Infinite Regress of Causality

If we are to construct a metaphysics there are some things that we must start with. Firstly, the acceptance that we can only perceive reality through the medium of our senses, meaning that we are removed from a direct, absolute perspective, and that these senses are limited. To be perceptible however, a phenomenon must be capable of interaction, capable of affecting and being affected. This interactivity constitutes Time, which is a measure of change.
Interactivity then, change, affect, movement in time, must be considered a prerequisite to existence. In other words, causality.
Is it not absurd to wonder what caused causality, then?

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It's not a loop if one for a moment thinks about what is being asked.
Causality proposes that "everything" is the product of something previous. To then ask what caused causality is to ask whether that proposition was itself caused. It suggests that causality was brought about through causality. It's circular. And nonsensical.
The strange loop here is based around the demand that causality itself be a part of a causative process, pre-existing itself somehow in order to bring itself about through, yes, causality. It makes no sense. One cannot answer the question because it is not logical. I liken it to someone stating that there being no absolutes is itself an absolute. But the human mind first proposes absolutes and then must employ them to negate them. It's at least as equally nonsensical.

Let us employ an example from the theistic perspective:

The assertion of a 1st Uncaused Cause (God) as the creator of the universe goes in steps.

1)It is noted, through observation of phenomena, that one "event" is the consequence of past "events"; cause/effect.
2)It is speculated therefore that such cause/effect is a general rule under which the universe operates.
3)This is taken further into supposing that the universe itself was caused... by something else.
4)This something else is assigned a mythology along the lines of God or Primal Chaos; either way, a creative agent.
5)The cause/effect hypothesis is applied to this creator.
6)In order to avoid infinite regression, the opening premise of causality is undermined through stating that this creative agent was "uncaused".

What is happening here is that the theist's theory is being contradicted by it's conclusion. In other words, the creator is the exception to the very premise that cites evidence for it's existence. It is postulated that the universe is caused by something, through the observation of the purported universal rule of causation, but this something is itself uncaused. Contradiction. A necessary contradiction if you are a theist and inventing the absolute reference point from which to derive your own perspective and legitimacy, because otherwise your creator is in turn the creation of something else.

I am suggesting that this evidence of a wider problem in human conceptualizations of reality and that it stems from the notions of cause/effect themselves, and how they are applied to our perception of the universe.

If no beginning or end can be demonstrated, but the manifestation of the past in the ongoing activity of the present can be.... the consequent conclusion necessitates an infinite and ongoing process.

Which did not begin, therefore no creation, therefore no God.

Time is the measure of change, not the measure of platonic form where a phenomenon switches out to be replaced by another distinct phenomenon, it's effect. The noumenon is a useful fiction but it does not describe what it refers to. There is no "gap" between one "event" and the next, as supposed by language... there is simply a flow, a movement which the mind freezes into Forms in order to comprehend and compare differing perception of a changing environment. Ideas such as cause/effect attempt to divide perception of this constant change and mutability in a static dualism of creator and creation - the cause and it's effect.
The "gap" is simply inferred by the mind comparing the perception of one moment's awareness to the next. In reality there is flow. Change of phenomena in constant motion, never still, never frozen.
A process, not a series of distinct events, such that there are "points" where the process could be said to begin or end.
Therefore, a 1st cause is the expression of the same error when applied to the universe as a supposed whole.

Cause/effect, with this implied dualism and platonic idealism inherent, is inaccurate. I would propose instead that the universe is not only undergoing infinite flux, it is infinite flux, in that it did not appear from nothing, did not begin and that the present is the ongoing manifestation of past interaction, never culminating, never completing but continuing as a consequence to what was.
Given this, one must assume that the universe is not the effect of a creative event, not the distinct product of a separate causative factor, but is the ongoing product of a process which regresses infinitely into the past without an arbitrary beginning before which there was nothingness.

And so the idea of a "one", as in a whole, is a human construct meant to facilitate the illusion of complete understanding.
Understanding, like everything else, is never complete.

