Inflationary/expansionary/"Big Bang" models do not rule out an indefinite past for the Universe in the broader sense, at all, just for our subset of ultimate reality, of the "Metaverse".

There are models which have new "Big Bangs" seeded out of the fragments of the "Big Rip", the ultimate ever-accelerating rate of expansion.

'Reality" could quite easily consist of an endless sequence or series of Big Bangs.

Or space-time could be finite and boundless, curving back on itself in a higher dimensionality.

I had a look at that last paper, and it would take a bit more time than I currently have to come to grips with what they are driving at.

The Kalam argument proves nothing at all about 'God' it just makes an enormous and un-justified leap from a "first cause" to that "first cause" having all the attributes of whatever 'God' the arguer has in mind.

From the study of particle Physics and Quantum Theory we know that Planck-scale events do NOT necessarily have a 'cause', at least in any simplistic sense, but even if they do, we also know that 'causes' do not necessarily have to be 'greater' in whatever sense than what they 'cause'.

Any even happens because of two things:

1. The 'state' of all the relevant parts of existence close enough to be involved,  which means that the event is physically and energetically possible, and

2. The occurrence of some 'trigger' event that finally pushes the parts of reality involved over some threshold.

Example, an avalanche requires a large accumulation of snow on a slope to the point that the 'stickiness' of the snow is only just sufficient to hold it together (1). Then, that last falling snowflake, or an external vibration, takes it over that threshold, and all the accumulated gravitational potential energy is turned into kinetic energy of motion (2).

With unstable ( 'radio-active' ) atoms, the energy of all the particles in the post-decay nucleus plus that of the emitted particle needs to be just slightly less than that of the original nucleus, otherwise it would violate the principle of Conservation of Energy and the Second Law: something cannot spontaneously go to a higher energy state without an external input. There has to be some intermediate state that has slightly higher energy than that of the bound nucleus, which prevents it from decaying immediately, that holds it together, like a slight ridge at the top of a slope which is just enough to stop a stationary ball from rolling down.

Thanks to the Uncertainty principle, the exact energy of the system cannot be determined or defined, only a probability distribution, a 'wave-function'. This allows us to compute the probability that the system will temporarily have sufficient energy to exceed the threshold within any specified time period, which can be used to calculate how long we would have to wait until that probability was 50%, giving us the 'half-life' of that particular combination of particles, ie, that isotope of that element.

The question is, what 'causes' a particular atom to decay at a particular instant?

Is it a pure, elemental 'randomness' at the heart of physical reality, or is that apparent randomness the outcome of some underlying 'deterministic' process, such as an underlying 'sea' of interacting particles or energy packets? Such as the way the timing and velocity of the next oxygen molecule from the atmosphere of our planet to hit a specified area of a surface is as close to effectively random, as unpredictable, as anything could be, yet that does not imply or require that the interactions of the molecules has any non-deterministic component.

Just trying to point out that the extremely simplistic medieval notion of 'causality' embodied in the KCA totally fails to reflect our current understanding.

And then, of course, there is zero implication or 'need' for a sentient decision-maker to be that 'cause' - just some random or quasi-random quality of reality.

Is 'God' personally telling each radioactive atom when to decay? Busy guy, no wonder he appears to have no time to fix all the problems and suffering he caused by his ham-fisted design of us and our evironment...

Thanks Bob, I'm willing to wait till you look at that paper. Much appreciated.

I was arguing with someone and it seems to me he's giving me the impression that, hey! they're scientists too! they can't be wrong can they? I'm not even sure if that what exactly the author means when they say "the universe had a beginning".

The notion that the universe had to have a first cause is where the argument falls flat. If they believe that god or a creator is behind the universe, then logically, they would have to explain a first cause or a beginning for god. Yet, most theists argue that god was always there. It's an inherent contradiction.

Ok, if I have time.

Just note that none of this stuff makes the KCA in anyway a valid argument, because it totally fails to provide any more than naked assertion that any 'first cause' can only be 'God'.

So forget the KCA nonsense.

But if you are really interested in the origin and nature of the Universe, that's fine.

OK, I read the paper last night.

