Does metaphysical randomness actually exist?

[Just_Lurking]

Have you ever read Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolution? I think you’d be blown away, and it would clear up a lot of questions you have.

I thought that book was about the sociology of science, not so much about metaphysics. But no, I haven’t read it.

 

[jewells17]

Found info at www.catholicbridge.com last night that surprised me…mostly the personal testimony …it speaks to this issue.

 

[tonyrey]

Science has that characteristic as well. So far, the difference between science and metaphysics seems to lie in the methods used, such as experimentation versus just thinking about things.

The fundamental difference between science and metaphysics is that science is restricted to one aspect of reality, i.e. physical, whereas metaphysics is concerned with other aspects of reality, e.g. persons, mind, consciousness, rationality, free will, causality, order, necessity, chance, purpose, goodness, justice, beauty and love. The most significant difference is that science is restricted to “How?” whereas metaphysics considers “Why?”…

 

[Just_Lurking]

The fundamental difference between science and metaphysics is that science is restricted to one aspect of reality, i.e. physical, whereas metaphysics is concerned with other aspects of reality, e.g. persons, mind, consciousness, rationality, free will, causality, order, necessity, chance, purpose, goodness, justice, beauty and love. The most significant difference is that science is restricted to “How?” whereas metaphysics considers “Why?”…

See here for a scientific study of music and emotion, so it would seem that the study of beauty isn’t restricted to metaphysics. And it seems like evolutionists are asking why certain features evolved all the time.

 

[tonyrey]

See here for a scientific study of music and emotion, so it would seem that the study of beauty isn’t restricted to metaphysics. And it seems like evolutionists are asking why certain features evolved all the time.

Some of the topics in metaphysics are studied in other disciplines but.metaphysics is concerned not only with individual topics but with relating them to one another in a panoramic view of reality. That is why atheists tend to dislike metaphysics and even reject it as uninformative and unnecessary. It exposes the limitations of science which is concerned with reductive analysis rather than synthesis and restricts its attention to mechanistic explanation. Steven Weinberg’s supposedly profound observation “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless” is deducible from his assumption that science can in principle explain everything. When value and purpose are excluded at the outset how can one expect to reach any other conclusion?! It does not follow from the fact that he is a Nobel Laureate in Physics that he has philosophical acumen…

 

[Leela]

I thought that book was about the sociology of science, not so much about metaphysics. But no, I haven’t read it.

Kuhn was a historian but Rorty called him the most important philosopher of the twentieth century.

Amd speaking of Weinberg…

“Some scientists (such as Steven Weinberg and Ernst Mayr) are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts–or the way his work has been used to cast doubt–on the idea of scientific progress… Even Weinberg has said that “Structure has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science.” As one of Kuhn’s obituaries noted, “We all live in a post-Kuhnian age.”” --Mary Ellen Curtin

 

[liquidpele]

Kuhn was a historian but Rorty called him the most important philosopher of the twentieth century.

Amd speaking of Weinberg…

“Some scientists (such as Steven Weinberg and Ernst Mayr) are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts–or the way his work has been used to cast doubt–on the idea of scientific progress… Even Weinberg has said that “Structure has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science.” As one of Kuhn’s obituaries noted, “We all live in a post-Kuhnian age.”” --Mary Ellen Curtin

I haven’t read Kuhn, but it seems similar to A short history of nearly everything… just finished it, highly recommended.

 

[Leela]

I haven’t read Kuhn, but it seems similar to A short history of nearly everything… just finished it, highly recommended.

I’ve heard that Bryson is fun to read. Thanks for the recomendation, though I think it is probably not very similar. Kuhn’s book in not about recounting the history of science. He is studying scientific revolution and drawing some radical conclusions about the scientific tradition. If you’ve hard the term “paradigm shift” you know something of this book’s influence since it was coined in Structure.

 

[JDaniel]

I would.

From what I understand Heisenberg uncertainty principle doesn’t really have any bearing on us. For our arguments on causality we talk about substantial change that must be caused.

We shouldn’t put very much weight on what modern scientists say about metaphysics. Quantum physicists presuppose methodological naturalism, therefore to them the cause of the apparent uncaused existence of virtual particles in a vacuum are deemed materially uncaused. If they say there is no metaphysical cause, then they are pretending to be metaphysicians.

The fact is something that does not exist cannot bring itself into existence.(Because it doesn’t exist) I accept the conclusion of modern quantum physics that apparently cannot see a physical cause, but to say there is no cause whatsoever is insane. There is a cause, it is just not apparently material.

I guess I am confused: why are we calling this stuff “metaphysical”? Cause is basic to a general science of nature. The cause of immaterial and immobile being, or beings, is what is deemed to be “metaphysical” causality. Virtual particles are, if real in any sense, not of the metaphysical realm. If they are particles, they are matter; and, they are mobile. If they aren’t particles, per se, they are, at least, some sort of energy wave or vibration. A virtual particle is called “virtual” precisely because although it seems to exhibit properties like those of a particle, it also seems to exhibit properties like those of an energy field, or, a non-particle.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Kuhn - man that guy is repetitive and he loves the word “paradigm”! But I agree, good book.
As a scientist (biology), I generally think of “metaphysics” as the basis for all scientific thought: We observe a supposed reality, think about how to interpret what we have observed, generate a hypothesis, then use whatever tools we have available that are applicable to test that hypothesis. Of course, we first must ascertain whether the tools we have are up to the task, and for that we must also generate and test a hypothesis. The assumptions we make when dealing with the physical world are metaphysical. In this way metaphysics precedes natural science. The essence of metaphysics seems to be “What if…” and I’m babbling…

Precisely, my dear Watson!

jd

 

[antunesaa]

Ok, if Aristotle’s God exists, and everything that exists, has existed, and will exist, was an idea of the Divine Intellect, could the universe potentially be any other way than it is now? (exuding the actions of beings with free will)

My answer would be that the universe could not potentially be any other way.

