The specific God doesn't matter. Well it does, but that's not what the Ontological Argument aims for. If the Ontological Argument has no fallacies (just accept the situation for the following), then the MOST it can do is bring someone to agnosticism. Even then, it's a big leap because humans choose empiricism over rationalism almost all the time, even though empiricism isn't 100% reliable. Therefore someone might accept it as a proof and still choose not to believe, either because they think it's just invalid and don't want to use logic, or because they don't care about, or just a variety of other reasons. It's primarily psychological though.

The characteristics do matter. If you don't define what "God" is, then it's real easy to replace the word God with anything, because then it's just a word. Your argument that the characteristics do not matter is the equivalent of saying in a physics equation the mass of something has no effect on the force of gravity, because you are only analyzing the force of gravity.

I'm not arguing that the concept of a perfect relationship would exist. I'm saying that parts of the relationship that would make it perfect - great communication, good looking individuals, great sex, etc. are all existent.

You can conceive of a creature that might have those characteristics, but saying it couldn't be a deity seems difficult to see. If you're about to say Cthulu or something similar, I would argue the same thing - it has arms, legs, is green-ish, has omnipotence (I actually have no idea what Cthulu really is, I'm just guessing based off various references), etc. However, it grabs from other things that do exist - various creatures of the world. The proof would say there is an omnipotent thing that exists.

Also, considerably, the proof cannot prove the existence of everything. Specifically, it can only prove what rationalism can prove - I exist, God exists (maybe), and various other unknowns (currently/possibly).

Your pen example is empirically based however. Empiricism can only prove the world exists, and it's still flawed at that. The counter-argument assumes that the argument is immediately using empiricism, but this is false - it is a pure logic argument, so therefore empiricism really shouldn't be brought into the equation at all.

The nonexistence argument maintains that this "God" must maintain a handicap to make his work more impressive. However, it jumps a wild conclusion in saying that it'd be more impressive if God made something when he didn't exist.

You can't make something out of nothing. It contradicted itself because it's maintaining that it's impressive that God made the world, even though he doesn't exist. (Read carefully and it doesn't say there isn't a God, it's saying that God doesn't exist). You can't make an assumption that God exists, and then say that he must not exist even though he did something. If he did something, he must exist (or at the very least have existed). The counter-argument is really full of holes, just appears like it might be justifiable.

I would be careful with your last statement here. It sounds like your implication is the assumption that God is false, which neither you nor I know. However, if you are talking about the "perfect pen" or "perfect relationship" then I'd refer to my reason why empiricism shouldn't and can't be included in the argument.

That said, I think there's a separate reason why the argument must fall.

Jp wrote:

It does matter, because the ontological argument either proves the existence of all of them or none of them.

Again, false. A God exists is derived from it - this implies one, not all. The specific God is not the point of the proof.

That's not what agnosticism means. Agnosticism is the position that you don't know whether or not there is a god. You can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. I think you may mean 'deist' here.

You are right that I was incorrect about agnosticism, but your claim of deism is really no better. It just allows someone to understand that there is a God, not which specific one. You are jumping to the conclusion that if God does exist he must have abandoned the universe.

You can replace 'god' with anything in it anyway. That's kind of the point. Bringing in the omnimax properties has no relation to the argument. They don't affect it in any way.

Again, false. You are assuming, with this statement, that God is just a word then. In that case, sure - you can replace God with anything, but that's not what the argument is saying. It is defining what God is - red is not greater than green, but the defined God is greater than anything.

Yep, sure, the individual bits exist, and the thing exists too. It's an inescapable conclusion if you accept the validity of the ontological argument.

Incorrect. You can use the proof that a big hairy monster exists, but this would clearly be false. However, all the bits of the monster do exist in some way - largeness, hair, feet, limbs, a stomach, eyes, etc. These are very true - the reason why it works with God is because God's attributes aren't claimable to any other thing.

The principle problem here is that the concept of a 'deity' is slippery, to say the least, but at the very minimum you must concede that omnibenevolence is not a property that's exclusively the province of gods.

Then what else is omnibenevolent? Nothing. As well, you might as well answer what else contains either: omnipotence, omniscience, or omnipresence.

