Is there any reason to believe in uncaused events?

[rusra02]

It is perfectly obvious that things *do* occur without a maker. A river delta happens just because a river carries sediment to its end. A star forms just because of gravity. A diamond forms just because of the presence of carbon at high pressure. Nobody intervenes in these processes. They happens naturally and spontaneously in the correct situations. And htose situations happen naturally, with no intelligent intervention.

A hurricane has great complexity, but forms because of the action of natural laws with no outside intervention. A tree will grow from a seed that nobody planted.

You are simply wrong in your initial assumption, however 'obvious' it was to you.

You seem to be overlooking that rivers, carbon, and stars do not just happen. You speak of "natural laws" as if such laws just happen. I believe a tree grows from a seed because a supremely intelligent Creator made it to do so. The detailed instructions, "written" in DNA, caused that tree to grow from that seed. As the poet affirmed; "Only God can make a [living] tree."

 

[rusra02]

I don't think the millions of people who study the evidence for themselves, without blind belief in materialism, are non-thinking, as you claim. These millions of thinking persons find the evidence for an intelligent Creator overwhelming and beyond reasonable doubt.

 

[Polymath257]

Interpretations aren't theories?

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.1280.pdf

The problem here, as with all pilot wave theories, is that it must be assumed that the family of particles coming in is randomly distributed in *exactly* the statistical way that QM requires. Even small deviations from this statistical requirements (which are inevitable for finite numbers of particles) quickly diverge from being psi^2 distributed. There is no mechanisms to drive a family of particles to this requirement (and, if fact, they are driven away from it), and that requirement is esential for agreement between QM and the pilot wave model (and also with experiments).

Furthermore, like I said, this is NOT a relativistic model. It is still a classical model, and thereby fails to encompass the details of spin in regards to anti-matter (which has not been described by a pilot theory at all).

In answer to your question, though, NO interpretations are NOT different theories until they make different predictions on observations. The equivalence of two scientific viewpoints is always determined by the observations, not the internal details. This, by the way, happens even in classical mechanics, where the Newtonian formalism in terms of forces and the Lagrangian formulation in terms of action are observationally equivalent, but very different conceptually. Both are used freely to solve any specific problem based on ease of computation.

And that gets to another aspect of the pilot-wave theory. To the extent that it agrees with classical QM, it requires the same calculations as QM *and* also the calculations of the particle trajectories. The additional calculation doesn't give any new information, however: as long as the (huge) statistical constraint is met in the pilot wave theory, the observational predictions are identical.

Finally, there is no way, as yet, to describe more than one particle in the pilot wave theory: entanglement (which is basic in QM) again has no good description in the pilot wave theories.

Sorry, but the pilot wave theories are disregarded for good reasons: they simply don't encompass the range of phenomena *known* to happen in the real world *and* they require much more work for the exact same results.

 

[Polymath257]

You seem to be overlooking that rivers, carbon, and stars do not just happen. You speak of "natural laws" as if such laws just happen. I believe a tree grows from a seed because a supremely intelligent Creator made it to do so. The detailed instructions, "written" in DNA, caused that tree to grow from that seed. As the poet affirmed; "Only God can make a [living] tree."

No, I do NOT overlook the fact that stars, rivers, and carbon are produced by physical processes. In fact, those are studied and we know *how* they happen via the natural laws. The DNA of a tree (or you and me) is a *chemical* that obeys all the laws of chemistry. No supernatural agent intervenes.

Now, you claim that natural laws cannot 'just happen'. And how, exactly, do natural laws come about? Are you proposing a causal mechanism for the production of natural laws? What natural law governs that mechanism?

You see, *fundamental* laws, by their very nature, have no deeper explanation. If they did, there would be a more fundamental law providing that explanation.

Bringing in a deity is of no help, because you *still* have to describe the laws governing the actions of that deity (and if there are no laws, there is no real explanation of the resulting natural laws).

 

[Polymath257]

The question should be obvious: Why measure anything? Measurement is a deterministic tool.

How so? Please give more details why you think this if the results of the measurements are probabilistic.

 

[Thief]

I'm wondering if we have reason to believe in uncaused events. So far as I understand, if we have no examples or evidence of something, the reasonable course of action is not to believe in that thing until there is evidence. While I've never seen or heard evidence of uncaused events, being always the skeptic I lack the trust in myself to say so conclusively, so I come asking.

Obviously this ties into a lot of "first cause" arguments. If there are no uncaused events most theists seem to think it supports their position of a creator god. If there are uncaused events, atheism gets a huge one-up on first cause arguments. I'm somewhere in between.

For me I do accept a necessary first thing, but beyond that I'm not sure. I certainly don't believe in a creator god, that this world is willfully made. Nor do I believe something came from nothing. My view is similar to that of primordial chaos.

Anyways, is there reason to believe uncaused events happen? Not be open to maybe accepting that one day on evidence, but to accepting it now based on current evidence.

let me slice something for you

the physical realm relies on cause and effect
science needs it for the association of experiment leading to predicted result

the spiritual realm is not so well know
people keep insisting on the question.....what caused God?
and I can only offer.....we get to ask Him when we get there

Did God have a 'cause' ( a reason to do so).....for the creation?
I say yes...

kinda hard to say ....I AM!....
without throwing some 'light' on the topic

hehehehehe

 

[Polymath257]

I don't think the millions of people who study the evidence for themselves, without blind belief in materialism, are non-thinking, as you claim. These millions of thinking persons find the evidence for an intelligent Creator overwhelming and beyond reasonable doubt.

How many people do you think *actually* study the evidence in detail for themselves? How many do you think *really* look at the scientific, philosophical, historical, and cultural reasons for their beliefs?

I would bet it isn't in the millions.

 

[sayak83]

That's one big contradiction.

Without causation, there can be no base. No "inherent propensities". No "probabilities". And, no "happening by their own nature".

Prove it.

 

[viole]

No more so than any evidence that some events are uncaused. The reason causation wins the default position is that so far every event we see is rationally judged to have a cause. This applies to everything in the universe (the BB being an arguable exception). The only place causation has come into question is at the quantum level where so far all science can do is establish probabilities. But probabilities, which can also be assigned to any macroscopic event, do not eliminate or even suggest the nonexistence of cause. And because causation is the ruling reason for an action or condition in our universe there is no reason to doubt it also exists at the quantum, which is why the onus of proof lies on the assertion that causation does not operate at the quantum level.

So, show us the evidence that causation does not exist at the quantum level.


.

Consider this (example without QM):

I show you a movie. In the movie you see a billiard ball (A) at rest. Suddenly, another identical moving billiard ball (B) appears from the left and hits the billiard ball at rest. It is a stop shot, so total momentum is transferred in the direction of travel of the incoming ball. The end result is that ball B stops and billiard ball A moves along at the speed B had before hitting it, before disappearing on the right.

What caused billiard ball A to start moving from its position of rest? You can consider the billiard table as a reference frame, so "at rest" means "at rest" on the table.

This example should illustrate that causality is problematic even without using the heavy weapons of QM.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Skwim]

Consider this (example without QM):

I show you a movie. In the movie you see a billiard ball (A) at rest. Suddenly, another identical moving billiard ball (B) appears from the left and hits the billiard ball at rest. It is a stop shot, so total momentum is transferred in the direction of travel of the incoming ball. The end result is that ball B stops and billiard ball A moves along at the speed B had before hitting it, before disappearing on the right.

What caused billiard ball A to start moving from its position of rest? You can consider the billiard table as a reference frame, so "at rest" means "at rest" on the table.

This example should illustrate that causality is problematic even without using the heavy weapons of QM.

Ciao

- viole

?????????, but okay.

.

 

[viole]

?????????, but okay.

.

Does ?????? means you don't know what caused ball A to move?

Spoiler: it is the right answer.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Yerda]

Donald Hoffmann suggests a wacky idea: No physical system has causal power.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228910924_Conscious_realism_and_the_mind-body_problem

 

[Skwim]

Does ?????? means you don't know what caused ball A to move?

I fail to see why the example illustrates that causality is problematic.

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[viole]

I fail to see why the example illustrates that causality is problematic.

.

Simple. Because you do not give an answer. And you do not give an answer, because you cannot, as it can be easily shown.

So, try it. What caused that ball at rest to move? That should be an easy classical example that does not even touch QM, which would make things even worse.

Ciao

- viole

 

[jonathan180iq]

At some point, all arguments hit a wall of ignorance.
What matters is how we choose to view that ignorance and how we respond to it.

Anything other than "I don't know" is inaccurate.
Predetermining the eventual breaking of that barrier is a bias which causes cognitive dissonance.
Too much of that, and you've necessarily limited your ability to learn anything new.

 

[Yerda]

So, try it. What caused that ball at rest to move?

An impulse?

 

[viole]

An impulse?

What caused that impulse?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Yerda]

What caused that impulse?

Is this an infinite regress thing?

 

[Polymath257]

Simple. Because you do not give an answer. And you do not give an answer, because you cannot, as it can be easily shown.

So, try it. What caused that ball at rest to move? That should be an easy classical example that does not even touch QM, which would make things even worse.

Ciao

- viole

How much detail are you g for? *smiles*

 

[viole]

Is this an infinite regress thing?

Nope. Promised. I am challenging causality, not the alleged impossibility of infinite regress.

Ciao

- viole