Causation

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
Locked
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

Is causation a conceptual device or a property of nature? I believe it's a conceptual device and is essentially a representation of syntax.

Describing causation is impossible empirically. We can observe change in energy states coinciding with interaction but the assertion that these energy changes are caused by interaction remains problematic. It's easy to point to two objects and imply a causal connection but no matter how precise your knowledge is Causation never reveals itself only change can be empirically verified.

Further complicating the picture is that change of energy takes place with respect to dimensionality which is inherently subjective. Motion through time and space exists only in a limited representation of reality. We see motion because our knowledge is imperfect, change is possible in our mental worlds. The world in itself can't account for change, it can only be viewed from a changing perspective.

Dimensionality is a syntax of being, but it is one of a near infinite number of syntaxes. Outside of observation Being exists in a timeless state, for although time is a syntactic property of Being the whole structure of time exists simultaneously for the non-observer.

Causation is then only possible as a conceptual representation of the interacting syntaxes of being. We are the limiting syntax of our own experience. The barrier of our own knowledge defines us, so what we call causation in the material world is really a statement about ourselves. If I observe what I term a cause and effect chain then the labeling of the event chain as causally connected describes the limited nature of myself and not of being.

Within undifferentiated reality causation is a useless construct. It is only useful in describing the nature of our own manifestation.
User avatar
Diebert van Rhijn
Posts: 6469
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Hi Eric,
Eric Orwoll wrote:Is causation a conceptual device or a property of nature?
But why do you implicitly suggest here that "conceptual devices" would be anything else than some properties of nature?

Within undifferentiated reality causation is a useless construct.
What is undifferentiated "reality" ? Isn't reality always something manifested or believed to have been manifested?

The problem I see here is that you are saying effectively: "within some unspecified, uncaused construct X all other constructions like Y and Z are useless".
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Re: Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

My use of the term nature was ambiguous. When I say nature I refer to the commonly held presupposition of a material universe as opposed to something like Max Tegmark's mathematical universe. Within an informational singularity the phenomenology of mind (which includes concepts) can be described outside of material functionalism. In this way conceptual devices may not be viewed as a property of nature, insofar as nature refers to a material universe.
I don't adhere to materialism, I think a more useful way of describing the world we see is as an isomorphic graphing of underlying mathematics. That's why I refer to dimensionality as a syntactic property of an undifferentiated reality rather than a physical property. Pluralistic manifestation as opposed to an undifferentiated manifestation, is a property of mind; all syntax exists but we perceive only a limited set.

My contention here, however, is with causation being viewed as a property of physical reality.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Dennis Mahar »

My contention here, however, is with causation being viewed as a property of physical reality.
Do you mean?

physical reality is form.
form is causes/conditions (causality),

where there is form there is causality.
where there is no form there is no causality.

for causality to be, form has to be.
form and causality are one and the same.

there is only the play of causality.
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Re: Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

Yes, that is a much more elegant way of putting it- if you substituted physical reality for the perception of physical reality. Specifically, I'm claiming that form and causality (as a conceptual device to describe the relation of form to itself) are properties of mind.

The play of causality is in perception not in a pluralistic manifesting reality.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Are you saying,
in relation to manifesting reality (form).

there is mental activity conceiving of 'the play of causality'.

and there is 'the play of causality' conceived by mental activity.

that the 'play of causality' depends on mental activity.
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Re: Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

I'm saying that both form and the play of causality depend on mental activity.

Without an observer (which is a limited view of reality) reality cannot manifest except as an undifferentiated whole.

All being exists. All time exists.

Causation implies a temporal hierarchy, which is valid but only from the lens of a limited consciousness.

Without a limiting syntax all being is singular.

If someone could prove that causation is a property of a material reality outside of consciousness then it would disprove the singular nature of being.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Dennis Mahar »

It looks like you are saying mental activity is effectively no more and no less than a magician's trick.
Cathy Preston
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:13 am
Location: Canada

Re: Causation

Post by Cathy Preston »

There is no singular nature of being, the nature of all being is emptiness, which enables causality. It's by examining life as it is all around us that we break through the limits of consciousness, if life wasn't based on causation, we'd have no way of figuring out how misleading consciousness is.

Just wanted to add:
Eric wrote:Without an observer (which is a limited view of reality) reality cannot manifest except as an undifferentiated whole.
Reality is all the bits and pieces that you see all around you, including yourself, and it's manifesting as a multitude of forms, the Whole or Universe has no need to be undifferentiated since there is nothing that is not it.
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Re: Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

Dennis Mahar wrote:It looks like you are saying mental activity is effectively no more and no less than a magician's trick.
Mental activity is an inevitable phenomenon and it is through it that time, space and causality can be viewed as anything but aspects of singularity.

