uncaused cause

[hecd2]

Sherlock:

Hecd2,

You wrote: “Good for you - thank you for this charitable and loving encouragement to all who care.”

It’s not my job to encourage donations to an unknown individual on the Internet who may or may not be doing what he claims. There are a lot of scams out there. Personally, if it means anything, I think that you are probably on the up-and-up, but let’s be clear: it’s not my job to encourage donations to your cause.

You wrote: “I don’t give a tinker’s cuss for whether contributions to that cause are made through Catholic charities or other charities such as mine as long as they are made, and those who need help care less than I do.”

But giving to a Catholic charity, in my mind, means that I am dealing with a real organization, with real accountability (most charities give accounts of where the money goes). Giving money to an individual over the Internet doesn’t strike me as a very smart use of my charitable funds. And, frankly, it may make a difference to those who are helped: Catholics believe that man is more than a clever animal. A charity that can give spiritual help as well as material help treats the whole person, not just their material needs.

You wrote: " So we all can assume that you have contributed to this cause through one of the catholic charities you referenced? Have you? Or is all this that you wrote about Catholic charities, simple bluster?"

This is tasteless on your part, but you may not know that so I’ll give you a pass. Here’s a hint for the future, though: Christians are instructed not to boast of their giving. But yes, I do contribute. In fact, I tithe.

Dear Sherlock,

My jibes about giving (not at all directed specifically at you} were and are a simple tactic to shame those who have not given (clearly NOT you) to do so through whatever route they are comfortable with - everyone who cares about their cause is shameless in doing this as I am. I make no apology for this - homeless people don’t care about whether their help has come through seemly routes or otherwise. Frankly I am proud of being ‘unseemly’ and ‘tasteless’ in this instance.

It is, of course, not your job to encourage donations to the cause that I hold dear, but neither is it your job to discourage them, which you have taken it on yourself to do and to make a point of doing.

I applaud your contributions to charities. Good for you. I respect your decision to give through other routes but I do not respect your campaign against what I am trying to do - you should reflect on whether you have discouraged someone who might have donated from donating at all.

As for accountability, every cent that I get will be matched at least one for one personally by me and will go directly to those who need it with zero administration cost - what established charity can say that? What’s more, I am more than willing to provide accounts of exactly how the money was spent to anyone who asks.

What people need now is roofs not proselytising - as I say, I don’t care how those roofs come.

I encourage all those who read this to make a donation to this specific cause by whatever route you are comforatble with. Ignore me as an agnostic if you wish, but don’t ignore those who need your help.

Alec
homepage.ntlworld.com/macandrew/Grenada_disaster/Grenada_disaster.htm

 

[ISABUS]

One of my best friends is my old, tattered Holy Catholic Bible. It was given to my dear mother (God bless her soul) by a lady friend of hers who was a Catholic then later in life decided to become a Morman.

I found this information in the back of my bible under the encyclopedia section regarding **God, Proof for Existence of **which pertains to the topic at hand. I’ll quote the last paragraph ~

“Another arguement can be constructed from conscience, i.e. from the fact, attested by experience, that man has by nature a sense of right and wrong altogether distinct from his knowledge that certain actions are hurtful to others, or hurtful to or unworthy of himself. This arguement has the advantage of leading one more directly than any of the five proposed by Saint Thomas to a true conception of God as just, holy, and merciful.”

I’d be more than glad to post all five arguements by Saint Thomas if anyone would like me to.

Peace,
Isabus
“For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen–his everlasting power also and divinity–being understood from the things that are made.” Saint Paul (Rom. 1:20)

 

[hecd2]

Sherlock:

Hecd2,

You wrote: “Adult humanity rejoices in its ignorance. The fact is that we just don’t know about many many things including whether or not there is a God (that branch of ignorance that we call agnosticism). The child in us wants certainty and latches on to all sorts of comforting fairy tales.”

This is merely the standard fairy tale (and an elitist, self-aggrandizing one to boot) that is latched on to by the atheist and agnostic. This caricature of the Christian as an idiot, which comfortably ignores the great Christian scientists throughout history, is not deserving of any respect.

Dear Sherlock,

Just a reminder - this is what I was responding to:

Have you read much Chesterton? There’s a great quote from him, the gist of which (sorry, don’t have the exact quote in front of me) is that “‘agnostic’ is only the Greek word for the Latin word ‘ignorant’”.

So - I am proud of being ignorant You have chosen to interpret that as an attack on ‘great Christian scientists’ whose great science *and *whose faith I am, in fact, the first to acknowledge. You have chosen to interpret my pride in ignorance as elistist and self-aggrandizing - I hardly need to comment on that.

I remind you that you pointedly equated agnosticism with ignorance. Why on earth should you expect anything other than a spirited response to that? I think your protests about what I said are ironic given the slur you intended to cast on agnosticism, a metaphysical conclusion which is arrived at with no less integrity and soul searching than Christian faith. I regret your barb missed its mark.

And yes, the admission that really, deep down, we don’t know, is an honourable and admirable philosophical position, and forms the raw material for all scientists, believers or not

Alec
A tiny subset of believing scientists that I hold in the highest regard:
Galileo Galilei
Isaac Newton
Gregor Mendel
Georges LeMaitre
Theodosyius Dobzhansky
Abdus Salam
John Polkinghorne
Simon Conway Morris
Lord Kelvin
Louis Aggasiz

 

[Sherlock]

Alec,

You wrote: “My jibes about giving (not at all directed specifically at you} were and are a simple tactic to shame those who have not given (clearly NOT you) to do so through whatever route they are comfortable with - everyone who cares about their cause is shameless in doing this as I am.”

Well, that may be so, but perhaps you should change tactics. What you originally wrote was, “I find it very interesting that only one ‘loving’ Catholic on this message board has contributed to the good cause of helping the homeless victims of Hurricane Ivan in Grenada”. That sarcasm and the use of sneer quotes around “loving” are hardly inducements to contribute to your cause, nor is it even a reasonable inference to draw: many people might be aiding hurricane victims but not through you.

You wrote: “It is, of course, not your job to encourage donations to the cause that I hold dear, but neither is it your job to discourage them, which you have taken it on yourself to do and to make a point of doing.”

No, I have not taken it upon myself to discourage donations. I responded to your post only because of its sarcasm, and pointed out (only after being challenged with potential “blustering”) why I made donations through the charities that I do give to, versus giving to an unknown individual. I never would have brought the topic up on my own.

You wrote: “What people need now is roofs not proselytising - as I say, I don’t care how those roofs come.”

You just don’t get it. I’m not talking about proselytising, I’m talking about being able to help spiritually as well as materially. I have no doubt that many of these victims are Catholics and other Christians, and no doubt will find a kind of comfort from a missionary or priest that cannot be gotten by material help alone. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and: I want them to have a roof AND spiritual support. If I am in spiritual distress, I talk to a priest—he is not “proselytizing”, as I’m already Catholic. Since you yourself are not religious, I can see how you might not understand this.

Best wishes for your success in these humanitarian efforts.

 

[Sherlock]

Alec,

I don’t have a problem with, “Adult humanity rejoices in its ignorance”, especially as you explain it. Nor do I take issue with, “And yes, the admission that really, deep down, we don’t know, is an honourable and admirable philosophical position, and forms the raw material for all scientists, believers or not”. I don’t think we are in conflict here, and indeed I think you have expressed this quite nicely.

No, I was reacting to your last sentence, “The child in us wants certainty and latches on to all sorts of comforting fairy tales.” I took this to be dismissive of religious belief, as I’m sure you can understand. If you did not mean it to be so, then I stand corrected and apologize for my response. I will say, in my defense, that I have had a number of conversations with atheists over the years (I used to be one), and this is a common attitude among them. And it is elitist and self-aggrandizing, or at least was in the case of the people I knew (and know). So I may have had a knee-jerk response. I sincerely apologize if it wasn’t warranted.

 

[hecd2]

JPrejean:

That is exactly my point. The statement “there is no phenomenon that cannot be explained by reference to the physical world” is logically equivalent to the statement “nothing that cannot be explained by reference to the physical world is a phenomenon worth explaining.” For the life of me, I cannot fathom how the physical world can ever answer the question of what the objective meaning of life is, which means that philosophy (the quest for meaning through the use of reason) is a worthless endeavor. .

I don’t see this thread as being at all about meaning. I see it as being about Aquinas’s proof for God from the uncaused cause. It is about the logical necessity for an uncaused being to bring the Universe and everything in it into existence. Whether the existence of such a being is required to give meaning, and what meaning different flavours of such a being would give, is not the question.

I believe that metaphysical causation is a necessary hypothesis for existence to have objective meaning. Is that wrong?

