AARO posted:

The Hilbert Hotel argument is used to demonstrate the absurdity of an actual infinite.

Then, because of the absurdities inherent in an actual infinite, Craig says they cannot exist. I think the argument is just as strong if you say it proves that an actual material infinite cannot exist. If you leave out the material part, people will object because of actual infinites in math. However, the Intuitionalist believe an actual infinite cannot exist in mathematics. The mathematician Gauss also didn't believe in actual infinities. "I protest against the use of infinite magnitude as something completed, which is never permissible in mathematics. Infinity is merely a way of speaking, the true meaning being a limit which certain ratios approach indefinitely close, while others are permitted to increase without restriction"

But it appears there is an agreement that an actual material infinite cannot exist, I suppose because of it's absurdities. I'd like to here more arguments for and against this. Do intrinsic absurdities of a thing prove the impossibility of existence of a thing? This is the only part of the Kalam argument I'm not 100% convinced by.


Here is a simpler explanation of the hotel argument.

Zaradis posted:

But to find meaning requires knowledge, neither of which can (in my opinion) be satisfactorily discovered. Yet, we want both meaning and knowledge. So we pretend that we have both.

AARO posted:

The Hilbert Hotel argument is used to demonstrate the absurdity of an actual infinite.

Then, because of the absurdities inherent in an actual infinite, Craig says they cannot exist. I think the argument is just as strong if you say it proves that an actual material infinite cannot exist. If you leave out the material part, people will object because of actual infinites in math. However, the Intuitionalist believe an actual infinite cannot exist in mathematics. The mathematician Gauss also didn't believe in actual infinities. "I protest against the use of infinite magnitude as something completed, which is never permissible in mathematics. Infinity is merely a way of speaking, the true meaning being a limit which certain ratios approach indefinitely close, while others are permitted to increase without restriction"

But it appears there is an agreement that an actual material infinite cannot exist, I suppose because of it's absurdities. I'd like to here more arguments for and against this. Do intrinsic absurdities of a thing prove the impossibility of existence of a thing? This is the only part of the Kalam argument I'm not 100% convinced by.


Here is a simpler explanation of the hotel argument.

Who What Now posted:

I don't agree that meaning requires knowledge. Meaning is imposed, it's not innate.

Juffo-Wup posted:

Here is Craig's argument (Call it argument A) that the cause of the universe must be a person:

1.) The universe has a beginning (from the first part of the KCA).
2.) The cause of the universe must be eternal (again, from the first part of the KCA).
3.) Anything that has a beginning is not eternal.
4.) If a cause is sufficient for an effect, and the cause is eternal, then the effect is eternal.
_4a.) (Premise for reductio) The universe has a material cause.
_4b.) A material cause is sufficient for its effect.
_4c.) The universe is eternal (This is a contradiction with 1 and 3)
5.) The universe does not have a material cause (from 4a-4c)
6.) All causes are either material or personal.
7.) The universe has a personal cause. (From disjunctive syllogism of 5 and 6)

The problem with this argument is that 'sufficiency' goes both ways. Here's another argument (argument B):

1.) An eternal sufficient cause must have an eternal effect.
2.) God's will to create "a world with a beginning" is sufficient to produce it (Denying this would probably get you into trouble)
3.) God's will to create "a world with a beginning" is eternal (Or else God changed his mind, a bad result).
4.) "A world with a beginning" is eternal (from 1,2,3)
5.) (4) contradicts (3) from Argument A. So one of the premises 1, 2, or 3 from Argument B must be false.


Edit: I should say that this reply is not mine; I got it from a Philosophy of Religion professor that I was a TA for some number of years ago.

AARO posted:

+ This first cause must also be personal because there are only two accepted types of
explanations, personal and scientific, and this can't be a scientific explanation. Also, the only
things that might be immaterial, timeless, and spaceless are abstract objects or
disembodied minds, but abstract objects cannot cause things, so it must be a disembodied
mind. Finally, only personal agency can explain how a temporal effect could come from a
changeless cause. [Craig & Sinclair, 2009]

Zaradis posted:

I agree, but that it is imposed means that it is subjective and that it is subjective means any claims that others also ought to find meaning in the things you do are no better than saying "People should like what I like because I like what I like."

The Belgian posted:

As I said before, that doesn't show anything contradictory. It shows infinity is weird. But hey, the world is weird and what's wrong with that. What Gauss has to say here isn't terribly relevant. Today we are much more comfortable describing things as infinite. Your argument is also irrelevant to the post you're responding to, which didn't object to beginning but objected to beginning impying a cause.

Who What Now posted:

What exactly does Craig mean when he says "personal" cause?

AARO posted:

I know there are many non-theists who hold deep ethical and moral beliefs. I'm wondering how you respond to the positivists. Where is the verifiability for your moral and ethical claims? You can't prove with science that it's "wrong" to do anything can you? So why do you believe it?

Juffo-Wup posted:

That the cause is a thing with a mind, i.e., a person.

Who What Now posted:

That seems ill-defined. Does it have to be caused by the mind alone? If I pour vinegar into baking soda is the resulting reaction personal or scientific? What if I leave a container of vinegar out and a gust of wind knocks it over into a pile of baking soda? What if that wind was caused by a fan I turned on? What if the wind was caused man-made global warming?

Basically, how many degrees of separation does it take before a cause is no longer personal?

Who What Now posted:

Only if every single person is a hyper-logical nihilistic solipsist. But, thankfully, they aren't, people care about and value subjective opinions and claims. And there's nothing wrong with doing so that would cause anybody any sense of cognitive dissonance, there are not necessarily any contradictory positions being held.

Zaradis posted:

Juffo-Wup posted:

Just a quick question: on your view, is it possible for me to 'schmow' that there are objective moral facts, and what at least some of them are, where 'schmowledge' is what I have about propositions like 'Frank Sinatra was a singer' and 'oxygen is responsible for combustion, rather than phlogiston'? Or do I schmow the latter things, but not the former?

Zaradis posted:

I grant that we know things on the philosophical definition of knowledge. But we cannot be sure about the truth of the things that we claim to know. It simply isn't a possibility given the way in which human beings experience...don't get me started again, I got more invested last time than I justifiably had time for

Zaradis posted:

I'd say that clinical psychopaths only value their own subjective opinions and claims. So they put no value in the subjective opinions or claims of others. If another person claims that the psychopath ought to value others opinions then there is simply a disagreement, since both claimants' opinions are grounded in subjectivity, and neither is grounded on any stronger ground than the other. And the important point for your argument is that, according to you, for the psychopath to be wrong just requires more subjective opinions in agreement against his own.

Who What Now posted:

Woooooooooooooah there, where did I say this, again?

Zaradis posted:

It seemed to me that what you were saying is that because most people care about and value subjective opinions and claims then that makes subjective opinions and claims valuable; but that would be a vicious circle.

quote:

I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that you meant that because most people generally agree about which subjective opinions and values are valuable that this somehow grants some moral power for those subjective opinions to condemn or reward opinions that agree or disagree with them.

quote:

Regardless of what you mean, the point that people care about and value subjective opinions and claims says nothing of the moral authority of those opinions and claims. I see no reason why the fact that an individual, a nation, or every being in the universe value certain opinions and claims would give those opinions and claims moral authority over anyone in disagreement.

The Belgian posted:

Your argument is also irrelevant to the post you're responding to, which didn't object to beginning but objected to beginning impying a cause.

AARO posted:

It does seem to be self evident that all things which begin have a cause. Can you name one thing that began that did not have a cause?

AARO posted:

It does seem to be self evident that all things which begin have a cause. Can you name one thing that began that did not have a cause?

AARO posted:

It does seem to be self evident that all things which begin have a cause. Can you name one thing that began that did not have a cause?

OwlFancier posted:

Presumably, everything. There is no rule that says the universe can't be infinitely cyclical.

Also even if the universe did have a cause there is no reason why it has to be personified.

AARO posted:

Yeah, except for of course if you read the argument.

AARO posted:

It does seem to be self evident that all things which begin have a cause. Can you name one thing that began that did not have a cause?

AARO posted:

It does seem to be self evident that all things which begin have a cause. Can you name one thing that began that did not have a cause?

Who What Now posted:

By this do you mean that I cannot morally judge the actions of others, to condemn or condone them? Because that's just flat out wrong too, I can and nobody can stop me.

AARO posted:

Yeah, except for of course if you read the argument.

Dzhay posted:

On the Zaradis/Juffo-wup nature-of-knowledge tangent: I think you're both putting a bit too much emphasis on certainty. People say they "know something is true" when they think that it's very likely. (Yes, this includes things like mathematics)

As Zaradis will surely point out, this does nothing to save us from the problems of our systems not being able to justify themselves*, but it at least pushes it up to a slightly more abstract place.

Secondly, the distinction between "subjective experience" and "knowledge of an outside world" seems to require a universe that factorises neatly into "you" and "not you".


(*Indeed, nothing ever can, including the OP's pseudoplatonism. However, I think going from there to "morality is essentially arbitrary" is both unnecessary and discards some interesting structure)

Dzhay posted:

On the Zaradis/Juffo-wup nature-of-knowledge tangent: I think you're both putting a bit too much emphasis on certainty. People say they "know something is true" when they think that it's very likely. (Yes, this includes things like mathematics)

As Zaradis will surely point out, this does nothing to save us from the problems of our systems not being able to justify themselves*, but it at least pushes it up to a slightly more abstract place.

