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Allan,
Sounds a lot like a simultaneous cause and effect to me.
Sure, but I haven’t argued that all causes are simultaneous with their effects. The computer remains where it is because the table is simultaneously supporting it, but the computer got where it is through a motion that unfolded over time.
keiths,
Nah. Or, all cause-effect relationships are simultaneous, because one part of an interacting system does not experience an effect before the other. That doesn’t seem right. Two balls bouncing off each other in empty space. There is no effect till they hit each other. But you can’t isolate ‘hitting each other’ from ‘heading in each other’s direction’. The cause starts back along the pair of intersecting trajectories. The effect is energy redistribution; the energy vectors are not instantiated at the moment of collision, but before.
Chuck a a computer at a table in space, you get a shorter interaction, but not infinitesimally so. The table ‘supports’ the computer for a shorter period, before one or both rebound. But the cause/effect relationship is no more ‘simultaneous’ than when you back the table up with a massive and gravitationally significant earth.
Allan,
You’re claiming that it’s illegitimate to say that the collision causes the bounce, because ‘hitting each other’ can’t be isolated from ‘heading in each other’s direction’. But ‘heading in each other’s direction and hitting each other’ also can’t be isolated from ‘being thrown by two people in a certain way’, which can’t be isolated from the firing of the nerves innervating the muscles, which can’t be isolated from the readiness potentials in the brain, the birth of the throwers, and so on.
By your logic, the only legitimate answer to “What caused X?” would be “the Big Bang,” regardless of what X is.
Causal chains are connected, but the fact that A causes B, which in turn causes C does not make it illegitimate to say that B causes C.
The table causes the computer to remain at its current height, and that would be true even if the universe had come into existence with the computer already on the table.
To say that everything is caused is logically equivalent to saying that time is irrelevant and pretty much a fiction. If every chain of events can be traced back to a singular origin, then time is equivalent to a spacial dimension.
Once again this discussion seems to confirm my belief that much of philosophy is cargo-cult mathematics. How can one even answer questions about causality without a very, very, very precise definition of “cause”? Appealing to folk understandings of the term is simply bound to cause confusion and imprecision. Let’s work on a firm understanding of “cause” in this universe, one robust enough to handle interactions of single particles *and*, let’s say, the decay of a single uranium atom, before moving on to more complicated things as universes.
We observe two U-235 atoms. While we’re watching, one decays. The other doesn’t. What “caused” the one that decays to decay?
keiths,
You don’t have to extend back to the beginning of everything to recognise the role of time in causality. For a collision, it is significant that there is kinetic energy and vectors on a collision course. The moment that collision occurs cannot be separated from those vectors – the objects interact in a way that depends upon their states immediately prior. You don’t have to go any further back than an instant before. But you do have to go back – you have to incorporate time. The moment of collision is experienced simultaneously by colliding objects, and any ongoing interaction experienced continuously by both, but the time-dependence of causality is not dismissed simply because you choose to ignore it – to start your observation at an equilibrium position and insist that the only alternative is to go back to the Big Bang!
This is why time is intimately connected with entropy change. You are postulating a universe zapping into existence with a condensed state – planet-table-computer – already in place. Kaboom! You have eliminated ‘prior time’. But really, you have simply applied a blackboard eraser to the left-hand part of the graph, and drawn “t=0” with a big arrow at the beginning of the remainder! It is logically defensible – as, indeed, are objects with negative length or Newton’s Laws with every sign reversed or entropy running in precisely the reverse direction. But if you are talking of real-world objects, you can’t dispense with some ‘real-world’ considerations but not others.
petrushka,
Not at all. I light the fuse, and some time later the firecracker explodes. How is time irrelevant or fictional in that scenario? Time plays a prominent and essential role in our best physical theories.
I don’t see that. It seems to me that a single ultimate cause would be compatible with both tensed and tenseless theories of time.
shallit,
Nothing, as far as we know.
However, I don’t think anyone in this thread has been arguing that every event is caused, so I’m not sure why you are posing the question.
If you can demonstrate an uncaused event, you have demonstrated that causation is not necessary.
petrushka,
No, you’ve merely demonstrated that causation is not always necessary.