I don’t know. It depends what you mean by ‘meaning’. But I suspect that it is not relevant to the proof from the uncaused cause fpr the existence of God.

Ah, I see. God is all just childish wish-fulfillment because we want certainty and absolute knowledge, when we should simply be honest with the fact that “we just don’t know” because we “can’t explain the phenomenon with respect to the physical world.” Well, I guess Ayn Rand was right. Fold up the tents, people! We’re all objectivists now!

That is indeed one very valid way of considering the anthropological phenomenon of religious belief. But who on earth is Ayn Rand?

Sorry, but it’s awfully hard to take you seriously when you appear to have such little understanding of theistic philsophy. Perhaps that’s why you find it so difficult understanding why your response here is irrelevant to St. Thomas’s argument.

You don’t have to take me seriously, or at all! My answers to this challenge are a) it is a fallacy to equate understanding with acceptance; b) talk of meaning is absolutely irrelevant to the specific proof from the uncaused cause and c} Aquinas’s argument rests on logic and it is that logic that I am addressing, in my view, with perfect relevance.

So, for the rational response, hecd2 hasn’t even addressed St. Thomas’s argument, because he makes a completely unwarranted inference that metaphysical causation is not necessary if physical causation is not necessary. He provides no reason for this inference other that naturalism (or nihilism, really). Therefore, if you consider naturalism a false premise (and there is certainly no reason to accept it), then you don’t have to believe it’s argument.

Well, let’s turn that on its head - in order to make the case that physical causation can be unnecessary while metaphysical causation must be necessary, you would have to show why that is so. If the physical universe can be logically uncaused, why do we logically need to claim that there are metaphyical phenomena that must have uncaused causes. You are a long way from that. Since all the evidence that we have points to the conclusion that observable phenomena are direct consequences or epiphenomena of physical systems, I am skeptical about arguments that invoke supernatural causes.

Congratulations, hecd2! You’ve proved that if you’re a naturalist, you are agnostic about God. For your next trick, why don’t you prove something equally impressive, like showing that water is wet?

Thanks for that mature argument. I have shown that the proof from the uncaused cause for God’s existence is flawed. I have not shown or attempted to show that God does not exist.
Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Dear Hermione,

This is an excellent challenge to the arguments I put forward. It certainly made me think and I am not sure that I can give a response that satisfies me, never mind you. I’ll try, but it will span several posts and will take a little time.

Hermione:

Alec,

Thank you for your response. I am not a scientist or a physicist, and I can’t respond to what you said about quantum mechanics because I don’t know enough.

Have you ever thought of becoming a scientist?

Having read your other posts in this thread it seems to me that you think the “first cause” argument is invalid because quantum mechanics has shown us that events occur randomly and furthermore that this randomness is an innate quality of matter rather than the limitation of measurement. Is this right?

Yes - except that fundamental quantum randomness and uncertainty is only one argument. Others include self consistent hypotheses for a universe that is eternal (for example a universe with quantum fluctuations in a scalar field of just the right value inflate to form flat universes and where the stochastic properties of te omniverse are stationary and eternal such as Linde and others propose,or a universe that although not eternal has no boundary conditions a la Hawking or a temporally and spatially infinite multiverse as Tegmark suggests. As long as these hypotheses are logically consistent and consistent with observation they undermine the argument from the uncaused casue, which is a purely logical one. If a logical alternative that doesn’t need the uncaused cause is available, then there is no necessity for an uncaused cause (but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist). This isn’t an argument against the existence of God but an argument against the proof of Her existence.

The randomness of quantum mechanics is not simply a limitation of measurement. Of that we can be sure. Randomness is built deeply into the quantum mechanical world and it’s a different nature of randomness from the roulette wheel and the tossing of coins.Take the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, for example. If you think that that is a phenomenon based on measurement artefacts, and you’re clever, you might come up with the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) challenge which states that we should be able to measure both the position and momentum of a pair of entngled particles by measuring the position of one and the momemntum of the other, since, acciording to EPR, what we do to one particle cannot affect the other at a distant location (theb principle of locality). So EPR holds that all particles have precise but hidden variables. Hmm. John Bell figured out a way to test whether that was so. In a particular kind of experiment (measuring the spin of entangled particles in three different axes where the axis measured is chosen randomly in the two halves of the experiment) we expect to see cases where the same spin is measured for both particles in more than 50% of tries - more than 5/9 actually (Bell’s inequality) if particles have definite deterministic spin. This experiment has been done many times and the answer is that we measure the same spin in less than 50% of cases - the violation of Bell’s inequality - this can only be explained by concluding that the particles are non-locally entangled - in other words the spin of each particle about each is completely randomly selected at the point that it is measured but that the spin of one particle about one axis determines absolutelyt the spin of the entangled particle about the same axis over a non-local distance. EPR was wrong. Everything about quantum mechanics points tio deep fundamental randomness (taht is not the same as the pseudo-randomness of deterministic events that are too comlex to prefdict (like coin tossing).

