Proof of a Creator (Moved from Intro Topic)

[Donald Schneider]

(I have reposted this note from the "Introduction" topic per the advice of Justin, our forum administrator. Thank you.)


I have a personal website (free access; no ads or a PayPal account pitch for donations) that was primarily established to address special interest topics that are not relevant to this forum. I also write literary reviews of mostly short internet literature and occasionally post essays and articles on a potpourri of topics under the “Miscellaneous” category.

One such offering I wrote that might interest some here is an essay in which I assert proving the existence of—if not God per se—some sort of a creator of our universe (or “multiverse” if one accepts the MWI of QM). The essay is a rejoinder to a university professor of philosophy who had written a rebuttal to Hugh Ross on Philo, the Journal of the Society of Humanist Philosophers. Dr. Ross is a noted astronomer, author and Christian apologist. My rejoinder is to Theodore Schick, Jr., Professor of Philosophy, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania. My basic argument appeals to Einstein’s STR for support; somewhat ironically as Dr. Einstein had been a professed atheist.

As my website is not a public forum and cannot accommodate a debate thread, I’d be pleased and appreciative to entertain rebuttals or comments here, if that is all right with this forum’s administrators. What is the flaw with my argument? .I am educable and not doctrinaire.

Here is the URL should anyone be interested:

School Bullying and Tourette's Forum

At the conclusion of my essay, I link to Dr. Schick's paper available online, also on a free access basis.

Thanks much and best regards,

Donald Schneider

[Aedes]

Donald, the first problem right off the bat is the assumption that anything can ever be proved using logic. Logic, and the language used to express it, can be a neat and tidy tautology if articulated well enough -- but if it's a tautology, and therefore without any link to external verifiability, it can be simultaneously logically sound and yet false in the real world. Or more accurately, its logical soundness has nothing to do with its truth or falsehood in the real world.

Next, as has been true with all god proofs in history (which was a major project during the Middle Ages), there are always assumptions embedded into the proof that are necessary to the proof but are not necessarily sound unto themselves.

Some assumptions in your essay:

1. "I think it can be safely asserted that we all accept the existence of the phenomenon of cause and effect."

This is NOT something that can be safely exerted except metaphysically. Notwithstanding colloquial use of those words, there is NOT a physical phenomenon of "cause" or "effect". There are interactions and there is a transfer of energy, but to organize it as cause and effect is physically and logically arbitrary and incoherent.

2. "here is the rub: If the past, present and future all exist contemporaneously, and if by definition a cause must precede its effect, then how could the cause in this example have preceded its effect when the baby and his or her parents exist contemporaneously and eternally?"

You're not only in error about the nature of cause and effect in physical terms, but as I understand it our mudern understanding of physics does not state that past, present, and future are simultaneous. It states that time relating two different objects is different, it's variable based on their relative position, velocity, and mass, and time is not fixed like a grid throughout the universe.

3. Quite simply, a cause must precede its effect within existence

NO. Potentiating conditions must exist for a sequentially discernable new conditions to arise. That's it. Those are internal conditions, not external agents. If the Big Bang happened, that's because in the moment before it happened the potentiating conditions existed within whatever singularity existed at the time.

4. Dynamic forces cannot exist within a stagnant universe. To argue otherwise would be a contradiction in terms. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that the dynamic force that forged our now static universe via causes and effects (i.e., the laws of physics) must have come from without

Here's where I think your argument really unravels. First, you're wrong that physics sees the universe as stagnant. Thus, your "dynamic forces" versus "stagnant universe" is a false dichotomy. Second, even if that were true, you're being completely arbitrary in choosing one over the other. Third, to say that a force must be external betrays a real lack of understanding about physical processes as scientists understand them. Gravity does not act on things externally -- it consists in their mass. Electromagnetism doesn't act on things externally -- it consists in their charge.

I could go on, but you're building up a logical system that doesn't bear much resemblance to the actual universe -- so all I can say is that a creative force is necessary only in the imaginary universe you've proposed in your thought experiment. But even Aristotle knew better than to try and understand the world solely through thought experiments -- that's why he was really more of a scientist than a philosopher. His metaphysics were a way of filling in blanks in what he could observe and understand. But the punctuation marks were always observations -- like observing things happening in sequence, observing heavenly bodies in orbit, observing things in motion, observing living things growing.

[Donald Schneider]

Dear Paul,

Thank you for reading my essay and for your response. It is most appreciated.

If we cannot accept certain points as valid, then there is no point in my addressing other points you made. If we cannot, for example, agree that you and I would not be here today had it not for been for the reproductive acts of our respective parents, then I suggest this entire forum degenerates into a theater of the absurd and is pointless of and in itself.. No matter how we term the concept of cause and effect, it obviously and irrefutably exists The reproductive act referred to was external to the future existence of the conceived children.

A cause must precede its effect or it cannot, by definition, be termed the effect's cause. Quite simply, one's twin sister cannot also be one's mother.

You attempt to undercut the entire thrust of my argument in a manner that I anticipated and refute right in the essay; points which you did not address in your attempted rebuttal.

The letter from Einstein that I refer to is cited within Paul Davies’s About Time. Additionally, I cite a personal email exchange that I had with a very prominent and respected contemporary physicist whose answer leaves no doubt that my understanding of the “block universe” (or "multiverse") is his as well. So at the very least, there seems to be one professional in the field who would not attempt to undercut my basic premise along the lines you have here.

Additionally, if the past, present and future do not all exist simultaneously, then why do so many physicists even speculate if time travel is possible? (Many believe it is.) What would be the point in doing so if that were not the case?

Before one can travel anywhere, the destination must exist. It is true that Einstein did not believe time travel (at least into the past) was possible; but not because he didn’t believe that the past still existed, but rather because he believed the violation of causality would render such impossible. That is, the dreaded “Grandfather Paradox.” (The advent of the “Many-Worlds Interpretation” of quantum mechanics seems to nicely address this problem.)

--Don

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Donald Schneider

If we cannot, for example, agree that you and I would not be here today had it not for been for the reproductive acts of our respective parents, then I suggest this entire forum degenerates into a theater of the absurd and is pointless of and in itself.

I agree with that fact, but I don't agree with your cause and effect relationship, which in the PHYSICAL world is completely incoherent. Divide the reproductive act down further and further and further and further, because we can -- and we get into the physical entry of the spermatozoal DNA into the oocyte, the signal transduction mechanism by which the spermatozoa recognize the oocyte, the mitochondtrial activity in the flagella of the spermatozoa, etc -- all these events are NECESSARY for reproduction to occur. They can therefore be conceived of as CAUSES by your scheme. The reproductive act of two adult humans can be broken down into an infinite number of biological and ultimately physical constituents. At a certain level of resolution they are two humans copulating -- at a different and totally legitimate level of resolution they are physical processes. Ultimately the act of reproduction that you simplify as cause and effect is NOT a single act with a cause and effect, it's a near infinitude of potentiating conditions.

And again, as I implied in my previous post, you cannot solve a problem in the physical world through logic alone. It's irrational to attempt to do so, and it's impossible -- because the second someone finds some observable phenomenon that refutes your logic, then your entire logical superstructure crumbles as irrelevant to the actual world. So with all due respect to your efforts and thoughts, you don't get the latitude to claim a proof that a creator is necessary unless you've got a complete and comprehensive understanding of physics -- whether or not you've bounced an idea off of a physicist. Otherwise your argument is devoid of any relationship to the physical world, and is thus a proof only of its internal rhetorical coherence.

You say, for example, "that we live and perceive must have been sequentially created". You use the word "created", which implies external agency, which means that you're already using your thesis and conclusion as evidence, which is circular, and it denies the intrinsic physical phenomena that allow things to change without an external agent. You state the necessity of sequence, as if things are simply added rather than changing over time. You use the words "live" and "perceive" as if they are unambiguous phenomena, whereas in a sense even a virus and certainly all prokaryotes and eukaryotes are living and perceiving. How do we perceive an odor? Because a chemical interacts with receptors in our nose. How do we perceive a sound? How do we perceive our position in space? All can be broken down into simpler and simpler phenomena, not some grandiose idea of "perceive". After all, the HIV virus can recognize the CD4 molecule on T cells, and the influenza virus can recognize sialic acid on airway cells, etc -- is this not perception? And if so is perception not just a physical phenomenon?

