Are 'cause' & 'effect' interdependent on each other?

[rossum]

God is the Uncaused Cause independent of any effects

Then your God cannot exist. A cause can only be a cause if it has caused at lest one effect. We are back to the god Hakawion at the party in post #31. Hakawion claimed to be a creator, but hadn’t actually created anything, hence he was making a false claim.

All causes are dependent on some effect, just as all effects are dependent on one or more causes. Cause and effect are mutually dependent.

Just as parent and child are mutually dependent, so are cause and effect. There is no cause independent of its effect. At most it can be a potential cause or a cause-in-waiting. It cannot be an actual cause without an effect also being present.

rossum

 

[ynotzap]

Then your God cannot exist. A cause can only be a cause if it has caused at lest one effect. We are back to the god Hakawion at the party in post #31. Hakawion claimed to be a creator, but hadn’t actually created anything, hence he was making a false claim.

All causes are dependent on some effect, just as all effects are dependent on one or more causes. Cause and effect are mutually dependent.

Just as parent and child are mutually dependent, so are cause and effect. There is no cause independent of its effect. At most it can be a potential cause or a cause-in-waiting. It cannot be an actual cause without an effect also being present.

rossum

An effect is a potential cause for another effect in a chain of causes and effects. In our world an effect is the fulfilling of a capacity that belongs to the cause. The effect is dependent on the cause. The effect is never greater than the cause, because it is one of the capacities of the cause. The cause is never dependent on the effect only in a language expression of series of sequential events The cause is always prior to the effect because the effect is a potential state of one of the cause’s capacities. You are not treating cause an effect metaphysically, you may call it conventionally in your understanding. As I stated before, a potential state actually exists, if it didn’t a boy could never advance to be a father When a child is born it goes through many potential states, which are continuous as long as there is life in the child caused by the source of immanent activity (coming from with in the body) called the soul The end of the physical potential states of the body occurs at death. Physical maturation is the complete fulfillment of the physical potentials of the human body, from there on deterioration starts to take place, some say from age 30-33 If you understand that I am wrong, show me in my presentation where I am wrong or why you can not accept it. Is it just adherence to your beliefs, and if it is, show me the reasonableness of that adherence from your experience.

 

[rossum]

An effect is a potential cause for another effect in a chain of causes and effects.

I disagree with the concept of “potential” in this sense. It is another form of “essence”, which I also deny. Did my grandparents have two more generations of “potential” offspring than me? Do my children have one less generation of “potential” offspring than I do? Show me this potential and where I can find it. How do I measure it? Your “potential” is just another reified internal mental construct that has no real existence in the external world. What can you measure in a newborn baby that will tell you precisely how many grandchildren it will have? Your “potential” does not actually exist; it is another mirage.

In our world an effect is the fulfilling of a capacity that belongs to the cause.

The capacity is shared among many co-causes. The potential to have children requires the presence of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere and all the other conditions required for life. The capacity does not “belong” to the cause, but is shared among many different interconnected conditions.

The cause is always prior to the effect because the effect is a potential state of one of the cause’s capacities.

You use the word “prior”. That is another separate dependency, a dependency on time. You cannot have a “prior” in the absence of time.

You are not treating cause an effect metaphysically, you may call it conventionally in your understanding.

Too much of metaphysics is based on reifying internal mental constructs and assuming, incorrectly, that they actually exist separately from ourselves. Those reified constructs have no real existence.

As I stated before, a potential state actually exists, if it didn’t a boy could never advance to be a father.

From my perspective, what you are doing here is an attempt to replace change (child to adult) with stasis (potential adult to adult). You are saying that the adult was always there really, hiding, so the apparent change is only superficial, not real. For me that change is real, and your attempt to replace change with stasis (i.e. potential) is unreal. Reality changes. It is only our penchant for building static unchanging internal mental models that makes us think otherwise. It is a common error to project the stasis from our internal models onto the real world. In Buddhist analysis one of the causes of suffering is when our internal models do not match the real world. One of the functions of Buddhist meditation is to bring our internal mental models more into line with the world around us. That reduces any mismatch and hence reduces suffering.

rossum

 

[mackbrislawn]

An argument made against the First Cause is that a cause is just as dependent on the effect as the effect is on the cause…since the two are dependent on each other, there can’t be a stand alone ‘Cause’ that is completely self sufficient and independent of everything.

