Does anything generate its own momentum?

[Wild Fox Zen]

Basically can anything generate its own momentum without influence from without? This does have philosophical implications for me, but I'm really just looking for a straight answer. Does anything generate its own momentum?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Basically can anything generate its own momentum without influence from without?

Apart from the question what could exist at all without 'influence from without', one example could be: a collapsing spinning black hole. The self-collapse increases spin and therefore angular momentum of the hole. But what causes a self-collapse? Perhaps its mechanics can be traced back to a 'big bang' of some kind in a gray past.

Perhaps if anything, anything at all would generate 'its own' momentum it would cause a whole universe to exist instantaneously?

[Wild Fox Zen]

that's kind of what I was thinking too.

[David Quinn]

Nothing can generate its own momentum, simply because nothing can occur without causes.

Even the Totality itself, the never-ending chain of causation, did not generate its own momentum, as its momentum has always been present.

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[Jamesh]

Basically can anything generate its own momentum without influence from without?

In essense you are asking "is there anything uncaused".

No.


Still it is a reasonable question. At the most fundamental level, it may be that EVEN the infinite forces that power the universe, the cause of causality, requires influence from that which they are not to have any "action" at all.

[Carl G]

...can anything generate its own momentum without influence from without?...I'm really just looking for a straight answer. Does anything generate its own momentum?

You ask two separate questions, the difference being the phrase "without influence from without." Omitting it, the answer is yes, any number of things, for instance a gas engine. With the phrase in, it's obviously no.