In the end your argument is only cosmetically different than Aristotle's 2300 year old arguments about cause and effect with ultimate regression to an unmoved mover. Fine, it makes logical sense when you take certain terms for granted. But logic is only logic. Aristotle's unmoved mover is now understood in terms of forces and mass/energy in space-time, and they're understood as intrinsic. Do you have some sort of evidence other than logic that there is an external agent?

Plato presents (as a parodied syllogism) a logical proof that your dog is your father, and the proof is completely 100% logically unassailable. So why should anyone believe that a logical proof actually means something outside the boundaries of your argument?

[Donald Schneider]

Dear Paul,

A “proof” is a formalistic philosophical term that I agree would seem to rather overstate the case. As you referred to in your first response, there have been many such efforts down through the ages. What you are basically asserting is not something that I, or anyone with a basic understanding of philosophy, would dispute. That is, an argument can be logically valid but not true in fact. Anyone who has studied syllogisms in Philosophy 101 understands this. Thus, we have no point of contention here.

Still, such “proofs” have their usage in that they establish the logical framework within which an asserted proposition can tenably exist; in my case, a creator. It is thus up to opponents of my assertion to establish a logical framework for their competing contention that the reality that we exist within and observe has or had no creator by successfully refuting my proof on a logical basis. If one is an orphan with no idea who his or her actual parents are or were, he or she is still quite justified in deducing they exist, or once did, by invoking the logic of the reality within he or she exists and observes.

Events have causes which implies a sequential creation in time. That is, the cause once existed while the effect did not. Since causes and effects obviously exist, and since the past, present and future exist simultaneously—as implied by the STR—then the sequential creation causality mandates cannot have occurred within the dimension of realty that we exist within. Therefore, our reality must have been created in a higher dimensional reality outside of ours. Being created implies a creator, at least of some kind.

Your pointing out that from any cause one can extrapolate a virtually infinite regression of antecedent causes is also not contested by myself or anyone. So I don’t understand your point. Yes, there are myriad causes and effects that result in the given reality that constitutes any singular, four-dimensional point within spacetime.

According to Einstein’s STR, if a person travels at an extremely fast rate, say ninety percent of the speed of light, his or her “internal clock” will significantly slow down relative to that of a person traveling at a normal speed on Earth. When the (presumably space) traveler returns, he or she will have aged only a fraction of what the latter has. Assuming STR is correct—as every credible physicist believes since every experiment thus far performed has vindicated it—, such a phenomenon is not considered true time travel by physicists, though in a sense the traveler has traveled to a future he or she would not have otherwise reached at his or her present biological age. True time travel would be the instantaneous variety (in either direction) that you incorrectly deny that many very credible physicists accept as theoretically possible via “wormholes” or elaborate theoretical schemes involving “black holes”; which, again, mandates that the past and future actually exist simultaneously with the present.

One such example would be Dr. David Deutsch of Oxford University. He is at present the foremost adherent of the validity of the MWI of QM within the physics community. I’d suggest you read his The Fabric of Reality in which he has two chapters devoted to time, one on time travel.

Dr. Deutsch is not the physicist I refer to within my proof whom I contacted by email to verify or clarify my understanding of the block universe. However, I did contact him by email as well to inquire about what I felt were certain self-contradictions within his book. I must confess that I found his response to be somewhat less than satisfying, though eminently polite and cordial.

Don

[Aedes]

Hi Don,

Originally Posted by Donald Schneider

Still, such “proofs” have their usage in that they establish the logical framework within which an asserted proposition can tenably exist; in my case, a creator. It is thus up to opponents of my assertion to establish a logical framework for their competing contention that the reality that we exist within and observe has or had no creator by successfully refuting my proof on a logical basis.

How come? You've made a positive existential assertion of a creator. Well, that's not entirely true, you've expressed the necessity of a creator, which I take to also mean, implicitly, that there DID exist one at the origin of all things (though you do not assert that that creative entity still exists in the present). Since a positive existential assertion can be verified through observation, why should the honus of responsibility be on the rest of the world to offer a logical refutation? Why shouldn't the honus be on you to show that there is physical validation and not merely logical coherence?

Your pointing out that from any cause one can extrapolate a virtually infinite regression of antecedent causes is also not contested by myself or anyone. So I don’t understand your point. Yes, there are myriad causes and effects that result in the given reality that constitutes any singular, four-dimensional point within spacetime.

