The Nature of Causality.

[LiamOS]

I was close to putting this in the 'Science and Religion' forum, but it's still hard to justify something so speculative as science.

This thread will be for the discussion of the nature of causality(Go figure, eh?) and its theological implications.

I'll preface the thread with the following, just to establish some base from which to discuss.

As best we can tell, we live in a deterministic universe. With the arguable exceptions of quantum fluctuations(This do not amount to any significant uncertainty at macroscopic scales), everything is preceded by a cause.

The very idea of a cause is dependant on time, it would seem. Relativity also comes into play, as you can't cause anything within a time frame at a distance which would cause the information of the cause to exceed the speed of light.(Entanglement is perhaps an exception)

Given that time began with the big bang, is it reasonable to assert(As many Christians, Deists and Atheists alike do) that the universe must have a cause?


Questions for debate/discussion:
1) Is it reasonable to assert that the universe has a cause?

2)- What theological implications would a universe that does not necessitate a cause entail?
- What theological implications would a caused universe entail with a God(Unless otherwise stated, we shall assume the Christian God) as the 'ultimate' cause?

The second half of the last question is also not license to debate compatibilism, for this thread deterministic laws imply no free will worth talking about.

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With respect to the second half of the final question, I shall voice my opinion on the matter:
With a judging God as the cause for all that is and will be, it is self contradictory and ultimately inane.

[Miles]

This is pretty interesting. I think I agree and I think I have a vague idea of what you're talking about, but could you please elaborate a little more on the concepts you're talking about? You mention persisting duration and physical quantity, but never define them. Is there somewhere you can reference to help explain it, or something? I'm genuinely interested.

"Persisting duration" is the flow of time, which is marked by change in something. If absolutely everything in the universe where to stop changing except for one singular object, the ongoing change in that object would be the only means by which the flow of time could be determined, or even said to exist. But should that object suddenly stop changing then time would essentially cease to be. So, the flow of time,"persisting duration," is inexorably dependent on change. No change, no flow of time. Change is the essence of time. And it's this essence that I dubbed "physical quantity."

Time as a Physical quantity then denotes the property of change, but not its measurable aspect, change being necessary to establish the flow of time, persisting duration. It's the occurrance of difference, a notion we embrace when asking, "At what time did you arrive?" To reiterate, "time" used in this sense denotes an instance of change, and not persisting duration. Change, the "physical quantity" of transformation in a "body," and the continuance of change, "Persisting duration" or the flow of time, are different concepts.

It's not easy to describe time without employing the concept itself, so if anyone else wants to step in here and give it a shot, please do.

I disagree. Modern physics changed the framework of the question. Time and space are different aspects of the same thing. Without space there cannot be time. Spacetime is a single continuum.

No more so than any of other properties of the universe. Everything is some aspect of the universe. That space and time can be mathematically combined into a coordinate system no more makes them identical (as a single continuum) than do the combinations of length and breadth to form an area rob them of their individual identities.

Causality is by necessity temporal. If A caused B that means that the event A preceded B in time and that B would not have happened without A having occurred. Now if you let B be the big bang, and A be whatever you believe to have caused the big bang, then A must have been an event prior to B. But since time itself began with the big bang, as you have yourself admitted, there cannot be an A.

And A was never postulated. What happened before the singularity, if anything, is a forever unknown, so we're told. However, if there was an event A at some point before B then time would not have begun at B, but with A or some time prior to it. What science does tell us is that for all practical purposes---mainly because we can't examine anything before the BB---time began with the BB event.

[McCulloch]

What happened before the singularity, if anything, is a forever unknown, so we're told. However, if there was an event A at some point before B then time would not have begun at B, but with A or some time prior to it. What science does tell us is that for all practical purposes---mainly because we can't examine anything before the BB---time began with the BB event.

Thus, for all practical purposes, the BB is the uncaused first cause.

[Miles]

What happened before the singularity, if anything, is a forever unknown, so we're told. However, if there was an event A at some point before B then time would not have begun at B, but with A or some time prior to it. What science does tell us is that for all practical purposes---mainly because we can't examine anything before the BB---time began with the BB event.