For the record, it provides no support whatsoever to the universe having been created in the manner of the Kalam argument. The person you are arguing with either:

A: did not bother to read the paper before using it as a source or

B: did struggle through the paper but only with such a limited grasp of the concepts that he was unable to see the basic ideas which were presented.

Past that, I am not really clear on what you mean by the idea that the argument and the concept presented in the paper could be “not valid” on a scientific basis.

When I hear of something as being invalid in that way, the first thing which comes to mind is that it might be bad speculation dressed up as science. Pretty much stuff like UFO conspiracy crap and the like. This paper is definitely not that.

What the paper actually is is worth noting. Science has various ways of sniffing out bad work. This paper passes sufficient muster to be worth considering as having scientific value.

A: It was co-authored by three respectable scientists. Granted, you would have to be quite into science in order to know their names but they are the real deal.

B: It was submitted for peer review and passed muster on that account.

C: It was published in a recognized major source for such work.

Now that having been said, the confusion may lay in the idea of whether or not the paper is “right”. Honestly, science does not work on the basis of proving something to be right in the mathematical sense. Rather, what would matter would be if it seemed so right that it was very unlikely to be wrong.

Could this paper be at least that much right? Sure it could. However, it is also out on the bleeding edge of science where there are as many ideas of what may be right as there are people working in thie field.

They cannot all be right and there is even no good reason on that level why any of them have to be right. Perhaps the right idea is one that has not been discovered just yet. However, what that idea may well be will only be known if today's physicists keep throwing out best guesses and submitting for peer review. In layman's terms, peer review is quite like scientists comparing stuff with each other and asking the basic question “Does this look right to you?”

Actually no it does not. What it is saying is pretty much that there is a way of thinking about something that might be called a universe and it might be a decent model for our own, or not. Now if it is close enough to our universe, then our universe would not extend infinitely back in time.

However, just because it may not do that is not the same as the universe having had a beginning. What it is doing is creating a mathematical model of what would be known as finite in extent but infinite in boundary. OK, that is going to be kind of hard to grasp without dumping the math on you but there are lots of mathematical models that are of that nature.

Before I go on to your next question though, let me lay some groundwork. As the blog that you linked to properly says, the definition of the word “universe” has changed over time. However, the blog does not really cover the extent of the change as well as I would like for you to consider.

To Plato, the universe was the Earth and the Planets. Then too, he thought that the sun and moon were planets, mainly because he did not have that kind of background.

Later on, in the last half of the 1700's, astronomers finally learned how to measure the distance to the stars. Then the idea of the universe was extended to cover those objects as well.

A century ago, when Einstein was doing his most notable work, the universe was considered to be the whole galaxy. Of course we did not, at that time know about other galaxies just yet. But we had a concept down that the assemblage of stars was finite and there were no stars more than a hundred thousand light years away.

In the late 1920's, Hubble (yes the guy the telescope was named for) was able to show that certain “clouds” of gas were actually other galaxies. Still, we had no clue how many there might be or if there could be an infinte number that just went on forever.

Then in the 1930's Hubble went on to show that the universe was expanding. Now we are really running into a possibly huge problem here. There must be some distance at which galaxies can no longer be visible. They would still have originated in the big bang but as they are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, they are forever isolated from us. We will never seem them or interact with them in any way. So are they part of our universe and in what sense can that even be a meaningful question.

OK, again, that paper is only in reference to a model that might be a way to think about the stuff that came from the big bang. It still would not reference the Kalam Argument.

I happen to be about three quarters of the way through that book. I will have to get back to you on the details but he is discussing several ideas for a “multiverse” and asking what they might mean to our understanding of matters. Basically, as far into the book as I am, all concepts of a multiverse would be permanently inaccessible to us. However, if any of them are correct, then there would be implications as far as how the stuff that we can know about must exist and we may, one day, find evidence that we can measure and understand that would point to meaningful answers about a possible “multiverse”.

