More on this is found here:
The first cause argument
This reminds me of a scene in The Matrix when the french man, the Merovingian, was talking about causality.
The first cause argument, also known as the 🔴cosmological argument, is based only on the empirical fact that the universe exists, not any other particular fact beyond that.
The first cause argument makes a point that absolutely everything has been caused by something else prior to it. Nothing just came into being without a cause. What we’ve known so far is that there is a chain of effects and causes. Since we know that the universe exists, there must be a cause to it too; why would it be the exception? And how do we explain something coming from nothing? Science, to my knowledge, is also limited on this point; the Big Bang must have come from something.
I have thought about this at great length: are we incapable of understanding time and space? just as an ant would be oblivious of a concept like gravity? Because neither side of this arguments satisfies our core understanding that an effect must always come from a cause.
→ Let’s try to go the religious path: yes the universe and us humans we created by a divine God, that would explain the existence of the universe, but is there an origin to the divine God too? that is an effect that we dont have a cause to link to, and almost all religions discourage to go past that.
→ Let’s try the non-religious path: The universe exists as an effect of a the big bang, alright let’s assume that makes sense, but what caused the big bang ? Did that just come out from nowhere? we don’t have precedence of such a thing.
So far the two plausible arguments are leading us nowhere which takes me back to my initial question: what are we missing ? and would that be because we are incapable of understanding what we are missing ? the know unknowns and the unknown unknowns.
There is also a more probable cause: We are in a simulation ( this would explain a few things that might not be related to this argument ) - why do we have limitation to speed we can travel? and why everything else is soo distant from us ? why does it seem like the universe is infinite ? And why certain elements in our universe behave differently only when observed ( talking about the double slit experiment ) ?
References
Link to original
- Alex O’connor within reason podcast - Final causation - Transcript
- Simulation Hypothesis, Free Will, and Deterministic Reality 2026-06-17-13-41-40