Bertrand Russell and the cosmological argument

[LightSpectra]

Hi! Motion doesn't need a cause; newton's first law of motion. As a simple example, gas molecules can bounce against the walls of a container without requiring anything or anyone to get them moving. Causality means that the cause precedes effect, not that all events have causes. There are events which happen which do not have causes, such as radioactive decay or many other quantum mechanical phenomena.

They have causes, just not immediately obvious ones. Perhaps the assigned cause would be, "the nature of of the gas molecules" or "the nature of quantum phenomena."

Confusing physics with metaphysics is a source of a lot of headaches. Physicists would call empty space "nothing," whereas metaphysicists would call it "potential matter." Both definitions are true, and both refer to the same phenomenon, but they refer to different aspects of space.

Even though Aristotelian physics is archaic and nobody adheres to it anymore, the fate of his metaphysics is uncertain. Descartes, Hume and Kant challenged it on the grounds of Cartesian doubt; whereas modern Thomists like Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson argue that no advancements in physics have refuted Thomas Aquinas' writings.

I'll get to your post, Plotinus, sometime within the next week.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Why would one define causality as meaning that nothing can exist without cause? What basis is there for that? Shouldn't it really just be that nochange can occur without a cause? Naturally a universe as dynamic as ours would require a cause to reach its current state, but the traditional notion of God as unchanging excludes the being from requiring any cause.

 

[Fifty]

metaphysicists would call it "potential matter."

The idea that all (or even most) metaphysicians would thusly characterise empty space strikes me as obviously false... but then again maybe I just missed that term in all my metaphysics classes, and metaphysics reading...

Or are you referring to medieval folks and not contemporary analytic metaphysics, or something???? I is confused.

 

[Merkinball]

Hi! Motion doesn't need a cause; newton's first law of motion. As a simple example, gas molecules can bounce against the walls of a container without requiring anything or anyone to get them moving. Causality means that the cause precedes effect, not that all events have causes. There are events which happen which do not have causes, such as radioactive decay or many other quantum mechanical phenomena.

Understandable that Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas wouldn't know this, as they were using, well, Aristotlean physics, but the understanding of the natural universe has improved since then; motion doesn't need a force to be initiated or sustained, and there are phenomena which indeed do not have causes.

Thermal Energy is the causality of molecules being able to bounce of walls of a container. Nothing moves at absolute zero.

 

[civ_king]

Thermal Energy is the causality of molecules being able to bounce of walls of a container. Nothing moves at absolute zero.

absolute zero is the absence of movement right?

 

[Merkinball]

absolute zero is the absence of movement right?

Except for zero point energy, yes. Anyhow, the entire premise is that the motion of particles bouncing off of walls in a container (as Bill described) is a direct relationship of causality from thermal energy. The causality of that motion, and the rate of motion, is directly proportional to the thermal energy that exists within a given control volume. There is an impetus to the motion even though I'm not providing an external force blowing the particles around.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Physicists would call empty space "nothing,"

No, we*'d call it "spacetime", which is definitely not nothing. The fact that the shape of spacetime depends on the energy within it makes it impossible to regard space as "nothing". (*I'm trained in mechanical engineering, not physics, but maybe that's close enough. )

Maybe the universe required only a single infusion of force or motion at the start, and since then it's been able to get on with it without requiring any continuous input, like one of those elaborate executive desk toys from the 1980s. Don't scientific laws about the conservation of energy/mass suggest such a model? The universe has got what it needs to keep running within itself - it doesn't need to be pulled.

The bolded part sounds like a theistic spin on the Big Bang that isn't required by the physics - nor, I'd contend, by any conception of causality that we need to understand our world. The rest is correct: The universe contains a certain amount of energy. Given conservation of energy, it will thus keep "running".