Gene would probably explain this better then I would.  Nothing moves faster then the speed of light, however, since space-time is expanding that makes it appear to us as if it is moving faster then the speed of light.  So if galaxy X is moving relative to us at 80% the speed of light, as space expands between us, it will compensate for the remaining 21% to make it faster then the speed of light.  Once that critical 101% speed has been reached the light from that galaxy will no longer be able to reach us.  Since the universe expansion is accelerating due to dark energy, eventually the night sky will be completely dark.  Of course there won't be a night sky as we understand it since Earth won't be around then.

I was reading an interesting article on the physics.org (or maybe sciam.com) website a few years back.  It was regarding a hypothetical future civilization that would no longer be able to observe any other galaxy.  It was question if said civilization would be able to determine if the universe was expanding. 

 Thank you for clearing that concept out, it does make more sense now from the simplistic understanding I had prior to reading it.

I have a pretty good grasp of physics for a layman, but my understanding is still ridden with holes and of course I lack knowledge of the math behind it all.  I'm fascinated by the concepts but the details sometimes escape me.  I've read a lot of layman oriented material and even attempt some expert oriented papers though most are over my head for the above mentioned reasons.  If I ever have time(read never will happen) I would like to take some advanced courses to clear my understanding.  

Hi, I'm new to the forum.  I am a theist, and I hope we can be civil in our discourse. 

You need to demonstrate how it is possible for there to be an endless sequence of anything, let alone Big Bangs.  I do not see how the idea of an actual infinite quantity is even logically coherent.

'First cause' is not a benign notion; many things necessarily follow from the idea, such as eternity, timelessness, self-existence, and immateriality.

My understanding is that there are about 10 different interpretations of QM, and not a single one claims that things pop into existence from nothing... not even virtual particles. 

Sorry, I do not understand any of this.  I'm not a physicist.  If you are looking for a response, then please rephrase in terms that I can understand.

'Causality' simply means that one thing necessitates another thing-- nothing more, nothing less.  It's not some primitive medieval notion, and even in the Middle Ages I doubt there was consensus on this issue.  The law of causality simply trades on the idea that nothing cannot produce something.  From the limited research I've done on quantum mechanics, I really do not see how that is contradicted in any way.  (I think it's ridiculous to assume that natural science somehow managed to scientifically verify things about causality, as if causality itself is something to be tested scientifically; 'causality' is an issue of logic, not of science.

Actually, the argument is rarely used to prove that any specific religion is right.  It merely establishes the existence of an infinite being--whether he actually cares about us is a matter of historical record.

I'm not quite getting where you derive this idea about 'obsolete metaphysical assumptions'.  What do you understand to be the primitive notion of cause and effect, and how is that any different than what we believe today?  I'll pose the same question with regard to an infinite regress and the mind.

Aquinas's vision of causality included the idea causes involve more than just a one to one correspondence between two things.  For example, he would have acknowledged that fire, in addition to the lighter, is also caused by the state of oxygen, gravity, and many other mitigating factors.  So, I do not see how your objection is relevant.  Do you have a specific philosopher in mind, or are you just putting them all under an umbrella based on a select few that you've read?

The principle of sufficient reason is not the same as the law of causality.  Beyond the argument from virtual particles, which itself is subject to debate, I do not see where you are coming from.  How is it false?   

The word 'determinism' is relatively new.  I can't think of any classic philosophers who mentioned it, although the issue of free will was obviously prevalent.   

Determinism has nothing to do with predictability.  Is everything determined, or is it not? 

How are you understanding 'motion' here?  This is an important question because the way Aristotle used to the term had nothing to do with the way that Newton used it.

Again, how are you understanding 'motion'?

Uncertainty is nothing new.  In fact, Aristotle denied that the principle of bivalence applied categorically, and Jan Lukasiewicz formalized multi-valued systems without knowledge of quantum mechanics.

What does that have to do with the law of causality, principle of sufficient reason, or anything else that you mentioned?

All causes are qualitatively greater than their effects, unless you mean something different by 'cause'.  This is an issue of logic, not of science.  Causality involves agents, by virtue of their degree of perfection, producing something else--and your only alternative here is that something gives to itself what it does not have, which is nonsense. 

And even if that was not true, the notion of an infinite quantity of real things is still absurd for reasons irrelevant to the nature of causality, e.g., the cardinality of the set of all even numbers would be equal to that of all even and odd numbers put together--even though the cardinalilty of the former should be double to that of the latter.

