"Listening not to me but to the Logos it is wise to agree that all things are one."
- Heraclitus

“Couples are things whole and things not whole, what is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.”
- Heraclitus

“The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.”
- Heraclitus

Whatever name we assign to it, it is the same source of everything in existence that we can sense or point out patterns, but we must also be aware that other beings sense and note patterns in the "medium" differently than humans.

I have the opinion — Devans99

And this is the warp upon which you build your weave. It appears on the surface of your thinking from time to time. It represents the capital against which you draw upon in your arguments. But "opinion," and what "you buy," & etc., are of no worth in argument. Your account being empty from the start, your thinking being bankrupt, all of your checks are returned marked insufficient funds.

In effect, it makes of your arguments a fantasy game detached from reality. I should like to think I have often acknowledged that anyone can play such a game, and fair enough. But it won't do for any sort of real argument, any more than Monopoly money can pay real bills.

You also are confused about the relationship of logic and understanding, and the nature of that which produces understanding. It is not the business of the world to be logical; it is instead the business of logic to keep pace with understanding the world, sometimes not so easy. It's easy to escape into fantasy, but that just marks you as a casualty on the side of the road on the way to knowledge.

Can you give an example of something illogical / contradictory from reality?

Can you give an example of something illogical / contradictory from reality? — Devans99

Reality is sufficient unto itself. It appears in what seems the main to us to operate with a consistency that we call the operation of laws. And we look for what we call consistency in those operations, consistency being our test. And the history of science has been mainly one of correction and refinement, and sometimes outright rejection of ideas about what we encounter, to reconcile our understandings, expressed as laws, with what we encounter. The goad to that activity being apparent inconsistency and apparent illogic/contradiction.

It must seem, then, that reality itself is lawful, and that any difficulties that seem to present are in fact difficulties in perception/understanding.

That is, taken uncritically, your question seems reasonable. Looked at closely, on the other hand, your question becomes nonsensical and deceptive. Not your fault: the language is a matter of custom and habit. But it would be both good and wise if you started to question your own thinking and more critically. As it stands, you're not the master of your thoughts, but rather a form of dogmatism is your master, and you its subject.

Thank you I believe we got your answer!
LOL

Be well,
Jim

A first cause must be able to cause effects without in itself being effected. So it must be self-driven. IE Intelligent.

Intelligent about what? How can it know anything if there is nothing to know? So instead of asking where did the universe come from, the question becomes where did god get the idea of “universe”, perhaps it has seen it somewhere before?

And what about emotions, why couldn’t it be just emotional instead of intelligent being? Also, do you think it ever questions why does it exist, how and where did it come from, and whether it was itself created by some prior deity?

By the way, if god exist out of time and space, practically existing nowhere and never, so is it then actually made of something or it follows it is really made of nothing?

"what is the purpose of the humanistic will to wonder?"

Life

"And explain to me what the will is, and what wonder is... ?"

We both know what they are

"Are those features of consciousness important or unimportant, and do you yourself benefit from them?"

Important

"Bonus question : does the will and the sense of wonder confer any biological advantages in Darwinism?"

Probably.

Your arrogant because you think only theists have wonder. I was an atheist from age 3 to 8 and I had tons of wonder and joy. I stopped believing in God when I turned 19, and again, didn't lose wonder. You think everyone is like you.

And what about emotions, why couldn’t it be just emotional instead of intelligent being? Also, do you think it ever questions why does it exist, how and where did it come from, and whether it was itself created by some prior deity? — Zelebg

The first cause of everything has to be beyond time - that is surely the only logical answer to the chicken and egg problem. So for such a timeless entity, there is no 'before' - it merely IS - permanent uncaused existence.

The universe is fine-tuned for life suggesting some form of intelligence.

By the way, if god exist out of time and space, practically then, it exist nowhere and never, so let me ask is it actually made of something or it follows it is really made of nothing? — Zelebg

I am not sure. God has to be causally effective, that suggests made of some substance that is from beyond spacetime. It is possible that the universe is underpinned by a non-material substrate (see quantum entanglement). Maybe God is made of this substance.

God has to be causally effective, that suggests made of some substance that is from beyond spacetime. It is possible that the universe is underpinned by a non-material substrate (see quantum entanglement). Maybe God is made of this substance.

