Not quite. I was saying that willing, under some forms of libertarianism, generates new causality that originates from the will and the willing may differ even if the physical causality differs (according to this view)(such as if there is a soul or something like that). So if some person performs action, A, with intent, M, and you rewind the physical causality; then:

1. A, which is comprised of intent with physical causality originating therefrom, is only rewound in terms of having the intent and the physical causality it introduced into reality; and

2. If M is from leeway freedom, then it does not originate from the physical causality you rewound; and

3. If #2, then that person could will A for another intent, N, or intent some other action, B, with some other intent.

:up:

CC: @Mww

It is also worth mentioning Kant's transcendental freedom, which does not fit cleanly between compatibilism and incompatibilism; and of which claims that our reasoning is governed by rational principles unrestrained by one's natural instincts.

This kind of view could be incorporated, to wit, into a version of compatibilism different than the OP's (but yet still naturalistic––although Kant wouldn't probably go for it); such that our brains are causally determined but, when functioned properly, facilitate our ability to be regulated in thought through reason's own principles instead of anything about the natural laws which govern the brain which facilitates it.

The key difference here would be that your OP accepts that there is some sort of connection between the causal underpinnings which facilitate reason and reason herself such that reason cannot think according to her own laws. Why should someone accept that?

EDIT:

E.g., when I determine that '1 + 1 = 2' it does not seem to be dependent on the underlying natural laws which facilitated my ability to determine it; but, rather, is governed by rational principles of logic and cognition which have nothing to do with those aforesaid natural laws. So long as my brain is healthy enough to facilitate it, my thinking powers will be able to reason in this way.

I think this is a conflation between physical and motive causality: I would recommend looking into Schopenhauer's "On the Fourfold Foundation of the Principle of Sufficient Reason". In short, a libertarian is not going to grant you that free will requires that one could have done otherwise if their will is the same when time is rewound but, rather, that one could have willed differently if the physical causality were rewound.

Generally my government policy is to starve it: I'd rather give the people too much control over themselves than the government too much control over the people.

I never claimed time doesn't exist.

This is a joke right?:

Time doesn't exist. Only space and objects exist.

That's the very first sentence of the OP.

Time is a concept.

Time may be real, a [self-reflective] concept, and exist a priori all at once. It is on your OP to demonstrate why it is only a [self-reflective] concept.

You cannot say time is real. It would be like saying water is real. Water is hot or cold, not real or unreal.

Water is definitely real: no one disputes that. To say it is not real, is to say that it does not exist in reality. You deny that water exists in reality???

Concepts are not real or unreal

Concepts exist: they are not real.

You either know a concept or you don't know it.

Whether the concept exists is a separate question than if I know about the concept.

They have been demonstrated, but not scientifically. I don't know why one would expect it to be proven scientifically when it is presupposed for science to work in the first place.

If you really don't believe we know what truth is, then you can't do science properly; because it depends on investigating the truth.

For my point there, any common sense use of the word will do. You cannot claim the time does not exist (or is not real) merely because people can fail to recognize it as such: that's a bad argument, and that is exactly what you are doing when you bring up indigenous people who fail to understand that they age.

Beyond that point of contention, I would say that what is real and what exist are different; because there are things which have being but are not a member of reality (e.g., the feeling of pain, the phenomenal color of orange, a thought, the a priori concept of quantity, etc.). As such, I denote what is a member of reality proper as real and what has being as what exists; and, therefore, everything that is real exists but not everything that exists is real.

Eh, scientism doesn't work nor logical positivism. E.g., you can't scientifically determine the nature of truth, logic, mathematics, knowledge, some a priori modes of cognition, etc.

There is nothing science can say of, e.g., the nature of a proposition.

Likewise, metaphysics which is not derived from science may still be informed by it; and the parts that are not are guided by that application of reason to evidence---not the imagination (if it is done properly).

The idea that one could fail to recognize that time is real does not negate nor suggest that it isn't real.

However, under the Kantian interpretation of time, yes, time is not real but exists. You seem to be conflating self-reflectively knowing time exists with it not existing. By concept of time, I am presuming you are exclusively referring to a concept derived through experience by self-reflective reason.

The process of aging is a temporal process--hence in time. One might say, now, that aging is a representation of causality which is atemporal; but the aging itself is certainly temporal.

That's because time still exists even though they haven't figured it out, Corvus.

That is single-handedly the dumbest bit of sophistry I've ever heard. Growing old is aging in the sense that I obviously meant it; and you just sidestepped the question.

Why would my body have to exist in space, but I can still age without time?

Kant said that, because time is a concept? In Kant, time is definitely internal mental condition (a priori) for human understanding. A priori here means it is innate, and doesn't rely on experience on the empirical world

For Kant, time and space are modes by which our faculties of cognition cognize sensations. You are claiming that there is a space beyond that a priori space but yet that there isn’t a time beyond that a priori time. What is the argument for that?

Any world events, objects or matter can be conceptualised, and time is a typical case of the conceptualisation

It is not a concept: it is a pure intuition of our sensibility; and so is space. A concept is kind of idea comprised of attributes; whereas an intuition is a seeming. An a priori concept, e.g., is quantity; an a priori intuition is space.

:up:

I don't know why space is a requirement for me to be real; and, if it does, then why time wouldn't.

Time doesn't exist. Only space and objects exist.

