Lorin Gibbs: failures and tears
Mr. Gibbs, we just want to take this special opportunity to thank you for allowing us to make a complete mockery of you and publically annihilate your failing intellect. God Bless your little heart.
My final statement to Lorin went something like this..."Thank you for the victory!!...You kept repeating what doesn't come from Pure Nothingness, and that's fine, you can dance all you want. I quite enjoy tap...However, claiming time travel gets around the logical truth which I have presented, is simply untrue. Unless of course you can demonstrate how one gets from a Pure Nothingness state to a state where things exist, without anything ever coming from Pure Nothingness. You cannot. There is no other way for me to say this to you, but It's quite sad and shocking that your logic and reasoning skills are so porous."
To get my readers up to speed: Lorin was claiming that there was once Pure Nothingness, then things existed (including a time traveler and his ship), but that nothing ever came from Pure Nothingness. Not the time traveler, not his ship, not space-time, not the universe, not the causality loop caused by the time travel, nothing at all. This is a logically absurd and incoherent statement and essentially that is where he dug his own miserable grave. I repeat for my audience, one cannot get to from a Pure Nothingness state, to a state where things exist, unless something came from the Pure Nothingness. PERIOD...End of story...GAME OVER!!
So Mr. Gibbs. JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, YOUR OPTION HAS NOT ONLY BEEN PROVEN ILLOGICAL AND IRRATIONAL, BUT your option has ALSO been shown to be SCPN!! We are confident that this has in no way defeated TEA or put any chink in our armor. God Bless you though for your sub-par/laughable efforts. If you ever want to demonstrate how one gets from a Pure Nothingness state to a state where pure nothingness no longer exists, without anything EVER coming from PURE nothingness, I would gladly look at it. We are more than confident however, that what you have presented does not even put a dent in TEA. We wish you the best of luck and hope that as your logic grows, and you continue to mature, that you will see the fatal flaw in your argument.
Extra fun:
Someone may say, well what if the time traveler is given the initial Pepsi until he is 18, then when he figures out how to time travel, he goes back in time and kills the person who really created Pepsi. That's called the grandfather paradox [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox]]. (An equivalent paradox is known (in philosophy) as autoinfanticide.) One must remember that the initial potential to time travel was allowed for because Pepsi already existed (and was given to him as a baby). So without that initial Pepsi, the time traveler wouldn't have been able to grow up, figure out how to time travel, go back in time, or kill the person who created Pepsi. Essentially he would be killing his own potential.
The Novikov self-consistency principle also proves that I could not travel back in time and kill the true creator of Pepsi: According to this hypothesis, the only possible time lines are those entirely self-consistent—so anything a time traveler does in the past must have been part of history all along, and the time traveler can never do anything to prevent the trip back in time from happening, since this would represent an inconsistency. Nicholas J. J. Smith argues, for example, that if some time traveler killed the child who lived in his old address, this would ipso facto necessitate that the child was not the time traveler's younger self, nor the younger self of anyone alive in the time frame that the time traveler came from. This could be extrapolated further into the possibility that the child's death led to the family moving away, which in turn led to the time traveler's family moving into the house guaranteeing that the house later became the home the time traveler would then grow up in, forming a predestination paradox. This applies to my refutation of Mr. Gibbs work from the stand point that his time traveler could not be the true originator or creator of the initial space-time that he was first born into. That initial space-time was the potential which allowed him to grow up and ultimately learn how to time travel, but he had no causal influence over its origins. Therefore, even if he wanted to do something like travel back into time and destroy it, he could not, because that would effect his own self consistency. Rather, it would prevent the trip back in time from ever happening or occurring in the first place. So, if the time traveler cannot do something like destroy this initial space-time that he was born into, which necessarily exists independent of any time traveling actions, then we see that this (initial space-time) was the necessary potential needed for time traveler to ever occur. If it didn't exist he would never have become a time traveler at all. But apparently he did. And we need to know where that initial space-time came from. We realize Mr. Gibbs is not saying the time traveler went back and destroyed space-time, we are just using this principle (as extra fun on top of his formal destruction) to prove that the initial space-time did in fact exist and he had no causal influence over it.
