(December 20, 2021 at 9:20 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Why would an omnipotent being be better positioned to tell us whether nuclear decay is strictly classical?  I think you mean omniscient.  An omnipotent being can do all the things, but there's no implication or requirement that it even knows how it does a single thing.  Just like you don't actually know how you breathe.

One thing that surprises me is that most people almost never think about breathing. I have had asthma all my life and continually think about how my lungs feel, how hard it is to breathe, etc. I am *very* conscious about my breathing. Not all of the time, but much more than most, it seems.

OK, back to the thread.

Klorophyll, when an uranium atomic bomb explodes, only a minority of the U235 atoms participate in the reaction; the majority to most survive the explosion unscathed. The more that do participate, the higher the yield, the more destructive will be the blast. Does God decide which U235 atoms will participate and which will not in an atomic blast?

(December 20, 2021 at 4:04 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:

(December 1, 2021 at 9:28 pm)polymath257 Wrote: In other words, you are saying that causality is a matter of faith and, even if the best theory we have suggests otherwise, you will *insist* that there is always a cause.

But the fact of the matter is that to regain causality in the context of quantum mechanics, you need to go to a version of superdeterminism. It isn't just that we cannot detect causality violations, but that the type of hidden variable theories required to have local causation have been excluded via observation.

You're not very coherent here, I am afraid. You're acknowledging above that we cannot detect causality violations, and yet at the same time declare that the best theory we have doesn't preserve causality...!!??? If QM doesn't allow observing violations, then how do you know causality is violated ?

Classical physics tells us that causality is preserved in the grand scheme of things, there is no reason to assert otherwise unless we can really observe causality violations.

(December 1, 2021 at 9:28 pm)polymath257 Wrote: There is literally no cause for the timing of a nuclear decay. There is literally no cause for whether a double slit experiment measures spin up or spin down.

Unless you are an omnipotent being, I don't see how you, or anyone, can assert that nuclear decay is uncaused. 

(December 1, 2021 at 9:28 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Not being able to point out a cause is *observationally equivalent* to there being no cause. 

Not being able to point out a cause means that our science is limited, this is called epistemic humility. It's clearly a dishonest move to say there is no cause if we can't currently detect one.

(December 5, 2021 at 6:41 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Another problem with your thinking, is that, we don't detect design by their complexity, we detect design by contrasting designed things with things that occur naturally.

I am familiar with this objection to the arguments from design. But there is a very big problem with it : if the only way to recognize that x is designed is to contrast it with some naturally occuring y. Then we are begging the question of whether y is designed or not. The hidden assumption in this objection is that naturally occuring things aren't designed, which is simply a restatement of naturalism.......

This is the same equivocation fallacy on the word “design” that you’ve committed here over and over again.

The big dark is the so scarys, so therefore, the special magic being spoons me. It is so safes.

(December 21, 2021 at 2:57 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(December 20, 2021 at 4:04 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:  Then we are begging the question of whether y is designed or not. The hidden assumption in this objection is that naturally occuring things aren't designed, which is simply a restatement of naturalism.......

This is the same equivocation fallacy on the word “design” that you’ve committed here over and over again.

If everything is designed, including natural™ things, this necessarily opens up his stupid god to questions of competence. We lowly human worms have been fixing the divines natural designs since time immemorial. Why is it such a fuckup? Isn't it supposed to know shit...and more shit..than us?

I'm pretty sure that's the exact claim this dipshit butchered with the misuse of the term omnipotence....but hey....

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(December 21, 2021 at 10:04 am)polymath257 Wrote: One thing that surprises me is that most people almost never think about breathing. I have had asthma all my life and continually think about how my lungs feel, how hard it is to breathe, etc. I am *very* conscious about my breathing. Not all of the time, but much more than most, it seems.

OK, back to the thread.

"God" offers no explanation how or even that you breathe, but would claim your breath as it's own achievement all the same. Because "god" is and has always been a very dim person making very dim claims about things they know nothing about. The mouthpiece of the omniscient never seems to know shit. The mouthpiece of the omnipotent never seems to be able to do shit. It's puerile.

If gods could show that they knew anything.....if gods could show that they could do anything..it might be remotely credible - but they can't, so it isn't...and that's just the way things are, even according to the faithful - who retreat to divine hiddenness at the first opportunity.

(December 20, 2021 at 7:46 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Sorry, I misspoke. We *can* detect causality violations.  There are observations hat have been made that exclude *any* hiddent variable theories that are local.

Excluding local hidden variables doesn't really mean we ruled out causality... the possibility of global hidden variables is wide open. So, my question stands, how do you know that causality is violated in the first place ? 

(December 20, 2021 at 7:46 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Classical physics is known to be wrong. That is why we currently use quantum physics. And quantum physics is NOT a causal theory: it is a probabilistic theory.

And we have done so: look up Aspect's experiment related to the EPR paradox. The observations violate Bell's inequalities which *must* be satisfied by any locally causal system.

I thought classical physics are a good approximation when we don't need all the precision of modern theories.? Newton's model of gravitation didn't become garbage because Einstein figured out a better model, we can still use Newtonian mechanics for a great deal of practical purposes.

