thought of maybe a giant computer and hosting all life on that for example. Maybe if there is a much better design possible, we can conclude that it is not fine tuned for life?

I argue here that there may very well be many things, infinite things, in fact, that are logically possible, and thus exist in the realm of logically possible entities, or logical space, but are unimaginable by humans. — Troodon Roar

I'm have the opinion that only logical thinks can exist. What does it mean to be illogical? The definition of logic is:

'reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity'

'Only valid things can exist' seems reasonable statement. Valid according to certain common sense axioms though. Personally I adopt the 'no magic allowed' axiom which rules out things like infinity from featuring in reality.

Also, if you think about logic, it is information processing. What is absence of logic? It could be that is the absence of true and false. IE the absence of a way to tell one thing from another; IE an absence of information. So you could think about absence of logic as absence of information and if there is no information, nothing can exist. The very existence of information implies a way to differentiate that information implies logic. Nothing can exist without information so everything must be logical.

For example, humans cannot imagine what a sixteen-dimensional space would look like, but it can still be described theoretically, and there is nothing logically contradictory about it. — Troodon Roar

Agreed but a 16D space is a logical concept. Infinity is not a logical concept. So we can have a 16D universe but not an infinite universe IMO.

Does anyone else here agree with me that such an entity is theoretically logically possible, and therefore, even though I cannot imagine it, the fact that I can describe it with language shows that it, nevertheless, exists somewhere in logical space (the space of logically possible entities or possible worlds, as philosophers talk about)? — Troodon Roar

Theoretically possible - yes - as long as it follows the rules of logic (with a few common sense axioms).

From the same source:

'I have never assumed a ‘Genus Supremum’ of the actual infinite. Quite on the contrary I have rigorously proved that there can be no such ‘Genus Supre- mum’ of the actual infinite. What lies beyond all that is finite and transfinite is not a ‘Genus’; it is the unique, completely individual unity, in which every- thing is, which contains everything, the ‘Absolute’, unfathomable for human intelligence, thus not subject to mathematics, unmeasurable, the ‘ens simplicis- simum,’ the ‘Actus purissimus,’ which is by many called ‘God.’ (Meschkowski & Nilson, 1991, p. 454)17'

Cantor states in the passage above that absolute infinity is not part of maths. If only he had realised that actual infinity is not part of maths either; that would have saved us a lot of pain.

'Despite his willingness to question the Church, it was very important to Cantor to show that his theory of actually infinite sets could be rectified with Catholic teaching which traditionally held that the only completed in- finite was the infinite of God. This may have been partly a result of Cantor’s apparent belief that set theory was given to him directly by God. This belief is evidenced by letters to G ̈osta Mittag-Leffler from the winter of 1883–4 in which Cantor claimed explicitly to have been given the content of his arti- cles by God, having only provided the organisation and style himself (see Dauben, 1990, p. 146).'

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=25&ved=2ahUKEwigmZuv0LPhAhUxXRUIHZw3DXwQFjAYegQIAxAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Flogika.uwb.edu.pl%2Fstudies%2Fdownload.php%3Fvolid%3D57%26artid%3D57-08%26format%3DPDF&usg=AOvVaw0DlXIF5pxIwocATv-3HJJd

Talking to God... you can get locked up for that nowadays... what a looney...

Cantor was a bible bashing madman:

'Cantor linked the Absolute Infinite with God, and believed that it had various mathematical properties, including the reflection principle: every property of the Absolute Infinite is also held by some smaller object'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_Infinite

Criticising Cantor is far game IMO.

I think this is covered here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/272129

So my argument is things like quantum fluctuations creating the universe would lead to infinite density with infinite time so that combination is impossible (I conclude that time has a start).

If presentism is true then 'only now exists'. If there is a start of time that leaves absolutely nothing left at all - no time even for quantum fluctuations to fluctuate - a true something from nothing. You could still adopt it as an axiom that this is possible but it seems illogical. My gut feeling is you can't get something from nothing (0=0). Energy is conserved.

Then there is the question of whether something like time needs a deliberate act of creation. Time is a singleton whereas all natural things seem to come in pluralities. That suggests deliberate creation. I don't think it is likely that dimensions are created by natural processes.

There are also signs that the universe is fine tuned for life. That also requires a first cause (or a gigantic coincidence).

If something comes from nothing naturally and time is infinite then matter density ends up infinite. So can't get something from nothing applies or time in finite. In either case an unmoved mover is needed to avoid creation ex nihilo (which I think is not possible).

The unmoved mover was not originally associated with Christianity, it goes back to Aristotle. You are thinking of St Thomas Aquinas? Of the Summa Theologiae, Wikipedia says:

'Although unfinished, the Summa is "one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature."'

Sure some of it is wrong, but that is always the case when dealing with old sources.

Okay. Suppose again, the beginning was absolute nothingness - not even nonexistence, not even nothingness. I just used the word nothingness, only to start a concept. Nothing at all, that even nothingness was void. — SethRy

I'm have the opinion that you can't get something from nothing so something must have always existed. That something is the timeless first cause. It has always existed. But it could not exist without logic. Logic in its most basic form seems to me to be differentiating between different things. No logic means everything is the same, so nothing can exist.

So on the one hand you could say God exists permanently and logic exist permanently. But on the other hand, God could not exist without Logic, but Logic could exist without God.

Yes, you just made an argument for creation ex nihilo with your photons example. Otherwise, it remains the case that "creation without time itself...seems impossible". — Luke

What I mean is:

- creation without time and anything else is impossible
- creation without time but with something else is possible

I don't follow why no events would exist without a first cause. This seems based only on your assumption that a first cause is necessary. It does not explain why it is necessary. — Luke

The first event defines the second, the second the third, and so on down the chain. If you have no first event, the whole of the rest of the chain must be undefined.

Then you must allow the same for presentism, and your previous argument fails. — Luke

But with presentism, when you take away 'only now' (IE the start of time), there is absolutely nothing else left in existence period. So its creation ex nihilo. With eternalism, its not creation ex nihilo - there is something other than 'only now' to do the creating.

What makes the first impossible? — Luke

One argument is that in an infinite regress of events, each event in the regress makes sense on its own, being preceded by its causal event. But when the system is viewed as a whole, it has no first event, so none of the events in the infinite regress can exist.

If logic was discovered, then is it essential to this god and the universe? That without logic, the universe and the world could not exist? — SethRy

I believe so. True and false is the most crude representation of information we have. If the universe could not support true and false (IE logic), then it would not seem to have any information in it, so no beings, matter or gods.

Even though creation without time seems impossible? — Luke

Stuff happens in spacetime without time: photons get around without experiencing time. So change without time seems possible; hence timeless creation maybe possible.

The way I see it, the basic history of the universe must be one of these two alternatives:

- An endless infinite regress in time of some sort
- A timeless first cause

I am pretty sure the first is impossible; not so with the second.

With presentism, if you take away 'only now' (IE the start of time), there is nothing left at all so creation of time seems impossible.

With eternalism, there is something else beyond time there to do the creating of time.

guess that also rules out your creator of time then...? — Luke

With eternalism something other than 'only now' is allowed to exist so there is something 'there' to create time. A timeless first cause (which does not itself need to be created because it is beyond causation). It's either that or belief that infinite regresses are possible.

What do you take this to mean? — Luke

The fact that the present only exists has ALWAYS been the case. So as we go back in time, still only the present exists. So the present ALWAYS existed. That implies no start of time.

Then if there was a start of time; that would be creation ex nihilo of a sort - creation without time itself which seems impossible (note if there was a 2nd time we would just end up in a infinite regress of time so its fundamental / base reality time I'm talking about).

Humans contemplating the REALITY of existence are like ants contemplating the extra-galactic cosmos, Devans — Frank Apisa

You seem to be denying 2000 years worth of scientific progress.

My guess is that I have already nailed it. You are attempting a backdoor "There is a God" thesis. I further suspect a young, intelligent, ambitious, zealous, egotistical guy thinking he can do what people like Einstein, Sagan, Degrasse, Hawking and others could not — Frank Apisa

I am middle aged if you must know. Look at it this way; why would you bother with philosophy if you did not think you had a chance of discovering something? I certainly would not. And I am not claiming to have discovered anything, I am just floating arguments for consideration. If someone shoots down one of my arguments; I shut up about it. That's the way it works. Why do you have a problem with it?

all local variable theories have essentially been ruled out — boethius

Hidden non-local variable theories are still in the running though?

Having time start without a cause is a sort of creation ex nihilo but seems worse because time itself is absence too - could time start/be created whilst lacking both time and a cause?

The beginning was undefinable — SethRy

I don't think there can be a temporal beginning for God as that requires time - he must exist permanently beyond time and be without cause.

The act of creation requires logic. It would require logic to create time. It would require logic to 'create/discover' logic. So logic can't be a creation; it must be a discovery.

It's not exactly true to say the photon does not experience "time" in the metaphysical sense. If time is change, the photon's "wave function" changes over "our time"; so this evolving wave function can be viewed as a metaphysical time. — boethius

The wave function could change but that is only our estimation of where the photon is; it is not the actual particle. Maybe the photon remains unchanged whilst its wave function evolves? That would fit in better with the photon experiencing no time?

Also it's clear that wave function changes in our time but does it in the photon's time?

Fundamental particles must somehow go from one event to another between events, there's simply by definition no "classical time" available for this more fundamental time. — boethius

So change is possible outside of "classical time"? The photon experiences no time yet goes from existent to non-existent in no time. Seems to indicate change.

This "more fundamental time"... would causation still apply to things in it?

With this concept of speed of causation we can now more clearly see that anything going at this speed cannot experience any internal events, no clock can tick for it — boethius

So things travelling at the speed of light are beyond causation? This is what I'd expect for something that was beyond time.

So it's not accurate to say "it's clock is stuck at the time of the cosmic microwave background" but rather that the photon "has no clock at all", and so any questions about the photon's clock are simply functionally meaningless: — boethius

We know that for something travelling at close to the speed of light, their clock runs slower and slower. It's not too much of a jump from that to fitting a clock to a photon for a thought experiment.

One...you are making a blind guess that it would take a brain that size...fabricating the guess from essentially NOTHING. — Frank Apisa

You can't fit a pint in a half pint pot. That information (on all the particles in the universe) has to fit somewhere. This is logical.

Besides, to be truly omniscience would require a nervous system that encompasses every particle in the whole universe. How likely is that? We have not noticed such a thing empirically (CERN etc...). So we can inductively conclude it's unlikely. Again, that's using logic.

You are being duplicitous whether wittingly or unwittingly...and whether toward your audience or toward yourself. — Frank Apisa

Hardly... I'm being perfectly straight-forward in saying a think there is probably a creator and its not like the traditional God. What is dishonest about that?

Explore it. Don't claim victory over it even in modest amounts. — Frank Apisa

I am exploring it. You are not helping a great deal. Specific counter arguments to my points would help us get at the truth rather than this endless rant about me having a hidden agenda.

All you are talking about it a blind guess. None of it is the result of logic — Frank Apisa

How exactly is that a blind guess? How would a brain exist of such dimensions? It would take years for distant parts of the brain to communicate with each other... not a viable brain... so not a viable god.

Or omni-benevolence... that requires getting it right all the time, but clearly things go wrong in the universe, so again we can use LOGIC to rule out the traditional view of God.

You are being duplicitous. — Frank Apisa

I am not a deceitful person. I see nothing wrong with answering the question 'was the universe created?'. It would further human knowledge if we had an answer.

That may or may not include a god, Devans! A god or gods...not God. At least that is the way it should be worded if you truly are working on what you say you are working on. — Frank Apisa

I've already mentioned this; when talking in the singular; as in someone's name, you use the capitalised form, for example: God may exist. When using 'God' as just another noun and not someone's name, you use a small letter: He was a god, gods exist etc...

