echidna

First Cause is one of the traditional “proofs” of a deity. And as you note, contemporary QM & cosmology is pushing towards a Theory of Everything TOE scenario where the universe may indeed be causeless.

The concept of “before the BB” is entirely speculative & as such so is causality to a large extent. M Theory for instance poses the BB as the result of an event in another universe. What was responsible for those colliding membranes ? Speculation on speculation.

While some signal the TOE as a triumph in dismissing the First Cause argument for a deity, I maintain that the argument is still perfectly alive and well on the issue of contingency.

Whatever the origins of the universe, caused or not, ultimately for any TOE to be fully explanatory, it is reasonable to expect that it should also be able to explain itself. While there are articles which dismiss the endless cycle of asking “why”, simply accepting space-time & the TOE as a given, hardly seems adequate. Can there be a materialistic explanation for materialism ? I don’t see how.

I acknowledge that this was possibly this was not your contention, however your topic did contain the word “contingency”. You use the word “divine” & while I don’t know exactly what that means, I would suggest that the problem of contingency does suggest something beyond the materialism of our physical existence.

demrald

echidna
It's one of the usual attempts. However, establishing a first cause wouldn't prove that God existed, unless that first cause was shown to be God.
You certainly have a knack for stating the obvious.
What does this have to do with anything at issue here?
So you can establish that the big bang was caused and that it was caused by God? Great! Let's see your argument.
A red herring? A strawman? Maybe both? Whatever it is, I doubt it has anything to do with whether or not the big bang was caused.
And anyone who uses the word 'contingency' is suspect of being a materialist. . .
And I would suggest that you provide an argument demonstrating as much before you expect me to believe your suggestion.

tergiversant

It would seem that you are effectively claiming that we know of some other form of contingency than physical causation (e.g. Bush Jr. would not exist but for Bush Sr.). If this is so, what is it and how does it work? Concepts and abilities belong respectively to minds and agents. To assume that the Big Bang is somehow contingent upon such a being (a conscious agent) would seem to beg the question a bit. Deduction ex nihilo is a fairly straightforward oxymoron. Logical necessity informs us only about relationship of the concepts involved (e.g. circles are necessarily round). I am unclear on the concept here. Could you give an example of a metaphysical worldview which epistemologically explains itself and explain how it does so?

echidna

Demrald, maybe a failing on my part, but I sense a distinct lack of willingness to understand my post, quite possibly the result of an unjustified pre-supposition of my actual position (or lack thereof). If you prefer argument without requiring mutual understanding, I suggest you’ll enjoy RRP.

Good day to you.

mycroft

If spacetime were explainable as a logical consequence of the rules of logic, and the rules of logic existed before spacetime (this is so the rules can explain spacetime through causality) then spacetime would have existed since those rules since something logically necessary is logically necessary. Hence, pure deductive logic cannot really explain this universe of ours.

Perhaps it is simply my prejudiced way of thinking (imagine that), but when I picture space or time I picture an actual something. Some sort of medium or background.

echidna

In short it’s the next question after “why is there something rather than nothing ?”

Either (if there is such a thing as T=0),
How does the TOE including space-time come into existence ?
Or (if time has no beginning or end)
What justifies the ongoing existence of the TOE including space-time ?

The TOE is a materialistic explanation for the universe we live in.
Can either of these questions be answered in materialistic terms ?

Unless one can justify that the TOE is logically necessary, does one simply accept the TOE as a given ? Entirely the secular equivalent of Goddidit IMO.

echidna

In the fields of Quantum mechanics and Cosmology, the notion of causality is entirely open for debate. Yes, beyond Bush jr being contingent on Bush sr.

The Transaction Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics actually requires causality to operate backwards in time, just for a single example.

Minds far greater than mine grapple with it in vain so I won’t attempt any greater explanation.

Umm, I didn’t mention a mind or conscious agent. Something transcendent of materialism is all I posed.

Does my previous post make my problem even slightly less blurry ?

Well you can always invoke an omnipotent omniscient deity, but I’m quite familiar with the inadequacy of this copout. Do you have a solution ?

[ September 10, 2002: Message edited by: echidna ]</p>

demrald

echidna
I'm afraid this doesn't address anything I've said. So, instead of trying to be an Internet psychoanalyst, how about you address my critiques of your claims, instead?

Plump-DJ

Hello Tron. This from earlier in the set..

What exactly is an 'uncasued' event?

Mickey

Demrald

From my reading of A Brief history of Time, and many other works on this subject, I venture the following comments on the relationship between the "big-bang" and space-time.
The big bang was the sudden expansion of a singularity. We are not told the details of a singularity, did it exist in terms of our understanding of the meaning of that word? If there was no space-time then it could not exist because we only perceive existence in terms of entities persisting in an occupied space. And if it was totally singular, then no space time can be involved, because there are no other entities in the context of which it can be spatio-temporally related. Can the singularity be defined? (This is a question for anyone). But when this singularity expanded it became fragmented matter in fields of energy. Then we have space-time because there are lots of entities not in the same place. The distances between entities are space-time. I can see no way to explain time other than as state-changes in matter, and motion or distance can explain anything we refer to by the word "time", in this context.
I wonder if the behaviour of fundamental particles gives a clue to pre big bang conditions? Apparently, photons can move backwards and forwards in time, or be in two places at the same time(time referring in my mind to the monodirectional sequence of events we call the universe), as indicated in the two-slit experiments. Apparently also particles "pop" in and out of existence at the fundamental level. If quanta of energy are not confined by space-time and can become matter randomly, then perhaps the singularity was simply(!) infinite energy?


Mickey