Why Couldn't the Universe Exist Without a Cause?

[JuanFlorencio]

I think Hume says we can’t get through even one day without the principle of causation, but we can never prove it. We observe a billiard ball striking another (event A), and then see the second ball moving (event B), but we cannot logically prove that A causes B.

While we might casually say A causes B, Hume says if instead we’re careful, the best we can do is to state that whenever A, we customarily see B. This leads to the notion of a universal law, as a statement that if certain conditions apply (A) then a particular phenomenon (B) is always observed to occur. And this is exactly how we now define a physical law. I think Hume’s skepticism, the careful refusal to go with intuition alone, then becomes the foundation for knowledge in the physical sciences.

One issue with it is that it doesn’t work for one-off events. Historians can’t use it to construct a law of Napolean to explain his motivation, since there’s only one of him and he only fought each battle once, etc. So it can’t be a foundation for all knowledge. And of course the initial singularity is a one-off.

In a previous post I discussed this point. I am taking the liberty to reproduce it again:

Hume said that since we can conceive “cause and effect” relations which are different to those that we actually know, without incurring in contradiction, those relations are not necessary; they might very well be different from what they are. Those who entertain thinking on “possible” worlds which obey other “rules” might think that Hume’s doctrines provide a great support to them. However, what Hume thought was that there is no way to prove that there is any rule at all in this very world: the behaviors that we have observed this minute might be completely different the next moment. According to him we have no basis to think that from similar “causes” or conditions we can expect similar “effects”. Here you have his own words:

“It is certain that the most ignorant and stupid peasants- nay infants, nay even brute beasts- improve by experience, and learn the qualities of natural objects, by observing the effects which result from them. When a child has felt the sensation of pain from touching the flame of a candle, he will be careful not to put his hand near any candle; but will expect a similar effect from a cause which is similar in its sensible qualities and appearance. If you assert, therefore, that the understanding of the child is led into this conclusion by any process of argument or ratiocination, I may justly require you to produce that argument; nor have you any pretense to refuse so equitable a demand. You cannot say that the argument is abstruse, and may possibly escape your enquiry; since you confess that it is obvious to the capacity of a mere infant. If you hesitate, therefore, a moment, or if, after reflection, you produce any intricate or profound argument, you, in a manner, give up the question, and confess that it is not reasoning which engages us to suppose the past resembling the future, and to expect similar effects from causes which are, to appearance, similar. This is the proposition which I intended to enforce in the present section. If I be right, I pretend not to have made any mighty discovery. And if I be wrong, I must acknowledge myself to be indeed a very backward scholar; since I cannot now discover an argument which, it seems, was perfectly familiar to me long before I was out of my cradle.”

Let’s suppose it is a fact that you are one of those guys who can’t provide a satisfactory argument to Hume. How could you avoid thinking that physical sciences are just illusions? In particular, how would you respond to someone who, based on Hume’s words, said that the mathematical expressions with which we pretend to represent certain regularities that we conceive in the world are fantasies? They would represent how physicists think in a given moment, but not how the world is or might be. And, of course, this would include all cosmological models. Besides, verifiability/ falseability would be entirely useless “methods” to show that a hypothesis is scientific; and, finally, to say that a statement is scientific would add no value to it.

However, even if it were the case that similar conditions were followed by different effects, Hume’s severe doubt would not affect the principle of causality; it would be a severe doubt concerning determinism, but not causality.

I don’t think Hume’s position serves as a foundation for science. If his position is correct, science is an illusion.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

As I’ve been saying all along, we never get absolute certitude. If you read that into any of my responses, you read them wrong. In my very first response, I said that all we have is a spectrum of justified beliefs. I’m not going to qualify every sentence I ever write as such, because such writing is tedious for everyone involved.

Now, we have drifted too far from the original topic. My first assertion was

I subsequently defended the “inductive reasoning” quip with:

To which you asked a very peculiar question:

And so let us return to the root of this discussion. Now I have, over the course of these meandering questions, argued that

1. We can’t be certain of anything really.
2. a. Pragmatism says that we should be optimistic.
3. b. We should therefore have some faith in our ability to figure things out about the world through senses and reason.
4. When our senses and reason conflict, neither side wins by default.

