The Most Basic Question...

[Quintessence]

Could it be that perhaps some do not ask the question out of a fear that the pursuit of its answer may indeed change how they view these relationships?

Yes, I'll happily grant that. That is how I myself approach the question when I must - origin stories contextualize the relationships we have to that which is. In most respects, that's what the old Pagan stories were all about. They were less about explaining things and more about articulating relationships and passing down cultural knowledge in societies that only had oral communication for doing that.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Short answer: Because nothing is nothing.

I like my answer better: "Nothing is impossible."

That doesn't mean what people usually take it to mean -- in my view "nothing" is unstable, and would very quickly break down into something and anti-something (with a total sum of still nothing; no angular momentum, no mass, no charge, etc.)

 

[vulcanlogician]

The question I am trying to ask -- for anyone who would like to try actually "philosophising," is simply this: "why can't something exist without something to cause it to exist, and yet the cause can exist without a cause?"

I think that our awareness of the fact that "nothing causes nothing" (which is very true, has led to some kind of bias where "nothing" is the default state of affairs... it needs no justification for it's existence, while "something" must have a causal explanation.

It's not the worst bias to have, seeing how all the "somethings" in our universe turn out to have casual explanations. But, at the same time, there is no reason to think that the default state of the universe needs to be "nothing" rather than "something."

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

* The universe was not inevitable.

* Universe causes cannot be lower than universe effects.

* Man as a moral being is inexplicable unless the reality of the Universal Father is acknowledged.

"The universe was not inevitable?" I don't know that to either true or false. I just suspect that it is impossible for non-existence to exist, as that would be a contradiction.

"Universe causes cannot be lower than universe effects?" Haven't a clue what that even means, but I cannot help but think of reactions happening in chains, which eventually result in something much, much larger than the triggering action.

"Man as a moral being is inexplicable unless the reality of the Universal Father is acknowledged." Disagree absolutely! All that moral man requires to be explicable is the existence of others.

 

[Colt]

"The universe was not inevitable?" I don't know that to either true or false. I just suspect that it is impossible for non-existence to exist, as that would be a contradiction.

"Universe causes cannot be lower than universe effects?" Haven't a clue what that even means, but I cannot help but think of reactions happening in chains, which eventually result in something much, much larger than the triggering action.

"Man as a moral being is inexplicable unless the reality of the Universal Father is acknowledged." Disagree absolutely! All that moral man requires to be explicable is the existence of others.

Humans can be moral and deny the source of morality. Kids can rebel against their parents, run away from home and pretend that they never existed. The universe is an effect not a cause.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Humans can be moral and deny the source of morality. Kids can rebel against their parents, run away from home and pretend that they never existed. The universe is an effect not a cause.

Again, the sole source of "morality" in humans is human nature.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Most of humanity (on the numbers, I'd say "virtually all" of humanity) has decided that there must be something "outside," something "not this," that caused our existence.

I think there must be the ultimate ground of being - existence of all things depends on it. Grounding is a concept different from the dependence of an effect on its cause.

I think there is no separation between the Absolute and contingent things. All is one. Why there is something at all? The Absolute ofcourse just is. Why are there all the things and changes? A natural flow/order/emanation or is there some intent/creation? Or both?

 

[rational experiences]

The everything is the chosen subject.

Man's topic and subject chosen.

What was it before it became what it is now? Creation.

For what reason you ask yourself.

I'm informed about nothing. The idea of it is fear invoking.

I don't like to be afraid.

So I'll summarise a theme what is nothing to comfort myself.

As I've seen missing mass as huge holes in earth. Knowledge aware of is always given to the human. Given.

Hence I know what exists came from somewhere not a hole...nothing.

As I realised whatever it once had all been can also can be burnt out removed.

Hence as I live inside a non nothing state filled in by gases. A long time before it must have been present as a background and spiritual...not burning.

However I knew gases were from burning.

So I knew once the background was not burning.

In causes the background now is cold nothing...not as frightening as the thought a background burning.

How you came about claiming why nothing was holier by your analogy than burning.

So if you say from O pressure nothingness holding bodies as mass now isn't any background.

Nothing plus mass equals what used to be some type of spiritual pre background.

Which then entails I knew humans had entered into the heavens as the background was gone first. Nothing. Yet it has nothing to do with humans.

Bringing forth the idea my first two parents the animals the nature are not held as fixed mass in nothing....is not the background now.

It came into it as an entry.

Placing another topic in the review a question from what place.

The advice is about a body that was not burning. Had always existed...which isn't space nothing if now is heavens gases. To claim a pre history of where did it come from.

How was it caused separated.

O space nothing a hole O was mass energy held Gods entry.

As the total endless body of nothing lost background mass.

As nothing is its end.

You cannot use a word unless it is completed.

Why the eternal is not the topic or subject Infinite nothingness.

The word Eternal means what always did and had and still existed.

The word Eternal hell is separation burning stopping of burning Cooling due to separation and no longer Eternal. Created creation all of it...space nothing included.

Our teaching says even though you came from the eternal you were given an end.

Our living earth status says higher than created creations end as Skeletal bone mineral dusts. On earth. As we entered the heavens from the Eternal side.

Not nothing or we'd end up as nothing also. At death.

The subjects topics all chosen answered by humans.

 

[joelr]

If time came into existence then this first cause would have caused time.
I don't know what pure potentiality is, or if it is simple or not.
I don't know if consciousness is any more or less complex than pure potentiality.
I don't know if a first cause needs to be simple.

Our local time came into existence at the big bang. The same natural forces we see are probably responsible for all creation.
We do know if consciousness is complex. It is. Consciousness just existing with no evolution isn't something demonstrated to be possible.
Pure potentiality exists at the base of the quantum world. It is far more simple than consciousness which requires a complex organism. No other evidence exists otherwise.

These type of questions do not demonstrate Zeus or Krishna exists and Jesus is no more historical. His stories are equally mythical.

I did not use time in my answer, I used a number of causes and said that we could not be at the infiniteth one yet.
But yes I do use reality (causality) and don't go into the B theory of time where it is theorised, speculated, that time and causality are not real as we know them. But the whole thing seems to be just a way to escape into a fantasy world where nothing is real, strawberry fields forever, in an attempts to go forward (backward) and make other speculations in a world where some obvious brick walls are not there any more.
But yes time it seems does go faster or slower in different places and that does not mean anything concerning time going into the past imo.

Time is a result of the 3 space dimensions, 1 time dimension and the speed of light. This gives us causality. Before the universe this local time did not exist. So an infinite regress isn't proven to even be something that is real.
The only fantasy world people are trying to escape too is one where a conscious being started reality. That is fantasy. Further and much more fictitious fantasy is actual stories in religions being historical. Inana was not real. Yahweh was a typical Near Eastern deity. Later Jesus was a typical Greek/Persian deity. Those are stories.

No we aren't talking specifics, we are just talking a first cause as a reason everything else exists.
Why the first cause exists is another question and actually turns the first cause into not the first cause, if you want a cause for the first cause.

The question is why does anything exist. a "first cause" is a paradox anyways. It implies there was a time before that where there was literally nothing? It is likely there are pockets or universes that have causality or time and areas of no time, possibly an infinite amount. But since time isn't universal there is no infinite regress.

 

[Left Coast]

The question I am trying to ask -- for anyone who would like to try actually "philosophising," is simply this: "why can't something exist without something to cause it to exist, and yet the cause can exist without a cause?"

This is an exercise in philosophy. Do your best.

The "classic" answer a la the kalam argument is that things that begin to exist have a cause. The cause of the universe didn't begin to exist, thus it requires no cause of its own.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

The "classic" answer a la the kalam argument is that things that begin to exist have a cause. The cause of the universe didn't begin to exist, thus it requires no cause of its own.

But that presents a difficulty, as this "cause" must be: uncaused, creative, ultimately simple and time-insensitive (it either created the universe in precisely the same instant as it was "uncreated," or it must have waited an infinite amount of time).

Thus, by Occam's Razor, it is much simpler to accept that the universe itself was uncaused, and therefore not in need of a cause. The only theory that says this is not true is the Big Bang, which many cosmologists are coming to believe is just a single, and probably not-very-important, even in the multiverse (which would, then, by definition, actually be "the universe," while ours is but an insignificant, short-lived event within it.

 

[Left Coast]

But that presents a difficulty, as this "cause" must be: uncaused, creative, ultimately simple and time-insensitive (it either created the universe in precisely the same instant as it was "uncreated," or it must have waited an infinite amount of time).

If it's uncreated, thus uncaused, and ultimately simple and time insensitive, "waiting an infinite amount of time" would not apply to it.

Thus, by Occam's Razor, it is much simpler to accept that the universe itself was uncaused, and therefore not in need of a cause.

This would only hold if the universe didn't have a beginning.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

If it's uncreated, thus uncaused, and ultimately simple and time insensitive, "waiting an infinite amount of time" would not apply to it.

This would only hold if the universe didn't have a beginning.

If its "ultimately simple," what gives it the power to create?

And that's what I'm saying, the universe (not our little episode within it, which WE call "the universe") did not have a beginning.

 

[Left Coast]

If its "ultimately simple," what gives it the power to create?

"Simple" means "without parts." I'm not sure why that would prevent it from having the power to create. We're positing a cause for the universe, so obviously if such a thing exists it has the power to cause it.

And that's what I'm saying, the universe (not our little episode within it, which WE call "the universe") did not have a beginning.

Do we have evidence that this is the case? AFAIK we cannot know (scientifically) what happened before the Big Bang.

Also, do you regard the universe as necessary, then? Ie, it couldn't possibly not exist?

 

[PureX]

The universe is an effect not a cause.

And we can recognize that there was something prior to that effect. And that something was possibility, and some degree of impossibility. Both necessary for any particular thing to occur.

Time (before/after) is not really the issue, here. It's the presence of possibility and limitation expressed in the result that indicates origin.

 

[Brian2]

Our local time came into existence at the big bang. The same natural forces we see are probably responsible for all creation.
We do know if consciousness is complex. It is. Consciousness just existing with no evolution isn't something demonstrated to be possible.
Pure potentiality exists at the base of the quantum world. It is far more simple than consciousness which requires a complex organism. No other evidence exists otherwise.

These type of questions do not demonstrate Zeus or Krishna exists and Jesus is no more historical. His stories are equally mythical.

The BB seems to be when our local time came into existence.
We don't know what caused the BB or creation.
We don't know what the basis of consciousness is. If you are a materialist then I suppose it has to have a physical basis.
"Potentiality" sounds like a vague concept.
These types of questions don't demonstrate that god/s are not real.

Time is a result of the 3 space dimensions, 1 time dimension and the speed of light. This gives us causality. Before the universe this local time did not exist. So an infinite regress isn't proven to even be something that is real.
The only fantasy world people are trying to escape too is one where a conscious being started reality. That is fantasy. Further and much more fictitious fantasy is actual stories in religions being historical. Inana was not real. Yahweh was a typical Near Eastern deity. Later Jesus was a typical Greek/Persian deity. Those are stories.

Yes an infinite regress isn't proven to even be something that is real. So a first cause is a possibility, and as far as we know, a probability.
The stories might be true of course, or some of them might be true.
In all these things science and history cannot come up with "God" as an answer, the answer must be natural or historian, scientist is not practising their discipline correctly.

The question is why does anything exist. a "first cause" is a paradox anyways. It implies there was a time before that where there was literally nothing? It is likely there are pockets or universes that have causality or time and areas of no time, possibly an infinite amount. But since time isn't universal there is no infinite regress.

How can literally nothing produce anything?
A first cause implies the existence of that cause before (if that is the right word) the things caused.

 

[InChrist]

I've heard tell that the most "basic question" that we can try to answer is "why is there something rather than nothing?" (Other's might think the most basic question is "why won't my willie let me alone," but let's ignore that one for this discussion.)

It seems that many people cannot understand why there is a universe at all (I'm in that group -- I accept it, but don't understand it).

Everyone, as I understand it, agrees that "nothing comes from nothing." (I'm not sure, but I think that makes some kind of sense...but

Yet, here we are, and all we curious humans want to know why and how we got here.

How do you approach this? Most of humanity (on the numbers, I'd say "virtually all" of humanity) has decided that there must be something "outside," something "not this," that caused our existence.

But on what basis do you suppose that? Is it wrong to ask, if our universe, our existence is impossible, "what makes an outside cause possible?" Where did it come from, why does it exist, what kind of thing is it that existed and plotted creation when there was -- literally -- nothing but it?

The question I am trying to ask -- for anyone who would like to try actually "philosophising," is simply this: "why can't something exist without something to cause it to exist, and yet the cause can exist without a cause?"

This is an exercise in philosophy. Do your best.

Because things which exist point to a cause: creation means there’s a Creator…


In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness [a]was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Genesis 1:1-3

The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Psalm 19:1-3

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse…
Romans 1:20

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Because things which exist point to a cause: creation means there’s a Creator…

And if a Creator exists, by precisely the same logic, that points to a cause for said Creator -- in other words, a Creator Creator. And so on ad infinitum.

 

[Brian2]

And if a Creator exists, by precisely the same logic, that points to a cause for said Creator -- in other words, a Creator Creator. And so on ad infinitum.

Ad infinitum points us to an infinity of these creators and so we cannot be at this creator yet. So we cannot go back ad infinitum.
We go back to the point we get to a creator that was not created, had no cause. Then we know we are at the one that is the first cause.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Ad infinitum points us to an infinity of these creators and so we cannot be at this creator yet. So we cannot go back ad infinitum.
We go back to the point we get to a creator that was not created, had no cause. Then we know we are at the one that is the first cause.

But you ignored the logic supplied by @InChrist, which is that "things which exist point to a cause." So if you posit a "creator that was not created, had no cause," then you admit that such a thing cannot exist. That is the essential logic of this argument.

The only way out of it is to decide that there are two kinds of existing things -- the ones that need to be caused and the ones that don't. But you'll never find a rational basis to build that edifice on.