[quote]
How does it work if X = “the propositions of mathematics” ?
or “the laws of logic” ?
How does it work if X = God ?
If it doesn’t work, X need to be replaced by a specific class of things which will allways verify the conclusion each and everytime the premisses are true.
Yes. It would be more accurate to conclude “therefore a contingent thing is caused by something else”.
So let’s do it again :
A contingent thing exists
That contingent thing cannot have caused itself.
That contingent thing cannot have been caused by nothing. (because nothing can’t cause anything)
That contingent thing cannot be uncaused. (because it would not be contingent)
Therefore, that contingent thing is caused by something else
a causal chain cannot be of infinite length
therefore a first uncaused cause must exist.
(there is still some problems here :
-as i said earlier, the impossibility of an infinite causal chain is logical, not ontological.
-it doesn’t adress the theoretical possibility of a causal loop (as in Dr Skeptix’s moebius ring)
A “careful” conclusion could be : the universe can be an infinite chain of causes and effects, a causal loop or the effect of an uncaused cause. Only the last possibility can be expressed without logical fallacy or radical skepticism.)
[quote]kamui wrote:
Yes. It would be more accurate to conclude “therefore a contingent thing is caused by something else”.
So let’s do it again :
A contingent thing exists
That contingent thing cannot have caused itself.
That contingent thing cannot have been caused by nothing. (because nothing can’t cause anything)
That contingent thing cannot be uncaused. (because it would not be contingent)
Therefore, that contingent thing is caused by something else
a causal chain cannot be of infinite length
therefore a first uncaused cause must exist.
(there is still some problems here :
-as i said earlier, the impossibility of an infinite causal chain is logical, not ontological.
-it doesn’t adress the theoretical possibility of a causal loop (as in Dr Skeptix’s moebius ring)
A “careful” conclusion could be : the universe can be an infinite chain of causes and effects, a causal loop or the effect of an uncaused cause. Only the last possibility can be expressed without logical fallacy or radical skepticism.)
[/quote]
Disregarding the fact that the conclusion is weakened by the “carefulness” and that this is therefore not strictly speaking a proof, this poses another problem for the cosmological argument as argument for God: There is no reason to believe that the uncaused cause which it refers to was not something like the initial singularity. You earlier defined the universe as–to paraphrase–“all that is.” But if God is averred to be extra-physical and extra-universal, then this argument is silent on the question of God or no God. It is, in fact, silent on that question either way.
It depends, of course, upon how near the theist is trying to come to his definition of God.
I have nothing to add of substance since philosophy( or Math as some of the arguments in here looks like LOL ) is not one of my strength. I only wants to give kudos to SMH23 for creating a thread wich both includes Matt and Kamui. In essence I enjoy this thread, please carry one.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Yes; there is a nice discussion of PSR in the second link which I posted in my first response here which I admit have not read thoroughly but have skimmed.
Also here.
https://bearspace.baylor.edu/Alexander_Pruss/www/papers/LCA.html[/quote]
Well, you certainly know I am a fan of the PSR. I think people really misunderstand it.
I have taken a slightly different tactic, it’s probably the main underlying point of contention. I kinda took a look at all these arguments and subarguments and made dealt with the question of certainly. I looked at it in terms of ‘Why are people taking deductive arguments and applying a probability to it?’ That didn’t make sense save for the case of politeness. If you can determine something is true and it’s true in all possible ‘worlds’, I.E. its necessarily true why are we talking about it in terms of ‘more probably true, than false’. For instance, we know 4+4=8 isn’t probably true, it’s necessarily true and nothing can make it be false.
Why are we afraid of certainty?
Yes, I most definitely expected to be challenged on that, and no I don’t expect people to agree. It’s a little more hardcore, then people have been in the past. We have the tools to be certain about somethings, granted very little, but some.
What do you think, care to jump in to the icy waters of certainty about certain propositions?
You’ll be unpopular, sure, but should we be afraid of truth? I decided not to be afraid of true. I will apply probability where it exists, and apply certainty where it exists…
I am curious about your opinion.[/quote]
I believe PSR is a necessary truth and is self evident and can constitute a properly basic belief.
