Causa Sui

Emm… CN, I guess I have only one question…

Did you mistake this to be the Social Philosophy forum?

We were discussing the rudiments of existence itself as t pertains to Science and thought. You seem to be making a lot of noise concerning a social philosophy about emm… the noise of beliefs and self determination (Sua Sponte), I guess.

This is interesting of itself, because none of this follows. All that is required for existence is that it is. It requires no interaction, because as you seem to imply, there’s nothing for it to interact with. All you would seem to be saying is that existence affects existence, which is nothing short of a tautology of existence affects itself, which would be causa sui! And your idea of movement in time is extremely questionable. For movement requires going from A to B, but B can’t be occupied for A to move to it. And this would mean that there’s something else which isn’t existence, and existence would have to interact with non-existence. And, if we accept current ideas of time within Einstein’s theory, there is no movement, which is just a “persistent illusion”. There’s no change, because it’s all static, and where something is static there is no movement. There’s nothing to move to.

The problem with you bringing up “now” is that there’s no “now”, which is just an illusion. There would only be “before” and “after”. But they never interact with one another, because they’re both logically distinct, one is A and the other is ~A. There’s no interaction between them. So you bringing up there being a distinction between “then” and “now” actually indicates that there’s no “interaction”, which destroys your position to begin with movement in time. That’s because A can’t move to ~A. A can only occupy A, and A can never occupy ~A. But if it did occupy ~A then it would be ~A to begin with.

Second, there’s no change in the world line. Would you say that this line is changes: ______________ ? Where’s the change in that line? None, because it’s static. You can think of bread. You have the loaf of bread, which never changes from being a loaf of bread. But this loaf can be sliced up into slices of bread. One slice is logically distinct from another and can’t be that other.

Third, you say that you have to deal with perception, which is a good start. But this doesn’t give you interaction. Show me the interaction between one billiard ball and another billiard ball? I’m sure you can see this is David Hume’s argument on causality, which pretty much undermines your whole idea of interaction. But hey, you say you see “ongoing manifestation of past”, but show me the past. Can you do that with perception? Nope, you can’t. Heck, you can’t even show the future with perception. So you haven’t really supported your position with much. You can’t point to the past, and you can’t point to the future. You can’t have a perception of the future and you can’t have a perception of the past. So you see no “ongoing manifestation of the past”.

And this statement of “likelihood based upon perception” is totally unfounded by perception. Perception shows no likelihood, and perception definitely doesn’t show the “past” or the “future”. And perception shows plenty of time “uncaused” things. That’s what is so great about “uncaused” things. They allow you to create “caused” things. Like David Hume once said, “The efficacy of causes lie in the determination of the mind!” And this was a guy that was completely loyal to perception.

This is all nice, but you haven’t shown that interactivity is existence, besides you just, as you basically admitting, that’s how you define it. But how you define it is just a convention based on the definition that you choose. But your definitions are not only contradicted by experience, they lead to contradictions of their own. In other words, your definitions lead to the logically impossible, and what you argue against you say is logically impossible. Thus, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Right, according to what I quoted I would have contradicted myself if I held to that. But I never said that I held to it. I just pointed out Einstein’s theory says that nothing changes.

Interesting, because it seems like you’re implying that there is a spatially infinite universe, but there is no evidence for this at all, at least not found in experience. So you would seem to have to at one point want to affirm perception for your position, but then at another moment want to affirm something that’s beyond perception (i.e. spacially infinite universe). Now you definitely seem to be stuck in a contradiction.

Excellent, because you can’t say that non-interaction is absurd without implying that interaction is just as absurd. But you haven’t really even shown that interaction is actually existent.

Right, but as was previously pointed out above in this very post, you haven’t even perceived any interaction and you can’t even do that. So you’re very own position is by definition undetectable. You can’t detect the past to even say it exists, and this would carry with it that you can’t even detect or experience interaction, which means that you can’t hold to cause either. The problem is that you basically admitted that “non-interaction” phenomena aren’t possibly observable. But if the contradiction isn’t possibly observably, then it’s contradiction isn’t possibly observable, which is interaction. In fact, your very point seems to bare a loose resemblance to testability. Testability requires that A and ~A are possible to observe, but if ~A isn’t possible to observe, then we can’t even say that we’ve observed A. We can’t tell the difference between A and ~A by perception.

Oh I can easily describe the beginning of the universe. You have nothing but blackness, and all of a sudden an object shows up. In fact, this is perfectly imaginable, which shows it’s possible for there to be no causation or interaction at all. But hey, you’re the one that is saying that the universe is infinite, and so far you haven’t presented any evidence besides the hand waving of saying “a finite universe is absurd”. That’s not really evidence, because you’re position is just as absurd.

In other words, cause isn’t based on anything but a definition and isn’t found in experience. If you really want to go with you saying it’s “True by definition”, then cause isn’t based on experience. But someone can always come up with a different definition which contradicts your’s, which means that a physical thing can pop out of nothingness without a cause or reason.

Wrong

Wrong

Wrong

Sure

Wrong

Than show causation without relying on definitions.

Wrong
[/quote]
Than show it with experience.

Wrong
[/quote]
Than show the experience.

Sure
[/quote]
Which means you don’t know what causation is.

Wrong
[/quote]
Than show the experience where it is forbidden.

Sure;
refute my point without using words or pictures.

Sure;

Hold on, you’re the one that has to back up your case. You have yet to do that. So it’s not up to me, since you were the one making all these claims. Do you plan on backing it up, or are you just going to rely on definitions, i.e. conventions of language? :-k

In fact, I’ve asked you at least two other times on another thread to show it, but you’ve just kept ignoring my request.

Oh, and for of those who haven’t thought about Causa Sui, it is actually kind of simple. For example, there are some that say “something can’t come from nothing”, and this is just based on a Causal principle that says, as Descartes uses himself, A cause must precontain the reality of its effect.

You can deny this idea of causality, but only at the price of denying that “something can’t come from nothing”, which means that you accept that something can come from nothing.

Rene Descartes

So for those of you don’t know, James S. Saint holds to “something can’t come from nothing”. And this idea follows from what is actually the basis of Causa Sui. Talk about inconsistent. At one point they say that “something can’t come from nothing”, but at another point denies what is the very foundation of that idea, i.e. Causa Sui. :unamused:

A is the cause and B is the effect. A, the cause, contains B, the effect. So the Cause contains the Effect. That’s how, they think, that something can’t come from nothing. Because if you have nothing and something comes from it, then the cause, being nothing, doesn’t contain something in itself, which is impossible under that Causal principle.

I just did.
You seem to have missed it.
{Big Surprise}

Wait, you just did? Let’s see you backing it up.

Oh, nice slight of hand. Now back it up and instead of this hand waving. That’s not backing anything up. That’s just reversing your burden. :sunglasses:

Haha… you might want to think about that effort at reasoning.

A) Precondition must exist.
B) Denial of (A) demands that “something can’t come from nothing”. (Oh really? To me it says just the opposite)
C) Thus denial of (A) demands that you accept that something CAN come from nothing.
Emm… If I accept that something CAN come from nothing then I have accepted that a precondition of existence must exist - something must exist in order to cause existence?

Descartes merely said that the cause must exist BEFORE the effect, “precontain”.

No “slight of hand”.
…merely taking advantage of the blind.
{and still blind it seems.}

Uh oh, looks like James S Saint still hasn’t learned how to use reason, or learn to read.

Descarte said that the effect is contained within the cause. This means that the effect exists in the cause, and that the effect doesn’t hold anything else that isn’t in the cause. The classic example is that you are the effect of your parents having sex, and you were already contained in your parents before you came about. In fact, this is what your world looks like if you hold to “something can’t come from nothing”.

Notice that little guy in the sperm, because that’s James. He was already in their tucked like that before he was ever born from his mom’s womb.

The point was that cause and effect both exist at the same time. You existed in the sperm before your mother gave birth to you, under the principle of causality that leads to the immediate inference of “something can’t come from nothing”. Descarte said that the Effect exists IN the Cause. The Cause doesn’t exist BEFORE the effect, because the Effect exists at the same time as the Cause, just that it’s IN the cause. Like something isn’t in nothing, because something can’t come nothing. That’s why the immediate inference is that Something can’t come from nothing.

Come, shape up and start to use some logic, guy.

Thank back up your assertion. You still haven’t supported anything, and keep dodging. I mean, if what you say is true, then one would think you could show it. But you still haven’t shown anything to back up what you’ve said. Come on, it shouldn’t be hard for you to do it.

Let me guess…
You don’t know what the prefix “pre” means?

Sure, based on your stance, it means you existed before you were born. That’s your stance, after all.

A) that is NOT MY stance.
B) that IS what “pre” means - “before”

So now I have to assume it was “contain” that you didn’t understand.

You should perhaps consider that something can’t be contained if it doesn’t exist.
…right?

If B is to be “contained” in A, then B must exist.

So if an effect is to be contained within a cause, then said effect must exist within the cause.
…right?

Thus your statement of “the cause must precontain the effect” means that the effect must exist within the cause before (pre) the effect exists. So the effect exists before the effect exists.

And you say that I am the one who needs to use logic? :-s

Or perhaps its the word “before” that you’re having trouble with? :confused:

No, it’s your stance. You said, in another thread, that “Something can’t come from nothing”. And that stance is the immediate inference from the effect is contained in the cause.

The only problem is that you aren’t using logic, or at least understand it. The effect exists, because the cause exists. The effect doesn’t exist if the cause doesn’t exist. In other words, if the cause exists then the effect exists. Or, if the effect doesn’t exist, then the cause doesn’t exist. This is the problem with your stance that “something can’t come from nothing”, since it relies on the effect already existing in the cause. In fact, you haven’t even show anything about cause and effect existing at all, and we’re still waiting for your to defend your position, instead of playing the doding game. :wink:

Oh really… :unamused:

That depends.

That depends.

Again, that depends.

Again, that depends.

Huh? It DOESN’T depend on the effect already existing in the cause. That is Your thought and assertion, not mine.
Seriously, you really need to stop imagining thoughts as coming from me when they are entirely yours.
And it would help if you would take a little time to see the surety you have when you inject certainty into your assertions.

As to what those above are dependent upon;
How are cause and effect distinguished? What is the difference in their concepts?

A causa sui, as I understand it, is a ‘cause’ that has no cause. Most people accept the BB as a causa sui because it gives them a starting point for so many effects. But, again as I understand, a causa sui isn’t concerned with effects–only with cause. A ‘cause that has no cause’ is a phrase that uses two different meanings for ‘cause’–one implies that there are effects of a cause in order to make it a cause; the other implies that there was nothingness prior to the causa sui, but there was a singularity which, in a micro-second (for want of a better word,) became a cause that led to the creation of the Universe.

In my OP, I said that our science and our language demand cause and affect, or how causes result in effects. A cause, in order to be a cause, needs to have an affect on something and, therefore, effect that something. If you accept the cosmological, astronomical theory of the BB, which most people do, then it’s a causa sui.

My question was meant to be, now that we know there’s a great deal of unpredictability (at least on a quantum level) within the universe, can effects exist without an apparent cause?

This has absolutely nothing to do with who’s responsible for ‘proof’ of point, since there haven’t been any points so far made that have to do with the OP.