Quote Originally Posted by Quoted by Specialis Sapientia View Post
"The logic of causality only requires that a given system's beginning appears to be mystical from a point of view that lies within the system. The logic of causality can say nothing about the beginnings of its own system because those beginnings lie outside that system - Beyond the reach of its own causal logic. Beginnings belong to the higher level of causality and are beyond the purview or scope of a subsystem's own causal logic. Imagine a hierarchy of causal systems, each being a subset of the next. Thus mysticism may be removed if we can obtain the perspective of the superset to which we belong."
It seems that this supports the view that Taosaur is advocating. If we postulate the existence of some causal system external to our own from which the 'illusion' of the mystical is evaporated, then how is the beginning of that causal system explained? Surely it too is mystical until one creates a yet larger causal network that itself is either infinite (hence mystical by the authors definition) or itself has the same mystical beginning. Does the author address this somewhere?

My opinion is that postulating the existence of a larger causual network as the author that you are linking to seems to be postulating is every bit as mystical as any of the other options.

Please understand that I'm pretty much a dyed in the wool reductionist but it seems that any way that we try to deny the existence of the mystical leads to contradiction. That is something of a problem for the programme of complete scientific understanding as advertised, is it not?