Is Causality a Mental Framework Rather Than an Objective Feature of Reality?

Metaphysics & Epistemology
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‘Causality’, or what is also known as ‘cause and effect’, is not a physical thing in itself. ‘Causality’ is a word used by human beings to describe the action/reaction process, which is continual, or is a forever-continual link that could not begin and does not end. So, there is NO end, and there was NO beginning.

There is only NOW, and from which ALL is being created, or ‘in Creation’. Creation is a constantly-changing process, which ‘has’ and ‘will’ always happen and occur in the eternal-NOW.

Creation, Itself, is just the process, also known as, ‘every action has a reaction’, which every reaction being creation, itself.

The Universe, at the fundamental and every level, is made up of two things, one known as ‘matter’, the other known as ‘space’. It is sometimes said that an atom is made up of 99.99% ‘space’. This ‘space’, from the smallest piece or ‘particle’ of ‘matter’ to the largest ‘object’ of ‘matter’ has ‘space’ between them all and around all of them. It is this ‘space’, or ‘distance’, itself, between and around ‘matter’ that allows ‘matter’ to move about absolutely freely. The movemen to ‘matter’ allows it to interact with itself, and every action of ‘matter’ interacting with itself causes ‘the creation’ of something new.

Every newly created ‘thing’ then is continually evolving, or in simpler terms is ‘continually changing’, due to the fact that ‘it’ is always ‘interacting’, or ‘reacting’, with other ‘things’, which also with every one of those interacting actions another reaction occurs, with again each new one causing a newly created thing, or a new creation. There is and was no beginning nor end to the always-evolving-creation process.

What is called and labelled with and as the ‘big bang’, which is also known as ‘singularity’, is, again, just the 'infinite compression of ‘matter’, which, again, is just the removal of any and all ‘space’ within a peice of ‘matter’. Remember, ‘singularity’ is said to be both and ‘the end’ of a black hole, and, at ‘the beginning’ of the Universe. But which some people ‘now’ say and call ‘a universe’.

To explain both ‘the Universe’, when defined as Everything; All there is, Totality, and, ‘a universe’ (in a ‘multiverse’ scenario, which ‘we’ will have to find a ‘new term or word’ that has the Everything, All there is, Totality definition), then, if there are more than ‘one universe’ when ‘singularity’ at ‘the end’ of one black hole ‘goes bang’, or more correctly ‘expands’, but not like the ‘big bang’, then this happens and occurs still within the infinite and eternal Everything; All there is; Totality.. Whereas, if people still want to ‘try to’ claim that Everything; All there is; Totality all began and started at or with a ‘big bang’, then this is NOT any so-called ‘first cause’ NOR ‘in the beginning’ that was said to have created the Universe, all at once, but was also just ‘another bang’ or ‘expansion’, but this time was at or when a ‘black hole’ had attracted EVERY piece or particle of ‘matter’, compressed ALL the ‘space’, or ‘distance’, from within, outwards, so that there was only One single piece of ‘matter’, which had to be surrounded by (a) ‘space’, again which went on infinitely spatially, so that ‘the expansion’ of ‘that matter’ could happen and occur.

Obviously, there ‘has to be’ some ‘thing’ for ‘a bang’ and/or for ‘an expansion’ to happen and occur, and when the ‘Universe’ word is being defined as, Everything, All there is, Totality, whatever ‘that’ was, which is sometimes referred to and called ‘singularity’, HAS TO BE a part of the Unverse, Itself.

At ‘that moment’ of ‘bang or expansion’, and there was only One ‘singularity’ only, then the Universe, as it always IS, having ‘matter’ and ‘space’ co-existing together always, was just one singular piece of ‘matter’, of some size or dimension, surrounded by ‘space’, or a ‘distance’, that went on forever. Now, the reason there was it is said there was no ‘before’ or no ‘time’ before the Universe was created, all at once, is because ‘time’, like ‘causality’, is NOT an actual physical thing but is ‘a word’ denoting the ‘duration between, perceived, events’. And, when there is only ‘one physical thing’, a ‘one piece of matter’ only, then, in this scenario, NO events could be taking place or occuring.

‘Duration’, itself, needs at least two physical things, and even if only two physical things existed, then working out ‘duration’, ‘or telling the time’, would, still, be impossible.

To be able to, what is called, ‘tell the time’, or work out ‘the duration’, light is needed. And, at ‘singularity’ there is NO light. As well as the Fact that there is only One physical thing, only.

‘Causality’, itself, like ‘time’, itself, both exist in ‘concept’ or in ‘the mental’ only. Although they are words used to help in describing the objective features of ‘Reality’, Itself.

