This is the continuation of my debate with Richard Bushey of ThereForeGodExists.com. We are debating whether or not a "Prime Mover" is necessary and we are at the point in the debate where each of us gets the opportunity to pose 3 questions to our opponent. Mr. Bushey's turn was first. His questions and my responses are below. If you wish to make yourself current with the progression of the debate, please scroll down to the previous post which contains links to our discussion so far.
Question 1:
If time and space had a cause, would you agree that it follows that the cause must transcend time and space?
I think this is a meaningless question. As I have stated before, there can be no causes without space or time. To better illustrate this point I’ll quote every theist’s favorite physicist: Alexander Vilenkin, who believes that there was no ultimate cause of space and time. He has in fact produced a coherent theory of the birth of the universe tunneling into existence uncaused out of a literal nothing and then rapidly expanding due to inflation.
IF the question was: Does the ultimate beginning of space and time at the very first instant of existence require a cause? Vilenkins answer would seem to be: No cause is required. And who am I to argue with a physicist? I would like to answer no to the 1st question, but I can’t, because as it worded it is meaningless; causes require space and time.
This is like asking: “IF something is north of the North Pole, does it transcend north?”
Question 2:
If two logical contradictions can be true simultaneously, could it be the case that it is also true that two logical contradictions could not be true simultaneously, since their explicit contradiction is irrelevant?
The idea that Mr. Bushey is presenting is that my rebuttal about the law of non-contradiction negates itself. He is taking my conclusion and applying to concepts where it does not belong. It is true that quantum particles can exist as logical contradictions. But that concept can only be applied where it works. Just because radioactive atoms decay randomly and uncaused, does not mean the principles of causality are destroyed. It just means there are empirical situations where causality does not apply. The same is true of the law of non-contradiction. Where a concept works, is what is important. If we run one experiment and disregard the law of non-contradiction and get accurate and repeatable results, then it works. Scientists have found that the classical logic which works on the large scale, doesn't work on the super small scale (quantum). The “explicit” contradiction occurs when Mr Bushey takes quantum “logic” and applies it to classic logic. Again there is a flaw in design of the question.
Question 3:
I argued that some of the best scientists make claims that it would be unreasonable to deny the finitude of the past. Do scientists typically make such bold claims if their evidence is as insufficient as you have argued?
I do not deny the finitude of the past. In my arguments and rebuttals I only denied the philosophical argument used by Bushey to draw that conclusion. So again, it was the method, not the conclusion. It’s a happy coincidence if science independently supports his conclusion that the past is finite. The “infinity doesn't exist in nature” argument is still wholly flawed. My objection was that this flawed point was the cornerstone of the logic used to deduce that the past must be finite.
I did acknowledge that there are several models competing to explain the existence of the universe and I am open to all scientific explanations but I've never argued that one particular scientific explanation of the universe was insufficient. I have however consistently argued that Mr. Bushey's logic was insufficient to draw his conclusions. We should all stand in awe of how much actual scientific evidence it takes to claim something is proven. In regard to physics, the evidence goes back thousands of years. From Pythagoras to Newton, from Einstein to Vilenkin, there is a chain of knowledge that is so immense and filled with millions of hours of verified experimentation performed under thousands of our greatest minds. Each proof builds off the former. A complete proof of the origin of the universe, starting from scratch, would contain volumes upon volumes upon volumes of scientifically verified theories and data going back thousands of years to the origin of mathematics. Compare what it takes to scientifically prove something, to what it takes to prove the same concept with philosophy: “All things which come into being have a cause, the universe came into being, and therefore the universe has a cause.” It’s absurd to believe that these two methods of problem solving hold equal weight.
No, good scientist do not make bold claims with insufficient evidence, that is more like what philosophers do; that is what the Kalam Cosmological argument does.
Question 1:
If time and space had a cause, would you agree that it follows that the cause must transcend time and space?
I think this is a meaningless question. As I have stated before, there can be no causes without space or time. To better illustrate this point I’ll quote every theist’s favorite physicist: Alexander Vilenkin, who believes that there was no ultimate cause of space and time. He has in fact produced a coherent theory of the birth of the universe tunneling into existence uncaused out of a literal nothing and then rapidly expanding due to inflation.
“If there was nothing before the universe popped out, then what could have caused the tunneling? Remarkably, the answer is that no cause is required. In classical physics, causality dictates what happens from one moment to the next, but in quantum mechanics the behavior of physical objects is inherently unpredictable and some quantum processes have no cause at all.”
IF the question was: Does the ultimate beginning of space and time at the very first instant of existence require a cause? Vilenkins answer would seem to be: No cause is required. And who am I to argue with a physicist? I would like to answer no to the 1st question, but I can’t, because as it worded it is meaningless; causes require space and time.
This is like asking: “IF something is north of the North Pole, does it transcend north?”
Question 2:
If two logical contradictions can be true simultaneously, could it be the case that it is also true that two logical contradictions could not be true simultaneously, since their explicit contradiction is irrelevant?
The idea that Mr. Bushey is presenting is that my rebuttal about the law of non-contradiction negates itself. He is taking my conclusion and applying to concepts where it does not belong. It is true that quantum particles can exist as logical contradictions. But that concept can only be applied where it works. Just because radioactive atoms decay randomly and uncaused, does not mean the principles of causality are destroyed. It just means there are empirical situations where causality does not apply. The same is true of the law of non-contradiction. Where a concept works, is what is important. If we run one experiment and disregard the law of non-contradiction and get accurate and repeatable results, then it works. Scientists have found that the classical logic which works on the large scale, doesn't work on the super small scale (quantum). The “explicit” contradiction occurs when Mr Bushey takes quantum “logic” and applies it to classic logic. Again there is a flaw in design of the question.
Question 3:
I argued that some of the best scientists make claims that it would be unreasonable to deny the finitude of the past. Do scientists typically make such bold claims if their evidence is as insufficient as you have argued?
I do not deny the finitude of the past. In my arguments and rebuttals I only denied the philosophical argument used by Bushey to draw that conclusion. So again, it was the method, not the conclusion. It’s a happy coincidence if science independently supports his conclusion that the past is finite. The “infinity doesn't exist in nature” argument is still wholly flawed. My objection was that this flawed point was the cornerstone of the logic used to deduce that the past must be finite.
I did acknowledge that there are several models competing to explain the existence of the universe and I am open to all scientific explanations but I've never argued that one particular scientific explanation of the universe was insufficient. I have however consistently argued that Mr. Bushey's logic was insufficient to draw his conclusions. We should all stand in awe of how much actual scientific evidence it takes to claim something is proven. In regard to physics, the evidence goes back thousands of years. From Pythagoras to Newton, from Einstein to Vilenkin, there is a chain of knowledge that is so immense and filled with millions of hours of verified experimentation performed under thousands of our greatest minds. Each proof builds off the former. A complete proof of the origin of the universe, starting from scratch, would contain volumes upon volumes upon volumes of scientifically verified theories and data going back thousands of years to the origin of mathematics. Compare what it takes to scientifically prove something, to what it takes to prove the same concept with philosophy: “All things which come into being have a cause, the universe came into being, and therefore the universe has a cause.” It’s absurd to believe that these two methods of problem solving hold equal weight.
No, good scientist do not make bold claims with insufficient evidence, that is more like what philosophers do; that is what the Kalam Cosmological argument does.
