God is a concrete infinity.

As the questioner said, it's really a play on words.

A. ?? What's the difference? After all, you still have to get all the way down, so what difference does it make if you have to go through one slide or infinity?

B. In the ancient world, you also go through one slide, so how is that different from God?

I explained it here and in the notebook. There is a difference between a chain of reasons that one person holds in his/her hand. Such a chain is not an explanation if it stops somewhere, and therefore it is a concrete infinity (as if you have to reach the bottom). To say that there is a chain of explanations that I do not know the end of is to say that you have no explanation. On the other hand, to say that God exists at any time that you can reach is potential infinity, since I am not talking about infinity but about a magnitude that is as large as you want (there is nothing greater than it). To refine this further, mathematical knowledge is required. If you have it, you can certainly understand things. If not – it is difficult for me to explain it here.

And how is it different then from the ancient world?

Not different in anything. That is why the antiquity of the world is precisely the only reasonable alternative to the Creator. But what can we do when physics has determined that the world is not ancient, and beyond that the world is composed of things that our experience says are not ancient (created material things and tools). And beyond that, even an ancient thing, if it is unique, has a refined taste (why it is this way and not another) unless it is its own cause. The world and the beings within it are not its own cause. All of this is detailed in my notebooks.

Ah, so the ancient world is also potential.
Okay. If so, that's a bit! More understandable.

Maybe the Rabbi can explain what the difference is between a chain of causes and a single constant cause?
After all, even if you stop the cause in the middle, a new cause will arise.

I said it requires some mathematical knowledge. In mathematics, infinity is defined as a limit and not as a number, that is, it is some size (?) that is not greater than it, or that is greater than any other size. We do not say anything positive about it, but only something negative. This is called potential infinity.
When you talk about the timeline or the duration of time that some object exists, potential terminology is enough for you. It exists for a longer time than any conceivable duration. You did not say positively that it exists for an infinite amount of time, and you still cannot ask what was before it. It is almost like the Maimonides' theory of negative degrees. But if you are talking about a chain of causes, potential speech will not be useful. Even if you say that the chain of causes is longer than any chain imaginable, as long as you haven't said that it is concretely infinite, you haven't offered an explanation but rather evaded an explanation (like the well-known example of turtles all the way to the bottom: the world stands on a large turtle. And the turtle on another turtle. And that one on another. And when asked what's next? You answer: There are turtles all the way to the bottom. But there is no "bottom". Therefore, such a description is not an explanation but an evasion of an explanation and its rejection with a straw). It's like saying A is explained by B, and B by C, and C by D. If you end with "and so on", you haven't said anything. In order for there to be an explanation here and not just an evasion, you must explicitly present the entire chain of explanations, otherwise you have only evaded and not explained. Therefore, it necessarily requires concrete speech and not just potential.

But finally God is also infinite in time!!!.

The result is the same T-W-T-A-H!

Even if you stop God in half the time, you will have to explain again….

By the way, I found something interesting.
If your atheist interlocutor is willing to accept infinite regression, then the cosmological view will not work on him.
But the physico-theological view will work perfectly.
He will be forced to admit that the universe has a Creator, but he will claim that he too has a Creator, and so on, ad infinitum.
Although according to his method, it is not necessary that the Creator is not material, in the final result our atheist comes out as an ultra-believer. Not in one God, but in an infinity of gods!
What does the rabbi think of the analysis?

Excuse me, but I think I'm wasting my words. I suggest we part here as friends.

What does the rabbi say about what I wrote? Is it true?

First, discussing the opinion of someone who is willing to accept infinite regression is like discussing the opinion of someone who is willing to accept nonsense. But if someone for some other reason is unwilling to accept the cosmological view, there is room to discuss the physico-theological view. Of course, to some extent he can also not accept it (not accept the assumption that a complex thing is distilled into components), and therefore this whole discussion is unnecessary and pointless.
There is no reason to assume that there are an infinite number of creators, because if a creator is not something in our experience, I cannot assume that he also needs to have a creator. Incidentally, these are not infinite gods but an infinite chain of causes. The causes can be anything. Only in the bottom line there must be an intelligent creator who himself does not refine a cause. And we are back to regression.
But as mentioned, this discussion is unnecessary and pointless.

