It's Not "Clear" that Matter is NOT Eternal.

Gangadean purports to demonstrably prove that matter cannot be eternal. I've noted before how even if he were successful at this, it's not enough to get him to the conclusion that therefore some spirit/mind must be eternal. This is because he helps himself to an unsupported dichotomy in the process.  I suspect when pressed on it, he will try to support it merely on dialectical-historical grounds: "most everyone believes that there are at most two substances in the world". But that's no good. In my mind, this issue alone blocks his purported deduction to the existence of God and undermines his view that it is clear to reason that God exists. It's enough to show that Gangadean fails at what he takes to be so central to life--to show that God's existence is clear to reason.

I've also pointed out before that Gangadean appeals to empirical findings, and the testimony of "expert" scientists in his appeals to entropy to argue that matter cannot be eternal. Sure entropy is often taken for granted by cosmologists, but it's ultimately based on empirical observations, and inductive reasoning. The point is, it is at least possible (in the strict logical sense) that we're actually mistaken that it's an exceptionless law. In fact, physicists say that entropy very probably increases in a closed system and so while Gangadean needs it to be certainly exceptionless, scientists tend not to express such certainty in it (I'm told that the probability that entropy increases in a closed system is only very close to 1). Hence any argument that depends on the entropic principle as something entirely generalizable, and exceptionless is problematic. That is to say, Gangadean can't claim to have proven that matter is not eternal insofar as his argument appeals to entropy as a premise. At best what he could say is that, given our current science, or given what purported experts currently tell us, matter is very likely not eternal. What he should do if he's being consistent is to prove that our current science is correct about entropy, and further that all material systems conform to it (without even the possibility of exception), or that the cosmologists and physicists can't possibly be wrong or lying about their deliberations. Hence some of what I say will touch on what I've already written, but I wanted to further develop my previous thoughts.

Here's the big picture of what is to follow. On numerous occasions, I've charged that Gangadean's worldview is internally inconsistent. One way that he is inconsistent is that he claims that knowledge requires certainty/clarity and you can only arrive at such knowledge in one of two ways: 1) via a sound deductive argument, or 2) by "grasping" (I say, intuiting) a "self-attesting principle". But on occasion, Gangadean loses sight of this--and claims to know things that are neither proven by deductive inference from only indubitable premises, nor "self-attesting". The view that matter is not-self-maintaining and thus can't be eternal, is one such claim. And that's a very serious problem for his worldview.

Starting on pg 53 of his book, Gangadean states that for a thing to be eternal, it must be self-maintaining. But he claims the material world, and universe aren't self-maintaining. Therefore, neither are they eternal. He breaks the argument into three parts, but I must say I'm a little confused. He argues for the following:

1) The material world as a whole is not self-maintaining.
2) The material world in its parts is not self-maintaining.
3) The material universe as a whole is not self-maintaining.

I'm not sure what the material world in contradistinction to the universe is. Maybe the material world = earth? Or our solar system? Galaxy? In philosophy, its common to talk about a world as the entirety of reality. So I'm not quite sure what he's up to. In fact it would seem to make more sense for him to have argued that the material universe as a whole and in its parts is not self-maintaining, since that would cover everything material. In any case, I try to keep his terminology in mind, but it gets a bit confusing.

1) Against the idea that the "material world as a whole" is self-maintaining, he notes that the world is highly differentiated (between hot and cold, wet and dry, etc). I won't press him on this even though one wonders how on his worldview a person could be certain of such empirical facts. Further, he presupposes that the material world (and the physical universe?) follows the exceptionless propensity towards reaching sameness (the second law of thermodynamics). According to Gangadean, that's enough to determine that the material world as a whole is not self-maintaining. And this is where things get bad. He gives us examples from common experience: for instance, a hot coffee cup sitting in room temperature for long enough will instantiate a kind of equilibrium or "sameness". Apart from some of the other epistemological issues I've raised above (and in previous posts), a careful read of the text reveals just how far from "clarity" Gangadean has gotten in trying to argue that the material world is not eternal. Here's a quote.