Few...I accidentally did this as an edit rather then a quote of the OP... fortunately I had another tab open of the message...anyways:

apaosha wrote:

(Note: This is a repost)

The positing of a 1st Cause as the creator of the universe goes in steps.

1)It is noted, through observation of phenomena, that one "event" is the consequence of past "events"; causality.
2)It is speculated therefore that such causality is a general rule under which the universe operates.
3)This is taken further into supposing that the universe itself was caused... by something else.
4)This something else is assigned a mythology along the lines of God or Primal Chaos; either way, a creative agent.
5)The cause/effect hypothesis is appled to this creator.
6)In order to avoid infinite regression, the opening premise of causality is undermined through stating that this creative agent was "uncaused".

What is happening here is that the theory is being contradicted by it's conclusion. In other words, the creator is the exception to the very premise that cites evidence for it's existence. It is postulated that the universe is caused by something, through the observation of the purported universal rule of causation, but this something is itself uncaused. Contradiction. A necessary contradiction if you are a theist and inventing the absolute reference point from which to derive your perspective and legitimacy, because otherwise your creator is in turn the creation of something else.

I am suggesting that this problem lies in the notions of cause/effect themselves, and how they are applied to phenomenal interaction.

If no beginning or end can be demonstrated, but the manifestation of the past in the ongoing activity of the present can be.... the consequent conclusion necessitates an infinite and ongoing process.

Which did not begin, therefore no creation, therefore no God.

God doesn't have to be a creator, so it does not necessarily follow that if things were not created that there would not be a God.

Note I would agree that there was no beginning. But consider this:
The main problem with the idea as proposed by creationism is that the beginning happened "before" time. That is contradictory. SO then One would need only point out that then Time would have to be some enduring aspect of God.

Or there is the contradiction that God created "all". Which is a contradiction in many ways including the time issue mentioned but also that it would seem illogical for a thing to create itself before it was created, to make itself before existing to make itself.

However I do not know that this all eliminates the possibility for the known universe to have been created by a God. For example God could be the all and thus have created out of the self a universe within...

And then with regards specifically to the infinite regress issue: If we can say that the universe has always existed, why cannot we say that God has always existed?

Σατυρ wrote:

And so the idea of a "one", as in a whole, is a human construct meant to facilitate the illusion of complete understanding.
Understanding, like everything else, is never complete.

I would think that understanding is something that is never complete, and that it is likely that everything is a construct of perception in some way. But I would not think that the idea of a "one" as in a whole is only meant to facilitate the illusion of complete understanding. And further it would seem that the infinite regressing universe can be considered as one thing, one whole...

Abstract wrote:

Σατυρ wrote:

And so the idea of a "one", as in a whole, is a human construct meant to facilitate the illusion of complete understanding.
Understanding, like everything else, is never complete.

I would think that understanding is something that is never complete, and that it is likely that everything is a construct of perception in some way. But I would not think that the idea of a "one" as in a whole is only meant to facilitate the illusion of complete understanding. And further it would seem that the infinite regressing universe can be considered as one thing, one whole...

Yes, the correct words are "it could be considered".

I'm a bottom up thinker.
I do not presuppose what is nowhere in evidence. I take the known and extrapolate.

I see no whole...but I must assume it to make the world comprehensible.
Science is following suit, it seems.

Now the universe has turned into multiverses.

Σατυρ wrote:

Yes, the correct words are "it could be considered".

I'm a bottom up thinker.
I do not presuppose what is nowhere in evidence. I take the known and extrapolate.

I see no whole...but I must assume it to make the world comprehensible.
Science is following suit, it seems.

Now the universe has turned into multiverses.

I find that humans have an odd liking to separate things into odd, perhaps unnecessary, categories like "multiverse".
Though often taking things apart is needed to understand the thing, though perhaps we sometimes forget to put things back together.
And/or forget how to put it back together.

Abstract wrote:

I find that humans have an odd liking to separate things into odd, perhaps unnecessary, categories like "multiverse".
Or the universe.