The Rabbi did not understand me.
I argue that even someone who believes that regression is possible (and accepts the assumptions of the physical-theological view) actually believes in a Creator.
Maybe it is not God, because he is material, and he himself has a Creator, but he believes that our world was designed by an intelligent being.
Just as he believes that the clock was designed by an intelligent being (which was designed by an intelligent being, and so on ad infinitum).
Regarding the Rabbi's bewilderment at my dealing with erroneous opinions, I will remind the Rabbi that a person does not change his mind in an instant.
I show the atheist that he also believes that the world was designed by an intelligent being, and thus the debate will from now on only deal with the question of whether this Creator created himself.
Does that make sense?

Okay, so one last try before the rabbi gives up:::: —–))

The rabbi distinguishes between a chain of explanations, assuming you stop at one of the explanations, then you haven't reached the bottom, and therefore it's a concrete infinity.
So I ask (just this question) that even if you stop God half the time, you will have to explain God again in the ’. So what's different?

I'm beyond despair (and a name change). I've explained this several times already.
In the chain of explanations there is no assumption that if I stop at one of the explanations I haven't reached the bottom. Obviously if I stop I haven't reached the bottom. This is a tautology. The assumption is that the chain must be infinite to constitute an explanation.
On the other hand, God as a first cause can be presented as existing for a potentially infinite duration of time. There is no reason to stop somewhere.
That's it. So far.

Moshe, it seems to me that you need to refine your understanding of the ”negative concept” (similar to the words of Maimonides as mentioned above).
A positive concept is a description of a thing, and it can serve as an answer to someone who seeks to know and recognize the thing. It teaches something positive about it.
In contrast, a negative concept does not inform or describe the thing. It only says that it cannot be described and spoken of in terms familiar to us (time, place, size, power, will, qualities, wisdom, etc.).
“There is no potential end” is a negative concept, it does not at all say about the thing that it is infinite, but that no matter how hard you try to see its end, you will not succeed, because you are trying to apply your own concept to it (the ”end”). Therefore, it is inappropriate to ask “If you stop in the middle, etc. “, because what we will stop here is nothing more than our attempt to understand.
“There is no concrete end” is a positive description of the thing, it does not speak of the one who tries to understand and grasp the thing, but it speaks of the thing itself. If “stop”, it would be a stop in the thing itself and not in the person who seeks to understand.

I hope I wrote clearly.

We have four options, which are actually three:

1) Or to depend on one factor - let's call it God and thus stop the regression of infinite explanations,
But the problem is that if you do that you have to stretch it to infinity. – And why is it called potential? Why?

2) To depend on infinite factors – It's called concrete why? After all, with them you also go from now to down and not the other way around….

3) To call the infinite factors as God – And then they become potential again. – Why not do that?

4) To depend on a primordial world – The appeal to this matter is two-sided – That this world has no special part of our experience, but not because it is infinite.
So we return from option 4) to options 3) and 2).

Why are they less good than option 1)?

The Rabbi wrote in the Gemara about a Rabbi who taught his student 400 times some simple Gemara, so that's a foundation of faith, right?
;)………………

Hello Rabbi.
I think I'm getting closer to Rabbi Frida, but with my sins I'm still not at his level. If it's important to you to learn the thing then you should learn it from the ground up. If it's important enough to you you should delve a little into the world of mathematics and then maybe we can talk.
I don't know how else to explain this at the general level we're dealing with here. I explained it as best I could, and both you and I are repeating ourselves over and over again. I think if you read and think about it you'll understand, but if not – then I'm probably at a loss.

:(…

I tried for a few hours to understand this… To be honest, I don't understand it at all. (The physics was easy to understand)

Okay, so just a few final questions that are built on the side that when I understand this division someday.

1) Why not define the infinite factors in the chain as one object, and call it God. (All the turtles down are nothing but one big turtle).

Why isn't that better than a factor of the classical God? As the first reason?

2)
Isn't it better to hang the creation of the world as one factor that we call God than an infinite number of factors according to Ockham's razor?
Because the world cannot be hung on the fact that it has always been (because it is in our experience).

3)
If we say that the timeline was created in the Big Bang, do we then actually rule out the possibility that there is an infinite sequence of factors? (From the side that there can be no change without time) and the creation of the world is in the same sense as nothingness towards God whose will to create the world was ancient. Or, with such an understanding, have we effectively solved the need for God, since there was no time before the Big Bang?

4)
In fact, it can be said that there are two laws in the argument. The central principle of the argument is generally the argument of causality and the part of time in the argument is not just a result.

