Are you saying that Eliezer’s original post assumes that existence requires a beginning? (I can’t see that it does.) Or that subsequent discussion in comments here assumes that? (Maybe some people here do, but who cares?)
Sorry, it wasn’t clear to me whether you were talking about the comments or about the OP; thanks for the clarification.
So, you’re talking about the comments rather than the original post, and specifically about Eliezer’s comments. Except that I can’t find any comments from Eliezer in this thread that show (to me) the slightest sign of assuming that existence requires a beginning. Nor, actually, do the other comments seem to me like they’re making such an assumption. There are a lot of them and I might have missed some, but I’m not seeing a general trend of making that assumption.
I think it would help if you were more specific. Could you point to a few specific things in this discussion that show the assumption in question being relied on?
(As to “If you don’t care about the issue, why respond?”: whether I care depends on exactly what the issue is, and I’m not yet sure what it is. The specific point I was making there is that if you were just saying “one or two people in an 11-year-old discussion made a dubious assumption” then I don’t see why you’d care about that or why anyone else should. If you’re saying that Eliezer made that assumption, or that the whole LW community did, that surprises me more because it doesn’t seem to me like the sort of assumption I would expect either Eliezer or the whole LW community to make.)
Are you saying that Eliezer’s original post assumes that existence requires a beginning? (I can’t see that it does.) Or that subsequent discussion in comments here assumes that? (Maybe some people here do, but who cares?)
I’m impressed that someone actually responded this quickly to an 11 year old thread.
Anyway gjm, in response to your question. No. Eliezer specifically avoided that issue.
As I stated in my first sentence, my post was about the comments in the thread.
People searching for First cause are like the people who believe in a God. They’re both searching for something that has no beginning.
If you don’t care about the issue why respond?
Sorry, it wasn’t clear to me whether you were talking about the comments or about the OP; thanks for the clarification.
So, you’re talking about the comments rather than the original post, and specifically about Eliezer’s comments. Except that I can’t find any comments from Eliezer in this thread that show (to me) the slightest sign of assuming that existence requires a beginning. Nor, actually, do the other comments seem to me like they’re making such an assumption. There are a lot of them and I might have missed some, but I’m not seeing a general trend of making that assumption.
I think it would help if you were more specific. Could you point to a few specific things in this discussion that show the assumption in question being relied on?
(As to “If you don’t care about the issue, why respond?”: whether I care depends on exactly what the issue is, and I’m not yet sure what it is. The specific point I was making there is that if you were just saying “one or two people in an 11-year-old discussion made a dubious assumption” then I don’t see why you’d care about that or why anyone else should. If you’re saying that Eliezer made that assumption, or that the whole LW community did, that surprises me more because it doesn’t seem to me like the sort of assumption I would expect either Eliezer or the whole LW community to make.)