DanielCC wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

DanielCC wrote:

One use these an alleged contradiction in these three principles to attack causal versions of the Cosmological Argument, but few defenders of that argument, and maybe even realists about causation as a whole would accept them. Point 2, although one WLC would be willing to endorse for the sake of the argument, would be opposed by those who hold an Agent/Substance as opposed to Event view of causation. Point 3 would be denied by virtually all defenders of the Cosmological Argument as well as others (Kant and perhaps Armstrong come to mind).

In both cases these stances are not motivated by independent metaphysical reasons and not a priori commitments to theism. In order to make the above objection stick the critic is going to have to turn his fire on these positions and their metaphysical backdrop itself.

I don't think so. You're missing my point -- I agree that defenders of cosmological arguments will tend to reject principles 1 2 and 3 as long as they realize the inconsistency. My point, however, is that these principles have the same status as the principle of causality that cosmological arguments use. They're all equally plausible and arguably constitutive of the concept of causation. And that undermines the justification for the principle of causality in cosmological arguments.
 

But neither the CA defender nor many realist causation theorists will accept they're at all plausible; in fact they will claim we have strong reasons to think them all false.
 
If you don’t mind me saying you seem to be working under the assumption that defenders of the CA will operate along the lines of WLC’s modus operandi in debates, that is to set forth a number of points as plausible e.g. acceptable to people with a wide range of differing metaphysical commitment, to which you will response that those points given above are just as plausible (at which point in a debate scenario the onus would shift to him to justify why his points are stronger).
 
That isn’t what most theistic metaphysicians, certainly not those from the older traditions, will do though. They will enter the dispute* with (according to them) strong independent reasons why their theory of causation is correct. If one wants to undermine the CA one has to challenge their arguments for the other aspects of their metaphysics e.g. their theory of causation, on which it depends.
 
*I’m using dispute as a neutral way of framing ‘debate’ in order to avoid confusion with debate as in timed debate scenarios of the kind WLC specialises in

Good -- thanks for the contrast between the Craig approach and the theistic metaphysician approach. I can see why you'd think I was presupposing the former. I'm arguing against any theory of causation that takes the concept of causation to be governed by a consistent set of rules. That means any of the theistic metaphysicians' theories of causation are my targets. From my perspective, any theory of causation you're talking about is going to pick a more or less consistent subset of the constitutive principles for the concept of causation and focus on them. So, even though the principles I listed above might be rejected as false by some, you'd need to argue that they aren't meaning-constitutive in order to avoid the point I'm making here.

However, there is a much more important point, which is that anyone who uses the principle of causality in a cosmological argument needs to justify using it there. Why think that this principle of causation can be applied in this arena?
 

Jason wrote:

Just to answer all of these together, my point is not that the theories will contain cause and effect but that the theories pre-suppose cause and effect in them. There is no need to include everything you pre-suppose in the first place to build a theory. 

As an example I will like to take something that you mentioned to Tomislav as follows.

"KevinScharp" wrote:

First, Kinsler is not saying that causality is ubiquitous in physics -- in fact, he gives examples of physical theories that have no causal interpretation at all (F=ma is his example).

My physics is a little rusty (feel free to correct me if I am wrong) but F=ma shows the relationship with force(s), mass and acceleration but we could not even come to this conclusion if we did not pre-suppose cause and effect in it i.e. The force(s) are causing the mass to accelerate, which means that the relationship between force(s), mass and acceleration can only be empirically verified when there are force or forces (cause or causes) acting upon a mass whose effect is acceleration. So yes if you look at the formula as a stand alone there is no cause or effect but you need to look at what is being pre-supposed into it to see causality.

I don't accept that all science presupposes cause and effect -- that's one reason we can find putative counterexamples to cause and effect (e.g., virtual particles in quantum field theory) in some sciences (the Norton paper contains another). How are you going to argue this?

The standard interpretation is that 'F=ma' is a definition of force, not a causal relationship. Force just IS the product of mass and acceleration (look at the units). It's not that force causes mass to accelerate any more than acceleration causes mass to have force. Neither of these is right. Moreover, in the Kinsler paper, he assumes that unless a differential equation has some quantity that has a time differential in the denominator, it does not have a cause/effect interpretation at all.
 

KevinScharp wrote:

(e.g., virtual particles in quantum field theory)

The Schrodinger equation is completely deterministic. The initial conditions completely determine the evolving state of the quantum potential. If "nothing" causes the virtual particles to come into being, then the evolution of the SE can't be determined by initial conditions, meaning that the SE is not deterministic. However, this contradicts what we are given. Therefore, you must be interpreting pair-antipair creation in a bogus manner.

KevinScharp wrote:

The standard interpretation is that 'F=ma' is a definition of force, not a causal relationship. Force just IS the product of mass and acceleration (look at the units). It's not that force causes mass to accelerate any more than acceleration causes mass to have force. Neither of these is right. Moreover, in the Kinsler paper, he assumes that unless a differential equation has some quantity that has a time differential in the denominator, it does not have a cause/effect interpretation at all.

First of all, F = ma is only true in classical, Newtonian physics. in special relativity, F != ma, but rather, F = dp/dt. In Newtonian mechanics, these are equivalent, but in special relativity, they are not. This doesn't take away from your point, but I feel that it's nonetheless important to point out.

