Originally posted by FetchmyjunkLogic isn't derived "from nothing," it is derived from human language and reasoning.
[b]What if there was just logic as a brute fact and no God? Why would that not be possible?
If there were no God, what would there be at the start? Nothing? How is logic derived from nothing?[/b]
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There are two options:
Either something has always existed.
OR
Something came into existence from nothing.
If you claim that a god is the thing that has always existed then I will say that absent any evidence the universe is simpler*
and thus much more probable as the thing that has always existed.
If you claim that a god is the thing that came into existence from nothing then I will say absent any evidence the universe
is simpler* and thus much more probable as the thing that came into existence from nothing.
In either case, it's much more likely that the origins of the universe are natural and not the supernatural interventions of
a god. As the god is always vastly less likely a-priori.
The thing to grasp is "relative probability"... Because what matters is not how improbable an explanation is, but what it's
relative probability is compared to all the possible alternatives.
An explanation can be astronomically unlikely, but if all the alternatives are vastly less likely than that then that explanation is
still the most likely to be true.
So what you have to demonstrate is not that "the universe always existing" or "the universe coming from nothing" is
improbable... But that it is less probable than your alternative.
Unfortunately for you your** god concept is pretty much infinitely complex and thus infinitely improbable... Which means
it's always going to be just about the least probable 'explanation' a-priori as compared to any alternative.
*Indeed for many depictions of a universe creating god it's infinitely simpler
**Fetchmyjunk's
Originally posted by googlefudgeIf you claim that a god is the thing that came into existence from nothing then I will say absent any evidence the universe
There are two options:
Either something has always existed.
OR
Something came into existence from nothing.
If you claim that a god is the thing that has always existed then I will say that absent any evidence the universe is simpler*
and thus much more probable as the thing that has always existed.
If you claim that a god is the thing that c ...[text shortened]... ed for many depictions of a universe creating god it's infinitely simpler
**Fetchmyjunk's[/i]
is simpler* and thus much more probable as the thing that came into existence from nothing.
So you are happy to believe the universe came into being without a cause and from nothing based upon no evidence whatsoever?
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkI, for one, do not believe that. I am happy to accept that there is no evidence whatsoever so I withhold judgement and belief on the matter. I am willing to admit I don't know. I must also point out that nobody else knows either.
So you are happy to believe the universe came into being without a cause and from nothing based upon no evidence whatsoever?
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Originally posted by FetchmyjunkI am prepared to believe that it's possible such a thing may have occurred given the
[b]If you claim that a god is the thing that came into existence from nothing then I will say absent any evidence the universe
is simpler* and thus much more probable as the thing that came into existence from nothing.
So you are happy to believe the universe came into being without a cause and from nothing based upon no evidence whatsoever?[/b]
evidence that we do have.
However I don't know if the universe has a beginning or is eternal, and so don't have a
belief either way.
As twhitehead said, I don't know is the correct answer when you don't know, and nobody
else does either.
“No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, On the Gods and Other Essays
“People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don't have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it's divine. And so it is with everything in the universe”
― Hippocrates
“If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.”
― Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach, System of Nature
“After all, is our idea of God anything more than personified incomprehensibility?
{Said in a letter to Voltaire}” ― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“To base the unexplainabilty and the immense wonder of nature onto an other miracle (God) is unnecessary and not acceptable for any serious thinker.
[Diary entry, 1971]” ― Fritz Zwicky
Originally posted by wolfgang59Actually it is -- logic, like mathematics, is entirely man-made.
Discovered from human language and reasoning.
The existence of logic is not dependent on homo sapiens.
Of course, that doesn't mean that a hypothetical other species might not also have developed similar tools or will at some point in the future, but neither logic nor mathematics are empirical fact.