Atheism

[createdtoworship]

The cause isn't random, the cause is a specific set of conditions, what seems to be random when the decay event actually takes place. We can't just observe a nucleus and say, ok it is going to decay...right...NOW! So if that is what you have been saying-yes that is true, but that is different than saying there is no cause for radioactive decay.

If you like analogies, it's like my wife's crying. There is a cause for her crying, I just can't predict when she is going to cry.

exactly,

 

[Non sequitur]

exactly,

So.. now you are agreeing with the unknown cause of what causes it to start to decay.

I. Am. Not. Surprised.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Quantum Physics isn't my field, but what you are saying doesn't make any sense. Are you saying then that Alpha decay just happens? There is no cause?

Alpha-decay occurs when the ratio of neutrons to protons in the nucleus of certain heavier elements is low.

It happens when a self-contained sub-nucleus of two neutrons and two protons (i.e. the alpha particle) quantum tunnel out of a larger, heavier nucleus (e.g., [sup]238[/sup]U). That is mechanically what is happening.

This event can't happen without quantum tunnelling, as energetic barriers prevent the particle from simply burrowing out. In certain situations, such as [sup]238[/sup]U, the instability of the atom allows quantum tunnelling to cause a decay event.

But what causes the tunnelling event itself? Nothing. Tunnelling is a spontaneous thing, not caused by any prior interaction or event. We know the probability of such events, which is why atoms have half-lives, but the actual event itself is, ultimately, random. This is why the decay event itself is an instance of a truly random event: it isn't 'caused' by tunnelling, it is tunnelling, and that tunnelling is random.

Just because you need a particular ratio of neutrons to protons, doesn't make that the 'cause' of alpha decay. You need an atom but the atom itself isn't the cause of decay. It allows decay, but it doesn't cause decay.

 

[Eudaimonist]

But what causes the tunnelling event itself? Nothing. Tunnelling is a spontaneous thing, not caused by any prior interaction or event. We know the probability of such events, which is why atoms have half-lives, but the actual event itself is, ultimately, random. This is why the decay event itself is an instance of a truly random event: it isn't 'caused' by tunnelling, it is tunnelling, and that tunnelling is random.

Just because you need a particular ratio of neutrons to protons, doesn't make that the 'cause' of alpha decay. You need an atom but the atom itself isn't the cause of decay. It allows decay, but it doesn't cause decay.

In mechanistic event-event causality (which tends to be the "language" of science when it comes to causality), that's absolutely right.

However, the atom does cause the event in the entity-causation sense. But this is a philosophically different sense of causation, so I'm not suggesting that there is some specific event that causes the decay. In this sense, "allowing" an event to take place is the same thing as "causing" the event.

I'm guessing that some people use the entity-causation model without realizing its incompatibility with the language of science.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Wiccan_Child]

In mechanistic event-event causality (which tends to be the "language" of science when it comes to causality), that's absolutely right.

However, the atom does cause the event in the entity-causation sense. But this is a philosophically different sense of causation, so I'm not suggesting that there is some specific event that causes the decay. In this sense, "allowing" an event to take place is the same thing as "causing" the event.

I'm guessing that some people use the entity-causation model without realizing its incompatibility with the language of science.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Why does philosophy make a point of 'entity-causation' causality? That just seems unnecessarily clunky and confusing.

 

[createdtoworship]

In mechanistic event-event causality (which tends to be the "language" of science when it comes to causality), that's absolutely right.

However, the atom does cause the event in the entity-causation sense. But this is a philosophically different sense of causation, so I'm not suggesting that there is some specific event that causes the decay. In this sense, "allowing" an event to take place is the same thing as "causing" the event.

I'm guessing that some people use the entity-causation model without realizing its incompatibility with the language of science.


eudaimonia,

Mark

spot on (mostly).

 

[Eudaimonist]

Why does philosophy make a point of 'entity-causation' causality? That just seems unnecessarily clunky and confusing.

In part to clear up the confusion of "uncaused" events, and in part because it makes more sense that it is entities that influence each other and are the source of change, not just "events".

From my perspective, it is science that is unnecessarily clunky and confusing, and I place most of the blame at the feet of Isaac Newton.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

spot on (mostly).