If you accept this infinite regress, then your concepts of "cause" and "effect" boil down to nothing more than the physical phenomenon of energy transfer over space/time. And this phenomenon inheres and consists in and between things, it is not applied externally. This is something that Newton himself understood quite well through his mathematical description of gravity.

But I'm happy to leave behind the terminology. The argument, again, regresses to your conception of what Aristotle called the unmoved mover. And thus your argument necessitates an external process of some kind that can seemingly exist eternally on its own without being "caused" unto itself. And if the fundamental forces and processes in nature all consist in the material universe, from the mass of a planet down to the attractive forces between gluons and quarks, then your argument requires that it was not always this way -- that at some point, in the beginning (bereshith, if you like), that force was given to these phenomena. Aside from a logical construct, on what basis should we believe this? Why MUST an external creator have done this as opposed to the neutral phenomenon of these forces existing naturally in the the instantaneous aftermath of the Big Bang, when an infinitely massive singularity was fragmented? And isn't it possible that the Big Bang was only the beginning of our universe's current iteration, but there existed time and space before the Big Bang that is beyond our ability to observe?

[Donald Schneider]

Dear Paul,

I maintain that I logically prove that our reality could not have always just existed by arguing from currently accepted scientific theories. One needs to refute my proof in order to constitute a basis for making it logically tenable to position our universe not having had a creator of some kind, in order to maintain such an argument as tenable.

When I say "need," I am not trying to appear arrogant. The word applies to those individuals who sufficiently care about such matters, and who have read my proof and feel as though it has sufficient merit to at least consider, discuss and contemplate. You are apparently one of those people, for which I thank you and am appreciative.

You have attempted to refute my proof, which I am not prepared to concede you have yet done. Anyone reading here who is also sufficiently interested in such matters may read our discourse and come to his or her own conclusions.

In regard to your second point, I concede at the tail end of my proof that I cannot escape an infinite regress of creators except by speculating that in the original creator's dimension of realty, the logic is so dissimilar to that of our own reality that his, her or its existence is logically and scientifically explainable without the need of a creator.

However lame this might sound, it has no bearing on the point of my proof. That is, that our reality must have had a creator, existent or once so.

Don

[NeitherExtreme]

Hi all. Donald, I'm wondering a bit about how you see your argument applying to humanity... Would you see humans (and animal life for that matter) as static, or do they have a dynamic nature as well?

[Donald Schneider]

Dear Neither,

That’s an interesting point.

In the email exchange with the physicist I refer to within my essay, I noted that I didn’t see how there could be even an illusion of motion without something actually moving. After all, the series of still frames within a movie film moves through a projector to render the illusion of motion upon the screen. He agreed with the point, but sort of just stuck to his guns, basically saying there must be some explanation.

I think Parmenides and his ace disciple Zeno were exactly right in their intuitive positioning of reality being static, with motion being a mere illusion. None of the alleged "resolutions” of Zeno’s paradoxes that I have read seem conclusive to me.

I believe there is a way of reconciling the problem which would explain much, if true.

Here is a well-known Zen story:

Two monks were watching a flag waving in the wind. They disputed which was actually moving. One maintained it was the flag, while the other said it was the wind. Their master happened upon the debate and resolved the issue with: “Neither. Mind moves.”

Is consciousness an epiphenomenon of matter, as Western thought holds, or visa versa as Eastern metaphysical thought maintains? I think if the latter should be true, it would explain a great many things, including the concept of cause and effect.

--Don

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Donald Schneider

You have attempted to refute my proof, which I am not prepared to concede you have yet done. Anyone reading here who is also sufficiently interested in such matters may read our discourse and come to his or her own conclusions.

I have not actually attempted to refute your proof, because I am not interested in teasing apart your logic. That's not the issue. The problem is that your proof is devoid of any empirical verifiability, and it's at odds with some of the most basic tenets of physics; and therefore it is like a good novel -- realistic without being real. Since there exists nowhere in physics evidence of forces coming from outside the material constituents of the universe, you're without any empirical basis to necessitate that there ever was such a phenomenon. And without an empirical basis, I am happy to place your proof alongside those of Leibniz and Descartes and Duns Scotus, etc, but I'm not prepared to place it alongside the work of Einstein and Weinberg and Preskill and the modern physics establishment.