Hmmm, I think @Mww would agree that objects being real checks out, but why would space be real if you hold time as merely a priori?

:lol:

I am just waiting for you to keep periodically mentioning this lmao.

I guess I don't understand what is entailed by being a mod. Why would you want to step down? Are you just trying to free up your time?

Irregardless, I wish you the best, fdrake. Quality philosophers are quite rare on here. I hope you choose to at least stay as a member on the forum.

You too, my friend! I look forward to our next conversation.

Unfortunately, I don't see any way forward either ):

I think we are going in circles at this point, so I am going to remove my hat from the ring. The last thing I will say is that, again, your arguments depend on conflations---especially between a set and its members and between C and A.

I think it becomes a requirement from believing that there is a simple being and it must have these properties and having to reconcile that contradiction. I think it ends up becoming more cogent than people let on: the properties we assign God are analogical, and not univocal, equivocation and they do seem to reduce to each other by-at-large. Maybe there's some hiccups with intelligence and pure simplicity, but I think it seems to work fine.

I apologize: I was not alerted to your original response because there were no references to me in there (technically).

• Here is a series
• That series has some prime item on which it is based
• And this we call god.
…
And the last step is a puzzle, Aquinas' "And this we all call god"

This seems to be a straw man. My OP goes into detail why it does not suffice to just identify this simple being as a simple being full-stop. I didn’t just say “and let’s just call this God”.

So taking an example from the SEP article, in order to say that ‘Whatever thinks exists’ we already have supposed that there is something that thinks, that the domain of thinking things is not empty

This is a conflation, though. The cogito ergo sum presupposes that something exists and that we can say that the thinker is that being. I don’t buy the argument, but, nevertheless, it is not presupposing that a thinking being exists to prove that a thinking being exists.

The first is that formal logic is just incapable of displaying the structure of such existential arguments.

Do you just mean that we must presuppose something exists to prove something else exists?

The cosmological argument hinges on the premise that there is something rather than nothing, the non-emptiness of the domain of being

True, but wouldn’t the domain of being have to be non-empty since we exist?

There's also the more obvious problem that god is both simple and yet has parts - will, intelligence, and so on. The quick retort is that these are all one, that god's will, intelligence and so on are all the very same. That's quite a stretch, since for the purposes of the argument they are each separated out. Faith is a powerful force. Yet if one begins with a contradiction, anything is provable.

Firstly, I think it is perfectly valid to see it from the outside as a sort of ad hoc rationalization given that there is an absolutely simple being and it has these properties (which are prima facie irreconcilable).

Secondly, I don’t think it is as incoherent as you might think. Omnipotence is just power which is reducible to pure will; pure will implies intelligence (no matter how rudimentary) and is reducible thereto; pure will is reducible to pure actuality; pure actuality is reducible to pure simplicity; pure simplicity (and actuality) imply immutibility; etc.

Apply the label "necessitarianism" to my view if you like

Sorry, I don’t understand what you are saying then. You seem to keep flip-flopping. First you mentioned that everything exists necessarily such that there is no way they could have failed to exist—which simply is necessitarianism—and then you turn around and say that you do believe that there may be ways that some things could fail to exist.

Here’s what I am thinking you are attempting to convey, and correct me if I am wrong: saying that a thing could have failed to exist if its parts did not get so arranged (or did not exist) does not demonstrate that it could have failed to exist because it may be the case that there were no other causal possibilities such that it would not have existed. Is that right?

You apparently believe contingency is the default: if necessity isn't proved (or accounted for), contingency should be assumed. I believe the converse: if contingency can't be proved (or accounted for), then necessity should be the default

No, I am using them in the traditional sense. The modality of possibility is about a thing not contradicting the mode of thought used to conceive it: this is not the same thing as conceivability. There are three modes of possibility (traditionally): metaphysical, physical, and logical.

Metaphysical possibility is such that a thing could exist in a manner that does not violate the nature of things; physical possibility such that a thing could exist in a manner that does not violate Nature (viz., physics); and logical possibility such that a thing could exist in a manner that does not violate laws of logic.

This is not the same as conceivability. E.g., it is physically impossible to jump to the moon but conceivable to jump to the moon; it is metaphysically impossible for H20 not to be water but it is conceivable; it is logically impossible for a != a but it is (to some extent) conceivable.

Moreover, contingency is the dependence of one thing on another for its existence; and necessity is the independence of a thing on any other things for its existence.

I think, for you, contingency is the possibility of non-existence for an existent thing (whether it be in the past, present, or future); and necessity is the impossibility of non-existence for an existent thing (ditto). Is that right?

In my sense of the term, a table is contingent upon its parts; and, if causal determinism or necessitarianism is true, could not have failed to existence.

My point is that the OP depends on my kind of contingency in terms of what the word refers to in its underlying meaning; and you cannot wipe this away by engaging in a semantic dispute about how to define contingency.

That depends on the metaphysical system you're using to account for it

Causality is traditionally and widely accepted as explanations of why a thing is the way it is. What you are probably thinking of is physical or material causality.

My impression is that yours depends on a form of essentialism that considers an object's identify to be associated with an essence, to which "accidental" (contingent) properties may attach

That is a fair assessment of the OP, but I don’t think this is true for the subsequent short-hand arguments I gave. It depends solely on the idea that this being depends on its parts to exist even if it could not have failed to exist; no different than how, e.g., platonic forms depend on each other atemporally.

