Effects without causes.....

[Solve]

Nothing can happen without a cause.......not even a God.........not even particles/energy.

 

So shouldn't the system (multiverse/universe/everything) contain nothing?

Shouldn't the system be empty of everything?

 

Solve:eek2:

[REASON]

Nothing can happen without a cause.......not even a God.........not even particles/energy.

 

So shouldn't the system (multiverse/universe/everything) contain nothing?

Shouldn't the system be empty of everything?

 

Solve:eek2:

 

Clearly, the universe is not empty. This implies a cause for the existence of the universe.

 

Solve. :)

[Solve]

Clearly, the universe is not empty. This implies a cause for the existence of the universe.

 

Solve. :)

 

But isn't that cause for the existence of the universe really an effect for another cause, etc, etc. One big chain reaction of causes/effects. Where does it stop? At the first cause? But this first cause then becomes the effect of another cause. Surely there shouldn't be a first cause? And hence there shouldn't be ....a God......or particles/energy?

 

Solve

[REASON]

But isn't that cause for the existence of the universe really an effect for another cause, etc, etc. One big chain reaction of causes/effects. Where does it stop? At the first cause? But this first cause then becomes the effect of another cause. Surely there shouldn't be a first cause? And hence there shouldn't be ....a God......or particles/energy?

 

Solve

 

I don't deny the philosophical conundrum you present. I'm just being practical by suggesting that to arrive at the conclusion that nothing should exist because of that apparent conundrum is obviously false. Therefore, there must be another explanation.

 

Maybe the problem is that you are applying the notion of cause and effect, something that can be observed in the physical universe, to a time prior to the existence of the universe as we currently experience it. In other words, maybe matter and energy can exist (?) in a state that isn't bound by cause and effect in the way we understand it, such that the existence of cause and effect was born with the physical universe.

 

What do you think?

[Solve]

I don't deny the philosophical conundrum you present. I'm just being practical by suggesting that to arrive at the conclusion that nothing should exist because of that apparent conundrum is obviously false. Therefore, there must be another explanation.

 

Maybe the problem is that you are applying the notion of cause and effect, something that can be observed in the physical universe, to a time prior to the existence of the universe as we currently experience it. In other words, maybe matter and energy can exist (?) in a state that isn't bound by cause and effect in the way we understand it, such that the existence of cause and effect was born with the physical universe.

 

What do you think?

 

I don't know what to think!

[Moontanman]

I think it's more accurate to say all causes have effects than it is to say all effects have causes. We have no idea if anything came before what we know as the universe, some schools of thought indicate the universe as we see it is part of a continuous process involving a greater universe than we can know.

 

The simplistic view that the universe burst into being out of nothing is not the only idea nor is it any more likely than the universe having always existed in some form we do not at present understand.

[CraigD]

Nothing can happen without a cause.......not even a God.........not even particles/energy.

 

So shouldn't the system (multiverse/universe/everything) contain nothing?

Shouldn't the system be empty of everything?

 

Solve:eek2:

There are at least a couple of pretty well-discussed resolutions to this ontological conundrum:

• "Our Universe is simply one of those things that happens from time to time." This quote, attributed to Edward Tryon ca. 1973, summarizes the proposition that the universe is a tremendously rare large-scale vacuum energy fluctuation, predictable with quantum mechanics. It’s been discussed several times at hypography, such as here.
  
• Sometimes, effects may precede their causes. AFAIK, not a serious scientific, only a science fictional, concept, the proposal that at some time in the future, some phenomenon counter to the presently understood laws of nature, perhaps at the end of time, will cause the beginning of the universe. Has many variations, all very speculative.
  

[Boerseun]

The point of the Big Bang annihilated all information prior to the event. Therefore we can rightly say that 'everything was made' at that moment - no information from any time before the event could come through; it was annihilated.

 

But it's not entirely correct to assume that there literally was 'nothing' before the Big Bang, it's just that there is no way imaginable that we could ever know anything of it, and it could have no influence of the universe at it exist today. So we might as well calculate as if there was nothing prior to the Big Bang.

 

So, the event might not have entirely been without a cause, we'll just never know about it.

 

We can, however, speculate away to our hearts' content about what came before. But there is no reason to assume that there was just a little dot filled with nothing which exploded. The mere fact that we assume that is because all information from before got annihilated and has no bearing on what came after.

[belovelife]

clearly the fact that time flows, produces so much energy (like a wave) that it creates matter/ antimatter parirs that anihilate and recreate all the time that binds the electrical energy to that nucleus, that energy comes from the slowing of the frequency of that process (impetali), and we have a bunch of balls created by this huge wave called time in space

isn't it obvious

[Buffy]

isn't it obvious

Short answer: no.

 

Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines, :eek_big:

Buffy

[Pyrotex]

And there are no pink unicorns, either. No kidding.

 

The root problem is the assumption (and it is an assumption) that everything either IS a "cause" or "effect", or that everything HAS a "cause" or "effect".

 

It is difficult to comprehend, but we must try to see that "cause" and "effect" are semantic objects that have their existence in our languaging. There is no "cause" (like, "pure cause" in the same way we speak of "pure energy") in the universe. The universe doesn't know squat about "cause" or contain any "cause". You cannot observe "cause" or see "cause" in a microscope or telescope. There is no chemical test for "cause".

 

What there IS in the universe are particles and events. There are even objects (such as stars) that are made up of particles and events.

 

WE invented "cause" and "effect" to help us understand and describe the universe. Our assumption that everything has or is a "cause" is just that -- an assumption. The universe has no obligation to behave in accordance with our assumptions.