Something being uncaused means it is random... Great. That's a new one. Radioactive decay and other subatomic phenomena are uncaused... That too is a new one. — Agustino
Yes most definitely. There's also conceptual problems regarding how something that is uncaused can even be conceived to begin with. When most people think of uncaused, they think of a certain empty scene followed by the empty scene holding some object N which popped into existence there. But this train of imagination could equally describe a situation of something which popped there with an unknown cause, or something which popped there after having been transported there, or something which popped there after having been created there by something. How can such scenarios be differentiated? And if they can't, to what extent is it possible to even imagine something coming into being uncaused?Being uncaused means more than randomness — tom
However, John has a point that, ultimately, according to the scientific worldview, biology and chemistry ultimately have to be reducible to physics, and hence to quantification and mathematical description. — Agustino
It cannot yet be reduced, but according to the scientific worldview it is in principle reducible.But I've just given an example of a fundamental theory, which is a theory of abstractions and emergence, that cannot be reduced - the hallmark of a FUNDAMENTAL theory — tom
Because physics studies the building blocks of the world. Physics was there before biology, and physics gave rise to biology. Thus causality must go from physics towards biology, not the other way around. Something that isn't in the cause cannot be in the effect.Why can't the laws of biology determine the laws of physics? — tom
No it doesn't. You're making the same mistake of assuming that a cause has to be deterministic to be a cause at all. But what about non-deterministic causes? Are they not also causes? Is it not part of the particle's nature, and the nature of our measurements, that their behaviour cannot be predicted deterministically?The Free Will Theorem falsifies the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The behaviour of the particles has no cause. — tom
This doesn't follow because engineering isn't in the business of enhancing the material well-being of people. — Agustino
I spoke of pragmatic not necessarily in the philosophical sense, but in the practical one. — Agustino
There is no question of purpose here. There is a question of what is its final cause - what is it directed towards. The question isn't what SHOULD it be directed towards, but what is it actually directed towards, in both the ethical and the unethical cases? Final causality is objective, not subjective.You are conflating its proper purpose with how it is actually (instrumentally) employed in most cases. My suggestion is that enhancing the material well-being of all people is the ideal for which all engineers should strive, from an ethical standpoint. — aletheist
Wrong. Formal cause is still "how". The atom's structure is its formal cause, and it is part of the how with regards to radioactive decay. Your notions are very muddled up, as I've said before.The ideas of formal and final cause are ideas of 'why'. Modern science does not concern itself with those kinds of questions, for modern science there is no 'why' in nature. — John
Have you forgotten you wrote this?You have diverted this into a side issue about Aristotle's understanding of causation. I never claimed that modern science's understanding of causation is the same as Aristotle's, so you're really not arguing with me, but with yourself. — John
So science mostly models in terms of mechanistic [causes] (or in Aristotelian terms, efficient causation). This sentence means and implies that mechanistic [causes] = Aristotelian efficient causationThe natural sciences and engineering are mostly modeled in terms of mechanistic (or in Aristotelian terms, efficient causation). — John
It cannot yet be reduced, but according to the scientific worldview it is in principle reducible. — Agustino
Because physics studies the building blocks of the world. Physics was there before biology, and physics gave rise to biology. Thus causality must go from physics towards biology, not the other way around. Something that isn't in the cause cannot be in the effect. — Agustino
That's because you, like other physicists, are using muddled up notions of causality. I've explained for example, how radioactive decay, a phenomenon widely taken to be uncaused in physics is actually caused, and can be explained and understood perfectly by Aristotle's fourfold causality metaphysics.But there is no notion of causality in fundamental physics. — tom
Ask a scientist.So how do you reduce a theory of abstract replicators undergoing variation and selection to a physical theory? — tom
Not according to Lawrence Krauss - for example.According to the "scientific world-view" (neo-)Darwinism is a fundamental theory with applications to Life, Culture and Quantum Mechanics. — tom
Maybe you intended something different than you wrote, or maybe I don't know how to understand English expressions - doesn't really matter to be honest. Stop complaining so much :PIn other words you're misinterpreting what was intended by what I wrote and insisting upon your own interpretation as if you think you know better than I do what I meant; which is annoying to say the least. I'm not interested in discussing issues that you have fabricated and then insist on attributing to me; why would I? It seems just a waste of time. — John
