jjg wrote:The infinte tortoise is a meaningless argument in terms of the first cause argument.
There is a common objection against the First Cause argument which runs somewhat along these lines: it is quite true that every event must have a cause, but if the principle of causation be true, why should not the First cause have a cause?
Very simply because an uncaused cause, or First Cause alone answers to the true idea of a cause.
My first problem is here. You are assuming that there
must be an answer to the 'True idea of cause'. The unierse does not mold itself to human ideals.
You're deciding that the universe
has to be a certain way, because it would not satisfy your desire to have a 'True idea of cause' if it wasn't.
If I am therefore; to continue seeking a cause, I must pass over to its explanatory antecendant. It makes no difference how often I go back. If I do not arrive at something which is an uncaused cause, the idea of cause will be just as unsatisfied at the end of my search as at the beginning.
As I said. If you do not arrive at something which is an uncaused cause your quest for the true idea of cause will be unsatisfied. This doesnt mean that there has to be such an uncaused cause. This is an argument from desire.
A true cause is one to which the reason not only moves, but in which it rests, and except in a First Cause the mind cannot rest. The alternative does not lie between an infinite series and a first cause, but between accepting a First Cause and rejecting the idea of cause altogether.
Not quite, accepting a no-first cause does not quite eliminate the idea of cause altogether, but merely the idea of an ultimate indirect cause. You can still have direct causes, and chains of direct causes back to infinity. Therefore accepting a no-first-cause only eliminates that same first cause as a possibility, not direct causes.
And by the way, cause is a human concept. The universe doest have events. It just has an endless progression of activity. The universe and time do not differentiate one event from another. Everything is just moving, and 'events' come about when we arbitrarily decide that this movement has culminated into something recognizable.
To ask the question, what caused the first cause, is to ask that the a first cause be at one and the same as a secondary cause, which is a contradiction.
Not that it is relevent, but this is Metacrock's 'arbitrary neccesity' thing, just in english.
There is nothing contradictory in the concept of an infinite number of secondary causes succeeding each other in time. The First cause is not the first in the order of time, but in the order of rational sufficiency. I arrive at a first cause only when I arrive at something sufficient to explain the series and therefore outside of it.
Now this doesnt make any sense. You mean to say that there can be an infinite regress, but also a first cause at the same time? That would completely defeat your own argument. If you are accepting an infinite regress then there is no need for a first cause.