The cosmological argument usually starts with the word “everything”, or the equivalent. If anything happens without cause, one cannot say that causation is necessary.
Saying that causation is not necessary is not equivalent to saying it doesn’t exist. Quantum uncertainty is generally considered irrelevant at the macro level of physics.
But the macro level is another example of emergence. One can talk about objects colliding and causing phenomena, but at the quantum level, you cannot say what macro events can happen and what cannot happen. You cannot, for example, deduce whether or not an uncaused universe can come into being.
Allan,
Again, I haven’t argued that time can’t play a role in causal explanations (see my firecracker example above). I am claiming that time isn’t essential to causation. Timeless causes are logically coherent, as are simultaneous causes and effects.
That seems quite arbitrary to me. You’re allowing that the causal chain can be broken, just not immediately next to the effect in question. Whence this arbitrary rule?
And in the case of the computer resting on my table, the ongoing interaction is simultaneous with its effect: the computer remaining at its current height.
I’m not ignoring time. I’m just claiming that it isn’t essential to causality.
I don’t think the only alternative is to go back to the Big Bang. I think the causal chain can be broken at any point. I brought up the Big Bang because you seemed to be arguing that the causal chain can’t be broken.
Now you appear to be saying that it can be broken, just not next to the effect being considered. That rule doesn’t make sense to me.
And even if we were to accept your rule for the sake of argument, it doesn’t disprove the existence of simultaneous causation.
My computer has been resting on my table for a couple of years. Are you really arguing that I cannot legitimately say that my computer remains above the floor today because my table supports it today, and that the effect is simultaneous with the cause?
petrushka,
I was just disputing your statement that
Atomic decay may be an uncaused event, but that doesn’t mean that causation is unnecessary. My computer won’t remain at its current height without support.
Possibly. Logical coherence doesn’t tell us something is an empirical fact.
Whether timeless causes are logically coherent seems to be a moot point to me.
keiths:
davehooke:
True. That’s why I’ve offered a concrete example of simultaneous cause and effect in this thread: my computer resting on a table.
It’s relevant to the thread. If timeless causes are coherent, then it makes sense to ask these two questions:
1. Does the universe/multiverse, as a whole, have a (timeless) cause, or is it acausal?
2. If it has a cause, then what is it, what can we infer about it, and do its characteristics warrant the label ‘God’?
As I said earlier in the thread, I find it interesting that Craig doesn’t argue that God is the timeless cause of the universe. Instead he argues that God is the timeless cause of time itself, and that he acts within time to create the universe via simultaneous causation.
So in Craig’s view time has a timeless cause, but the universe has a simultaneous cause within time at t = 0.
It seems odd to me that Craig wouldn’t simply argue for God as the timeless cause of the universe itself, especially since he seems to understand that time is an internal and inseparable feature of most cosmological models.
It may be that the Kalam argument falls apart if you admit timeless causes. I’ll have to think about it some more.
I’m not sure what is at issue here.
It is certainly possible to build models of many different kinds of universes; and cosmologists would like to build one that replicates our embedded observations of the universe in which we exist. At issue is, can we do it with the observations we currently have, given that we already know of the existence of dark matter and dark energy? Many kinds of models can be built in which matter condenses and there is a second law.
None of these models require invoking deities.
So the question seems to come down to, “Why invoke deities?” Which deities or deity? There are hundreds of deities one can choose from; so why any particular one or ones? Why do deities have to have human characteristics and care about humans?
It is not sufficient to allege that one does not make specific claims about a deity in order to justify inserting a deity or deities into the evolutionary history of the universe, because the models don’t require any deities whatsoever.
It is not sufficient to assert that because models don’t answer all questions that therefore deities are required, because models will very likely be approximations that get tweaked as more data are fed into the model.
As near as I can figure, the invocation of deities appears to come down to sectarian apologetics at its very foundation. Someone needs a rationale for a particular deity or deities because some doctrine demands it and is threatened without it. Why not the pantheon of Greek deities? Why not the Hindu gods or the Norse gods? Which deity does one rule out, and which ones are ruled in?
