I asked בעקבות the debate—I understood that your main claim is that since in the world there is no complex reality that comes about on its own, therefore the world and the laws of physics must have a designer (and he argued that the reality we know is something-from-something and not something-from-nothing).
Did I misunderstand?
Can’t anything be proven from our familiarity with the world?

And I answered him several times that we do not learn this from the world, but from logic.

Do you mean that this is a basic assumption we have regarding everything we know (that is, everything found in consciousness)?

No. It is logic, unrelated to consciousness.

I didn’t understand. Is the principle of causality learned from logic? How can that be learned from logic?
Seemingly, Hume’s whole punchline is that this is a basic assumption that is not learned from the world.

What is consciousness if not something from the world? Whatever is not learned from consciousness belongs to logic. In my opinion, intuition is a kind of observation, but in the world of ideas.

He doesn’t understand anything about logic. I also understand very little (better to say I haven’t practiced it enough), but it’s embarrassing to go up to a debate and claim that logic is a human development meant to understand reality. That’s why causality also counts for him as a weak tool. In any case, I enjoyed it; it’s always good to review the basics.

I thought we stop the chain of causality at the Holy One, blessed be He, because He is beyond consciousness (or else you could stop at any other stage that is beyond consciousness), and then our intuitions can no longer be applied to Him. According to what you’re saying, in principle we should also apply the principle of causality to Him, because the principle of causality has nothing to do with what is found in consciousness. Did I understand correctly?

As I understand it, the principle of causality is indeed found in consciousness, but this is not sensory-empirical consciousness; rather, intuitive consciousness. That consciousness applies both to the everyday objects studied by science and to the abstract, meta-scientific realm. What Aviv proposed was to accept that the principle of causality is a priori, that is, necessary, but to stop trying to apply it to what lies beyond everyday objects. To me that seems like an arbitrary step. If you have decided that there is some necessary principle here within the human spirit, why do you decide that it does not operate on objects “of a different kind”?

I think Franco agrees that if a=b and a=c, then necessarily and certainly b=c.

In my humble opinion, what he meant is that we use logic as a tool to show things that are a bit less obvious (to most people), like the matter of the Holy One, blessed be He, or to show that from a logical standpoint “the judicial reform is correct (or incorrect).”
Here, logic really is a human development, with no necessity or certainty to it.

Dror

But in the end, you do that too.

That is, you too decide that it does not operate on objects “of a different kind.”

Me? Exactly the opposite! The causal relation is, in my view, an a priori and perhaps even “logical” condition. Therefore we must apply it also to abstract entities and to their relation to the world.

But you stop once it gets to God, who is an object of a different kind.

He certainly is an object of a different kind. What does that have to do with it? The discussion is about the relation itself—the causal relation—between that object, admittedly an “exceptional” object by all accounts, and the created world. And here the relation is, in principle, broadly speaking, the same relation I find between fire and smoke, between a father and his son, between an idea and its realization, etc. etc. This is the relation of causal connection. And this relation has the status of a necessary a priori, so it cannot be escaped.

With regard to that object, you do not assume causality.

Dear Yishai, why are you attributing to me a position opposite to what I said? I do (!!!) attribute to that object a “causal” effect on the world. He created the world and is therefore its cause. Very simple. You can disagree with me, but why make a straw man? I keep explaining that, in my understanding (in this matter I am like Kant), the category of causality is forced upon us, and therefore we cannot think of a world that came into being from nothing—as people commonly think in the accepted physical model—without assuming that it has a cause. That cause is “God.” Now we can begin philosophizing about what that is. We’re not there yet.

I’ll explain what I mean. Someone else here on the site basically asked Rabbi Michi this.
What you’re saying is, first of all, that even regarding an object of another kind you assume the principle of causality, so that every entity has a cause. Then you say that because the chain has to stop somewhere, we stop it at God, and that entity will have no cause. What’s the rationale for stopping specifically at God? Because He is outside your understanding, and therefore your intuitions are not valid regarding Him. And so we’ve returned right back to the beginning. The laws, too, are not physical and tangible things, so why shouldn’t they themselves be the cause? Just as you do with God, do the same with them, by the very same reasoning.

So you’re basically claiming that my use of the category of causal connection is inconsistent, because I stopped arbitrarily at God rather than at whatever stands behind Him, and then what stands behind that, and so on to infinity. Fine—Michi himself already answered that in the debate: infinite regress is a logical problem because it actually empties the claim of all content. Therefore one must stop at some point. When? When one encounters something actually infinite. Let’s call that infinite thing that requires us to stop “God.”
Buy it?

So what I’m asking now is this: the reason you stop at something infinite is that your intuitions don’t apply to it. Doesn’t that already hold for any object of a different kind? After all, with regard to that too, you don’t know how to relate to it.
That is, by this logic you could already stop at the laws of nature.

I don’t think I understood your question/claim.

Sorry for butting into your discussion (I didn’t really follow it closely afterward). In my opinion there are only 3 options:

A) A complex thing like a watch/a living creature (or even a self-replicating watch, if that changes anything) was created by a designer who always existed.
B) A complex thing like a watch/a living creature was created by a designer who was himself created by a designer, and so on.
C) A complex thing like a watch/a living creature created itself.

In my opinion, option A is the most logically plausible and therefore also the correct one. But in no way can one choose option C, because watches/living creatures do not create themselves.

Doron, unlike previous discussions we’ve had, this time I’m more trying to clarify the issue.
I’ll try to ask again. You stop the principle of causality at God because He is beyond your intuition. Why not just stop at the laws of nature? The reason because of which you stop at God could also lead you to stop at the laws of nature, no?

1. As I understand it, God—or at least His representation (in concept or image)—is not beyond our intuition.
2. I understand “causality,” in its most principled and general sense (including mechanical causation and final causation), not merely as a law of nature but as a real metaphysical condition. In the material and non-material world alike (the latter being what lies outside nature), all particular cases of cause-and-effect relations are subject to this condition. For example, smoke as the result of fire, or my raising my hand as the result of my will.
3. Why do I assume such an overall and principled condition? Because there are infinitely many particular cases of cause-and-effect relations, so it is reasonable to assume that they share one common denominator that makes them possible. That is, something more basic. What you are suggesting is that I should not look for it, but rather stop at that collection of particular cases without providing it with an explanation (a foundation or enabling condition). To me that seems unreasonable. The philosophical move strives to identify the final point beyond which there is nothing. That point is absolute, and therefore I call it God.

So stop at the laws of nature.

Then you’ve stopped at an arbitrary place: a multiplicity of particular cases without something that binds them together and generates them. They will not generate themselves. Only an infinite factor can do that, and you refuse to bring it into your picture.

Yishai, let me sharpen the point. The laws of nature do not create the laws in nature; they describe them. That is, you have a set of phenomena, and in order to explain them you define laws of nature. The laws of nature did not create the way the world operates; they only explain that mode of operation.
You can claim that the laws of nature created the way the world operates, but then again the question will be: okay, and who created the laws of nature? And if you say that the laws of nature created themselves, then in fact you’ve once again arrived at a primary cause that created everything. Call it the laws of nature or call it God—it really makes no difference.