|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Purgatory: A random proof of God
|
footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
What about if the coin lands on its edge? Rare, but it's been known to happen . . .
That's just God showing off.
If I follow IngoB's argument, I think it's really God not paying attention...
Or Him deciding to make it more interesting...
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
if there are a finite number of possibile outcomes arising from a given action, each equally possible, then why does there have to be a mechanism for explaining why any given result actually happens?
After the event, is "the coin was tossed and the result was heads" not a rational enough explanation?
Of course it's rational after the observing event, but QM tells us that the result being observed is determined by the observation, not by itself. Until then, the (quantum) coin is both heads and tails.
If a tree falls, and nobody hears it, does it still make a noise? ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
--------------------
Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
As for why it resulted in heads? Because it had to result in either heads or tails, and this time it came down that way round.
Precisely, it had to result in either option (rationally: with reason), but it did result in one option not the other (non-rationally: without reason). By claiming that the event is truly random, you are stating that it could have been tails when it was in fact heads. How did the (quantum) coin "decide" what it really is going to be then? The answer that "something in the (quantum) coin decided it" (hidden variables) is experimentally false. Thus nothing caused the (quantum) coin to flip this way, it landed as heads entirely "ex nihilo", without (world-internal) reason. That leaves you with a choice: either abandon rational realism, or accept that there is some world-external reason (traditionally called "God").
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
So you're trying to track causality through everything that has ever happened? Why?
It's my hobby and profession. However, I'm doing so here because the failure mode of this causal tracking points to God.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Besides, it's not a truly random event. There is a finite number - in this case two - of possible outcomes, which have known effects.
And? That makes it no less "truly random". It merely means that this "true randomness" operates only on two clearly specified options.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why, oh why, do you maintain that we have to know exactly what caused any specific individual result?
I don't maintain that. However, I'm interested in the statement that we cannot possibly know relevant causes if something is "random". That is a very strong statement, and since quantum random events are far from rare (in fact, ultimately everything appears to be based on them), they sure are important.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't see a 'random' choice between a finite number of possible outcomes as a break in causality.
That is so simply because you refuse to investigate the choice process itself. You merely look at the state before, which is explicable, and after, which is also explicable. But something happened between before and after, since the state before is not the same as the state after. You can however say nothing causal about this happenstance itself. There's your break.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
|
Posted
I admit to a cursory glance at the prolix OP and subsequent posts. However, I am interested in the fact that such an idea was posted and welcome and enjoy debates like this.
The internal fallacy in the argument is that the proposer uses the God-of-the-gaps idea to explain and to maintain that there is a reason behind the non-randomness on QM. That there is a reasom is wishful thinking, and the way the argument is proposed suggests the desire for a theological outcome and a looking at the data or argument, desirous or even determined that this be the case. It is not necessary to have a reason; things can just BE. The propser may not think this is the case, but it is just a little like subjective science; and such a thing can exist, despite the internal confusion.
A contender for the Templeman Prize?
--------------------
sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
|
Posted
Templeton Prize, even. sorry.
--------------------
sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Thus nothing caused the (quantum) coin to flip this way, it landed as heads entirely "ex nihilo", without (world-internal) reason. That leaves you with a choice: either abandon rational realism, or accept that there is some world-external reason (traditionally called "God").
Yeah, actually, I’m struggling with this.
Why must there be a cause? You seem to be saying that it’s because without one, we cannot be rationally satisfied, but I don’t see how it follows that we must therefore abandon rational realism.
--------------------
این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
|
Posted
In the scenario presented, there must be a cause, it's just not been observed.
At the quantum level, observation may be a problem , but its just a question of time for its understanding and I understand there is already a framework for that.
And the basis for this
quote:
The answer that "something in the (quantum) coin decided it" (hidden variables) is experimentally false.
being? if I missed it, could someone point out where it's chalked out?
--------------------
Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
|
Posted
IngoB is saying that "God" tells upwards of 10^84 particles what to do every Plank time (10^-44 seconds).
Then these particles do it in a random way. So random that there is no experiment even in principle that can distinguish that randomness from an uncaused version of that randomness.
So I think this proof is safe from the Douglas Adams argument.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Why must there be a cause? You seem to be saying that it’s because without one, we cannot be rationally satisfied, but I don’t see how it follows that we must therefore abandon rational realism.
Well, you have to abandon the idea that things really are (have actual being independent of your perception of them), and that the way they change has some in principle discernible reason. Not that in practice you would - or even could - find out all reasons for all things. But the idea is that there is some reason to be found always, if one only goes looking.
You can name that idea any way you want. I call it "rational realism". This idea remains the very engine of natural science, in spite of quantum randomness. There are some slick moves concerning that particular "issue" (Copenhagen interpretation and all that), but in practice most scientists simply attach the label "random" to certain things and then happily return to rational realism about absolutely everything else. My point is that this is the modern equivalent of "here be dragons", except that Someone else may lurk there...
Oh yes, and I'd happily accept the £1,000,000 sterling of the Templeton prize. I know no shame.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
In the scenario presented, there must be a cause, it's just not been observed.
That's what Einstein thought as well, but he has been proven wrong - experimentally.
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
if I missed it, could someone point out where it's chalked out?
The OP contains a link to a recent experiment on Bell's inequalities, published in PNAS. A freely accessible preprint thereof can be found here. (The result is nothing new as such. It just eliminates experimentally some "loopholes" people have thought up concerning earlier experiments.)
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
|
Posted
I am rather partial to sunyata (Buddhist emptiness).
So I already don't think things "exist" in isolation and without depending on everything else.
So it does not bother me that some things may not be knowable even in principle unless you actually measure them. If the world is like that, the world is like that.
Most scientists do not bother that much with being philosophically consistent. They just go with what seems to work. And will readily abandon it when its stops working. The quantum randomness we are discussing, while it underlies all scientific explanation. Does not have that many observable consequences at the "macro" level so it is very efficient to work under earlier assumptions that work very well in the everyday world. It works.
When ever there is a need to explain something on the macro level using quantum Ideas. Scientists are not afraid to do that.
Your argument IngoB seems to be, as has been pointed out previously a "God of the Gaps" argument.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
By claiming that the event is truly random, you are stating that it could have been tails when it was in fact heads.
Yes, of course.
quote:
How did the (quantum) coin "decide" what it really is going to be then? The answer that "something in the (quantum) coin decided it" (hidden variables) is experimentally false. Thus nothing caused the (quantum) coin to flip this way, it landed as heads entirely "ex nihilo", without (world-internal) reason.
