Does the universe have a cause?

ZenMode said:
We live in a universe of causes. How can something come into existence without something causing its existence?
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Quantum virtual particles are constantly popping into and out of existence all around us, and they can't be associated with a specific cause.

Nobody really knows what causes the collapse of a quantum state of superposition, though some claim it is the act of observation itself that causes the collapse.

No one can explain what causes mass to deform spacetime.

Our intuition was trained by Newton, Galileo, even Aristotle to believe we must associate a cause with an effect. But in some real sense, that intuition was overturned by 20th century physics.

Cause and effect might not be a fundamental property of the universe. It might be a secondary or emergent property of time, space, and mechanical law.
 
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Cypress said:
Quantum virtual particles are constantly popping into and out of existence all around us, and they can't be associated with a specific cause.

Nobody really knows what causes the collapse of a quantum state of superposition, though some claim it is the act of observation itself that causes the collapse.

No one can explain what caused the curvature of spacetime.

Our intuition was trained by Newton, Galileo, even Aristotle to believe we must associate a cause with an effect. But in some real sense, that intuition was overturned by 20th century physics.

Cause and effect might not be a fundamental property of the universe. It might even a secondary or emergent property of time, space, and mechanical law.
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Aristotle did not say the universe was caused.
 
Cypress said:
Quantum virtual particles are constantly popping into and out of existence all around us, and they can't be associated with a specific cause.

Nobody really knows what causes the collapse of a quantum state of superposition, though some claim it is the act of observation itself that causes the collapse.

No one can explain what caused the curvature of spacetime.

Our intuition was trained by Newton, Galileo, even Aristotle to believe we must associate a cause with an effect. But in some real sense, that intuition was overturned by 20th century physics.

Cause and effect might not be a fundamental property of the universe. It might be a secondary or emergent property of time, space, and mechanical law.
Click to expand...

Our (man's) inability to explain xxxx shouldn't be confused with the fundamental truth that all things have a cause.
 
ZenMode said:
Our (man's) inability to explain xxxx shouldn't be confused with the fundamental truth that all things have a cause.
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Quantum mechanics demostrated our belief in cause and effect was dubious in certain ways.

Asserting that virtual particles have a cause is nothing more than a guess.
 
We know the universe exists.
We do not ask for proofs that it exists.

But if you say the universe cannot exist without a cause, you should give that argument.
 
BidenPresident said:
We know the universe exists.
We do not ask for proofs that it exists.

But if you say the universe cannot exist without a cause, you should give that argument.
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We don't necessarily have to call it a mechanistic cause. But I would like to know the reason Big Bang happened

We don't literally know what causes virtual particles
ontologically-speaking, but we know they are allowed to blink in and out of existence by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
 
Cypress said:
We don't necessarily have to call it a mechanistic cause. But I would like to know the reason Big Bang happened

We don't literally know what causes virtual particles
ontologically-speaking, but we know they are allowed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
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What caused the Big Bang? What caused that?
I think the universe is a constant state of evolution with no beginning.
 
BidenPresident said:
What caused the Big Bang? What caused that?
I think the universe is a constant state of evolution with no beginning.
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To understand events, is ultimately to understand the reason behind it.

Reasons are not 'causes' by another name.

Causal connections are revealed in scientific and mechanistic laws. But the reason behind the laws are not understood by science, because reality is not empirical. It is rational.

A complete understanding of the physics of light and the electrochemistry of optical nerve impulses tells us nothing about what we actually see; or how we percieve aesthetic beauty.
 
BidenPresident said:
Something that always existed; no before.
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We know that our universe is expanding, which means that it was smaller at one point than it is now. If you go back long enough, it seems you would get to a point where the universe, as it gets smaller and smaller, would reach a point of non-existence. That's not a fact of course.

If you look around the universe, at the smallest and largest levels, you see causes and effects. It seems more reasonable than not to assume that everything has a cause and that nothing just "was" for all time.
 
ZenMode said:
We know that our universe is expanding, which means that it was smaller at one point than it is now. If you go back long enough, it seems you would get to a point where the universe, as it gets smaller and smaller, would reach a point of non-existence. That's not a fact of course.

If you look around the universe, at the smallest and largest levels, you see causes and effects. It seems more reasonable than not to assume that everything has a cause and that nothing just "was" for all time.
Click to expand...

Nothing in science states that matter is created.
 
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