---
title: "PHI403 Lecture 14 — It All Started With a Big Bang"
type: source
tags: [philosophy-of-science, causal-chains, determinism, indeterminism, transitivity]
authors: [Anjum, Rani Lill; Rocca, Elena]
year: 2023
venue: "PHI403 Causation in Science, NMBU"
kind: handout
raw_path: "raw/Philosophy of Science/PHI302 14 It All Started With a Big Bang.pdf"
created: 2026-04-20
updated: 2026-04-20
key_claims:
  - The causal-chain theory supports determinism — every event is necessitated by prior events.
  - Indeterminism requires either genuine chance (stochasticism) or dispositional tendencies (potentialities that may or may not manifest).
  - Most scientific models assume determinism for practical reasons (calculability, predictability), even when the underlying view is indeterminist.
  - Causation is non-transitive: in intransitive chains (fire → smoke → alarm → sprinkler → fire out) the initial cause does not transfer through counteracting steps.
---

# PHI403 Lecture 14 — It All Started With a Big Bang

On causation at the scale of the universe, and whether causation is **transitive**. The causal-chain picture — *if A causes B and B causes C, then A causes C* — is implicit in many scientific explanations ("the Big Bang caused everything") and supports **causal determinism**: every event is necessitated by prior events.

**Indeterminism** comes in two flavours:
- **Stochasticism / chanciness** — events happen without prior causes (radioactive decay is sometimes cited).
- **Dispositional tendency** — initial conditions create *potentialities*; not anything could happen, but multiple outcomes remain possible.

The **"Big Bang happening again" test**: if the initial conditions were identical, would history repeat exactly? A determinist says yes, a dispositionalist indeterminist says other dispositions might have manifested.

**Transitivity fails for counteracting chains**: fire (A) → smoke (B) → alarm (C) → sprinkler (D) → fire extinguished (E). Clearly A does not cause E — the sprinkler's causal role is to *counteract* the fire. **Causation is non-transitive**: sometimes transitive, sometimes not.

The lecture sets up the probability-theoretic treatment in subsequent lectures: determinism + credence (L15), frequentism vs propensity (L16), conditional probability (L17).

## Connections
Back-link: [[sources/2023-anjum-rocca-phi403-causation-in-science]]. Concepts: [[concepts/causation]] · [[concepts/dispositionalism]] · [[concepts/probabilistic-causation]].