You must assume a cause!
Things don't pop up for no reason, in fact, that is an assertion that implies a cause(in this case, 'no reason'). Given this, it is wiser to assert that the universe came into existence by some manifestation in, per se, a multiverse, than it is to park randomly on the conjecture it just popped up for no reason. We must assume a cause, so we must base theories on an existence that was caused rather than aiming at cause-less-ness and failing to describe it alongside many other inconsistencies concerning things happening without causes.
Comments (58)
See Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume.
Where is this given?
What about vaccuum fluctuations, virtual particles or other random events?
And, like the "first point", or edge, on a circumference, the cause of causality itself is? :chin:
It's not a question of what I believe or what you believe. You asserted that Quoting Barkon is a "given".
But you don't say the identity of the giver, not trace the provenance of the gift.
It might have been more accurate to say: "Within my ability to observe, no thing or event is uncaused.... wherefore I surmise that the existence of the universe must also have a cause."
Quoting Barkon
We don't must any such thing - but we can and may.
Can you enumerate and define those many other inconsistencies that concern any other things that happen without causes?
Since you can't describe the cause any more than I can describe causelessness, this is an impasse.
Eureka!
Ho-kay
"Assume" whatever you like but you've not offered a valid argument yet and without any demonstrable evidence of either "causality" (Hume) or "some divine force" (Epicurus, Spinoza, Hume) you're just talking out of your *ss poor reasoning at best.
Yup, psychoceramics ... :smirk:
I think it might make more sense to say "causality has a *reason*" rathern than causality has a cause. Things that are true have a *reason* for being true. "Cause" implies a time relationship, like something came first and then another thing, while "reason" doesn't have that limitation.
But even reasons have an inevitable stopping point. If there's some reason why anything that's true is true, then... what about the reason why things have reasons? Does that have a reason? Eventually, you dig deep enough and you hit a brute fact, I think.
Welcome to TPF :smile:
We don't need to 'assume' a cause. I think there might not be a cause at all. We try to answer with causes and effects. A does X and the latter causes Y, etc. But, honestly, this only has sense in human knowledge or as an output to us. I don't attempt to deny that a cause is logically necessary in some matters which are outside of us. But I guess we just overreact towards that principle. You claim things don't pop up for no reason. Well, you are a bit wrong here. There are things which pop up without a cause. For example: the stars or the sunlight rays we receive from the sun. You will explain that the cause of receiving the latter is the result of X. But there is not a cause for the Sun to provide us with light every day. It 'pops up' simultaneously.
Why do you think that?
I just wanted to note something that I don't see getting addressed in here.
That something does not have a cause is not itself a cause. You are saying here, that something which does not have a cause has a cause---which is patently false.
needs work. I see what youre trying to say but its a word salad in its current form.
I would put it like this: we generally believe that things happen for a reason but scientists seem to believe that the Universe simply sprung into existence with no cause.
Here youre asking deep questions, which is perfectly fine. Philosophy does ask deep questions but be prepared for deep thinking and a lot of reading. Be thankful that the medium exists in which these questions can be explored.
The premise that the universe "popped into" existence is incoherent. It implies there existed something, into which the universe popped.
The "universe" is best defined as the entirety of material reality. The universe may very well be finite to the past. If so, this entails an initial state; there can have existed no prior state of its non-existence.
Sometimes they do. Stop looking for certainty in human-made ideas like causality. The world is a messy place, and there are things we dont understand and may never will.
The story of the big bang is one story. Happens to be an empirically well-supported one currently, but will likely change in time. Dont get too hung up on it.
I would surmise that the universe's bang had a cause because, at least, it was able to happen - and that ableness is a something, not a 'nothing'.
As for the ultimate basis of All, it would have to be causeless because Existence has no opposite, it thus having to be unmakeable and unbreakable, it necessarily having no parts and thus being continuous, and eternal.
In fact they do all the time at the atomic & sub-atomic level. Just for example - radioactive decay. Atoms will randomly split and new atoms will pop up - at random intervals. When you look at large numbers of such events the aggregate decay follows statistical laws (1/2 life) but there is no reason for any individual atom to decay at a particular point in time. You might also want to check out double slit experiment, etc.
No. There is no specific prior event that causes the atom to decay at that particular point in time.
Quoting Barkon
The philosophical concept of causality does not apply to physical phenomena at the atomic & sub-atomic level. The words "significance" and "meaning" do not have any meaning/usage here.
I'm not sure what prompted you to make such an emphatic assertion. David Hume threw a monkey wrench into ancient confident causal assumptions with his astute observation that "correlation does not prove causation". {my emphasis} Nevertheless, a long chain of observed & recorded cause & effect links does point to the logical conclusion that certain kinds of temporal Priors (before state) are consistently followed by specific Posteriors (after effects). Otherwise, empirical science would not be as successful as it has been. And Bayesian Probability calculations allow us to calculate a reasonable expectation for a specified result.
Both sides of the contentious Causation controversy are personal opinions (beliefs) though, grounded on generalization from limited evidence. Causation was taken for granted by philosophers until the secularization of Science in the Enlightenment era, due to rejection of church authority on such questions. Yet, Modern Science is still based on the conditional presumption that every type of event that consistently follows another event was caused by the prior. Otherwise, our experience of the "arrow of time" would be misleading.
Even today, secular scientists typically assume continuity-of-causation all the way back to the beginning of Time : Big Bang theory. But at that point, natural knowable causation ends and supernatural conjectural causation must be inserted. Hence, their chain-of-causes abruptly ends at the beginning. So, any a priori causation or First Cause ceases to be a scientifically answerable question. Any speculations beyond that point are illegitimate, except for religious or philosophical purposes. I must assume that your OP was not a scientific statement, nor a religious doctrine, but merely philosophical in intent. :smile:
PS___FWIW, I just added a blog post in response to Arthur Schopenhauer's World As Will assertion that all change in the world results, not from a logical consecutive chain of causation, but from "a blind, unconscious, aimless striving devoid of knowledge" In other words, our world is not orderly, but chaotic; not rational, but random. I disagree with him, and agree with your assertion that we amateur philosophers "must assume a cause". Yet, some scientists & philosophers assume that they are exempt from that rational necessity, in cases that could be misconstrued as religious statements.
Schopenhauers Will as Intention :
Schopenhauer argued that the flawed world is not rationally organized. But, if so, how could reasoning beings evolve, and how could human Science gain control over the physical realm?
http://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page19.html
Lol what? A cause definitely does not require an infinite regress. Don't blame it on those people, they were very smart. But 99 percent of all people do not know how to solve the infinite regress. It really takes a sophisticated philosophy, far more than trivial conjecture, even if the person is smart their philosophy is always rather practical because people usually don't have the required passion to truly think as deeply as they possibly can...and then go even deeper than that, hence they never solve the infinite regression.
Appeal to authority is also a fallacy. :smile:
Ad hom...is another logical fallacy. :blush:
You don't know what "ad hom" means. Pointing out "fallacies" (where there is none) is not impressive or interesting after high school.
I say this with fair warning. :smile:
That is too young for Alzheimer's.
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