RE: I am a Catholic, ask me a question!
July 26, 2009 at 5:32 pm
(This post was last modified: July 26, 2009 at 5:49 pm by Purple Rabbit.)
Well, as a matter of fact I have done my homework on this. The problem is that causality and deteminism are often confused. QM is acausal but deterministic. That may be hard to understand, but it also is available with a straight ahead explanation on Wikipedia. Furthermore, I am familiar with David Quinn and his lunatic site about A=A. David Quinn and his followers are no experts on QM. Please do not bother me with fringe philosophy.
The reason that QM is acausal is that there is no way to tell which of the superpositioned states on the cause side causes the effect. If you have a way please provide it here. I will accept evidence for the contrary only when you answer the question with argumentation from physics. A simple I could not find someone on a forum who could explain it to me, will not do. And oh, I have found forums about physics where they do understand this.
It boils down to the question of hidden variables. Are there any hidden variables that govern superpositioned states? Well so far all attempts trying to find these alleged hidden variables have failed. Indeed in Bell's experiment it was conclusively shown that there are no hidden variables in QM leading to the astounding result of nonlocality. Nonlocality has been shown indeed. So the answer is, at least for now, that QM is acausal, unless you want to revise the definition of causality to mean that every superpositioned state can be the cause of the effect, the reason I asked for your definition or that you allow backwards time travel (Bohmian interpretation of QM). QM is deterministic however in a mathematical sense. And these two facts often confuse people.
Also atom decay is acausal. If you have a cause for this please provide it and again ignorance on science fora will not do as an answer.
The reason that QM is acausal is that there is no way to tell which of the superpositioned states on the cause side causes the effect. If you have a way please provide it here. I will accept evidence for the contrary only when you answer the question with argumentation from physics. A simple I could not find someone on a forum who could explain it to me, will not do. And oh, I have found forums about physics where they do understand this.
It boils down to the question of hidden variables. Are there any hidden variables that govern superpositioned states? Well so far all attempts trying to find these alleged hidden variables have failed. Indeed in Bell's experiment it was conclusively shown that there are no hidden variables in QM leading to the astounding result of nonlocality. Nonlocality has been shown indeed. So the answer is, at least for now, that QM is acausal, unless you want to revise the definition of causality to mean that every superpositioned state can be the cause of the effect, the reason I asked for your definition or that you allow backwards time travel (Bohmian interpretation of QM). QM is deterministic however in a mathematical sense. And these two facts often confuse people.
Also atom decay is acausal. If you have a cause for this please provide it and again ignorance on science fora will not do as an answer.
(July 26, 2009 at 4:02 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:Dodging the question.(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.
Jon Paul Wrote:After empirical research you mean.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.
Jon Paul Wrote:Which means that your claim cannot be absolute at the moment.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.
Jon Paul Wrote:Indeed to make an absolute claim about the absolute, you would require absolute knowledge. How else could you assess absoluteness. This is part of your claim.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.
Jon Paul Wrote:These are not just variants of causality. And you haven't defined causality at all. You just provided a dust cloud.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.
Jon Paul Wrote:Manifest spatiotemporally, well that's a clear statement...not. Does it or does it not mean that cause and event are necessarily separated spatially and/or temporally?(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.
Jon Paul Wrote:I am not attacking causality but your accuracy in handling it. Your model suggests a lot, but is not accurate at all. It cannot provide any deeper insight into these relevant questions on the nature of causality. You not even provide a decent definition of causality and from that you have the nerve to suggest that I am arguing from ignorance. Your concept is a hollow case with fancy shiny nameplates on the outside. But it has no predictive or explanatory power whatsoever.(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.
"I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped, in the blinding headlights of vacuous crap" - Tim Minchin in "Storm"
Christianity is perfect bullshit, christians are not - Purple Rabbit, honouring CS Lewis
Faith is illogical - fr0d0
Christianity is perfect bullshit, christians are not - Purple Rabbit, honouring CS Lewis
Faith is illogical - fr0d0