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Looking For Evidence Of An Uncaused Event

Skwim

Veteran Member
It is not uncommon that someone will assert that in some cases radioactive decay can be a wholly uncaused event. Not that it is merely probabilistic, meaning we can only assign a probability to its occurrence within some time frame, but that at the basis of its very nature, nothing, Absolutely Nothing, makes the decay event happen. I've looked for articles written by reputable scientists that affirm this claim, but have so far come up empty. At most are the many worthless blogs and articles written by lay people and scientists with an agenda, who, in passing, assert it's so, and then proceed to some other issue.

So, as it stands it appears that everything in the world is deterministic. Unless you have evidence to the contrary.

.
 
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Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Isn't radiation a form of light? It would share the same properties as particles or waves do.
 

bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
It is not uncommon that someone will assert that in some cases radioactive decay can be a wholly uncaused event. Not that it is merely probabilistic, meaning we can only assign a probability to its occurrence within some time frame, but that at the basis of its very nature, nothing, Absolutely Nothing, makes the decay event happen. I've looked for articles written by reputable scientists that affirm this claim, but have so far come up empty. At most are the many worthless blogs and articles written by lay people and scientists with an agenda, who, in passing, assert it's so, and then proceed to their main point.

So, as it stands it appears that everything in the world is deterministic. Unless you have evidence to the contrary.

.

If its not caused what evidence are you going to get.

Prove every thought is caused.
Prove every emotion is caused.
Prove every action is caused.

You can't even if you observe them, I observe them and describe it to you or you have machines that observe them save the information for you. You will always be lacking the information necessary to prove determinism.

So, without evidence you can't prove any cause(random events have no evidence). Without complete evidence you can't prove determinism(You can't get complete evidence). So pick one and be happy you'll never be able to prove either.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Isn't radiation a form of light? It would share the same properties as particles or waves do.
Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation.



If its not caused what evidence are you going to get.

Prove every thought is caused.
Prove every emotion is caused.
Prove every action is caused.

You can't even if you observe them, I observe them and describe it to you or you have machines that observe them save the information for you. You will always be lacking the information necessary to prove determinism.

So, without evidence you can't prove any cause(random events have no evidence). Without complete evidence you can't prove determinism(You can't get complete evidence). So pick one and be happy you'll never be able to prove either.
Not interested in proving or disproving determinism. Just looking for substantiated evidence that radioactive decay can be uncaused. Whatcha got?



Thank you, but I'm looking for better information than opinions gleaned from a philosophical debate forum.

.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
It is not uncommon that someone will assert that in some cases radioactive decay can be a wholly uncaused event. Not that it is merely probabilistic, meaning we can only assign a probability to its occurrence within some time frame, but that at the basis of its very nature, nothing, Absolutely Nothing, makes the decay event happen. I've looked for articles written by reputable scientists that affirm this claim, but have so far come up empty. At most are the many worthless blogs and articles written by lay people and scientists with an agenda, who, in passing, assert it's so, and then proceed to their main point.

So, as it stands it appears that everything in the world is deterministic. Unless you have evidence to the contrary.

.

My purpose in this paper is to argue that there is sufficient evidence at present to warrant the conclusion that the universe probably began to exist over ten billion years ago, and that it began to exist without being caused to do so. I believe accordingly that the positions held by many if not most contemporary philosophers concerning this issue are unjustified, for their beliefs typically fall into one of three mutually exclusive categories, (1) the universe is probably infinitely old, (2) the universe began to exist and its beginning was caused by God, and (3) insufficient evidence is available to enable us to decide about whether the universe began to exist or is infinitely old...

...This review of the role of quantum mechanics in accounts of the beginning of the universe strongly suggests that the probabilistic argument to an uncaused beginning of the universe, although more complicated than we had been supposing in Sections 1-3, still goes through. Its conclusion is summarized in this disjunctive statement: it is probably true that EITHER the universe began without cause at the beginning of this expansion (a) subsequent to a singularity of infinite density, temperature and curvature, and zero radius, or (b) at a singularity with finite and nonzero values, or (c) in a vacuum fluctuation from a larger space or a tunneling from nothing, OR the universe spontaneously began to exist at the beginning of some prior expansion phase under conditions described in (a), (b) or (c).
The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe


Hopefully someone with more brains than myself can validate or dispute this idea.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
It is not uncommon that someone will assert that in some cases radioactive decay can be a wholly uncaused event. Not that it is merely probabilistic, meaning we can only assign a probability to its occurrence within some time frame, but that at the basis of its very nature, nothing, Absolutely Nothing, makes the decay event happen. I've looked for articles written by reputable scientists that affirm this claim, but have so far come up empty. At most are the many worthless blogs and articles written by lay people and scientists with an agenda, who, in passing, assert it's so, and then proceed to their main point.

So, as it stands it appears that everything in the world is deterministic. Unless you have evidence to the contrary.

.
Maybe this will help.

Radioactivity
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
My purpose in this paper is to argue that there is sufficient evidence at present to warrant the conclusion that the universe probably began to exist over ten billion years ago, and that it began to exist without being caused to do so. I believe accordingly that the positions held by many if not most contemporary philosophers concerning this issue are unjustified, for their beliefs typically fall into one of three mutually exclusive categories, (1) the universe is probably infinitely old, (2) the universe began to exist and its beginning was caused by God, and (3) insufficient evidence is available to enable us to decide about whether the universe began to exist or is infinitely old...

...This review of the role of quantum mechanics in accounts of the beginning of the universe strongly suggests that the probabilistic argument to an uncaused beginning of the universe, although more complicated than we had been supposing in Sections 1-3, still goes through. Its conclusion is summarized in this disjunctive statement: it is probably true that EITHER the universe began without cause at the beginning of this expansion (a) subsequent to a singularity of infinite density, temperature and curvature, and zero radius, or (b) at a singularity with finite and nonzero values, or (c) in a vacuum fluctuation from a larger space or a tunneling from nothing, OR the universe spontaneously began to exist at the beginning of some prior expansion phase under conditions described in (a), (b) or (c).
The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe


Hopefully someone with more brains than myself can validate or dispute this idea.
The math is beyond my comprehension so it would be fruitless to even start reading the article. However, the premise is intriguing. Thanks for sharing.

.
 
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David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
"So, as it stands it appears that everything in the world is deterministic. Unless you have evidence to the contrary."
".
" the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will"
Wikipedia

Cant say i am not bigger than the cosmos. This is an extremely old discussion in religion. As thus, you are a Calvinist.
 
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Skwim

Veteran Member
"So, as it stands it appears that everything in the world is deterministic. Unless you have evidence to the contrary."
".
" the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will"
Wikipedia

Cant say i am not bigger than the cosmos. This is an extremely old discussion in religion. As thus, you are a Calvinist.

You mean because I'm a determinist I must believe in god and Jesus? Really?

.
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
My purpose in this paper is to argue that there is sufficient evidence at present to warrant the conclusion that the universe probably began to exist over ten billion years ago, and that it began to exist without being caused to do so. I believe accordingly that the positions held by many if not most contemporary philosophers concerning this issue are unjustified, for their beliefs typically fall into one of three mutually exclusive categories, (1) the universe is probably infinitely old, (2) the universe began to exist and its beginning was caused by God, and (3) insufficient evidence is available to enable us to decide about whether the universe began to exist or is infinitely old...

...This review of the role of quantum mechanics in accounts of the beginning of the universe strongly suggests that the probabilistic argument to an uncaused beginning of the universe, although more complicated than we had been supposing in Sections 1-3, still goes through. Its conclusion is summarized in this disjunctive statement: it is probably true that EITHER the universe began without cause at the beginning of this expansion (a) subsequent to a singularity of infinite density, temperature and curvature, and zero radius, or (b) at a singularity with finite and nonzero values, or (c) in a vacuum fluctuation from a larger space or a tunneling from nothing, OR the universe spontaneously began to exist at the beginning of some prior expansion phase under conditions described in (a), (b) or (c).
The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe


Hopefully someone with more brains than myself can validate or dispute this idea.
The BB clearly shows the universe began. It apparently is a one time proposition, since there is not enough mass in the expanding universe to draw it back to itś original expansion point. The universe is open, not closed.

Any singularity before the expansion is completely unprovable and itś existence is pure speculation, at best.

To believe that the universe spontaneously began, without a cause of the beginning is very difficult to fathom, since spontaneous reactions are caused by appropriate conditions and materials being present, the first cause.

There is 0 evidence for ẗunneling, and there hasn´t been a previous expansion.

The universe burst forth in a rapid expansion in less than a millisecond.

The identity of anything before 1 planck time after expansion is impossible.

What was the first cause ?

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David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
You mean because I'm a determinist I must believe in god and Jesus? Really?

.
Nope just said you think exactly like a christian is all. Belief non belief has zero to do with anything really. Very calvinist of ya.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
If a thing is random by nature then it isn't deterministic, surely?
Surely. And that's what I'm looking for, an event that is completely, and utterly random. And so far radioactive decay is the only claimed candidate.
.
 

Yerda

Veteran Member
Surely. And that's what I'm looking for, an event that is completely, and utterly random. And so far radioactive decay is the only claimed candidate.
.
Ah ok.

This is kind of thinking out loud so feel free to skip it. So, we can't predict a coin toss other than to say that it's 50/50 it will be heads if we keep tossing it. But we expect that if we repeated any coin toss exactly (all the condictions are the same) we would get the same result. For radioactive decay to be completely and utterly random it seems to be the case that the at any given interval of time we can say what the likelyhood of a decay is but if we rewound the universe following a decay we might not make the observation. That make sense? It's hard to see how we could verify such a proposal.

There are other examples in physics that could be truly random. Th spin of an quantum particle for example. You'd need to ask a physicist (cause I aint one) but they seem to be random in so far as we can't predict them and the outcome of the measurement is in some ways not caused by the past i.e. the particle really doesn't have a spin until measured.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Ah ok.

This is kind of thinking out loud so feel free to skip it. So, we can't predict a coin toss other than to say that it's 50/50 it will be heads if we keep tossing it. But we expect that if we repeated any coin toss exactly (all the condictions are the same) we would get the same result. For radioactive decay to be completely and utterly random it seems to be the case that the at any given interval of time we can say what the likelyhood of a decay is but if we rewound the universe following a decay we might not make the observation. That make sense? It's hard to see how we could verify such a proposal.
And a probability could well arise after noting numerous utterly random events, but it wouldn't mean they're not utterly random.

There are other examples in physics that could be truly random. Th spin of an quantum particle for example. You'd need to ask a physicist (cause I aint one) but they seem to be random in so far as we can't predict them and the outcome of the measurement is in some ways not caused by the past i.e. the particle really doesn't have a spin until measured.
Gotta keep in mind that our inability to make a prediction is in no way evidence for utter randomness.

Thanks for your considered thoughts. :thumbsup:

.
 
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