Causality and Acausality

[Kevin Solway]

why does he say our perception of a thing is a "contributory" cause of the thing?

All causes are contributary. Each cause of a thing contributes to its existence.

how can there be other contributory causes than our perception for a thing?

Use your imagination.

The Creator-God was created by his "Father"

Where did the "Father" come from? Or is it turtles all the way down?

"Nature/Everything" is not the same one moment to the next.

Since the Totality includes time, it can't possibly change. Only things which exist in time can change. You obviously have a mental block about this, since we've been over this before.

[brokenhead]

brokenhead: How can there be other contributory causes than our perception for a thing?
Kevin Solway: Use your imagination.

I think I am asking you to use yours and give me an example.

Unless a thing has an inherent existence, the only cause for the thing would be our perception of the thing. So the term "contributory" is meaningless.

brokenhead: The Creator-God was created by his "Father"
Kevin: Where did the "Father" come from? Or is it turtles all the way down?

Why you cannot accept an uncaused First Cause is beyond me. The "turtles" thing must really amuse you, Kevin.

Since the Totality includes time, it can't possibly change. Only things which exist in time can change. You obviously have a mental block about this, since we've been over this before.

Here's the way I think of the things we have "been over before." I say A, then you say, no, B. Then I say all right let's assume B, and you say, no, A.

If you take the space-time continuum as a fixed thing in four dimensions and call that the Totality, you are implicitly introducing duality, are you not? If not, why not?

You cannot admit that there are things extrinsic to your philosophy, Kevin. I admit such things as necessary, yet neither my life nor my mentation suffer from this "chaos" you seem to be so worried about.

[Ataraxia]

My argument is as follows:

1. Our perception is always a contributory cause for a thing.
2. Unless you say it is the sole contributing cause, you are admitting others which are not our perception, and are therefore external.

Yes.

If a thing has objective causes, it must also have an objective, thing-in-itself existence

.But you've already agreed that perception is a contributory cause.Therefore the thing in question also has subjective causes.You and i may view the thing differently.It depends on your perspective.So to use Dans second video---there can be no fully objective 'leaf-in-itself'.Even if Kant were right and there is such a phenomena as an objective 'thing-in-itself' we could never know it anyway.So it follows what Kevin said earlier.An acausal thing cannot exists if by exist you mean to "present an appearance(to us)"
If a scientist posits an acausal thing, he can't be talking about anything real that he has observed(if you accept the diffinition above what it means 'to exist')

3. Suppose our contribution (perception) to a thing's causes were the sole contribution. The thing would have inherent existence (existence apart from our perception) and not be acausal. And yet it would have no external cause(s). Everyone should be happy. We have done away with acausality.
All I am trying to point out is that it is not logically necessary for a thing to have an external cause in order for it to have an external existence.

I can't conceive of such a thing.

If we can name it,then it means we have demarcated it from other things,given it identity.'It' now has at least 1 external cause.

This "problem" is one for people with a strong penchant for autistic mind loops. It is not a logical necessity by any means. The Creator-God was created by his "Father" who created nothing else besides Creator sons and their authority to sustain Creation (Holy Spirit) in his name. He, she, it has no antecedent and no equal in this regard.

Well then what created the 'father'.As Kevin says,"turtles all the way down"?

It seems to me the 'creator' must be at least as complicated as the thing 'he' created; so your God would be more complicated than 'everything'.How is this any sort of answer to the origins? You haven't told me what God IS,or what caused him.

Furthermore if God was the first cause of "the heavens and the Earth" but has no cause of his own then God must've has always existed.Why not then apply Ochams Razor,cut out the middle man and say 'everything' has always existed.

[Kevin Solway]

If you take the space-time continuum as a fixed thing in four dimensions and call that the Totality

No thankyou. I choose to call everything the Totality.

The Totality is the "space-time continuum as a fixed thing in four dimensions" (if that exists), in addition to anything else that exists.

[brokenhead]

If we can name it,then it means we have demarcated it from other things,given it identity.'It' now has at least 1 external cause.

No, that is still our contribution.

It seems to me the 'creator' must be at least as complicated as the thing 'he' created

I don't follow you here. What do you mean by complicated? "At least as" implies you can assign a value to complication. Are you talking about entropy?

You haven't told me what God IS,or what caused him.

I can't tell you what God is, but God as I see him was not caused.

Furthermore if God was the first cause of "the heavens and the Earth" but has no cause of his own then God must've has always existed.Why not then apply Ochams Razor,cut out the middle man and say 'everything' has always existed.

But this is the whole point, ataraxia. Why would you want someone else to tell you what God is? If God is the first and only uncaused cause, then everything that is not god has been brought into being by him, by a conscious choice.

