The sneer of the peon. Answering these questions - fundamental questions in philosophy, that is - will make you wealthy and happy. Happy? — Bartricks

It's better to live the peony life!

The ball can only be the cause if it's laid on it, which isn't the case here. — Haglund

Suppose someone laid the ball on the cushion. And suppose also that the ball is causing the depression in the cushion. I'm supposing both those things. The ball got there somehow. And now that it's got there, it's making a dip in the cushion. The ball is the cause of the dip. Of course the ball wasn't always there. There's no reason to imagine that it must have been. But now that it is there, it's causing a dip and continuing to cause that dip until it's removed - which will probably also happen.

The above may be mistaken. Perhaps objects cannot be causes and causes cannot be simultaneous with effects. But since the last para is how we discuss causes frequently - in practical situations - when we are concerned about what is or isn't the case - it is not obvious that our talk is wrong, incoherent or somehow theological.

I think Kant's example gives us difficulty only if we have a prior theory - namely (1) Causes must precede effects. (2) Only events can be causes. My suggestion is that the example is straightforward and well chosen. The problem is not the example but the prior theory.

in practical situations - when we are concerned about what is or isn't the case - it is not obvious that our talk is wrong, incoherent or somehow theological. — Cuthbert

Indeed. The example is out of this world. Cushions with balls laying on them eternally presuppose an eternal gravity field. If this is an eternal state then the ball aint laid on it. Nor will it be taken off. In fact, we can't even see if time goes forwards or backwards. It could be the ball flies off if time starts!

If we think of the depressed cushion first and then lay the ball on it, the depression is indeed the teleological cause.

The example is out of this world. Cushions with balls laying on them eternally presuppose an eternal gravity field. — Haglund

There is no presumption in Kant's example about eternity. Kant's example is drawn from everyday experience in which balls and cushions seldom stay in one configuration for very long. Suppose someone put the ball on the cushion and someone will take it off again. His example is an illustration of how, now that the ball is on the cushion, it's causing a dip. This shows that causes and effects can coherently be supposed to be simultaneous and that objects can be supposed to be causes. Of course, he might be wrong. But to show that he's wrong we need more than the stipulations that causes must precede effects and that objects cannot be causes.

His example is an illustration of how, now that the ball is on the cushion, it's causing a dip — Cuthbert

Only the act of laying the ball on it is causation. If its never laid on it there is no causation. Causation is time dependent. The causation doesn't continue after the act of laying the ball on the cushion. The dip could also be the cause for the ball laying on it. If time runs backward, the cushion can shoot the ball away instead of the ball falling on it.

:ok:

This is Bartricks' insistence on incoherency. Bartricks claims that this proposition, which I claim is incoherent, just appears as incoherent to me. Now I see it's incoherent to you as well. So we can say that it is incoherent to us — Metaphysician Undercover

Even if you were right, and as far as I can tell you are, philosophy, to my reckoning, is not a democratic institution i.e. we're not warranted to feel good about ourselves because we concur! :grin:

There is no causation involved in the first place, in the cushion example. The ball just lays on the cushion. An event has no cause or effect in itself. Only other events can bring these into existence.

The only reason to think self-creation is impossible is the idea that to create one's self one would have to exist 'prior' to one's own existence. And the only reason to think that is the idea that causes must precede their effects. — Bartricks

No, that's not true. If self-creation is understood as a form of simultaneous causation then the same entity X would be simultaneously existent (as effect) and non-existent (as cause). Besides properties and relations presuppose the existence of the terms they are predicated of, so if causality is a relation or a property it would require the existence of the causal factor to already obtain. Therefore non-existing entities can't cause anything.

In a sense, a virtual particle is causing itself. It can be seen as a particle rotating in a space-time diagram. If there is one space and one time direction, the wordline is a circle, which real particles can't do anymore. A real particle doesn't travel on closed wordlines, i.e., returning to where it starts.

Suppose someone laid the ball on the cushion. And suppose also that the ball is causing the depression in the cushion. I'm supposing both those things. The ball got there somehow. And now that it's got there, it's making a dip in the cushion. The ball is the cause of the dip. Of course the ball wasn't always there. There's no reason to imagine that it must have been. But now that it is there, it's causing a dip and continuing to cause that dip until it's removed - which will probably also happen. — Cuthbert

I don't think that's a proper description. When the ball got placed on the cushion, this act caused the dip in the cushion. Once the ball is there, and the dip is in the cushion, the ball is not continuing to cause the dip. The dip was caused by coming into contact with the ball, and once it has been caused, it becomes a continuous feature of the cushion, just like every other property of the cushion, until someone takes the ball away, and this act may cause the dip to go away.

I think Kant's example gives us difficulty only if we have a prior theory - namely (1) Causes must precede effects. (2) Only events can be causes. My suggestion is that the example is straightforward and well chosen. The problem is not the example but the prior theory. — Cuthbert

"Cause" is a temporal concept. If you take away the temporality from the concept, then you are just talking about something else. Your suggestion that there is a problem with the prior theory, is like saying that there is a problem with the theory which makes 2+2 equal to 4. You might say "I want 2+2 to equal 6, so I think there is a problem with the "prior theory" which makes 2+2 equal to 4. Your request to change the meaning of "cause" (reject the prior theory), is just the same as the request to change the meaning of "2" (reject the prior theory.

Sure you can claim that there's a problem with the theory, and request a change, but unless you can demonstrate an actual problem with the theory, the request is just random nonsense.

This shows that causes and effects can coherently be supposed to be simultaneous and that objects can be supposed to be causes. Of course, he might be wrong. But to show that he's wrong we need more than the stipulations that causes must precede effects and that objects cannot be causes. — Cuthbert

I would say he is wrong. He shows a misunderstanding of causation. Causation is always represented by an act. A static situation, a state, such as the ball being in a certain static relation with the cushion, is not causation. Consider the relation between the earth and the sun, or the earth and the moon, for example. The sun causes many things on the earth, in the relation between these two objects, the sun and the earth, but each is described in terms of activities. There is no static relation between the sun and the earth. Likewise with the relation with the earth and moon.

So what the real problem which Kant demonstrates with the example, is that describing two distinct objects in such a "causal" relation with each other, as having a static relation, is not a proper description. Objects are always changing, moving, and being moved, so two distinct objects in contact with each other, ball and cushion, never really have a static relation with each other. So if we want to describe such a situation as the ball causing the dent in the cushion, we must go beyond what is immediately evident to our senses, and look at the interaction between the particle of the ball, and the particles of the cushion. This is where the activity is happening (which we do not see), and this is what validates the designation of "cause".

No, you're just plain wrong. Things are more basic than events as, like I say, there can clearly be things without events, but there can't be events without things. And when it comes to an event's 'properties' these can all be reduced to the properties of things, as an 'event' is just a word we use to describe some change in a things properties or relations.

It's better to live the peony life! — Haglund

No it isn't.

The peony has it all...

There is nothing incoherent in the thought experiment.

Everyone must admit that it is possible for something always to have been the case. And thus it is coherent to suppose that the ball was always on the cushion.

I agree with Cuthbert that the ball is causing the depression as an on-going matter even if there was a time when it came to be on the cushion. However, the problem is that it is then open to the objector to insist that this is not the case and the depression was caused by the ball coming to be on the cushion (and the spring-back when the ball is removed is caused when the ball is removed). And thus that variation on the thought experiment would not 'force' the believer in the dogma that causes precede their effects to abandon their position. By contrast, if we stipulate that the ball has always been on the cushion, then we have an undeniable counterexample to the claim that causes precede their effects.

Now, perhaps you think there is something incoherent in the notion of eternity. That's all I can think. But that's confused - eternity just means 'for all time'. That, anyway, is the notion of eternity that the example needs. And whether one believes time has a beginning or that it stretches back infinitely, there is nothing incoherent in the idea of something existing 'for all time' and thus for two things to have been in a certain relationship for 'all time'.