Think of a cube, we understand the dimensionality of a cube through a perspective. Now, imagine a cube from outside of any perspective. The only way to do this is to break down the cube into its informational content.

Think of the universe as a cube, we view it from a perspective and see the dimensionality of space and time. Now take the perspective away, in this case the dimensionality of space and time have no manifestation only information. Information is simultaneous and undifferentiated.
Cathy Preston wrote:Reality is all the bits and pieces that you see all around you, including yourself, and it's manifesting as a multitude of forms, the Whole or Universe has no need to be undifferentiated since there is nothing that is not it.
The bits and pieces are aspects of reality but the concept of space and time as physical properties is an illusion of consciousness (perspective). All bits and pieces and moments occur without location simultaneous in the informational universe.

In addition, if you take the many worlds interpretation of quantum dynamics you'll find it meshes quite nicely with this conception of space and time.
Essentially all physical realities (like ours) are represented in the underlying math of being.
I believe that it's the anthropic principle that narrows our view of possible realities to those from which data can be collected.
It solves some of the arbitrarity of the physical constants to take the view that all possible underlying math exists. We can only see those realities that we can inhabit, so the physical evidence for many words is restricted to alternate syntaxes of reality which vary in superficial ways.
Last edited by Eric Orwoll on Wed Aug 01, 2012 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Mental activity is an inevitable phenomenon and it is through it that time, space and causality can be viewed as anything but aspects of singularity.
Mental activity conceived of an electron.
Science assumes electrons had always existed and were awaiting discovery.
Perhaps science suffers in ignorance by that assumption.

What if electrons and everything else are put there, projected?

It's not an argument that electrons don't exist.
It is a possible insight into how they may exist.

The investigation must be centered on the power of mental activity.

perhaps seeing is believing and believing is seeing are one and the same.

What does it look like now?
Cathy Preston
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:13 am
Location: Canada

Re: Causation

Post by Cathy Preston »

Isn't informational content just another perspective? If Cube and viewer of cube are one thing how is the informational content changed? Measurements require relativity, but the Totality is not relative to anything, since it's everything, that is why the Totality must be conceived logically.
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Re: Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

Dennis, I believe that you've come precisely to my point.

It is via perspective (mental activity being one type) that a pluralistic reality can exist. Causation only bears meaning in a pluralistic reality, so causation must be a property of perspective/mental activity/logic/syntax and not of a physical reality in itself. There is no differentiated physical reality without an observer.
Physical reality is a projection of the observer.

Cathy, informational content is just another perspective if you look at information in isolation but information can also exist in it's totality. If all the information of the universe was contained in a library then looking at a book or phrase would be to view that information through a perspective. But, all the books exist in themselves in simultaneity without reference to where the reader may be looking. The Totality, the library, exists.
Cathy Preston wrote:Measurements require relativity, but the Totality is not relative to anything, since it's everything, that is why the Totality must be conceived logically.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by conceiving of the Totality logically?
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Dennis Mahar »

There is no differentiated physical reality without an observer.
Physical reality is a projection of the observer.
Correct.

what's on the menu?
Cathy Preston
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:13 am
Location: Canada

Re: Causation

Post by Cathy Preston »

Dennis Mahar wrote:
There is no differentiated physical reality without an observer.
Physical reality is a projection of the observer.
Correct.

what's on the menu?

Reality is experienced subjectively, everything is experienced through the mind, so the state of ones mind greatly effects the reality one experiences, our own mind is the void through which manifestations arise, and the observer projects delusions which cloud reality, but reality is projected not by the observer but through the observer.

Eric wrote:Without an observer (which is a limited view of reality) reality cannot manifest except as an undifferentiated whole.
How does reality manifest as an undifferentiated whole?
Eric wrote: If someone could prove that causation is a property of a material reality outside of consciousness then it would disprove the singular nature of being.
What about evolution? Consciousness itself evolved (cause and effect).
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Re: Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

Cathy Preston wrote:How does reality manifest as an undifferentiated whole?
Reality is an undifferentiated whole, differentiated reality is perception.

Without a perspective all points in time and space are equally far away, location is meaningless without an observer.
Perspective is necessary to differentiate reality.

