anotherfailure

This may sound really stupid or overly simple, but bear with me.

Where did we get the idea that we have an origin? Where did it come about? Why must the human mind have this predisposition to believe that everything has a cause?

I think everyone, at some age or another, begins to wonder where they came from, and where all of this other stuff came from. Religions would probably not exist, or would not be nearly as prevalent in our lives, if this question was never raised.

Is it part of our human consciousness? Where did it come from?

Pyrrho

I am not sure that I understand you, but I'll go ahead and say something anyway (such considerations certainly do not prevent others from replying, even without such an acknowledgement as this).

Every particular thing that we experience appears to have an origin. For example, each spring/summer, plants grow from seeds, mature, and then die out in the fall/winter. When we study other things that do not have such short "lives", like mountains, we find evidence that they have not always existed, but are the result of the movement of the land on the earth.

From such considerations, some wish to imagine that the universe as a whole must have a beginning. (Is this what you were interested in?)

However, there are a couple of things to say about this. First, it is an improper use of induction, as we have no experience of the creation of universes, only things within the universe. See David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion for more on this idea.

Furthermore, one can easily suppose that the universe, as a whole, had no beginning at all. This is even compatible with a "big bang" occurring:

As things are now, it appears that the known universe is expanding. It could be that things are going fast enough that the gravitational pull from all of the other things will not be enough to prevent everything from continuing to move further apart. Or it could be that they are not moving fast enough to prevent the gravitational pull from pulling everything toward everything else. If this second possibility is correct, then everything will gradually slow down, after moving very far apart, and then reverse direction, toward everything else. As things will be very far apart by then (they already are very far apart), they will have plenty of time to gain momentum from the gravitational pull of everything else, so everything will be moving very fast toward each other. When they collide, it will be a kind of big bang, and everything will ricochet off in all directions, thus starting the process of expansion all over again. Perhaps this has been going on forever, and the universe had no beginning.


As for the concept of causation, it seems that Hume would be an excellent choice for further study. There are three main sources. In the order they were written, they are A Treatise of Human Nature, An Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature (the full title is An Abstract of a Book Lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is Farther Illustrated and Explained), and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

If your interest is only in causation, I recommend looking at the Abstract first (reprinted in the second edition of L.A. Selby-Bigge, revised by P.H. Nidditch, of the Treatise, published by Oxford). My second choice would be the Enquiry (third edition of both of Hume's Enquiries, L.A. Selby-Bigge, revised by P.H. Nidditch, published by Oxford). And last would be the Treatise (the edition previously mentioned). These have been the standard editions for years, but Oxford has come out with newer editions that, it seems, they intend will replace the editions mentioned here as the new standards. They may be better, but I have not looked at them closely enough to have anything very useful to say about them.

I'll go ahead and add that there is a decent commentary on it in Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, though I still advise you to read Hume himself to know what Hume had to say. I am not inclined to agree with Russell absolutely, but he is better than most on Hume, who is frequently misrepresented, and not just his ideas of causation. (I suppose I ought to mention that the Abstract did not originally appear with Hume's name on it, nor is there absolute proof that he wrote it, but it is generally agreed that he did. The Treatise, which originally was also published anonymously, was later acknowledged by Hume as his, so it is not in quite the same category.)


Now, if none of the above is relevant to what interests you, you will need to offer some further explanation if you wish for something else from me.

Inconnu

A big-bang is just as as much a leap of faith as god for us non-astronomically orientated. Science and religion doesnt seem to have separated a great deal in the questions they ask, and the ultimate answers they give, how odd.
Q:How did we get here?
A1: Erm....god made you and everthing.
A2: Erm....a big explosion made you and everthing.

Exactly why we have such an urge to locate our origins is as much a mystery as faith. We would be better off without it.

Marlowe

First - HA! (love that last question )

Second - Apparently there is a fundamental 'operator' in the brain (a collection of several parts with discrete functions that correlate into a large function) that seeks causes and effects. Whether this corresponds to the universe at large is open to debate, but it is theorized to be a major way that the human brain organizes reality. See Drs. Newberg and D'Aquili's "Why God Won't Go Away". These fellows are brain researchers and their book specifically deals with the structures and functions of our brains and speculations on how these have given rise to religion.

Torben

Well, maybe at a first glance the two explanations look equivalent, but it's my impression that the math on the Big Bang side is a bit more well-developed than on the god side...

Jamie_L

Except that most of us should have an appreciation for the fact that, in general, science is a reliable way of describing reality, while religion's track record is a bit shoddy.

I've noted before that the whole concept of existence is troublesome, no matter how you look at it. Science is pretty much unalbe to comment on such things, and religion, as yet, is unable to do any better.

The only answer that makes any since - existence just is - still doesn't make much sense. Just more sense than other options.

Jamie

Inconnu

I have not looked at the math, I fear it would resemble hebrew to me, and I dont speak hebrew.

John Page

We are born, we die, seems to be a pattern of life.
IMO we cannot perceive anything without its being caused. If the sensations of our eyes, ears etc. were not caused by anything, what use would they be.

Ergo, I argue, everything must have a cause for me to know it. The predisposition you allude to is a necessary condition for perception to occur.

Cheers, John

anotherfailure

Explain this point. Why can't sensory information exist without a cause? Why can't this just be "it"? Why couldn't this always have been "it"? I think it's our ability to think chronologically.

John Page

If it is not caused then how would we know it (and therefore it would not be sensory)? It is the nature of knowledge (of sensory information or higher order concepts etc.).

Do you think our knowledge comes from nowhere?