The Limits of Possible Explanation

[Mark]

Mark...if I understand you correct - you are saying that if we found a cause...and origin for everything then that would become part of the universe and we'd still need to ask for a cause and an origin for that - if we were to continue down that road - and it would just go on forever...

If that's what you are saying then I will say the fact that we need to go on forever doesn't mean there isn't one first cause...I don't think science ever needs to find the answer because even if science finds it - it will still have to keep checking to make sure it hasn't missed something. It can never know for sure that it absolutely has found the first cause I believe - even if it does find it.

Hope I've said at least something relevant or useful lol.

EvF

Well, I will concede that however unlikely it may be, it certainly is a logical possibility that there is an infinite series of, shall we say, factors, factor 0 causing the physical universe, factor 1 causing factor 0, ..., factor n causing factor n-1, and so on ad infinitum. But in that case, you have a set that includes both the physical universe and the set of infinitely many whatever-you-want-to-call-them, external causative factors. And it is that set that is the set of all existing things, and is incapable of being explained. In just the same way, it is logically possible that the set of all things includes the physical universe and a god who created it, and nothing more. This of course is what is standardly assumed by religious believers. And under those assumptions that set, the god plus the physical universe, is incapable, as a totality, of being explained. Even by the god in question.

What I assert is that if a set is assumed to include all existing things then it is incapable of being explained. I do not assume that the set in question is finite. The physical universe, for one thing, is not finite -- at least insofar as I understand.

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Yeah. And when we think we've found the 'first cause' we might later discover that it wasn't the first cause because something caused that!

Or if we find the first cause and fail to find whatever caused that...that doesn't mean nothing did. It may have done and we might find out later, or we might never find out later, or it might simply be impossible to go any deeper and find out later that what we think is the first cause isn't because something actually created that (and it actually might go further and further back down the line so the first cause is much further away).

But if a first cause is found then its assumed to be the 'first cause' until there is any evidence to suggest it isn't and something created that right

I.e science has working hypothesis so after the 'first cause' is found it still needs to keep checking to make sure it hasn't missed something

E.g: That there wasn't a cause before that and that what is thought of as the 'first cause' ISN'T the first cause :p

EvF

That's interesting, but it isn't really relevant to my point. It may be that there is some sort of series of "factors," factor 0 causing the physical universe, factor 1 causing factor 0, and so forth, through which science will work its way and never come to the end; and it may be that at any given point we will never know whether the last-discovered factor is the very first one (or last one, depending on your point of view). All that is irrelevant to my point, which is that no matter what the ensemble of things that are eventually found to exist, the whole thing considered as a totality is not the sort of thing that is, or will ever be, subject to explanation. This follows from what explanation is, not from what may or may not happen to exist and what science may or may not happen to discover.

Actually as I said in my first post, I think the search for "ultimate" explanation, which is an impossibility, is a by-product of mankind's earthbound existence. The "ultimate and final explanation of all things" is a kind of wordplay that seems to have meaning, but in fact has none.

Although it isn't necessary to my position, I think that it is futile to look for explanation of the physical universe. So far, nothing has been observed that is outside it, and since "ultimate explanation" is an absurdity, there is no point in positing anything non-physical in the vain hope of supplying it. Indeed I very much doubt that theoretical physics, cosmology or whatever discipline you call it, will ever point to a factor (or god or whatever) outside the physical universe. What I expect it will do is supply an increasingly consistent and thorough account of how the physical universe has developed over time, and how its various parts are interrelated. That sort of thing cannot, however, say anything about how or why it is all here.

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The current thinking is that time once had a beginning, and so there was a "first cause". Of course, we know about 3 spacial dimensions and only 1 of time. There could be other time dimensions that we have no idea about

There may be a "first cause" but if so, it is futile to seek its cause. This is just the same as if the "first cause" were a god. One thing such a god certainly could not do would be to explain whence and how he came. And if the "first cause" is a, shall we say, singularity from which all burst forth (a common scientific account currently), then that singularity itself is incapable of explanation. There is no escaping that the totality of things, whatever it is, will forever be without explanation.