Refutation of the First Cause argument

Elduran · Jun 5, 2005

Knowledge3 said:
That was precisely my point.

Yes, but I don't assume that this first cause is a supreme being. I don't even acknowledge a necessity for a first cause to create the first effect (i.e. the universe) simply because the rules of causality as we know them probably cannot remain the same in a timeless, spaceless "region"

Dale · Jun 12, 2005

235U92 in post #6:
<< Argument from Incredulity. Not valid.>>

Apparently you think I said "You can't prove it isn't."
I said no such thing. There is a logical need for cause. Atheists assume that matter, or the physical world, is primary and that mind exists only as an accident that arises from matter, or the physical world. There is no particular reason to believe this.

Dale · Jun 12, 2005

Socrastein,
You ignored my post #35.

Here is another point for you. Does "pure vacuum" have a dimension of time? If there is no time, then no activity can occur even if it is not prohibited by any other laws. Any action, such as the emergence or decay of one particle, must take some time, so if there is no time in "pure vacuum" then nothing can happen. There can be no fluctuations, quantum or otherwise.

Gracchus · Jun 12, 2005

Dale said:
Socrastein,
You ignored my post #35.

Here is another point for you. Does "pure vacuum" have a dimension of time?

Yes, the universe is space/time and these are not separable.

Dale said:
If there is no time, then no activity can occur even if it is not prohibited by any other laws. Any action, such as the emergence or decay of one particle, must take some time, so if there is no time in "pure vacuum" then nothing can happen. There can be no fluctuations, quantum or otherwise.

Who said no time?

Socrastein · Jun 13, 2005

Dale said:
I said no such thing. There is a logical need for cause. Atheists assume that matter, or the physical world, is primary and that mind exists only as an accident that arises from matter, or the physical world. There is no particular reason to believe this.

I'd love to see your sound logical deduction that the universe neccessarily must have a cause. I can't wait to see you try to prove causality is an absolute without assuming first that causality is an absolute.

And yes, there is a reason to believe the mind arose naturally - because there's no reason to assume there was a supernatural cause. It's called parsimony, and it's very valuable to the rational person.

As for ignoring your post #35, you're damn right I did.

Need I remind you that we are talking about billionths of a second, or even less for significant masses?

You start off talking about "pure vacuum." I assume that there is an infinite amount of this "pure vacuum" since it seems to have no origin, no shape, and no limits. If an finite universe emerged out of an infinite amount of "pure vacuum" then finity emerged out of infinity. What does that suggest to you?

I suggest that "pure vacuum" is as abstract as anything the theologians ever came up with.

I see nothing meaningful to address here.

Code-Monkey · Jun 13, 2005

Socrastein said:
I'd love to see your sound logical deduction that the universe neccessarily must have a cause. I can't wait to see you try to prove causality is an absolute without assuming first that causality is an absolute.

So you're saying that ALL of science is based on unsound logic?

Your doubts about causality are unfounded. We have yet to find anything in nature that began and is uncaused. The entire field of science is predicated on the idea of cause/effect. Granted, the axiom is unproven, but then so are all axioms.

Jet Black · Jun 13, 2005

Code-Monkey said:
Your doubts about causality are unfounded. We have yet to find anything in nature that began and is uncaused. The entire field of science is predicated on the idea of cause/effect. Granted, the axiom is unproven, but then so are all axioms.

because everything is contained "within the universe" which internally follows temporal symmetry. just because everything within the universe follows the universes rules, it does not follow that the universe itself as a complete entity has to also follow those rules. remember you are talking about events within spacetime, and not the nature of spacetime itself, which is what you have to talk about when talking about the universe.

Socrastein · Jun 13, 2005

Code-Monkey said:
So you're saying that ALL of science is based on unsound logic?

Your doubts about causality are unfounded. We have yet to find anything in nature that began and is uncaused. The entire field of science is predicated on the idea of cause/effect. Granted, the axiom is unproven, but then so are all axioms.

Science does not claim to rest on logically proven axioms, it uses pragmatic and parsimonious assumptions and with them describes reality.

There are qauntum events that we can not find a cause for. The pattern of decay in radioactive elements cannot be described causally. This does not mean that we will never find a cause, but obviously it shows that we have found things that seem uncaused. Anyway, you agree with me that the axiom is unproven, so why are you debating me? Dale said causality is logically necessitated, I said prove it. You admit it can't be proven, so what is the point of you trying to oppose my challenge to him?

A=A is an axiom of logic, and it's proven by definition. Not all axioms are unproven.

Code-Monkey · Jun 13, 2005

Socrastein said:
Science does not claim to rest on logically proven axioms, it uses pragmatic and parsimonious assumptions and with them describes reality.

There are qauntum events that we can not find a cause for. The pattern of decay in radioactive elements cannot be described causally. This does not mean that we will never find a cause, but obviously it shows that we have found things that seem uncaused. Anyway, you agree with me that the axiom is unproven, so why are you debating me? Dale said causality is logically necessitated, I said prove it. You admit it can't be proven, so what is the point of you trying to oppose my challenge to him?

A=A is an axiom of logic, and it's proven by definition. Not all axioms are unproven.

Fundamentally, everything is unproven. Even the very basics of mathematics relies on axioms that are unproven. I wouldn't put too much stock in something someone says is proven "by definition". It just means that's the way they defined it. "God, by definition, is the creator of the universe." See how easy it is.

You're right in saying that we simply haven't found a cause for it. The problem isn't in that there isn't a cause, the problem appears to be in our ability to measure it. Someone, Lucretius I think, recently had some good information on that. But everything in science is predicated on cause/effect. As you mentioned, it's not that causality is proven, rather it's just continously observed and reaffirmed. It's demanded by common sense.

Socrastein · Jun 13, 2005

Code-Monkey said:
"God, by definition, is the creator of the universe." See how easy it is.

Yeah, I do see how easy it is. That doesn't mean he exists though. Unicorns by definition have one horn on their head. That's a fact, it's an analytic statement that is true by definition. A square has 4 sides, an elephant is a mammal, Earth is a planet - all of these are true by definition, they are self-evident truths, and if used in an argument they are solid premises that needn't be proven because they are proven by their own meaning.

Randall McNally · Jun 13, 2005

Code-Monkey said:
Fundamentally, everything is unproven. Even the very basics of mathematics relies on axioms that are unproven. I wouldn't put too much stock in something someone says is proven "by definition". It just means that's the way they defined it. "God, by definition, is the creator of the universe." See how easy it is.

I object to the characterization of axioms as "unproven" as it implies potential provability. Axioms are axiomatic precisely because they are foundational to the argumentative systems they underly, and are thus unprovable within that system.

For that reason, axioms should be formulated such that absurdities result from their negations. "God is the creator of the universe" is then a poorly constructed axiom by that rationale.

Socrastein · Jun 13, 2005

Randall said:
For that reason, axioms should be formulated such that absurdities result from their negations.

What a brilliant way to put it.

Jet Black · Jun 14, 2005

Code-Monkey said:
It's demanded by common sense.

common sense is shown up as a terrible approximation in extreme scenarios of size, relative velocity and acceleration.

Tomk80 · Jun 14, 2005

Jet Black said:
common sense is shown up as a terrible approximation in extreme scenarios of size, relative velocity and acceleration.

Why are so many people so stuck up with common sense? Common sense left the scientific building with Galilei, who already argued convincingly that common sense is not a good way to discover the way the universe works. And he was right. During Galilei's time it was common sense that the sun goes round the earth in stead of vice versa.

Common sense is not a good tool in science, because the universe often works in ways that we don't expect.

Kripost · Jun 14, 2005

Tomk80 said:
Common sense is not a good tool in science, because the universe often works in ways that we don't expect.

I guess you are refering to Relativity and Quantum theory.

Tomk80 · Jun 14, 2005

Kripost said:
I guess you are refering to Relativity and Quantum theory.

In the context of this discussion, yes. However, you can look at this in a broader context. Some results of evolution go contrary to common sense. Same goes for psychiatry and almost every other scientific field. Often, when you have a deeper understanding of the subject, the observations and explanations make sense again. Which denotes another problem why common sense is not a valid argument. It differs from person to person. What may be common sense to me, may not be to someone else.

Code-Monkey · Jun 14, 2005

Tomk80 said:
In the context of this discussion, yes. However, you can look at this in a broader context. Some results of evolution go contrary to common sense. Same goes for psychiatry and almost every other scientific field. Often, when you have a deeper understanding of the subject, the observations and explanations make sense again. Which denotes another problem why common sense is not a valid argument. It differs from person to person. What may be common sense to me, may not be to someone else.

Let me see, I used "common sense" with respect to the idea that things happen for a reason. Has anyone yet to find anything that goes against that? The entire field of science still relies on that happening. If something doesn't happen for a reason and can't be predicted, then almost all fields of science doesn't have anything to do with it. I call it "common sense" because it's the one thing that's shared by all the fields of science: the idea that some cause produces an effect.

So it the consensus with you folks that are ripping into cause/effect that it in fact is a horrible thing to look for? Should we see something and just come to the conclusion that it just happened? It's magic? Or should we use a little common sense? It's common because almost every scientists seeks to understand something in it's cause/effect relationship to other things. Or does someone want to educate me and point out some great thinkers who threw away their common sense of cause/effect and came to the conclusion that something has no cause?

Jet Black · Jun 14, 2005

Code-Monkey said:
Let me see, I used "common sense" with respect to the idea that things happen for a reason. Has anyone yet to find anything that goes against that?

Quantum field fluctuations. Spontaneous emission. Young's slit experiment with a single photon. Polarizers. Radioactive decay.

Code-Monkey said:
I call it "common sense" because it's the one thing that's shared by all the fields of science: the idea that some cause produces an effect.

nonsense. see above.

Code-Monkey · Jun 14, 2005

Jet Black said:
Quantum field fluctuations. Spontaneous emission. Young's slit experiment with a single photon. Polarizers. Radioactive decay.

I would like to see a scientist say there definitely is no cause, not "we can't find a cause so there isn't a cause" or "it's too difficult to find a cause so in practical terms there isn't a cause". I don't think this is an accurate reflection of what scientists are saying.

You'll agree I think that well over 99.9% of all other science is predicated on cause/effect. And I think you'll agree even (regardless if you believe these things don't have a cause) that the scientists only did their job right if they looked for a cause. Now why would you agree to that if the assumption that cause/effect exists is a poor one?

Tomk80 · Jun 14, 2005

Code-Monkey said:
Let me see, I used "common sense" with respect to the idea that things happen for a reason. Has anyone yet to find anything that goes against that?

Quantum mechanics shows this every time we look at it. Jet Black gave a number of examples for this.

The entire field of science still relies on that happening. If something doesn't happen for a reason and can't be predicted, then almost all fields of science doesn't have anything to do with it. I call it "common sense" because it's the one thing that's shared by all the fields of science: the idea that some cause produces an effect.

Quantum mechanics shows that we still can predict some of the behaviors of things even though they do not have a 'cause'. However, we can only predict a range of possibilities of the whole, we cannot produce a prediction for a single particle. For example, we can predict that in radioactive decay every half-life half of the parent isotope will decay. But we cannot predict which specific particles will decay. If I take a kilogram of parent isotope and wait the time of a half-life of this isotope, half of it will have disappeared. But if I would have devided the kilogram of parent isotope in two halves of 500 grams, no matter how I divide the original kilogram, every time 250 grams of both halves will have decayed.

So it the consensus with you folks that are ripping into cause/effect that it in fact is a horrible thing to look for? Should we see something and just come to the conclusion that it just happened? It's magic? Or should we use a little common sense? It's common because almost every scientists seeks to understand something in it's cause/effect relationship to other things. Or does someone want to educate me and point out some great thinkers who threw away their common sense of cause/effect and came to the conclusion that something has no cause?

We have not concluded that some things in quantum mechanics do not have a cause because we don't like it. We have concluded this because this is the only conclusion we can draw based on the observations. Apparantly, no matter how counterinuitive it might seem to us, there is no specific cause why an individual particle behaves the way it does. We cannot predict it's course, it is undetermined untill we detect it in some way.

The question you asked in the beginning of this paragraph is equally valid when we turn it around. Is it so horrible to conclude that a certain phenomenon is 'uncaused' if all the evidence we have points this way?

Refutation of the First Cause argument

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