Secondly, the distinction between "subjective experience" and "knowledge of an outside world" seems to require a universe that factorises neatly into "you" and "not you".


(*Indeed, nothing ever can, including the OP's pseudoplatonism. However, I think going from there to "morality is essentially arbitrary" is both unnecessary and discards some interesting structure)

Zaradis posted:

Correct, I never claimed otherwise. What I said was that your condemnations and condoning have no moral authority over those being judged other than in your own mind. If I am stealing from you and you condemn me for it, so what? That's just you trying to impose your subjective morality onto me. It is no better or worse, no more right or wrong, than my imposing of my subjective morality that it is good for me to steal from you. To try to enforce that condemnation physically is no different in a moral sense than my act of stealing from you. If you want to condemn me within your own moral realm (i.e. your mind), then you certainly can. But this wholly defeats the purpose of morality, which is to reward and punish people for their actions in one way or another.

Who What Now posted:

Before I address this more in depth, are you also saying that morality's only purpose is to reward or to punish? And do you believe that only morality can be or should be the basis of rewarding or punishing actions?

And are you ever going to address my original point that cognitive dissonance is required in our day to day, moment to moment lives?

Zaradis posted:

The point of morality is to have some ground from which one can claim that themselves and others ought to commit or not commit certain types of actions and to determine which of those actions deserve praise and which deserve condemnation.

If morality is subjectively imposed on the world, a premise with which I do not disagree, then there is no such ground. That the morality you impose might conflict with mine is simply a fact of the matter. If there is no higher level of morality by which to judge which one of our subjective moralities is right or wrong then it's merely your word against mine. It's opinion versus opinion. Unless you want to claim that certain subjective moral beliefs have more moral worth than others then you have no basis from which to claim that others ought to act a certain moral way or to give praise or condemnation of moral action. And if you do want to claim that then you would have to make an argument that I cannot imagine without reference to a non-subjective morality.

Therefore, if morality is subjectively imposed on the world, then to make moral claims necessitates that the person making the claim either actively deny, actively ignore, or be cognitively dissonant about the subjective origin of morality.

Zaradis posted:

The point of morality is to have some ground from which one can claim that themselves and others ought to commit or not commit certain types of actions and to determine which of those actions deserve praise and which deserve condemnation.

If morality is subjectively imposed on the world, a premise with which I do not disagree, then there is no such ground. That the morality you impose might conflict with mine is simply a fact of the matter. If there is no higher level of morality by which to judge which one of our subjective moralities is right or wrong then it's merely your word against mine. It's opinion versus opinion. Unless you want to claim that certain subjective moral beliefs have more moral worth than others then you have no basis from which to claim that others ought to act a certain moral way or to give praise or condemnation of moral action. And if you do want to claim that then you would have to make an argument that I cannot imagine without reference to a non-subjective morality.

Therefore, if morality is subjectively imposed on the world, then to make moral claims necessitates that the person making the claim either actively deny, actively ignore, or be cognitively dissonant about the subjective origin of morality.

OwlFancier posted:

You can certainly reject all the fundamental premises and goals of my concept of morality but being as we are both humans living on earth I would suggest that it is likely that we both aspire to things like maximising human wellbeing.

OwlFancier posted:

Thus, moral disputes are far more likely to be starting from similar premises than completely alien ones, in which case you can certainly argue that one set of actions better adheres to the goals and premises shared by both parties.

OwlFancier posted:

The idea that morality is inevitably restricted to shouting conflicting opinions into a void with no possibility of meaningful debate doesn't really reflect reality.

OwlFancier posted:

You can certainly reject all the fundamental premises and goals of my concept of morality but being as we are both humans living on earth I would suggest that it is likely that we both aspire to things like maximising human wellbeing.

Thus, moral disputes are far more likely to be starting from similar premises than completely alien ones, in which case you can certainly argue that one set of actions better adheres to the goals and premises shared by both parties.

The idea that morality is inevitably restricted to shouting conflicting opinions into a void with no possibility of meaningful debate doesn't really reflect reality.

Zaradis posted:

I'd say that clinical psychopaths only value their own subjective opinions and claims. So they put no value in the subjective opinions or claims of others. If another person claims that the psychopath ought to value others opinions then there is simply a disagreement, since both claimants' opinions are grounded in subjectivity, and neither is grounded on any stronger ground than the other. And the important point for your argument is that, according to you, for the psychopath to be wrong just requires more subjective opinions in agreement against his own. So if there are 100 psychopaths and 1000 utilitarians, then, following your argument, utilitarianism is correct. You're advocating a tyranny of the moral majority, which I doubt many would agree with, I certainly do not.

The cognitive dissonance still clearly comes into play in even your scenario. The idea that a majority opinion regarding morality is the correct moral opinion is merely a confirmation bias of those who hold the same moral opinion as those in the majority.