Atheists, what is the most logical choice for the source of all?

Question

I respect that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. Nonetheless, I hope to peaceably reason with athiests, (as you may hope to reason with me). Of course, I can hardly present tangible evidence of GOD via the Internet. I can, though, at the least, make you think of the possibility of GOD's existance.

That being said, which of the following is the most logical choice as the source of all in nature?

1) All in nature existed eternally

2) Something in the natural existance is the source of all that ever existed in the natural, (including by evolution)

3) Something beyond nature, and with NO intelligence, is the source of all in nature

4) Something beyond nature, and with intelligence, is the source of all in nature

5) Some other conclusion, (although no other conclusion can be formed without some sort of redundancy).

Please explain your logic and reason for your conclusion. Logic and reasoning is key.

Thank you for any and all answers.

Hint #1: Nothing IN nature can be the SOURCE of nature.

Hint #2: Once beyond nature, the laws of nature do not apply.

Answer 1

I can see this is going to be a long answer. Lets address these possibilities one at a time.

1. Nature existed eternally. This is in one sense tautologically true. The word eternal has two meanings. It can mean "For all time" or "Infinite in Time. Since we realize with modern physics that time is simply one aspect of Nature and depends on Nature for its meaning and measurement. The Statement Nature exists for all time is a tautology.

We do not know if time has an infinite past or not. Arguments steming from the first law of thermodynamics that total mass energy cannot be created or destroyed fail to consider that gravitational potential energy is negative, and that matter/energy is created by the expansion as long as it is balanced by an equal amount of negative gravitational potential energy. In fact the total sum of mass/energy in nature may well add up to zero.

My reply to the first answer is that it is tautologically true in the first sense and may or may not be be true in the second sense. But I feel that ultimately the issue is irrelevent. The question really revolves around the reason why we see apparent complexity. Whether the universe has an infinite past simply does not matter, in answering this question. I think it is naive to think that this issue is relevent to the question of whether nature is designed or whether it is ultimately simple. If I was a programmer designing a simple Universe Representation , say on a computer. I could design either a universe with a finite or infinite past, It would be my choice to do so. Similarly Nature can be based on something simple, and either have an infinite past or not. Also arguing that the universe has an infinite past does not free you from the need to answer why the physics we observe are so fine-tuned for our existence. So I would say 1 just does not matter.

2 and 3 seem to be hypothesizing that nature is based on something simple. I believe this is the correct answer but I will get back to it. Whether you include this simple thing inside or outside nature is merely a matter of how you define nature so I will include answer 2 as part of answer 3.

4. This tries to address the question of the origin of apparent complexity by hypothesizing a greater complexity. Of course this leads to infinite regression. Now you have the bigger question of explaning the orgin of this greater complexity. You have a bigger problem too. One cannot simply not explain the origin of complexity be proposing a preexisting complexity. That just leads to infinite regression.
Christians often are inconsistent here claiming nature must be created because it seems to be complex. But then when asked where their far more complex god comes from they say it "just is". This is merely special pleading and shows a refusal to examine the inconsistency in their admittedly poor argument.

5. I have no idea what this would be. It would seem to me the previous answers were inclusive.


3 again:

We know from mathematics that something can appear to be designed without really being so. Just look at a fractal. The Mathematician Steven Cook proved a very very simple formula like Wolfram's rule 110 for example generates more apparent local complexity than is contained in the entire solar system.

We understand from mathematics how apparently complex systems come about and it is always due to selection effects. You take a simple but diverse set and select a complex subset from it. In order to do that you need a selecting agent. In the case of our universe we have a selecting agent. That selecting agent is our own existence.

The explaination is that reality is incredibly vast. Only in small apparently complex portions of that reality can beings such as ourselves evolve. It is not a coincidence, nor is it by chance we find ourselves in such a region. Instead it is a necessity.

It is a lot like the snowflake who finds himself in a snowstorm and concludes he was designed by a snow pixie. His argument is that the world is fine-tuned at the perfect temperature for snow to form. When in reality the world is vast and only in small portions of it can snowflakes form.

