Spontaneous Creation Problems
I wanted to discuss a problem similar to, but different from the old "first cause" problem, which we have had many a thread on. Let's please, keep discussions of the necessity of a "first cause" or "unmoved mover" in those respective threads.
Here is the problem: Suppose we have satisfactorily resolved all our questions about first causes and unmoved movers. We don't think we need either.
It is still the case that, if the universe had a begining (Cosmic Inflation, the Big Bang) then there was a time T0 where things existed and did not exist in any prior state.
Let's try not to get derailed by "is spacetime infinitely divisible or not." Let's say we slice time up into very short durations. If there is a begining, there is one duration during which things exist, Cosmic Inflation is going on, etc., and during which things did not exist during any duration prior to this (because there are no prior durations, because spacetime did not exist yet).
If this is the case, and things can start to exist, for no prior reason (they are uncaused), then why don't we see more things starting to exist at different times? E.g., it seems conceivable that we could see evidence for multiple Big Bangs, occuring at different times and interacting. We don't see this though.
As near as I can tell, this problem was first identified by the theologian Jonathan Edwards, and it was an argument for God as you might expect, situated in discussions of "first causes." However, it seems to be a problem even if you allow that a first cause is not necessary. The problem with uncaused existence is that, if it is possible, then nothing should stop it from occuring at random.
Further, being uncaused, there is no reason to expect any specific sort of thing to come into existence over any other. So, we shouldn't just expect lots of stuff to start existing, but different sorts of stuff.
This seems to pose problems for some attempts to explain the begining of the universe. For example, Paul Davies attempts an explanation where quantum mechanics results in the creation of our universe. But the problem is that quantum mechanics is a description for how something that already exists works. This explanation seems to assume that something begins to spontaneously exist because it follows rules where it can create itself. This is problematic in that many toy universes work similarly, so their spontaneous existence should be equally probable.
Anyhow that's the problem. As I understand it, this problem is one of the things that makes eternalism popular. It would seem to solve the problem by saying that only what exists, including all moments, exists without begining or end. I find eternalism as a whole problematic for reasons that would make this post too long, so this never appealed to me.
Here is the solution that occured to me, and it might not be very good. But let's say that all sorts of things do start to exist, at random. Why should we expect that different sorts of things that start existing would be able to interact with one another? Maybe stuff is popping into being all the time and it just makes no difference to us. A premise in the framing of the problem seems to suggest that if anything starts to exist, we will be able to observe it. But is this premise warranted? After all, nothing can determine what is uncaused.
Here is the problem: Suppose we have satisfactorily resolved all our questions about first causes and unmoved movers. We don't think we need either.
It is still the case that, if the universe had a begining (Cosmic Inflation, the Big Bang) then there was a time T0 where things existed and did not exist in any prior state.
Let's try not to get derailed by "is spacetime infinitely divisible or not." Let's say we slice time up into very short durations. If there is a begining, there is one duration during which things exist, Cosmic Inflation is going on, etc., and during which things did not exist during any duration prior to this (because there are no prior durations, because spacetime did not exist yet).
If this is the case, and things can start to exist, for no prior reason (they are uncaused), then why don't we see more things starting to exist at different times? E.g., it seems conceivable that we could see evidence for multiple Big Bangs, occuring at different times and interacting. We don't see this though.
As near as I can tell, this problem was first identified by the theologian Jonathan Edwards, and it was an argument for God as you might expect, situated in discussions of "first causes." However, it seems to be a problem even if you allow that a first cause is not necessary. The problem with uncaused existence is that, if it is possible, then nothing should stop it from occuring at random.
Further, being uncaused, there is no reason to expect any specific sort of thing to come into existence over any other. So, we shouldn't just expect lots of stuff to start existing, but different sorts of stuff.
This seems to pose problems for some attempts to explain the begining of the universe. For example, Paul Davies attempts an explanation where quantum mechanics results in the creation of our universe. But the problem is that quantum mechanics is a description for how something that already exists works. This explanation seems to assume that something begins to spontaneously exist because it follows rules where it can create itself. This is problematic in that many toy universes work similarly, so their spontaneous existence should be equally probable.
Anyhow that's the problem. As I understand it, this problem is one of the things that makes eternalism popular. It would seem to solve the problem by saying that only what exists, including all moments, exists without begining or end. I find eternalism as a whole problematic for reasons that would make this post too long, so this never appealed to me.
Here is the solution that occured to me, and it might not be very good. But let's say that all sorts of things do start to exist, at random. Why should we expect that different sorts of things that start existing would be able to interact with one another? Maybe stuff is popping into being all the time and it just makes no difference to us. A premise in the framing of the problem seems to suggest that if anything starts to exist, we will be able to observe it. But is this premise warranted? After all, nothing can determine what is uncaused.
Comments (93)
I think this is a reasonable solution. Suppose there is a "global, " higher-dimensional universe, and it has always existed. For whatever reasons, maybe quantum-like fluctuations, maybe due to other unfathomable causes, 4D spacetimes like ours pop in and out of existence all the time. Nothing inhabiting these 4D spacetimes is able to travel outside of it, and so these universes don't interact at all. Moreover, there might be a first cause, but that cause existed outside of the 4D spacetimes, so from the perspective within a spacetime, there is no first cause at all.
This is an incorrect expectation. There was just a single point that was very very hot before the Big Bang. This singularity (prior to the Big Bang) will never occur again until, maybe, this universe dies in what they call the Big Freeze, which is like the death valley. There is no explanation as to the cause responsible for the singularity. "How it forms" is not a cause.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgKJV_p48AQ
They're called virtual particles.
I've written a bit on this in the past. We have to logically think about what would result if things could appear without a prior cause.
1. There is no reason for their being.
2. There is no reason they should continue to exist.
3. There is no reason they should follow any laws except after they exist.
Meaning that a particle could appear, but then disappear soon after. No reason why it couldn't. When you talk about something that has no reason for its existence, you also can't say why it could NOT exist either.
So then why don't we see things like chairs randomly pop into existence and then disappear. That's due to probability. If anything could exist without reason, there are no limits. Meaning we have to consider all possibilities.
First, lets start with scale. Let think of an inch by inch square of space. Anything could appear in that square of space at any moment right? Right. But divide the square in half. Anything could appear in that square at any moment, and not in the other half. Right? Right. Continue to do this ad infinitum or until we get to what is the smallest particle we can see.
What does this mean? For every one square inch we see that has one chance out of the infinite, we have a square that subdivides down into magnitudes smaller, meaning in the comparative likelihood of one square inch, its much more likely that something appear very small. I don't want to math this out, maybe someone else could.
Second, lifespan.
A particle could exist in between the smallest possible measurement of existence that we can imagine to the largest. Meaning, like the square space, we have a situation in which there is a near infinite amount of time to exist that is both before and after. Seeing a particle form that would also form with the ability to be indestructible would also be exceedingly rare considering all other possibilities.
Third, complexity
Complexity is many smaller things integrated together. Something formed without prior rules would need to interact with something else without prior rules (Or perhaps other existences that have been here a while) and form something meaningful. What's the chance of that? Probably pretty low.
So over time its not surprising that we would see extremely small 'things' forming and unforming as they enter into existence, interact, and wink out. What would be exceedingly rare, though possible, is something of a large magnitude with massive complexity forming. Its possible again, just exceedingly rare.
Its an interesting notion though. If anything is possible, over infinite time, will all things happen? Anyway, fun thoughts to think on.
A mathematical convenience that cannot be observed through instruments.
Quoting Philosophim
Wrong. And I think you mean an inch cube in 3-space? Or an inch square in my favorite, the complex plane.
Quoting Philosophim
Wrong. Where do you come up with these flights of fancy?
Quoting Philosophim
Please don't. And don't ask a mathematician to do so. And something would appear very small if it is very small.