If you admit a personal God, then you can establish your own relationship to him and through that relationship discover for yourself what god is. If I said to you God is what I do, how could that possibly help you? But if I have submitted my will to his will (or the tao, if you must insist on such an impersonal idea) then I discover through my life and actions who or what God is to me personally. In the process, I will be living a life with as much internal peace as I can have, whereas acting in ways not in accord with his will as I see it would constantly bring strife.

No thankyou. I choose to call everything the Totality.

The Totality is the "space-time continuum as a fixed thing in four dimensions" (if that exists), in addition to anything else that exists.

"Exists." You are mixing your tenses.

Yes, I meant the space-time continuum to include everything that existed, does exist. or ever will exist, including people, ideas, events, abstractions, etc., etc. It is an unknowable static "thing."

[Kevin Solway]

No thankyou. I choose to call everything the Totality.

The Totality is the "space-time continuum as a fixed thing in four dimensions" (if that exists), in addition to anything else that exists.

Yes, I meant the space-time continuum to include everything that existed, does exist. or ever will exist, including people, ideas, events, abstractions, etc., etc. It is an unknowable static "thing."

Well if it is everything that exists by definition, then it will be identical with the Totality, and then, by definition, there can't be anything other than itself. Any so-called "creator Gods" and "Fathers of creator Gods" or any "Fathers of fathers of creator Gods", etc, must, by definition, be part of this Totality.

[brokenhead]

Well if it is everything that exists by definition, then it will be identical with the Totality, and then, by definition, there can't be anything other than itself. Any so-called "creator Gods" and "Fathers of creator Gods" or any "Fathers of fathers of creator Gods", etc, must, by definition, be part of this Totality.

So the Totality is not a "thing." But the Totality minus one photon is a "thing."

[Kevin Solway]

So the Totality is not a "thing." But the Totality minus one photon is a "thing."

That's right, and that "thing" would then not be the Totality.

[Ataraxia]

I don't follow you here. What do you mean by complicated? "At least as" implies you can assign a value to complication. Are you talking about entropy?

Complex then.

Wouldn't one expect the 'designer' --where one to exist-- to be as complex or impressive as what it created?I would.

So then we are no closer to an explanation.One still has to understand God(and what caused 'him')

BH:But this is the whole point, ataraxia. Why would you want someone else to tell you what God is?

Because I don't believe such a thing exists.You are positing God caused everything.So what is God?

If God is the first and only uncaused cause, then everything that is not god has been brought into being by him, by a conscious choice.

If you admit a personal God, then you can establish your own relationship to him and through that relationship discover for yourself what god is. If I said to you God is what I do, how could that possibly help you? But if I have submitted my will to his will (or the tao, if you must insist on such an impersonal idea) then I discover through my life and actions who or what God is to me personally. In the process, I will be living a life with as much internal peace as I can have, whereas acting in ways not in accord with his will as I see it would constantly bring strife.

So for me to accept God into my life I would have to believe in uncaused causes.I'm not capable of doing that.It's a contradiction.

[Jamesh]

A month ago Kevin wrote

Every event is caused by the past state of the Universe.
This says a lot, to the wise person at least.

It actually infers more than even you think.

Time is actually the only possible cause of everything. It is the only thing that by its very contextual nature requires no prior cause, where attaching the concept of a past cause is illogical.

Here I am speaking of the time required for causal actions to occur (a cause in itself), not observable time (an effect). Reality cannot have causes without causes having the freedom to be "an action" and time provides this freedom. Observable time is just the observation of change in things from a fixed - dynamic conceptual duality. Real time is a dynamic - dynamic duality.

For the past state of the universe to cause the present state of the universe means that the past is never disconnected from the present, just as the present is never disconnected from the future, being that the future does not exist until being created by time. You can’t have a gap of nothingness between the past and the present, and if there is no gap then the past cannot be caused to cease to exist in the now.

For time to be infinite it must continually be in a state of expansion. If it were static nothing would flow. By expanding this means that what it was is lesser than what it is now, so expansion automatically entails the act of relative contraction. In expanding it can only encircle what it was - the past is inside the present and thus the past is pushed into the background, into an underneath layer of existence.

The contrast between the past and the now is what causes form, but there must exist something which causes imperfection, otherwise there would be only one thing in which the past is perfectly encircled and thus not observable in the present. There would be a singular form of differentiation and no other things.

This underneath layer is infinite, and this form of infinity, in being a sum of all time, is greater than the limited single layer infinity of the now. While the now binds the past, it does so imperfectly and the past can break the fabric of the now, and when it does it causes movement. In times non-linear expansion the now is always "pushing the past away from the now". The past is also expanding, but its casual power is contained by each moment of the past, as well as being contained by the now. The past is continually being pressurised by the pushing in of newer time, and this pressure can and does break out and become causal in the newer domain - at the universal level this would be a big bang, but the same thing is occurring at every level such as an atom, but not all the time. The pressure must build over time and then rapidly explode out. It is this affect that causes universal constants, and thus the stop start nature of observed causality, "quantum-ness". If one were able to tell the relative age of a quantum bit then the supposed indeterminate nature of QM would disappear.