First, the argument is that everything in our experience has a cause unless the thing is its own cause.
In order to reach the conclusion that there is a God, we need to add the part that infinity is a fallacy otherwise he gives another option (although it is possible that even if not then it is still a better option)

Therefore, in this part God gives a complete explanation in contrast to the "infinity of turtles" which do not give a real explanation at all according to the assumption that there cannot be an infinity of explanations. Unless we see them as one unit but it is not clear how we can even see them as one unit!? After all, it is an infinity that grows and does not converge to one thing.

That is, in this part God makes much more sense than the infinity of turtles.

And there is a second part that is actually the result of the discussion - time.
Once we define time as infinite (concrete or potential), then God will also receive these properties (concrete or potential).
And so our chain of turtles will also receive time according to its definition (concrete or potential, although here it may be concrete).

Therefore, towards the part of time, the two arguments are equal, but towards the part of the principle of causality, God gives a great advantage.
Although, if you accept the concept of concrete infinity towards time, then you can also project it towards challenging the validity of God in the principle of causality. But it still gives us a certain advantage.
On the one hand, it really provides an explanation and not an infinite chain of explanations that is not an explanation at all.

Am I right?

Okay, so just a few final questions that are built on the side that when I understand this division someday.

1) Simply because there is no such chain (because a chain of infinite steps assumes a concrete infinity, and there is no such thing). If you call it by name, then it will exist? You are repeating the same mistake over and over again. The problem with God is the length of a continuous axis (the time axis). In a chain, the problem is not infinity of time but infinity of steps. That is the difference between the two.

2)
The same. There is a preference between two options. But here there is only one option. The option of an infinite chain is not an option.

3)
I didn't understand. What does it mean that there can be no change without time? It can also be. This strange argument was raised here a few days ago by someone (I don't remember anymore) and we have already discussed it to the point of exhaustion.
Here I found it here: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A6%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A4%D7%A5-%D7%9C%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%96%D7%9E%D7%9F/
The need for G-d is not related to time. Even if time was created at some point, there is still a need for a reason for this chain that began at that moment. I explained it in my notebook.

4)
I didn't understand what it says here. Just a note. You wrote:

“This is the argument that everything in our experience has a cause unless it is its own cause”.

It doesn't. Everything in our experience has a cause. Period. Something that is its own cause is not something in our experience.

1+2) I understood but I have a question about that,
A.
In the Rabbi's notebook he wrote that it is not clear that there is no such thing as a concrete infinity. And I see that he goes back on it. And claims that there cannot be such an ‘entity’.
B.
I saw for myself that the Rabbi's words regarding a concrete infinity are incorrect Quote from Dan Quijote:
“In the depths of the matter, it seems that His Honor is not at all knowledgeable about the matter. Without going into physical matters (physics also speaks of a concrete infinity in marriages such as the topologies of the universe), in modern mathematics based on set theory, a concrete infinity is a fundamental and basic concept no less than any other. You took it, and oops, you lost most of the modern mathematical theories.
Of course, Hilbert's theorem, etc. It is a nice example for students about the strangeness of the concept of infinity and does not imply a real logical paradox, God forbid. You may have heard of the intuitionists (e.g. intuitionism and infinity) and were mistaken in thinking that this was the main stream. So no -. There was an attempt by a number of mathematicians to try to build classical and modern mathematics using certain principles (including the negation of the infinite set), of course the time and the work will not end, no one takes the matter too seriously”

3) Okay, I understand, thank you.

4)
I wrote more of a question there, did I understand Rabbi Me'in Sikhumon's words correctly.

Z”A
The kasmological argument is based on the principle of causality. And it is accompanied by difficulties from the timeline.

At the basis of the argument there are the assumptions:
1) that everything in our experience has a cause
2) a concrete infinity is impossible
3) therefore there must be something that is its own cause that is also not something in our experience. - we will call it God

(Of course, as the second assumption is undermined, the third assumption becomes less and less necessary)

The problem is that the result we got – that there must be a first cause – introduces into it the same infinity that we escaped from in the second assumption. Under the timeline. The real difficulty lies in the middle.

But in fact,
since the timeline is not well defined I will try to address each of the possibilities:

A) According to science, time was created in the Big Bang. Therefore, we have no difficulty in any case that God is infinite with respect to the timeline. Because he simply is not.

B) We can talk about the timeline in potential terms – whose length in years is greater than any number known to us. So then God would in any case “contain” the properties of the type of timeline – potential as well.

C) We can talk about the timeline in concrete terms, but then we have a problem with how we got to the point of time today.
After all, before him there was an infinity of time. (And it's like pulling tomatoes from an infinity of tomatoes, we can never get out of there!)
But of course, on this assumption, God also contains the concrete axis, and then we dropped the second assumption. And we were left only with a rough estimate of which argument is better.