However for one who disputes it, its much easier to show that affirmation of PSR is more plausible than its negation.
[quote]
Disregarding the fact that the conclusion is weakened by the “carefulness” and that this is therefore not strictly speaking a proof, this poses another problem for the cosmological argument as argument for God[/quote]
Maybe, but I never made an argument for God.
Actually, there is.
The initial singularity is a physical thing, and as such it has all the characteristics of a contingent thing.
So it must be caused, like any other contingent thing.
Even if the uncaused cause is not God, it must be a non-contingent thing. A “first principle” that caused the initial singularity. But not the initial singularity itself.
How about
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]kamui wrote:
Yes. It would be more accurate to conclude “therefore a contingent thing is caused by something else”.
So let’s do it again :
A contingent thing exists
That contingent thing cannot have caused itself.
That contingent thing cannot have been caused by nothing. (because nothing can’t cause anything)
That contingent thing cannot be uncaused. (because it would not be contingent)
Therefore, that contingent thing is caused by something else
a causal chain cannot be of infinite length
therefore a first uncaused cause must exist.
(there is still some problems here :
-as i said earlier, the impossibility of an infinite causal chain is logical, not ontological.
-it doesn’t adress the theoretical possibility of a causal loop (as in Dr Skeptix’s moebius ring)
A “careful” conclusion could be : the universe can be an infinite chain of causes and effects, a causal loop or the effect of an uncaused cause. Only the last possibility can be expressed without logical fallacy or radical skepticism.)
[/quote]
Disregarding the fact that the conclusion is weakened by the “carefulness” and that this is therefore not strictly speaking a proof, this poses another problem for the cosmological argument as argument for God: There is no reason to believe that the uncaused cause which it refers to was not something like the initial singularity. You earlier defined the universe as–to paraphrase–“all that is.” But if God is averred to be extra-physical and extra-universal, then this argument is silent on the question of God or no God. It is, in fact, silent on that question either way.
It depends, of course, upon how near the theist is trying to come to his definition of God.[/quote]
I believe Kamui is a pantheist or a panentheist.
[quote]kamui wrote:
Actually, there is.
The initial singularity is a physical thing, and as such it has all the characteristics of a contingent thing.
So it must be caused, like any other contingent thing.
Even if the uncaused cause is not God, it must be a non-contingent thing. A “first principle” that caused the initial singularity. But not the initial singularity itself.
[/quote]
I would say that you’d have to prove this.
“The initial singularity is a physical thing, and as such it has all the characteristics of a contingent being.” What exactly makes something physical, and why must everything physical be contingent?
In other words, if there is a proof for “The initial singularity must have a cause,” I would be grateful if you would offer a formulation of it.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
A good argument, and strong, but it does not logically follow from ~3 for X that ~3 for anything else. You mentioned this a few days ago and my response then was that it is not logically entailed by the uncausedness of X that anything begin to exist uncaused in our lifetimes or, indeed, in the lifetime of our species.
Edit: To put it more precisely, that the PSR did not hold for some event X does not entail that we must observe any event in our lifetimes to which the PSR does not apply.
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
So looking back at the original argument:
I don’t think you are even trying to make an argument, more like defining words. It’s really nothing more than this
Words require definition do they not? It cannot be arbitrary. And no it’s nothing like
I am not sure if you are affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent, but whatever it is, it’s fallacious.
If you say ‘X is not P’, you cannot conclude that X is P.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
U has no causation to comment about either positively or negatively. I.E., we cannot discuss at all what did or did not cause it because the concept does not exist for U. It’s not reasonable to say 'it was not caused by nothing[/i] because it wasn’t caused at all.
[/quote]
Thank you for setting your thoughts down clearly.
The quoted portion is the hinge of your argument. It is incorrect.
Not only is it reasonable to say of an uncaused entity that it was not caused by X–X being whatever you’d like–it’s true. “Uncaused weather event W was not caused by any change in atmospheric pressure.” This is a logically cogent proposition–it is not irrational, and it is true.
