Q&A: Causality
Causality
Question
Hi. How can one explain that causality can exist when there was no time, before the Big Bang?
Why is this necessary—why is there any need for it at all? If causality depends on time, and time began at a certain point, then “before,” when there was no time, there is no need for causality. In short: why causality at the beginning of time?
Thank you very much. Jonathan.
Answer
In my view, causality is not dependent on time. Once there is time, it takes part in the description of causality. But in circumstances where there is no time axis, causality still continues to exist. This is an assumption of reason. In other words: for the coming-into-being of the time axis itself, I too would look for a cause or a rationale.
You should remember that we do not manage to imagine a world without a time axis. So causality is no different from that—that is, we also do not manage to imagine it without time. But that does not mean that time is an essential part of it. Think: could there be a father and son in a world without time? After all, the son is always born after the father. The answer is that in principle this is possible, except that in such a world we would not say that the father was born before his son.
All this is assuming that there is a reality without time. I am very doubtful about that.
Discussion on Answer
A father precedes a son when there is a time axis. If there is no time axis, the relation between father and son would probably be described differently (causal but not temporal). Or perhaps in your view a father and son could not exist when there is no time axis? You understand that this is not reasonable. Think about it according to your approach: creation preceded the world and time. So how could creation exist (the creation of the time axis)? Therefore, either there was always a time axis, or we simply have no way to imagine something that happened when there was no time axis, and there is no point talking about it.
I have no idea whether the Holy One, blessed be He, acted in a state without time, since I do not know whether time was created at some stage or had always existed. This is also not entirely well-defined, since at least according to Kant the time axis is only our form of describing reality and not something actually real.
Hi, have a good week. No, I don’t understand what is unreasonable. If there is no time, how can there be a father and son? A father necessarily comes before the son. I’d appreciate some clarification.
What does “causal but not temporal” mean?
I’d be happy for some clarification regarding the last part—if the father necessarily precedes the son, then how is this “possible in principle”?
Why are you doubtful? The Holy One, blessed be He, exists in some kind of reality without time (“before” the Big Bang, if such a thing exists), unless you want to argue that time also existed then, just different from the kind we know, or other such pilpul-type distinctions.