Carroll's Post-Debate Reflections

[Way]

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/02/24/post-debate-reflections/


Discussions on it are welcomed in the "Choose your own topic " section (like always here):
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/forums/choose-your-own-topic/carrolls-postdebate-reflections-6025294.0.html

[Questionator]

Though we know from other debates that opponents without philosophical training notoriously fail to grasp the structure of (even simple) philosophical arguments I'm really surpised that Carroll is no exception here. In his post-debate reflections he reconstructs the KCA by identifying the first premise as "If the universe had a beginning, it has a transcendent cause".

I'm surprised because when I watched the debate it seemed to me that Carroll was driven by the good will to interact in an intellectually respectful way (unlike Krauss who had obviousliy felt no need to study Craigs writings apart from spin-doctorial "canaanite" stuff) which includes careful analysis of the opponents arguments. Moreover I have read that Carroll has an undergraduate degree in philosophy, so I'm all the more staggered by his ignorance of what is actually going on in the KCA.

I still think that he is an honest guy and of course a distinguished cosmologist, but I'm more and more convinced of the fact that most scientists have an enormous lack of understanding when it comes to philosophical problems and nevertheless think that they can be solved just en passant, without any philosophical expertise.

[Questionator]

I have to apologize! When reviewing some passages of the dabate I detected that Craig used a modified version of the KCA which is different from the argument he usually presents. And Carroll has (substantially) correctly echoed ITS premise. Sorry for my misguided critique!

[steve hinrichs]

Physicist define time by atomic events such as an atomic clock that uses an electronic transition frequency in as a frequency standard for its timekeeping element.  So by this definition of time if there is no atoms or physical stuff for atomic activity, then there is no basis for defining this kind of time.  So when saying “When the stuff of the universe first existed is the first moment in time” is just a statement of this kind of time.  An argument achieved by just stating the definition is a Rhetoric Tautology.  Consequently, the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity making it unfalsifiable. It is a way of formulating a description such that masquerades as an explanation when the real reason for the phenomena cannot be independently derived.

Tautology (rhetoric) ,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_%28rhetoric%29

This is just what Carroll did in the quote below.  He has formulated an unfalsifiable argument on which he can make the “popping into existence any physical stuff” sound not so implausible.  Since by this kind of time there is no atomic or energy events before the atomic or energy existed one can just we do not need to worry about how they came into existence because by this definition of time there is no time before they existed.

Carroll -  “Again, I tried to explain what makes the universe different but more importantly the phrase “popping into existence” is not the right one to use when you’re talking about the universe. It sounds as if it’s something that happens in time but that’s not the right way to do it because there’s no before the beginning, if there’s a beginning. The correct thing to say is there was a first moment of time.  When you say it that way it doesn’t’ sound so implausible.”

Scientist are not supposed to promote unfalsifiable arguments.

If there is something else besides physical stuff that caused the physical stuff to come into existence, then I do not see any reason why this non-natural something could have sequential events so a time could be defined by it’s sequential events and this time would be related to atomic time by the time when it caused the physical stuff to come into existence.

Hinrichs Webpage  http://home.roadrunner.com/~rrr33/homepage.html

[Fred]

Carroll -  “Again, I tried to explain what makes the universe different but more importantly the phrase “popping into existence” is not the right one to use when you’re talking about the universe. It sounds as if it’s something that happens in time but that’s not the right way to do it because there’s no before the beginning, if there’s a beginning. The correct thing to say is there was a first moment of time.  When you say it that way it doesn’t’ sound so implausible.”

Scientist are not supposed to promote unfalsifiable arguments.

If there is something else besides physical stuff that caused the physical stuff to come into existence, then I do not see any reason why this non-natural something could have sequential events so a time could be defined by it’s sequential events and this time would be related to atomic time by the time when it caused the physical stuff to come into existence.

Carroll is addressing a logical problem with the semantics of saying the universe "popped into existence."  It sounds like there was a period of time without a universe, then the universe popped up.  This is logically impossible if time actually began with the universe's beginning: there is no time prior to the beginning of time, so it's an invalid characterization. 

The problem with your view of sequential events occurring is that this would imply time did NOT begin with the universe -and this is inconsistent with Craig's hypothesis.  Craig truly believes time only exists with spacetime, and that God didn't exist in time prior to the universe, and he agrees there is no temporally "prior to the universe."  You can have a different view, but then the KCA doesn't work for you.

[jasmine12]

I found them, thanks! This is great work, and will save me a lot of effort.

[Architecto]

This was interesting from Carroll:

On the substance, my major points were that the demand for “causes” and “explanations” is completely inappropriate for modern fundamental physics/cosmology, and that theism is not taken seriously in professional cosmological circles because it is hopelessly ill-defined (no matter what happens in the universe, you can argue that God would have wanted it that way). He defended two of his favorite arguments, the “cosmological argument” and the fine-tuning argument; no real surprises there. In terms of style, from my perspective things got a bit frustrating, because the following pattern repeated multiple times: Craig would make an argument, I would reply, and Craig would just repeat the original argument. For example, he said that Boltzmann Brains were a problem for the multiverse; I said that they were a problem for certain multiverse models but not others, which is actually good because they help us to distinguish viable from non-viable models; and his response was the multiverse was not a viable theory because of the Boltzmann Brain problem. Or, he said that if the universe began to exist there must be a transcendent cause; I said that everyday notions of causation don’t apply to the beginning of the universe and explained why they might apply approximately inside the universe but not to it; and his response was that if the universe could just pop into existence, why not bicycles? I was honestly a bit surprised at the lack of real-time interaction, since one of Craig’s supporters’ biggest complaints is that his opponents don’t ever directly respond to his points, and I tried hard to do exactly that.

That was my impression, but I don't think we can expect a Theologian/Pro-Debater to really understand a professional Cosmologist. I imagine WLC gathered enough material to make his basic arguments, but didn't go much further than that.

Another loss for WLC.  :-/