← Previous revisionRevision as of 21:40, 20 October 2026 Line 116: Line 116: }} }} Mackie derives from [[Sensus communis|common experience]] that all causation is confined to rearrangements of existing matter, therefore cannot apply to the [[creatio ex nihilo|''ex nihilo'']] origin of all matter. He appeals to [[David Hume]]'s ''conceivability argument'',Hume states in [[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]] (Section IV): "Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning ''a priori''." contending that uncaused instantiations are ''logically'' possible, provided they can be conceived without contradiction in the mind.[[#Mack|Mackie, 1982]]: 85 Craig responds that an underlying mechanism, or [[Four causes#Efficient|efficient cause]], must be necessary to effect the emergence of the universe, even if a material substrate, or [[Four causes#Material|material cause]], is absent at the point of origin. He notes that Hume himself affirmed the Causal Principle consistently throughout his ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding|Enquiry]]'' and in correspondence, denying only its intuitive foundations.{{cite web |last=Craig |first=William Lane |title=Causal Premiss of the Kalam Argument |year=2007 |website=Reasonable Faith |url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/causal-premiss-of-the-kalam-argument |access-date=12 October 2026|ref=CrgCP}}{{cite web | url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/professor-mackie-and-the-Kalam-cosmological-argument | title=Professor Mackie and the Kalam Cosmological Argument | author=William Lane Craig | website=Reasonable Faith }} Bruce Reichenbach protests that Mackie's argument confuses visual imagination for logical possibility:[[#SEP|Reichenbach, 2004]]: 3.4 Mackie derives from [[Sensus communis|common experience]] that all causation is confined to rearrangements of existing matter, therefore cannot apply to the [[creatio ex nihilo|''ex nihilo'']] origin of all matter. He appeals to [[David Hume]]'s ''conceivability argument'',Hume states in [[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]] (Section IV): "Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning ''a priori''." contending that uncaused instantiations are ''logically'' possible, provided they can be conceived without contradiction in the mind.[[#Mack|Mackie, 1982]]: 85 Craig responds that a generative mechanism, or [[Four causes#Efficient|efficient cause]], must be necessary to effect the emergence of the universe, even if a material substrate, or [[Four causes#Material|material cause]], is absent at the point of origin. He notes that Hume himself affirmed the Causal Principle consistently throughout his ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding|Enquiry]]'' and in correspondence, denying only its intuitive foundations.{{cite web |last=Craig |first=William Lane |title=Causal Premiss of the Kalam Argument |year=2007 |website=Reasonable Faith |url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/causal-premiss-of-the-kalam-argument |access-date=12 October 2026|ref=CrgCP}}{{cite web | url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/professor-mackie-and-the-Kalam-cosmological-argument | title=Professor Mackie and the Kalam Cosmological Argument | author=William Lane Craig | website=Reasonable Faith }} Bruce Reichenbach protests that Mackie's argument confuses visual imagination for logical possibility:[[#SEP|Reichenbach, 2004]]: 3.4 {{Blockquote {{Blockquote Line 138: Line 138: ===Quantum indeterminacy=== ===Quantum indeterminacy=== [[Paul Davies]] is unconvinced that the Causal Principle can be defined consistently in fundamental physics. He adopts the phenomenon of [[quantum indeterminacy]] as a direct challenge to [[determinism|deterministic]] conceptions of [[cause and effect]], deriving that subatomic physics is grounded in mechanisms that are intrinsically non-deterministic in nature.