RE: I am a Catholic, ask me a question!
July 26, 2009 at 4:02 pm
(This post was last modified: July 26, 2009 at 4:17 pm by Jon Paul.)
(July 26, 2009 at 3:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: That's two answers. If you have already answered the question than please provide the number of the post in which you did. It will cost you only limited effort.It's one answer concerning one thing and another to another thing.
If the term clear evidence is too subjective for you to handle than tell me what criteria for evidence you use.
But I am not going to go into that debate now, as I've said, because it's a debate of it's own and we have already another debate.
Purple Rabbit Wrote:The difference between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge has nothing to do with the level of knowledge.No, it has to do with whether you need to bring it to the table from before the effect or if you can know it after the effect. And I am talking about making conclusions after the effect.
Purple Rabbit Wrote:So this really is a dust cloud you are throwing at me. Your answers more and more become entrenched in your obvious lack of knowledge on the nature of the things you base your argument on (causality, spacetime, etc). If you base yourself, as you say, on what you can observe in reality you are referring to a posteriori knowledge, i.e. empirical knowledge and your model is effectively open to alteration since more empirical data mean that the model can be falsified.Indeed it is falsifiable.
Purple Rabbit Wrote:If your model cannot be falsified you must be relying on a priori knowledge that can withstand empirical findings on any level of knowledge. This implies that it has to be absolute complete a priori knowledge that will never be falsified by empirical observation. So you have to choose: either your model is a relative model that can be falsified by empirical data or you are claiming absolute a priori knowledge and you can answer any question on any level. It seems you have chosen for a falsifiable relative model from a posteriori knowledge. Yet you claim absolute truth by it. This is a clear contradiction.It is falsifiable, but that does not make it falsified. Indeed, it has not been falsified, and to falsify it would require a radical burden to disprove that the fundamental things we think we know about reality, such as time, space and causation, are in fact delusions of our mind.
Purple Rabbit Wrote:You dodge the question. These are vastly different concepts of causality not just variant of the same. It shows you have no knowledge of these concepts at all.The concepts make no difference to what I mean by causality, because they all involve the definition of causality I mentioned.
Purple Rabbit Wrote:As in quantum mechanics which in essence is acausal. How does QM fit in your model? Or take atom decay, it's is uncaused and it is change. How does it fit your model?I am the one who doesn't understand causality, and yet you show your incredible ignorance on quantum theory. Quantum theory and atom decay are _not_ acausal in reality, only in our imperfect predictive abilities.
You haven't read up on your homework. Quantum theory affirms causation, and affirms our knowledge that causation is real, but also affirms that we don't have the totality of the information required to understand all causative events from our imperfect level of observation - that we don't have the predictive abilities to understand all causative events (surprise! we are not omniscient!). Here are some statements of scientists concerning whether quantum mechanics is "in essence" acausal.
Quote:It is a common perception that quantum mechanics has conclusively demonstrated events happen without cause in the sub-atomic realm. It is a view regularly expressed by followers of science, or more accurately, by those who like to read popular books on science. After reading an article in Wikipedia which suggested this was actually a myth (see below), I thought it would be interesting to travel around some physics forums and ask serious observers of quantum theory what they think.
This occurred over a few days in March, 2004.
The results were very interesting. Almost no one agreed with the idea that events happen without cause in the quantum realm. They all believed this constituted a gross misunderstanding of quantum theory. They affirmed the more sensible view that while things are "indeterministic" in the quantum realms in terms of our ability to predict events, the quantum realm is nevertheless fully causal.
The first post I sent into these forums (Science Forum and sci.physics.particle) was this:
[..]
(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: You are aware of the fact that simultaneity is dependent on the frame of reference, are you? If you insist that cause and effect are temporally and spatially divided, these concepts are dependent on the frame of reference. Or are you just supplying a statement about division that has no specific meaning? Sometimes it refers to temporal division, sometimes to spatial division and sometimes to logical division between cause and effect. Again your total lack of the basics of these concepts in our reality shows. Still you pertain that your model is rigid and can withstand any empirical observation. Are you god or only godlike?What I have said is that cause and effect are as such divided, you can call it logically if you will, but this division is also manifest spatiotemporally.
(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Again this is dodging the question. I am not asking about the nature of their gravitation. I am just asking how you can distinguish cause and effect in this situation? It is a classic question in the realm of causality for the math shows that it can be formulated time-independent and no physical meaning can be given to cause and effect. Which is quite disturbing for your model.It's not disturbing. All it shows is that we don't have the totality of information about the universe, which we probably never will, which is required to understand the totality of causative events. And ergo probablistic and stochastic logic is the remedy.
(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: That's a nice sentence but void of any meaning. Which realm in itself are you referring to?I mean the basic nature and attributes of the reality of our universe, such as causation.
(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Listen, your claim is that the whole of reality fits in your model. You definitely need to know if our reality has exceptions to your rule. You definitely need to be sure it all fits in there before making the claim. You are presenting this not as a falsifiable model of our reality, which is what scientific models are, but as absolute fact. This shows you are, possibly unaware of it, in a special pleading scheme. Think again, think for yourself, come away from dogma.What you are attacking is basically causation, and this has been tried by many before, and it's especially a popular misunderstanding of quantum theory. However, it is simply an argument from ignorance. And it is simply not what any observation or theory states; all we can learn is the imperfectness of the understanding we have of causative events, but none of that compromises the basic fact of causation, and quantum physicists agree. They are pragmatic in acausal models, because they don't have the predictive ability and understanding needed to be idealistic.
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton