God Is Existent

CI. Occam’s razor CIA. Deductive Occam’s razor, or Ockham’s razor, is an epistemological razor proposed by William of Ockham as the “principle of economy”, or “law of parsimony”. [1] “The principle states that among competing hypotheses that predict equally well, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.” [2] Philosopher Bertrand Russell modified the principle using his celestial teapot analogy, to show that the God hypothesis is an unnecessary addition, thus the philosophical burden of proof lies upon the person asserting God’s existence. Russell writes, “Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. 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 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.” [3] Thus, if there is an additional unnecessary assertion, it is best to dismiss the assertion altogether as unlikely, if the assertion is not required. Thus, if I can refute Pro’s case, the God hypothesis is dismissed as unlikely. CIB. Ad hoc hypothesis To prevent the God hypothesis from failing, there will always be additional ad hoc hypothesis, but Occam’s razor, specifically in the scientific method, posits that the explanation with least ad hoc hypotheses also prevails. [4] To show the God hypothesis requires ad hoc explanations, I will present two contentions against the existence of God that can only be refuted via. the addition of ad hoc explanations. 1. Incoherence of a Caused Universe As physicist Sean Carroll notes, there are two necessary requirements for causation to take any coherent form – time (and the passage of time), and the laws of nature. The former is obviously necessary, as without the passage of time it is impossible for anything to coherently “happen”. The latter is true as without the laws of nature we lack the unbreakable principles to bind anything with a limit, else we run into paradoxes often faced by properties such as omnipotence due to lack of limitation. Prior to and outside of the universe, there are no laws of nature nor is there time or space, thus it is impossible for anything to coherently “happen” outside the universe. Thus, the universe cannot have been caused prior to its own existence. 2. Argument from Atemporal Minds The argument from the impossibility of a timeless mind takes the following structure. P1: God is a timeless mind.P2: Minds require processes.P3: Processes are temporal.C: An atemporal mind, thus in extension God, is incoherent. The first premise is true by definition. Two is true by the definition of intelligence, of which we don’t have a quantitative understanding, but understand at least that it requires a sensory or subjective process. Processes require a passage of something, and for something to take a process, or a motion from temporal point x to y, would require a passage of time to be coherent. Thus, the conclusion is adequately justified. RI. Ontological Argument First, I question P1, which requires a highly specific definition of “possible” to be valid, which, in “possible world” semantics, of which the MOA is derived, refers to metaphysical possibility, in contrast to epistemic possibility. The latter is subjective possibility, i.e. a statement of “possible for all I know”. The former is the possibility which the MOA must prove, but fails to do. An example illustrating the differences between metaphysical and epistemic possibility would be a statement of “water =/= H20”, which would be possible epistemically, but not metaphysically. The soundness of a possible world semantics interpretation of the S5 axioms is questionable, though true epistemologically. In other words, “<>[]P = []P”, if true metaphysically, as Pro’s interpretation of the MOA seems to suggest without justification, then any random being’s existence can be justified, e.g. the flying spaghetti monster, via. a simple reductio ad absurdum. If the flying spaghetti monster replaces “maximally great being”, it is immediately demonstrated to “exist”, albeit subjectively and epistemically. Thus, this argument is irrelevant in justifying objective existence. A second reductio ad absurdum would flip the premise itself. The reverse premise, “it is possible for God to not exist”, entails the reverse conclusion “God doesn’t exist” via. the same structural logic, which is demonstrated metaphysically in a universe with only a single particle, where the particle obeys a Hamiltonian that is time-dependent. [5] RII. Kalam Cosmological Argument The first premise of Pro’s KCA begs the question. Den Barker writes, “The curious clause ‘everything that begins to exist’ implies that reality can be divided into two sets: items that begin to exist (BE), and those that do not (NBE). In order for this cosmological argument to work, NBE (if such a set is meaningful) cannot be empty, but more important, it must accommodate more than one item to avoid being simply a synonym for God. If God is the only object allowed in NBE, then BE is merely a mask for the Creator, and the premise ‘everything that begins to exist has a cause’ is equivalent to ‘everything except God has a cause.’ As with the earlier failures, this puts God into the definition of the premise of the argument that is supposed to prove God’s existence, and we are back to begging the question.” [6] In other words, “everything that begins to exist” begs the question, as Pro (and Craig) seems to imply that God is the only entity that does not begin to exist, thus “everything except God has a cause” is what the first premise entails, and that begs the question. If the KCA begs the question with P1 as mentioned, one has to either add ad hoc or rectify it by saying “everything has a cause”, which would entail a question “what created God?”, which is the question directed at the Leibnizian cosmological argument which the KCA attempts to escape. The first premise is also untrue, as the Conservation of Mass/Energy can be falsified by mass-energy equivalence and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which allows the quantum vacuum to retain quantum uncertainty that allows it to generate actual energy via. an annihilation process that causes a quantum fluctuation. “[T]he laws of physics place no limit on the scale of vacuum fluctuations. The duration is of course subject to the restriction ΔEΔt = h, but this merely implies that our Universe has zero energy, which has already been made plausible.” [7] The zero-energy universe hypothesis is likely true, and, according to NASA, it has been proven empirically with a 0.4% chance of error. [8] The universe could have literally come from “nothing”, since its energy is zero. And not the quantum vacuum, but rather entirely causelessly. [9] The second premise is justified by Pro via. the BGV theorem, but Pro’s interpretation of the BGV theorem relies on a classical interpretation of spacetime and a presentism ontology of time, but special relativity entails eternalism rather than presentism, and quantum gravity entails a non-classical interpretation of spacetime. RIII. Teleological Argument First, P1 is entirely unjustified – telos is entirely subjective, and Pro equates between prescribed and attributed telos. Pro has yet to demonstrate the former, which is necessary. Secondly, entirely subjective telos can be generated by anything, e.g. evolution via. natural selection generates “design” in the eye, thus is technically generating telos. P2 is equally questionable, since Pro is merely attributing telos and that is not demonstrated, thus can be subject to a critique via. a dysteleological argument. The argument also only argues for an “ordering intellect”, not God as defined since it does not justify all properties of God as defined, thus is irrelevant to the resolution. Since Pro’s arguments are negated, I extend Occam’s razor to show that metaphysical naturalism is more likely than deism or theism. Sources [1]: http://plato.stanford.edu...;[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org...[3]: http://russell.mcmaster.ca...[4]: http://arxiv.org...[5]: http://wiki.ironchariots.org...[6]: http://infidels.org...;[7]: Edward P. Tryon (1973). “Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?” Nature. 246:396-397.[8]: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov...[9]: http://www.astrosociety.org...