If atomic structure is the material cause, then what is the formal cause? Material cause is the raw element something is made of. Formal cause is the structure of the raw element, its form.Atomic structure is probably better thought of as a material cause because it is understood to determine the different kinds of material or elements. — John
Being uncaused means more than randomness — tom
I think there is. In Plato/Aristotle, matter is the raw underlying material, and form is its structure, whether this structure is given by its shape, etc. So for an atom, the constituent parts - the protons, neutrons and electrons are its material cause (and each of these particles have certain properties which influence the behaviour of the atom, such as charge). Then there is the formal cause - the form of the atom - which are all the properties given by the specific association and number of protons/electrons/neutrons - which are the properties of the different substances, etc.At bottom there does not seem to be any coherent and unequivocal distinction between form and matter. — John
which may be true enough from one perspective. But then how is the pressure of a gas in a container and the force it exerts on the container generally modeled? In terms of movements of particles, no?This is again false. The behaviour of gas isn't understood in atomistic ways, but rather the gas laws are statistic. Again you impose your own prejudices of the way science functions. — Agustino
Yes but in reference to different things. For example, in reference to radioactive decay, since the atom is the main actor, we take the constituents of the atom as material cause, and their structure as the formal cause. If we take the proton as main actor, instead of the atom, and talk about the proton and its behaviour, then we take the material cause as the up up down quarks and the formal cause as their structure/relationship with each other. It's all with regard to how deep the explanation needs to go. To explain radioactive decay for example, the fact that protons are made up of quarks is irrelevant. So protons can be treated as fundamentals for the purposes of such an explanation. Of course if one wants to be really exact and detailed, they would treat quarks, bosons and so forth as fundamentals and go with everything up from there. But such an analysis isn't required for an explanation, the same way that the genetic mechanism isn't required to explain evolution. The idea of evolution can be explained merely through the idea of inheritance, and natural selection.But, as far as I know, (and I don't know that much about quantum physics) the "particles" themselves are today considered to be energetic configurations (i.e. forms) of a field. — John
Yes and no. The theory behind it is modelled as particles, but the behaviour of each individual particle isn't used to determine the behaviour of the whole gas. So the behaviour of the whole gas isn't mathematically modelled in terms of the behaviour of each individual particle. Rather the behaviour of the whole gas is determined with reference to temperature, volume, pressure, number of molecules and universal gas constant. So the behaviour of the gas in terms of particles isn't actually tractable. It's only the statistic behaviour of gas, as all the particles combined, that is tractable and modelled.But then how is the pressure of a gas in a container and the force it exerts on the container generally modeled? In terms of movements of particles, no? — John
So the behaviour of the whole gas isn't mathematically modelled in terms of the behaviour of each individual particle. — Agustino
The gas laws model the behaviour of the gas as a whole. To model it as composed of particles is to be able to take into account what each particle does and what effect those actions have. But this is precisely what isn't done. Furthermore, interaction with the walls of the container is assumed to be equivalent to interaction with other particles (except that the wall is given infinite mass - so effectively the particle that hits the wall is deflected at the opposite angle it hits at, at the same velocity it hit - this wouldn't be the case with a particle hitting another particle, because then there would be transfer of velocities across the line of impact, taking into account the masses of the two particles). Same assumptions as I said in my previous comment.This is irrelevant because I never said it was. It is obviously modeled as the energetic interactions of all the particles, including the interactions of the gas particles with the particles that make up the container. — John
True, but what I mean to say is that this "detailed analysis" is never actually done. It's always presupposed that it is possible to do it though. It's presupposed that it's possible to go from physics and develop out of it the whole of chemistry/biology and everything else. And there are reasons for holding onto such presuppositions, but they're never actually tested.Certainly coherency of whole theories can be eroded by reduction to mechanistic explanations of action on micro-physical levels, but I think it's fair to say that it is generally presumed to be the case by modern scientists that macro processes are ultimately and exhaustively constituted by energetic, efficient microphysical processes, even if observable macrolevel interactions, for example fluctuations of animal populations in some ecosystem, cannot be coherently modeled in those terms — John
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