I agree, keep that logic in mind...

To exist out of substance is to consist of nothing.
-- meaning: it does not exist

To exist out of time is to exist never.
-- meaning: it never existed

To exist out of space is to exist nowhere.
-- meaning: it does not exist

But something beyond time must exist. There must be at least one 'brute fact' in reality or else the result is nothing (null universe). Referring to St Thomas Aquinas's third argument:

1. Can’t get something from nothing
2. So something must have existed ‘always’.
3. (IE if there was ever a state of nothingness, it would persist to today, so something must have permanent existence).
4. It’s not possible to exist permanently in time (would have no start to existence and you cannot exist if you do not start to exist), so the ‘something’ must be the timeless first cause (of time/causality).

You see this argument agrees precisely with the axiom 'everything in time has a cause'. And in fact there are many arguments that time has a start and all imply that something timeless must exist.

Now I cannot explain exactly what is the nature of this timeless thing; all I can do is point out it is a logical requirement. We as humans are only familiar with a tiny portion of what is possible. Who knows what states of possible existence there are? Maybe it is non-material. Maybe there is a wider 'space' that exists beyond spacetime. Maybe as creatures of spacetime we will never be able to understand a wider reality. Sorry if that sounds like a cop-out, but I have reached the limits of my understanding on the issue.

Maybe the world flows from an eternal spiritual form, not a person. The form doesn't choose or change, but the world flows from it, the temporal from the eternal. Then we can start asking questions about the difference between the spiritual and the material, widdle down the distinction, and come to the realization that we don't fully understand matter and the "brute fact" being looked for is simply the ordered universe instead of an ordered disembodied guy.

When Christians say "if you don't believe in God, why don't you kill people", all they are doing is admitting that THEY are going to be murderers once they stop believing in genies. It also goes to show their ignorance of other people

Then we can start asking questions about the difference between the spiritual and the material, widdle down the distinction, and come to the realization that we don't fully understand matter and the "brute fact" being looked for is simply the ordered universe instead of an ordered disembodied guy. — Gregory

But the universe exists in time and no brute fact can exist in time - it would have no temporal start. If it has no temporal start, it has no temporal start +1. If it has no temporal nth moment, it has no temporal nth+1 moment. So it does not exist. So brute facts have to be timeless (=uncaused). The brute fact that caused everything else (causality forms an inverted pyramid with the first cause at tip), has to cause an effect without being effected itself. So the first cause must be intelligent.

There is no reasoning with you, as a lot of us are finding out. You think you fully understand time. You think you fully understand matter. And you think you fully understand infinity. When will you grow up?

That is not a counter argument.

I do not fully understand anything. My beliefs are merely what I think is probable (has a greater than 50% probability of being true). I argue for the things I 'believe' in. What else should I do? Argue for things that I think are not probable?

It is a counter argument. Your position is based on you thinking you understand time and matter, yet even you said on another thread that "The mind is fundamentally illogical". I've refuted your arguments over and over again on this thread from various angles. You'r either not smart enough to understand, too immature, or too obstinate. Probably all of the above

I think you have no counter arguments and are just mud throwing.

But something beyond time must exist.

Perhaps, but not in English language, at least. It is not because I refuse to think “out of the box”, it is because the time concept is one of the fundamentals our whole understanding is based upon.

Without it there is no change, and without change there is no event, there is no process. All the verbs applied without it completely lose their meaning and the concept becomes semantically invalid, a paradox that we simply can not reason about just like there is nothing to say about ‘round square’ except that is self-contradiction and thus can not exist.

But there is actually one thing that is not caused by anything and which causes everything to happen, in a way. It certainly makes things possible to happen and without which nothing can happen. This one special thing that stands above everything else, it can be said it exist beyond time as well, and that thing is the time itself.

You have to admit the power that time has over everything, even over the gods themselves (logically at least), is pretty god-like, so there, why is not Khronos good enough god for you?