But why stop at F = ma? None of the laws of physics make reference to concrete physical objects. In fact, all of the laws of physics can be formulated in terms of abstract mathematical objects. So we can conclude that the existence of physical objects is just an illusion created by our intuitions and that we live in a Pythagorean style universe where only abstract mathematical objects exist.

See how stupid that sounds?

Tomislav Ostojich wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

So...you're agreeing with me?

Not at all. I'm pointing out what you're trying to do. You're trying to dismiss the other side by saying that they're relying on intuition but intuition cannot be trusted... while simultaneously relying on intuition. And I know for a fact that you're relying on intuition because if you weren't then you would present your arguments as a computer-verifiable mathematical proof (you don't and can't), therefore you must be relying on intuition. 

No that's not my point. I'm not objecting to anyone relying on intuition per se. I'm objecting to unreflective reliance on intuitions about causation. My reason is specifically that these intuitions are unreliable because the rules governing the concept of causation are inconsistent with each other.

I have no idea why you think computer-verifiable mathematical proof has anything to do with not relying on intuition. But we don't need to go down this road since your comment is based on a misunderstanding of my objection.

Tomislav Ostojich wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

The person who uses the principle of causality in a cosmological argument owes us a justification for thinking that it is applicable and even that it doesn't have any counterexamples elsewhere in similar circumstances.

Aristotle defined causality as the explanation of how something comes into being. Nobody doubts that the cosmos is both an object in its own right (because it has structure) and at some point came into being. You, on the other hand, seem to be arguing that it's sometimes okay to seek an explanation of why something came into being (bicycles, lifeforms, and stars)  and sometimes it's not okay to seek an explanation of why something came into being (the cosmos, and this seems to be the only object on your list). 

It is hard to know whether you're just being a bit sloppy when you say things like this or whether you just don't know the topic well. Yes, people doubt that the universe came into being -- it might be eternal, it might be finite without a beginning (think Hartle-Hawking), or it might even be necessary. Each of these views has had and continues to have advocates.

Moreover, you're mixing up causal principles (used in the Kalam) with principles of explanation (used in the Leibniz contingency argument). You need to be more careful about what you're defending.

Tomislav Ostojich wrote:

But it is you who has it completely backwards. The onus isn't on us to explain why causality is applicable. The onus is on you to justify your completely arbitrary and irrational partitioning of the universe of discourse into two sets (called "everything not the cosmos" on the left and "the cosmos" on the right) and saying that it's only okay to ask how objects belonging to the set on the left came into being.

I'm not partitioning the domain in the way you suggest -- I don't think we can just apply causal principles to anything in the universe. You're the one defending the use of causal principles in cosmological arguments. The person making the claim is the one who has the obligation to defend it. Moreover, I've already explained by we shouldn't unreflectively rely on causal principles in cosmology. So I have explained why it's problematic.
 

Jason wrote:

“KevinScharp” wrote:

I don't accept that all science presupposes cause and effect -- that's one reason we can find putative counterexamples to cause and effect (e.g., virtual particles in quantum field theory) in some sciences (the Norton paper contains another). How are you going to argue this?

Firstly, my point was not all science presupposes cause and effect. My point is that the theories we are building presuppose cause and effect.

Okay good -- can you be more specific about the theories we are building? I don't get that.

Jason wrote:

Secondly, for virtual particles at least we do have explanations. When physicist’s use the word nothing they do not mean philosophical nothing (a lot of ink has been spilt on this see http://edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/search?q=nothing). This means the virtual particles coming into and out of existence in a quantum vacuum does not mean that they are coming out of nothing. Quantum vacuum not only includes other virtual particles as a field but also space time exists in it (this is not nothing). In case you are wondering you can read this http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/a-universe-from-nothing/ from a postdoctoral quantum gravity researcher in Princeton. I do not know anything about the Norton paper so I cannot comment.

You're exactly right about this, and it's part of a larger rift between philosophy and physics. However, I'm not saying they come out of nothing. I'm saying they don't obey the law of causality (i.e., they have no obvious cause). I'm not saying that they are caused by nothing.

Jason wrote:

“KevinScharp” wrote:

The standard interpretation is that 'F=ma' is a definition of force, not a causal relationship.

I agree, and that is my point all along when I said that it pre-supposes causality without having been built into it.

“KevinScharp” wrote:

Force just IS the product of mass and acceleration (look at the units). It's not that force causes mass to accelerate any more than acceleration causes mass to have force. Neither of these is right.

My point was that there is a relationship between Force, mass and acceleration. In order to empirically verify this, we will need to cause a force whose effect would be acceleration on a mass. Lets say, if we are able to accurately measure net forces on a moving car then the acceleration in the car and the mass would be equal to the Force. One of the force in the net force would have to be the engine of the car which would be the cause of the car accelerating.

Okay, good. But why think we are forced to put a causal spin on everything. I agree, you often CAN interpret things like your example in terms of cause and effect. But why think it is mandatory?

Jason wrote:

“KevinScharp” wrote:

Moreover, in the Kinsler paper, he assumes that unless a differential equation has some quantity that has a time differential in the denominator, it does not have a cause/effect interpretation at all.

Causality is not dependent on time; cause and effect could be instantaneous but that does not mean the cause does not exist.

He's assuming that the cause and effect can be at the same time, but he is also presupposing that causality requires some change with respect to time (even if that change is infinitesimal -- hence his reliance on time differentials).