Maybe we CAN disprove God...

[Beth]

I'm just using the word "logic" correctly. Any disproof of God would only require this "narrow" conception of logic. And this logic applies to everything, even QM. So that's your argument dealt with.

I gotta side with BillyJoe here. Such narrow definitions may be sufficient to convince you that the concept of 'god' has been disproven. It does not suffice for me or BillyJoe or a great many other people - including most of the prominent atheistic scientists like Dawkins.

Causation of any sort is not a logically necessary feature of the world. See Hume.

I'm sorry, it's been a long long time since my required philosphy course in college. I don't know what Hume may have said about causation not being a logically necessary feature of the world. Perhaps you could quote or summarize the point you are making here. Whether logic is or is not a necessary feature of the world seems to me a deep philosophical assumption that reasonable people might disagree on, not a basic axiom agreed upon by all learned philosophers for all time.

 

[PixyMisa]

Describe the "delayed choice double slit experiment".

I know the one you're referring to, at least in general - a double slit experiment where an event subsequent to the emission of the (photon/electron/whatever) determines whether the results are wavelike or particle-like.

I am not referring to the statistical aspects of QM.

Sorry.

That the nature of reality involves "backwards in time causation" and/or "instantaneous action at a distance" and/or "holistic interconnectedness"

Those are descriptions, not reality.

Let's take one, for example - "backwards in time causation", one possible description of an interpretation of the events that we observe in the delayed choice double-slit experiment.

Backwards in time causation is not in itself illogical. If you predefine time as having a single causal direction, it's a contradiction, but if you observe this happening then you might just have to admit that your definition of time was wrong.

As I said before, that the nature of reality is not what you expected does not make it illogical.

concepts which are totally incomprehensible

That's your problem, I'm afraid.

makes me just a little less confident that anyone can disprove god (in case you have lost track of the fact that this thread is about whether we can disprove god).

Yeah, well, I know you can't disprove god because no-one ever provides a rigorous definition of it. So I was more interested in the discussion of QM.

 

[BillyJoe]

I know the one you're referring to, at least in general - a double slit experiment where an event subsequent to the emission of the (photon/electron/whatever) determines whether the results are wavelike or particle-like.

Not exactly.
The result is wave-like or particle-like depending on whether the particle/wave passes through the double slit as a wave or particle. And this can be determined by what happens after it has already passed through the slit.

Those are descriptions, not reality..

I am happy to go with "backwards in time causation" and/or "instantaneous action at a distance" and/or "holistic interconnectedness" being descriptions of reality. It doesn't change the point I'm making.

Backwards in time causation is not in itself illogical. If you predefine time as having a single causal direction, it's a contradiction, but if you observe this happening then you might just have to admit that your definition of time was wrong.

If not illogical, then incomprehensible.
Otherwise can you explain how a future event can be the cause of a past event? Does it really make any sense to you? If this is observed to happen, either "backwards in time causation" does occur and we just cannot understand it but bad luck, or there are other explanations for what we have observed. Unfortunately all other explanations suffer the same problem of incomprehensibility.

As I said before, that the nature of reality is not what you expected does not make it illogical.

Saying it is not illogical doesn't make the problem posed by the results of QM experiments like the "delayed choice double slit" go away. Let's stick with incomprehensible then and see where this leads.

That's your problem, I'm afraid.

I think you have a problem if you do not see a problem with a future event being the cause of a past event being an explanaton for something we observe to be true.
Put another way, doesn't it disturb you that the best explanation for a experimentally verified event, is backwards in time causation.

Yeah, well, I know you can't disprove god because no-one ever provides a rigorous definition of it. So I was more interested in the discussion of QM.

Fair enough, but the thread is about whether we can disprove god and my discussion of QM was specifically in relation to that question. I have accepted that my use of the word "illogical" was misplaced but "incomprehensible" works just as well.
My working definition of god is the "supernatural creator of the universe".

 

[chriswl]

I gotta side with BillyJoe here. Such narrow definitions may be sufficient to convince you that the concept of 'god' has been disproven. It does not suffice for me or BillyJoe or a great many other people - including most of the prominent atheistic scientists like Dawkins.

My point here is not necessarily that we can disprove God. I'm just arguing against BillyJoe's bizarre assertion that such arguments are unreliable because they involve logic and he doesn't trust logic because someone once told him that QM doesn't obey it...

I'm sorry, it's been a long long time since my required philosphy course in college. I don't know what Hume may have said about causation not being a logically necessary feature of the world. Perhaps you could quote or summarize the point you are making here. Whether logic is or is not a necessary feature of the world seems to me a deep philosophical assumption that reasonable people might disagree on, not a basic axiom agreed upon by all learned philosophers for all time.

Some quotes from Hume:

It appears that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another, without being able to comprehend any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect.

All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seemed conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connexion or force at all, and that these words are absolutely without meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life.

I shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition, which admits of no exception, that the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance, attained by reasonings a priori; but arises entirely from experience, when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other.

And a nice summary:

Hume is similarly skeptical about the rationality of our belief in causation. The idea of a cause, he says, is not just the idea of "constant conjunction, " i.e. of one kind of event (e.g. blows to the head) always being followed by another kind of event (e.g. pain being experienced). It is the idea that the first event makes the second event inevitable or necessary. But what do we actually see with our eyes? Constant conjunction, not necessary connection. Where do we get this idea? Logic does not tell us that constant conjunctions must be necessary. They could be coincidences, or the real cause might be God, not the blow to the head or whatever else seems to cause the event in question. Whenever we see events of type A constantly followed by events of type B, the human mind (what we might call common sense) is such that we cannot help thinking of B whenever we think of A. This tells us something about the nature of our minds, though, not the nature of the world outside the mind.

And this

The claim that propositions about causation are necessary truths, Hume rejects as going beyond what we can discover from experience. We cannot know propositions about particular causes prior to experience. The first time we experience a conjunction of a cause and and effect is just that, our first experience of such things. We cannot look at the cause a priori and deduce what the effect will be. Since we know only the conjunction and not the necessary connection between cause and effect, causality is purely a matter of experience and not a logical relation.

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance/hume/comment2.html

Its a very famous argument.

 

[Beth]

My point here is not necessarily that we can disprove God. I'm just arguing against BillyJoe's bizarre assertion that such arguments are unreliable because they involve logic and he doesn't trust logic because someone once told him that QM doesn't obey it...

Okay. I misunderstood you then. BillyJoe seems to regret his choice of wording and has modified it somewhat.

Some quotes from Hume:


Its a very famous argument.

Thanks. Despite it's fame, I haven't come across this argument before. I'll have to ponder it for a while.

 

[PixyMisa]

Not exactly.
The result is wave-like or particle-like depending on whether the particle/wave passes through the double slit as a wave or particle. And this can be determined by what happens after it has already passed through the slit.

Right. I did sort of know that, but I didn't explain it properly. I've bolded the key point for future reference.

Otherwise can you explain how a future event can be the cause of a past event?

Uh, why not? As I said, if you don't build the direction of causality into your conception of time, then it's not a problem.

Feynman noted that a positron is equivalent to an electron travelling backward in time. Or vice versa, of course. So which is real?

Does it really make any sense to you? If this is observed to happen, either "backwards in time causation" does occur and we just cannot understand it but bad luck, or there are other explanations for what we have observed. Unfortunately all other explanations suffer the same problem of incomprehensibility.

No.

It's very simple (if this is in fact what happens): Time's arrow is entropy, not causation.

Saying it is not illogical doesn't make the problem posed by the results of QM experiments like the "delayed choice double slit" go away.[ Let's stick with incomprehensible then and see where this leads.

Why?

If an experiment demonstrates that something happens, and that event contradicts your beliefs about the nature of reality, then your beliefs are wrong.

If QM accurately predicts this event, then QM is an accurate (if limited) model of the universe.

QM is a mathematical model created by humans. People actually understand it, and it demonstrably works. If people understand it then it is not incomprehensible!

I think you have a problem if you do not see a problem with a future event being the cause of a past event being an explanaton for something we observe to be true.
Put another way, doesn't it disturb you that the best explanation for a experimentally verified event, is backwards in time causation.

No.

It fascinates me.

 

[PixyMisa]

Oh, and BillyJoe, I apologise that I was a bit brusque in my earlier replies to you. The argument with Dustin had irritated me, and you have done nothing to deserve that treatment. Sorry.

 

[BillyJoe]

Oh, and BillyJoe, I apologise that I was a bit brusque in my earlier replies to you. The argument with Dustin had irritated me, and you have done nothing to deserve that treatment. Sorry.

Thanks for saying so.

I thought I caught a hint of aggression there but, it's okay, I can generally look past that to the actual argument.

 

[BillyJoe]

Uh, why not? As I said, if you don't build the direction of causality into your conception of time, then it's not a problem.

So...you explain how "a future event can be the cause of a past event", by simply "not building the direction of causality into your conception of time"?
Sounds easy when you say it like that.
You are not a magician by any chance?

Feynman noted that a positron is equivalent to an electron travelling backward in time. Or vice versa, of course. So which is real?

I'm not sure that you can use the details of QM, whose comprehensibility is under question, to demonstrate that QM is comprehensible.

It's very simple (if this is in fact what happens): Time's arrow is entropy, not causation.

As far as I understand this phrase, entropy only establishes a trend for time. A temporary fluctuation to a lower entropy does not mean, as far as I know, that time travels temporarily backwards as well.

If an experiment demonstrates that something happens, and that event contradicts your beliefs about the nature of reality, then your beliefs are wrong.

I am not denying that. In fact, I agree. I disagree that we really understand what it all means.

If QM accurately predicts this event, then QM is an accurate (if limited) model of the universe.

Agreed.

QM is a mathematical model created by humans. People actually understand it, and it demonstrably works. If people understand it then it is not incomprehensible!

Will you at least agree that QM is weird, bizarre, shocking?

It fascinates me.

...and I'll agree it's fascinating.

One of the more facscinating conclusions of QM is that quantum "particles" behave as if each particle instantaneously knows about every other particle in the universe. Except that it is not "as if", they actually do know about every other particle in the universe. A sort of superduper holism.

 

[Apathia]

For the latest in "Superduper Holism" read Cosmic Jackpot by Paul Davies. It's an AndyAndy sort of book. (Which means it's not half bad.)

 

[lordcow]

Now imagine a three dimensional being who is outside that plane, observing it from above. He is intelligent by our normal conception of what constitutes "intelligence". He can interact with that plane and is not subject to the laws of that plane.

for him to physically interact with that plane, which includes just 'seeing' it, the plane needs to be comprised of subatomic particles that are interactible with him, ie. that have the same dimensionality as his own particles, ie. the 'plane' is 3D too. his particles and their particles need to obey a common law in order to interact.

Add a couple of dimensions to that example and that is the concept of god I am arguing.

god is then physical. he is also then contained in the universe he supposedly created.

the physicists realised that proposing extra dimensions was ridiculous, as we should be observing them. indeed we should observe that we are extra-dimensional, being a part've this universe. the only way around this was to suppose that the extra dimensions were of an extremely microscopic scale. now i don't see the point of proposing that god is somehow hiding in these microscopic extra dimensions, you may just as easily claim he could be hiding in the andromeda galaxy without a need for extra dimensions.

(sorry if this has already been replied to, i've still got 7 more pages to read ..)

 

[lordcow]

And outside of the universe. I predict it to be infinite. Although I do not believe infinite nothingness exists. Outside I believe we are in a cluster of universes, very similar to our own, that will never touch. This cluster makes up a giant spiral galaxy, at the center ofcourse is infinite energy..... stronger than all the energy of all the singularitys needed to create these universes. At the center, ofcourse is infinite density in which nothing can survive, but theoretically it is the way out of this cluster into a larger universe with giant people, whos finger tips are the size of our universe alone. Meaning, our universe is basically an elementary particle smaller than an atom. And these super organisms, are elementary particles in there own cluster. And it goes on forever.

If we can prove that the universe is expanding at an angle or curve, this would help my prediction that we are revolving around a very large superblack hole that is causing the curvature of our universe. Ofcourse this would mean that spacetime does not stop with our universe.

are you high?

 

[lordcow]

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any way to explain how 1+1 might someday not equal 2? I'm not not talking about changing the definitions (I.E., "1+1 in base 9!" or somesuch like that), I'm talking about the actual concept of one apple, with one other apple, not equalling 2 apples? Does anyone have any sort of suggestion as to how that is physically possible? Please explain in detail.

1+1 is 2 in base 9 but the short answer to you question - no. neither does 'physically' belong in the question.

 

[lordcow]

I don't know about addition but apparently, in the mathematical equations of quantum physics, a*b does not equal b*a.

yeah i've seen this discussed in the popular books which do their best to give it a mystical feel. a,b, and * here are not the normal a,b, and *'s of everyday arithmetic. in the equation 2*3=6, 2,3 and 6 are objects, and * is an operation, in a very specific grouping of objects and operations. mathematics is made up of a great many different groups dreampt up that achieve cool things. in general their operations do not arrive at the same result when performed in reverse. as an example image up a group whose objects are the different orientations of a book, and the operation is rotating the book clockwise by a right angle about one've its 3 axes. rotating the book about the x then y axis does not achieve the same final orientation as rotating about the y and then x axis.

 

[lordcow]

Doesn't mathematics have the same process as science, though? Or a very similar one?

i could answer yes or no depending on how i interpret the question. i'll go for no though - the core difference between maths and science is maths is deductive, science is inductive. also science is concerned with modelling the real world (which for some reason involves using maths). maths itself however doesn't care about the real world - it doesn't need to test its results. the scientific method (roughly): observation -> hypothesis -> prediction -> experiment, has no equivalent in maths. maths is just concerned about making the ideas it comes up with internally consistent. (the idea part here is where i would've answered yes, in that both processes are creative).

 

[lordcow]

I meant that quantum physics makes no sense. There is no logical, rational way of interpreting quantum physics. All the efforts so far make no sense. Consider the Copenhagen interpretation or its offshoot, the Everett interpretation. There's the collapse of the wave function, non-locality and backwards in time causation. None of these interpretations make sense.

Interestingly, in the Copenhagen interpretation, the infinite regress that results from the requirement of a conscious observer to collapse of the wave function, leads to the requirement of a conscious observer outside the universe to collapse the wave function of the universe. Provided god does not consist of quantum particles, the infinite regress stops there.

i fear your use of rational here is misplaced. quantum physics is just as rational as newtonian physics. both are a set of rules, and nature abides by these rules - and by doing so we say nature appears rational. that's really all there is to physics. physics is not about understanding why, fundamentaly, those rules are obeyed. this *understanding* you seek for quantum physics you have never seeked (suck? ;p) for newtonian physics purely due to familiarity.

 

[lordcow]

Other quantum effects include things like two particles being in the same place at the same time, or a single particle being in two places at the same time. We'd call that impossible too, wouldn't we?

i would yes. i'm also aware of sensational headlines that misquote experiments.