Essentially, yes. There is no discernable or observable reason why it landed H rather than T.
quote:
That leaves you with a choice: either abandon rational realism, or accept that there is some world-external reason (traditionally called "God").
I disagree. Just as the problem of evil doesn't force us to abandon the concept of an omnipotent loving God, quantum uncertainty doesn't require us to abandon rational realism.
It might make transporter beams a bit tricky to perfect though. Bring on the Heisenberg Compensators ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:
However, I'm doing so here because the failure mode of this causal tracking points to God.
You've claimed before that the fact that science can't explain what happened before the Big Bang 'proves' God as well. One is left with the impression that the search for a scientific proof of God is something that's very important to you, but I'm afraid that I don't think you'll ever find a cast-iron one.
quote:
I'm interested in the statement that we cannot possibly know relevant causes if something is "random". That is a very strong statement, and since quantum random events are far from rare (in fact, ultimately everything appears to be based on them), they sure are important.
We may not know what causes them, but by 'eck they're dependable, aren't they! I mean, at the quantum level there might be nothing preventing me from turning inside out or splitting perfectly down the middle, but at the macro level I know that just ain't about to happen. Maybe this quantum uncertainty isn't as important as you make out.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't see a 'random' choice between a finite number of possible outcomes as a break in causality.
That is so simply because you refuse to investigate the choice process itself.
I don't even adknowledge it as a choice. It just happens - nothing decides it.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
|
Posted
If what is being stated in the premise is true, then many technological efforts should not be delivering. But since those endeavours ARE delivering, I wont be taking the short cuts I normally resort to: reading peer reviews to check the weaknesses in the claim! IOW, no airplanes falling out of the sky, no moonshots disappearing ignominously into the sun, no nano surgery going awry, ON A REGULAR BASIS, nada. There's a random nudge in every toss of the coin right? Show it, with results.
Because that's what counts, results.
And the obverse is true as well:
Feynman's observation that peer reviews were rarely reliable because the number of people who were qualified to review cutting edge science in highly specialised, arcane fields, could be counted on the fingers of one hand holds true, and even then the conclusions were not done deals. Case to point, Fleischmann's claims were not shot down by peer review, and it wasn't until big business ponied up the cash and asked him to deliver was the lie exposed.
You could say that the external nudge occurred at a level much higher than the coarse level of newtonian physics, but then it shouldn't affect the outcome at that level, right? Stream of consciousness should have been able to catch all the internal forces at play that affected every spin and twist of the coin. Replace the thumb with a mechanical flipper, and every accelerated or retarded motion of the coin would be traceable back to the deflection and rebound of the flipper, if you could refine its action to an acceptable amount of repeatability, through control of all the parameters.
--------------------
Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
I think the problem, Ingo, is that you are trying to solve a problem that no longer exists. Yes, maybe having a gap in a chain of causation use to be a cause for consternation, but it no longer is.
Just as we have re-defined geometry to allow for non-euclidean geometries, and we have re-defined number theory to allow for the square root of -1 to be a number or to allow for infinite cardinalities, and we have redefined intertia such that continued motion is inertial and not just rest, so we have redefined causality to allow quantum gaps, and still accept the causal chain to be complete.
The problem is only a problem if you hold to the earlier concept of causality, which has been abandoned. You might just as well say that you have solved the problem of imaginary numbers by importing God. We don't need God to solve that problem; the problem has been solved by reframing the question.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
You said it Ingo: abandon rational realism, whatever that is (I thought that had been done 90 years ago?). And then there is certainly no need to invoke God - THE Hidden Variable in your schema - deciding, attomanaging anything: God versus the world is a false dichotomy.
If you think worlds, this is how they MUST be. The only theoretically possible choice is the indeterminate values of the dimensionless constants and stepping in every now and again to start life, mind, salvation.
We know that stuff does not inherently exist. God wills it to exist. And it HAS to be quantal, indeterminate, superpositioned. These are the simplest a prioris. Nothing else is possible, necessary: explanatory.
Certainly not the insanely staggering imparsimony of God having to decide all change for eternity.
I'm happy with the apparently chaotic, apparently random, forever ineffable, awesome mystery of stuff, within (redundant) fuzzy, indeterminate Reality where good wills out regardless.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
QLib
Bad Example
# 43
|
Posted
Isn't your argument just an inversion of the doctrine of the spheres? You have God on the inside as the prime mover instead of in the outer sphere.
What are the theological consequences of accepting your argument? Are we then saying that every thing that happens, even random appalling shit, is not simply "the will of God" in the general sense that is allowed to happen within creation, but that God is actually behind everything that happens?
Because, in that case, you may have proved God exists, but you have also proved the Yorick hypothesis: that He is a total and utter shit.
--------------------
Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Your argument IngoB seems to be, as has been pointed out previously a "God of the Gaps" argument.
And I have responded to that already. Frankly, I've never been impressed by that label at all. It requires prior ideological commitment to scientism to believe that "God of the gaps" is a devastating judgment, i.e., one must already assume that science can close all gaps that could house God. I have never heard any good argument for that scientistic faith. For all we know the universe is indeed full of unclosable gaps as far as human science is concerned, and God discernibly shines through some of them.
Furthermore, the number and everyday significance of truly random events is in the end neither here nor there. If only a single such event ever occurred, and if it influenced no other event in the universe, then my argument would still hold. I'm falsifying an idea, and a single counter-example will do for that.
Finally, you go on about the astronomical number of quantum events that God would have to decide every infinitesimal time step. On one hand, this would have to be thought through more carefully. After all, only measurements are occasions of "truly random events", at least in classical QM. As far as randomness goes at least, the difficult question then arises what counts as a measurement. On the other hand, as alternative you have to postulate an astronomical number of independent "gods", namely every single (random) event ever. They all somehow decide themselves: they just become this or that. This is a miraculous "just", and I fail to see how your scheme is inherently more "efficient" than one where a single "world external" Creator adjusts the lot of them according to His will.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There is no discernable or observable reason why it landed H rather than T. ... quantum uncertainty doesn't require us to abandon rational realism.
These two statements are in strict contradiction with each other, on my terms. Define your terms.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
You've claimed before that the fact that science can't explain what happened before the Big Bang 'proves' God as well. One is left with the impression that the search for a scientific proof of God is something that's very important to you, but I'm afraid that I don't think you'll ever find a cast-iron one.