Quoting Philosophim
Since they can't be seen or observed, winking out is problematic. But there is a scale going from unobservable to observable, I believe. Where on this scale a virtual particle "becomes" "real" is interesting, though.
I love it when philosophers dabble in physics and math. Especially quantum physics. :cool:
Actually we do see many new things appear: new stars, new human beings, new social problems, new diseases, new hopes, new philosophies, new theories, new films, new technologies, etc. What is not common is that something new arises out of nothing and for no reason. It always seems that if something new comes into existence (and that did not exist before) we are obliged to think about it in the order of coexistence and in the order of relation. In other words, we are obliged to think about the new among other things that precede its existence and with which it is related in some way. This is perhaps the most rational aspect of existence: That nothing comes from nothing.
Good to know, I appreciate the info! I had looked into them at a cursory level, but apparently I need to read more.
Quoting jgill
Just using a basic 2d example. Also, despite virtual particles not being what I thought they were, this is a thought experiment for the OP.
Quoting jgill
Did you read the OP?
Quoting jgill
You misread what my intent was. It was to compare the probability of something occurring in a one inch square versus several magnitudes smaller as we divide up the square, assuming equal probability of something appearing in each measured location.
Quoting jgill
Why be snide? Just educate. If the person you're educating is being rude, then be snide.
Take a one inch square. Divide each side into n equal parts. Then there are n^2 sub squares. Assume the probability of a point being in the big square is one, and each sub square probability then is n^-2. "One chance out of the infinite" means what? I have assumed the probability of finding a point in the big square to be one, but what you state implies zero probability. Thus there is really zero probability of finding a small object in any sub square.
Sorry. Language is a lot looser in philosophy (or this forum) than where I worked.
Thanks. So then if every chance had equal chance of being, that would be 1, then n^2, then I assume n^4 if we chopped those new squares up again? The point that I was trying to make is that if all had an equal chance of being selected individually, a smaller section of square is more likely to be selected then the larger scaled squares.
Quoting jgill
Sorry, its late here. I meant to say 'the limit as this division approaches infinity', if there is one. Meaning the smaller the size of the particle, the more chances per square inch it appears over something the size of an inch itself (assuming all have the same chance of appearing)
Quoting jgill
Not a worry. All good!
If we subdivide into 9 sub squares, the probability of choosing one of those sub squares is 1/9. If we have 25 sub squares, the probability of one of those is 1/25. Time to retire here, too.
Yes, that's the premise I was accepting starting out. Things can begin to exist for no reason at all, no Principle of Sufficient Reason in effect.
I'm not really sure if you're trying to rebut my solution or the problem itself? If a singularity can start to exist, i.e., it did not always exist, why can't others? Why does one beginning to exist preclude others?
Virtual particles are not, currently, "directly observable." They have effects that can be observed, which is why the idea has gained currency. This is true of other phenomena in physics, and it also has been true of phenomena we have since developed means of observing more directly. I'm not expert on virtual particles, but those writing about them seem to suggest that they are a good deal less fully speculative than say, strings. E.g., pronouncements like "Experiments to measure the Casimir Effect show that virtual particles do exist.". (To be fair, I believe some people still advocate for alternative explanations here).
But this might actually not be all that relevant because virtual particles, like quark condensate, appear in space-time, within fields, and so they are not truly forming "out of nothing." A universe with an origin point would have to have these very fields and spacetime itself pull off the same trick. The problem of "existence ex nihilo," then is different than the problem of "creation ex nihilo."
Anyhow, I've considered that a Big Crunch or a Big Bang that eternally recurs because of the properties of a universe in heat death would all solve the problem, but these work by making the universe eternal. Black Hole Cosmology works by making the universe caused. So, I guess this problem would apply to only certain cosmologies.
If I understand the point properly, it would be that each square has a 1/9th, 1/25th, etc. chance of being filled in. And the question is, what % of the surface area is likely to be filled in by this process as we add more squares and make each square smaller.
But I don't think this is necessarily relevant since it would seem to relate to the size/mass-energy, what have you, of objects beginning to exist within an already existing space-time.
We can even remove the virtual particle notion. If it is the case that the origin of the universe has no prior explanation for its existence, there are no rules. If something formed within nothing then, why can something not form within nothing now? There's no reason it couldn't. There's no reason preventing tons of incredibly tiny 'things' popping into and out of existence. Right now, there could be things popping into existence somewhere in this vast universe.
The point I was trying to make is that the math makes anything large, long lived, or complex orders of magnitude less likely than something that is smaller, not eternal, and simple. While the idea of something appearing within nothing without prior explanation means there are no rules, it doesn't mean we can't think of logical consequences. Namely if anything is possible, all things are equally possible. Why? If something were more possible than another thing, there must be an external reason. But there is no external reason. It simply is.
With this in mind, we can also realize that it is equally possible that a big bang formed, and for the last trillion years, nothing else formed from nothing. Perhaps something will happen again in another 5 years. Or five minutes. When you're dealing with something which has no rules, it cannot be predicted.
This is initially how I was conceptualizing the problem as well, but I think it runs into problems. "Time" doesn't exist outside of our 4D spacetime manifold. When our universe spontaneously exists, it is like a 4D object popping into existence, outside of any external time dimension.
If we believe in eternalism and the "block universe," the entire object (our universe) is there all at once. If we believe in the local becoming, the "growing block universe," or the retrocausal "crystalizing block universe" then it is possible to say the object "grows," although this is tricky to conceptualize because it's "growth" would not occur across any sort of external, "global" time dimension (difficulty in conceptualizing this is in fact one of the arguments for eternalism, although I don't think it's a good one).
Other things that spontaneously exist wouldn't "start to exist" within the context of the time dimension of our own universe. You need an external frame here, and here it might be useful to conceptualize our universe as only two dimensional, with a third time dimension. Sort of a cube springing into existence, which is how the block universe and it's variants are normally portrayed.
So for a visualization, the problem is sort of asking, why haven't new shapes sprung up that interact with our universe's "block." But visualization is probably misleading here, because we might want to think of one cuboid smashing into another, but again, there is no spatial dimension for various block universes to be placed in where they can or can fail to intersect.
That means the question is more abstract. Can something start to exist that will interact with our "block universe?" Maybe my solution works, because there is no reason why different sorts of objects should interact. Maybe it doesn't because the very fact that our sort of universe does exist means the sort of stuff that would interact with our "block" can, and does spring into being. Appeals to the frequency of this happening "over time" don't work because the time dimension itself is one of those things that spontaneously exists.
Smarter people than me, who actually specialize in this sort of thing still think Johnathan Edwards has a point here, which makes me skeptical of the solution, although I've never seen the point specifically addressed.
No. Singularity as described is the infinite density - this is what was. (matter cannot be created nor destroyed). So, that said:
Quoting JuanZu
This is totally not what we're talking about here. The "new" is missed here.
Stars, for example, as part of the galaxy is not "new" -- stars are not born -- they form out of gas and dust. So, when they undergo change in properties, they age and collapse.
What's new and had existed infinitely was the singular point that has infinitesimal volume. Then big bang happened.
I see what you're saying. If the universe is actually eternal, that solves the problem. But cosmologists often frame the problem as getting support for this position in the first place. Basically, if inherit fluctuations in the singularity could produce the universe 14 billion years ago, how did the singularity not produce any such fluctuations for an infinite amount of time before these fluctuations finally did occur? My understanding is that this is the problem that drives the appeal of cyclical universes or Black Hole Cosmology.
Of course, we could appeal to the status of time in singularities, but we have reason to think our understanding of singularities is incomplete because of Hawking radiation, conservation laws, the prediction that black holes will decay and have an end, etc.
Determining that something is infinite (such as eternal time) solves no problem. It just means that the theory being applied toward understanding the thing is inadequate for actual understanding. Application of the theory produces the appearance of infinity and the thing cannot be understood with that theory. Thus the thing appears to be infinite, and therefore unintelligible. Explained here in the first cause thread: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/868259
To some, this may appear as a resolution to the problem, because we would just say that the thing which led to the appearance of infinity in our attempts to understand it, is fundamentally unintelligible, therefore we can forget about trying to understand it, and move along. But we know that putting a problem aside because it appears to have no solution, thereby forgetting about it, does not actually solve the problem.
Time doesn't exist if nothing exists, that's true. However, there is one thing we're likely making a mistake on. If its true that there is no reason why anything should exist, there's also no reason why only one thing should exist. We tend to look at 'the origin' as a one time event. Nothing before, then something after that had set laws. There's no reason that it had to be this way. The start of the universe may very well have been one small particle appearing, followed by others for countless eons.
What we usually refer to in the universe's origin is, "When the big bang happened" There's nothing in the math that leads to the big bang that necessitates there was nothing prior to the big bang. There's also nothing that states that things could have continued to appear after the big bang.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Time is only a comparison of change between two existences. So a thing that forms on its own does not have time for itself prior to its being, but as soon as it enters into a universe with existence, time happens. I wouldn't place too much emphasis on time personally. Its just change between existences and not an actual existent force or entity.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think its pretty clear once we realize that thing can form without a prior explanation, that a God is not necessary. While a God is possible, so is anything else we can imagine. Since anything could have been possible, we have to look at the evidence of our universe as it is and conclusively determine "X is the origin" with evidence. Claims to God as the universal origin are not evidential. Not saying someone couldn't take this approach, but as it stands now, its not a very good argument for the universe's origins.
Well, how do we know that things don't spontaneously spring into existence all the time? Since the laws of physics as we observe them would already account for this, we wouldn't necessarily notice. We could argue that, if different things came into being constantly, existence must be chaotic and have no observable rules at all.
But then the anthropic principle strikes and says that bubbles of stability in chaos are possible and observers could only form in such a bubble, so really it's no surprise at all that observers would always find a reasonably stable, ordered world.
Or perhaps once a relatively ordered "bubble" formed, the resulting interactions keep "different" entities out. If anything goes, there's no reason not to ascribe to our universe the property of "self-stabilising".
So you think you are as old as the big-bang?
If not then you have come into existence like many other people. And not only that but you are different from the mythical primordial singularity of physicists.
But as I said in my answer, although things come into existence constantly, what would be unusual is for them to come from nothing. Since generally there is a causality that precedes and explains them, kinda. The important thing is that "coming into existence" presupposes the order of coexistence and the order of succession. From this it follows that the universe did not come out of nothing: It could have been there forever.
Until we come up with a clear description of what time is, this statement cannot be justified
I believe I noted that time was registered change between entities. That's not very specific of course. Do you have a definition of time that you like to use?
No, the universe is not eternal. The singularity, however, is infinite.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I am lost here. We could only describe quantum fluctuations outside of the singularity, I believe. That is, we can only describe the quantum fluctuations within the universe.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
No, there's no time in singularities. Let's try not to confuse the Newtonian causality with the infinity.
Quoting JuanZu
You're still stuck in the Newtonian causality. While I agree with you, in fact I said this in my previous post that there was always something, and that the universe did not come from nothing, your train of thought is still the regularity of the laws of the universe. We are totally not on the same page.
In the one-dimensional Casimir Effect one could encounter the Harmonic series, which does not converge. By manipulating this series one can derive a convergent series (where the expression 1/12 might pop up) corresponding to measurements. The magic here could be interpreted as the effects of virtual particles. Or more or less as I "understand" it. Pop science keeps pushing the notion, but I suppose a physicist might also. This is strange territory where philosophy can't seem to abstain trespassing. :chin:
Please don't say this. Physics is very much invested in causality -- which is the prize of metaphysics.
I love causality. Most of the math exploration I do these days is mathematical analogues of causality chains in the complex plane. So, is philosophy very much invested in physics? Should it be? Is philosophy equipped, in general, to circumvent details and pull quantum tricks out of its big hat?
Just poking. :cool:
Malebranche can be interpreted as preempting Hume's conclusion that causal conditionals are not analytic, due to the fact that the effect of a causal relation isn't logically necessitated by the cause of the relation. Thus the effect of every causal relation must be a spontaneous act of god.
So from the point of view of the occasionalists, sponteneity is the essence of causality.
Along with your possible solution - I agree with the above and would posit that if thats true, we are merely seeing the result of that randomness being only one instance of SC. I dont see an issue there its just super unsatisfying to me
I don't get how it couldn't be, since "what is the ultimate nature of reality," seems to be a question both physics and philosophy try to answer. The lines between theoretical work and philosophy break down frequently across the sciences, and this is particularly true in physics.
Physics is also important because of the popularity of scientific realism and because physicalism (the dominant ontology) often tries to define itself in terms of "what physics says there is." There is, on the face of it, no reason they shouldn't closely interact. In many ways Einstein is the biggest philosopher of physics of the 20th century, as well as perhaps the biggest physicist.
We were just having a discussion as to whether causation should be removed from discussions of ontology because it "doesn't exist in physics." This was Russell's argument circa 1910 or so. "If physics doesn't use cause then it is anti-scientific and incoherent." Of course, Russell's premise is simply wrong today, physics does talk about cause, just not the "law of cause," he successfully attacks. It's actually not clear that Russell's premise was remotely true when he made his argument either.
The two intersect all the time. Credentialism here is really frustrating. Is Tim Maudlin not qualified to discuss physics? Can physicists not discuss philosophy well despite having dedicated years to studying it? I'll allow that people on both sides can opine about areas they don't understand well and make bad arguments, but this is hardly always the case. Nor is someone necessarily better informed about their own discipline.
David Mermin, the physicist who coined the phrase "shut up and calculate," for quantum mechanics also once got frustrated with realists in a paper and declared "the Moon demonstrably does not exist when no one is observing it." What could be more philosophical than that?
I find that Hume is only convincing if we take his argument against induction seriously prior to his argument against causation. If we use induction, building up evidence for causation is easy.
IMO, the debate about whether cause can be demonstrated a priori is sort of a red herring. The Principal of Sufficient Reason is its own thing and should (and now is) dealt with separately.
Hume's argument against induction is very difficult indeed. I think one of the best arguments against it is not that it fails in some crucial way, but that it turns out you can create perhaps even better arguments against deduction providing any knowledge. The position collapses into radical skepticism, which arguably just shows the problem with the foundationalist epistemology of Hume's era.
I do think Hume's denial of the self can be successfully defeated though. If every perception was actually distinct, sui generis, then you couldn't actually experience time or compare between them. Each moment would be so utterly distinct as to be experienced by a completely different entity, which Kant gets at, or Borges in his story "Fuentes and his Memory."
I think yours is an inadequate definition of time because "registered change" implies observation, judgement. This would mean that prior to living beings which are capable of making such a judgment, no time could be passing unless we invoke some sort of God to make the registry.
So I would describe time in reference to the passing of time, which we know to have been occurring prior to living beings noticing it as occurring. What I see in my experience, is that time passes at the present, and "the present" marks a distinction between past and future. Also, I see that future time, such as tomorrow, January 7, will become past time, yesterday, as the time passes by. Therefore I like to define time as the process whereby the future becomes the past. The moment in front of you in the future, is always becoming the moment behind you, in the past, as time goes by.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, physicists are actually heavily invested in the use of "causation". Take a look at the concepts of "lightcone", "timelike & spacelike", "worldline", "propertime", for example. They use knowledge of the temporal order of events (causation) to establish timelines in relativity based observations.
Oh, I actually didn't mean to imply that. I'm not a person who believes all reality is dependent on our observation. I do believe there need to be at least two 'pieces' of existence for time to occur as it would be the change relative to each other. No observer required.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, denial of causation is fundamentally silly. Its also completely indefensible if you remove the abstract. 'What caused your message to appear on the forum today?' for example, causes even the most passionate causality deniers great difficulty.
Good OP. Personally, I don't see why we should accept that space and time, or space/time fabric, is a substance--as they seem, to me, to be merely the forms of our experience. If they are simply the modes by which we cognize objects, then the objects themselves are beyond space and time, or space/time fabric. I honestly don't think we will ever understand the world sans space and time (conceptually) because it is so ingrained into our mode of experiencing it; and this is why we end up with all sorts of problems with the big bang theory when taken not as a convenient model but, rather, as if it is literally what the universe is in and of itself.
Yes, it is entirely possible that some things have no causes or that there is an infinite of them: I don't really see how one can decipher which one is more plausible: if time and space are not substances, then causality (in a spatiotemporal sense) doesn't exist either but, rather, is a representation of (nonspatiotemporal or otherwise) relationships of objects in-themselves.
Another interesting point (to me) is that knowing the negation of a concept doesn't necessarily entail any real knowledge of it, and, in this case, thusly, being directly acquainted with temporality (like we all are) doesn't give us any insight into the nature of atemporality. Most people think "well, atemporality would just be no change, and so I envision an object, like a chair, which is frozen in time": but is this a really accurate understanding of the nature of atemporal objects and their relations to other objects? I don't think so. So when people start trying to come up with hypotheses about 'prior to time' in the big bang, I think, in summary, (1) time doesn't exist (as a substance) and (2) even if it did neither of us have any clue what the nature of atemporality really is at all.
As Russell observed, a temporal order per-se does not imply causation. For example, the orbits of the planets are describable by a differential equation that makes no appeal to cause and effect. The space-time manifold of General relativity makes no use of causation, nor does the evolution of a phase-space describing a dynamical system. More generally, a theory that sticks to describing actual phenomena, makes no mention of causality.
The concept of causation is actually a metaphysical interpretation of counterfactual logic, as extensively used in the design of double blind experiments. By definition, counterfactual outcomes aren't observed in experiments, so an interpretation of counterfactual logic that rests upon a speculated existence of non-realized experimental outcomes, cannot be verified through scientific experiments. But of course the social sciences do use counterfactual logic since they interpret the logic empirically, implying that the use-meaning of counterfactuals is in conflict with the traditional philosophical understanding of counterfactuals as literally referring to other possible worlds.
One of the ironies of the super-determinism interpretation of QM, is that it implies the non-existence of causality, since if reality is fully determined such that there are no counterfactual outcomes, then the resulting super-determined reality is merely a true story whose course of events is absurd.
I think of it in terms of potential and probability.
Potential doesn't require any prior existent. The ability to bring about existent things is a property of potential itself. Yet it doesn't require to exist at any time or in any dimension until its potentiates those things - time, space etc into being.
Therefore I'm replacing here the idea of "absolute nothingness" with "potential" - a single property that is not contingent on any other properties.
Then if you suppose that the probability of potential to potentiate is 1. Then it has no choice other than to "do stuff" (potential outcomes/possibilities). The first stuff being the dimensions of time and space in order to do more stuff within (matter and energy etc).
This issue I have encountered in this line of thinking is 1. Does potential have the potential to violate its own ability to be potential? Ie can it cancel itself out. I imagine not as it wouldn't be very potent if it immediately self annihilated.
2. Why does it seem to follow a logical stepwise emergence in a particular order or sequence?
I wouldn't say Newtonian. I conceive spatiality and temporality as part of the thing to the extent that it is always in relationship. However, when talking about the order of coexistence and order of succession I am talking about something that all science implies when using the notions of space and time. Hence, taking the example of the theory of relativity, we represent things in planes and diagrams (such as Minkowski diagrams). Things, in this sense, are always constituted by the spatio-temporality in which their effects and relationships are expressed. In this sense the thing, its relationships, and its effects on other things are in a correlation that determines its being and existence. Therefore, it is not valid to think of an isolated absolute thing (absolved from all relationships) from which everything arises, nor nothingness from which something comes to existence.
I don't see the need for these two existents. The change relative to each other requires the passing of time, so it is evidence to an observer that time has passed, but time could also pass without any change of these two, relative to each other. That time passing is required for observable change, and change is evidence of time passing, does not necessitate logically, that observable change is required for time to pass. And, we do observe that things may exist with no observable change relative to each other, yet time still may have passed. Therefore there is no reason two believe that a multitude of existents is required for time to be passing.
Since the change relative to each other, of two things, is the observable effect of time passing, yet it is not what time itself actually is, I still think you are, in a different way, making time observer-dependent. It is not that you make the passing of time require an actual observer, but you make the passing of time dependent on an observable effect. So you are basing it in principles of observation. This denies the possibility that the passing of time itself might be completely unobservable, and what we do observe is just the effects of the passing of time. That the passing of time itself, is something which is completely unobservable, is a very real and logical possibility, which we ought not exclude in the way that you do.
Quoting sime
The point I was arguing is that cosmologists employ knowledge of causation to produce a temporal order. Since relativity theory provides no basic way to distinguish spatial separation from temporal separation, and therefore no way to create a proper temporal order for events which are separated, they need to refer to causation to produce a "proper time". In other words they know that A must have occurred before B, when creating their temporal order, because A is commonly known to be the cause of B.
Quoting sime
I've never seen the concept of causation described as being an interpretation of counterfactual logic. I've always seen it described as the product of inductive reasoning. You know "causation" extends to ancient Greece, and was discussed extensively by Aristotle. Therefore, I would appreciate it if you could explain this claim of yours, so I can understand what you are talking about.
Quoting sime
There are some extraordinary interpretations of QM. However, since there are many interpretations, and none can be said to be the correct one, then whatever anyone of them says about reality, cannot be taken seriously as "reliable".
Quoting Benj96
.The issue I've come across is Aristotle's so-called cosmological argument. He demonstrates why it is illogical to think that any sort of pure potential could actualize itself. Any sort of potential, requires an act, as cause to actualize it. So, "The ability to bring about existent things" is not a property of potential itself. Potential is always the potential for a multitude of possibilities, and whichever of the possibilities gets actualized is dependent on the efficient cause, which is an actuality. Therefore an efficient cause, something other than potential, something actual, is required to bring about an existent thing.
Let me give you the thought experiment I'm thinking of so you can see what I mean. Lets say that only two particles exist in the entire universe. They stay exactly 1 meter away from each other for eternity. Is there time?
To me, if there is an observer, then there is a third existence that is changing. But we're talking about two particles that do not move relative to one another at all. Now, lets say that they move in one inch closer. Suddenly, we now have time, even without an observer. The thought experiment is that there has to be at least one change between two existences for time to exist. How would you approach it?
Are they moving in reference to something else, like revolving? I have brought this up earlier. It has seemed odd that Minkowski spacetime might imply the passage of time with no physical movement.
No, its just two particles. Lets say the particles are a little misshapen so its apparent they aren't even rotating around each other either. If they were rotating, even if both were smooth and we couldn't tell, time would be happening without an observer. So does time happen if both stand still and no change occurs within or between them?
Well, you said 'for eternity', which implies time. But I agree that there is no meaningful time without change of some sort. You speak of an observer, but observing at all cannot take place.
To further your example, the particles need not remain a fixed distance apart. In a 2-particle universe, the distance between them is meaningless, as is rotation, so there is no need to state that they remain a meter apart, or remain in a given orientation.
Quoting Philosophim
Now you go too far. A misshapen particle is not just a particle, but a collection of them. A misshapen particle has extension, and if it has extension, the distance between the particles becomes a meaningful multiple of that extension.
As for the OP
Quoting Count Timothy von IcarusIt is not necessarily the case since eternalism suggests no such thing, as your seem to realize:
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
OK, so it's a problem for your chosen interpretation of time. Einstein's relativity theory assumes eternalism by assuming the existence of spacetime. There are alternative theories that are more along the lines you suggest, but those theories took almost another century to be fleshed out, being in denial of the big bang, black holes, and other things that fall out of relativity theory.
So yes, even the eternalists have a problem if they assert that the universe is real. How does one explain the reality of whatever one declares to be real? It is sort of the 'why is there something and not nothing?' question. You have to answer that as well, even given your chosen interpretation of time.
The thought experiment is unhelpful, and that's the point I'm making. We don't know enough about time to answer the question. So the answer simply depends on what you mean by "eternity". If by "eternity", you mean time passing endlessly, then clearly time passes in the thought experiment. If by "eternity" you mean something completely outside of time, then no time passes. But both of these senses of "eternity" are arguably unreal and irrelevant to the real world, so the whole thought experiment is useless for understanding the real nature of time.
Furthermore, the second part is completely illogical from accepted self-evident premises. If there is only two particles unmoving relative to each other, in the entire universe, it is impossible that they could suddenly move closer to each other, because this would require a cause, meaning something else in existence is necessary.
So the proposed thought experiment is entirely useless for two distinct reasons. The first part uses an ambiguous word "eternity" for a key premise. The word can be used in a way which would mean that time passes endlessly, or in a way that time does not pass at all, implying outside of time. Both are unreal possibilities anyway, so disambiguation would not help. One would imply an infinite amount of time while the other would imply material objects without time. Then the second part proposes something unintelligible, illogical for the reasons I've already explained in earlier posts. Material objects beginning to move without a cause is contrary to fundamental laws of induction, self-evident principles.
I gave you a much better thought experiment already. Can you imagine two material objects not moving relative to each other, while some time passes? If so, then you ought to accept the proposition that movement of material objects relative to each other is not logically necessary for time to be passing.
As I explained, you are trying to base your conception of "time" in the observable effects of time passing (the movement of material objects), instead of looking directly at what time is, to produce a much more accurate understanding of it. As indicates, premises concerning what we know about the physical universe, in conjunction with good logical practise, indicates that time could pass without physical change. That is a completely logical possibility which we would be foolish to exclude.
This becomes very evident at the Planck scale. It has become clear that there is a limit to the amount of time required for observable physical change. This is the shortest period of time required for observable change. However, this restriction, this boundary of "shortest period of time", is the product of observation, and it dictates the shortest period of time required for observable change, not the shortest period of time logically possible. Since time in theory, is infinitely divisible (and we have found no real points of division in the continuity of time), then In theory we can still proceed to an even shorter period of time. Within that shorter period of time could occur unobservable change, immaterial change, which could act as the cause of the observable change, which requires the longer period of time. The obvious problem with this proposal is that physicalist tendencies incline people to disallow the possibility of unobservable change, and the entire immaterial realm.
The modern understanding of causation as used by the sciences, might involve inductive reasoning, but isn't reducible to inductive reasoning. For example , if all ravens are black, then it must be the case that a sampled raven is black, but one wouldn't want to say that all ravens being black was the "cause" of a raven to be black. So induced hypotheses aren't causes per-se.
Inductive arguments are relevant to causation when one is reasoning about the type of an observed object when estimating how the object will behave , e.g when estimating whether an observed white ball is a snooker ball. But when deciding whether a particular relation between two particular events is a causal relation, induction cannot be applied if there isn't a general case to appeal to, yet the existence of a general case isn't said to be necessary for a particular causal relation to exist. So induced premises aren't necessarily causes, and causes aren't necessarily inducible.
Nowadays, an instance of a 'causal' relation between a particular cause A and a particular cause B, is understood to be relation which asserts that B occurs if and only if A occurs, assuming that nothing else could be the cause of B. This is what is meant by saying that causation involves "counterfactuals".
A scientist obviously cannot go back in time to test the truth of an alleged instance of a causal relation. Instead, he simulates his definition of the causal relation using model to see how simulated instances of that relation behave in comparison to simulated instances that aren't of that relation, and can at most conclude that if the alleged instance is of that relation, then the instance behaves in the same way as the other simulated instances. If the scientist always presents his conclusions as being conditionally true given the truth of the assumed hypotheses (induced or otherwise), then he avoids committing the fallacies of induction that routinely occur in the scientific literature.
But what would such a state of mind even be like?
If we had satisfactorily resolved all our questions about first causes and unmoved movers, would we still wonder about things such as "spontaneous creation" (or much else, for that matter)?
Your thought experiment requires that we work out of a state of mind that we are simply not familiar with, and as such, is impossible to carry out.
That's kind of the point. We're trying to come up with a reasonable explanation of time.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I just mean that they never move. There is no outside observer, there's no beginning, no end. Yes, if there was an observer there that would be a third existence monitoring change relative to themselves. But if there is no observer and no change in any existence, what's the difference between that and no time at all? This isn't a proof, its just a thought experiment to get us to think about the abstract nature of time without an observer. Is 'time' an actual thing?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Its just a thought experiment to get us to think. Its not a real life example. If you want to be realistic, its impossible to have the entire experiment as it is. There are obviously more than two particles in the universe. The idea of a thought experiment is to pair down variables to get to certain constants. The idea is simple. A universe where two thing exist that have no change, then suddenly there is change. Was there time before the change? Do we retroactively put time before the change? Can there be time if there is no change at all? These are the general questions we're thinking on.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, a thought experiment is about the key questions, not the reality of the experiment itself. If you get the key questions, that's all I'm asking you to answer in your own proposal for time.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, that's what I'm pointing out. I can imagine time passing, but only because I'm observing it. If there is no observer and no change at all, is there time? Its not movement in particular, its change. Thinking is change. Observance is change. If there is no change, do we have time in reality, or is it a tool we invent from a world of change and retrofit it to a world without change?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm trying to ask what time is beyond a tool. How do can you realistically measure time in a world without change? If you can't, does it exist? Is the nature of time something more fundamental than a tool of an observer and change? Is it its own existence?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Rotation is physical change. I'm not trying to say "I have this." This is not me proving anything. This is me asking you a simple question. How does time exist in a hypothetical world without any change?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, as observers we can continue to cut down time as small as we want. But even 'plank' time is a measure of change right? We're inventing a half-plank length. And clearly though we can invent infinite time, infinite time doesn't happen in between plank tics.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Sure, I'm not trying to disallow anything though. I'm just trying to understand what the fundamental of time is without an observer. If its not change, what is it?
And I'm saying that you can't. Gravitational singularity does not have spacetime.
Physics is invested in philosophy. :cool:
I think you do not take into account that the gravitational singularity is defined according to space-time, although we are talking about an infinite curvature. If the value of curvature is taken to a limit, it does not imply that we stop talking about curvature, nor its need to represent it in space-time. I claim that the need to represent according to a space-time scheme tells us something about space-time time itself. At this point the philosophy of space-time can provide us with the general-ontological concept that is exercised in physics. We can ask ourselves: Does the gravitational singularity coexist with the current state of the universe? Should we differentiate them as two different moments? You could say: "In the gravitational singularity there is no before or after." Well, then there is an inadequacy of that space-time scheme that we use to represent the difference between one state of the universe and another state.
This is your opinion. If you believe there are deficiencies in the conception of what existed prior to the big bang, or even in the blackhole, this is beyond the task of philosophy.
What I'm talking about is when events follow each other in time, and the same types are observed to do so consistently, then through inductive reasoning we make a conclusion about a relationship, i.e. we infer causation. So for example, if we apply heat to water and then it boils, and we observe this many times, we make the inductive conclusion that the heat causes the water to boil.
Quoting sime
This is not an acceptable explanation of causation. An assignment of causation does not exclude the possibility of other things having the same effect. So in the example above, saying that heat causes water to boil does not exclude the possibility that something else as well, such as a drop in pressure, could also cause water to boil. That A is judged to cause B does not exclude the possibility that something else might also cause B as well.
Your explanation seems to make a category mistake, switching from the particular to the general. In a particular instance, we will say that A caused B only if we think that other possibilities have been ruled out. So in a particular instance of water boiling we would say that the application of heat caused this, because we've ruled out other possibilities. But then you make A and B into something general, and you make the general statement "B occurs if and only if A occurs". That's a logical fallacy, because in other situations something else could cause B to occur. So in the example, when the application of heat is judged to be the cause of the water boiling in that particular instance, and even if we make the general statement that the application of heat causes water to boil, we do not have the required premise to say that only the application of heat could cause water to boil.
Quoting Philosophim
As I said, the thought experiment is useless, because you have to stipulate whether or not time is passing, to get anywhere, but then you're begging the question. Look, you say that there is two particles, and they are not moving relative to each other. That's all you say. Time could be passing, or time might not be passing, we have no way, from the premises of the thought experiment to determine whether time is passing or not. Therefore it's useless as an effort to try and understand whether time could be passing without any physical change happening.
Quoting Philosophim
Yes, by the way you phrased the question, there was time before the change. You say "then suddenly there is change". This implies that there is "before" the change, and there must be time for before to become after. Therefore there must have been time before the change, in order for there to have been a "before" the change, and a time when the two things were not moving. Otherwise you could not even talk about the two things existing before the change.
Quoting Philosophim
Now, I ask you to use logic, and see with your mind, logically, that it is possible for there to be time passing without change occurring.
Quoting Philosophim
Things do not need to be measured by a human being, to exist.
Quoting Philosophim
And I'm telling you, it's very simple. Let me try your own thought experiment, maybe that will help. Imagine two things not moving relative to each other, and time is passing. Easy so far, right? Now add your special premise, these two things are the only things in the universe. Where's the difficulty? See, the concept of time passing does not require that anything is moving relative to each other.
Quoting Philosophim
Right, now you're catching own. We can "invent" half-Planck, quarter-Planck, one tenth-Planck, whatever we want. These are all logically possible. And, at these short time periods, it has been demonstrated that there cannot be any physical change. Therefore it's very easy, and also very logical to conceive of time passing with no physical change occurring.
Quoting Philosophim
Notice that I am talking about "physical change", "observable change", and I say that time could pass without any of this occurring. However, I do not intend to exclude "change" in an absolute sense. I described time itself as a sort of change, the process of the future becoming past. The point though, is that this, itself. is not observable. We don't observe the future becoming the past, we observe particular, specific physical changes, and from this we can infer that time is passing. However, time passing, itself, is not observed. And, we must maintain this principle, that time passing is not any specific type of observable change, but a general type of change which encompasses all observable physical changes, in order that we will be able to measure all types of physical changes, through a theory which provides a non-physical, unobservable change, "time", to provide the measurement tool.
:up:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This reflects what Minkowski spacetime infers. This is referred to as being at rest in a particular frame of reference.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes.
Rest frames are artificial creations. Scientists produce them as required, so they will have some degree of arbitrariness. However, they do demonstrate the logical possibility of time passing without any change occurring. Such a thing is not only logically possible, but as the use of rest frames demonstrates, also extremely useful. I would proceed one step further, to argue that since rest frames are actually necessary for scientists to produce a real model of anything real in the world of real time passage, then in order for the real world of time passage to be understood, we need to replicate, or represent the real rest frame. This implies pre-Einsteinian absolute time.
The issue is that conceiving of all motion as relative greatly facilitates the representation of motions. We can model distinct things as moving relative to each other, without worrying about how they are moving relative to other things, by arbitrarily producing the required rest frame. If the model were to be based on absolute time, then the true rest frame would be required as the ground for modeling all motions.
However, the universe is extremely complex, with all sorts of different motions, so we do not know the true rest frame of the universe. (As analogy, consider that the ancients did not know the sun as the rest frame for the solar system, so they modeled the sun and planets as orbiting the earth in a relativistic way.) Since we do not know the true rest frame of absolute time, special relativity uses the motion of light as a constant, for an alternative to true rest.
This alternative suffices for many applications, but its arbitrariness sets an artificial boundary which limits our capacity to understand. Any motions in the universe which are not consistent with the principles developed as general relativity, (such as spatial expansion, the effects of dark matter, dark energy, and wave/particle duality), fall outside that artificial boundary which the theory imposes on our understanding.
So, as I said in the preceding post, I believe the only way to provide a basis for understanding all types of motions, is to have a model of time passing with no physical change occurring. This would be the true rest frame, absolute time. The passing of time would be grounded in, or modeled according to changes which are not physical, or material changes. Then all physical changes could be plotted against this model of time which would serve as a backdrop.
I am begging the question. What is time if not related to the change between objects? :D
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Its easy in the first case because time is change between entities. That's why it becomes more difficult in the second case. If time exists apart from the change between two entities, then what is it at its fundamental? If its not an observer, and everything exists without change, what is time?
Let me give you another example. In fiction, sometimes a character will have the ability to stop time for everyone but themselves. In such a scenario, nothing changes in relation to one another except for the character. Time itself didn't freeze, but only because there was something that was not frozen, the character. Imagine a universe as a completely frozen still shot where there is no comparative change. Do we not say its a universe frozen in time? I think you answer this in the next quotes I pull from you.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So if I understand it right, you believe time is a 'thing in itself'. And by this I mean it is something that exists which we attempt to capture in a meaningful way. For us, that meaningful way is change. But like all 'things-in-themselves' our attempt to grasp it is merely the most logical way we can understand it, not necessarily a full understanding of it as it exists in itself.
Thus if I understand it right, we measure and understand time through observance of change, but that measurement is an approximation and doesn't really capture the idea of 'the present becoming the future'. Change is a convenient way to measure time, but not necessary for it to exist, as time is its own unobservable entity.
This is what I was looking for in your answer. If I understand you correctly, its not a bad take. It leaves itself open to people who state, "How can we know what is unobservable/time is an illusion" people, but I think its acceptable for anyone else.
From my perspective, time is related to change. It's just that we cannot say that time is change because we understand time as the means by which we relate one change to another. That is why no single change constitutes time, but a multitude of changes. And since all change requires time, we can see that time is logically prior to change as prerequisite. I might even go further to propose that the passing of time is the cause of the change we observe.
Quoting Philosophim
I think this is wrong for a couple reasons. First, you neglect the internal changing of one object. You can describe internal change as parts moving relative to each other, but this results in the need to assume a fundamental immutable element, not composed of parts, as proposed by the atomists. The fundamental "atom" is required to avoid an infinite regress of divisibility, but I think modern physics shows that the fundamental element is not consistent with observation. This implies that the foundation is something other, like wave motion for example.
The second problem is that whenever an object changes place relative to another, there is nothing there which can be called "time". There is simply change. It is only when we have at least two different changes, that by comparing one to the other, we establish a rate of change, and this constitutes "time" as a measurement tool.
Quoting Philosophim
The problem I see here is that we need to figure out a way to get outside of the universe, to see how it comes into being, if we want a complete understanding of it. When we look at what is prior to the universe, if there is no time, then your scenario works inversely, there is only things not moving, apparently frozen in time, because there is no time. But then there is no way to understand how things could suddenly start moving. If we allow that there is time outside our universe, then there could also be activity outside our universe, and this could cause the activity of things within our universe.
Quoting Philosophim
I like Aristotle's way of describing this. In one way, "time" refers to a tool which we use for making measurements. This is the concept of "time", the abstraction. It is derived from our observations of change, comparing changes to each other, as explained above, to establish a rate of change. In this way the abstraction "time" is the concept by which we measure the rate of change. On the other hand, "time" refers to something measured, and this is what you call time "itself". So for example, when we use a clock, and say what time it is, or use dates like January 8 to refer to today, and say yesterday was January 7, and tomorrow is January 9, etc., we use numbers in a way which is meant to measure the passing of time itself, as far as we are able to, with our limited understanding of what the passing of time really is.
Surely, even a single change represents the same as many.. It still has to 'traverse' from state A to state B - which is, as i take it, what constitutes time here..
I don't think so. Time is the rate at which state A changes to state B, or at the very least it is the order, state A is prior to state. It is a feature of the change, but not the change itself.
I see. If 'time' is the rate, what is the medium of change? As in, what actually represents the change (given the causal order requirement, such as 'cause' can be used here), as opposed to it's ratio compared to ...other changes?
To say something happens 'more quickly' than something else seems to infer that there's a ratio OF something.. 'change' isn't an actual thing, so just wondering what is being referred to there.
This depends on the meaning of the word "change". Most usages do require time to complete, but if one thinks of "to change" is "to differ", then time need not be a factor.
dy/dx = 10 vs. dy/dt =0 if x is not a function of time.
The statement you quoted said, "or at the very least it is the order, event A is prior to event B". Does that not already answer your question about causal order?
You asked me about the "traverse" between A and B, so I described the measurement of that traversal, and the temporal aspect provides for the rate of traversal. But if we ignore the traversal, and reduce the change to simply A is before B, which is generally what the concept of "causation" does, then we are simply not interested in the time between A and B, the traversal or change itself. However, time is still essential to the description in the sense of before and after.
Quoting AmadeusD
Exactly, "time" in its conceptual form, abstract form, the tool for measurement, as distinct from time itself (the difference described above), is a sort of ratio. Simple order of before and after does not suffice to account for the change itself, as what occurs between state A and state B. So to measure the temporal aspect of the change we compare it to a standardized change (the traditional standard being the motion of the earth relative to the sun as years, days, hours, and minutes, etc., the modern standard being the vibration of an atom or something like that). The ratio is expressed as a description of the physical change "over time", where "over time" means the standardized change. The other features which make up the description of the physical change are the material elements and their spatial description.
Quoting jgill
This equates "change" with "difference", which is a mistaken notion. Change is commonly understood as the intermediary between two different things, as how one state becomes another. The standard definition is "the act or an instance of making or becoming different". If we define "change" simply as different, then we have no word, or concept to refer to the act of becoming different, i.e. what happens between two distinct describable states, and this produces a serious logical problem described by Aristotle.
The problem is the incompatibility between being and becoming which was elucidated by Plato, after learning from Socrates' discussions of the riddles of the Eleatics who include Zeno. Here's a brief explanation and simplification of what Aristotle showed. If a state of being "B", is different from a prior state of being "A", then something must happened in between, to account for this difference. What happens in between is known as "change" or "becoming". If we explain this change or becoming, with another descriptive state of being, "C", then a becomes B by passing through C. Now we have state A which is different from state C which is different from state B. Therefore something must happen between A and C, and between C and B, to account for these differences. We could proceed in that form of description, and assume a state of being in between each, such that we would have a series of states like A,D,C,E,B. Since each of these states is different, we need something between each of them to account for the change.
As you can see, this is heading for an infinite regress, where we never get a true understanding of what happens between two different describable states of being. What happens in between, is becoming, or change. This indicates a fundamental incompatibility between static states of being, as represented by unchanging descriptions at a point in time, and the activity, becoming, which occurs between these assumed points in time.
You might like Max Tegmark's idea that "All possible mathematical structures have a physical existence, and collectively, give a multiverse that subsumes all others."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Mathematical_Universe)
Or Stephen Wolfram's Ruliad : "Think of it as the entangled limit of everything that is computationally possible: the result of following all possible computational rules in all possible ways."
(https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/11/the-concept-of-the-ruliad/)
I liked Tegmark's book, but I don't think his speculation actually resolves the Fine Tuning Problem the way he thinks it does. It seems like there would be many, many more ways for a computable universe to create our perceptions, and the illusion that we live in the type of universe we think live in, then worlds that are [I]actually[/I] like the world we think our sciences describe. This is a more general undetermination problem that is like, and includes the Boltzmann Brain problem.
And the supposition that the universe must be computable is just a supposition.
No. It described a necessary aspect, by causal law.
It has nothign to do with how those changes occur, or in what medium.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I find this unhelpful. This would seem an intuitive truism, but it explains nought about what's actually happening between A and B, other than the changes. What is the actually difference between point A and point B? If it's merely the changes in any given object, then we have infinite 'times' to deal with.
It's just observational stringency as best I can tell. The answer may be that we don't know or have the language though.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And this is what I'm asking about...
Yes, it is a generalization, that it is unhelpful is regretful. The specifics of what "A" and "B" signify has not been stated, they simply stand for the general notion of two different states, and what occurs between these two is described by the general notion of "change". To even begin describing "what's actually happening between A and B" would require a description of the specific features of these two states.
Quoting AmadeusD
Yes, as I said it's called "change", and in the ancient days, "becoming". We might use other temporally based terms like "activity" "motion", "transformation of energy", etc..
I dont see that this the case. Using both your exposition, and my prior understand of 'change', its a notation of observation and nothing like an explanation of what actually takes place.
I agree, that a complete answer would require data about hte object/s changing and the change which has/will take place. But what is happening when a change takes place is totally missed in these descriptions. How do properties of objects change? And i do not mean, 'by what cause', i mean by why 'mechanism', metaphysically, could change occur... How can there be difference between two states?
You've misunderstood me. Yes, there can be multiple causes for an effect, but when testing for the existence of a causal relation in a series of repeated trials that check that consequents of type B allows follow after antecedents of type A, then it must be assumed as a working hypothesis that there are no other possible causes of B other than events of type A. For otherwise a successful test might only indicate correlation between As and Bs.
You presumably agree that each video frame of a movie isn't the cause of the next video frame in the movie. So even if video frames of type A are seen to always occur before video frames of type B, such that they are in perfect correlation, then you would not want to identify that relation as causation. No?
Which is the reason why counterfactuals come into play. For causation isn't supposed to merely refer to perfect correlation. At least, that isn't how the concept of causation is used by the sciences, in which causes refer to conditional propositions in which the output of the conditional is a function of the input.
This is what I answer with "the passage of time". That has been stipulated to be the requirement for two contradictory states, that they are at a different time, and it has to my mind, been satisfactorily demonstrated. But, we don't know much more about time than that, so many people like Philosophim will argue that time is nothing other than physical change, producing an equality, Time is necessary for change, and change is necessary for time. However, the explanations I have given show why it is logically necessary to premise that the passage of time is a type of change other than physical change, as the answer to "how can there be physical change".
This is what i was looking for. Not as a gotcha, but I now understand I'm looking for answer that isn't there. Currently, I take the 'it only exists in the mind' line anyway, so i was just probing for curiosity/philosophy sake.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think this is where I just scratch me head. What other change? And I'm intuitively connecting hte first quote to this one. We just dont know :)
Thank you mate.
You ought to see that if the passage of time was something that only exists in the mind, and that since this is what defines "the present", then there would be no "present" independent of minds, and this premise would create all sorts of logical problems for how we understand the reality of the universe. First, the whole temporal extension of the universe, as we know it, would exist all at once, and that makes no sense. Also, when we date things, as having happened millions or billions of years ago, before there were human minds, this would be totally invalidated if time wasn't passing to account for that time which we conclude had passed between now and then.
You don't see how the premise "time only exists in the mind" leads to the conclusion that time could not have been passing before there was minds? I don't see how I need to say more.
"Time" as described by Kant is the abstract notion, not the thing itself. I discussed the difference in this reply to Philosophim a couple days ago:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If time consists in either the changes described, or the relation between them, I don't see how that couldn't be happening prior to humans conceiving time in a particular order, to unify perceptions. Though, maybe i'm missing a trick but it seems to be that your suggestion presupposes an 'actual' time, independent of objects passing, rather than time being a description, or set of relations between objects.
I tend to think i'm missing a trick, but i conceive that the universe, as a whole, does not undergo 'time'. Sentient beings do, as a facility of relation between objects of change, to ensure a logical causal relationship in extended space to avoid the delusional mess we noted earlier.
So, prior to sentient minds, there would be the continually changing material of the universe, but no perspective to relate those changes to any prior or future state - just the entirety of hte universe changing in 'one place' as it were. I tend to think that without a mind to relate these changes to one another, 'time' does not obtain. Just changes, with no necessary relation to each other. Very counter-intuitive, and probably wrong.
I was replying to the following statement you made: "I take the 'it only exists in the mind' line anyway,". So if time only exists in the mind, how could you think that it would be happening prior to humans conceiving it?
Quoting AmadeusD
How can there be consistency between these two statements? If the universe does not undergo time, how can anything change?
'time', best i can tell, is a mere relation in perception. So, without perceiving beings, time does not obtain.
Changes, however, do, in the absence of mind, but there's no perceptual relation that requires cause-before-effect in extended space, for an eg. Bear in mind, I may be contradicting myself due to not developing these ideas anywhere else.
I agree with MU here. If it were not for Minkowski spacetime allowing rest frames and thus the "passage" of time with no physical changes I would think time required change.
Is there's a boil-down source to understand the concept? Im not seeing any necessity beyond trying to support the idea that time doesn't require change, which im not on board with quite yet. Would love to see something about that concept of whcih i have no knowledge :)
I wish. Time dilation shows that the passage of time is relative to motion, so in a way time is linked to change.
Ah. Fu... LOL
In physics, isn't time just clock-time? Kind of a practical use, rather than a discussion of what it is?
Seems that way to me. I use time as t, a non-negative real number, in my math. I think most have given up on what time is. But arguments about whether points in time exist or time is durations or intervals persist. See Bergson vs Einstein and Peter Lynds.
Quoting jgill
Virtual Particles don't exist physically, but theoretically, as a mathematical definition*1. For such existential mysteries, Aristotle defined "Potential" under the heading of Causation. It's a creative power, not a physical thing. So, if a new thing is observed to "start to exist, for no prior {observable} reason", Aristotle would say that Causal Potential of some unknown etiology, must logically exist in some meta-physical sense, prior to the creative event.
But he would have to admit that the Potential itself is never observable by the senses, but only detectable by rational (if-then) inference from its Actual physical effects. For example, if a book suddenly jumped off a shelf and flew across the room, some would infer that an invisible Ghost had pushed it. Other, more practical minds would look for a more plausible physical explanation. And some, more theoretical, would have to be satisfied with a metaphysical philosophical solution : "X" (unknown -- to be determined).
So, the "spontaneous creation" of a whole functional evolving machine (universe) for "no prior reason" would imply either a> a timeless, but intentional, ghostly Creator ; or b> an un-observable prior pre-space-time chain of cycling self-existent physical universes ; or c> perhaps just some un-observable non-physical timeless Potential for creation of novelty from nothing. The first possibility is traditionally labeled "G*D", the second is typically called "Multiverse", and the third could be categorized as mere un-grounded Philosophical Conjecture. In the absence of plausible a> or b> options though, can we --- like quantum physicists --- be satisfied with an empty definition c> with no known referent? :smile:
*1. Virtual Potential (symbol Ue) where "U" stands for unknown, and "e" for Energy.
Unfair. Keep in mind that there are precious few philosophers hereabouts. :wink:
My favorite source on time is Arthur's "The Reality of Time Flow: Local Becoming in Modern Physics." It's fair to its sources and even funny at times, but does more poking holes in "definitive" answers to the question that have been advanced than providing one itself.
I wasn't aware of the concept of causal diamonds before it either.
Superficially related, the "D" in my name stands for Diamond :)
The issue, as I described, is that time without physical change is logically possible, and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. How could there be?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/869814
Further, we find that if we do not posit a principle, "an Ideal" which is outside of, and capable of encompassing all physical change, then physical change will be inherently unintelligible. The primary intuition is to posit space as the Ideal outside of physical change, and this produces the idea of physical objects existing in a static 'absolute' space. However, physical evidence (wave-function, space-time activity, spatial expansion etc.) has shown that this idea is incorrect, because it cannot properly account for the reality of moving objects. Therefore, to fully understand the reality of physical change we need to turn to another principle which could be outside of it, and this logically is time.
Not comparable. An initial state did not "begin to exist" within a state of affairs in which it previously did not exist. An initial state simply implies there is no prior state of affairs.
In other words, "initial state" is a fictitious ideal.
By "start to exist," I simply mean:
1. Is uncaused / has no prior causal history.
2. Is not eternal, without beginning or end.
The English language is not particularly good at this sort of thing, which is why I use the 3D visualization language for a 4D manifold earlier.
No. It is a very real possibility, consistent with some interpretations of quantum mechanics. Some cosmologists have proposed models based on this.
Under such models, nothing "begins to exist" in a sense that implies popping into existence, because there is no earlier state of affairs into which something pops. Rather, it entails an initiation of change, which "creates" time - as a relation between states of affairs.
From an external perspective, yes, but I don't see how this solves the problem that if it is possible for an uncaused event to "create" time, then such events should be multiply realizable
From an internal perspective, the time dimension is nonetheless bounded in at least one direction.
I don't think claims that it is "meaningless" to talk about the external frame cash out. No one is confused about what Black Hole Cosmology is saying; the theory isn't contentless. There are some neat empirical findings that make it plausible to some degree as well, although it is still highly speculative. But such a theory would entail that there is something causally prior to the singularity bounding time that we observe, and this proposition is not contentless or incoherent. I don't see how this is prima facie unreasonable either, as we can clearly observe events that are causally prior to other singularities that form in our universe.
One of the motivations I've heard for eternal inflation is precisely that it avoids this problem by having inflation occur without begining or end. This is also partly the motivation for Platonist views like Tegmark's.
It's a two way street. "Virtuality" is a philosophical concept that existed prior to the idea of "virtual particles," (how they get their name). But now philosophers will point back to the successful idea of virtual particles when describing other "virtual" phenomena (e.g. Floridi and D'Agistino with "virtual information," working in philosophy of mathematics/information).
As well as I understand the history of the debate, which is not all that well, I believe it has generally been the philosophers who have been more against the "reality" of virtual particles (e.g. Oliver Passon). But I don't know if philosopher/physicist is that useful of a distinction in philosophy of physics proper. People often have degrees in both, work in both, collaborate, etc. The silo is probably more relevant in terms of how people who work primarily in metaphysics interact with physics proper (and of course people in less relevant fields also sometimes have to appeal to physics, e.g. physics becomes relevant to biology through reductionism, to ethics via "free will" debates, etc.)
An initial state isn't an event, because an event is something caused by a prior state of affairs.
I'll add more theory, to give us a scenario to discuss. From a perspective external to the universe, there is no elapse of time. Sounds weird, but this is consistent with the Page-Wooters mechanism. These physicists theorized that the elapse of time is a consequence of quantum entanglement experienced within a quantum system, but to external observers there is no elapse of time. This has actually been experimentally verified to a degree. The universe (internally) evolves strictly in accordance with a Schroedinger equation, so there's no basis for claiming thngs should be expected to pop into existence uncaused.
Re: multiple realizability: The initial state could possibly produce multiple causally isolated universes, each of which has time elapse internally, but from the perspective of Universe A, Universe B is inert - and vice versa. (Actually, causal isolation implies other universes are undetectable, so this is fudging a bit).
Of course it is. Virtual particles is fair game for both sides of the intellectual coin. And as I mentioned there seems to be a spectrum between virtual and real, which is fascinating. At some point in this spectrum may be where mathematics is reified.
Thanks for the Floridi remark. I'm looking into it now. New territory for me. :smile: