imiyakawa said:
Agreed. How we view causation is epiphenomena of PHYSICAL LAWS + TIME. The thing is, BOTH EXIST WITHIN THIS UNIVERSE, so they cannot be applied to WHATEVER PRECEEDED THIS UNIVERSE.
Except, if the universe is clearly the result of a broken symmetry, then it does make "logical" sense to talk about its initial conditions as a prior state of symmetry.
We know from physics that our universe does indeed look like the result of a thermodynamic symmetry breaking process.
But then our standard-issue mechanistic logic is not a symmetry breaking model of causality. It is all about how A + B constructs future state C. Not about how past state of symmetry A divides locally~globally (towards a B~C brokenness).
So you have physics telling us one thing - reality is the product of a symmetry-breaking, so implying a prior symmetry. And our logic not being up to the task of representing this fact because it is not itself founded on symmetry-breaking machinery.
The reason for introducing the machinery of vagueness, dichotomies and hierarchies is because this is a symmetry-breaking view of logic to match the scientific observations.
Once logic and observation are aligned, then we can make logical extrapolations about what may be "outside" and "before" the big bang.
I should add, in case there is any doubt, that there is no room for gods in this particular approach as far as I'm concerned. It is a purely physical view.
Gods are posited as the law-givers and world-creators. The systems approach, based on symmetry-breaking models, is all about self-organisation. If you still need a god somewhere - an external cause - the story is not working.
This kind of conventional god is just efficient causation. So again repeating the standard mechanistic shortcoming in which all causality is reduced to just efficient causation.
As Aristotle recognised, there are four causes. You have the dichotomy formed by the material and formal causes (local substance~global form). Then you have another dichotomy in efficient and final cause (local initiating event~global organising purpose).
It takes this kind of holistic package to model a systems-level action like symmetry-breaking.
Having accepted that, the crucial question - so far as origins of universes go - is how to cash out the realisation that in the beginning was not nothing, or even everything (either as a plenum or eternal time), but instead an unbroken symmetry.
Multiverses, lie algebras, quantum mechanics - they are all dipping a toe in that water. But the barrier to clearer understanding is that people still continue to use old logic to extrapolate.
If the physics is telling us the answer is symmetry breaking, then logic needs to be updated to match. Or rather, reconnect with the symmetry breaking models of ancient philosophy.
