Quantum Mechanics and the Incompetence of Atheism.

[Holy Roller]

Poe

The Bible Thumper.

 

[Holy Roller]

You'll have to be patient, deamiter, since for some reason the mods have to review my reply to your post befoe thae authorize it.
Why I don't know.

 

[Deamiter]

Maybe you were spamming for holokits.com?

I'll just go right back to your OP

Like the actions of the Holy Spirit Himself, only the effects of quantum phenomena can be observed.

This places the Atheist ('A' capitalized out of respect for the Atheist religion) in a difficult bind; a bind he cannot get out of. It necessarily means he has to admit that there is at least one characteristic of physical reality (in this instance, quantum mechanics) that he can only explain away by means of faith--faith in the unobservable, ethereal mechanics of uncertainty. Faith that this uncertainty will bring about a certain, cause-and-effect outcome to phenomena in physical reality.

So we agree that uncertainty "does not represent a lack of knowledge about the physical world." However, you claimed above that "there is at least one characteristic of physical reality that [an atheist] can only explain away by means of faith."

Now if you're using the word 'faith' abnormally (in this context) to mean acceptance of an unproven theory (remembering that no theory in science CAN be proven) then I suppose you're right. However, in the context of religion and religious faith, this doesn't make sense. The uncertainty is a fundamental physical property and atheists no more have faith in other physical properties like gravity than Christians do.

Does that make sense? It seems like you're trying to attack atheism (and I haven't even touched on your later posts where you seem to change your point altogether) but at least your original post just says that because we accept current science (in this case QM) our acceptance is no weaker than Christian faith in God so atheists should have no problem believing in God. Please respond to my first paragraph seperately from this paragraph because there I'm analyzing what you said and here I'm inferring your point -- something I acknowledge as inherently prone to error. I'm primarily inferring to show you why your argument looks spurious to many (even us Christians) but perhaps you can clarify and show why your original words were meant to lead to a different conclusion.

Further, you claim that the mechanics of QM (you said "uncertainty") are "unobservable."

I'm saying that this is wrong on a very basic level. I'll try to be clear, but please do try to understand what I'm saying before trying to rebut it so we don't run around in circles.

First of all, the mechanics of QM are unobserved. We cannot currently measure a particle's complete wave-function though we can do experiments that strongly suggest the conclusion of QM. That in no way shows that the mechanics of QM are unobservable. In the future, we might be able to fully characterize a particle's or a person's wave-function. This is where we started talking about God of the gaps -- you seem to be claiming because we can't currently measure something it is the domain of God.

*edit* do note that I use "we" not to talk about atheists (as I'm Christian) but to refer to those of us on the board who disagree with your argument and conclusions. You're welcome to question my Christianity for all I care, but it wasn't the slip of the fingers from a closet atheist that it might appear. */edit*

 

[Deamiter]

PS -- I sincerely apologize for my excessive use of parentheses and qualifications. In such a logical discussion, I am constantly analyzing my words to make sure they mean exactly what I intend (not that I always succeed) and I'm trying to avoid as much miscommunication as I can. I'm quite good at logic in my head (and humble too!) but I've never been able to get it out clearly which is why I stick to technical fields rather than muddling about with philosophy professionally.

 

[Braunwyn]

You'll have to be patient, deamiter, since for some reason the mods have to review my reply to your post befoe thae authorize it.
Why I don't know.

Thanks for the funny thread!

 

[Holy Roller]

Maybe you were spamming for holokits.com?

My G-d, we ahve a paranoid streak in us, now don't we?
No, Deamiter, you wanted to know about homeade holograms; I answered a question.
Anyways...

I'll just go right back to your OPSo we agree that uncertainty "does not represent a lack of knowledge about the physical world." However, you claimed above that "there is at least one characteristic of physical reality that [an atheist] can only explain away by means of faith."

Sounds OK, so far...

Now if you're using the word 'faith' abnormally (in this context)

Lol, I never use words "abnormally", demiter... (rolleyes)

to mean acceptance of an unproven theory (remembering that no theory in science CAN be proven) then I suppose you're right. However, in the context of religion and religious faith, this doesn't make sense. The uncertainty is a fundamental physical property and atheists no more have faith in other physical properties like gravity than Christians do.

You're usually pretty strong, but here you show weakness.
You're putting the uncertaintiness of uncertainty in with the certitude of something like gravity. Don't.

Does that make sense? It seems like you're trying to attack atheism (and I haven't even touched on your later posts where you seem to change your point altogether)

If I'm attacking Atheism, it's because they're arrogantly certain that Creator G-d doesn't exist. I'm showing the folly of their arrogance by pointing out that the knowledge of where a spontaneously-emitted photon lands doesn't exist, either, yet they believe QM is a valid branch of science, right?

but at least your original post just says that because we accept current science (in this case QM) our acceptance is no weaker than Christian faith in God so atheists should have no problem believing in God.

As with cabal, you gave into the temptation of misinterpreting the purpose of thie thread! This thread does not serve the purpose of evangelizing. I am not trying to get anybody to believe in G-d. I am not saying that Atheists should have no problem believeing in G-d.
I am pointing out Atheist folly, however. (over and over again, I'm pointing out Atheist folly!)

Please respond to my first paragraph seperately from this paragraph because there I'm analyzing what you said and here I'm inferring your point -- something I acknowledge as inherently prone to error. I'm primarily inferring to show you why your argument looks spurious to many (even us Christians) but perhaps you can clarify and show why your original words were meant to lead to a different conclusion.

