A first cause is logically necessary

Philosophim

Different from the former as opposed to same as the former? — InPitzotl

I feel at this point you have something you want to say. Feel free to. Once I understand the larger point, I think we can get all of your questions out of the way at once.

Philosophim

↪Verdi

If I understand you correctly Verdi, you take a more Eastern direction of philosophy. By the way, I do enjoy it, and feel it has its time and place. But this is more of a Western philosophy. I am not asking you to change your mind, just understand that I do not feel an Eastern style philosophy will fit in with what I'm doing here. If you want to entertain some Western style philosophy, just charitably entertain the idea that causality exists as stated, and see if my conclusions have merit, or if they are flawed.

_db

↪Philosophim

But this was just exactly my point. Causality is applied in order to understand phenomena; it is not a phenomena itself. The operation of the computer chip is understood through the application of the principle of cause and effect. "Evidence" (empirical collections of data) is the wrong thing to ask for, since such a thing could not exist if it were not for causality itself.

What you need to demonstrate is that this causality has a reality in-itself, and is not just a function of the mind. Again, the computer chip as phenomena is understood through causality. But for what reason should we believe causality exists beyond this? You have simply taken it for granted that the conjunction of phenomena in successive time by rules has a valid application beyond these phenomena.

InPitzotl

I feel at this point you have something you want to say. Feel free to. Once I understand the larger point, I think we can get all of your questions out of the way at once — Philosophim

Honestly, no, I'm still trying to analyze this. I can still see what you possibly mean branching off in a few different directions, and I don't quite know which one you'll take. I reserve the right to make a point later, if I have one to make; but for now, I'm just trying to figure out where you're coming from.

The question I just asked is similar to a question a couple of posts ago. You're talking about an explanation for a "different" state. I'm trying to figure out if this is some counterfactual difference you're talking about, or just a change.

Philosophim

↪_db

But this was just exactly my point. Causality is applied in order to understand phenomena; it is not a phenomena itself. The operation of the computer chip is understood through the application of the principle of cause and effect. "Evidence" (empirical collections of data) is the wrong thing to ask for, since such a thing could not exist if it were not for causality itself.

What you need to demonstrate is that this causality has a reality in-itself, and is not just a function of the mind. Again, the computer chip as phenomena is understood through causality. But for what reason should we believe causality exists beyond this? You have simply taken it for granted that the conjunction of phenomena in successive time by rules has a valid application beyond these phenomena. — _db

Honestly, you've lost me at this point. I've given a few clear examples of computers. I'm waiting for you to give me an example of how a computer works without causality. How did you post your reply to me without you being the cause of it? We are past generalities at this point, and are in the realm of specifics.

"Phenomena" is a dangerous word that is often thrown around without any real definition. Please explain what you specifically mean with phenomena as well. You should be able to explain your concept without using the word, and I will understand what you are intending to argue.

PoeticUniverse

Yes! Isn't that neat? Opposed to multiverse theory being something we entertain for fun, it becomes something we can view as a logically likely reality. — Philosophim

The First Cause ever writes the 'verses…

All the temporary complexities
From the Eterne must someday fade away,
Namely, our universe with its grandness
Dispersing its greatness into blandness.

In between, the Basis writes a story
That gets lived by the transients within,
As us and all the stars, moons, and planets—
In our book from the Babel Library.

…

When the universe ends—sparse photons left,
All splendor, life, and objects will have gone
The way that all temporaries must go,
To oblivion—oh, grand complexities!

Only the Eternal Basis remains
As potential for all possible books
In Everything’s Babel Repository
To author another universe’s story.

Philosophim

↪InPitzotl

Honestly, no, I'm still trying to analyze this. I can still what you possibly mean branching off in a few different directions, and I don't quite know which one you'll take. I reserve the right to make a point later, if I have one to make; but for now, I'm just trying to figure out where you're coming from.

The question I just asked is similar to a question a couple of posts ago. You're talking about an explanation for a "different" state. I'm trying to figure out if this is some counterfactual difference you're talking about, or just a change. — InPitzotl

That's very fair. I've been on a computer chips kick in my posts, so I suppose I'll continue with them.
A transistor can either be on, or off. If it is on, the electricity will travel through the gate. When it is off, the electricity is cut off. Imagine that we have power constantly running to the transistor. Now imagine that the circuit is complete. We have electricity traveling that circuit. What caused electricity to travel the entirety of the circuit? At a particular scale we can say, "The gate was on". Or we could be more detailed and say, "And the electricity was on."

