Is the principle of cause and effect bound to material?

Question

I am having a hard time finding an answer to my question. The reason I’m asking it is to figure out if cause and effect could have existed before the universe was created. If anyone has insight on this topic please also give your input.

Answer 1

Before the existence of human beings cause and effect did not exist. Because the two are man-made concepts to explain the relation between certain phenomena we observe.

Answer 2

In the abstract, the concept of causality/causation is meager enough that we can ask about causes "outside of material experience," but the twist is that without empirical backup, our attempts to answer such questions will come to naught (or worse). Even if we stay on a more general, esoteric level, we will want to differentiate between at least constitutive and modulative causes (component and efficient causes, to put it in Aristotelian terms): the cause-and-effect relation is self-constitutive, hence self-caused in that sense (trivially, though), but it is not a modulation of something else, so it isn't an effect in that sense.

And again, that is to speak in abstractions and generalizations. Particular, concrete, knowable causes and effects seem confined to intratemporal determination; trying to think through sequences of these functions to an infinite pastwise limit seems to collapse into the oblivion of antinomy:

... suppose that every event in the world happens in accordance with the laws of nature; the causality of a cause must itself be an event and necessitates a regress to a still higher cause, and consequently the unceasing prolongation of the series of conditions a parte priori. Operative nature is therefore too large for every conception we can form in the synthesis of cosmical events.

If we admit the existence of spontaneously produced events, that is, of free agency, we are driven, in our search for sufficient reasons, on an unavoidable law of nature and are compelled to appeal to the empirical law of causality, and we find that any such totality of connection in our synthesis is too small for our necessary empirical conception.

So we are to limit our substantive, nontrivial application of the concept of cause-and-effect to questions within the experience of the spatiotemporally material world:

In our Transcendental Analytic, for example, we inferred the principle, "Every event has a cause," from the only condition of the objective possibility of our conception of an event. This is that an event cannot be determined in time, and consequently cannot form a part of experience, unless it stands under this dynamical law. This is the only possible ground of proof; for our conception of an event possesses objective validity, that is, is a true conception, only because the law of causality determines an object to which it can refer. Other arguments in support of this principle have been attempted—such as that from the contingent nature of a phenomenon; but when this argument is considered, we can discover no criterion of contingency, except the fact of an event—of something happening, that is to say, the existence which is preceded by the non-existence of an object, and thus we fall back on the very thing to be proved.

Answer 3

The cause is always embedded/implanted in the actualization: The principle of cause and effect - although usefull as a tool - is an illusion of how things work. Because of the fact that all things are inter-connected, every effect has as its cause - more or less - everything: so every state (effect) is in such a way that there could be no other way. This means that an actualization is the result of all causes, so the causes are embeded in the actualization, because there can be no other way. My answer then, is that cause and effect are an intellect representation of the unfoldment of reality: it's one single phenomenon perceived as two separate states in time. The causes, the effects and the universe is a unified whole, always.

Answer 4

All phenomena material or non material arise conditionally and conditions themselves are phenomena. All phenomena are compounded (resulting from combination). There are different types of material phenomena for example - earth , water , fire , air , space etc. Associated non-material phenomena are feelings , perceptions, choices ,consciousness etc.

If we take non-material phenomena such as choices , then we can easily see that we make choices conditionally. In this site the choices of liking and disliking a post depends on certain conditions which you may call cause and effect.

So yes , non-material phenomena are also subject to conditionality (cause and effect) but a phenomena can also occur spontaneously(without external cause).

Answer 5

Effect is. Cause isn't.

All effects are physical events, material exchanges of energy.

Most causes are also effects to prior causes. But some causes are not. Decisions made by conscious beings are not material. Decisions are not caused effects, but they are nevertheless the causes for the voluntary actions of the being.

Answer 6

Cause and effect are not things if you look at very small amounts of matter. A single nucleus, for example, consists of protons and neutrons in a potential well. The wave functions for the particles extend out beyond the potential well. At any point in time, it is possible that any of the particles may tunnel out of the potential well, and escape the nucleus. This is not 'caused' by anything as far as we can tell.

Bell's Inequality experiments with tangled photons goes a bit further than this. We could assume that the nucleus may have some 'decay process' going on internally even if we cannot see it. Bell's experiment uses pairs of photons that are 'entangled' - they have the same polarisation, though we do not know what polarisation it is. If one photon passes through a polariser, we can say whether the other photon would pass through a similar polariser. If the photons were created with some internal polarisation, then the experiment would return a very particular correlation depending on the angle between the two polarisers. If the photon only assumed a polarisation when the first photon met a polariser, then it can follow a more general distribution. This second, more general distribution is what we see.

On the microscopic scale, causality is a concept of dubious value. We cannot examine the quantum wave functions themselves, so it is hard to do a direct measurement. When we can do something such as in Bell's experiment, it seems to disprove causality. I would stop short here because it is hard if not impossible to prove a negative, but all the evidence we have points one way. Causality is something we see in heavy, complex objects with enough mass to make the quantum effects too tiny to measure. We can also rope in relativity and say which polariser the photon met first is also dependent on your frame of reference.

The same arguments apply when you refer to the Big Bang. When you get down to the Dirac radius and time, every wave function overlaps with every other one. The time and position of the Big Bang may not be a point but a fuzzy thing. Our extrapolation back to a point is a convenient mathematical thing to do, but it may not be quite right. Asking 'what happened before' may be like asking what is north of the North Pole if you keep on going. Maybe everything becomes so bent around time zero that you start coming back the way you came.

This isn't really a philosophical question. Physics has something interesting and useful to contribute.

Answer 7

If there WAS a Creation, it was preceded by Chaos, in which by definition there was no cause or effect.

If we don't subscribe to that certainty, the only honest answer must be 'we don't know'.

Answer 8

They are bound exclusively to CHANGE. And change can be material but recently also virtual(computer simulation).

Cause and effect or shorter Causality is one of four modes of sufficient Reason which is concept more broader then cause and effect.

When you ask 'Why, what is the Reason behind this?' the answer will depend whether you are dealing with change or not. If you do you will use Causality as an mode of explanation. In this explanation every change that needs to be explained is an effect of some previous change which is considered it's cause and so ad infinitum.

But when you ask

“Why does a triangle with equal angles also have sides of equal length?”

The answer is not of cause/effect relation because there is no change but of reason/consequent. So you can't say "the reason it is that way is because of some previous change".

It’s grounding is not in Causality but in Time&Space.

This ground is called: Reason of Being