What is spot on? And what isn't?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[KCfromNC]

Why does philosophy make a point of 'entity-causation' causality? That just seems unnecessarily clunky and confusing.

"Unnecessarily clunky and confusing" explanations for simple events are what philosophy is left with after science grew up and moved out of the house.

 

[Eudaimonist]

"Unnecessarily clunky and confusing" explanations for simple events are what philosophy is left with after science grew up and moved out of the house.

Sorry, but it works both ways. Science is not something wholely separate from philosophy. Causality is at root a philosophical issue, even if science has helped us to understand what happens physically (using physics).

And it was event-event causation that lead to a lot of bad Apologetics where it was thought that events could only be caused by events, leading to a logical infinite regress for which one had to invent a "God" to come to the rescue.

Once science discovered "uncaused" events, this was no longer as much of an issue, but still this leaves open plenty of confusion. If uncaused events are "allowed" by the prevailing conditions, just what is being "allowed"? And why does it happen only under those conditions?

Philosophy is needed, even in science, to order one's understanding. I wish that science could simply replace philosophy, but it can't.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Wiccan_Child]

In part to clear up the confusion of "uncaused" events, and in part because it makes more sense that it is entities that influence each other and are the source of change, not just "events".

But that is what's real. Radioactive decay is caused by an event, which is itself uncaused. An entity doing something is an 'event', and it does that thing for no reason as at all.

From my perspective, it is science that is unnecessarily clunky and confusing, and I place most of the blame at the feet of Isaac Newton.

Why?

 

[TScott]

The conditions allow the decay to start.

Your analogy isn't fitting. If you knew all the data, you'd know when.

It seems that you are confused here. The analogy fits, especially considering your interpretation. Yes, if I knew all the data I would know when.

Quantum physics at this level is still fairly theoretical-we don't know all the whys. Much of what is going on is profoundly counterintuitive, and this holds true at the macro level as well as the micro level.

 

[TScott]

But what causes the tunnelling event itself? Nothing.

Please, we don't know what actually triggers the event, that certainly doesn't mean that nothing triggers it. Since this has devolved into a semantical discussion, it would be more correct to say that there is nothing we know of that causes the event.

Just because you need a particular ratio of neutrons to protons, doesn't make that the 'cause' of alpha decay. You need an atom but the atom itself isn't the cause of decay. It allows decay, but it doesn't cause decay.

Again, that seems to be a semantical argument. Your statement above is not entirely accurate. You don't just need any atom. It's not like this event takes place in all atoms. Certain conditions must exist in the nucleus of atoms in which this event takes place, conditions that would be considered abnormal as far as nuclei go and therefore would have to be considered a "cause". Now if you want to change the language to suit your argument and call this "allow", go ahead, but the fact remains that there is a cause and that is the tension that exists due to the imbalance. SInce, without this tension the event would not take place, it should be considered a "cause". Furthermore, there is a root cause and that would be either the formation of the element through a stellar event or by the mutation of the element by the bobardment of cosmic radiation.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Please, we don't know what actually triggers the event, that certainly doesn't mean that nothing triggers it. Since this has devolved into a semantical discussion, it would be more correct to say that there is nothing we know of that causes the event.

We know more than you think. Per quantum mechanics, we know what the event is. It's not simply a dearth of knowledge, it's not that we don't know what caused it, but rather we know it is uncaused. It arises from uncertainty principles and genuine limits on what can be known - again, it's not that we could know but as yet don't, it's that we can't know. The quantum world places hard limits one just how much we can know, not because of technological limits, but because that knowledge simply doesn't exist. The nature of the wavefunction is such that it allows particles to spontaneously exist outside of where we had previously measured them to be - they can tunnel out of potential barriers.

Again, that seems to be a semantical argument. Your statement above is not entirely accurate. You don't just need any atom. It's not like this event takes place in all atoms. Certain conditions must exist in the nucleus of atoms in which this event takes place, conditions that would be considered abnormal as far as nuclei go and therefore would have to be considered a "cause". Now if you want to change the language to suit your argument and call this "allow", go ahead, but the fact remains that there is a cause and that is the tension that exists due to the imbalance. SInce, without this tension the event would not take place, it should be considered a "cause". Furthermore, there is a root cause and that would be either the formation of the element through a stellar event or by the mutation of the element by the bobardment of cosmic radiation.