You seem to have a skewed and far too fuzzy sense of what constitutes a cogent logical proposition. There is no official designation of “unreasonable.” There are propositions, and not propositions. A proposition is simply a declarative sentence that is either true or false. In other words, it must have a subject, a predicate, and a possible truth value. My proposition satisfies each of these requirements. Let’s prove this, using premise 2 as an example:
Uncaused entity U was not caused by itself.
“Uncaused entity U” is a subject.
“Was not caused by itself” is the predicate.
The statement has a truth value.
To illustrate the point, the following are logical propositions:
[i]Circles are bashful.
The president is tautological.
Nostalgia deadlifts more than bumper stickers’ wives.
2 X 2 = 1,098
Willie Nelson is Barack Obama’s foot.[/i]
Now, you must admit that my proposition is a proposition. Next, you must determine whether it is true or not. Is it true that “An uncaused entity is not caused by itself?” If not, then it is true that “An uncaused entity is caused by itself.” Which do you choose?
If you choose the former, then my argument is valid and your argument A is done away with, at least in its present form.[/quote]
Well, maybe we are getting somewhere.
What I am saying is that you cannot reasonably address properties something does not have either in the positive or the negative. It makes no sense to do so.
C=Circle
We know by default that C does not have 4 sides of equal length, nor 4 90 degree angles. Discussing properties it never had in the first place has no place in an argument. Is it true that C does not have 4 equal sides? Yup. It’s is true that C does not have 4 90 degree angles, yup. It is true that C is not a pink elephant? yup.
So while it is true that something uncaused was not caused by itself, or from nothing it’s irrelevent because it wasn’t caused by anything. It’s uncaused and has no property of causation to affirm or deny.
Something caused does have causation and it’s mode of causation can be affirmed or deny, but something uncaused does not have causation to affirm or deny.
Simply because a negative is true about something does not make it a valid premise for an argument for it. It has to posses the quality you are affirming or denying.
You can deny a causal method for something caused. You cannot deny a causal method for something uncaused because there is nothing to deny or affirm.
So to summarize, you are and always have been correct that something ‘uncaused’ could not have caused itself, or be caused by nothing. However, it is not caused at all so it’s causation is not questionable in the first place.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“The man who was not hit by a car was not hit by a Lexus.” Subject, predicate, truth value. Check, check, check.
“The sheet that has no color is not red.” Check, check, check.
In other words, I reject that criticism Pat. It is not a critique because it does not prove my argument invalid, which can only be done by showing that its premises are not propositiosn, which they are, that they are not true, which they are, or that they do not entail their conclusion, which they do.[/quote]
Well, you’re not presenting an argument, you’re presenting an objection. But let’s look at it:
“The man who was not hit by a car was not hit by a Lexus.” ← Sure this statement is true but it has no value. You cannot derive what car a person is not hit by. He wasn’t hit by a car so the car is irrelevant.
Your claim is true. ‘Something uncaused was neither caused by nothing or itself.’, but it’s invalid because it addresses a property that does not exist.
I know this damn fallacy has a name, but I cannot think of it for the life of me. I will look it up.
[quote]kamui wrote:
the rationale of “a causal chain can not be of infinite length” is the fact that such a chain could only be expressed by an infinite regress.
Granted, it doesn’t mean that such a chain doesn’t exist
But if it does, it would be unknowable.
Applied to the universe, it lead to radical skepticism.
[/quote]
Well, I would say that if it’s logically impossible then it cannot exist. Or we missed something in the logic. It has never been the case that something logically impossible, showed itself empirically violated.
Such a thing would destroy not only our current understanding but then nothing would be intelligible.
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
then the premises are satisfied while the conclusion is denied.
[/quote]
I disagree, I think we are still stuck on how the premises are being satisfied, the conclusion comes later. Pat has avoided my question a few times regarding this.[/quote]
If I missed it, it was not intentional and I apologize. I am trying to handle all the questions the best I can. I will review your posts and see if I can find it, or you can restate it if you wish. I am not avoiding anything intentionally. I feel like I trying to play 5 different games of chess at the same time 
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
So looking back at the original argument:
I don’t think you are even trying to make an argument, more like defining words. It’s really nothing more than this
Words require definition do they not? It cannot be arbitrary. And no it’s nothing like
I am not sure if you are affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent, but whatever it is, it’s fallacious.