A cause is not a cause until it produces an effect. So the cause needs the effect in order to become a cause. Without the effect, the cause wouldn’t exist. The same applies for the opposite.

How can we show that an effect is dependent on the cause only? (especially when it comes to the First Cause)?

Let’s take the Father and Son relationship.

We all admit that God the Father was always the Father, and to be a father He had to always have had a son. We don’t say, however, that the Father “causes” the Son, but that the Father generates, or begets, the Son from all eternity. In a sense they are dependent on one another. The Father isn’t a father without a son, and the Son isn’t the Son without the Father. They co-exist simultaneously. The Father is the source of all being.

 

[rossum]

The Father is the source of all being.

Is the Father the source of the Father’s own being? The Father cannot be the source of all being, since the Father is not the source of the Father’s own being. That would make the Father just another created being.

rossum

 

[mackbrislawn]

Is the Father the source of the Father’s own being? The Father cannot be the source of all being, since the Father is not the source of the Father’s own being. That would make the Father just another created being.

rossum

Aha! Quite the question. Where does God come from? Where does the universe come from? What made God? Why is there anything at all? The age-old questions.

Some secular scientists speculate the universe exists by its own necessity, not created and hence is the source of its own being (whatever than can mean). But if one accepts that something exists by its own necessity, why can’t God exist by His own necessity? Which would make God being itself.

 

[rossum]

But if one accepts that something exists by its own necessity, why can’t God exist by His own necessity?

I do not accept that. Everything that exists exists because the correct conditions were in place for it to exist. Humans exist on earth because, among other things, there is sufficient oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere. Many many many conditions are required for human existence.

Which would make God being itself.

Since I do not accept your premise, I do not accept your conclusion.

rossum

 

[mackbrislawn]

I do not accept that. Everything that exists exists because the correct conditions were in place for it to exist. Humans exist on earth because, among other things, there is sufficient oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere. Many many many conditions are required for human existence.

Since I do not accept your premise, I do not accept your conclusion.

rossum

The philosophy here is getting a bit heavy for me.

Hmm…if nothing exists by necessity, but only because the correct conditions were in place for it to exist, one wonders how the correct conditions came to be. The only thing then that I can think of is that the correct conditions existed by necessity!

Maybe nothing exists. It’s all an illusion.

What holds up the earth?

The earth rests on the back of a giant turtle.

What holds up the turtle?

You can’t fool me, young man, it’s turtles all the way down.

 

[rossum]

The philosophy here is getting a bit heavy for me.

This is the philosophy forum

Hmm…if nothing exists by necessity, but only because the correct conditions were in place for it to exist, one wonders how the correct conditions came to be. The only thing then that I can think of is that the correct conditions existed by necessity!

Those conditions existed because the correct conditions for them to exist were present. It’s conditions all the way down.

Maybe nothing exists. It’s all an illusion.

Something exists, but because our senses are imperfect we cannot be sure precisely what it is. Whatever exists, it is not what we think it is. The illusion is not in the external reality, it is our internal image of that external reality which is an illusion. The water in a mirage is an internal illusion; it does not exist in the external reality.

It is also true that a mirage is not nothing at all. It is something: a mirage. A mirage looks like water. Nothingness does not look like water, so a mirage is an illusion, it is not nothingness.

What holds up the earth?

The earth rests on the back of a giant turtle.

What holds up the turtle?

You can’t fool me, young man, it’s turtles all the way down.

rossum

 

[mackbrislawn]

This is the philosophy forum

 

[rossum]

Are you sure that something exists?

There is no way to absolutely refute the Matrix/brain in a jar hypothesis. However it is simpler to assume that the external world exists and is a reasonable approximation to what we can sense.

They also have in common the feeling that this life is imperfect or at least not the way it should be,and is something to escape from. They share the assumption too that there is a way to escape, or a place to escape to.

There is a way to escape, but it is not a place.

