Are Actual Infinities Possible?

[Dontaskme]

IC...what do you have to say about the idea that there are effects which seemingly are evidence of a causer, and yet there is no evidence of a causer in the actual effects?

“If we reject the principle of the Cosmological Argument, we have to agree that nothing (including causes) can exist without a cause. But if that makes sense, is not the following equally intelligible: “No one may do anything (including asking for permission) without asking for permission.” Clearly there is no way in which this precept can be observed because there is no legitimate way of asking for permission. The problem in both cases is that no condition can ever be met without the fulfillment of a preceding condition. No permission may be asked for because each asking for permission requires a prior asking for permission. Likewise, no causation can take place because each act of causation requires a prior act of causation.

In other words the need for causes must come to an end: there must be or have been a cause that was not itself in need of a cause.”

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Similarly, beingness doesn’t need to be anything in order to be.

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[Erk]

... and yes indeed, that one thing is indeed an unavoidable illusory paradox, in that no-thing is still a thing ...

I would suggest that no-thing is not a thing. It means exactly what it says. There is no paradox. Since it's not a thing it can't/doesn't exist. Absolutely nothing doesn't exist. Something does. Absolutely something. Something absolute.

It's a matter of arriving at something that always exists using the process of deduction.

[Immanuel Can]

IC...what do you have to say about the idea that there are effects which seemingly are evidence of a causer, and yet there is no evidence of a causer in the actual effects?

An example of what you are suggesting would be...what?

If you mean just something with "no (currently-known) evidence of a causer" then it's unproblematic. Until we knew the causes of the tides, the tides still kept rolling: the cause of the tides didn't need to be "evident" for that to happen, and eventually we learned the causes. The tides were, indeed, the products of cause-and-effect relations, just of rather extraordinary ones, like the gravitational activity of the moon and various other features of hydrodynamics.

It's not our (present) lack of evidence that would be a problem: it would be if you could name something that actually was an "effect" but verifiably had no cause.

So that's what I would like to see you example, if you suppose such exists.

“If we reject the principle of the Cosmological Argument, we have to agree that nothing (including causes) can exist without a cause. But if that makes sense, is not the following equally intelligible: “No one may do anything (including asking for permission) without asking for permission.” Clearly there is no way in which this precept can be observed because there is no legitimate way of asking for permission. The problem in both cases is that no condition can ever be met without the fulfillment of a preceding condition. No permission may be asked for because each asking for permission requires a prior asking for permission. Likewise, no causation can take place because each act of causation requires a prior act of causation.

In other words the need for causes must come to an end: there must be or have been a cause that was not itself in need of a cause.”

This quotation is correct, if you read it carefully. First of all, it's framed as a hypothetical: it starts with "if." That means it explores the implications of something that may or may not be believed, depending on further evidence, but is not necessary to believe. It is not saying, "We have reason to reject the Cosmological Argument."

After that, it gets the description of the absurd implications that would follow more or less correct, and more or less as I've laid them out. It even arrives at the right conclusion: "the need for causes must come to an end: there must be or have been a cause that was not itself in need of a cause." WLC speaks of an "uncaused cause." And this is correct.

But what actually doesn't follow is your final claim:

Similarly, beingness doesn’t need to be anything in order to be.

The opposite is actually evidently the case (assuming I understand your word "beingness" as what we ordinarily call "being").

Causality means that things which are caused (if i recall, WLC uses the phrase, "things that begin to exist,") must have a cause. And ultimately, the backward chain of causal agents must stop somewhere, or it would be infinite, and would thus never have started.

[Immanuel Can]

Absolutely nothing doesn't exist. Something does. Absolutely something. Something absolute.

Well, this is the difficulty in interpreting your response here: your phrase "absolute nothing" is ambiguous. It could mean, "It is not the case that in our universe, a state of pure nothingness obtains." In that case, it's too obvious to be said.

It could also mean, "There's a condition called 'absolutely nothing,' a state which cannot exist." In that case, it's incoherent, unable to keep faith with its own terms. For "nothingness" is not a state at all, and hence there is no coherence to the argument (it contradicts itself by calling "nothing" both a state and a thing which cannot exist), and the claim provides us with no reason to suppose that the lack of a state is impossible...or even less probable than the alternatives.

In fact, the burden to explain lies entirely on the side of a person who thinks that we DO have a state of "things," and yet there need be no explanation for it. That would be absurd.

There have to be "things" for them to be in a "state." If there were no-things, they would not be in any state, would they? But "nothing" is the negation of all states. It's no-things, and hence, no-states at all.

[Erk]

And last, what it is is something absolute. Not finite or infinite but absolute.

