Correct. Nobody knows what ultimately is behind the Big Bang.
But, as I say at
Is There a God? - The Mind Set Free, we can be quite certain that the universe did come from a Big Bang. The evidence indicates this Big Bang was most likely caused by quantum effects in a vast cosmic inflation.
How the initial state of the universe originated, is an open question .. namely because
we don't know.
The LCDM model does constrain some of its characteristics. Several highly speculative models have been proposed,
one of which involves quantum fluctuations.
-- End of story.--
doubtingmerle said:
As far as we can tell, once cosmic inflation gets going it is very hard to stop. So once we postulate cosmic inflation, then we are faced with the likelihood of cosmic inflation that grows exponentially ever after, creating untold number of universes.
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At my webpage, I then go on to ask what caused this cosmic inflation and quantum mechanics. Ultimately there must be some explanation for why that was happening. And yes, nobody really knows. But scientists are probing even that question.
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And while we are on the subject, what do you think caused the cause of the Big Bang?
Re the underlined bits:
The concept that a cause is fundamentally different from an effect, pretty much doesn't exist in Physics. It's not in any equation, it's not used in any formal sense. Yet as an
informal tool, it is used all the time, making it a very bizarre notion.
Philosophers have had great fun with it, but, (as usual), it has largely eluded them.
Hume basically said that no one can really say what connects an effect to a cause, yet even small children use the notion effortlessly. One could say it's a bit like the notion of good and evil, which philosophers have also never really figured out, yet gets used all the time.
It just shows how adept we are at manipulating ideas that we really cannot describe at all.
doubtingmerle said:
You don't want me to call the root cause of the cause of the universe the root cause? You don't want me to call it the first cause (with or without a mind)? What do you want me to call it?
A highly speculative, philosophically based word salad(?)
Y'know .. kind of akin to the Hunt for the Holy Grail(?)
doubtingmerle said:
The root cause I am referring to could be any one of a number of things, including an infinite regression, a loop of causation, self-existent causation, etc. The scientists in the youtube video I referenced discuss their view of the ultimate explanation of the universe.
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Nothing is morphing here.
You write this in response to:
Regardless of whether the root cause is a distinct something (A) or a circular something (ABC), an infinite regress, or things just happening, let’s call this root cause of any physics the first cause.
We are talking about something far beyond ordinary causation in our universe. I am struggling to put this into words that we in this universe can understand. So I suggest that we could call the root cause of all physics
the first cause.
Nothing morphed in that sentence. Certainly not a morph that requires 8 question marks and 3 exclamation points.
It's not a clear-cut
physical notion that 'A' causes 'B'.
As you indicate, there are many other possibilities, you can have X cause both A and B, but A always comes first, you can have the occurrence of B necessitating that A must have come before, etc.
And you can have situations like, let's say I hold a gun to your head and I decide
not to pull the trigger. Have I '
caused' you to not die? Is the rest of your life an effect of my decision not to shoot you? Can I cause an outcome via an action I
didn't even take? One person might say yes, another no. But the point is: what test could decide who was right?
You are thus indulging in, (and thereby giving creedence to), a
belief-based Hunt for a
believed-in 'Holy Grail' principle of universal causality, which even
transcends the universe (Metaphysics).
How does that process align with your 'Humanist Manifesto'?