All parrallel or branching timelines, all physical locations, all information is equal distant to a non-observer.
Cathy Preston wrote:What about evolution? Consciousness itself evolved (cause and effect).
The cause and effect chain of biological evolution is real insofar as there is a guiding syntax/perciever. Because all points in time have no location except in reference to a perspective, points of time in themselves can't be said to exist before or after others.

Evolution is a syntax of an undifferentiated whole, syntax requires the imposition of an observer.

Because our perception views a syntactic reality with time existing as a eternally forward arrow we tend to think that preceding events must cause subsequent events. That anything, like consciousness, that exists must have a cause and origin.

All being exists undifferentiated, no aspect of being causes or originates another aspect. Being can be viewed through a syntax of cause and effect but that syntax only exists as an element of perspective/perception/consciousness/mental activity.
Cathy Preston
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:13 am
Location: Canada

Re: Causation

Post by Cathy Preston »

Eric wrote:All being exists undifferentiated, no aspect of being causes or originates another aspect.
What exactly do you mean here? So my parents who died, (disappeared from my reality) still exist somewhere in the Totality and furthermore I was never actually born to them, (caused) but always existed? Really trying to understand your viewpoint here, please explain.
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Re: Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

There is no somewhere in the totality, location only exists through perception. But do your parents exist? Yes, in the sense that all the informational constituents of their perception are just as part of the Totality now- from your perspective, as they were when they were alive- from your perspective. Because there's no objective time, only subjective time, all being exists simultaneously.

The cause and effect sequence of your material existence exists, you were born, that is one syntax of being. The point is to recognize that all possible syntaxes exist just as validly.

To illustrate the point:

Imagine the Totality as an unbounded body of water.
You have the ability to create as many molds as you can imagine.
The water of being can then be poured into those molds.

Those molds are syntaxes.

The material world with it's underlying mathematics amounts to one complex mold which the water of being is poured into.

The material world exists as a syntax of a greater undifferentiated reality.
Syntaxes, or orderings of any kind, rely on a perspective. From outside of perspective there is no first or last, forward or backward, cause and effect.

Being exists as the boundless ocean, and all possible molds exist.

All possible molds exist because those molds are a symbol for something of which we cannot conceive. Nothingness.

Form is generated where being and nothingness interact.

Being has no location, neither does nothingness.

Therefore the location of their interaction is everywhere.

All being interacts with all syntax (nothingness) which gives us an infinity of molds to pour that water into.

It's not just entire material realities which are formed from being; individual minds can be formed from being as well.

Our consciousnesses are eternally disconnected from a direct experience of reality. Everything we perceive is generated by our minds, I do not see the table in front of me- I see the picture my mind draws of the table.

The significance of this is that you exist relative to Being in total solipsism, the barrier of your identity exists insofar as you conceive of a causal syntax.

You exist both undifferentiated from and completely disconnected from the remainder of Being.
User avatar
mental vagrant
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:16 pm
Location: A flick of green to be seen between alone between two giants

Re: Causation

Post by mental vagrant »

Cathy Preston wrote:
Eric wrote:All being exists undifferentiated, no aspect of being causes or originates another aspect.
What exactly do you mean here? So my parents who died, (disappeared from my reality) still exist somewhere in the Totality and furthermore I was never actually born to them, (caused) but always existed? Really trying to understand your viewpoint here, please explain.
Your syntax is missing the point, the point being a point. Really not much is being said, it's all circular and doesn't validate everyones perception. Skewed eyed readers need the glasses of the hyperoptic to survive the dust of time.
unbound
User avatar
mental vagrant
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:16 pm
Location: A flick of green to be seen between alone between two giants

Re: Causation

Post by mental vagrant »

Eric Orwoll wrote:There is no somewhere in the totality, location only exists through perception. But do your parents exist? Yes, in the sense that all the informational constituents of their perception are just as part of the Totality now- from your perspective, as they were when they were alive- from your perspective. Because there's no objective time, only subjective time, all being exists simultaneously.

The cause and effect sequence of your material existence exists, you were born, that is one syntax of being. The point is to recognize that all possible syntaxes exist just as validly.

To illustrate the point:

Imagine the Totality as an unbounded body of water.
You have the ability to create as many molds as you can imagine.
The water of being can then be poured into those molds.

Those molds are syntaxes.

The material world with it's underlying mathematics amounts to one complex mold which the water of being is poured into.

The material world exists as a syntax of a greater undifferentiated reality.
Syntaxes, or orderings of any kind, rely on a perspective. From outside of perspective there is no first or last, forward or backward, cause and effect.

