RE: Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic
March 25, 2018 at 9:21 am
(March 25, 2018 at 8:59 am)polymath257 Wrote:(March 24, 2018 at 10:02 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: It seems that you appeal to a number of things as causes in this. As well, you by nothing (like L. Krauss) you seem to mean something rather than no thing. Where I would quibble, is that I do not believe that the laws of physics is a thing in and of it self. It is a description for the logical way in which things behave (Note: not nothing... well perhaps for some people).
And I agree. When there is a vacuum, there is NO THING in that vacuum. And yet, that vacuum can 'decay' and produce THINGS. So, yes, Some *thing* can come from no *thing*.
Quote:I'm going to need more than a claim, to drop the belief in causality. I'm not willing to just take it on faith, because as we can see, there is some equivocating which is sometimes taken advantage of. Personally, I need a testimony of what was done, what was observed, and then specifics as to how it is determined to be without cause. For some skeptics I have heard, even the testimony of others would not be enough for such an extraordinary claim. Some may not believe, if they saw it themselves. The problem I have, is that this is the type of claim, that involves more than simple observation.
Yes, it does. It is the correlation between identical situations that shows a violation of causality. A good read for this is a little article by Mermin 'Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks?'
http://web.pdx.edu/~pmoeck/lectures/Mermin%20longer.pdf
Mermin is, by the way, a very respected physicist with a long publication record and a very frequently used book on Solid State Physics.
Thanks, I'll look it over. My experience has been that the nondeterminism of QM is sometimes confounded for being non-caused.
The following I think reflects my view from what I have seen.
https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2012/...principle/
Quote:Quntum mechanics merely describe what takes place at the quantum level. It makes no reference to causes, but that does not imply that there are no causal entities involved.
Feser hypothesizes that perhaps Oerter understands the law of causality to refer to some sort of deterministic cause, and since quantum mechanics are supposedly indeterministic (a disputed interpretation), the law of causality could not apply. Feser notes that “[t]he principle of causality doesn’t require that. It requires only that a potency be actualized by something already actual; whether that something, whatever it is, actualizes potencies according some sort of pattern –deterministic or otherwise — is another matter altogether.”
The fact of the matter is that quantum mechanics has not identified causeless effects or invalidated the causal principle. For any event to occur it must first have the potential to occur, and then have that potential actualized. If that potential is actualized, it “must be actualized by something already actual,”[2] and that something is what we identify as the cause.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin
If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther