Thief
Rogue Theologian
the creation is evidence
Cause and effect
and the universe (one word)
was formed before you
and will keep it's form long after you are gone
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The First Cause
- Thread starter Unveiled Artist
- Start date
Cause and effect
and the universe (one word)
was formed before you
and will keep it's form long after you are gone
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
But nothing, while inconceivable, is definitely known and is a concept. It is a known debate among philosophers whether or not there is any nothingness but it's really inconclusive (as is basically all ontological arguments as far as I'm aware). Even still, the fact that there is something should mean there could've just as likely not have been something. They are opposite sides of the same coin. - Could you explain to me why 'something' must exist? Is there some law in the absence-of-anything-ness that dictates that it can't sustain itself and therefore something must exist at all times?
I thought you were saying that causality is a property of time. Why are you saying that causality creates time?
I'm sorry I'm not sure what you mean here.
epronovost
Well-Known Member
Because there is an abundance of stuff in the cosmos and there is a cosmos.
Causality allows "dynamism". Without "dynamism" there is no point of reference to establish timespace and everythin is "static and immobile".
But only of physics. Nothing we observe suggests sentience, planning or purpose.
But no longer strict instead subject to some extent to random QM events ie events that don't have a cause in the classical sense.
It's good when we can agree on these matters!
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
What I'm asking is why is that there instead of nothing at all?
That's true. But "dynamism" as I understand it also requires spacetime to exist. This becomes a chicken or the egg scenario: which was first, Time or Causality? Causality is meaningless without time and time would be dysfunctional without causality.
Brian2
Veteran Member
All the fossils confirm the claim but especially the fossils of early humans along with the words of God to the first humans that we have been put in charge of the world. Then we look at humanity today and see that we have been put in charge of all the earth and what we do here matters for the welfare of the planet and life on it.
Genesis 1:26Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
This can be equally applied to any god (or any other proposed cause for the universe). Why there is something rather than nothing is not a question that a god can answer.
It's simply unknown if time is infinite in the past. There is no fundamental reason why it can't be. However, general relativity give us the manifold picture of space-time. The manifold is a (static, unchanging) four-dimensional object. Time and causality can only exist within it.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
See above (#147) about the manifold. There are actually many different hypotheses, including quantum tunnelling from effectively 'nothing', closed time-like loops, cyclic models, and so on. If you're interested, here's some light entertainment for you:
Before the Big Bang 1 - Loop Quantum Cosmology Explained
Before the big bang 2 - Conformal Cyclic Cosmology explained (part 7 is an update of this)
Before the Big Bang 3: String Theory Cosmology (unfortunately there's no sound for about the first minute)
Before the Big Bang 4 : Eternal Inflation & The Multiverse
Before the Big Bang 5: The No Boundary Proposal
Before the Big Bang 6: Can the Universe Create Itself?
Before the Big Bang 7: An Eternal Cyclic Universe, CCC revisited & Twistor Theory
Before the Big Bang 8: Varying Speed Of Light Cosmology (VSL)
Before the Big Bang 9: A Multiverse from "Nothing"
Before the Big Bang 1O : Black Hole Genesis
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Unless God is something between something and nothing. Perhaps God is existence itself. Just like water isn't wet, God isn't 'something'.
Not only that but God is timeless, the universe is bound by time considering the universe is literally spacetime.
The only way I could see time being infinite in the past is if it were a loop, the cause of the universe and the end of the universe either connect or just do not exist at all. The future leads into itself.
If time just stretched infinitely backwards with no beginning at all but time doesn't round into itself, there would be a paradox. Causality happens only by cause first and effect coming last. So sure there could be an endless chain of causes and effects allowing spacetime to continue forever, but there couldn't be an endless chain of causes because if that were the case there could be no original cause and if there's no original cause, there are no effects.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Looks like a self-contradiction. I've heard Feser's argument about god being the basis of existence but when he tries to then add the other characteristics of his god into it, it just gets silly.
The space-time itself (as a whole) is timeless because it contains (all of) time. Also, something that's timeless cannot change, act, think, plan, or create anything.
Doesn't follow - you simply wouldn't have an original cause - just an infinite number of them.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Not sure who that is.
I think existence is just too clever to not be planned. I understand that we're small on the cosmic scale but the stories of our human existence is just an amazing one to tell. You have the growth and development of a species arising from animal-like, dumb creatures into having cultures and laws, art and literature, space exploration, philosophy and religion. We're a highly creative species with great intelligence and self awareness. Created in God's image, right?
And just imagine the size of the universe, how many other stories there are like these. They will come from oblivion and return to oblivion, just like our story did and will. Just as the universe did and will. It's all a great epic story in my eyes. One big connected story built upon unimaginable numbers of small stories interacting in ways we do not conceive. It is the universe itself experiencing these stories, we're all the same 'I' in our deepest roots
That's just how I feel anyways. If God or existence itself didn't plan this all out I'd be a little surprised.
But those causes wouldn't exist, because they are the effects of previous causes. The original cause must exist otherwise no effects (thus no cause) exists.
You cannot have an infinite set of dominoes because the first one needs to fall.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
I wouldn't bother then. Just that if you try to make god into something that underlies all of existence, it's very difficult to then think of it as a being who thinks, plans, and acts (all of which, need time).
Looks like personal incredulity with a side helping wishful thinking.
Not if there isn't a first one. You're also still caught up in looking at time as if it really literally passes. Time is a direction through space-time. The idea of 'now' is no more significant than 'here'.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Not for an omniscient, omnipotent force.
Yes, indeed. It's interesting to me how you can call it all a coincidence though. The universe in every aspect is amazingly creative - it has countless stories from an individual ant, to a human, to a town, to a country, to an overall planet, to other planets.... The universe itself is just one great story composed of infinite ones.
Time, as I understand it, is a dimension just like space.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
You can't actually have a force without time either, but I guess you weren't using the term literally. I really don't see how omniscience or omnipotence helps or, for that matter, how you could make anything that was the basis of existence have those characteristics.
I don't think I did, did I?
Yes (sort of) - which is why the dominoes don't really make sense.
Brian2
Veteran Member
God answered that He created it all.
Logically it is known that time is not infinite in the past. Otherwise we could not be here yet.
Why does the manifold picture of space-time say that it is static, unchanging, when the universe does change.
I can see why time exists inside this changing universe. (or seems to exist from our pov) but I cannot see why causality can only exist within this manifold.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
That doesn't answer why there is something rather than nothing. Why does this god of yours just happen to exist, rather than another god or gods, no gods, or nothing at all?
You're assuming a start in the infinite past, not no start at all, and an actual passage of time. The passage of time is not something that appears to be anything more than a perception. There is no more significance to 'now' as there is to 'here'.
Because time is a direction through the manifold. All the events of all of time are set out over that direction.
A cause is an event that leads to another event. Events happen at points in time.
epronovost
Well-Known Member
And that's a non-sense. A "why" implies a causal chain and a causal chain requires "stuff" and "dynamism".
And now you understand why trying to explain the feature of the observable universe usin causal chain reasonning is useless. Logic breaks down as you remove the fundamental parts of the universe that makes it a system capable of prediction and analysis.
Brian2
Veteran Member
He just is.
Says who?
That sounds like determinism.
Who or what caused the manifold to exist? Who or what set it all in motion?
Why couldn't the first cause be the first point in time, produced from outside of time.
Brian2
Veteran Member
Are you saying that cause and effect have not gone on from eternity? Are you saying that everything just popped into existence for no reason? Are you saying that cause and effect have worked all the time from eternity?
So if it cannot be understood then why bother trying to theorise about it?
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
So, basically just special pleading. Everything needs explaining until you get to what you want to believe and then we can just stop asking for explanations, yes? Why can't the universe (space-time) just be?
Einstein for starters; "The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Basically the passage of time (the idea of a present moving along the time dimension) doesn't appear in any physical theory. The whole idea of a single point in time (such as 'now') that applies everywhere breaks down even in special relativity.
Yes.
Why can't it just be?
The manifold, as a whole, isn't in motion.
The act of production is a temporal concept.