Is self creation possible?
Can anything create itself?
I think most would want to say 'no' on the grounds that in order to create, the creator needs already to exist. And thus the notion of self-creation involves a contradiction: it involves a thing existing prior to its own existence.
However, the contradiction presupposes that causes precede their effects. It is if causes precede their effects that self-creation would require existing prior to one's own existence.
But is it the case that causes precede their effects? Well, there is no consensus on it, but probably most philosophers would accept that simultaneous causation is coherent. Kant used a famous example of a ball on a cushion. The depression in the cushion is being caused by the ball on the cushion even if both call and cushion have been in that arrangement for eternity. Thus in this case we have simultaneous causation. The depression is being caused by the ball, but there was no time when the ball came to be on the cushion.
If simultaneous causation is coherent then surely self-creation is too? One could no longer insist it involves a contradiction, for there is no contradiction involved in supposing something to exist at the same time as it exists.
I think most would want to say 'no' on the grounds that in order to create, the creator needs already to exist. And thus the notion of self-creation involves a contradiction: it involves a thing existing prior to its own existence.
However, the contradiction presupposes that causes precede their effects. It is if causes precede their effects that self-creation would require existing prior to one's own existence.
But is it the case that causes precede their effects? Well, there is no consensus on it, but probably most philosophers would accept that simultaneous causation is coherent. Kant used a famous example of a ball on a cushion. The depression in the cushion is being caused by the ball on the cushion even if both call and cushion have been in that arrangement for eternity. Thus in this case we have simultaneous causation. The depression is being caused by the ball, but there was no time when the ball came to be on the cushion.
If simultaneous causation is coherent then surely self-creation is too? One could no longer insist it involves a contradiction, for there is no contradiction involved in supposing something to exist at the same time as it exists.
Comments (301)
As another example, the universe (by most definitions anyway) probably isn't an object contained by time, but rather is something that contains time. So it seems a category error to suggest it is a created thing.
Physics does allow temporal loops and backwards causation. They're valid solutions to the equations, so in theory, something could create itself, but there's the loop then. In a loop, while the arrow of time might be defined, all moments are both before and after other moments, so it is unclear what comes before what else.
As for backwards causation, that's one of the interpretations of experiments like the quantum eraser setups, some of which have been interpreted as having caused effects arbitrarily far (years) into the past. But while effects might occur in the past, information cannot be thus passed, and usually the creation of a thing involves information transfer.
One of the problems involved in assuming infinite time. When two things are assumed to co-exist, forever, it makes the existence of each of them unintelligible. Resolution: reject as incoherent, the idea of infinite time.
Note, if you think that all cause must precede their effects, then you would have to assume infinite time or else admit that there can be effects that are not themselves caused by a prior event. But if you admit - and I think we all should - that there can be causation by objects rather than events, then you should also admit that there can be simultaneous causation. For the event that the object causes would occur at the same time as the object causes it.
So, was there a first cause? Yes, but it was no internal cause. The internal cause was not a thermodynamic cause, but it needed an external TD cause to set the TD cause and effect in motion. In other words, the non-causal temporal cause, needs an external TD cause to set things in TD motion at (or close to) time zero.
That's an incoherent sentence. The ball and cushion are observed to be in a situation now. In the time before now, the ball and cushion are presumed to have been in the same situation. You are proposing that before that, there was "no time", and the ball and cushion were in the same situation. So you are proposing that there was a change from "no time" to "time", and the ball and cushion were unaffected by this change. But that's impossible because the ball and cushion are known to be temporal objects.
Quoting Bartricks
The idea that there is an event which an object causes, which is co-existent with the object it itself, is incomplete, and does not account for the existence of the object nor the existence of the event. You want to say that one is the "cause" of the other, but you can only make such a choice arbitrarily, because you've stipulated that they co-exist and one is not prior to the other. This would render "cause" as completely meaningless, because you could arbitrarily assign it to one or the other.
There is what I see as a much more intelligible, and reasonable way of dealing with this problem, the one employed by classical metaphysics, and theology. We say that the conception of "time" which makes time dependent on, and following from, the movement, and existence of physical objects is a faulty conception. Instead, we conceive of the passing of time as necessary for, therefore prior to, the movement and existence of physical objects. Then we have the necessary premise to conceive of time passing when there was no physical objects. We propose a non-physical cause (God) operating at this time, which causes the existence of physical objects and their motions.
You're changing the subject. I am taking no stand on whether time began or not - not for the purposes of this debate. I am pointing out that it is irrelevant. For whether time began or not, there was no time when the ball was not on the cushion.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't follow you. Substances can cause things. If one denies this, then one will be off on an infinite regress.
Now, 'when' does a substasnce cause an event? Well, at the time at which the event occurs. So substance causation is simultaneous causation. The only reason to deny this is a dogmatic conviction that the causation must precede its effect.
If you consider a beginning at time zero as a creation and that beginning is embedded in a larger whole and that larger whole causes time to start than the cosmos, that larger whole, can be said to cause the smaller part, the time start at zero. Self creation? Not sure.
Is it correct, for instance, that the only reason to think self-creation is impossible is the assumption that a cause must precede its effect? If the answer is 'yes', then it seems we have no reason to think it is impossible as simultaneous causation seems perfectly coherent.
This is what is incoherent. Your phrase "there was no time when..." implies that the described scenario was real when there was "no time". Therefore you imply that time began when the ball came to be on the cushion. "There was no time when the ball was not on the cushion" implies that before the ball was on the cushion there was no time, therefore time started when the ball came to be on the cushion.
Regardless, both the ball and cushion are known to be temporal objects, they exist "in time", and this means that there is time before each of them and time after each of them. They are each produced and destroyed. This is contrary to your phrase "no time when...". And there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that they could have both come into existence at the exact same time, with the ball stuck to the cushion. That's a nonsensical proposal.
Quoting Bartricks
This is a faulty description. The cause of an event is prior in time to the event itself. You can call that "dogmatic conviction" if you want, but it's simply the convention we follow as to the meaning of "cause". You go outside the convention and you start to sound nonsensical. Simultaneous events are better known by the term "coincidental", not "causal".
Yes, it is a dogmatic conviction. You can show me to be wrong by providing an argument for what you have just asserted.
Substance causation is coherent. And when a substance causes an event, the event is simultaneous with the cause.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're confused. Time either had a beginning or it did not. Those exhaust the possibilities. Now, I have a view about which one is correct, but I don't need to say or defend my view here. For the simple fact is that whichever one is true the ball was always on the cushion.
There is a counter-argument against this. If and only if the arrangement has been that way for all previous eternity, then there was no caused depression. The depression has existed since all eternity, but it was not caused. If something is caused, there is a change; and in this arrangement there is no change. If there is no change, there is no causation. That is a basic part of the concept "to cause".
Kant fails.
I don't deny this, I think pretty much all use of words is dogmatic conviction. However, that's how we understand things, through such convictions.
Quoting Bartricks
I'm still waiting for you to demonstrate this. So far, what you've produced seems very incoherent to me.
Quoting Bartricks
As I said, this is incoherent. Balls and cushions are contingent things, they come into being, they each have a beginning in time. This simple fact is contradicted by "the ball was always on the cushion".
No, that's quite wrong. You seem to think that our convictions determine how things are with reality. No.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Substance causation is causation by a substance rather than an event. But when a substance causes an event it does so directly. There is not some prior act on the part of the substance that causes the event. The substance causes the event. Thus the causation is simultaneous. If you think it isn't, then I think it must be because you are confusing substance causation with event causation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's not incoherent! Look - either time had a beginning or it did not. Or do you think there's some other option?
If time had a beginning, then suppose that the ball was on the cushion from the beginning of time.
if time did not have a beginning, then suppose that the ball was on the cushion for past eternal.
Also, you are confused about contingency - a contingent thing is a thing that 'can' not exist. It doesn't have to have not existed at some point. It is sufficient that it is metaphysically possible for it not to exist.
What you're doing is taking the dogma that causes precede their effects and applying it to this case and getting the conclusion that the ball is not causing the depression.
The ball is causing the depression. There was never a time when the depression was not there. Thus the cause did not precede the effect. Thus the dogma is false.
Anyway, do you agree that if simultaneous causation is coherent, then self-creation is possible?
Where did I say there can be causation without change? I think there can be, but I never said any such thing.
My claim is that there can be simultaneous causation - that the cause and effect can occur at the same time.
And, if that's correct, then self-creation is possible, for the only reason to think it impossible is the conviction that causes must precede their effects.
No. I submit that self-creation is impossible because I never participated in either a decision to exist, or a decision who to exist as. Or, stating it in a different way, Self-creation would require an absolutely free will, which is impossible.
Yu did not read my post, you just regurgitate what you are capable of.
I said causation implies change. I did not say "before" and "after". Idi not say cause precedes effect. I said without change there is no causation. You are not addressing that, instead, you are saying like your grandmother's parrot the same thing over and over again. That won't work. Time to start reading and thinking, not only responding to what you believe others have said.
In your example given by Kant. That was a causation without change.
Time to start to think and think back and have a memory and have some capacity to reason, my friend.
My claim that self-creation is possible does not entail that you created yourself. If I say that it is possible to be a billionaire, it is no objection to point out that you yourself lack a billion.
But anyway, you have things back to front. If we have free will then we have created ourselves (or we are uncreated). And so free will implies self-creation. And as we do have free will, we can conclude taht we have indeed created ourselves (or that we have not been created).
Causation does not imply change (I said above that I do not believe that causation entails change).
You don't seem to have fastened onto the relevant issue. Do causes have to precede their effects? That's the central issue here, not whether causation entails change.
In the cushion case we do indeed have causation without change. But that's not the point the example is being used to illustrate. What it is being used to illustrate is that there can be simultaneous causation.
Note, the other example I deployed - the example of substance causation - does (or can) involve change. The point in that case is that the change occurs simultaneous with what causes it.
Do try and focus on the relevant issue.
Yes, yes... and seeing does not imply looking... and horizontal does not imply direction... and wood does not imply carbon content... and yes means no, and maybe means always, and stupidity is the new intelligence.
You should have a great re-write, Bartricks. Really. If you are this blind to insight, you should redesign the language to your own liking, so no matter what incredibly incongruent thing you say, you are still right, always and ever.
Except with the currently adopted meaning of "causation", there is a complete by-in by all parties who live by the consensus of meaning of words and expressions, which implies that there is no causation without change. If you can't see that, then, well, you are already living a life of la loca vida, where no matter what language means, you are above it all.
No, we can't provide that to you. Because you are doggoned insisting on US having to accept the unacceptable, and then you call us dogmatic.
We are not dogmatic. You are, instead, acting in a megalomanic way... you think you can change the meaning of words and you believe that we must accept that new meaning... and you call us dogmatic when we refuse to do that.
There is a meta-breakdown in your logic. You solely and unilaterally demand that things be understood in oppositional ways than what they are supposed to be and in fact are. Then when we say we cannot do that, because of what the words of the language mean, you say we are DOGMATIC because... get this... because we insist that the words mean what they mean, and we reject a new and incongruent meaning that you, alone and arbitrarily, have assigned to a particular word.
Though it's hard for me to admit, some damned good anakysis! The bartricks analysis...
As for the cause and effect existing simultaneously, it fails to fulfill a criterion for causality viz. that the cause must temporally precede the effect.In your ball & cushion example, the ball exists before the depression in the cushion.
:up:
Why would self creation be impossible then? What's the asymmetry?
He took some damned good deep breath of fresh oxygen!
There's no causal paradox. Can I write an executable that deletes itself? Ask a coder. However, a program that writes itself, unheard of!
That's clearly not what I said. I said conviction is our means of understanding. Without conviction we suspend judgement indefinitely, on everything, and have absolutely no understanding. I didn't say that our convictions determine the way things are in reality, I said that our conviction determine the way that we understand things.
Quoting Bartricks
Causation is always an act. Substance itself is passive, but acts might be attributed to it, such that an act of a substance could be a cause. That's why your claims are incoherent to me, substance causing something with out an act makes no sense.
Quoting Bartricks
What's incoherent is your proposition that there was no time when the ball was not on the cushion. Both balls and cushions are temporal objects which are produced, and destroyed in time. It is incoherent to say that there was no time before the ball and the cushion.
Quoting Bartricks
A contingent thing is a thing whose existence is dependent on something else. It's existence is contingent on something else, as a cause of that contingent thing's existence. Both balls and cushions are contingent things. This means that there was necessarily time before their existences, because their existences require temporal things before them, as the causes of their existences. This renders your proposition as incoherent.
In the fundamental realm of being no. In the larger context of unidirectional time, cause precedes effect. But it could have been the other way round. Why doesn't time go backwards? Heaven knows.
If out cosmology turns out to be wrong, say, the Big Bang is a cyclical process that goes back forever. If this is true, then, there is no creation. That also makes no sense. So, regardless of what is true in cosmology, it doesn't make much sense.
That's flagrantly question begging. I gave two examples (one from Kant) that appear to involve simultaneous causation. So, those examples constitute prima facie evidence that simultaneous causation is coherent.
Quoting Agent Smith
No it doesn't. Read the example again.
Question begging. I provided examples of simultaneous causation. So, simultaneous causation makes sense.
And if simultaneous causation makes sense, then there seems no problem with the idea of something creating itself.
Hey, you asked me if cause and effect can coexist. Yes they can.
I don't know what you mean or why you're saying these things. This thread is about a particular issue, namely whether self-creation is coherent. It's not about wider issues in epistemology.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What? Nonsense.
Argue something. Don't pronounce.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No. Substance can cause events. If all events are caused by other events, you get an infinite regress of events. So, some events must be caused by non-events, that is by things. And that's called substance causation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're misusing the word 'incoherent'.
You clearly don't understand the example. The ball is always on the cushion. The ball is causing the depression in the cushion. Therefore, the causation is simultaneous.
No I didn't. I asked you if causes must always precede their effects.
I had presented a case for thinking that they do not have to precede their effects. You need to address it.
It depends on which way time goes. If it goes backwards, effect precedes cause.
I presented two examples of simultaneous causation. Those cases seem to demonstrate that causes do not have to precede their effects.
You're just ignoring the case i made and saying stuff.
If I lay a ball on a cushion to dip it, then the dip precedes the ball.
And I gave another example - substance causation.
But how it got there? It must have fallen on it, cause-> effect, it will leave it if time is reversed, effect->cause, it is laid on it by me for the dip, effect->cause, or it will be taken away by me intentionally, cause->effect. If eternally on the cushion, cause and effect coincide. Time has stopped. It's an event in spacetime.
I gave another example too. Substances - things - can cause events. Anyone denying this is going to have to posit an actual infinity of past events to explain current events - yet reality contains no actual infinities.
So, things can cause events. But when? That is, when a substance causes an event, when does the causation occur? Well, at the same time as the event.
Simultaneous causation therefore seems coherent. In which case self-creation is coherent, or at least the main reason for thinking it incoherent has now been undercut.
I didn't say "event", I said "act". Some acts are not events, but cause events, like an act of will, it causes an event but is not itself an event. That's how the infinite regress is broken, the first cause is an act of will (God's will), and the will is free, uncaused in its acts.
You still haven't given any indication as to what you mean by "substance causation". "Substance" is passive, like matter. Matter doesn't cause anything, neither does substance. You've only provided an incoherent example, a ball is on a cushion, and you propose that there is no time when the ball was not on the cushion. It's incoherent because balls and cushions are known to come into existence in time, so there is necessarily time before the ball and before the cushion. This means that something caused the ball to be on the cushion.
Quoting Bartricks
This is the premise which is incoherent.
Substance causation is causation by a substance. When the substance is an agent it is called 'agent causation'. You are simply referring to agent causation when you maintain that an act of will is not an event but causes an event.
That's actually confused, incidentally. An 'act' of will would be the event, and it would be caused by the mind directly. That causation is not an event, but what it causes - the willing - is.
But anyway, as you clearly accept the coherence of substance causation, then you should also accept that there can be simultaneous causation, for that's what one has with substance causation. When a substance causes an event, the causation and the event are simultaneous. To maintain otherwise would be to have to posit some earlier 'event' that caused the later event - but then that's event causation, not substance causation.
Like I said, then time stands still. A ball eternally on a cushion is equivalent to time standing still. Nothing happening.
Quoting Bartricks
Not true. The causating event lies infinite close to the event caused. It time goes forward. If time goes backwards, it's the effect coming prior to the cause event. Infinitely close but prior.
You suffer from the Zeno-syndrome. Spacetime can't be broken up into parts. Unless matter is confined to a subspace only.
You're not really getting this: the ball would be causing the dent. That's simultaneous causation. Just describing other features of the case in no way challenges that conclusion. You might as well start talking about cushions and how cushions are made of material and have some sort of stuffing. Yes, maybe, maybe not - this is not the place to clarify the concept of a cushion. THe point is that we have simultaneous causation in the scenario described. Thus, simultaneous causation seems coherent. Thus, self-creation seems coherent as the only reason to think it might not be was the dogma that a cause must precede its effect.
An example of self creation would be an eternal universe. This caused by that caused by that, going backwards like a god dependent on a god dependent on a god dependent dependent on a god ect. It's elephants and turtles all the way down as the parable goes but it is the process as a whole that holds it together, the reality of reality. So that is self creation
If simultaneous causation is coherent, then there is no reason to think that self-creation is incoherent.
An eternal universe would not be an example of self-creation, but of self-existence.
This thread is about self-creation: that is, something creating itself. If self-creation is coherent, then there could be nothing and then something due to the something creating itself.
It's not that something comes out of nothing. It's that there is nothing and then there is something and the cause of the something was the something itself.
The cushion with the ball on it has to be its own cause as well as effect than. We can't tell. Is time going forward?
You've described an eternal universe, although not necessarily just that. When Aristotle argued against an eternal universe unless there was a God and when he argued there cannot be an infinite hierarchy of gods, he was missing the point about self-creation. The eternal universe is "from nothing" because all that supports it is previous causes from the (eternal) past
No I haven't. I pointed out that an eternal universe is not an example of something self-created. If there is an eternal universe then it would be an example of something existing with aseity, not an example of something that has created itself.
That depends on the direction of time. Goes time forward?
An eternal series does not have aseity because nothing is first to cause the effect. Everything is an effect
Jesus. No. It. Doesn't. This is pointless as you seem so determined to make this about time and not what it is actually about that we're not going to make any progress. You don't seem to understand the point.
Yes you have. A cushion with a ball on it eternally. My god, am I really discussing about a cushion with a ball laying on it eternally? The dent causing the ball to lay on it? What's the problem? Tell me.
if, on the other hand, there can't be an actual infinity of prior causes, then there would need to be some first causes that are not events. Objects, in other words.
If those objects exist uncreated, then they exist with 'aseity'. That's just what aseity means.
But an object that exists with aseity has not created itself. It hasn't been created at all.
Now, try and address something I argued.
It's all about time. If time doesn't go forward then what are we looking at? A photograph?
Why is that an incoherent notion?
What, you think I think there is actually a canon ball on a cushion somewhere? Christ.
The thought experiment - Kant's, not mine - illustrates the coherence of simultaneous causation.
Now, baby steps - do try and follow the reasoning and stop thinking about the direction of time. If simultaneous causation is coherent - and Kant's thought experiment seems to show it is - then self-creation is coherent.
What does that mean? Does that mean the universe must exist eternally. Er, no. It means that the universe could have created itself. Now, if it did that, would it be existing eternally? No.
Your way of constructing self creation makes no sense because you don't have eternal time. How can something create itself before it exists. Any way of constructing this amounts to a need for eternity
There is no argument in the OP
Simultaneous creation is not self creation.
Onions aren't cows.
Shall we list some more things that aren't other things?
(Note, you're now going to want to ask questions about onions and cows, yes? Don't).
Simultaneous causation is coherent. If simultaneous causation is coherent, so too is self-creation.
1. If simultaneous causation is coherent, then self-creation is coherent
2. Simultaneous causation is coherent
3. Therefore self-creation is coherent
That's called an 'argument'.
That's not an argument. The first premise is wrong. Those are two different things. Suppose we have minute one with the ball on the cushion. It continuously presses the cushion till minute 2. But there is no answer yet as to creation! The issue of creation is not answered yet. All you have is a local cause
It's clearly an incoherent thought process. Why consider the ball and cushion as separate. I see one thing only. Saying the ball and cushion exist apart is not self evident. I see a cushba.
Quoting Bartricks
It doesn't mean ziltch. There can be no conclusion drawn from this weird experiment. The universe is eternal and is made by gods. If you think it's self created on the basis of some frozen cushba, be my guest.
How can the cushba even exist without time? Is it a thought about the universe? Is the thought cushba a thought about the universe?
How can you talk about cause and effect without time?
Yes it is.
Quoting Gregory
Read the OP.
Why might someone suppose self-creation to be impossible?
The only reason I have ever encountered is this one: it would require the created thing to exist prior to its own creation.
If simultaneous causation is coherent, then self-creation does 'not' require the created thing to exist prior to its own creation.
Thus, if simultaneous causation is coherent there is no reason to think self-creation incoherent.
That was all in the OP. The OP that you either didn't read or that you are incapable of understanding. So this is entirely pointless, is it not? You don't know what an argument is or how to argue or what implies what.
More sophistry. The mechanics of simultaneous causality is not related to how you defined self creation
All your first premises are wrong.
Creating oneself is the same as something from nothing.
I return the spoon. Stick it in your... wherever you want, and enjoy the self created infliction.
If self creation is coherent, then there can be nothing and then something.
That isn't something from nothing. That's nothing and then something. The cause of teh something is not the nothing, but the something itself.
But that can't exist like a ball on a pillow that has no time. If time is eternal the series can exist by the fact it moves while existing. What you propose is a theory of time which wasn't given much detail in you OP
Moments of clarity like this make a mockery of claims that all that is worthwhile has been mined from philosophy. :chin:
:lol:
You make me laugh out loudly!
Damn you! Still laughing. I can't stop...
Sweet dreams! :yawn:
:lol:
Okay, seriously now. An eternal universe can have created itself? The ball on the cushion is self caused?
How so? I'd say the principle that causes must temporally precede effects is derived from empirical evidence and it's held up to scrutiny.
Quoting Agent Smith
Unless time flows backwards. Then what we call effect gets ahead of cause. Tceffe->esuac. Or will the effect become the cause then?
What do you think about them then? All-in-one?
Yes, I am referring to "agent causation". But I went through this already. A substance does not cause anything on its own, it is the act of the substance which is the cause. That's what makes the substance an "agent", it is acting. Your description, 'the ball is always on the cushion', contains no act, so there is no agent, and no causation. There is no event described, only a static situation.
Quoting Bartricks
But there is no "event" in your description, only a static situation. Do you understand the difference between a static unchanging situation, a state, and an event, which is an occurrence, something which happens? You need to show me an event before you can claim that the substance and the event are simultaneous. You have given me two substances, the ball and the cushion, and a static relation between the two. Now describe the event (what occurs, or happens), the act, so that we can determine the agent, and what type of causation is involved in that event.
There is no empirical evidence that simultaneous causation is impossible. And it is its possibility that I am defending.
Now, stop begging the question and engage with the argument.
Substance causation involves a substance - an object - causing an event. Not - not - by means of some other event. That's event causation. But directly.
You can put whatever label you like on the instantiation of that causal relationship - you can call it an 'act' or a teapot, it won't make a difference. The simple fact is that substance causation involves the instantiation of a causal relation between a substance and an event. And when does that occur? At the time of the event. Thus, substance causation 'is' simultaneous causation.
If time runs backwards there is still linear causation, just no linear time
Yes. But then the cause has become the effect and the effect the cause. Entropy will get smaller and smaller. The universe will end on a singularity. And a new universe will spring into being at infinity. With maximum entropy i.e., scrambled photons carrying the information of the universe to reversely be.To contract again, while creatures arise from the grave, words are inhaled, and babies are sucked back in the womb. How would such a world feel like? Like a puppet on reverse strings? Like those puppets with a clockwork inside, to excite with a key?
That's because I have never come across "substance causation" before, it seems to be your idiosyncrasy, and you haven't yet explained it in a coherent way.
Quoting Bartricks
But a substance must act to in order to cause an event. This is how we can say that the substance is an "agent".
Quoting Bartricks
An "act", like a "teapot", is something which is describable. So, when the substance "acts" (or "teapots", whichever you prefer), to cause an event, we can describe that "act" (or "teapot"). Are you prepared to describe the proposed "simultaneous" act involved with the ball and the cushion?
I've seen some descriptions, where the cushion would push up on the ball, while the ball would push down on the cushion, the two pushings are obviously not equivalent. This is like the way that the gravity of the earth interacts with the gravity of the moon, both have an effect on the other. But this is not "substance causation" according to how you've used the phrase, because each of the two distinct substances act as causes, and each have an effect on the other. The "simultaneous causation" involved here, is two distinct causal acts acting at the same time. Is this what you mean? If so, since there is a requirement of two distinct substances acting as causes, it doesn't seem like it could support self-creation.
In that case there is no cause for the depression, because there is no existence of the cushion with any other shape than that in which the ball fits. There is no evidence that the ball caused the depression - there is only your understanding of a ball and cushion as temporally related objects, which these are not. So you can’t apply that understanding here.
The problem is, you’re using actual objects and their interaction in time as a model for eternity. Causation refers to the potential relation of an event between the objects involved. You can say that a depression in a cushion is ‘caused by the ball’, but in reality the depression is caused by the impact between the cushion and ball: an event. There is no potential relation between eternal entities without the potential for change. If the arrangement has no potential for change (as described here), there is no cause to be determined.
1) This is an arbitrary assumption or, at best, a hypothesis, and as such, it doesn't prove anything.
2) In the same way that "the depression in the cushion is being caused by the ball", "the cushion envelops, enwraps the ball" as well.
So, this is not a valid example. Do you have another one, where the effect precedes the cause or there's a simultaneous cause and effect?
(BTW, you are talking about the "causality principle", the reversibility of which has is still to be proved ...)
No, it is a thought experiment. And our reason is clear about it: the ball is causing the depression on the cushion even if the ball and cushion have always been in that arrangement. That's why Kant presented it and why so many afterwards appeal to it. It's why so many philosophers accept the possibility of simultaneous causation.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Relevance?
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Validity is a property of arguments, not examples.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Yes, I have given it numerous times. Substance causation is when a substance - an object - causes an event. It is simultaneous causation for the time of the causation is the time of the event. And substance causation has to be admitted to be coherent, for if one denies the possibility of substance causation then one will have to posit an actual infinity of past events.
Put it this way: if every cause has to precede its effect, then we're off on an infinite regress.
So there does not seem to be a way of denying the coherence of simultaneous causation and thus we have no basis for denying the coherence of self-creation.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
What are you on about?
I'm talking about what I'm talking about. I am arguing that the only reason to think self-creation is incoherent is the assumption that causes must precede their effects. That assumption is false.
That's flagrantly question begging.
Imagine you come across a ball on a cushion. Now, if asked what is causing the dent in the cushion, you're going to answer - correctly - that it is the ball. Yes? Of course, you're going to say no. So just imagine anyone else - anyone else is going to say the ball is causing the depression.
Now imagine the entire universe came into being 5 minutes ago, with everything arranged as it is. Well, it's still true that the depression is being caused by the ball.
Plus, I gave TWO examples, the second appealing to substance causation.
Quoting Possibility
The problem is that you lot don't understand how thought experiments work!
If an iron ball had always rested on a cushion it would eternally be the cause. Each minute can be seen as a member of the infinite series. But this has nothing to do with the effect being before the cause. It's still linear
As you seem extremely confused about everything (yet blithely unaware of this), try and recognize that I am not saying that there is a ball and a cushion that have actually existed for eternity, one on the other. Note as well that I am not saying that all causation is simultaneous causation. I am arguing that simultaneous causation is coherent and that, as such, we have no basis for deeming self-creation incoherent.
Why should the ball cause the depression when both are stationary? There are no cause and effect. There is a single event. The ball on the cushion. In a spacetime diagram there is a straight line only. Each event of both the cushion and the ball coinciding at one surface of contact. No causing going on. This would only be if the ball were laid on it. And even then it could be that the dent was already there. There is one event only, and we all know a single event is neither cause or effect.
My dear god... :pray:
Er, no. You are clearly ignorant of the debate over causation and the debate over free will. Substance causation is a term of common use in philosophy. But you think that because you're ignorant of it, I must have made it up! Like most here, you think your own knowledge is exhaustive.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, I imagine you mean by 'coherent' 'a way I can understand'. That's not what coherent means.
Substance causation is causation by an object - a thing - rather than an event. So, not causation by a thing changing, but a change caused by a thing. It's not that the thing causes the event by undergoing some change - for a change is an event. The thing causes the event directly.
The first event or events are going to have been caused this way (some argue that all events are caused this way - that events are just manifestations of substance causation).
Many in the free will debate think that free will requires substance causation, where the substance in qusetion is ourselves (that's called 'agent causation'). And an apparent example of substance causation would be our own decisions, which we seem to make directly.
Anyway, it is coherent and importantly the causation involved seems simultaneous.
Causation at the same time? What on Earth do you mean? Simultaneous? What events are simultaneous? What causes? You're drifting off...
When a substance causes an event, the event and the causation occur at the same time. The event's being caused is its standing in a causal relation to the substance. And that causal relationship is instantiated at the time of the event.
Okay, the happening then. The ball aint pushing the cushing. It's the cushion doing the pushing. So the dent is it's own cause.
No, they don't. The causation event comes before the event it gives cause to upon touch.
I've been following this conversation along with many others that cover similar territory and I have several questions to all parties -
If "self creation" is possible - OR - if it is not possible - either way does that change how I should live my life? Should I give my worldly possessions to charity and live a life of penance? Should I leave my spouse and spend all my money on booze & hookers? Does this affect how I should feel about the Ukraine situation? Etc?