Thus, for all practical purposes, the BB is the uncaused first cause.

I think that's a realistic approach.

[LiamOS]

By that logic, would you believe it reasonable to assert that the universe has a cause?

[Miles]

By that logic, would you believe it reasonable to assert that the universe has a cause?

Not by that assumption, but because the BB theory points to one: the universe came out of a change in a singularity, and as far as can be determined no event (change) arises without a cause. So I think it is reasonable, very reasonable, to assert that the universe had a cause. Of course what the cause consisted of is unknown, and, according to cosmologists, will forever remain so.

[LiamOS]

But if you take the singularity as a given, quantum mechanical principles and thermodynamics almost go as far as to necessitate a universe.

[Miles]

But if you take the singularity as a given, quantum mechanical principles and thermodynamics almost go as far as to necessitate a universe.

While it appears that QM and thermodynamics require a universe such as ours---there may be other universes a bit different where the two also exist---why are they dependent on the singularity? Could they not also have some other form of genesis? From I can tell, we simply don't know.

[LiamOS]

That is true.

[Grumpy]

Miles

Change may be how we measure time(say the number of times a certain atom changes energy state in a second), but time is part of the fabric of the Universe. We live in space/time, a four dimensional matrix that makes up the Universe itself. Motion is just the changing of position in space over time. Even if something is motionless in three dimensions(whatever that means), it still moves through the dimension of time at a fixed rate(for non-accelerating frames)unaffected by the lack of change in the other three.

These four being tied up together, mutually interdependent, is illustrated when you start moving near lightspeed. Because you are moving very fast along one of the three space dimensions, it affects the rate at which you are travelling through time, slowing that rate(it also adds mass, because of the energy tied up in it's movement, but that is another tie in of gravity, mass and energy, which are really different forms of the same thing). Space and time can not be separated, though they can be measured separately you cannot have one without the other, the Universe is space/time.

In addition, what is meant by motionless? Is there anything that can be pointed to as being motionless? It's all relative, everything is at the center of the Universe. Every atom of hydrogen in all the water in the Universe once resided dead center in the expansion of that Universe, in the Big Bang itself. As far as every atom of hydrogen is concerned, that's where it is right now, that everything else in the Universe moves in relation to itself.

The funny thing is, they are all correct, in one way of looking at it. All the farthest galaxies are seen to be 13.7 billion light years away, IN ALL DIRECTIONS. We appear to be suspended in the very center of the Universe as it expands away from us. But , if we were on a planet in a galaxy anywhere within this Universe, we would see exactly the same thing because, to them, the Universe has been expanding away from them, not from us. This is what is meant when we say the Universe is Homogeneous, appearing the same everywhere within it(IE having no front, back, sides, top or bottom or even any kind of outside "surface" at all). There is no "edge" to space/time.

Grumpy

[Miles]

Even if something is motionless in three dimensions(whatever that means), it still moves through the dimension of time at a fixed rate(for non-accelerating frames)unaffected by the lack of change in the other three.

And just what form of movement would this be? You are evidently positing some kind of independent flow of time, but have yet to establish its existence.

Because you are moving very fast along one of the three space dimensions, it affects the rate at which you are travelling through time, slowing that rate(it also adds mass, because of the energy tied up in it's movement, but that is another tie in of gravity, mass and energy, which are really different forms of the same thing).

But it all depends on your frame of reference.

In addition, what is meant by motionless?

Well, according to you "motion is just the changing of position in space over time." So I assume that by "motionless" you mean "no change of position in space over time."

Is there anything that can be pointed to as being motionless?

EXTREMELY doubtful, but if you're talking about my remark about "absolutely everything in the universe where to stop changing," it's just a thought experiment, a "What if" proposition to consider.

It's all relative, everything is at the center of the Universe. Every atom of hydrogen in all the water in the Universe once resided dead center in the expansion of that Universe, in the Big Bang itself. As far as every atom of hydrogen is concerned, that's where it is right now, that everything else in the Universe moves in relation to itself.

I think you've gotten a bit carried away here. Might want to rethink this one.