Apologies. I'll have to ask you what this means, because it's not apparent to me at the moment.

The Absolute is right here right now the only place there is AND EVER WILL BE. Where ever you go, there you are...where ever ego I go... It's everything and not-a-thing. It's YOU, aka SELF one without a second.

I don't mean the self. I don't mean it's everything. And I don't mean it's not a thing.

Everything is a misnomer and is merely the sum of its parts. It is the greater whole beyond that. It is the only thing that has no outside. There isn't even absolutely nothing beyond it. It does have an inside though, where all other things reside. All other things are purely relative and have both an outside and an inside.

[Immanuel Can]

Apologies. I'll have to ask you what this means, because it's not apparent to me at the moment.

The Absolute is right here right now the only place there is AND EVER WILL BE. Where ever you go, there you are...where ever ego I go... It's everything and not-a-thing. It's YOU, aka SELF one without a second.

I don't mean the self. I don't mean it's everything. And I don't mean it's not a thing.

Everything is a misnomer and is merely the sum of its parts. It is the greater whole beyond that. It is the only thing that has no outside. There isn't even absolutely nothing beyond it. It does have an inside though, where all other things reside. All other things are purely relative and have both an outside and an inside.

Erk:

The attributions are wrong in this post. I'd be grateful if you were to correct them, as I have not said the words they attribute to me.

Once corrected, I would be interested in understanding your idea there.

[Erk]

But what caused the "something else" then? You're in a viscous infinite regression. The is no something that caused the something that caused the something ... ad infinitum.

Right! Now you're onto it.

Conclusion: the ultimate cause of the causal chain and of the material events we witness every day is necessarily a single entity that is itself not a product of a causal chain of material events. For if it were, then it also would never have commenced, and we would have infinite regress again.

To use the word "commenced" indicates a beginning. That keeps the single entity we're trying to agree on part of a chain of finite material events and infinite regress is still in play.

The single entity I'm speaking of (the Absolute) is eternal. It never came from absolutely nothing because absolutely nothing can't exist. Other lesser things may be eternal as well, but that's better left for another time.

[Erk]

I don't mean the self. I don't mean it's everything. And I don't mean it's not a thing.

Everything is a misnomer and is merely the sum of its parts. It is the greater whole beyond that. It is the only thing that has no outside. There isn't even absolutely nothing beyond it. It does have an inside though, where all other things reside. All other things are purely relative and have both an outside and an inside.

Erk:

The attributions are wrong in this post. I'd be grateful if you were to correct them, as I have not said the words they attribute to me.

Once corrected, I would be interested in understanding your idea there.

Oops, sorry. I've corrected it.

[Erk]

Absolutely nothing doesn't exist. Something does. Absolutely something. Something absolute.

Well, this is the difficulty in interpreting your response here: your phrase "absolute nothing" is ambiguous. It could mean, "It is not the case that in our universe, a state of pure nothingness obtains." In that case, it's too obvious to be said.

Absolutely nothing does not mean a state of pure nothingness within the universe or any existing entity. That is merely a relative nothing.

It could also mean, "There's a condition called 'absolutely nothing,' a state which cannot exist." In that case, it's incoherent, unable to keep faith with its own terms. For "nothingness" is not a state at all, and hence there is no coherence to the argument (it contradicts itself by calling "nothing" both a state and a thing which cannot exist) ...

I have never once said that absolutely nothing is a thing that doesn't exist. I've consistently said it is NOT a thing and it can't/doesn't exist. Calling absolutely nothing an "it" is no more than making a coherent sentence. It is not an it.

In fact, the burden to explain lies entirely on the side of a person who thinks that we DO have a state of "things," and yet there need be no explanation for it. That would be absurd.

I'm giving you an explanation for the "state of things" that either obviously or not so obviously exist. I most definitely think an explanation is called for.

[Immanuel Can]

To use the word "commenced" indicates a beginning. That keeps the single entity we're trying to agree on part of a chain of finite material events and infinite regress is still in play.

No, it doesn't, actually; as can easily be shown. The cause of an event is not the event or result itself.

A man rolls a rock down a hill, but is not therefore suddenly made a part of the rock or the hill. A man scrawls on a cave wall, but is not thereby made into a scrawl or a cave.

...absolutely nothing can't exist.

I agree that we do have something rather than nothing. But what's your reason for thinking that somehow being owed us, or the universe, an existence? There's no reason to think that there could not have been nothing at all, and every reason to suppose (if there were no First Cause) that it's exactly what should have happened.

[Immanuel Can]

Oops, sorry. I've corrected it.

Great. Thanks.

[Dontaskme]

DAM: Similarly, beingness doesn’t need to be anything in order to be.

The opposite is actually evidently the case (assuming I understand your word "beingness" as what we ordinarily call "being").

Well it's just that state before the ''I thought'' comes online. The stateless state...which is not really a state, it's beyond state, it's unconditioned ISNESS...that apparently takes on a phantom condition.

For this to be possible..One first have to exist unknowingly in order to know one exists, but that knowledge of existence is only pointing itself back to the stateless state of unconditioned oneness, and in doing so has to negate the ''I thought'' aka knowledge in the process...so this oneness aka the stateless state is stating that opposites have to exist in the same moment, and that both opposites are not separate or divided, they are one, there is not one that comes before the other, or that one is after the other, the opposites are one and the same thing, in that they both arise in the same moment, namely, NOW. Here there is both being and non-being. . Or put another way, here there is no thing being everything.
Beingness is just another word for ISness or Awareness or God ..different words can mean the same thing, they're just used as pointers pointing to the nameless not a thing being everything.

Causality means that things which are caused (if i recall, WLC uses the phrase, "things that begin to exist,") must have a cause. And ultimately, the backward chain of causal agents must stop somewhere, or it would be infinite, and would thus never have started.

Things that begin must end, this is knowledge, but this knowledge is pure mind activity, that somehow is able to cut seamless reality into two opposing opposites..via words, but this mind cannot be used to make the cut whole, since that would be like trying to describe silence by filling it up with words.

The mind is the known, and the mind is an aspect of that which is not-known, aka not-knowing, and not-knowing has no beginning nor ending which has to be the absolute case for anything to become known...and that's the job of the mind...else how would known ever be known?

The backward chain of causal agents must stop somewhere ...they only stop when mind activity stops, aka the thoughts, aka the world of duality, but that doesn't mean the mind stops, the mind never started, therefore it's infinite.

The mind again here is just another word for that which cannot be known, aka God or awareness or consciousness or isness or beingness...it cannot be known.. ! [be cause]! ..it is the knowing.

Does this make sense IC?

I don't know how else to put this into words.

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[Immanuel Can]

Absolutely nothing does not mean a state of pure nothingness within the universe or any existing entity.

Right. It means there isn't even "a state." There's nothing.

That is merely a relative nothing.

Relative to...what?

I have never once said that absolutely nothing is a thing that doesn't exist. I've consistently said it is NOT a thing and it can't/doesn't exist.

Well, to put a fine point on it, you can't use the word "exist" with reference to "nothing", without treating it as though it were a state of being. That's what "exist" means: it implies a state or condition of a thing, in which that thing is present.

So I agree that nothingness is NOT a thing. but I see no justification for you claim that we, or the universe, could not simply have failed to exist at all. In fact, all the philosophers back to Parmenides (also Aristotle, Augustine, Leibniz, Wittgenstein, Russell) agree with me that it is an important consideration, which is why the question "Why is there something, rather than nothing?" is of such great commonness in the history of philosophy. And they all recognize that the problem to be answered is, "Why does anything exist," rather than "Can nothingness have been what there was?" It seems obvious to all of them that it could have been: indeed, that we have no reason to expect to exist at all. (See also: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... exist.html)

Your view seems to take for granted that existence just spontaneously burst out to defy the possibility of nothingness. I know of no scientist or philosopher of note who has ever thought that.

But let us suppose you've discovered what these previous thinkers have not: if it were true, it would require a showing, for sure.

[Immanuel Can]

Does this make sense IC?

I don't know how else to put this into words.

I'm not sure at all, honestly. As nearly as I can tell, you seem to use an Existentialist view of some sort, but reverse their ideas of "essence" and "existence," using the latter while meaning the former, I think...

I just can't really tell. And because I can't tell, I can't tell how to read your ideas fairly.

I don't want to do the opposite: so all I can tell you is that at the moment, I don't quite know how to respond.

[Dontaskme]

Does this make sense IC?

I don't know how else to put this into words.

I'm not sure at all, honestly. As nearly as I can tell, you seem to use an Existentialist view of some sort, but reverse their ideas of "essence" and "existence," using the latter while meaning the former, I think...

I just can't really tell.

Well you did have some idea about what I meant..as your reply is correct ..in that that’s exactly how I’m putting this as you’ve observed.

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But you don’t have to make any further replies, my existential view will be unique to me, and my experience only, so all I’m doing is sharing my opinion, not wanting clarification of whether it’s the absolute truth or not...it’s just the way this one here visions reality...imho.

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I can only put this using limited words that will never be what is actually being pointed to. So it’s helpful to look beyond the words which are not really literal things in and of themselves.

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