An object being it's own cause

  • Thread starter Thread starter Matthias123
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Matthias123 said:
The substantial form would be that of a particle, but it would have behavioural characteristics of a wave.

It would just be another way of saying it is in essence a particle but it acts like a wave. This way we can avoid saying it is both, because something cannot be both a particle and a wave at the same time.
Click to expand...
I think you’re misinformed here. Light is not a particle that acts like a wave. Light exhibits the properties of a wave when you set up an experiment to observe wave-like properties, and it exhibits the properties of a particle when you set up an experiment to observe particle-like properties. And it’s not just light that does this. Everything has a wave-particle duality.

Speaking of the youtube video, I don’t agree with the author’s conclusions. He says that
The physical changes do not come about from the continual action of an external moving agent, as the First Way requires, but from the intrinsic capacities and tendencies modern physics identifies as fundamental forces.
Click to expand...
But according to the standard model, the fundamental forces are exerted on matter via the force-mediating particles. Or, if you prefer general relativity, matter and energy still tell space-time how to curve, which in turn tells matter and energy how to move.

So external moving agents still apply.
 
Luke_K said:
Everything has a wave-particle duality.
Click to expand...
Would this not suggest to you a contradiction? Or can we view it in a different way. Remember the viewer has a direct influence on each experiment. There is no telling what effect that will have.
 
Thanks for the correction!

well the problem is he is trying to mash it into modern physics which is not only mechanistic, but it is materialistic by method. Not gunna work out, and it isn’t the fault of either system.
 
MindOverMatter said:
Would this not suggest to you a contradiction? Or can we view it in a different way. Remember the viewer has a direct influence on each experiment. There is no telling what effect that will have.
Click to expand...
Of course it’s a contradiction. That’s “quantum weirdness” for you. It’s a paradox from our macroscopic everyday life, but might make perfect sense if we were the size of electrons.

There’s a caveat to my criticism of the youtube video in my earlier post. I don’t have a good enough understanding of general relativity or string theory to say that a causal chain applies to them, but I’m almost certain that it does to the Standard Model.
 
Luke_K said:
It’s a paradox from our macroscopic everyday life, but might make perfect sense if we were the size of electrons.
Click to expand...
Then you at least admit the possibility that the paradox is only apparent, as in due to our perspective?
 
MindOverMatter said:
Then you at least admit the possibility that the paradox is only apparent, as in due to our perspective?
Click to expand...
Well if you want to get technical, I guess everything in science is only apparent. But it’s a very fundamental concept of quantum mechanics, which, when applied, has ushered in much of modern technology.
 
The problem is that something cannot be both true and false at the same time in the same context. Could the moon both exist and not exist at the same time?

That is why it cannot be both at the same time, unless logic itself is to break down. If logic itself breaks down at that level, then how are we able to use mathematics to describe it?

Just because we can use QM in technology doesn’t mean that we understand how it works. Actually I don’t think anyone has the slightest idea of exactly how it is working, we are just able to make predictions.

I think the Copenhagen Interpretation and it’s “qauntum wierdness” is going to fall through. I pray that M-Theory is the answer.
 
40.png
MindOverMatter:
When it comes to quantum physics, ones philosophical world view heavily informs ones interpretation.
Well, there is an old saying among physicists: “Now shut up and start calculating.”
Regardless of an interpretation the laws of physics describe nature, quantum physics is no exception. People might different opinions about philosophical implication of scientific theories, but their outcome is still factual.
An honest person who doesn’t merely live for controversy would be very cautious when making claims that a square can be a triangle at the same time. I see no real reason to believe that such a thing is possible, and anything less then necessity is not going to convince me, and should not convince you.
Click to expand...
Of course not, that is a matter of definition. Self-contradicting definitions are common in other professions, not science.
 
Matthias123 said:
All the scientist is able to report is that there is no physical cause. He cannot claim with authority that there is no cause whatsoever.
Click to expand...
That maybe true. But no-one else can claim anything regarding that event’s cause if there was one, because no-one doesn’t know anything about it.
 
AnAtheist said:
That maybe true. But no-one else can claim anything regarding that event’s cause if there was one, because no-one doesn’t know anything about it.
Click to expand...
The fact is, non-being does not move to being without an efficient cause. If it is happening, we would be right in calling it magic – it is not possible for this to happen. If there is no physical cause; it is up to the metaphysicians to theorize if there is a non-physical cause.

Why can’t we talk about it? It wouldn’t be science because science assumes immaterial things do not exist because it wants to gather information about nature and this is the best way to do it. Doesn’t mean immaterial things don’t exist. Remember the formal cause?
 
This is neither an issue of physics nor of observation, but of logic. If you wish to toss out logic, then both physics and observation become irrelevant.