I don't particularly remember what you may be referring to. The "first cause" argument for God does not require a Big Bang, it works for an eternal universe just as well - and I've been aware of that for several years now. At any rate, I fail to see what possible relevance it could have how much I value "scientific" proofs of God, and I'm not at all interested in your personal prejudices concerning the topic. Arguments, please.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't even acknowledge it as a choice. It just happens - nothing decides it.
Fine. That's a non-rational stance though, by the dictionary definition of "rational" I've linked to above.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I think the problem, Ingo, is that you are trying to solve a problem that no longer exists. Yes, maybe having a gap in a chain of causation use to be a cause for consternation, but it no longer is. ... The problem is only a problem if you hold to the earlier concept of causality, which has been abandoned.
Since when is truth a function of fashion? But anyway, what you say is simply not true. What has in fact happened, practically speaking, is that the "Copenhagen interpretation" turned into the "Copenhagen method". That is to say, for most practical purposes, the problem simply gets ignored by most physicists. And that is possible, because the "collapse of the wavefunction" works as a predictive mechanism. If you are merely trying to calculate what an electron will do when hitting a double slit, or whatever, then it is indeed sufficient to collapse the wavefunctions you've been calculating. The right results are obtained by that method. Physicists are usually busy with physics, not with philosophy, hence that is usually good enough for them.
However, a cottage industry certainly exists even within physics, which does in fact bother very much with the so-called "measurement problem". A reflection of this is shown even in the experimental paper I linked to: they are trying to close "loopholes" (for "hidden variables") precisely because some theorists are punching loopholes into the previous experiments. Furthermore, some of the weirdest ideas in all of physics have been proposed (seriously!) to solve this problem, just consider Everett's many worlds interpretation. This issue is very much alive in the community. However, since there is an effective method of dealing with quantum computation, the interest is now maintained by specialists.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
We know that stuff does not inherently exist. God wills it to exist. And it HAS to be quantal, indeterminate, superpositioned.
It does not have to be so, but I see little point in arguing about that, since in fact it is so and since you are in the habit of strong assertion where you lack argument.
The problem that you have is simple: you do not believe what you are saying. Ultimately your God is still the Deist god, it's just that you have stuffed him into a Planck time. Your god creates some "indeterminate state" and then it somehow manages to exist and change indeterminately on its own (at least till the next tick of the cosmic clock), therefore your god does not know what will happen. Bollocks. You've abandoned your own principles. As soon as God lets go of anything, it ceases to be. Your indeterminate state can only exist, be, as long as God supports it. All the way. From its indeterminate beginning A-?->(B or C) to its indeterminate outcome A...B. God gave being to B there, God did not give being to C, hence A...C is not what happened. There is nobody and nothing but God that can give such being. To say that A is "created with indeterminate tendencies which then flow into either B or C on its own" is creating an idol, a godlet - a strange one, sure, that may just exist for a Planck time. Yet still a rival to God in the domain of being, and there's no God but Him. Who is this A that it can tell God that B will be, and not C? Where does your idol A derive its power from to make its decision and command the Almighty?
Your problem is that you think God's determinism is "world internal", hence that it stands in the way of freedom. If I command you to do this or that, then I have set limits to you. But God's determinism is "world external", hence it does not stand in the way of freedom, it makes it be. A...B now, and A...C later, and then again A...B perhaps - because God says "let there be this" without cease. He is the carrier wave of existence, thus every electron spin on your head is counted. Not in the world, where they are in indeterminate relationship to other beings, but in God, without whom all those electron spins would just stop being.
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Are we then saying that every thing that happens, even random appalling shit, is not simply "the will of God" in the general sense that is allowed to happen within creation, but that God is actually behind everything that happens?
Naturally, in the sense that all that is derives its being from God alone. This is the classical Christian position, of course.
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Because, in that case, you may have proved God exists, but you have also proved the Yorick hypothesis: that He is a total and utter shit.
Possibly. However, the usual arguments still apply. For example, that evil is not being, but a privation of being, and hence that God is not directly causing evil.
Furthermore, I did not want to go into "free will" here, because it is even more difficult than randomness. However, the same basic point will apply - somehow. God's determinism does not hinder your free will, it makes it be. Thus you can blame your sins on God in the sense that without God, you would not have the opportunity to sin. But not in the sense that God makes you sin.
I'm speculating that free will in us could be related to how "randomness" comes about. Imagine God delegating His power to determine something as random (world internal) in a specific manner (world external), for a restricted part of the universe (your body). Then all attempts to nail down your freedom deterministically would fail, because world internal the result would be random. However, world external your rational soul would choose what will happen. However, I do not know of any reasonable mechanism that would translate quantum randomness to brain function (pace Penrose et al.). Furthermore, I do not know in what sense God could delegate such powers to a human soul. Indeed, I'm not sure that I understand properly how God keeps souls in existence. Hence I cannot really give a "mechanistic" explanation here.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
They all somehow decide themselves: they just become this or that.
You continue to phrase this in terms of a decision being made, but that is not necessary. The coin does not decide to fall one way or the other, it just happens. There is no decision being made, because there is no consciousness there to make it. It's not decided, it's random.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There is no discernable or observable reason why it landed H rather than T. ... quantum uncertainty doesn't require us to abandon rational realism.
These two statements are in strict contradiction with each other, on my terms. Define your terms.
My terms as stated are quite simple: at the quantum level, the normal rules of physics do not apply. Therefore, neither does rational realism. But they both continue to apply at non-quantum levels.
quote:
The "first cause" argument for God does not require a Big Bang, it works for an eternal universe just as well - and I've been aware of that for several years now.
True.
quote:
At any rate, I fail to see what possible relevance it could have how much I value "scientific" proofs of God, and I'm not at all interested in your personal prejudices concerning the topic. Arguments, please.
Arguments? How about this: God is not scientifically provable. If He was, then He would be no more than another being or force within the physical universe.
The best you can do is point to gaps in our knowledge and say "God must have done it". But humans have been doing that for years, right back to when we couldn't understand why some crops failed and some thrived, so we said (a) god had done it.
And no, that doesn't mean I think we'll fill in all the gaps one day. It just means you can't use the gaps as proof of God. They're gaps - we don't know what fills them yet. Could be God, could be the Higgs Boson, could be an as-yet undiscovered Cosmic Force. But we don't know, and a "don't know" proves nothing.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't even acknowledge it as a choice. It just happens - nothing decides it.
Fine. That's a non-rational stance though, by the dictionary definition of "rational" I've linked to above.
