h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Internally to the universe this is true. However if the everything is EVERYTHING it CAN'T have an EXTERNAL cause. QED

Noggin

Not QED I fear. In fact you have almost finished my argument for me! Everything THAT HAS A BEGINNING has a cause. So I'll skip the sophistry regarding your use of 'everything' ....... no I won't, but I'll get closer to the style of predicate logic. For any x, if x has a beginning, then x has a cause. Clearly, that is how it is intended, but I'm happy to take everything in one lump because the point is that the cause of everything THAB must be something that does not have a beginning.

In the next part of the argument we see that the somethething TDNHAB turns out to be God.

Toxxin, I would agree with you - everything that has a beginning has a cause (and I presume, a reason). I am not too good at this philosophy stuff, but I am trying...

Hi Della. I am just as happy to speak to beginners as to experts. Don't put yourself down though. Philosophy is a difficult subject and, unlike most others, there is no shallow end.

Don't be TOO ready to agree, and don't agree because you like the conclusion. That's a no,no. However, I certainly don't know of anything beginning without a cause, and between myself and the rest of the human race that's a lot of observations.

You know what comes next, of course. Everything that has a beginning must have been caused by something that doesn't have a beginning - otherwise we just follow the causal chain back and back until we get stuck because we run out of things to be causes! There has to be this stopping point, because we have already agreed that the universe had a beginning - so we can't trace things back forever.

Hi again Della. What's a science fiction practitioner. Does that mean you're a writer or just that you go to conventions?

You presume that everything that has a beginning has a reason. Now that's a bit of a tough one. Too tough for me, so I'll set it as your homework! How would you know whether anything has a reason? Illustrate your answer by the example of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. I'm serious

posting 84:
It's a lot of observations of things inside the universe. But how many observations of things OUTSIDE the universe (which is what we require here) can you tot up? We can trace things back inside the universe, but not beyond, because beyond the rules change. If the rules were still the same you'd still be inside the universe. Outside the universe is outside the limits of application of any metaphysics. The notion of a personal god only has a meaning inside the universe where the persons are.

Noggin

The context of my quotes that you cite is the question of whether the universe had a beginning. Evidence from inside the universe is all that is required. I don't talk about a personal God, but of God's being a person. In fact, God is, perhaps, the only person outside the universe - which, of course, is not to say that He is not also inside it. I'm just trying to summarise theism, not my own beliefs.

You anticipate the next bit of the argument which concerns whether the universe has a cause and whether that cause is personal.

The cause / reason distinction tends to be loosely used in everyday speech. In philosophy speak I try to restrict cause to caused by the laws of physics, and reason to doing things for a purpose, though this still leaves a blurred borderline and makes no provision for the freewill / determinism question.

Is time to be regarded as
1) A property of the mind?
2) A property of the universe?
3) A universal property?

Is cause and effect to be regarded as
1) A property of the mind?
2) A property of the universe?
3) A universal property?

One of our fellow researchers (Otto) descibed the noumenon (the world of things as they are in themselves) as the view from nowhere.

I'm not really in thinking mode tonight, but to coin a phrase "I'll be back."

Noggin

Since you aren't in thinking mode, I won't be too critical. Anyway, your post contains mostly questions. One thing I can't let pass, however, is < caused by the laws of physics >. The laws of physics (I prefer to think of laws of nature) are merely descriptive, not prescriptive and certainly not efficacious. So they don't cause anything. I suspect though that this phrase was merely a slip of non-thinking mode.

Ahhhh! I'm more awake myself now. There's a lot of 'meat' as usual in your post, Noggin. I like your quote from the learned Otto. I would be just as inclined to describe the noumenal as 'The view from everywhere'! Maybe that would be a sort of philosophical cubism. The root of the word suggests the view from the mind, the thing as it is known to be.

I tend to make a purpose/reason distinction too. Purpose is teleological; it's about the intended end state. In fact 'intention' is pretty much a synonym for it. Reason is more to do with what mental reflections give rise to the action. It is more like 'motivation'. It sounds more rational than it sometimes is - I scratch because I itch! (reason) I scratch in order to stop the itching (purpose).

I'll have a go at cause and effect here too! Causality (cause and effect) is a property of the universe. Causation (causes and effects) is a property of events. Well, I guess I've really stuck my neck out there. Go on, chop it off

Bookmark

Probably I should have drawn a distinction between the laws of nature as the actual laws by which the universe works, and the laws of physics which are our incomplete and approximate description of the laws of nature.

I think I'd have to disagree with you about cause and effect being a property of the universe. Substance is cause and effect in the same way that matter is energy, and constitute a kind of "extended phenomenon." Anything in which cause and effect or energy might be thought to inhere is truly an unknowable thing in itself. We simply can't "get behind" the laws of nature to see what's there.

Noggin

I think you are being too Lockean - real and nominal essence thinking, but now we have science which takes us further.

You're saying that you don't know what cause and effect are properties of! But whatever it is, it is something unknowable. I have said that causality is a property of the universe. If this unknowable is the universe or a subset of it, then I'm not wrong...


Well, you're sticking your neck out there bud. For matter and energy we have e=mc^2. You are going to have to define 'substance' for that one to stand any chance of seeming plausible

Something tells me that you're floundering here. Perhaps we should go back to deciding exactly what the question is. It's deep water for me too!

The ancient Hindus believed (and modern Hindus believe) that nothing could be said about the Absolute, the Prime Mover. They believe that the universe is suject to the cycles of life and death but their idea of the length of these is far more realstic than the few thousand years of the Christian fundamentalists. Like the Chinese Tao, anything that can be said about it is not it.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Well, Alji. Nothing can be said about that.

Well that's the end of that then!!!

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Oh come on! I was only using the favourite remark of the peoples to whom you were referring. So that's where Wittgenstein got it from eh!

Everything that we perceive is an effect. The rest follows.

Noggin

Tricky one that, Nog. So how did we acquire the concept of cause? Or do you mean that we only perceive the effects of the world on our senses. I disagree. So the nearest I ever get to Bach is an effect? I think I perceive the performance.

But your perception will not be the same as mine and not the same as my grandson's. There are some people who can't perceive music at all because it just sounds like cacophony. Not only that, What bach heard was totally different.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)