The pen example is not empirical in the slightest. It's pure deduction. If the ontological argument works, you can define anything into existence by adding the property "most perfect of its kind" into its definition. You don't need to know anything about it via sensory information. Frankly, I'm not even remotely sure how you can bring empiricism into this at all - it's clearly a purely deductive argument. It's a simple syllogism.

The characteristics of the pen are empirical. The claim had nothing to do with sensory details, but when you place a pen into the mix, you must deduce it based on the physical characteristics. However, the four characteristics God maintains are not physical - that's one of the primary differences that you seem to be forgetting. Also, following with what you said, you seem to be saying also that the argument is purely logical, so I'm not seeing where you are getting that the argument is incorrect. If it is purely logical, than how can you counter it? By using another analogy into it, you are simply supporting that the argument works - that seems like an inefficient way to disprove something.

You appear somewhat confused. It's the exact same argument as the ontological argument, but in reverse. It's the same logic. Here's perhaps a shorter example:

- God is the most impressive thing that can ever exist (by definition)
- When doing something, it is more impressive the more handicapped you are (slightly arguable)
- Not existing is an extremely large handicap to doing something (inarguable)
- Therefore, if there was a creature that did something while existing, it would be less impressive than something that did something without existing, (premise 2 & 3), and therefore couldn't be god (premise 1).
- Therefore, god doesn't exist. But still does stuff. Don't ask me, man, I didn't do it.

I'm not at all confused on what it says. What I'm confused about is how they can make two huge claims that contradict basic mathematics.

Your steps 2 and 3 are where the issue lies. First, I'd say it's debatable that a larger handicap is more impressive, because then you need to get into definitions. Impression is also interpreted differently by people - I can be more impressed by a shot made by Kobe Bryant than a shot made by someone in a wheelchair if I really wanted to, because it's opinion based. The claim of something "greater than" however is not opinion based - an all-powerful being will always beat something that is not as powerful, for example.

Second, your phrase that a non-existent being has a large handicap. However, this doesn't add up very well. If something doesn't exist, how can you give it a true handicap? "I'm impressed by this thing that surely does not exist" seems incredibly... limited. If you can say that, then I can say "I'm more impressed by what the unicorns have done to our universe than what humans can do," or something stupid like that. I'd say this step is incredibly arguable.

One could argue that if it's a logical impossibility to do something while not existing, than the argument falls apart. Fair enough. But then the argument can shift to arguing that the less power something has, the more impressive its actions, and suddenly you've proved god isn't omnipotent. It really is the exact same logic.

Mmmm, not particularly. This relates back to what impressive really is. I'd say that if I was more impressed by the wheelchair player that made the same shot as Kobe Bryant, I think it's safe to say that he is probably more skilled than Kobe and can probably do far more (if they consistently were able to do the same thing, but one is in a wheelchair and one has been raised for glory). You see how this point can be argued as well? It takes someone who's even stronger to do something with such proposed limitations - I'd say your claim is very debatable.

I was referring to, for example, the 'perfect pen'. Empiricism isn't necessary here to determine the nonexistence of a perfect pen or the like, because you can craft two mutually exclusive concepts and use the ontological argument to prove the existence of both of them.

Hm, I think this might be where the argument falls, but not for the reason you think it does. I'm going to go back to my characteristics claim, because that portion is really inescapable. The idea with that claim is that the characteristics must exist in some form. However, I said that the only thing that maintains the omni- characteristics were God.

However, I think this is where it falls. A pen that has the characteristics I mentioned before might be considered "perfect." However, I proved that this falls because a lot of other things have those individual characteristics, so it's not necessarily provable that ONE pen has these characteristics, but many pens have parts of these characteristics. However, I think this is where the argument becomes flawed. The assumption is at the end of the proof - "therefore, God exists." I'd like to say that I think it more likely that rather then "God exists" based on these characteristics ("therefore an omni-characteristic thing must exist") you must just keep at it that at least one of these things must exist, but you can't simply start attaching them to things and claim that the argument proposes that that one thing is then true. If the argument must stand, it must stand at the basics of everything - therefore, the characteristics do matter, but the proof then does not prove God. The most it can then do is prove that there is something that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Likewise, using a pen, there must at least be something metal, constructible, writable, etc. However, just because these exist doesn't mean a "perfect" pen exists - it just means that these things exist and may construct a perfect pen. Likewise, those characteristics might be existent, but its inconclusive that they add up to God - they very well may, but we can't prove that portion.