Seth Lloyd and other researchers at MIT have proposed an expanded version of the Novikov principle, according to which probability bends to prevent paradoxes from occurring. Outcomes would become stranger as one approaches a forbidden act, as the universe must favor improbable events to prevent impossible ones.
It could be argued that the ordinary concept of human "free will" is equivalent to this sort of time-travel paradox, for if one could travel back in time to change a future relative to that past space time interval, then how would that be distinguishable, in principle, from the everyday choices and decisions considered to be freely made within any space time frame taken as the "present"?
One might build a more plausible case for the prohibition of classical time-travel simply by considering how it might violate several conservation laws by the duplication of matter along a single space time line and perhaps require a near-universal redistribution of mass-energy.
Consideration of the grandfather paradox has led some to the idea that time travel is by its very nature paradoxical and therefore logically impossible, on the same order as round squares. For example, the philosopher Bradley Dowden made this sort of argument in the textbook Logical Reasoning, where he wrote:
"Nobody has ever built a time machine that could take a person back to an earlier time. Nobody should be seriously trying to build one, either, because a good argument exists for why the machine can never be built. The argument goes like this: suppose you did have a time machine right now, and you could step into it and travel back to some earlier time. Your actions in that time might then prevent your grandparents from ever having met one another. This would make you not born, and thus not step into the time machine. So, the claim that there could be a time machine is self-contradictory."
THANKS FOR PLAYING GIBBS...WELCOME TO THE ZOO ;)
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The following (in black //) is from Mr. Gibbs with our comments in BLUE.
//The Elliott argument claims that an atheist only has 2 options for the existence of the universe(something can come from pure nothingness (SCPN), and space and time are eternal (STE)) I will refute this argument by providing 2 more options, both separate from STE and SCPN, these two options are as follows//
I think what you meant to say is that you will try and ultimately fail like the many before you.
//Chad Elliott, the creator of the Elliott argument, sometimes challenges atheists to come up with the wildest option they possibly can, so that he can prove it to be STE or SCPN, this is said wild option, this is not what I actually believe, and I only argue it as separate from STE and SCPN, and not as a likely or even rational option.//
This is correct. Atheists only have two options for the existence of the Universe, and no matter what any wildly ridiculous scenario someone can dream up, it will be shown to fall under STE or SCPN. Please note, it's logically impossible for a 3rd option to ever be presented given the way these two acronyms have been so broadly defined.
//the time traveling creator: in this option the creator of the universe is a person born in the universe, using a time machine that was constructed in the universe with materials from the universe (yes I do need to be that specific, as when I've been less specific he has asked me those questions), traveled back in time to before the universe existed, and then created the universe, the common response I get from Chad Elliott is something along the lines where did the time traveler exist before he time travels, the answer to this is simply in the universe, since the time travel part of this option takes the future version of him to a point before he was born, the universe is created before he was born, and thus the universe existed for him at his birth, I go on to explain that these events are part of a predestination paradox, or causality loop, were the actions of the time traveler in the past enable him to make the time travel journey, and that this option operates under the Novikov self-consistency principle, where there is no timeline unaltered by the time travelers actions, Chad Elliott also claims to be asking only about before the time travel, and refuses any answer that involves any element of the time travel, yet he asks about how the universe got from PN to a point were things exist, the answer to this is of coarse the arrival of the time traveler and his time machine from the future, but since this involves time travel he rejects it re-asserting that he only wants to discuss before he time traveled, I have explained to him the irrationality of demanding I not include time travel in my answers then asking a question in which time travel is included in the answer to said question, then rejecting the answer because time travel is involved, however he has yet to address this point.
In his time traveler option debunked note you will find much of this, and you will also find a section about the Novikov self-consistency principle, however he never addresses it's relevance to the time travel option, and all of his arguments against it are muted when you take the Novikov self-consistency principle into account when reviewing the option.//
LOL. Mr. Gibbs Time Traveler option has been thoroughly and exhaustively debunked and proven to be SCPN at the top of this blog.
//this is the option that I actually consider to be likely.
the universe is finite and uncaused//
If it's finite that means it began to exist
//in this option the universe has a beginning point//
Again I reiterate...If it's finite like you said it was, then that means it began to exist at some point.
