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byrnema comments on The Sin of Underconfidence - Less Wrong
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Comments (176)
Got it. if X is the placeholder for whatever eventually solves the creation conundrum, there's no reason to call it anything else, much less something misleading.
precisely =)
In fact even naming it X is a bit of a stretch, because "the creation conundrum" is being assumed here, but my own limited understanding of physics suggests this "conundrum" itself is a mistake. What a "cause" really is, is something like: the information about past states of the universe embedded in the form of the present state. But the initial state doesn't have embedded information, so it doesn't really have either a past or a cause. As far as prime movers go, the big bang seems to be it, sufficient in itself.
Yes, I agree with you: there is no real conundrum. In the past, we've solved many "conundrums" (for example, Zeno's paradox and the Liar's Paradox). By induction, I believe that any conundrum is just a problem (often a math problem) that hasn't been solved yet.
While I would say that the solution to Zeno's paradox "exists", I think this is just a semantic mistake I made; a solution exists in a different way than a theist argues that God exists. (This is just something I need to work on.)
Regarding the physics: I understand how a state may not causally depend upon the one proceeding (for example, if the state is randomly generated). I don't understand (can't wrap my head around) if that means it wasn't caused... it still was generated, by some mechanism.