Those things which are uncaused are unexplainable. It’s a tautology.
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And the more unexplainable the thing is, the more unpredictable
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@RoyC Welcome back! I hope you had a nice trip, and that you’d be interested in coming back to this question.
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Thank you!
I’d be happy to rejoin the discussion, but you’ll have to remind me where we left off.
Ciao!
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Welcome back from me as well. (Thanks for getting my attention, Mike @heymike3.) I’ve been taking your name hopefully not in vain, citing your ‘true belief is not from argument but from experience’ aphorism of consequence. (I don’t think you get flagged the way I’ve been quoting it.) I did add a footnote I hope you approve of.
I had asked here if an infinite number of universes was philosophically possible.
You responded by saying multiple universes are logically possible and it only means the idea is not self-contradictory.
And I said the number of universes may proceed to infinity, then asked if the number of universes can become actually infinite.
From a biblical point of view, there is nothing either for or against there being other universes. The Hebrew language has no word that correspond to our team “universe,” but conveys the asme idea with the expression “the heavens and earth.” That refers to all reality other than God the creator.
The fact that other universes are logically possible doesn’t count for much; m there’s no contradiction in the idea of a flying carpet, but that doesn’t mean such a thing is factually possible.
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Thanks for the welcome back! I’ll try to keep up with the exchange despite working on the taxes this week.
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Thank you, but that’s not what I was asking. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose other universes exist, or contingent realities outside of this universe, or even considering what I asked with respect to objects in an infinitely divisible space. Can there be an infinite number of them?
By the way, I was reading your book and really liked this definition and how you worked your way there:
“A religious belief is a belief in something as divine per se no matter how that is further described, where “divine per se” means having unconditionally non-dependent reality.”
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- In a bounded cosmos that had a beginning, there are reasonable and unreasonable constraints on possibilities. But in a boundless Cosmos that has always existed and always will exist, a couple of “impossibilites” become possible. For example, in the Bible, our God is called “the Lord of Sabaoth”. How many Angels are there in a Saboth of them? And when we sing:
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun”- How many days will we be able to sing God’s praise?
- My calculator says “an ∞ of them”.
- How many days will we be able to sing God’s praise?
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I thought we settled on ChatGPTs pithy reply:
“if a process or sequence of steps can proceed to infinity, it never actually reaches infinity, but rather continues indefinitely”
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Viewed strictly from a quantitative (numerical) point of view, infinity is possible because to any number we may always add another. Similarly, when infinity is understood from a spatial point of view (extension), space is infinitely divisible: we can always divide a space into further parts. These senses of the term have been referred to as “potential infinity.”
But real physical (“actual”) infinity is a horse of a different paint job. Viewed from a physical standpoint, space is discontinuous. The space occupied by one object is not the same as the space occupied by another (yes, I know that certain quantum phenomena now seem to violate this). I think there’s good reason to suppose there is no real “actual” infinity (where actual = physical.)
Let me know if this addresses your question.
Roy
By “we”, I assume that you were referring to you and “a host” of others unspecified in actual number. I, on the other hand, get a somewhat different answer from ChatGPT when I ask:
- What is an infinity of things or an infinity of events
- An infinity of things or an infinity of events refers to a concept in mathematics and philosophy that describes a set or sequence that is infinite in size or duration. Infinity can be thought of as a concept that describes a boundless, endless, or unbounded quantity that cannot be measured, counted, or fully comprehended.
- In the context of things, an infinity of things refers to a set of objects that is infinite in size. For example, the set of all natural numbers is infinite, as it contains an unending sequence of numbers starting from 1 and continuing indefinitely.
- In the context of events, an infinity of events refers to a sequence of events that is infinite in duration. For example, time can be thought of as an infinity of events, as it is a continuous sequence of events that stretches indefinitely into the future and the past.
- The concept of infinity has been a subject of much study and debate in mathematics and philosophy, as it raises questions about the nature of existence, the limits of human understanding, and the possibility of knowing or describing the infinite.
- That looks remarkably like Sisyphus’ rock, to me. Happy rolling!
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Thank you. Years ago I stepped into an atheist forum interested in discussing something my philosophy of religion professor brought up with the cosmological argument. He acknowledged that you cannot form an infinite sequence through successive addition, but still had an interesting counter example to a first cause.
To my amazement, forming an infinite sequence through successive addition, was not an impossibility for an atheist in the forum who claimed to be a PhD mathematician. Since then I have found it a harder sell than I ever could have imagined.
And since then I have found it as difficult to conceive of a infinite quantity, like objects in space, because they don’t trail off the existential plane and still count.
One counter claim, is that objects don’t actually exist, which I am sure you will recognize as a belief that is well founded in other religious traditions. I’ve discussed this on a couple occasions, but get a curious response, when I state that me causing an action is an objective event, and have referred to it as a kind of glitch for the view that a non-dualistic universe is acting through me in an eternal (ever present) state of becoming.
I’d say when we cause an action i\that event has subjective and objective sides. And I agree about reality not being dualistic, but that’s because I see it as pluralistic not monistic.
For reasons I’ve already given, I don’t think the cosmological argument proves anything concerning God. God is not a cause, but the creator of all causality. And as the creator of all the laws as well as the entities in creation, nothing that can be proven by those laws would be God. As their creator, God’s being is not subject to logical or math’l laws, so whatever can be proven would thereby not be God.
- From ChatGPT:
- “Where did life come from?”
- "The question of where life originated is one of the biggest mysteries of science, and researchers are still working to fully understand it. However, there are a number of theories that attempt to explain how life may have arisen.
- "One of the most widely accepted theories is that life originated through a process called abiogenesis, in which simple organic molecules combined to form more complex ones, eventually leading to the emergence of self-replicating molecules that could be considered the first living things. This process may have occurred in a variety of environments, including deep sea hydrothermal vents, volcanic hot springs, or on the surface of the early Earth.
- "Another theory is that life may have been brought to Earth by comets or meteorites from other parts of the universe, a process known as panspermia. This idea suggests that the building blocks of life could have formed on another planet or moon and then been transported to Earth by a cosmic impact event.
- “While the origin of life remains a topic of ongoing research and debate, scientists have made significant progress in understanding the chemical and physical conditions that may have contributed to its emergence, and continue to search for evidence to support various theories.”
No, an action that I cause like snapping my fingers or typing words in this forum is not subjective. The action which is observable is an objective event. Me causing it is different though. This is kind of subjective and objective. A different kind of horse indeed.
I meant that reality is not non-dualistic. There is a meaningful subject-object distinction that can only be overcome at a cost that surprisingly few understand. “For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and to forfeit their soul?”
With the cosmological argument, it doesn’t prove God, as the cause of the universe may not or not yet be aware of its action.
Hmm, that’s the first time I heard anyone say God is not a cause, but the creator of all causality. I understand God is not like a cause in the world, and I understand whatever God immediately causes, this effect will appear to come from nothing. But if God is the creator of causality, he is still the cause of it, or he is the cause of QM phenomena coming from nothing 