If you absolutely insist on framing the conversation in your own terms, then fine. It's a non-rational stance. At the quantum level, rationality does not apply. Happy now?
quote:
As soon as God lets go of anything, it ceases to be. Your indeterminate state can only exist, be, as long as God supports it.
Your presuppositions are showing.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
You continue to phrase this in terms of a decision being made, but that is not necessary. The coin does not decide to fall one way or the other, it just happens. There is no decision being made, because there is no consciousness there to make it. It's not decided, it's random.
I did not intend to indicate any sort of consciousness there. I merely could not think of a good word for stating the fact that given two possible options, one "happened", and the other "did not happen". If you like we can say that the (quantum) coin "forked" into heads rather than tails, or something like that. My point is that this forking is mysterious to the mind. We can understand things obeying rules (the stone - due to gravity - falls down) and we can understand people making choices, but we cannot understand things "forking". Understanding is based on reason, and there is per definitionem no reason in "random forking".
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
My terms as stated are quite simple: at the quantum level, the normal rules of physics do not apply. Therefore, neither does rational realism.
Then as far as I can see we are in agreement about my analysis, you have merely chosen the other horn of the dilemma.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
How about this: God is not scientifically provable. If He was, then He would be no more than another being or force within the physical universe.
That's assertion followed by a non sequitur, at least if we take the general meaning of "God" (rather than the specific Christian one) that I've been using here. If one can show that experimental results are incompatible with fundamental intellectual principle, but only if "God" does not exist, then this is a proof of "God" which does not require reducing Him to an agent in the world. Of course, that proof is conditioned on the fundamental intellectual principle, but absolutely every analysis of anything is in some way conditioned on such principles.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The best you can do is point to gaps in our knowledge and say "God must have done it".
Quite to the contrary, I have done better. I have pointed to advances in our knowledge that suggest an irresolvable difficulty, indicating that "God must have done it". As long as science continues to claim that there are some truly random events - and it was progress of science which suggested that, not the lack thereof - my argument will continue to hold. Of course, it only is compelling if one believes that "rational realism" is true. But that is not a religious principle as such.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
At the quantum level, rationality does not apply. Happy now?
Certainly. I think you are dead wrong, of course, but I cannot prove principle.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Your presuppositions are showing.
I was talking to Martin, not to you, basing my arguments on what I believe Martin would agree with. I like to adapt my argument to the prior level of agreement.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Of course, it only is compelling if one believes that "rational realism" is true. But that is not a religious principle as such.
I find it far more likely that your 'proof' points to a weakness in our definition of the term "rational realism" than that it points irrevocably towards God. Afer all, it's not like "rational realism" is some kind of idol that cannot possibly be altered in any way.
Perhaps you should demonstrate why rational realism must mean what you say it does, and why it must be the only correct way of examining the world.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Perhaps you should demonstrate why rational realism must mean what you say it does, and why it must be the only correct way of examining the world.
What "rational realism" means is simply a definition. I have argued above, using dictionary definitions of the words, why I think this particular label is appropriate for this particular principle.
I do not know how to argue for a principle this fundamental. Do you really believe that something can go from A to B, or from A to C, and nothing whatsoever determines in any sense or form whether it is going to be B or C, yet nevertheless A indeed becomes either "B and not C" or "C and not B"? I think that that is strictly impossible, but the only "argument" I can think of is basically repeating this question in various forms until you hopefully agree. That would be rather tiresome as a thread though... So it's best to ask once, and then stop.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Of course He has to. That's what the 'math' says. The second order differential equation that is the uncertainty principle for a start.
That's what Bell's paradox says.
Ther are NO hidden variables including in Him.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Do you really believe that something can go from A to B, or from A to C, and nothing whatsoever determines in any sense or form whether it is going to be B or C, yet nevertheless A indeed becomes either "B and not C" or "C and not B"?
Yes. I don't see a problem with that at all.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
Clarification: I don't see a problem with that at the quantum level.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Because, in that case, you may have proved God exists, but you have also proved the Yorick hypothesis: that He is a total and utter shit.
Possibly. However, the usual arguments still apply. For example, that evil is not being, but a privation of being, and hence that God is not directly causing evil.
But this proves the same thing for any agent; the not-being-ness of evil is not God-specific. Hence no agent causes evil, hence there is no evil, hence the world is morally perfect, hence God has nothing to hold us responsible for, nothing to judge us for. We are morally pure.
quote:
Furthermore, I did not want to go into "free will" here, because it is even more difficult than randomness. However, the same basic point will apply - somehow. God's determinism does not hinder your free will, it makes it be. Thus you can blame your sins on God in the sense that without God, you would not have the opportunity to sin. But not in the sense that God makes you sin.
But we do not sin, because sin is evil and you have shown that evil can have no causal agent.
If there were such a thing as evil, I agree that your scheme here (or whatever we should call it) does not make God the author thereof; however, it certainly makes Her an accomplice.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Frankly, I've never been impressed by that label [i.e. "God of the Gaps"] at all. It requires prior ideological commitment to scientism to believe that "God of the gaps" is a devastating judgment, i.e., one must already assume that science can close all gaps that could house God. I have never heard any good argument for that scientistic faith. For all we know the universe is indeed full of unclosable gaps as far as human science is concerned, and God discernibly shines through some of them.
One doesn't have to argue that all gaps are closeable. This is not an argument about the future but about the past. God was used to close gaps that science has since closed itself. Hence, using God to close gaps is a bad idea because we don't know which gaps science will close in the future that we are using God to close now, thus (at that time) gutting our "proof" of God, and submitting God (not to mention ourselves) to ridicule. We don't need to postulate a perfect science, only that the future will resemble the past. Which is a basic assumption of science (and daily life).
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
|
Posted
IngoB, thanks for this. I'm not sure if I've understood you correctly, but could I ask:
1)Does you mention of deterministic chaos mean that you regard quantum randomness as directly responsible for this effect? As I understand it, there is no coherent account of quantum chaology (and some suggestion that the inherent scaling of quantum effects given by Planck's constant conflicts with the lack of scaling in macroscopic chaos), and the problem of unifying decriptions of the behaviour of microscopic and macroscopic systems remains unsolved.
I'm getting this from Polkinghorne's Exploring Reality, which I'd be interested to hear what you thought of. I think you're both driving at the same sort of thing: as he puts it, "If [physics] reports an epistemic deficit in its account due to the existence of intrinsic unpredictabilities... then there is an opportunity for the metaphysician to propose that... they correspond to actual ontological openness,allowing the operation of further causal principles"[1] (sorry to selectively quote, but JP is fond of long words and run-on sentences!)
