GENIUS FORUMS

"The cause of a tree is the seed of the parent tree; the cause of a machine is the purposeful reshaping of matter by men. All actions presuppose the existence of entities - and all emergences of new entities presuppose the existence of entities that caused their emergence. All causality presupposes the existence of something that acts as a cause. To demand a cause for all of existence is to demand a contradiction: if the cause exists, it is part of existence; if it does not exist, it cannot be a cause. Nothing cannot be the cause of something. Nothing does not exist. Causality presupposes existence; existence does not presuppose causality. There can be no cause "outside" of existence or "anterior" to it. The forms of existence may change and evolve, but the fact of existence is the irreducible primary at the base of all causal chains. Existence - not "god" - is the First Cause."

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspa ... randen.htm

Agree?

hades wrote:"The cause of a tree is the seed of the parent tree; the cause of a machine is the purposeful reshaping of matter by men.

That's not really true. Those things may be necessary causes but they are not sufficient causes. "Parent trees" and "men" are just categories of cause we create for practical purposes. The true and sufficient cause of any thing is Reality.

All actions presuppose the existence of entities - and all emergences of new entities presuppose the existence of entities that caused their emergence.

Well, yeah, actions without things would be pretty nifty.

All causality presupposes the existence of something that acts as a cause.

Things are causes. Causes are things. There are no things other than causes and no causes other than things. Ultimately, "thingness" is causation.

To demand a cause for all of existence is to demand a contradiction: if the cause exists, it is part of existence; if it does not exist, it cannot be a cause.

Indeed. Asking for the cause of the Universe, or Reality or whatever is a meaningless thing to do. Nothing more need be said on that point.

I believe the thrust of the exerpt is quite in line with Genius thinking. However, I don't see how bringing God in strengthens the argument. The article actually begins thusly:

Question: Since everything in the universe requires a cause, must not the universe itself have a cause, which is god?

Could have left off the "which is god" and made more sense.

As an aside, I still find it incredible that logically there is, and need be, no Prime Cause. Everything is caused except...everything? There was no prior to?

Ah, It (the big enchilada) is outside of time; because time is within It, It is timeless.

That may explain, but what a mind bender.

This is the same old mistake of trying to grasp ultimate reality within the confines of trivial linguistic abstractions. It's much much worse than trying to adequately convert the direct experience of something like falling in love or having the best orgasm of your life into dead symbols. Why even bother trying to do that ?

Carl G wrote:I believe the thrust of the exerpt is quite in line with Genius thinking. However, I don't see how bringing God in strengthens the argument. The article actually begins thusly:

Question: Since everything in the universe requires a cause, must not the universe itself have a cause, which is god?

Could have left off the "which is god" and made more sense.

As an aside, I still find it incredible that logically there is, and need be, no Prime Cause. Everything is caused except...everything? There was no prior to?

Ah, It (the big enchilada) is outside of time; because time is within It, It is timeless.

That may explain, but what a mind bender.

hades wrote:

The cause of a tree is the seed of the parent tree; the cause of a machine is the purposeful reshaping of matter by men.

and

There can be no cause "outside" of existence or "anterior" to it. The forms of existence may change and evolve, but the fact of existence is the irreducible primary at the base of all causal chains. Existence - not "god" - is the First Cause.

Dan wrote (in response to the first quote):

That's not really true. Those things may be necessary causes but they are not sufficient causes. "Parent trees" and "men" are just categories of cause we create for practical purposes. The true and sufficient cause of any thing is Reality.

It looks to me like you two are saying the same thing. To me Existance = Reality.

The first and second quotes are not really related. The first is talking about the cause(s) of particular finite things, the second refers to existence (reality) itself. We're only saying the same thing with respect to the second quote.

non_existence wrote:This is the same old mistake of trying to grasp ultimate reality within the confines of trivial linguistic abstractions. It's much much worse than trying to adequately convert the direct experience of something like falling in love or having the best orgasm of your life into dead symbols. Why even bother trying to do that ?

You are right. In fact, just about every statement in every post in this thread is trivial, and in many threads on this forum. There is an intrinsic weakness to language when it come to expressing the types of thoughts, feelings, and experiences associated with higher knowledge and higher states. Add to that the handicaps of cyperspace messageboarding, and you have a recipe for the dreary intellectual sludge that shows up so frequently. Including yours, no offense.

There are no things other than causes and no causes other than things.

Asking for the cause of the Universe, or Reality or whatever is a meaningless thing to do. Nothing more need be said on that point.

Well, I think Dan is slightly wrong on these 2 points.

Firstly I am certain there are (2) causes that are not strictly things. Strictly speaking they should be classed as being infinite causal actions, rather than things. They are the reason things are causes. These causes are the actions of expansion and the action of contraction.

While we cannot directly observe these infinite causes in their pure state, we can do so indirectly due to the fact that every physical thing will over time change in one way – the thing will expand or contract and other thing(s) will do the opposite. They can do this only because things consist entirely of these actions.

From here we CAN determine a purely logical explanation for the cause of the Universe.

While I do not have a 100% watertight answer, saying that asking for the cause of the Universe is meaningless is
clearly unsatisfactory – I view it as not that much better than Christians quoting the bible as an answer to all questions.

My rough answer is not one that is satisfying to our emotional desires for proof and spiritual mystery, it is simply that that:

a) time (and everything else) is a illusionary property of that which is infinite. That which is fundamental is outside of the concept of time and cannot have a start or finish or a prior cause. It can however have an instantaneous cause.

b) non-existence is not a logical possibility, therefore something has always existed. There cannot be any form of true non-existence within or outside (illogical) the totality.

c) the existence of this “something that has always existed”, absolutely (as in permanently and instantaneously) causes the existence of another thing. As this is instantaneous, there must always have been two infinite “actions”, two somethings must have always existed.

d) That which is fundamental must “power” the universe - it must be intrinsically causal.

e) From 2 infinite things, a multiplicity of identical finite things arise. They have the same causes, so must be identical. “Identical finite things” is the physical universe of time, space and causal action, without the delusion of each of these being considered separate to each other, and exclusive of the concept of physical form. What arises is no longer instantaneous, it has changed from being infinity bounded only by its opposite, to a restricted form of infinite, where infinities causal action is slowed down to the speed of light.

f) From this multiplicity of identical finite things, a multiplicity of identical and non-identical finite things can arise (the domain of form, observable by changing relativities). Form appears due to overlapping of existence. Form comes into being because of the additional boundaries created as a result of this overlapping – time/space/movement is more constrained, and gives the appearance that instantaneousness has been slowed down.