Is heaven or nirvana part of external reality? Or internal reality?

Nirvana is not heaven and heaven is not nirvana.

But if there is actually something, how did it come to be? Did it have a cause? Is reality an effect?

When analysed, neither cause nor effect exist, because they are mutually dependent. Better to think in terms of conditions and results.

Another problem. I have here a picture of a man. It is a reasonably handsome young man, I guess, and I would like to say it is a photo of my father. Yet I hesitate to do so, because I wasn’t born yet. How can I label him father when he wasn’t a father?

That man was not your father. He was too young to be your father. Your father was older.

rossum

 

[mackbrislawn]

There is no way to absolutely refute the Matrix/brain in a jar hypothesis. However it is simpler to assume that the external world exists and is a reasonable approximation to what we can sense.

 

[Daniel_Lysinger]

That’s right, they are mutually dependent. It is like Newton’s third law of motion: for every action force, there is an equal reaction force. Forces come in pairs. An example is when you are sitting on a chair, your weight exerts a force on the chair, and you can feel the chair pushing back on you. Force and counter force. They are simultaneous, neither existed before the other, mutually dependent. Neither can exist without the other. This is similar to the relationship between the Father and the Son in the idea of the Christian Trinity, which was the point in my initial post.

This is flat out wrong. First of all, cause and effect are not mutually dependant. You can have a potential causer and not have an effect. An example of this is a hand and a fist. You can have a hand without making a fist, but you cannot make a fist without a hand.

Oh and your physics is very funny. You sitting on a chair is NOT a Newton’s third law pair because of gravity, although I won’t explain it in depth right now. Suffice it to say that you need to go back and take a good old physics course. A far better example of a third law pair is a hammer striking a nail. The force exerted by the hammer on the nail is matched in magnitude by the force of the nail on the hammer (in the opposite direction).

 

[mackbrislawn]

This is flat out wrong. First of all, cause and effect are not mutually dependant. You can have a potential causer and not have an effect. An example of this is a hand and a fist. You can have a hand without making a fist, but you cannot make a fist without a hand.

 

[Daniel_Lysinger]

Indeed, this is quite a question for philosophy, which has been the subject of this discussion. You assert you can have a cause without an effect. But it has been argued in this thread (not I) that until there is an effect, there is no cause, which would make them mutually dependent from that point of view. Furthermore, is the hand the cause of the fist? Or is it just a necessary precondition?

I see that we need to define some things pretty clearly. I’m cool with that. First of all, before I define all the terms here I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not intend to be vehement or angry in any way. I’m sorry you misunderstood me.

What is a cause? A cause is something that directly acts, making another thing. An effect is simply the end result of the action of the cause. Having a cause is a necessary precondition of an effect, because clearly you cannot have an effect without a cause. It seems though, that you are arguing that there can be no cause without an effect. To a certain extent, I see your point – but the fact remains that potential causality is completely thrown out the window. If something that has potential causality exists, then that would prove that a cause can exist independently of the effect.

This is where the hand and fist comes in. Yes, the hand is a “necessary precondition” as it were, but is that not what all causes are? Effects, as we both agree, are dependant on their causes to be in existence. We are simply discussing whether the opposite is true as well. Therefore, saying that a hand is “just a necessary precondition” is rather nonsensical here. That is not the point of our discussion, as we both agree on that.

because sitting on a chair is one of the examples given in my physics book! Direct quote: “Action and reaction force pairs occur even when there is no motion. For example, you exert a force on a chair when you sit on it. Your weight pushing down on the chair is the action force. The reaction force is the force exerted by the chair that pushes up on your body and is equal to your weight.”

I don’t understand your problem with gravity, because the book also says, “The force of gravity between Earth and a falling object is a force pair.” (Newton’s second law is also involved here.) Of course your example of a hammer hitting a nail is also good. Or of a bat hitting a ball.

Admittedly, most people will probably think of your weight on a chair as a third law pair. The reason (without going into the free body diagram or anything) is because third law pairs must have the same force (for example gravitational and gravitational). Your weight force is gravitational, while the force of the chair is purely reactionary. If you were to say that the normal forces of you sitting on a chair and the chair pushing up on you, then you would have a third law pair. Possibly the book you have makes this distinction? But, as it is, this is not a third law pair.