Even if you don’t think there’s an essence to a, e.g., chair; I think you can agree that that particular chair would not exist if its legs, the wood it is made out of, etc. did not exist and you can also simultaneously agree that the chair, under your view, could not have failed to exist.

Without contingent properties, your argument from composition fails. That's because an object's constituents are an identity to the object itself.

No. The chair still depends on its parts to exist even if it could not have failed to exist. The chair does not exist as a brute existence.

No, spatialized language is the notion of the space metaphor to talk about time

I don’t think time can be described through space, but I am open to hearing why you think this.

It's a common thing to do, in language, to talk about people having abstractions as if they are themselves substances. Such as, "You have so much love!" Love is an abstract concept here that is treated as a thing that can we have so and so much of.

This is good. Here’s a couple things to note:

1. This is only a reification fallacy if anti-realism with respect to the topic is true. E.g., the number 2 is not real IFF mathematical anti-realism is true; and same with love.

2. Assuming things like, e.g., love are not real but exist as emergent-phenomenal processes of our organism, these still have parts. E.g., love is a feeling of strong intimacy, attraction, etc. for another and is composed, at a minimum, of a strong connection between a donor and recipient and all which is subject to time (viz., loving through time).

3. When I was talking about space and time as substances, I meant it in the realist sense; so that is not a reification fallacy. I was speaking of what it would look like if one believes they are substances.

Why the heck does it matter what necessitarianism would entail?

Your view is a form of necessitarianism, as exemplified by your example from “A Case for Necessitarianism”. The ideas you quoted are only compatible with necessitarianism.

Let’s back track a bit, because we are not making progress. Let me ask you this: do you believe that a table is dependent upon its parts to exist?

I previously called you out for what appeared to be, your conflating conceivability with metaphysical possibility

I was charitably interpreting your idea of a “non-actual possibility”: like I stated before, possibility is coherence of a thing with a mode of thought (e.g., metaphysics, physics, logic, etc.).

I explained why I'm convinced the past is finite

How is that relevant to the OP?

As an aside, I arrived at my view that the past is finite after spending a good bit of time examining the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Yes, I could tell: the Kalam argument is not neo-Aristotelian. It depends on an argument from efficient causes—which is a per accidens kind of causal series—whereas Aristotelian arguments stem from per se kinds of causal series. For Aristotle, in fact, matter is eternal and yet still requires a first cause; and even if it were finite then it would still need a first cause (according to him).

The OP’s argument is from per se causality.

My only point here is to demonstrate that I don't simply go into denial when seeing an argument I disagree with

I am not engaging in your argument for a finite past because it is a red herring: it does not matter if there is an infinite past of causal events or not for the argument of composition to work. If you think it does, then I would need to here why before spending the time engaging in your argument.

Composition and cause are two different things

Yes, but composition is a kind of causality—I’ve maintained this the entire discussion. Again, composition is a kind of per se causality whereas, e.g., begetting children is a kind of per accidens causality.

A contingent entity requires not merely a explanation for its being or being such as it is, but an explanation for the possibility that it could have been otherwise.

That’s nonsense. That’s never what contingency has been about in the sense I described; and will never exclusively refer to what you mean here. All you did is axiomatically preclude a discussion about contingency in the sense of being caused. Even if this axiom were granted, then we would just refer to caused beings then instead of contingent beings: this doesn’t help your case. If a chair is caused by, at least in part, the atoms which comprise it; then, boom, we have the same argument taking lift off…

"the necessity of a necessary entity just consists in its being the way that it actually is. Thus, an explanation of the entity’s being as it is will be an account of its necessity. "
(Page 3 of "A Case For Necessitarianism")

Yes, but this doesn’t mean what you think it does. This means that the entity’s composition suffices to demonstrate the necessity of that being because, under necessitarianism, causation could not have failed to be exactly what it is. This does NOT entail that this being is not contingent on its parts to exist—in fact, that is a necessary presupposition for what they are saying to be true. If the table, e.g., is not contingent on its parts to exist, then it would be false that its parts suffice to explain why the chair necessarily had to exist (for it would exist at least in part independently of its parts).

Suppose cause C indeterminately causes some one member of a set of possibilties to exist. All members of the set are possible, but only one will member will be actualized. The other members of the set are "non-actual possibilities"

No, no, no. If necessitarianism is true, then there are no other possibilities than the causality that occurred because nothing could have been otherwise—not even laws, numbers, logic, etc.

The only cogent interpretation of a ‘non-actual possibility’ would be either A) a possibility which failed to occur or B) something which is conceivable but not currently actual. With respect to A, this kind of possibility is not possible; with respect to B, it is possible but confusing language—it should just be referred to as conceivability.

That might be relevant if it could be shown that the past is infinite
…
But we don't need to debate that, because there's a worse vice for an infinite past:

You are not understanding this argument at all. Temporal causality is not necessarily a per se causal series. E.g., begetting children is a per accidens series of causality even if it stretches infinitely backward and forward in time—this kind of causality is not viscious and does not require any further explanation causally.

1) it is apriori more sensible to believe so - no examples of property-less objects can be cited

This would be a reasonable a posteriori argument if, again, we didn’t have an example now by way of demonstrating that a simple being is required to explain completely the causal chain of composition of an object.

