Maybe we CAN disprove God...

[BillyJoe]

...if that is a defense of the logic inherent in qauntum physics, I rest my case.

 

[Piggy]

I have already made that point:

Indeed you have -- which is why I reel a bit at the question.

Do you really feel that is a fair analogy.
Heliocentrism vs quantum weirdness?

Yes, and here's why. They're both perfectly logical and counterintuitive. Look around the world, you expect certain things. Then you're told something counterintuitive like the earth is going around the sun, not vice versa, which seems bassackwards. Then you look at the data from observation, and the theoretical model, and you see that it must be true anyway.

The difference is, we can go back and look at the sky and the ground and think about the model in our heads and see that it all still works out fine.

But QM is working w/ a more difficult scale to plumb, and there are a lot more questions to be answered, and they "retranslate" back to the human scale less well.

Quantum interactions are not only counter-intuitive, they are totally illogical.

They are only illogical if we try to apply macro-scale reasoning to the subatomically small, which we know we shouldn't do b/c the rules are different so it won't work.

If you disagree, perhaps you can give a logical interpretation the results of Alain Aspect's experiment, which were akin to saying that a > a+b, where a and b are non-zero, positive numbers. Or akin to saying that (the number of teenagers) > (the number of female teenagers) + (the number of males of all ages).

You'd agree that nothing in this experiment disagrees w/ the QM model, correct? So we don't need to hash out that logic.

We know we can't depend on the same math to describe the properties of subatomic objects as we use to describe the properties of macro-scale objects like teenagers. So it's not illogical that algebra we can use to describe teenagers may not apply to quantum phenomena.

What, precisely, do you find illogical?

And more importantly, how does it apply to God?

God is certainly unlike QM. One can hardly argue that God is counterintuitive.

Quite the contrary -- the idea of God persists in the utter absence of any confirmation whatsoever. It appears to be completely intuitive, in fact, a side effect of the way our brains are built.

But in any case, the most important difference b/t God and QM is that QM is a real theory -- it makes real claims. Hypotheses about God, however, are doomed in a post-magical world, because they will inevitably resolve to a meaningless, empty, or nonsensical claim.

If QM can be called illogical, it is not illogical in the same way that the God hypothesis is illogical.

 

[Piggy]

Oh, and BillyJoe, if you bring up these examples from QM to show that we can discover that things are true which would not have seemed logical many generations ago -- therefore, some of our "illogic" may one day be discovered to be truth -- let's keep in mind that the discoveries of QM have led us deeper into materialism, not supernaturalism (which is the realm of quantum pseudo-mechanics). They reconfirm the worldview which has replaced the one God lived in.

QM does not give God any philosophical wiggle room.

 

[BillyJoe]

Yes, and here's why. They're both perfectly logical and counterintuitive. Look around the world, you expect certain things. Then you're told something counterintuitive like the earth is going around the sun, not vice versa, which seems bassackwards. Then you look at the data from observation, and the theoretical model, and you see that it must be true anyway.

The difference is, we can go back and look at the sky and the ground and think about the model in our heads and see that it all still works out fine.

I have already made that point as well:
"Shifting our perpective to space enables us to understand heliocentrism completely."
So, again, I'm not going to be disagreeing with you here.

But QM is working w/ a more difficult scale to plumb, and there are a lot more questions to be answered, and they "retranslate" back to the human scale less well.

Now you seem to be agreeing that QM is not analogous to heliocentrism.

They are only illogical if we try to apply macro-scale reasoning to the subatomically small, which we know we shouldn't do b/c the rules are different so it won't work.

And here you seem to be agreeing that QM is illogical - at least from our macroscopic point of view.
But you have not yet shown that it is logical from the point of view of the subatomically small.
In my view, there seems to be no logic there at all.

You'd agree that nothing in this experiment disagrees w/ the QM model, correct? So we don't need to hash out that logic.

My point was that, yes, nothing in the Aspect experiment disagrees with the model, but that what happens at the quantum level is illogical and, therefore, you cannot rely on a logical argument against god. So, yes, we do need to "hash out the logic" of QM

We know we can't depend on the same math to describe the properties of subatomic objects as we use to describe the properties of macro-scale objects like teenagers. So it's not illogical that algebra we can use to describe teenagers may not apply to quantum phenomena.

