There is no such thing as causation

News Flash!!! 10/16/2008 Dr. William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith podcast includes quotes from this in the introductory snippet to his "More Objections to kalam" episode :-)




In which I question premise #1 of the Kalam argument for the existence of God in the most radical way possible: I deny the existence of cause and effect :-)

Actually, its not my bright idea, I'm just following the lead of philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and Hartry Field who have defended such a viewpoint.

The paper which I mention in this video is "Causation in a Physical World" by Hartry Field and is avaliable here:
http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1158/Cause.pdf

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[goodinfotoknow]

80ftdinosaurs will come out from underground; antichrist is a white gay man with red eyes; mark of the antichrist is a green electronic tattoo with sixes that is given when one stretches their hand to receive a new small gray world passport; ufos=demons=aliens=ascended masters=ghosts=channeled entities=dead relatives during seances; atlantis is underneath mariana trench; china will attack russia; don't worship the antichrist; don't take his mark; don't go into a ufo ship under any circumstances

[asana1973]

@randyhelzerman of course...language can get in the way....good controversy though thats for sure..take care..

[randyhelzerman]

@randyhelzerman (cont) rather, the video was in response to somebody who _was_ trying to use the notions of cause and effect to prove there must be God. I was pointing out to him that physics these days doesn't really use the notions of cause and effect at all; rather they use the notions of symmetry and differential equations.  Therefore, its pretty shaky ground to use cause and effect to infer the existence of god.

[randyhelzerman]

@asana1973 Well what I said was a bit elipic. Here's the thing: if social sciences use causation, its not illicit anthropomorphisation, because they are studying, well, anthropos--human beings. Lets grant for the moment that the language of cause and effect is a good language to use when studying human beings. That doesn't mean its a good language to use in physics---indeed doing so would be illicit anthropomorphisation. And I wasn't saying that social sciences are proving God...rather(cont)

[asana1973]

@randyhelzerman I read yours. I think how you are interpreting the use of causation or at least the context in which You are using it may not be what the social sciences had in mind. A lot of the social sciences are not using it to prove the existence of a creator. It is being used as to examine human change from the cellular or molecular level to the community. environment. epigentics.cybernetics.sufferi­ng. poverty. injustice and ignorance. I'm sure God is in there somewhere too though.

[randyhelzerman]

@asana1973 Ok, I went and read them :-) If the social sciences use the concept of causation, that merely underscores the point: to try to read causation into physical law is just a form of illicit anthropomorphisation of the universe. Which is _exactly_ the point: trying to use the notion of cause and effect to prove the existence of a first cause which is God, is simply an illicit anthropomorphization of natural phenomena.

[asana1973]

@randyhelzerman Not unless you care to read the Bhagavad Gita Chapter 14 verses (3-5). Physicists may not buy into causation but the social sciences sure do...and in fact..we are living it right now..

[randyhelzerman]

@asana1973 Would you care to read Mat 5:22 and rephrase your comment?

[1GodOnlyOne]

You have failed to present any evidence.

The link doesn't work.

[randyhelzerman]

@1GodOnlyOne The evidence is in the paper. Unfortunately, this means in order to see the evidence you'll have to actually read it, and reading comprehension seems to be a bit of a challenge for you.