Particle Physics and Causation

[Vera_Ljuba]

That definition of “blind faith” is a lot less offensive than the rhetorical one oft implied.

I am glad, because it was not my intention to be offensive. We all believe things for what there is no evidence, but not everyone is willing to base their whole life on such beliefs.

Also, I like the example you gave. Being a mathematician, that stuff appeals to me. Take it even further, though, with Ramsey theory: given a universe large enough, and you would start to have copies of yourself appear just by mathematical necessity. The cubic space your body occupies can be arranged in an inconceivably large number of ways, but it is still a finite number of ways. That means it can be calculated. Randomly rearranging it would eventually produce you again. At least in mathematical theory.

Being a (retired) math professor myself I agree with you.

By the way, I recall a wonderful “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoon, with the caption: “The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”.

 

[Mort_Alz]

i am glad, because it was not my intention to be offensive. We all believe things for what there is no evidence, but not everyone is willing to base their whole life on such beliefs.

Being a (retired) math professor myself i agree with you.

By the way, i recall a wonderful “calvin and hobbes” cartoon, with the caption: “the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”.

 

[inocente]

I think you would have to have a Calvinistic framework of theology for that to make sense, but, if you do, it DOES make sense. Under that framework, you wouldn’t have to answer the question, “How would one who doesn’t believe in God come to reason that He does exist.” because you believe we can’t arrive at a knowledge of Him by our reason. He either gives you knowledge of Himself or He doesn’t.

The last part of your response just sort of glosses over all of the alleged healings and exorcisms done by Jesus in the Gospels. I understand your point, though. The real miracle of Christianity is the redemptive power of Christ and you don’t need physical miracles for that to manifest. However, I don’t think Paul meant to imply that the lesser, more carnal miracles of Christ didn’t happen or that they didn’t serve a purpose. I am asking you specifically about the physical miracles. You’ve already expressed resistance to the idea that they were just science we don’t yet understand, but you also demand that anyone who sys that they were supernatural be able to explain how that supernature works. I want to know what YOU think, but I’ll first say that I don’t think a person has to know and be able to explain all the particulars in order to reasonably assert a philosophical axiom. The statement, “There is something that exists which is not nature, but can interact with nature and is not subject to natural scientific laws.” does not actually require further exposition in order to be valid. It does not produce a contradiction.

Not so fast, surely it needs a lot more exposition.

Take a tennis ball. It can be moved by a bat, a foot, gravity, a strong wind, etc. What does it mean to say instead that it is moved by something not subject to natural scientific laws? Presumably you mean the ball is observed to move spontaneously, with no known explanation, so it looks like magic. We’ll label it dark force until we work out what it actually is, in the same way that scientists christened dark matter and dark energy until it’s known what they really are.

We know the action of dark force is physical, and the ball itself is subject to the physical law, and the system of which it is a part must conserve energy, conserve momentum, etc. So surely this is no different from any other physical phenomenon - we see a physical process we can’t yet explain, and set out to explain it. If it then turns out that dark force breaks known laws of nature, we trash them and devise new laws which cater for dark force. Surely dark force must be explicable physically since it interacts with the physical?

*I’m digressing. Please tell me what you think of Christ’s miraculous healings, exorcisms, raising Lazarus from the dead, etc. Do you think they were real historical events? Fictional mythology? You’ve already said you don’t think they were science not yet understood.

Thanks in advance.*

I think demons was just how people then understood mental illness, and the gospels speak in concepts they could understand. And there is some hyperbole too. I’m very skeptical of the Lazarus story, given the length of time and physical processes of decay. There’s no way to reverse entropy when so much information about the original has been lost, turned to mulch and evaporated. It would require some kind of Star Trek matter transporter to return to the past and bring the living body into the future. Which perhaps is a possibility, but I really can’t see the value of trying to pick everything apart scientifically. As I said, I’m with Paul on this. Some demand signs, I don’t.

Monsignor Georges Lemaître said “It never had to be a question of reducing the supreme Being to the rank of a scientific hypothesis”. That’s his cop out, and I totally agree.

One could also argue that our entire model of atomic and subatomic physics is just us projecting our conceptions onto the world since we will never actually be able to directly observe phenomena that small. Even atoms are too small for light wavelengths to make them visible to us even if we could make a microscope zoom in that close. At the atomic level and smaller, all our talk of particles, and other objects are just mathematical models and representations of the effects we observe. They are accurate models as far as they go, but that doesn’t mean they confirm everything about how we imagine atoms and particles. You’ve already demonstrated that by your bringing up string theory and how matter might not be as solid as we like to imagine it.

I think the same is probably true with Aristotelian and Scholastic philosophy. Accurate as far as they go, but still just models of reality. Personally, I think they are still the best models of reality that produce the least amount of contradictions when compared with other philosophies.

I don’t know about that. Aristotle’s method didn’t involve much if any testing, whereas the modern concepts have been tested to several decimal places. Yes the model could be wrong, in the same way that Newton’s model for gravity was wrong, but all the tested equations would have to be a subset of a new model.

Though I think you’re right that there is a lesson there about worldviews. The people who thought Aristotle’s model was correct got very upset when Galileo and Copernicus proved it wrong. Then there was a whole bevy of philosophers who worked for over a century on the basis of a Newtonian mechanistic clockwork universe, also proved wrong. So chances are that our current GR+QM worldview is also laughably wrong, even though all the equations work.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Let’s go back to the original topic. There are two presented scenarios:

1. There is an infinite descent of causes.
2. There is “stopping point” of antecedents, and from that it is assumed to follow that the seemingly uncaused “first” events must have an “unnatural” (or non-natural or supernatural or subnatural) causes.

But this would contradict the PSR (Principle of Sufficient Reason). However, the PSR is not a “law of nature”, it is simply a suggested principle (somewhat similar to Occam’s razor). The opposite is that some events are simply “brute facts”, without any explanation or even without any need for explanation. They just are what they are.

In the deductive systems the basic principles are the axioms. They are not subject to the PSR. No one can meaningfully ask: “why are there exactly three basic laws of logic”? Now the question in the open world (inductive system) is whether there are “brute facts”? Indeed there are. For example the virtual size of the Sun and the Moon (viewed from the Earth) are almost identical, and that makes the solar eclipse possible. But the question of: “why is the virtual size of the Sun and the Moon the same?” is a nonsensical one. Nowadays they are, but the Earth and Moon are not static objects, in a few millennia the virtual ratio of the Sun and the Moon will change.

In the particle physics it a known fact that on the innermost electron shell there can only be up to two electrons, on the next one can hold up to 8 (2 + 6), and so on. These are brute facts. It is not a meaningful question to ask: “why 2 or why 8”?

So the PSR does not “reign supreme” in the inductive systems either. As such the idea of having some “truly” elementary particles, which are simply what they are, without rhyme of reason is not a problematic one. If there are and they have certain characteristics then we can investigate them, but that is all.

There is another question to be pondered. The laws of the macro-world and the micro-world are totally different. Quantum mechanics describes the micro-world and the usual “laws” do not hold there. Remember the double-slit experiment, where one electron interfered with “itself” passing through to parallel slits at the same time.

The whole QM is a bunch of mathematics (and I would not dare to touch them with a ten-foot pole ), but they work. Some philosophers try to ask: "but what those equations “mean”? They mean nothing, they can simply calculate the outcome of an experiment. I remember the question about a cable car. The two end points (top and bottom) have a one-to-one relationship to two specific points of the hill. But the question: “what does a mid point on the path of the cable refer to”? Noting at all. We are happy that the car brings us to the top and we can enjoy the scenery .

 

[Mort_Alz]

Not so fast, surely it needs a lot more exposition.

Take a tennis ball. It can be moved by a bat, a foot, gravity, a strong wind, etc. What does it mean to say instead that it is moved by something not subject to natural scientific laws? Presumably you mean the ball is observed to move spontaneously, with no known explanation, so it looks like magic. We’ll label it dark force until we work out what it actually is, in the same way that scientists christened dark matter and dark energy until it’s known what they really are.

