Putting aside the term God, would you agree?

[Kangaroo Feathers]

When i say cause i mean something that triggered something else.
It can be one thing that triggered many...
At the beginning of the chain, there can be only one

Who says the chain has a beginning?

 

[shunyadragon]

In a nut shell, the theory goes that in a vacuum, there are spontaneous particles being created with contrasting "currents", a positive and negative (matter and antimatter).
They appear only for a fraction of a time as they cancel each other.
The universe as we know it, should not have really existed as we observe that for every position particle, a negative one is created and they all cancel each other. our universe on the other hand, for some reason (not known yet) had positive particles remaining.
The fact those particles simply pop into existence, doesn't mean they are simply created out of thin air, i think it is logical to assume something creates those particles.

Even though I am a theist I do not accept this line of reasoning concerning the justification of the existence of a 'Source' some call God(s) based on the origin of particles from the human perspective.

'Thin air?' Not the scientific view base don the evidence. There are still unknowns, of course, but the origin of particles through the processes of Quantum Mechanics is the best explanation regardless of whether God exists or not.

 

[Polymath257]

This question is mostly to people who lack the belief in God (Mono).

Let's put aside for a second the term God and all the ways people try and define this god.

Would you agree that there must be an initial cause to everything?

No. I do not agree with this.

I mean that from our human POV, we today know that time had a starting point, this means that (from our POV) there was a point in our history when time "stood still". We can refer to this idea as an eternity (again, only from our POV as we don't really know what happened before that).

'Our history'? The Big Bang was quite a bit before human history started.

Also, there has to be an event (or something else ) that started the whole process of reality. even if you somehow believe that reality started itself, this means that some sort of "reality version" existed before our reality, we can refer to this as the initial state of existence.

No. In the BB model (the original one), time literally starts at the BB. There is literally no 'before'.

This means that eventually, going back chronically (events wise), there must be an initiator (regardless of what that initiator is) that was there without being initiated in the first place.

No, if everything has a cause, then the sequence of causes goes back infinitely. Which means the whole sequence is causeless.

So we can assume regardless of our belief that there was an initial event that was "placed" in what we can only describe as eternity as we have no understanding of time before our time.

We can also have the understanding that this thing, contained within it all our reality, meaning the universe as we know it emerged from that same initiator causing our reality to become what it is.

Thoughts?

Hmm...this makes many of the flawed assumptions that theists like to make. It assumes everything has a cause, except that it then goes against that idea, claiming there was a 'first cause'. It assumes time has always existed, even though it is quite consistent to have time itself starting. And, of course, without time, there is no causality, so time itself can have no cause. Your identification of eternity with the BB 'event' is also question begging in many ways.

 

[LuisDantas]

This question is mostly to people who lack the belief in God (Mono).

Let's put aside for a second the term God and all the ways people try and define this god.

Fair enough. Let's.

Would you agree that there must be an initial cause to everything?

No. I find the question very arbitrary and anthropocentric, as a matter of fact.

I mean that from our human POV, we today know that time had a starting point, this means that (from our POV) there was a point in our history when time "stood still". We can refer to this idea as an eternity (again, only from our POV as we don't really know what happened before that).

Also, there has to be an event (or something else ) that started the whole process of reality. even if you somehow believe that reality started itself, this means that some sort of "reality version" existed before our reality, we can refer to this as the initial state of existence.

This means that eventually, going back chronically (events wise), there must be an initiator (regardless of what that initiator is) that was there without being initiated in the first place.

So we can assume regardless of our belief that there was an initial event that was "placed" in what we can only describe as eternity as we have no understanding of time before our time.

We can also have the understanding that this thing, contained within it all our reality, meaning the universe as we know it emerged from that same initiator causing our reality to become what it is.

Thoughts?

That is extrapolating the current understanding towards a role that it can't sustain, IMO.

It is by no means clear that the idea of a starting point even makes sense.

 

[Polymath257]

When i say cause i mean something that triggered something else.
It can be one thing that triggered many...
At the beginning of the chain, there can be only one

Why is that? Could there not be, potentially, hundreds of uncaused causes? They don't even have to all happen at the same time. Just because one is earlier doesn't mean it is the cause of *everything* later.

I also think you have to look closer at your concept of 'triggering'. All 'triggers' work through some sort of physical law. So without physical laws, there is no causality.

 

[Polymath257]

Can't see how the fact you are a christian has got anything to do with it? its a question of POV, not belief

So you don't agree that there was an initial state? or event?

Ultimately? No, I don't. Even if the Big Bang scenario is correct, the BB itself isn't technically an 'event'. In many ways, it is the absence of an event.

 

[Polymath257]

If the universe exited in a quantum state, it means something cause the universe to exist in that state, no?

No.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

When i say cause i mean something that triggered something else.
It can be one thing that triggered many...
At the beginning of the chain, there can be only one

I know what you meant. What I don't know is why you assume that everything is part of a single "chain;" how could you ever justify this assumption?

 

[LuisDantas]

In a nut shell, the theory goes that in a vacuum, there are spontaneous particles being created with contrasting "currents", a positive and negative (matter and antimatter).
They appear only for a fraction of a time as they cancel each other.
The universe as we know it, should not have really existed as we observe that for every position particle, a negative one is created and they all cancel each other. our universe on the other hand, for some reason (not known yet) had positive particles remaining.

How do you know that there is a reason for that?

The fact those particles simply pop into existence, doesn't mean they are simply created out of thin air, i think it is logical to assume something creates those particles.

Natural for the tendencies of human brains, sure. Logical, not so much.

 

[Koldo]

I am familiar with this idea
It is similar to the question of is reality a reality if there is nothing to experience it?

Now imagine nothing. out of this nothing an entire existence comes to be. not only that, this existence follows a very clear and strict behavior.
So in your POV everything came out of nothing (assuming you refer to the theory that nothing is unstable and cannot remain nothing therefore it became something) with a set of behaviors as we experience.

The experiment that shows that in a vacuum a spontaneous appearance of particles takes place can be looked at in two ways:

Those particles create themselves and simply appear, or these particles are created by something and pop into existence. do you suggest that those particles simply create themselves?

I don't mean that everything came out of nothing. Consider the YouTube video analogy again. Did the events that transpire in the seconds after 00:00 come out of the seconds preceding 00:00 ? Since there are no seconds before 00:00, how could it be ? Would it even make sense to say such a thing ?

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

There is no way of knowing this, and it is only useful to think on the possibilities as avenues upon which to search for evidence of the truth. The universe may simply be eternal. That there exists anything at all I would think proves that there has always been something. Whether that something was vast empty space, or an ultra-powerful being of some kind who instantiated it all (mind you, I certainly don't believe that)... something was always "here," capable of being or interacting with this reality.

To my mind, positing absolute "nothing" at any time doesn't even make sense in the face of anything at all.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I can't see how not

The problem is that the human potential to understand how the Universe works is limited. Try to remember how utterly incomprehensible the ideas behind quantum physics or the double slit experiment were before you grew to accept them as true facets of how the Universe operates.

Lets say something came out of nothing... this initiator is either the nothing itself, which renders it as something, or it came to be our of itself, which it was itself.. no?

Again, you're assuming cause and effect when there's no reason to assume cause and effect is... in effect?

Imagine a movie... if you pause it on one frame.. i a way, it is in an eternal state... you will never get to the beginning or end of the movie. this is what i've meant.

But you can't freeze a movie without time. Before time, there can be no "freezing" because even stasis can be regarded as a temporal state that exists on the presumption of linear time existing.

If the universe exited in a quantum state, it means something cause the universe to exist in that state, no?

Again, not necessarily. That's something you have to actually demonstrate, which would be difficult considering we're talking about an event that took place prior to the formation of Universal laws.

What you just described remarkably resembles the "description" of God

How?

A thing that time and events does not apply to (no in our POV at least)
Same words, different language

Not really. "God" necessarily entails intelligence.

 

[exchemist]

This question is mostly to people who lack the belief in God (Mono).

Let's put aside for a second the term God and all the ways people try and define this god.

Would you agree that there must be an initial cause to everything?
I mean that from our human POV, we today know that time had a starting point, this means that (from our POV) there was a point in our history when time "stood still". We can refer to this idea as an eternity (again, only from our POV as we don't really know what happened before that).

Also, there has to be an event (or something else ) that started the whole process of reality. even if you somehow believe that reality started itself, this means that some sort of "reality version" existed before our reality, we can refer to this as the initial state of existence.

This means that eventually, going back chronically (events wise), there must be an initiator (regardless of what that initiator is) that was there without being initiated in the first place.

So we can assume regardless of our belief that there was an initial event that was "placed" in what we can only describe as eternity as we have no understanding of time before our time.

We can also have the understanding that this thing, contained within it all our reality, meaning the universe as we know it emerged from that same initiator causing our reality to become what it is.

Thoughts?

You seem to be assuming that an initiation event necessarily implies an initiating cause.

I am not persuaded that this follows. There would seem to be uncaused events - according to current physics, at any rate.

The term "placed" seems to me tendentious.

 

[Quintessence]

This question is mostly to people who lack the belief in God (Mono).

Let's put aside for a second the term God and all the ways people try and define this god.

Would you agree that there must be an initial cause to everything?

I suppose this scenario applies to me given I reject that god in the ways that are substantive and meaningful. I don't "lack belief" in it (such a weird phraseology), but monotheistic god-concepts are not part of my way of life.

No, I don't agree there had to have been an initial cause to everything. I'm a bipedal animal with extremely limited capabilities. How arrogant would I have to be to suppose that everything - when I cannot perceive and know everything to even the remotest degree - must have an initial cause? Pretty darned arrogant. Hubris seems a quality intrinsic to all humans to some degree or another, granted, but I'm not arrogant in this particular way on this particular question I suppose. As someone who is familiar with the concepts of acausality, cyclicality, and eternity, there are many alternative propositions to "there must have been an initial cause."

At that point you get to ask yourself - which narrative to I prefer? As a student of natural science cyclical models resonate much more with me than linear "initial cause" models. It's also more consistent with how I experience reality. As far as my experiences are concerned, the world has always been here and is constantly transforming itself through (often cyclical) exchanges of energy. Whether or not it was always this way is irrelevant to me. If there ever was a moment of "initial cause" that isn't the world I live in nor is it a world I experience. I would not worship an entity allegedly responsible for such things for the same reasons - it is too disconnected from my experiences and is not meaningful to me.

 

[ameyAtmA]

Do we realize that each and every contributor to this thread has been glorifying the Divine at varying levels ?
(most of them unintentionally - except for a few).

All Glories to the beginning-less endless causeless cause of all causes.
All Glories to the Nature of this "beginning-less endless causeless cause of all causes" which is to manifest particles as building blocks of biggest wonders and to nurture them via its own gravitational fabric.

If you don't think the Property of Nature to transform into another form of itself, unwind spirally, spin around itself, revolve around its [sub-]source while maintaining its essence throughout, is a Wonder, what can I say?

Blessed are those who can see the Intelligence behind the _ _ _Verse... and wonder.
Blesseder are those who can see how this Intelligence is ever-present by our side willing to pull us out of bondage thru' knowledge of Itself.

 

[pearl]

I have no problem putting aside the word God, and I often refer to what is called God is the 'Source' some call God(s).

I agree.
Like shorthand, the word God is a stand-in which functions in Christian theology almost as "X" functions in algebra.

In an algebraic problem, one's concern is "X." But "X" is the stand-in for the thing one doesn't know.

That is how God functions in Christian theology. It is the name of the Mystery that lies at the root of all that exists.

,and no one religion, faith, church nor belief system can claim it as their own only.

True. I am content to accept the entity we call 'God' is an incomprehensible Mystery.

 

[viole]

This question is mostly to people who lack the belief in God (Mono).

Let's put aside for a second the term God and all the ways people try and define this god.

Would you agree that there must be an initial cause to everything?

Of course not. The reasons for my refutal are both nomological and logical.

The nomological reason is that causality applies to things in a space-temporal context in thermodynamic disequilibium. Ergo, when there is already a lot of stuff around. Unless you are able to give me a definition of cause that does not assume these things (e.g. a time and a direction thereof).

The logical reason is that if that cause is something, then it cannot have predated everything. Since something is contained in everything, that would entail that the cause predates or causes itself, which is logically absurd.

On top of that, a more modern ontology of time, for instance B series, rules out that the Universe, as a whole, could have had any origin at all. In other words, things like “coming from” are totaly inapplicable. So, all those first cause arguments assume Newtonian time (the one of our intuition) which has been discredited more than 100 years ago.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

When i say cause i mean something that triggered something else.
It can be one thing that triggered many...
At the beginning of the chain, there can be only one

And by the way, even if we insist in our deprecated intuition of time, it is easy to imagine a causality chain, in which everything has a causal antecedent, that has no initial cause and yet takes a finite amount of time to unfold.

So, how many independent ways do we have to refute the idea of a first cause? I count quite a few. And none of then needs to go into QM and virtual particles, or something from nothing ala Krauss at all. It would be like using an atom bomb to kill a mosquito.

Ciao

- viole

 

[LuisDantas]

Do we realize that each and every contributor to this thread has been glorifying the Divine at varying levels ?
(most of them unintentionally - except for a few).

I for one do not realize that, nor would I agree with or encourage such a claim.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

A question for those who don't admit that there must always be a cause. If you computer stops working, what do you do?
1. Try to work out what's wrong.
2. Ask a more experienced person for help.
3. Do nothing and hope it will work tomorrow. After all, if things can happen without a cause, what's the point of (1) or (2)?