It may not be illogical that the maths of macroscale objects do not apply at the subatomic scale, but that does not mean that the math that applies at the subatomic scale is not illogical....

What, precisely, do you find illogical?

In the final analysis, the Aspect experiment confirmed "non-locality" or Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". Quantum particle/waves pass through slits as particles or waves depending on what happens after they have already passed through the slits.....
(Delayed choice double slit experiment)

And more importantly, how does it apply to God?

.....call it illogical, or call it weird, does it not at least give you just a little less confidence in your logical argument against god?

God is certainly unlike QM.

If a quantum particle/wave passes through the double slit as a wave or particle depending on what happens after it has passed through it, confronted by that illogic (well, at least to me), how can you be confident that a logical argument can disprove god.

Quite the contrary -- the idea of God persists in the utter absence of any confirmation whatsoever. It appears to be completely intuitive, in fact, a side effect of the way our brains are built.

Yeah but, we were talking about disproving god.

But in any case, the most important difference b/t God and QM is that QM is a real theory -- it makes real claims. Hypotheses about God, however, are doomed in a post-magical world, because they will inevitably resolve to a meaningless, empty, or nonsensical claim.

If QM can be called illogical, it is not illogical in the same way that the God hypothesis is illogical.

I'm not sure now that, after arguing that QM is not illogical, you are now agreeing that QM is illogical. Maybe, as you say, it is not illogical in the same way that god may be illogical, but my point is that it puts a logical argument against god on slippery ground.

 

[Apathia]

QM does not give God any philosophical wiggle room.

But it does let him go to the casinos.

 

[BillyJoe]

Oh, and BillyJoe, if you bring up these examples from QM to show that we can discover that things are true which would not have seemed logical many generations ago --

BJ: Well, even now. Otherwise show me the logic in a wave/particle deciding what to do based on what happens after it has done it.

therefore, some of our "illogic" may one day be discovered to be truth --

BJ: In my opinion it already has: QM

let's keep in mind that the discoveries of QM have led us deeper into materialism, not supernaturalism (which is the realm of quantum pseudo-mechanics).

BJ: Who knows where it is leading us if we find weirdness there as described above.

They reconfirm the worldview which has replaced the one God lived in.

BJ: At the very least, QM seems to have destroyed our nice and comfortable materialistic cause and effect world view.

QM does not give God any philosophical wiggle room.

BJ: I'm not confident that you have disproved god by this line of argument.

regards,
BillyJoe

 

[chriswl]

If QM violates logic then logic must be wrong. Yikes, what do we do now?

I suppose it does make disproving God a little easier:

God might or might not exist.
Therefore God does not exist.

We don't need no stinking logic!!

 

[BillyJoe]

I was rather hoping you had something to say on the question of logic in QM. Nevermind.

If QM violates logic then logic must be wrong.

Wrong. Logic is wrong in QM.

Yikes, what do we do now?

Accept that logic is wrong in QM.
Continue to apply it where it does work.
Accept that logic may not work in other areas.

I suppose it does make disproving God a little easier:

God might or might not exist.
Therefore God does not exist.

We don't need no stinking logic!!

Yes we do.
We need to be logical in deciding if something is logical or not.
You failed.

 

[Piggy]

BillyJoe, regarding post #444, I'm afraid I can't answer it. We don't reason the same way. Your thinking seems, to me, dysfunctionally absolutist, to be blunt. Yes, I am saying that QM is comparable to heliocentrism and different from it, at the same time, for example. If you can't get around that, then you and I will never be able to discuss this topic productively.

 

[Piggy]

But it does let him go to the casinos.

And roll the damn dice where no one can see them.

 

[Apathia]

And roll the damn dice where no one can see them.

Ah, would those be the "Hidden Variables?" LoL

 

[BillyJoe]

Hyparxis.

I don't think so. Hidden Variables are a failed attempt to take away the dice, not hide them. I think he means the dice are rolled only at the subatomic level where we can't see them. This is no exactly true of course.


Piggy.

I'm sorry about that then.
I was hoping to learn something from this thread.
Or teach something.
But I accept that the problem may be mine.

 

[Apathia]

Hyparxis.

I don't think so. Hidden Variables are a failed attempt to take away the dice, not hide them. I think he means the dice are rolled only at the subatomic level where we can't see them. This is no exactly true of course.

Yes, I understand that. I got carried away with the joke.

I also understand the preferance for some to keep their philosophy as much as possible in the comforting midrealms between the Quanta and the Cosmos where our tools of perception and undertanding evolved. Perhaps what we don't see won't hurt us. We cxan still say "the sun rises." and use classical Newtonian eqations to post space craft tajectories. But another Copernican Revolution has happened around us.

As for the Judeo-Greek Theistc God, Piggy's right, his place has been razed.
As for Consciouness in the Cosmos, at this point we are like physicists of 300 years ago talking about what makes the sun shine.

All I know is to avoid getting too much of it on my skin.

 

[chriswl]

Wrong. Logic is wrong in QM.

But QM is what reality is at its deepest level. If logic is "wrong" here then its just wrong.

Anyway, the rules of logic are general principles. You can't talk about different logical rules for different situations. If you have to talk this way then you are not really talking about fundamental logical rules.

If something appears to violate the fundamental "laws of logic" (and I don't think that QM does anyway) this just means that we don't properly understand it.

Perhaps you have some more subtle view that I'm not getting of the connection between logic and empirical reality. But on the face of it it seems blindingly obvious that you can't discover things about logic by empirical observation. So the discoveries of physicists cannot tell us new things about logic.

 

[BillyJoe]

But QM is what reality is at its deepest level. If logic is "wrong" here then its just wrong.

Fortunately, the quantum weirdness leaks through to the macro level vanishingly rarely. In other words, you cannot go far wrong in the macro world by relying on logic.

Anyway, the rules of logic are general principles. You can't talk about different logical rules for different situations. If you have to talk this way then you are not really talking about fundamental logical rules.

What I said was that logic applies in one situation and not in the other.
The "fundamental logical rules" do not apply at the quantum level.

If something appears to violate the fundamental "laws of logic" (and I don't think that QM does anyway) this just means that we don't properly understand it.

That causes preceed affects is fairly well established piece of logic. But it does not apply at the quantum level. In the delayed double slit experiment, the way a photon passes through the double slit can be affected by what you do after it has actually passed through the double slit.

Perhaps you have some more subtle view that I'm not getting of the connection between logic and empirical reality. But on the face of it it seems blindingly obvious that you can't discover things about logic by empirical observation. So the discoveries of physicists cannot tell us new things about logic.

I'm saying that, by empirical observation, physicists have discovered that effects can preceed causes (the, so called, "backwards in time causation") at the quantum level. No logical explanation has ever been found for this phenomenon.

My point was that, if logic cannot be relied upon in one situation, we cannot be confident that we can use logic to disprove god. Perhaps I'm talking nonsense as Piggy says, I don't know, but it seems pretty straight forward to me. If you cannot always rely on logic, then you cannot be confident that logic can disprove god.

 

[BillyJoe]

Yes, I understand that. I got carried away with the joke.

Fine.

I also understand the preferance for some to keep their philosophy as much as possible in the comforting midrealms between the Quanta and the Cosmos where our tools of perception and undertanding evolved. Perhaps what we don't see won't hurt us. We cxan still say "the sun rises." and use classical Newtonian eqations to post space craft tajectories. But another Copernican Revolution has happened around us.

That sounds like a word of support.

As for the Judeo-Greek Theistc God, Piggy's right, his place has been razed.

Yes, I 'm not defending the "Judeo-Greek Theistc God" (Greek?)

As for Consciouness in the Cosmos, at this point we are like physicists of 300 years ago talking about what makes the sun shine.

I'm not sure what "Consciousness in the Cosmos" refers to here.

 

[Beth]

BillyJoe,

I just wanted to give you a note of support. You're making sense to me. It's taken me three days to read through this thread. But there are no solid proofs here. Just atheists proving to their own satisfaction that no God could possibly exist. I don't find their arguments convincing. I remain agnostic with leanings toward deism.

 

[Apathia]

I'm not sure what "Consciousness in the Cosmos" refers to here.

Just a net to catch a number of notions of some kind of active cosmic intelligence, Pantheistic, Deistic, Sninozan, New Age, What not.
We don't even know what we are talking about.
We can make heavy duty philosophical pronouncements based on our Science within our goldfish bowl realm. But should we jump out of the bowl, we are going to flop and flounder.

We know better now than to beleive in some Great Fish that swims outside our fish tank niche. But we know little of what's actually out there.
The out there doesn't conform to the rules of engagement we have evolved for ourselves in here.