From the original discussion, I claimed
3. We can’t make a-priori dicta about how the world works without backing that up with empirical evidence (i.e. information about how the world actually works.)

And so, with all that in mind, I will consider a “world which is beyond empirical evidence.” Specifically, I will consider a hypothetical world with the following properties:

1. It is completely separate from our own. There are no interactions between the two. We have absolutely no way of getting any empirical evidence about that world.
2. All the physics and properties of that world are completely different from our own.
3. In that world, there is no causation whatsoever, things happen randomly, and stuff pops into and out of existence randomly.

Given the above as postulates, could you prove that such a world was necessarily caused?

I would assert, given my position which I previously summarized, that since we can’t get any empirical evidence about that universe (aside from the postulated lack of causality) any beliefs we might formulate about that world would be very weakly justified. Anything that we did would involve extending a metaphysics (which is derived from this world’s physics) to that world (which has a different physics and consequently a different metaphysics.) But such a thing would be tantamount to making a-priori dicta about how that world works without any actual information regarding how that world works.

I am trying to conceive your hypothetical world, JK: to be consistent, I would need to eliminate “2.” or change it for “there is no possible physics for this world, and it has no properties”. Would you agree?

Concerning your last paragraph…, metaphysics is not derived from physics.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

It’s already been pointed out that logic and common sense are not valid methods of solving problems within physics. I’m going to have to repeat myself, but anyway…

It is not a matter of common sense for light to travel backwards. It is plainly not common sense by any stretch of the imagination to say that one thing can be in two places at the same time or that something can be a wave and a particle at the same time. How can something pop into existence and then disappear again? None of this is logical by any definition of that word.

So we all know, and it has been shown I don’t know how many times, that common sense and logic, on their own, are pretty much useless in determining certain aspects of physics. If you insist on using it on its own, then you will definitely be proved wrong at some point. And that is true even in the everyday, macro, run-of-the-mill world in which we live (if you can describe the high end maths and quantum physics involved as run-of-the-mill and everyday). You know this. It’s beyond argument. It is a simple fact. It is plainly undeniable. It would be perverse in the extreme to say it ain’t so.

And so we move to areas of existence where physics itself breaks down. Where space and time are the same thing. Where even the laws of physics that already defy common sense and appear illogical themselves break down.

Let me repeat that: Even laws that already defy common sense and already appear to be illogical lose any meaning.

I want you to consider your same argument in regard to the examples I just gave. Light cannot be a wave and a particle because that’s not common sense. It’s illogical. So would you like to re-write the physics on photons? One thing cannot be in two places at the same time. It’s not common sense. It’s illogical. So do you want to redefine quantum mechanics? Do you want to rewrite the rules that apply to the expansion of the universe? Do you want to rewrite the theory of relativity? But you must be right because you are relying on common sense and logic. I mean, how could you possibly be wrong?

Nevertheless, you are still going to use that same argument again at some point. I’m not going to bother repeating myself again. I will save a link to this post and just reply with that. It’ll save us all a lot of time.

I have noticed that you have said this several times, but I have not seen where you have shown it. I will not discuss if you just say that some aspects of physics contradict certain “common sense”, but logic? Please, Bradski, show me a logical argument which is contradicted by physics.

 

[Bradski]

I have noticed that you have said this several times, but I have not seen where you have shown it. I will not discuss if you just say that some aspects of physics contradict certain “common sense”, but logic? Please, Bradski, show me a logical argument which is contradicted by physics.

Let’s assume A is a particle. Let’s assume P1 is a position and P2 is a different position. As they are different positions we can logically say:

1. P1 ≠ P2

If the particle is in the first position we can logically say:

1. A=P1

If it is in the second, we can logically say that:

1. A=P2

If A is in both positions at the same time, then A equals both P1 and P2. Logically we can say that therefore P1 is the same as P2:

1. P1=P2

Line 1 contradicts line 4. The situation is therefore illogical.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Let’s assume A is a particle. Let’s assume P1 is a position and P2 is a different position. As they are different positions we can logically say:

1. P1 ≠ P2

If the particle is in the first position we can logically say:

1. A=P1

If it is in the second, we can logically say that:

1. A=P2

If A is in both positions at the same time, then A equals both P1 and P2. Logically we can say that therefore P1 is the same as P2:

1. P1=P2

Line 1 contradicts line 4. The situation is therefore illogical.