This should have nothing to do with the traditions of religion, given that religion is interwoven with human history. But there are hundreds of religions and thousands of sectarian versions of those religions.
Just who is taking offense that deities are not required in cosmological models; and why are they taking offense? The answers to those questions might throw more light on why some people think such a debate – as this one between Carroll and Craig – is of such “cosmological” importance.
It appears to me that Carroll saw it as a chance to promote some interest in cosmology and Craig was doing apologetics. If so, they are talking past each other.
Not a timeless cause.
“Moot” doesn’t mean “irrelevant” in my (British) vocabulary.
Having said that, I don’t see any reason to apply the word “cause” to the universe.
Of applying something that is legitimate for individuals to a totality, Russell said (approximately) ‘I have a mother, but it is a mistake to think that humankind has a mother.’
Mike,
Well, none of them require a deity or any other transcendent cause (where by ‘transcendent’ I mean merely ‘transcending the universe itself’) to explain their internal operation. They are self-contained in that regard. The question is whether the universe’s existence requires a transcendent cause.
None of these models truly bootstraps itself from nothing — not even the idea that the universe began with a quantum fluctuation in the vacuum, with the positive energy of the universe’s contents being balanced by the negative energy associated with gravitation. You still need to ask: Why these laws? Whence this quantum vaccum? Is the quantum vacuum the causeless substrate of everything, or does it require a cause? If the latter, then what kind of cause? Does it merit the ‘God’ label?
Craig was clearly doing apologetics. Carroll explicitly stated that his goal was to explain to his audience why cosmologists don’t take theistic models seriously.
I think Carroll did a great job of explaining the self-contained nature of cosmological models and why Craig’s fine-tuning, low-entropy and Boltzmann brain arguments don’t threaten these models or require the intervention of a deity. Frankly, he kicked Craig’s ass. However, I disagree with Carroll’s contention that it’s senseless (or “not even wrong”) to ask about the cause, if any, of the universe/multiverse itself.
I commented earlier in the thread:
I am quite suspicious of the efforts of theists to shoehorn their personal Gods into the role of ‘non-contingent cause’, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask about an ultimate, non-contingent cause.
Dave,
Here’s my reason: As far as we know, our universe/multiverse isn’t necessary, nor does it seem to be the only logically consistent one among possible universes. Other universes might have existed instead, or there might have been no universe at all.
Why is there something rather than nothing? Why our universe/multiverse, and not another?
Can you explain why you think it is a mistake to ask whether the universe has a cause, and if so, what its nature is?
Well, to demonstrate that it is not meaningless, one only has to come up with something that has meaning. But then it becomes part of the model.
It’s no different than asserting a deity and stopping there.
The point is that models, no matter what they are, are deity independent. So whose deity; and why? It appears to be a problem for only certain sectarians.
Am I correct in thinking that Carroll’s point is that causation happens ‘within’ the universe and is therefore not necessarily a force to invoke outside of it?
The “Why these laws?” question applies to the universe in which we live. One can construct other universes with other “laws;” and some of them would have possibilities for analogous condensations of “matter” that, in those universes, may be the analogues of life in our universe. “Time scales” in those universes could be completely different from our own, and “perceptions” of the flow of time and relative ages would be analogous.
One always runs up against the Newtonian and pre-Newtonian concepts of time when laying out a “substrate” that has always existed. What does that even mean if time has meaning only within the universe itself?
Does the concept of “time” for the “substrate” have any dependency on other processes that can be singled out as “clocks” in some “super-universe” and so on to infinity in a chain of “transcendental universes?”
And if this is the track one wishes to follow, the question keeps returning; “Why deities, and whose deities?”
Causation implies interaction; and interaction implies the existence of particles and fields with properties. If nothing exists “outside” the universe, there is nothing that interacts. But if something interacts, why is that then not simply a part of the universe?
I think Carroll is again saying that if deities can be said to have no cause, why go even that far? Whose deities and why?
I gave up on watching the debate when it became clear the Craig kept repeating misconceptions and misrepresentations of cosmological models and Carroll repeatedly tried to correct Craig. It was already clear that they were talking about completely different things, Carroll about cosmology and Craig doing apologetics.