We know the action of dark force is physical, and the ball itself is subject to the physical law, and the system of which it is a part must conserve energy, conserve momentum, etc. So surely this is no different from any other physical phenomenon - we see a physical process we can’t yet explain, and set out to explain it. If it then turns out that dark force breaks known laws of nature, we trash them and devise new laws which cater for dark force. Surely dark force must be explicable physically since it interacts with the physical?

I think demons was just how people then understood mental illness, and the gospels speak in concepts they could understand. And there is some hyperbole too. I’m very skeptical of the Lazarus story, given the length of time and physical processes of decay. There’s no way to reverse entropy when so much information about the original has been lost, turned to mulch and evaporated. It would require some kind of Star Trek matter transporter to return to the past and bring the living body into the future. Which perhaps is a possibility, but I really can’t see the value of trying to pick everything apart scientifically. As I said, I’m with Paul on this. Some demand signs, I don’t.

Monsignor Georges Lemaître said “It never had to be a question of reducing the supreme Being to the rank of a scientific hypothesis”. That’s his cop out, and I totally agree.

I don’t know about that. Aristotle’s method didn’t involve much if any testing, whereas the modern concepts have been tested to several decimal places. Yes the model could be wrong, in the same way that Newton’s model for gravity was wrong, but all the tested equations would have to be a subset of a new model.

Though I think you’re right that there is a lesson there about worldviews. The people who thought Aristotle’s model was correct got very upset when Galileo and Copernicus proved it wrong. Then there was a whole bevy of philosophers who worked for over a century on the basis of a Newtonian mechanistic clockwork universe, also proved wrong. So chances are that our current GR+QM worldview is also laughably wrong, even though all the equations work.

I understand what you’re trying to say in the first few paragraphs. I answer that the classical argument from causation is still just as applicable as ever. If everything just becomes “nature” once defined and discovered, then we seem to run into a problem that seems unlikely; that nature is a completely closed and self-sufficient system. This is so counterintuitive no matter how you spin it because it’s evident that all movement is slowing down to a complete stop which means that there’s a finite amount of movement-causing energy within the “system” of nature. It just stands to reason it could not be the cause of its own movement. It just necessitates the existence of a cause that is outside the system of nature. I don’t know why people freak out over this.

Regarding Aristotle’s methods being somehow lesser because they were not scientific, I disagree with your premise in general. Especially being a mathematician.

 

[Mort_Alz]

Let’s go back to the original topic. There are two presented scenarios:

1. There is an infinite descent of causes.
2. There is “stopping point” of antecedents, and from that it is assumed to follow that the seemingly uncaused “first” events must have an “unnatural” (or non-natural or supernatural or subnatural) causes.

But this would contradict the PSR (Principle of Sufficient Reason). However, the PSR is not a “law of nature”, it is simply a suggested principle (somewhat similar to Occam’s razor). The opposite is that some events are simply “brute facts”, without any explanation or even without any need for explanation. They just are what they are.

In the deductive systems the basic principles are the axioms. They are not subject to the PSR. No one can meaningfully ask: “why are there exactly three basic laws of logic”? Now the question in the open world (inductive system) is whether there are “brute facts”? Indeed there are. For example the virtual size of the Sun and the Moon (viewed from the Earth) are almost identical, and that makes the solar eclipse possible. But the question of: “why is the virtual size of the Sun and the Moon the same?” is a nonsensical one. Nowadays they are, but the Earth and Moon are not static objects, in a few millennia the virtual ratio of the Sun and the Moon will change.

In the particle physics it a known fact that on the innermost electron shell there can only be up to two electrons, on the next one can hold up to 8 (2 + 6), and so on. These are brute facts. It is not a meaningful question to ask: “why 2 or why 8”?

So the PSR does not “reign supreme” in the inductive systems either. As such the idea of having some “truly” elementary particles, which are simply what they are, without rhyme of reason is not a problematic one. If there are and they have certain characteristics then we can investigate them, but that is all.

There is another question to be pondered. The laws of the macro-world and the micro-world are totally different. Quantum mechanics describes the micro-world and the usual “laws” do not hold there. Remember the double-slit experiment, where one electron interfered with “itself” passing through to parallel slits at the same time.

