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Circular Causes and Consequences Paradox

They are logical fallacies

By Tudor Vieru, Science Editor

25th of April 2009, 11:26 GMT

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Causes and consequences need to stay separated, for everyone's sake
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One of the most widely recognized paradoxes of time travel is the circular causality problem, which basically states that the consequence of a phenomenon cannot be said to be its root cause. If that were true, it would shamelessly violate all laws of physics and time, and could, at least in theory, lead to the destruction of the Universe. Of course, that's a very serious matter to discuss, seeing how no one really knows what would happen if one of the numerous paradoxes that have been identified thus far in relation to time travel or the flow of the space-time continuum was violated.

Some say that the very fabric of time would act in very much the same way in which dark matter particles are said to behave – namely to annihilate each other when they interact or are compressed together. If we are to believe some theories, the Universe in which we live is just one of the endless possibilities that exist in the Multiverse, or meta-universe. Theorists say that a hypothetical set of multiple universes, which includes our own, contains all possible outcomes of all actions that were or could have been taken.

It also holds all possible configurations of all celestial bodies or celestial formations in the Universe, including the scenario in which the reionization epoch – which lasted until about a billion years after the Big Bang – never happened, and no galaxies, stars and black holes were formed in the giant, expanding void. The Multiverse, despite the vastness of its concepts, has been hypothetically deduced in research fields such as cosmology, physics, astronomy, philosophy, and trans-personal psychology.

Back to the issue of the circular paradox, I think an example is in order. The most popular example of the cause-and-effect paradox is the chicken-or-the-egg issue. Philosophers have used this problem for one simple reason – chickens lay eggs, but eggs give birth to chicken. So, before the evolution theory was made available less than 200 years ago, people only knew animals as “stand-alone” species, and not as the result of continuous evolution.

In real-life, there are numerous issues that can be described with the circular causality paradox, which is usually referred to as a vicious circle. For example, in an ideal economy, when a large number of available job opportunities drive production up, this in turn causes a need for more jobs. Conversely, when the economic downturn scares people into spending less, the market loses demand, and the economic downturn worsens.

Another example of mutually exclusive statements is, unfortunately, a situation with which all college graduates are faced when looking for a job. One of the main demands of any employer is for the candidate to have a great degree of experience, which is obviously impossible for someone looking for their first job. The logic that employers apply misses a step, a fact that they are aware of, but do not consider for financial reasons.

Dealing with such paradoxes is not an easy task, but they are, nevertheless, a daily occurrence with which we must come to terms. Some people will try to have you manipulated using this kind of techniques, so it's very important to recognize them in any of their forms.

TAGS:

Universe | paradoxes | time travel | logic | Universe
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