A 'First Cause' is Unscientific

Philosophy
1
"Those who make the mistake of thinking in terms of a first cause are fated never to become men of science".
  • Aldoux Huxley, Ends and Means (London 1945), pp.14,15.
2

Those whom attempt to dissect the first cause in the manner of cutting up a dead cat will find their instruments of observation blocked, smashed, and twisted. Huxley himself provides a great example to this fact.

Thanks for the quote and illustrative example. :slight_smile:

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”

― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods Employed for Their Realization