{{cite book |title= Superforce|last= Davies|first= Paul|year= 1982|publisher= Clarendon Press|location= Oxford|page= 94}} Craig responds that the first premise is independent of a determinist construal of causality. Though indeterminism contradicts the proposition that "every event" has a cause, he maintains it is consistent with the causal premise that "everything that begins to exist" has a cause. This encompasses the more modest view that objects cannot come into existence entirely devoid of causal conditions, rooted in the [[Parmenides|Parmenidean]] principle that ''from nothing, nothing comes''. [[Paul Davies]] is unconvinced that the Causal Principle can be defined consistently in fundamental physics. He adopts the phenomenon of [[quantum indeterminacy]] as a direct challenge to [[determinism|deterministic]] conceptions of [[cause and effect]], deriving that subatomic physics is grounded in mechanisms that are intrinsically non-deterministic in nature.{{cite book |title= Superforce|last= Davies|first= Paul|year= 1982|publisher= Clarendon Press|location= Oxford|page= 94}} Craig responds that the first premise is independent of a determinist construal of causality. Though indeterminism undercuts the proposition that "every event" has a cause, he maintains it is consistent with the causal premise that "everything that begins to exist" has a cause. This encompasses the more modest view that objects cannot come into existence entirely devoid of causal conditions, rooted in the [[Parmenides|Parmenidean]] principle that ''from nothing, nothing comes''. Where quantum events arise without [[Necessary and sufficient#Sufficiency|sufficient]] prior conditions, he affirms at least some [[Necessary and sufficient#Necessity|necessary]] conditions are present:{{cite book|last1= Craig|first1= William Lane|last2= Smith|first2= Quentin|author-link2= Quentin Smith|title= Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology|year= 1993|page=146|publisher= Clarendon|isbn= 978-0-19-826348-7}} Where quantum events arise without [[Necessary and sufficient#Sufficiency|sufficient]] prior conditions, he affirms at least some [[Necessary and sufficient#Necessity|necessary]] conditions are present:{{cite book|last1= Craig|first1= William Lane|last2= Smith|first2= Quentin|author-link2= Quentin Smith|title= Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology|year= 1993|page=146|publisher= Clarendon|isbn= 978-0-19-826348-7}} Line 165: Line 165: # [[Horror vacui (philosophy)|Plenistic perspectives]] that define the vacuum state as "nothing" in a semantic sense. # [[Horror vacui (philosophy)|Plenistic perspectives]] that define the vacuum state as "nothing" in a semantic sense. [[Quentin Smith]] describes the spontaneous emergence and dissipation of [[virtual particles]], representing [[quantum fluctuation|fluctuations]] of energy in the quantum vacuum, as evidence of uncaused natural phenomena.{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Q |date=1988 |title=The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe |url= |journal=Philosophy of Science |volume=55 |issue= |pages=39–57 |doi= 10.1086/289415|access-date=}} [[Lawrence Krauss]] broadens the scope of this framework to postulate the origin of space, time and matter from a quantum fluctuation. The universe can be uncaused, he claims, by virtue of its emergence from "nothing", which he identifies as the vacuum state, and extensive [[astrophysics|astrophysical]] evidence for its [[zero-energy universe|zero-energy state]]. If the [[mass-energy equivalence|mass energy]] of the universe is negated by its [[negative energy|gravitational energy]], he calculates no net energy investment or causal input is necessary at its origin.{{cite book |last=Krauss |first=Lawrence M. |title=A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing |publisher=Free Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4516-2445-8 |location=New York}} [[Michael Lou Martin|Michael Martin]] writes:[[#Mart|Martin, 1990]]: 106. Martin lists the following sources as examples: Edward P. Tryon, "Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?" ''Nature'', 246, 14 December 1973, pp. 396–397; Edward P. Tryon, "What Made the World? ''New Scientist'', 8, March 1984, pp. 14–16; Alexander Vilenkin, "Creation of Universes from Nothing," ''Physics Letters'', 117B, 1982, pp. 25–28; Alexander Vilenkin, "Birth of Inflationary Universes," ''Physical Review'', 27, 1983, pp. 2848–2855; L. P. Grishchuck and Y. B. Zledovich, "Complete Cosmological Theories," ''The Quantum Structure of Space and Time'', ed. M. J. Duff and C. J. Isham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 409–422; Quentin Smith, "The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe," ''Philosophy of Science'', 55, 1988, pp. 39–57. [[Quentin Smith]] describes the spontaneous emergence and dissipation of [[virtual particles]], representing [[quantum fluctuation|fluctuations]] of energy in the quantum vacuum, as evidence of uncaused natural phenomena.