No, that's not true. If self-creation is understood as a form of simultaneous causation then the same entity X would be simultaneously existent (as effect) and non-existent (as cause). — neomac

Er, no, they would be existent as cause and existent as effect.

Besides properties and relations presuppose the existence of the terms they are predicated of, so if causality is a relation or a property it would require the existence of the causal factor to already obtain. — neomac

You've just made the 'the cause would need to precede the effect' objection - the very one that's undermined by the coherence of simultaneous causation! Do keep up!

Therefore non-existing entities can't cause anything. — neomac

I didn't argue that they could. But existing ones can and they can cause themselves to exist. As I said earlier, the claim is not that something can come out of nothing - it remains true that nothing causes nothing. The claim rather is that something can cause itself. And so although this means that there can be nothing and then something, the something's coming into being is not being caused by nothing, but by the thing itself.

Everyone must admit that it is possible for something always to have been the case. — Bartricks

Not when the things involved are contingent objects. Balls and cushions are contingent objects. A contingent object requires a cause for its existence. Therefore it is impossible that a description of something which is said to have always been the case, could involve contingent objects.

Now, perhaps you think there is something incoherent in the notion of eternity. That's all I can think. But that's confused - eternity just means 'for all time'. That, anyway, is the notion of eternity that the example needs. And whether one believes time has a beginning or that it stretches back infinitely, there is nothing incoherent in the idea of something existing 'for all time' and thus for two things to have been in a certain relationship for 'all time'. — Bartricks

What I've explained to you a number of times now, is that there is incoherency in the idea of a contingent object (like a ball), which has always been there. A contingent object requires a cause for its existence, and the cause of its existence is prior in time to its actual existence. That means that there is time before the existence of the contingent object (the ball). Therefore to say that the ball was always there is incoherent.

Not when the things involved are contingent objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why? If an object exists at a time, what prevents it from existing at all times? Explain.

What I've explained to you a number of times now, is that there is incoherency in the idea of a contingent object (like a ball), which has always been there. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I have explained to you numerous times why this is false. There is nothing incoherent in the idea of a contingent object existing for all time.

You are committing a fallacy known as the fallacy of affirming the consequent. If an object exists necessarily, then it always exists. But it does not follow that if an object always exists, it exists of necessity. YOu think it does which is why you think that contingent objects can't always exist. That's just fallacious reasoning on your part. Contingent objects can always exist. They will be existing contingently, but anything that exists at a time can exist at any other time, and thus can exist for all time.

Why? If an object exists at a time, what prevents it from existing at all times? Explain. — Bartricks

It's an inductive conclusion, we've seen that things change as time passes, and things come into existence, and pass out of existence. You can deny this if you want, but to me, that's irrational, and that's what makes your proposition incoherent to me. I mean come on, we know that pool balls are produced from the factory, they cannot exist at all times. That's nonsensical

You are committing a fallacy known as the fallacy of affirming the consequent. If an object exists necessarily, then it always exists. But it does not follow that if an object always exists, it exists of necessity. YOu think it does which is why you think that contingent objects can't always exist. That's just fallacious reasoning on your part. Contingent objects can always exist. They will be existing contingently, but anything that exists at a time can exist at any other time, and thus can exist for all time. — Bartricks

That's not the reasoning I use at all. Like I said above, the reasoning is based in an inductive principle. Contingent objects cannot always exist because we know that each and every one of them came into existence in time, so there is necessarily time before them. We know by inductive reasoning that this is the case for all such objects

And your principle " anything that exists at a time can exist at any other time" is clearly false. Each and every thing has a time period unique to itself, and cannot exist at a different time period, because this would be a different thing.

You're just confused. You think that contingent things have always 'come into being'. That's just false. There's nothing in the idea of an object existing contingently that implies it has come into being.

You have no argument. All you're doing is insisting that what I am saying is incoherent, even though it demonstrably isn't.

For instance, you seem blithely unaware of the fact you've been refuted. If an object exists at a time, then what's to stop it from existing at all times? You have no argument.

