If you described cause the way I describe cause, we would probably agree, but I suspect you describe cause in the usual way, and in that way I do not agree everything has a cause.
This is hardly a quibble, as you put it. The entire philosophical world considers the question paramount (though it offers no solution except the kind Hume offers, which is to deny cause itself.) If cause in the usual sense is true, then, just as you say, everything has a cause, that is, every event is caused by some preceding event and every event causes some succeeding events, so that any event at any time must be what it is because of whatever caused it. The universe then is determined by those natural laws that determine what all events are.
This is not what I say, but this is the commonly held view of what cause and effect are. Obviously, one holding this view is hard pressed to explain how volition, or even reason are possible. The usual explicit (or implicit) method of escaping the problem is either to deny that everything is causal, to assume something else is injected into the stream of causation (like the will of God), or that ignorance somehow provides an escape from it, (if you don't know what is going to happen it is not caused). This last seems absurd, but is essentially the one used by all those who suppose quantum uncertainty provides an escape from determinism. Ask Alamo-Girl or betty boop.
(Note to Alamo-Girl and betty boop: I only pinged you because I took your names in vain on this thread and don't believe in talking about people without their knowing it. You need not respond. Of course you are welcome to.)
Hank
We're both using somewhat different concepts for the word "cause." As you put it:
Common usage: ... everything has a cause, that is, every event is caused by some preceding event and every event causes some succeeding events, so that any event at any time must be what it is because of whatever caused it. The universe then is determined by those natural laws that determine what all events are. ... Obviously, one holding this view is hard pressed to explain how volition, or even reason are possible.When I say that "there is a cause for everything" I'm not speaking in terms of strict determinism. What I mean is that things unfold in causal sequences, and any event can be traced back, at least in principle, to some prior events which function as a cause. There may be events with a cause (so described) where the consequences aren't determined, such as Einstein's famous example of a single photon which encounters a half-silvered mirror. At least so far as we know the path of the photon isn't pre-determined. But the sequence of events -- photon is fired, it goes through or it bounces -- this is a caused sequence, as I use the term "cause." To get specific, I mean it's not a miraculous event. By definition, a miracle is an event without any natural cause whatsoever.Hank Kerchief's usage: [not really given in the prior post]
Perhaps I'm babbling here. I really should avoid QM. Anyway, the purpose of this is to say that volition (or free will) isn't, to my thinking, a miracle. It's got a cause (whatever that may be), and the consequences aren't pre-determined.
From a higher dimension view the entire movie is seen at once - the entire 4D block. And within the dynamics of such a higher dimension, all of the events within the 4D are malleable. That is where I see free will being manifest to change the script, so to speak. But it is the dynamics of the higher dimension, the will of God, which allows the free will to actualize in 4D - i.e. change the course of events from our 4D view.
And following betty boop's proposal that one or more of the higher dimensions is an extra time dimension - what appears as a timeline to us in the 4D is actually a plane (or brane) and thus also malleable in the same fashion, e.g. superposition, non-locality, etc.