Question about causality.

[Posner]

I am an atheist and recently heard a Bible Thumper say that every effect has a cause, and every cause has a previous cause and so forth on up the chain, presumably up to a bearded space guy who watches you masturbate. This causality business smells of bullshit, but I am not an especially philosophical person, so I can't put my finger on exactly what is wrong with it. Anyone have any thoughts?

[Kuroneko]

The short of it is that either there is an infinite chain of causes or an uncaused cause. In the former case, there is no logical need for any external entity, and in the latter, no reason to suppose that uncaused causes must be bearded space guys. Notice that the conclusion actually explicitly falsifies the premise: it's claimed that every cause has another one behind it, and yet the conclusion is an example of an uncaused cause.

[Posner]

Notice that the conclusion actually explicitly falsifies the premise: it's claimed that every cause has another one behind it, and yet the conclusion is an example of an uncaused cause.

Okay, if I understand you correctly, the counterpoint is that God would need a cause himself in order to fit in to their world view. Am I on the right track?

[Covenant]

I always love this argument.

I am an atheist and recently heard a Bible Thumper say that every effect has a cause, and every cause has a previous cause and so forth on up the chain, presumably up to a bearded space guy who watches you masturbate. This causality business smells of bullshit, but I am not an especially philosophical person, so I can't put my finger on exactly what is wrong with it. Anyone have any thoughts?

Nothing is wrong with causality, since it's true. However, what's the cause of you being in a car accident? Is it you being drunk... or is it God sending you a message that your drinking is sinful? When a thousand people die of easily treatable diseases, is the cause an easily treatable disease, or divine wrath?

What you're objecting to is the idea of the prime cause of everything being God, and rightly you should, since there's no reason or evidence (and much evidence to the contrary) to believe that the Christian God is the prime cause for anything at all. Yes, something happened at the beginning of the universe to let the universe be. But it could be any number of things, and none of those number of things need to be God.

Furthermore, if causality holds, what is the origin of God? From whence God? Did God create himself? That violates causality. Did God always exist? Another causality violation. Okay, let's say--as he would--that God exists outside time and space and so from this favored frame of reference, he existed beforehand. That doesn't change anything, even from that frame of reference, doesn't causality hold? If not, then who is to say that from this preferred frame of reference where time and causality are irrelevent there couldn't be a merely mundane impetus for the universe?

No matter where you put the chair for God to sit in, someone had to put that chair there first. No matter how far back you go, causality still holds, and God must always have a God to create him, and up it goes ad infinitum. Or in a more clearminded sense, "turtles, all the way down."

This isn't a debate you need to have though. If it comes up a lot, feel free to bring this casuality question up though. Plus, remember, there's no need for causality to be intent. Things can happen simply because they do. If we assume the Universe is a closed system then it may be a cylical system, so the fact is it may have just been doing this over and over and over. And if he asks you how is it then that without God that there is anything anywhere, anything in any frame of reference at any time in any point of any of the cycles at any point throughout the millions of theoretical reasons and causes and possible hiding places for anything to be or have been or will be... then you need to just shrug and say that you're an atheist, not a cosmologist. Atheism makes no predictions about such things, it just says that his faith's explinations aren't sufficent either.

[Kuroneko]

Notice that the conclusion actually explicitly falsifies the premise: it's claimed that every cause has another one behind it, and yet the conclusion is an example of an uncaused cause.

Okay, if I understand you correctly, the counterpoint is that God would need a cause himself in order to fit in to their world view. Am I on the right track?

Yes; this is actually against the premise that every cause has a previous cause. On the flip-side, if we allow for causes that not themselves effects (or "self-caused", whatever that might mean here), there is no reason to assume that God is such a thing. We have even more reason to say that the Universe is the ultimate cause, as at least it indubitably exists.