If you say ‘X is not P’, you cannot conclude that X is P.[/quote]
P in this case is “uncaused”
If its not uncaused, then what is it?
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
then the premises are satisfied while the conclusion is denied.
[/quote]
I disagree, I think we are still stuck on how the premises are being satisfied, the conclusion comes later. Pat has avoided my question a few times regarding this.[/quote]
If I missed it, it was not intentional and I apologize. I am trying to handle all the questions the best I can. I will review your posts and see if I can find it, or you can restate it if you wish. I am not avoiding anything intentionally. I feel like I trying to play 5 different games of chess at the same time :)[/quote]
“X cannot have caused itself”
Is this true or false? And how are you determining that? Give an example if you can’t use X.
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Pat, as we all pointed out there is a flaw in this argument. Can you fix it or at least give a new one in a similar format that we can reference, so we can stop using the flawed version?
So this would be true for something like “An Apple” but false for “God”. A valid argument needs to be true for anything you plug into the unknown.[/quote]
Well I don’t think you have found a flaw. You ask good questions, but that does not indicate it as a flaw. Because something is a variable as in this case ‘X’ we can still know things about it. The premises tell us something about the object in question.
It’s important to understand fully what ‘uncaused’ means. It means not caused at all. So to discuss the causal properties of something that has no causal properties is absurd.
If we were talking for instance about ‘God’, I.E. and Uncaused-cause which is more appropriate in this case the premises would have to be different.
You cannot determine an uncaused entity explicitly because any attempt to establish it becomes circular. You cannot discuss the causal properties of something that has no causal properties. Like smh’s example of a circle with 90 degree angles. You cannot question the circle’s 90 degree angles because it doesn’t have any. By the very fact of a circle being round, it’s absurd to discuss properties it could not have had in the first place.
We aren’t describing the circle, we’re arguing what a circle is. By definition it has no 90 degree angles, nor flowers or pink elephants.
The thing is, and I tried to explain it to smh, but it didn’t take. An argument is a framework. It needs to be explained to understand it.[/quote]
You skipped over my more important question so I’ll reference this one
Question…
How do you determine if #2 is true for false before moving on to 3 and 4?
You said its invalid (or false) for something uncaused, so don’t you NEED to know if its caused or uncaused to answer the question and move on?[/quote]
If:
X= Uncaused entity.
Then both premises 2 and 3 are invalid. This argument cannot address something uncaused because it’s premises deal with causation, not the lack of causation. The nature of a caused or contingent being is such that it cannot be caused by itself because such an implication is circular. The inversion of the premise is a contradiction. X exists, therefore X exists.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Pat, as we all pointed out there is a flaw in this argument. Can you fix it or at least give a new one in a similar format that we can reference, so we can stop using the flawed version?
So this would be true for something like “An Apple” but false for “God”. A valid argument needs to be true for anything you plug into the unknown.[/quote]
Well I don’t think you have found a flaw. You ask good questions, but that does not indicate it as a flaw. Because something is a variable as in this case ‘X’ we can still know things about it. The premises tell us something about the object in question.
It’s important to understand fully what ‘uncaused’ means. It means not caused at all. So to discuss the causal properties of something that has no causal properties is absurd.
If we were talking for instance about ‘God’, I.E. and Uncaused-cause which is more appropriate in this case the premises would have to be different.
You cannot determine an uncaused entity explicitly because any attempt to establish it becomes circular. You cannot discuss the causal properties of something that has no causal properties. Like smh’s example of a circle with 90 degree angles. You cannot question the circle’s 90 degree angles because it doesn’t have any. By the very fact of a circle being round, it’s absurd to discuss properties it could not have had in the first place.
We aren’t describing the circle, we’re arguing what a circle is. By definition it has no 90 degree angles, nor flowers or pink elephants.