Mathematics does not magically map itself onto reality.  In reality, there are no perfect circles, infinite sets of natural numbers, or Pythagorean theorems.  These are abstract notions with no real existence.  That the sum of an abstract infinite series converges has nothing to do with the behaviors of real things and the implication of causality for those things.  Sorry, this just does not work.

It is not as clear cut as you are presenting it.  The bridge principles between mental states and physical states have been shaken up by discoveries in biology involving the realizability of similar mental states in different species.  To counteract this, reductionists will make a disjunctive move, which itself is controversial.  So, we do not know absolutely that the mind depends on the brain, and many interpret the evidence as suggesting that the mind can be realized through many different mediums--and why should a disembodied mind be excluded from that?

What science is this? 

You do not know that they were wrong; you believe they were wrong. 

Your first statement here is that the PSR is empty of significance--'significant' meaning 'important'.  So you are claiming here that the PSR is not important, to which I will claim that its relative importance has nothing to do with its veracity.  And provided that it is veracious, you're obliged to accept a key premise in the cosmological argument; namely, anything that exists has a sufficient reason for its existence--either in itself or in something else.

Your second statement is that the PSR is empty of utility--'utility' meaning 'usefulness'.  That's subjective; obviously it is not useful to you because you have no desire to propound any argument which relies upon it.  However, it is useful for the proponent of the cosmological argument, and once again you've made no claim regarding its veracity except to say that it is 'not so much wrong' (which I take to meant hat you accept the key premise in the cosmological argument).

That sufficient reason is ultimately reducible to the Planck scale does not address anything pertinent to the discussion.  Again, you've seemingly accepted that it is true--now you have to deal with the argument that utilizes it.

If it is true in all places at all times, then it has earned a right to the title.

It does not.  Just because an event is determined does not mean that it is predictable, and just because it is predictable does not mean that it is indeterminate.  We often times predict things that we normally conceive to be indeterminate such as human choices, and we often have a difficult time predicting things--such as rain storms--that are determined.  (Count the times meteorologists have been wrong!)

That's only relative to the observer.  The reason that it is scientifically impossible for us to predict, say, the movement of electrons is that our epistemic confidence in their behavior, as with any other physical object, trades upon our measurements; however, our measurements are what's affecting the electron, because our measurements involve the application of energy sources that inevitably affect it.  This does not at all mean that quantum mechanics is inherently indeterminate, or that the principle of sufficient reason is violated.  If we can ever find a different way to measure things at the Planck scale, then perhaps it will no longer spuriously appear to be a cauldron of lawlessness.

I'm not sure what you are disputing here, as the Thomistic idea of motion is completely in line with Newtonian mechanics.

It absolutely does follow from logic.  Causality is the production of an effect, which involves an efficient cause conferring an inherent finite surplus of perfection onto something else.  Therefore, the efficient cause is, by logical necessity, qualitatively greater than whatever effect it instantiates, because the efficient cause necessarily has a higher surplus of perfection than the effect.  This is an a priori proposition.  Now your confusion may be with the idea that causality involves some one-to-one correspondence, but that has nothing to do with it.  Causality involves the action of many different substances; e.g., the flame isn't necessarily less great than the lighter, but it is less great than the combination of the lighter, air, gravity, and so on.

Just declaring that mathematics somehow confers itself upon reality does not make it so.  Again, in the world of mathematics, there are perfect circles, triangles, and natural numbers; can you actually locate a perfect circle, or the number '7'?  If so, where are they?  You cannot look inside a physical object and find any natural number.  The only ontology that mathematics has in the real world is a series of ink marks on a piece of paper; other than that, they do not exist.  In a world where no minds exist, there is no '1 + 1 = 2'.  

Did you not understand what I said?  Are you familiar with multiple realizability theory, reductionism, the disjunctive move, and the explanatory response?

Now you are just being ridiculous.  Aristotle was the authority on natural science, and he was not a Platonist.  I'm not even sure that he was a rationalist, since his theory of knowledge specifically traded upon the reliability of perception.  