[Covenant]

There's also many theories that account for extra-universal causes of the universe while still not asking you to believe in a God of any sort. It really is something that is so far beyond what we can really prove though, so you really don't need to let it be a big matter of discussion. Furthermore, this tactic is also an appeal to ignorance. A lack of evidence is no evidence, not evidence one way or another. We have no evidence that God created the universe, much evidence to say it was not created in any way shape or form the way the Bible says it was created, and even more evidence to suggest that the evolution of the Earth and all the fundamental bits and pieces of our own history happened markedly differently than any religious conception whatsoever.

He, on the other hand, is arguing that since we don't know what made the universe that it must be God, or because the creation of the universe had to have a cause that it must be God, or because nothing could have been before the universe the only thing that could have existed to create it must be God. None of these are true. And since we do know a great deal about the Universe from the time shortly after the Big Bang up until nowadays, he's asking us to basically ignore every single thing the Bible says about the creation of the heavens and Earth except for the part where God says he did it. How is that reasonable? It's even more reasonable to believe in the uncaused creation of the Universe with God being banged into existance along with everything else--at least then we would know why he didn't seem to have a clue about how it took place.

[Johonebesus]

This argument hinges on the secondary premise that infinity is impossible., creating a paradox: every thing that moves must have been given it's movement by another moving thing (basically Newton's First Law), but the chain of causes must have a beginning, before which there was nothing to start things going. There must therefore be a first cause, the unmoved mover, which, by it's self contradicting nature, must transcend the physical world and its natural law. Of course the ancient Greeks just accepted as a fundamental fact of nature that infinity is impossible. You could state that this premise is just wrong and end it there, or you could try to explain how it is wrong. If time is a dimension like the spatial dimensions, then before time came to be there was no "before". Ideas like "first" and "before" and "after" become meaningless if you try to go back beyond the beginning. It makes no intuitive sense, but that's what I understand to be the current state of cosmology. So the question of what caused the Big Bang is basically an unanswerable question, for neither time nor the laws of physics existed at that point.

And of course, as other have stated, even if you accept the Philosopher's argument, the unmoved mover doesn't have to be YHWH. Originally Aristotle did not claim that this unmoved mover had to be a sentient god as normally imagined, only that it had to transcend the natural order and have some sort of animation to get things going. In fact I think he allowed that there could be many first causes, one for each astronomical movement (since he thought the celestial spheres moved without touching each other), and only settled on a single creator because he preferred unity over complexity.

Ironically, it's quite similar to the famous story of the superstitious old woman who argued with the cosmologist. When she said the Earth rests on the back of a tortoise, he asked her what the tortoise was standing on, a question he thought would clearly end the debate in his favor, but she replied, "Ha, you can't trip me up, it's tortoises all the way down!" Since it is so illogical that there could be an infinite tower of tortoises without a first one standing on something else, the old woman looks foolish.

[Feil]

It reduces to an Occam's Razor violation.

God created the universe. God always existed.

vs

The universe always existed.

The latter makes one unverifiable claim: that the universe always existed. The former makes four: that God exists, that the Universe was created, that it was God who created it, and that God always existed. We know the universe exists, so it is not an unverifiable claim. The latter requires fewer unverifiable claims, and is therefore more likely to be the accurate explanation.

[Covenant]

Ironically, it's quite similar to the famous story of the superstitious old woman who argued with the cosmologist. When she said the Earth rests on the back of a tortoise, he asked her what the tortoise was standing on, a question he thought would clearly end the debate in his favor, but she replied, "Ha, you can't trip me up, it's tortoises all the way down!" Since it is so illogical that there could be an infinite tower of tortoises without a first one standing on something else, the old woman looks foolish.

I mentioned this in passing in my post two up! Nobody reads what I write! Funny side-story though, the original story that the version you mentioned is itself pretty ancient. As stolen from crappy ol' Wikipedia, here's a Henry David Thoreau quote, in his journal entry of 4 May, 1852:

"Men are making speeches… all over the country, but each expresses only the thought, or the want of thought, of the multitude. No man stands on truth. They are merely banded together as usual, one leaning on another and all together on nothing; as the Hindoos made the world rest on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and had nothing to put under the tortoise."

