It has been almost two years since the last post, but I checked around and no one appears to have definitively resolved the nature of morality in the intervening twenty-two months, so I suppose we should keep this conversation going.
In reading back over the full discussion, I notice that it has grown unwieldy with various offshoots and tributaries. So I propose we table most of the discussions and focus on driving one topic to resolution (or, more likely, mutually agreed impasse). We can then circle back to other disagreements. I believe the spine of our discussion remains the First Cause argument, so I am going to address that while putting a pin in the following topics: - Faith as a "superrational" path to the truth.
- Other arguments for the existence of God.
Before we get into the syllogisms, I will continue to insist that if the refutation of a strong argument for a position doesn't lower your confidence in that position at all, then it wasn't a strong argument for that position in the first place. Aside from the reasons we've already discussed, multiple arguments for a given position are rarely completely independent of each other. There is typically a convergence in the assumptions being made, and reasoning being employed, such that if one arguments falls it is at least worth considering that the other arguments may be weaker than previously suspected.
Your "apple flying upwards" example is not an apples-to-apples comparison (pun intended). No one considers it a strong argument for the existence of gravity that "objects never fly upwards." Obviously, there are many examples to the contrary (helicopters, rockets, balloons, a thrown ball, etc). A rational response to a single weird data point "Hey, that apple appeared to fly upwards of its own accord" is to assume something was missed by the observer (like the string you proposed), and possibly to try to replicate the phenomenon. If scientists were able to isolate apples in labs all over the world, verified no external forces were acting upon them, and found they were still flying upwards of their own accord, that would lower our confidence in the existence of gravity, at least with respect to apples.
In your last post, you stipulated that you agreed with propositions #1-#8 of my argument. However, you then inserted the following proposition #9:
9) N+X, since it is a first cause, must exist in all possible omniverses.
But this is in direct contradiction to my proposition #8:
8) But we can also imagine a different omniverse B with a first cause with attribute N plus attribute Y. We will call this first cause N+Y.
N+Y is distinct from N+X (that's why I used Y instead of X), so you don't agree with my proposition #8 if you insist N+X must exist in all possible omniverses.
You go on to argue at some length for why N+X must exist in all possible omniverses, so I will address your sub-syllogisms.
Sub-syllogism A
I will grant you #1-#3, although I don't really understand the distinction you are drawing in #1. Then:
4) For if it is only impossible that some first cause could have not existed, the necessity of that first cause's existence would be contingent upon the existence of an omniverse which it has to hold in existence, which is nonsensical.
Since the First Cause is part of the ominverse (again, the set of all things which exist), I don't see this as nonsensical at all.
5) But if it is impossible that this specific first cause N+X could have not existed, its existence is dependent only upon itself, so it always exists no matter what; it is impossible for it to have not existed, i.e. it must exist in all possible omniverses.
This just reads to me as you assuming your own conclusion. My proposition #5 (which you granted) is that it's only impossible that N, by itself, does not exist. N+X may exist in a given omniverse (proposition #7), but it's possible that it does not (proposition #8).
Sub-syllogism B
#1 is not really a proposition, but a question, so nothing to grant there. Then:
2) It cannot be a change in N+Z, because then we have changed the topic from talking about N+Z to, say N+Z+C (a completely different first cause with different attributes).
But that's exactly what it is. N+Z only exists in Ominverse M (as supposed by your SSB #1), so of course the First Cause in Omniverse N has different attributes. This being the case, the rest of SSB does not follow.
Sub-syllogism C
Again, #1 kind of cuts the legs out of everything else you are trying to say if we suppose it to be true, but I understand you don't really mean it that way.
I will grant #2-#4.
#5 is a question, nothing to grant. You answer it in #6:
6) Because it holds itself in existence once it already exists, but cannot bring itself into existence if it does not exist? And it exists in Omniverse M so it can hold itself in existence there, but it does not exist in Omniverse N so it cannot hold itself in existence there because it does not exist to do so? This sounds reasonable at first.
I'm not sure what "holding itself in existence" means. I don't think things have to be actively "held" in existence once they already exist, but maybe I'm not understanding your meaning here. I would pare it down to say, "It cannot bring itself into existence if it doesn't exist." That seems to be the nature of a First Cause.
So then, #7 says:
7) But if N+Z has the power to hold itself in existence once it already exists but not the power to bring itself into existence (speaking metaphorically, since it is in eternity; meaning something like perpetually bringing itself into existence), then something else has to be the cause that has the power to bring it into existence or not do so.
As you note, "bringing itself into existence" doesn't really cohere with the concept of eternity, so it does not need to be brought into existence--it already exists in Omniverse M. Thus nothing else needs to be the cause of it. Again, this is the nature of a First Cause and so there is no contradiction.
That is the end of the sub-syllogisms. Naturally, if #9 from the main syllogism is not true (and as evidenced by what I've written above, I think it is far from proved) then the rest of your argument does not follow.
That was pretty in the weeds, but to back out and look at the big picture, it seems to me that you are saying it's impossible to conceive of independent causal chains. Yet you granted my proposition #3, which supposes such a thing. And if causal chains are truly independent, then it is possible, at least in principle, for each link (including the first one) to be different. That's what it means to be independent. So I continue to be puzzled by your assertion that this state of affairs is logically impossible.
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