Being exists as the boundless ocean, and all possible molds exist.

All possible molds exist because those molds are a symbol for something of which we cannot conceive. Nothingness.

Form is generated where being and nothingness interact.

Being has no location, neither does nothingness.

Therefore the location of their interaction is everywhere.

All being interacts with all syntax (nothingness) which gives us an infinity of molds to pour that water into.

It's not just entire material realities which are formed from being; individual minds can be formed from being as well.

Our consciousnesses are eternally disconnected from a direct experience of reality. Everything we perceive is generated by our minds, I do not see the table in front of me- I see the picture my mind draws of the table.

The significance of this is that you exist relative to Being in total solipsism, the barrier of your identity exists insofar as you conceive of a causal syntax.

You exist both undifferentiated from and completely disconnected from the remainder of Being.
Hence causality.
unbound
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Dennis Mahar »

The mathematical equations of quantum physics do not describe actual existence - they describe potential for existence. Working out the equations of quantum mechanics for a system composed of fundamental particles produces a range of potential locations, values and attributes of the particles which evolve and change with time. But for any system only one of these potential states can become real, and - this is the revolutionary finding of quantum physics - what forces the range of the potentials to assume one value is the act of observation.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Emptiness means,
all phenomena exist by dependence on other phenomena, which are themselves dependently related to other phenomena and so on. No matter how deeply or far back we search, no phenomenon can ever be found which is fundamental or a 'thing-in-itself'. Neither the observer nor any observed phenomenon exist independently, but are inextricably intertwined. This viewpoint is known as dependent relationship.
Eric Orwoll
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

Re: Causation

Post by Eric Orwoll »

Dennis Mahar wrote:what forces the range of the potentials to assume one value is the act of observation.
The act of observation is the differentiation of reality. Copenhagen supporters would suggest that observation/interaction creates a "real" manifestation as opposed to potential. I disagree, the many worlds view says that all potentiality is real and that any single observer (or at least any one human mind) can follow only one cause/effect path. So in that view, cause and effect is the identifying property of the observer and not reality as a whole.
Dennis Mahar wrote: Emptiness means,
all phenomena exist by dependence on other phenomena, which are themselves dependently related to other phenomena and so on. No matter how deeply or far back we search, no phenomenon can ever be found which is fundamental or a 'thing-in-itself'. Neither the observer nor any observed phenomenon exist independently, but are inextricably intertwined. This viewpoint is known as dependent relationship.
The equations of potential reality contain all relationship that we might observe. In order for phenomenon to exist independently they must gain that independence through an observer.
I would go further than the equations of physics, I would say that all mathematics, all information describes potential reality because differentiated reality is nothing but information viewed within a syntax.

We all have a drive for information, it's our curse that we orient ourselves toward the Totality and try and bring it within the bounds of our selves. Our liberation is in realizing that without those bounds of selfhood all information is singular, all being is an undifferentiated whole. We try to make ourselves infinite by addition, but infinity only exists by subtracting the barriers of selfhood.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Causation

Post by Dennis Mahar »

The act of observation is the differentiation of reality. Copenhagen supporters would suggest that observation/interaction creates a "real" manifestation as opposed to potential. I disagree, the many worlds view says that all potentiality is real and that any single observer (or at least any one human mind) can follow only one cause/effect path. So in that view, cause and effect is the identifying property of the observer and not reality as a whole.
That's why 2 truths are distinguished.
Conventional reality and ultimate reality.

Ultimately cause and effect drops off because there are no reasons.

To take the decision that cause and effect is an illusion yields disastrous results.
Believing so, one may step in front of a speeding bus and expect to be OK.

causality is and it isn't.

Matter and energy are not in themselves phenomena, and do not become phenomena until they interact with the mind.

A universe is matter, energy, space, time and significance.
dependently arising.
User avatar
mental vagrant
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:16 pm
Location: A flick of green to be seen between alone between two giants

Re: Causation

Post by mental vagrant »

As i sensed early on, you seem far more interested in the psychological implications than 'the foundations' of reality. Your initial thought was understandable but like i said is of a circular form, self validating. It though wants to step outside of linear reason to assert that such is just an illusion, which is problematic, but those were the tools we grew up with. I'm of course thinking in terms of understanding a system completely from the outside, which is impossible as you said, by treating the universe as a singularity. So theoretical and pointless, but my eyes have nothing better to do.

Is Eric Orwoll your real name?
unbound
Locked