But it is a blind guess...and you truly are not treating it as a blind guess. — Frank Apisa

It's hardly a blind guess. Omniscience for example; knowing the status of every particle in the universe would require a brain much more massive than the entire universe. That's very unlikely hence my conclusion that such a God probably does not exist is not a bind guess.

You are doing to the question, "Does God exist"...what the people who argue for Intelligent Design are trying to do to "Creationism." — Frank Apisa

I am changing the question from something unanswerable to something answerable with logic and science. Intelligent Design is an inappropriate analogy as that is not logic/science; it purports that God was somehow involved in evolution which is ridiculous. All I am arguing for is that the Big Bang was caused deliberately which is not ridiculous (at least a 50%/50% shot).

Space is the only other dimension so drawing analogies to time is tempting. So I'm thinking from the spacetime viewpoint. So thinking of an object as a solid brick in 4D space time, if there is no temporal start, it implies one side of the brick is missing. That's not a valid object IMO.

I'm trying to formulate an argument from a different angle:

1. Can’t get something from nothing
2. So something must have permanent existence (else there would be nothing)
3. That something in itself has no cause
4. To have no cause; something must be beyond cause and effect; IE beyond time.
5. So time must have a start and eternalism holds

My motivation is to work out the truth of how the universe came about. That may or may not include God.

I have argued for God's existence in the past but I have come to the conclusion it is more productive to discuss whether there was a creator or not; that question is amenable to logic; the question 'is there a God?' is ill defined and probably not answerable.

I think it is unlikely that a traditional God exists but likely that there was a creator of the universe.

I am trying to use logic rather than pontificating. I do no agree that inconsistencies in my reasoning having been demonstrated.

Using your "reasoning" either NOTHING exists...or at least one thing has always existed — Frank Apisa

'Always' existing in time is impossible; rather it is that something has permanent existence outside of time.

But you then go to the totally illogical conclusion that the "one thing"...cannot be everything that exists. — Frank Apisa

If we assume that everything that exists, exists in time, we always end up with an infinite regress. So there must be something outside of time that caused everything else. Something beyond cause and effect so needs no cause itself. Sorry if I'm repeating myself, but it's the only possible solution to how the universe started.

As to whether the first cause is God, I think you have to define 'God' first. If the definition is the traditional religious definition then that reduces the likelihood that the first cause is God - the 3Os do not follow logically from anything - so it's hard to logically argue for the traditional view of God.

But for it to be one object, the temporal start must be connected to the temporal end (else it is two separate objects).

I think you have to think about the topology of objects in space and then transfer that thinking to time. In space, saying something has no identifiable start point is equivalent to saying it does not exist - if it has no start point, it has no length (end-start) or breadth so it can't exist. It is exactly the same thing when you come to consider time.

For me, things without starts are in an infinite regress and thus are impossible. If you think about a moment, it defines the following moment. So infinite time forms an infinite regress. But there is no overall starting moment, so none of the moments in the infinite regress can ultimately be fully defined. Each moment makes sense by its own, but overall infinite time cannot be because the whole think is undefined.

If you think about the set of negative integers:

{ ..., -4, -3, -2, -1 }

The ... means the set is partially defined. Strictly speaking that means undefined. Anything without a start is undefined.

Interesting. It is the case that presentism agrees with our gut feeling about the way the world works I grant. At the same time it seems to be logically impossible (not addressed by the link you gave me). I think time, as demonstrated in relativity, is not intuitive, so trusting to gut feeling might lead us astray.

I think the only precedent for time we have is space. Thats the only other dimension. In space, 'left' and 'right' are real just as 'here' is real.

Within your argument you're using the absense of existence of a start point to spread that non-existence to infinity to "now". That's the same concept as me using santa's non-existence at the north pole to spread his non-existence to where I'm at now to prove I don't exist therefore santa must exist by contradiction. — coolguy8472

You cannot use Santa's non existence to prove you don't exist.

Within your proof you we assume a start point does not exist but then invoking the existence of it anyway when doing "start+infinity". If we assume an eternal universe in our premise then we are assuming the start does not exist. — coolguy8472

It is a fact that the start is always connected to the end so it is always valid to traverse from start to end proving non-existence.