A Counter-Kalam Cosmological Argument

[LogicalFallacy]

 

It sounds solid, but does it stack up for the science buffs?

 

Here is the Counter Argument:

 

1 Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence

2 Every thought or action requires a change in matter over time and space before it can begin to exist

3 Therefore, the cause of every thought or action must be material, temporal, spacial, changeable, caused, originated, and non-eternal. 

4) Since the God of the Kalam Cosmological Argument is defined as immaterial, timeless, space-less, changeless, un-caused, beginning-less, and eternal, he must be incapable of thought or action, which by definition means he cannot be intelligent or powerful.

5 Therefore, God could not have created the universe.

 

 

[♦ ficino ♦]

I think the Christian reposte would be to attack the anti-Kalam's premise 2, that every thought or action has a preceding material cause. Substance dualists will say that mind is not material so premise 2 is either false or question begging or both.

[midniterider]

Removed.

[LogicalFallacy]

8 hours ago, ficino said:

I think the Christian reposte would be to attack the anti-Kalam's premise 2, that every thought or action has a preceding material cause. Substance dualists will say that mind is not material so premise 2 is either false or question begging or both.

 

There is no evidence for a mind without a material body though is there? When we talk about mind we are talking about the functions our physical brain serves. Thinking capacity has never been demonstrated outside of material existence to know knowledge. Therefore substance dualists asserting that the mind is not material have a tough burden of proof?

 

People point to out of body experiences or near death experience as evidence for dualism, but these experiences never occur absent a physical brain. A non material mind has never come and told anyone about its NDE has it.

 

So if the Christian did launch an argument against the A-KCA P2 using dualism the argument still is without material existence the mind doesn't exist.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

I don't know anything about dualism or any of the other fancy words y'all are bandying about; but I do know that End3 will say that we do not know the exact mechanism that produces "mind" and therefore cannot reliably claim that it is material.  

[LogicalFallacy]

5 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

I don't know anything about dualism or any of the other fancy words y'all are bandying about; but I do know that End3 will say that we do not know the exact mechanism that produces "mind" and therefore cannot reliably claim that it is material.  

 

But we can say that we know that the mind is a property of the brain which is material, and no examples of minds without materiality has ever been observed. How exactly this works is still being researched, but End3's immaterial mind (God) has no evidence to support it.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

18 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

But we can say that we know that the mind is a property of the brain which is material, and no examples of minds without materiality has ever been observed. How exactly this works is still being researched, but End3's immaterial mind (God) has no evidence to support it.

End3 would blow that off by saying that just because it hasn't been observed by science doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  In fact, it is the very fact that it has not been observed by science that keeps us from being able to conclude with confidence that the mind is material.

[sdelsolray]

I prefer property dualism, with large side salads of emergence and monism.  It explains the evidence.

[midniterider]

Regarding Kalam argument.

 

#1 This is conjecture, imo. Things dont necessarily have causes, sometimes an effect precedes a cause, and perhaps a cause and effect are just a mental construct to account for passage of time. Maybe cause and effect are rolled into one.

 

#2 We don't have enough information. Maybe the universe just continually expands and collapses forever and ever.

 

#3. So this is null and void

 

#4  is a wishful assertion with an assumed religious basis. Just because scientists don't know the cause doesn't mean that there is a God and that he is the cause.

 

---------------

 

Regarding Counter-Kalam argument

 

1. Why does he assert it if doesn't really accept it? He believes there are exceptions.

 

2. What does a 'change in matter' mean with respect to a thought? Brain chemicals changing location? Electron movement? Do thoughts 'exist' ? Are they entities? Or just a fleeting movement of information against the backdrop of the mind? What is the mind? More chemicals and electricity moving? Whatever the human mind is doesn't seem very stable, anyway, when you think about it.

 

3. This one seems solid but kind of depends on #1 which is a fail.

 

4 & 5. Doesn't matter to me. The universe is here. Apparently. God or no God, life goes on.

[LogicalFallacy]

19 minutes ago, sdelsolray said:

with large side salads of emergence and monism.  It explains the evidence.

 

I need to do some research just to understand what is being said here  

 

I understood the first bit... then I was like whhhaaaatttt??

 

 

[sdelsolray]

1 hour ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

I need to do some research just to understand what is being said here  

 

I understood the first bit... then I was like whhhaaaatttt??

 

 

 

The side salads are to clarify that Cartesian/substance dualism is wishful thinking/unsupported mere assertions.  Substance dualism is also a smarmy pretense designed to insert GODDIDIT without any requirement of evidence or falsifiability.

 

The last sentence (that property dualism as modified/fortified with emergence and monism is supported by the evidence) is a reasoned opinion (a rational conclusion based on the actual empirical facts).

[♦ ficino ♦]

As far as I know, materialism and naturalism account for our experience just fine. And there are some things we do not know.

 

But many remain convinced that materialism does not answer "the hard problem of consciousness." They insist that a thought, or the content of a thought, is not reducible to matter. So, however much we use our brains to think, these people insist that the thinking is done by some separate substance, which they call mind. And of course for Christians who believe that the soul is separate from the body, substance dualism is just what they want.

 

So I'm guessing maybe the Anti-Kalam guy will wind up arguing over brain and mind to defend his second premise.

[duderonomy]

3 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

I need to do some research just to understand what is being said here  

 

I understood the first bit... then I was like whhhaaaatttt??

 

 

 

Yeah. They should say this stuff in English so the rest of us can follow along!  

 

[Callum]

19 hours ago, ficino said:

As far as I know, materialism and naturalism account for our experience just fine. And there are some things we do not know.

 

But many remain convinced that materialism does not answer "the hard problem of consciousness." They insist that a thought, or the content of a thought, is not reducible to matter. So, however much we use our brains to think, these people insist that the thinking is done by some separate substance, which they call mind. And of course for Christians who believe that the soul is separate from the body, substance dualism is just what they want.

 

So I'm guessing maybe the Anti-Kalam guy will wind up arguing over brain and mind to defend his second premise.

 

I don't think anyone actually knows what causes conciousness so when people claim that conciousness debunks materialism or conciousness proves materialism I don't pay much attention. Let's let the scientists and philosophers work it out first. I am not even sure if materialism is true, I have just never experianced anything supernatural or unexplainable so I have only experianced the natural world.

[midniterider]

22 minutes ago, Callum said:

 

I don't think anyone actually knows what causes conciousness so when people claim that conciousness debunks materialism or conciousness proves materialism I don't pay much attention. Let's let the scientists and philosophers work it out first. I am not even sure if materialism is true, I have just never experianced anything supernatural or unexplainable so I have only experianced the natural world.

 

What is consciousness and what causes it are some good questions.

[LogicalFallacy]

This video got me thinking about #1 of both the KCA and the Counter KCA.

 

 

P1 in the KCA seems to rely on time, except when there is no time cause and effect has no meaning. Hence why talking about the 'time'  before the big bang makes no sense. If there is no cause and effect outside time, then the big bang was merely the next step in the pattern that was preceding it, thus nullifying the need for any un-caused creator.

 

 

Agree? Disagree?