Also (and related) - why is this topic so important that you spend hours debating it? If this is merely for fun and/or intellectual stimulation I get it - there's no harm done and there are many worse ways of spending your time. But given the level of intensity and vitriol in these conversations, it appears that this topic is really important to people. Why? What difference does it make?
What has simultaneous causality to do with self creation? You say their analogous but they are not the same thing. The ball causes the dent, not itself
It's about what cause and effect are. Belief it or not, but philosophy has gotten to this sad point. Don't take it too hard. Sell your personal belongings, take your spouse by the hand, and try to look for the lost paradise.
So it seems. The cause has to touch the effect. But how can it be still a cause then? The modern approach is the coupling of non pointlike particles to an intermediary nonpointlike virtual particle field. Nit by touch. The particle couples (touches), because of charge, to a virtual particle field which another charge might have changed. Interaction.
You mean a constant causation? Like a constant force?
That depends on how you look at self creation. If it exists it might change your view of gods, and even let them disappear. Will life have still meaning then? Meaning will be looked for in hookers, drugs, and booze then. All meaningful activities lack true meaning then.
No - the problem is that you don’t understand the qualitative aspect of a thought experiment.
If we imagine coming across a ball in contact with a cushion, we cannot simply discard their qualitative structure as if it’s irrelevant. From our imagined observations, we infer that at some point the cushion existed sans depression, and that the ball was not eternally impacting on the cushion in this way. There is nothing about the relation of ‘ball’ and ‘cushion’ in any thought experiment that would imply this is not the case.
You can’t expect to ignore the inherent qualitative structure of the concepts ‘ball’ and ‘cushion’ when it suits.
Consider two entities A and B: A has an invariant 3D structure, while B has a different and slightly variable 3D structure. If we observe these two structures in contact, and notice that the 3D structure of B is shaped in inverse relation to A at the point of contact, we can infer that A caused the variation in the 3D structure of B, because we know that the 3D structure of A is less variable than that of B.
Now consider two eternal entities, X and Y, existing in an invariable 4D event - that is, there is no variation in their 4D structure in relation to each other. How then, is it possible to infer that X was the cause of a 3D structure in Y when there is no way even to distinguish a 3D structure of Y from the invariable 4D arrangement of XY?
You can come up with any number of cases in which there does 'not' seem to be causation. What's the point in that?
The ball and cushion case is a case in which the depression is being caused by the ball and we do not need to know whether the ball was ever not on the cushion in order to be able to conclude that the ball is causing the depression.
And I gave TWO examples. As you are clearly having trouble with the first one, question beggingly insisting that we have to know if the ball was ever not on the cushion before we can conclude that it is causing the depression, why not focus on the other example? Only one has to work.
Presumably you accept that not every event can be caused by a prior event, for then one would have to posit an actual infinity of prior events. So, all events must ultimately trace to causes that are not events, but things.
So, substances can cause events. But when do substances cause the events that they cause? Well, when the events occur. That is simultaneous causation. So, unless simultaneous causation makes sense, it seems event causation won't make sense either.
And if simultaneous causation makes sense, then there seems to be nothing incoherent about self-creation.
The sneer of the peon. Answering these questions - fundamental questions in philosophy, that is - will make you wealthy and happy. Happy?
Causation, to my knowledge, requires a mechanism. The fastest possible mechanism is an electromagnetic signal (light and its ilk). The speed of light is finite i.e. the mechanism can't be instantaneous. In other words, cause and effect can't be simultaneous. :chin:
I don't know what you mean by a mechanism.
If A causes B, when does it do it? If you imagine the causation itself to be a third event - a kind of intermediary between A and B, when did A cause that intermediary event?
When it occurred - yes? And when did that intermediary event cause B? When it occurred, yes?
So, it seems if A causes B, it does so simultaneously. A causes B when B occurs. That's simultaneous causation.
There's got to be a mechanism of causation! For instance, I push you, you fall over; the mechanism here is force & energy, how the conspire to shift your center of gravity away from your base.
And anyway, you're missing the point. All you're doing is introducing an intermediary. Now, consider teh questions I asked.
Well, to the best of my knowledge, mechanisms are a sine qua non to establish a causal link. In other words, it isn't enough to simply show a correlation.
To illustrate my point we all know, more accurately we're told that, smoking causes cancer. The first step involved was to demonstrate a correlation: the smoking & cancer association was statistically significant. The second step was/is to find out how smoking leads to cancer. The putative mechanism: genetic damage/mutation.
... Whatever. It seems useless to continue this exchange ...
Yes - specifically because of the softness (ie. 3D variability) of the cushion in relation to the ball. You can’t extend this same quality of softness to an eternal entity - if there is no 4D variation (it never changes), then there is no 3D variability (no softness). Case closed.
Quoting Bartricks
I only noticed the one example, sorry.
Quoting Bartricks
I accept that there comes a point in our relation to events where ‘cause’ is a meaningless term - I’d say it’s about where we posit an infinite, either as quantity or quality.
I’m going to be pedantic for a sec: aren’t events still things? Do you mean things as in concepts or only tangible 3D objects? You also call them ‘substances’, which is another ambiguous term that allows you to play with dimensional quality as it suits you. I’m going to insist on you clarifying the dimensional structure of entities here, because it makes a difference in relation to causation.
Events are four-dimensional structures, so it’s important to recognise that time is not simply a linear relation of change or causation between objects and events, the way our language structures it. It only appears that way because in language we reduce the observation/measurement event itself to a zero-point value, and treat all other events and ideas as objects. It’s only in the quality of each concept that different relational structures are evident.
So, when you state that ‘substances can cause events’, you need to be clearer in your language to avoid people misinterpreting what you mean.
From what I understand, a relation between differentiated potentiality can theoretically ‘cause’ events without any necessary relation to actual objects or things. This makes more sense to me than substances causing events or simultaneous causation.
Yahweh (the Father), "married" his own mother (Maryam) and sired Jesus (the Son). Sancta trinitas, Unus deus.
Self-creation? :chin: In short, the Biblia Sacra, interalia, is incest porn! You might wanna research works on incest, the mother-son kind, and maybe time travel, two subjects no one would've imagined were connected in such an intriguing way!
AG, my man! Does that make Miriam the holy spirit? :chin:
A carnal trinity...
I had the same thought! Can we cause our own inception? Or prevent it maybe? "POOF!"
To what refers simultaneously here? What things are simultaneous?
I thought so already. Cause and effect are separate events. If they coincide its not clear which is which. Simultaneous effect would be just as appropriate. The depression on the cushion can be the cause as well as the effect. The ball can be the cause or effect as well. If we consider a force pulling or pushing and the ball is in rest, there are no cause and effect anymore. Nor a simultaneity of both, So think I in my humblyhumbleness.
We should distinguish epistemology from ontology. The incapacity of identifying cause and effect is not a reason to reject of the simultaneity of cause and effect. The metaphysical argument why cause and effect should be simultaneous goes roughly as follows. If causality is a relation, then it presupposes the existence of the related terms, because relations (at least external relations) are existence-entailing, one cannot have a relation without its relata: aRb cannot obtain unless both a and b exist. But if the existence of the cause precedes the existence of its effect, then when the cause exists the effect doesn’t, while when the effect exists the cause doesn’t exist anymore. So if there is no moment in which they co-exist then there can not be any relation between them, therefore not even a causal relation.
The problem of distinguishing cause and effect as events could be overcome if we consider that events can be temporally extended entities and that the causal relation between them requires the simultaneity of some moments: e.g. the rolling ball A hits the still ball B at t1 causing B to move. Then, the event of A ball’s rolling and the event of B ball’s moving are simultaneously and causally correlated at t1 (exactly when A hits and B starts moving, cause and effect).
An event can be both a cause and an effect. Indeed. An event is a point in spacetime, somewhat self-contradictory. An event has no temporal extension. Like a happening. Time stands still at an event. The happening finds place and starts at an event, the time and location. So the event is no cause or event, or both at the same time. Coming from what was and starting what to come. Or the other way round if time ran backwards. But please correct me if I'm wrong. Time can start only if the happenings have a start. There needs to be motion before time takes off in one direction. Irreversible motion can be set in motion by a reversible motion of which you can't say it goes forwards or backwards, like an ideal pendulum. It were idea pendulums that set the universe in uniderectional, irreversible motion.
As far as I can tell from my philosophical readings, events are temporal phenomena that can be extended or instantaneous: parties, watching movies, playing chess, calculating an equation are considered examples of temporally extended events. Explosions, particle decays, date expiration, snapping fingers are considered examples of temporally instantaneous events. Not sure to understand the link you see between the notions of “event”, “causality”, and the question of the reversibility or the direction of motion (or time).
Your phrase "substance causation" is still incoherent to me. (I'll be clear to add "to me" if that satisfies you). You are saying that a "substance" can cause an event without that substance undergoing any change itself. This is not consistent with any sense of "substance" which I know of. Substance never creates an event without itself changing. That's the nature of how we use "substance". Maybe you are using a definition of "substance" which I am unfamiliar with. Can you provide your definition for me?
Quoting Bartricks
No, the first acts are the ones which cause the existence of substance. When you claim that the first events are cause by substance, without the substance itself changing, you place "substance" outside of time, because the passing of time coincides with events. So by saying that substance causes the first event, you place substance outside of time. Then substance is necessarily inert, passive, and cannot cause anything because it cannot be active as an agent. And since substances are what are active in events, you have a distinction between an active substance and a passive substance, and no way to show how a passive substance magically creates an active substance, as the first "event".
Quoting Bartricks
This is incoherent to me because you have said that the substance causes an event without itself changing. If it does not change, then we cannot say that it is "active". And if it is not active we cannot say it is an "agent". A substance which does not change cannot be an agent. In your example, "ourselves", human beings, it is very clear that the substance, which is the human being actively changes when causing a freely willed event. So it is very clear that your definition of "substance causation", in which the substance causes an event without itself changing, is not applicable to the "agent causation" of freely willed acts, in which the agent, as a human being, changes.