2)Do you see this argument as the lower-level underpinning of arguments denying the possibility of meaningful thought if the universe is itself without meaning? Your comments about the 'high ground' of the Brights reminded me of this.
Thanks for a good thread,
- Chris.
--
[1]:Ch 2, p 33
[ 10. November 2010, 15:05: Message edited by: sanityman ]
--------------------
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
|
Posted
I've thought for a long time that perhaps the ability to determine the outcome of QM random events allowed for the transcendent manipulation of reality we call providence, without every providential... erm... event for want of a better word being supernatural or miraculous*. But I hadn't seen the implication that Ingo's picked up on here. Nice one.
I'm not quite up on the consequences of abandoning rational realism as you've defined it, though. I seem to implicitly believe it but I'm not sure what difference it makes if it's gone.
* Is a miracle then anything other than a providential event which is statistically speaking, startlingly unlikely?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
But this proves the same thing for any agent; the not-being-ness of evil is not God-specific.
That's a clever one, mousethief! But it's a bit off-topic, because nothing in my "random proof" requires anyone, God or man, to be morally good, evil or neutral. New thread perhaps?
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
One doesn't have to argue that all gaps are closeable. This is not an argument about the future but about the past. God was used to close gaps that science has since closed itself. Hence, using God to close gaps is a bad idea because we don't know which gaps science will close in the future that we are using God to close now
Abusus non tollit usum. (Abuse is not an argument against proper use.) If there is the possibility that God can be detected by unclosable gaps in human science, then it is IMNSHO the duty of both believers and scientists to explore this possibility as diligently as possible. And there's exactly nothing wrong with proposing a "God gap" that later is closed by natural science. That's simply a proper part of science in the general sense (here including theology). I think we can move beyond 19th century trench warfare between religion and science now, troglodytes like Dawkins notwithstanding.
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
Does you mention of deterministic chaos mean that you regard quantum randomness as directly responsible for this effect?
No. Deterministic chaos is entirely possible in "classical" systems. Anything nonlinear with more than three state variables can be chaotic. (Incidentally, I heartily recommend "Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos" by Steven H. Strogatz to anyone with sophomore uni maths. Just about the most fun and useful math book that I know.) My point was that "deterministic chaos" does not work for my argument, because while it may appear random, it is in fact deterministic. I need true randomness. For the same reason I keep writing "(quantum) coin toss", because a normal coin toss is likely not random, but deterministically chaotic.
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
"If [physics] reports an epistemic deficit in its account due to the existence of intrinsic unpredictabilities... then there is an opportunity for the metaphysician to propose that... they correspond to actual ontological openness,allowing the operation of further causal principles"
Yes, precisely. However, I'm not sure from your quote to what extent Polkinghorne makes the "world internal" vs. "world external" distinction, which is crucial IMHO. One cannot supervene on "world internal" causality from within the world. That reduces to a "world internal" causal chain. One has to step out to step in without a footprint.
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
Do you see this argument as the lower-level underpinning of arguments denying the possibility of meaningful thought if the universe is itself without meaning? Your comments about the 'high ground' of the Brights reminded me of this.
Control of randomness may be involved in meaningful thought, I actually talked about that above in discussing free will. However, I think the mechanism is likely even more exciting. On one hand there is the whole issue of the classical incorporeal soul that has self-sustaining activity. On the other hand there is the QM measurement problem, which to me looks very much like it is privileging observers extraordinarily. Wheeler once suggested based on this that the whole universe is "back-constructed into the past" based on what observers see now. (Sorry, no reference - I've forgotten where I read this, QM stuff is almost a decade ago now for me...) That's probably over the top, but there seems to be an opportunity here to give a whole new meaning to "created in the image and likeness of God". Perhaps we are "pro-creating" not primarily with our genitals, but with our minds/souls...
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
|
Posted
You accuse Martin of Deism but if your idea was true the effect of "God" on the world would be completely indistinguishable with randomness.
You are claiming that the strength of your argument lies in that it is an alternative that saves "rational realism" from quantum randomness.
But why is it a rational explanation to postulate a being that is not part of this world but is somehow able to intervene in it by an unexplained mechanism when it suits him?
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
I think I'll submit this to Private Eye's Pseud's Corner: "One has to step out to step in without a footprint.".
[ 11. November 2010, 17:59: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
You accuse Martin of Deism but if your idea was true the effect of "God" on the world would be completely indistinguishable with randomness.
Only if that's the only way in which God acts.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If the world can be understood rationally, then God must play dice.
Back up the thread I noted reservations about equating "God's will" with free will. I wonder if God's will is precisely not genuinely free, in the sense that quantum randomness is genuinely random. While God appears to play dice at the (sub-)micro level, at the macro level of creation that's not an option.
Ultimate creativity, "creating from nothing", implies ultimate consistency. I don't have a proof for that, but the alternative, ultimate inconsistency, would render creation incoherent. "God's will", apparently expressed in an astronomical number of throws of the dice each instant to generate reality, is therefore "constrained" by the act of creating.
Constrained is in quotes because for me thinking in terms of God's will seems unjustifiably personifying. What we experience through the mystery of utterly consistent causation is that it is God's nature to create. The OP shows the genuine openness of that creativity, constrained only by the requirement for ultimate consistency.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Ultimate creativity, "creating from nothing", implies ultimate consistency. I don't have a proof for that, but the alternative, ultimate inconsistency, would render creation incoherent.
Why is ultimate inconsistency the only alternative to ultimate consistency? What about partial consistency?
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
|
Posted
What would it mean for some aspect of God's creation (ie. our universe plus any others) to not be ultimately consistent with the rest?
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
So what is this "ultimately consistent"? Do you just mean "consistent when it comes right down to it"? If parts of our universe are inconsistent with one another, does that throw the whole universe into the bin? If so, why?
[ 12. November 2010, 17:14: Message edited by: mousethief ]
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
|
Posted
For creation (from nothing) to take place, whatever elemental particle exists at instant T at some location, call it X, cannot be negated by, inconsistent with, what exists at every other location at T. Otherwise X would not exist, ie. would not have been created.
X could be anywhere, T could be any instant. The aggregation of every X is the whole of creation at instant T. Creation must be ultimately consistent.
[ 12. November 2010, 21:04: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
You accuse Martin of Deism but if your idea was true the effect of "God" on the world would be completely indistinguishable with randomness.