No Bradski, it doesn’t work like that.

Let’s assume A is a banana. Let’s assume P1 is a quality (like sweet), and P2 a different quality (like yellow). Then, tarararin tarararan… P1=P2.

No, no… You can form, for example, these propositions:

1. Particle A is located in position P1
2. Position P1 is not position P2
3. Therefore, Particle A is not located in position P2

Now, you just have to show that this argument is a tautology. If it is, and an experiment shows that particle A can be in positions P1 and P2 simultaneously, you win.

Please, go ahead.

 

[Bradski]

Now, you just have to show that this argument is a tautology. If it is, and an experiment shows that particle A can be in positions P1 and P2 simultaneously, you win.

Please, go ahead.

Is that all? Well, I thought people knew about this stuff. I mean, no-one has been questioning up to now. I wouldn’t say the details are common knowledge, but guys have won the Nobel prize in physics for proving it. Specifically Dr. S. Haroche and D. Wineland:

‘They proved the correctness of the bizarre properties of quantum mechanics, i.e. that electrons can be two places at the same time.’ bigthink.com/dr-kakus-universe/nobel-prize-awarded-to-two-quantum-physicists

Sounds like a win to me. So can we *now *stop saying that something is impossible just because it defies common sense and appears to be illogical?

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Well considering that you neither understand nor comprehend quantum physics, it therefore by your own admission appears not to comply with common sense and does appear illogical.

Maybe I can put your point in another way: ‘Anything that appears to defy common sense and appears illogical could mean that we just don’t understand what’s happening’.

Thanks. Tell PR, can you?

I’m not sure where I said I don’t understand quantum physics.
I am pretty sure I know it better than you, but I would concede the point to avoid useless argument.
I don’t think I need to pass on anything to PR. She seems to get it from what I have read, although we have disagreed on occasion.
This is a Catholic forum where you’ve been repeatedly shown the truth contained within the church. You are the one whose “common sense” fails to grasp its logic.

 

[Bradski]

I’m not sure where I said I don’t understand quantum physics.
I am pretty sure I know it better than you, but I would concede the point to avoid useless argument.

Well, no offence meant Al. Unless we are in that particular field of physics then we are all just shuffling around in the dark. Which is pretty much my point.

 

[Nixbits]

PRmerger:

I would be prepared to grant the existence of the God of Sikhism in order to digest the arguments being presented by the Sikh.

Fair enough. You imply that it’s the arguments presented that matter. I agree with you. But where is ‘opening your heart to the god of Sikhism’ in this? I don’t see it. I also don’t see why it’s necessary to grant the existence of the god of Sikhism before you can digest the arguments put forward for that god’s existence.

 

[Nixbits]

Bradski, Solmyr, I wish to register a complaint. In both your jokes the engineer is one of the people that is wrong. I feel a bit miffed about that (being an engineer myself). A 1-out-of-2 failure rate I could accept, but 2-out-of-2? It’s clearly not a representative sample. Unless of course it was a software engineer, in which case it’s fair enough. (Sorry, ThinkingSapien, no offence meant.)

 

[Bradski]

Bradski, Solmyr, I wish to register a complaint. In both your jokes the engineer is one of the people that is wrong. I feel a bit miffed about that (being an engineer myself). A 1-out-of-2 failure rate I could accept, but 2-out-of-2? It’s clearly not a representative sample. Unless of course it was a software engineer, in which case it’s fair enough. (Sorry, ThinkingSapien, no offence meant.)

Fair enough. But I was going by personal experience. All the engineers that I work with are the type that say that 'This has always worked perfectly well before (it hasn’t) and I can’t see why it shouldn’t work for this (it won’t) so there is no need to change is (there is).

