Causality and Randomness

Posted in MySpace Philosophy group under the topic "Chaos and Randomness":

Whether any action that happens today is uncaused is a matter for debate.

But unless we hold that time is cyclical, was there not ONE action that was uncaused? That which initiated all things to exist?

The Big Bang was not uncaused. So there had to be some event before that. But the initial event of existance was uncaused.

We depend on causal thinking-- what was called "lazy reasoning"-- because it works, for the most part. Sometimes causal thinking doesn’t work because we have determined the wrong cause. Perhaps it is because some action has too many causes to consider. And perhaps it is because it has no cause.

But considering how many actions occur in a given day, how many forces, both sentient and non- are at work, then we can say that most actions have a cause, no matter how complex it may be. Whether we know or can understand the cause or not.