5) Does a concrete infinity of causes also contain within it an obligation to accept a timeline that is a concrete infinity? Or can it be based on a platform of a potential timeline?

6) What does a timeline mean in potential terms – whose length in years is greater than any number known to us?
Isn't that an evasion?

Thanks in advance! And thanks for the response so far.

1-2) A-B. The question of a concrete infinity in a sequence is not completely closed for me. But an infinite chain of causes is certainly the evasion. Even if there is such a chain, you certainly did not present it in its entirety, and therefore there is no explanation here (and even if it does exist, then this entire complex is God and the proof is in it).

4) B. But there is a fundamental error because the problem of time does not exist in the cosmological argument. It does not deal with the axis of time but only with the axis of causality. See the next section.

5) See the previous section.

6). No.

As far as I am concerned, we are finished. All the best.

4+5 )
In response to four, refer to the next section (7A 5) and in response to five, refer to the previous section (7A 4).

Thanks for the response!

Indeed. I pointed out that in section 4 I answered section 5.

But the rabbi did not address the quote they brought:
I saw in my own mind that the rabbi's words regarding concrete infinity are incorrect. Quote from Dan Quijote:
“In the depths of the matter, it seems that his honor is not at all knowledgeable about the matter. Without going into physical matters (physics also speaks of concrete infinity in marriages such as the topologies of the universe), in modern mathematics, which is based on set theory, concrete infinity is a fundamental and basic concept no less than any other. You took it, and oops, most of the modern mathematical theories disappeared from you.
Of course, Hilbert's theorem, etc. is a fine example for students of the strangeness of the concept of infinity and does not imply a real logical paradox, God forbid. You may have heard of the intuitionists (a.k.a. intuitionism and infinity) and were mistaken in thinking that this was the mainstream. So no -. There was an attempt by a number of mathematicians to try to build classical and modern mathematics using certain principles (including the negation of the infinite set). Of course, time and effort will not end, no one takes the matter too seriously.”

I have nothing to comment on. He mixes up concepts and introduces irrelevant topics.

Maybe briefly anyway? For the benefit of laypeople like me..

In a circular chain of causes like the big bounce etc. that the universe is cyclical.

Can it be said that the universe as a whole is God? Regarding the cosmological argument? Yes, regarding the entire process.

Compared to a non-circular chain of causes?

You can say whatever you want, but I don't see any point in it. First, even a circular chain is devoid of flavor and explanation. Second, defining something as God does nothing and changes nothing (this is my criticism in the second notebook on pantheism). The same can be said about a linear chain.

What this definition does is it eliminates the need for a creator.

A. The reason for the world is its own cause and therefore does not need a creator.
B. Regarding uniqueness? It is not so unique, since every cycle destroys and builds and therefore there is no need for a creator.
And because our entire way of measuring uniqueness is only through the entropy between the starting point and the end point, because our evidence is a posteriori.
So in a circular picture there is no uniqueness at all.

He is not his own cause because this whole chain is the universe and therefore it distills an explanation outside of it.
It is just as special as we see. I don't see what it matters that there are more cycles around.
The circularity doesn't matter at all.

A. Why does it distill an explanation from outside itself? After all, the chain can exist on its own (remember, it is circular).

B. The Rabbi wrote that the test of uniqueness according to entropy is between the beginning (explosion) and the current state. And if we see laws that cause uniqueness, then they are special and need a creator. So in a circular chain of causes there is no beginning and end point, and therefore there is no possibility of testing at all. And it is possible that even if the chain has negative entropy, it takes a state of a developed world and destroys it. (Returns it to the state of the Big Bang)

A. These are just words. What does it mean that it is circular? Does it exist for an infinite time? I am also circular within myself, so therefore I do not need an explanation/reason from outside for my entire existence? This whole circle, whatever it may be, is a being that needs a reason.
B. The entropy of the beginning also needs an explanation. If there is a world that is very special at the beginning, it needs an explanation. And if its progress in time adds specialness, it also needs an explanation.

A. If so, then what is the definition of self-cause?
B. And why is a circular chain of causes not self-cause? And God is?

Sorry, I was exhausted. I explained what I had, and as far as I understood, things are simple.

For a rabbi, everything is always simple.

Geweld, the decline of generations..
The generation that now receives the Torah is not like the generation of last year. As the ’ Steinman said, every year is a new generation.