We intuitively believe that everything must have a cause. If that is true, does it mean that causation itelf must have a cause? To be clear, I do NOT mean "does the cause of a cause have a cause?" What I mean is, what led to causation existing in the first place?
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1One option is that the first cause, a.k.a. God, is the cause of itself, causality and the rest, if we follow this line of reasoning, see cosmological argument. Another option is that the principle only applies to physical events, not abstractions like itself, or that it is just false. That everything has a cause is rather something we want to believe, while evidence to the contrary is readily available. It feels discomforting that things can just happen out of the blue, but they do.– ConifoldJun 30, 2020 at 7:21
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2We discussed a similar topic here philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/70930/… TLDR: 'causation' is an explanatory narrative grouping, rather than really existing in the world. It is a useful fiction which the world can contradict at any time.– CriglCraglJun 30, 2020 at 9:30
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1Does this answer your question? Is the idea of a causal chain physical (or even scientific)?– user14511Jun 30, 2020 at 10:03
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Also see Stanford Encyclopedia, "The Metaphysics of Causation".– Brian ZJun 30, 2020 at 11:55
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1Not "everything" must havea cause, only "every event", where an event is a change of an instant state.– tkruseJul 1, 2020 at 3:43
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