One definition for "cause" is "a person or thing that gives rise to an action, phenomenon, or condition." It appears that we witness examples of causation (one person/thing causing something else) all around us, yet causation is one of the most hotly debated and mysterious aspects of human experience.
Colin Gunton (The Triune Creator, pages 118-119) relates how "a new theology of nature" developed in the Middle Ages that involved thinkers like Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) and Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) positing that A causes B (a cause produces an effect). This idea did not originate in the Middle Ages, but from the idea, Aquinas and Scotus inferred that A entails/is implied by B. So now one could think of causation in terms of logical relations (logical implicates) or what logicians call sequents.
Causation seemed to be in peril when David Hume (1711-1776) maintained that cause and effect could not be explained by appealing to rationalist (analytic a priori) or empiricist (synthetic a posteriori) principles: Hume insisted that cause and effect relations (causality) are reducible to habituation. To put it simply, we often witness one event (B) following another event (A), so we then come to believe that B follows A out of some causal necessity. For instance, the car accelerates after I put my foot on the gas pedal or the light in my house comes on after I flick the light switch. However, Hume pointed to alleged difficulties with the customary account of causation/causality; he asked that the causal connection between A and B, be shown empirically, which evidently cannot be done. However, even if one tries to demonstrate the causal link by using analytic a priori reasoning/methods (i.e., rationalism), the result is still unsatisfactory since it's nigh impossible to ubiquitously apply the concepts of rationalism to the multiple events happening in the natural world. So it seems that things are at an impasse.
On the other hand, Immanuel Kant was intrigued by the challenges of David Hume. He said that he was awakened from his "dogmatic [Wolffian] slumbers" by Hume, which meant that Kant had to reorient the way he viewed epistemological and metaphysical puzzles. After considering Hume's thought on causes and their effects, Kant suggested that while neither rationalism nor empiricism could explain causation satisfactorily, appealing to synthetic a priori considerations could. In other words, causation becomes a mental category, but one limitation of Kant's approach is that a conceptual "solution" is set forth that we still cannot apply to the "real world." In philosophical terms, Kant's answer may satisfy epistemological criteria but it leaves metaphysical concerns untouched.
Thomists (students/adherents of Thomas Aquinas) think they have an adequate response to Hume's challenge: they use Aristotle's theory of hylomorphism and his account of four causes to account for one thing causing another in the real world, thereby not just reducing causality to something mental or apparent. In this post, I am not attempting to say which account of causation/causality is correct: what I'm really trying to achieve is to show the untenability of rejecting causation/causality as extramental categories. Secondly, I submit that positing only natural causes (secondary causes) seems unreasonable or untenable. After all, one can posit a natural cause for the beginning of the universe but how that cause came about or why it brought the cosmos into existence just remains a brute fact without any genuine explanation. The famed question of Leibniz is pushed to the side or ignored: Why is there something rather than nothing? Saying that some random material occurrence/event brought the cosmos into existence is not an explanation, especially when it comes to explaining life and its great diversity.
This topic is a big one that a single blog post can't fully address, but I've merely tried to spark reflection on this difficult topic. Numerous thinkers have challenged Hume. Not only Kant, but Edward Feser offers refutations of Hume as does Elizabeth Anscombe and Lady Shepherd. John Searle is another theorist who offers rebuttals of Hume's causal thinking and he does so without appealing to God. I think Aquinas would likewise set forth arguments that could test Hume's challenges, and I sometimes wonder what Hume would think of examples like pregnancy or the way that cars work with multiple causes/effects taking place as they operate. I've never seen or heard of a causeless pregnancy: even the Virgin Birth had a cause, according to Scripture and the church fathers. As Hebrews 3:4 reasons, every house has a builder, so the universe needed a builder too. Show me one house or material object that ever came into existence on its own, uncaused.
Of course, I know one Humean response to this line of reasoning. He will say that what applies to the part does not necessarily apply to the whole; we know that it takes someone to put a car together and we know something about building houses and other structures, and we know something about getting pregnant and having children. Nevertheless, Hume might say that we know nothing about building a world. This might be true but Frederick Copleston offered the reply that while one can't infer that what applies to the part always applies to the whole (water is wet, but its constituents are not), it would be a mistake to reason that mereological relations could never be viewed that way (e.g., a fence composed of white pickets is also white as a whole).
As for Hume's reasoning that we know nothing about building worlds, there's a lot of things we don't know, but we can't rule out causation/causality regarding those things for that reason alone. At one time, we knew very little about pain control: while there is much to be learned about controlling pain, we now know much more than our forebears did. The same principle applies to the periodic table of elements and our knowledge of gravitation--think too about the advances in technology that would have been unthinkable to people living a millennium ago. Of course, we have never built an entire cosmos and we cannot. But does that mean that we need to rule out causation of the cosmos based on our inability to produce a universe or know how to bring one into existence?
G.E.M. Anscombe, whom I mentioned earlier, thought of causation this way: If there is a cause, then there is an effect, all other things being equal. See more about her account of causation here: https://iep.utm.edu/anscombe/#H3
She argues that we witness events taking place often wherein one thing appears to be caused by another. At least, that would be the reasonable inference (e.g., drinking a glass of water and the glass becoming empty). This is a retort to Hume's suggestion that we never see the causal link between event A and event B.