As mousethief pointed out, that's a misrepresentation of what I'm saying. My fundamental point is that truly random processes leave a hole in "rational realism", which cannot be filled with anything in the world, but can be closed with some kind of "God". To what extent God influences the world beyond random processes is not part of my main point. One can however speculate that randomness could be controlled so that every single quantum process is random per se, but in the massive statistical average of such randomness that is entailed by a macroscopic body, a net macroscopic bias emerges.
Say I can control for two coins how they land after a flip. Now, I control them such that by observing each individual coin, one will obtain statistics indistinguishable from a random series of 50:50 heads and tails. However, I control them also such that if the first coin is heads, then there is a 51% chance that the second coin is heads, and if the first is tails that yields a 51% chance of tails in the second. The result for an observer of the coin tosses, who is supposed to have no idea that I am in control of their outcome, is a mysterious correlation between two random events. Now, if I do this under particular but regular circumstances only, say only if the temperature is low, then the observer may start drafting "the law of coin tosses" to the effect that low temperature correlates coin tosses. But if I do this under particular but irregular circumstances only, say when Ikkyu has said a fervent prayer, then the observer may start praising the "miracle of the coin tosses".
However, all this is really just speculation, not the central point I was trying to make.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
But why is it a rational explanation to postulate a being that is not part of this world but is somehow able to intervene in it by an unexplained mechanism when it suits him?
It is completely false to talk of an "unexplained mechanism". That is precisely getting back to the idea of a demiurge manipulating the world. This necessarily implies a "world internal" causal chain, and that cannot possibly work. The whole idea is that God's causality is not of that kind, at all, and because it isn't then it becomes possible to have random but causal events.
Take another diagram at the stereotypical causal diagram
A -> B
There are two ways in which this diagram can be understood. On one hand we can consider it "world internal", at the level of A and B. Then it says something about how B is related to A, namely causally. At this level it is utterly inexplicable how
A ... B
can come about, i.e., how a truly random but causal connection between two events can exist. The two concepts fight with each other, I cannot explain why B arose out of A, if C could have arisen instead, and the connection is random.
On the other hand, I can consider these diagrams "world external", namely at the level of you and me, who as far as this thread goes are in the position of God. Now, clearly the causality for
A -> B and A ... B
are exactly identical considered "world external", at the post level. Both came about because I typed them on my keyboard. There's no difference here, "world internal" deterministic causal and random causal are both identically "world external" IngoB causal.
This is a completely rational explanation, and it would remain so even if you were observing these events "world internal", i.e., if you were observer D who watches A turn into B, and not a "God" at the post-reading level like me. If you lived "among the characters written", so to speak, then you might not have the slightest idea what a human poster would be like. You are just a (somehow conscious) letter D, there is an unimaginable abyss between you and a human. You will not have the slightest idea about keyboards, internet, servers etc. You know nothing of the "machinery" that those mythical "human beings" which control your typographic destiny employ. And yet you could make this argument simply on observing that some A turn into B or C randomly, a fact that is inexplicable in the world of type, and requires a mysterious other.
That's what I'm doing here, pointing to something other to which we are as equal as a (somehow conscious) letter D would be to me, basing my conclusions on the observation of truly random effects that are inexplicable within this world.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Back up the thread I noted reservations about equating "God's will" with free will. I wonder if God's will is precisely not genuinely free, in the sense that quantum randomness is genuinely random. While God appears to play dice at the (sub-)micro level, at the macro level of creation that's not an option.
Ultimate creativity, "creating from nothing", implies ultimate consistency. I don't have a proof for that, but the alternative, ultimate inconsistency, would render creation incoherent. "God's will", apparently expressed in an astronomical number of throws of the dice each instant to generate reality, is therefore "constrained" by the act of creating.
I think this is a pseudo-problem brought about by a wrong, but nowadays universally accepted, conception of freedom. Namely the idea that freedom means "freedom of choice", rather than (as it used to be historically) "freedom for excellence". I have written at length about this in the past (probably that can be found in Limbo or Oblivion somewhere), and will not repeat it all.
In our case we can deal with this rapidly at the level of an analogy. Take a writer writing a novel. Is he "more free" if for hundreds of pages he bangs randomly on the keyboard, creating a meaningless heap of characters; or is he "more free" if he thinks up an engrossing story and sets it out in clear and appropriate language, carefully typed out? It is clear that in the second case he obeys truckloads of rules (spelling, grammar, logic, ...), and indeed at the level of the story one can require "internal consistency" as one of the indispensable requirements for a good work. Yet all this is arguable not restricting his freedom, to the contrary, only by following all these rules does he become truly free to tell the story. Arguably it is the random typist, who for all his ultimate freedom of choosing what key to hit, is in fact not free at all - it is (near) impossible that he will come up with something worthwhile.
As far as God is concerned, we have the extra complication that there is nothing "external" that would determine the "freedom for excellence". It is as if the author was inventing the language from scratch in the process of typing. Hence he decides what is "random keystrokes" and what not, as he is keying. Yet nevertheless it is clear that in the act of bringing something good about, He must brings about "internal restrictions" of His own choosing. So in God "freedom of choice" and "freedom for excellence" are sort of united, the former expressing His absolute sovereignty, the latter His absolute goodness. Considered at the level of creation however, we would indeed see the latter and then can indeed say that God is "restricted". Yet that does not take away His freedom, that is His freedom of creation - just like for the author in the analogy.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
|
Posted
IngoB:
I'm going to try and divert this thread, rather than starting a new one.
I said in a previous post that I was looking forward to this thread, and I have read it with as much interest as my knowledge of QM enables.
Which raises a question. Do you think that this is an approach that can have general apologetic use? Or is it a specific approach for a specific group?
Personally I find it hard to grasp, and I assume that this is because I am insufficiently grounded in QM. What I mean is that I don't really believe QM with sufficient force to be concerned about what it says about the world. I am far from convinced that any true randomness exists, and I can see why you may say that I would be convinced if I knew more. But I don't, so I don't.
What comes out of this for me as the key question is: What do we mean by explanation?
Atheists and rationalists have a constrained view of what constitutes an explanation, and I doubt if yours would pass muster. ITSM you have already moved away from a rational-empiricist view of what constitutes and explanation, which more or less is limited to "in-world". So it seems that you are trying to convince people using an explanation that they would only accept if they were already convinced.
If you think I've expressed any significant thoughts, you are welcome to reply to them.
--------------------
Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
a wrong, but nowadays universally accepted, conception of freedom. Namely the idea that freedom means "freedom of choice", rather than (as it used to be historically) "freedom for excellence".
