Because I don’t have access to your thoughts and feelings. Because my conscious experience is different from yours. None of these is acceptable under a universal consciousness.
I was thinking more of consciousness being an aspect of the universe in the way gravity is. Newton was accused of woo for proposing gravity.
Because I discarded both types of theories of the beginning of time. So there is no natural explanation for how the universe started. Therefore, there is no natural explanation for how the universe exists now.
You just tune out what you don’t think you’re supposed to know, like you tune out traffic noise or whatever.
I am explaining that the universe cannot have a natural beginning. Therefore, it cannot exist.
Proof of God is done in six steps: 1) The universe cannot have a natural beginning, 2) Therefore, the universe cannot naturally exist, 3) The universe, however, exists, 4) This means that the universe has a beginning, 5) But the universe cannot have a natural beginning, 6) Therefore, there is a God who is the cause of unnatural beginning of the universe.
So, what you are saying is that the processes in your brain are similar to a noise in my brain, so I cannot make any sense of them? If that is what you are saying, then I have to agree that personal consciousness is possible within materialism!
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Again, false dichotomy and appeal to ignorance (god-of-the-gaps) invalidate your conclusion, MoK. Explanation (i.e. episteme) presupposes the universe, therefore the universe is, at most, self-explanatory and/or a brute fact. Besides, “God created the universe” is merely an article of faith – make-believe – not an explanation of the universe.
This does not follow.
This “proof” fails because 2) does not validly follow from 1).
To argue that my dichotomy is false, you have to give me another feasible option. Do you have anything on your mind!?
Sure, it follows. The universe is a temporal thing. Any temporal thing has a beginning, either definite or indefinite. I already excluded both types of theories of the beginning of the universe. So, the universe cannot naturally exist since it cannot have a natural beginning. I can even write it in syllogism form:
P1) The universe is a temporal thing and exists
P2) Any temporal thing has a beginning, either definite or indefinite
P3) Both theories can be shown to be wrong (this is done in the OP)
C1) If so, the universe cannot have a natural beginning (from P3)
C2) Therefore, the universe cannot naturally exist (from P2 and C1)
C3) Therefore, God created the universe (from P1 and C2)
Hypotheses—especially if they are scientific ones—are the same thing as theories; they describe possible models for how certain facts about reality work, and are made to be testable, and thus falsifiable. Therefore, my point on epistemology still stands.
If you are positing a theory into how the universe came into existence, then by definition, it would need to be a natural explanation. And if your models of the universe aren’t natural, then you would need to use logic to falsify them, which I’ve not seen so far
Why not?
Why?
What kind of argument is this? If it is structured formally as, “If time only exists now, then time cannot change. Time does change, therefore, time cannot exist only now,” then it is a valid argument, because it is modus tollens. But you’ve not shown why it is sound, so you should defend the two premises to your argument to make it work.
Under presentism, it doesn’t exist, and you’re trying to argue against presentism by saying that if no time besides the present exists, then change cannot be facilitated. Even if you think the past actually exists, you’ve not justified why, if the past doesn’t exist, change cannot occur.
Yes, and since they are theories, the first thing that comes to my mind are scientific theories, which are the same thing as hypotheses, which would mean that they are natural. But, if you are saying that your theories are not scientific, then they would need to be logical in nature, or else they are unfalsifiable theories. And I’ve not seen you give a logical reason to discard secular theories on the universe’s existence.
My argument is an argument against secular theories of the universe’s coming into existence. If matter and energy cannot make more matter and energy, then if the universe was made, then it cannot have been made by extra-universal matter and energy. One objection I’ve considered is that even if matter and energy is not possible to create, what says that a larger extra-universal body of matter and energy poured some of its matter and energy into another unique type of universe, which is our universe, and so caused it to exist? I don’t think this works, because it suggests the infinite existence of a larger type of universe. But if this larger universe is made of matter and energy, and it can change, then it is subject to time, and so to passing events, or the past. So, if this larger universe is supposed to have an infinite past, then it would run into the same contradiction of infinity I’ve put forth, that an unelapsable quantity of events have existed, but they’ve been elapsed.
Here are 3 “feasible” speculations on post-Newtonian ‘spacetime’ (i.e. the universe) that I’ve already mentioned which are alternatives to your 2 conceptions of outdated Newtonian “time”:
in sum:
• finite or infinite time? (OP)
• cyclic spacetime
• unbounded spacetime
• random spacetime
I am not talking about a specific theory and its hypotheses. I am talking about the TYPES of theories. I am not claiming any theory here, but making a metaphysical claim, the dichotomy in the TYPES of theories, which is a correct dichotomy.
I am talking about the types of theories. There are two types of theories when it comes to the beginning of time: either time has a definite beginning, or it does not.
Please read 1 in the OP.
Please read 2 in the OP.
P1) Time cannot exist and change if it exists only now (please read 1)
P2) Change is not possible if time does not change (please read 2)
P3) Presentism states that time exists only now
C1) Therefore, time cannot change within presentism (from P1 and P3)
C2) Therefore, change is not possible within presentism (from P2 and C1)
Past events do not exist now within presentism. They only existed in the past.
Yes, they are theories for time, but I am not talking about them. I am talking about the types of theories here. I discard both types; therefore, we have no alternative. And here is the argument you are asking:
P1) The universe is a temporal thing and exists
P2) Any temporal thing has a beginning, either definite or indefinite
P3) Both theories can be shown to be wrong (this is done in the OP)
C1) If so, the universe cannot have a natural beginning (from P3)
C2) Therefore, the universe cannot naturally exist (from P2 and C1)
C3) Therefore, God created the universe (from P1 and C2)
I am talking about the definite and indefinite beginning of time in the OP. The indefinite does not translate to infinite, but unbounded. The cyclic universe, as I illustrated to you, is an unbounded model. So we are left with the random model, which tries to explain how time emerges, and it does not tell anything about the beginning of time.