to be continued on another day

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[JPrejean]

hecd2:

Thanks for that mature argument.

Well, you know that we theists are all in infantile pursuit of wish-fulfillment, so you have to expect immature behavior now and then.

hecd2:

I have shown that the proof from the uncaused cause for God’s existence is flawed.

I’m not entirely sure how you mean “flawed,” since it wasn’t ever designed to do what you would have it do. St. Thomas starts from certain premises about what reason is and what it does (hence, all of my previous ranting about meaning and philosophy and whatnot attempting to highlight those premises). His proof is designed to convince people who share those premises (viz., the First Cause is logically necessary if you accept his premises). Your naturalist presuppositions are incompatible with those premises. Therefore, while his proof might happen to be convincing to you, there is no reason to expect that it will be, nor would it entail a flaw in the argument if it did not. It is not, nor was it ever, intended to persuade such people.

I’ll illustrate the fallacy in your response here:

hecd2:

My answers to this challenge are a) it is a fallacy to equate understanding with acceptance; b) talk of meaning is absolutely irrelevant to the specific proof from the uncaused cause and c} Aquinas’s argument rests on logic and it is that logic that I am addressing, in my view, with perfect relevance.

Regarding (a), I mean that you honestly don’t understand, not that you deny it. This is evidenced by your inaccurate characterizations of St. Thomas’s argument in (b) and (c). (b) is false because the assumptions that St. Thomas makes about reason, and in particular, that reason be able to abstract universals (absolute truth or meaning) from sensory observation of particulars. This is incompatible with naturalism, which rejects the absolute reality of universals apart from particulars. (c) is inaccurate because St. Thomas’s argument does not rely only on logic, but rather logical inferences from his premises. As noted in the refutation of (b), you reject those premises, but that does not in and of itself demonstrate any flaw in the validity of St. Thomas’s argument, since it is not intended to persuade anyone who does not share his premises.

IOW, your observation shows no flaw in St. Thomas’s argument. QED.

 

[Sherlock]

Hecd2,

I noticed that in another post you asked, “But who on earth is Ayn Rand?” Heh heh heh…Ayn Rand was a novelist and wannabe philosopher, best known for her books “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead”. She was an atheist, and held anyone of faith in supreme contempt. She was a supporter of unfettered capitalism, and held that selfishness was a virtue. Altruism (such as what you are practicing with your work in hurricane relief) is degrading to the human being. Basically, only those who are successful and powerful are really human beings…the rest are clearly sub-human, and deserve to die.

I know of her because when I was a young atheist I read her books, which appealed to me at the time (I think they largely appeal to those of college-age who think of themselves as pretty darn smart, indeed smarter than most anyone else—which describes me at the time). A few years ago the daughter of a close friend dumped her faith and embraced Objectivism (the “philosophy” of Ayn Rand) when she embraced an Objectivist boyfriend, and in order to help my friend (who had no inclination to read about this topic and even less to examine it critically), I read a great deal of material by her and her disciples. It’s pretty shallow (and ultimately downright ludicrous and irrational) stuff, and I’m sure you could spot the fallacies (false dichotomies, straw-men, etc.) that are rampant in Objectivism. Her characterization of religious people was laughably brutal—the sign of a weak argument. One of the reasons I admire Aquinas is that he presents opposing views very clearly, probably better than their adherents could have themselves. Anyway, if you want a cast of characters as stiff as boards, utterly humorless, and continually jutting their oh-so-rugged chins against the measly forces of mediocrity, Ayn Rand’s your writer.

 

[Ken]

Sherlock:

Hecd2,

I noticed that in another post you asked, “But who on earth is Ayn Rand?” Heh heh heh…Ayn Rand was a novelist and wannabe philosopher, best known for her books “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead”. She was an atheist, and held anyone of faith in supreme contempt. She was a supporter of unfettered capitalism, and held that selfishness was a virtue. Altruism (such as what you are practicing with your work in hurricane relief) is degrading to the human being. Basically, only those who are successful and powerful are really human beings…the rest are clearly sub-human, and deserve to die.

I know of her because when I was a young atheist I read her books, which appealed to me at the time (I think they largely appeal to those of college-age who think of themselves as pretty darn smart, indeed smarter than most anyone else—which describes me at the time). A few years ago the daughter of a close friend dumped her faith and embraced Objectivism (the “philosophy” of Ayn Rand) when she embraced an Objectivist boyfriend, and in order to help my friend (who had no inclination to read about this topic and even less to examine it critically), I read a great deal of material by her and her disciples. It’s pretty shallow (and ultimately downright ludicrous and irrational) stuff, and I’m sure you could spot the fallacies (false dichotomies, straw-men, etc.) that are rampant in Objectivism. Her characterization of religious people was laughably brutal—the sign of a weak argument. One of the reasons I admire Aquinas is that he presents opposing views very clearly, probably better than their adherents could have themselves. Anyway, if you want a cast of characters as stiff as boards, utterly humorless, and continually jutting their oh-so-rugged chins against the measly forces of mediocrity, Ayn Rand’s your writer.

Who is John Galt?

 

[hecd2]

hecd2:

Everything about quantum mechanics points to deep fundamental randomness (that is not the same as the pseudo-randomness of deterministic events that are too complex to predict - like coin tossing).

to be continued on another day

Alec

Dear Hermione,

To conclude this part of the reply:

Experiments that demonstrate the underlying probabalistic nature of the quantum world, the fact that particles do not exist with sharply definable positions abound: these include Young’s double slit, long arm variations of this such as Michelson and Mach-Zender interferometers that include delayed choice (that, classically interpreted would indicate the contingency of a past on a future event), the delayed choice erasion of past, and so on, that confirm that no matter what we do, we cannot measure which path a particle takes in a two path experiment and still get the effect of a two path interference.

Take the Casimir effect of vacuum fluctuations. Quantum mechanics predicts that fields in a pure vacuum cannot be both zero and unchanging as the classical approach would allow. Instead there are quantum fluctuations in value and rate of change in the fields (this effect can lead to particle/antiparticle spontaneous generation - formally uncaused.) There is a prediction that the vacuum fluctuation would cause a small force between two plain metal plates placed close to one another in the vacuum. And this ‘Casimir’ force has been measured as predicted - an effect for which the cause is random, uncaused and individually unpredictable fluctuations in the vacuum.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Hermione:

I can see how your argument could be (and possibly is) a very good one if quantum mechanics is a true description of the universe. If events in this world truly don’t need causes then you’re right: we can’t conclude that the whole of the universe needs a cause.

I guess my main objection to this is that I don’t understand how quantum mechanics can possibly be a true description of the whole universe. From my (very limited) knowledge of it, quantum mechanics studies the world on a very small scale; it also does not take everything into account (specifically gravity). Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which from my knowledge is a very good description of large-scale structures of the universe, is fundamentally incompatible with quantum mechanics precisely because of the uncertainty principle. The theory of relativity and quantum mechanics both have experimental evidence to support them, yet both cannot be true because they contradict each other. From my understanding neither of these theories can possibly be a true description of the whole universe simply because neither attempts to describe the whole universe. I’ve heard about superstring theory which is the most recent attempt on the part of scientists to unite these two theories, and (correct me if I’m wrong) superstring theory unites the two by “smoothing” over the fluctuations caused by the uncertainty principle.

Hermione

Dear Hermione,

Continuing the discussion. What you say here is broadly correct and the most telling part of your argument. GR does not describe things accurately on the quantum scale and quantum mechanics is unable to take the effect of gravity into account. This really matters when things are small and massive such as near the singularity of black holes (unless they turn out to be hairy) or temporally close to the Big Bang. If you just try to put them together under those extreme conditions, you get nonsense. So neither can represent a full description of the way the physics works.

Indeed you are right that there are a number of theoretical approaches to unifying these teories of which superstring, M-theory and loop quantum gravity are several flavours.(In superstring, lengths less than the Planck length, which is the scale on which quantum fluctuations get truly wild are forbidden - to that extent fluctuations are somewhat ‘smoothed’, but fluctuations and randomness still remain)

Now then, any theory that seeks to unify GR and QM must avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just as GR incorprated classical mechanics (and reduces to classical mechanics under conditions of low gravity, acceleration and velocity), so must the unified theory preserve the correct descriptions of the theories it seeks to refine. One of those fundamental properties is the fact of randomness and probability underlying the structure of the universe.

Now remember, I am not trying to disprove God’s existence, because I can’t. All I am trying to do is show that the logical conclusion from the uncaused cause argument based on our observations about the universe need not logically and necessarily follow. Aquinas (and before him Aristotle) based his argument on the observation (that was correct as far as he was concerned) that all events have a specific cause. We now observe events that do not have such a specific cause, so as far as the raw material for the argument goes which is our sensible observation of the universe, one of the steps in the argument seems to me to be flawed.

Alec

 

[JPrejean]

hecd2:

All I am trying to do is show that the logical conclusion from the uncaused cause argument based on our observations about the universe need not logically and necessarily follow.

Which has exactly nothing to do with St. Thomas’s argument.

hecd2:

Aquinas (and before him Aristotle) based his argument on the observation (that was correct as far as he was concerned) that all events have a specific cause.

Before they get to observations, both he and Aristotle make philosophical assumptions about reason.

hecd2:

We now observe events that do not have such a specific cause, so as far as the raw material for the argument goes which is our sensible observation of the universe, one of the steps in the argument seems to me to be flawed.

Unless sensible observation can be used to derive the philosophical presuppositions that we bring to interpreting sensory observations (which obviously can’t be the case), then your argument is the one that is flawed.

 

[hecd2]

Hermione:

Alec,

For me, what seems probable to be true is that there is a greater theory we’ve not yet discovered that encompasses both quantum mechanics and general relativity. The mathematical framework of this theory can be simplified in different ways for specific instances to give us quantum mechanics and relativity (just like Newton’s classical physics is a simplified version of general relativity).

If there is such a greater theory, then assuming that the philosophical implications of the equations of quantum mechanics are true makes as much sense as assuming that the philosophical implications of classical physics are true, because both are fundamentally incomplete.

Do you agree with me that for quantum mechanics to invalidate the first cause argument it has to be a true description of the universe? If you do, what makes you think that quantum mechanics is the true description of the universe and not a simplified mathematical version of a greater theory that could very well do away with the uncertainty principle?

Hermione

This is what made me stop and think. Your argument on the face of it is a good one. There is no question that QM is incomplete. (I forgot to mention the wave function collapse problem). So how can I use it to call into question the uncaused cause argument? Surely in some greater unified theory, we might find that the apparent randomness is actually not really there - that it only seems so because of some hidden variables that are deterministic and caused, perhaps hidden in the additional seven spatial dimensions of M-theory.

Well the answer is actually very simple. I am not using the whole formulation of QM as the basis for my position. Taking your argument to its natural conclusion would mean that we cannot use a quantum formulation, and even less can we use classical formulation (as we know that it is even more incomplete). In fact we would be unable to say anything until we had a complete and comprehensive understanding of the universe, which we don’t have at the moment and which we might never have. If I am unable to use a QM formulation that includes underlying randomness then you are unable tio use a classical formulation that insists on deterministic cause. We are left in an undecided situation, unable to conclude anything - the necessity of Aquinas’s argument then fails because it relies on an incomplete formulation of the universe.

My path gets us to the same place but by a subtly different route. I am not relying on the formulation of QM, but on the sophisticated observations that lead me to conclude that there is fundamental randomness underpinning the universe. Einstein hated the idea of structural randomness and unsuccessfully fought against it all his life (by putting forward counter arguments and paradoxes which, when answered, reinforced the quantum uncertainty of the universe and took the whole science forward). Bohmians explain it by hidden variables but at the expense of making a bad case of non-locality hugely worse (they need non-local forces to act on particles, in some cases instantaneously across billions of light years). The fact is that our sensible observations of the universe lead to a reasonable conclusion that structurally random events occur, and as long as those observations exist and are not fully explained by some hidden mechanism then the force of Aquinas argument which relies on the observation that all events have specific causes is undermined.

In both cases we end up with the conclusion that sensible observations can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God - which is a conclusion that I can arrive at by several routes and which I think is fundamentally correct. Belief is ultimately an act of faith.

Alec

 

[Philthy]

Hi Alec - thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions.

hecd2:

The ‘uncaused’ phenomena are fundamentally, deeply, unpredictable. This is not just a case for phenomena we don’t understand. The unpredictibality of tunnelling, radioactive decay, selection for which double slit to pass is genuinely random and formally uncaused.

I had asked you here what you meant by uncaused particles and you immediately begin discussing “unpredictability”. Is this the defining concept for scientific causation - our ability to predict? If that is what you meant, I agree with you within the context of a scientific discussion. Particles are observed who’s origin science does not have the means to detect. This, of course, does not mean that they are uncaused in the absolute sense, only in the scientific realm. The observation simply becomes that science has observed particles for which it has no scientific expanation. We’re very close to demonstrating Acquinas’ original principal…

By temporally infinite I mean without beginning or end. As mathematicians would say, stationary.

As for the question, what is the difficulty?

You haven’t explained how a temporally infinite universe exists along with our dynamic universe. If I’m not mistaken, your saying that time doesn’t exist within a temporally infinite universe? Isn’t time considered a reality in our universe?

Unfortunately for your logic, so is the eternal universe which is not necessarily subject to the same laws we currently observe. Premise number 2 is perfectly valid.

No alec. Again, you went from positing a temporally infinite “being” (with no necesarry relationship to time or matter) to a temporally infinite PHYSICAL universe. Your premise remains invalid. And, the ability to simply posit it mathmatically does not make it a reality.
No. Never has been since 1916.

Alec
homepage.ntlworld.com/macandrew/Grenada_disaster/Grenada_disaster.htm

I had a feeling I was that far behind! Thanks again - I know it must be frustrating for you to try and convey even some of all that you’ve learned regarding physics etc. - it’s greatly appreciated.

Phil

 

[ISABUS]

hecd2:

Now then, any theory that seeks to unify GR and QM must avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just as GR incorprated classical mechanics (and reduces to classical mechanics under conditions of low gravity, acceleration and velocity), so must the unified theory preserve the correct descriptions of the theories it seeks to refine. One of those fundamental properties is the fact of randomness and probability underlying the structure of the universe.

Now remember, I am not trying to disprove God’s existence, because I can’t. All I am trying to do is show that the logical conclusion from the uncaused cause argument based on our observations about the universe need not logically and necessarily follow. Aquinas (and before him Aristotle) based his argument on the observation (that was correct as far as he was concerned) that all events have a specific cause. We now observe events that do not have such a specific cause, so as far as the raw material for the argument goes which is our sensible observation of the universe, one of the steps in the argument seems to me to be flawed.

Alec

I agree based thread 85, "Does being Catholic guarantee salvation?

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=287607#post287607

Isabus~

 

[Matt16_18]

hecd2:

The randomness of quantum mechanics is not simply a limitation of measurement. Of that we can be sure.

How can we be sure of this? The only definition of randomness that you can give is a definition based on your own theological assumptions.

 

[hecd2]

Hermione:

Alec,

Another point that I hope you’ll address is this: I don’t understand how the idea of inherent randomness is compatible with science in general. If things are completely random and don’t need causes, then how can we apply the scientific method to study the universe? From my understanding scientific theories are tested by making hypotheses and performing experiments to either support or disprove the theories. If events happen randomly and without causes, then what guarantee do we have that a certain set of experimental conditions will always lead to a certain outcome? It seems to me that the idea of randomness would discredit science, can you explain how this isn’t true?

Hermione

Hi Hermione,

The last instalment of my reply - with which you and everyone else must be heartily sick - but you did ask for me to comment on this question.

The answer here is that although individual very small things like photons or electrons or individual atoms behave with significant randomness (for example the uncertainty in their position or spin direction or whatever), there is a definite probability function associated with any particle in a particular environment. So although we cannot say with precision where we will find an individual particle, we can give a probability for where we will find it. If we conduct the same individual particle experiment many times with many individual particles we find that we get a frequency distribution of particle behaviour that matches the wave function of the particle. So we can predict with some precision the behaviour of ensembles of particles. The bigger an object and the more fundamental particles that make it up the less uncertain the behaviour of the ensemble of particles that comprise it. The wave function of a macroscopic object like a bacterium or a car represents an uncertainty that is absolutely miniscule compared with its size. So at a macroscopic level the universe looks deterministic. Furthermore randomness and uncertainty do not mean that anything goes. If I have a set of identical radioactive atoms, I have no idea when any individual atom will decay. But I can know, with a high degree of precision, the half-life of the radioactive decay of that particular isotope - so that if I start off with 100 billion atoms, I can tell with precision within measurement accuracy (and some statistical variance) how long it will take for 50 billion of them to decay. This is a knowledge based on a a knowledge of the statistical properties, but it cannot be deconstructed to a knowledge of the behaviour of any individual particle.

It’s important not to confuse quantum uncertainty with a universe that behaves in a whimsical or arbitrary way.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

JimG:

There are several phenomena that, in my view, cannot be explained by reference to the physical world: Mind and Will.

Mind works by abstraction–that is, by removing every physical component of something in order to arrive at its essence. Mind is itself non-material, or it would not have the ability of abstraction.

Will empowers one to choose. If the will is material, it is determined, (quantum theory or not), and thus not free.

And mind, if it is material, is also determined, and this whole thread might have been randomly typed by a woodpecker at a keyboard.

Dear Jim,

With regard to mind: I think you are confusing mechanism and function here. You say that ‘Mind works by abstraction–that is, by removing every physical component of something in order to arrive at its essence. Mind is itself non-material, or it would not have the ability of abstraction.’. I don’t see how that follows. For mind to be able to abstract concepts (which I agree it does) it does not itself have to be rooted immaterially. On the contrary, every single observation that we have ever made indicates that mind in an epiphenomenon of the brain ( a very material structure). No-one has shown mind working in the absence of brain, and mind functions are affected fundamentally by events which happen to the brain - drugs, physical trauma, stroke, endocrinal events and ultimately death. Functional MRI shows particular parts of the brain are active when people are asked to consider abstract concepts - I would say that brain activity is the mechanism by which the abstract thinking occurs.

With regard to fee will: that’s a tough one. I wouldn’t want to think that everything that I do is predetermined - I have at least an illusion of free will that is very precious to me. The understanding of the universe pre-quantum would make it even more problematical. If we regard will as decision making then we have the possibility of some very complex fuzzy logic with some quantum effects underlying our experience of will. Roger Penrose has some interesting things to say about this. He also has some ideas about quantum effects in micrrotubules that would make the brain more than a Turing machine. But the fact is the science of consciousness is in its infancy and we just don’t know how it works. It remains one of the great tasks of science for the future. One thing is for sure: it is unhelpful to surrender before we start by declaring that consciousness, will and other mind phenomena are immaterial or supernatural and forever beyond the reach of natural explanation. Searle’s Chinese box paradox has been thoroughly debunked.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Alterum:

Alec,

Your response, from what I understand (and I could be wrong) is saying that, since it is fundamentally impossible to predict certain quantum events, neither HAD to come first; in fact, neither needed a cause.

Let’s bear in mind that this view needs to be extrapolated onto the entire universe, at which point you can claim that the First Cause argument is invalid because the universe really doesn’t need a first cause (?).

I do not think, if that is indeed the crux of the argument, that we can reasonably use this argument to invalidate the First Cause argument. An argument from the randomness of QM seems to say, “Look, by our best scientific observations up to this point we can determine that random things happen in the universe on a quantum level, so the whole beginning of the universe could be random,” whereas the First Cause argument taken this far might say, “Random things - and everything else - happen in the universe; but of course it was all created by some reasonably omnipotent power.” You come no nearer to addressing this proposition - and no nearer to grasping the *how? - *when you observe random things in nature as when you observe static things in nature.

While First Cause doesn’t prove that there is a God, it points fairly strongly to the idea that there has to be some omnipotent power

Dear Alterum,

Aquinas uses a chain of logic to attempt to *prove *the existence of God. If we break that chain at any point it invalidates the proof. That does not mean that God does not exist or that we have disproven His existence - merely that the necessity of His existence based on the logical argument is no longer there.

The first step in Aquinas’s argument is : ‘In the world that we sense, we find that efficient causes come in series. We do not, and cannot, find that something is its own efficient cause’. Well, that is invalidated by our current sensible observations of the quantum world, so the logic of his argument fails.

We can (but need not) go on to say that the beginning of the universe could be a random event - indeed thare are very well developed theories that describe just that - chaotic inflation being one of them.

Aquinas does not attempt to present an argument that intends to point to the likelihood of God’s existence - he attempts to present a logical proof and that proof either stands or falls.

Throughout this thread people have confused the invalidation of Aquinas’s proof with a proof for the non-existence of God. They are very far from the same things.

Alec
evolutionpages.com