The Kalam Cosmological Argument is Sound

Burden of Proof: My opponent has provided no argument to contest my definition of Burden of Proof, so as of now it stands in round. PREMISE 1: a) Carry over my point from Round 1 that Con must provided an exceptionally convincing critique of causation to overcome the firmness with which intuition and experience confirm this premise. b.i) Quantum Mech. Does not provide a counterexample to the metaphysical truth that "From nothing comes nothing." Quantum events are caused by existing energy states and the physical laws of the universe, e.g. the quantum wave function. These are all clearly part of existence per Con's R1 definition and thus not "nothing." Without the existence of these things, the quantum events described by Con could not occur. Con claims this means the events are therefore "uncaused" but his own description of these events seems to support QM events having causes. b.ii) The metaphysical principle that something cannot come from nothing is more fundamental than theories of QM. Exactly how to interpret and describe QM phenomena his been a matter of debate since its advent in the 1920's. Any interpretation proposed by Con will have counterarguments and alternative theories. I contend that accepting that something can come from nothing undermines any cogent metaphysical system and that the intuitiveness of the principle comes prior to the development of a any physical theory. Thuse, we should be evaluating the plausibility of an interpretation of QM by the "from nothing" principle, not the other way around. c.i) On "beginnings." Con is simply playing a linguistic shell game, claiming that an object's "beginning" is arbitrarily defined. Let's not pretend that anyone in unclear by what is meant by beginning; an object that did not exist now exists, so at some point it came into existence or "began." My inability to define the precise limits of an ocean's boundary does not change the fact that if at one point the space occupied by the ocean contained no water, there was some number of things that caused an ocean to appear. c.ii) To suggest that "beginning" in a meaningful sense does not exist because our observable "beginnings" are conversions of pre-existing matter and energy is absurd. Apply c.i) on how the relevant meaning of "beginning" is "to come into existence." Even with Con's claims, saying that Rome came into existence is still meaningful and requires a cause. c.iii) Con's point that all we have experience of "beginning" is matter does nothing to undermine my argument. My Premise 1 b) argument rests explicitly on a fundamental metaphysical principle – that it is impossible for any real object to exist as caused by nothing. That in experience this is verified only for material objects does not damage my case – it only reinforces that material objects require a First Cause. d) Informal Fallacy. Again, my argument rests on the nature of all metaphysical objects, and so is applicable to any metaphysical object – including the Universe. Even if it were applicable, this fallacy does no work for Con unless he is able to provide a positive argument for why the Universe as a whole is fundamentally different from the objects in it. PREMISE 2: a) Con has offered no explanation why this argument is equivalent to my argument b). I maintain that this argument is distinct and in the absence of any in-round argument against it by Con at this point, stands as unrefuted. b.i) Mathematics are not real objects. The distinction between objects "existing" mathematically and "existing" in the metaphysical sense is not new and is in no way an absurd claim; many schools of thought maintain such a position, for example structuralism. Math can describe the real world without itself being a real object; much in the same way we don't say that "grammar" is an actual existing object. If Con wants to claim mathematic objects are real he must demonstrate so and explain how objects such as -1, the root of -1, and zero exist in the real world. b.ii) My criticism of the Hotel illustrates a contradiction in infinity as a real object. In this example, subtracting to equal numbers results in two distinct and contradictory results. Such an occurrence in the real world is impossible, and demonstrates the impossibility of actual infinites. b.iii) Infinity as a mathematical object is made consistent by axiomatic rules. In mathematics, you are simply not allowed to subtract from infinity, precisely because it leads to the inconsistency laid out in b.ii). In the real world, such axiomatic rules are meaningless – you cant just make up a rule to make infinity consistent, e.g. there is no rule of reality preventing infinite guests from leaving the hotel. b.iv) My opponent's view of infinity as "by definition without beginning or end" is quite simply wrong. The set of all positive integers clearly has a beginning but is clearly infinite. Nothing in my hotel example runs contrary to the definition of infinity. c)Cosmology c.i) THEORY: Per B.O.P standard, Con must demonstrate that any cosmology he relies on is in fact more probable than a competing cosmology offered by Pro. Simply providing examples of possible alternative cosmologies does not meet Con's B.O.P and shows serious potential for abuse. Con could simply list as many conflicting improbable cosmologies as possible and Pro would have no space to refute. c.ii) All theories of the universe at the moment of or before the Big Bang are speculative, many differing radically. There is no scientific consensus surrounding any one theory, much less the theory advocated by Con. It should even be noted that Con cites two different contradicting theories (H.H. and Vilenkin)- illustrating the lack of conensus. There is however, overwhelming consensus that the Big Bang occurred some finite amount of time in the past. Taken together this means that scientific cosmology supports a universe with a temporal beginning but has no single most probable account of how the universe began. c.iii) Vilenkin's Initial Energy Density does not suggest a "timeless" pre-universe (Gott, Li, Physical Review '98) "The problem with [Vilenkin and Hawking-Hartle] is that it ignores the ‘zero point energy'… The energy levels should be E=n+1/2... even for n=0 there is ‘zero point energy.' The potential makes the system behave like a harmonic oscillator… A harmonic oscillator cannot sit at the bottom of the potential well-the uncertainty principle would not allow it…The initial state is not a point but a tiny oscillating big bang universe…This is the initial classical state from which tunneling occurs. It is metastable, so this…universe could not have existed forever: after a finite half-life, it is likely to decay." c.iv) Counter-cosmology: Closed Friedmann (Gott,Li) "In the Friedmann models the universe began in a singularly dense state at a ﬁnite time in the past. The equations could not be pushed beyond that ﬁnite beginning singularity…The closed Friedmann model, popular because it is compact and therefore needs no boundary conditions, re-collapses in a ﬁnite time in the future to form a big crunch singularity at the end. … Classical general relativity tells us that a closed universe begins with a singularity and ends with a singularity, with nothing before and nothing after" This counter-cosmology is preferable for several reasons: a) The model has a popular scientific following, as indicated above b) the model avoids speculation about boundary conditions, making no improbable claims about the singularity or pre-Big Bang conditions. As outlined in the B.O.P., Con must demonstrate why any cosmology he advocates is more probable than the cosmology advocated by Pro. c.v) The cosmology presented in a) and b) still establish a universe with a temporally finite past. These are, again, metaphysical arguments that come prior to speculative cosmogonies. They are therefore more certain than the speculative cosmogony offered by Con.