"In physics, and in particular relativity, an event is the instantaneous physical situation or occurrence associated with a point in spacetime (that is, a specific place and time). For example, a glass breaking on the floor is an event; it occurs at a unique place and a unique time."
A bit paradoxically... A breaking glas an event?
The ball precedes the cushion ontologically.
A glass breaking is an instantaneous event. Why do you see it as paradoxical?
Because breaking implies motion. An event is a point.
If we see a photo of the glass shattering in space, we can't say which way time goes. No cause and effect.
This is the mystery of the direction of time.
are you talking about Zeno's paradox? The impossibility of having motion on a single point of the time series?
If Im not mistaken, I referred to him somewhere here before!
Seems so indeed... How can we see which way motion goes by looking at a point?
Again, I would distinguish between what is the case (metaphysical question) and what we can "see" (epistemological question).
Anyway the notion of "point" is a useful abstraction, but what the spatial notion of "point" doesn't seem able to render is precisely the dynamic nature of events. Events are transitional states of things, properties and relations in their becoming. As such they are intrinsically dynamic and can't be understood without reference to the time. So the notion of "motion" itself is a dynamic concept not because it relates to space, but because it relates to time.
Yes indeed. That's the reason of the inadequacy of points and point particles. How the hell can they touch? It are point particles giving rise to renormalization. Consider them as an extended geometric shape and your problems are gone. Space can't be broken up into points, and time can't be stopped.
I don't know what you mean by a 'mechanism'. I'm assuming you mean that there needs to be some kind of intermediary between cause and effect. How does that change anything?
So, I'll just keep repeating myself until you answer: if A, a substance, causes B, when does it do so?
What on earth are you on about? If a cushion exists eternally it is not soft? What?
Quoting Possibility
That's not what I said. Again: there aren't actual infinities in reality. So, there is not an actual infinity of past events. That's got nothing to do with causation. It's got everything to do with the fact there are no actual infinities. Thus, we can conclude on this basis that not all events have other events as their causes. Again, there's no pressure on the notion of causation here, there's just the rational observation that it follows that not all events have events as their causes. Thus, some events have 'substances' as their causes. That is 'things' initiate causal chains, not changes.
Quoting Possibility
No. I am not being imprecise in my language. The problem is that others use language in a sloppy way.
A thing - or substance or object - is a bearer of properties. An event is an occurrence. A happening.
Note, you can have a thing without there being any events. My mug is not an event. It is a thing. And things do not depend on events. You can't, however, have an event without any things, for events always involve things. Happenings happen to things. They undergo a change or initiate a change or whatever. But the dependency is clear: events depend on things, things do not depend on events.
Substance causation is philosophically respectable. Indeed some would argue that all causation is substance causation. That's actually my view. Events are manifestations of causation, but all causing is done by substances. That's a controversial view, but I think it is correct. But anyway, even if one rejects that view and allows that events can cause events, the simple fact is that one is going to run into serious difficulties if one insists that all causation is event causation - you'll have to posit an actual infinity of events.
So, substance causation - causation by a thing rather than by a change - is, must be, coherent.
And substance causation is simultaneous causation. Indeed, I think event causation is too, for any event has been caused at the time at which it occurs, not before. But I think it is clearer in the case of substance causation that we have simultaneous causation.
A ball on a cushion causes the cushion to debt instantaneously but there is one thing causing another. You are not generous in your explanations of how this proves self causation. They are *similar* but not identical
Well, let's look at your ball & cushion example. The ball causes the cushion to develop a depression. The mechanism of this deformation is the ball's weight acting on the soft cushion, oui? Does this mechanism occur instantaneously or is there a time lag, no matter how infinitesimally small, between placing the ball on the cushion and the corresponding hollow in the cushion?
Before you answer that question, remember the ball's weight is temporally anterior to the cushion's depression.
Another point worth noting is that the cause (the ball) exists before the effect (the dent in the cushion).
Here's what to me is a strong argument for simultaneous causation: If a cause exists prior (time t[sub]1[/sub]) to the effect (time t[sub]2[/sub])then the effect should've already occured (at time t[sub]1[/sub]).
My response would be that certain aspects of a cause preexist the effect it produces. For example, in your ball-cushion case, the ball, a necessary component of the cause, temporally precedes the effect, the depression.
You are just changing the example so that it no longer illustrates the point it was designed to illustrate.
Again: the ball does not come to be on the cushion. Both ball and cushion exist - and have always existed - in that arrangement.
The point Kant is making is that the ball is causing the dent regardless of whether it came to be on the cushion or was always on it.
Once more: when does a substance cause its effect?
The only reason to think self-creation is impossible is the idea that to create one's self one would have to exist 'prior' to one's own existence. And the only reason to think that is the idea that causes must precede their effects.
So, once again for the umpteenth time, if causes do not have to precede their effects, then there is no reason to think self-creation is impossible.
Try and argue that self-creation is impossible 'without' appealing to the idea that a cause must precede its effect.
Sorry, you are being imprecise. An event still has properties.
Quoting Bartricks
Beg to differ. Any object is the result of events, the happenings of which you may just be unable to directly observe, occurring either in the past, at a smaller scale or a slower pace. You cannot have a mug without there being any events. To observe an event requires observing change in objects, but this is not a dependency of all events on things - our ‘observation’ of change is dependent on our observation/measurement of objects. Yet we can define and predict an event such as a photon without any dependence on objects.
Quoting Bartricks
Show me an object with the property of softness that would persist even a thousand years without change. A variable object guarantees a variable event, and precludes an eternally consistent one.
We can conceive a ball without an indentation in a cushion and an indentation without a ball. This possibility gives sense to the claim that the ball causes the indentation, even if both are always and have always been co-existent. We cannot conceive E without E. So it is not clear how to give sense to the claim "E causes E". It may be possible. But we need additional argument for it.
The ball on the cushion happens (say) at time t[sub]2[/sub].
Both the ball and the cushion as necessary causes (without them there's no effect) do precede the hollow in the cushion, oui? t[sub]1[/sub] < t[sub]2[/sub]
Ergo, since there's something critical to the cause (vide supra) that must precede the effect, simultaneous causation is untenable in that sense, oui?
We can adopt two theories. (1) Causes must precede effects. (2) Only events can be causes. But these two theories will not stand by stipulation alone.
Firstly, causes and effects can happen at the same time. You lift a cup. The movement of the cup is caused by your lifting it. But the movement of the cup is simultaneous with your lifting it. Secondly, things other than events can be causes. A ball carries on causing a depression in a cushion for as long as nobody kicks it off. What's the ball doing to cause the depression? Well, nothing. There is no event. Yet it's continuing to cause the depression. Props continue to support walls long after the builders have gone home. A magnetic field causes a compass to point north.
These are ways of conceiving causes. They are incoherent examples if we adopt theories (1) and (2). But since the examples seem coherent, perhaps we should instead reject the theories.
This is Bartricks' insistence on incoherency. Bartricks claims that this proposition, which I claim is incoherent, just appears as incoherent to me. Now I see it's incoherent to you as well. So we can say that it is incoherent to us.
The ball is the cause. In the same way, the props are causing the wall not to collapse and the magnetic field is causing the compass to point north. Ropes are holding up swings and holes in water tanks are causing leaks everywhere.
In these examples, objects are causes and effects are happening simultaneously with causes.
But perhaps you are right. Perhaps these things are not causes and cannot be causes - and perhaps it is incoherent to claim that they are. Yet such causal claims are made every day (outside the philosophy laboratory) and sometimes they are made truly and sometime falsely, just as if they are meaningful, coherent and testable. So it's not obvious that we should adopt a theory which does not accommodate them.
Thank you for the nice compliment.
We can say the cushion is the cause of it's depression. The ball can only be the cause if it's laid on it, which isn't the case here. We can not say what came first, the ball falling on the cushion and depressing it, or the depressed cushion making the ball fly away. Say that instead of the ball laying on the cushing we see a ball eternally above a neat cushion. How do we know what caused them to have this relationship? We don't. The situation can be said it's own cause and it's own effect. Who created the ball and the cushion is a different question. A religious question.
It's better to live the peony life!
Suppose someone laid the ball on the cushion. And suppose also that the ball is causing the depression in the cushion. I'm supposing both those things. The ball got there somehow. And now that it's got there, it's making a dip in the cushion. The ball is the cause of the dip. Of course the ball wasn't always there. There's no reason to imagine that it must have been. But now that it is there, it's causing a dip and continuing to cause that dip until it's removed - which will probably also happen.
The above may be mistaken. Perhaps objects cannot be causes and causes cannot be simultaneous with effects. But since the last para is how we discuss causes frequently - in practical situations - when we are concerned about what is or isn't the case - it is not obvious that our talk is wrong, incoherent or somehow theological.
I think Kant's example gives us difficulty only if we have a prior theory - namely (1) Causes must precede effects. (2) Only events can be causes. My suggestion is that the example is straightforward and well chosen. The problem is not the example but the prior theory.
Indeed. The example is out of this world. Cushions with balls laying on them eternally presuppose an eternal gravity field. If this is an eternal state then the ball aint laid on it. Nor will it be taken off. In fact, we can't even see if time goes forwards or backwards. It could be the ball flies off if time starts!
If we think of the depressed cushion first and then lay the ball on it, the depression is indeed the teleological cause.
There is no presumption in Kant's example about eternity. Kant's example is drawn from everyday experience in which balls and cushions seldom stay in one configuration for very long. Suppose someone put the ball on the cushion and someone will take it off again. His example is an illustration of how, now that the ball is on the cushion, it's causing a dip. This shows that causes and effects can coherently be supposed to be simultaneous and that objects can be supposed to be causes. Of course, he might be wrong. But to show that he's wrong we need more than the stipulations that causes must precede effects and that objects cannot be causes.
Only the act of laying the ball on it is causation. If its never laid on it there is no causation. Causation is time dependent. The causation doesn't continue after the act of laying the ball on the cushion. The dip could also be the cause for the ball laying on it. If time runs backward, the cushion can shoot the ball away instead of the ball falling on it.