 

[mackbrislawn]

I see that we need to define some things pretty clearly. I’m cool with that. First of all, before I define all the terms here I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not intend to be vehement or angry in any way. I’m sorry you misunderstood me.

 

[Daniel_Lysinger]

So the conclusion is, even though we can’t have an effect without a cause, we nevertheless can have a cause without an effect, if we call it “potential causality.”

A hand, though, does not cause a fist. The fist is caused by the position of the fingers.

Of course to be honest, in my own opinion, I consider this whole discussion to be a play on words, just the way we use language. Are we really deciding anything? Ahem, coming to an effect? Or just sound and fury?

Any discussion really is kind of based on how we use language, it is simply that as we both agree on certain things and work to define things together progress will inevitably be made. You argue that the hand does not cause the fist, and posit that the position of the fingers is what causes a fist. Yet, if only two fingers are in the said position, would you consider it a fist? Undoubtedly, you would only consider it a fist if the entire hand (and not only a few fingers) was in the appropriate position. That is why you cannot say finger position is the cause. It is actually just part of the effect. In addition, consider the sun. Would you say that the sun’s existence is dependant on the effects that it has? Certainly not, as it is absurd to propose that without drying out a shirt on the clothesline, the sun would not exist. The sun (the cause of the shirt drying on the clothesline) is not at all dependant on the said effect – however the effect is definitely a possible indicator of the cause (in this case the sun, but it could be a heavy wind or something else).

Nope, I have to admit I don’t I don’t make much sense of the above explanation. Are you saying that the source of the action force is important? That is, the “cause” of the action force must be the same “cause” as the reaction force?

I suppose this is getting away from the subject of this thread, but maybe not, because it is still dealing with cause and effect and their interdependence, and the third law gives an example of mutual interdependence.

A statement of the third law could be, “Whenever one object exerts a force on a second object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite force on the first.” Now, I still don’t see how the weight of an object exerting a force on the floor, and the floor holding up the object, isn’t a good example. My weight is a force on the chair, and I can feel the force of the chair on me. Force and counterforce.

The above are static examples. Dynamic would be the classic rocket example of action and reaction. The action is the expulsion of exhaust gases from the nozzle, and the reaction forcing the rocket ahead. Or the recoil of a rife. Or a paddle pushing against the water, and the water reacting against the paddle, pushing the canoe forward.

All of these examples are fairly good. However, the confusion comes in when you use the statement of the third law which you mention above. It just isn’t as clear when it comes to gravity as it can be.

Here is a more clear explanation of why sitting on a chair is not a third law pair. The force of you sitting on a chair is actually composed of more than just one force. There is the gravitational force of the earth pulling on you, and the third law pair of this force would be the gravitational force of you pulling on the earth (equal in magnitude, opposite in direction, and negligible due to your minuscule weight compared to the earth). The reason that the force of the chair pushing up on you is equal and opposite is simply a consequence of Newton’s second law, Fnet = ma (your acceleration being zero and therefore the forces must cancel out). If this explanation is still a bit confusing, there is quite a bit of information about this topic here: newtonian mechanics - Why is a book on a table not an example of Newton's third law? - Physics Stack Exchange

 

[mackbrislawn]

Any discussion really is kind of based on how we use language, it is simply that as we both agree on certain things and work to define things together progress will inevitably be made. You argue that the hand does not cause the fist, and posit that the position of the fingers is what causes a fist. Yet, if only two fingers are in the said position, would you consider it a fist? Undoubtedly, you would only consider it a fist if the entire hand (and not only a few fingers) was in the appropriate position. That is why you cannot say finger position is the cause. It is actually just part of the effect. In addition, consider the sun. Would you say that the sun’s existence is dependant on the effects that it has? Certainly not, as it is absurd to propose that without drying out a shirt on the clothesline, the sun would not exist. The sun (the cause of the shirt drying on the clothesline) is not at all dependant on the said effect – however the effect is definitely a possible indicator of the cause (in this case the sun, but it could be a heavy wind or something else).