argument for universal causation.

@Bones-O,

Bones-O! wrote:

Here's a thought... The idea of a beginning of the universe (temporal) is usually held to be at odds with the infinite regression of universal causality. It suddenly occurred to me that there is no limitation on how many cause-effect events may occur in a finite interval of time, thus the idea that the universe started is not inconsistent with infinite regression: it is possible to have an infinite causal chain in a finite-aged universe. Is there an argument against this?

I look at it this way:

If one walks backward from where they are, and continues on in exactly the same path they walked to get to their present location, they will at some point reach a point of their origin.

@boagie,

boagie wrote:

YO!

Quote:
There may be as many universes as there are galaxies in our own universe, and although the concept is strange to us, there may be no end, no totality to speak of.

Do you mean the theory of multi-univereses,because I heard that is a theory scientists came up with in order to expalin to the powers that be why the universe exists as the universe is such a phenomena,that was the only they could justify its existence?

@bees,

I think the problem here is that some are trying to devise definitions to evade their ignorance of the unknown dynamics of the universe. For instance, if one does not understand the length and width of a thing they have a tendency to suggest that the thing might be round so as to not have to address its possible area.

This is exactly what is going on here. Multi universes are now the way to evade the definition of the actual scope of the universe, and the fact that no one can possibly understand the true breadth that scope. Our ignorance however does not mean that there is no actual dimension.

What you are doing is saying that the big box that holds all of the small boxes must be more than one box in order to hold so many small ones, because you cannot imagine the size that such a box must be to contain everything.

What needs to be don here is a change of thought process. Instead of seeing the universe as a container, you must teach yourselves to see it as a place.

Stop looking at it as a continent with a few countries, with a few provinces, with a few cities, with a few towns, etc., etc.

The universe is simply the place where everything exists and resides. There is not more than one place, just one place where everything else exists. This is the universe.

@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;52603 wrote:

I look at it this way:

If one walks backward from where they are, and continues on in exactly the same path they walked to get to their present location, they will at some point reach a point of their origin.

Why should we be so certain that time outside our minds is as we perceive it? We glean causality from looking at the world and seeing A -> B happen in sequence. But are we sure that our vantage point is correct? I mean the world looks flat from our vantage point too.

God does not solve the problem of infinite causality. You can always ask "what created God?" If your answer is that God is eternal, you are asking us to take it on faith that God can be eternal but somehow the rote physical potentiality of this universe cannot -- and why should I believe that? Why should we believe that consciousness and omnipotence somehow explains ultimate causality any better than plain ol' existence does?

If you go on to explain that God is conscious, then we can ask "what created God's consciousness?" If God created his own consciousness, then he created his consciousness before he was conscious -- which means that his consciousness was accidental and therefore so was everything downstream. If he was simply always conscious, then you're ascribing qualities without explaining their root cause.

@bees,

Perhaps the object of causation is to bring reason to the present, and not reason to infinity...Isn't that the problem of all logic; that people try to push it out of sight??? To me, if you have to take What back to the beginning of time, you have to take along Why, and then you have so much luggage to carry you can't get out of town with out getting a room for the night...We are trying to beat the clock here... We only need one answer, and not all of them...

@bees,

I don't know, Fido -- are you ever obligated to take "why" along?

@bees,

What and why are sort of like parallel lines... They merge in infinity....We know what happens...One thing leads to another... Its a law...shet happens...The question behind the question is purpose... But we are no closer to getting a good answer on that, than for the first question: Which came first...

Let me ask you a question: Is it not as logical given all the evidence that there is not a single cause for any event, to think the same of any prime mover.... People cause accidents... And accidents cause people... Tit for tat...Reality is not a row of dominos... Logic is a row of dominos... Do we not do experiments to eliminate the variables??? But what is life but so many variables, so that nothing has a single cause???. We presume a cause...That is a good place to stop...We a'priori accept a cause for every event.... Suddenly all that happens makes sense... Almost.

@bees,

All of Aedes points are good ones, but unfortunately they are no more or less supportable than their antithesis.

Tis true that what we see from our perspective is a flat world. But we know that if we keep walking we can round the planet to our point of origin because it has been done.

I agree that these gods do not answer the questions of infinity and causality except in the minds of those who choose to accept these theories as facts.

My thinking resides more along these lines:

51 years ago I was born. My grandchildren know who I am and that I exist. I am not a theory or a mere possibility to them. But as time goes by it clouds the realities with distance and my great great grandchildren will not be able to relate to me in the same way that my present generation will. I will seem more of a theory to them, a possibility for them to consider. BUT their inability to relate to me does not diminish my existence or my reality. The things I have done in this life are real. My children are proof of this and their children will continue to prove that I once existed. Of course we have today's technological advancements with regard to record that make this much easier than the poor records of our history.