Even if you were right, and as far as I can tell you are, philosophy, to my reckoning, is not a democratic institution i.e. we're not warranted to feel good about ourselves because we concur! :grin:
No, that's not true. If self-creation is understood as a form of simultaneous causation then the same entity X would be simultaneously existent (as effect) and non-existent (as cause). Besides properties and relations presuppose the existence of the terms they are predicated of, so if causality is a relation or a property it would require the existence of the causal factor to already obtain. Therefore non-existing entities can't cause anything.
I don't think that's a proper description. When the ball got placed on the cushion, this act caused the dip in the cushion. Once the ball is there, and the dip is in the cushion, the ball is not continuing to cause the dip. The dip was caused by coming into contact with the ball, and once it has been caused, it becomes a continuous feature of the cushion, just like every other property of the cushion, until someone takes the ball away, and this act may cause the dip to go away.
Quoting Cuthbert
"Cause" is a temporal concept. If you take away the temporality from the concept, then you are just talking about something else. Your suggestion that there is a problem with the prior theory, is like saying that there is a problem with the theory which makes 2+2 equal to 4. You might say "I want 2+2 to equal 6, so I think there is a problem with the "prior theory" which makes 2+2 equal to 4. Your request to change the meaning of "cause" (reject the prior theory), is just the same as the request to change the meaning of "2" (reject the prior theory.
Sure you can claim that there's a problem with the theory, and request a change, but unless you can demonstrate an actual problem with the theory, the request is just random nonsense.
Quoting Cuthbert
I would say he is wrong. He shows a misunderstanding of causation. Causation is always represented by an act. A static situation, a state, such as the ball being in a certain static relation with the cushion, is not causation. Consider the relation between the earth and the sun, or the earth and the moon, for example. The sun causes many things on the earth, in the relation between these two objects, the sun and the earth, but each is described in terms of activities. There is no static relation between the sun and the earth. Likewise with the relation with the earth and moon.
So what the real problem which Kant demonstrates with the example, is that describing two distinct objects in such a "causal" relation with each other, as having a static relation, is not a proper description. Objects are always changing, moving, and being moved, so two distinct objects in contact with each other, ball and cushion, never really have a static relation with each other. So if we want to describe such a situation as the ball causing the dent in the cushion, we must go beyond what is immediately evident to our senses, and look at the interaction between the particle of the ball, and the particles of the cushion. This is where the activity is happening (which we do not see), and this is what validates the designation of "cause".
No it isn't.
The peony has it all...
Everyone must admit that it is possible for something always to have been the case. And thus it is coherent to suppose that the ball was always on the cushion.
I agree with Cuthbert that the ball is causing the depression as an on-going matter even if there was a time when it came to be on the cushion. However, the problem is that it is then open to the objector to insist that this is not the case and the depression was caused by the ball coming to be on the cushion (and the spring-back when the ball is removed is caused when the ball is removed). And thus that variation on the thought experiment would not 'force' the believer in the dogma that causes precede their effects to abandon their position. By contrast, if we stipulate that the ball has always been on the cushion, then we have an undeniable counterexample to the claim that causes precede their effects.
Now, perhaps you think there is something incoherent in the notion of eternity. That's all I can think. But that's confused - eternity just means 'for all time'. That, anyway, is the notion of eternity that the example needs. And whether one believes time has a beginning or that it stretches back infinitely, there is nothing incoherent in the idea of something existing 'for all time' and thus for two things to have been in a certain relationship for 'all time'.
Er, no, they would be existent as cause and existent as effect.
Quoting neomac
You've just made the 'the cause would need to precede the effect' objection - the very one that's undermined by the coherence of simultaneous causation! Do keep up!
Quoting neomac
I didn't argue that they could. But existing ones can and they can cause themselves to exist. As I said earlier, the claim is not that something can come out of nothing - it remains true that nothing causes nothing. The claim rather is that something can cause itself. And so although this means that there can be nothing and then something, the something's coming into being is not being caused by nothing, but by the thing itself.
Not when the things involved are contingent objects. Balls and cushions are contingent objects. A contingent object requires a cause for its existence. Therefore it is impossible that a description of something which is said to have always been the case, could involve contingent objects.
Quoting Bartricks
What I've explained to you a number of times now, is that there is incoherency in the idea of a contingent object (like a ball), which has always been there. A contingent object requires a cause for its existence, and the cause of its existence is prior in time to its actual existence. That means that there is time before the existence of the contingent object (the ball). Therefore to say that the ball was always there is incoherent.
Why? If an object exists at a time, what prevents it from existing at all times? Explain.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And I have explained to you numerous times why this is false. There is nothing incoherent in the idea of a contingent object existing for all time.
You are committing a fallacy known as the fallacy of affirming the consequent. If an object exists necessarily, then it always exists. But it does not follow that if an object always exists, it exists of necessity. YOu think it does which is why you think that contingent objects can't always exist. That's just fallacious reasoning on your part. Contingent objects can always exist. They will be existing contingently, but anything that exists at a time can exist at any other time, and thus can exist for all time.
It's an inductive conclusion, we've seen that things change as time passes, and things come into existence, and pass out of existence. You can deny this if you want, but to me, that's irrational, and that's what makes your proposition incoherent to me. I mean come on, we know that pool balls are produced from the factory, they cannot exist at all times. That's nonsensical
Quoting Bartricks
That's not the reasoning I use at all. Like I said above, the reasoning is based in an inductive principle. Contingent objects cannot always exist because we know that each and every one of them came into existence in time, so there is necessarily time before them. We know by inductive reasoning that this is the case for all such objects
And your principle " anything that exists at a time can exist at any other time" is clearly false. Each and every thing has a time period unique to itself, and cannot exist at a different time period, because this would be a different thing.
You have no argument. All you're doing is insisting that what I am saying is incoherent, even though it demonstrably isn't.
For instance, you seem blithely unaware of the fact you've been refuted. If an object exists at a time, then what's to stop it from existing at all times? You have no argument.
There is nothing incoherent in the idea of something existing for eternity. And it is the mere coherence of the idea that my case requires.
So if you go back in times and find no end, that is eternity. But going back in time reverses which you encounter first: cause or effect. Therefore a cyclical understanding of time affects how we see causality and makes time prior causality. But can time create itself?
If they simultaneously exist, there is no bringing into existence from non-existence (as creation is normally understood) but at best preserving into existence.
Quoting Bartricks
No, I'm talking about ontological dependency between properties/relations and the entities they are predicated of. If X is taller than Y, "taller than" as a relation is predicated of X and Y while X and Y are existing. It's possible that the relation holds simultaneously to the existence of both terms and the terms can not exist without being in such relation (this is the case for internal relations). The issue is that if one of the terms doesn't exist then relations/predicates can not be instantiated while if all terms exist there is no bringing into existence from non-existence as "creation" is normally understood.
Quoting Bartricks
Then it's not self-creation as normally understood ("the act or process of making something that is new, or of causing something to exist that did not exist before" source: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/creation?q=creation) but at best it's existence preservation like when a person feeds herself to survive, and nobody would literally take self-feeding as a form of self-creation.
Besides if you are talking about your god, why does your god need to preserve itself into existence? He is all mighty and perfect, so he would not suffer from any decaying process, nor need to preserve itself into existence.
[math]Nothing/0 = (+x) + (-x)[/math].
If an object is sitting there, motionless, at rest it can mean two things:
1. No force is acting on it
or
2. All the forces acting on it are equal & opposite i.e. they cancel each other out. Symmetry.
In the case of 1, there's no hope (ex nihil nihil fit), but 2 is a different story, even the slightest fluctuation could, well, break the symmetry. Voila! The Big Bang (creatio ex nihilo).
"Contingent" in the case of a contingent object means dependent on something else. I don't see the point in your denial. We can name thus type of thing however we want, instead of "contingent", "material thing", "physical object", "temporal object", whatever. The point is that the inductive reasoning tells us that all such things come into being in time, therefore there is necessarily time prior to them. You can deny the inductive principle if you want, but unless you give me a real example of such a thing, a thing which has always been, I'll never listen to you.
Quoting Bartricks
If it's demonstrable, demonstrate it then. Show me the reality of a thing, like a ball, which has always been. It's actually very demonstrable that balls are all produced, and there is time before each one of them, so you're really just talking nonsense in your insistence of demonstrability.
Quoting Bartricks
I gave you the argument. Since you didn't understand, it I'll be more clear this time. The time at which an object exists, is a property of the object, just like the space, or location where it is. And each individual object has its own unique set of properties, which makes it one and the same with itself only, by the law of identity. Therefore by the law of identity, if an object exists at one particular time, it cannot exist at another particular time without being a different object.
The only reason to say what you've just said is the mistaken view that causes precede their effects. If a cause can be simultaneous with its effect, then there is no reason to insist that the object has not created itself. Why are you saying that we have 'preserving into existence'? I don't even know what that means. The object does not exist prior being caused to exist. So it has been created. It's just it has been created by itself.
Engage in the following thought experiment. Imagine something just pops into existence. It didn't exist. Then it does. What happened? Did nothing bring it into being? Well, that seems incoherent: something doesn't come from nothing. So, it caused itself, then. It brought itself into being. That's perfectly coherent if simultaneous causation is coherent (which it is).
You don't seem to understand what simultaneous causation involves. The cause exists as does the effect. You seem to be thinking that in a case of self-creation, the thing doing the creating does not yet exist. No, it exists simultaneous with its effect, it is just that in this case the effect is itself.
Once more, you are simply assuming that causes must precede their effects and thus that for self-creation what's required is that the entity that is doing the creating exist prior to the entity it creates. That's precisely what I am showing is false.
Yes it is self-creation as normally understood. It is an act of causing something to exist that did not exist before. How is it not?
In a case of self-creation, X causes X to exist. Prior to that act of creation, there is no X. So, X brought itself into existence.
No it doesn't. A contingent object is an object that 'can' not exist (as opposed to a necessary object, which is an object that can't not exist).
