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.

[Goat]

The end of entropy that now characterizes our universe, increasing disorder, a form of change, is then the death knell for time. Change ceases and, accordingly, time follows suit.

No.. the 'arrow of time' ceases. That makes things interesting.

Of course, a lot of this is still speculative... and he is trying to make sense of it. He has ideas.. and he is looking at methods to test those ideas.. but frankly, I am confused about what it all actually means.

[LiamOS]

I apologize for not being mathematically adept enough to do that, so you would have to show me.

Well, I'd have to ask a professor to make entirely sure, but I have a feeling that it would go something along these lines.
Just to be clear, I'm not actually sure of how to express the wave function of a 0k particle, but hey, I'll eat my words if I have to.
To make matters easier, I'll just use one spatial dimension, (x) and one dimension of time, (t).
At absolute zero, all matters effectively cease. If you leave a particle somewhere, chances are you'll find it where you left it.(Provided you have a frame of reference, but let's not go there...)
In essence, I would imagine the effective wave function of a particle at absolute zero would read something like:
Ψ(x,t) = K (Side note: K probably encompasses a lil' bit o' ħ an' some ι)
Where K simply encompasses its position; it's not really a function of t if it doesn't do anything.
I'm not entirely sure about how this would bide with probability amplitudes either, but I don't think that's relevant.
Now for the bit I have no doubt you'll get:
The bit I was talking about in the equation was really just the ∂Ψ/∂t, so here goes.
∂/∂t · [Ψ(x,t)] = ∂K/∂t = 0, for those who may read and do not really understand differential calculus, this simply means that the state does not change with time.

Of course, this is a little speculative as I have doubts about anything ever reaching 0k in my lifetime, at least.

I really hope I actually understand this enough; we don't get nearly as maths-ey as we should in my course.(But hey, there's always a masters...)

I have never heard or read of the outer event horizon, I assume this is what you're referring to, as being or marking the end of time, which appears to be your contention here. Got any info?

I was talking about the singularity.
Spacetime, being the way it seems to be, would only have edges at the Big Bang, Big Crunch(Should it ever happen) and any other singularities along the way.


Numerous edits:
Not used to typing maths, and i had to C/P all the characters off Wikipedia.

[Grumpy]

Miles

The weird thing about the arrow of time is that it’s not to be found in the underlying laws of physics...So the arrow of time is built on top of whatever local laws of physics apply."

The "Arrow of Time" is not time itself, it is the fact that all processes in this Universe only travel one DIRECTION(thus arrow)in the dimension of time, toward the future.

Time, then, is not a constituent member of the underlying laws of physics, which would be necessary if it had an independent nature.

The ARROW(pointer, direction indicator)of time! A perfect example of your lack of understanding, this is the same as the difference between the direction(indicated by an arrow/vector)a river flows in and the river itself. Every dimension has two directions, up/down, right/left, in/out, and past/future. An ARROW in any of these dimensions only indicates the direction traveled in each, it is not what is being traveled through(the dimension). According to the math this should be true of time as well, there is no difference IN THE MATH. But there sure is in reality, outside of the quantum realm there has never been even a hint of backward travel through time. So, there is something missing FROM THE MATH(or our application thereof).

No, the direction we travel in time is not evident in the math, demonstrating that, while math is useful and important, not everything that is possible in math(say, infinity)is possible in reality(the same goes for philosophy/logic). You have misinterpreted what he is saying.

"Carroll: Even in empty space, time and space still exist. Physicists have no problem answering the question of “If a tree falls in the woods and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?� They say, “Yes! Of course it makes a sound!� Likewise, if time flows without entropy and there’s no one there to experience it, is there still time? Yes. There’s still time. It’s still part of the fundamental laws of nature even in that part of the universe. It’s just that events that happen in that empty universe don’t have causality, don’t have memory, don’t have progress and don’t have aging or metabolism or anything like that. It’s just random fluctuations

Here Carroll is talking about time itself and everything in this paragraph supports exactly what I have said is true(to the best of our current understanding).

"if time flows without entropy(change)and there’s no one there to experience it, is there still time? Yes. There’s still time. It’s still part of the fundamental laws of nature even in that part of the universe. "

It would exist with it's own particular laws of operation. If it did then one would be compelled to ask, where are these laws. There are none, other than what we derive from other spects of the universe, which, of course, I contend is change. And Carroll then makes this clear by saying that time IS dependent on the other laws of physics, which means it is subservient to these laws. Then he makes an interesting remark.

Given the above demonstrated misunderstanding, the rest of the paragraph is irrelevant and totally erroneous.

"The arrow of time doesn’t move forward forever. There’s a phase in the history of the universe where you go from low entropy to high entropy. But then once you reach the locally maximum entropy you can get to, there’s no more arrow of time. It’s just like this room."

Here Carroll oversteps what he knows. You are aware that he is trying to promote HIS theory, but it has yet to become universally accepted...

"Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Caltech where he focuses on theories of cosmology, field theory and gravitation by studying the evolution of the universe. Carroll’s latest book, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, is an attempt to bring his theory of time and the universe to physicists and nonphysicists alike."

Theoretical Physicists are a very useful group to science, they are pushing at the boundaries of science and not everything they say turns out to be true. And I will probably buy this book, he is a good physicist.

Another point to be made for time as an actual dimension is the existence of the black hole. A black hole is essentially an edge of spacetime, and I can't think of how it could possibly make sense if change was necessary for time's existence(It's quite easily arguable that at such a singularity, nothing changes).

I have never heard or read of the outer event horizon, I assume this is what you're referring to, as being or marking the end of time, which appears to be your contention here. Got any info?

All Black Holes have an event horizon where the escape velocity is lightspeed. Time stops at that event horizon(just like it stops at light speed). The three dimensions of space are tied to the one of time so securely and inextricably that travel in one affects travel in the other, the faster you travel in space, the slower you travel in time. Photons, which travel at lightspeed, experience no time, that's why we can see billions of lightyears into space, the light does not get tired. And we can SEE the effects of times passage all the way back to very near the beginning(CBR). Sure, we judge those effects with change, but don't mistake the wake for the boat that made it.

Grumpy

[The Mad Haranguer]

Who said "First Cause" has anything to do with the sequence of events?

[LiamOS]

The first cause determines everything, if a system is deterministic.

Is that really a difficult concept?

[Cathar1950]

Who said "First Cause" has anything to do with the sequence of events?

We don't know there is a first cause.
I see the universe as related, and changes in relationships have effects.
By looking at a first cause you are dividing causality into two abstraction; Cause and effect.

[The Mad Haranguer]

Who said "First Cause" has anything to do with the sequence of events?

We don't know there is a first cause.
I see the universe as related, and changes in relationships have effects.
By looking at a first cause you are dividing causality into two abstraction; Cause and effect.

Quite the contrary: cause and effect are, together, the effect of the "First Cause" -- the final explanation or most fundamental reality. I am making the two one. In this context, "we don't know there is a first cause" is like saying. "we don't know if existence exists."

[LiamOS]

Please clarify this.

[The Mad Haranguer]

Please clarify this.

Contingent vs. non-contingent causation: all effects and some causes are contingent on a prior cause. What causes cause and effect? There are some things we can reasonably infer: its non-beginning and immutability, for example.

[LiamOS]

I don't think we can infer that cause and effect are non-beginning. Please show how you conclude that they are.