Language and Logic (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 09, 2014, 20:23 (3879 days ago) @ George Jelliss

Dhw: I am presenting an alternative speculation, which reverses your logic. 

GEORGE: 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!

Dhw: I'm not implying anything, though that is one possibility. I'm pointing out that your speculation (there is no "before") is no more valid (or invalid) than the speculation that there was a "before". What that "before" consisted of will be the subject of further speculations (e.g. David's God, earlier universes, energy doing nothing, energy doing something).

GEORGE: I can't understand your objections to the idea of "the universe" being everything there is. What is the point of calling something a "universe" if it is only part of something larger or that existed before?
 Calling that larger universe "eternity" won't wash with me either.
 
I do not object to the idea of the universe being everything there is, and I have said repeatedly that you may be right, but you insist that the beginning of "everything there is" also means the beginning of time and this logically excludes the possibility that "everything there is" had a cause that preceded it. That is why I prefer the dictionary definition I quoted ("the aggregate of all existing matter, energy and space"), which leaves open the possibility of a "before". What is your objection to that? Your belief that nothing caused the universe has no more logic or factual evidence than the belief that something caused it. However, I wrote: "What that "before" consisted of will be the subject of further speculations", and among the examples I gave are energy doing nothing, and energy doing something. You keep implying that the only alternative to this universe being causeless is belief in a "larger universe", which is not even one of the examples of "before" that I have listed!-GEORGE: There is still the problem of where that previous universe came from. 
Sooner or later one must come to the end of one of these universes. 
The point where the last turtle is standing on nothing.
You can't escape this ultimate paradox,
no matter how you squirm!-You are quite right about the ultimate paradox of time stretching endlessly backwards and forwards (what do you think will follow the end of this universe?), but it is no greater than the paradox of an existing, material universe that "just quietly began" without any cause. As with the question of God's existence, I have difficulty understanding how people can be certain enough to believe in either paradox. 
See also my reply to David on this subject.