But lets say I look at the circuit one second later, and the electricity is still flowing through the circuit. Why is the circuit flowing? The answer is the same, but time has changed. The scale that I spoke about earlier is how much time you wish to pass, and what scale of change you want to attribute. I gave to the scale of the electricity and the gate, but perhaps someone could use the scale of human beings. I could say, "The reason the circuit if flowing is because I turned it on.

Why I think you should chime in with your own opinions right now is I can go incredibly detailed on this, and it could branch out into a topic of its own. If I go too detailed, I might confuse you. Finally, the whole point of causality is for the argument I made, and I don't want to go off on a major tangent.

Philosophim

↪PoeticUniverse

Very nice. Was that of your own making or taken from somewhere?

PoeticUniverse

Was that of your own making or taken from somewhere? — Philosophim

It's the beginning and end of my longer poem about the First Cause being the quantum fields.

Deriving the Narrative Uni-Versed Poem
Of Our Poetic Universe of the Cosmos

All the temporary complexities
From the Eterne must someday fade away,
Namely, our universe with its grandness
Dispersing its greatness into blandness.

In between, the Basis writes a story
That gets lived by the transients within,
As us and all the stars, moons, and planets—
In our book from the Babel Library.

What’s Fundamental has to be partless,
Permanent and e’er remain as itself;
Thus, it can only form temporaries
Upward as rearrangements of itself.

Change, change, change… constant change, as fast as it
Can happen, the speed of light being foremost
The speed of causality, over 13 billion years,
From the simple on up to the more complex.

Reveal

The ‘vacuum’ has to e’er jitter and sing,
This base existent forced as something,
Given the nonexistence of a ‘Nothing’;
If it tries to be zero, it cannot.

At the indefinite quantum level,
Zero must be fuzzy, not definite;
So it can’t be zero, but has to be
As that which is ever up to something.

What’s continuous means a field, naught else,
That waves; ‘Stillness’ is impossible.
A field has a changing value everywhere,
For the ‘vacuum’ e’er has to fluctuate.

The fields overlap and can interact;
So, there is one overall field as All.
It’s the basis of all that is possible—
From another forced default, of motion.

From field points moving in their one degree
Quantum field waverings have to result
From their dragging e’er on one another.
Points are the bits that form letters’ strokes.

As sums of harmonic oscillators,
Fields can only form their elementaries
At stable quanta energy levels;
Other excitation levels don’t persist.

Since the quantum fields are everywhere,
The elementaries as kinks can move
To anyplace in the realms of the fields;
As in a rope, only the quanta move.

At each level of organization
Of temporaries in the universe
New capabilities become available,
And so they take on a life of their own
In addition to what gives rise to them.

The great needle plays, stitches, winds, and paves
As the strands of quantum fields’ webs of waves
That weave the warp, weft, and woof, uni-versed,
Into being’s fabric of Earth’s living braids.

Quantum fields are the fundamental strokes
Whose excitations at harmonics cloaks
The field quanta with stability
To persist and obtain mobility.

As letters of the Cosmic alphabet,
The elementary particles beget,
Combining to words to write the story
Of the stars, atoms, cells, and life’s glory.

This is the Poetic Universe.

The weave of the quantum fields as strokes writes
The letters of the elemental bytes—
The alphabet of the standard model,
Atoms then forming the stars’ words whose mights

Merge to form molecules, as the phrases,
On to proteins/cells, as verse sentences,
In to organisms ‘stanza paragraphs,
And to the poem stories of the species.

Of this concordance of literature,
We’re the Cosmos’ poetic adventure,
Sentient poems being unified-verses,
As both the contained and the container.

We are both essence and form, as poems versed,
Ever unveiling this life’s deeper thirsts,
As new riches, through strokes, letters, phonemes,
Words, phrases, and sentences—uni versed.

We have rhythm, reason, rhyme, meter, sense,
Metric, melody, and beauty’s true pense,
Revealed through life’s participation,
From the latent whence into us hence.

From quantum non-locality entanglement,
We know that information’s primary
Over distance, that objects don’t have to
Be near each other to have relation.

Everything connected to everything
Would seem to be a ‘perception’ as an
All-at-onceness, so a particle
Might ‘know’ something about what to do.

Informationally derived meanings
Unify in non-reductive gleanings,
In a relational reality,
Through the semantical life happenings.

This is a realm of happenings, not things,
For ‘things’ don’t remain the same on time’s wings.
What remains through time are processes—
Relations between different systems.

Syntactical information exchange,
Without breaking of the holistic range,
Reveals the epic whole of nature’s poetics,
Within her requisite of ongoing change.

So there’s form before gloried substance,
Relationality before the chance
Of material impressions rising,
Traced in our world from the gestalt’s dance.