Suggestions for Further Reading:
Feser, Edward. Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. Editiones Scholasticae, 2014.
Anscombe, G.E.M. “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy 33 (1958): 1–19; reprinted in [Ethics, Religion, and Politics], 26–42. [CAD] Causality and Determination: An Inaugural Lecture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971; reprinted in [Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind], 133–147. See also https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anscombe/
Compare https://philosophy-science-humanities-controversies.com/listview-details.php?id=782709&a=&first_name=Peter%20van&author=Inwagen&concept=Causation
82 comments:
It does seem like all arguments against instinctive/axiomatic notions of cause and effect relations are arguments from silence.
That's a good point. The ones with which I'm familiar seem to be that way. Most thinkers do not deny causation and science heavily depends on there being genuine causes/effects.
A useful paper: http://see.library.utoronto.ca/SEED/Vol4-3/Hulswit.htmhttp://see.library.utoronto.ca/SEED/Vol4-3/Hulswit.htm
Is it behind a pay wall?
I don't think so. I was able to pull it up, and bookmark the paper without paying anything. There should just be one link in the comment box, but it accidentally got posted twice. My bad. The paper is a short history about different causal theories.
What about Hegel's (and the general dialectical idealist approach) to the issue? That collapses Kants phenomena and noumena into each other dialectically. Such that, although it is true that we apply mental categoires (such as causation) on the world, those mental categories depend on the objective world itself, the subject is determined by its object, and the object is determined by the subject, this is because the rational concepts which we apply to the world are not independent of the world but infact part of the world: the real is the rational, and the rational is the real.
I think this kind of idealism (not a subjective idealism, but one in which the material world and the world of concepts, ideas, etc, are all abstractions of the world itself) deals with Hume's objection and Kant's epistemological break, they both assume a dichotomy between the subject and the object, and knoweldge and the thing in itself, Hume posits that we just engage in induction, rather than engaging with the world as it gives itslef to us, and Kant posits categories that somehow apply to the world without being derived from the world.
So causation would be a real rational relation in the world, the world itself being made up of rational relations dialecticaly determining the world (causation being nothing more than the relation between two objects, who are themselves determed by their relations).
Cause or cycle ? - "However, when people or parts of a body or a machine are interdependent, we generally consider it pathological for them to be warring with one another. The idea that they would normally be warring seems contradictory. Autoimmune diseases are pathological in part because they involve normally interdependent parts fighting one another. And so, ecology faces a puzzle. On the one hand ecological systems seem to be governed by interactions — competition, consumption, predation, and parasitism — with negative effects on individuals and populations: diminished fitness, death, extirpation, and extinction. And yet, not only are populations dependent on others they use, they are somehow interdependent. If so, dependence-relations cannot flow only one way, like from animals to plants to microorganisms, but instead must be connected back in a circuit. And yet it is not obvious that populations depend on their predators or parasites." -
pg.3 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy-of-science/article/abs/ecological-interdependence-via-constraints/BB1CCAA54C916B61A5478403AD52EC80
https://see.library.utoronto.ca/SEED/Vol4-3/Hulswit.htm
I reposted that paper link, which currently works for me.
Thanks, Roman. I have to admit that Hegel is one of the most challenging thinkers I've ever read and I used to incline toward Hegelianism, but also experimented with Platonism as well back in the day.
Granted, one would seem to obviate problems encountered by Humeanism or Kantianism by accepting Hegel's approach. Nevertheless, that is one problem. How do we convince an empiricist or rationalist to accept idealist presuppositions? Firstly, Hegel argues that the rational is real, but he also reckons that the rational takes precedence over the real (i.e., ideas/ideals take priority over "the real"). That is one presupposition of his absolute idealism. Another thing to consider is how to convince a rationalist or empiricist that our ideas about the world correspond to the actual world itself: that is a heavy task to complete, even for science.
Kant believed that we're locked up in our minds, so to speak. As you probably remember, he defines space and time as senses: space is an external sense and time is an internal sense for Kant. Therefore, he reasons that while we tend to judge everything in terms of space, time, causation, number, location (etc.), that is how we perceive things phenomenally, not noumenally. So, how does Hegel convince someone like Kant that phenomena and noumena should be collapsed into one another when Kant thinks noumena are epistemically inaccessible for rational subjects like us? He says we can think about noumena but humans can't know them or even know that they exist.
I agree that Kant assumes a dichotomy between subject and object, but how does one convince him otherwise? How could someone convince Kant that the knower and the thing known are not disparate? I find it hard to see how the stalemate can be broken by reason alone. For Kant, the categories like causation and number are mental, which doesn't guarantee (to say the least) that they apply to the "real world."
If Hegel were correct, then I would grant that the inferences you mention would follow. However, causation remains a sticky issue in contemporary philosophy and adding God to the mix and mental causation makes things even that much messier, conceptually speaking. Causation remains a controversial subject on many levels.
There are many interesting articles that can be found on Google, which discuss Hegel and causation. One difference with Hegel is that he does not sharply distinguish cause and effect but conflates them. Most accounts of causation/causality see cause and effect as distinct.Again, when we speak about God causing the world or things in the world, there seems to be a sharp distinction between the two.
I think one could argue for the dialectical idealist position contra Kant by arguing that the application of the categories to the noumena such that they appear as phenomena assumes already a pre-existing connection between the noumena and the subject, such that the categories actually can apply to the noumena to create phenomena. If the noumenal realm actually causes our phenomena, then there must be something about the noumenal realm that relates to our categories, and vice versa.
I agree, about the God issue in Hegel, this is why I personally (since I have certain theological commitments, as a Jehovah's Witness) am not willing to take on Hegel entirely, I personally think Hegels method is helpful, but I part with him certain places. I think with regards to applying dialectial idealism to theology proper, Schelling is very helpful, he has a solid doctrine of creation, although it is rather difficult to understand. One idea I've considered (borrowing from Schelling) is that God, through his creating, determines himself, such that the cause and effect are related, God is still prior to creation, but in creation he changes: he is a subject with an object, and a God to a creation, and an absolute to a finite, etc etc, and in this sense God becomes determinate in relation to creation. I mean, if Jehovah means something like "he causes to become" one could say that creation make's God Jehovah. But of course this is something one doesn't get from Hegel beause he, in my view, wants to maintain a kind of closed system, Schelling's system was much more open.
Anyway, I agree that this is a difficult issue, and I would be suprised if the Idealist position didn't have problems too.
One problem might be that one seems to get into issues of circularity, like if I say cause and effect determine one another is anything really being explained? Are we just not describing a rational process as opposed to actually explaining phenomena in the world as we experience it? Can one explain anything without linear logical processes?
If the beginning in the NT is seen as a new creation and a new beginning that may alter the perspective of eons.
Roman, I'm not a Kantian, and I think it's difficult (impossible?) to be a Christian and simultaneously be a Kantian (i.e., a transcendental idealist).
Kant has been criticized for baking numerous assumptions into his thought, but as R. Bultmann pointed out (influenced by Heidegger), "There are no apprehensions without preapprehensions." Hence, every theory seems to have presuppositions or assumptions baked into the theory.
I'm trying to avoid the weeds here, but noumena (Dinge-an-sich) do a lot of work in Kant. For instance, not only can we apply that term to the world that exists apart from our perception to it, but values, human freedom and things unseen to the human eye fall under the heading of noumena, including God. So would Kant say that noumena cause our phenomenal experience or is it something else? Or do they partly cause our experience?
I think all theoretical systems have their problems and one issue I have with Hegel is his panentheism and the way he portrays God developing in terms of his self-awareness, if I remember his explanation correctly. Schelling's system sounds promising although again, I have to process creation making God Jehovah. From a philological perspective, "He that causes to become" may be a plausible way to understand a facet of Jehovah's personality, but it's notoriously difficult to pin down the exact meaning of YHWH. In any event, I find Schelling's ideas potentially useful.
One conclusion I've come to have about philosophy is that it's open-ended. It's hard to reach certainty through philosophia: I don't think reason alone can get us where we need to be although it can be one tool.
Duncan, surely not every occurrence of arche could refer to the new creation, right? Context would have to determine if/when it's being used that way. Also we'd need to compare other uses of the word in different contexts.
Duncan, there's certainly some interdependence happening in the world. We need plants and plants need us: the same things happens between animals and humans/animals and plants.
I wonder if Bultmann was influenced by German idealist thought?
I agree with your critique on Hegel.
And I agree with your take on philosophy, one should always be open minded and not latch on to any model dogmatically.
Arche in which contexts particularly, as the more I look at this the more circular the arguments appear. I know it does not mean that they support my point though. But, first of creation can also be chief of creation and this kind of comparison can be made elsewhere.
But we were not here all the time, were we? Do plants need us, or needed us but only to repair our own interventions?
Duncan
https://www.science.org/content/article/iron-eating-fungus-disintegrates-rocks-acid-and-cellular-knives#:~:text=Study%20suggests%20microbial%20weathering%20at%20mineral%20surfaces%20has%20been%20underestimated&text=When%20a%20hungry%20fungus%20anchors,%E2%80%94in%20this%20case%2C%20iron.
Duncan,
I'm talking about arche when applied to the creation account (Matthew 19:4-6, 8; 24:21; posssibly John 1:1-2; 2 Peter 3:1-4) versus arche being applied to Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:18; Revelation 3:14). Compare Matthew 24:8; John 8:44; Acts 11:15; 1 John 3:8 for other examples.
Did you read Jason Staples on Mat 24:8?
Roman, I think Bultmann was influenced by German idealism, even if it was indirect. I'm not sure if this book answers your question, but I think he has a nice discussion about Bultmann, Kant and others: The Bible's Authority a Portrait Gallery of Thinkers From Lessing to Bultmann by J. C. O'Neill.
T & T Clark (1991).
I think it was Richard Gale, who once wrote that philosophy is not the kind of game in which one finds certainty. Peter van Inwagen has expressed similar views, but to be fair, Platonists and Aristotelians/Thomists have more confidence in philosophy while simultaneously recognizing its limitations.
Duncan, as I peer at an online lexicon, arche can denote "the first place," but the context normally alerts us to that denotation. For example, when authority or rulership is being discussed.
Be fore us, there were animals and there had to be interdependence between plants and something else because plants can't survive on their own. They need other external things. Genesis says that Jehovah put Adam in the Garden to cultivate it and take care of it. That likewise suggests interdependence as Adam would also live on the vegetation.
I have not read Staples yet but may do it today. Thanks for the reminder.
I did quickly read Staples but would like to give it more time later today. But he does not touch on arche in Matthew 24:8 unfortunately because Jesus didn't just say the birth pains/birth pangs would happen but that they would constitute the "beginning" of the distress. As for the other things, Jesus clearly says, "the end is not yet."
He is referring mainly of the account of gmark which also has arche, but the pertinent point is-
“But wait,” you ask, “what about the ‘birth pains’ reference? Doesn’t this mean that these things will increase in frequency and intensity as the day draws near?” Not exactly. First of all, the “birth pains” reference is a common trope for sharp or sudden anguish in Israelite prophetic literature (cf. Ps 48:6; Micah 4:9; Is 13:8; Jer 22:23). Secondly, another New Testament passage sheds light on this particular usage, giving a closer look at how these things were understood in earliest apocalyptic Christianity:
“And we know that the whole of creation groans together and suffers birth pains together up until now” (Romans 8:22).
In Romans 8, Paul asserts that creation has in fact been suffering birth pains throughout history and will continue to suffer until the “children of God” are revealed at the end. This is a pretty good parallel passage, and it is clear that the “birth pains” are envisioned as a constant—and as having a long history—not as a metaphor for increasing frequency or intensity over time. So there is little reason to over-stretch the metaphor in the Synoptic Gospels, either.
Google the term 'trophic cascades' for a different take on the importance of predators in maintaining the overall health of ecological systems. There has been a massive increase in biomass over the course of the history of life even though certain forms have been rendered obsolete ,so there seems to be method to the madness. I'm not sure what your point was re: causality but all of the cycles you alluded to are driven/sustained by a constant inflow of energy from our sun,lightning and the Earth's core and thus are not self caused/self sustaining, let me repeat I'm not sure that this is relevant to the point that you are trying to make.
Adam had to cultivate what he needed, that does not imply that the plants needed him. Plants will find a way to fill every niche available. Animals can distribute seeds ( usually in there favour) but the highest diversity of plants are in the harshest environments (deserts are an exception, but are mainly man made).
https://shop.permaculture.co.uk/how-to-read-the-landscape.html
There should be many more of these books, for all terrains, but as I said before, we are only just beginning to claw back the ecological understanding.
On Staples & Mat 24:8, what determines that Arche MUST mean "beginning"?
Duncan, firstly, the reason I cited Matthew 24:8 was to show that it's using arche but differently from Matthew 24:21 and other verses. Now regarding the claim of Staples: Romans 8:22 uses the pains imagery in a different context. The verse in Romans is not part of an endtime prophecy like Matt 24 and Mark 13 are. He may have something to say about 1 Thess. 5:3, but to me, that is a closer parallel than Rom. 8:22.
Moreover, he says nothing about arche, which makes a big difference in how Matthew 24 and Mark 13 are understood. Maybe Jesus was not predicting pain that would increase with intensity, but the beginning of the birth pains would be a special moment. See also the Tyndale Bulletin 45.1 (1994).
Duncan, I'm also not sure of the connection you're apparently making between causation/causality and predation, etc.
Duncan, on arche, look at how it's used the 55 other times in the GNT and note the contexts of those uses. Granted, arche can refer to the elementary parts of something or to principalities/rulers, but the context normally tips us off that the writer is using the word that way. In Matthew and Mark, it's a high probability that arche does mean the beginning or commencement of an activity. In Mt 24:8, arche is modifying panta tauta. How else are we to make sense of the modification if arche does not mean "beginning" or commencement?
A number of sources point to the rabbinic usage of the birth pain imagery.
Mounce says arche occurs 55 times in the GNT.
Here is the problem for me. Thayer says - a. used absolutely, of the beginning of all things: ἐν ἀρχή, John 1:1f (Genesis 1:1);
If one believes that it is a beginning absolute in Genesis, is that what it means in John - taking the whole gospel in context & its repeated genesis imagery.
Gjohn is a monumental beginning but is it the same beginning?
Thayer then states - in a relative sense, of the beginning of the thing spoken of: ἐξ ἀρχῆς, from the time when Jesus gathered disciples, John 6:64; John 16:4; ἀπ' ἀρχῆς, John 15:27 (since I appeared in public);
See - Trophic cascade alters ecosystem carbon exchange
Michael S. Strickland strick77@vt.edu, Dror Hawlena, Aspen Reese, +1, and Oswald J. Schmitz
This is predator Vs meso predator Vs herbivore phenomena. Not directly plant related. Historically there has been far more biomass under the humus than on it. Fungi, bacteria and worms. From this we are made.
https://arrellfoodinstitute.ca/storing-carbon-in-the-soil-is-a-nitrogen-problem/
What Thayer writes still stands as the most popular explanation for John 1:1a today, but not everyone reads the text that way, although Gen. 1:1 LXX suggests that John was referring the same beginning. However, we cannot say with absolute certainty that John 1:1 uses arche in the same way that Genesis does.
See https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2016/04/john-11ff-work-in-progress.html
I believe Thayer is correct about the other uses in John. Either way, the word would still denote a beginning or commencement of some activity, even if it's not the absolute beginning. So, in Mt 24:8, the beginning would happen relative to the vents being discussed.
@Duncan you've got me at a bit of a disadvantage here,because I'm still not sure how the natural cycles you mentioned are related to the subject of the post I referred to trophic cascades in response to a paper you quoted that seem to imply that the presence of predators in ecological systems was of uncertain value. So I find your response puzzling.from encyclopedia Britannica "In a three-level food chain, an increase (or decrease) in carnivores causes a decrease (or increase) in herbivores and an increase (or decrease) in primary producers such as plants and phytoplankton. For example, in eastern North America the removal of wolves (Canis lupus) has been associated with an increase in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and a decline in plants eaten by the deer." Thus the entire food chain is affected by the presence or absence shortage or surplus of predators ,apart from population control all predators moonlight as scavengers and cull the sick from herds,thus playing a role in controlling the spread of infectious disease. Also they play a roll in minimizing suffering in the wild by euthanizing the aged,the infirmed and the wounded.
Predators tend to very opportunistic in their approach to their craft ,after all it would make no sense expending more energy catching your dinner than you can obtain from consuming it. From the national academy of science in the U.S"Of the 550 gigatons of biomass carbon on Earth, animals make up about 2 gigatons, with insects comprising half of that and fish taking up another 0.7 gigatons. Everything else, including mammals, birds, nematodes and mollusks are roughly 0.3 gigatons, with humans weighing in at 0.06 gigatons.The research appears to show"
Though humans have had a negative impact on the terrestrial biomass in the làst few millenia cutting plant biomass in half and animal biomass by eighty five percent over the course of the history of life the trend has been generally upward even factoring in mass extinctions remember earth started with zero biomass and now even in the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere there is biomass.see John daley'article in the May 25 issue of Smithsonian magazine.
I'm still curious as to what bearing you think
any of this has on the issue of causality?
Mat 24:8 could still be saying that these are the chief pangs of distress, but the sign that is actually being looked for is the preaching.
I never like to say these things are impossible, Dunca, but I find that meaning in Mt 24:8 highly unlikely in view of how arche is normally used. Plus I look at the context of 24:8.
@aservantofJehovah you have said it for me, "Cycles" they may re configure or alter dependant on available diversity but they do not dictate diversity. The wolves in Yellowstone get wheeled out most commonly but the reality is, given enough time the land would regenerate once the herbivores had eaten themselves into starvation. Also the global invasive plant theory is being debunked quite thoroughly. They adapt and reconfigure a location into a new steady state. Biomas has been significantly depleted since the age of dinosaurs and has more to do with global average temperature than anything else. I am in favour of James Lovelocks two steady states. What is going too and is already destroying diversity in mammals is the rate of change, not the temperatures themselves. Conservation biologist have recognised that for some time. Denuded lands can be regenerated by deep plowing and subsequent reintroduction seeding of worms. Most importantly the removal of grazing animals. See - Deep ploughing increases agricultural soil organic matter stocks.
So what exactly differentiates (in mark, bur relevant to Matthew)? - "But when you hear about wars and reports of wars, don’t worry. They are necessary, but they do not represent the end,^ because nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be earthquakes and famines in various places."
So, what differentiates "wars" from "nations rising against nations"? Including the theft (usually by solders) and famines (usually caused by the actions of wars and solders stripping the resources), these are regularly associated with wars in the documentation of the period? This contextually should not be ignored.
@Duncan are you suggesting that the cycles are self caused or self sufficient? I think a better analogy would be a vortex or a whirlpool without a constant input of external energy these cycles would shut down. There is no guarantee that overgrazed land would ever recover that's why the return of the wolves to Yellowstone was deemed critical there was a real danger of desertification "Why it matters. With all life contained inside a very thin layer - a few kilometres large only - around the Earth’s mineral crust, soils play the role of a ‘living skin’ for land. Thousands of years are needed to form them, but unfortunately intensive farming, forest destruction, pollution can destroy them in just a few decades."Bruno Jochum Geneva solutions December 2018 top soil is quite fragile once lost recovery is rare.my understanding is that the dinosaurs were wiped out in a catyclism and actually the world was MUCH warmer in the Jurassic period than present "Throughout the Jurassic, the world was much warmer than at present, this is reflected in the probable absence of permanent ice caps at the poles. However, in this already warm climate, at ~183 million years ago, global temperatures increased by ~7°C.29 Apr 2019'" Sam Slater Nature magazine April 2009. But have I correctly Identified the point you are trying to make re:causality i.e that some effects are (in a sense) their own cause.
The two steady states are 4 degrees apart and I have to wonder at what evidence can be provided for 7 degrees?
https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/regreening-the-desert/
https://www.permaculturenews.org/2010/11/25/gabions-water-soaks-in-the-desert/#:~:text=A%20gabion%20is%20a%20leaky,and%20retained%20moisture%20over%20time.
Just one of many methods to help a desert regenerate itself. Just creating divets in the ground so that seeds and water can fall into them allow plants to emerge. Its all about extending edges on contour - patterning.
As someone who has a permaculture design certificate and my own design projects, I can demonstrate that all lands can recover and far quicker than you might think. High quality soils can be built, see - terra preta. Compost can be generated in 18 days, 1 cubic meter at a time with no burn off. 1 meter of biomass in , 1 meter out.
See - https://youtu.be/sohI6vnWZmk
This was the first test piece but things have moved on considerably since then. Babylon could be recovered in decades. Salt does not need to be washed out of the soil. Deep water irrigation and evaporation cursed the land with salt but rather than trying to wash it out, as Geoff says would take a thousand years to recover, it can easily be encapsulated by fungi and made inert.
Fungi can easily eat oil slicks and even turn them into edible mushrooms .
Most of the deserts in Africa were created by the cattle culture.
If you understand the ecology then you understand why goats were depicted as bad in the bible.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/great-green-wall-trees-climate-crisis-b1802570.html
You can also understand why the acacia tree is only mentioned in the bible with respect to holy items and used for nothing else. Acacia generates the highest biodiversity in a scrub desert. Termite hills (observe the ant) generate soil and biodiversity too.
I could go on for pages, but hopefully you get the point.
Also see - Leila Darwish
Earth Repair: A Grassroots Guide to Healing Toxic and Damaged Landscapes
And watch - https://youtu.be/ycLbO02lb7w
Duncan, regarding Mark 13: I'm not sure there is a real distinction to be made between wars and repors of wars, and the nations rising up against nations and kingdoms against kingdoms. Mark 13:8 could be expanding the thought of vs. 7 since we have γὰρ in the latter passage.
@duncan did you read the article it provides evidence for instance there were no permanent ice caps,additionally the remains of subtropical forest have been found in the antartic circle from that era"Scientists have discovered remnants of a swampy temperate rainforest that thrived in Antarctica about 90 million years ago. They were surprised to find fossil remnants of this forest in a sediment core sample retrieved in February 2017 from the ocean floor in the"by Shireen Gonzaga for earthsky.org April 12,2020.All these interventions you listed are outside the natural cycles that seemed to be the key to whatever argument re:causality you were making. Surely prevention is better(and cheaper) than cure though?
Yes the interventions I listed are all man made but all they do is utilise and accelerate natural processes that will happen anyway.
No argument that there was vegetation at the poles, but sub tropical? There is still a major problem with that - the light cycle. Vegetation will grow in a cave with no light if on puts an electric light in it for long enough, but all you get is understory growth, ferns etc. Either that or the earth's axis has shifted.
The article is highly speculative an this should ring alarm bells especially in the light of IPCC "climate models" -
According to climate models run by the scientists, these conditions could have existed if there was dense vegetation across Antarctica with little or no ice sheet present and carbon dioxide levels were higher than previously thought.
@Duncan you claim that desertification reverses naturally, can you produce an example or at least an example of it occurring in a practical timeline? And surely you agree that prevention is better than cure? Do you have an alternate explanation as to how the remains of a subtropical forest would get past the antartic circle? And once more what is your point re:causality and how are these natural cycles related thereto?
Is sediment the remains of a single subtropical forest? What about the depth and topology of the location. We have islands in the Pacific full of plastic but no one claims that's where it originated. Just like the volcanic topology of the dead sea accumulates salt. Just apply some basic logic to many of these papers and see what they do not tell you. Sometimes it's staggeringly simple and obvious.
https://www.mossy.earth/projects/termite-mound-restoration
Cycles are everywhere. One should not artificially compartmentalise open system(s). When you mention the earth and the sun. Isn't the sun still attracting external material regardless of its internal reactions.
The most important and least understood lesson taught in permaculture is patterning. The only attempt in modern science I know of to get a handle on it is the work of Benoit Mandelbrot.
@Duncan anything's possible I suppose but how likely is it that millenia worth of remains of a subtropical forest would end up hundreds miles from their origin point in the absense of humans? Do you have any articles or papers from accredited sources dissenting from the mainstream view? I'd be happy to have a look at them.
As for the sun we know that stars die we've seen it. And it seems that the earth makes little/no contribution in mitigating that fact re:our sun. If there is some kind of cycle there the earth is out of that loop as a contributor although it is certainly a beneficiary of the sun's largesse.But we were discussing cause and effect ,or were we?
@edgar - Inverting Eden: The Reversal of Genesis 1–3 in John’s Passion1 NICHOLAS J. SCHASER
Who said millennia worth of remains? Did they, how have they dated it?
Frankly I am not too worried about "main stream" opinions, only what can be proven.
Its ten a penny.
How long has it taken mainstream science to recognise the rivers flowing in the sky?
As I already said "cycles" the chicken and the egg. Where are the beginnings and endings? Mostly in a limited human imagination.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0037073897000869
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234036820_Sediment_drifts_and_deep-sea_channel_systems_Antarctic_Peninsula_Pacific_Margin
https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/deconstructing-the-falkland-sediment-drift-implications-for-patagonian-ice-sheet-and-antarctic-circumpolar-current-evolution-during-the-plio-pleistocene-phd-in-geology-nerc-gw4-dtp/?p112289
@Duncan neither of these papers have any bearing on our discussion. But deal with sedimentation caused by glacial melts in the pleistocene and late Miocene epochs i.e countless millenia after the Jurassic epoch at best they could supply some insight into how the remains of our putative forest could have been preserved they are of no help in explaining away the evidence for said forest.
If sediment can drift which is heavier than trees then why not trees which can float very well indeed. Look, its not rocket science, and you are going to have to explain away the lack of sun light. I have heard all kinds of nonsense in that regard but the periodic table is quite fixed and if the atmosphere could distribute light then surely it can be demonstrated in an experiment that uses these combination of gases and also ensures that they are fully compatible combination for life to be unhindered.
https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3095/sediments-sequester-carbon-from-climate/
I hope this satisfies the point.
https://beta.nsf.gov/news/catastrophic-events-carry-forests-trees-thousands
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_reservoir_effect
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196516/traces-ancient-rainforest-antarctica-point-warmer
"However, little was known about the environment south of the Antarctic Circle at this time. Now, researchers have discovered evidence of a temperate rainforest in the region, such as would be found in New Zealand today. This was despite a four-month polar night, meaning for a third of every year there was no life-giving sunlight at all. "
Now, let's see them replicate those conditions, even on a small scale where trees survive without light for 4 months a year. Not to mention the temperature drop for that period.
https://www.livescience.com/38218-facts-about-pangaea.html
Or the continent was not where it is now.
About 300 million years ago, Earth didn't have seven continents, but instead one massive supercontinent called Pangaea, which was surrounded by a single ocean called Panthalassa.
Researchers have found evidence of rainforests near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the climate was exceptionally warm at the time.
A team from the UK and Germany discovered forest soil from the Cretaceous period within 900 km of the South Pole. Their analysis of the preserved roots, pollen and spores shows that the world at that time was a lot warmer than previously thought.
The preservation of this 90-million-year-old forest is exceptional, but even more surprising is the world it reveals.
Professor Tina van de Flierdt
I fail to see how any of this is doing anything but injury to your case? It is claimed that Pangaea was hundreds of millions of years prior to when it would need to be to be of any help to you.
"Researchers have found evidence of rainforests near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the climate was exceptionally warm at the time." - the "south pole" WAS NOT the "south pole" at the time.
Did Pangaea spread out over night?! I hate to have to break this to you, but the continents are still moving now.
There is no other case I need to make other than the daylight issue. If they cannot solve that one, then they have nothing, or as I have just said the pole was not the pole at the time.
Aside from that I have also demonstrated that in recent times massive amounts of timer have been washed thousands of miles - including their roots.
"Evidence of a forest" is not in fact evidence for a forest at this location unless they can demonstrate trees that have been preserved in the vertical position - which has been found at other locations.
@Duncan we're talking 210+million years here "overnight" hardly seems the issue. And these are professional scientist I think it's a fairly safe assumption that they would know where the continent was at the time given that these forest have months of virtually perpetual daylight as well they could easily store up reserves during the summer that would tide them over during the winter I have no strong feelings about the matter either way but the mainstream seems to be on pretty solid ground.Also all the examples you gave involved sedimentation re:the ocean floor not inland.It seems unlikely that professional scientists would not have factored in such obvious considerations in their deliberations. Granted that science is a pitfall ridden enterprise,all we can do is provisionally assign credence to which ever hypothesis seems ,at the time, to be supported by the preponderance of evidence
Bulbs store energy. The support species that a forest requires do not. It's not about trees, it is about layers. See Altai and Sayan mountain ranges & the >>Southern<< Siberian rainforest.
"Appeal to authority is a common type of fallacy, or an argument based on unsound logic."
https://divediscover.whoi.edu/plate-tectonics/breakup-of-pangea/
One thing this video cannot tell us is the movement relative to the earth's axis at the time.
I was my understanding that the drilling for this forest was into sedimentary cores.
All I can use as an example is the complete sham of a report that the IPCC have produced regarding climate. Things that they claim will happen in 50 years' time according to models. But the on the ground scientists who actually collect real world data are seeing these very same phenomena occurring today. So, in that case the minority is proven over the majority, even if they do not get airtime.
Do not underestimate what people will do for funding & making a name. I have no skin in that game & am pointing out reasonable alternatives.
This is like the flood idea that northern Russia was warm before the flood. So, a mammoth had vegetation in its mouth. See "Woolly Mammoths: Suited for Cold?" http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mammoths.html
The real question is - what kind of vegetaion?
Appealing to authority is a universal vice.But this authority happens to have evidence ,granted it is evidence that can be interpreted in various ways, nothing that you have presented falsfies their interpretation.And trying to prove the negative tends to not age well ,plants on the whole are capable of adapting to prolonged dark periods via stored energy
See https://www.hfsp.org/hfsp-news-events/dark-side-versus-light-side-how-plants-adapt-prolonged-dark-periods
Fungi and fauna which support flora can adopt to extended periods of lowlight even better. Lapland the European country that gets the least light is its most forested.Much of the Artic and Antartic will get a couple hours of diffused light most days even during the winter only the poles themselves will be totally dark relatively speaking. Of course there is no way to speak with 100 percent certainty re:any occurrence so far back in the distant past.
Unlike my Siberian example, Lapland is not covered by a healthy forest biome. It's a pine desert. I don't know if I can explain all the details over a blog chat, but the pines are an invasive species who's needles when shed turn the ground acidic stopping most understory plants from growing and it's growth density crowds out all light from the ground under them. The root base is not like a proper tree. It does not stabilise the ground, in strong winds they fall over like matchsticks. These were planted in the UK after WW2 and they are now being systematically removed in favour of mixed selection of slower growing deciduous trees that actually encourage wildlife, mosses and fungi.
So in my book it is not a good example. And I would liken them to a giant grass like bamboo in many respects.
https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Malika_Cieremans_Plantation_to_food_forest.pdf
The article you cite has some important details missing. Look for the word - tree.
I have never doubted the ability of ferns and mosses to cope with extremely low light levels, but they are not the ultimate expression of a plant biome, such as over story trees.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/overstory
A collection of trees does not a forest make.
A forest consists of 5 to 8 layers. Below and above ground, on the horizontal and vertical planes. From roots to climbers, ground cover, shrubs bushes, understory, overstory etc.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12374-014-0322-8
@Duncan the article I cited dealt with the entire plant kingdom i.e from plankton to sequoia thus trees,grasses shrubs bushes etc.of all sorts are necessarily implied and need not be specifically mentioned.
From lapland.fi"Welcome to Finnish Lapland, the last wilderness in Europe. Maybe you’ve heard that before, but you don’t quite understand what it means. What is wilderness anyway? Wilderness is wild and uncultivated land—the way the Earth looks without human intervention. In Finnish Lapland, the vast majority of space is wilderness, tracts of land and water where forests grow free, rivers rush and gurgle. Here, many wild animals are born, live and die without ever seeing a human being."
Sounds like a florishing ecosystem to me.
Sounds like a holiday brochure, but since I have actually been their and across as far as Murmansk in Russia, I will believe my own eyes.
https://www.kolatravel.com/lovozero.htm
I have been here and no one mentions the Titanium/Tantalum mine that laid waste the pines and tundra for at least 10 miles in all directions. Do you remember when there was talk of acid rain caused by cars? Well much of it was caused here, not by cars.
https://www.kolatravel.com/umba.php
I have been here and fished for Pike in the rivers. Look carefully at the trees in the surrounding area - Pine desert.
I hope you're not too disappointed If I don't take your word over that of people who have lived there their entire lives.
Finally,
The article you cited is in reference to:-
Achkar, Natalia P.; Cho, Seok Keun; Poulsen, Christian; Arce, Agustin L.; Re, Delfina A.; Giudicatti, Axel J.; Karayekov, Elizabeth; Ryu, Moon Young; Choi, Suk Won; Harholt, Jesper; Casal, Jorge J.; Yang, Seong Wook; Manavella, Pablo A. (2018). A Quick HYL1-Dependent Reactivation of MicroRNA Production Is Required for a Proper Developmental Response after Extended Periods of Light Deprivation. Developmental Cell, 46(2), 236–247.e6. doi:10.1016/j.devcel.2018.06.014
The longest period to which it refers is:-
"a high proportion of the inactive form of HYL1 was observed in plants transferred from light to darkness for 3–4 days to simulate reburial,"
And research in this field has been mostly focused on:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabidopsis
@Duncan "of the entire land area of Lapland, 98% (i.e. 9 million hectares) is viable forest industry land. The actual forest area in Lapland spans 5 million hectares, two-thirds of which can be used for timber production" Lapland.fi. Sorry but the preponderance of evidence is against your claim at the very least we are dealing with a compact botanic biomass covering 98percent of the territory and you can feel free to slap whatever label makes you happy on it.
4 days of simulated burial is more extreme than anything any part of the Earth's surface would routinely endure even the poles.
It is not analogous to 4 months of darkness. Sorry but their it is, and the studies do not deal with trees.
The point regarding timber, it is pine just the same as the Scottish plantations and the ones in Northumberland. They are also pine desserts. At one time Scotland was covered by real trees, but it is also below the arctic circle and could be again.
No labels just evidence. You are conflating biomass with a forest.
Plants of some types grow anywhere they can get light and some can even cope for considerable lengths of time without it - but a forest can't.
From Wikipedia - Lapland's cold and wintry climate, coupled with its relative abundance of conifer trees such as pines and spruces, means that it has become associated with Christmas in some countries, most notably the United Kingdom, and holidays to Lapland are common towards the end of the year. However, the Lapland region has developed its infrastructure for year-round tourism.
You are clearly reading the brochure but Wikipedia spells out the tree types that are considerably in the majority. But they do not function like trees. A forest has much more diversity.
I have to apologies to Edgar for diluting this blog. I am going to make this my last post on this subject (for educational purposes).
Please see - https://youtu.be/l99d8BR8Tmk
I just want to demonstrate the difference between trees and a forest. At least as I understand the taxonomy.
Actually the piece was dealing with the country's massive 1.5 billion euro timber industry. But you are certainly entitled to your opinion. It just seems to me that you are quite literally missing the forest for the trees.
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