The causality approach (1 Viewer)

[Hist]

Kid: Mommy who created the world?
Mom: God created it honey.
Kid: Who created God?
Mom: No one did

The simple dialog that happens between many children and their parents all over the world holds a question that some people discuss everyday and other people never think of since the time they had the dialog with their mothers. The Question is "who created the world?"
Now to examine this question we have to outline 2 contradicting assumptions, each on its own and see where this takes us.
1) The world has no start or end (something precedes the big bang)
2) The world has a start (the big bang is the start)
!!world here refers to material existence of any form!!
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The principle of causality is our focal tool by which we will build all our conclusions under both assumptions, each at a time ofcourse. In its simplest form, the principle of causality would state that everything causes something and is an effect of another thing.
Any object in the world, is an effect of another object and a cause to another object too. This makes every cause also an effect and this chain is a natural unbreakable law. For example, If A causes B, and B causes C, and C causes D.
This would make it seem like A==>B==>C==>D
Thus following the principle of causality, "B" is an effect of "A' and causes "C". similarly, "C" is an effect of "B" and causes "D". "A" would necessarily be an effect of something and "D" would necessarily cause something, but the example is focused on "B" and "C" just to show the chain.
Keep this in mind while you are reading.
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(1)

I'll begin by trusting the 1st assumption which states that:
The world has no start or end.
I will take this as a fact and i will draw out the possible conclusions that may jump to your head by the simple abstract practicing of the principle of causality.

Every object is an effect and cause as i showed earlier under the principle of causality. If we try to look back in time following this principle we would arrive at two possibilities:
a) We fall in an infinite regress of causes and effects.
b) There is one cause that is NOT an effect of anything. (God)

The conclusion #a is absurd, according to Aristotle, because this would mean that the world exists without starting to exist and thus a cause yet not an effect and this, according to the causal principle, is impossible.

The conclusion #b is equally absurd, according to midgets worldwide, because it by definition breaks the causal principle by which we arrived at the suggested conclusion. There absolutely cannot be something that is a cause without being an effect, This is the principle and breaking it is impossible.

In a word the question: "where did the world come from?" would destroy conclusion #a as the world wouldn't exist if it never started.
on the other hand the question "where did god come from?" would destroy conclusion #b as God wouldn't exist if he never started.

If you were an atheist and willing to accept the breaking of the causal principle(even though practice shows its impossible) and thus take a leap of faith to believe that the world can exist without being an effect why wouldnt you take a leap of faith to believe God can exist without being an effect? Vice versa to theists. Can you really claim to KNOW and deny that you are taking a leap of Faith? Is any of you theists and atheists more objective than the other? Assuming the world had neither beginning nor end is equally absurd as assuming God has neither beginning nor end. so NO you are alike except for having contradicting faiths.
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(2)
Now I'll deny the first assumption and I'll assume the world did have a start.
This would seem at first sight to escape the conflict but would soon be the exact same problem as we always tend to look for a starting point. Under the other assumption we begun by claiming there was no start to the world and ended up looking for the start. The notion that if something exists then it came from somewhere and thus had a start always draws us back to the problem. (For ex: Can a Ref whistle half time without the match ever starting?) and then we think about that starting point and ask the same question where did the starting point start? who created the starting point?
This made theists eventually surrender to the idea that God is the starting point while atheists surrendered to the idea that the big bang is the starting point.

Now following the causal principle, both conclusions again would be equally absurd:
a) The big bang is a cause that is not an effect.
b) God is a cause that is not an effect.
some people may even mention that maybe god is the big bang lol.
Following the causal principles, God cannot NOT be an effect (i.e. if he exists then he is an effect). The Big bang too cannot NOT be an effect (i.e if it existed then it was an effect).
again both conclusions break our natural law and so we cant escape the fact that OUR NATURAL LAW MUST BE BROKEN FOR US TO BEGIN TO EXIST
,regardless of what you assume.
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Usually, Atheists suggest no solution to this problem while theists suggest one.
This was clear between Martin and Juve Revolution. Juve Rev said God can break the NATURAL LAW of causality because God is SUPER-NATURAL. Why would he make such a claim? how would he claim to know that God is super natural. I think its fairly obvious now with relation to the problem i discussed above.
We tried to search for the starting point of existence and we stopped first at the big bang which is a natural even. If you recall, our conclusion was that under assumption (1) scientists would have to accept the breaking of the Natural causal law to justify the world's existence. But if this where the case it would not be a Natural Law after-all because this would represent a clear breach of it.
Under assumption (2) too scientists would have to accept too the breaking of the natural law of causality. And If you recall, that was why i said there is no escape from breaking this Natural Law for both theists and atheists. But people wouldn't accept regarding the causal law as NOT a Law or a Breakable unreliable law and SO people like Juve Rev suggest that the only way to escape the breaking of this natural law was to claim that the start was a supernatural entity and thus the causal law is sustained and no breach had occurred. The Big bang however, is a natural event and this would make it a MUST that it abides by the law of causality unlike God that is supernatural.
In a word theists, "we exhausted every natural way we could think of, to explain how we exist without breaking the causal law, but we failed and so we created an empty concept that we know nothing of and called it supernatural so that it solves the problem while maintaining our laws."
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Here is the great difference i highlighted between natural and supernatural. If the distinction is vague then the entire foundation of the theistic faith would collapse. Because If God too had to abide by the natural laws then he would be nothing more than the big bang. However, there is a metaphysical need for existence of such deity to escape the destruction of the causal principle that we rely on everyday. This doesnt prove he exists, it is one of many cases where our minds where unable to find an explanation and the easiest answer was to blame it on something we call divine to serve our understanding purposes. So don't worry the leap of faith is still needed lol.

What do they mean by super-natural?

Something outside this universe is rather a lame way of putting it but it generally means something that does not exist under our concept and our understanding of the universe. Meaning, anything we can even image is natural.. unicorns, devils and any other image we create in our minds of these are natural.
Parmenides said that you cannot think What is NOT, you can only think what IS.
So God is unthinkable, god is what is NOT. anything that is NOT would be supernatural. Anything that IS is natural. What IS applies to our thoughts, our dreams, our imaginations and even a mere idea, it exists in anyform and we can experience its existence in one way or another and IS in our minds. What IS is what is intelligible. What is not is unintelligible.

So based on this, God is unintelligible by the human mind. We cannot even come close to him in any way nor can we describe him let alone think of him.
The highest knowledge we can attain of a deity like that would be the felt need that i emphasized before which demands an explanation to the problem with the causal law and this makes us believe in his existence.
There is no Direct proof of God's existence there are only metaphysical holes that are filled once we add him to the equation and are void without him. This metaphysical hole-filler, we can absolutely have no knowledge of him beyond this usage (using him as a supernatural) because he is What is NOT. He represents the breaches we need to explain things without destroying our natural physical laws. He is super-natural, unknowable, if he exists at all. That is why you cannot prove he doesn't exist, because in our terms he is nothing. he is unthinkable and thats why you cant directly prove he exists too.

 

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[swag]

Trucks go "vroom!"

 

[HelterSkelter]

And cigarettes go 'Sllsls'

That's the sound of the paper burning

 

[Hist]

Trucks go "vroom!"

lmfao

 

[Martin]

Your description of god was a good one, I think. And I also completely take your point that causality breaks down.

But instead of inventing ourselves a solution which doesn't explain a goddamn thing it would be much more honest just to admit that this axiom of causality fails to describe our natural world sufficiently well in all possible cases. Mind you, causality is not some sort of Law Of The Universe, it's a human invention. And as with all laws of nature, sometimes they're not correct in all possible cases.

As you have shown, in a finite sequence A, B, C, D it's obvious that A doesn't have a cause. How could it? The only way out of this is to say that the sequence is infinite, or that it's circular (D causes A).

The solution, I believe, is actually very simple. Causality is a binary operation, it is a link between two things. And this link can only exists if you have two things to link. In other words, suppose you have an effect Y, then you can find its cause X if you have some set of candidates causes from which to choose. If you don't, then Y doesn't have a cause, just like A in your example.

To put it a different way, picture a chess board.

On this board, you can ask the question "which cell is to the left of cell X"? We can use this as an analogy for causality. So d4 "comes before/is to the left of" e4. But to ask the question "what comes before a4?" is to misunderstand the meaning of "comes before", because clearly, then answer is "nothing".

If you like mathematics, this is called a partial function. "What comes before/what is to the left of?" is a partial function that gives an answer in most cases, but not all cases. There are cases for which it has no answer (a1, a2, .., a8). Knowing this, what is more sensible, to invent a "superchessboard" of some kind to so that we can answer "what is to the left of a4?", or simply admit that "what is to the left of" doesn't have an answer on the left edge?

"What is to the left of" only makes sense from column b onwards. That is the nature of "what is to the left of". Causality is the same. And the answer to "what is the cause of A?" is undefined. Not "there is an answer but we don't know what it is", but simply "there is no answer, this question is meaningless".

So to say that god is supernatural and therefore does not obey the law of causality is stupid, because it's clear that "the beginning of time" already does not obey causality!

 

[DelpieroForLife]

Your description of god was a good one, I think. And I also completely take your point that causality breaks down.

But instead of inventing ourselves a solution which doesn't explain a goddamn thing it would be much more honest just to admit that this axiom of causality fails to describe our natural world sufficiently well in all possible cases. Mind you, causality is not some sort of Law Of The Universe, it's a human invention. And as with all laws of nature, sometimes they're not correct in all possible cases.

As you have shown, in a finite sequence A, B, C, D it's obvious that A doesn't have a cause. How could it? The only way out of this is to say that the sequence is infinite, or that it's circular (D causes A).

The solution, I believe, is actually very simple. Causality is a binary operation, it is a link between two things. And this link can only exists if you have two things to link. In other words, suppose you have an effect Y, then you can find its cause X if you have some set of candidates causes from which to choose. If you don't, then Y doesn't have a cause, just like A in your example.

To put it a different way, picture a chess board.

On this board, you can ask the question "which cell is to the left of cell X"? We can use this as an analogy for causality. So d4 "comes before/is to the left of" e4. But to ask the question "what comes before a4?" is to misunderstand the meaning of "comes before", because clearly, then answer is "nothing".

If you like mathematics, this is called a partial function. "What comes before/what is to the left of?" is a partial function that gives an answer in most cases, but not all cases. There are cases for which it has no answer (a1, a2, .., a8). Knowing this, what is more sensible, to invent a "superchessboard" of some kind to so that we can answer "what is to the left of a4?", or simply admit that "what is to the left of" doesn't have an answer on the left edge?

"What is to the left of" only makes sense from column b onwards. That is the nature of "what is to the left of". Causality is the same. And the answer to "what is the cause of A?" is undefined. Not "there is an answer but we don't know what it is", but simply "there is no answer, this question is meaningless".

So to say that god is supernatural and therefore does not obey the law of causality is stupid, because it's clear that "the beginning of time" already does not obey causality!

I agree the general concept Martin, what you've said does make sense.

If we treat causality law as a partial binary function then we will have the following using your chessboard (chessboard example certainly assume that universe HAS a staring and ending point):

I'll just use Null as a mathematical representation of "there is no answer, this question is meaningless".

Array of Possibilities = [Null,a1,a2,a3,a4,a5,a6,a7,a8]
Y (effect).
X (cause).

If (Y=a2) (X= LEFT Y) => (X=a1)

If (Y=a1) (X= LEFT Y) => (X=Null)

Now lets define a new partial binary function named RIGHT.

If (X= LEFT Y) => (Y RIGHT X)

Obviously this claim is always true.

To accept (Null = LEFT a1) you have to prove (a1= RIGHT Null) which is impossible to prove INSIDE the Chessboard.

In other words if you are in the state "there is no answer, this question is meaningless" you have to prove you can move to cell a1 using one step to the RIGHT.

 

[Martin]

Good to see someone got it

Now lets define a new partial binary function named RIGHT.

If (X= LEFT Y) => (Y RIGHT X)

Obviously this claim is always true.

Always true inside the chessboard, but as you have demonstrated, it is not true in cases where NULL appears, because taking LEFT of a1 produces NULL, which is not an information preserving operation, from which you cannot restore a1 using RIGHT.

Introducing NULL gets you from a partial function to a total function, kind of. But it doesn't give you the ability to handle NULL the same as any other value, you have to have special handling for NULL (just as in programming ).

 

[sallyinzaghi]

what on earth do you guys do in your spare time ?????????????

 

[Martin]

what on earth do you guys do in your spare time ?????????????

this..

 

[DelpieroForLife]

Good to see someone got it



Always true inside the chessboard, but as you have demonstrated, it is not true in cases where NULL appears, because taking LEFT of a1 produces NULL, which is not an information preserving operation, from which you cannot restore a1 using RIGHT.

Introducing NULL gets you from a partial function to a total function, kind of. But it doesn't give you the ability to handle NULL the same as any other value, you have to have special handling for NULL (just as in programming ).

Pointers in programming is exactly what I was thinking of

The thing is, when we can't prove it using chessboard laws we have to accept that something can and this thing whatever it is doesn't follow the chessboard laws.

 

[Martin]

The thing is, when we can't prove it using chessboard laws we have to accept that something can and this thing whatever it is doesn't follow the chessboard laws.

But there is no answer to "left of a1". There is nothing there. That's the point: it's a partial function.

 

[DelpieroForLife]

But there is no answer to "left of a1". There is nothing there. That's the point: it's a partial function.

...

Always true inside the chessboard.

 

[Dinsdale]

I'm sorry, but I find your post very confusing. You're using a lot of personal assumptions and definitions, in order to show that someone else's are wrong.

For instance, you're talking about a 'leap of faith'. But the first leap of faith in your post I see is one you used yourself: that the causality principle holds on for everything. And after that you basically proved yourself why your own assumption is wrong.

When we're talking about "how did our universe (universe in the most broad sense) begin?", it seems implicitely obvious to me that this 'mechanism' must be acausal.

If your main conclusion is that it's unfair to choose one of atheism or theism (in the most broad sense) over the other, then I agree though.

Anyways, it's a big chunk of text. I'll reread it some other time and post some more thoughts then.

 

[DelpieroForLife]

I'm sorry, but I find your post very confusing. You're using a lot of personal assumptions and definitions, in order to show that someone else's are wrong.

For instance, you're talking about a 'leap of faith'. But the first leap of faith in your post I see is one you used yourself: that the causality principle holds on for everything. And after that you basically proved yourself why your own assumption is wrong.

That's exactly what I was trying to prove.

Causality law only apply within chessboard aka Martin.

PS. Posted before you edit your own post

 

[DelpieroForLife]

I'm sorry, but I find your post very confusing. You're using a lot of personal assumptions and definitions, in order to show that someone else's are wrong.

For instance, you're talking about a 'leap of faith'. But the first leap of faith in your post I see is one you used yourself: that the causality principle holds on for everything. And after that you basically proved yourself why your own assumption is wrong.

When we're talking about "how did our universe (universe in the most broad sense) begin?", it seems implicitely obvious to me that this 'mechanism' must be acausal.

If your main conclusion is that it's unfair to choose one of atheism or theism (in the most broad sense) over the other, then I agree though.

Anyways, it's a big chunk of text. I'll reread it some other time and post some more thoughts then.

You don't have to read anything anymore you have understood my point already

 

[DelpieroForLife]

Let me put it as simple as possible using the chessboard aka Martin.

1) We (human being) belong to chessboard.

2) Operations like LEFT and RIGHT is always true within chessboard.

3) Something like NULL isn't explainable within chessboard.

4) Taking all the above in consideration we can NEVER explain (a1 = RIGHT NULL).

Conclusion:

Q) Who created the starting point?

A) Hell, we can NEVER tell.

 

[Martin]

Exactly.

 

[DelpieroForLife]

Now here comes the turn of my "leap of faith"

If it wasn't for Mohammed I would certainly become agnostic, but IMO it was practically IMPOSSIBLE for Mohammed to lie and since Mohammed was telling the truth IMO then there must be God (a new fact which doesn't contradict ANYTHING I previously believed in).

 

[Cronios]

We can never tell, because it goes beyond our sphere our comprehension...

Unless, Someone who can understand, tries to help/explain us...

But why is this q so important to us?

 

[Martin]

Now here comes the turn of my "leap of faith"

If it wasn't for Mohammed I would certainly become agnostic, but IMO it was practically IMPOSSIBLE for Mohammed to lie and since Mohammed was telling the truth IMO then there must be God (a new fact which doesn't contradict ANYTHING I previously believed in).

Well it does contradict what you just said:

Conclusion:

Q) Who created the starting point?

A) Hell, we can NEVER tell.

If we can never tell, doesn't that mean that Mohammed, whoever he was, also could never tell?

Imagine if I'm Mohammed and you are god. What could you possibly say to me to convince me that you created the universe? Anything you could say you can't prove to me, not in a way that I could understand because I live on the chessboard, right?

It's illogical.