Now think...is this "separation" not what creates wholes?

Abstract wrote:

Though often taking things apart is needed to understand the thing, though perhaps we sometimes forget to put things back together.
And/or forget how to put it back together.

And when we take them apart we create more wholes...a multiplicity of absolutes: things.

In fact there is only process.
Without this simplification there is no possibility for consciousness.
The concept of a whole is one created in a conscious mind, as a way of simplifying the processes into comprehensible parts, which can then be fused into one singularity.

There is no whole, anywhere, yet you cannot think outside its premises, can you?

Interactions and Interpretations.

Σατυρ wrote:

I find that humans have an odd liking to separate things into odd, perhaps unnecessary, categories like "multiverse".

Or the universe.

Now think...is this "separation" not what creates wholes? [/quote] The universe in many ways can be a separation of parts but if one steps away from nuanced words one can talk of a one or a whole that is purely defined as what is in no way a separation. But I would think that separation, or difference is required for their to be a whole: there needs be both "Yin and Yang".

Σατυρ wrote:

Abstract wrote:

Though often taking things apart is needed to understand the thing, though perhaps we sometimes forget to put things back together.
And/or forget how to put it back together.

And when we take them apart we create more wholes...a multiplicity of absolutes: things.

In fact there is only process.
Without this simplification there is no possibility for consciousness.
The concept of a whole is one created in a conscious mind, as a way of simplifying the processes into comprehensible parts, which can then be fused into one singularity.

There is no whole, anywhere, yet you cannot think outside its premises, can you?

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I may have to take a look at the linked material a bit later.

I wouldn't say there is no whole, rather there is both wholeness and non-wholeness. ultimately what it all is is a matter of perception, though it would seem that the perception of wholeness is one that many need a better grasp on.

No, what you might say is that reality is void of absolutes, whole being another term for it, and that it is consciousness which sets itself up as the antagonist, the creator of wholeness, the one which will order the disordering and heal the world or correct it or find completion in its chaos.

Abstract wrote:

God doesn't have to be a creator, so it does not necessarily follow that if things were not created that there would not be a God.

For the purposes of this argument, God is defined as the first cause which is responsible for instigating creation. That God is invented for the purposes of explaining the origin of reality according to the premise that reality is the direct result of a separate causative factor.... rather than the manifestation of previous activity in an ongoing and never-ending process.

Quote :

Note I would agree that there was no beginning. But consider this:
The main problem with the idea as proposed by creationism is that the beginning happened "before" time. That is contradictory. SO then One would need only point out that then Time would have to be some enduring aspect of God.

Yes... so then a theist is obliged to state that a God "began" time, or "created" time; at which point it becomes incredibly absurd and illogical.

If time is a measure of change, then how is it possible to perform an action in an environment where there can be no change... because it hasn't been created yet?

Quote :

Or there is the contradiction that God created "all". Which is a contradiction in many ways including the time issue mentioned but also that it would seem illogical for a thing to create itself before it was created, to make itself before existing to make itself.

This is the stupidity of causa sui.

Quote :

However I do not know that this all eliminates the possibility for the known universe to have been created by a God. For example God could be the all and thus have created out of the self a universe within...

And then with regards specifically to the infinite regress issue: If we can say that the universe has always existed, why cannot we say that God has always existed?

Because if the universe is the continuing product of infinite regression, there is no requirement for a creator and thus no basis to consider the existence of a god.

If there are no beginnings or endings, then the associated concepts become frivolous and unnecessary.

Σατυρ wrote:

No, what you might say is that reality is void of absolutes, whole being another term for it, and that it is consciousness which sets itself up as the antagonist, the creator of wholeness, the one which will order the disordering and heal the world or correct it or find completion in its chaos.

If there are no absolutes then there cannot be only disorder...that would be an absolute?
not to mention "there is no absolutes" would also be an absolute.

