Philo Forum : First Cause
Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 7:10 pm
Causality appears to be a feature of time - everything in time appears to have a cause - so for something to be uncaused, it seems it would have to be external to time. — Devans99
Yes. As I reached adulthood, I became an Agnostic because I no longer believed the Bible was the inspired revelation of an omniscient deity. But I could never go all the way to Atheism, because I had no better explanation for the temporary existence of our contingent world. Augustine saw the logic of Aristotle's First Cause argument, but used it to defend his faith in the Christian Jehovah. My current position on the god-question is Deist, remaining Agnostic about any personal traits of the Creator of space & time; which scientists called "The Singularity", and I call "G*D".
But if cause and effect hold universally there cannot be a first cause, because that first cause would, by definition, be outside of cause an effect, and so it's no longer universal. — Echarmion
The Cause of space-time is "first" in the sense of "ultimate", not merely the first of a series. Logically, the Creator of our evolving universe must be prior-to the big-bang emergence of space-time, hence Eternal, and external to the Physical universe, hence Metaphysical. Prior, not in time, but in logical order.
Ultimate : a final or fundamental fact or principle
Prior : existing or coming before in time, order, or importance
I imagine a wider universe somehow containing spacetime. Causality as we know it, dominates spacetime, but in the wider universe, causality as we know it may not apply, so an uncaused cause would be possible. — Devans99
Your "wider" universe is what scientists postulate as The Multiverse. My problem with that "more-of-the-same-forever" speculation is that it doesn't address the primary concern of philosophers today : how could Life & Mind arise by natural evolutionary processes? Atheists take it on faith, that physical Science will eventually answer "the hard question". But, I'm skeptical.
My alternative to the Turtles-all-the-way-down Multiverse, is to assume that the potential for Conscious Beings must have been included in (programmed into) the original Singularity. As a Agnostic, I prefer not to speculate on an eternal regression of the "same-old-same-old", which doesn't provide any new information anyway. My theory says that Information itself (power to enform, to create) is the causal energy that powers the progression of evolution. It's "just a theory", but it explains more than the Multiverse theory.
Turtles : http://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page41.html
Information : https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/i ... ndamental/
It - the first cause - has to be something real (physical) and permanent: — Devans99
In my worldview, the First Cause is not Real, but Ideal, Metaphysical, not Physical. And it's permanent in the sense of existing necessarily, outside of the space-time world it created.
Metaphysical : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Yes a fair point, I should clarify what I mean by God:
- not omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient
- capable of independent action
- inteligent
- able to create spacetime
- benevolent
- timeless
So not exactly the God of christianity! It could be flying spaghetti monster (within the above limitations). — Devans99
My Deist notion of G*D is all of the above, including "omnipresent". But, it's not an ancient anthro-morphic interventionist King in heaven, because we now know that our world is on automatic pilot --- it seems to be programmed with laws & constants & selection criteria to handle all contingencies via adaptation.
Since my abstract G*D is not a person, or a blob of "noodly appendages", it can be called by various names, depending on the context : Nature, Logos, Chaos, ALL, BEING, Creator, Enformer, MIND, Nature, Reason, Source, Programmer. It's the eternal Whole of which all temporal things are a part, and, as the Creator of physical space-time, can be known by humans only by what it does, not what it is.
Any questions?
Yes. As I reached adulthood, I became an Agnostic because I no longer believed the Bible was the inspired revelation of an omniscient deity. But I could never go all the way to Atheism, because I had no better explanation for the temporary existence of our contingent world. Augustine saw the logic of Aristotle's First Cause argument, but used it to defend his faith in the Christian Jehovah. My current position on the god-question is Deist, remaining Agnostic about any personal traits of the Creator of space & time; which scientists called "The Singularity", and I call "G*D".
But if cause and effect hold universally there cannot be a first cause, because that first cause would, by definition, be outside of cause an effect, and so it's no longer universal. — Echarmion
The Cause of space-time is "first" in the sense of "ultimate", not merely the first of a series. Logically, the Creator of our evolving universe must be prior-to the big-bang emergence of space-time, hence Eternal, and external to the Physical universe, hence Metaphysical. Prior, not in time, but in logical order.
Ultimate : a final or fundamental fact or principle
Prior : existing or coming before in time, order, or importance
I imagine a wider universe somehow containing spacetime. Causality as we know it, dominates spacetime, but in the wider universe, causality as we know it may not apply, so an uncaused cause would be possible. — Devans99
Your "wider" universe is what scientists postulate as The Multiverse. My problem with that "more-of-the-same-forever" speculation is that it doesn't address the primary concern of philosophers today : how could Life & Mind arise by natural evolutionary processes? Atheists take it on faith, that physical Science will eventually answer "the hard question". But, I'm skeptical.
My alternative to the Turtles-all-the-way-down Multiverse, is to assume that the potential for Conscious Beings must have been included in (programmed into) the original Singularity. As a Agnostic, I prefer not to speculate on an eternal regression of the "same-old-same-old", which doesn't provide any new information anyway. My theory says that Information itself (power to enform, to create) is the causal energy that powers the progression of evolution. It's "just a theory", but it explains more than the Multiverse theory.
Turtles : http://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page41.html
Information : https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/i ... ndamental/
It - the first cause - has to be something real (physical) and permanent: — Devans99
In my worldview, the First Cause is not Real, but Ideal, Metaphysical, not Physical. And it's permanent in the sense of existing necessarily, outside of the space-time world it created.
Metaphysical : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Yes a fair point, I should clarify what I mean by God:
- not omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient
- capable of independent action
- inteligent
- able to create spacetime
- benevolent
- timeless
So not exactly the God of christianity! It could be flying spaghetti monster (within the above limitations). — Devans99
My Deist notion of G*D is all of the above, including "omnipresent". But, it's not an ancient anthro-morphic interventionist King in heaven, because we now know that our world is on automatic pilot --- it seems to be programmed with laws & constants & selection criteria to handle all contingencies via adaptation.
Since my abstract G*D is not a person, or a blob of "noodly appendages", it can be called by various names, depending on the context : Nature, Logos, Chaos, ALL, BEING, Creator, Enformer, MIND, Nature, Reason, Source, Programmer. It's the eternal Whole of which all temporal things are a part, and, as the Creator of physical space-time, can be known by humans only by what it does, not what it is.
Any questions?