//time and space, simply existed at this point, and that this point and anything that existed at this point is uncaused//
If the Universe is finite and began to exist, that would be the point at which space-time begins to exist. So now we have to determine the origin of this space-time, which Mr. Gibbs claimed is finite and began to exist.
//there is no prior existence to this point//
This is what we call Pure Nothingness (literal non-being). So now Mr. Gibbs has told us that in his option the Universe (space-time) is finite, that it began to exist, and that there was no prior existence to this starting point (only Pure Nothingness).
//Many times I have tried to explain to him that having a beginning does not necessarily mean it began to exist.//
And now this is where Mr. Gibbs reasoning skills really begin to fail. If something has a beginning that means it began to exist at some point. There is no other way around this. This is logic 101, and Mr. Gibbs has now trapped himself and begun to show the numerous cracks in his logic. The fact here is that there is nothing which begins to exist, which does not have a beginning. Similarly there is nothing that has a beginning, which does not begin to exist. Luckily we have already pinned Mr. Gibbs down and forced him to admit in his option that space-time (the Universe) was finite and began to exist.
//beginning to exist implies a prior existence, and having a beginning does not, and since in this option there is no prior existence the phrasing "began to exist" is inaccurate//
The words beginning to exist suggest that there was some sort of process underway and the exact stage of that process would need to be defined. So I agree that the words beginning to exist imply some sort of prior existence. However, let us look at what we said earlier...there is nothing which begins to exist, which does not also have a beginning. Similarly there is nothing that has a beginning, which does not begin to exist. What we have done is make Mr. Gibbs admit that in his option the Universe (space-time) is finite. If the universe is finite we can conclude that it began to exist. This is very different from someone simply saying it's beginning to exist. Once we corned Mr. Gibbs, all we needed was for him to give us the origin of this space-time which began to exist. Or did we?? Not so fast. If there was no prior existence to this finite beginning like he claimed earlier (Pure Nothingness), then this option has been shown to be SCPN. He loses!!
//In this option the universe has a beginning, but there was never a state of pure nothingness//
LOL...And it gets worse?? Just when you thought it was over he presents us with even more logical incoherencies. Let us remind our audience that Mr. Gibbs had made some clear and obvious claims throughout this rebuttal. #1 That the Universe (space-time) began to exist and had a finite beginning. #2 That there was no existence prior to this finite beginning (Pure Nothingness). Now he is retracting and contradicting himself and everything he has submitted by claiming there was never pure nothingness. If Mr. Gibbs wants to undermine everything he has already claimed throughout this refutation and change his story to be that, there was never a state of Pure Nothingness, then that's perfectly fine with us. However, now we have some new questions. If there was never a state of Pure Nothingness, that means something always existed eternally in the past without beginning. Tell us what that thing was!!!...Maybe he will answer that in his next post...Lets see. LOL
//The universe never didn't exist as there is no beyond the beginning of the universe.//
And there is it is ladies and gentlemen...Now he's changing his story from the Universe began to exist and had a finite beginning, to the Universe did never not exist. LMFAO. You can't have it both ways Mr. Gibbs. The reason he is trying to play it back and forth is because once he commits to either side, he knows I can break him down and force him to show that his option is nothing new. Atheists are pathetic and their logic and reasoning skills are disgustingly horrendous!! I will now post the actual screen shot of Lorins work just in case he tries to edit the material later. Thanks for the victory and God bless!! This will be our only mention of Mr. Gibbs as he has now struck out 3 times. Once on COL for failing to answer our direct questions, once with his time traveler option, and now with his logical absurdity. He had his chance and this what he produced. He is no longer worthy of our time. If he ever wants to engage with us in a live real time public debate we would consider. Another atheist enters the Zoo. God is good!!
Who's next??
My final statement to Lorin went something like this..."Thank you for the victory!!...You kept repeating what doesn't come from Pure Nothingness, and that's fine, you can dance all you want. I quite enjoy tap...However, claiming time travel gets around the logical truth which I have presented, is simply untrue. Unless of course you can demonstrate how one gets from a Pure Nothingness state to a state where things exist, without anything ever coming from Pure Nothingness. You cannot. There is no other way for me to say this to you, but It's quite sad and shocking that your logic and reasoning skills are so porous."
