Philosophy of Idealism: Prime Cause
The favorite question of toddlers everywhere is: “Why?” Whatever the answer, the next question is: “Why?” It may be exhausting, but this simple pattern of questions strikes at something that many idealists consider critical for understanding the world.
One of the four laws of logic is that everything has sufficient cause. In other words, things don’t happen by magic. An action caused a reaction.
Why did I burn my tongue?
Because you drank tea that was too hot.
But that action was itself a reaction to something …
Why was the tea too hot?
Because the tea water boiled 30 seconds ago.
Which reacted to something else.
Why did the tea water boil?
Because I applied heat with a stove.
If we keep tracing all those reactions …
Why does heat make water boil?
Because heat transfers through materials at a rate proportional to the negative gradient in the temperature and to the area through which the heat flows.
We’ll eventually retrace our steps all the way to the foundation of the universe.
Why does heat do that thing you just said?
Because when atoms interact with neighboring atoms, they transfer some of their energy into them.
Why does energy disperse among atoms?
Because that is how the universe works.
And that’s when things get interesting.
Why does the universe work that way?
This is one of the most profound questions that has ever been asked. Science and philosophy tackle it from different angles, but they ultimately work together to help us understand it.
One possible answer to this question is:
Because of the Prime Cause.
Prime Cause is the original cause of everything; it does not itself have a cause.
The Prime Cause was a concept first advanced by Aristotle. The idea is elegantly simple and paradoxically complex. Aristotle called it the “unmoved mover.”
The main argument for the existence of a Prime Cause is simple: the laws of logic imply its existence.
“Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?” - Aeschylus
“… Nothing can move itself; there must be a first mover. The first mover is called God.” - St Thomas Aquinas
But the Prime Cause itself also breaks that law of logic. The Prime Cause pushed a swing without standing on anything. It ignited a fire without heat. Some people believe that there was no Prime Cause, either because of the way things worked before the universe existed (which we can’t observe), or because the universe is magical (and sprang into being without a cause).
“Asking what came before the Big Bang … would be like asking what lies south of the South Pole.” - Stephen Hawking
If there is a Prime Cause, understanding it is critical to understanding everything else about the universe.
Idealistic Prime Causes come in the next post.