Cosmological argument (the argument from contingency)

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STT said:
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Gorgias:
No, it’s a scientific / mathematical assertion.
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I think you need to study the derivation of it (Uncertainty principle - Wikipedia).
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Please read the articles which you cite. The very first sentence of the Wiki page you referenced gives a definition that IDs the HUP as a mathematical inequality. Ergo: mathematical assertion, not logical principle.

Here’s what your citation says:
In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which the values for certain pairs of physical quantities of a particle, such as position, x, and momentum, p, can be predicted from initial conditions.
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Gorgias said:
Please read the articles which you cite. The very first sentence of the Wiki page you referenced gives a definition that IDs the HUP as a mathematical inequality. Ergo: mathematical assertion, not logical principle.
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The author was not very precise. It is a principle if it is called uncertainty principle.
 
STT said:
The author was not very precise.
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🤦‍♂️

And yet, that’s the reference you chose to explain your point of view. And now, once it’s been shown to contradict your premise, you’re backing away from it. (Without providing any further substantiation of your assertion in light of my objection, I might add.)
STT said:
It is a principle if it is called uncertainty principle.
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Bah. Poor foundation. I can name my cat “Principle”, but that doesn’t mean she’s a logical principle.
:roll_eyes:
 
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Gorgias said:
Do you really think that the Uncertainty Principle is an instance of the PSR?
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Of course not. STT stated that God is constrained by any logical principle. To which you replied that he hadn’t cited a logical principle, so I offered the PSR as an example of a logical principle that constrains God.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
 
Mmarco said:
As I said, “quantum particles” are not particles, but abstract mathematical structures that we cannot even imagine;
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What are some of the quantum particles that we cannot imagine? For example, are any of the following quantum particles that we cannot imagine?
neutron
proton
quark
electron
kaon
photon
Higgs boson
Xib’-
?
 
lelinator said:
To which you replied that he hadn’t cited a logical principle, so I offered the PSR as an example of a logical principle that constrains God.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
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Got it. Makes sense.

I’d still nuance this not as a constraint upon God, but part of who God is and how we as creatures are constrained.
 
Gorgias said:
I’d still nuance this not as a constraint upon God , but part of who God is and how we as creatures are constrained.
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Totally agree. PSR isn’t really a constraint on God, but it does constrain what God can create. I might point out that as a solipsist I’d argue that it’s this very same principle that constrains what I can create. So for a solipsist, just as for God, reality looks the way it does because it’s constrained by logical principles such as the PSR.

So in some sense, arguing for the existence of God based upon how reality behaves is inconclusive, because whether it was created by God or by me it’s guided by the very same constraints.

The trick then is to look for behaviors that would swing the argument toward one conclusion over the other. What is it about the behavior of reality that leads you to conclude that it was created by God?
 
lelinator said:
WOW…you’ve got a parrot that can play opera on a piano!!!
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Actually it is a chicken that can play the opera on the piano. The parrot can only play Happy Birthday on the piano. But the parrot can sing a song close to an opera song. Now what is the mathematics behind that? I would like to see the mathematical formula that explains how a chicken can play an opera on the piano.
 
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AlNg said:
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Mmarco:
As I said, “quantum particles” are not particles, but abstract mathematical structures that we cannot even imagine;
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What are some of the quantum particles that we cannot imagine? For example, are any of the following quantum particles that we cannot imagine?
neutron
proton
quark
electron
kaon
photon
Higgs boson
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All of them are inconceivable and unimaginable; maths is the only means we have to describe their properties coherently.
 
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Using a hydrogen atom as an example in the electron. We know there are different quantum states maybe when looking for position the electron exist as a particle and when looking for velocity it exists as a wave.
 
BT3241 said:
Using a hydrogen atom as an example in the electron. We know there are different quantum states maybe when looking for position the electron exist as a particle and when looking for velocity it exists as a wave.
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The point is that if the electron was a particle, it should always manifest itself as a particle and all of its properties should be compatible with the ones of a particle. The same is true if the electron was a wave. But we know that the electron in certain situations behaves like a particl, in other situations it behaves like a wave and in other situations it behaves like none of them (e.g. entanglement).
The only logical conclusion we can draw is that quantum particles are neither particles nor waves.
Both concepts of particle and wave are only imperfect analogies which allow to explain just some aspects of microscopic reality, but not in a coherent way and they leave out other fundamental aspects.

The fact is that we have no direct access to the microscopic reality; we use our mathematical models to predicts macroscopic phenomena, which includes the results we see on the macroscopic displays of our measurements devices.
Quantum particles and quantum fields are actually abstract concepts, elements of astract mathematical models.
 
Mmarco said:
Quantum particles and quantum fields are actually abstract concepts, elements of astract mathematical models.
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And being abstract concepts they may be nothing more than an illusion created by my own conscious mind.
 
The other point is position is completely irreverent when measuring velocity and velocity is completely irrelevant when finding position.
 
BT3241 said:
The other point is position is completely irreverent when measuring velocity and velocity is completely irrelevant when finding position.
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This is simply false. For a particle, velocity is relevant when you measure its position.
In fact, both position and velocity are necessary to determine a motion along a trajectory. A particle has definite values of both postion and velocity because it is localized in space. On the contrary, some properties of quantum particles imply that they are not localized in space, while other properties of quantum particles imply that they are localized in space.
However, something cannot be both localized and not localized, because one definition denies the other.
 
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