And your statement is self-refuting; what empirical reason do you have to believe that empirical reasoning produces fundamental truths about reality?  If you say that it is your empirical observations, then you are begging the question because that would require the prior assumption that empirical observation produces such truths.  If you say that it is pure reasoning, then you've repudiated the position you've just espoused.

You haven't produced a shred of evidence for your position--you've only given me diatribes and speculation.

If you woke up in the morning to find that a fire was blazing in your kitchen, would you assume that it was there for absolutely no reason at all?  That the fire was just a matter of brute fact?  Or would you attempt to figure out what caused the fire so as to prevent it from happening in the future?

Now you are just attacking me.  Are you capable of rational discussion?  This is the philosophy forum; if you hate philosophy, then you shouldn't post here.

You are not even a scientist; you are a computer programmer.  You do not speak for scientists.  I'm guessing that you are only restricting your reading of scientists to guys like Victor Stenger and Richard Dawkins.

You cannot prove any religion, specific or otherwise, is 'right' otherwise it wouldn't be a religion.  The argument is used to justify a 'philosophical' ground for a belief.  And I'm assuming that by the term 'infinite being' you imply that it has feelings or intelligence.  Why not an infinite hammer that smashes atoms into new universes all the time? Why not a pendulum that just swings every 50 billion years or so for a new big bang? Why not an eternal chicken? Why is God the only option out there? I mean they're all just as logically possible, and if you think about it, an eternal chicken raises less questions then an eternal being with 'omni-' everything.  

Why is it that when it comes to reasoning God you apply obscure philosophical concepts, but when it comes to reasoning whether he cares you apply obscure historical 'evidence' from the book? It seems a bit like picking and choosing here.

'Infinite' in this sense is not a quantitative notion; it is a qualitative notion referring to unlimitedness.  Since a hammer is a material object and materiality is a limitation, 'infinite hammer' is therefore a contradiction in terms.

I do not find them to be obscure.  This view was shared by the early Church fathers and the theistic philosophers of the Renaissance.  Even today, I think the average theist off the street would say that 'God' is the all-powerful all-knowing creator of the universe.  

The issue with his personal relationship to humanity is an empirical question; hence, we cannot prove it just by appealing to the idea.

Immateriality is a much more severe limitation on possibilities than "materiality".

You are just perpetuating an ancient intuition.

I think this is the part I do not understand, bear with me here.  I was also at this point in my progression to becoming an atheist.  I understood to a certain degree the problem that a cosmological argument presents.  The thing that I don't understand is this jaunt in logic.  Right here, you present your case for a cosmological argument, which we all agree with in concept, then you assume 'ergo God'.  I mean... I understand that the hammer is a material object, think of it's immaterial equivalent.  It was a poor example of an alternative to a conscious being.  The answer doesn't have to be as simple as arriving from nothing ( read nothing as quantum foam ), but anything more then that is a non sequitur.  Explain this portion of your argument again please.  

Let me reiterate where we are with my question.  Causation implies that 'SOMETHING' created the Big Bang ( or whatever equivalent of universe starting point you believe in, it's not relevant at this point ).  What is the next step in assuming that this 'SOMETHING' is God, or even sentient?

But the two approaches almost seem to contradict, on one hand you claim that god is outside nature and cannot be empirically detected, and on the other hand you present what you consider empirical historical evidence for this said creator.  If you arrive to your understanding of God the way you have (philosophy, metaphysically) , then how does the Bible follow from that?  That's an even bigger non sequitur then the previous one in my opinion. 

All causes are greater than their effects; therefore, the First Cause would be qualitatively greater than everything that is--as such, it possesses great making properties such as omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, self-existence, immateriality, and so forth.  You don't have to call this being 'God', but it is worshipful nonetheless.

We can't actually perceive God with our senses, but we can perceive the results of his actions--including the Bible and miracles.

The Bible does not follow from that.  Most of the arguments only produce, as they say, the 'God of the Philosophers'--an impersonal, deistic God.

The Bible is in a separate domain of evidence.  St. Thomas Aquinas made a distinction between preambles and mysteries.  Some reasons for belief are evident in nature or logic, but others are only evident via special revelation.  No logical argument can prove that God is Triune, or that God loves us.

