(April 21, 2014 at 9:08 pm)Metalogos Wrote: If the universe is made of eternal matter, and it may well be, that still does not deal with the problem of how it all came to be set into motion. I am quite comfortable with a panetheistic explanation of the universe, i.e., that the matter of the universe is the eternal "body" of the creator being. That would make you and I and the ants and the swirling cosmic gas all akin, all intimately and eternally connected.
Yes, the question remains. Perhaps it is the one question which can never be answered. Therefore, we have enough of a dilemma without doubling it by attributing it to a cause that is just as impervious to explanation as the thing it is supposed to explain. It is like trying to heal a cut by giving yourself a second one. It just doesn't do anything useful for you.
Quote:Yet the question remains, "What set this all atwirl?"
It may not be a valid question, ultimately. Perhaps it has, and will, always twirl. It may take on radically different forms, perhaps an infinite permutation. Maybe it all did have a beginning, but if there is a question least likely to ever be answered, that's surely it.
Quote:Every action is a reaction to a preceding action. So it is in the macrocosm. So it is in the microcosm. To think that there must have been an initial action/movement that set, eventually, everything else in the universe into motion is both logical and rational. This type of thinking is the classic type of rational and logical thinking that the great pioneers of western philosophy are best known for.
I don't necessary think it is necessary for a first cause to exist, and even if there was, adding a creator agent not only doesn't actually answer the question, it just raises the obvious next one: what cause the creator? How can an initial action happen with no preceding cause?
I really do see only one destination to this infinity of paths: an ultimately eternal and infinite meta-existence, everything in the most literal sense. Perhaps it is as infinite in layers as it is in duration. It's not a satisfying answer, because it can never be explained... but neither can an ultimate first cause, and that still leaves that eternity to account for. Best to not even bother with the idea.