In general, therefore, there is no reason to believe that the material world is self-maintaining. There is every reason to believe that the material world, governed by the law of entropy, is not self-maintaining (55, italics mine). 

Now Gangadean is full aware that he's resting on scientific theories. They are fallible. They depend on inductive generalizations which are very different things from deductions or Gangadean's purported "self-attesting principles". So instead of saying that he's just proven that the material world is not self-maintaining and instead of saying that he's just proven that the material world is governed uniformly by the law of entropy, he talks about "reasons" for and against the pertinent claims. I hope you see this vital difference. To talk about the presence or absence of reasons, in the current context, is to talk about the currently available evidence. It allows for the possibility that we don't have all the evidence or even the majority of the possible evidence. And if it's at least possible that you don't have all the pertinent evidence, if it's possible that new evidence might come along some day, it means that whatever conclusions you draw on the basis of your current evidence, could be mistaken! What this means is that on Gangadean's conception of clarity (a proposition P is clear to reason if and only if you have determined that the opposite of P is not even possible), it's simply not clear to reason that the world as a whole is not self-maintaining. So at least as this argument is concerned, it's not clear to reason that the world as a whole is not eternal.

2) Gangadean goes on to talk about the universe in it's parts. He talks about the sun for instance presumably as a paradigm part of the universe from which he can generalize (that's an issue I'll talk about later). Here's what he says about the sun.

We can know the sun will burn out without learning this from science. The sun is finite in size, and so are the stars. This is obvious to any casual observer. Anyone who wants to can see this...The sun is giving off heat. Anyone with ordinary sense experience can see this. If the sun is limited in size and giving off heat it cannot do so forever...The sun could not therefore have been burning forever. (53). 

I don't quite get this. I mean, he's skeptical of sense impressions when he criticizes empiricism as a way of knowing things. But now he's suddenly very trustful of ordinary sense impressions (even those of the "abused child in Ubangi Bangi"). I get that he's originally arguing against something like pure-empiricism, the view that all we can know is via our perceptual faculties. You need reason, too. I get that. But then what role is reason playing here? This is where he runs into a Cartesian puzzle. If our senses are not always reliable, if they are fallible, then how can we distinguish between those times when they are trustworthy and when they are not? How can we ever trust our senses without being arbitrary? Again, what role is "reason" playing here to solve the troubles that plague empiricism? He had better answer this before he takes for granted that we could know (with certainty) that the sun is finite in size and giving off heat via mere sense impressions. Plus, there's something odd going on here. It's one thing for us modern folk who purport to know all kinds of things about the sun and about thermodynamics. I say "purport to know" because on Gangadean's definition of knowledge, I doubt that such empirical knowledge is possible. But ignoring that for the moment, I just don't see how Gangadean can claim that "anyone with ordinary sense experience" can know that the sun can't give off heat forever.

You see, Gangadean is resting his case on a generalization that he thinks any thinking person should make. Now, suppose he's right that anybody at any time in history could know with certainty that the sun cannot have been burning forever. Since Gangadean is using this claim to argue that anybody "with ordinary sense impressions" could know the further claim that every part of the material world is not self-maintaining, he's got to think that all rational persons should make the generalization from things like the sun to all parts of the universe. He's got to think that this generalization is truth-conducive. But it's not. It's fallacious. It's a hasty generalization because the material universe is a vast thing comprised of a wide array of things we call "matter". Is it obvious to all thinking persons (at all times) that elementary particles behave like the sun in the relevant respects? Hardly. People at one time didn't even know that fundamental particles existed. Not everything that is true about objects of ordinary experience (medium sized objects) applies to everything in the universe. For instance, things like a table, a house, the sun, an apple all have the property of being visible to the naked eye. It doesn't follow that therefore everything that exists in the universe is visible to the naked eye--consider elementary particles, atoms, cells, and the like. So Gangadean is basically saying that all persons at all times should have made or should make a hasty generalization--but that's no way of coming to know about reality and certainly not a means to achieving certainty. It wasn't in the past, and it isn't now, and it isn't a way of knowing in Ubangi Bangi or anywhere else for that matter.