This forum was created specifically for philosophy enthusiasts.  It has the following tag line: "Aesthetics, Epistemology, Ethics, Logic, Metaphysics, and all other Philosophical discussion. Additional Psychology discussion!" It is for people who wish to engage in philosophical discussion--you are not one of those people.  

Different words mean different things depending on context.  In chemistry, the word 'substance' means something entirely different than when it is used in metaphysics.  Likewise, the word 'cell' means something different in the context of law enforcement than it does in the context of biology.  That doesn't make one usage 'incorrect', it just means that the terms are equivocal.

'Infinite' in metaphysics refers to qualitative infinitude, 'infinite' in mathematics refers to quantitative infinitude. 

You aren't just pointing out fallacies; you are calling me stupid, attacking my education, and questioning my integrity--all because I have a different belief than you.  It's borderline fascism, and I'm glad that people like you are not running the world.  

Obviously this dude is unfamiliar with the domino effect.  Watch near the ending, the dominoes are obviously falling with more force than they started with - from the cumulative effects of gravity, natch.  But it all starts with one small flick of a finger.

No.  The nature of causality, as in 'what exactly is causality'?  In other words, is it mere temporal succession? Is it an inherent conceptual connection between two things?  Is it objective?  Is it subjective?  Are causes simultaneous with effects?  Is it a one to one correspondence?  etc. etc. etc.

No, they do not.  They observe physical events happening in succession, and they create a model based on their observations.  They do not care about the aforementioned issues; they are merely concerned with whether the physical behavior is repeatable and what we may infer about the universe based on that repeated physical behavior.  At the philosophical level of explanation, scientists have not addressed anything--and they shouldn't because admittedly they are not philosophers.  

If you disagree with me, then please produce some sort of peer reviewed publication regarding scientific observations of causation.  Is there a law of causation in science telling us precisely what causation is, whether causes are greater than effects, and so forth?  If so, who put it together?  As far as I can tell, scientists *presuppose* causality in order to go forward with their methodology--in other words, they leave the philosophizing to the philosophers.

This has nothing to do with metaphysical issues regarding causes and effects.

That does not even make sense--I take it you did not understand what I meant.  

and this seems to be the underlying weight of the thing  - that the Bible is the result of the actions of a god, that miracles exist and are the result of a god. That there's actually 'special revelation', whatever that might be.

Odd, Mr Met, that you've run so far with the mantle of science over your shoulders only to come to this point.

Do you truly believe in the immaterial - that the immaterial underlies the material somehow as a sort of inherent truth, undetectable and yet somehow obvious to the Platonist brain?

You can imagine how this looks to us materialists.

Interesting thread Mr Met et al, anyway. Such a shame things always trudge back to the same weary impasse. There is a god but he can't be known unless we first believe... 

Why would anyone even care about those questions 'metaphysically', how are they even relevant to our experience?  It seems like asking a non-sense question to me...what's the point?  What problem exists that these questions need to find an answer for?  What powers of explanation do non-materialistic answers provide?

Science understands causality, metaphysics apparently does not, or invents its own definition of it.

The understanding that correlation does not prove causation is a fundamental principle in scientific analysis, a genuinely useful principle, unlike PSR.

Establishing REAL causality is a fundamental aspect of scientific investigation. Anyone making the assertion that science only deals with simple succession of events betrays an almost unbelievable ignorance of science.

As an example to disprove the idea of 'necessary' relative magnitude of cause and effect, the energy required to topple a tall, standing object on a relatively small base, by exerting a horizontal force close to the top of the object, is much smaller than the energy released by its fall. By any measure, such a 'cause' is much smaller than its effect - there are no other contributing 'causes' to be added in. This is pretty much what is happening in the dominoes example.

The energy released by an explosive is vastly more than that in the fuse or detonator.

The basic point is that stored energy can be released or controlled by actions vastly smaller in every respect than the energy release they are controlling. It is meaningless to say the stored energy is part of the cause of is own release.

Even a dynamic flow of energy can be controlled and re-directed by means involving a fraction of the energy in the flow.