It is the same with creation and the universe. There are events which happened in the past that are directly responsible for today. Being the great great grandchildren of those past events, our inability to relate to them or to consider them does not delete them from reality.

We can suggest infinity and illusion as theories in an attempt to help us relate to the unknown mysteries of the past all we want, but every once in a while we need to look down and see that our feet are traversing this flat planet and that walk began somewhere. The path we have walked since birth can be traced backward to our point of origin, and can also be traced from our point of origin to where we now are. The ability to accurately follow that path to discover its realities can lead to where we actually were and where we are at this second. Diverting from that path by being misguided by falsehood will not lead to any of the truth we have left behind or that we will create as we walk further. The fact is the universe is a place, not a mathematical time equation, and this place has an origin just like you and I do, and just like our ancestors did.

@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder wrote:

I look at it this way:

If one walks backward from where they are, and continues on in exactly the same path they walked to get to their present location, they will at some point reach a point of their origin.

Sure. Since it takes an finite time to get to the last effect, it takes a finite time to go back to the first cause. That's the resolution to Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the tortoise: an infinite series may have a finite value. But the number of events in such a description, e.g. the number of points considered in Zeno's paradox, is still infinite. Infinite regression is no more a problem for first causes than the infinite number of diminishing distances considered by Zeno, since the time series is convergent.

@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;52989 wrote:

All of Aedes points are good ones, but unfortunately they are no more or less supportable than their antithesis.

I agree to a certain extent -- except that when we operate from lack of knowledge, we don't have much of a basis offering complex constructs (like God) as explanations. It's no more or less supportable than the antithesis, but it's less parsimonious.

Pathfinder wrote:

The fact is the universe is a place, not a mathematical time equation, and this place has an origin just like you and I do, and just like our ancestors did.

It boggles the mind whatever you believe. That's the sublime.

Fido;52978 wrote:

Let me ask you a question: Is it not as logical given all the evidence that there is not a single cause for any event, to think the same of any prime mover.... People cause accidents... And accidents cause people... Tit for tat...Reality is not a row of dominos... Logic is a row of dominos... Do we not do experiments to eliminate the variables??? But what is life but so many variables, so that nothing has a single cause???. We presume a cause...That is a good place to stop...We a'priori accept a cause for every event.... Suddenly all that happens makes sense... Almost.

Cause is explained by the what. Motives are explained by the why. To ask why about the origin of everything presupposes a motive.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

I agree to a certain extent -- except that when we operate from lack of knowledge, we don't have much of a basis offering complex constructs (like God) as explanations. It's no more or less supportable than the antithesis, but it's less parsimonious.

It boggles the mind whatever you believe. That's the sublime.

Cause is explained by the what. Motives are explained by the why. To ask why about the origin of everything presupposes a motive.

Isn't cause an a'prior assumption since we cannot possibly know the cause of anything before we start looking for it...

Some one said a few posts back about knowing their beginning... Do they, since life is one long complete thread that once broken, stays broken... We are conceived with conception but the life is there before, two living cells united, and so it has always been... So work yourself to the first life and what do you find??? Do you find a cause, and effect, a motive... What is the motive when the life and the germ which will kill it are born in the same instant when will became life...With prime motion we retrace the steps of logic to a sense of origination...It is a false search that informs us not at all...Have you ever seen a field of grain waving like a sea in a high wind... What is the cause of the waving??? Is it the wind, or the grain...If a single stalk of grain were standing alone the wind would break it... The wind moves the grain, and the grain resists, and the resistence is uniform while the wind is not...It is as simplistic in life to look for single causes and effects as we can show in laboratories by limiting variables... The fact is that life is many complex interactions that can never be grasped exactly but only observed...I accept the notion of cause and effect since without it everything would move on belief... How useful is it for the observation of life in gross??? Can you think of a bird flying??? Does he fly with gravity or against it... If there were no gravity the challenge would be to hold onto anything...Since gravity holds the air, the bird can fly through it, so gravity is essential to flight... It would sound silly to say gravity is essential to flight, and not a cause of it...Just so, if we say cause and effect, we are not looking at all the essential qualities that lead to a particular event coming to pass, but only a specific action resulting in a reaction that we consider an effect... Cause and effect are at best a concept that helps us to remember to look for the rational explanation for every event we do not understand...It is a useless as numbers as a concept, at helping us to grasp any infinite...

@bees,

Something cannot be put into motion without cause.

Without cause everything would be in a state of inexistence.