Here is an example: J.R.R Tolkien is plans to write a story. In his intellect he has his idea of Middle Earth. When he writes this story down on paper and thus creates his story, does it have any potential to be anything other then his idea of Middle Earth? For surely he must have the idea of middle earth before he writes the story.

So here is another example: God wants to create something. The idea of His creation is in His Divine Intellect. He then creates His idea, which is the world as we know it. Therefore could something exist in a way that is contrary to His idea (Unless it is acted upon by free will)? I would answer no. So a random outcome could not be an outcome that is contrary to the idea that was in the mind of God.

Furthermore, if in the Divine Intellect, he had the idea to evolve species over time, why would this system be flawed to the extent that it would require him to intervene in the evolutionary process? Why wouldn’t the original motion moving creation from non-being to being suffice for the organization necessary for the evolution of species?

So what I am trying to say is, I don’t think neo-Darwinism is against the faith. We are not forced to participate in the intelligent design movement. If neo-Darwinism is correct, it may hurt our teleological argument, and many people may make erroneous philosophical and metaphysical conclusions from this natural truth, but I do not think that is necessarily atheistic. I think that it is really neutral, and perhaps even expected from our point of view.

I think you’re right that Darwinism is in no way opposed to our catholic beliefs, except perhaps in its more extreme versions when it denies free will. Free will is a metaphysic object that we believe was given to us by God. This implies that there must be some kind of incompleteness in the physical laws that allow free will to operate. So (and I’m sure our mathematician friend will understand this) the physical laws ensure the existence of reality but not its uniqueness. (Just as some theorems (Kakutani’s, Brouwer’s, etc.) that apply to maps from a given space onto itself warrant the existence of a fixed point, but not its uniqueness.) Free will is the quality needed by rational beings to select among alternatives. This is how I go about this issue.

By the way, if this metaphysical object (free will) does not exist, then everything is either deteministically predetermined or randomly chosen, or both, and the concept of “reason” is void. Reason in itself requires intellectual freedom to choose among alternatives; otherwise it is just a delusion: if we think we know A, then how can we be sure given that such belief is totally exogenous to us?

 

[antunesaa]

Although everything is created by God there is no reason why randomness cannot exist** within **the universe. To assert that everything must be determined implies that God cannot create randomness! Similarly randomness may exist “beyond” the universe if it is created by God but randomness cannot co-exist with God because He is the only Ultimate Reality.

Whether randomness is a divine attribute depends on how randomness is defined. God is certainly creative and His creativity is not determined by anything. Yet it is not undetermined. So what is it? The only possible solution is that it is self-determined. Spontaneous creativity, rationality, truth, goodness and love are all present in God. Obviously we cannot fully understand how He exists but we can understand to some extent how His attributes are related because we have direct experience of His activity in our own activity.

We are creative and rational with a capacity for love and self-determination. Animals too are creative and love their own but without free will and the power of reason they are incapable of creativity or love in the full sense of those terms. We know that we and we alone of all creatures on earth are responsible for our choices and decisions. In that sense we are “prime movers” because such unique responsibility is explained only by a participation in God’s creativity and freedom. He is immutable but causes change. He is not a static entity but the Source of dynamic energy. So if randomness is defined as spontaneity it does exist metaphysically in the Creator!
There is no reason why God should not allow spontaneity and random mutations to exist within the universe but it must be subordinate to the development of life as we know it. There could have been variations in the ways in which evolution has proceeded but the outcome would be the same: the existence of individuals who share the joy and fulfilment of being creative and in love!

A curious note here: we humans are apparently unable to create randomness using mathematical laws, even if probability theory is a respectable field of mathematics. To my knowledge, there is no mathematical way of creating sequences of numbers that are random without resorting to outside sources (first number given by my 4 year old daughter or by me, state of a given molecule, number of ducks in the creek outside my home, etc.). This is why our “random sequences” are in fact called “pseudo-random sequences”. I guess humans do not have the capacity of creating truly random sequences.

 

[tonyrey]

A curious note here: we humans are apparently unable to create randomness using mathematical laws, even if probability theory is a respectable field of mathematics. To my knowledge, there is no mathematical way of creating sequences of numbers that are random without resorting to outside sources (first number given by my 4 year old daughter or by me, state of a given molecule, number of ducks in the creek outside my home, etc.). This is why our “random sequences” are in fact called “pseudo-random sequences”. I guess humans do not have the capacity of creating truly random sequences.

You may well be right. And we may be incapable of knowing whether there are undiscovered laws which explain apparently random events.

I don’t think it really matters - if it doesn’t affect our attitude to reality. And I don’t think it does!