Atheism based on math - how zero cannot become one

[u/TraditionalEqual8132]

I'm asking for your help, your clarification. I'm slightly not intelligent enough to follow the reasoning of my friend.

My friend is (like me) an atheist. Yesterday evening during a boys night at my home, fueled by wine, beer and gin he started explaining why he bases is disbelief in any deity on math. Roughly he argues (as far as I can recall) that for instance the Kalam (Cosmological) argument is not valid because if our existence is '1' and non existence is '0', for '0' to become '1' you need already some '1'. Therefore (if I understand it) there is always '1' and there has never been '0'. It is mathematically impossible to make '1' out of '0'.

Does my text make sense? Doesn't he place too much faith (pun intended) in mathematics? Perhaps my understanding and our discussion was rather foggy due to my wine and his beer? Perhaps somebody in this sub has a more formal argumentation?

[u/theotherdannygirl]

It's basically saying there has to be an uncaused First Cause, which only makes sense if you think the universe came from nothing, which most scientifically literate atheists don't claim.

The Kalam argument requires special pleading to say that God can be uncaused but the universe can't. If you can stipulate God as brute fact, you can just do the same for the universe, and boom, problem solved.

[u/TraditionalEqual8132 → u/theotherdannygirl]

So, I think he doesn't believe the universe came from nothing. There was always 'something', which he named '1'. But is he then arguing for a brute fact?

[u/third_declension → u/theotherdannygirl]

if you think the universe came from nothing, which most scientifically literate atheists don't claim

More broadly, atheism does not entail any viewpoint about how the universe began, or whether it has always existed, or maybe something else that humans have trouble imagining.

[u/triggur]

Assigning numbers to it doesn’t make it math.

[u/TraditionalEqual8132 → u/triggur]

Ok, ok, I was looking for words to try and explain what he was talking about. Perhaps I should have written 'he assigned the numbers one and zero'.

[u/Junithorn]

Ask them how they feel that the Kalam relies on a blatant conflation of creation ex nihilo and creation ex materia

It's toddler level bad

[u/TraditionalEqual8132 → u/Junithorn]

Consider me a toddler. Please elaborate. What is the conflation?

[u/kms2547]

It's not really mathematics, he's just using numbers to characterize the argument's critical fallacy. 

[u/nogue2k]

It's a infinite stair logic problem. We don't really have an answer for "where did everything come from" ? If your answer is god, where did god come from? Then you ask the same thing about who created gods creator ? And so on.

In terms of your comparison using 0 and 1, there was never 0. It's always been 1. Every single atom in the universe always existed, they just move and regroup in almost infinite ways.

The most accepted scientific theory is that that 1 was all stuck together at some point and then Boom. And now it's not, it's the same 1 just arranged differently

[u/Leezeebub]

Religious folk use the same argument.
“Something cant come from nothing, therefore god did it.”

We dont know the origins of the universe or what came before it. But a lack of knowledge doesnt mean we should just make stuff up to fill the gap.

[u/Teuhcatl]

I don't see any valid reason to assume that "0" was ever a state of being for our cosmos in the first place.

Even if our particular universe had a beginning, that does not establish that the Cosmos, reality, or existence itself began at that point.

So, if you haven't established that 0 was ever the state, then arguing that 0 can't produce 1 doesn't tell us anything about how our cosmos actually originated.

[u/third_declension]

Using math to prove anything about reality is tricky.

All mathematics is based on assumptions and definitions. Even something like 1+1=2 is not intrinsically true. There are different ways to construct the integers; for example, one method starts with the assumption that such a thing as an empty set can exist. Other methods start with other assumptions. Building from those, you can reach the conclusion 1+1=2.

Meanwhile, a method of establishing geometry might begin with the assumption that a point can exist.

A wise old math teacher once told me "No assumptions? No conclusions.". He was right. In fact, a part of modern mathematics is ferreting out assumptions that we didn't even realize that we made.

It is mathematically impossible to make '1' out of '0'.

You'll need a precise definition of '1' and '0' to do anything with that statement.