Once more: if an object exists at a particular time, what's to stop it existing at all times?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think it does, but I don't need to dispute that for my purposes here. Do try and focus on the relevant issue. Note, if self creation is coherent, then even if all things come into being, some of those things could have created themselves. Indeed, one would have to draw that conclusion, for otherwise one would have to posit an actual infinity of causes - which is incoherent.
So, you are thoroughly confused. It is not the case that everything has to come into being. But even if it was, all that would do is prove my point. For not everything can be created by something else, for then we have an actual infinity of other things. Some things must create themselves.
That's called an 'argument'. Address it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There are extrinsic and intrinsic properties, and intrinsic properties are those properties that are essential to an object's identity. Temporal properties are extrinsic, not intrinsic. I am clearly the same person I was a second ago. And my mug is the same mug it was a second ago.
Anyway, all this is beside the point. You seem to have serious difficulty focussing on the relevant issue.
I haven't mentioned God once in this thread so it is not clear to me why you are doing so. I think it is fair to say that most theists and atheists alike think that literal self-creation is incoherent.
I believe in God - by which I mean an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being - on the basis of an argument that has nothing to do with the origins of the universe. Indeed, given the nature of the universe it seems quite unreasonable to me to think that God had anything to do with its creation. (And if things can create themselves, then that provides a good explanation of why, despite God existing, there also exist a lot of gits).
Similarly, whether God created himself, or exists uncreated, or was created by alien forces, seems neither here nor there. God exists. How or whether he came to exist is another matter.
You seem to think that if God created himself, then he wouldn't be God. I don't know why you think that. To be God a person simply needs to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Why do they need 'not' to have created themselves? Odd.
Excuse me?
What went wrong? The emergence of mankind?
But I just made that point in passing. The point here, in this thread, is that self-creation is perfectly coherent.
It is often thought that where existence is concerned, the options are that some things have always existed and that from these other things were made, or alternatively (and incoherently) that everything that exists has been created by something else. I am pointing out that there is another option: some things have created themselves.
So the universe has created itself?
You absolutely couldn't.
You didn't even understand that that was the issue under debate! It's not like it isn't clear. It's there in the OP!
That's because I thought you meant litterary creation. An egg being pulled out of the hat.
Read the OP! I am arguing that literal self-creation is possible. It is possible for something to be created by something else. It is also possible for something to create itself. There is nothing problematic in the idea.
If someone says such things they are not thereby asserting that anything has actually created itself.
For instance, it is possible there's a zebra in my sitting room. The idea is a coherent one. Have I just asserted that there is a zebra in my sitting room? No.
This actually can happen. A zebra can be appearing from the vacuum. In quantum mechanics there is a chance that this happens. So if you wait long enough you can be stuck with a whole zoo! Lucky you!
I'm hungry for balls. If it lays eternally on a cushion, it's not safe with me around. And when I've eaten it, I cause myself laying eternally on it. So I self cause depression eternally and coherently. What more does one want?
Why does "popping into existence" without cause is incoherent?! There is no logical inconsistency in claiming that something does not exist at t1 but it exists at t2. There is no contradiction.
Quoting Bartricks
What?! If cause X and effect Y both simultaneously exist and X=Y, there is no creation of Y by X, precisely because the existence of Y is granted by the identity between X and Y so there is no need of whatever causal-thingy between them you are raving about. The notion of "cause" in your case makes literally no sense. Period. You made such a preposterous claim probably because you didn't clarify to yourself what "cause" means in metaphysical terms and, at the same time, you are misled by the putative explanatory power of the notion of "cause" based on some intellectual compulsion ("Did nothing bring it into being? Well, that seems incoherent: something doesn't come from nothing. So, it caused itself, then", which looks very much like a circular argument meant to avoid an infinite regress, and both are fallacious).
Quoting Bartricks
I already explained that: "at best it's existence preservation like when a person feeds herself to survive, and nobody would literally take self-feeding as a form of self-creation." Preserving existence from ceasing to exist. That's what I think it would make more sense for you to contend, but it's not self-creation.
I didn't claim that, nor implied that, nor suggested that. I took into consideration the notion of "God" when talking about existence preservation, not self-creation. I just surmised you might go in that direction, that's all. Anyway "self-creation" is either an incoherent metaphysical notion or explanatorily empty.
So you offer a third option. A zebra can appear in your room. Now what?
As you misunderstand philosophical use of "cause", you also misunderstand philosophical use of "contingent object".
Quoting Bartricks
I provided the argument for this, its based in the law of identity. You haven't adequately addressed it.
Quoting Bartricks
The argument has been addressed, "self-creation" has been thoroughly demonstrated as incoherent.
Quoting Bartricks
Extrinsic properties are not essential to a subject, they are accidental to the subject, that's why all human beings can be said to be "human beings". However, all accidentals, including extrinsic properties, are essential to the identity of an object, that is what makes any particular object, the unique object which it is. That objects are unique is what makes the law of identity a valid principle, and why the same thing cannot have two distinct times of existence. If your time of existence is from 1992 until the present day, you cannot also have a time of existence of 1888-1946. That's why your principle, that if an object can exist at one specified time, it can also exist at another, is false.
If this doesn't settle the matter, then we have to consider Bartricks' case a lost case. :up:
I made that conclusion a long time ago. I don't know why I continue.
I felt into the same trap!
Because events have causes. Odd that you think causes must precede their effects, but think effects don't have to have causes!
I think causes do not have to precede their effects. You think I'm wrong about that (or do you think I'm right, in which case you agree with me but don't realize it). Yet you think effects don't need to have causes! Your view is just bizarre and wholly unmotivated. I mean, I could understand someone having a problem with self-creation if that person believed - correctly - that all events have causes. But I can't understand what kind of troubled mind would have trouble with self-creation at the same time as being fine with the idea of something coming into existence out of nothing. I can only assume that you are one of those who thinks if Bartricks says it, it must be false regardless of where sane argument leads.
What on earth are you on about? You're just begging the question. You keep banging on about identity. X causes X to exist. The only reason to think that X has not caused X to exist is the erroneous belief that a cause must precede its effect. If a cause does not have to precede its effect, then it can be simultaneous with it. And that means that X can cause X to exist.
Again, if you think events don't even need causes then I'm at a total loss to understand why you are having difficulties with this.
Yes you did. First, you are the one who thinks that if X simultaneously causes X to exist then X is preserving X not creating X. That's not my view - it makes no sense whatsoever. If X causes X to exist, then X has caused X to exist. Really not hard to understand.
Then you suggested that somehow something I was saying was hard to reconcile with God's existence. No, nothing I am arguing poses any difficulty for God at all. As I explained. If you think there's a problem it is up to you to articulate it and to articulate it clearly, not vaguely gesture at things and then leave me to try and fathom what the hell you are on about.
What are you on about? Are you following anything I am saying at all? Anything?
You agree that simultaneous causation is possible - you said that a few posts ago, though no doubt your views change moment to moment - and that thus self-creation is possible. So you agree with me. THere's nothing more to be said. Why are you now asking me about zebras in my sitting room? You don't seem to be getting any point at all.
The arrogance is staggering. You hadn't even heard of substance causation, yet now you think you know what contingent means, even though it is quite obvious you don't.
Contingent does not mean 'dependent'. The opposite of contingent is necessary. if something exists of necessity, then it is incapable of not existing. Whereas if something exists contingently then it is capable of not existing. Christ - read a book!
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, and I addressed it. You just confused intrinsic properties with extrinsic ones and then concluded that nothing persists at all.
Plus you're not addressing my arguments. Substance causation is coherent. If you deny this, then you are off on a regress. And substance causation is simultaneous causation. So simultaneous causation is coherent. And that means self-creation is coherent. Now for the umpteenth time, address that argument. (To do that, you need to say which premise you deny and provide an argument in support of your denial - and then I'll assess that argument.....note, most here think that if they present an argument, no matter how shite, then the job is done....no, the argument needs to be assessed. Now, deny a premise in teh argument I just gave and provide an argument in support of it. So, you must either deny that substance causation is coherent - and to do that you need to show how you're not off on an infinite regress - or you need to deny that substance causation is simultaneous causation...which requires first understanding what substance causation is, an understanding you seem currently to lack).
Dude you are twice delusional. I never claimed that cause must precede its effect. Instead I explicitly argued for the simultaneous co-existence of cause and effect if cause is to be understood as a relation in metaphysical terms (which is something you didn't clarify yet). Indeed relations metaphysically depend on the existence of all the terms they relate. Besides if cause and effect were in strict temporal succession, then when the cause occurs, then the effect doesn't, and when the effect occurs, then the cause doesn't. So there would be no intelligible interaction between the causal factor and its effect.
Again, what is your argument to support the idea that all events have causes?! As I said "There is no logical inconsistency in claiming that something does not exist at t1 but it exists at t2. There is no contradiction." Even the notion of "event" doesn't analytically imply "being caused". Yours is just an additional metaphysical hypothesis you didn't argue for. So your claims are odd and unmotivated. And evidently so.
Quoting Bartricks
No I didn't, precisely because self-identity holds independently from self-creation and the latter is under question. On the other side, you begged the question by implicitly inserting a metaphysical hypothesis you didn't argue for "Because events have causes".
Quoting Bartricks
Stop strawmanning. I never made such a claim, nor implied, nor suggested. I was talking about existence preservation just as an alternative to self-creation.
I am not sure that my answer is what you are seeking but I am writing it because it has been going through my mind when I look at your thread. My answer is self creation would involve cloning. Of course, that is different from creating out of nowhere, which would be more like the account of the Virgin birth of Jesus.
But do focus on the relevant issue. Whether events have to have causes or not is beside the point. The point I am making is that self-creation is coherent. Whether events have to have causes is irrelevant. Note, the claim that self-creation is coherent is entirely consistent with the view that some events lack causes. So if you want, you can continue to insist - on the basis of no evidence whatsoever - that some events lack causes, but you'll just be off topic.
It turns out, then, that you accept that simultaneous causation is coherent. Why, then, do you think self-creation is incoherent? Explain.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Cloning would be replication, not self-creation. I don't understand the second part at all.
What I don't follow is why that event should be characterized as 'eternally stuck'.
What you mean by "coming into existence"?
So at some time it doesn't exist and exist simultaneously?
So it exists an doesn't exist at the same time. Must feel pretty schizo.
You asked what coming into existence involves. I have answered.
That’s at best evidence to you not to me, since that all “events have causes” is not self-evident to me for logic and semantic “reasons” as I clarified. And if whatever you call “reason” is in conflict with logic and semantics then “intellectual confusion” would be a more appropriate way to call it for sure.
Quoting Bartricks
My argument is based on logic and semantics, and that’s all I need to argue about “consistency” as far as I’m concerned. Not to mention the fact that you yourself didn’t offer any evidence to support your claim that something can create itself out of nothing. You just offered an argument that “simultaneous causation” would solve the putative inconsistency of “self-creation” as you formulated it. The problem to me is that “simultaneous causation” is not enough, you would need additional metaphysical hypotheses (like “events have causes”) as well as some semantic artifice (e.g. our ordinary causal claims involve only numerical if not logically distinct “relata” and express logically asymmetric relations, at least at token level, yet neither is true of “self-creation” claims). That’s why I don’t think I’m off topic as much as you didn’t seem to think you were off topic when you brought your disputable metaphysical hypothesis up in the first place.
Quoting Bartricks
If “X creates Y and X = Y” is understood as a simultaneous causal relation between a non-existent X and an existent Y then the claim would be incoherent because X would be existing and non-existing at the same time, since X = Y.
If “X creates Y and X = Y” is understood as a simultaneous causal relation between existing relata, then the inconsistency is in its explanatory role because in order to bring into existence anything at t1 X needs to already exist, but if X already exists so it’s Y (since X=Y) and there would be nothing left to bring into existence. In other words, what needs to be causally explained (X existence) is at the same time what needs to be presupposed by the causal explanation (why does X exist at t1? Because X exists at t1). That’s why your inference to the best explanation (“Imagine something just pops into existence. It didn't exist. Then it does. What happened? Did nothing bring it into being? Well, that seems incoherent: something doesn't come from nothing. So, it caused itself, then.”) fails. The explanation is only “apparent” as any circular explanation (BTW were we to accept such circular causal explanations as you suggest, then we would theoretically need no other causal explanation than the circular one for all that happens, and yet we would practically find it always totally useless).
In reply: my claim is not that all events are simultaneously with their causes, but only that it is possible for an event to be simultaneous with its cause. That applies to substance causation too. Substance causation can be simultaneous, but it doesn't have to be.
First of all the term "creation" poisons your question (fallacy). Entities and structures in Nature emerge through processes governed by specific rules all the time.
The facts available to you do NOT justify the use of the concept of a creator as a first cause.
Your philosophy derails at this point.
What does that even mean? Fallacies are features of arguments. So, identify the fallacy in my argument. Don't just say the word 'fallacy' and think that'll do the trick.
Stop - stop - naming fallacies! Argue something.
http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e06b.htm
You assume "creation" and "creators" in your argument.
What assumptions are you talking about? Christ - argue something! I mean, is your point that I have made assumptions? Is that it?
So what? What, you think your faculty of reason is the only one that matters? If the reason of others - including virtually all of those whose faculties of reason are so good they've entered the canon of great thinkers - represents events to have causes, that doesn't count for anything because the great neomac's reason makes no such representation. Ooo, mustn't contradict the great neomac's reason - his reason, uniquely among us, is our sole source of insight into reality. Get over yourself.
Quoting neomac
Ooo. Yeah, I'm not arguing anything, just blurting things.
What argument? What is your argument? Note, you seem to think the possibility that events may lack causes is some kind of evidence against simultaneous causation. How? How does that work, exactly?
Quoting neomac
Er, no. YOu don't seem to understand what my argument is. It is in the OP. I argued that the only reason to think self-creation is incoherent is the assumption that causes must precede their effects.
So, the only reason to think X is Y.
Then I argued that the assumption is false.
So, Y is false.
If the only reason to think X is Y.....and Y is false.....then there is no reason to think X. Yes? Does your logic and semantics agree?
Quoting neomac
No. Christ almighty, try listening.
There's a time - t1 - when X does not exist. Right? Got that? Then there's a time - t2 - when X does exist. Understand? X doesn't exist at t1. X does exist at t2. So...X came into existence. Yes?
What caused X to come into existence? X.
Do we have X existing and not existing at the same time? No. We have X existing at t2. It's cause - X - also exists at t2. So, we do not have existing and not existing at the same time.
This does not make sense to you because you still think causes have to precede their effects. Otherwise I am at a loss to understand why you're not getting this.
Then at what time it came into existence? That time lays between t1 and t2, right? But what at the creation moment itself? What about it? Where does it come from? There is no before and after. Is it there or not?
T2? What about it? X came into being at T2? At T2. But at t2 it disappears into the other direction. So what happents at t2. Is X existent or non-existent? Both! How can that be?
If X belongs to the half closed interval [t, inf) and lays just outside the half open (-inf, t), then no problemo signor!
At time t1, x does not exist. At time t2, x does exist. So x came into existence at t2. And the cause of this was x. And x caused it to happen at t2.
Yes! So what's the problem?
Dude, I don’t give a shit about your arguments from authority and your raving about "reason". Suck it up and move on.
Quoting Bartricks
You are confused. I argued that: “‘There is no logical inconsistency in claiming that something does not exist at t1 but it exists at t2. There is no contradiction.’ Even the notion of ‘event’ doesn't analytically imply ‘being caused’” to point out that self-creation understood as a form of self-causation is a metaphysical hypothesis (and parasitic to the notion of “causality”) one has to argue for. That’s all.
Quoting Bartricks
And I claim that it is not true that is the “only reason” to think that self-creation is incoherent is that causes must precede their effects, because even if causes and effects are simultaneous we could still argue that the notion of self-creation is incoherent (see below).
Quoting Bartricks
Here my counter arguments against this answer:
:lol:
:up:
Dear god! X "came" doesn't apply! Get over it! As wisely suggested by a fellow forum member: "Suck it up and move on!"
The verb "to come" implies an extension in time, however small (infinitesimal dt). So coming into existence is meaningless if the event X at time t2 is considered. Unless X has an Y preceding it it can't come into existence because you can imagine it. I can imagine you disappearing from the stage. Going out of existence instantaneously. WTF doesn't that happen?
As I said: "I don’t give a shit about your arguments from authority and your raving about 'reason'". So I dealt with claims and arguments of yours I found more philosophically pertinent.
Quoting Bartricks
Sure, sport, don't believe all those who tell you otherwise. Do you wanna a lollipop?
Can something exist and there be no prior causal reason for why it should exist? Yes, and its logically necessary that this exist for at least one thing in the causal chain of existence.
Do you favor circular causality, feminine, almost, vaginac?
Just obviously question begging. Read the op and address the argument.
Oh, okay then. Brilliant. Don't bother addressing the argument in the OP. Just say stuff and it'll be true.
A living organism is sort of self generating. The creature you are now was created by an earlier version of you.
That's vaguely a definition of life.
OP. Read it. Address it.
Like I said, in the imagination everything can happen. Nothing....FLASH...something. Not so difficult. What point you want to make? X can appear where there was no X before. So?
Your OP has been addressed a 1000 times. What more is there to say? It can happen. As simple as that! Jesus!
Relevance?
Read the OP. Try and understand the argument. You will fail. But if or when you succeed, try and address it.
Actually, fair. I did not read to the end, and that is my mistake. Simultaneous causation doesn't make any sense either. If you're going to say something exists for eternity, why bring more than one entity into it? There's still the question of why both entities have existed for eternity in the first place. The answer is the point I made earlier. Eventually something can be explained by the fact of its existence, but not by something prior to it. That is logically certain. There is an end in which there is no explanation prior up the causal chain, even if its existed infinitely. Why after all did that thing exist infinitely opposed to finitely? Because that's just what is.
Your argument is CORRECT! t1, nothing...t2, X. Now what?
So you agree with my conclusion in the OP? Good. That means you have nothing to say. So stop saying things.
I confirm what you state! Time 1, no X, time 2, X. Simultaneously causation. X causes and effects itself. But what's the relevance?
You don't care.
Ok. Fine. You clearly do not have an inquiring mind. That's fine. Go beat a panel or put up a shelf or breed or something.
Question begging.
It happens continuously around you.
On the contrary! I have much to contribute! At t1 the baby is still a part of mamma. At t2 the baby is free. The baby has self caused freedom.
So set X=freedom. No X at t1, X at t2, X came into existence by self causation. A real-life example, so not about zebras appearing in my room.
1. X can create Y
2. Y can create X
Step 1: X creates Y
Step 2: Y creates X
Loop through steps 1 and 2.
X, in a sense, creates itself; so does Y.
As for how it all begins, don't ask. Just make note of the fact that once the loop is initiated, it's self-sustaining.
Interesting concept. I am trying to find out an example inreal life (if it does exists) but I can't remember anyone.
Anyway, your example gives me nostalgia because gives me the memory of learning basic philosophy at school. I guess we studied a similar example as yours on Aristotle's act and potency: in the context of the physical explanation of movement and, more widely, the metaphysical explanation of becoming.
Math [math]\to[/math] Physics [math]\to[/math] Chemistry [math]\to[/math] Biology [math]\to[/math] Mind [math]\to[/math] Math!
That's self-creation, oui?
Math creating itself in the mind!
Bootstrapping?
It emerges in the mind and then pulls itself higher. The first pull? Where it comes from?
Good question!
Frankly, I dunno!
That said, in a universe that seems to hold tons of non-linear phenomena, I wonder why our minds are so into thinking in straight lines.
Linearity cursed physics since math was introduced. Linear equations offer the easy solution. Non-linearity is the norm indeed. But turn the world into a linear structure and your problems are solved! Which is the reason computers, with their linear structures, feel so at home in linear structures. Linear, step by step, hyperfast approaches to non-linear problems seldom offer good solutions.