I recently attended a debate on free will vs determinism which was interesting.
Afterwords I was pondering the problem (though I accept the causal determinist view) and I seem to have stumbled upon a paradox of sorts.
I boiled my argument down to make it more clear cut. It is as follows.
P1) Causality is a universal principle (in the sense that it is applicable to everything, and the ideas of uncaused causes, or self causers are not compatible with it. Everything must have a cause or be caused)
P2) Applying this [premise 1] to the universe we end up with there being a cause for the universe, but to evade an infinite (beginningless) regress this cause must be uncaused, or be a self-causer. This however is incompatible and contradicts premise 1 (P1).
so…
P3) The universe has no first cause and is uncaused, ergo, infinite and beginningless. This also contradicts premise 1 (P1) and is incompatible with what we are assuming true [that causality is in-fact a universal principle].
P4) with no other options left, all we can assume is that causality is indeed a universal principle, but the universe was created spontaneously.
The problem seems to be that for the causal determinist (like myself) to accept causality as a universal is what our deterministic outlook relies upon, but presents itself somewhat problematically. With the conclusion being something that I can only assume?
Input appreciated.
Time could be cyclic, regarding P4.
If the universe is infinite, ‘beginningless’ may be misleading. It can be useful dealing with infinities/eternities to look on “infinite” as meaning that it doesn’t make sense to talk of it in terms of its boundaries; think of Hilbert’s Grand Hotel. A normal logical step-by-step approach to causality will never trace back to the beginning of time, without leading to any paradoxes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27 … rand_Hotel
Modern science indicates a finite age of the universe. However, it also postulates time as a part of the universe. Without time, you can have no causality, and our experience of the universe doesn’t tell us what happens with causality around extreme states like a beginning of the universe.
If we recognize that the universe is the sum of everything, then generating P2 from P1 is a fallacy of composition.
Exactly, like PhysBang and O_H said
“the universe” is a catagory to which ALL things belong… It is not itself a thing.
Clearly each individual item that belongs to that catagory can have a different answer, and that the catagory itself is caused by the existence of things in the first place.
You might ask, what was the first thing to exist… but that’d be presupposing that there was a time where NO-thing existed… which would be impossible given your premis.
Thinking about that for a while you’ll notice that we might get an infinite regress if things have been caused to come into existence, causing other things to come into existence and then caused to go out of existence, over and over and over.
But that’s assuming that the sum of all POSSIBLE things is infinite… otherwise you’d exhaust the list of all possible things after a finite period of time, at which point it’d become repetition. You’d cause something that had already existed, to come into existence… ect.
I had been responding back and forth with one of the individuals who hosted the event I spoke of, and raised just that point of the universe being cyclic. The response i received was, “The notion of a cyclic or loopy universe is a speculative supposition and not a scientific fact, and thus we must beware of building theories on it that seem to somehow prove the existence of any first cause. Speculations fine, but beware its limits.”
Also Hilbert’s grand hotel had a beginning but no end (in other words an “endless” regress as opposed to a beginningless one). Having no end is fine, but its the beginning im concerned with here. However I never thought of it in terms of time. Supposing the big bang and not the cyclic model of the universe is true, then causality would begin to happen right as the universe is created, since it would require no cause before then, if causality requires time. Although that answer still feels somewhat left open.
Actually premise one states that we accept causality as a universal, and this would make the “property” which is allegedly being applied to the whole an “expansive” property. In other words we take it as an absolute, so therefore it can in fact be applied to the universe (which we are) and everything. Another example of an expansive property might be that, all parts of this table are wood, so therefore the entire table is wood.
Interesting point, but couldnt the universe be itself a thing (for instance the cyclic model would be itself a thing, though a repeating thing, it offers no explanation as to why it is there in the first place) and a thing in which others are a part of? An example might be that I am part of a family, and that family is a thing, or an entity, which is a group that we give the property of the name “family” to?
How would it be presupposing there was a time where no thing existed? If time was here first, in other words if you have to have time before other things came into existence then theoretically there would be no time that there was no thing in existence.
We would only get that infinite regress, it seems, if in fact the universe is finite and not cyclic.
No… this is a catagory mistake. THE universe is the location wherein things can exist or not.
When you say “cauality is a universal principle” that means causality can be applied to ALL things in the universe.
If you look at a universe, such as “our universe”, for example… it could be considered a thing within a larger universe.
But then that larger universe would itself not be a thing.
It could be that our universe exists as a thing in a larger universe that exists as a thing in a larger universe that exists as a thing in a larger universe… ect
But if there is no ultimate location that is THE UNIVERSE, then universality is a nonsensical notion to begin with, and causality cannot be a “universal” principle.
The idea of applying ‘cause’ to the universe itself (when considered in all its past, present, and future states) is incoherent/meaningless. Cause, by definition, is a temporal notion - it only makes sense in time - for that which is quintessentially ‘caused’ are events - that is states of affairs that undergo change through time. The universe itself (in all past, present, and future states) might be considered an event, but it would be an eternal one (i.e. having no beginning) and therefore the notion of its being caused is incoherent/meaningless. On the other hand, it may not be considered an event, in which case it is a ‘thing’ but one that must be considered timeless (or ‘above’ time) since time is something that unfolds within it. In that case, applying cause to it is likewise incoherent/meaningless since, as I said, cause is a temporal notion and only makes sense within time.
I believe this is, in a round-about way, what others have been saying.
It’s all speculative supposition. Scientific facts themselves are mutable, according to the evidence.
Your last action had a cause, which had a cause, which had a cause… counting back in an infinite chain is not so different to counting forward.
What do you want, scientific fact? Ask scientists, not philosophers. Saying how things are because of logical deduction rather than evidence-driven hypothesis is a recipe for bad philosophy.
Here’s a variant on the simulation hypothesis, somewhat related:
telegraph.co.uk/science/spac … verse.html
There is no reason to believe that the universe and time didn’t arise together. The state of the singularity is conjecture at best.
My question is: is there a reason to believe that cause arises with the universe and time, or can it arise in order to give way to the universe and (or in) time - or does the notion of ‘cause’ presuppose time beforehand?
Cause and effect has boundaries when time elapses over and eliminates karma type happenings…
Hmm, if time doesn’t exist then neither can anything else. Wouldn’t any change require time? If we are considering a spontaneous creation then time would have to be first. Since the creation of spontaneous particles or anything to be caused would require that time exist. If ‘nothing’ existed in the beginning, ‘nothing’ would remain the same until time existed which would allow change. Or am I wrong in thinking that time is necessary for any change?
A “singularity” is, by definition, a place in the mathematics of a physical theory where the mathematics do not give an acceptable description of physical events. In the case of the standard cosmological model, this happens to be an attribution of infinite density. In some way or another, a more complete theory of the universe has to do away with this singularity.
Time is a perceived rate of change, and is relative in nature. Change requires no conception of time, just a forum to take place in.
Why should this be presumed as universally applicable? I can apply my idea of gravity to Jupiter, for example, which would result in horribly inaccurate concepts and theories regarding the gravitational properties of Jupiter. I think we are discussing “time”, here, in much the same way.
IMO, the problem of the first cause can be “answered” through transcendental idealism. The universe about which we address this question is a (necessarily) imperfect representation of the thing-in-itself, so rather than there being an absolute problem with the universe (in itself), all we’ve got is another example of a shortcoming of our otherwise excellent space-time-causality representation.
That would make cause and effect, or teleology, a category mistake in the transcendental sense. But if you find yourself on the physical plane and know that if you run out in front of a car it will kill you or hurt you, then cause and effect comes into play and makes a lot of sense. Sometimes past experience or knowledge plays causally on the present and the future. Many times the best outcome depends on it; but other times it doesn’t. It depends on the prejudice of the thinker and how s/he decides to act. In much of human activity, I prefer non-teleological thinking which means giving up the past entirely and acting only on circumstances as they present in the now. That way, it is hoped, the problems of prejudicial blame and judgment do not signify in taking right action on the altruistic behalf of others.
OK, but wouldn’t the “answer” be inherently unknowable as well? What you’ve offered isn’t so much an answer as it is a different perspective on the same question. The only difference is that, rather than question the theory of causality specifically, you are calling into question our entire understanding, or representation, of the universe. The recognition of our possible shortcomings is implied in the paradox; so we are aware of that much already. So, then, what is it that this space-time-causality representation is missing?
Whatever the universe is does not exist separately from anyone or anything. If people and the world could get by fine without worrying about causality and non-causality, this conversation would not be happening. It’s hard to let go of the postivist mechanistic heuristic that has been driving thought and action for so long, but it clearly doesn’t work in making the world liveable for large life forms. I understand that many small ones are doing fine and will continue to do so, though. And what evolves from there is anybody’s guess, though it might make for a great new sci-fi book.
You’re right. What I’m saying is that our rendering of the thing-in-itself into space and time works at “day-to-day scales” but breaks down at extremes, e.g. the beginning of the “causal chain”.
You’re quite right. As to what’s missing, I don’t know 