Which it is seems to be a matter of how one sees it then, but again...maybe it is not...how can we absolutely know?

apaosha wrote:

For the purposes of this argument, God is defined as the first cause which is responsible for instigating creation. That God is invented for the purposes of explaining the origin of reality according to the premise that reality is the direct result of a separate causative factor.... rather than the manifestation of previous activity in an ongoing and never-ending process.

That is reasonable, primarily the typical Christian interpretation of God then...supposing your are including all things in the "creation", which I am presuming should be implicit.

apaosha wrote:

Quote :

Note I would agree that there was no beginning. But consider this:
The main problem with the idea as proposed by creationism is that the beginning happened "before" time. That is contradictory. SO then One would need only point out that then Time would have to be some enduring aspect of God.

Yes... so then a theist is obliged to state that a God "began" time, or "created" time; at which point it becomes incredibly absurd and illogical.

I don't know a theist may just as well say that time was not created, it has always been, not merely along with but as a part of God...Like some of the Hindu ideas of Brahman.

apaosha wrote:

If time is a measure of change, then how is it possible to perform an action in an environment where there can be no change... because it hasn't been created yet?

Exactly i look at it in terms of the word :before" sepecifically as that word is literally a time relative word, without time there is no concept of "beforeness"

apaosha wrote:

Quote :

However I do not know that this all eliminates the possibility for the known universe to have been created by a God. For example God could be the all and thus have created out of the self a universe within...

And then with regards specifically to the infinite regress issue: If we can say that the universe has always existed, why cannot we say that God has always existed?

Because if the universe is the continuing product of infinite regression, there is no requirement for a creator and thus no basis to consider the existence of a god.

that is relying on the definition of univers as being the all, or everything, but I mean what if we are conerned with simply say the earth, as for example the biblical creation story only talks of the creation of earth and the heavens (which might have meant only the sky), not the necessarily the entire universe, it does not say there were not other things existent before hand or as well as. It starts out by saying "in the beginning" but it does not say the beginning of all, one can just as well interpret such as simply the beginning of earth and whatever heaven is or something, but of course that is not what most interpret and likely not an implication intended.

But nonetheless it is plausible that a portion of the everything can be said to have been lead to from something "other"...Or one can say there is no other and it has all always been and it simply is all "God"...maybe the universe or the all even thinks in some way...

apaosha wrote:

If there are no beginnings or endings, then the associated concepts become frivolous and unnecessary.

Well we can replace such with words such as "stages" or "transitions" as having been following from some previous "stage" or "transition" again though primarily categorical perceptions of the human mind. But I don't know that this would negate the more pantheistic ideas.

Abstract wrote:

Σατυρ wrote:

No, what you might say is that reality is void of absolutes, whole being another term for it, and that it is consciousness which sets itself up as the antagonist, the creator of wholeness, the one which will order the disordering and heal the world or correct it or find completion in its chaos.

If there are no absolutes then there cannot be only disorder...that would be an absolute?
not to mention "there is no absolutes" would also be an absolute.

Which it is seems to be a matter of how one sees it then, but again...maybe it is not...how can we absolutely know?

This is an old counter-argument.

I've addressed it in other places and within the thesis.

It has to do with how the mind works and how dependent it is on binary logic.
The contradiction you mention is based on the fact that the mind, being a reaction to entropy, constructs, in simplistic generalities, absolutes to make sens eof a reality in which it cannot find any.

Disorder is no absolute, it is a state which you can only conceptualize as a whole.

To think outside the implications imposed upon our thinking by the very way we are forced to think is what is artistic about philosophy.

The only reason we are even discussing absolutes, or God for that matter, is because we've created the abstraction.
To deal with it one cannot help but offer an equal, but opposite abstraction. And so the notion of a God implies a Devil, as a notion of a #1 implies a 0.

We must say there are no absolutes only because absolutes are posited with no reference to anything outside the mind.
So, in effect, the dualism is within the brain which is creating these symbols and metaphors and abstractions.

All paradoxes, including many of those offered by Zeno, are based on the innate logic a language carries, as a reflection of a brain needing dualities or a brain which can only think using binary logic.

If we are honest and begin with a bottom-up approach then the absolute should never enter the conversation, no more than a monist God or a singularity should, unless we first admit that it is a projection. Therefore no contradiction would be needed.

The only reason, for example, I must respond to the notion of a unicorn is because someone posited as something other than a symbol or a metaphor or a human construct. with no reference to any phenomenon outside the mind.

So, this debate is over the noumenon, where the phenomenon is left unaffected.

Σατυρ wrote:

If there are no absolutes then there cannot be only disorder...that would be an absolute?
not to mention "there is no absolutes" would also be an absolute.

Which it is seems to be a matter of how one sees it then, but again...maybe it is not...how can we absolutely know?

This is an old counter-argument. [/quote] Indeed, an irritating one too, but it is worth seeing that one is beyond that consideration.

Σατυρ wrote:

I've addressed it in other places and within the thesis.

It has to do with how the mind works and how dependent it is on binary logic.
The contradiction you mention is based on the fact that the mind, being a reaction to entropy, constructs, in simplistic generalities, absolutes to make sens eof a reality in which it cannot find any.

Disorder is no absolute, it is a state which you can only conceptualize as a whole.

Disorder does require more then one thing, or rather parts of a whole, to say that those parts inrelation to each other are skewed, but then i would say that whether they are skewed or not or out of order depends on whether one grasps the order or not. Or rather i should say that while the things might be mixed up, they still have an order it is just a complex one. So I would think that really the only difference between what people call order and disorder, is the level of the complexity of the order.? or not to use the word "order": the level of complexity of the relative placement of things.

Σατυρ wrote:

To think outside the implications imposed upon our thinking by the very way we are forced to think is what is artistic about philosophy.

The only reason we are even discussing absolutes, or God for that matter, is because we've created the abstraction.
To deal with it one cannot help but offer an equal, but opposite abstraction. And so the notion of a God implies a Devil, as a notion of a #1 implies a 0.

I would think that the notion of god implies not-God, which isn't necessarily the devil, and 1 might imply not one maybe even negative 1 but I see what you mean.

Σατυρ wrote:

We must say there are no absolutes only because absolutes are posited with no reference to anything outside the mind.
So, in effect, the dualism is within the brain which is creating these symbols and metaphors and abstractions.

All paradoxes, including many of those offered by Zeno, are based on the innate logic a language carries, as a reflection of a brain needing dualities or a brain which can only think using binary logic.

If we are honest and begin with a bottom-up approach then the absolute should never enter the conversation, no more than a monist God or a singularity should, unless we first admit that it is a projection. Therefore no contradiction would be needed.

The only reason, for example, I must respond to the notion of a unicorn is because someone posited as something other than a symbol or a metaphor or a human construct. with no reference to any phenomenon outside the mind.

So, this debate is over the noumenon, where the phenomenon is left unaffected.

I see what you mean but then I have to wonder how one tells what is not an abstraction. Some abstraction I would think is necessary though how does one tell when an abstraction is a bad one rather then one needed to make sense of a thing?

Perhaps I am leading to a digress though.

Abstract wrote:

I don't know a theist may just as well say that time was not created, it has always been, not merely along with but as a part of God...Like some of the Hindu ideas of Brahman.

Well, if time is to be considered an aspect of God (and God is the most vaguely and changeably defined concept I've seen) then it would seem to follow that the universe is God, as time would seem to be one of the fundamental traits of existence itself. Which would imply that you and I are elements of the divine... and if God is also defined as a conscious awareness in this context, that we are also elements of this greater awareness.

I am reminded of MagnetMan and his One Cosmic Consciousness. Being a part of a greater whole has it's emotional appeal.

Quote :

apaosha wrote:

Because if the universe is the continuing product of infinite regression, there is no requirement for a creator and thus no basis to consider the existence of a god.

that is relying on the definition of univers as being the all, or everything, but I mean what if we are conerned with simply say the earth, as for example the biblical creation story only talks of the creation of earth and the heavens (which might have meant only the sky), not the necessarily the entire universe, it does not say there were not other things existent before hand or as well as. It starts out by saying "in the beginning" but it does not say the beginning of all, one can just as well interpret such as simply the beginning of earth and whatever heaven is or something, but of course that is not what most interpret and likely not an implication intended.