The gentle thudding sound you hear in the background is Bradski’s head being banged softly on his desk.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Unless of course it was a software engineer, in which case it’s fair enough. (Sorry, ThinkingSapien, no offence meant.)

None taken. Sometimes the path to success is paved with lots of failed attempts when doing something new. The success rate can be embarrassing at times.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Is that all? Well, I thought people knew about this stuff. I mean, no-one has been questioning up to now. I wouldn’t say the details are common knowledge, but guys have won the Nobel prize in physics for proving it. Specifically Dr. S. Haroche and D. Wineland:

‘They proved the correctness of the bizarre properties of quantum mechanics, i.e. that electrons can be two places at the same time.’ bigthink.com/dr-kakus-universe/nobel-prize-awarded-to-two-quantum-physicists

Sounds like a win to me. So can we *now *stop saying that something is impossible just because it defies common sense and appears to be illogical?

No Bradski, you haven’t won yet. I don’t have any problem with the particle in two places simultaneously. You take it for granted. Now, you only have to prove that the argument is a tautology. It must be a simple thing to you. I thought you were acquainted with logic. Are you not?

 

[Bradski]

No Bradski, you haven’t won yet. I don’t have any problem with the particle in two places simultaneously. You take it for granted. Now, you only have to prove that the argument is a tautology.

It’s self evident. Both equations are true yet contradict each other. Can you possibly argue otherwise?

 

[inocente]

What is the nature of this “knowing”?
What if your knowing contradicts someone else’s? If two people claim to know the Spirit, how do you know which is correct?

Maybe a more primary question is, "
“Do you even think it matters which one is truly of the Spirit?”.
Some might be satisfied to be convicted as individuals, so unity is irrelevant then.
It’s good to be convicted as an individual.
But, individualism is not compatible with the nature of Christianity. Do you agree?

Given that individualism is incompatible with Christianity, who determines this knowledge you are pointing to, such that we are united in it?

Romans 14:5-12. While an interesting topic, 700 posts into a thread is not a good time to introduce something so far off-topic, let’s leave it for another day.

Or, do you just want to acknowledge the most reasonable and TRUE fact: you humbly submit to the authority of the CC each and every time you quote from the NT as theopneustos.

We’ve had this tired old conversation many times before, I can’t get interested in repeating it yet again, thanks all the same.

 

[inocente]

In a previous post I discussed this point. I am taking the liberty to reproduce it again:
JuanFlorencio;13619398:

Here you have his own words:

“It is certain that the most ignorant and stupid peasants- nay infants, nay even brute beasts- improve by experience, and learn the qualities of natural objects, by observing the effects which result from them. When a child has felt the sensation of pain from touching the flame of a candle, he will be careful not to put his hand near any candle; but will expect a similar effect from a cause which is similar in its sensible qualities and appearance. If you assert, therefore, that the understanding of the child is led into this conclusion by any process of argument or ratiocination, I may justly require you to produce that argument; nor have you any pretense to refuse so equitable a demand. You cannot say that the argument is abstruse, and may possibly escape your enquiry; since you confess that it is obvious to the capacity of a mere infant. If you hesitate, therefore, a moment, or if, after reflection, you produce any intricate or profound argument, you, in a manner, give up the question, and confess that it is not reasoning which engages us to suppose the past resembling the future, and to expect similar effects from causes which are, to appearance, similar. This is the proposition which I intended to enforce in the present section. If I be right, I pretend not to have made any mighty discovery. And if I be wrong, I must acknowledge myself to be indeed a very backward scholar; since I cannot now discover an argument which, it seems, was perfectly familiar to me long before I was out of my cradle.”

Let’s suppose it is a fact that you are one of those guys who can’t provide a satisfactory argument to Hume. How could you avoid thinking that physical sciences are just illusions? In particular, how would you respond to someone who, based on Hume’s words, said that the mathematical expressions with which we pretend to represent certain regularities that we conceive in the world are fantasies? They would represent how physicists think in a given moment, not how the world is or might be. And, of course, this would include all cosmological models. Besides, verifiability/ falseability would be entirely useless “methods” to show that a hypothesis is scientific; and to say that a statement is scientific would add nothing.