All lives in the multi–dimensional spaces
Of basic superpositional traces
Of Possibility, as like the whirl’s
Probable clouds of distributed paces.

What remains unchanged over time are All’s
Properties that find expression, as laws,
Of the conservation of energy,
Momentum, and electric charge—unpaused.
…
A poem is a truth fleshed in living words,
Which by showing unapprehended proof
Lifts the veil to reveal hidden beauty:
It’s life’s image drawn in eternal truth.

A poem is both the thought and the presence,
An object born from one’s profoundest sense,
An image of diction, feeling, and rhythm;
It’s both the existence and the essence.

Poetry makes clear what’s just barely heard,
For it translates soul-language into words,
Whereas, music plays right on the heartstrings;
Merged, they create song; heart and soul converge.

Poems are renderings of the soul’s spirit,
The highest power of language and wit.
The reader then translates back to spirit;
If the soul responds, then a poem you’ve writ!
…
Oh, those imaginings of what can’t be!
Such as Nought, Stillness, and Permanence,
As well as Apart, Beginning, and End,
The Unfixed Will, Blame, Fame, and Theity.
…
When the universe ends—sparse photons left,
All splendor, life, and objects will have gone
The way that all temporaries must go,
To oblivion—oh, grand complexities!

Only the Eternal Basis remains
As potential for all possible books
In Everything’s Babel Repository
To author another universe’s story.

Verdi

↪PoeticUniverse

PU has truly a Natural gift! He senses the universe better than most cosmologists or high-energy particle physicists!

TheMadFool

I finally get what you're trying to say OP.

Hume: There is no logical necessity in causality. No reason why if the first two times I hit a ball and it rolled away, at a particular speed and direction, the third time I repeat my action, the ball should faithfully replicate the behavior precisely as before.

The idea of cause, we can forget about first cause, as having to do with logical necessity is a category mistake - like saying red is loud!

SpaceDweller

↪180 Proof

I've read your Hartle–Hawking state as a background to "planck-scale event, therefore acausal" universe.
from here:

↪180 Proof

Unless I'm misquoting you, how does this oppose the first cause?
Hartle–Hawking state says nothing about lack of first cause except that BB didn't produce time and space.
It only assumes time and space was there before BB.

You said "planck-scale event, therefore acausal"

however:

The Planck epoch is an era in traditional (non-inflationary) Big Bang cosmology immediately after the event which began the known universe.

Therefore no lack of first cause or mention of that.
First cause in BB is unknown because of "infinitely dense mass" as an explanation before plank epoch.

180 Proof

↪SpaceDweller

It's an implication of QG and not a metaphysical speculation. The classical (macro) concept of "causality" has no physical meaning at or below the planck scale (nano).

SpaceDweller

↪180 Proof

You mean quantum gravity could be the first cause? ex. inside or outside singularity.

Verdi

Therefore no lack of first cause or mention of that.
First cause in BB is unknown because of "infinitely dense mass" as an explanation before plank epoch. — SpaceDweller

At the singularity there was no mass yet. Only an extreme high spatial tension on the fluctuating field (which means, the virtual particle fields). The extreme high negative curvature (DE!) pushed that virtual stuff into real stuff, and fluctuating time got its entropy-based, irreversible direction. There was no infinitely dense mass as an explanation before the Planck epoch. There was only a Planck-sized fluctuation which took of inflationary when fluctuating time fluctuated above a threshold (and below).

180 Proof

↪SpaceDweller

What's unclear about this statement:

The classical (macro) concept of "causality" has no physical meaning at or below the planck scale (nano). — 180 Proof

SpaceDweller

↪180 Proof

I see what you meant, sorry.
I ques by "planck scale" you are referring to singularity (it's micro size), initial point?

What I don't get though, in relation to BB planck scale must have converted to "macro" at some point because otherwise there shouldn't have been BB, but rather just stay at what it was, a singularity surrounded empty space and time.

I mean, explosion itself is a reaction which must be caused by something or there is no explosion.

At the singularity there was no mass yet. Only an extreme high spatial tension on the fluctuating field (which means, the virtual particle fields).The extreme high negative curvature (DE!) pushed that virtual stuff into real stuff — Verdi

You're saying matter and energy come to be out of virtual particles and their tensions?

Verdi

You're saying matter and energy come to be out of virtual particles and their tensions? — SpaceDweller

The virtual particle fields (only two, basically, but that's not so important now), concentrated not in a point but on a small Planck-sized spatial structure, are the cause of negative curvature, and this negative curvature pushes the particles into a real state, a bit like Hawing radiates from the event horizon of a black hole.

