Problem of Causation

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
Sapius
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Post by Sapius »

Causality is something observable and like all observable things it is an effect. Causality is a process so therefore it also has a cause. Everything type of thing we define MUST relate to some form of fundamental causal action.
Let me put it this way then, James.

Things cause causality, and causality causes things, infinitely. So, duality could not have a beginning as such, for that would literally mean magic, or God; some thing from absolutely nothing.

Calling any particular thing or concept God, even in the sense of The Absolute, is basically illogical, for as long as one remains in the realm of thought and conceptualization, (not that there is an alternative), it will always remain a relative absolute, not an un-referential absolute. But as far as existence (or duality) is concerned, none of the attributes do actually apply to “it” itself, because “it” is not an “it”, for there is nothing beyond “it” against which “it’ can be referentially referred to. Same goes for the word Reality too, unless we are referring to it as against some Un-Reality, which is absurd as far as existence is concerned. But for the sake of Grasping the Essence of BEING against NOT-BEING, it is absolutely necessary that meanings and conceptualizations be caused.
You can also disregard what Quinn says about empirical matters – there is no possible way he could ACCEPT cause and effect as a fundamental truth unless he had confirmed it with real occurrences. It is not pure logic, pure logic does not exist in any complex form, logic boils down to something being either a thing or not that thing, which once generalised, is pure duality.
I essentially agree to the pure logic part, and in what I said above, you can see that existence, or duality, coming into being is an absolute impossibility, hence causality as a “thing”, devoid of things, is a myth.
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ExpectantlyIronic
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Post by ExpectantlyIronic »

I find it odd that folks should scurry into such abstract thinking to justify a universal conception of causality that is hardly needed in the first place. The limitations upon our senses should demonstrate to anyone that we cannot expect to discover the entire logical framework behind our universe, and in fact, to suggest that the universe should even exist in such a way as to facilitate such discovery seems to be the result of theistic thinking; or otherwise to require a great deal of hope that matters of circumstance should happen just such. We can have a great deal of understanding of certain phenomena, but when we talk of causality as a universal, we pull it away from the very phenomena that suggests it in the first place. Insofar as causality makes sense, it is inseparable from the phenomena that give rise to our idea of it. We can discuss the universal conception of causality, rather then the phenomenal causality, but then we are merely playing games with words.
Sapius
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Post by Sapius »

ExpectantlyIronic, I don’t know why, but you seem ExceptionallyIronic. Keep it up :)
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bert
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Post by bert »

all comes from our thought-stream.and whatever we accept or invite of it must come together into metaphor by a known tautology that reveals our (lesser known) attitudes to things.
Pye
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Post by Pye »

.

(moved to here)

David writes:
No determinist worth his salt would ever conceive of determinism in this way. It is cartoon determinism which you are describing here.

Understanding determinism as a philosophic principle has nothing to do with recognizing patterns in nature or making predictions about the future. It also has nothing to with reducing events to billiard-ball style mechanics.
btw, in my wildest imaginings, I cannot picture a more "gaunt caricature" of cause and effect than the vision of, even wish for, a robotic human future. Those who you complain of above are the very people working on trying to bring about your vision.


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Faust
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Post by Faust »

Pye wrote:.

(moved to here)

David writes:
No determinist worth his salt would ever conceive of determinism in this way. It is cartoon determinism which you are describing here.

Understanding determinism as a philosophic principle has nothing to do with recognizing patterns in nature or making predictions about the future. It also has nothing to with reducing events to billiard-ball style mechanics.
btw, in my wildest imaginings, I cannot picture a more "gaunt caricature" of cause and effect than the vision of, even wish for, a robotic human future. Those who you complain of above are the very people working on trying to bring about your vision.


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Determinism is true, and that makes uslike robots. Look at animals, are they free? Neither are humans. Nobody's trying to bring about any robot future it's already here. For me I find determinism quite romantic, with all that drama, fate, lack of freewill, it's quite dramatic when looking at it towards humanity.
Pye
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Post by Pye »

.

Faust, the questions I left below on the nature of consciousness are important if you want to convince me we are already robots (in any sense other than organisms about their organic business). I think I am safe in saying that the robot would have nothing left of an indeterminate nature. It would be fully functioning and of entirely known quantity.

Cause/effect has determined us as for-itself beings, and as Sapius is wisely wont to remind, this does not offend the law of cause/effect in any way. Each and every of us are about the for-itself nature of ourselves - this is the entire nature of our will - and in this, are acting everywhere and always from this point of origin and agency. In this sense, nothing about this will is free, and everything about it is free - only in that it belongs exactly and only to each phenomenon as caused, and in turn dissolves with the dissolution of each phenomenon as well. (Death, decay is hardly stillness, so we do not offend the thermodynamic law of matter/energy neither created nor destroyed.) We cannot act in any manner other than our for-itself nature, and in doing so, become origin and agency of many things. The more highly developed the consciousness; the more conscious we become of cause/effects; and so the better we are able to "choose" [or, react, if you prefer] the movements and outplaying of that caused-to-be for-itself will. That cause/effect should bring about other agents of cause is a no-brainer, for every effect becomes a cause, vice-verse, ad infinitum.

I'd be interested to know what persons here think consciousness is, so I frame it in some questions:

Is consciousness of a determinant magnitude? In other words, is it closed-ended?
What do you reckon is its function? - is it purely a sense-making organ? If this be the case, what relationship does the sense-made have to truth? (or, why does it not match truth/suffer delusion?) What "use" does it fulfill for the human organism? Or is it "use-less"? Is it like an etch-a-sketch - to be written on and wiped off over and over again in order to accommodate incoming data, and thus has the limits of an etch-a-sketch? Does it/can it expand?

How did it come up with infinity?

and other questions of the like.


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bert
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Post by bert »

the phenomenal is a necessity.
creating a necessity is our quality of being of practical use.
"I desire" is life,desires are born of necessity; by striving for realization and sincerity of belief (and the lord of the Will is the command to obey),although they are always channelling as the fictional supposition from reality;so that Man's conceptions are made from his conception of a soul.
complexity is in that Man already possessed a Soul,so there is no chance of disentangling the two - Ego's 'twiceness'.
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Faust
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Post by Faust »

Pye wrote:.

Faust, the questions I left below on the nature of consciousness are important if you want to convince me we are already robots (in any sense other than organisms about their organic business). I think I am safe in saying that the robot would have nothing left of an indeterminate nature. It would be fully functioning and of entirely known quantity.

Cause/effect has determined us as for-itself beings, and as Sapius is wisely wont to remind, this does not offend the law of cause/effect in any way. Each and every of us are about the for-itself nature of ourselves - this is the entire nature of our will - and in this, are acting everywhere and always from this point of origin and agency. In this sense, nothing about this will is free, and everything about it is free - only in that it belongs exactly and only to each phenomenon as caused, and in turn dissolves with the dissolution of each phenomenon as well. (Death, decay is hardly stillness, so we do not offend the thermodynamic law of matter/energy neither created nor destroyed.) We cannot act in any manner other than our for-itself nature, and in doing so, become origin and agency of many things. The more highly developed the consciousness; the more conscious we become of cause/effects; and so the better we are able to "choose" [or, react, if you prefer] the movements and outplaying of that caused-to-be for-itself will. That cause/effect should bring about other agents of cause is a no-brainer, for every effect becomes a cause, vice-verse, ad infinitum.

I'd be interested to know what persons here think consciousness is, so I frame it in some questions:

Is consciousness of a determinant magnitude? In other words, is it closed-ended?
What do you reckon is its function? - is it purely a sense-making organ? If this be the case, what relationship does the sense-made have to truth? (or, why does it not match truth/suffer delusion?) What "use" does it fulfill for the human organism? Or is it "use-less"? Is it like an etch-a-sketch - to be written on and wiped off over and over again in order to accommodate incoming data, and thus has the limits of an etch-a-sketch? Does it/can it expand?

How did it come up with infinity?

and other questions of the like.
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Let me tell you now, that the realization of full consciousness does not give you freewill and agency. Yes it gives your will more power because you have knowledge, but when you make the decision it is still based on environment/character, for the thing-for-itself.

Concerning the nature of consciousness, some would call it a disease, but I would call it evolution. Maybe it came about for survival purposes, to know about the environment, and about oneself for it really is good at doing that.

Perhaps you would like to read on the mind-body problem to get a bigger glimps of consciousness.
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