Thread: Causality

Originally Posted by Alric

If time is infinite and thus going backwards, then cause and effect doesn't mean much anymore. Since things in the future that have not happened, are causing things in the past to exist. If you really believe everything has a cause, then time can't be going backwards, and thus time would have a starting point.

Wait - how does it follow that if time is infinite it is going backwards? I don't even understand what you're saying.

Infinity basically means to go on forever. Time can't go on forever backwards, unless it is moving backwards. If it isn't traveling backwards, then it has a starting point. Imagine a line, it either has a point or an arrow. What your basically doing is creating a point, and saying it is infinitely set back in one direction. Except such a thing doesn't exist. People are just throwing out the word infinity to say really big, but that isn't what it is. Time is constantly moving forward, so we can say it is never ending, because every second it continues to move forward. The same can't be said for going backwards.

Originally Posted by Alric

Time is constantly moving forward, so we can say it is never ending, because every second it continues to move forward. The same can't be said for going backwards.

Or can't it? My god, that's it! Time moves in both directions! Maybe somehow the present also causes the past? Or the FUTURE causes the past?!

Originally Posted by Xei

Oookay, cool.

I don't really see how #3 (I assume you meant 'time does have a beginning') is contradicted by the stuff you say about lines and points. Could you please explicate the logical inference there?

Also (but this is only secondary), I don't agree with what you do say about lines. I think it's quite evident why the argument is incorrect: you're assuming that 1D lines made of 0D points DO exist (I assume you confused points as having one dimension instead of none). How do you know your argument doesn't just prove that they don't? And in fact, science has showed us that continuous physical lines don't really exist, and that they ARE made of tiny points. I'm not sure how you didn't consider this...

1. If time has a beginning, it begins at a specific point. (this is the definition of begin).
2. Points cannot exist.
3. Time doesn't have a beginning.
4. Time is either infinite or it has a beginning.
5. Time is infinite.

In regards to #2- Yes. I confused 0-D with 1-D.

Another argument you could make was made by ivan452

"Everything that has a beginning has an end.
Everything aroud us is energy.
Energy cant be destroyed it just changes form.
So if it cant have an end does that mean that it never had a beginning?"

Another, would be simple induction (although that is of course limited by the flaw of induction). However, there is nothing better to believe than what you have reason to believe so even if we can't prove anything with induction, it still gives us the best reason to believe it. Basically, I have inductively reasoned that there are laws of the universe. I have seen no cases where things have been uncaused. I believe it will continue to be this way and that it has always been this way.

Originally Posted by ♥Mark

Or can't it? My god, that's it! Time moves in both directions! Maybe somehow the present also causes the past? Or the FUTURE causes the past?!

The future can affect the past.
Backward Causation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Points in time do exist and we can easily measure them, and do so all the time. Also everything that has a beginning doesn't nessarily have an end. Example would be a straight line with a start point and an arrow going to infinity.

Energy can change form, so it is possible that nothing had inherit energy and it changed forms when it became everything else around us. It sounds weird but there are scientific theories and stuff talking about empty space actually having energy. So it is possible the energy contained in empty space changed form with the creation of the world.

Originally Posted by kidjordan

1. If time has a beginning, it begins at a specific point. (this is the definition of begin).
2. Points cannot exist.
3. Time doesn't have a beginning.
4. Time is either infinite or it has a beginning.
5. Time is infinite.

So, the present moment doesn't exist? I don't really see what's so special about a ray compared to a line. They all have an infinitude of specific points.

In regards to #2- Yes. I confused 0-D with 1-D.

That wasn't #2. That was a minor bracketed aside in #2.

Another argument you could make was made by ivan452

"Everything that has a beginning has an end.
Everything around us is energy.
Energy cant be destroyed it just changes form.
So if it cant have an end does that mean that it never had a beginning?"

'Everything that has a beginning has an end' is the tagline for The Matrix Revolutions. It doesn't constitute a logical argument.

'Energy is conserved' is also just a rule that applies to the duration of the universe; in no way does this constitute a proof of a general principle.

Oh: and the total energy of the universe is actually speculated to be zero.

Another, would be simple induction (although that is of course limited by the flaw of induction). However, there is nothing better to believe than what you have reason to believe so even if we can't prove anything with induction, it still gives us the best reason to believe it. Basically, I have inductively reasoned that there are laws of the universe. I have seen no cases where things have been uncaused. I believe it will continue to be this way and that it has always been this way.

This is the problem though. Belief isn't a proof.

And it's very exacerbated here because you're extending it to very dubious territory: why would the laws of this universe work before, 'outside the realm of', this universe?

Did induction work for parallel lines when they're on very large scales outside of normal experience?

Did induction work for the extremely basic concept of simultaneity for high speeds outside of normal experience?

The humorous thing is that it seems induction implies that induction doesn't work when extended too far.

The final point: 'uncaused' events do occur. Quantum physics is very strongly suggestive of this. Particles pop into existence (on very small scales outside of normal experience) with completely random positions and at random times; how can you possibly assign causality to that?