Does that seem more fair to say?

Right.

Sorry it's been so long - I've been a bit busy and haven't gotten around to formulating one of these monster posts. I'll leave the ontological stuff for now - I do still take the position that the argument is semantic trickery and logically empty, and I don't think you quite understand how I'm looking at the logic, but it's a different thing.

The cosmological argument: Assuming you're talking about the First Cause kinda thing (i.e., something caused the universe, it has to be necessary, not contingent, therefore it's god), I don't think it holds together at all, obviously. My principle objections are that "coontingent things must be caused by either another contingent thing or a noncontingent thing" is strictly false. For starters, there's no reason to rule out bootstrap 'paradoxes' - as far as we can tell, they work. Secondly, I don't think causality is an inherent law - I see no reason to think that a contingent thing can't be uncaused. Thirdly, I don't see even if causation had to happen, I don't see the problem with an infinite regress - big bangs all the way back, as it were.

Causation may just not make sense in the scenario Big Bang - I've made the point before that it was the start of time, so asking what came 'before' is equivalent to asking 'What is north of the north pole?'. It's a nonsense question - it isn't meaningful. Causality is inherently a property of time - it may break down in that case.

Finally, I find the leap "noncontingent cause -> god" to be huge and almost entirely unjustified. Particularly if it's "My particular brand of god".

CauTi0N wrote:

First, it would be very hard to debate that cause and effect is not a law. Even if Newtonian physics isn't directly correct, it would break a lot of current science practices to say that cause and effect is not real.

Not saying it's not real, just saying it's not necessarily a hard-and-fast rule of nature that all contingent things have a cause. It doesn't break science at all, and frankly I don't see how one could think that.

As well, bootstrap paradoxes... I doubt time travel is real, otherwise it's likely we would have already experienced an encounter with a future being. I'd say time travel is impossible, so that would rule out bootstrap paradoxes.

This is a modified version of the 'Fermi paradox'. It doesn't disprove time travel - nothing in the laws of physics as we know them today forbid time travel (In fact, they offer a few ways for them to happen. Including stable bootstrap 'paradoxes'). You can't really rule out a bootstrapping universe (i.e. it exists because it causes itself in the past).

An infinite regress is a particularly bad example because it never answers the question - where did that finite cause come from. If A started B, then what started A? Well, Z started A. What started Z? Y started Z. etc. It'd be an infinite loop, never answering the real question of what is the very beginning.

Also, your example of big bangs continuously occurring is similar to the Big Bang, Big Collapse theory. However, this is pretty inaccurate as well - if you research the Big Bang they've determined a type of "anti-gravity" force is present which is what allows the current objects of the big bang to expand outward at accelerating speed. The further they go out, they faster they go. Unless this anti-gravity (dark energy is the actual term) can turn into gravity, it's impossible for a collapse to occur then. (Which can't be ruled out - we don't know enough about it to say that it can't change it's properties, it's just unlikely).

"Big Bangs all the way back" is a reference to the famous "Turtles all the way down" line. Several models of bang-crunch universe have been devised, and nothing in modern physics forbids it (your confused explanation of the 'dark energy' concept aside - I assure you I've looked into the cosmology in a level of depth). Most current evidence suggests that our universe is 'steady state' - that is, there is just enough matter in the universe for gravity to slow down the expansion of the universe to zero at the point at infinity, so the universe expands to a finite size and doesn't collapse. But there's still enough uncertainty in the measurements for it to go either way ('heat death', where it continues expanding forever (but slower all the time), and 'big crunch' which is the cyclic model where it falls back in).

I do understand why some people are wary of infinite-regress style solutions to these problems. I'm aware that fundamentally some people feel that there needs to be something 'supporting the entire stack of turtles', as it were. I don't feel that's necessarily the case - infinity behaves in very strange, very unexpected ways, and it's not clear to me that an infinite regress of universes can't work - it's basically the same as "The universe always existed", as an answer, which doesn't, fundamentally, seem that obviously broken to me.

