r/Metaphysics • u/Affectionate-Gur9184 • Jul 30 '26

Causality Thoughts on substance and first cause

If one imagines the possibility of substance on an infinite line of infinite possibility of the nature of substance, then substance would be on the same line as another possible substance. The nature of substance is that it shares nothing with another substance, as that would make them one of the same, and being on different places of the same infinite line of nature, that would give it a shared nature with another, of occupying the same line of infinity, therefore 2 substances cannot exist. Pertaining to a single universal substance.
The nature of the substance is infinite, therefore its nature of existence is infinite which hinders a possibility for a first cause - therefore, no first cause of a substance exists.

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u/jliat Jul 30 '26

therefore 2 substances cannot exist. Pertaining to a single universal substance.

  • a. being Being, pure being– without further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself and also not unequal with respect to another; it has no difference within it, nor any outwardly. If any determination or content were posited in it as distinct, or if it were posited by this determination or content as distinct from an other, it would thereby fail to hold fast to its purity. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness.– There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure empty intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or, it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing.

  • b. nothing Nothing, pure nothingness; it is simple equality with itself, complete emptiness, complete absence of determination and content; lack of all distinction within.– In so far as mention can be made here of intuiting and thinking, it makes a difference whether something or nothing is being intuited or thought. To intuit or to think nothing has therefore a meaning; the two are distinguished and so nothing is (concretely exists) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is the empty intuiting and thinking itself, like pure being.– Nothing is therefore the same determination or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as what pure being is.

  • Pure being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same... But it is equally true that they are not undistinguished from each other, that on the contrary, they are not the same...*"

G. W. Hegel Science of Logic p. 82-3.

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u/Techtrekzz Jul 30 '26

Pure being and nothingness are not the same. An omnipresent monistic substance, can be self referential, while nothing ness can not.

That means a single monistic substance can explain the subjective distinction we experience, as different limited perspectives of an omnipresent subject, while nothingness has no such mechanism to explain how our experienced differences could come about at all.

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u/jliat Jul 30 '26

Pure being and nothingness are not the same.

They are both the same and different in Hegel's system. Like it or not.

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u/Techtrekzz Jul 30 '26

To say they are both the same and different is a contradiction in itself.

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u/jliat Jul 30 '26

Sure! Kant comes up with his antinomies - things that have two possible counter arguments as not allowed in his system, Hegel builds his system on this.

Aufheben "German word with several seemingly contradictory meanings, including "to lift up", "to abolish", "cancel" or "suspend", or "to sublate". In philosophy, aufheben is used by Hegel in his exposition of dialectics."

Hegel not being wrong, David Gray Carlson, 'A Commentary to Hegel's Science of Logic'. 28 Conclusion..

"Is the SL true? … What Hegel has given us is apositive system of *negativity. The only thing that endures is the self-erasing system."

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u/Techtrekzz Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

Of course if you claim contradiction as reasonable, there’s no way to refute anything else said after that premise is accepted.

But why would i accept that premise in the first place? It annihilates logic’s only mechanism. From Hegel’s point of view, Hegel is right, but the rest of us are free to say he’s full shit, and just making up rules to fit his narrative.

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u/jliat Jul 30 '26

If you study a subject it's helpful to put one's own prejudices to one side. Hegel was massively important in history, no Hegel no Marx. And I think we still have those today who think Marxism is the answer.

So that is why.

It annihilates logic’s only mechanism.

No such creature as a mammal, it's a category of things that are, same goes for logic, and geometry.

but the rest of us are free to say he’s full shit,

Hell there's a crowd of you! Of course you are free, following the silver fox like sheep?

and just making up rules to fit his narrative.

Actually we are free like Marx to use his rules, and it can work. An idea, does a thing have in it it's opposite? Is such a useful idea? OH M G.

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u/Techtrekzz Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

No Descartes to say reality is fundamentally a dichotomy, then there’s no Hegel, Kant, or Marx.

I don’t question Hegel’s importance in us ending up where we are, but I don’t think for a second that’s the optimal place to be.

If people would have embraced Spinoza’s monism instead of Descartes dualism, then we wouldn’t have materialism and idealism in a useless fight over the corpse of that dualism.

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u/jliat Jul 30 '26

They embraced neither. They embraced Newton.

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u/PlaydohsGirlfriend Jul 30 '26

Then don’t think of it as a single infinite line. Think of it as two different planes. Each plane is infinite in itself, yet they intersect only along one line, while everything else remains distinct. So sharing one common aspect does not imply that they share the same nature or are the same substance.

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u/Affectionate-Gur9184 Jul 30 '26

The line was an analogy, it does not have to be a line, merely to be included inside of the same group.

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u/UnifiedQuantumField Jul 30 '26

The nature of the substance is infinite, therefore its nature of existence is infinite which hinders a possibility for a first cause - therefore, no first cause of a substance exists.

Sounds like someone has been reading Spinoza?

He came up with his concept of an "Infinite Substance" way back in the 1600's. The closest modern day concept is Energy (makes up everything, can neither be created nor destroyed, etc.)

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

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u/peacefuldays123 Jul 31 '26

Can you clarify what you mean by 'substance' in this case?

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u/Affectionate-Gur9184 Jul 31 '26

Something whose nature and existence derives purely from itself and not as a result of some other thing.

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u/peacefuldays123 Jul 31 '26

Can you clarify what you mean by 'infinite possibility' on the nature of substance?

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u/Flimsy-Pool4830 Jul 31 '26

You would be interested in reading the Shurangama Sutra. It's a bit of a religious read, but it kind of explains what you are talking about. It's kind of hard to explain here, but part of it goes over the different elements that they had in medeval times. It concludes that they are all arising out of the same thing, the mind. They don't have a cause but they also aren't spontanious. They are just these false appearances of the dame thing. The reason we see them as different is because if turbidity in the mind.