Freedom of choice is not a wrong conception of freedom, it's just not the one that you prefer. Because it is nowadays universally accepted, I can reasonably expect free when applied to will to be understood to mean something like "without constraint". To indicate your preferred meaning you have to add a qualifier ("freedom to" rather "freedom from", for example).
As you note, as far as God is concerned there is nothing "external" that would allow your "freedom for excellence" to make sense. By attempting to impose that meaning you're simply introduce your take on the "Christian God", at best an unfalsifiable hypothesis that in most respects is unrelated to the metaphysical God we've been discussing.
In the same way, talk of goodness implies an "external" moral context for judging God to be "good", which is nonsense. God as illustrated in your OP has no means or requirement to "decide" or "choose" anything, just a nature that apparently tips genuinely random potential into ultimately consistent creativity.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
IngoB
Thick, stubborn, dim but dogged old fool that I am, I TRULY acknowledge the brilliance your OP discourse and all that follows by you and all others APART FROM myself.
All that went previously is EXCELLENT, but it has taken me many days to ecdyse my preconceptions, my allergic reactions, my bias (necessary in fully fed fifth-instar larvae of Rhodnius bloodsuckers if the anus is blocked ...).
I therefore APOLOGIZE for speaking about that which I did not understand.
Shame on me.
PLEASE don't give up on me, brute that I unashamedly am. Struggling to be mere Caliban to your Prospero.
I'm refusing to give up on this and will lick this bone clean whilst all others here have understood it immediately.
I'm licking again Heracliteanly as there is always more nutriment than I at first 'thought' and have got as far as:
'Obviously the counter-argument exists that "we just cannot (not 'do not') understand" how nature realizes randomness, how the (quantum) coin knows which way to actually fall. That is fine, but it clearly is a fundamentally non-rational claim. Whereas my explanation in terms of God may not be satisfying as far as God is concerned (I cannot explain why God chooses this or that), but it is a rational claim about the actualization of randomness.'
and will mull and mull, a week at a time probably, but IngoB and all here, PLEASE don't give up on the dullard on the bus.
In this and ALL areas, please IngoB.
Because from here we need to go on to predestination, in my mind.
RESPECTFULLY Martin
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
I said in a previous post that I was looking forward to this thread, and I have read it with as much interest as my knowledge of QM enables.
That would be a misunderstanding of the thrust of the argument then. I could just as well have considered regular coins. Except somebody versed in modern physics could have doubted that a regular coin is truly random, in which case QM provides scientifically more accepted examples of true randomness.
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
Do you think that this is an approach that can have general apologetic use? Or is it a specific approach for a specific group?
I don't think of this argument as apologetic primarily, but philosophy. It should make one consider causation in general and randomness in particular.
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
Personally I find it hard to grasp, and I assume that this is because I am insufficiently grounded in QM.
No. The specifics of QM are near irrelevant to the argument. All I needed from QM was that true randomness exists in the world.
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
What I mean is that I don't really believe QM with sufficient force to be concerned about what it says about the world. I am far from convinced that any true randomness exists, and I can see why you may say that I would be convinced if I knew more. But I don't, so I don't.
I'm not giving lessons in physics here, and an argument from ignorance is not particularly compelling. If you paid careful attention to the argument, then it would be clear that randomness isn't really necessary in the end. It is just that randomness provides better psychological access to the philosophical strangeness of causality. As with most philosophy, the problem is to make people aware that there is a problem in the first place.
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
What comes out of this for me as the key question is: What do we mean by explanation?
I would prefer if you took this question elsewhere.
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
ITSM you have already moved away from a rational-empiricist view of what constitutes and explanation, which more or less is limited to "in-world".
I have appealed to rational realism, not to rational empiricism. Realism is not identical with empiricism. Empiricism is more a statement about how we gather knowledge, realism more about what exists and how. I'm largely a Thomist, so I agree with the basic empiricist idea that human knowledge is derived from sensory experience, but not with the way this is often cashed out.
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
So it seems that you are trying to convince people using an explanation that they would only accept if they were already convinced.
Frankly, I'm a better rhetorician than you give me credit for. The core of this argument is what I say about me writing "A->B" and "A...B", respectively. That's the Trojans, all the rest is the horse.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Freedom of choice is not a wrong conception of freedom, it's just not the one that you prefer.
Freedom is too important a topic to be a matter of taste. Freedom of choice considers a means to be the end, and given the ways of the world, hence eventually results in evil. But this is rather off-topic, wouldn't you agree?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
God as illustrated in your OP has no means or requirement to "decide" or "choose" anything, just a nature that apparently tips genuinely random potential into ultimately consistent creativity.
This reduces to the "non-rational flow of events, at least as far as quantum stuff is concerned" stance, which Marvin signed up for earlier. The confusing bit is why you insist on talking about God in that context. As far as I can tell, nothing is lost in rewriting your stuff without God.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
In this and ALL areas, please IngoB.
Just chill. No apology is needed, much less any lavish praise. I merely try to work those talents that I have here. Like every Sunday, today after mass I lit some candles to an altar showing the Good Thief next to Christ, and some more to an icon of the Mother of God - and believe me, I'm not precisely running out of my own darknesses and insufficiencies when kneeling for prayer there...
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Because from here we need to go on to predestination, in my mind.
Do we? Predestination is the only doctrinal topic that has been protected against easy decision by a STFU from a pope to theologians at war. Some things can seriously warp mind and soul, and this one breeds heresy like warm sugar water bacteria. Are your loins girded with truth, do you wear the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of hope? Or are your stepping forward into the fray in your theological flip-flops?
Somehow everybody in the predestination debate manages to agree that if I lead a godly life, I'll likely go to heaven, and if not, then perhaps not. They just disagree severely about why that is so, about what causes what. One simple way of dealing with predestination is hence to live a godly life, and then ask God in heaven to explain the details...
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Freedom of choice is not a wrong conception of freedom, it's just not the one that you prefer.
Freedom is too important a topic to be a matter of taste.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
"Freedom is so important that people can't be left free to decide what it means". Priceless.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
a wrong, but nowadays universally accepted, conception of freedom. Namely the idea that freedom means "freedom of choice", rather than (as it used to be historically) "freedom for excellence".
Yes, my owner wants me to be free to do an excellent job picking cotton.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
"Freedom is so important that people can't be left free to decide what it means". Priceless.