Can you defend the principle of sufficient reason?
Why is there something? Well, I don’t see any empirical support for the philosopher’s notion of absolutely nothing. As limited beings, where we see nothing, there is something. Our intuitions are often contrary to fact.
A different reply: Physicist Frank Wilczek was asked this question and he said “nothing is unstable.”
Causes are inferred from the action of one thing on another within time and space. By definition, the universe has nothing outside of it.
keiths,
I am obviously not making myself clear, then. It’s not about breaking the causal chain, but about including some of the timeline. Going back from equilibrium, it must include some of the non-equilibrium past. Reducing the timeline to a dimensionless point eliminates causality; it does not (IMO) provide a means by which simultaneity of cause and effect can be rescued.
You are insisting that the computer-table-planet system is an example of ‘simultaneous cause’, because it is at equilibrium. X would do Y but for Z, so Z is ‘causing’ X not to do Y. But you are just defining ’cause’ and ‘effect’ in a way that permits the continuity of gravity and the electrostatic repulsion of the planet’s surface (the table is irrelevant) to be seen as such. It takes on more of the flavour of a ‘reason’, or ‘preventing’ rather than ‘causing’.
It is largely a semantic argument (on both our parts). Cause and effect are (to me) statements about change.
Past entropy change stopped at the point the computer stopped moving under the influence of gravity having met with the surface. The computer’s movement was caused by gravity (slowed by your hands). The surface caused the computer to stop moving. Is it still doing so?
You could take any fine section of the planet under the table and say that it is ‘causing’ everything above it (up to and including the computer) to be at the height it is at. I wouldn’t fight you over it, but I’d disagree.
To try another tack, an object’s kinetic energy does not cause it to keep moving. But it clearly has a causal role on impact.
Carroll’s point was that “the notion of a “cause” isn’t part of an appropriate vocabulary to use for discussing fundamental physics. Rather, modern physical models take the form of unbreakable patterns — laws of Nature — that persist without any external causes. The Aristotelian analysis of causes is outdated when it comes to modern fundamental physics; what matters is whether you can find a formal mathematical model that accounts for the data.” (From the Post-Debate Reflections.) Once you have found your model, you have answered as much as is possible to answer. Asking for more is asking the wrong question.
That wasn’t the argument being debated though. You are thinking of Leibniz’s argument from contingency, which is based on the principle of sufficient reason. That is a different argument, which Craig explicitly acknowledged.
During the panel discussion the next day, someone asked Craig whether a past-eternal universe would not require a creator-god. Craig acknowledged that the Kalam argument would not go through in that case, but said that there were still other arguments, and mentioned specifically the argument from contingency.
It strikes me that theists engage in equivocation when talking about existence. They switch definitions of existence when switching from God to matter. They have to to avoid an infinite regress, but it is dishonest.
Given some of the animistic roots of religion, it would not be surprising that humans would project themselves onto a being or beings who made and manipulate all that we see. There are many creation myths.
However, as human populations grew and began congregating in cities, there arose the need to “standardize” behavior and expectations of behavior. Religion now becomes as much a matter of human control as it does of concepts of deities in ultimate control of everything. If human behavior can’t be coerced by enticements in the here-and-now, then perhaps fear of what will happen in an eternal afterlife might do the trick (along with a few bloody examples meted out in the here-and-now by self-proclaimed spokesmen for deities).
One of the possible reasons for trying to build logical necessity into the concept of a deity that made the universe may find its roots in the sectarian fears some people have of removing deities as ultimate judges of human behavior. How does one then control the behaviors of sociopaths and others who feel no empathy with other humans?
The flip side of that is that sociopaths will then use the concept of deities to mete out, in the name of those deities, cruel “punishments” to others that sociopaths want to control. So to a sociopath, deities become displacement objects that remove blame from themselves for hurting others.
On the positive side, the historical concepts of deities as non-created creators have driven a lot of epistemological and ontological thinking about our universe. It is difficult, at least in Western history, to separate the philosophical issues surrounding deities from those in physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and science in general. It’s all an inescapable part of our evolutionary history; our thinking about these things has evolved, and concepts of deities have contributed to that evolution.
