Tuesday, January 19, 2016

The Paradox of the Set of All Sets

The famous Bertrand Russell paradox which destroyed the attempt by him and Whitehead to outline the totality of mathematics, was just this:
The set of all sets cannot contain itself, so it is not the set of all sets.
This brings to mind a note to myself which recently re-surfaced, which said,
All things which exist are physical;
the source of all physical things is physical.
This statement of Philosophical Materialism is just as logically incestuous as the Russell Paradox. Is it actually the case that the source of all physical things is a physical thing which created itself, ex nihilo? And of course, subsequently created all other physical things?

In other words, all other physical things couldn't exist until and unless the first, creating physical thing created itself, under Philosophical Materialism and Atheism.

Where in nature do we see something come into physical existence without an identifiable prior causal existence? Even a quantum field is required in order to produce particle pairs, according to the Copenhagen understanding of quantum physics. Either particles are created by energy, or particles actually are energy (Quantum Field Theory). But what sort of a physical "thing" would the first, self-creating energy/particle be? What gives a probability field a positive value?

That is the paradox which surrounds the underlying theory of Philosophical Materialism, which is a necessary subset of Atheism - the rejection of a non-material creating entity. To drive the nail further home, the only valid evidence under the physicalist, Philosophical Materialism constraint is empirical data which is obtained in disciplined experimental fashion, successfully replicated, peer reviewed (for whatever that is worth), with open data for public examination of methods and results.

Can this empirical evaluation be done with regard to the "first self-creating physical thing"? Or even "any self-creating physical thing" That would require creating an absolute void containing not even any quantum field, much less radiation or outside particles. Then how, within this logically and actually empty environment could the creation, ex nihilo of course, be induced? Be replicated? It cannot be done. It is an effect without a cause outside itself, so there is no prior cause available to initiate the effect.

This seems almost too simple to avoid the truth of it. But it is not apparent to Atheists, who need the concept of physical self-creation and Philosophical Materialism in order to protect their chosen worldview. But they should have to admit that both logic and empirical evidence fail to indicate any value to support their choice. Why do they not admit to this, but rather claim the opposite: to have logic and evidence for their belief? There is only one remaining possibility, outside of insanity, and that is emotional neediness for their Atheism to be true.

Atheists have a choice:
A physical thing can and did create itself, as the source of itself, the cause of itself. (Not a property of known physical things; never observed; not inducible; a theory out of desperation).


Or,
Physical things always existed. (Infinite regression)

Or,
Physical things are illusions or delusions. (self reference).
Philosophical Materialism, and therefore Atheism, fail logically and empirically.

4 comments:

Phoenix said...

Ok, so I've decided to search for the current best evidence for the cause of the universe according to Atheists. This is what I found:

But the more important point is this: not only is there no evidence for the theist's case, there's evidence against it. The claim that the beginning of our universe has a cause conflicts with current scientific theory. The scientific theory is called the wave function of the universe. It has been developed in the past ten years or so by Stephen Hawking, Andre Vilenkin, Alex Linde, and many others. Their theory is that there is a scientific law of nature called the Wave Function of the Universe that implies that it is highly probable that a universe with our characteristics will come into existence without a cause. Hawking's theory is based on assigning numbers to all possible universes. All of the numbers cancel out except for a universe with features our universe possesses. For example, contains intelligent organisms such as humans. This remaining universe has a certain probability very high -- near to a hundred percent -- of coming into existence uncaused.

Hawking's theory is confirmed by observational evidence. This theory predicts our universe has evenly-distributed matter on a large scale, which would be on scales of super-clusters of galaxies. It predicts that the expansion rate of our universe -- our universe has been expanding ever since -- would be almost exactly between the rate of the universe expanding forever and the rate where it expands and then collapses. It also predicts the very early area of rapid expansion near the beginning of the universe called inflation. Hawking's theory exactly predicted what the COBE satellite discovered about the irregularities of the background radiation in the universe. So a scientific theory that is confirmed by observational evidence tells us that the universe began without being caused. So if you want to be a rational person and accepts the results of rational inquiry into nature, then we must accept the fact that God did not cause the universe to exist. The universe exists because of this wave-function law.

Any thoughts Stan?

Stan said...

I'm not ignoring this, I'm writing up a response but it takes some looking through the premises...

Xellos said...

>For example, contains intelligent organisms such as humans.

But according to evolution, such organisms only come into existence far after such a "self-creation". That contradicts causality in an even worse way: the past depends on the future.

Furthermore, "intelligent" is not a physical term.

The quoted explanation contains some serious bullshit, and I'm afraid most people (especially most Atheists) do not have enough knowledge about the subject to actually understand what it's about. I don't.

Pic related.

Stan said...

My initial take on the Hawking Probability Wave is posted as an article.