I've stated my counter arguments but you insist on trying to see only deism. That's bias. You even choose not to read Aquinas's arguments on God's omniscience. I think this stubborn deist stance is some type of rebellion for you.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1014.htm

There is some homework for Devans (a small portion of what Aquinas wrote on the subject). I don't like having intellectual conversations with people who don't act like adults

I think that we as creatures of time are not familiar with any other state of existence. But when we examine the logic of the situation:

- God cannot exist in time eternally because he would never start existing so could not exist.
- Nothing can exist in time eternally because it would never start existing so could not exist.
- If time existed forever, it has no first moment. If it has no nth moment it has no nth+1 moment, so it does not exist

So you have to face the fact that something atemporal is a logical requirement in order for there to be anything at all in existence.

I imagine that there is the atemporal thing and it is external to spacetime, but can express itself within spacetime. It is possible that it created spacetime through its first action. So maybe it became part of spacetime when its first action was accomplished. Or maybe it is just something that we will never be able to comprehend.

There is some homework for Devans (a small portion of what Aquinas wrote on the subject). I don't like having intellectual conversations with people who don't act like adults — Gregory

I will have a read. Thanks. Meanwhile, I suggest that God must be able to 'know thyself' and that is impossible so God is not omniscient.

There must be at least one 'brute fact' in reality or else the result is nothing (null universe).

Yes, but the choice of “brute fact” is still just an assumption.

So you have a choice to postulate magical fine-tuned universe, just like we observe, or to postulate unobservable magical being, that just so happens to be fine-tuned to hallucinate into existence this magical fine-tuned universe we actually observe.

Do you see the extra step? All the magical properties you want to attribute to some deity we can simply skip and apply directly to the universe, except then we don’t have to postulate absurdity like unembodied intelligence.

I’m not saying magical universe makes sense, that is plausible, or that it explains anything. I’m only saying it is less, much less of an assumption since it is what we already observe and requires no further assumptions.

1. Can’t get something from nothing

Again there is choice between things that do not make sense.

something always existed
something out of nothing
something existed before time

You think something existed before time is less senseless than something out of nothing even though it is explicit self-contradiction, and it doesn’t get rid of the absurdity “something existed for no reason”.

Something out of nothing is at least not self-contradiction to begin with, and there is really no reason to believe it is actually false, though I do agree it would be surprising. But not more surprising than magic superman just happens to exist for no reason, fluffing around and creating worlds out of boredom.

2. So something must have existed ‘always’.

Universe.

4. It’s not possible to exist permanently in time (would have no start to existence and you cannot exist if you do not start to exist), so the ‘something’ must be the timeless first cause (of time/causality).

Then the universe existed before time. Or whatever paradox you accepted for your deity, it can be applied directly to the universe.

This is a response to your opening post.

It seems to me that 'time' is playing no real role in the argument. All that is needed is the principle that anything that exists has either been caused to exist by something external to it, or is self-explanatory.

From that we get to the conclusion that if anything exists, some self-explanatory thing or things must exist.

I don't think that conclusion gets you to an agency, much less God. I think what it gets you to is the existence of simple things. For a simple thing, having no parts, requires no external explanation. Thus simple things are self-explanatory.

So, the ultimate causes of all else must be simple things. But why think these simple things are, in fact, one simple thing? And why think that the simple thing in question must be an agency? These steps seem missing. You've jumped from everything needing self-explanatory causes to there being one and only one such cause, and you've attributed agency to it on no very compelling grounds.

I mean, I can see why we might have 'some' reason to think these things. The principle of simplicity might favour us positing one simple thing rather than lots (though that's controversial - it may be simpler to posit lots of simple first causes, given how complex the created world appears to be....I mean, when I see an ocean liner I do not posit one mega-creator, but many mundane creators). And given that I myself appear to be both a simple thing and an agent, that gives me some reason to suppose that if something is simple then it is an agency - but not a very powerful reason.

Anyway, bringing 'time' in seems to me to add nothing to the argument, but only muddies the waters further. For your claim that "everything in time must have a cause" seems false by your own lights. I mean, I assume that by 'a cause' you mean some kind of external cause. And you think time itself has a cause, for there has to be a first moment and it needs a cause. But after time has been created, then that which created it would be 'in' time. For how could it not be? And yet this creator or creators, would now be in time, yet would not have any cause external to themselves. Thus by your own lights not everything in time has an external cause of its existence, for the creator of time is in time and does not have an external cause of its existence.

You are assuming, it seems to me, that to have caused time is not subsequently to be in it. I see no reason to think that's true. If I build a house around me, the house is created by me, yet I am also now in it.