Perhaps a more open discussion about why we have religion – and why we have so many religions – would be a bit more genuine without the sectarian angst over establishing logical necessity for their own versions of a deity.
Mike,
Yes, and if the multiverse exists, it applies to whatever laws underlie the whole shebang.
I’m speaking of a possible timeless cause, not one “that has always existed”. Nothing Newtonian about a timeless cause.
The only reason to invoke a deity would be if a theistic model worked better than an atheistic one. Whose deity? Whichever one worked the best. Ironically, if theistic models truly became viable, it would likely be the scientists, not the theologians, who would come up with the best models of God(s).
It’s a matter of convention. Typically theists and philosophers don’t consider God (if he exists) to be part of the universe, but you could redefine “universe” to mean “all that exists”, and then it would capture everything including God.
It would be a great achievement to find a perfect cosmological model that explained everything we see within the universe/multiverse. During the debate, Carroll said something to the effect that if we found such a model, we could declare victory and go home.
I say, not so fast. There are more questions to be asked. Why something rather than nothing? Why this universe instead of some other logically consistent one? Why this set of laws rather than another? Are there reasons for these things, or are they just brute facts that admit no explanation? These are legitimate questions that are not answered, even by a perfect cosmological model.
I don’t think so. Carroll is arguing that the idea of a transcendent cause is nonsensical, a relic of Aristotelian thinking that we should abandon. I don’t buy it.
It was hubris on Craig’s part to debate cosmology with a professional cosmologist. I think he overestimated his abilities, or perhaps he assumed that Carroll would be at a comparable disadvantage on Craig’s home turf of philosphy and theology. It’s not the same. The Kalam and fine-tuning arguments are just not that hard to comprehend. Cosmology is much harder.
They were both addressing the debate topic, which was whether cosmology provides evidence for the existence of God.
Perhaps, but the motivation is irrelevant to the truth of the proposition. And it works both ways: there is a purported link between atheism and poor father/child relations, but even if so, it is irrelevant to the truth of atheism.
Allan,
Whence this arbitrary rule?
I’m going to repeat my earlier question, because I think it’s important:
keiths:
davehooke:
I don’t accept it, and my argument doesn’t depend on it. Why should I defend it?
I am not claiming that the universe must have a cause. I am arguing that it is legitimate to ask whether it does, and if so, what that cause might be like.
Well, it’s sort of hard to point to true nothingness when you’re surrounded by total somethingness. In any case, that doesn’t address the true question of whether nothingness is logically coherent.
I suspect he was referring to the quantum vacuum, which is a poor proxy for nothingness, seething as it does with multitudes of virtual particles.
That’s not how the word is used. If it were, there would be no need for the term “multiverse”. Plus, see my reply to Mike above.
keiths:
SophistiCat:
No, I am disputing Carroll’s assertion that it is “not even wrong” to ask about possible transcendental causes of the universe.
I don’t see why. What is wrong about asking questions that are outside the scope of your model?
I don’t think so. Perhaps. I think the argument is that nothingness has no laws governing it so something is bound to happen.
Keith,
I don’t want to get sidetracked onto separate discussions of whether our universe has something outside it, or whether the multiverse is still the universe . Suffice to say that the totality has nothing outside it.
I am satisfied to say that the existence of the totality is a nomological fact. Unless you invoke the principle of sufficient reason, I don’t see that there is anything more to say.
See also Sophisticat’s reply to you. You say that you contend Carroll’s assertion, but on what grounds?
Dave,
Sure, by definition. It wouldn’t be a totality if it didn’t encompass everything, including God or any other transcendent causes (if any of them exist).
Fine, but the fact that you’re satisfied doesn’t mean that it’s unreasonable for others to continue asking questions.
Again, I don’t need to invoke the principle of sufficient reason. I am not claiming that everything has a cause. I am not even claiming that the universe has a cause. I am saying that the universe might have a cause, and that the question is not incoherent.