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Is the proof your following post?

Because facts can be theories, and theories can be facts. The theory that the earth revolves around the sun is a fact. That’s because facts are true statements, and to the best of my knowledge it seems to be the case that the earth revolves around the sun.

Prove it ;).

I think you don’t understand how others are using “theory” in this thread. They don’t mean it as any old random guess. They mean it as the best explanation they’ve come across. They mean it as the truth that seems coherent and logical, just as you mean your beliefs.

The colloquial use of “theory” gets along with what you’ve been saying, but others are using it more in the sense of a scientific or philosophical theory which is a candidate for truth, not just any guess or explanation. There are reasons why we offer a theory.

More or less it means the same thing you’re saying when you say “I think this is the truth according to facts and logic”.

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I’m going to attempt to explain how I feel these three comments are mutually contradictory, or at least anthropocentric. To do that, I must explain a crude summary of Tegmark’s 4 levels of multiverse. This is easily googled, but here it is:

Level I: Greene calls this ‘quilted multiverse’. Our universe is our visible universe. We cannot see or cause or by caused by anything outside that, so distant places (50 GLY away say) are in other worlds. To deny this is to say that

  • A star 50 billion LY away (a valid coordinate) doesn’t exist, contradicting your first comment.
  • The Earth happens to be at the exact center of all existence, a very anthropocentric and mind dependent stance.

Level II: Greene calls this ‘inflationary multiverse’. Other universes with different constants, rules, and forces. This includes the bubble universe/eternal inflation hypothesis (Guth) and more recently Hawking’s universal wave function that can subjectively collapse into any set of rules. So another universe might have 3 time dimensions and 2 spatial ones, or not have gravity at all.
The view is important since it is the only reasonable explanation for the observed improbable fine tuning of our universe.

  • It directly is the ‘new theory about space or time being emergent of something more fundamental’, except it’s over 50 years old, so hardly new.
  • If gravity is a property of this universe but not some others, then declaring the universe observed to exist and the one not observed to not exist is a mind dependent definition of existence, contradicting your 2nd quote suggesting the existence of gravity is mind-independent . This is a general point on any multiverse type. If the world exists but the other ones don’t, that’s an observation (mind) dependent definition. It is also, again, anthropocentric, which in this case is where the ID argument comes from. God must have designed this one and only world since it is improbably to happen given only one random chance. The argument has teeth only if a single existing world is presumed, which the theists very much presume.

Level III: Greene calls this ‘quantum multiverse’.
This is essentially MWI, by far the simplest of the quantum interpretations, which posits only one thing: “A closed wave function evolves according to the Schrodinger equation”.

Greene also lists ‘Brane, Cyclic, Landscape, Holographic, Simulated, and Ultimate’ multiverse types. The ultimate one corresponds to Tegmark’s level IV multiverse, boiling down to ‘everything else’

I probably do, yes, but I tried to spell it out. First, I probably use ‘exists’ and ‘is real’ interchangeably most of the time, and to me is a relation: X exists relative to Y, or X is real to Y. It’s both mind dependent and independent, meaning dependent on my choice of definition, but the definition itself is one completely devoid of mind, anthropocentrism, or observation. There’s nothing special about this universe or us.

But I don’t believe in a past and future. It’s only a relation to an arbitrary point in time, a relation meaningful only in temporal structure, one with a single dimension of time.

Way to mind dependent for my taste. Yes, I use the word ‘real’ in that context. It’s a word we choose to apply where it conveys meaning. That’s how language works.

Philosophically, I was speaking of a physical unicorn which perhaps doesn’t exist relative to me since it might not have had a causal effect on me, it being too far away to do so. But in that context, I’m not talking about the myth, I’m talking about one probably outside our past light cone, a subset of the visible universe of radius around 6 GLY, whereas the visible universe has a radius of 48 GLY. I assure you it’s out there, and nowhere near as distant as you’d suspect. It doesn’t think we exist, so we’re even.

But I would deny any ‘the world’. There is ‘this world’, but ‘this’ part makes it mind dependent since this is the world we observe. Take away that dependency, and ‘the world’ gets demoted to ‘a world’ among many.

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I’m glad to find another pragmatist on the forum.

I agree with many of the points you made, but this is my favorite. It’s also essentially the point that I’ve also been trying to make.

A person can use the word “real” so that it is disconnected from pain and pleasure. I don’t even want to say that their approach is “false.”

Instead I’d say that their is approach is alienated from the way we all live. “Really” pain is an “illusion.” But they’ll spend a fortune on health care to escape agony. “Really” money is also an “illusion.” But they lock this illusion away from thieves who are illusions.

Then we get fetishistic spiritualized versions of “matter” that are likewise alienated. The “real” object lives in a metaphysical space. But I sure want this “illusion” of an 18-wheeler to not crush my “illusion” of a body and give me the “illusion” of pain.

Basically science is a way to steer our environment as it is relevantly and qualitatively there for us. Calling the “umvelt” an “illusion” is something you can do in a free society. But is it profound ?

Criticisms of metaphysics are often interpreted by those in metaphysics as metaphysical claims. So pragmatism gets taken as a serious theory of truth, a metaphysical attempt to mirror the “true reality” that includes something like the “the truth about truth.” But to me pragmatism is akin to positivism and phenomenalism, both understood post-metaphysically.

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Well put ! We are expectant creatures. The world is always articulated in terms of objects that are organized by expectations. If I put a match to that gasoline, then…

Sometimes we are surprised, so we adjust our expectations.

To me the issue is messier than that. You use human marks like “rocks” and “tumbling.”

You understandably picture the ancestral world like the umvelt of an expectant sign-trading primate. But that is implicitly ( not in a bad way ) phenomenalism.

If we could “go back” ( a spatial metaphor ), then we’d find the world doing the same things then that it does for us now, more or less.

This already assumes a single universal timeline, a “crystallized arrangement” of the environment from “no” organism’s POV. Yet it is something that a particular primate vaguely imagines, the “true history of the world, written in atoms and void.”

It’s counterintuitive, but I’m with Peirce on this. Empirical claims about the past implicitly refer to the future. I don’t have a time machine. If I assume that a certain amount of radioactive carbon was present “back then,” then my differential equation gives me the implication that I should expect a particular range of measurements tomorrow. But why trust the differential equation ? Because I remember that the tool has worked for me so far. We could get into the weeds of memory, which is itself a thorny issue. The memory is “here” as “not perceptually present” but nevertheless perceptually relevant.

Basically I’d just stress the “as-if” glasses that are used to explain the articulation of the umwelt. As Hume saw, we can’t prove causation. Really I’m tempted ( as perhaps you are ) to reduce causation to expectation. I like QBism. QM is advice for gamblers. Primates in this world are gamblers whether they want to be or not.

To me this is a positivistic empirical point. I would rather err on the side of caution. How can I cash out claims about an unwitnessed past ? Presumably that past “is real” in the sense of presently available empirical objects that contribute to my rational expectation of how things are likely to change.

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In which one, exactly?

If this is how you see things and believe is is the truth, then okay.

Ah okay. So, are you saying that, to you, when something becomes a fact or is a factual truth, then to you this means that it is still and always will forevermore remain just ‘a theory’?

If yes, then now I know where the confusion or misunderstanding lied.

Are you here saying that if you do not know some thing, for sure, then ‘that thing’ is just ‘a theory’, only, to you only, to some, or to everyone?

So, if, to you, ‘facts’ are true statements as well as theories, then to you true statements are theories too, correct?

Also, is it ‘your theory’ that ‘facts’ are true statements, ‘a fact’ that is just another ‘theory’, or an irrefutable fact for everyone?

Is ‘your theory’ that ‘facts’ are true statements true knowledge or just what seems to be the case, to you, exactly?

Okay.
What would suffice as proof, for you, exactly?

LOL, LOL, LOL
There can be as many different uses of ‘theory’ as there are people using ‘theory’. Which use of ‘theory’ are ‘you’ referring to, exactly?

By the way, ‘I’ could also claim and write, “I think you don’t understand how other are using “theory” in this thread”, as well, but just saying and writing ‘this’ is not really saying nor meaning much at all really.

Of course they do not. But, then again, they have not really seriously thought about what the word ‘theory’ actually means and refers to, exactly, as well.

And, i used to also use and mean ‘theory’, more or less, in that same very old and outdated version and definition.

Okay, but why did you use the words ‘your belief’ here, exactly?
you appear to have no idea at all what I mean ‘your beliefs’.

Now ‘you’ want to speak about ‘truth’, yet, to you, ‘facts’, which are more aligned with ‘truth’, you claim can be ‘theories’ as well.

To you, does a theory ever end and become something else? Or, does ‘a theory’ to you remain ‘a theory’ forevermore even if every word in ‘the theory’ has been proved and demonstrated to be an irrefutable fact?

Obviously being ‘a candidate for truth’ implies that ‘that candidate’ is , ultimately, still just ‘a guess’.

Look, adding the words ‘scientific’ or ‘philosophical’ before the ‘theory’ word does not take away the fact that A ‘theory’ will always be just ‘a theory’, which will always be a not yet proved irrefutable fact, or essentially, by another name, a ‘guess’.

you can ‘try’ your hardest to make stuff up here, by all means, but you cannot hide the Truth.