An apocryphal quote attributed to Bertrand Russell also plays with the discworld model and the floating tortise, and it specifically addresses the issue of causality as early as the 20's. So this really is one of the oldest saws the creationists can drag out. One possible thing to remember is that while causality works just fine nowadays, we also have time nowadays. Time and space are artifacts of an inflated universe, so at some point when time was compressed to essentially a single point, causality may also have been irrelevent. That's a bit of a dodge, but until we really understand what was going on at the beginning of the Universe, we won't know. We can't even predict a lot of the quantum effects that we see every day in the lab, so causality does seem to fall apart at certain energies.

[Posner]

Thanks all, I think I understand it now. I'm sure in the future I will have you all do some thinking for me.

[Surlethe]

Here's another take on the first mover argument that might be a little bit tangential to the OP's question. It's a way of positively showing that the universe is the uncaused cause, instead of appealing to Occam's Razor. Causality requires the passage of time: by our notion of causality, if A caused B, A preceded B. We know empirically that the universe began; in particular, we know that time itself had a beginning. Here's where the first mover argument comes in: it all boils down to the question -- or, more appropriately, rhetorical device -- "what caused the universe?" The apologist would have you believe that the universe could not have sprung into being, but must have been somehow caused by an eternal being (who existed forever before the universe began). But here's the caveat: causality requires time, and time did not exist before the universe. Therefore, the universe itself cannot have been caused; it must itself have hence been the uncaused cause.

As a way to viscerally appreciate this argument, ask yourself what is north of the north pole.

[Singular Intellect]

It reduces to an Occam's Razor violation.

God created the universe. God always existed.

vs

The universe always existed.

The latter makes one unverifiable claim: that the universe always existed.

Actually, if one admits the definition of the universe encompasses all dimensions, then logically the universe has always existed because the dimension of time is just one among others.

[starslayer]

Actually, if one admits the definition of the universe encompasses all dimensions, then logically the universe has always existed because the dimension of time is just one among others.

But has time always existed? Current theory says it hasn't, just as the universe hasn't.

[Singular Intellect]

Actually, if one admits the definition of the universe encompasses all dimensions, then logically the universe has always existed because the dimension of time is just one among others.

But has time always existed? Current theory says it hasn't, just as the universe hasn't.

Examine your sentence there and see if you can figure out why it's a self contradiction.

[Paolo]

We know empirically that the universe began; in particular, we know that time itself had a beginning. Here's where the first mover argument comes in: it all boils down to the question -- or, more appropriately, rhetorical device -- "what caused the universe?"

I think too much is conceded by saying time itself had a beginning. Even if we think of spacetime as some sort of tangible object rather than a coordinate system, we never talk of the spatial dimensions "having a beginning" (insofar as that phrase has a meaning outside of time coordinate). In fact what we have is a definition of t=0 at an event that seems natural. We could easily say the Big Bang goes singular at t=-1 or t=2e13 if we saw fit to wiggle around the origin. That's the beauty of the whole theory. It's affine.

[starslayer]

Examine your sentence there and see if you can figure out why it's a self contradiction.

What happened before the beginning of the universe? I know we can't answer that, but as far as we can tell, that is a totally meaningless question. Why? Time is part of spacetime, and spacetime was created when the universe was according to current theory. Ergo, since spacetime has not always existed, time has not always existed. Obviously, this may be contradicted by a future theory, but as it stands now, my statement is perfectly valid.

[Wyrm]

Examine your sentence there and see if you can figure out why it's a self contradiction.

What happened before the beginning of the universe? I know we can't answer that, but as far as we can tell, that is a totally meaningless question. Why? Time is part of spacetime, and spacetime was created when the universe was according to current theory.

Correct.