I’ve been explaining that throughout the thread. To recap:
1. I’ve argued that time is not essential to causation, and that both timeless causes and simultaneous causes and effects are coherent concepts.
2. Even a perfectly self-contained cosmological model leaves important questions unanswered: Why something rather than nothing, why this universe when other coherent universes are logically possible, why these particular physical laws, etc. Those questions might turn out to be unanswerable, but I don’t think we know that yet, and it is not irrational to ask them.
3. Time is wholly contained within the universe in our best cosmological models, so if those models are accurate, then any transcendental cause would have to be timeless.
4. Since timeless causes are logically coherent, it might be true that our universe has a timeless cause or causes. The question is worth asking.
5. I think that Craig is way off base in trying to recruit his particularl God for the role of transcendental cause, but I don’t think he’s wrong to ask about transcendental causes (with ‘transcendental’ understood to mean nothing more than ‘separate from the universe’).
Okay, the physical totality.
I don’t see any reason to invoke the non-physical. I don’t see how the non-physical could interact.
Anyhow, you eventually run up against a nomological fact. Why is there the FSM rather than nothing? Unless you defend the principle of sufficient reason/ explain how “necessary” in the philosophical sense can apply to beings, and why the FSM must be that neccesary being, then you have to accept brute facts or infinite regress of causality. Rejecting the other two, and seeing no empirical support for the philosopher’s nothing, I confidently say that ‘something’ is a brute fact.
A favourite answer of mine to “Why is there something rather than nothing” is “If there was nothing, you’d complain about that too.”
Carroll is not buying the unspecified but implied metaphysics of causation that is required to suggest such a “cause.” He is rejecting the first premise tout court.
It is incumbent upon the proponent of the Kalam argument to give an account of causation, argue for its truth, and then defend the causal premise of the argument. That’s a tall order, as I have pointed out. You have insisted on the possibility of timeless or simultaneous causation (Craig employs the latter), but you have not really given an account of such a causation, nor argued for it, nor defended the causal premise.
You also appear to drift between causes and explanations (reasons). Only causes are relevant to the Kalam. Explanations/reasons are relevant to a different species of the cosmological argument: Leibniz’s argument from the PSR. These are the parameters that Craig himself staked out, although I can see how it may become difficult to distinguish causes and explanations, especially when you don’t have any specific notion for either.
Dave,
It’s difficult to see how they could interact within the universe, where the laws of physics apply. That’s what led Dembski to his desperate zero-energy, infinite wavelength gambit. However, a timeless cause outside the universe would not be subject to physical law — it would be the source of physical law.
Or there is an infinite regress of causes, or you find an ultimate necessary cause.
As I said before:
Dave:
And ask if there was a reason for it. 🙂
SophistiCat,
Yes, but the reasons he gives don’t make sense to me. His argument seems to be that it is “not even wrong” to ask whether the universe has a cause, since a perfect cosmological model would be self-contained, explaining every phenomenon we observe without referring to any outside causes.
I don’t think that’s quite right. From an earlier comment:
SophistiCat:
I’m not sure why you keep trying to pigeonhole me as a supporter of the Kalam argument. I am not defending the Kalam. I think Craig is wrong, for reasons I gave earlier in the thread:
SophistiCat:
Sure I have. I’ve devoted a number of comments to explaining why time is not essential to causality, using the specific example of my computer resting on a table. Do you think my example is illegitimate?
Yet again, I am not defending the Kalam. I am disputing Carroll’s contention that it’s “not even wrong” to ask whether the universe has a cause.
One of the key aspects of being a successful scientist is to be able to ask questions that have answers; but more importantly to then be able to lay out experimental protocols that can answer those questions that are posed sufficiently well to have answers.
If someone wants to pose a deity; all one has to do in science is to define the deity with sufficient detail and state what measurable effects that deity has on phenomena that we can get an experimental handle on. Then all that a person has to do is lay out an experimental protocol with budget, timeline, and resources needed to do the experiment. As the old cliché goes, that’s where the rubber hits the road. If one can do that, he/she is a scientist.
