If the Universe has a cause, what caused that cause?

[sahana]

Title: Can something exist without a cause? If the universe has a cause, what caused that cause?

Post Content:
Many theories suggest that everything must have a cause, but if that's true, then what caused the first cause? Does something need a cause to exist, or is it possible for existence to be uncaused? I’m exploring this from both a scientific and philosophical perspective and would love to hear insights from physics, cosmology, and philosophy. Are there any theories that explain this?

 

[jbriggs444]

what caused the first cause?

In mathematics class, we learned about this fallacy.

When one uses the definite article "the", one is making an assertion of existence and uniqueness. But before one can make such an assertion, one must have grounds to do so.

I see no basis for the assertion that a first cause must exist.

In the absence of evidence, such a basis would need to be philosophical rather than scientific. So this line of conversation is heading in a direction contrary to the forum policies.

• Philosophical discussions are permitted only at the discretion of the mentors and may be deleted or closed without warning or appeal

 

[sahana]

I got your point .
Do modern cosmological models suggest the universe had a definite beginning, or could it be past-eternal?

 

[PeroK]

I got your point .
Do modern cosmological models suggest the universe had a definite beginning, or could it be past-eternal?

If you take the observable universe at face value, then we can project back to a time where the universe was in a hot, dense state and our current theories of Quantum Mechanics and General relativity are not sufficient to project back any further. The main theory of Cosmology (Lambda-CDM) cannot resolve the question of what happened before that.

There are several speculative multiverse theories, where our universe was spawned in some way from a pre-existing universe; or, is part of a larger network of isolated "bubble" universes. That said, I know very little about these theories.

In my opinion, our earthly powers of logic and reason are insufficient to answer such questions. Nevertheless, I can imagine the two greatest philosophical minds in history taking opposite positions on this question. Each being equally certain that they are right and the other is wrong!

 

[phyzguy]

Many theories suggest that everything must have a cause

I take issue with this. An example is radioactive decay of a single atom. Quantum mechanics says that there is nothing which causes the atom to decay, the event is completely random.

 

[PeroK]

I take issue with this. An example is radioactive decay of a single atom. Quantum mechanics says that there is nothing which causes the atom to decay, the event is completely random.

To be fair to the OP, he said "many theories", not "all theories".

 

[Bandersnatch]

Agreeing with PeroK - if you want to stay on solid ground in terms testable models, then you can't say with any degree of certainty what happened past a certain epoch in the history of the universe. It was very hot and very dense at one time, and already expanding, from which state the current universe has evolved.

If one were to extrapolate the underlying theories further into the past (with a sprinkle of more speculative ideas), it's possible to analyse what range of possibilities do they allow. But there's enough wiggle room there to permit all kinds of solutions, with no way to test them as of today: that the universe might have a temporal boundary with some initial conditions (which can be understood as first causes), or it could be past-eternal, or it could not have a boundary, even as it's past-finite - making the concept of initial conditions moot.
You could look up Hawking's last paper with Hertog for an example of an argument for a past-finite universe, while the former's earlier work with Hartle supported the no-boundary approach.
This paper, of similar vintage, by Susskind: https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.0589 discusses some arguments of his and his colleagues on this topic, honestly stating up front: 'Not surprisingly, given three people, there were three answers.'

 

[Klystron]

Title: Can something exist without a cause? If the universe has a cause, what caused that cause?

The OP may benefit by applying formal logic and analysis to these two questions. PF includes many fine logicians who can assist in clarifying your queries into causation. Logic may not provide definitive answers but will definitely help structure meaningful statements and queries.

Several historical philosophers, mathematicians and scientists have tackled causation. Arthur Schopenhauer, a contemporary and colleague of Goethe, provided a definitive refutation of the influential early cosmologist and thinker Immanuel Kant concerning these questions of cause.

Consider these wikipedia references as convenient starting points for delving into prior reasoning on these questions. All three of these Enlightenment scholars studied and employed mathematics and logical arguments with their work translated into English.

 

[DaveC426913]

What if we backed up from "theory" to "hypothesis"?

Theories need to be testable to be valid, but hypotheses are indicated - or implied - by evidence, even if they don't currently have a test for falsifiability. True?

I mean the previous circumstance of a "hot dense state" is evidence (even if weak or inconclusive) that there likely was a state that preceded it and brought it into existence. Surely hypotheses about that are still within the realm of science?

 

[Orodruin]

I take issue with this. An example is radioactive decay of a single atom. Quantum mechanics says that there is nothing which causes the atom to decay, the event is completely random.

Not completely correct. Quantum physics say nothing about why it decayed at some particular time. It does predict that it decays and does so with weak interactions as the cause (in the case of beta decays).

 

[elcaro]

Title: Can something exist without a cause? If the universe has a cause, what caused that cause?

Post Content:
Many theories suggest that everything must have a cause, but if that's true, then what caused the first cause? Does something need a cause to exist, or is it possible for existence to be uncaused? I’m exploring this from both a scientific and philosophical perspective and would love to hear insights from physics, cosmology, and philosophy. Are there any theories that explain this?

Some remarks:
- We can only talk about the observable universe, not the universe in total, when dealing with causes.
- The universe in total already contains all causes and consequences and all things in existence, there is nothing "beyond" the universe
- We do not know what caused the initial state of the observable universe (the hot dense phase), there are various pre-big bag cosmological scenarios, like eternal inflation.

 

[UyScuti]

I’d venture that this is unanswerable and not an object of scientific pursuit. Had you asked “how,” perhaps something could be said. But a “why”, particularly an ab initio “why”, presupposes a purpose or ultimate justification, which lies outside the realm of testable hypotheses and, therefore, outside the scope of science. It is firmly a metaphysical question.

 

[Lynch101]

German Biologist and Philosopher of Science, Martin Mahner, refers to “the ex-nihilo-nihil-fit principle” – the idea things can’t simply “pop out of or into nothing” (Mahner, 2016).

Every theory will, I believe, have to rely on certain brute facts which themselves are not reducible to other facts - otherwise you would end up with an infinite regress. Maybe that's a possibility.

The "ex-nihilo-nihil-fit principle” offers a way out of this regress because it entails there can be brute facts.

Whatever the initial conditions were, the fact* they could not have "popped into existence ex nihilo", entails they could be brute facts since they could not have come from nothing.

*Assuming the truth of the ENNF principle.

The principle can, of course, be denied but that would have other implications, including that the Universe didn't have a cause.

Reference
Mahner, M. (2016). The Role of Metaphysical Naturalism in Science. In M. A.Peters, Encyclopedia of
Educational Philosophy and Theory. Singapore: Springer.

 

[Drakkith]

Thank you to everyone who participated in this thread but I'm afraid I'm going to have to lock it due to it attracting various problematic posts (that are now deleted) and other issues.