More Questions on Causality

[ccmnxc]

I was observing a dialogue on Facebook between a theist and an atheist regarding the Five Ways. The atheist (let’s call him D.) stated that there were multiple areas in Quantum Mechanics in which causality was not present (something was not moved (changed) by another thing). Further, he stated that he was not presently but had been a physicist (major?) He brought up atomic decay:

In our present understanding of quantum mechanics (see any introductory textbook, such as David Griffith’s), that an atomic nucleus decays at a particular time is a random event. As a random event, it does not have a cause. Thus, changes do not require changers.

Someone replied by stating that “random” is not equivalent to “uncaused.” This was his reply:

Your objection fails because you have fundamentally misunderstood the way in which physicists use the term ‘random’. That has a precise mathematical definition. We really do mean that it doesn’t have a cause and, what’s more, we have experimental tests to see if there are any hidden causes. Those were famously ruled out by the violation of the Bell Inequalities.

I know pretty much zero about physics, mathematics, and really anything that would be of much help here. Does anyone with more knowledge than I on this topic know how to respond? Thanks.

 

[raikou]

I would agree that randomness doesn’t mean uncaused.

Randomness is only relative to human perception. It just means that humans cannot predict the sequences in a particular order, or that occurrences of a set of events seem to be happening at an equal likelihood, but these don’t mean that the events exclude a cause. It’s just that it’s difficult for humans to know exactly what will happen next. It denotes an absence of specific knowledge, not the absence of a cause.

For example, drawing 5 numbers from 65 lottery balls is thought to be a “random” event. It doesn’t mean that which numbers should come out isn’t caused or influenced by other factors such as gravity, air, initial positions etc. The events are still caused by physical laws (which are ultimately caused by God, as we know )

Just because scientists are unable to predict something accurately doesn’t mean it has no cause.

 

[Richca]

I was observing a dialogue on Facebook between a theist and an atheist regarding the Five Ways. The atheist (let’s call him D.) stated that there were multiple areas in Quantum Mechanics in which causality was not present (something was not moved (changed) by another thing). Further, he stated that he was not presently but had been a physicist (major?) He brought up atomic decay:

Someone replied by stating that “random” is not equivalent to “uncaused.” This was his reply:

I know pretty much zero about physics, mathematics, and really anything that would be of much help here. Does anyone with more knowledge than I on this topic know how to respond? Thanks.

Firstly, God is the only uncaused being. Every other being has been created and caused by Him.
Secondly, God is the First Mover who moves all second movers to act. God’s action as First Mover is undetectable by science or observable phenomenon.
Thirdly, the quantum world is truly amazing, it is God’s creation. Science has come a long way in understanding the sub atomic world but we don’t know everything about it and may never know everything about it. It appears there are electromagnetic forces at work in atomic decay.
Fourthly, it appears it is in the very nature of unstable atomic nuclei that they decay. God created it this way just as he created water to be made of hydrogen and oxygen. The question could be asked, why do canadian geese mate for life and not other animals? The reason is because God created canadian geese this way and with this instinct. So, at present if physics does not observe some kind of observable cause of atomic decay, it appears that it is of the very nature of unstable atomic nuclei that it decays and God is the cause and author of that nature.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

there were multiple areas in Quantum Mechanics in which causality was not present

I think the situation is that the cause is unknown (no known caused) instead of it being known that there is no cause.

Someone replied by stating that “random” is not equivalent to “uncaused.” This was his reply:

This is true. “Random” is applied to things that we can’t predict. The Billard Ball scenario is an example of a deterministic system that appears random. It usually means that the state of the system is either something we can’t track or can’t infer without its initial state.

What is being discussed is probably Quantum Indeterminacy.
wiki:

Quantum indeterminacy is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system, that has become one of the characteristics of the standard description of quantum physics.

Side note: In general I think there’s little to be gained through debates on Facebook.

 

[polytropos]

The atheist (let’s call him D.) stated that there were multiple areas in Quantum Mechanics in which causality was not present (something was not moved (changed) by another thing).

There is a difference between “causality [is] not present [in the theory]” and “quantum phenomena are acausal.” Quantum physics can be formalized in a way that doesn’t make reference to causes, but it doesn’t follow that there are not causes. (This is a general feature of mathematizations of scientific theories.)

Someone replied by stating that “random” is not equivalent to “uncaused.” This was his reply:

Your objection fails because you have fundamentally misunderstood the way in which physicists use the term ‘random’. That has a precise mathematical definition. We really do mean that it doesn’t have a cause and, what’s more, we have experimental tests to see if there are any hidden causes. Those were famously ruled out by the violation of the Bell Inequalities.

Randomness does have a precise mathematical definition, but it again doesn’t follow that the lack of reference to a cause (mathematically) implies a lack of a cause (physically).

And although Bell’s theorem, when Bell came up with it, seemed like (when it was finally tested) it would settle the question of determinism in quantum mechanics for good, that has not been the case in scientific practice. There remains a pluralism of interpretations in quantum mechanics. (The problem with the deterministic interpretations now is that they are implausible, and the ways by which they are made consistent theoretically are hard to justify experimentally.)

That said, I also don’t think that indeterminism in quantum mechanics undermines the principle of causality. That much can be seen by considering scenarios of quantum entanglement. Assume that quantum mechanics is genuinely indeterministic and consider Schrodinger’s cat. If Schrodinger’s cat dies, its death was indeterministic. But it was caused.

 

[ccmnxc]

Thanks, all, for the replies.