Unmoved Mover

Let's start a discussion here. The unmoved mover. An argument advanced by Aristotle. Every event has a cause, agreed? Furthermore, every cause itself has a cause of its own. To avoid an infinite regression, there must be a very first cause that itself has no cause. An eternal cause, if you will. That eternal cause must be the cause of the universe, i.e a god.
You may argue that this is special pleading, and ask why the universe cannot be eternal itself. However, we know for a fact that the universe must have had a beginning, thanks to the second law of thermodynamics. Since the universe is a closed system, given enough time, it will suffer a thermodynamic equilibrium, i.e a heat death. If the universe never had a beginning, that would imply that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time. In that case, we should have already suffered a heat death. Thus, the universe must have had a start, and cannot be eternal. BTW, special pleading is a fallacious argument. so it doesn't matter anyway.
You may also apply special pleading to the eternal cause itself, and ask why it cannot have a cause of its own. First of all, you are using a fallacious argument, so it doesn't matter. Secondly, if the first cause has a cause of its own, you are simply continuing the the infinite regression, which is illogical. And thirdly, the first cause is the first cause. Nothing came before it. If the first cause has a cause of its own, it is not the first cause, now is it?
Thanks for reading my essay, and I would like to see what your ideas about this argument is. I know that it is useless to say this on a website such as atWar, but please be civil in the comments.

Who says there must be a first cause? Maybe there's just cause over cause over cause into eternity.

Napsáno Sanguinare, 25.05.2017 at 10:47

... Every event has a cause, agreed? ...

Disagree. The best minds have come up with the creation of the universe from nothing. 1 second before the Big Bang , there was nothing - no cause, to effect the creation of the universe.

If the creation of the universe itself is mystical (i.e. violates causality) then nothing within that universe can be presumed to be causal.

One of the more elegant ways to resolve the rest of your 'logic' problem, is to consider the creation of the universe as a computer simulation.

This solves the cause and effect issue... just like when you play any simulation on a computer, the world spontaneously appears from nothing. From the point of view of a character in the game, it has no apparent cause, because the character inside the computer has no way of observing the user turning the computer on and hitting the 'run' command.

There are now several experiments that confirm this, and every effort to provide evidence against this has been unsuccessful.

Napsáno Zephyrusu, 25.05.2017 at 12:43

Who says there must be a first cause? Maybe there's just cause over cause over cause into eternity.

That is illogical. Let us say that there is no first cause, and that there's just cause over cause into eternity. That means that there has been an infinite history that has happened before us discussing here, true? You can compare this to being in an infinite line of soldiers. You are supposed to shoot an apple. However, before you can fire your shot, you must ask the person behind you if you can shoot, and he in turn must ask the person behind him. Will you ever be able to fire your shot? No, you cannot. This highlights the madness of an infinite regress. Before we could happen, Zeph, an infinity must have already happened, which is illogical.

Napsáno Sanguinare, 25.05.2017 at 16:05

That is illogical. Let us say that there is no first cause, and that there's just cause over cause into eternity. That means that there has been an infinite history that has happened before us discussing here, true? You can compare this to being in an infinite line of soldiers. You are supposed to shoot an apple. However, before you can fire your shot, you must ask the person behind you if you can shoot, and he in turn must ask the person behind him. Will you ever be able to fire your shot? No, you cannot. This highlights the madness of an infinite regress. Before we could happen, Zeph, an infinity must have already happened, which is illogical.

Bad comparison. It'd be more like this: The soldier needs to ask the soldier next to him for permission to shoot, who in turn needs to ask permission from the soldier next to him. There is an infinite line of soldiers, so the soldiers keep firing and firing forever, yet there was no first soldier who asked.

Napsáno brianwl, 25.05.2017 at 14:12

One of the more elegant ways to resolve the rest of your 'logic' problem, is to consider the creation of the universe as a computer simulation.

This solves the cause and effect issue... just like when you play any simulation on a computer, the world spontaneously appears from nothing. From the point of view of a character in the game, it has no apparent cause, because the character inside the computer has no way of observing the user turning the computer on and hitting the 'run' command.

I don't get it, brianwl. If a user hits "run" on a computer simulation, and the universe is spontaneously created, doesn't that make the user the cause of the universe? He was the one who caused the existence of the universe, by hitting "run" on this simulation. It doesn't matter if the universe was spontaneously formed, the cause of it was still this user hitting "run". Furthermore, the universe cannot have come from nothing, because from nothing, nothing comes.

Napsáno Zephyrusu, 25.05.2017 at 16:24

Napsáno Sanguinare, 25.05.2017 at 16:05

That is illogical. Let us say that there is no first cause, and that there's just cause over cause into eternity. That means that there has been an infinite history that has happened before us discussing here, true? You can compare this to being in an infinite line of soldiers. You are supposed to shoot an apple. However, before you can fire your shot, you must ask the person behind you if you can shoot, and he in turn must ask the person behind him. Will you ever be able to fire your shot? No, you cannot. This highlights the madness of an infinite regress. Before we could happen, Zeph, an infinity must have already happened, which is illogical.

Bad comparison. It'd be more like this: The soldier needs to ask the soldier next to him for permission to shoot, who in turn needs to ask permission from the soldier next to him. There is an infinite line of soldiers, so the soldiers keep firing and firing forever, yet there was no first soldier who asked.

Perhaps it was a bad comparison. Consider this instead. A book with infinite pages. The book represents history. The present is the most recent page in the book. and as new events happen, more pages are added to the book. If history is infinite, and the book has infinite pages, can we ever reach the present? For us to reach the present, an infinite history must have already happened. This means that we can never reach the present, and the fact that we currently exist, means that there must have been a start.

Napsáno Sanguinare, 25.05.2017 at 16:54

Perhaps it was a bad comparison. Consider this instead. A book with infinite pages. The book represents history. The present is the most recent page in the book. and as new events happen, more pages are added to the book. If history is infinite, and the book has infinite pages, can we ever reach the present? For us to reach the present, an infinite history must have already happened. This means that we can never reach the present, and the fact that we currently exist, means that there must have been a start.

But we already are in the present. What we can't reach is the bottom, we can't discover where the book starts because it doesn't start anywhere.

Napsáno Sanguinare, 25.05.2017 at 10:47

Let's start a discussion here. The unmoved mover. An argument advanced by Aristotle. Every event has a cause, agreed? Furthermore, every cause itself has a cause of its own. To avoid an infinite regression, there must be a very first cause that itself has no cause. An eternal cause, if you will. That eternal cause must be the cause of the universe, i.e a god.
You may argue that this is special pleading, and ask why the universe cannot be eternal itself. However, we know for a fact that the universe must have had a beginning, thanks to the second law of thermodynamics. Since the universe is a closed system, given enough time, it will suffer a thermodynamic equilibrium, i.e a heat death. If the universe never had a beginning, that would imply that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time. In that case, we should have already suffered a heat death. Thus, the universe must have had a start, and cannot be eternal. BTW, special pleading is a fallacious argument. so it doesn't matter anyway.
You may also apply special pleading to the eternal cause itself, and ask why it cannot have a cause of its own. First of all, you are using a fallacious argument, so it doesn't matter. Secondly, if the first cause has a cause of its own, you are simply continuing the the infinite regression, which is illogical. And thirdly, the first cause is the first cause. Nothing came before it. If the first cause has a cause of its own, it is not the first cause, now is it?
Thanks for reading my essay, and I would like to see what your ideas about this argument is. I know that it is useless to say this on a website such as atWar, but please be civil in the comments.

the universe might not be a closed system...
i personally believe in the big crunch

Napsáno Guest, 25.05.2017 at 22:09

To be honest i didnt even read it, i saw sp police under your name so im assume its troll

true...

Napsáno Sanguinare, 25.05.2017 at 16:42

Napsáno brianwl, 25.05.2017 at 14:12

One of the more elegant ways to resolve the rest of your 'logic' problem, is to consider the creation of the universe as a computer simulation.

This solves the cause and effect issue... just like when you play any simulation on a computer, the world spontaneously appears from nothing. From the point of view of a character in the game, it has no apparent cause, because the character inside the computer has no way of observing the user turning the computer on and hitting the 'run' command.

I don't get it, brianwl. If a user hits "run" on a computer simulation, and the universe is spontaneously created, doesn't that make the user the cause of the universe? He was the one who caused the existence of the universe, by hitting "run" on this simulation. It doesn't matter if the universe was spontaneously formed, the cause of it was still this user hitting "run". Furthermore, the universe cannot have come from nothing, because from nothing, nothing comes.

You're almost getting it. In this metaphor, it is not the user, but the programmer hitting run. Our 'login' is then the creation of our character (let's say at birth, but maybe we log in while in the womb, or maybe we log in a few months after our birth.)

So from the perspective of our character, we can't directly experience or observe the universe creation. Only the programmer can do this. So then only the programmer clearly sees, without inference or assumption (but from personal experience) the cause and effect.

You and i and everyone else running around the 'world' as characters can then only speculate on the causality, but if we are careful with our observations, we can come to reasonable inferences and assumptions. This is the problem with the Big Bang - it requires a 'universe from nothing' attribute, which violates causality, and is internally inconsistent.