Then there are the practical matters of finite lifetimes and the need to eat that constrain most scientists. People who grow long beards, cultivate a mysterious aura, sit in a lotus position with an index finger in the air posing unanswerable questions are generally people who have managed to find others to supply their bodily needs.
When someone in physics or cosmology says that deities are unnecessary in cosmological models, they mean simultaneously that questions about deities are ill-posed and have no non-arbitrary answers, and there is no way to know how to fit such ideas into a working model that can then be submitted to experimental tests. It is not clear why that should make any scientist an “atheist” in the pejorative sense.
If these unanswerable issues of otology and epistemology are of any interest at all, they might better be explored in the context of trying to understand the brain. How is it that a brain can pose questions that have no answers? What constitutes an answer; and more specifically, what constitutes a satisfactory answer that gives “closure?” What is “closure” to a brain?
I suspect that makes you a dreaded instrumentalist and unworthy to wash the feet of the enlightened one.
Why does that necessary cause exist? Unless you can explain it, its necessary existence would itself be a brute fact.
Yeah, there apparently always has to be some pejorative label attached to a scientist just because scientists are alleged to have no appreciation for other modes of thinking.
Yet even musicians and artists think about technique and process in great detail. As I sit down to work on a piece on the guitar, for example, I have to spend a great deal of time working out the nuances of efficient fingering and phrasing in order to bring out various “interpretations” of the piece.
Interestingly, even my cats seem to appreciate the effort when it succeeds; one of them in particular comes and curls up at my feet and purrs when she seems to think I am being successful. Otherwise she is nowhere to be seen. We seem to be in agreement on what constitutes “success.” This happens repeatedly, so there appears to be no question that something is going on with the cat that is related to my playing.
Evidently there is “closure” in music that other animals can appreciate. Brains of sufficient complexity appear to like closure of some sort, which raises a question about brain development and the need to explore.
Is settling on “closure” and the comfort it brings necessarily a healthy thing for brain development? It seems that in science, every answered question raise new questions; and I don’t know any scientists who think that is a bad thing. Quite the opposite; the need for closure and comfort may be unhealthy in the long run. I don’t know the answer to that, but curiosity and exploration makes life interesting as long is one is able to keep going.
It’s no less difficult to see how a timeless non-physical cause would interact with the physical outside the universe or inside. Outside where, anyhow? There is no outside.
keiths,
Yes! 😉
I would be interested in how the “need” for time would relate to the expression of a cellular automaton. Following the rule, whatever it might be, the extension is implicit but doesn’t require a time dimension. But producing the expression appears to require time. The extension is time-like.
But then I’m just babbling.
I’m thinking the universe could have a hypothetical viewing frame from which time appears to be a physical dimension.
I’m thinking the rule defines causation, but could be deduced independent of time.
You are taking Carroll as making some sort of formal argument. He is not. He is simply putting aside this entire law-of-causation business as inadequate for the problem of accounting for the universe. He is saying that we have developed a better way of thinking about these things. To paraphrase a comic, “We have the models. We win.”
Sorry, I didn’t mean to give this impression. I knew all along that you didn’t support the Kalam argument.
Your examples fall far short of the goal of giving an account of causation and making a case for its universal applicability. If you want to see what such projects typically look like, I have posted links to a good resource above. As you can see if you read some of that, there are almost as many accounts of causation as there are philosophers who have attempted to answer the question. Needless to say, there isn’t anything approaching a consensus.
Mike Elzinga,
All the ‘lower’ animals in my house appreciate my music better than the humans! 2 dogs and a cat – often all come along and curl up when I start playing.
keiths,
It’s not arbitrary. It’s the point at which there was a cause and an effect. Everything since is static equilibrium. It’s no longer a cause-and-effect relationship. It’s sitting in an energy well, waiting for one. Wait a microsecond, a billion years … what’s the difference? But a microsecond before … something happened.
Mike,
Don’t repeat Comte’s mistake of deciding prematurely which questions are unanswerable:
Mike:
Experimental or observational. And as Carroll rightly points out in the debate, current theological models are woefully ill-defined, making them fairly useless in predicting specific cosmological observations.
No, because not all scientists are experimental scientists.