Logical explanation: why a god must exist

@HeroicOvenmitt,

Listen...
GOD is ETERNAL...time is irrelevant...
You are dividing that which is already done !
Its not happening its done !
That´s what BEING TRUE really means...
(you will never understanding it if you are not honestly willing to...)

What in the hack do you think it means Omnipresent Omnipotent and Omniscient ??? Its EVERYWHERE around you !!! wake up !

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Check last page as I edited several posts, one concerning material and Immaterial dual problematic...

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@Ding an Sich,

Ding an Sich wrote:

What in the world is the "Law of Causality"?

It is a puzzlement.

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@joefromchicago,

I just did the endless reading on that...oh boy, you are a patient dude !

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Look, here's the thing: A lot of you guys seem to be giant advocates for math and science and the scientific method. With that in mind, the statistical odds that cutting someones head off leads to the effect of that someones death without actually being the cause would be so astronomically high as to be on the verge of insanity to even posit.

Whats more, For all of history up this point(from the big bang until now) to be such that we can make accurate predictions about the weather, solid state devices, the rotation of the earth around the sun, migratory patterns of animals, the location of comets, etc. etc. etc., without things being caused whatsoever would have to be so statistically impossible as to lead me to question the person who believes such a things intelligence. I mean I so often hear people say they don't believe in God because there is no evidence to suggest God exists, yet these same people will wholeheartedly believe that there is no such thing as cause and effect? I just don't get that...

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@Amperage,

Would you address this question, just why does a cause causes what it causes ? What is to be causal ?
The correlation, the after and the before, I can get, everybody gets it...but then there´s the why...without necessity in place causality turns out to look weird...

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@Amperage,

Amperage wrote:

Whats more, For all of history up this point(from the big bang until now) to be such that we can make accurate predictions about the weather, solid state devices, the rotation of the earth around the sun, migratory patterns of animals, the location of comets, etc. etc. etc., without things being caused whatsoever would have to be so statistically impossible as to lead me to question the person who believes such a things intelligence.

That's a common theme in philosophy. If you stumble in off the street and hear a few sentences out of context, all of philosophy sounds like utter horseshit. That's why there are so many people hostile to philosophy in general. They don't understand it. However, if you actually follow the thought processes of all those involved, it does make sense, even if you disagree.

As for my intelligence, let me flash my credentials for second just to make myself feel better. I'm a computer programmer. I run a business with over a million dollars in revenue. I drive a Lexus. I have an academic scholarship with a GPA of 3.94. I have credits in philosophy from Oxford University. I could go on but you get the point. In other words, if I'm so stupid then why am I so successful? That, I think, seems unlikely.

If you really want to know why someone would question causation, which by the way isn't supported by anything you've listed, then you should do some reading.

Here's the best place to start: http://www.iep.utm.edu/lawofnat/

If you still want more then read Norman Swartz's "The Concept of Physical Law".

If you just want to stick with an "aw shucks" common sense view of philosophy, that's fine but please don't question the intelligence of those of us that delve deeper. We are apt to feel insulted.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

causes cause what they cause due to the initial conditions of the physical world being what they are in my opinion...

What I mean by that is this: Take something like Planck's constant. Due to planck's constant being exactly what it is, certain cause and effect relationships HAD to follow....this is just one example but essentially all of the initial conditions of the physical world gave rise to all the cause and effect relationships

Quote:

To see this, let us focus on one of the natural constants, Planck's constant, and study its relation to both the parts, and the whole structure, of the universe.

Planck's constant is linked intimately to each part of the universe through which life evolved. Quantum physics plays an essential role in genetic variation which in turn drives biological evolution. If the numerical value of Planck's constant were slightly different, life could not have arisen via evolution on a planet like ours. Thus Planck's constant is linked to the phenomenon of life and sentience; it is thus a part of the contingency of the biological processes of a universe that is filled with life and a sign of life's dependence on the God who creates life through biological evolution, including therein the role of quantum physics.

Planck's constant also contributes to the overall, physical character of the universe as a whole. During the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang the universe was governed by a single fundamental interaction; the very early universe, being microscopic, was a quantum phenomenon. Had the value of Planck's constant been different than it is, the universe may never have produced the right astrophysical and geological conditions for biological life to ever get started. Without this value the physical preconditions for evolution - cosmological production of helium, generation of galaxies, stars, and planets, etc. - might never have occurred. In this way the value of Planck's constant is essential to the global, physical character of the universe.

link: http://www.counterbalance.org/physics/ap-frame.html

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@Amperage,

Yes you think certain things HAVE to happen, in other words they are physically necessary. That's the view of physical necessitarianism. It needs to be done away with.

From: http://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/physical-law/regularity_theory.htm

Quote:

To abandon necessitarianism means to elevate – and to live with – contingency: the world does not have to be the way it is; it just is. The charge on the electron does not have to be –1.6 × 10–19 coulombs; it just is. Light does not have to have a constant, finite, velocity; it just does. To invoke nomological necessities to 'account' for such constancies (order, etc.) is to engage in explanatory hand-waving. Is it really any more informative to be told that light has a constant velocity because there is a law of nature to that effect than to be told that opium is sleep-inducing because it has a 'dormative power'? The form of an explanation has been given, but the content is chimerical.

There is orderliness is Nature. That's the way Nature is. There are no secret, sublime, mystical laws forcing Nature to be that way. Or at least, there is no good rational reason to believe that there are such queer entities. Physical laws are descriptions, they neither are, nor function like, prescriptions.

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@Night Ripper,

I totally agree that the with his statement that "the world does not have to be the way it is; it just is". However, due to the way "it just is", certain cause and effect relations necessarily followed...

Do you not agree?

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@Amperage,

Amperage wrote:

I totally agree that the with this statement that "the world does not have to be the way it is; it just is". However, due to the way "it just is", certain cause and effect relations necessarily followed...

Do you not agree?

No and if you think about it a little longer you will see that it is a contradiction. If something is caused to be that way then it can't also "just be" that way.

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@Night Ripper,

then you aren't focusing on the correct aspect.

You agree that that the speed of light is what it is I would hope, yes? Let us not worry about why it is what it is at this point...let's just start from the ground that it's real and it's there...

With that being the case, would you not say that certain cause and effects had to follow?

I mean, the speed of light being what it is has had certain effects on the universe...would you not say so?

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@Amperage,

Amperage wrote:

then you aren't focusing on the correct aspect.

You agree that that the speed of light is what it is I would hope, yes? Let us not worry about why it is what it is at this point...let's just start from the ground that it's real and it's there...

With that being the case, would you not say that certain cause and effects had to follow?

I mean, the speed of light being what it is has had certain effects on the universe...would you not say so?

No, in logic you can have logically necessary connections (if X then Y, X therefore Y). However, there are no physically necessary connections. Nothing has to follow from the way things are.

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@Night Ripper,

of course things have to follow from the way things are.

Because our biology is such that we need oxygen to live, it follows that, without oxygen, we will die. I'm not sure what's not to follow. Never mind why it is that we need oxygen...we are starting from the fact that we do....given that, it follows that, without it, we die.

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@Amperage,

Amperage wrote:

of course things have to follow from the way things are.

Because our biology is such that we need oxygen to live it follows that without oxygen we will die. I'm not sure what's not to follow. Never mind why it is that we need oxygen...we are starting from the fact that we do....given that, it follows that, without it, we die.

No, I'll admit that if we don't respirate that we WILL die. We don't HAVE to die though.

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@Night Ripper,

To say we "don't have HAVE to die", to me, seems to be an attempt on your part to say something like this, "If the initial conditions of the universe were different in such a way as not require humans to need oxygen to live, then we wouldn't die", but that is quite obvious I would say.

You seem to be desiring to take the argument back to the initial conditions as your basis for suggesting cause and effect does not exist.

While I'm saying that I am starting with the assumption that those conditions are there. Given those conditions, within the system or the box that we actual world exists, certain cause and effect relationships do actually exist.

Your argument sort of reminds me of this: Say there are two roads in front of me, Road 1 and Road 2.

I'm sitting there are the fork and considering to myself which way to go. Clearly, up to this point no effects exist. However, once I actually decide to go down either Road 1 or Road 2, I have now created certain effects....maybe I'll get hit by a car, maybe if I had taken the other road I would have found a twenty dollar bill on the ground, who knows.

You seem to want to the argument to remain at the fork, whereas I'm saying, we are on Road 1....and because we are on Road 1, certain effects became real and actual.

Because we are on Road 1, X HAS to cause Y.

I hope that made any sense...

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@Night Ripper,

That much is true...

...my thing against correlation goes with the concept of emergence...emergence from what ? Nothingness ?
Either things are done, and therefore are True or they are n´t...that´s from where I access necessity, I don´t believe in alternatives...and if there are any alternatives they are to be actual somewhere else...
Nevertheless there are aspects in the term correlation that better fit the bill given cause is nothing but a conceptual sequencing of events...same is to say cause does n´t really cause, it just follows...

Initial conditions are all OK if one marches along with necessity, but without it, to my layman´s view, sufficiency does n´t explain a thing...

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@Amperage,

Amperage wrote:

To say we "don't have HAVE to die", to me, seems to be an attempt on your part to say something like this, "If the initial conditions of the universe were different in such a way as not require humans to need oxygen to live, then we wouldn't die", but that is quite obvious I would say.

No, it has nothing to do with the initial conditions. You seem to think there are rules that govern the universe based on the initial conditions. I'm saying that there are no such governing rules. There are universally true statements, such as "no mass ever accelerates faster than the speed of light", but that's not something that CAN'T to happen, it's something that DOESN'T happen.

You think the rules come first and the universe follows suit. I think the universe behaves randomly and in hindsight we can devise true statements about that behavior.

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@Night Ripper,

Randomly implies an a priori space of manoeuvre out of this existing actual happening reality...you assume this but where is the evidence for it ?
That is like just saying what is true could not be true even if it is true...Where is this to be emanating ? Other then this true, where to be "beaming" from ? On what justification ? Leave nothing to Nothingness !

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@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

There are universally true statements, such as "no mass ever accelerates faster than the speed of light", but that's not something that CAN'T to happen, it's something that DOESN'T happen.

if you think that a mass can accelerate faster than the speed of light but just doesn't, then you are positing something so statically unlikely as to be a virtual impossibility. Having said that, I suppose it's not absolutely impossible just virtually impossible.

I do find it a bit funny though...

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Logical explanation: why a god must exist

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