Look at the singularity as imposed on the negatively curved part of the structure in this video (ignore the positively curved part(:

Imagine the sizes Planckian.

SpaceDweller

↪Verdi

Conclusion:
A sphere with a radius of 0, which has a curvature with infinity.
A point with infinite curvature is known as singularity.

This is possible to calculate toward singularity, but the opposite, that is to go out of 0 where curvature is infinite is impossible and unimaginable. It's like saying: infinity - 0.00...1 or abs(0, 0 + (+-inf))

That's why I don't believe in BB and "infinitely dense mass" because it doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks for the video though, very informative. :smile:

Verdi

That's why I don't believe in BB and "infinitely dense mass" because it doesn't make sense to me. — SpaceDweller

The concept of the infinite dense is problematic indeed. A classical view on spacetime with point particles in it is bound to get into trouble, be it in a black hole, be it in a big bang model. Empty space is not empty though, and particles not pointlike (like in string theory, which gives trouble and is just math, so another picture of a non-pointlike particle is needed, where all particles are able to sit on top of each other, like circles on a cilinder.

This can save the BB, in combination with virtual quantum fields, everywhere and always present. Why you don't like it?

Philosophim

↪PoeticUniverse

What an absolutely fantastic skill! Well done, and thank you.

Benkei

↪180 Proof

In addition to the alternatives to classical causality, I think there's 4/5 options open to causality/time at planck scales:

1. Time is fundamental and therefore causality is too and causality follows time.
2. Time is an emergent property and therefore causality is too and causality follows time. http://thescienceexplorer.com/universe/connection-between-dark-energy-and-time-was-discovered-physicists
3. Time is indistinguishable from causality and fundamental or time follows from causality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_sets
4. Time is fundamental but causality isn't.
5. Causality is invariant from time. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/CausalInvariance.html

Considering the symmetry of physical laws you'd think moving forward or backward in time is entirely possible, which is just another way of breaking causality. The mathetmatics don't care as far as I understand Feynman's explanation of it (The Character of Physical Law). Randomness can result in a decrease of entropy as well, it's just very unlikely. I don't think we really understand at this time why that is; why we only observe "moving forward in time" and an overall increase in entropy.

I strongly agree with your point that asking what came before the planck-epoch becomes incoherent because there was no notion of time to refer to on the basis of the no-boundary theory and therefore non notion of causality in the classical sense. There are options open for causality at planck scales though, which aren't base don the classical notion. Not that I have an inkling how likely any of that is. Just interesting stuff I found when researching my short story earlier this year.

Philosophim

↪TheMadFool

I finally get what you're trying to say OP.

Hume: There is no logical necessity in causality. No reason why if the first two times I hit a ball and it rolled away, at a particular speed and direction, the third time I repeat my action, the ball should faithfully replicate the behavior precisely as before.

The idea of cause, we can forget about first cause, as having to do with logical necessity is a category mistake - like saying red is loud! — TheMadFool

Not a worry. I'm thinking at this point that I did not write a clear enough idea in my desire to keep it within a certain size. That is on me, and no one else.

About Hume, Hume was talking about causality as an induction of belief about the future. In other words, there was no reason to believe the rules of causality (or really, rules of anything) would be the same tomorrow. However, that doesn't mean we cannot test the rules of today, and come to the conclusion that causality exists. Hume noted that our belief that the rules would be stable tomorrow could be nothing more than a belief. So far, that belief has held true. So can we know the future? Never.

So in the same vein, we can examine the distant past. Perhaps it is the case that billions of years ago, the rules of the universe functioned differently. Perhaps objects existed that were pure chaos and had no explanation for their being. While we can trace up what the past "should" be if the rules are the same, its really a matter of faith. Still, I think its a matter of faith we can cling to. Further, I can see no alternative to chaos and causality. Chaos is essentially a first cause, while causality is the expected response to external forces.

So, with the inductive belief that causality still existed back then, and as I have no other belief in my mind, I try to come to a logical conclusion with causality, and with a first cause, what must necessarily exist without prior causality.

SophistiCat

I welcome all criticism! — Philosophim

Here you are. Rather than addressing general issues of causation, as others have done, I will go over the argument as it is presented.

