<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Mac</i>
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1 - I hold there must have been a creation (meaning only coming into existnce, an enception or beginning).
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This argument proceeds from the definite (finite material existence forms) and concludes that such material existence forms were once formed/shaped and came into being, and at a certain time will cease to be, decays, etc. That part of the argument is correct, but it forgets to add another aspect, namely that all such material existence forms did not start in or from nothing, and neither do end or decay into nmothing, but start from previous existence forms, and decay into posterior existence forms.
Taking both aspects of material existence forms together, and form the complete world in all space during all time, this means that there can not have been a definite beginning, since that would mean a begin from or in nothing at all. But nothing is not a begin, nothing is just nothing.
For a very theoretical philosophical treatment of this, read Hegel - Science of Logic. Book One. The Doctrine of Being.
[url="http:/www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlbeing.htm"]Section One: Determinateness (Quality)[/url]
Remark 4. Incomprehensibility of the Beginning.
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The reason for my position in #1 above is several fold.
a - It is logically inconsistant to claim something exists without ever having come into existance.
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Nobody says that. But any begin is relative, nothing did begin or start from nothing.
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b - Invoking eternal existance does mean that if I start from the present "Now" and count backward we must have already accumulated an infinite number of physical time intervals. It is simply known fact that the physical cannot ever become infinite. Infinity is merely a mathematical concept and is devoid any properties in reality.
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This is the (in)famous "Kalam Cosmological Argument" again. The argument is wrong. Again it is based on something which is indeed true: the infinite can not be counted, and every measurement we ever take will be of finite magnitude, but that being true does not imply that THEREFORE time must have had a begin.
Let us use an example. Imagine a line extending to both ends to infinity. The line never begins or ends somewhere.
Place two points on the line at any arbitrary position on that line. Measure the length between the points.
The measure will be finite. Does that somehow proof that the line is finite? No, of course not. And we can proof that.
If the line were finite, then I could come up with a finite upper bound to the maximum length between any two points on the line.
Let us suppose that such a finite upper bound does indeed exist.
Now I can place two points on the line, that matches that upper bound. But contrary to what I supposed, I can now proof this isn't an upper bound at all. All I have to do is shift the left point to the left, and I can come up with a higher value then the suposed upper bound. There is simply no finite upper bound possible, since the proof works for every finite number.
One remarkable aspect of infinity, is that infinity is composed of finite values only. In the previous example: all measures we take for the distance of two completely arbitrary points on an infinite line, will always yield a finite result.
The aspect that one can not count to infinity, is not a proof against infinity, it is just fundamental to infinity itself that it can not be counted.
For a splendid treatment of this issue, I would recoomend to read this text from Friedrich Engels in Anti-Duhring.
Philosophy of Nature. Chapter V. Time and Space
This treatment is against an argument which is exactly the same as the Kalam Cosmological Argument.
As regarding to time, we make our conclusion that time did not and can not have a begin based on the fact that such a begin would be incomprehensible. It would have been a begin in or from nothing. But there is no way in which nothing can form something. Nothing is the absense of anything material, including change, space and time itself.
There is nothing that can come of that.
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c - While we certainly do not know the "How" the formula N
>(+s)+(-s) appears to be a valid view mathematically. That is unlike the "Eternal" existance view this at least seem mathematically viable. It remains for us to try and understand that process.
d - The following links refer to the fact that within our ability to observer a calculation of net energy in the universe is "Zero". That tends to validate the idea that not only did we come into existance ex nihilo but that we continue to exist as "Nothing" bifurcated into two opposite "Somethings".
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The universe isn't "nothing" nor was it ever or will it ever be "nothing". Only if one would consider the point of view of the universe itself (which does not have a viewpoint) one could conclude that "there is nothing".
In practice, all argumentation against an eternal existing universe, and therefore the argument pro a begin of time/creation ex nihilo, serve a purpose: to make a "supernatural" creator of the universe an acceptable idea. That what is brought in against the natural world, that it can not be eternal, is then argumented for this "supernatural" creator, that it is eternal, and did not have a begin. Otherwise, also a "supernatural" creator would not have explenatory power, since it would need it's own cause.
But then it is immediately clear that we were back where we were: a universe without a begin!
This either in the natural form, as what my argument is, or if not, in the form of this "creation moment" which needs of course a creator, which itself was not brought into existence, but is eternal and without a begin.
These are the real choices. And since the later choice finally makes the same conclusion as we already did - the the universe in total did not start in time - it is quite obvious that we should seek for the more straightforward explenation, one that does not require "supernatural" forces to work. The explenation of the "supernatural" can only be a fading moment, a mental construction in our mind, when digging into this issues, which is based on an assumption, and comes up with a theoretical explenation, but which can be shown to be impossible. The universe - all of existence - when it is assumed that it did have an absolute begin, requires us to assume the impossible. And even this theoretical "solution" to the problem, is as impossible as the assumption we had in mind.
But all that, would be just a fading moment in our mind, to immediately conclude afterwards that it can't have happened that way, and that such a scenario is absurd, and to conclude then that the only viable solution is a natural universe, that did not start from nothing, and simply had not a begin in time.
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So right or wrong my view is also wit
] or he-he when replying to me. com'on Mac don't forget your humor[