To get my readers up to speed: Lorin was claiming that there was once Pure Nothingness, then things existed (including a time traveler and his ship), but that nothing ever came from Pure Nothingness. Not the time traveler, not his ship, not space-time, not the universe, not the causality loop caused by the time travel, nothing at all. This is a logically absurd and incoherent statement and essentially that is where he dug his own miserable grave. I repeat for my audience, one cannot get to from a Pure Nothingness state, to a state where things exist, unless something came from the Pure Nothingness. PERIOD...End of story...GAME OVER!!
So Mr. Gibbs. JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, YOUR OPTION HAS NOT ONLY BEEN PROVEN ILLOGICAL AND IRRATIONAL, BUT your option has ALSO been shown to be SCPN!! We are confident that this has in no way defeated TEA or put any chink in our armor. God Bless you though for your sub-par/laughable efforts. If you ever want to demonstrate how one gets from a Pure Nothingness state to a state where pure nothingness no longer exists, without anything EVER coming from PURE nothingness, I would gladly look at it. We are more than confident however, that what you have presented does not even put a dent in TEA. We wish you the best of luck and hope that as your logic grows, and you continue to mature, that you will see the fatal flaw in your argument.
More information on this issue:
"Here we will show how to debunk the Time Traveler option and prove that it actually falls under STE or SCPN once broken down." - AK
[[TIME TRAVEL]] - Have you ever heard an atheist make the claim that they can defeat TEA by offering up a "Time Traveler" hypothesis?? Well if you have, first you need to know if they are claiming the time traveler is in someway responsible for the creation of our Universe. If your opponent says yes, then all you have to do is ask them the following question: BEFORE the time traveler ever figures out how to time travel, BEFORE he ever goes back in time and creates our universe, BEFORE he ever time travels at all or does anything (as a baby)... WHERE DOES HE EXIST?? The atheist will have to offer up some form of spacetime. After this is accomplished all you have to do is ask the atheist if this initial spacetime or pre-existing spacetime that the time traveler existed in was eternal in the past, came from pure nothingness, or was a result of something else. Remember if the atheist is claiming to have a third option he must define it, otherwise he is just asserting he has a third option but not proving it.
Lets get into this further...There must be some form of space-time already in existence if one were to travel BACK INTO space-time. So let us focus only on the pre-existing space-time that exists which the time traveler travels back into before time travel became possible. [[Also one must remember, wherever the time traveler exists before he creates the universe, there must to be some form of spacetime. Unless of course your opponent makes the claim that the time traveler was spaceless, timeless, and immaterial before creating. If they do that then they have simply defined him as the UC option.]]
Demonstration: Ask your opponent to draw you the following picture...(A blank piece of paper can represent Pure Nothingness). On the paper have your opponent to draw the time traveler as a baby who just came out of his moms stomach for the very first time...He has never time traveled before, existed before that moment, or figured out anything at all...Hell, he cant even talk or change his own diaper. He's a baby, and in his initial infancy...Now tell your opponent that you want him to write above the babies head, "BEFORE any time travel existed."...Next, have your opponent draw the time travelers mom standing behind him, because she is the reason the time traveler was born and the reason he exists...(He did not come from the future and cause himself to exist, as remember we are only talking about the pre-existing spacetime and BEFORE time travel ever occurs)...Then tell your opponent that you want him to draw the time travelers grandma behind his mom, because she allowed for the mom to be born. I think you get the point...Then tell your opponent to draw a big circle around all three of them and write the words 'spacetime' in the circle. As all of them require some form of spacetime to exist. Now ask your opponent to tell you the origin of that initial spacetime (before time travel was possible) that surrounds the three people in the picture. Was it eternal in the past, did it come from pure nothingness, or did it came from somewhere else. Remember, your opponent won't be allowed to say the time traveler created this pre-existing spacetime or had any influence over its existence, because we are only talking about the initial conditions. Meaning BEFORE the time traveler ever talked, walked, time traveled, created, came from the future, etc. Your opponent will quickly see that the time traveler needed an initial pre-existing spacetime to exist in prior to ever time traveling and this initial spacetime could not have been caused by a future time traveling event.