2)it is an ad hoc assumption, that adds no needed explanatory power

It does, because we cannot explain composition otherwise.

What is extended and what is temporal?

Extension and temporality are pure intuitions. We get them from our experience of the world; or more accurately they are the forms of our experience.

You are asking of me, e.g., what does it mean to exist? Well, its a pure intuition. There’s nothing more I can say; nor can you.

What metaphors/analogies do you use and do you understand their limitations and errors?

Until you are absolutely clear on this we will not make head way.

We might be able to say some things about how space and time behave scientifically; but not what they are themselves. Space and time are the a priori intuitions of the sensory data (manifold) of our outer and (some of our) inner senses; and there may be a space and time akin to these a priori modes of intuition which may or may not behave similarly (e.g., Einstein’s special relativity). Our brain represents things which occur in a multiplicity as in space (whether that be material [e.g., my hand] or immaterial [e.g., the feeling of pain in my hand]); and it represents things which change in time (which may or may not include space—e.g., thinking). It is impossible for me to speak of anything without referencing spatiality and temporality because they are pure intuitions a priori in our brains—viz., they are so integral to the human understanding—but it is important to distinguish space and time proper (in the sense of the forms of the understanding) from conceptual space and time: the latter can be used to talk analogically about things which may not be in the former (e.g., Platonic forms, God, a non-spatiotemporal “particle”, etc.).

Outside is spatialized language which I don't choose to indulge in so I don't understand what you mean. Use different language. I don't accept it.

You literally cannot describe space and time without using them in language. That’s a waste of time to try and avoid.

Second, you keep using this substance metaphor to reify the notion of properties or talk about them if you don't know.

Is reification always good in your eyes and proper philosophical method?

What “substance metaphor”???

Third, going off of moorean intuition. . . everything I've ever experienced and said was ever a 'single piece' or a 'whole' has always been itself composed. I have never in fact met with an un-composed entity and therefore perhaps the notion of an 'un-composed' entity is itself a limiting abstraction that is therefore unreal and un-warranted to postulate.

That’s called in inductive case against an absolutely simple being; and it holds no weight against the argument from composition because it demonstrates the need for its existence. Your argument only works as a probabilistic-style argument IF we have no good reasons to believe a simple being exists. All you are saying is “well, we haven’t had any good reasons to believe there are black swans, so we shouldn’t”. Ok. But now we know there are black swans….

If you say something along the lines of, ". . . but I can imagine. . ." Then you need to justify the method or role of imagination in proper philosophical practice.

Did you read the OP? It is not an argument from conceivability. I will outline a shorter version here:

A5-1. A composed being is contingent on its parts to exist.
A5-2. Therefore, a composed being cannot exist by itself or from itself.
A5-3. Therefore, a part which is a composed being cannot exist by itself or from itself.
A5-4. An infinite series of composition, let’s call it set C, of a composed being would be an infinite series of beings which cannot exist by themselves or from themselves.
A5-5. In order for a composed being to exist, it must be grounded in something capable of existing itself.
A5-6. C has no such member as described in A5-5.
A5-7. Therefore, the existence, ceteris paribus, of C is (actually) impossible.

Here’s the other version:

1. A composite gets its composition from its parts.
2. If all the parts of a composite are themselves composite, then all the parts get their composition from their respective parts.
3. If all of the parts get their composition from their respective parts, then every member, or part, is lacking in terms of its composition and requires another (or others) that it gets its composition from.
4. If every member, or part, is lacking in terms of its composition and requires another for its composition, then no member has composition.
5. If none of the parts have composition, then none of the parts can give composition to another.
6. If none of the parts can give composition to another, then no parts can be parts of a greater composition.
7. Therefore, if all parts are composite, and a composition depends only on its parts, then there can be no composition.

Instead of bringing up red herrings and straw mans, maybe try actually contending with the above arguments?

It is important to note the difference between a necessary being in the sense of being incapable of failing to exist vs. in the sense of being uncaused. The former still allows for contingency of existence on other things, and the latter entails brute facts. I think this is the crux between us, which rides on a conflation between these two.

The OP is talking about a contingent being in the latter sense—not the former—and you are talking about a necessary being in the former sense—not the latter. I don’t think you disagree that a chair which, under necessitarianism, cannot fail to exist is still contingently existent on its parts such that IF the parts didn’t exist it wouldn’t either. All you are noting is that the chair and its parts could not have failed to be caused; but this does not take away from the OP’s point that they are caused. A necessary chair in the latter sense would be a chair that exists with no cause—I don’t think you are arguing that.

If C is contingent, this means ~C is a non-actual possibility

What the heck is a non-actual possibility?!?

This doesn't imply object C exists eternally (at all times). It just means that when it actually exists, it could not have failed to exist.

Right, but C would still be contingent upon the things which caused its existence even if it could not have failed to exist.

Concrete example: suppose determinism is true. This implies every event, and everything that comes to exist, is the necessary consequence of prior conditions.

No. Causal determinism dictates that every entity subject to natural laws has a cause: this does not entail that every entity has a cause and consequently does not entail that every entity is necessary in the former sense. What you are thinking of is called necessitarianism, and it is basically causal determinism’s roid’d brother.