However, even if it were the case that similar conditions were followed by different effects, Hume’s severe doubt would not affect the principle of causality; it would be a severe doubt concerning determinism, but not causality.

I don’t think Hume’s position serves as a foundation for science. If his position is correct, science is an illusion.

Ask yourself how an animal or infant learns that flames hurt. One possibility is that it experiences pain from one flame, and then constructs a logical argument. This is unlikely, since animals and infants don’t have language or the tools of logic. Far more likely is that seeing a flame causes the memory of pain inflicted by a previous experience to be recalled. This would seem to be a more probable hypothesis for how animals and infants learn - by experience, not by constructing a priori arguments.

And this is exactly how the scientific method works: it starts with observations, with experiencing the world, and only then constructs an a posteriori argument. And that argument is indeed a hostage to fortune, as it may need to be replaced if later observations conflict. All scientific knowledge is provisional. And causality itself is also subject to the scientific method - by observation we conclude that singing does not cause the tide to rise, etc. There is no possibility of an a priori argument to prove which events cause others in all possible universes.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

It’s self evident. Both equations are true yet contradict each other. Can you possibly argue otherwise?

It is not. Does your answer mean you don’t know logic? I think you don’t. In logic, only axioms are self evident. You have to demonstrate everything else. Go ahead! (But don’t try to come back with the “argument” that you presented three posts ago. Build a real one, according to the rules of logic).

 

[Bradski]

It is not. Does your answer mean you don’t know logic? I think you don’t. In logic, only axioms are self evident. You have to demonstrate everything else. Go ahead! (But don’t try to come back with the “argument” that you presented three posts ago. Build a real one, according to the rules of logic).

I’m not familiar with formal logic. But if you are and want to prove that it is not illogical, then be my guest. I’ll do my best to follow.

 

[Solmyr]

Bradski, Solmyr, I wish to register a complaint. In both your jokes the engineer is one of the people that is wrong. I feel a bit miffed about that (being an engineer myself). A 1-out-of-2 failure rate I could accept, but 2-out-of-2? It’s clearly not a representative sample. Unless of course it was a software engineer, in which case it’s fair enough. (Sorry, ThinkingSapien, no offence meant.)

Well, among other things, I also was a software engineer and also a college math professor. But almost every joke has some “victim” to make fun of. In the US it is the Pollack jokes. No personal negative assessment about those people in general. In Europe the syphilis is called “French disease”, but in France it is called “Spanish disease”. We always make fun of others…

Here is a Pollack joke. A Pollack goes to the barber shop to have a haircut. He has an earplug and tells the barber, that under no circumstances should he remove it. The barber tries to do that, but eventually he gets to the ear, and must remove the earplug in order to continue… whereupon the guy falls out of the chair… dead. The barber picks up the earplug, puts it into his ear, because he curious, what could have been of such life-and-death importance… and he hears… exhale… inhale… exhale… inhale…

Now this is a very cruel and very unfair joke… so what?

 

[Nael]

According to Aquinas’ five ways, anything nothing can be put in motion or exist without a cause. As he demonstrates, therefore, there must be something outside our universe that caused it.That is true of our own universe. What we are speaking of though, are things apart from our own universe.There must be something, yes, that led to the universe in some way, but not necessarily by causing it. It seems inconceivable to us because we are used to a universe where everything is caused.

But we don’t know what something outside of or before our universe was like. Whatever our universe came out of, the laws of thermodynamics may or may not have applied to it. Science has no claims about such a time and place. Such an existence might function entirely differently from the universe we know. Therefore, perhaps in such an existence, things could exist without being caused.

That is, before the Big Bang, there may have been a different set of rules from those we know. We don’t know what such a time and place would be like, because we have no way of observing it! So, how can we know there must be a First Cause?

Suppose that the universe did exist forever, this would not eliminate its mystery; rather, it merely changes the mystery to “why the universe has the nature it does, or why there is a universe at all.” (P. C. W. Davies as cited in Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, by Stephen M. Barr). In other words, there are many mysteries to this universe, not just one