Larkus wrote:

Mick wrote:

Even now I do not understand why some people do not accept this casual premise on grounds that "it has never been shown that anything ever began to exist." I'm not too sure what it means to "show" this premise (Can we show to the skeptic that other minds exist?), but it seems fair to grant that human beings did not exist 1 million years ago, but now we do. Human beings were formed a finite time ago and differ from any other thing we know of. That we are a mere rearrangment of energy (or whatever), if we are at all, does nothing to affect this point.

I'm unsure what the sticking point is.

1. I think the sticking point is, that Craig equivocates on the meaning of "beginning to exist". Craig doesn't distinguish between an origin of things out of preexisting matter and energy and an origin of things out of nothing. There is plenty of evidence for the former, but (to my knowledge) no evidence for the latter.

2. Did human beings begin to exist according to Craig's own definition? I think that is not so clear.

William Lane Craig's definition of "beginning to exist":
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/New ... le&id=8243
"The kalam cosmological argument uses the phrase 'begins to exist.' For those who wonder what that means I sometimes use the expression 'comes into being' as a synonym. We can explicate this last notion as follows: for any entity e and time t,

e comes into being at t if and only if (i) e exists at t, (ii) t is the first time at which e exists, (iii) there is no state of affairs in the actual world in which e exists timelessly, and (iv) e’s existing at t is a tensed fact."

You have pointed out, that "human beings did not exist 1 million years ago, but now we do". This is sufficient to fulfill the everyday-definition of "beginning to exist" - something begins to exist if it exists at a given time, and there is some earlier time at which it did not exist. However, it is not sufficient to fulfill Craig's definition. Showing, that something exists now but did not exist in the past does not equal showing that there was a first time at which it existed. It could for example be that human beings evolved in a gradual process where there was no first time at which human beings existed.

If there was no first time at which human beings existed then human beings did not begin to exist, according to Craigs's definition of "beginning to exist".

In any case, Craig's definition of "beginning to exist" seems to be insufficient.

What Craig is doing here is making it clear that his argument presupposes an A-theory of time. On b-theory, there is no 'beginning to exist' since there is no becoming; the time frames of whatever object (in the future, past, present) are all equally real. This has nothing to do with the vagueness of when human came to be from their ancestors. So long as we understand that humans came to be, it does not matter when they came to be or if we can determine this ourselves. surely humans came to be at some point, whether we can identify it or not. Otherwise, either human being did not begin to exist because they always were or 'human being' is just a useful linguistic convention which has no basis in reality- that is, there is no such thing as a human being. but it seems to me that science, or biology at any extent, is committed to the existence of species.

Mick wrote:What Craig is doing here is making it clear that his argument presupposes an A-theory of time. On B-theory, there is no 'beginning to exist' since there is no becoming; the time frames of whatever object (in the future, past, present) are all equally real.

Agreed, it is not clear whether an A-theory of time is correct, Craig just presupposes that it is correct, which might be an important weakness in his argument.

Mick wrote:This has nothing to do with the vagueness of when human came to be from their ancestors.

Agreed.

Mick wrote:So long as we understand that humans came to be, it does not matter when they came to be or if we can determine this ourselves.

I agree that human beings did come to be (here we are) - under the everyday-definition of "coming to be/beginning to exist".

But how do you determine, that human beings came to be under Craigs definition? Right, you have to check, whether there was a first time at which human beings existed. You can't just assume it.

Mick wrote:Surely humans came to be at some point, whether we can identify it or not.

And what makes you so sure, that they came to be at some first point of time, instead for example during a gradual shift during a period of time?

Mick wrote:Otherwise, either human being did not begin to exist because they always were or 'human being' is just a useful linguistic convention which has no basis in reality- that is, there is no such thing as a human being. but it seems to me that science, or biology at any extent, is committed to the existence of species.

Another possibility is, that Craig's definition of "beginning to exist" is limited in some regard.

Take for example my beard. My beard didn't exist when I was a child. Now it does exist. Did it begin to exist? According to the everyday-definition of "beginning to exist" it did begin to exist. According to Craigs definition, there would have to be a first time at which my beard did begin to exist, else my beard did not begin to exist. Craig's definition doesn't consider, whether there was a time in the past, in which my beard did not exist. It just considers, whether there was a first time in which it did exist. Unfortunately, there was no first time in which my beard did exist. I grew it over a period of time. Every time to which you could point as the first time of my beard's existence would be arbitrary. The idea, that because something came into being (according to the everyday-definition of coming into being/beginning to exist) there must be a first time in which it came into being can be called the reverse continuum fallacy.

It's not my beard, but can you point out the first time in which the beard exists, or if you can't point out the exact time, can you tell me in which time intervall the beard first existed?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2wrpEl6_74[/youtube]

Mick wrote:What Craig is doing here is making it clear that his argument presupposes an A-theory of time. On b-theory, there is no 'beginning to exist' since there is no becoming; the time frames of whatever object (in the future, past, present) are all equally real.

The definition can be formulated B-wise:

x has a beginning of its existence
iff
(i) all of x's existence is temporal existence (existence in time)
(ii) there is
either
some closed interval T = [tn, to] such that x exists at all times in T but at no time tm earlier than tn
or
some open interval T = ]tn, to] such that x exists at all times in T but neither at tn nor at any time tm earlier than tn.

(According to the disjunctive part of the definition, something can begin to exist even if there is no first time at which it exists.)

Larkus wrote:Take for example my beard. My beard didn't exist when I was a child. Now it does exist. Did it begin to exist? According to the everyday-definition of "beginning to exist" it did begin to exist. According to Craigs definition, there would have to be a first time at which my beard did begin to exist, else my beard did not begin to exist. Craig's definition doesn't consider, whether there was a time in the past, in which my beard did not exist. It just considers, whether there was a first time in which it did exist. Unfortunately, there was no first time in which my beard did exist. I grew it over a period of time. Every time to which you could point as the first time of my beard's existence would be arbitrary. The idea, that because something came into being (according to the everyday-definition of coming into being/beginning to exist) there must be a first time in which it came into being can be called the reverse continuum fallacy.

Couldn't it be said that your beard began to exist when the universe began to exist? That the "beginning" of the existence of something can be considerably earlier than any point at which we can say that it does exist?

Just a quick note here before I run off to attend to my errands: While the KCA presupposes the A-theory of time, Craig does not. He argues for it it numerous articles and books. Secondly Larkus is using the sorites paradox to make an interesting point. We can understand it even better when we ask ourselves questions like 'When does an accumulation of sand become a sand pile?' When we have sand granules, say, 3 of them, we have no pile, but if not 3, then how about 3+1 or 3+1+1, or even 3+1+1+1, and so on? Whatever we choose, it will seem to be arbitrary: Why not one granule more or one fewer?

Some philosophers bite the bullet here and risk arbitrariness and others choose to abandon bivalence. I'm not too quick to follow, but that's another issue. I think it's fair to state, at least for human beings, we did not exist 1million years ago but we exist now. So now let's consider some propositions:

Humans did not exist 1 million years ago.
Humans did not exist 999999 years, 364 days and 23 hrs ago.
Humans did not exist 999999 years, 364 days and 22 hrs ago.
Humans did not exist 999999 years, 364 days and 21 hrs ago.
etc.


We can keep going through these sort of propositions until we reach the present day. If we continue to offer attribute falsity to these propositions up until we reach propositions referring to the present day, then we will reach an inconsistency, because humans do exist in the present time. Thus, unless we want to utilize a 3rd truth-value, such as indeterminate, and therefore abandon bivalence, we will be forced to choose between our inconsistency or our so-called arbitrariness.

In any case, I don't think that Oldsketpic was appealing to the vaguness and fuzziness of certain (all?) predicates. His objection does not seem that sophisticated.

Larkus wrote:
It's not my beard, but can you point out the first time in which the beard exists, or if you can't point out the exact time, can you tell me in which time intervall the beard first existed?

The question of the beginning or ending of existence is often fraught with vagueness.
For example, when exactly does a human individual begin to exist?

Shrunk wrote:
Couldn't it be said that your beard began to exist when the universe began to exist? That the "beginning" of the existence of something can be considerably earlier than any point at which we can say that it does exist?

No, that's illogical. Nothing can begin to exist at a time at which it doesn't exist.
By the way, there can be no state of "half-existence" before "full existence".

Shrunk wrote:

Larkus wrote:Take for example my beard. My beard didn't exist when I was a child. Now it does exist. Did it begin to exist? According to the everyday-definition of "beginning to exist" it did begin to exist. According to Craigs definition, there would have to be a first time at which my beard did begin to exist, else my beard did not begin to exist. Craig's definition doesn't consider, whether there was a time in the past, in which my beard did not exist. It just considers, whether there was a first time in which it did exist. Unfortunately, there was no first time in which my beard did exist. I grew it over a period of time. Every time to which you could point as the first time of my beard's existence would be arbitrary. The idea, that because something came into being (according to the everyday-definition of coming into being/beginning to exist) there must be a first time in which it came into being can be called the reverse continuum fallacy.