Again, even if this is true, it is irrelevant because the caused thing—the effect—is or at least was dependent on its cause for it to exist (even if it could not have failed to exist because its cause must have occurred in such-and-such a manner to bring about it as an effect). E.g., the eternal chair is still contingent on its parts to exist.

It's erroneous to conflate conceivability with metaphysical possibility

Agreed, and I am not doing that. It is not merely conceivable that a chair is dependent upon its parts: that is actually true of chairs—period.

There must be a first cause because an infinite series of causes is viscious, NOT because an infinite series of compositions is viscious

This isn’t true, though; and that’s why my argument and classical arguments like this one do not rely on that. Aquinas’ prime example is an infinite series of begetting children: there’s nothing, i.e., impossible about an infinite series of per accidens causality. There’s nothing “viscious” about it; but there is something absurd about an infinite per se causal series.

The only rational choice is for you to agree with me, and drop your assumption.

:lol:

That's because I gave a real world example that falsifies your assumption.

Hopefully I clarified in this response how that definitely did not happen (:

Nothing can exist that lacks properties, so no object can exist that meets your definition of "absolutely simple".

Ok, but let’s go back to the composition quick argument I gave you: that demonstrates that your metaphysical theory here is false; so I have not reason to believe that nothing can exist that lacks properties.

What part of space and time being extension and temporality is hard for you to understand? If there's specific concepts of space and time that would be immune to the OP, then please feel free to bring them up: I don't see any. You can go the Einsteinien, Kantian, or literally any other route and it will not matter for the OP since we are talking about ontological parts which could be outside of space and time.

You're the one who introduced A, not me. :)

I am trying to give you the tools to provide clarity on your position. You still keep conflating them and talking about unclear sets.

If you have your own sets that you want me to work with, then please provide them in an analogous way to how I provided mine.

The scope captures everything causally because C != A. I've never claimed that it was equal.

If there is an infinite regress of causal things, then it would have to be. For if every real thing is a member of C, which is the case if every real thing is sufficiently explained in an infinitely regressive fashion, then there is no real thing which is not a member of C; and therefore no real thing which is not a member of C and A; so C = A.

Yes it can, because one of the answers to something causally is that it is uncaused. You seem to be putting this answer outside of causality, when I'm noting its one of the answers.

We are not quantifying over answers—and purposefully so (because it muddies the waters and leads to issues in inferences as seen in your OP)—but, rather, real things; and C is the enumeration of all of those real things that are also caused.

What I was noting is that if something caused C, when taken as its members, and is not itself caused then that thing is not a member of C; and this is patently true because C contains only real things that are caused—which precludes things that are not caused. A, ceteris paribus, assuming there’s nothing else to consider but the two, would look like: A = [F, C] – not C = [F, <…>] = A.

We're in complete agreement that sets aren't real. I'm just using it to give a better understanding of what I was trying to get across

This is crucial though to my point; because you keep asking questions that assume they are real. For example, you keep asking “what caused C?”. C is a set: it is not real. When we ask colloquially “what caused C?”, we charitably meant to ask “do the members of C sufficiently explain each other’s existences or not?”. Crucially, an infinite regress proper would be such that each member would suffice to explain the next member and so on; and, therefore, there is nothing required to explain the members outside of that set. There is nothing uncaused in this!!! The set being outside of the purview of causality is not the same as it being a real thing that is uncaused.

"What caused existence period?"

This is too vague. The only valid way to translate this, as far as I can tell, is to assume you mean “what caused these real things to exist?”, then, again, an infinite regression explanation would dictate that there nothing uncaused: each real thing is explained by the next or the previous or what not.

Existence itself is not a property like other properties: you can’t ask “why is there being?” like “why is there red things?”.

They are part of the causality of that universe, therefore they are part of the scope of causality in that universe.

Let me just grant your point here. Let’s say there’s a first cause, F, to the set C and the set W = [F, C]. Ok, fair enough. How does this change anything? An infinite regression would entail that there is no F and C just has an infinite amount of members which explain each others’ existences; and C itself is not caused or uncaused.

"What caused existence at all?" Can you answer that question Bob?

If I take it literally, then it is an invalid question. Existence is not a proper property. In terms of why do things exist, the question in an infinite regress would be that each one explains the other: that’s no problem to answer.

As you know, I would say that God is the explanation. The issue is that your argument tries to determine a priori that each cogent solution results in the idea of everything being uncaused; and this is simply not true UNLESS you conflate a set as a real entity.

What caused universe 1 to exist instead of universe 2 once you go up the causal chain within that universe?

The infinitely regressive set would be identical to the universe: again, you are treating the set as if it is real because you substituted the word ‘set’ for ‘universe’ here. There’s no extra-beyond ‘universe’ from the infinite collection of sufficiently explained real things if the person arguing for an infinite regress is right. Your question here assumes that there is still something real, namely the universe itself, which has not been answered; but all the ‘universe’ is here, in your argument, is the set of the all the real things. Hence, your question is just falsely framed.

This is different, per se, from asking about our universe and what caused it because we aren’t necessarily stipulating that the universe is just a set of all caused, e.g., cobalts.

The answer is not that F causes C. Its that C is uncaused.

If you agree that sets aren’t real, then you must concede that C cannot be caused or uncaused.

"What caused existence?" You didn't reply to this very specific question from the last post Bob, so I think you're avoiding it to refocus on the sets that I've already told you are just a tool to convey this notion

Hopefully my above response suffices to answer this. However, it doesn’t matter: that is the introductive question to the solutions (e.g., infinite regressions, infinite circularities, first causes, etc.) that your proof is supposed to demonstrate all of them leading back to everything being uncaused; and so if there is even on solution that doesn’t lead back to that, then your thesis is void. An infinite regression is one such example.

The probability that magical knowledge exists is low, as I discussed

The idea of it being magical just begs the question; but it is worth noting that your view depends on physical processes for beings to apprehend the forms of things, and we still to this day have no clue how that would work in the brain. We have reason, which is distinct from AI, and we have every reason to believe it could never be facilitated by the brain. Why? Because reason abstracts the universal of a particular—not just pattern-matching given the universal like AI—and this seems to posit yet another hard problem for physicalists: how could an brain processes abstract out the universal from a particular—which is necessarily to go beyond the given data of the particular itself—when nothing about the particular itself entails its universal? AI, on the other hand, is given concepts (universals) and then trained to pattern-match particulars: our minds do not do that.

False. A particular composed being has its parts necessarily. If even one part were added or subtracted, it would not be the same being.

A composed being is not necessary, and its parts are not necessary unless those parts do not depend on something else to exist. Contingency is about existenting dependently on something else, and necessity is to exist independently of anything.

Now, what you are noting, is actually what I noted just with less precise language. You are absolutely right that a composed being will not be the same being if it has different parts or if those parts are arranged differently; and, so, what makes that composed being that kind of composed being is necessarily relative to those parts and their arrangement. This does not make the parts necessarily existent: they are necessary for the composed being to exist as that being, and this is just another way of saying the composed being is contingent on its parts.

"Exist in itself" is a vague term, but I'll take it to mean existing autonomously. Autonomous means being uncaused and without external dependencies. A part of a composed being may, or may not, exist autonomously. You've given no reason to think a composed being cannot exist autonomously.

Autonomy is a bad term for this, as that relates only to agents; and the part being contingent on its own parts would entail that that part does not, in turn, exist necessarily (i.e., independently of any dependencies on other beings).

Think about it. If the table exists only insofar as the atoms comprising it are in such-and-such arrangement which makes the table contingently existent from the atoms; then if the atoms exist only insofar as the electrons, protons, and neutrons exist in such-and-such arrangement, then that makes the atoms contingently existent on the electrons, protons, and neutrons. None of these beings can exist as a necessary being because they lack existence themselves (subsistently); for they depend actively on something else to sustain their existence.

The second part about existing contingently is a non-sequitur because all beings have their parts and properties necessarily,

Firstly, as I said above, that a being would no longer be that being without certain parts does NOT entail that those parts nor the being are nor is necessary. They exist contingently—viz., they could not continue to exist if their parts are removed or modified in such-and-such manners.

Secondly, what you are really noting is traditionally called per se properties; which is different than a necessary vs. contingent being analysis. E.g., a circle is no longer a circle with being the shape of a circle—so that property of circularity is a per se and necessary property for circles—but a circle, e.g., block that that child is playing with right now does not necessarily exist: it exists contingently on atoms and what not—the guy who made it could have decided not to make it, etc.

I infer that you're describing a vicious infinite regress. I agree this is an impossibility because although each compositional layer is explained by a deeper layer, nothing accounts for the series as a whole.

Beautiful! This means, Relativist, that a per se series of causality for composition cannot be infinite (circularly nor in a regression) for each being lacks itself composition (i.e., subsistent exist): none of them are capable of existent themselves and this kind of essential relation between them (for exist) entails that they could never begin to exist nor continue to if it weren’t for some thing which as the ipsum ens subsistens—pure being itself. Why? Because if it can’t be infinite then there must be a first cause, and this first cause must not have parts (because, if it did, then it would just be a member of this infinite series of composition—and we just established that that is impossible).

Now you concur that an absolutely simple being must exist to account for such-and-such composition. From there, we then continue to deriving God’s existence.

7. Therefore, a series of composed beings must have, ultimately, uncomposed parts as its first cause. (6 & 3)
Disagree that a composed being was necessarily caused. See my objection to #4.

OH COME ON! (;

In all seriousness, you cannot agree that a composed being cannot be only infinitely comprised of parts (because none of them is capable of existent by themselves) and then say that the first cause is composed. If it is composed, then it is a member of that infinite series we stipulated because it exists contingently on its parts (no differently than the table).

9. Two beings can only exist separately if they are distinguishable in their parts.
False. Two beings can have identical intrinsic properties. Example: water molecules.

I am not sure we can make headway on this one ):

All I will say is that if the two beings have properties—irregardless if it is intrinsic or extrinsic—then they are not absolutely simple. In other words, they have parts. Remember, a part is something that comprises something else—it is NOT something material that comprises something else. E.g., a letter in a word uttered in a sentence is a part of a part of a whole (i.e., the sentence) and this thing is not material (i.e., the sentence). E.g., the number two is comprised of two number ones.

A word has the property of being made of letters; and a particular word has the property of being made of certain letters.

I think you are thinking of a part in the stricter sense of something that comprises a material object. A quark having an X property would entail that, even if it is non-spatiotemporal, it has parts because X would relate to some part that it has—just like a letter is a part of the word. The upness, or whatever, of the quark is a part of that quark; and it is a part because it is something which is not identical to the whole—the quark—but contributes to its existence as a quark. I would presume that an up-quark, for you, would no longer be an up-quark if it didn’t have the property of ‘upness’.

