• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Is the eternal uncaused cause in Quantum Mechanics?

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Thanks for the wiki link, also for the apologist's link. Yeah, it is a weird universe.

I do not consider our physical existence weird, and what is presently known about Quantum Mechanics it is the foundation of the nature of our physical existence, and the laws and nature of our physical existence is emergent from the Quantum World. It is a given that there are many unknowns concerning Quantum Mechanics, but that is a given in the frontiers of science.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member

Causality is an adequate understanding of the macro scale physical existence of our universe and the Laws of Nature, but breaks down in the microworld of Quantum Mechanics. As far as our physical existence goes there is no known cause of the Quantum Mechanics Nature of our physical existence and there need not from the human perspective for a Divine origin in Creation by God.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Causality of a sort exists in quantum field theories: it says that events that are not in each other's light cones are probabilistically independent. But that doesn't give the type of causality required for the Kalam argument.

It also shows one of the other flaws in the Kalam argument: causes require time. If there is a beginning to time itself, then there is no causality for that beginning.

There are many other things wrong with the Kalam argument, but that is a start.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Causality of a sort exists in quantum field theories: it says that events that are not in each other's light cones are probabilistically independent. But that doesn't give the type of causality required for the Kalam argument.

It also shows one of the other flaws in the Kalam argument: causes require time. If there is a beginning to time itself, then there is no causality for that beginning.

There are many other things wrong with the Kalam argument, but that is a start.

For the Kalam they talk about the cause being spaceless, timeless, and immaterial as you would know. Why couldnt there be cause and effect outside of time; an alternate reality?

Is there an assumption that all causes must come within the universe itself?

Perhaps you are saying that the Kalam is just word games based on an outmoded intuition that does not apply to the relevant information.

I have heard it said that in physics, particularly in quantum physics that scientists think more in patterns, and regularities than in cause and effect. Is that a misleading statement?
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
For the Kalam they talk about the cause being spaceless, timeless, and immaterial as you would know. Why couldnt there be cause and effect outside of time; an alternate reality?

Because a cause happens *before* the effect. That means time is involved.

Is there an assumption that all causes must come within the universe itself?

Every cause we have ever seen is within the universe. So it isn't an unreasonable position to take.

Perhaps you are saying that the Kalam is just word games based on an outmoded intuition that does not apply to the relevant information.

I have heard it said that in physics, particularly in quantum physics that scientists think more in patterns, and regularities than in cause and effect. Is that a misleading statement?

Quantum mechanics is a probabilistic theory. It does not predict, in many situations, specifically what will happen, but only what the probabilities are of various possibilities. And, in fact, one of the consequences of QM ,and one that has been verified by observations, is that the 'realist' position that all things have definite properties at all times, is simply false. We cannot say, for example, whether an electron is spin up or spin down when it is in a superposition of the two states. In a very real sense, it is both.

As another example, take two radioactive nuclei, say two K-40 nuclei. There is, even in theory, no way to predict when they will actually decay. We can predict probabilities (which gives regularity when there are Avagadro's number of such nuclei), but not when any specific nucleus will decay. There is literally no difference internally between the nucleus that decays today and the one that will decay a billion years from now. So, the specific timing of the decay is literally uncaused.
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
Why is the universe quantum in nature? The answer is to make the universe casual and to save time in terms of its formation and progression.

If you look at the emission spectra of the hydrogen atom, it displays very specific photons implicit of very exact energy levels. These energy levels are quantized, meaning they are very specific, with gaps or dead spots between them. The probability is 1.0 or 0.0. This is not random but casual.

It is this exact quantum nature of the energy quanta of hydrogen, that allows us to infer the universe from billions of light years away. If these energy levels were random, we could not conclude anything. All that we infer is based on the exact nature of the quantized and exact spectra for the various atoms.

Since the energy quanta of the hydrogen atom are very exact, and are limited in number, with gaps between, the result is the universe is able to progress faster, thereby saving time. In other words, if event A had to happen before event B could occur, since quantum limits the options for A, this will speed the occurrence of Step A, compared to having a universe with unlimited random options for A. In the random universe, we would need to cycle through all the random options, like a deck of cards, before B could occur. But with quanta being limited and specific, there are only a few options for A, so B is ready to happen quickly; saves time.

The saving of time means we can use time for other things, beyond just maintaining space-time. For example, acceleration, which is the directing affect of force on matter, has the dimensions of d/t/t; distance divided by time, divided by time. Acceleration is two parts time and one part distance. Acceleration adds extra time to space-time. The forces of nature makes use of the extra time, saved by the quantum universe. Force saves us even more time, and makes thing even more causal, compared to random.

Random is not consistent with the nature of a quantum universe. Random is really an artifact of observation that uses using energy, instead of matter. The hydrogen atom is matter. This tiny piece of matter defines exact energy quanta. Once these energy quanta are released, the game changes, since the energy is subject to change, such as via Doppler or red shift.

When these quanta leave matter; hydrogen, they are always very specific and exact. However, since motion is relative, and there are things moving at all types of relative speeds, the energy quantum, once released can appear to change and be all over the board, in terms of final energy observations. This changing nature of the energy, used for observation, is what makes the universe seems more random. Physics has projected its own observational choice and limitations, onto the universe, instead of see the universe as it is; quantum, casual, and time saving.
 
Top