The whole QM is a bunch of mathematics (and I would not dare to touch them with a ten-foot pole ), but they work. Some philosophers try to ask: "but what those equations “mean”? They mean nothing, they can simply calculate the outcome of an experiment. I remember the question about a cable car. The two end points (top and bottom) have a one-to-one relationship to two specific points of the hill. But the question: “what does a mid point on the path of the cable refer to”? Noting at all. We are happy that the car brings us to the top and we can enjoy the scenery .

This whole reply is a giant cop-out. No disrespect. Imagine where we would be if we assumed that the mechanics of human biology were just “brute fact.” We would never have achieved the advances in medical science which we enjoy today. Almost all scientific advancement occurred because we weren’t content with “brute facts.” We wonder about constituent parts.

 

[Mort_Alz]

Or, let me put it this way. To say that the behavior of elementary particles is “brute fact” is the same as saying they move on their own which is the same as to say that they move without a natural cause, which is the same as to say they move by magic.

 

[Mort_Alz]

A better “brute fact” of nature is that physical objects do not move spontaneously.

I think the better argument for the Materialist side is to simply say that there is an infinitesimal regression of smaller and smaller constituent parts. That way, you can ALWAYS say that the cause is natural. Countless millennia could pass without discovering anything smaller than what we know of now and you could STILL assert “something smaller exists which explains the movement of the larger; we just haven’t discovered it yet.”

That argument at least works. You kind of get a picture that is similar to the graph y = tan x. As x approaches pi/2 from the right, y gets infinitesimally smaller, but never terminates at a smallest value. If it did, it would violate a “brute fact” of math that you can’t divide by zero. So, too, can nature never terminate at a smallest size without violating the “brute fact” that physical objects do not move spontaneously.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Or, let me put it this way. To say that the behavior of elementary particles is “brute fact” is the same as saying they move on their own which is the same as to say that they move without a natural cause, which is the same as to say they move by magic.

Nope. There is no magic implied. You cannot tell the difference between a “stationary” object and a one which moves with a constant speed in a straight line. Read up on the theory of special relativity. Only an accelerating object needs an external source for its motion.

Another part of the “cop out” as you called it, is that the subatomic elements cannot be compared to the elements of the macro world. They are only mathematical abstractions, and we only care about their behavior as predicted by the equations that describe them.

The question of “but what are these particles really?” is presented only by philosophers. The actual physicists are happy with their predictions and their measurements. Some might toy with the “what is reality?” in their spare time, but only as an idle spending their spare time, since the “true nature of reality” is nonsense.

 

[inocente]

I understand what you’re trying to say in the first few paragraphs. I answer that the classical argument from causation is still just as applicable as ever. If everything just becomes “nature” once defined and discovered, then we seem to run into a problem that seems unlikely; that nature is a completely closed and self-sufficient system. This is so counterintuitive no matter how you spin it because it’s evident that all movement is slowing down to a complete stop which means that there’s a finite amount of movement-causing energy within the “system” of nature. It just stands to reason it could not be the cause of its own movement. It just necessitates the existence of a cause that is outside the system of nature. I don’t know why people freak out over this.

Regarding Aristotle’s methods being somehow lesser because they were not scientific, I disagree with your premise in general. Especially being a mathematician.

Trouble is, Aristotle’s physics appeals to intuition, which only knows conditions on earth. We see everything slow down here, unless it’s constantly pushed, because of air and friction and gravity etc., and so our intuition says the normal state must be no motion. But modern physics finds that everything is in motion relative to everything else, and QM says particles cannot be at rest. Turns out the only possible natural state is motion. Aristotle’s physics, and intuition, are often incompatible with truth.

And whatever your intuition, modern physics states that nature is a completely closed and self-sufficient system. The universe is an isolated system and its total energy-mass must be constant, the same now as at the big bang. (It’s assumed it must sum to zero, since if it has a non-zero value, that physical energy must have come from another physical system outside the universe).