So, by theory in this case, you would define as models of beginningless and non-beginningless universes that lack God? Alright.
I am dubious of this argument. Just because change cannot occur if there is no time, it doesn’t follow that time itself is the cause of changing time; time, since it is a product of matter, is changed by matter, not by time, hence why time is altered in response to changes in gravity and speed (Watch the film interstellar to understand, or twin paradoxes in special relativity). Therefore, time doesn’t alter time, but matter alters time, and since matter doesn’t “elapse” like time, you don’t get an infinite regress by saying that matter causes change in time, and if you assume, under Atheism, that matter is a brute fact. Therefore, you’ve not shown how presentism is false.
At the same time, even if you demonstrate that certain event X happens at time t1, and that event Y happens at time t2 because of X, you’ve not shown how it follows that time is the cause of event X simply because it happened at t1, and thus not shown that time brought about change Y simply because it happened at t2. You’ve therefore not shown that change cannot happen if only the present currently exists, because you’ve not demonstrated that time is necessary to instantiate change in time.
This doesn’t follow unless you can demonstrate how time is the causal influence for changes in time, and not matter, which is what causes change under models of relativity.
Which is what I’ve said throughout the whole discussion so far.
You’ve not argued sufficiently for the truth of P2, and I’ve shown why your two arguments in the OP do not demonstrate the falsehood of non-God theories for the universe’s existence, which you need to prove P3 to be true. Therefore, this whole argument does not follow.
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Again, I am not supporting any theory here. I am discussing a metaphysical claim here, the valid dichotomy.
Do you understand the argument?
I am not saying that time is the cause of change here. I am saying, “A change in time requires that a later moment become now later. But a later moment cannot become now later if there is no time.” You need to pay attention to what is written. I am simply saying you need time for the temporal becoming of now.
I don’t need to show that time is the cause of change. I am not talking about what caused the change in something either. I am trying to demonstrate that you need two points in time and a change in time to have a change in something.
Please read the previous comment.
P2 is about the dichotomy. The dichotomy is valid.
You certainly didn’t understand my arguments for discarding both types of theories of time. It is sort of puzzling for me, you already demonstrated an argument against the universe with an infinite past!? So I believe that you somehow agree that we can discard this type of theories that time does not have a definite beginning. So, what is left is to discard presentism!
Then what did you mean by this:
You need time for time to change? Unless you worded this very poorly, then this would be a suggestion that time itself is the causal agent for changes in time, which is demonstrably false. A better wording would’ve been, “So, for changes in time to be possible, it would first need to be true that such a thing as time exists”, which makes more sense, because for a certain property of A to be altered, A must first exist for an existent property of A to be altered. But if this argument, as you’ve clarified, says in effect that, “Since time exists, then for time to change, an existent future event f must be actualized into an existent present event p. Therefore, if time exists and undergoes change, then by necessity, there must exist an f, from which changes of p could even be possible. Therefore, changes of p imply the existence of f, which would mean that presentism is false, since it isn’t true that only p exists, but f as well”, then this argument would still have many problems. For one, just because it is proven that p becomes f, it doesn’t follow that f already existed before p was made into f, in the same sense that, if I turn a giant rock into a statue, that that statue existed before I turned the rock into the statue, which is incoherent, because then, at p, we would get the result that f both exists and doesn’t exist, which is a contradiction. Therefore, by following the logic, we would get the result that it is impossible for f to exist at p, which would mean that anything besides presentism would be false, and therefore, that presentism must is true. So, if your refutations against natural theories for a definite or indefinitely existent universe hinge on proving presentism wrong, then you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you by using other methods of proving the incoherency of natural models for the universe.
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That is the conclusion from the previous statement: “But a later moment cannot become now later if there is no time.” Do you agree with this statement? If yes, then the statement you are asking evidently follows from this statement.
Yes, I do think time must exist for time to be able to change, but that was not what this question was; this question was used ton demonstrate that they way you worded your conclusion was very ambiguous, and seemed to me to mean one thing, when you meant it to say another thing. That was the problem, and other people on this thread also seem confused by the wording or your arguments, hence why you are getting accusations of God-of-the-gaps argumentation and false dilemmas. At the same time, you’ve not addressed my last post adequately.
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That is what I meant. It seems that you understood what I meant, so I don’t understand why you call my wording poor! I am just very concise.
I already argue against presentism using the infinite regress approach. For time to change, we need two points, namely now and the immediate future, but that does not mean that both points should exist simultaneously.
Could we agree that presentism is false, considering that it leads to infinite regress?
Indeed, I did get what you mean. After you reclarified, like, five times. Concision is not a virtue in philosophy, clarity is.
Your infinite regress argument hinges on the fact that time needs to exist for time to change. Like, how does the need for A’s existence to allow for changes to A lead to regress? I’ve not seen a good reason that this is the case. My argument demonstrates why anything besides presentism is incoherent, and since you’ve admitted that, even if f needs to become p to allow change, yet f doesn’t actually exist, then you’ve admitted that merely p actually exists, which is presentism. Ergo, you’ve just gone and said that presentism is true, and so have refuted your own arguments.
You’ve not shown me a convincing argument that it does.
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Consider perhaps that to apply the language of things to God is a category error, not a mystification of God, to suggest he’s of a higher level, but it’s to speak nonsense. God doesn’t exist within mundane word usage which demands temporal relation of beginning and end.
And again, don’t misread this. I’m not talking about his greatness requiring suspension of reason or humility before the awe.
I’m just saying it’s nonsense to speak the language game of things for God, as in, what color is seven.
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