Causation is necessary for anything finite - if something had a beginning, something had to be there to let it start. The only thing that doesn't require a cause is something infinite - in example, there is no cause for the nature of numbers, they are just there.

Therefore, if the universe is finite (which a lot of evidence says that it is), you have two other possible answers: either it came out of nothing (I won't even explain why this is entirely incorrect), or there was a creator.

No. Just no. Finitude or infinitude are not the important factor here - the number '5' is not infinite, but it may or may not have a 'cause' in a meaninful sense (depending on what you consider a 'cause'). What matters for arguments like this is basically, well... nothing. Contingency (Whether or not it could have turned out differently had the universe been rerun with a different starting condition - things that aren't contingent (i.e., are 'necessary') are required by logic from axioms (for example, the ontological argument argues that god is necessary). Depending on how one defines 'cause', then, continency comes into play here - because the 'necessary' things are caused by the laws of logic, in a sense, whereas the contingent things are caused by what the starting position was.

Once again - finitude isn't a thing here.

The God explanation is not so much God as it simply is a creator. It has no branded name, we have no knowledge of the qualities (if any are present) of this creator, and so if looking religiously, the least this points to is a deist God. It doesn't really say anything about the creator though, other than the creator created the universe.

It doesn't argue for a creator - it argues for a noncontingent 'first cause'. There are a lot of things that could be slotted in there that aren't really recognisable as a deity (even leaving aside the 'what is a deity?' discussion). Consider, for example, if the laws of physics are noncontingent - then the 'start position' may be a consequence of the laws of physics, and no creator is involved.

EDIT: Oh, and for what it's worth, the universe may well be infinite in size. It wouldn't conflict with physics as we know it. There's some evidence that it is finite in size (in the form of the WMAP data, for example - the microwave background suggests a 'boundedness', to an extent), but the evidence is weak.

CauTi0N wrote:

Time travel depends on the idea that fate definitely does exist, and that the only time interval to ever exist is the infinitely repeating one that is occurring between point A and point B on the time spectrum. If this were true, then what's the point of that? It's more illogical than anything else ever proposed... ever. I'd believe unicorns exist before I believe time travel exists.

...What? That doesn't even make any sense. I honestly have no idea what you're getting at here. There's no requirement for a mystical concept of 'fate' for time travel. I don't see why determinism is even strictly necessary (although I am a determinist). I don't see why it restricts time as a whole dimension to two particular points, either. The fact remains that solutions with particles travelling back in time are valid solutions to Einstein's Equations. There are even trivial setups with time travel in them - for example, if the entire universe is rotating, then every particle's future eventually reaches its past (that is, they 'rotate' through time, as well, as a consequence of how space is warped). You can do math on this stuff.

I'm not sure my "dark energy confusion" is really much of a confusion. It's a scientific fact that the universe is expanding at a quicker rate than it did at the beginning of the Big Bang. If this could reverse at some point, then it's possible for a Big Crunch, but it's unlikely even mathematically - energy will try to reach it's maximum potential, and if that is infinity then it will never reach it - therefore it's impossible for a crunch to occur.

You are not understanding dark energy (that much is clear because you're tying it to gravity, and it's not much like 'antigravity' at all). And versions of it that can reverse 'sign' do exist in models. Cyclic universes very much remain on the cosmological cards.

Also, keep in mind that science remains empirical entirely. A Big Crunch is entirely far'fetch'd to the point where it's a mere hypothesis, and a weak one at that, because there is no evidence to properly suppose that everything can return to it's original spot. As well, it relies that dark energy could change it's pressure from negative to a positive gravitational force, and since that hasn't happened before either, there is absolutely no evidence to support the notion that it can magically change into the opposite of what it originally is.

Everything doesn't have to return to its original spot. For starters, a big crunch implies that at some point there won't /be/ any other spot for things to be in, and more to the point the universe is not constrained to turn out the same every time. Same physics, probably (depending on model), but a different starting condition. Crunch-bang works.