But nonetheless it is plausible that a portion of the everything can be said to have been lead to from something "other"...Or one can say there is no other and it has all always been and it simply is all "God"...maybe the universe or the all even thinks in some way...

In your example of the Earth, we know a little. An interstellar dust cloud condensed under it's own gravity to form a star, the Sun. The excess mass of the cloud began to orbit this star, forming a stellar disc. In this disc, the heavier elements were drawn towards the center, the lighter gaseous elements towards the edges. At various radial points, the disc began to also condense, forming the planets. Heavier rockier ones nearer the Sun, lighter gaseous ones towards the edges.

Now, this is a string of causality which is traceable backwards in time. The "creation" of the Earth is not ascribed to a separate force. In fact, the causative factors in Earth's past are not distinguishable from "the Earth" itself: this planet is that ancient interstellar dust cloud.... as it has currently manifested in a mutable and ever-changing reality.

This is the point I am making: that there are no arbitrary cut-off points which can be considered beginnings or endings. That reality is the manifestation of the past, regressing infinitely. That the present is the current manifestation of this past, moving constantly in time.

Quote :

apaosha wrote:

If there are no beginnings or endings, then the associated concepts become frivolous and unnecessary.

Well we can replace such with words such as "stages" or "transitions" as having been following from some previous "stage" or "transition" again though primarily categorical perceptions of the human mind. But I don't know that this would negate the more pantheistic ideas.

As in the above example, one could denote the dust cloud stage, the stellar disc stage and the planetary stage.
What is occuring here is that the mind is comparing different perceptions of phenomena and demarcating these perceptions into distinct states, or stages as you put it.
In the context of causality it goes like this: cause;effect -> cause;effect. Where a stage could be considered to be the cause or effect of another stage depending upon the inclination of the observer.
This is a useful fiction performed for convenience as it is helpful to regard the differing stages in an ongoing process as wholly distinct when one is comparing them in an attempt to understand this process as a whole. But the error arises in assuming that they are distinct and then attributing a completely detached and supernatural entity as the instigator. For example: God -> Planet Earth.

If one can understand the formation of a solar system through the principles of gravitation and matter then doesn't the concept of a god strike you as extremely simplistic?

But to push it further, the concept of these stages itself leaves the potential for future error as the formation of the Earth arises from a ever-changing and continuing process of phenomenal interaction which is traceable backwards in time infinitely. Not as distinct stages, but as a constant movement of phenomena which manifests itself, presently, as the Earth.

I don't pretend that I can trace this causality backwards infinitely, only that it is possible to do so. Not that there was at any point a beginning of space-time.

1st post has been updated with some stuff I came across recently.

The way I see it is that the human mind must simplify the phenomenon by cutting away its dimensional possibilities, its spatial nature; placing ambiguous boundaries around a phenomenon so as to perceive it and encode it as knowledge/experience.

All human concepts must be so encapsulated is order to make them comprehensible.
But this poses problems when dealing with such abstractions as causality or universe or God, because it implies a boundary around everything, making the fluidity into a thingness, and it also implies, out of necessity, a prospective "outside" or separate from what is observed.

This is where the concepts of a beginning and a God and a universe come from.
The mind projects itself outside the time/space continuum through the process of nullification, which is what is used to detach a thing from the fluidity of the world and to make it static.

This is the seed of nihilism.
Because the mind can imagine this, with ambiguity and indefiniteness, it begins to believe that the mind is other than the fluid real, or something divine, ethereal, spirit in relation to matter....and it then defines itself with concepts which are in direct opposition and the antithesis to the real: immortal, changeless, immutable, indivisible, eternal, indivisible, and so on.
This is also the beginning of schizophrenia....which only man can be a victim of.
No animal suffers from this mental state except for human beings.

Time as God:
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