We even see this in some galaxies (radio) where clearly pressure has caused an explosion at some time and we see offshoots sometimes a billion light years across and 200 billion light years long.

The theory in relation to spiralling into a black hole while retaining one forms in a relative sense are also explained by this theory (as in to an outside observer you would be torn apart, but not you).

Incidentally this is why so many humans have a fascination with the supernatural - the past has not gone away, it is merely becoming lesser and lesser (thus vaguer and shadowy) relative to the now.

[brokenhead]

So for me to accept God into my life I would have to believe in uncaused causes.I'm not capable of doing that.It's a contradiction.

Make it singular. An uncaused cause.

You might still be incapable of doing it, but not because it is a contradiction. What, specifically, does it contradict? You are speaking of a logical contradiction, so it must be of a form that can be stated in a finite number of lines. Be precise so I can understand your objection.

[brokenhead]

So the Totality is not a "thing." But the Totality minus one photon is a "thing."

That's right, and that "thing" would then not be the Totality.

So if you have a photon on the one hand, and the Totality minus a photon on the other, you have two things, two separate things. Both of these things are caused. Yet the photon plus the Totality minus a photon is uncaused. When I consider them apart, each must be caused. When I consider them together, they (now It) cannot be caused. But have I not contributed a cause to them by considering them as One instead of two? If not, why not?

[Kevin Solway]

So if you have a photon on the one hand, and the Totality minus a photon on the other, you have two things, two separate things.

That's right. They would necessarily cause each other.

Yet the photon plus the Totality minus a photon is uncaused.

That's right, because nothing remains which could cause the Totality.

But have I not contributed a cause to them by considering them as One instead of two? If not, why not?

You are either part of the photon, or you are part of "the Totality minus a photon". Take your pick. You must be part of one or the other.

[brokenhead]

So if you have a photon on the one hand, and the Totality minus a photon on the other, you have two things, two separate things.

That's right. They would necessarily cause each other.

You say necessarily, but to what is such a conclusion "necessary?"

The Totality (T), including me, cannot be a thing because it cannot be caused.

The Totality minus a photon (T - p), which to keep things straight does not include me, is a thing and so is caused. So then I have nothing more and nothing less than I started with, except I am now considering them as separate things as opposed to a unified not-thing: T-p and p as opposed to simply T (the Totality).

How is it that they cause each other, Kevin? Why do you not say it is I that is causing them by considering them separately?

But have I not contributed a cause to them by considering them as One instead of two? If not, why not?

You are either part of the photon, or you are part of "the Totality minus a photon". Take your pick. You must be part of one or the other.

Okay I am part of T-p. How does that exclude me from being a contributory cause to (T-p) + p?

First, I consider t-p and p separately. Next, I consider them as one. How has my mere consideration made the "thingness" of two things suddenly vanish? But has my consideration not just been a contributory cause of (T-p) + p = the Totality?

You define the Totality as all possible causes and effects. Am I right? That would in your view be synonymous with "utterly everything." Yet that the Totality itself is uncaused is a statement forced upon you simply by the logic of this very definition. It is a logical singularity, as it would be the only such uncaused entity (careful not to use the word "thing" there!)

But feel free to substitute some other words or symbol for "entity."

There don't seem to be any turtles around.

Now my view is also that there is an uncaused "entity" which is not a thing. I call this "God." In other words, I identify God as the singularity itself, not the everything else against which it is singular. Overall, my picture is identical to yours. But in detail, I now have an uncaused cause, which necessarily (as you say about the photon above) causes everything else.

It should be clear that neither your view nor mine lacks a logical singularity.

And I still don't see any turtles.

You must then go on to view human consciousness as an epiphenomenon which would result no matter who or what simply put the necessary physical ingredients into an appropriate environment.

I see human consciousness as a reflection of the uncaused singularity which I see as Primal Consciousness.

Just as you are able to draw inferences about your uncaused Totality, so am I able to draw inferences about the uncaused, primal singularity.

[Kevin Solway]

That's right. They would necessarily cause each other.

You say necessarily, but to what is such a conclusion "necessary?"

Yes, because each could not exist without the other.

The Totality (T), including me, cannot be a thing because it cannot be caused.

That's right.

Okay I am part of T-p. How does that exclude me from being a contributory cause to (T-p) + p?

You could consider that the Totality is caused by its parts, of which you are one. But the Totality has no external cause. That's what is meant when we say that the Totality is without cause.

Now my view is also that there is an uncaused "entity" which is not a thing.

If this "entity" is not the Totality, then it is by definition a part of the Totality, and therefore a "thing".

If, on the other hand, it is identical with the Totality, and is everything, then it is the Totality.

There is no third possibility.