Initially causation is treated as a temporally asymmetric relationship between facts or states of affairs (at least that's my fair reading of it). I will refer to this as "state causality" for short. Then an oddly titled premise 4 throws in a range of much less specific epistemological notions: reason, explanation, justification:

4. Alpha logic: An alpha cannot have any prior reasoning that explains why it came into existence. An Alpha's reason for its existence can never be defined by the Z's that follow it. If an Alpha exists, its own justification for existence, is itself. We could say, "The reversal of Z's causality logically lead up to this Alpha," But we cannot say "Z is the cause of why Alpha could, or could not exist." Plainly put, the rules concluded within a universe of causality cannot explain why an Alpha exists. — Philosophim

What should have been a simple tautology - a state of affairs defined as having no prior cause can have no prior cause - is suddenly expanded into a much more general epistemological thesis, and even a controversial metaphysical thesis of causa sui is thrown in.

Setting aside this oddity and summarizing the setup of the argument, three mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive possibilities for the causal history of the world are presented:

A. An infinite causal regress of facts or states of affairs.

B. A causal loop.

C. A first uncaused cause.

The main argument is contained in this paragraph:

6. If there exists an X which explains the reason why any infinite causality exists, then its not truly infinite causality, as it is something outside of the infinite causality chain. That X then becomes another Y with the same 3 plausibilities of prior causality. Therefore, the existence of a prior causality is actually an Alpha, or first cause. — Philosophim

This attempts to rule out (A) and (B), leaving (C) as the only remaining possibility. But the argument equivocates between general notions of reasons and explanations and the more specific notion of state causality that was used in setting up the argument.

If we try to interpret "reason" in line with state causality, then the conclusion doesn't follow. The argument essentially says that since neither an infinite regress nor a causal loop admit a first cause, therefore a first cause must be the case.

If instead we interpret "reason" as justification, then the argument appears to say that neither of the propositions (A) nor (B) are self-justifying. But in fairness, the same is true of proposition (C). Presented with either of the three possibilities - infinite regress, circular causality or first cause - one can ask for reasons for why that is the case. @Philosophim attempts to smuggle some semblance of self-justification into premise (4), but that can't be left to stand without an argument. And besides, if it could be shown that (C) contains within itself a justification for itself, then no other argument would be needed.

Philosophim

↪180 Proof

SpaceDweller What's unclear about this statement:
The classical (macro) concept of "causality" has no physical meaning at or below the planck scale (nano).
— 180 Proof — 180 Proof

Why not? Why can't I simply ask, "What caused the plank scale to exist?" Either something caused it to exist, or it exists simply because it does, without a prior explanation.

Philosophim

I strongly agree with your point that asking what came before the planck-epoch becomes incoherent because there was no notion of time to refer to on the basis of the no-boundary theory and therefore non notion of causality in the classical sense. — Benkei

Isn't this the same argument the theists have been making about God for centuries? Considering plank space is only a theory at this point with many untested assertions, isn't this just a more detailed God argument?

If plank space is caused then there is a prior or underlying reason for its being. If plank space is uncaused, then there is no reason for its existence, besides the fact that it exists. And if something could be that has no prior causality, then logically, you can't conclude any reason why it exists. Meaning you cannot conclude that time did not exist prior to plank space either. It is the same reason why the Kalem cosmological argument fails.

Benkei

If plank space is caused then there is a prior or underlying reason for its being. If plank space is uncaused, then there is no reason for its existence, besides the fact that it exists. And if something could be that has no prior causality, then logically, you can't conclude any reason why it exists. Meaning you cannot conclude that time did not exist prior to plank space either. — Philosophim

Just because something cannot be caused in a classical mechanical view of causality does not mean there's no reason why it exists. The problem is you keep talking about time and causality surrounding circumstances that aren't subject to those notions. It's incoherent to consider questions about time and causality surrounding the planck epoch.

180 Proof

2. Time is an emergent property and therefore causality is too and causality follows time.
4. Time is fundamental but causality isn't. — Benkei

:up: :100: It's either #2 (e.g. Rovelli / Deutsch) or #4 (e.g. Smolin) make sense to me. However, I/we/they don't know enough yet to determine which makes more sense than the other.

180 Proof

↪Philosophim

Ask anything you like. It helps though when the questions aren't begged (or category mistakes) and their premises make sense.

Philosophim

↪Benkei

Just because something cannot be caused in a classical mechanical view of causality does not mean there's no reason why it exists. The problem is you keep talking about time and causality surrounding circumstances that aren't subject to those notions. It's incoherent to consider questions about time and causality surrounding the planck epoch. — Benkei

If a thing has a reason for its existence, that means something caused it to exist. Explain to me how plank space isn't subject to causality, don't simply assert it as if it is true. I didn't buy it in the Kalem argument, and I don't buy it now. I'm asking a perfectly coherent question. Don't simply assert that its incoherent, show why its incoherent.

A first cause is logically necessary

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