The atheist may not agree to draw such a picture the way you want him to, and instead make the claim that their picture (idea) would look more like a dome. The bottom being a flat line representing space-time and the curved top being a dotted line representing the time travel trip, with events being put down on the bottom.
The above depiction doesn't work however, as it is not an accurate or valid representation of things that ONLY exist BEFORE time travel occurs. So you can erase the curved dotted line representing any time travel trip as well as its effects. Atheists will continually try to show the causality loop and it's effects to shift the focus, but for me to illustrate my point, I only need them to show what happened BEFORE time travel ever occurred. They know this and will begin to realize they are trapped. Their option can now be proven STE or SCPN.
Example: Imagine I needed Pepsi to survive. When I was born people gave me Pepsi to keep me alive...I claimed later in life, when I turned 18 that I figured out how to time travel, had went back in time, and that I was the one who invented Pepsi. Is that possible?? No!! Why?? Because BEFORE I ever time traveled at all, Pepsi already existed without any of my doing or causal influence. Meaning BEFORE I ever figured out how to time travel, Pepsi already existed and infact was what allowed me to live. I never would have gotten to be 18 years old, time travel, or been able to go back in time and create Pepsi, if Pepsi didn't already initially exist. I would have been dead as soon I was born, and my time travel never would have been possible. So I couldn't say that in the future I went back and created Pepsi so I could live, because a persons FUTURE has no potential if they're dead as soon as they're born. My potential to time travel & create pepsi would be non-existent!! So since I wasn't actually the true or initial creator of Pepsi, and it existed before I was born, where did it come from?? Was it eternal in the past or was something else responsible for its existence?? This is the equivalent of asking was the initial spacetime eternal in the past or was something else responsible for it's existence.
[[TIME TRAVEL]] - Have you ever heard an atheist make the claim that they can defeat TEA by offering up a "Time Traveler" hypothesis?? Well if you have, first you need to know if they are claiming the time traveler is in someway responsible for the creation of our Universe. If your opponent says yes, then all you have to do is ask them the following question: BEFORE the time traveler ever figures out how to time travel, BEFORE he ever goes back in time and creates our universe, BEFORE he ever time travels at all or does anything (as a baby)... WHERE DOES HE EXIST?? The atheist will have to offer up some form of spacetime. After this is accomplished all you have to do is ask the atheist if this initial spacetime or pre-existing spacetime that the time traveler existed in was eternal in the past, came from pure nothingness, or was a result of something else. Remember if the atheist is claiming to have a third option he must define it, otherwise he is just asserting he has a third option but not proving it.
Lets get into this further...There must be some form of space-time already in existence if one were to travel BACK INTO space-time. So let us focus only on the pre-existing space-time that exists which the time traveler travels back into before time travel became possible. [[Also one must remember, wherever the time traveler exists before he creates the universe, there must to be some form of spacetime. Unless of course your opponent makes the claim that the time traveler was spaceless, timeless, and immaterial before creating. If they do that then they have simply defined him as the UC option.]]
Demonstration: Ask your opponent to draw you the following picture...(A blank piece of paper can represent Pure Nothingness). On the paper have your opponent to draw the time traveler as a baby who just came out of his moms stomach for the very first time...He has never time traveled before, existed before that moment, or figured out anything at all...Hell, he cant even talk or change his own diaper. He's a baby, and in his initial infancy...Now tell your opponent that you want him to write above the babies head, "BEFORE any time travel existed."...Next, have your opponent draw the time travelers mom standing behind him, because she is the reason the time traveler was born and the reason he exists...(He did not come from the future and cause himself to exist, as remember we are only talking about the pre-existing spacetime and BEFORE time travel ever occurs)...Then tell your opponent that you want him to draw the time travelers grandma behind his mom, because she allowed for the mom to be born. I think you get the point...Then tell your opponent to draw a big circle around all three of them and write the words 'spacetime' in the circle. As all of them require some form of spacetime to exist. Now ask your opponent to tell you the origin of that initial spacetime (before time travel was possible) that surrounds the three people in the picture. Was it eternal in the past, did it come from pure nothingness, or did it came from somewhere else. Remember, your opponent won't be allowed to say the time traveler created this pre-existing spacetime or had any influence over its existence, because we are only talking about the initial conditions. Meaning BEFORE the time traveler ever talked, walked, time traveled, created, came from the future, etc. Your opponent will quickly see that the time traveler needed an initial pre-existing spacetime to exist in prior to ever time traveling and this initial spacetime could not have been caused by a future time traveling event.
