It was only a matter of time before I began at length on the concept of causality that I have learned to so staunchly come to believe. Before I begin, I wish to make it known that the concepts and theories that you may encounter in the following article are of a queer nature. To discuss this, I have to digress, firstly onto the concept of truth.
Nearly all the definitions that you have and will encounter on my postings is of a nature that is elusive, because it is not an actual definition but a viewpoint; an opinion. In fact, all definitions, no matter how objective it may be, from the widest perspective always will be subjective in one way or the other. But, to define truth isn’t very easy. It would possibly mean that the author would have to define the word “define” with the assumption that the reader is without the knowledge of what “define” actually is; which ironically brings us to the question of how or why, the reader is reading that question in the first place. Ignoring the regressive loop of the method of defining certain terms, the term “truth” is a matter of subjectivity. It is not a matter of utility. And thus truth does not have to necessarily imply a wider form of application. But most rudimentarily put, truth is not required to have a purpose. Truth is the fabric upon which occurrences take place. And occurrence is the work of causality.
Causality is a tricky thing. Its existence is a possibility that seems to so uncannily satisfy the observations of occurrences around us. However, the knowledge of its existence is immaterial to our existence, just like how paleontology is irrelevant to your dinner tonight. They are analogous to the machinery that runs the universe. The knowledge of the machines will not have any implication on our being, but without them the universe would not exist. I cannot, for good reason, imagine anything without causality because it is like imagining a world without the space-time fabric.
I believe so staunchly in causality because I think that choice does not exist, and that the illusion of choice by itself is only the work of a cause. The germ of this article sparked as always on a bed, when the lights were off, at midnight when my mind was blank and the time was right; not because I wanted it to, but because it was meant to: Cause and effect.
The absence of choice would necessarily mean that causality exists because; there must be purpose behind an occurrence. An occurrence cannot spontaneously occur and such a system is so readily eliminated from my perceived reality that it remains to be too divergent from common sense. Each action, occurrence or activity must have a reason and purpose; and if it were to spontaneously arise, the causal energy for it to occur must have resided somewhere else before.
In the perfect order of the universal system, it seems inappropriate that there be such a distinctive and perceivable divide between the living and the non-living. Life, so it seems, is the presence of choice. Since, we can choose what we want to do; we are more alive than a rock for example. A rock behaves in a way that it is told to behave. It cannot resist or perform another task even if it wants to. Possibly, it cannot do so because it cannot want to, as it is incapable of holding that causal energy. Hence, a rock can be picked up and thrown around and its trajectory can be accurately calculated. It may seem that living-beings do not act this way because of their capacity to choose what they want to do.
What seems to be our choice is influenced (or more strongly, defined) by our principles or instinct. If not for those set of principles or instinct, we would not have made those choices. Your choices or “you” as a person are not responsible for your actions, inductively speaking, since it is the occurrence that has created your principles or instinct that is the true reason of your action. Even if instinct is something that beings are born with we can trace back to a particular event in the ancestral chain where we hit upon the reason for the development of that instinct. Similarly, principles are created through experiences and occurrences.
Now that all actions are due to occurrences, we reach the end of the rabbit hole upon understanding that an occurrence is due to causality. Chaos is when complex things arise from simple things. An occurrence is a result of complexity. Simplicity gives rise to a complex series of events which culminates in a significant occurrence which may result in any of the following that I may have mentioned afore. Thus an occurrence defined by way of chaos through and only by the method of causality brings forth all events, choices and actions in our system; be it the method of living or non-living.
In the reasoning of all events through means of causality I understand that I have obliterated the meaning of life in the process. The final part of the article will be to explain the existence of causal energy and how it differentiates a rock from an aardvark.
The term “causal energy” is something that I believe is difficult to define. However, it is something that I believe has already been understood by an ardent follower of this article. When a living being “wants” to do something, he is using the causal energy for the performance of the task such that the task is completed. This energy is derived from a previous cause, which has inflicted this effect of choice unto the person. He, however, thinks that it is him, and not the causal energy that made him perform the task. To grasp the concept of causal energy is indeed very difficult because it defines everything around us, including the very thought that enables us to comprehend this content. The ubiquity of causality and its working is of such a nature that it is the only force in the universe that governs all events.
Above the four dimensions that make up science is the force of causality. Only with causality is it possible to understand that the universe was created with the knowledge of each occurrence in the space-time frame. Each one of the trillions of atoms move about in the certain way that they have, are and will is because that they are meant to and is destines to do so. If causality holds such immense knowledge and such power; what then of individual thought and choice?
Thus this article has been, disappointingly, written by destiny herself.
Of Kimi
20 Apr 09
I would like to credit my dear friend Manmintha who inspired me to start on this project.
Ah, the philosophy of Hobbes so eloquently proposed. Thomas Hobbes is the first modern materialist to put foward the view that physical matter is all there is, and that everything can be explained in terms of matter in motion. Even mental processes were to be understood as consisting of movements of matter inside an individual's skull. It is such a deterministic philosphy that one questions whether such a thing as free will can exist in the materialist philosophy.
ReplyDeleteIf mind is matter, then it would be influenced by the law of physics. Do you think our thoughts derive because of the the way matters in our brains interact with each other according to Newton's law of motion? Funny that such thoughts can be derived from quite causeless workings as just natural physics law.