If The Universe Has A Cause, That Cause Is A Personal Mind

Thanks to RT for keeping it interesting.I made three arguments for the resolution. Two of them got conflated, so let me explain the distinction.The first argument was an argument from process of elimination. After ruling out abstract objects and impersonal entities, we were left with personal beings. I further went on to show that a personal being could not be ruled out.In the second argument, I showed why a personal being is not only possible but necessary. This was my argument from volition.The third argument was the argument from the ability of personal beings to create energy ex nihilo.If RT's suggestion that the universe had necessary conditions and began spontaneously, that would refute my first two arguments. It would show that volition was unnecessary, which refutes the second argument, and it would show that there is a fourth possibility, which would refute my first argument.When I took this debate, I interpreted "cause" to mean "sufficient cause." Usually, when somebody says an event happens spontaneously, I take that to mean it happened without a cause. So when RT suggests the universe did not have a sufficient cause, I take that to be a rejection of the supposition of this debate.But I don't want a cheap win, and I suppose RT would dispute my interpretation of the resolution. So I'll answer as if the antecedent of the resolution makes room for the universe having a necessary cause but not a sufficient cause.RT's argument is that the Copenhagen interpretation, which ought to be preferred, entails that there are spontaneous events in the quantum world, so it's possible that the beginning of the universe was a spontaneous event, albeit with necessary conditions. I have a few responses to that.First, Sean Carroll said in his debate with Bill Craig that "The Copenhagen interpretation is basically nonsense. No thoughtful person still holds to it. And yet we teach it to all of our undergraduates. That's kind of a scandal. And uh..you know and no one knows what the right answer is." [1]Second, all interpretations of quantum physics are ad hoc in a sense. Nobody knows what's really going on down there, so they invent these models to explain it. Pilot wave theory can hardly be blamed for trying to be coherent! One reason many people have accepted the Copenhagen interpretation as opposed to the de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory is because it requires less math. Whereas both interpretations require the Schroedinger equation, the pilot wave theory adds the guiding equation that tells the particle how to move within the wave function. This difference may tell us which interpretation is easier to deal with on a practical level, but it doesn't tell us which theory is actually true. Another reason many reject the pilot wave theory is that it contains hidden variables, which means it's not a complete theory. It's precisely for this reason that I'm more inclined toward pilote wave (or something like it) than Copenhagen. Whichever theory you go with, or even if you go with no theory at all, there's still a lot of weirdness in quantum physics. That leads me to believe there's a lot going on down there that we don't know. I'm suspicious of any theory that says we do, especially when that theory is full of counter-intuitive results, like the Copenhagen interpretation.Third, while the Copenhagen interpretation does give us instances of events without sufficient causes, it does not give us any instances of anything coming into existence without material causes. What I mean is that whereas the universe coming into existence does not entail one sort of physical thing being transformed into some other kind of physical thing, that is precisely what happens in pair production due to vacuum fluxuations. What physicists call "false vacuum" is actually full of energy, and particles emerge from it because some of that energy is converted to mass. If the whole universe had a beginning, then it could not have emerged from a false vacuum. Remember that we are talking about the beginning of all of physical reality. That's what we mean by "the universe."Fourth, it would be quite the extrapolation to suppose that the beginning of the universe is like the beginning of a subatomic particle. When you consider the fact that all matter, energy, and time came into existence at the beginning of the universe, there's an obvious difference between that and a pair of subatomic particles emerging from a field of energy within the universe. They are not the same kind of event.Fifth, it isn't clear that the beginning of the universe is a quantum event. So far, we have no theory that reconciles quantum physics with relativity. Both theories have extraordinary predictive value, which suggests that they are both true, but we have no theory that reconciles them or that allows us to predict one from the other. That's relevant because while relativity governs the universe on a large scale, if you extrapolate backward in time, big bang theory predicts that the universe gets shrunk down to atomic and subatomic size. Nobody knows which theory dominates at that point or if there's some undiscovered physics that takes over.Now, I want to respond to RT's rebuttal of my last argument from the ability of minds to create ex-nihilo. While conceding that it's possible for immaterial minds to interact with the material world, he questions whether my proposed solution works on the basis that it only postpones the interaction problem. The energy that gets created ex-nihilo would still have to be manipulated somehow by the person who created it. I don’t think that’s the case, though. Let me give an illustration.We know that two particles of the same charge will have an electrostatic force of repulsion between them. So all it would take to move one electron is for another electron to appear right beside it. If one could create an electron instantaneously at some precise location, they wouldn’t have to take any further step in moving that electron to get it to move some other electron. In the same way, when energy is created in just the right way, nature takes its course from there without requiring any further interference from an immaterial mind. So this is a viable solution.My argument is stronger than suggesting a mere possibility, though. Rather, this is the only viable solution. If immaterial minds are to interact with the material world, which my argument from volition shows that they do, they must do so by creating energy ex-nihilo since (1) they cannot move matter without imparting energy to it, and (2) they have no energy of their own.RT claims that even if this is how minds interact with the physical world, it still doesn't show that the universe was created that way since (1) it could've been spontaneous, and (2) we have no experience of timeless minds.Regarding 1, RT's spontaneous explanation still includes a necessary cause. The only way that cause could play a roll in bringing about the beginning of the universe is if it has some kind of capacity, even if not sufficient by itself, to bring about energy from nothing. Unless it has some power to contribute to that end, it's not really a cause at all. So we are still stuck with a spaceless, timeless, immaterial entity that contributes somehow to bringing about the beginning of the universe ex nihilo. Right now, a mind is the only thing we know of that can do that.Regarding 2, While it's true we have no experience of a timeless mind, I've already shown that it's possible. Also, while we might have experience of spontaneous events, assuming Copenhagen is correct, we have no experience of anything spontaneously coming into existence from nothing at all. If you agree with my solution to the interaction problem, then we DO have experience of things being caused by immaterial minds to come into existence out of nothing. So, an immaterial mind is still the best candidate for a cause. NOTES: 1. Go to 2:13:30