The concept of a “first cause” contains an internal contradiction as a concept: if the one conceptualizing the concept grasps what a first cause is, then the concept “first cause” is part of the rest of the things that the conceptualizer can conceptualize. Meaning, the cause is no longer primary, and it turns out that the conceptualizer has invented for himself a sentence devoid of any meaning.
So why do such a thing? Simple: just as there are charlatans who talk about heaven and hell as though they were the HR managers there, so too the one who conceptualizes this concept is a charlatan deceiving himself and others, as though he precedes the first cause that he grasps. In other words, nothing is too much for him.

And let us say amen!

What do you think about the claim that in order for the effects of the cause to possess free choice, it is reasonable to assume that the first mover also has free choice?
In any case, once you ask anew about the mechanical structure of the first cause, you certainly need the principle of sufficient reason, as you mentioned in the notebook. But you spoke less there about where it comes from. What is the sufficient reason to assume that the principle of sufficient reason is sufficiently correct?

I don’t know how to answer that. We also have legs, although He doesn’t. I’m not sure how convincing that argument is.

Agreed, but He is defined as omnipotent, so it’s a bit different.
Anyway, what is the sufficient reason for accepting the principle of sufficient reason that you mentioned??

The principle of sufficient reason.

Peshita,

A. “First cause” is not an internal property in God but an action-description (a causal relation between Him and things in creation).

B. The concept “first cause” is not the first cause itself, but rather that by means of which one grasps it (or the real relation that exists between it and its creations). The first cause itself is outside perception, whereas the concept by means of which it is perceived is in the perceiving person.

OU,

Perhaps here you’ve run into Aristotle’s regress problem. If every claim requires justification, then the number of claims requiring justification will never end, and we will never know anything. So it may be that the principle of sufficient reason is one of those claims that are obvious, intelligible, or self-evident, such that any attempt to justify them will be futile—because it would rely on axioms with a lower level of certainty. Contemporary epistemologists call the theory according to which our structure of knowledge is built from axioms that themselves require no explanation Foundationalism.

Still, there are philosophers who have supplied arguments for the principle of sufficient reason. It may be possible to see it as an inference to the best explanation. We see that for every contingent matter in the universe, in the end an explanation is found. So the question is whether this happens every time by chance, or whether the best explanation of the phenomenon is that we are dealing with a general metaphysical principle. A contemporary Catholic philosopher named Alexander Pruss presented a long series of absurdities that would follow for anyone who refuses to admit it.

Copenhagen, do you have a link to Pruss’s remarks?

There are a few here, starting from 2.2 (Why should we believe the PSR?) until at least 2.2.5 (and beyond).

http://alexanderpruss.com/papers/LCA.html

Back when I had access to ebooks, I read more about it in his book
The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment

and in another article or two in journals that I don’t remember at the moment.

Thanks

Copenhagen, welcome back—and answering, too.
A. And what of it? If you grasp the concept of the causal relation between God and the world, that means you are like God. Because only God can grasp His relation to the world.
B. A first cause is a thoroughly human concept; every child can understand it. Therefore it lies within the rest of ordinary human perceptions. There is nothing special about it. Many human concepts lose their meaning when one comes to apply them to reality.

P.S.
The principle of sufficient reason is a principle that caused human beings to remain stuck in primitive conceptions for thousands of years. Hasn’t that been enough already?

Copenhagen, thank you very much. What do you think about the local authority’s remarks, linking our beliefs to a cognitive brain-consciousness sense? It sounds like you’re able to avoid that by means of an approach of basic primary beliefs that cannot and need not be grounded further—but then the question arises whether there is any connection between them and truth external to us, which does not seem reasonable.
B. What do you think about replacing the principle of sufficient reason with the principle of causality (since many times in everyday life there is no difference between the two, and that is enough for us)? In particular, that we apply the principle of causality only to physical things around us. These two assumptions sound very reasonable—even more so than the principle of sufficient reason—and combining them knocks down Rabbi Michi’s proofs for God as deism/theism, as I showed here.

Peshita,

A. Maimonides dealt with this question in the Guide for the Perplexed in his discussions of the legitimacy of action-attributes (for example, chapter 46 in part 1). In short, establishing the existence of a thing is not the same as clarifying its essence and substance. When we speak about the dependence of things in the world on God, we are not committing ourselves to say anything about God’s essence, but only judging that there exists a relation between the existence of the dependent thing and the thing on which it depends. Similarly, when you say that the force of gravity exerted by the sun on the earth causes it centrifugal acceleration, you are not committing yourself to say anything about the nature of the sun. It may be that you know nothing at all about the essence of the sun beyond the fact that the earth’s rotational motion depends on it.

B. I didn’t understand the argument. Even the sentence you raised—”Many human concepts lose their meaning when one comes to apply them to reality”—is itself a fully human sentence, and has nothing special about it, and if our concepts lose their meaning when one comes to apply them to reality, then so does this sentence.

P.S. On the contrary. The principle is the basis for the motivation that drives all science.

OU,

You’re welcome. I haven’t happened to see the local authority’s connection to a cognitive brain sense and what exactly he means by it, so it’s not clear to me what I’m supposedly “managing” to avoid. In my humble opinion, when one speaks about epistemology (and regardless of the principle of sufficient reason or the cosmological argument), it seems one must claim that there are basic beliefs that do not rest on other beliefs and do not require such support. Otherwise we arrive at a kind of coherentism (or infinite regress), and coherentism is not coherent with the concept of truth.

B. My inclination is indeed to think that the principle of causality is the ontological basis for the various formulations of the principle of sufficient reason. Traditionally, the principle of sufficient reason attributed to Leibniz deals only with contingent propositions that require an explanation (and not with concrete objects with contingent characteristics that require a cause), but it seems to me that for us ontology precedes logic (except in God, who is identical with His thought, where there is identity), and for that reason we believe in the various formulations of the principle of sufficient reason only because we have a prior and more basic belief in the principle of causality. But the principle of causality is not limited to physical objects, and it is not justified to limit it that way ad hoc just to avoid the conclusion of the cosmological argument. For example, when we speak about non-physical free choice, we ask what the cause is of choosing A rather than B, and we expect, as a self-evident assumption, that there be a cause for that (the reasons or motivations to choose A together with the chooser’s ability to choose that way).

In addition, I would refer you to the link I attached above in response to the question of the “local authority,” in order to get another perspective on the problematic nature of limiting the principle to physical objects.

A. The cognitive sense, from the school of our masters, the lord of the site, may he live long, is one of his greater innovations in epistemology, and to the best of my knowledge he wrote several books about it. This sense manages to connect empirical claims with inductive/scientific claims. For example, when we conduct an experiment on Newton’s second law and collect the experimental data into the number of points on the graph, we “perceive” the general law of nature through them in order to perform extrapolation, and so on.
And therefore I ask: how are these beliefs that speak about the external world actually correct? Fine, you may say that the assumption that what we think or see really exists in external reality is a basic belief—but why assume, for example, that Occam’s razor is a basic belief, or the belief in sufficient reason, that every object in the world requires sufficient reason? I think the very formation of that belief within us requires a factor that links the external world to us.

B. I didn’t completely understand your remarks in the expression “ontological basis” or the later expression “for us ontology precedes logic.” I assume you meant that this speaks only about entities, and not just about every contingent proposition like Leibniz.

Your later claim that the principle of causality is most basic and not only for physical objects, such as free choice, is not clear to me, because free choice is not a causal process but rather has a purposive rationale. But I assume you meant to argue that, from your perspective, the principle of causality is identical to the principle of sufficient reason.

Also, I would be glad to hear what you think about the wild randomness prevailing in quantum mechanics, which shatters the floor under the argument through the production of particles without a cause, and through the behavior of bodies.

Thank you very much; I’d be happy to read it.

OU,

You ask: “How are these beliefs that speak about the external world actually correct?” But similarly one could ask how mathematics and the laws of logic are as they are. They do not merely govern the actual external world, but are necessarily valid and valid in every possible world. How is our cognition capable of knowing such things?
Just as one can grasp the truth of those, there is in principle no reason why one could not grasp propositions dealing with metaphysical necessity (the principle of causality / sufficient reason).

As for a linking factor, the proper functioning of the human cognitive system is something created by such linking factors between it and external reality. Basic beliefs too are formed because of the activity, past and present, of such linking factors, and not only derived beliefs.

B. Correct. The intention was not to deny the validity of one formulation or another of the principle of sufficient reason Leibniz-style, but only to argue that what is prior in our belief-system is the apprehension of a principle of causality that characterizes objects in reality.

The fact that the principle is not limited to physical objects does not rest only on the example of free choice, but on any state of affairs one can imagine. If the principle of causality is not valid outside physical objects, then outside the spacetime existence of our universe after the Big Bang there is nothing preventing infinitely many universes from being generated from nothing, and then we would get paradoxes like Boltzmann’s brain (if you’ve heard of it). The simple fact that we do not naturally imagine situations of this kind (but only retroactively in order to avoid the conclusion of the cosmological argument or the fine-tuning of the universe and the like) indicates that human thought has real difficulty denying the universality of the principle of causality.

Free choice does not operate in a vacuum. Free choice of X cannot occur unless the chooser is the kind of being such that a certain way in which X is perceived in his mind is capable of moving him to act; and from the fact that we ask why a given person chose X and expect an answer in terms of human motivation for action, one can see that we apply the principle of causality even when speaking about free choice.

Sometimes physicists use somewhat misleading imagery to illustrate certain oddities that exist in the physical world, but there is no such thing as the creation of particles from nothing without a cause. Quantum mechanics speaks at most about particles arising from the energy of the quantum vacuum (and energy is not “nothing”), but not from absolute nothingness.

Indeterminism does not touch the principle of causality. Human free choice too is not deterministic. The fact that a person could have chosen Y instead of X does not undermine the fact that there is a cause for X having been chosen. Similarly, the fact that the same quantum system could have produced a different result does not undermine the fact that there is a cause for the specific result that emerged—and that is the quantum system in question, which by its nature is capable of bringing about that result.

C-Copenhagen, although I’m no longer following, a comment on the last paragraph of your remarks. Indeterminism certainly does touch the principle of causality. In a quantum state in which there is collapse into one state out of several possible ones, the assumption is that there is no cause that brought that about. If there were a cause, there would be no other possibilities. True, at a deeper level one can view the quantum structure of the universe itself as a kind of cause, but that is not a cause of the specific result, only of the quantum mechanism itself that selects one outcome out of several possibilities.

C-Copenhagen, thank you very much,
A. Why do you think mathematics is necessarily valid and valid in every possible world? Can’t one imagine a world where, when you place one match next to another, a “demon” adds a third match for you? Then in that world one would say that 1+1=3, and that too would be a logical necessity in all worlds….
By contrast, it is understandable to assume that the laws of logic are valid in every world one can think of, because for it, that which is a logical contradiction has no meaning and is simply undefined. But no more than that…
And therefore I don’t think one needs to accept the claim that was raised, that we are able to grasp things in all worlds.
In any case, it sounds as though the linking factor, from your perspective, is not the rational proof of the local authority. So if you are speaking of a linking factor of the God sort, then by virtue of His very definition as all-knowing, your words make sense.
But if you meant a natural linking factor—evolutionary style—then even if evolution has the power to create, to a certain degree, our understanding of external reality, there is no way it could provide us with information regarding various metaphysical assumptions, when all it does is operate as a derivative of the laws of nature.

B. Thank you very much; the Rabbi’s words below completed the question, and I’ll focus on the part where you raised the skeptical question that your friend Alexander Pruss often raises regarding the creation of things from nothing—but to me this feels astonishing. After all, someone who does not accept the principle of causality does not thereby necessarily accept creation something-from-nothing; rather, on the contrary, he may claim that the world is simply eternal. I believe you would argue that one can imagine some factor outside space causing changes in our spacetime that would appear to us like creation something-from-nothing. But in truth this would not be actual creation something-from-nothing.
In any case, I agree with the skeptical claims you raise. But it sounds too dangerous to me, and even incorrect, because I’m not sure that after you raise those claims you aren’t sawing off the branch you’re sitting on.
Don’t you think these are questions that are too difficult? If according to the one who denies the principle of sufficient reason we lose our hands and feet in our ability to think anything about the world around us, it’s not certain that someone who accepts the principle of sufficient reason would be free of all that either. For in the end, perhaps we are in one of those possible worlds that your group likes to bring up against deniers of sufficient reason, but we are simply unaware of it because it is the nature of our present world that we not be aware of our errors. And to that add the difficulty that there is perhaps only one straight and proper world, but endlessly many distorted worlds…

Rabbi,

Isn’t it agreed that the quantum system caused the result? Without it there would have been no collapse at all.

The fact that there were other possibilities does not imply that there was no cause. The fact that an event was caused indeterministically does not mean that it was not caused. It was caused, just not in such a way that the cause necessitated the result.

Granted, on the face of it this may seem to create a problem for the principle of sufficient reason, but not for the principle of causality. For the principle of causality requires only a cause that is capable by its nature of bringing about the contingent result (and such a cause indeed exists: the quantum system is defined in such a way that it is capable of bringing about several possible states).

However, in my assessment there is also no problem for the principle of sufficient reason. Every contingent proposition (except perhaps certain borderline propositions) has an explanation. The proposition that the quantum system caused one state and not other states has an explanation in terms of the capacities embedded in the system’s nature. What has no explanation is the question why it “caused the one state rather than the other states.” But it seems that the “rather than” sentence does not constitute a proposition about reality.

That is of course a matter of definition. You can say that the result 5 in a die roll has a cause: the very fact that the die was rolled and that it is fair.
But that is not a cause in the sense of “sufficiency,” and analytic philosophers have already pointed out that a cause must be a sufficient condition for the effect (and according to some: necessary and sufficient). A necessary condition that is not sufficient cannot be considered a cause (unless, for the sake of the discussion, you adopt a different definition of causality from the accepted one).
[Of course, I am assuming only for the sake of the example that the outcome of the die is random—which is not really true.]

OU,

The demon who places an additional match is not an example of 1+1, but of 1+1+1. The fact that an impossible world is not defined amounts to the same thing as the claim that there is no such world (there is no such thing as a “world” that does not meet the definition of “world”); that is, the laws of logic apply in all possible worlds, and we certainly do grasp this simple fact. I did not commit myself as to who or what the linking factor is (a long discussion in itself), but only to the fact that such a linking factor exists.

Rabbi,

It seems to me that the position according to which a cause must be a sufficient condition for the effect is equivalent to the claim that there is no such thing as indeterministic causality (begging the question), and I have no strong reason to think it is true.

Copenhagen, thank you very much
A. I understand your claim that from our standpoint there is no sense to the meaning 1+1=3, but at the very least do you agree that if there were another world in which there were a hidden demon, you would think that one could never understand that 1+1=2?
If so, then this isn’t really a claim about every possible world in the way a contradiction is meaningless, because here there is some sort of meaning. Rather, it is just a human limitation of ours.

What do you think about B?

Copenhagen, exactly so. And since the accepted definition of causality is as I said (a sufficient condition), one cannot declare that indeterminism does not touch causality. Of course, if you define causality differently it can fit with indeterminism, but that too is a tautology.

OU,
You’re welcome.

Not necessarily. In such a world I would think, because of the principle of sufficient reason, that there is some hidden variable (a demon or whatever) that causes an additional match to appear every time (and not that 1+1 equals 3).

In B, are you raising the possibility of denying the principle of causality while at the same time denying creation something-from-nothing (that is, without a creator)? That seems to me problematic from the outset. If the principle of causality is not binding, then why shouldn’t entities simply appear from nothing for no reason at all? After all, we are speaking about a completely irrational universe, and there is nothing in all of being—no object or principle whatsoever—that prevents such things from happening or that makes such events unlikely.

The reason Pruss mentions the possibility that a factor outside spacetime might cause the appearance from nothing of objects is in order to answer the skeptic who tries to reject the principle of causality on the one hand while claiming that the principle should be adopted for events inside spacetime on the other. All these matters require much elaboration, and it will be hard for me to get into them here.

In any case, even an eternal contingent world requires a cause no less than a non-eternal world. If you want, you can see the reasoning for this in a video I released in the past on YouTube with a certain formulation of the cosmological argument, and it can also be shown if we adopt another formulation or formulations (again, the matters require elaboration, which is not the place here. I will try to write about it perhaps in the future).

Rabbi,

That is indeed a common definition among a certain majority in a certain small community (analytic philosophers—if they can even be called a community), though there are quite a few figures for whom it is not: for example, neither Plantinga nor Pruss nor Zagzebski (Linda Zagzebski). And still, it seems that among most human beings who tend to assign some responsibility to a person for his actions, a different definition is explicitly or implicitly assumed. Someone got angry at me because it seemed to him that I cut in line? If he believed I had no libertarian free will, it would be hard for him to justify the anger.

Beyond that, the main point was to say that there is at least prima facie a difference between the statement “A caused B” and “A forced B,” and it would be a surprising innovation if someone managed to present an analysis showing that the first sentence is actually equivalent to the second.

Copenhagen, thanks, but I still didn’t understand.
There is a huge difference between a change that can occur without a cause and the creation of a new thing from nothing! From nothing, no new thing comes out. By contrast, change within what already exists is possible. For example, instead of a body moving to the right, it suddenly moves to the left—that is possible…. We see the same thing in quantum theory.

The point is that Pruss’s remarks strike at his own position too. Because it may really be that there is some such supernatural factor (let’s call it a demon) outside spacetime that really does have some reason behind it, and so on until an initial primary cause, and it causes strange events for us within spacetime—events that occurred because of a very clear cause: the demon.
How exactly does belief in that primary cause—God—solve this??
It may also be that there are infinitely many shindaldim who are necessary beings… so his skepticism strikes at his own position as well.

Okay, thank you very much. As for the other matters, I don’t really have how to respond.