You can call that the 'cause' if you want, but that is simply and utterly uninteresting.

By your definition, the cause of the man's death is the gun manufacturer, and the Second Amendment, and the sexual intercourse had by the man's parents 30-odd years ago. These are things which transpired, and without them the event couldn't have happened, and so, according to you, are the various causes of his death. But we don't care about those things. On one hand, there is a fundamental difference between what you call the 'cause' of death (his parent's having sex), and the real cause that everyone is actually interested in: the actual physical event which made him go from life to death - the destruction of his brain when the bullet ploughed through it. That's the cause of death.

And on the other hand, to repeat myself, it's uninteresting. What's interesting is an event which spontaneously happens (e.g., quantum tunnelling). Whether or not previous events have transpired to set up this random event isn't interesting. What's interesting is the actual event itself.

When the apple fell on Newton's head, we care that the cause was gravity, not the Big Bang.

 

[TScott]

"Unnecessarily clunky and confusing" explanations for simple events are what philosophy is left with after science grew up and moved out of the house.

That's really not the case. The field of neuroscience would be an exception to that statement. In this field you will find a definite, if not grudging, melding of science and philosophy. Strong AI will probably not fully succeed without the partnership, in fact the field was stagnated for close to twenty years because the leading scientists at MIT dismissed the field of neural networking (connectivists) in lieu of programming (computationists). The field of neural networking has, since the 90s been very successful in practical AI, and has drawn heavily from the neural philosophy.

I think what we find throughout the history of science/philosophy is the problem in that scientists don't always do well in formulating the questions that need to be answered, but, once the question has been formulated, usually by the philosopher and asked the scientists excel in finding the answers.

 

[TScott]

We know more than you think. Per quantum mechanics, we know what the event is. It's not simply a dearth of knowledge, it's not that we don't know what caused it, but rather we know it is uncaused. It arises from uncertainty principles and genuine limits on what can be known - again, it's not that we could know but as yet don't, it's that we can't know. The quantum world places hard limits one just how much we can know, not because of technological limits, but because that knowledge simply doesn't exist. The nature of the wavefunction is such that it allows particles to spontaneously exist outside of where we had previously measured them to be - they can tunnel out of potential barriers.

As I said earlier, quantum physics is not my field, however I do know that there is a concensus among most of pioneers in the field of quantum physics that it's not desireable to postulate anything that goes beyond the math and physical observations on what goes on at the atomic scale.
Obviously something that "arises from uncertainty principles and genuine limits on what can be known..." does not pass that test.

You can call that the 'cause' if you want, but that is simply and utterly uninteresting.

Perhaps it is, but I also find it uninteresting having you posit as facts, theories which are not, even by your own admission (see above). The only consensus I can see on what you doing here is that you are applying bad science.

I agree with you that the discussion would be better served if we center on the cause of what triggers the event, and I can concede that it may just be a random event regardless of how unintuitive that may be, but I will not agree that it is proven to be random because it is not.

 

[createdtoworship]

In part to clear up the confusion of "uncaused" events, and in part because it makes more sense that it is entities that influence each other and are the source of change, not just "events".

From my perspective, it is science that is unnecessarily clunky and confusing, and I place most of the blame at the feet of Isaac Newton.


eudaimonia,

Mark

what is the difference between entity and event causation? If it's a person , place or thing, it's an entity or something?

 

[createdtoworship]

What is spot on? And what isn't?


eudaimonia,

Mark

the allowing and causing is a grey area with causation. But heavy nucleus's do cause radium decay. Because they are unstable. They both allow and cause, not allow and not cause.

 

[Non sequitur]

They both allow and cause, not allow and not cause.

I would totally love to hear that broken into two sentences...

"Heavy nucleus's allow and cause radium decay, by ____________________."

"Heavy nucleus's don't allow and cause radium decay, because ____________________."

 

[createdtoworship]

I would totally love to hear that broken into two sentences...

"Heavy nucleus's allow and cause radium decay, by ____________________."

"Heavy nucleus's don't allow and cause radium decay, because ____________________."

I guess that conversation is over since you are attacking grammer and not the logic of the debate, here is another one:

"you can't prove atheism because you can't prove a negative about anything without absolute knowledge."