There is nothing incoherent in the idea of something existing for eternity. And it is the mere coherence of the idea that my case requires.

So if you go back in times and find no end, that is eternity. But going back in time reverses which you encounter first: cause or effect. Therefore a cyclical understanding of time affects how we see causality and makes time prior causality. But can time create itself?

Er, no, they would be existent as cause and existent as effect. — Bartricks

If they simultaneously exist, there is no bringing into existence from non-existence (as creation is normally understood) but at best preserving into existence.

You've just made the 'the cause would need to precede the effect' objection — Bartricks

No, I'm talking about ontological dependency between properties/relations and the entities they are predicated of. If X is taller than Y, "taller than" as a relation is predicated of X and Y while X and Y are existing. It's possible that the relation holds simultaneously to the existence of both terms and the terms can not exist without being in such relation (this is the case for internal relations). The issue is that if one of the terms doesn't exist then relations/predicates can not be instantiated while if all terms exist there is no bringing into existence from non-existence as "creation" is normally understood.

As I said earlier, the claim is not that something can come out of nothing - it remains true that nothing causes nothing — Bartricks

Then it's not self-creation as normally understood ("the act or process of making something that is new, or of causing something to exist that did not exist before" source: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/creation?q=creation) but at best it's existence preservation like when a person feeds herself to survive, and nobody would literally take self-feeding as a form of self-creation.
Besides if you are talking about your god, why does your god need to preserve itself into existence? He is all mighty and perfect, so he would not suffer from any decaying process, nor need to preserve itself into existence.

I once mentioned this to apokrisis and I feel this is as good a time as any to state it again.

$Nothing/0 = (+x) + (-x)$.

If an object is sitting there, motionless, at rest it can mean two things:

1. No force is acting on it

or

2. All the forces acting on it are equal & opposite i.e. they cancel each other out. Symmetry.

In the case of 1, there's no hope (ex nihil nihil fit), but 2 is a different story, even the slightest fluctuation could, well, break the symmetry. Voila! The Big Bang (creatio ex nihilo).

You're just confused. You think that contingent things have always 'come into being'. That's just false. There's nothing in the idea of an object existing contingently that implies it has come into being. — Bartricks

"Contingent" in the case of a contingent object means dependent on something else. I don't see the point in your denial. We can name thus type of thing however we want, instead of "contingent", "material thing", "physical object", "temporal object", whatever. The point is that the inductive reasoning tells us that all such things come into being in time, therefore there is necessarily time prior to them. You can deny the inductive principle if you want, but unless you give me a real example of such a thing, a thing which has always been, I'll never listen to you.

You have no argument. All you're doing is insisting that what I am saying is incoherent, even though it demonstrably isn't. — Bartricks

If it's demonstrable, demonstrate it then. Show me the reality of a thing, like a ball, which has always been. It's actually very demonstrable that balls are all produced, and there is time before each one of them, so you're really just talking nonsense in your insistence of demonstrability.

For instance, you seem blithely unaware of the fact you've been refuted. If an object exists at a time, then what's to stop it from existing at all times? You have no argument. — Bartricks

I gave you the argument. Since you didn't understand, it I'll be more clear this time. The time at which an object exists, is a property of the object, just like the space, or location where it is. And each individual object has its own unique set of properties, which makes it one and the same with itself only, by the law of identity. Therefore by the law of identity, if an object exists at one particular time, it cannot exist at another particular time without being a different object.

If they simultaneously exist, there is no bringing into existence from non-existence (as creation is normally understood) but at best preserving into existence. — neomac

The only reason to say what you've just said is the mistaken view that causes precede their effects. If a cause can be simultaneous with its effect, then there is no reason to insist that the object has not created itself. Why are you saying that we have 'preserving into existence'? I don't even know what that means. The object does not exist prior being caused to exist. So it has been created. It's just it has been created by itself.

Engage in the following thought experiment. Imagine something just pops into existence. It didn't exist. Then it does. What happened? Did nothing bring it into being? Well, that seems incoherent: something doesn't come from nothing. So, it caused itself, then. It brought itself into being. That's perfectly coherent if simultaneous causation is coherent (which it is).

