No, that's not the point I was making. If we can assume that something (i.e. "deity", whatever that may be) can exist without cause, why not the stuff from which the world is made? The imagination is the limit. The first cause argument is merely one of many possible arguments.
First cause is a mental box in which many are trapped. The fact is that we don't know what was or wasn't before the Big Bang. We are merely speculating and hypothesizing. Which—I hate to say this because it seems to irk some—makes even God a hypothesis, just like everything else, even though some people choose to believe it isn't.
Chaos theory's primary contribution is in seeing nature not as fully described in linear equations but as logarithmic ones with a feedback loop
And your point is?
Still sticking to the logic and scientific perspective, no, it really is unchanging - that's a necessary condition in the first cause argument.
D, I understand what the first cause argument says. I am saying is has holes.
Imagine a small area of the universe where absolutely no matter or energy exists. No contingent cause/effect chains.
What does exist there is Physics, the laws of the universe. These are unchanging.
That's a little too "Platonic" for me. "Physics" doesn't exist independent of matter and energy. Gravity doesn't "exist" in vacuum; it is a property of mass. Where there is mass, there is gravity. Science calls it a "natural phenomenon" which is a physicist's equivalent of doctors' "idiopathic," or just "clueless" in everyday English. We don't know why.
They will change according to Physics. They change, time exists for them, they react, reform, combust, whatever. But Physics that caused theses changes didn't change.
Wait right here, are you calling God Physics?!? The fact is nature is nature, and every form of natural existence has properties that are common to it which cannot change, such as being thee-dimentional. This is has nothing to do with some "Platonic" self-existence called Physics, that "lives" in a vacuum "waiting" for unsuspecting matter and energy to arrive, so it can exert itself on them.
And how did we come to this from the first cause speculation being a paradox? When I said "Let there be light" was a moment of change for the presumed "changless" Creator of light, a change from non-cretaing to creating.
Because all the stuff from which the world is made is dependent, effects of external causes that are effects from external causes, etc… This is what we observe of all the stuff the world is made of. We can't choose to believe they are what we wish to imagine if it is contrary to what we observe them to be - if we are to continue in a reasonable argument.
The first premise of the first cause argument is based on the observable world: Everything we observe in the universe depends on something outside it in order to exist.
Imagining that this is not so is not reasonable.
First cause is a mental box in which many are trapped.
First cause is a logical conclusion based on the above premise.
Dependent existences absent the existence an independent cause cannot exist. We observe a universe of dependent existences/causes, therefore there must be an independent, uncaused, first cause.
We are merely speculating and hypothesizing.
This would be a big step above pure imagination, especially when we have a hypothesis based on observation and logic.
The first cause argument is merely one of many possible arguments.
Chose one that fits observation and reason/logic.
D, I understand what the first cause argument says. I am saying is has holes.
But, friend, I don't think you've found one yet. You indicate it can be effectively refuted by imagining contrary to observation, which makes me think you don't fully grasp that its only parts are observation and logic. Your hole has to be found there.
Wait right here, are you calling God Physics?!?
As I said, it's an "an analogy (with all the limitations analogies have)." Not meant to be taken literally but as a possible way to communicate the idea or concept of something unchanging and eternal causing change in time merely by existing. Didn't work in this case.
Thanks very much for your reply.