Originally posted by Lifegazer
Yes; and now you have brought that to my attention, I find your reasoning to be corrupt (not in an immoral sense). I would also advise people to read that thread. They'll discover a few facts:-
1. You advocate that infinite-time is illogical. In fact, your first sentence here is an acknowledgment of this fact.
2. You have no reasonable disproof of a finite causality-chain. The reader should be aware that you (and Tom) just refuse to accept such a conclusion because you both realize that the conclusion infers the existence of 'God'.
3. Your decision to accept '1' is forced upon you by your absolute reluctance to accept the existence of 'God.
4. Your decision to accept '1' is a decision to accept an illogical premise.
5. Your refusal to accept a finite causality-chain is therefore a decision founded upon bias or incredulity. It is not a decision which reflects a reasoned analysis of the concepts involved.
What is corrupt in my reasoning?
The reasoning is as follows. Both the finiteness (beginning) of time and the infiniteness of time are provable to be absurd, and refusing one, means to accept the other. Ultimately, however, the issue is contradictionary, and remeans so. Cause any attempt to remove the contradiction, creates even more absurd or profound contradictions.
Do you accept that?
Dialectical-materialism incorporates that in their central premises, and so the use of dialectical reasoning (dialectical reasoning is about contradictions) is a part of the very reasoning itself.
We can not escape from that situation.
The arbitrary introduction of a Deity does in total not remove the inherent contradiction, but creates an absurdity in it's own terms.
Because of that, such an artificial addition to reality, is refused.
Some coments:
1. I did not state that infinite time is illogical. I would state quite the opposite that it follows normal reasoning. The only thing that can be said about the infiniteness of time, is that the concept of inifinity isself is a contradictionary term in it's own. The attempt to remove this contradiction, is to remove infinity, which leaves us with the equal, or even more absurd proposition of having time 'started'. What was before that time? A mere nothingness? An unchanging-existence? Where did the first change come from?
2. The disproof of finite-causality, or better stated the proof that such can not be the case, is because it would require time, matter, motion and space to have begun at some 'time' (a time in which in fact, there was no time!). This is inacceptable. There is no physical evidence that such a thing can happen. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that matter can only exist in eternal, neverlasting motion, as this is seen to be the case.
3. The infinitness of time can be well understood and is based on theorems, which we base on material knowledge. Matter does not appear out of nothing. Matter only is in a constant and endless proces of transforming, changing, moving. This can not be said to have begun or end, and therefore the material world, the universe, is unfolding endlessly without begin or end.
4. We have no reason to assume that things in the past or the future work differently as they do now. If one assumes the past or the future the physical laws were different, it is up to that person assuming that to give us proof of that.
5. In part you already accepted the idea that there must be always something, and that at no point in time there can be 'nothing'. This is a reasonable proposition to conclude that therefore an existing material universe, in whatever material form or shape, must have been existing at all time, that is in all of eternity, endlesly.
6. Even when we are stubborn, and refuse the more obvious conclusions, which I have drawn here, and postulate the existence of some 'unknown/unknowable' Deity, what would it help? Is a Deity necessary to 'create' a universe? To create the universe in this manner of speaking would imply that before (before the universe existed, before time [whatever that can mean]) it (the unvierse)did not exist.
What existed before, or what was the state of the world before that? The mere nothing, or "notingness"? That can't be the case for logical reasons, and secondly, then also this Deity which was called for help, did not exist. So, that in fact means that a pre-existing Deity transforms into the world, and becomes the world. In fact it denotes a continuous transformation, not an act of 'creation' (as in 'creation ex nihilo'). But this ain't very helpfull, because instead of explaining the world, and where it comes from, it necessitates us to explain where this Deity came from. Same problems here as for the world itself.
7. So, this attempt doesn't work neither, for obvious reasons. What else might work then? Well, if neither the obvious (an endless, eternal and infinite existence) nor a pre-existing Deity might help, the only other option is that of a beginning of time, which started out of an absolute nothing. Before time, there was nothing. This implies us to believe that motion arises out of no motion, matter out of nothing, and time and space popup all by themselves. It implies us to accept that the "nothingness" is a real existing state of the world, which happens to have existed before the world started to exist. And that "out of nothing" (although it is a state which can not imply any form of change), all of a sudden everything pops out.
Excuse me, Mr Lifegazer, but such a thing I simply refuse to believe.