No, I'm talking about ontological dependency between properties/relations and the entities they are predicated of. If X is taller than Y, "taller than" as a relation is predicated of X and Y while X and Y are existing. It's possible that the relation holds simultaneously to the existence of both terms and the terms can not exist without being in such relation (this is the case for internal relations). The issue is that if one of the terms doesn't exist then relations/predicates can not be instantiated while if all terms exist there is no bringing into existence from non-existence as "creation" is normally understood. — neomac

You don't seem to understand what simultaneous causation involves. The cause exists as does the effect. You seem to be thinking that in a case of self-creation, the thing doing the creating does not yet exist. No, it exists simultaneous with its effect, it is just that in this case the effect is itself.

Once more, you are simply assuming that causes must precede their effects and thus that for self-creation what's required is that the entity that is doing the creating exist prior to the entity it creates. That's precisely what I am showing is false.

Then it's not self-creation as normally understood ("the act or process of making something that is new, or of causing something to exist that did not exist before" source: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/creation?q=creation) but at best it's existence preservation like when a person feeds herself to survive, and nobody would literally take self-feeding as a form of self-creation. — neomac

Yes it is self-creation as normally understood. It is an act of causing something to exist that did not exist before. How is it not?

In a case of self-creation, X causes X to exist. Prior to that act of creation, there is no X. So, X brought itself into existence.

"Contingent" in the case of a contingent object means dependent on something else — Metaphysician Undercover

No it doesn't. A contingent object is an object that 'can' not exist (as opposed to a necessary object, which is an object that can't not exist).

Once more: if an object exists at a particular time, what's to stop it existing at all times?

The point is that the inductive reasoning tells us that all such things come into being in time, therefore there is necessarily time prior to them. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think it does, but I don't need to dispute that for my purposes here. Do try and focus on the relevant issue. Note, if self creation is coherent, then even if all things come into being, some of those things could have created themselves. Indeed, one would have to draw that conclusion, for otherwise one would have to posit an actual infinity of causes - which is incoherent.

So, you are thoroughly confused. It is not the case that everything has to come into being. But even if it was, all that would do is prove my point. For not everything can be created by something else, for then we have an actual infinity of other things. Some things must create themselves.

That's called an 'argument'. Address it.

The time at which an object exists, is a property of the object, just like the space, or location where it is. And each individual object has its own unique set of properties, which makes it one and the same with itself only, by the law of identity. Therefore by the law of identity, if an object exists at one particular time, it cannot exist at another particular time without being a different object. — Metaphysician Undercover

There are extrinsic and intrinsic properties, and intrinsic properties are those properties that are essential to an object's identity. Temporal properties are extrinsic, not intrinsic. I am clearly the same person I was a second ago. And my mug is the same mug it was a second ago.

Anyway, all this is beside the point. You seem to have serious difficulty focussing on the relevant issue.

Besides if you are talking about your god, why does your god need to preserve itself into existence? He is all mighty and perfect, so he would not suffer from any decaying process, nor need to preserve itself into existence. — neomac

I haven't mentioned God once in this thread so it is not clear to me why you are doing so. I think it is fair to say that most theists and atheists alike think that literal self-creation is incoherent.

I believe in God - by which I mean an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being - on the basis of an argument that has nothing to do with the origins of the universe. Indeed, given the nature of the universe it seems quite unreasonable to me to think that God had anything to do with its creation. (And if things can create themselves, then that provides a good explanation of why, despite God existing, there also exist a lot of gits).

Similarly, whether God created himself, or exists uncreated, or was created by alien forces, seems neither here nor there. God exists. How or whether he came to exist is another matter.

You seem to think that if God created himself, then he wouldn't be God. I don't know why you think that. To be God a person simply needs to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Why do they need 'not' to have created themselves? Odd.

Indeed, given the nature of the universe it seems quite unreasonable to me to think that God had anything to do with its creation. — Bartricks

Excuse me?