New Paradox for the "Principles of Physics".

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21 years 7 months ago #5272 by 1234567890

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I disagree. "Existence ex nihilo" assumes a miraculous cause. It is the theory of choice for religions. "Always existing" respects the causality principle because every form has a proximate, antecedent cause. But there is no need of a cause for everything separate from the cause of each form. And if there is no need for a separate "cause for everything" now, there never was such a need because every moment of time is just like now.
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I don't understand how "Always existing" respects the causality principle since it already assumes existence without a cause.
It seems to me at some point existence without cause is a necessity under any model. So the MM as the Big Bang Theory seem to be valid only as a description of the time of the universe after this anarchic state (where something can come from nothing and all possible sets of rules coexisted) has passed.

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tvanflandern
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21 years 7 months ago #5505 by tvanflandern

Replied by tvanflandern on topic Reply from Tom Van Flandern

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[George]: Are you saying that you consider "Always Existed" completely different from "CREATION ex nihilo" and "EXISTENCE ex nihilo"?<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

Yes. -|Tom|-

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21 years 7 months ago #5404 by tvanflandern

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<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[123...]: I don't understand how "Always existing" respects the causality principle since it already assumes existence without a cause.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

It respects that every form must come from a preceding form, and such preceding forms are always available. In creation scenarios, there is a First Cause, which breaks the chain of cause and effect. In MM, there is no break. The causality principle always applies.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>It seems to me at some point existence without cause is a necessity under any model. So the MM as the Big Bang Theory seem to be valid only as a description of the time of the universe after this anarchic state (where something can come from nothing and all possible sets of rules coexisted) has passed.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

MM specifically denies a prior anarchic state, and argues that the universe was always essentially the same as it is now, even though the forms in it are always forming, merging, fissioning, and decomposing. So everything we see has finite existence in its present form. But forms just change, they don't come into or leave existence.

It's easier to think forward than backward. You probably have no concept problem with MM saying that the universe will always exist just as it is. But in MM, time is not some magical thing that exists independent of the contents of the universe. "Time" is just a measure of changing forms. It will continue forever. And that same statement was just as true no matter how far back you think. -|Tom|-

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21 years 7 months ago #5273 by 1234567890

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<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[123...]: I don't understand how "Always existing" respects the causality principle since it already assumes existence without a cause.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

It respects that every form must come from a preceding form, and such preceding forms are always available. In creation scenarios, there is a First Cause, which breaks the chain of cause and effect. In MM, there is no break. The causality principle always applies.

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I think you said yourself above that although forms come into and out of existence their essence has always existed. It is this essence always existing I am questioning. Invoking eternity does not change your underlying assumption that this essence had no cause, that it just is. Well, how do you differentiate an essence that had always existed without cause from the very same essence that came into existence without cause? The only difference is that we can mark a beginning in the latter as the point where the essence started to exist. The process of existence without cause , aka creation ex nihilo, is not eradicated by asserting existence is eternal.

There is no logical way to preserve a model of existence based on cause and effect, imo, just as there is no logical way to argue for the existence of a chicken in the chicken and the egg paradox if we assumed a chicken must always be produced by it's own egg but at the same time a chicken is needed to produce that egg. No, in both cases, you end up arguing in circles.

Nature supplies us with a clue to resolve both the chicken and the egg paradox as well as the paradox of existence however in the example of the mule. If "the chicken or the egg, which came first " represents a cause and effect model of existence, the example of the mule, an infertile product of gametes from species other than itself, is symbolic of the idea that existence (represented by the chicken and the egg) can be and must be "caused" by something other than existence, i.e., there has to be a break in the cause and effect model of existence for the chicken and the egg, the mule, and the universe itself to exist.

An eternal universe, no less than one with a "beginning" requires a break in the cause and effect chain of existence for it to exist. Eternal existence = existence ex-nihilo.

