Why an Infinite Regress is Impossible

In this video I demonstrate that an infinite per se causal series is impossible, thus demonstrating that God exists. See the previous video for a demonstration of the principle of causality:

[Tdisputations]

Just to clarify, when I say Aquinas says the _per se_ causal chain is impossible, I meant the infinitely long chain we were speaking about. A _per se_ causal relation is in itself possible.

[xenophobia]

This is literally the first time I fully understood the argument, thank you

[christophe]

The real question is can something simple always exist without a begin. Maybe that concept itself is just to out there for human minds. But if it could, it also solves the infinite regression problem.

[markusmafra]

And what caused the first cause ? If the first cause is eternal, we are talking about something that was ever around until the point in which it caused something . This makes us thinking of an infinite regress for that first cause too .

[somebodysomewhere]

It’s odd that most people don’t understand this. Maybe it’s just me but an infinite regress seems obviously impossible. Maybe that is just me. Great video!

[Polymeron]

(1) Every object on the Equator has an object to its West;

(2) But, the series of objects and objects to their west cannot be infinitely long; therefore

(3) There must be a Westernmost point that is to the West of all things on the Equator, which we call Atlantis.

🙃

[edwardconley]

Finally, someone explains it. You have my applause.

[notspaso]

There's no cogent way of showing that infinite regress is a sound method of proof, just as you can't show that modus ponens is sound. You can advocate that it is reasonable, not that it is sound. In this case, the redness example is (or so it appears to me) misleading. You're basically saying that, given an entity x, such that x is made up by the parts {x_i} i in N, if P(x) then there is a j such that P(x_j), this is a loose formalization, but it is plausible that the arguement follows a similar schema. Now, this is all fine. The issue comes from the fact that a causal relationship need not to be such. I can have a relationship R(x, y) which is the relationship x<y, for x, y real numbers. There's nothing stopping me from having an infinite regress, here's one: A={1/n with n in the positive integers}. The thing is that, for a relationship to be true, you need in general P(x, y), and P(x) may simply be senseless, just like if we let P be the relationship of cause-effect, then it makes sense to say P(x, y) to mean, x is the cause of y, which is the effect; But it makes no sense to say P(x), by definition. It would mean something like, x is the cause, which is illogical because we define cause as a relation between two events.
I am a person of faith, and I even wrote about this, a small paper regarding a logical model in which Aquinas's proofs work soundly, but it is a matter of connecting concepts, there is no way of showing the soundness of the proof without other (just as unprovable) presuppositions. But, do we really need to prove God with logic?

[Dreamprism]

3:57 Sure, we could say everything is a per accidens series. Your logical jump in your reasoning for why we can't is that you're insisting there must be a per se cause. In other words, by being invested so much in the "per se" and "per accidens" terminology, you are subtly already assuming that there was an initial cause and so there is nothing left to prove.

[nikolai]

I'm stuck on point 2) If no member has redness in itself, then no member can have redness in another. Why is this the case? Doesn't this presuppose the nonexistence of actual infinite chains?

[abetterversion]

" if no member has redness in itself, no member can have redness in another ". Could you explain? @Thomistic Disputations

[abetterversion]

is infinite regress a regress of causality or dependency?

[Oldman_nomad]

The color is not the ball. The ball is what should be of question. Not to mention you don't bring up the molecular structures of the pigments that create "red".

[truthovertea]

Didn’t know you were on YouTube man, awesome!

[wyett]

So you believe an all knowing, intelligent, super powered being, that also, assumingly, cares for you, can exist infinitely, but that there can't be a state of matter that is infinite?...
Bc as we know, we've never observed matter/energy being created or destroyed, only altered.
Yet you assert it can be created, and that an immaterial being did it. Good reasoning!

[jmac]

DUDE, FINALLY! someone who can break this down and illustrate it. thank you! good work.

[philpenne]

It sounds rather like you're employing a Fallacy of Composition: Since at some point in the regress none of the constituent parts are red, the end result (red paint) cannot be red. This is like saying that:
1) Hydrogen is not wet
2) Oxygen is not wet
3) Therefore, water (H2O) is not wet

[therivalyn]

You do know that 'redness' is just a frequency of light identified by our human eye's right?
Not Some causal dependency passed from one object to another.

[CMVMic]

Motion gives rise to time and time gives rise to change. Everything changes because of time. Now claiming that causality cannot be circular due to the bootstrap problem misses the point. It is one substance that changes. Priority Monism can be true. There is no first moment of change because existence (of a substance) is time independent. Substances cannot emerge ex nihilo. Ergo, Either pantheism or panentheism. Panentheism has a higher ontological pricetag.

[mikeekim]

Maybe the red paint has just always existed.