> the causal stream is not assembled from separate causes in the first place> “separate causes” appear only after we draw conceptual boundaries through an already continuous event-field and then treat those cuts as ontic> once no cause stands by itself, causation appears as one indivisible unfolding rather than many independent generators> therefore the whole causal web functions as one unified generating reality > therefore Generator is a proper nounDoes this argument leak?
I used the term "causal web" here once and it was ridiculed as nonsense.You owe me an apology, sir.But no, the argument seems sound enough. I think many people understand by now that reality is a unified whole, and that it's our definitions that create the illusion of division, despite the fact this division has practical applications, like separating materials into novel arrangements to study their properties in relative isolation.But I find myself ambivalent about the term "Generator," though I understand its intent. I feel like it's a step in the right direction, but it feels like there's still a conceptual division that needs to be bridged, which is the generator and what's being generated. Does the entirety of the universe's causal structure generate itself? It may generate distinct phenomena, but does causality itself self-instantiate? We can theorize about a first cause, but that's applying substance to the chain of causality in a linear sequence, when reality could be fundamentally atemporal, and even then, it's less about defining the first cause, but more about defining the structure of causality itself. If these are somewhat arbitrary distinctions placed upon a continuous field, then causality itself appears to collapse, because causality requires distinct temporal sequences that involve discrete objects acting upon one another. We can observe that's not the case, though. If I hold my breath long enough, I can logically deduce that the pain I eventually feel is a result of a lack of oxygen, even though what caused me to hold my breath in the first place is a possibly immeasurable network of influences, like my ability to hold my breath at all still being a result of the sun sustaining life on the planet, even though the influence is admittedly somewhat indirect.So, Generator still seems a bit fuzzy to me, because it directs causality in such a way that doesn't explains its origins or underlying features, the cause of causality, basically.
>>17033437Asking “what causes the Generator?” accidentally reinstalls the Generator/generated cut. “Generator” would not name a second entity behind the causal field here; it names the field’s indivisible generativity itself.Think of a whirlpool: the whirlpool is not something standing behind the swirling water making it swirl. It is the water’s organized swirling.> I used the term "causal web" here once and it was ridiculed as nonsense. You owe me an apology, sir.Sorry Anon
>>17033443Interesting, but I still feel as if this causal structure would have to include its own origin point, because it's a necessary feature for causality to occur in the first place, some condition for the web to be based on.If the Generator generates itself, what is the exact mechanism that this generation is rooted in? If we say its rooted in causality itself, then it appears to have a circular structure, and is just a brute fact of nature with no fundamental explanation. We can explain a chemical reaction in extreme detail, but the fundamental "Why?" of this reaction occurring at all still remains untouched.It seems like a childish regress of inquiry that reaches a terminus in reason, but it's something I feel that's necessary to establish that the causal web is something that is self-generating, like a missing, foundational piece that sufficiently explains how the entire process is orchestrated.Otherwise, I think the Generator label is pretty apt. I'm just being nitpicky about a possibly irrelevant detail that I feel would unify the concept into something more absolute.>Sorry AnonApology accepted.
>>17033447> Interesting, but I still feel as if this causal structure would have to include its own origin point, because it's a necessary feature for causality to occur in the first place, some condition for the web to be based on.Immediately you have missed the point. You are picturing causation, or “the causal web”, as a thing that first exists and then needs some further condition to activate it.Non-separability denies that decomposition. Causation is not substrate + causal power + origin point. Indivisible unfolding is what “causality” itself names.Asking for an origin of *that* generativity doesn’t uncover a missing piece; it introduces another ontic cut and then asks how to explain the cut.
Bump
>>17033569I see. That makes sense, I guess. So, basically, causation itself has no origin point because the entire web is indivisible? That still appears circular to me, which is why I see the Generator label as slightly problematic, but I suppose this type of circularity is more virtuous than vicious, because what else could causality be caused by other than itself? So in that sense I see the Generator label as appropriate, since there's no fundamental distinction between generator and generated.Regardless, thanks for the clarification, but now I have a nagging curiosity to examine the dynamics of causality, because I've honestly never seen them formally described, and genuinely wonder if it's even a process that can be described mechanistically.
>>17033586You can think of the web geometrically as a point. The idea is that, metaphysically, generation is singular or point-like. That point-like generativity is constantly acting over the whole event-field at once. Not “the generator generates itself” or “generation generates itself”, but “causation terminates in something uncaused whose nature is generativity.”
>>17033713I see. That's honestly a pretty fascinating distinction to make, but I think I'm still misunderstanding some key details. If causation is fundamentally indivisible, why are certain relationships within this event-field more readily observable? Nothing beyond the observable universe can be reasonably said to affect me, so the causal network I'm entangled within has degrees of influence that can be rationally approximated. I understand that the event-field is unified as a whole, but why exactly does it manifest as intricate web rather than some amorphous nexus point where everything affects everything else?
>>17033752“Indivisible” doesn’t mean uniform or “everything affects everything equally.” It means the differentiated relationships do not constitute independently generating causal systems.The web clearly has enormous internal structure: locality, gradients of influence, propagation limits, stable patterns, strong and weak couplings. Those really unfold. The claim is only that drawn boundaries around any of those patterns should not be mistaken as ontic.
>>17033759Ah, that makes sense, but I still wonder if causality is just an emergent property of some atemporal substrate, that things change in relation to other things, but these are basically just emanations of some eternal, static foundation that basically has every possible occurrence already encoded into its composition, kind of like the flow of time being relative to the curvature of space, in that it could be a projection from some higher-dimensional manifold.That's largely why I was concerned with what instantiates causality, because if causality is an emergent phenomenon, then it has a definable origin point, so it doesn't necessarily terminate into something uncaused. The boundary between the origin point and the overall web doesn't have to be real, but it's still a piece of its complex internal structure, so I figured it was worth investigating to see what exactly it consists of.
>>17033767>>17033767That is the same geometry as all emergence: X emerges from Y always requires dividing one unfolding into a base level and a derived level. Emergence always needs a partition. The partition may be useful for studying scale and organization, but reifying it invents two layers and makes one seem to generate the other.Another e.g. “Matter becomes life” first partitions one continuous physical history into nonliving matter and living matter, then imagines an ontic bridge where one kind of reality somehow produces another. The mistake is turning the classification boundary into a generation boundary.So I think the clean version is: causality can emerge as description, but in itself is not emergent. At the fundamental level there is simply indivisible unfolding—singular, total and terminal. Once we partition that unfolding into events, times, systems, and variables, only then do stable relations appear. We call those relations “causal.” But that apparent causal structure emerges from our lossy resolution and is never the actual territory.
>>17033781Interesting. I think I get it now. Thanks for the information. This is the first time I've had any type of discussion on the nature of causality, and is honestly a topic I've never explored, so the conversation was definitely enriching, and I appreciate that.Take care, anon, and keep feeding that brain of yours.