I should add, I do not deny your conclusion - I think we do have overwhelmingly good reason to think that the universe has a single first cause and that the first cause is 'God' at least in some sense of that term. I just do not see how your argument, as it stands, gets us with any confidence to that conclusion.

It's been mentioned before, but many of those who toil in the depths of reality, the physicists, don't seem to worry about this issue. It seems to be mostly a philosophical concern. But, hey, look at what this forum is about! :smile:

Philosophy - not physics - is the study of what's real. Saying that physicists do not worry about it is akin to saying bakers don't worry about it - yes, of course they don't, it isn't what they're studying.

imagine the series of motions as a bunch of pictures. Together they flow to create time, but there is no time before the first motion. Gravity causes the whole series to move and time to flow, but there is no before so a God or anything else outside the series is not needed. The world is uncaused, having its own causality within it, as you say of the dude out there — Gregory

Thats a good point. I would argue there would have to be some entity or set of entities that cannot explain why they behave the way they do. I believe scientific determinism is the reality we live in (cause and effect going back billions of years). However I would imagine if you go back far enough it is intrinsically impossible to explain why things were set up a certain way or in the case of religion, why the creator or creator gods is the way that he/she is. Actually the name Yahweh is sometimes explained to mean "I Am" as in hes sitting around for X amount of time and finally he just accepts the fact that he is the way he is.

A programmer can explain statistics based random number generators (not random) and they can explain the program world they created, but the programmer can't explain why he prefers one entity over another or why he loves his one sibling more than his other sibling.

Hi all
The original version of a related argument, regarded as one of the most influential arguments for the existence of God later adopted by Aquinas and others, was presented by Avicenna or Ibn Sina the Persian philosopher sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Arabic Philosopher.
Here is my understanding and summary of the argument:
1. Things that exist are either contingent or necessary: meaning either they can ‘not exist’ or they can’t fail but to exist.
2. The things we see around us are all contingent for they could have not existed. The chair, the table, humans, trees, atoms and so on.
3. Contingent things owe their existence to something that brought/brings them about, or in other words causes them.
4. If everything in the world is contingent then we have an infinite regress of contingent things; everything else being caused or brought about by something which is/was itself contingent and was brought about by something else, ad infinitum.
Now, taking such infinite series as a set, it is either the case that the set of all such things is either contingent, or is not contingent.
5. If the set is contingent then it means it must have been brought about/caused by something outside of the set of all things contingent, which means something that itself cannot be a part of that set and is hence a necessary existent.
6. If the set is not itself contingent then it means the set itself is necessary which proves what he was looking for; namely the ‘need’ for the existence of a necessary existent.
Now, if 6 then this needed necessary existent is either:
6a. Part of the set itself
6b. Outside of it.
But it cannot be 6a since the necessary existent cannot be a part of the set of all things contingent for it too will be contingent. So it must be 6b and the necessary existent must be something outside of the set. The cause of the set is therefore some necessary being, some necessary existent.
He then moves to the argument for ‘simplicity’ and ‘Oneness’ of this necessary being (let us note that here ‘oneness’ means ‘uniqueness’ and being one in number.
7. This being must be simple and not composite for if it is a composite then its being is contingent on its parts. So it must be simple.
8. This being must be unique for if it is not then something must explain why there are two or more of it. If for example as have two necessary beings A and B, which even if we accept to be qualitatively identical, the question we face is whether it is a contingent fact that there are two or whether it is a matter of necessity that there are two? If the former then A and B cannot be necessary beings after all for there could have been more or less of them; there could have been A, B, and C, but then how could C be necessary if it ‘merely’ could have existed but happens not to hence why we only have A and B, or they could have been just A, making B not necessary and vice versa. But if it was a matter necessity that there were 2 then A’s and B’s existent is contingent on what necessitated there being two, hence making their existence contingent.
These last two points, especially 8, is, I think, designed to avoid the conclusion that elementary particles could be viewed as the candidate for necessary beings. Although he wasn’t familiar with the modern notion of elementary particles he would have appreciated the notion of some elementary matter bits/particles that subsists everything.
The above is just a summary and some of the steps in his arguments can surely be contested and successfully rejected.
But the surprising conclusion of his argument is that whatever the necessary being is its essence is actual and not potential for whatever it is, it ‘is’ necessary. So if the necessary existent is the cause of the world then it is the necessary cause of the world, such that its causing of the world is a necessary feature of its existence which means ‘it’ caused the world not of free will but of necessity. In other words since the necessary being is internal and was never brought about it also means what ‘it’ caused is internal since there couldn’t have been a time where ‘it’ didn’t cause the world. We can of course say that the concept of time only comes into play after we have the physical world of change and that it doesn’t make sense to talk about a time ‘before’ it caused the world. But if we go down that route we will have to omit any talk of a cause before the physical world, namely the existence of the necessary being existing ‘prior’ to the physical world, which brings us full circle back to the contingent world being attached temporally to the necessary being.