You can't be free to decide what "free" even means. That's a vicious circle of arbitrariness removing all potential moral value. As is demonstrated by this response:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Yes, my owner wants me to be free to do an excellent job picking cotton.
mousethief's owner would make a perfectly valid statement here, unless indeed people like him are not really free to decide what "free" means. In order to justify freeing mousethief from his owner, we ourselves clearly must have a concept of freedom that cannot be freely adjusted, but is sufficiently fixed to interfere with his property rights.
"Freedom of choice" as practiced in our societies is entwined with many political and social issues, and IMHO evaluated more with a "common law" than with a principled approach. We are free to choose certain things, and not free to choose others, because of historically accumulated "common sense" decisions (sometimes the sense became common by shooting those who disagreed, as in the case of slavery in the US).
However, if a principled derivation of "freedom of choice" were to be attempted, then it would in my opinion basically result in a "freedom for excellence" discussion. A slave is much more restricted in what he can excel at than a freeman. If for example he has musical talent, he will nevertheless be forced to work the fields rather than the piano. Furthermore, the evaluation of whether a career as a farm worker or a musician is appropriate requires an excellence all of its own. And one can argue that it belongs intrinsically to human nature to deal with such situations, that one should be free to excel at such evaluation and risk taking.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
So your ethical theory has as its underpinning, "maximize excellence for the most people"? Hmm. I wonder what J.S. Mill would think. Of course "excellence" is a subjective thing. My owner thinks that excellence in picking cotton is, for me, the most important and most fully realizable excellence. Why should someone else's understanding of excellence, let alone mine, be held as superior, if my freedom of choice doesn't come into it, or is subordinate to my freedom for excellence?
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
So your ethical theory has as its underpinning, "maximize excellence for the most people"?
If at all, that seems like a decent ansatz for social engineering.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Of course "excellence" is a subjective thing.
That's neither of course, nor in my opinion true in a fundamental sense.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Why should someone else's understanding of excellence, let alone mine, be held as superior, if my freedom of choice doesn't come into it, or is subordinate to my freedom for excellence?
Why should your freedom of whatever kind come into anything anyhow? FWIW, I believe in natural (moral) law as the foundation on which "freedom" must stand. But I'm not sure why we are discussing all this now. My original on-topic point was that it is false to say that God is "restricted" (less than perfectly free) just because His creation is "consistent" (not perfectly arbitrary chaos).
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Of course "excellence" is a subjective thing.
That's neither of course, nor in my opinion true in a fundamental sense.
Awesome! Tell us what criterion we can use for excellence that we all will agree upon! You shouldn't hold this back from the world. We could solve so many issues if we only knew this secret.
quote:
Why should your freedom of whatever kind come into anything anyhow?
Because we're discussing what freedom means. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote:
But I'm not sure why we are discussing all this now.
Because it arose in the course of the conversation, I'm thinking.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Freedom is too important a topic to be a matter of taste.
In addition to what Marvin and mousethief have said, I wasn't suggesting the reason you preferred "freedom for excellence" was taste.
quote:
Freedom of choice considers a means to be the end, and given the ways of the world, hence eventually results in evil.
Can result in evil. Or good. Without freedom of choice we have no means to express our moral agency.
The more I think about the notion of "freedom for excellence", the more I'm convinced it's a bogus derivation, a corruption of what it means to be free. However much I might wish to excel in some field, I cannot imagine a situation where I would willingly give up my freedom to opt out of whatever constraints were necessary to achieve it. Freedom to choose is what people die for.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
God as illustrated in your OP has no means or requirement to "decide" or "choose" anything, just a nature that apparently tips genuinely random potential into ultimately consistent creativity.
This reduces to the "non-rational flow of events, at least as far as quantum stuff is concerned" stance, which Marvin signed up for earlier.
No it doesn't. I'm not diminishing in any way God as the uncaused causer of the tip.
quote:
The confusing bit is why you insist on talking about God in that context. As far as I can tell, nothing is lost in rewriting your stuff without God.
Then what you mean by God is not the traditional Christian meaning. As far as I can tell, the whole superstructure of trinitarian theology is underpinned by precisely the metaphysical reality that both your OP illuminated and that I use as the basis for my theology. Perhaps your confusion arises from starting a thread about metaphysics in the context of rational realism and then assuming your proof is transferrable to the Catholic extensions to God. Those extensions have no foundation in rational realism.
[cross-posted]
[ 15. November 2010, 20:19: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
FWIW, I believe in natural (moral) law as the foundation on which "freedom" must stand.
Ah. It makes more sense to me to think in terms of what "free" means in ordinary language.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Awesome! Tell us what criterion we can use for excellence that we all will agree upon!
Natural (moral) law. There is however every reason to expect it to be more contended than natural (physical) law, and we are still far from finished with that one.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Because we're discussing what freedom means.
My point was that a value judgments about some "hierarchy" of freedoms requires first a value judgment of why freedom is important at all. And before that we need to say what we consider as the foundation of such value judgments. Then I told you what I consider as my foundation.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Because it arose in the course of the conversation, I'm thinking.
And I'm thinking we are getting too far away from what I at least wanted to talk about.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Freedom to choose is what people die for.
Nowadays, perhaps. In the "pure" form in which we are discussing this here, I sincerely doubt that many people would have died for it prior to the 14thC. And nowadays the concept has been so overloaded with meaning that I doubt that it is still feasible to die for it as such. Who is capable of stripping the grand narrative of Western modernity from all this?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
No it doesn't. I'm not diminishing in any way God as the uncaused causer of the tip.
If your "causer" is random, then nothing is explained beyond "it just so happens". If your "causer" is regular, then what imposed regularity? "Ultimate consistency" of the world? The notion of some sort of causal feedback between creation and Creator does not step back radically enough. That rule of feedback itself, if it were to exist, would then be what I would call "the first thing caused", and what caused it I would call "the First Causer", whereas whatever is sitting in that feedback loop I would call a demiurge, some instrument of causation, however powerful. (I do not believe that God and the world are like that. I'm just pointing out why "causal feedback", as necessary as it seems to us creatures, doesn't work for God.)
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Perhaps your confusion arises from starting a thread about metaphysics in the context of rational realism and then assuming your proof is transferrable to the Catholic extensions to God. Those extensions have no foundation in rational realism.
I do not feel particularly confused about this. Certainly essential parts of Catholic doctrine cannot be derived metaphysically, though they all can be checked for metaphysical compatibility (and all pass muster, as far as I can tell).
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
"Freedom is so important that people can't be left free to decide what it means". Priceless.
You can't be free to decide what "free" even means.
But you can? ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
