Right now, I come down on the side that it doesn't make sense to think things are caused, although I can't really give a satisfactory reason yet. — T Clark
Or just the one big effect of the Big Bang continuing? Our local cause and effect analysis has to draw a boundary, as a cutting off? — PoeticUniverse
I think stuff just happens and "cause" is just an overlay we superimpose on the world. — T Clark
It appears that there is such a continual transitioning of the 'World' that not anything in particular can remain the same, even for an instant, or the instant is incredibly short. To me, this indicates something very energetic. It's hard to specify. — PoeticUniverse
Is there a Planck length of relative motion or time as there is a Planck length in spacial extension? — Noah Te Stroete
There is a Plank time, the shortest time in which anything can happen, and there are zillions of these times a second. Presumably, the discreteness of this and other quanta indicates a digital universe, casting Einstein's analog continuum into doubt—but it could still very well approximate a continuum. — PoeticUniverse
As we've kind of measured, there may be trillions of tiny changes in tiny constituents every second, although the semblances containing them, such as the sun or a tree or a rock last very long. Perhaps events happen, which we take as stuff, and the laws of nature underlie.
It appears that there is such a continual transitioning of the 'World' that not anything in particular can remain the same, even for an instant, or the instant is incredibly short. To me, this indicates something very energetic. It's hard to specify. — PoeticUniverse
So if there are ‘jumps’ from one discrete state to another, what does that say about causality? It seems that at the quantum level, cause and effect break down, no? — Noah Te Stroete
This is over my head. I suspect I’m not the only one confused about it, though. — Noah Te Stroete
The notion of efficient causation is the idea of one thing directly acting upon another, it generally involves the concept of force. — Janus
Biology, animal behavior and to an even greater degree human behavior, cannot be understood comprehensively in terms of efficient causation. — Janus
It seems I'm not understanding your thinking here; would you deny, for example, that influenza can be caused by a virus, or that if I jumped off a cliff and died my death could have been caused by impacting the ground? — Janus
When I say that stuff happens, I mostly mean human scale stuff. That's what humans experience in their lives. So - the cue ball is hit toward the 5 ball, which hits the 8 ball, which then goes into the pocket. The player causes the cue ball to go toward the 5 ball which causes the 8 ball to go into the pocket. It's when you get away from such simple situations and scales that causation becomes less clear. — T Clark
There is a Plank time, the shortest time in which anything can happen, and there are zillions of these times a second. Presumably, the discreteness of this and other quanta indicates a digital universe, casting Einstein's analog continuum into doubt—but it could still very well approximate a continuum.
I would disagree with the following arguments simply for the reason that practical success indicates a good theory, not a perfect one. Newton's law work fine with average size objects traveling far slower than the speed of light.Once we get to really big objects or the really small ones, the errors are not negligible. QM is a mathematical construct and that's probably why they had to decide a physical interpretation of it and a philosophical one too in some sense.All of our computers work, so QM is telling us something right.
If an effect has multiple causes, as in the case of the flip of a coin. There can be multiple questions raised to examine the behavior. If someone asked me what caused it to fall. Gravity as an answer won't suffice because my releasing of the coin enabled gravity to make it fall as it was there before l released it but not effective. I dont think science will have much of a problem with regards to the confusion behind the cause as scientists have some effective method of ruling out many causes to focus on the cause which is essential. With regards to predicting head or tail, it gets a bit complicated. If we get a computer that analyzes the behavior of the coin as it gets closer to the ground, we will have more accurate prediction as we get closer to the event and it will be more clear.As I said, it seems to me things get a lot less clear when we talk about more complex situations. I can flip a coin 1,000 times and the results will come out close to 50/50, but I can't predict exactly. That's probably caused by a lot of unknown factors which are difficult or impossible to predict.
That's why, in my opinion, Aristotelian philosophy is enjoying a revival particularly in the biological sciences.
— Wayfarer
Interesting. Where is the evidence for this ? — Amity
To start, I think you are being a bit unfair to Pattern-Chaser. Or are you just joking around. He's said this explicitly - when he says you cannot know anything directly about OR, he's not talking about you, he's making a metaphysical statement about what can be known and what can not be. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of opinion, a statement about how it is useful to think about things — T Clark
The Reality Principle. Reality is a metaphysical concept, and as such it is beyond the reach of science. Reality consists of things-in-themselves of which we can never hope to gain knowledge. Instead, we have to content ourselves with knowledge of empirical reality, of things-as-they-appear or things-as-they-are-measured. Nevertheless, scientific realists assume that reality (and its entities) exists objectively and independently of perception or measurement. They believe that reality is rational, predictable and accessible to human reason. Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 8). Pegasus Books. Kindle Edition. — T Clark
He compared his understanding with that of eastern religions - Buddhism and Hinduism. His idea of "will" was similar to eastern ideas that the world as we know it is an illusion and that underlying reality is undifferentiated and unknowable. I think of "will" as being like the "Tao," although nothing I've read indicates Schopenhauer read Lao Tzu.
Again - this is all metaphysics. My point isn't that your way of seeing things is wrong, only that the other way of seeing things is useful, meaningful, and mainstream. — T Clark
OK, it seems you are not denying causation, but instead you are emphasizing the impossibility of prediction except in the simplest mechanical cases. I would certainly agree with that! — Janus
It's interesting that complex systems such as for example the weather may be more or less accurately modeled and reasonably reliable and accurate short terms predictions made; but that is only possible on account of being able to model systems on powerful computers. — Janus
If an effect has multiple causes, as in the case of the flip of a coin. There can be multiple questions raised to examine the behavior. — Wittgenstein
Of course. I did make that clear in there, the part about it not being specifically about me. I brought it down to a me you level, just to make it concrete. People often think as if they have a bird's eye view. But we don't, we're in situ. So, here I have someone saying we - note that, we - can't know anything about the OR. — Coben
But beyond that, here he is talking about OR based on whatever his epistemology is. He goes so far as to say they can't approach OR at all. How could one even state an opinion? How could one compare one model of the OR with any other. — Coben
Same problem. Mr. Baggott just talked about OR and said 'never'. This position is not consistant because it contains a model of the OR that he is happily using to say 'never'. No qualifying, no possibility that this model is incorrect. Perception subjects objects. That's the way things are. And implicit in this is 'no action at a distance' or 'no intermingling at a distance', iow that causes must move through media so all experience must be filtered and interpreted and indirect. — Coben
My point was that scientists definitely consider themselves to be finding out thigns about objective reality. I think there are excellent arguments for this. However I actually think the situation is more complicated and my position is very complicated and I have not even started trying to convey it. — Coben
And that is self-contradictory. If it is merely an opinion, this stil causes problems since one cannot approach the OR (Pattern). And given that the model that one can seems to be working for so many people, why should one switch over to this other opinion that undermines itself? — Coben
I think I presented my case well in a couple of different ways. That might have an effect or it might not, but I've put in the effort I am willing and I think I did a good enough job for it to be evaluated. A lot of the points raised against my arguments ahve seemed irrelevent. Though I do understand that it is a tricky area of discussion. — Coben
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