Originally Posted by Alric

Infinity basically means to go on forever. Time can't go on forever backwards, unless it is moving backwards. If it isn't traveling backwards, then it has a starting point. Imagine a line, it either has a point or an arrow. What your basically doing is creating a point, and saying it is infinitely set back in one direction. Except such a thing doesn't exist. People are just throwing out the word infinity to say really big, but that isn't what it is. Time is constantly moving forward, so we can say it is never ending, because every second it continues to move forward. The same can't be said for going backwards.

To say that "time moves" in any direction is I think a basic misunderstanding. It's mistaking the symbology for the actual thing. Time does not move - objects move in relation to each other. Time is a concept that we invented to measure the duration of those intervals. Time is symbolized by clocks, sundials, calendars etc - and when people think of time "moving backwards" I think they're just imagining a clock running in reverse or a dot on a timeline (symbol) moving backwards.

When you write about time being infinite in both directions, the only way I could visualize it was by imagining a line in a void. I'll bet that's exactly what you imagined too, right?

And I think in order to imagine time being infinite you had to imagine a dot on that line representing some base point, with "time" moving away from the base point in both directions.

It could be though that we're discussing two different concepts of time.

This sounds like what you're talking about:

Arrow of time

Main article: Arrow of time

Time appears to have a direction – the past lies behind, fixed and immutable, while the future lies ahead and is not necessarily fixed. Yet for the most part the laws of physics do not specify an arrow of time, and allow any process to proceed both forward and in reverse. This is generally a consequence of time being modeled by a parameter in the system being analyzed, where there is no "proper time": the direction of the arrow of time is arbitrary.

Source

This sentence is a bit hard to understand, but I think is key: "This is generally a consequence of time being modeled by a parameter in the system being analyzed, where there is no "proper time": the direction of the arrow of time is arbitrary."

I THINK what it means is that this view of time is strictly theoretical, a way of thinking about time in relation to a specific experiment or something. Could somebody who knows about this stuff comment?

***EDIT***

Ok, I found one describing my beliefs about time:

Two distinct viewpoints on time divide many prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time.[3] An opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of actually existing dimension that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead an intellectual concept (together with space and number) that enables humans to sequence and compare events.

Also:

Immanuel Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, described time as an a priori intuition that allows us (together with the other a priori intuition, space) to comprehend sense experience.[33] With Kant, neither space nor time are conceived as substances, but rather both are elements of a systematic mental framework that necessarily structures the experiences of any rational agent, or observing subject. Kant thought of time as a fundamental part of an abstract conceptual framework, together with space and number, within which we sequence events, quantify their duration, and compare the motions of objects. In this view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows," that objects "move through," or that is a "container" for events. Spatial measurements are used to quantify the extent of and distances between objects, and temporal measurements are used to quantify the durations of and between events.

Source

So yeah - we're definitely coming at it from two different viewpoints.

Originally Posted by Xei

The final point: 'uncaused' events do occur. Quantum physics is very strongly suggestive of this. Particles pop into existence (on very small scales outside of normal experience) with completely random positions and at random times; how can you possibly assign causality to that?

Actually, I believe these particles pop into and out of existence as a result of background energy. The fact that they behave this way is only a property of the quantum mechanics at those scales. The difference between this and the universe is that the universe had to have come from absolutely nothing, while on the quantum scale, particles already have energy to manifest themselves from, albeit said manifestation occurring randomly.

Don't quote me on that though, I'm not an expert on quantum physics.

Time doesn't go in a straight line, because it can pass at different rates in different areas, and change depending on where you are and your relation to other things. Time is always passing though, and no one has found a way to go backwards. Though some people think you might be able to go through a wormhole, if it happens to cross between two periods in time. Though that is just a hole in time, not time going backwards. I just said it was like a line for simplicity, and because we are talking about cause and effect.

Do you subscribe to any of the modern theories of time on that wiki page I linked to? All the Source links go to different sections on the same page. It sounds like you might be describing Relativistic Time.

Nobody 'subscribes' to these theories (that isn't what 'theory' means), and it's not really modern. The theory of relativity has been experimentally confirmed; in fact the experimental evidence came at the end of the 1800s, and Einstein explained it in 1905 (followed by a more general theory a decade later). Since then much more confirmation has been done, and it's one of the most accurate physical theories known to man. If we didn't have it, GPS satellites would not function. So it's not a matter of subscribing.

Originally Posted by MindGames

Actually, I believe these particles pop into and out of existence as a result of background energy. The fact that they behave this way is only a property of the quantum mechanics at those scales. The difference between this and the universe is that the universe had to have come from absolutely nothing, while on the quantum scale, particles already have energy to manifest themselves from, albeit said manifestation occurring randomly.

Don't quote me on that though, I'm not an expert on quantum physics.

The point is that it's not predictive. If you have no reason for saying why a particle appeared in one place as opposed to another - in fact, if there IS no reason why it did so - how can this possibly be assigned the status of 'causality'?

Thanks Xei. Heh, I found that page searching for "modern theories of time", and didn't realize they aren't theories. I'm behind Relativity 100% - I just think what it measures is actually duration between events or duration of events - calling it "time" opens the door to thinking of it as a line that can go both ways etc.

