I'm the opposite. — Harry Hindu
Whatever is real, does not require our definitions to exist. Rather the opposite, we try to converge on quiddity of whatever is real by means of discovery, something like that. Oftentimes this involves predication. — jorndoe
'Greater' here means that the effect cannot possess a property that was not present in its cause(s). — Samuel Lacrampe
That's okay if you have not heard of God being defined in that way before. You just need to 'buy' into the definition for us to have a meaningful argument; because we cannot argue if we are not on a common ground when it comes to the terms used. We could technically replace the word 'God', with the word 'X', and this would not change the validity of the syllogism, as long as we agree on the meaning of the terms.Premise 1 is a claim about language use among I don't know what community of speakers, which doesn't seem like it would suit what seems to be a metaphysical argument. There's also something there about this community's imaginative capacity, and I don't know what to do with that that either. I don't know how to verify any of those claims, or what I would have if I did. Even if Premise 1 is true in some specified sense, what good is it? — Srap Tasmaner
Just nitpicking: Your definition makes the cause 'equal', not necessarily 'greater'.We define a "greater cause" to be a cause which possesses all the properties that its correlated effects possess. — Srap Tasmaner
Can you show me why?No effect has a property not possessed by its cause.
This is patently false, as a moment's reflection would show. — Srap Tasmaner
You could use this as a definition, something like:
We define a "greater cause" to be a cause which possesses all the properties that its correlated effects possess. — Srap Tasmaner
Just nitpicking: Your definition makes the cause 'equal', not necessarily 'greater'. — Samuel Lacrampe
On the other hand, you could be making the following claim:
No effect has a property not possessed by its cause.
This is patently false, as a moment's reflection would show. — Srap Tasmaner
Can you show me why? — Samuel Lacrampe
That's okay if you have not heard of God being defined in that way before. You just need to 'buy' into the definition for us to have a meaningful argument; because we cannot argue if we are not on a common ground when it comes to the terms used. We could technically replace the word 'God', with the word 'X', and this would not change the validity of the syllogism, as long as we agree on the meaning of the terms. — Samuel Lacrampe
I agree. But my intent was not to prove God's existence, merely to answer the question of 'how do people go from the first cause to God?' This is my answer for believers.Begging the question by assuming that there is a God and that the Bible is his words. — Michael
Mmm... You may have a point here... But I'll attempt to refute it anyways.And thirdly, it wouldn't follow that the first cause is that which nothing greater can exist, only that the first cause is that which nothing greater does exist. — Michael
Now if 'all that can exist' is 'anything that we can conceive', and 'anything that we can conceive' is 'anything that must exist', then 'all that can exist' is 'anything that must exist'. (wow that was hard). — Samuel Lacrampe
'Greater' here means that the effect cannot possess a property that was not present in its cause(s). This follows from the self-evident principle that 'nothing can come from nothing', or 'nothing can bring itself into existence'. Therefore, whatever property the effect has (be it physical or not) must come from its cause(s). — Samuel Lacrampe
If A caused B, whatever that amounts to and whatever you take as A and B, then B has the property of "being caused by A," but A doesn't. — Srap Tasmaner
This is not the causal relationship between the hammer and the nail. The only effect to the nail caused by the hammer is the energy from the hammer received to the nail. And we know that the energy received is not greater than the original energy due to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that no energy can be created.If that seems too clever, here's another: striking the nail with a hammer causes the nail to enter the board. The nail entering the board has the property of wood being displaced by steel; the hammer striking the nail does not. — Srap Tasmaner
Agreed. Common usage or common sense determines the prima facie or default position, but is not a proof.What's important is (a) not to assume that what carries the authority of common usage is true — Srap Tasmaner
This is not the causal relationship between the hammer and the nail. — Samuel Lacrampe
Actually, I don't think that 'everything has a cause'. Only that 'everything in the natural universe has a cause'. There is no need to extend the principle further than the data set that we can observe, which is only the natural universe.Your premise is that everything has a cause. — SophistiCat