Ergo, since spacetime has not always existed, time has not always existed.

INcorrect. Time is bounded, but that does not mean that time has not always existed. Why? Because the sentence "time has not always existed" means "there exists a time coordinate that preceeds all time coordinates." This is impossible, as any time coordinate you care to name cannot preceed itself. Therefore, the statement is false, and spacetime has existed for all time — it's just that time itself does not stretch to negative infinity.

Obviously, this may be contradicted by a future theory, but as it stands now, my statement is perfectly valid.

Your statement is not valid, as properly defining what the predicate "time has not always existed" means shows it to be false.

[Surlethe]

The problem in dealing with properties of time is that we take for granted certain phrases and words in our language like "always". When you want to explain things about time, you are tempted to say something like "time has not always existed", but then you get into sticky little circular references and contradictions. I find it neater and cleaner to think about time geometrically (which is, incidentally, what Einstein did ). Time is not some stream flowing throughout the universe, as we might think of it intuitively with our savannah-bred instincts; it is simply a set of coordinates we use to conveniently measure 'distance' in a direction of the universe. It's a lot easier to conceptualize how time could have a "beginning" (I use the term loosely here) when you think of time as lines of latitude and not as meter sticks lining up.

[starslayer]

Thanks for correcting me again, Wyrm. Does causality require spacetime as opposed to merely time? If this is so, this would put the universe as the uncaused cause again, would it not?

[Wyrm]

Thanks for correcting me again, Wyrm. Does causality require spacetime as opposed to merely time?

In this universe, yes, as time and space are fundamentally bundled together by that pesky Poincaré group. The universe always existed, as there is no point in time where space, matter and energy did not exist with it.

If this is so, this would put the universe as the uncaused cause again, would it not?

If we take "uncaused" to mean simply "without cause", then yes, the universe is uncaused because it always existed, and thus did not need to be summoned into existence by any actor, agency, or even itself. If you have a different definition, define it, and then ask again (after first trying to answer the question yourself).

[Posner]

If one is to accept some universal mechanism of causation, then it is required that each phenomenological event requires both a hierarchical and (probably) a temporal cause. The Argument from Teleology simply points out that each event begs an explanation, and so in that context the hypothesis "God exists and originally caused X" is exactly identical to "[NULL] exists and originally caused X".

An uncaused, or [NULL] caused causation chain requires as much faith to believe in as an originally caused causation chain. The problem here is not in proving a negative, but rather in identifying an antecedent, even if the theory is that the antecedent is [NULL]. To endorse such a hypothesis is to endorse a positive statement about the nature of the universe., not to assert a negative.

I stumbled across the argument that prompted this thread.

[Covenant]

The obvious brain-melting solution is to reject the need for a universal mechanism of causation, followed up with agreeing to the premise but disagreeing that believing in God is the same as believing in an unknown Null. Stating that we do not know the cause, and stating that the cause is the Abrahamic God concept "Yahweh," or furthermore that it is the specific version of said concept expoused by just one of the various subsets, is not an equal proposition. As stated humorously in the "I kill your God with math" section that reduces the probability of any one God being the correct God to nearly zero, the chance that we do not know the cause is greatly more likely to knowing the cause, even if we accept that a Supernatural causation is as likely as a Mechanical one, which we do not.

All this does is encourage a sort of telelogical sophism, where you state the "God is equal to [NULL]" without explaining why that would be, and it's quite obviously not equal unless one already believes that God is likely to exist. If the person in question is willing to admit that they may be wrong about their faith and that it is certainly possible that one of the millions of other dieties could be the real origin of the Universe, or that we are in a simulation, or a bottle-jar experiment in a collider in some other universe, or any of the other infinite explinations, then yes, I suppose any one explination could be seen as likely as God because they've all achieved nearly zero chance of being correct. Adding in God adds in every other explination, so their only arguement is one through the devaluation of their own hypothesis. That's hardly a stirring endorsement.