Existence alone is the effect of cause.

@bees,

Again, it's as if the words are lifted directly off the page of Aristotle. The thing is, it presupposes that the ball was still and then was somehow pushed. There is no more basis for that than the possibility that it was always rolling.

@bees,

Exactly.... All the cause without matter to effect is nothing, and all the matter without cause setting it in motion is nothing... It is like the chicken and the egg...Since we know we can never reach a satisfactory resolution of the question with the tools at hand, it is a pointless exercise... We know we are dealing with a complex situation...And we also know that within our sight, cause and effect is an effective rule of logic... If we apply cause and effect to some great beginning at the dawn of time we can say nothing from our perspective that cannot be challenged... We cannot imagine a time when matter did not exist, or where some force did not put it into motion... Can we say it is not multiple forces, an accident, or as is likely: something far beyond our comprehension??? There is always a chicken beyond the egg, and an egg beyond the chicken...It is just a excercise in futility... We can't call it truth or knowledge... At the end of it is faith...

Aedes wrote:

Again, it's as if the words are lifted directly off the page of Aristotle. The thing is, it presupposes that the ball was still and then was somehow pushed. There is no more basis for that than the possibility that it was always rolling.

And what made the ball... If you get beyond physics, which is easy enough, there is metaphysics... From what we can see there is no end to it.... Its the original Gordian knot... The more loose ends you pull on the more ravel there is to untangle...That is why I am a moralist... Within the context of our lives our situations can be managed ethically... We do not have to know the beginning or the end of all time, and workable truth does not depend upon ultimate truth for utility....What ultimate cause do I need to see my fellows are in roughly the same situation as myself, and then treat them with kindness???

@Aedes,

Fido wrote:

And what made the ball... If you get beyond physics, which is easy enough, there is metaphysics... From what we can see there is no end to it.... Its the original Gordian knot... The more loose ends you pull on the more ravel there is to untangle...That is why I am a moralist... Within the context of our lives our situations can be managed ethically... We do not have to know the beginning or the end of all time, and workable truth does not depend upon ultimate truth for utility....What ultimate cause do I need to see my fellows are in roughly the same situation as myself, and then treat them with kindness???

Personally I always believed that something had to give it a push,(I dont know why I believe this,I guess I always wonder what caused it to move etc),and ofcourse I am open to being challenged and to other theories.

@Aedes,

Fido wrote:

If you get beyond physics, which is easy enough, there is metaphysics...

Physics is to whatever limited degree observable. Metaphysics is speculative. What lies beyond physics is NOT metaphysics -- it's simply physics that we haven't been able to observe yet.

Fido wrote:

Within the context of our lives our situations can be managed ethically... We do not have to know the beginning or the end of all time, and workable truth does not depend upon ultimate truth for utility....What ultimate cause do I need to see my fellows are in roughly the same situation as myself, and then treat them with kindness???

I agree with you here. And I puzzle at the people who feel that we have no basis to be good to one another if morality isn't somehow ultimately and absolutely justified.

@Aedes,

Quote:

Aedes wrote:
Physics is to whatever limited degree observable. Metaphysics is speculative. What lies beyond physics is NOT metaphysics -- it's simply physics that we haven't been able to observe yet.

And that isn't speculation???

Quote:
I agree with you here. And I puzzle at the people who feel that we have no basis to be good to one another if morality isn't somehow ultimately and absolutely justified.

If by justified you mean rational, I must suggest that people are unerringly moral when moral out of emotions and a feeling of emotional connectedness...We make much of our rationality.... That is but a fraction of our being...

Caroline wrote:

Personally I always believed that something had to give it a push,(I dont know why I believe this,I guess I always wonder what caused it to move etc),and ofcourse I am open to being challenged and to other theories.

Why worry, since your speculation is as valid as any other???? We are talking about infinites here... Which is to say no statement of beliefs can be proved false or supported as true...

@bees,

The ball is the beginning and in order to begin there had to be a force upon it.

Whatever that force is/was is the total of any equation that you want to build to calculate it.

X+y=F

AxB=F

2a(2x4b)=F

No matter how you want to calculate there will always be that F factor that becomes the answer to the equation. And it is an unknown factor.

Nobody knows what F equals. They simply know that it is a dynamic of the equation.

@bees,

No, there did NOT have to be a force "upon" it. This is not logically necessary.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

No, there did NOT have to be a force "upon" it. This is not logically necessary.

Matter is energy.... What made matter... What made energy... What, what, what and why... It is all speculation...The essentials of any logical argument are missing... You cannot ask why the matter without matter...What is the cause of itself???

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argument for universal causation.

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