The first cause argument

[rational experiences]

Human conscious thinker.

Subject owner. Theist.

I think about such and such then about something else. Lots of lots of thoughts as subjects.

Creation said his brother just "is".

Bible topic human consciousness by word usage.

Human imposed in any given moment.

Words however do not own natural history.

So men taught his story is only history. A human.

A human he taught lives the rest of the portion of missing information that creation didn't own. Being.

The conscious portion.

Then dies as the status said I got evicted out of the eternal as first and only cause. The creator being.

I inherited my karma.

Since the moment of change to the body eternal I have reportedly tried to put myself back into the origin highest state. First and origin moment without secondary cause burning.

So I taught I am the destroyer to try to get over my instinctive behaviour to research and cause new change.

As a man scientist I am just a liar.

Natural life natural conditions is first.

First there was no rich man.

Is my exact correct man's answer. The destroyer purpose.

Any word you use a human is saying it.

 

[blü 2]

Stay happy.

Thank you.

One day you might like to try thinking in clearly defined terms ─ or of course you might not.

Just a thought. Go well.

 

[sayak83]

But the coin had a cause.

I was addressing the question of whether there exists events in this universe that cannot be ascribed as having prior causes. The answer is there are, viz. "the randomized collapse of quantum wavefunctions into one of the possible eigenvalues. " Thus all events in this universe cannot be ascribed as having been "caused".
I believe your arguments needs all events to have been caused by prior events to have validity. This is not the case to the best of our current knowledge. So the argument does not hold up.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

This argument falls down when someone asks "Where did the "Thing that caused the first cause" come from?

I beleive that answer is already built into the information that firedragen provided for the arguement. I.e.

1. The first cause is not defined as an originated thing. It is the "first cause" and definition "the" source of "originated things."
   
2. P1: Every being that has a beginning has a cause for its beginning.
   P2: The universe has a beginning.
   C : Thus its "possesses" a cause for its beginning.
   • This posits that the "first cause" a) not a being, be) has no beginning, and thus has noting that caused it to be. I.e. it is the "first cause". It it had a predecessor then it would not be the "first cause."
3. For example, if the thing that created the universe was itself created then it is not the "first cause."
4. If the "first cause" created time, conceptually and realistically, then the "First cause" is not subject to its creation. I.e. before time was created there was no such thing as past, present, and future.
   • I.e. a reality beyond what things that are subject time can express.

It is similar to the question of "what caused the big bang?" If as some theories state there was no time and there was no matter, as we understand matter, then what caused a situaiton w/o time and matter to change into a situation with time and with matter? Also, if there were multiple big bangs, was there a first one? If so, what caused the first one? Also, if life developed on a planet what was the very first steps that caused life and what put in place the possiility of that first life? I.e. at some point a process has a singularity and what ever caused it is not subject to it.

This is how the arguement of the "first cause" is considered conceptually.

 

[sayak83]

I should first restate what is being said in my own words:
P1: Every existence that has a point in time at which it starts has a person or thing that gives rise to it.
P2: All existing matter and space considered as a whole has, collectively, a point in time when it started.
C: All existing matter and space considered as a whole has a person or thing that gives rise to it.
The argument that every existence is dependent upon some other existence, dependent upon some other existence, dependent upon some other existence, etc. forms a vicious infinite regression. Therefore, the universe has a beginning.



An interesting idea, would this change the argument to be...
P1: That which came into being has a cause.
P2: The universe came into being.
C: The universe has a cause.
?



In philosophy, infinite regress of dependency is bad.
Vicious Regress can be said to occur if there is an impossibility, an implausibility, or a failure to explain. An inifinite regress of causes is a failure to explain. The universe is "All existing matter and space considered as a whole."



Comparing to the Hilbert Hotel misses the point.



Philosophically, we don't care if there is an infinite regress, except to say that it fails to explain and therefore is not an acceptable argument.



Infinite Regress does not contradict the notion of a first cause.






I think the objection stands that these are not philosophical facts.
The claim of something from nothing is an old claim made by people using "science", that has often later demonstrated itself to be simple ignorance.



The philosophical question does not depend on whether or not there was a Big Bang. Your information, even if it were true, is irrelevant.



Yes, in fact, the reason why the question of the coin toss cannot be answered is ignorance. Our ignorance is what makes the outcome "random".



I'm not sure this matters to the OP. Something that begins has a point in time when it starts. Time cannot be conceived as a being or entity existing independently of temporal phenomena. Time does not have an independent ontological existence.

_____________________________________________________________


My thoughts...
The argument is clearly valid, but is it true?

I think that the easier premise to attack in the OP is the premise that the universe began. The Big Bang is a Scientific Theory - not a philosophical fact, so that argument has no power here. !!!
What then?
Philosophically speaking, why does the universe have a beginning?

It is not ignorance that makes the quantum version of coin tosses random. Einstein believed that but he has been proved wrong. We know that quantum coin toss type events are TRULY RANDOM and there is no fact of the matter, which if known, would make it possible to predict the quantum outcomes from prior causes.
Google EPR and Quantum Mechanics.

 

[sayak83]

So did the flip

But the results from the flip did not have a cause (the quantum version of this coin toss).

 

[leroy]

Don't agree because that doesn't help. Anyone who is inquisitive will say, "OK, X causes Y... but what caused X?"

And the answer can easily be "I dont know" lets leave that question aside for future inquiry.

You dont need to know where did viruses come from in order to stablish that viruses exist.

 

[leroy]

Huh?
The argument is that everything needs a cause, but there must be a "first cause". Whatever anyone presents as the "first cause" one simply says, what caused that? Simply claiming "nothing" means that we can do away with that first cause and claim that the next thing up the line requires no cause. The whole house of cards unravels because once you insist that something can exist without a cause, then that can apply to the thing the cause is required to have caused.

Strawman (in red letters above) no body is claiming that "everything needs a cause" just everything that begins to excist requires a cause

 

[sayak83]

How is that a non-answer? I don't think actual randomness (as I understand it at least) actually exist, but it seems to me "because the coin flipped" is a valid answer, that's the cause of said event.

The question is
What caused a head to fall rather than a tail in that particular coin flip?
You are saying the answer is that "A coin was flipped? "

 

[Lain]

The question is
What caused a head to fall rather than a tail in that particular coin flip?
You are saying the answer is that "A coin was flipped? "

I see I misunderstood the question, my answer would be beyond the scope of the thread. Thank you for clarifying matters.

 

[rational experiences]

The first cause argument.

The first cause is an argument.

Why the man of science was told by his man brother both living first on earth ...creation just "is".

Now if you say to a theist are you just having an argument only?

The truth is no he is not.

He wants a theory to invent new energy reactive resource.

By a machine being alchemised from energetic Alchemy change. First.

So rationally if he can be rational he owns no argument.. as he is pretending a machine existed first that reacted energy into being without it existing yet.

Father explained it as self man thought possession.

First natural man theories without owning energy.

Then he changed cold fused mass to get energy. God he said was dead cold didn't exist as light. Then God the mass made light energy conversion. Science. Human science.

Machine.

Then he took more cold mass reacted it. God created energy he says.

Then life ended on earth in a man of science big bang blast.

His man of gods memory creator destroyer.

 

[We Never Know]

But the results from the flip did not have a cause (the quantum version of this coin toss).

There would be no results if the coin (which was caused), wasnt flipped (which was caused).

 

[sayak83]

There would be no results if the coin (which was caused), wasnt flipped (which was caused).

Do you believe that the answer to the question
"What caused the coin to land heads instead of tails? "
Is that : there was a coin which was flipped.
?

 

[Shadow11]

The theory is shifting

The standard big bang theory says the universe began with a massive explosion, but the new theory suggests it is a cyclic event that consists of repeating big bangs.

Under his theory, published in the journal Science with Paul Steinhardt at Princeton University in New Jersey, the universe must be at least a trillion years old with many big bangs happening before our own. With each bang, the theory predicts that matter keeps on expanding and dissipating into infinite space before another horrendous blast of radiation and matter replenishes it. "I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though," said Prof Turok. "There doesn't have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large."

 

[Polymath257]

That's not quite true in practice.
Conclusions that are derived from data, often are arrived at by presupostions.
There are many theories of how the universe started, and many of today's scientists often make it all about the interpretation of quantum theory.

It is notoriously difficult to interpret.
To say that the universe as a whole has no cause is a massive statement, particularly if arrived at by quantum considerations.

But the point is that it is a distinct possibility. It is a *logical* possibility and the opposite (a caused universe) is far from being proved.

And that is enough to bring the argument in the OP into question.

 

[Lain]

The theory is shifting

The standard big bang theory says the universe began with a massive explosion, but the new theory suggests it is a cyclic event that consists of repeating big bangs.

Under his theory, published in the journal Science with Paul Steinhardt at Princeton University in New Jersey, the universe must be at least a trillion years old with many big bangs happening before our own. With each bang, the theory predicts that matter keeps on expanding and dissipating into infinite space before another horrendous blast of radiation and matter replenishes it. "I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though," said Prof Turok. "There doesn't have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large."

The ancient Greek philosophers keep taking turns on whose theory will be dominant. I suppose that's their afterlife. It's rather fascinating to behold.

 

[Polymath257]

You've hit the nail on the head !
This is at the core of people's arguments in this thread.
They claim that things that are not deterministic do not have a cause.

This argument has been going on ever since the time of Einstein.
Is random truly random?

Many scientists claim to have answered this question with a "yes", but philosophically speaking, it makes little sense
A true/perfect random phenomena can't be realised in a finite world.

it makes sense, but the philosophers don't like it. As far as we can tell, quantum events are, in fact, truly random. Furthermore, this is a thing that can be tested (are there hidden variables?) and the tests have been done: quantum mechanics works and classical causality fails.

 

[We Never Know]

Do you believe that the answer to the question
"What caused the coin to land heads instead of tails? "
Is that : there was a coin which was flipped.
?

I'm not stating a belief at all.
I'm simply stating..."There would be no results if the coin (which was caused), wasn't flipped (which was caused)"

Do you agree?


Edit....

Lets say the result is heads, which was caused by the coin being flipped.
The coin landed on a surface(which was caused)
The coin has a cause(someone made it)
The flip has a cause(I flipped it)
I have a cause(my parents)
They have a cause(their parents)
Etc, etc, etc all the way back to the start of everything.

 

[Polymath257]

It is more complex than that.
You say "if" time is a property..
It IS a property as we have defined it as such.
However, there is more than one way of envisaging time.
We have only envisaged it in relation to our physical reality.

Furthermore, the time-dilation that occurs due to relativity is non-intuitive, and should give us a clue that something weird is at play here.
We talk about the speed of light being a constant. That is also a defintion.
It is necessary to make definitions, in order to explain phenomena.

However, we shouldn't lose track of the fact that it is ourselves who have defined basic units of time, length etc.
That is so we don't end up using circular reasoning when coming to conclusions.

..just saying

And it is general relativity that shows that space and time *together* form a geometry of spacetime that should be taken as a whole.

Modern cosmology looks at the universe as *all* of spacetime. Time dilation and such are merely the result of different coordinate systems on that four dimensional manifold.

What we can say with some certainty is that ALL causes are within the universe and ALL causes happen over time.

That means two things:

1. It is impossible for time to be caused.

2. It is impossible for spacetime as a whole (the universe) to be caused.

And that means either

1. There is an infinite regress of time

OR

2. The universe began to exist without being caused.

 

[Polymath257]

I should first restate what is being said in my own words:
P1: Every existence that has a point in time at which it starts has a person or thing that gives rise to it.
P2: All existing matter and space considered as a whole has, collectively, a point in time when it started.
C: All existing matter and space considered as a whole has a person or thing that gives rise to it.
The argument that every existence is dependent upon some other existence, dependent upon some other existence, dependent upon some other existence, etc. forms a vicious infinite regression. Therefore, the universe has a beginning.

That is the argument. The problem is that it isn't explained why an infinite regression is a problem.

An interesting idea, would this change the argument to be...
P1: That which came into being has a cause.
P2: The universe came into being.
C: The universe has a cause.
?

In philosophy, infinite regress of dependency is bad.

Then philosophy needs to grow up and learn about infinity.

Vicious Regress can be said to occur if there is an impossibility, an implausibility, or a failure to explain. An inifinite regress of causes is a failure to explain. The universe is "All existing matter and space considered as a whole."

The most fundamental facts *cannot* have deeper explanations. They have to simply be 'raw facts'. If there is an infinite regress, that would be a 'raw fact' not requiring any further explanation.

But, if there is a first cause, the problem remains: there is no explanation of that first cause. So either way there is a lack of explanation at some point.

Comparing to the Hilbert Hotel misses the point.

How so? it shows that an infinite regress is a logical possibility.

More accurately, the model of the negative integers (0, -1, -2, -3, ...) is one where everything has a predecessor (so, -5 has -6 as a predecessor) and yet there is no 'first' negative integer.

That shows the concept is not self-contradictory. If you want to avoid that, you need a separate argument to show such is impossible.

Philosophically, we don't care if there is an infinite regress, except to say that it fails to explain and therefore is not an acceptable argument.

Failure to explain is inevitable. The question is what is real.

Infinite Regress does not contradict the notion of a first cause.

If there is an infinite regress of causes, there is no first cause in that sequence.