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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 8/15/2004 3:10 AM (GMT -6) |   | | so how does it fit together? I'm a bit confused. Do we cause things before they happen? or as they happen? and if we do it as they happen then how is the cause prior to the happening? and if we don't, then how did we have a choice about it since it was already in existence? Or something like that, I hope the issues are clear in there somewhere. | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 8/15/2004 4:59 AM (GMT -6) | | | perhaps what I needed to add is that it doesn't seem that we have any power over the present, as we are already there - but since everything we can do can only begin in the present, then how can we have any power at all? | | Back to Top | | |
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feelinahole
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 754
| Posted 8/15/2004 6:59 AM (GMT -6) | | We didn't control where we started at; but we do have some control over where we are going. One does not have to control everything to have some control over the situation one is in. Surely, Mark, you made the choice to post. So you had control over a present part of your life.
If there is uncertainty in the open view, that does not mean that the alternative is preferable. Determinists need to show how we can be responsible for things we did not do, but we made to do. All views have their problems. | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 8/16/2004 7:45 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by feelinahole
We didn't control where we started at; but we do have some control over where we are going. One does not have to control everything to have some control over the situation one is in. Surely, Mark, you made the choice to post. So you had control over a present part of your life.
If there is uncertainty in the open view, that does not mean that the alternative is preferable. Determinists need to show how we can be responsible for things we did not do, but we made to do. All views have their problems.
Sure....I guess I should make it clear here that I am an open view theist, just trying to come to terms with how it all fits together....I'm not sure that pointing to my own experience really helps solve the issue. | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 8/19/2004 7:12 AM (GMT -6) | | | anyone got any more thoughts? Or is it just my mind getting itself in muddles that no-one else bothers about? | | Back to Top | | |
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gershom
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 13
| Posted 8/19/2004 12:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Seems to me this is similar to asking, when does the present become the past, or something like that. I understand what you're saying, and it's a weird muddle alright. It seems to me to be a question of how our "free will" (assumed to be non-causal) interacts with a causal word.
We can all agree that the past is fixed, certainly. But is the present "fixed" because it is already in existence? I'm not convinced of that. The present is that which is not yet past it is what is now. How does your will begin to influence your thoughts? It should happen in now, because now is the only place you can act lol. The past is done, the future is not yet.
I think the answer lies in your question, "If we do [cause things as they happen] then how is the cause prior to the happening" being badly posed. If cause-effect is sequential, then the "causes" we are exerting now will create effects as we pass out of the now.
That is to say, what we are "causing" now, we will see the effect of in the future. We exert the influence of cause in the now. That begins the pattern of thinking in the brain that leads to action, etc. in the future.
If the now is 'fixed' by virtue of already existing, then how could anything at all be caused? How could there be any cause and effect? These are not discrete states but a continuum.
At some point, the future becomes the now, and the now becomes the past. At what point are we acting? I think by definition we have to act in the now. It feels very confusing because we tend to think of cause and effect as discrete states- e.g. "I hit the pool ball, and it went in the corner pocket". Very clear cause and effect, but also very discrete. Now try to delimit that cause and effect connection more precisely. At what point did you even hit the ball? You have a very clearly defined "prior" state (aiming at the ball) and a very clearly defined "post" state (ball in the pocket), but where did the action really occur? At some point, you were sliding the pool queue along your finger, inching closer and closer to the ball, then coming so close that the atoms of the queue and the ball were exerting some small influence on eachother- (when do you really even "touch" the ball?)- then enough influence to transfer some force from the queue to the ball- etc. etc. You have a very wide range of action before as you aim and slide, and a very wide range of action after, as the ball rolls, but as you narrow these things down you end up with a very small sliver of "now" where the actual cause of pushing the queue is being exerted on the ball creating the effect. So where does cause create effect? Where does pushing the queue "cause" the ball to roll forward? In the now? To me it seems the mystery only comes from looking at cause and effect as very discrete, rather than as a continuum. At the point the ball begins to roll forward, you had already been causing that by pushing the queue ever closer to the ball. There was a "prior cause" in the past, whose effects were being realized in the now (ball moving)- and a "continuuing cause" in the present (the queue continues to push forward) which will generate effects into the future (ball moves faster).
I'm sure that was clear as mud, but really it's an interesting question and I'm not sure what the best way to think about it is.
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