No object can be its own cause for the following logical reasoning regardless of observed physical laws;

Existence is defined (in reality with or without dictionary authority) by the property of affect. This is to say that an object exists if and only if it has the property of affect. If it cannot affect anything, then it does not exist. If it can affect something then it does exist.

This definition is acceptable in both logos and pathos modes in that even if something did exist in some other regard, if it truly had no potential to affect anything whatsoever, then why would anyone care and there could be no negative consequence for declaring its non-existence.

Additionally the ability to have “affect” is the ability to cause change of a state or situation.
Cause is, by definition, that which affected the effect or changed state.

With this in mind, for anything to cause anything, it must first exist with that potential to affect. Thus for something to cause itself it must exist before it exists.

If you wish to take out the element of time between cause to effect with a notion of simultaneous cause and effect, then the idea of cause is dismissed and invalid. This would indeed have to be the case for something to truly come from nothing.

But this proposal presents a serious and even deadly concept. What it proposes is that at anytime and any place, any existence and its affect can instantly appear without cause.

This leaves the mind with no means of assisting the body in the pursuit of life. No probability can be ascertained. No decision can be made. Even the voice of a prophet could not be relied upon. And no credit or guilt to be assigned to any action.

All of Science would be null and void along with all religions and all philosophies. Fore this one idea proposes that existence, what is real, is entirely dependent upon what is non-existence and not real - fantasy.

Cause and effect are used by the mind to assess preferred from un-preferred and cannot be dismissed without utterly destroying the mind and thus the body it is purposed to assist.

Remove the time between cause and effect and all existence would instantly vanish. Although it is proposed that all things change, how fast they change is critically significant.
 
If you wish to take out the element of time between cause to effect with a notion of simultaneous cause and effect, then the idea of cause is dismissed and invalid. This would indeed have to be the case for something to truly come from nothing.
Click to expand...
Take for example the movement of time per se from non-being to being. This would happen without time, and therefore the effect would happen timelessly, so cause and effect would happen instantaneously. However nobody would claim that there wasn’t an efficient cause.

So I think that this would not invalidate cause.
 
Matthias123 said:
Take for example the movement of time per se from non-being to being.
Click to expand...
Time is merely the measurement of relative change. Time does not “move”. Time is the measure of movement/change.

If you take out time, you have taken out change. Whatever you had, you still have fore nothing can change. Such change would constitute something to measure and thus time.

Logically, nothing can exist without time. Existence requires the ability to affect. How could anything affect anything if there can be no measure of change/affect? 🤷

Existence itself would instantly cease. 😊
 
What about the change of imaginary time in the Hartle-Hawking state to normal time? In this state imaginary numbers are used in the equation and it makes the flow of time perpinducular:



So what about the change from imaginary time to real time?

What about the efficient cause that brought time into being?
 
Logically, nothing can exist without time. Existence requires the ability to affect. How could anything affect anything if there can be no measure of change/affect?
Click to expand...
Unless the cause and effect happen at the same time.

The efficient cause of Socrates falling over is Aristotle pushing him. It takes time for Socrates to possess the accident of having fallen on the ground. Now assuming that the efficient cause of the push is not happening over time (instant push) and there was no time, then the efficient cause (Aristotle pushing Socrates) and the accident of Socrates on the ground fallen (the effect) will happen timelessly, ie instantly.

I think it would only be a contradiction if effect came before cause, but this is not the case.
 
Matthias123 said:
What about the change of imaginary time in the Hartle-Hawking state to normal time? In this state imaginary numbers are used in the equation and it makes the flow of time perpinducular:

So what about the change from imaginary time to real time?

What about the efficient cause that brought time into being?
Click to expand...
What about the change of imaginary gods of Greece to normal God belief? In this state imaginary gods are used and it makes the flow of God caused by imagination.

I suggest not attempting to talk about imaginary time as though it was real regardless of someone putting it into an equation. Anything can be put into an equation.
Matthias123 said:
Unless the cause and effect happen at the same time.

The efficient cause of Socrates falling over is Aristotle pushing him. It takes time for Socrates to possess the accident of having fallen on the ground. Now assuming that the efficient cause of the push is not happening over time (instant push) and there was no time, then the efficient cause (Aristotle pushing Socrates) and the accident of Socrates on the ground fallen (the effect) will happen timelessly, ie instantly.
Click to expand...
You are describing the scenario of a single event happening instantaneously. Such is not the issue.

The fact that there was a change from when Aristotle began to push and Socrates fell means that time must exist. In fact such an occurrence by itself gives time existence because it is change.

How quickly that change took place is merely an issue of relative measure. The event happened instantaneously relative to some other event.

If you want to propose that ALL events happen instantaneously, then again, you have no universe.

The “cause” of time is any change of state.
 
ive always thought of time as simply the illusion of measure of change, not necessary metaphysically, as cause and effect can be seperated by substance. any comments?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top