In short, we are talking about ontological parts—not just material parts (e.g., wheels on a car).

Anyone can give a definition of blue its only you who has a problem with certain definitions with blue and may be unhappy with any of them so he throws his hands up in the air saying, "Well you just can't!"

I already explained why blue cannot be properly defined. Remember Mary’s room thought experiment? Are you just ignoring that?

So now that we agree that your assertion that its 'undefinable' is just you being lazy and unwilling to enter the discussion into defining other such difficult terms only because its 'hard'. Could you stop gish galloping. . . give a definition!

Have you not heard of Moorean intuitionism?

It's also impossible to know things because something. . . something. . . skepticism but that doesn't stop ordinary people from using the term knowledge in ignorance of a precise definition or arguing a particular definition for their purposes. Why? This is because skepticism doesn't actually remove this discussion from the intellectual dialectic.

Nothing I said is an argument from skepticism. Again, I think Mary’s room thought experiment demonstrates how the phenomenal properties we experience cannot be reduced to physical properties; which means there are forms of knowledge which cannot be reduced to scientific knowledge; which also means that these properties cannot be defined—they must be intuited from experience.

Another example is being. Being is the granddaddy of impossible-to-define-concepts; and this is not me being lazy or appealing to scepticism. We literally cannot define it; and yet we all intuit exactly what it is. It is a pure intuition.

This is relevant because space and time are pure intuitions.

My argument doesn’t care if you are a realist or not about space and time, ironically, as there will still be ontological parts to things even if they are not in space or time; so I say take your pick! **shrug** (:

Again, define you terms and no griping this time around. Simple, easy, end of story.

I already described them sufficiently for purposes of the OP. Space is extension; time is temporality.

Why must I do that? I showed you to have a burden based on your expressed purpose of swaying some people. You've sidestepped that entirely, and are back to making the false claim that I have some burden.

No you don’t have a burden of proof: you have to contend with a premise. That’s not the same thing as having a burden of proof. If you don’t contend with a premise, then you are providing a red herring.

So far all you have noted is that you find it improbable that a simple being could have knowledge; but yet haven’t contended the premises I have in the argument for why this has to be the case.

I am talking about the scope of causality that encompasses all things. You cannot talk about the totality of call causes without the totality of all existence

So, is your answer that you are talking about A and A = C?

In the case of an infinite regress of causality, the scope would be capturing everything causally

But this isn’t true for a first cause, F, of C; such that if there is a first cause then C != A.

In a finite set we ask, "What caused A to be?" and there is no prior causality

This “A” that you refer to here—which is an existent thing and not a set—cannot be a member of C if it is uncaused.

Also, that there is a first cause does not entail that the set is finite. It could be a set of infinite sets, like [F, C]. Where C is a set of an infinite amount of caused things. You seem to be implying, although I may be mistaken, that a first cause would entail a finite set which has the first cause as a member of C.

Another way to answer this is, "The first cause is explained by itself." "An infinite set of causality is explained by itself."

Sets are not caused—ever. The members of the sets may be caused. Again, you are conflating sets with real things. Sets are not real.

Again I think the infinite set is the only issue you have. Lets say we have one universe A that is a set of causal interactions between diamonds.

I am not sure how a diamond causing other diamonds and how that could be identical to a universe, but let’s roll with it.

Let’s call the set of the totality of caused diamonds in diamond universe D; and let’s call the set of the totality of caused cobalt in the cobalt universe T. Here’s have comments I would have:

1. The Gem God would not be a member D; nor is the Cobalt God a member of T.

2. One cannot quantify causally over a set itself like a member.These universes, if they have no first cause(s), are not uncaused. Either:

A. Each previous member sufficiently causes the next member; or
B. There is a member or members which caused itself and thereafter caused the other members; or
C. There is a point where the causal series circles around.

There is no situation in this case where anything that exists is uncaused. Your response is: “but what about the set itself?”. The set isn’t real. It is not a real thing which is caused or uncaused.

3. What causes T to exist as opposed to D is to, again, ask what caused a set; and this is fallacious reasoning. Sets are not real. E.g., if T is an infinite regression of caused cobalt, then the reason each cobalt exists is explained by the previous leaving no room to need to explain anything else. It would be, contrary to D existing, because such-and-such cobalt caused this cobalt to be cobalt and that cobalt caused such-and-such cobalt to be cobalt because of this other cobalt ad infinitum. There is nothing left unexplained in this type of analysis.

'C' is the scope of all causality. And yes, when you extend the scope of causality out, we ask the last question, "What caused all of this other causality to exist apart from what we can discover?" And the answer IS inside of C

That is incoherent. You either are not asking if the totality of caused things is caused by shifting the goal post and saying that the totality of caused things is not this total that you are evaluating; or you are asking if the totality of caused things is caused and this leads to a set of first causes.

It can’t be the case that F causes C and that F is a member of C

Therefore the conclusion is possibly true and possibly false

Again, that is just a more complicated way of saying they are propositional!

Your "burden" is to succeed at that.

All I am doing is providing an argument for why God exists from the idea that composition requires an absolutely simple being that ends up necessarily being God: you seem to want a book about this argument.

The whole point is to get people to read it, consider it, and respond with any questions, comments, or objections they have; and to see if we can find common ground. That’s how all arguments work. You are acting like my OP establishes merely that the premises themselves are propositional; which is actually a prerequisite.

Your argument depends on the unstated premise that knowledge can be present without parts

No it does not, but I understand why you would think this (given where your head space is at). There is no such thing as an unstated premise: there are implications of premises and conclusions; and this implication you speak of is definitely there, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

For example, if I successfully demonstrate to you that quantum entanglement can happen, then it would not be a valid objection to say “but, how can that happen?”. We don’t have to explain how it happens to demonstrate that it happens: your objection here hinges on this conflation.

To your point, though, you could formulate a rejoinder that demonstrates the improbability of, e.g., quantum entanglement being true by considering how it would seem to violate classical laws of nature; and this may convince some people.

You can offer a valid rejoinder that knowledge would have to exist in a simple being for this argument to work and that seems improbable; and you might convince people.

However, I don’t see how you have demonstrated it is metaphysically impossible.

We are just approaching this two different ways: I am convinced by the argument of composition that such a being must exist (and so knowledge would exist in this simple being), and you are tackling it by starting with your understanding of knowledge and seeing if it jives with a simple being having it. The problem is that even if it doesn’t jive well for you, it doesn’t negate the OP: you would have to demonstrate what about my argument for why this simple being has knowledge is false—for it would have to be false if you don’t believe that knowledge can exist in a simple being.

It's the unstated premise I pointed out above. The probability of unstated premises is just as relevant to P(C) as the stated ones.

Nope. That will not suffice. If you are right, then my premises that derives that the being has knowledge—which makes no reference to this “hidden premise”—must be false; and you would have to demonstrate where it that is; or concede that a person approaching this exposition from the standpoint of composition would be warranted, ceteris paribus, on believing that a simple being has knowledge (even if it does not cohere with their knowledge of physics).

So let me try again, which premise is false:

20. Intelligence is having the ability to apprehend the form of things (and not its copies!).
21. The purely simple and actual being apprehends the forms of things. (19)
22. Therefore, the purely simple and actual being must be an intelligence.

One of these has to be false for the argument for fail. You would have to deny 20 or 21 or both. Both of them have nothing per se to do with knowledge in the sense of data.

I would say, if I am being charitable, that you are denying both 20 and 21; because you think intelligence has to do with bits of data (and I don’t) and that thusly this simple being cannot apprehend the forms of things.

So another unstated premise is: physicalism is false.

An implication; yes. It is not a premise. I don’t need to deny physicalism itself to make the argument work: it is implied though if I succeed. That’s like saying an argument for physicalism has an “unstated premise” that “idealism is false”, “substance dualism is false”, etc. They don’t.

You could falsify the theory by identifying an object that can't fit the "state of affairs" model

But the argument in the OP demonstrates that this is impossible. Like I have said many times in this thread, an infinite per se causal series cannot exist; and this also applies to infinite loops and circular relations. If all objects have properties, then they all have parts; and if they all have parts, then they are infinitely composable. They can’t be infinitely composable. So your theory can’t be true.

Here’s a basic argument in two different ways. Here’s my way:

A5-1. A composed being is contingent on its parts to exist.
A5-2. Therefore, a composed being cannot exist by itself or from itself.
A5-3. Therefore, a part which is a composed being cannot exist by itself or from itself.
A5-4. An infinite series of composition, let’s call it set C, of a composed being would be an infinite series of beings which cannot exist by themselves or from themselves.
A5-5. In order for a composed being to exist, it must be grounded in something capable of existing itself.
A5-6. C has no such member as described in A5-5.
A5-7. Therefore, the existence, ceteris paribus, of C is (actually) impossible

Here’s @NotAristotles way:

1. A composite gets its composition from its parts.
2. If all the parts of a composite are themselves composite, then all the parts get their composition from their respective parts.
3. If all of the parts get their composition from their respective parts, then every member, or part, is lacking in terms of its composition and requires another (or others) that it gets its composition from.
4. If every member, or part, is lacking in terms of its composition and requires another for its composition, then no member has composition.
5. If none of the parts have composition, then none of the parts can give composition to another.
6. If none of the parts can give composition to another, then no parts can be parts of a greater composition.
7. Therefore, if all parts are composite, and a composition depends only on its parts, then there can be no composition.

You would have to accept that all beings are infinitely composed (either regressively or circularly) for your view of real things always having properties. That’s very problematic.

The problem is that you are not explaining which set you are quantifying over; and I suspect you are switching back and forth between C and A. Sometimes you say you are talking about the totality of caused things, and then say it is the totality of what exists. Which is it?

The knowledge of the infinite regress does not make the entire set of causality sufficiently explained. What caused that particular set of infinite regresses?

Causality is outside the purview of a set of all caused things. The set of all caused things, C, is literally the encapsulation of all caused things; so it doesn't make sense to ask what caused C since that conflates C with being one of its members.

EDIT: in other words, asking "is C caused?" presupposes that C could be a caused thing which would entail it is not C but rather a member of C (viz., it is not the set of caused things but, rather, a caused thing that is in that set).

Ok.

4. If every member, or part, is lacking in terms of its composition and requires another for its composition, then no member has composition. — NotAristotle

:fire: