Claim: Everything that exists in the real world is either a cause or an effect.
For the purposes of this thread I have to give a brief definition of real world. The real world is opposed to the abstract world. The abstract world has no causation. It is composed of circles, triangles, words, mathematics, logic. The real world is composed of subject, objects, atoms, beliefs and desires. Beliefs are a bit tricky because a belief can be about the abstract world. For example, I believe that a circle has 360 degrees. That belief causes me to write 360 on a paper for a math problem and the scratch marks on my paper exist in the real world, but the ideal circle itself does not cause my body to move, my belief causes my body to move. I understand that it is very hard to keep these two things separate.
In any case, can you think of anything in the real world that is neither a cause nor an effect? I am not very attached to this thesis I’m just interested to see if anyone can give a good falsification of it.
Both the physical realm and the divine realm (the perfect circle bit), have cause and effect.
But for every 2, there is a third, usually ignored so as to cause argumentation.
The medical world is between the physical and the mental (or behavioral).
And the mental is between the physical and the divine.
What is between the cause and the effect is the “affecting”, actual “existence”.
There are always three; the different and their in between (or the non-applicable).
Wouldn’t everything be both rather than either one or the other? Certainly from a scientific standpoint, nothing could merely be an effect, in any case, because if we can verify it exists than it caused something in us and likely one of our devices. And then anything that is a cause, unless it is the unmoved mover (just to show where a defense really has to go) is also an effect. Of course all of this is from our viewpoint. Perhaps causes and effects are appearance to creatures experiencing time as kind of narrative.
Well put. And words are not the opposite of worlds but situated out in them. Sometimes reflecting the world “as it is” and other times reflecting merely a point of view regarding how one thinks it is.
You could just ask the average reader to try to come up with an exception.
Well, if time is a dimension similar to the 3 spatial ones, perhaps we are simply experiencing a complete and already existing whole through one axis. IOW it is all already there in four dimensions, but we a limited perspectives travel along one axis and it seems like ‘things change’ and ‘new things arise’ and cause and effect exist. But actually there is just adjacency on the time axis. It would be like saying one end of the table caused the part a little further away from you.
Does the left hand side of the table follow the right or does the right, the left? Perhaps you are just talking about how we experience that axis given our vector.
Not really.
I am saying that a cause, by definition ALWAYS brings the effect to follow it.
The reverse is not at all true.
A time line cannot be simply reversed.
The fundamental cause to all existence is that nothing can be what it is and also stay as it is.
If you reverse that, you merely get that anything (or everything) can be what it is and stay as it is (ie nothing changes).
I was workign with a block 4D model of the universe. One that we move though one of the dimensions of. We call that one time and imagine it is different from the others.
Well, if you are working merely with a motion picture, that’s fine.
Have you really fallen for the promoted idea that your life is merely another motion picture?
Have the film makers really claimed that much of your perspective?
Physical reality obeys the film makers whim??
In regard to the op… perhaps some thing exists in the far flung corners of the universe that operates with no cause or effect, but everything in the known world seems to operate within the cause/effect parameters.
Why do we think so linearly if we don’t have our concept of time? Is it our observation? But, our observations are also linear, aren’t they? Is that because of our concept of time?
There are civilizations with no time concept, although they’re few, now. Given no concept of time, their language reflects this lack of linearity. Things just happen without cause.
I don’t think what i said was a motion picture, but if one is a determinist, the different between being in an already made film and being in something that is not, really, already finished, but whose every future form is already determined is pretty moot. The ontological distinction may be of some interest, but it makes no difference to those in the block.
Well, no, but aren’t you a determinist?
How did you get 'filmmakers out of my post?
In fact, I was exploring an idea, not saying I believe it.
Threads like these are always about reality and the mind.
Most people separate the many things then give each of them a name and a meaning.
If our culture and genes so happened to be different, I think the names and meanings would also be mapped out and split up differently.
I happen to believe that aliens were able to communicate with humans at some point in ancient history.
The two could communicate because there is a common base reality.
However, the best we can do is clearly describe it. That is all good philosophy is is description, for me anyways. Animals and humans also can relate to a mutual base reality. Maybe calling it cause and effect helps you somehow.
Are you founder of the abstract world, or does it have a membership state? How does one access the abstract world?
Can we fly to that world or fly in there?
Only way to give a good falsification of your idea is to show that it is self-contradictory, or able to derive a contradiction from it it. No observations will falsify your idea, or at least so far as falsification goes with what Karl Popper brought up. He brings up, among other scientist, that causality is metaphysical and unfalsifiable, and that there has been no scientific observation of cause and effect (i.e. Sir Arthur Eddington).
“respectable”? Are you trying to be amuseing? Have you heard about the concept of “supersticion”? I know, i know, it’s impossible to imagine that our idols can belive in nonsens fairytale worlds.