Kalam Cosmological Argument is worse than I thought

Zombrex

Interesting blog post on the Kalam Cosmological argument make a very good point that I hadn't actually considered before: Nothing in this universe truly begins to exist.

http://toughquestionsblog.com/archives/129

All things in the universe are simply re-arrangements of pre-existing matter. Your bike, the sun, my bottle of water. None of them began to exist in an absolute sense, there were simply assembled from other component parts. They began to exist in the way me smashing a plate against the wall causes a broken plate to begin to exist.

All matter was created at the Big Bang (if created is the right word) and since then it has simply been re-arranged.

So we have exactly one creation event and we don't know how it happened. So the argument

P1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2: The universe began to exist
C: Therefore, the universe has a cause

is impossible to make. P1 is a proposition we cannot make since we only have one example of this and we don't know how it happened, we have one case of something genuinely beginning to exist and we have no idea if it had a cause or not. You can assume it had a cause but, as the blog post says, the argument then becomes

P1: Whatever begins to exist The universe has a cause.
P2: The universe began to exist
C: Therefore, the universe has a cause

Which is circular nonsense.

Zombrex

Zombrex wrote: »

Nothing in this universe truly begins to exist.

Well depending on the definitions of the words "exist" and "begin" we to have particles that pop in and out of existence due to weird quantum mechanical effects.

The then these things exist without a cause so P1 is still invalid.

Zombrex

Just a point for any of the science buffs out there, it might be more accurate to say that all energy was created during the big bang since matter is simply a form of energy in a particular state (if I have the correct). But you get the point.

Zombrex

King Mob wrote: »

Well depending on the definitions of the words "exist" and "begin" we to have particles that pop in and out of existence due to weird quantum mechanical effects.

The then these things exist without a cause so P1 is still invalid.

True but again as you say we don't know if they have a cause, and most supporters of the Kalam Cosmological Argument ironically reject things examples as something beginning to exist. Which highlights that really the KCA isn't a logical argument about nature, but simply a way for believers to some how feel confident that their belief in God is reasonable.

Ultimately we are left with the proposition that the only things that seem to truly begin to exist we cannot say have a cause. We don't know if the universe had a cause and we don't know if vacum particles have a case. Everything is arrangements of pre-existing matter and energy.

It would be a silly argument to make but if you really wanted to screw with a supporters noodle you could say that the only evidence we have is that things that begin to exist don't seem to have causes based on the only sample set we have to go on

Next time I meet a supporter of the KCA the first question I'm going to ask is to give an example of something that truly began to exist.

Zombrex

Zombrex wrote: »

Just a point for any of the science buffs out there, it might be more accurate to say that all energy was created during the big bang since matter is simply a form of energy in a particular state (if I have the correct). But you get the point.

That's not strictly the case. We have virtual particles that pop up in certain interactions, who arise out of nothing and go back to being nothing without necessarily taking any energy from anywhere, but they might necessarily "exist" in some senses of the word.

Zombrex wrote: »

Next time I meet a supporter of the KCA the first question I'm going to ask is to give an example of something that truly began to exist.

It's a good plan, but if someone is still using the KCA, there's not much hope of reasoning with them.

Zombrex

King Mob wrote: »

It's a good plan, but if someone is still using the KCA, there's not much hope of reasoning with them.

True. Again it seems less about the argument and more about the idea that they have found an excuse to say their beliefs are reasonable and supported by logic.

Still though, might be fun.

Doctor DooM

It's not like the argument was strong even if you give them those three assumptions- if you accept them (no reason to do that as you've just shown though) it's still just a proof that something started the universe- and that could just be a giant magic hamster, Zeus, or Homer Simpson. No reason it's the christian god.

... which I am sure you know already, but it might be handy for some of the newer forumites to know

Zombrex

Zombrex wrote: »

True. Again it seems less about the argument and more about the idea that they have found an excuse to say their beliefs are reasonable and supported by logic.

Still though, might be fun.

So just to list the ways the first premise fails:

• The idea that all finite things have cause does not hold because the only thing we know to definitely "begin" "existing" is the universe. Other examples of finite things coming into existence are few and far between.
  
• Then even if that wasn't the case we cannot actually say this with confidence as there has been immnumeral times when the universe has been found to act weird and unintuitively at extreme speed/size/temperatures.
  
• Then we have examples of finite things that "begin to exist" without a cause (depending on your definitions.)

And then we get to the problems with P2....

Zombrex

King Mob wrote: »

So just to list the ways the first premise fails:

• The idea that all finite things have cause does not hold because the only thing we know to definitely "begin" "existing" is the universe. Other examples of finite things coming into existence are few and far between.
  
• Then even if that wasn't the case we cannot actually say this with confidence as there has been immnumeral times when the universe has been found to act weird and unintuitively at extreme speed/size/temperatures.
  
• Then we have examples of finite things that "begin to exist" without a cause (depending on your definitions.)

And then we get to the problems with P2....

And yet we get in trouble when we say theism is inherently irrational ... :pac:

MisterEpicurus

Zombrex wrote: »

And yet we get in trouble when we say theism is inherently irrational ... :pac:

Excellent point Zombrex, I thought about that a while ago as well. A useful example that demonstrates this point, especially on an emotional level, would be abortion. When are the foetal cells considered 'too late' for abortion to take place, the answer differs all the time. The relevance to what your point makes above is that there is never an 'instant in time' where cells suddenly become 'human' in any sense of the word. The term 'human' is merely a construct for our understanding of the reorganization of cells. In a similar sense, a 'chair' doesn't suddenly come into existence, it's a linguistic term that applies for something that without evolution of language, we never would have developed a term for it.

Dr. Craig shoots himself in the foot with the Kalam Argument on many grounds, almost all grounds actually. As the OP pointed out, the only thing that essentially 'come into existence' are virtual particles. However, Dr. Craig wholly dismisses these.
The problem for Dr. Craig is that if he rejects this physical finding, then he undermines his first premise. Second, if he worms his way out of it, then he admits exceptions to causation which further undermines it. Third, if he dismisses the virtual particle theory above, then he would have to admit that nothing in the Universe 'comes into being' in any real sense as the OP explained above. We just apply linguistic terms to something that doesn't contain an 'objective meaning' outside our own cognition, in the same way that language isn't objective, nor 'angriness'. They are merely concepts that exist in our brains, but never independent of them.
The linguistic problem for Dr. Craig is even more potent when you consider that to use any term like 'causation' shouldn't really apply to a concept your trying to explain that's 'outside time'. You can see the can of worms he's opening up with this.
Hope that makes sense though :P

marty1985

I don't actually have anything more than a simple understanding of the argument, but I'm confused about one thing.

"Nothing in the universe truly begins to exist." Is this not the same as the principle "nothing comes from nothing" (ex nihilo nihil fit) which is part of Dr Craig's argument?

MisterEpicurus

marty1985 wrote: »

I don't actually have anything more than a simple understanding of the argument, but I'm confused about one thing.

"Nothing in the universe truly begins to exist." Is this not the same as the principle "nothing comes from nothing" (ex nihilo nihil fit) which is part of Dr Craig's argument?

Yes, Dr. Craig basically advocates that perspective. But Dr. Craig says that something can exist independent of coming from nothing, that being 'god'.