Language and Logic (General)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Monday, April 07, 2014, 23:05 (3881 days ago) @ dhw

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.-But by my definition of universe, the universe IS everything, including time. Therefore the universe cannot have "come into being" by any process requiring time, and so cannot have a cause.-> 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. -No it is a logical consequence of my definition of universe. We are talking Language and Logic here.-> I am presenting an alternative speculation, which reverses your logic. -You are changing the assumptions of the argument. You are implying that the universe in your sense is only a part of some larger universe. So presumably that universe is in turn a part of another universe. For you it's Turtles all the way down again!-> What facts do you know to support your contention that /// the universe sprang from "nothing", which it would have had to do if there was no "before"?-It didn't "spring" at all, since there was no time to do so. It just quietly began.-> 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. -The North Pole is an analogy or metaphor to illustrate the "Time pole" of the universe where t = 0.-> Can you tell me of anything in existence concerning which it is a known fact that it does not have a cause?-I'm sure lots of things happen without a cause. Isn't it one of the axioms of quantum theory? But if there is a zero of time then it follows BY LOGIC that there can be nothing preceding it and therefore no cause.

--
GPJ