The other problem is that, even if it weren't a hasty generalization, it's still a generalization which is a form of inductive inference. Inductive generalizations don't provide deductive proof--that's a definitional point. Nor do they provide a "self-attesting" principle (another definitional point). In other words, what we have is that it's simply not clear to reason the universe in all it's parts is not self-maintaining (and hence we can't know with certainty that the universe is not eternal). In sum, it's not clear to reason that the universe in all its parts is not self-maintaining. It wasn't clear to reason in the past, and it isn't currently.

3) Finally, Gangadean attempts to argue that the universe as a whole is not self-maintaining and therefore can't be eternal. He speaks of big bang cosmology as the current view and then discusses problems for a couple of models that maintain both the big bang and the eternality of the universe. The first he refers to as "the Big Bang Oscillating Universe theory" and the second, "the Inflationary theory of the Big Bang". He says that the problems are both empirical and logical. The empirical ones have very limited application--they are problems facing these particular models or at most, particular kinds of models. For instance, of the first kind of theory he writes:

given our current understanding of the cosmos there is not enough mass in the known physical universe to allow gravity to pull the expanding universe back in order for the Big Bang to occur again. This is the problem of dark matter, which has been proposed to be present and yet not detected...No proposal has received general acceptance and the problem persists (54).

Ok, so it's "given our current understanding of the cosmos" that his criticism is supposed to apply. Further, there is not widely accepted theory of dark matter. I must say I don't understand this last bit. Assuming he's right (notice he provides no citation), what does it matter that there isn't a consensus on a particular theory of dark matter? After all, there is hardly any consensus on most philosophical matters like the thesis that God exists, and yet nevertheless he thinks it's true and clear to reason. He goes on to add,

On the face of it, there is no warrant, except the requirement of assumption, for saying the Big Bang will be repeated. Left to itself the universe will come to sameness and die a heat death. It is not self-maintaining. But claims regarding missing mass, like all empirical claims, are technically falsifiable. There is warrant for saying the physical universe as a whole is not self-maintaining. But this warrant based on missing mass, falls short of proof (ibid, italics mine).

Again, Gangadean assumes entropy as exceptionless and we've already discussed why that is not going to help him in his project of proving anything. What I appreciate about this bit though is that Gangadean is finally self-aware. He realizes that this empirically based objection, assuming it's all correct, at best gives one evidence for the claim that the universe is not self-maintaining. He realizes he needs something much stronger. Still, this is only partially correct because once again he's generalizing with haste. That a particular model, namely what he calls the Big Bang Oscillating Universe theory, faces a problem of dark matter doesn't mean that all current and future models of the universe will.

Further, Gangadean writes

Suppose the missing mass were found, and in just the right amounts, there would be a second problem of a different kind which logically encounters the problem of entropy. Since the force pulling the universe in is said to generate the force that will push the universe out again rather than the universe ending as a black hole, at some point the force pulling in would have to equal the force pushing out. At that point equilibrium would be reached and the process of expansion and contraction would come to an end. The universe would reach sameness in entropy. It would not be self-maintaining and therefore it could not be eternal (54). 

At this point, he's making some substantive empirical predictions about cosmology (does he take himself to be a cosmologist now?). For instance, just how does he know with certainty that equilibrium would be reached as a result of expansion and contraction? He's just asserted as much, but why should we believe him? In fact, in principle it isn't the sort of thing that can be proven in the deductive sense. Again it's a prediction made from a particular cosmological model which itself is informed by certain empirically based assumptions. That's no way to proving that the universe cannot even in principle be self-maintaining. So while at the end of the previous quote, he made the self-conscious admission that his problem for a particular model didn't do enough to prove that the universe is not self-maintaing, his second purported problem does no better.

Gangadean closes this bit with the following.

At this point we are beyond empirical claims, on either side of the issue...Logical objections to non-empirical claims must be logically met (ibid). 

Ok, but what are the logical objections? He's given us two empirically loaded objections which do nothing to prove that the universe is not self-maintaing. That's it, so I'm confused.