{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Q |date=1988 |title=The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe |url= |journal=Philosophy of Science |volume=55 |issue= |pages=39–57 |doi= 10.1086/289415|access-date=}} [[Lawrence Krauss]] broadens the scope of this framework to postulate the origin of space, time and matter from a quantum fluctuation. The universe can be uncaused, he claims, by virtue of its emergence from "nothing", which he identifies as the vacuum state, and extensive [[astrophysics|astrophysical]] evidence for its [[zero-energy universe|zero-energy state]]. If the [[mass-energy equivalence|mass energy]] of the universe is negated by its [[negative energy|gravitational energy]], he calculates no net energy investment or causal input is required at its origin.{{cite book |last=Krauss |first=Lawrence M. |title=A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing |publisher=Free Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4516-2445-8 |location=New York}} [[Michael Lou Martin|Michael Martin]] writes:[[#Mart|Martin, 1990]]: 106. Martin lists the following sources as examples: Edward P. Tryon, "Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?" ''Nature'', 246, 14 December 1973, pp. 396–397; Edward P. Tryon, "What Made the World? ''New Scientist'', 8, March 1984, pp. 14–16; Alexander Vilenkin, "Creation of Universes from Nothing," ''Physics Letters'', 117B, 1982, pp. 25–28; Alexander Vilenkin, "Birth of Inflationary Universes," ''Physical Review'', 27, 1983, pp. 2848–2855; L. P. Grishchuck and Y. B. Zledovich, "Complete Cosmological Theories," ''The Quantum Structure of Space and Time'', ed. M. J. Duff and C. J. Isham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 409–422; Quentin Smith, "The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe," ''Philosophy of Science'', 55, 1988, pp. 39–57. {{Blockquote {{Blockquote Line 183: Line 183: }} }} [[Alexander Vilenkin]] proposes the origin of the universe via [[Edward Tryon#Is the universe a vacuum fluctuation?|quantum creation]] from a state of "zero size" (without space, time or matter) which he equates with nothingness. Yet, he maintains that the laws of physics are still present and require explanation:{{cite web |url=https://now.tufts.edu/articles/beginning-was-beginning |title=What Happened Before the Big Bang? |date=2012 |website=Tufts Now |access-date=}} [[Alexander Vilenkin]] contemplates the origin of the universe via [[Edward Tryon#Is the universe a vacuum fluctuation?|quantum creation]] from a state of "zero size" (without space, time or matter) which he equates with nothingness. Yet, he maintains that the laws of physics are still present and require explanation:{{cite web |url=https://now.tufts.edu/articles/beginning-was-beginning |title=What Happened Before the Big Bang? |date=2012 |website=Tufts Now |access-date=}} {{Blockquote {{Blockquote Line 214: Line 214: }} }} According to Vilenkin and co-author [[Alan Guth]], the past boundary described by the Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem does not necessarily represent a [[cosmogony|cosmic beginning]], instead the beginning of [[inflation (cosmology)|cosmic inflation]].{{harvp|Stenger|2011}} Ch. 6.2. See also: {{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGKe6YzHiME&t=1972s | title=Physicists & Philosophers debunk the Kalam Cosmological Argument featuring Penrose, Hawking, Guth | website=[[YouTube]] | date=14 January 2022 }} Though it "opens the door" for scenarios other than an absolute beginning, Vilenkin derives from his examination of [[cosmogony|cosmogonic]] theories, including [[eternal inflation]], [[cyclic model|cyclic]] and [[Emergent Universe|emergent]] cosmologies, that no models of a past-eternal universe are viable.{{cite journal | last=Vilenkin | first=A |title=The Beginning of the Universe |journal=Inference: International Review of Science |volume=1 |issue=4 | date=2015| doi=10.37282/991819.15.18 }}{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOnppjxgC9Y | title=Alexander Vilenkin - Quantum cosmology and the beginning of the universe | website=[[YouTube]] | date=25 May 2023}} In the conference setting, he declares that all the available evidence points to a cosmic beginning.{{cite web |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328474.400-why-physicists-cant-avoid-a-creation-event.html |title=Why Physicists Can't Avoid A Creation Event |author=Lisa Grossman |date=2012 |website=New Scientist}} In publications, he maintains that the Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem is sufficient evidence for a beginning of the universe.{{cite book |last=Vilenkin |first=Alexander |author-link= |title=Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes | date=2006 |publisher=Hill and Wang |page= |isbn=0809095238}}{{cite book |last1=Perlov |first1=Delia |last2=Vilenkin |first2=Alexander |author-link= |date=2017 |title=Cosmology for the Curious |publisher=Springer |page= |isbn=978-3319570389}} According to Vilenkin and co-author [[Alan Guth]], the past boundary described by the Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem does not necessarily represent a [[cosmogony|cosmic beginning]], instead the beginning of [[inflation (cosmology)|cosmic inflation]].{{harvp|Stenger|2011}} Ch. 6.2. See also: {{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGKe6YzHiME&t=1972s | title=Physicists & Philosophers debunk the Kalam Cosmological Argument featuring Penrose, Hawking, Guth | website=[[YouTube]] | date=14 January 2022 }} Though it "opens the door" for scenarios other than an absolute beginning, Vilenkin derives from his examination of [[cosmogony|cosmogonic]] theories, including [[eternal inflation]], [[cyclic model|cyclic]] and [[Emergent Universe|emergent]] cosmologies, that no past-eternal models of the universe are viable.{{cite journal | last=Vilenkin | first=A |title=The Beginning of the Universe |journal=Inference: International Review of Science |volume=1 |issue=4 | date=2015| doi=10.37282/991819.15.18 }}{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOnppjxgC9Y | title=Alexander Vilenkin - Quantum cosmology and the beginning of the universe | website=[[YouTube]] | date=25 May 2023}} In the conference setting, he declares that "all the available evidence points to a cosmic beginning".{{cite web |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328474.400-why-physicists-cant-avoid-a-creation-event.html |title=Why Physicists Can't Avoid A Creation Event |author=Lisa Grossman |date=2012 |website=New Scientist}} In publications, he maintains that the Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem is sufficient evidence for a beginning of the universe.{{cite book |last=Vilenkin |first=Alexander |author-link= |title=Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes | date=2006 |publisher=Hill and Wang |page= |isbn=0809095238}}{{cite book |last1=Perlov |first1=Delia |last2=Vilenkin |first2=Alexander |author-link= |date=2017 |title=Cosmology for the Curious |publisher=Springer |page= |isbn=978-3319570389}} [[Sean M. Carroll|Sean Carroll]] observes that the theorem assumes a [[Pseudo-Riemannian manifold#Lorentzian manifold|classical spacetime]], determining it to be incompatible with the extreme energies and densities that define the [[Chronology of the universe#Planck epoch|Planck era]] of the early universe, where quantum effects become dominant. Instead of defining a cosmic beginning, he describes the theorem's boundary to demarcate the point at which [[classical mechanics]] of the universe no longer apply:{{cite web |url=https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/02/24/post-debate-reflections/ |title=Post-Debate Reflections |author=Sean M. Carroll |date=2014 |website=Preposterous Universe}} [[Sean M. Carroll|Sean Carroll]] observes that the theorem assumes a [[Pseudo-Riemannian manifold#Lorentzian manifold|classical spacetime]], determining it to be incompatible with the extreme energies and densities that define the [[Chronology of the universe#Planck epoch|Planck era]] of the early universe, where quantum effects become dominant. Instead of defining a cosmic beginning, he describes the theorem's boundary to demarcate the point at which [[classical mechanics]] of the universe no longer apply:{{cite web |url=https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/02/24/post-debate-reflections/ |title=Post-Debate Reflections |author=Sean M. Carroll |date=2014 |website=Preposterous Universe}}