As far as a necessary cause, the logic is far from watertight. Three bijou issuettes for starters. If we allow multiverse shenanigans as at least not logically impossible, the cause could be a black hole or whatever. A second issue is that time doesn’t exist at the big bang, so it’s arguable whether it’s coherent to talk of a cause. And Hume argues there isn’t even such an animal as cause and effect anyway, it’s just our habit of our thinking.

Or, let me put it this way. To say that the behavior of elementary particles is “brute fact” is the same as saying they move on their own which is the same as to say that they move without a natural cause, which is the same as to say they move by magic.

You may be thinking that particles exist in isolation, but they coexist with spacetime, which is a constant flux of energy. The division between things and space is perhaps more an artifact of how we see the world then how the world is. A state of absolute rest, in nature, is impossible.

 

[Vonsalza]

The question of “but what are these particles really?” is presented only by philosophers. The actual physicists are happy with their predictions and their measurements.

I’m not sure that’s totally legit. A lot of this stuff (read: nearly all of this stuff) is less “known” than many would like to convey.

One of my fav articles on the topic I’ve saved:

What is “Spacetime” Really? (He covers how it relates to particles, so it’s relevant to the post)

When it comes to the smallest subatomic particles/waves or “time” itself, if a poster asserts “this is simply how it is, period”, then you’re probably reading the ramblings of an idiot (That’s not aimed at anyone in particular). “Generally Accepted” is about as good as something gets in modern science. Innovations frequently change what was previously “generally accepted”.

When you camp with science; pack lightly. You’re going to move a lot.

 

[thinkandmull]

Does the idea of Space-Time mean we are literally time itself (our bodies at least)??

 

[Mort_Alz]

Nope. There is no magic implied. You cannot tell the difference between a “stationary” object and a one which moves with a constant speed in a straight line. Read up on the theory of special relativity. Only an accelerating object needs an external source for its motion.

Another part of the “cop out” as you called it, is that the subatomic elements cannot be compared to the elements of the macro world. They are only mathematical abstractions, and we only care about their behavior as predicted by the equations that describe them.

The question of “but what are these particles really?” is presented only by philosophers. The actual physicists are happy with their predictions and their measurements. Some might toy with the “what is reality?” in their spare time, but only as an idle spending their spare time, since the “true nature of reality” is nonsense.

Ah, the old I-don’t-like-where-the-examination-of-this-question-leads-so-I’ll-just-say-the-question-is-stupid trick.

 

[Mort_Alz]

Trouble is, Aristotle’s physics appeals to intuition, which only knows conditions on earth. We see everything slow down here, unless it’s constantly pushed, because of air and friction and gravity etc., and so our intuition says the normal state must be no motion. But modern physics finds that everything is in motion relative to everything else, and QM says particles cannot be at rest. Turns out the only possible natural state is motion. Aristotle’s physics, and intuition, are often incompatible with truth.

And whatever your intuition, modern physics states that nature is a completely closed and self-sufficient system. The universe is an isolated system and its total energy-mass must be constant, the same now as at the big bang. (It’s assumed it must sum to zero, since if it has a non-zero value, that physical energy must have come from another physical system outside the universe).

As far as a necessary cause, the logic is far from watertight. Three bijou issuettes for starters. If we allow multiverse shenanigans as at least not logically impossible, the cause could be a black hole or whatever. A second issue is that time doesn’t exist at the big bang, so it’s arguable whether it’s coherent to talk of a cause. And Hume argues there isn’t even such an animal as cause and effect anyway, it’s just our habit of our thinking.

You may be thinking that particles exist in isolation, but they coexist with spacetime, which is a constant flux of energy. The division between things and space is perhaps more an artifact of how we see the world then how the world is. A state of absolute rest, in nature, is impossible.

So? All my points are still relevant. Physicists also generally think that our universe is slowly but imminently headed towards a “heat death” where there will eventually be no movement of any particles.

And, the conservation of energy is not actually an answer to the questions I’ve raised.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Ah, the old I-don’t-like-where-the-examination-of-this-question-leads-so-I’ll-just-say-the-question-is-stupid trick.

What is on the other side of the Mobius strip? What exists to the north from the North Pole?