Couldn't it be said that your beard began to exist when the universe began to exist? That the "beginning" of the existence of something can be considerably earlier than any point at which we can say that it does exist?

.....

As far as the composition of material, spatiotemporal objects is concerned, there are intricate problems of vagueness:

1. spatial boundary: what exactly is and isn't part of a complex object?

2. temporal boundary: when exactly does an object begin and cease to exist?

3. survival: how much compositional or qualitative change does an object survive (i.e. without ceasing to exist)?

@Mick

Okay, I know that Craig did write an entire book defending an A-theory of time, nonetheless, as far as I know he is arguing from a minority position. The fourth clause in Craig's definition might be worth looking at. I think this clause might be a weakness in the argument.

Concerning the Sorites paradox:

While there may be two clearly distinct states at the end of the spektrum (at one end no beard exists in my face, at the other end a beard does exist in my face) this doesn't mean, that there is any clear point at which one state changes into the other. I think the vagueness can't be avoided, since words aren't cut clear enough. Of course this fuzziness becomes less of a problem, if you don't insist that anything that begins to exist must have a first time at which it exists.

to be removed

In any case, I don't think that Oldsketpic was appealing to the vaguness and fuzziness of certain (all?) predicates. His objection does not seem that sophisticated.

There is no need for sophisticated arguments. If the 1st law of thermodynamics holds, and I have never seen anyone show that it doesn't or how it couldn't, then the 1st premise, (1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence, is wrong because it presuppose that anything has had a beginning of its existence.

And the second premise, 2) The universe has a beginning of its existence, is just wrong.

If the universe is all that exists it can have no beginning or end.

There is no need for sophisticated philosophical arguments, it is just the way it is.

E=MC^2

It is just that simple and elegant.

Delivered in just a few short sentences what it usually takes me reams to deliver, and shows precisely why the argument is utter bollocks, and why anyone who thinks otherwise, well, isn't fucking thinking. It's a fallacy-ridden load of tripe.

Oldskeptic wrote:

In any case, I don't think that Oldsketpic was appealing to the vaguness and fuzziness of certain (all?) predicates. His objection does not seem that sophisticated.

There is no need for sophisticated arguments. If the 1st law of thermodynamics holds, and I have never seen anyone show that it doesn't or how it couldn't, then the 1st premise, (1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence, is wrong because it presuppose that anything has had a beginning of its existence.

And the second premise, 2) The universe has a beginning of its existence, is just wrong.

If the universe is all that exists it can have no beginning or end.

There is no need for sophisticated philosophical arguments, it is just the way it is.

E=MC^2

It is just that simple and elegant.

But that I began to exist doesn't violate that first principle since my beginning doesn't require that my composition (energy/matter on your view) is newly created. Your fallacy is confusing composition with identity, or at least not offering argument for it.

Oldskeptic wrote:
If the universe is all that exists it can have no beginning or end.

If the spatiotemporal universe is the entire universe, then its temporal dimension needn't be past-infinite or future-infinite.

Mick wrote:But that I began to exist doesn't violate that first principle since my beginning doesn't require that my composition (energy/matter on your view) is newly created. Your fallacy is confusing composition with identity, or at least not offering argument for it.

And that's the confusion that the arch-fuckwit Kraig is relying on. You came together, you didn't begin to exist ex nihilo, and indeed there's no good reason to suppose that anything ever did.

In fact, it could be argued that you, in the physical sense, don't actually exist, being only the emergent behaviour of the agglomeration of energy that you experience as you.

Teuton wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:
If the universe is all that exists it can have no beginning or end.

If the spatiotemporal universe is the entire universe, then its temporal dimension needn't be past-infinite or future-infinite.

What is this 'spatio-temporal universe' bollocks you keep banging on about? Could you define it for us please?

hackenslash wrote:
What is this 'spatio-temporal universe' bollocks you keep banging on about? Could you define it for us please?

It's the (at least) four-dimensional natural/physical world.

hackenslash wrote:And that's the confusion that the arch-fuckwit Kraig is relying on. You came together, you didn't begin to exist ex nihilo,

No one is saying that I did.

hackenslash wrote:Delivered in just a few short sentences what it usually takes me reams to deliver, and shows precisely why the argument is utter bollocks, and why anyone who thinks otherwise, well, isn't fucking thinking.

You are here supporting an argument that relies on a premise that cannot, even in principle, be demonstrated to be true. I hope you can now get the point that premises need not be demonstrated to be true, in order to be acceptable.