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tvanflandern
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21 years 7 months ago #5274 by tvanflandern

Replied by tvanflandern on topic Reply from Tom Van Flandern

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Invoking eternity does not change your underlying assumption that this essence had no cause, that it just is.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

I think I was misunderstood. The "essence" we speak of here is the substance of the universe. In MM, "existence" means "occupied by substance". So the statement that "essence has always existed" is more or less equivalent to saying that "existence has always existed". That is trivially true because I think everyone would be prepared to agree that existence cannot come from non-existence. Even creationists have to stipulate a First Cause that always existed.

In short, existence is necessarily and intrinsically eternal. The larger question here is simply whether the nature of existence changed when some First Cause performed a miracle, or whether existence has always been more or less as it is today. I don't see another possibility on the table.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Well, how do you differentiate an essence that had always existed without cause from the very same essence that came into existence without cause?<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

Nothing can come into existence from non-existence "without cause". So I assume you mean "from nothing" instead of "without cause". Then your latter condition required a miracle and a pre-existing First Cause. Your former condition does not need either.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>The only difference is that we can mark a beginning in the latter as the point where the essence started to exist. The process of existence without cause, aka creation ex nihilo, is not eradicated by asserting existence is eternal.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

That's just it -- Eternal existence does not have a creation ex nihilo event, whereas its opposite, the First Cause, does.

Existence in MM means "occupied by substance". Look at some point in space and examine it backward through time. At each moment, the point is occupied; occupied; still occupied; ...; suddenly not occupied and non-existing. That is creation ex nihilo. It requires a miracle. So why should that break in the sequence ever occur, no matter how far we go back or forward? If a point is occupied now, it always was.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>There is no logical way to preserve a model of existence based on cause and effect, imo, just as there is no logical way to argue for the existence of a chicken in the chicken and the egg paradox if we assumed a chicken must always be produced by it's own egg but at the same time a chicken is needed to produce that egg. No, in both cases, you end up arguing in circles.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

I disagree. Chickens and eggs are forms. They come and go, and there really was a first chicken and a first egg as that species evolved from something else (much like the donkey). It just happens that we don't know which came first, but one of them did. So forms do have breaks in their existence, and the analogy breaks down because of that. Existence = "being occupied by substance" does not have breaks and was not preceded by anything else. That is hardly circular.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>there has to be a break in the cause and effect model of existence for the chicken and the egg, the mule, and the universe itself to exist.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

Nope. Every object in the universe is finite in size, yet the universe (the collection of all objects) is infinite. Every integer is finite, yet the collection of all integers is infinite. The duration of every individual form is finite, yet the duration of all forms collectively is infinite.

The chicken, egg, and mule are forms. The universe is the collection of everything. It's a different kind of entity. The finite cannot become infinite, so different thought processes apply to finite and infinite entities.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>An eternal universe, no less than one with a "beginning", requires a break in the cause and effect chain of existence for it to exist. Eternal existence = existence ex-nihilo.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

I suggest this is a limitation of your imagination, not a limitation of existence. You might as well try to argue that the set of all integers is not really infinite because sooner or later we have to stop counting them. Analogously, as you think about an eternal past, sooner or later you have to stop imagining how long ago that could have been. But that limit of our minds is not a limit to reality.

Existence in MM means "occupied by substance". If we can imagine that continuing indefinitely far into the future, then we only need to realize that we here and now are already "indefinitely far into the future" for times in the distant past, as far back as you care to think about. What holds from the present into the future can certainly hold for the past because we are already "the future". -|Tom|-

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21 years 7 months ago #5280 by 1234567890

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You just finished saying every form in the MM has an antecedent cause. So, a form that has no antecedent cause would have no cause. Or if a form was not caused by substance, it is also without "cause" since being caused meant arising from other forms of the same substance. This is the same thing as "coming from nothing" except nothing can be a more general term than is used. It's something other than substance. Or under your definition of substance, it is something that doesn't occupy space as we know it.

You keep calling it a miracle for something to come from nothing but in your model something did come from "nothing" since no explanation or cause is needed for substance to exist.

As for the chicken and egg analogy, I was trying to use it metaphorically this time, I guess it didn't work.

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