Engineering mechanics is applied Newtonian mechanics for the most part, because a mechanical engineer doesn't really have to worry about crazy spacetime curves when designing mechanical systems......

Again, let's say there no local causal agent, force, etc. , does that also mean there is no causal agent altogether ???

If classical physics, being a good approximation of reality, preserves causality, it should be safe to say that the subtleties of causality at the quantum level are more due to incomplete information (uncertainty principle) than to a real violation of causality.

I think you're missing the thrust. Classical notions of causality are apparently violated. That's the evidentiary case. It could be wrong for any number of reasons known and unknown, but an evidentiary case says that the thing you've saddled your god with is non applicative.

You still believe it, and still assert it, but you don't actually have the cover or support of any evidentiary case for that assertion. If when, and precisely because the evidentiary case has turned on your assertion, you now argue contrary to your previous utterance that this case is wrong, rather than demonstrative.

-entirely as predicted.

(December 22, 2021 at 2:22 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Classical notions of causality are apparently violated.  

Why..? modern theories just add more layers of complexity to classical notions. In the context of QM, we know that our scope of observation will be limited forever due to the uncertainty principle. Therefore, if our observations are simply limited, our ability to observe causes to effects is also limited, a fortiori. 

There is no apparent violation either, we don't detect an effect arising before a purported cause (and even if we do, it's still possible that we are chasing the wrong cause), we simply don't detect the cause

(December 22, 2021 at 2:22 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: You still believe it, and still assert it, but you don't actually have the cover or support of any evidentiary case for that assertion.

I am asserting this based on classical physics as a good approximation of reality. This is my support. Someone who claims causality isn't a good notion to describe reality, should provide decisive examples of causality violations.

There is another way to put it, although I am not completely sure: if there were truly violations of causality happening casually at the quantum level, then we would expect causal events and retrocausal events to somehow cancel out when we observe things from afar as in classical physics, which means we wouldn't observe causality in classical physics.

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(December 20, 2021 at 9:20 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Why would an omnipotent being be better positioned to tell us whether nuclear decay is strictly classical?  I think you mean omniscient.  An omnipotent being can do all the things, but there's no implication or requirement that it even knows how it does a single thing.  Just like you don't actually know how you breathe.

Sorry, I meant omniscience. Omnipotence doesn't seem to imply full knowledge about anything

(December 22, 2021 at 2:19 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:

(December 20, 2021 at 7:46 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Sorry, I misspoke. We *can* detect causality violations.  There are observations hat have been made that exclude *any* hiddent variable theories that are local.

Excluding local hidden variables doesn't really mean we ruled out causality... the possibility of global hidden variables is wide open. So, my question stands, how do you know that causality is violated in the first place ?

Quantum theory is an acausal theory. And it is far superior to the globally causal theories like Bohms, which do not have generalizations to relativistic theories.

So, unless you have give very good reasons to think that causality is NOT violated, in spite of Aspect's experiment, you cannot assume that it is *proven* that causality always holds.

Quote:

(December 20, 2021 at 7:46 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Classical physics is known to be wrong. That is why we currently use quantum physics. And quantum physics is NOT a causal theory: it is a probabilistic theory.

And we have done so: look up Aspect's experiment related to the EPR paradox. The observations violate Bell's inequalities which *must* be satisfied by any locally causal system.

I thought classical physics are a good approximation when we don't need all the precision of modern theories.? Newton's model of gravitation didn't become garbage because Einstein figured out a better model, we can still use Newtonian mechanics for a great deal of practical purposes.

Engineering mechanics is applied Newtonian mechanics for the most part, because a mechanical engineer doesn't really have to worry about crazy spacetime curves when designing mechanical systems......

Yes, classical physics is a good *approximation* in many cases. This includes cases that are above the atomic level or where speeds are much less than those of light, or where the gravitational forces involved are rather weak.

But, in the case of causality in the early universe, it is badly wrong. Most of the previous conditions fail at that time: the effects of subatomic particles are dominant, the speeds involved are relativistic, and the density of mass is enough that general relativity is required to be accurate.

Quote:Again, let's say there no local causal agent, force, etc. , does that also mean there is no causal agent altogether ???

No, but it does require that anyone insisting that causality always holds mus make a good argument for a global hidden variable theory. In particular, such a theory must work better in some way that quantum mechanics.

Quote:If classical physics, being a good approximation of reality, preserves causality, it should be safe to say that the subtleties of causality at the quantum level are more due to incomplete information (uncertainty principle) than to a real violation of causality.

Classical physics only applies at the macroscopic level. We *know* it is a bad approximation at the subatomic level. The reason it works at the macroscopic level is that there are enough individual particles so that the averages are predictable.

Furthermore, we *know* there is going to be a point in the early universe where quantum gravity is going to be required. That will be an inherently non-classical theory.

And, no, the violations we have seen for local hidden variables are not simply due to a lack of information. Quantum mechanics is a *local* theory, but it is not a causal one. And yet, it is *by far* the best physical theory we have ever had.

At this point, insisting on causality as necessary is almost laughable. Even a global theory has to abide by such stringent conditions as to make the local theory that is acausal much better as a physical theory.

This is the real cause of the Cosmos:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis

You can't disprove it, therefore, it must be true.