RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
July 10, 2023 at 3:51 pm
(This post was last modified: July 10, 2023 at 3:59 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
A thing may come after, by some (or even an absolute) frame of reference, but so long as the thing that comes after does not terminate in any causal chain to the thing that came before, they would both be the first cause in their respective causal chains. Multiple concommitant causality.
So FC1 is responsible for properties a-d FC2 maybe only e, FC3f-0. Then we look at ourselves, noticing all of these properties a-o (and then some) and we say that we are contingent on all of these things which are not contingent upon each other. AKA, how the world actually appears to work. I don't want to belittle what we do know, but I'm going to call it scratching the surface. We hope, for any number of reasons, that these things all resolve into one thing. A theory of everything. It would be nice if they do - but they don't have to, that's not necessary. Positing a first cause -of everything- is highly motivated reasoning, short circuits any responsibility to figure out how any of this actually works. It also gives up the game. as positing that sort of first cause is mechanically identical to positing the existence of the universe..or the existence of existence. That these nuts took that to be their god is unsurprising - they think every flooded bank and every burnt bush and every five dollar bill laying on the sidewalk is their god at work. Spinozan substance monism lays a prettier veneer for that belief, imo, and is what you end up if you deeply commit to aristotlean theology. Which saint tommy could not, ultimately, being christian.
So FC1 is responsible for properties a-d FC2 maybe only e, FC3f-0. Then we look at ourselves, noticing all of these properties a-o (and then some) and we say that we are contingent on all of these things which are not contingent upon each other. AKA, how the world actually appears to work. I don't want to belittle what we do know, but I'm going to call it scratching the surface. We hope, for any number of reasons, that these things all resolve into one thing. A theory of everything. It would be nice if they do - but they don't have to, that's not necessary. Positing a first cause -of everything- is highly motivated reasoning, short circuits any responsibility to figure out how any of this actually works. It also gives up the game. as positing that sort of first cause is mechanically identical to positing the existence of the universe..or the existence of existence. That these nuts took that to be their god is unsurprising - they think every flooded bank and every burnt bush and every five dollar bill laying on the sidewalk is their god at work. Spinozan substance monism lays a prettier veneer for that belief, imo, and is what you end up if you deeply commit to aristotlean theology. Which saint tommy could not, ultimately, being christian.
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