In my reading Aristotle believed the universe is eternal, rather the multi-verse instead of the Big Bang. Gareth.
This was a big deal at the time because all events in the universe was conceived as one long chain of causality going all the way back to the moment of creation itself, going all the way back to the first cause. The first cause is what starts the whole chain of causes and prevents an infinite regress. This is "the prime mover". It's God.* This idea goes all the way back to Aristotle,* but it had been integrated into Christianity during the age of scholasticism. So when Hume attacked causality itself as non-empirical, there were profound theological implications. No causality, no first cause. On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 12:01 PM, david buchanan <dmbucha...@hotmail.com>wrote: > > Platt said: > ... I buy the scientist's assumption that for every effect there is a cause > That at the beginning of the universe cause and effect suddenly becomes > inoperative to Hawkins and some other cosmologists seems to me to be a grand > cop out. > > > > Steve replied: > I don't think that Hawkings is saying that cause and effect get suspended > at the beginning of the universe alone. The somethings coming from nothings > happen all the time on the quantum level according to my understanding of > his theoretical view. .. Believers often argue that the universe must have a > beginning because otherwise we would have an infinite regress of causes. ... > > > > dmb says: > > It's ironic that the issue of cause and effect should come up in a thread > that declares the death of philosophy. So much of philosophy centered on > that issue. Kant famously said that he was awakened from his "dogmatic > slumbers" by Hume's empiricism, specifically by Hume's attack on cause and > effect. Basically, Hume noticed that causal relations are never experienced > as such. We don't see causes so much as we add the notion to explain why one > event follows another. > > This was a big deal at the time because all events in the universe was > conceived as one long chain of causality going all the way back to the > moment of creation itself, going all the way back to the first cause. The > first cause is what starts the whole chain of causes and prevents an > infinite regress. This is "the prime mover". It's God. This idea goes all > the way back to Aristotle, but it had been integrated into Christianity > during the age of scholasticism. So when Hume attacked causality itself as > non-empirical, there were profound theological implications. No causality, > no first cause. > > > Kant's response was to say that concepts like cause and effect (as well as > time and space) are innate categories of the mind. We need these mental > categories to shape raw sense data into something intelligible. In my > undergrad days, the prof explained this in terms of raw dough (sense data) > being put through a pasta machine (innate categories of the mind). The blob > of dough is shaped when it's run through the little machine. It's given a > uniform thickness and sliced into strands of uniform width. Afterwards, you > might even trim the pasta so it's of uniform length too but that's just a > cooking tip, not an epistemological analogy. > > > Kant thought he was saving empiricism from collapsing into solipsism, he > was saving God (not sure how THAT works), and since concepts like time, > space, as well as cause and effect were categories innate to the human mind, > he was presenting a particular kind of rationality as universal. There is a > real world with pre-existing things, with things-in-themselves and this is > what causes the sense data but we can never know the world of > things-in-themselves except through the mind's categories, he thought. His > work is about the inherent structure of reason, the thought paths we must > walk, the modes of thought to which we must conform. > > > Now I think we want to look at the MOQ's radical empiricism in this > context. It's part of the same story but, of course, it pushes these ideas > in a very different direction. Since radical empiricism rejects > subject-object metaphysics, what James and Pirsig are saying is really quite > different. The radical empiricist says that subjects and objects are not the > starting points of experience, they are concepts derived from experience. > That one little line changes everything. As Kant see it, objects are the > cause of our experience, they are things-in-themselves and so exist > independently of our perceptions. As Pirsig sees it, objects are concepts. > They are what Kant would call a category of the mind, except that in the MOQ > our conceptual categories are not universal or innate. They are provisional, > they are cultural creations that have evolved and will continue to evolve. > > > And then there is that bit in the MOQ where the laws of causality are > replaced by patterns of preference. Causal relations is a useful idea, but > it's just that: an idea. But we can just as well conceptualize the same > experience and the same laboratory data in terms of preferences. > > > It's interesting that Hawking is saying we don't need to invoke God in > order to explain physical reality and Dawkins is saying we don't need to > invoke God in order to explain biological reality and the Pope is in the UK > issuing warnings about "aggressive secularism" and "atheist extremism". > (Echoes of "militant secularism", eh Steve?) It looks like the war between > science and religion is still very much with us. I think the MOQ gives a > better answer than either side in that debate. > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