The atheist may not agree to draw such a picture the way you want him to, and instead make the claim that their picture (idea) would look more like a dome. The bottom being a flat line representing space-time and the curved top being a dotted line representing the time travel trip, with events being put down on the bottom.
The above depiction doesn't work however, as it is not an accurate or valid representation of things that ONLY exist BEFORE time travel occurs. So you can erase the curved dotted line representing any time travel trip as well as its effects. Atheists will continually try to show the causality loop and it's effects to shift the focus, but for me to illustrate my point, I only need them to show what happened BEFORE time travel ever occurred. They know this and will begin to realize they are trapped. Their option can now be proven STE or SCPN.
Example: Imagine I needed Pepsi to survive. When I was born people gave me Pepsi to keep me alive...I claimed later in life, when I turned 18 that I figured out how to time travel, had went back in time, and that I was the one who invented Pepsi. Is that possible?? No!! Why?? Because BEFORE I ever time traveled at all, Pepsi already existed without any of my doing or causal influence. Meaning BEFORE I ever figured out how to time travel, Pepsi already existed and infact was what allowed me to live. I never would have gotten to be 18 years old, time travel, or been able to go back in time and create Pepsi, if Pepsi didn't already initially exist. I would have been dead as soon I was born, and my time travel never would have been possible. So I couldn't say that in the future I went back and created Pepsi so I could live, because a persons FUTURE has no potential if they're dead as soon as they're born. My potential to time travel & create pepsi would be non-existent!! So since I wasn't actually the true or initial creator of Pepsi, and it existed before I was born, where did it come from?? Was it eternal in the past or was something else responsible for its existence?? This is the equivalent of asking was the initial spacetime eternal in the past or was something else responsible for it's existence.
Extra fun:
Someone may say, well what if the time traveler is given the initial Pepsi until he is 18, then when he figures out how to time travel, he goes back in time and kills the person who really created Pepsi. That's called the grandfather paradox [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox]]. (An equivalent paradox is known (in philosophy) as autoinfanticide.) One must remember that the initial potential to time travel was allowed for because Pepsi already existed (and was given to him as a baby). So without that initial Pepsi, the time traveler wouldn't have been able to grow up, figure out how to time travel, go back in time, or kill the person who created Pepsi. Essentially he would be killing his own potential.
The Novikov self-consistency principle also proves that I could not travel back in time and kill the true creator of Pepsi: According to this hypothesis, the only possible time lines are those entirely self-consistent—so anything a time traveler does in the past must have been part of history all along, and the time traveler can never do anything to prevent the trip back in time from happening, since this would represent an inconsistency. Nicholas J. J. Smith argues, for example, that if some time traveler killed the child who lived in his old address, this would ipso facto necessitate that the child was not the time traveler's younger self, nor the younger self of anyone alive in the time frame that the time traveler came from. This could be extrapolated further into the possibility that the child's death led to the family moving away, which in turn led to the time traveler's family moving into the house guaranteeing that the house later became the home the time traveler would then grow up in, forming a predestination paradox. This applies to my refutation of Mr. Gibbs work from the stand point that his time traveler could not be the true originator or creator of the initial space-time that he was first born into. That initial space-time was the potential which allowed him to grow up and ultimately learn how to time travel, but he had no causal influence over its origins. Therefore, even if he wanted to do something like travel back into time and destroy it, he could not, because that would effect his own self consistency. Rather, it would prevent the trip back in time from ever happening or occurring in the first place. So, if the time traveler cannot do something like destroy this initial space-time that he was born into, which necessarily exists independent of any time traveling actions, then we see that this (initial space-time) was the necessary potential needed for time traveler to ever occur. If it didn't exist he would never have become a time traveler at all. But apparently he did. And we need to know where that initial space-time came from. We realize Mr. Gibbs is not saying the time traveler went back and destroyed space-time, we are just using this principle (as extra fun on top of his formal destruction) to prove that the initial space-time did in fact exist and he had no causal influence over it.