The thing is, and I tried to explain it to smh, but it didn’t take. An argument is a framework. It needs to be explained to understand it.[/quote]
You skipped over my more important question so I’ll reference this one
Question…
How do you determine if #2 is true for false before moving on to 3 and 4?
You said its invalid (or false) for something uncaused, so don’t you NEED to know if its caused or uncaused to answer the question and move on?[/quote]
If:
X= Uncaused entity.
Then both premises 2 and 3 are invalid. This argument cannot address something uncaused because it’s premises deal with causation, not the lack of causation. The nature of a caused or contingent being is such that it cannot be caused by itself because such an implication is circular. The inversion of the premise is a contradiction. X exists, therefore X exists. [/quote]
This is what I said above. You have 2 choices for X. So before going into the argument your telling me its 1 of them, so the conclusion is obvious and doesn’t need your in between steps. Here is a better way of saying the same thing
Or a generic case
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Pat, as we all pointed out there is a flaw in this argument. Can you fix it or at least give a new one in a similar format that we can reference, so we can stop using the flawed version?
So this would be true for something like “An Apple” but false for “God”. A valid argument needs to be true for anything you plug into the unknown.[/quote]
Well I don’t think you have found a flaw. You ask good questions, but that does not indicate it as a flaw. Because something is a variable as in this case ‘X’ we can still know things about it. The premises tell us something about the object in question.
It’s important to understand fully what ‘uncaused’ means. It means not caused at all. So to discuss the causal properties of something that has no causal properties is absurd.
If we were talking for instance about ‘God’, I.E. and Uncaused-cause which is more appropriate in this case the premises would have to be different.
You cannot determine an uncaused entity explicitly because any attempt to establish it becomes circular. You cannot discuss the causal properties of something that has no causal properties. Like smh’s example of a circle with 90 degree angles. You cannot question the circle’s 90 degree angles because it doesn’t have any. By the very fact of a circle being round, it’s absurd to discuss properties it could not have had in the first place.
We aren’t describing the circle, we’re arguing what a circle is. By definition it has no 90 degree angles, nor flowers or pink elephants.
The thing is, and I tried to explain it to smh, but it didn’t take. An argument is a framework. It needs to be explained to understand it.[/quote]
You skipped over my more important question so I’ll reference this one
Question…
How do you determine if #2 is true for false before moving on to 3 and 4?
You said its invalid (or false) for something uncaused, so don’t you NEED to know if its caused or uncaused to answer the question and move on?[/quote]
If:
X= Uncaused entity.
Then both premises 2 and 3 are invalid.[/quote]
No, they are not. In the case that X is an uncaused entity, premises 2 and 3 are true. What you are trying to argue has no basis in classical logic and never will.
You are hung up on this notion of “describing the properties that something doesn’t have,” but your objection is simply not acceptable. You are also using terms like “value” incorrectly. It does not make the slightest difference that you don’t like a proposition such as, “A circle has no angles.” It is a true proposition, and any argument that cannot accommodate it without being invalid is invalid. I’m going to say that again: If it is a proposition, which it is, and it is true, which it is, and it renders the conclusion of its argument invalid, which it does, then that argument is invalid.
That’s really all I can say. But I’ll elaborate a little: The proposition that “Uncaused entity X was not caused by itself” has a value–a truth value–a truth value of “true” and not “false.” It also has a subject and a predicate. It is a proposition. Furthermore, to say such a thing is exactly the same as to say that “the explosion that was caused by a gas leak was not caused by itself.” It is exactly as self-evident that X did not cause itself as it is that the explosion did not. Nevertheless, both propositions are true.
Which leaves us exactly here: You have an argument for which it is the case that all of the premises can be true while the conclusion is false. This is the precise definition of an invalid argument. It should be clear to you that if you are going to prove that X was caused, you are going to have to rule out that X was uncaused. There is no possibility of escaping this: The argument is invalid and needs to be altered or abandoned.
Prove that X cannot have been uncaused. That is the only play you have, because the argument you’ve provided is invalid.