So much for that, onto the next model that he raises problems for i.e., the Inflationary theory of the Big Bang. This discussion was no less disappointing to me and no more informative. He speaks of Alan Guth's model involving a distinction between a true vacuum and a false vacuum. The details aren't important for our purposes at this point. Suffice it to say, there are problems with the model and Gangadean insists that such a model, despite the window-dressing, ultimately depends on the idea that being (energy) can come from non-being (the true vacuum). He concludes then with the following.

These three reasons--not enough mass, force in would equal force out, and true vacuum to false vacuum as being from non-being--refute the claim that as a whole the physical universe is self maintaining. Neither in general nor in its parts, nor as a whole is it self-maintaining...And it is clear. One has to give up reason to believe that being can come from non-being in the inflationary view of the Big Bang (55).  

Now this is sloppy. Remember at this point he's considered two particular cosmological models and pointed out potential problems for them. Two problems face the first model, but they aren't logical problems that undermine the very coherence of the models. On the contrary, Gangadean has to assume some empirical assumptions (which he just can't know with certainty) in order to raise those very purported problems. So at best they provide Gangadean with some warrant to believe that a particular model (to wit, the Big Bang Oscillating Universe theory) is incorrect. Then he moves on to talk about Guth's model and claims that it posits being from non-being. Suppose Gangadean is right. What has he shown? Well, at best, he's shown that Guth's model doesn't work. That's it. Importantly, that's not the same as proving that the universe is not self-maintaining.

The trouble is Gangadean needs to prove a far more general point for his purposes. He's got to show that it's a logical impossibility that the material universe is self-maintaining. That is to say, that no coherent model of any kind which "represents" a material yet eternal universe could even in principle be discovered or articulated. I don't know how he, or anyone for that matter, could prove a thing like that. Pointing out some problems with a couple very specific models, which depend on certain assumptions (e.g., classical space-time as opposed to quantum mechanics), doesn't show that a self-maintaining universe is an impossibility. That's just a bad inference. Nor does it show that an eternal universe is an impossibility.

Nor is my point an "appeal to unknown" as the Gangadeanian might be tempted to say. As best as I can understand such a "fallacy", it simply doesn't apply when dealing with Gangadean. This is because it's Gangadean that claims that it is clear to reason that matter is not eternal, and that means he has to be able to demonstrate that it's not even in principle possible that matter is eternal--which means it's not even possible that a coherent model of an eternal or self-maintaining material cosmos could ever be developed. I'm just asking him to make good on his own project. That's not an appeal to unknown or if it is, I can't see why it would be a bad thing.

Nor is my point to adjudicate between particular models in cosmology. I doubt that most of us are qualified to do so since they are sophisticated mathematical models that make predictions of phenomena that the layman generally don't have access to (which presents a problem for Gangadean itself). Instead, Gangadean makes my job way easier because he holds everyone to such a ludicrous standard of knowledge. Hence, for our purposes, it's enough to point out that Gangadean has no way of proving that all and every model of the cosmos where the universe is self-maintaining or eternal, is incorrect.

Importantly, my main point is that Gangadean hasn't shown that it is "clear to reason" that material universe is not self-maintaining (neither in general, nor in its parts, nor as a whole). That means he hasn't proven that the material universe is not eternal. This means it's not clear to reason that material monism is false and so it's not clear to reason that God exists.


Postscript:

It just occurred to me that the kind of clarity that Gangadean is arguing for (that matter can't possibly be eternal) is also something that's supposed to be knowable to all persons and at all times. Assume for the sake of discussion that 2nd law of thermodynamics is infallible grounds for believing that the universe cannot be self-maintaining. Still, could a person living long before the discovery and articulation of the second law of thermodynamics (prior to the late 1800's) have known that entropy uniformly increases in a closed system? Of course not. It took a particular kind of development in the sophistication of science and empirical testing for us to get to that point. Insofar as knowing that God exists requires that one rule out the possibility of an eternal material cosmos (which is what Gangadean claims), I can't see how God's existence is clear or knowable to persons that couldn't know (with certainty) about entropy. This too seems to be a serious problem for Gangadean's clarity thesis.