This
is relevant for a person who tries to make the claim that space-time didn’t exist
prior to, or BEFORE , the time traveler creates it. If a time traveler cannot go
back in time and destroy space-time because it would affect his own existence
(The Novikov self-consistency principle), then that is further proof that the initial space-time did
exist.
Seth Lloyd and other researchers at MIT have proposed an expanded version of the Novikov principle, according to which probability bends to prevent paradoxes from occurring. Outcomes would become stranger as one approaches a forbidden act, as the universe must favor improbable events to prevent impossible ones.
It could be argued that the ordinary concept of human "free will" is equivalent to this sort of time-travel paradox, for if one could travel back in time to change a future relative to that past space time interval, then how would that be distinguishable, in principle, from the everyday choices and decisions considered to be freely made within any space time frame taken as the "present"?
One might build a more plausible case for the prohibition of classical time-travel simply by considering how it might violate several conservation laws by the duplication of matter along a single space time line and perhaps require a near-universal redistribution of mass-energy.
Consideration of the grandfather paradox has led some to the idea that time travel is by its very nature paradoxical and therefore logically impossible, on the same order as round squares. For example, the philosopher Bradley Dowden made this sort of argument in the textbook Logical Reasoning, where he wrote:
"Nobody has ever built a time machine that could take a person back to an earlier time. Nobody should be seriously trying to build one, either, because a good argument exists for why the machine can never be built. The argument goes like this: suppose you did have a time machine right now, and you could step into it and travel back to some earlier time. Your actions in that time might then prevent your grandparents from ever having met one another. This would make you not born, and thus not step into the time machine. So, the claim that there could be a time machine is self-contradictory."
THANKS FOR PLAYING GIBBS...WELCOME TO THE ZOO ;)
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The following (in black //) is from Mr. Gibbs with our comments in BLUE.
//The Elliott argument claims that an atheist only has 2 options for the existence of the universe(something can come from pure nothingness (SCPN), and space and time are eternal (STE)) I will refute this argument by providing 2 more options, both separate from STE and SCPN, these two options are as follows//
I think what you meant to say is that you will try and ultimately fail like the many before you.
//Chad Elliott, the creator of the Elliott argument, sometimes challenges atheists to come up with the wildest option they possibly can, so that he can prove it to be STE or SCPN, this is said wild option, this is not what I actually believe, and I only argue it as separate from STE and SCPN, and not as a likely or even rational option.//
This is correct. Atheists only have two options for the existence of the Universe, and no matter what any wildly ridiculous scenario someone can dream up, it will be shown to fall under STE or SCPN. Please note, it's logically impossible for a 3rd option to ever be presented given the way these two acronyms have been so broadly defined.
//the time traveling creator: in this option the creator of the universe is a person born in the universe, using a time machine that was constructed in the universe with materials from the universe (yes I do need to be that specific, as when I've been less specific he has asked me those questions), traveled back in time to before the universe existed, and then created the universe, the common response I get from Chad Elliott is something along the lines where did the time traveler exist before he time travels, the answer to this is simply in the universe, since the time travel part of this option takes the future version of him to a point before he was born, the universe is created before he was born, and thus the universe existed for him at his birth, I go on to explain that these events are part of a predestination paradox, or causality loop, were the actions of the time traveler in the past enable him to make the time travel journey, and that this option operates under the Novikov self-consistency principle, where there is no timeline unaltered by the time travelers actions, Chad Elliott also claims to be asking only about before the time travel, and refuses any answer that involves any element of the time travel, yet he asks about how the universe got from PN to a point were things exist, the answer to this is of coarse the arrival of the time traveler and his time machine from the future, but since this involves time travel he rejects it re-asserting that he only wants to discuss before he time traveled, I have explained to him the irrationality of demanding I not include time travel in my answers then asking a question in which time travel is included in the answer to said question, then rejecting the answer because time travel is involved, however he has yet to address this point.