In a scientific context, a theory is any kind of major conceptual framework (kinematic theory, theory of evolution, atomic theory, etcetera) and in general will have loads of evidence: it doesn't mean 'unsupported idea'; the word for that is 'hypothesis'. Of course, in other contexts it means something different, which confuses people.

There are some hypothetical universes where you could potentially go back in time quite easily, by the way, but our universe isn't the right type. But it's still an open question.

Here's a very interesting article about the various philosophical hypotheses of time.

Throughout the article, they call them theories, but yeah, I think hypotheses is really what they are. There doesn't seem to be any consensus among philosophers about it. I find myself leaning strongly toward the block universe hypothesis, but I'll concede that the differences between these ideas may well be more semantic than actual. To me it seems the claims leveled against the block universe are missing the point.

Interestingly, I read on egodeath.com that people who have done entheogens often come to believe in the block universe concept of time (there - concept... that'll work!)

There's also a very informative breakdown of the Arrow of Time hypothesis.

It seems to me that if we want to discuss things that have long been pondered by some of the great thinkers, it helps if we read their work, at least in wiki form, so we eliminate or at least reduce layperson's amateur personal theories as much as possible (not saying I'm not a layperson - heck I'm more of a total noob, but this is a great chance to edumacate myself a bit on subjects that interest me). I want to come out of this with changed ideas, not still blindly asserting exactly what I came in asserting.

Originally Posted by Xei

The point is that it's not predictive. If you have no reason for saying why a particle appeared in one place as opposed to another - in fact, if there IS no reason why it did so - how can this possibly be assigned the status of 'causality'?

Is the reason not that the particles appear as a result of the laws of quantum mechanics? Just because the particles pop in and out of existence at random points in time and space doesn't mean that they were uncaused -the cause of their existence is these quantum laws- it just means that the nature of their existence is random. This differs in the creation of the universe in that the universe had no medium to randomly manifest itself inside in the first place. We have no way of knowing that outside of this universe, there is a property which causes universes to randomly appear, although it is one possibility out of many.

So, the present moment doesn't exist?

I would say that it does not. This is a semantic sort of thing that I think George carlin does an excellent job of explaining. Start watching the video at about 00:40
George Carlin Time - YouTube

EDIT:
In regards to "uncaused" particles. It's impossible to distinguish between true randomness and simply a lack of data. When you clip a coin, it's not true randomness. We just lack the data to predict what side will land face up. Of course, we can't distinguish between the two in the case of the particles. It could be true randomness (ontic randomness I believe it's called) and simply a lack of a coherent theory (QM is hard enough to understand as is).

Okay. And the above post wasn't made at any particular point in time, either?

Originally Posted by Xei

Okay. And the above post wasn't made at any particular point in time, either?

Correct. The notion is that points do not exist and that what we really have is like a camera. When we open the shutter, we can leave it open and capture a large chunk of time, or we can have a quick shutter speed and capture what seems to be an instant. I argue that you could theoretically (technology obviously isn't that advanced) have smaller and smaller shutter speeds and that there is no fastest shutter speed or single point in time that can be reduced any longer.
Shutter speed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When does the shutter open and close?

Originally Posted by Xei

When does the shutter open and close?

With another camera shutter. Infinite regress. Infinitely smaller shutters.

What points do they regress to?

Originally Posted by MindGames

Is the reason not that the particles appear as a result of the laws of quantum mechanics? Just because the particles pop in and out of existence at random points in time and space doesn't mean that they were uncaused -the cause of their existence is these quantum laws- it just means that the nature of their existence is random. This differs in the creation of the universe in that the universe had no medium to randomly manifest itself inside in the first place. We have no way of knowing that outside of this universe, there is a property which causes universes to randomly appear, although it is one possibility out of many.

Okay, let's break it down: say you have ten shoe boxes, and a shoe is going to appear in one of the boxes in the next 24 hours; the probability of it appearing in any given box is 1/10.

How can you say that this doesn't contradict our notion of causality..?

Originally Posted by Xei

What points do they regress to?


Okay, let's break it down: say you have ten shoe boxes, and a shoe is going to appear in one of the boxes in the next 24 hours; the probability of it appearing in any given box is 1/10.


How can you say that this doesn't contradict our notion of causality..?

Well, I made the distinction earlier between true randomness (which you can never prove) and apparent randomness (flipping coins. which can always open itself up to more investigation).

And do they have to regress to a particular point? I think they just keep getting smaller and smaller.

Your entire basis for the argument was induction, based on the claim that nothing is random. But then by what argument are you asserting the existence of an invisible mechanism for events that seem to be totally random? You can't use induction because you need to establish that these (and hence all) events are non-random before you can use it.

Not that this would heal your argument, the previously prodded holes are still there of course.

As to regression: really my main purpose has been to show how this is clearly just absurd semantics. Instead of dropping the argument you're now resorting to describing time as a series of shutters themselves described by an infinite cascade of shutters. Who on Earth thinks time works like this, and that it has any relevance to anything? But beyond being absurd it's also self-contradictory. If they don't regress to any particular point, the only possible time span encompassed by the shutters is the whole infinity of time, which is useless. Your construction defeats itself.