Suppose I insisted that the Big Bang happened due to a cat generating an extremely high energy hairball. You would think I’m crazy. But why is the cat theory any worse than a theory on which the Big Bang happened for no reason at all?
Granted, we haven’t ever seen such a high energy hairball coming from a cat. But we likewise haven’t seen something come from nothing.
Granted, we know something about the causal powers of cats, namely that they lack the power to originate high energy hairballs. But likewise we know about the causal power of nothing, namely that where there is nothing, there is no causal power.
However, this last response is too quick. For when we talk of the universe coming from nothing versus the universe coming from a cat, we are equivocating on “coming from”. When the atheist says the universe came from nothing, they don’t mean that nothing was something that originated the universe. Rather, they simply deny that there was something that originated the universe. Cats don’t have the power to generate universes, so universes don’t get generated by cats. Similarly, where there is nothing, there is no power to generate universes, so universes don’t get generated by nothing. But the atheist doesn’t say that the universe is generated by (a?) nothing—they simply deny that it was generated by something.
Thus, the problem with the universe coming from a cat is with the origination: cats just aren’t the sorts of things to originate universes.
I guess that’s right, but I still feel the pull of the thought that a cat comes closer to making it possible for a universe to come into being than nothingness does. After all, where there is a cat, there are some causal powers. And where there is nothing, there aren’t any.
Perhaps another way to make the argument go through is to say this: There is nothing less absurd about the universe appearing causelessly ex nihilo than there is about a cat causelessly ex nihilo gaining a universe-creating power.
A cat might count as a better-than-nothing explanation of an enormous explosion (big bang), but to say that a cat caused the universe sounds like a contradiction, since the cat would be part of the universe. By contrast, it is not a(n obvious) contradiction to deny that the universe has a cause.
ReplyDeleteIt could be a cat in another universe.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. But one relevant difference between the "nothing" hypothesis and the "cat" hypothesis is that, with the latter, I can come up with a large list of alternative hypotheses (the universe was caused [just] by a dog, just by a cow, just by a duck, etc.) such that, intuitively, I shouldn't give higher credence to the cat hypothesis than to any of the (let's suppose mutually exclusive) alternatives. From here, it follows that I should give an extremely low credence to the cat hypothesis. But it's not clear I can do the same for the "nothing" hypothesis. The hypothesis that nothing caused the universe doesn't really belong to a large natural class of alternatives such that there's a clear intuition our credences should be roughly evenly distributed across them (at least as far as I can see).
ReplyDeleteI suppose there might be ways of revising the cat hypothesis to get around this---say, the hypothesis that a cat was *a* cause (not necessarily the only cause) of the universe. That would block the argument above that we should assign it a really low credence.
While the "nothing" hypothesis has a kind of pleasing simplicity to it, I do not know that simplicity counts for anything when we are dealing in non-explanations. If that's right, then the nothing hypothesis doesn't beat the cat hypothesis. And hence when we look at the mass of alternate hypotheses, the nothing hypothesis is just one among many that are, if anything, preferable to it: cat, dog, cow, etc. And so the nothing hypothesis is incredibly unlikely.
ReplyDeleteIf one isn't convinced by this, I like your modification.
The cat theory at least accords with Pasteur's law that all life comes from life.
ReplyDeletehttps://mskochin.blogspot.com/2017/11/my-favorite-argument-for-existence-of.html
I’m not clear what it would mean to say that the cat is from another universe in this case. When talking about God as cause of the universe, everything is said analogically: God is said to ‘exist’ and ‘cause’ the universe in a way merely analogous to created existence and created causes. Do we say that about things in alternative universes? If not, then there’s a causal connection between the cat and our universe, so I don’t see why we are counting two universes.
ReplyDeleteAlex
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how many people actually believe that something can come from nothing.
I, for one, do not believe that. I believe that "ex nihilo nihil fit" and that why I reject creatio ex nihilo as well.
Where did the cat come from? Cosmologists actually have a better quantum origination theory that "NOTHING" but in reality "NOTHING" is just a place holder for "we don't know" (and probably can't know)
ReplyDeleteActually, of the cats I have known, none of them showed the slightest bit of interest in creating anything except hairballs. That’s not to say that our next cat will not have extraordinary powers. Breeding has come quite a long way.
ReplyDeleteI loved the article. There is a decent chance that the universe had to come from a little bit of something. So why not a cat??
ReplyDeleteThe physics idea of the universe from nothing is quite different, from the philosophy version. When physicists refer to "The Universe" they are talking about this universe we are in, a lump of spacetime that extends a long way, possibly a infinitely long way, in all directions. There may or may not be other universes - or other things that aren't universes. We have no direct observations.
ReplyDeleteThe science principle of parsimony says that we should not assume "unseen" entities until we have exhausted other possible explanations. This is not some absolute rule, it's a strategic choice: As we all know, human mental life is replete with fabulous entities and this needs to be kept in check to do science. As other explanations are exhausted we are free to propose and use unseen entities. In this way, the old "seen" elements earth, fire, air, etc were replaced with atoms and molecules, and later fundamental particles. The new system has vastly greater explanatory power.
The physicists' "nothing" - that produced our spacetime is a similar proposal, except that is is totally speculative with no corroboration apart from the fact that we know the universe we see wasn't always here in its current form. It has clearly evolved. This physicists' nothing is also referred to as a "false vacuum" and other terms; it has properties and is different to the philosopher's nothing. Different versions exist, but one idea is that the false vacuum can via some kind of deep quantum uncertainty seed off a tiny spec of spacetime which grows outwards, perhaps at the speed of light, and in doing so produces the negative potential energy of space which is balanced by the creation of positive energy/matter. Cool.
Obviously, at present this is just a physics idea, not established science. To cross that chasm it will need to be built into a formal theory, and, find some evidence. It's not at all clear what that evidence could be, but it might just be possible. For example, if it could be shown that such a scenario would produce an expanding universe with four dimensional spacetime and the sort of fundamental particles we see - while not requiring a slew of new ad hoc assumptions - then we would have a theory with a lot of explanatory power. Physicist would accept it.
Such a theory would be radically different from either the cat made it - which contradicts known physics - or the philosopher's nothing made it - which may be totally undecidable. Of course, we don't have such a theory yet, so all three have about the same evidence base, but only one has prospects for scientific acceptance.
Before there was anything there had to be nothing. So all universes originated from nothing - obviously. Therefore the cat, for starters, isn't the culprit.
ReplyDelete"Before there was anything there had to be nothing."
ReplyDeleteI don't get that at all.
my great grandmother was born in 1870. I knew her. she lived to be 97. here is what she said to me about it:
ReplyDelete'the cat crept in, crept, and crept out.'
1870, folks.
MY grandmother used to tell us "The lone cat crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again." However, she never commented on cosmological issues. Didnt blame her at the time, cant really blame her now, though she was always pretty crypt oriented
ReplyDeleteSean Warner
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI feel like when at least most people say that the universe came from nothing this is just reification of language. A better rephrasing would be that "there is no thing that the universe came from", whether this is true or not.
You obviously have not met my cat.
ReplyDeleteWhat Michael said reminds me of the language problem
ReplyDeletepresented by "God is nowhere" and "God is now here"
Michael:
ReplyDeleteThat's what I meant in the paragraph where I talk about equivocating.
I never thought any of my cats capable of generating a universe, but then again what do I really know about my cats?
ReplyDeleteThink you all might like this:
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