Language and Logic (General)

by dhw, Monday, April 07, 2014, 14:12 (3882 days ago) @ George Jelliss

Dhw: [GEORGE]thinks his argument is based on the facts we "know", but if we accept the argument that we do not "know" of any effects that don't have a cause (see Romansh on the subject of free will), we can invert George's logic. -GEORGE: The flaw in this argument is that the very concepts of "cause and effect" cannot be defined without use of the concept of time. By definition a cause precedes an effect and an effect follows a cause in time.

Precisely. See the next point.-Dhw: The universe cannot have come into being without a cause, therefore if the universe had a beginning, the universe cannot be "everything". The cause must have existed before, and therefore the beginning of the universe cannot have been the beginning of time. 

GEORGE: I would point out that the idea of "coming into being" also requires the existence of time. Can one talk about the "coming into being" of Time itself without implying that there was Time before Time?

No, but the problem here is your basic assumption that the beginning of our universe was the beginning of time and so there could be no "before". You may be right, but that is pure speculation. I am presenting an alternative speculation, which reverses your logic: that it cannot have been the beginning of time, because the universe must have had a CAUSE, and a cause would precede the effect. What facts do you know to support your contention that the universe was the beginning of time, and that 13.7 or so billion years ago the universe sprang from "nothing", which it would have had to do if there was no "before"?-dhw: David's dilemma disappears, and instead George is forced to argue that the beginning of the universe had no cause, which David in turn understandably claims is illogical.

GEORGE: I would say that there can be a "beginning" (t = 0) without there being any preceding activity, just as there can be a North Pole without anything further North. This is perfectly logical.

The North Pole is not an activity. That a finite piece of matter comes to a finite end, as at the North Pole, is perfectly logical. It has nothing to do with cause and effect, before and after. Can you tell me of anything in existence concerning which it is a known fact that it does not have a cause?