The Judeo-Christian-Islamic God has a substantial Greek Thought component.
You see it mostly in the so-called "proofs" for God.

You might think that conservative Christain theologs make something of QM for an argument, but a good number of them shy away from the Quantum subject or even lable it "Science falsely so called" because it doesn't really support their ultimate, absolute, standard of a diety. (A trustworthy and good God doesn't shoot craps.) Ironically, Theism and Classical Physics had more, though limited, compatability.

I'm trying to stay out of quibbling over how the words "God" and "Divine" can be used. That's why I nixed a couple of posts earlier. These words keep getting recycled every generation for a new hook for what, let's say, blows our mind.
I can't rule out all the non-theistic uses of the term. And I can't prove that the universe doesn't have some sort of cosmic mentality.

I also understand people wanting to distance themselves from the God stuff in as difinitive way as possible.

 

[chriswl]

That causes preceed affects is fairly well established piece of logic. But it does not apply at the quantum level. In the delayed double slit experiment, the way a photon passes through the double slit can be affected by what you do after it has actually passed through the double slit.

Now I agree that last sentence leads to logical contradictions but that's because its not literally true. You have to be very careful about how you phrase these things or else you end up talking logical nonsense.

QM says that it is wrong for us to imagine a solid particle "actually passing", unobserved through the slit before bring acted on and then somehow changing its own history. You can't talk about a particle being in a definite location until you make the observation.

Particles are abstractions that feature in our theories and our theories are simply tools that allow us to track regularities in observed phenomena. With QM the abstractions got a bit more complicated (wave-particle duality) and we ran up against limits on what we could measure or predict. But there is no logical problem - we do experiments and QM tells us correctly (with due allowance for fundamental uncertainty) what we can expect to measure. That's all science can ever do.

My point was that, if logic cannot be relied upon in one situation, we cannot be confident that we can use logic to disprove god. Perhaps I'm talking nonsense as Piggy says, I don't know, but it seems pretty straight forward to me. If you cannot always rely on logic, then you cannot be confident that logic can disprove god.

Dead right. If we can't rely on logic then then we can't prove or disprove anything. In fact we can't make any sense of anything at all. But you surely don't believe this?

 

[BillyJoe]

Now I agree that last sentence leads to logical contradictions but that's because its not literally true. You have to be very careful about how you phrase these things or else you end up talking logical nonsense.

You'll find that, no matter how you phrase or interpret interactions at the quantum level, they are not logical.

QM says that it is wrong for us to imagine a solid particle "actually passing", unobserved through the slit before bring acted on and then somehow changing its own history.

But I did not even say "particle". I expressly just said "photon". Some posts ago I pointedly said "wave/particle", and then "particle/wave". I have even said it "leaves and arrives as a particle and travels as a wave".

In any case, I would welcome your attempt at a logical interpretation of what happens in the delayed choice double slit experiment. In my post I used one attempt at an interpretation - the "backwards in time causation" interpretation - but the other interpretations are, at least, equally illogical. But, if you disagree, I am happy to be shown otherwise.

You can't talk about a particle being in a definite location until you make the observation.

Yeah, the closer you examine the position of the wave/particle, the more it acts as a particle with a specific location. The closer you examine the motion of the particle/wave, the more wave like and spread out it becomes.

Particles are abstractions that feature in our theories and our theories are simply tools that allow us to track regularities in observed phenomena. With QM the abstractions got a bit more complicated (wave-particle duality) and we ran up against limits on what we could measure or predict. But there is no logical problem - we do experiments and QM tells us correctly (with due allowance for fundamental uncertainty) what we can expect to measure. That's all science can ever do.

You seem to be using the word 'logical" as if it meant "predictable". That is not my understanding of what the word means. Perhaps we're using it in different senses. I am thinking of it in terms of interpretation, as in QM has no logical interpretation.
Perhaps I could put my argument this way: If there is no logical interpretation of QM, but QM is true, how can we disprove god by merely demonstrating that there is no logical interpretation of god.

If we can't rely on logic then then we can't prove or disprove anything. In fact we can't make any sense of anything at all. But you surely don't believe this?

Show me how logic is involved in proving what happens at the quantum level. All we have at the quantum level is consistency. It is consistency that results in the predictable outcomes of quantum interactions. Where does logic enter into that? Logic enters into the interpretation of what happens and there are no logical interpretations of QM.