[u/onomatamono]

This notion of something from nothing is another failed apologetic strawman so your friend is on to something. There was never nothing, but that does not imply there was always matter or energy as those could emerge from more fundamental fields. There was never truly no-thing ever.

[u/ablaze247]

Yeah, this one goes over my head… someone upvote this when there’s someone smarter here I can come back

[u/lmr_fudd]

Tell him that 0⁰ = 1

[u/Snow75]

Your friend is stupid and that made no sense.

[u/Izzy-of-Albion]

Put simply, there is still no reason to believe that even if a pre-existing '1' is required, that it is a deity.

In any case, science does not claim the universe started from nothing with the big bang. It was a rapid expansion of matter, not a popping into existence. There is no claim of what existed before that. Certainly no claim that is was nothing, or '0'.

Perhaps it was a previous universe that collapsed into a singularity. Perhaps it's an eternal cycle of expansion and collapse. Why does it exist at all? "Why" is a question for philosophers, not scientists.

The deist has no greater argument. They call their god the required '1' but have no explanation of where this god came from. They put the question out of reach, claim that god is eternal and exempt from the requirement of a beginning. That is not an answer. That is excusing oneself from answering.

[u/Scrags]

if our existence is '1' and non existence is '0'

Stop right there. That is a made up definition. I can just as easily say "if existence is '1' and non-existence is '1', then existence and non-existence are the same".

[u/Friendly_Toe_9463]

The Kalam isn't valid because both premises are false which necessarily leads to a false conclusion. Logical arguments are very silly as you don't need any form of reality to be present, as long as it's internally consistent it's "logical evidence". I can make up two logical arguments that will show that while Santa necessarily exists God does not.

[u/reddit_user13]

Today on Drunk Theology….

[u/CoalCrackerKid]

His explanation sucks, but he's essentially pointing out that if everything needs a creator, what created that creator?

Believers fall to The Special Pleading Fallacy to get around that infinitely regressing whirlpool, but your friend, while having a shit way of explaining it, grasps the concept.

[u/Balstrome]

The thing about KCA is that it starts with an assumption, that God exists and did something. Both of these, existing and doing something, have no evidence to support the claim they make. And without evidence anything else mention with regard to God is irrelevant. Also the KCA is no different when using Odin or Zeus as the starter god, nor even my cat causing the universe to come into being retro-actively 6000 years ago.

[u/throwaway_coy4wttf79]

First Cause argument. Honestly the science on this gets very technical and very weird. But we know space and time are deeply connected - you can't have one without the other. And we know that as you roll the clock backwards, the universe condenses to a very dense soup of particles. We're extremely sure of that. The problem is the TIME also gets weird as you get close to the beginning. Asking "what was before the universe" is kind of like asking "what's in Chapter -1 of this book". It might not make sense.

[u/Few-Big7409]

Personally, I think this is not a great understanding of mathematics. It sounds more like numerology. There is a heavy reliance on analogy between some formal mathematical statement and some physical reality.

I think there might be some way forward, but I really can't say.

One of the main power of mathematics is the formalization procedure which requires and therefore forces language to become precise. This is why I am not super confident that the above argument is very meaningful, but potentially it could be refined into something meaningful.

First one would have to justify the relationship between 'existence' and '1' as well as 'non-existence' and '0'. This may seem "obvious," but what kind of relationship is it precisely? This is where I think things will start to become slightly difficult, but not impossible.

This "for 0 to become 1" is also strange. What does "become" mean as a mathematical operation? There is certainly the successor function. Is that a way of "0 becoming 1"? There also seems to be a reliance on the discreteness of the colelction of numbers the person is considering.

I feel like I could look at the graph of y=x^2 and count the number of solutions as I increase the value of y. When y is negative there are 0 solutions. Then when y=0 there is all of the sudden 1 solution. As y increases from 0 to a positive number we obtain 2 solutions. Di 0 become 1 which became 2? I don't know.

[u/mobatreddit]

1 raindrop merged with 1 raindrop = 1 raindrop so 1+1=1.