Hope you find the above useful

It seems to me that in the above 'necessary' and 'self-explanatory' are being conflated.

I agree with Avicenna that all complex things require explanation, and agree that simple things do not. But that does not make simple things 'necessary' things.

If - if - anything exists, then at least one simple thing exists. But nothing 'has' to exist, some things just do. And of those things that exist, some require explanation, and some do not.

And 8 seems clearly dodgy. There seems no reason why there should be only one simple thing. If simple thing A does not require explanation (due to its being simple), then simple thing B does not either, and nor does the existence of A and B. To think that they do, is simply to have overlooked their simplicity. It is really no different to thinking - confusedly - that A's existence requires explanation (which by hypothesis it does not, given its status as simple).

So, as far as I can see, nothing about simplicity precludes there being multiple simple things.

These last two points, especially 8, is, I think, designed to avoid the conclusion that elementary particles could be viewed as the candidate for necessary beings. — Miles

I don't think that's right. What rules out elementary particles is the fact they would be complex. For such particles would have to occupy space and anything that occupies some space is divisible - and anything divisible has parts (namely those into which it can be divided). So no physical entity is ever going to qualify as simple, as any physical entity - no matter how small - is going to be divisible.

Simple things are, by their very nature then, immaterial entities.

Thanks Bartricks
I do agree there are causal accounts and explanatory accounts. Why 2 +2 =4 is an explanatory account and not causal. 'Why is this chair here, because it has to be somewhere and happens to be here' is again an explanatory account.

I am not sure as I decided to read up on him a few days ago, but I think Avicenna is aware of this distinction an the genius of his argument is that he immediately makes it about contingency and necessity. These notions are closely related to causality and a causal account. It will be missing the point of his argument to miss this crucial point.

No matter how we explain an event or an entity, he is directly asking whether they have a cause or causes. And in doing so the discussion unfolds about things that are contingent on their cause/s and things that do not have a cause.

In relation to why can’t we have 2 necessary beings; no matter how we explain each in terms of how they are what they are, the question is what explains there are 2. To say ‘there are two because there are two’ is circular, to say ‘there are two because it happens to be two’ invites the valid modal question ‘could there have been more’. The same goes for ‘if we can have one then surely we can have another for the same reason’ for that means we can have 3 or 4 or more. And that is where the problem is. If there could have been more than one then something necessitates why that number and not another number instead. What I mean is that the ones that don’t exist (say 3 and 4) could have existed and the ones that exist (1 and 2) could have not existed. Their existence all becomes contingent on something. That contingency cannot be explained in terms of ‘they exist because they exist’ as a reason. Their contingency (and this his key point) means they depend on something or some fact, and that something or fact becomes the ‘necessary being’ in the wider sense.

Interesting observation you have made about point 8. I think there is mileage in it but I don’t think this is the reason the Avicenna would have had in mind for he wouldn’t have been aware of properties of elementary material particles occupying space.
But we can nevertheless, in his defence, contest the absolute nature of space and suggest that multiple entities (such as photons as understood today) could be in the so called same quantum space and occupy, for the lack of a better world, the same space. Spatial occupation doesn’t have the same implications for such particles and they are believed to be simply indivisible particles. Even if quantum mechanics is wrong about their simplicity it isn’t too difficult to imagine the possibility of some such simple entities existing, case in point packets of energy.


The reason why your observation is interesting is because I think there might be a way to use space (conceptually or absolute) to object to some of his premises, but not about simplicity or complexity.