Logically, either a thing has a cause or else it is an eternal being which has always existed, because everything that begins to exist requires a cause for its existence. It could be that eternal things exist in the natural universe but I cannot think of one off the top of my head.It is very much debatable that this is a self-evident truth or that we have no choice but adopt this a metaphysical axiom. — SophistiCat
While it may be hard to pronounce, the argument is really a simple syllogism in the form:Now if 'all that can exist' is 'anything that we can conceive', and 'anything that we can conceive' is 'anything that must exist', then 'all that can exist' is 'anything that must exist'. — Samuel Lacrampe
Actually, I don't think that 'everything has a cause'. Only that 'everything in the natural universe has a cause'. There is no need to extend the principle further than the data set that we can observe, which is only the natural universe. — Samuel Lacrampe
Logically, either a thing has a cause or else it is an eternal being which has always existed, — Samuel Lacrampe
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying, or you are misunderstanding me, because I am with you, that we cannot say that 'everything has a cause', only that 'everything that we can observe (the natural universe) has a cause'.You know you just emptied the predicate "has a cause" of all content by extending it to everything, right? — Srap Tasmaner
But the law of non-contradiction is an absolute. "A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive. And this is true regardless of what A and B are.Some of us are going to balk at extending the principle of bivalence to propositions that, as you just told us, are in principle unverifiable. I might. — Srap Tasmaner
Thanks bro. I hope this will not be seen as a fight between theists vs non-theists, but merely philosophers looking for truth.As an aside: I did some googling, and it looks like a lot of your ideas come from apologetics. I just want to commend you for coming here to test them out among people with different backgrounds and commitments. — Srap Tasmaner
we cannot say that 'everything has a cause', only that 'everything that we can observe (the natural universe) has a cause'. — Samuel Lacrampe
But the law of non-contradiction is an absolute. — Samuel Lacrampe
While it may be hard to pronounce, the argument is really a simple syllogism in the form:
If A is B, and B is C, then A is C.
- Replace A with 'all that can exist'
- Replace B with 'anything that we can conceive'
- Replace C with 'anything that must exist' — Samuel Lacrampe
Logically, either a thing has a cause or else it is an eternal being which has always existed, because everything that begins to exist requires a cause for its existence. — Samuel Lacrampe
It depends on whether or not you's seen x before. If you have never seen x, then it requires that I define x for you, so that you may picture x in your mind. Of course, in defining something, one has the capacity to indulge or leave things out. One also has the capacity to project their own likes and dislikes in the definition. To acquire a more direct definition requires that you observe x for yourself. But you can project your own feelings onto what you observe as well. This requires that we have as many observe x as possible (scientists who test another scientist's theory) and be more aware of how we project ourselves onto our observations and limit that (being more objective).Is x something you can show us first (without having to define it), or is x something you have to define for us first (without having shown existence)? — jorndoe
(may or may not be a worthwhile thesis, don't know)x is real ⇔ x exists irrespective of anyone's definitions — jorndoe
Invention Discovery Definition Evidence Quiddity Existence
Even if we provisionally accept the PSR, it still doesn't logically follow that a cause must have all the properties of its effects (whatever that might even mean). The most that PSR entails in this case is that there must be a cause for any property, which is a plausible (though not necessary) principle if by that we mean that the property is either entailed or made more probable by a prior state of the world combined with dynamical laws. But conservation of properties does not follow from this. — SophistiCat
I disagree. I will explain my same point (original here) in smaller steps: Using the law of noncontradiction, either a thing has a cause or not. This is true regardless if the thing is observable or not, because the law of noncontradiction is an absolute. If it does not have a cause, then it does not have a cause for its existence. But everything that begins to exist requires an external cause for its existence, and cannot cause itself into existence, because to cause something, one must first exist. Therefore if a thing has no cause, then it cannot begin to exist, therefore it must possess eternal existence.Not what I'm talking about. Bivalence is different. We do not have to accept that "has a cause" is either true or false of entities that are in principle unobservable. — Srap Tasmaner
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