And yes, it's certainly a hypothesis. Not really a 'weak' one, in the sense that it's unlikely - it's not really any less likely than many of the other fate-of-the-universe models - it is quite hard to test, which could be a problem, but that's okay. I'm not saying it's definitively what happened. I'm just giving you some possible causes for the universe - in this case, 'the last universe'.

As well, infinite regression and simply ignoring the initial "first cause" of an infinite amount of "finite causes" turns the debate away from philosophy - it's hiding under a rock essentially, saying "I don't want to know the answer so I'll just ignore it." It's better to investigate and still not know than to simply guess that there is no answer and ignore it (when it deals with an important issue, such as the existence of the universe and, in turn, us).

You misunderstand. I'm not 'ignoring' or 'hiding' or anything like that the issue. I'm saying that there doesn't necessarily have to be a magical 'first cause' holding up the entire pile. Infinite regress, in this sense, is basically saying that the universe 'always existed' (Although maybe it was banging and crunching during that time). There was never a point in time where it didn't exist. It's a model. In fact, back in the 1930s, it was the dominant cosmological theory. I don't see a good reason to rule out that possibility, and I don't see it requiring a 'first cause'. Basically, I don't see why things can't just 'have always existed' for no particular reason.

The matter of finitude or infinitude is a huge matter - one that can't simply be brushed off like you imply it can. It's important if something is finite, you know something caused it. 1 + 4 = 5 is a debatable "cause" of the number 5, so it's a bit of a weak argument to say that 5 doesn't have a cause, even

Finitude/infinitude doesn't imply causedness/uncausedness. That's the point. I see no reason to believe they're correlated at all. Consider - if the universe is provably infinite in space, does that mean that it doesn't need a first cause? Why? What's so different?

Maths isn't a great example here, because you're onto the tricky ground of the "Maths: Discovered/Invented?" argument. And more to the point, because maths is logic (in the sense that the laws of logic are an offshoot of maths), and one wouldn't talk about the 'cause of logic'. The 'rules' are a different class of thing - they're inherently uncaused (similarly, you don't ask "what caused the law of relativity?" because the question doesn't make sense.)

To be continued... when CauTiON posts more!

CauTi0N wrote:

I apologize, I was rushed off the computer during my last post.

My reasoning for saying time travel is limited to the time constraint is because it would require an infinite loop.

If I were to travel back in time to talk to my 6 year old self, then that means when I was 6 years old I should have this memory. However, when I grow up, I'll do it again. And again. Point A, when I'm 6 years old, to point B, when I'm say 50 years old. Then, from point B, to point A, infinitely. The chain cannot be broken because if I don't do the jump from point B to point A, then point B can never occur, and therefore at 6 years old, I can never re-meet myself. So, if the chain can't be broken, it must be that it continues forever. If this is true, than that would be the only cycle that carries on forever, and therefore that would be really the only time interval in existence.

No. Just no. That doesn't make any sense what-so-ever. If I'm understanding what you're saying, it's analogous to claiming that the existence of circles precludes any space existing that isn't in the range of the circle.

The issue I have with time travel is basically 2 things:
1) If it were possible, it should have affected us by now. I would think, if time travel were true, people would be most interested in the actions of the beginning of time, and in the most historic moments - Alexander, Napoleon, Jesus' time, Socrates, etc. It's highly likely that anyone would want to, at the very least witness this, and if time travel were true, then this would have already happened.

The type of 'time travel' I am discussing here does not necessarily allow this - I am arguing that it is conceivable that the universe-in-the-future causes itself in the past (not that that's what happened, just that it's conceivable). That doesn't necessarily mean it's possible for creatures in the future to come back to the past.

Secondly, there are a number of solutions to that argument that don't involve time travel in the sense of people moving through time being impossible. For example, it's entirely possible that we wipe ourselves out before inventing time travel. Or that it requires so much energy that it's out of our reach (considering the (known) solutions to the Einstein Equations with closed-timelike-curves (i.e., time travel), this is a real possibility), or the 'time machine' can't be taken back to before it was constructed (also quite viable - the Roman ring construction, for example, won't allow you to go back in time to before the construction of the ring).

