There Is an External Cause of the Universe

After actually reading my opponent's introductory arguments and rebuttals, I realize that this is a different debate than I intended. To begin with, pro has the burden of proof to prove that an external cause is necessary for the universe. And two, when my opponent starts arguing that quantum fluctuations represent its own external cause or that the physics of "space" outside the known universe operate differently, it's very hard for me to argue against the resolution. I hope I can get this resolved in the next round. As for sources, my opponent has failed to present sources that show some sort of evidence for his argument, using them instead to make a philosophical argument. The sources I present provide evidence for the assertions I make, and this well gets factored in to the source vote. Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of AbsenceOne of my opponent's many assertions is that there might be an unknowable external force that created the universe just a moment ago. However possible this may be, it does not satisfy my opponent's burden of proof. Here is Bertrand Russell explaining why with his famous celestial teapot thought experiment:"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. "[1]It's essentially absurd to believe that there is an external cause just because there is the possibility of an unknowable external cause. Overall, my opponent would have to equally believe that there are griffins flying around stars that spew caloric as heat transfer. What I'm trying to argue here is that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, and there is no evidence that an external cause exists. Empirical Evidence and the Beginning of the UniverseI take very strongly that empirical evdience cannot be used to show that the universe is acausal. There is easy evidence for the singularity (it is a lot more complicated that this, but this is the basic argument): "Galaxies are moving steadily apart from each other. This means that they were closer together in the past. One can plot the separation of two galaxies, as a function of time. .. One would expect gravity, to cause the galaxies to accelerate towards each other. This will mean that the graph of the separation of two galaxies will bend downwards, below the straight line. .. [There would be a time of zero seperation] At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. "[7]What is means is that the universe has to be acausal: "The singularity itself is also regarded in the GTR-based Big Bang theory as uncaused, although for a different reason. It is defined as a point beyond which space-time curves cannot be extended, and thus which cannot have causal antecedents. .. Consequently, this theory cannot be used to support the thesis that the initial physical states are probably caused and that this cause is God. " Overall, the sound evidence for the singularity (unless you take the equally acausal Ekpyrotic view) and the necessary-ness of the singularity being acausal support the view that the universe itself is acausal. [8]An Infinite Regress Is Not RequiredThis seems impossible for an acausal universe, but go back to my argument in the first round. I mentioned that, by the quantum fluctuation model, there was no time before the big bang because it was like a black hole: "As you get closer to a black hole, the flow of time slows down, compared to flow of time far from the hole. .. Near a black hole, the slowing of time is extreme. From the viewpoint of an observer outside the black hole, time stops. " What all this means is that an infinite regress is not required for the quantum fluctuation model, as there is a finite time of the entire universe's existence. [2]As for my opponent's objection to the Ekpyrotic theory being wrong because it makes for infinite time: "In modern physics and cosmology, space and time are physical and are part of the universe. The big bang did not happen in a pre-existing space and time. " In general, it is very possible that the universe is infinite in both space and time, but again, these are physical and part of the universe. [3]Overall, however, we shouldn't even worry about this time before the big bang: "Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. " The laws of physics even break down at the singularity because of the infinite (which, consequently, is evidence of an actual infinite): "Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang. "[7]Common Sense and ScienceScience often defies common sense. For example, the heliocentric theory defies logic. The kinetic theory of gases defies logic. However, they are both true. Things are often very different than what we perceive through our senses. For example, the speed of light is finite, and everything we see is not at the exact state of an object at the moment we perceive it, but instead the state the object was in minus the amount of time it took to reach you eye. On the human level, this is very minimal, but on the astronomical level, it is huge. For example, the light we see from the sun shows the sun as it was eight and a half minutes before you saw it. Carl Sagan once said this: "The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counter-intuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. " And this describes science, especially modern science. Overall, what we see is by no means what really is. Reality is very much an illusion, and common sense is a flawed understanding of how illusions work. [4]Psychology and EthicsThe belief in a higher power may be comforting to those who are ignorant, but for me, the possible acausal explanations of the universe seem much more appealing to me because they rely on evidence and theory instead of the pure absence of evidence. People need to learn to grapple with the fact that the world has meaning. It could even be argued that looking at the world throuh rose-colored glasses is worse than fully understanding how an acausal universe could exist. Overall, this argument doesn't prove an external cause at all - it only suggests that an external cause should exist. Quantum SuperpositionsI included this because it is necessary to see how I am defining an external cause and differentiating it from an acausal universe. Quantum fluctuations are an example of an acausal universe because there is no cause for quantum fluctuations to occur (more on that in the next round). Each premise is sound by quantum mechanics or by the very definition of an external cause. For example, "When an external agency (an observer, experimenter) measures the observable associated with the eigenbasis, the wave function collapses from the full [set of eigenstates] to just one of the basis eigenstates. ""At present, every experiment has verified the [observation effect]. " This proves premise 2 of the argument. Premise 3 obviously follows from premise 2, because an external cause would have to see the universe, or one that transcends the universe that we observe, and therefore observes all superpositions, which would cause all of them to collapse. Premise 4 does seem at first to be contradictory to premise 2, but it has to be true that not all quantum superpositions have collapsed, as that would make the notion of it null. Most of the "proofs" my opponent demands are unnecessary because the statements are axiomatic. [5][6]Sources[1]: . http://www.cfpf.org.uk...[2]: . http://www.cfa.harvard.edu...[3]: . http://www.astro.virginia.edu...[4]: . http://www.positiveatheism.org...[5]: Griffiths, David J. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, p. 106-9. [6]: Kaku, Michio. Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universe, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension, p. 261. [7]: . http://www.hawking.org.uk...[8]: . http://infidels.org...