In his time traveler option debunked note you will find much of this, and you will also find a section about the Novikov self-consistency principle, however he never addresses it's relevance to the time travel option, and all of his arguments against it are muted when you take the Novikov self-consistency principle into account when reviewing the option.//
LOL. Mr. Gibbs Time Traveler option has been thoroughly and exhaustively debunked and proven to be SCPN at the top of this blog.
//this is the option that I actually consider to be likely.
the universe is finite and uncaused//
If it's finite that means it began to exist
//in this option the universe has a beginning point//
Again I reiterate...If it's finite like you said it was, then that means it began to exist at some point.
//time and space, simply existed at this point, and that this point and anything that existed at this point is uncaused//
If the Universe is finite and began to exist, that would be the point at which space-time begins to exist. So now we have to determine the origin of this space-time, which Mr. Gibbs claimed is finite and began to exist.
//there is no prior existence to this point//
This is what we call Pure Nothingness (literal non-being). So now Mr. Gibbs has told us that in his option the Universe (space-time) is finite, that it began to exist, and that there was no prior existence to this starting point (only Pure Nothingness).
//Many times I have tried to explain to him that having a beginning does not necessarily mean it began to exist.//
And now this is where Mr. Gibbs reasoning skills really begin to fail. If something has a beginning that means it began to exist at some point. There is no other way around this. This is logic 101, and Mr. Gibbs has now trapped himself and begun to show the numerous cracks in his logic. The fact here is that there is nothing which begins to exist, which does not have a beginning. Similarly there is nothing that has a beginning, which does not begin to exist. Luckily we have already pinned Mr. Gibbs down and forced him to admit in his option that space-time (the Universe) was finite and began to exist.
//beginning to exist implies a prior existence, and having a beginning does not, and since in this option there is no prior existence the phrasing "began to exist" is inaccurate//
The words beginning to exist suggest that there was some sort of process underway and the exact stage of that process would need to be defined. So I agree that the words beginning to exist imply some sort of prior existence. However, let us look at what we said earlier...there is nothing which begins to exist, which does not also have a beginning. Similarly there is nothing that has a beginning, which does not begin to exist. What we have done is make Mr. Gibbs admit that in his option the Universe (space-time) is finite. If the universe is finite we can conclude that it began to exist. This is very different from someone simply saying it's beginning to exist. Once we corned Mr. Gibbs, all we needed was for him to give us the origin of this space-time which began to exist. Or did we?? Not so fast. If there was no prior existence to this finite beginning like he claimed earlier (Pure Nothingness), then this option has been shown to be SCPN. He loses!!
//In this option the universe has a beginning, but there was never a state of pure nothingness//
LOL...And it gets worse?? Just when you thought it was over he presents us with even more logical incoherencies. Let us remind our audience that Mr. Gibbs had made some clear and obvious claims throughout this rebuttal. #1 That the Universe (space-time) began to exist and had a finite beginning. #2 That there was no existence prior to this finite beginning (Pure Nothingness). Now he is retracting and contradicting himself and everything he has submitted by claiming there was never pure nothingness. If Mr. Gibbs wants to undermine everything he has already claimed throughout this refutation and change his story to be that, there was never a state of Pure Nothingness, then that's perfectly fine with us. However, now we have some new questions. If there was never a state of Pure Nothingness, that means something always existed eternally in the past without beginning. Tell us what that thing was!!!...Maybe he will answer that in his next post...Lets see. LOL
//The universe never didn't exist as there is no beyond the beginning of the universe.//
And there is it is ladies and gentlemen...Now he's changing his story from the Universe began to exist and had a finite beginning, to the Universe did never not exist. LMFAO. You can't have it both ways Mr. Gibbs. The reason he is trying to play it back and forth is because once he commits to either side, he knows I can break him down and force him to show that his option is nothing new. Atheists are pathetic and their logic and reasoning skills are disgustingly horrendous!! I will now post the actual screen shot of Lorins work just in case he tries to edit the material later. Thanks for the victory and God bless!! This will be our only mention of Mr. Gibbs as he has now struck out 3 times. Once on COL for failing to answer our direct questions, once with his time traveler option, and now with his logical absurdity. He had his chance and this what he produced. He is no longer worthy of our time. If he ever wants to engage with us in a live real time public debate we would consider. Another atheist enters the Zoo. God is good!!
Who's next??
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