Or you can think of us as like a lottery winner who concludes there must be a cosmic cheater who rigged the lottery, when in fact there were millions of people buying lottery tickets and someone was bound to win.

Now that we have shown that a seemingly complex system does not need to be designed as long as it is part of a vast, diverse whole. How does that vast diverse whole come about. We obviously are getting into extremely difficult ideas here but several physicists are arguing that reality is based upon and indeed is, mathematics. By that they mean that reality consists of the class of necessarily true statements one can make about logical systems.

One physicist has even argued that the class of necessarily true statements one can make about logical systems is isomorphic ( mathematically identical ) to string theory. Basically arguing that nature is mathematically necessary. The reason it does not feel necessary is that we see so little of it, and that we see it from within itself rather than seeing it as it really is.

The idea that nature is based on mathematics has a long history going back to Plato. More recently physicists have put this idea in a much more modern setting. Max Tegmark in his "Theory of Everything" argues that nature is based on mathematics as do many more physicists. Christofel Schmidhuber argues that String Theory is isomorphic to math. Many other physicists have argued that math and physics are identical in other ways.

This approach avoids the infinite regression of answer 4. Mathematics according to this view just consists of that which must be necessarily true. Existence then is mathematics, and it just looks to us the way it does is because we see existence from a rather special place deep inside the muck of existence.

It looks fine-tuned because of our myopia. It is the way it is because it is necessary. Our necessity is not special. All necessities exist. Ours is just special to us.

Answer 2

My conclusions is "we don't know". I have no verifiable data to make any logical inference. For a true logical conclusion, I'd need true arguments. But saying that matter/energy has always being there doesn't sound as bold (conservation of matter/energy) as saying there is a lot more outside the universe (is there even such thing as "something beyond nature/universe" that can be verified).

Formal logic is based on arguments to make an inference, true arguments are verifiable or conceptually acceptable so we can reach a true conclusion (when logic is used correctly). Using assumptions as arguments lead to assumptions as conclusions, no real conclusions. Assuming there is something out of nature ain't anything more than that, an assumption.

Concepts like: infinity, uncaused cause, undesigned designer, existence beyond nature ain't anything more than that, concepts, abstract ideas, symbols and abstractions that haven't been proven to exist outside of our thoughts.

"Once beyond nature, the laws of nature do not apply."
I'd like to see evidence for such thing as "beyond nature" and about what "laws" apply there (if any). Hint: assumptions and mythology do not count as evidence.

Answer 3

Your situations are all worded weird.

If I had to guess I would say that the universe always had the same amount of matter. (number one in your list)

Then to explain how everything like created I will use the example of money's typing Hamlet. With so many planets and so many chemical reactions taking place over so much time it's not completely unlikely that something like this is what would happen.

When a beaver builds a dam it's called nature, when a man build a dam it's called against nature...weird huh?

Answer 4

Choice number 1 is by far the most logical.

If you decide that there was some sort of external creating force, you just have to ask the same question over again about that force.

("eternally" and any other time-based modifier are hard terms to use when referring to the universe, but 1 was the best choice of the available options)

Answer 5

The formula e=mc^2 tells us that matter and energy are interchangeable, and the principle of conservation of energy tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed (only changed). From this we can infer that all the energy contained in the closed system of the universe has always existed. There is no necessary other explanation.

Answer 6

A rational mind would not revert to making up an answer - or choosing from your list of hypotheticals. Sadly, that is religion's method. A rational thinker can comfortably acknowledge that many things are as yet unknown and keep searching empirically to discover the truth about them.

Answer 7

none of the answers man has come up with completely make sense. The theory of evolution seems to be the most logical and reasonable to me and it has been proved by science. however, it gets stuck at the beggining of life. thats where everything gets stuck. we may never figure out how life appeared. i dont believe in religion for the same reason i dont believe in magic. it makes no sense, scientifically or logically.

Answer 8

All is an inevitable consequence of existence.

Answer 9

Select no. 1.
Matter can't be created, they must've existed eternally.

Answer 10

All in nature = stardust.