Secondly, if time is a manipulative dimension like time travel postulates with, then I have a lot of questions on how the energy works to do so: If I travel back to the 16th century, then there is less energy somewhere else to make up for my matter being there in the 16th century. And, if there has to be an infinite loop, then this change would continuously happen, and there would be some kind of missing energy that nobody is able to account for. It just seems far too convoluted and... ridiculous to be possible.

You're thinking about time in terms of some kind of meta-time, where you can stand back and watch the timeline moving. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't 'keep happening', there's just some matter/energy moving from the future into the past, which is really as innocent as some matter/energy moving three metres to the left. There are some questions regarding the nature of causality in a time-travel-allowed universe, yes, but nothing irresolvable - for example, it's possible that interactions that cause paradoxical causality (the Grandfather paradox, for example), are literally impossible, in the same way 'spatial paradoxes' aren't possible.

Regarding dark energy: "[dark energy] is not known to interact through any of the fundamental forces other than gravity."

That doesn't imply that its contribution to the universe's expansion is gravitational, as such. Dark energy (probably) doesn't act like a gravitational repulsor, producing antigravity - it's just a sort of negative pressure on the universe. And may well change over time.

An infinite universe would not require an initial cause. Anything infinite implies always existing (though this gets tricky with defining logic, which isn't necessarily infinite but is always existing - our math discussion you talked about), and so you don't need to explain a First Cause in that sense because there can't be one. It always was. That's why, if there is a First Cause, some call a "Creator", then that "Creator" is always existing, so nothing caused it.

I still don't accept the premise. You haven't given me any reason to believe that 'infinite' things require no cause. You haven't even defined 'infinite' in any way. What, precisely, do you mean here? What if the universe is infinite in time? Does that count? You've claimed an infinite regress of universes does need a cause, but surely that's 'infinite' in another sense?

The reason why the "Creator" acknowledgment is given is because the majority of the cosmological argument is empirical and deduction - stop every other portion, all you are left with is this final answer, which can't be disproven (because we know nothing about this "Creator"), though on surface is arguably weak.

My point is more that you don't know it's a Creator, as such. Even if the argument holds, all you know is that there was a cause that was not itself caused. You can start to reason about its properties on the basis of what things can be uncaused, but your current claim that 'infinite things can be uncaused' basically allows open slather. The vast majority of the possibility space you've carved out here are not recognisably a 'Creator' so much as a cause - you wouldn't say that gravitational attraction is the Creator of the Earth, but it certainly created it.

It's similar to Descartes' methodology to prove logic as the only true way to attain knowledge - because there are problems with empiricism, authority, and intuition, but logic has/can never fail(ed), it is the only one that can provide "true knowledge," even though it's more limited.

I don't see the similarity, myself.

And more to the point, Descartes was wrong. Logic works from premises, premises have to come from somewhere - ultimately you're left with either axioms (i.e., believe this for some reason and then we'll see where we get), or circular logic, or infinite regress. You can still prove things, but they're all hypothetical in nature (i.e., "Assume a universe like this. If that is the case, then this."). It can't absolutely prove anything about /the/ universe (or even that there /is/ one), just things about /a/ universe.

My position is that given that fundamentally all means of 'knowing' the universe ultimately have to be based on axioms, you may as well pick the axioms that give you the most workable universe - you'll never know either way, and it's a lot easier this way. So you may as well consider it axiomatic that there /is/ a real universe, that it behaves in consistent, measurable ways, that kind of thing - and if those are your axioms, empiricism becomes a fantastic tool for understanding reality. Sure, it inherently stands on assumption, but so does everything else, and these aren't exactly bad assumptions.

My understanding is there is not enough information of dark energy to support either way, but given what we know now, the Big Collapse is not the supported/leading hypothesis.

Big Crunch is the more commonly accepted term.

And yes, it's absolutely true that there isn't enough evidence to come to the conclusion "cyclic universe" as of yet. I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just presenting it as a possibility - an alternative to "There was an uncaused cause" to demonstrate that something in the premises or logic is screwy and the argument doesn't work (because it isn't /necessarily/ true), not claiming that's what actually happened.

I'm not sure what the favoured fate-of-the-universe model is in cosmological circles, but I suspect it's perfectly balanced expansion/contraction and heat death (i.e., flat universe).