Exactly like there are reasons WHY we offer a guess, as well. But, none of this matters at all here. ‘Causality’, itself, is NOT a physical thing. ‘Causality’ is a word used that has a definition of ‘cause and effect’ or a ‘causal link’, which, and has already been proved, goes on eternally, temporally.

Now, contrary to popular belief here, ‘this’ is NOT ‘a theory’. As ‘this’ is an already proved irrefutable Fact.

BUT, I have NOT said, “I think this is the truth according to facts and logic” AT ALL.

If ‘I’ were ‘you’ ‘I’ would start wondering WHY ‘I’ am “hearing” and “seeing” what has NEVER even been presented here.

As, again, can be proved True by the ‘very words’ that I have expressed and presented here.

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Does Tegmark truly define Level I in terms of the visible universe? I read a paper some years ago (I don’t recall the author) who suggested that there could be multiple independent universes, separated in the same 3-dimensional space, but sufficiently distant that (due to speed of light limitations) there is no causal connection. That sounded like a reasonable possibility, whereas defining it in terms of the visible universe is problematic because it’s anthropocentric, and ignores the fact that the visible universe is causally connected to galaxies beyond what is visible from earth - so there’s still indirect causal connection.

The scientific issue with “fine-tuning” is that our models of the universe (i.e. applying known physics) depend on a set of constants, and this is suggestive that they some explanation is needed - something to account for them being what they are. This implicitly applies the Principle of Sufficient Reason. It is a proper field of research, but it remains to be seen if there is deeper physics involved, and even if there is - the deeper physics may very well have its own inescapable constants. From a purely metaphysical perspective, I believe it is an inescapable fact that the ultimate ontological ground of the universe is brute fact. I reject the Lewisian notion of possible-world realism - that all logical possibilities are realized.

So although it’s an appropriate avenue of research, we don’t “need” a multiverse. If some falsifiable theory happens to entail multiverse, then we’d have a good reason to believe it. But “fine tuning” alone is not a sufficient reason to believe it. I’m not alone in this. I’m aware that Sabine Hossenfelder agrees, and so do other theoretical physicists and philosophers.

MWI does indeed entail a multiverse, but (in its basic form) it does not entail differing constants in different universes. Same with any other form of multiverse. I know that hypotheses have been proposed that include treating the constants as variables. But can these hypotheses make testable predictions that could add support? Unless they do, and unless the testable predictions are confirmed, then we’re just dealing with philosophical speculations. And as I said, I think a brute fact basis is inescapable.

Do you believe all logically possible world are (in some sense) real, or actualized?

I have no problem accepting any of these possibilities, but IMO, possibility alone does not justify belief. To clarify, I’ll add that “not believing X” does not entail “believing ~X”. I simply prefer to limit what I believe to that which rises above mere possibility - justification is needed for me to take something seriously. Mere possibility has no practical significance to me. Consideration of possibilities that have some epistemological support are a better use of my time and diminishing brainpower.

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Yes. More or less.

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Right. All that is the same concept.
Visible universe is defined as all material that can every have had a causal effect on us here on Earth today. It’s current radius is about 48 GLY. Light cannot have traveled from that most distant place since the universe wasn’t transparent at first.

Contrast this with ‘everything in our past light cone’, a much smaller chunk of universe of current proper radius 6 GLY. That means that of all the light that comes to us today from anywhere, none of that light can have ever been more than 6 GLY away else it would not have got here yet (or if ever).

Example: The galaxy GN-Z11 was a record holder for distance for quite a while until Webb blew away all the old records. That galaxy is ‘currently’ about 32 GLY away. We can see it because it’s within the visible universe. But the light we see from it was emitted when the universe was super young and GN-z11 was a proper distance of only about 2 GLY away, well within the 6 GLY limit to light that gets to us. Being so far away today, light emitted ‘now’ will never get to Earth ever.

I’m putting ‘currently’ and ‘now’ in scare quotes since it refers to ‘the same local cosmological time as is measured by Earth’, since relativity of simultaneity allows alternate interpretations of when that might be.

As for your comment about these universe being independent, they’re not. They overlap. Sure, the distant ones can’t effect us, but the might effect something that we also effect, so they’re not independent in that sense. It’s why Green calls it the ‘quilted’ multiverse since all these spherical patches overlap and interact.

It’s anthropocentric only if you declare the stuff in our visible universe to exist and the rest not.

Indirect yes, but what those (just outside) distant places do to galaxies halfway between cannot have any effect on Earth. No relay communication for instance. For instance, Bob lives in a galaxy currently 25 GLY away, but prior to that age. He takes a picture of galaxy C that is ‘currently’ 50 GLY from us, but much closer to Bob since he lives when the universe was younger. As soon as C appears to Bob, he takes a picture of it, and paints that on his barn. We cannot see that barn. Bob must be outside our light cone, else we could also see galaxy C directly.

Sounds like you amenable to ‘it going on forever’ so to speak, and like most of us (but not Tegmark and Greene), that isn’t really considered a multiverse. The concept of a visible universe presumes locality, meaning something further away cannot have an effect on us. No superluminal cause/effect. But presuming that also denies scientific realism (or principle of counterfactual definiteness), meaning that while the universe might go beyond that radius, it has no particular state at all relative to us. That’s is unintuitive, but actually proven: The universe is not locally real. It can be one or the other, but not both.

OK. Nuff of that. Concerning level II and fine tuning:

OK, so you don’t like the explanation and await one more to your tastes. It seems to be the only one that plausibly predicts the fine tuning we observe, and I consider that to be a falsification test.

I disagree with the bolded part, while oddly agreeing with the rejection of ‘possible-world realism’. I reject any kind of non-relational realism, and that solves so many problems.

I find it interesting that Hossenfelder finds the tuning problem sufficiently undefined. I agree that an exact calculation of the (im)probability would require formal constraints over possible values of constants, which isn’t going to happen, but then again, name a value that isn’t ‘in range’. I mean, take the number of spatial dimensions. 5.6 isn’t plausible. It seems a non-negative integer is required, but 14 works just fine.

Anyway, I disagree with Sabine in that the lack of formal range parameters renders the problem completely meaningless. It only renders it imprecise. I also don’t see an alternative explanation, only a denial of there being a problem.

Just so. A level III multiverse is a bunch of worlds all with the same ‘constants’. It’s only explanatory power is in its simplicity, sort of leveraging Occam’s razor.

I find ‘actualized’ to be essentially meaningless, since world X not actualized is not empirically different in any way than the exact same world actualized. I said I wasn’t a realist, and yes, kind of for that reason. I think I can answer ‘no’ to your question, given the way it is worded, but that would also render meaningless any assertion that this world is ‘actualized’.

So in short, possible worlds share identical ontology, and it really doesn’t matter to me what that ontology is. What matters to me is relations. How does X relate to Y. A 70 light year distant star relates to me no more than does a world with 3 dimensions of time. They cannot have an effect on me, so the relation isn’t with me, but each might relate to things ‘nearby’ them.

Good words, often forgotten by those describing atheists. As for my ‘beliefs’, I don’t think I have many since placing a stake in a belief also closes a door to alternatives. I prefer keeping an open mind and just discussing possibilities. I lay no claim whatsoever to knowing the answers.

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How does a person discern between the same 3-dimensional space of one so-called “independent universe” from the exact same 3-dimensional space of another so-called “independent universe”, exactly?

‘Light’ is not the only thing that forms causal connection. ‘Speed’ and ‘direction’ also do.

Just because human beings cannot see some things with their eyes does not mean that there is no actual direct causal connection in this One and only Universe.
The only reason the “multiverse” was suggested is that they want to keep believing that the phrase, “In the beginning”, is an actual Fact.

People for millennia have believed there was a beginning to everything, all at once, and some people do not want to let go of this belief or just refuse to let go of this belief.

Although there is NO proof for this belief, some people refuse to ‘look at’ and ‘see’ things in any other way here.

And, when the explanations are provided, or suggested, some people refuse to ‘look at’ them because they want to believe that the Universe began and is expanding. For ‘the reasons’ of WHY they want to keep believing this Falsehood is true.

WHY the models are Wrong, Inaccurate, and Incorrect, and WHAT is Wrong, Inaccurate, and Incorrect within them, is already known, but some people want to insist that because ‘those models’ are claimed to be “the best current models”, ‘those people’ will only ‘look at’ and ‘listen to’ those outdated models only.

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To you maybe. To others, ‘visible universe’ is the part of the Universe that can be visibly seen, usually by human beings. And, obviously, the size of the ‘visible universe’ “grows in size” as the ability to see further afield increases with improved visible devices continually being invented and created.

Again, the presumption or the belief that the Universe began persists, and hinders ‘these people’.

See how ‘these people’s’ ability to ‘look at’ and ‘see’ things is prevented and blocked by their ‘current’ beliefs and presumptions.

Still ‘they guess’, although the facts and proof are HERE for ALL to ‘look at’, recognise, and ‘see’.