I have a way to clarify everything I have said up to this point (actually, I've only been saying one thing, but over and over in different forms). But, it will require you surrender any anger you have towards me or any antipathy you may have towards what I may have written (me critisizing Shrodinger's thought-experiment, etc.). It also means you have to read, think, and pay attention to what's being written. Can you do that? If so, then no further clarification on anything I've written will be needed further.

Further, you claim that the mechanics of QM (you said "uncertainty") are "unobservable."I'm saying that this is wrong on a very basic level. you seem to be claiming because we can't currently measure something it is the domain of God.

Let's get down to work, shall we?

1. First point and least significant: I am not saying, "We can't measure it so goddidit." I said this before. Three times. Over the last six or so pages.
2. Here is my point, and it will demand at least some attn on your part.

• Consider an aperture of diameter 360nm punctured in a very thin opaque material.
• Now consider a 360nm light source from a laser shining on this aperture. The intensity of the light matters not.
• Consider a foot away a phosphor screen that's shaped like a semi-sphere (visualise a large bowl coated with phosphor, if you will). This semi-sphere covers the opaque material.
• Whenever one of those 360nm photons hit the screen, spontaneous emission occurs.
• According to Fraunhoffer geometry, the emitted photon will have an equal probability of landing on any part of that screen, even though the emitted photon came out of a laser, with a definite direction.
• There is no theory, hypothesis or law anywhere in the world that can predict where on that phosphor screen that photon will land!
• After the photon leaves the aperture, there's no way to know where it will land on the screen.
• We can't tell where the spontaneous emission will take place on the phosphor screen, because we don't know where the photon will go after it leaves the aperture.
• According to QM, the matematics says we have no way of knowing where the photon, after it leaves the aperture, will end up on that phosphor screen.
• There is no way we can measure the angle of the normal of the opaque material to where the photon will land, because we don't know where the photon will land in the first place. Only after the photon lands can we tell.
• Newton sez that something will keep going in a straight line until perturbed by something else, but QM sez that after the photon leaves the aperture, even tho we knew it was going straight ahead before it reached the aperture, it will be impossible to tell where on that screen the photon will end up. This is because we have no way of knowing where the photon, after it leaves the aperture, will end up on that phosphor screen.

Knowing all that, we have revealed something about physical reality. And that is this: We have to go by faith that the photon will reach a certain part of the screen. This is something we did not have to go by prior to Heisenberg. In fact, if we were to repeat the experiment in a classical manner, using classical emitters, we will know exactly where the particle will end up after leaving the aperture.
Consider a gun-and-bullitt assembly (classical emitter), where the bullit is 6mm in diameter. Shoot the gun and bullit assembly thru an aperture 6mm in diameter. Unlike the quantum state, we have 100% certainty where the bullit will land on any screen placed after the opaque material. 100% certainty. Think about that. Since we have 100% certainty, we have 0% faith.
If we have 0% certainty, we must have 100% faith.

 

[Deamiter]

You're putting the uncertaintiness of uncertainty in with the certitude of something like gravity. Don't.

Eh? We know LESS, if anything, about what causes gravity than how particles have wave functions. In both cases, we have a whole lot of evidence that something repeatable happens, and mathematical models that seem to reproduce our observations, but very little to verify that our models are correct.

Knowing all that, we have revealed something about physical reality. And that is this: We have to go by faith that the photon will reach a certain part of the screen. This is something we did not have to go by prior to Heisenberg. In fact, if we were to repeat the experiment in a classical manner, using classical emitters, we will know exactly where the particle will end up after leaving the aperture.
Consider a gun-and-bullitt assembly (classical emitter), where the bullit is 6mm in diameter. Shoot the gun and bullit assembly thru an aperture 6mm in diameter. Unlike the quantum state, we have 100% certainty where the bullit will land on any screen placed after the opaque material. 100% certainty. Think about that. Since we have 100% certainty, we have 0% faith.
If we have 0% certainty, we must have 100% faith.

So you are suggesting that if one has faith in God, they cannot have certainty in their salvation? That's a false dichotomy if I ever saw one -- it might be right, but certainty and faith isn't a zero-sum situation and can't be treated as such!

Anyway, there's a problem with your use of 'faith.' You say you need faith that the photon will hit "a certain part of the screen." But which part of the screen should you put your faith in? In fact, if you have faith that it will hit any particular position, your faith will almost certainly be unjustified! In this case, faith is no different from wave-function calculations. If you claim you know where the particle will hit or have faith where the particle will hit you are wrong. So can you have faith that the particle will MOST LIKELY hit where wave-function equations suggest? Sure, but that faith adds nothing to the equations. This is how I compare it to gravity -- sure, you can have 'faith' that the equations will be just as accurate as the last time you used them, but most scientists think of that as just a basic assumption -- that an observation in the past stays valid for those past conditions.

You say without deterministic certainty, you must have faith. I say that even WITHOUT deterministic certainty, adding faith doesn't improve on quantum mechanics. If it doesn't help with the prediction, how is it somehow necessary?

Of course, you could repeat the experiment with a bullet, but if you extrapolated the result of the bullets' flight to a particle you'd be wrong. Why? Not because of anything to do with faith, but because classical physics is only an approximation that works on medium scales. In fact, QM suggests that you CANNOT be 100% certain that the bullet will hit the target, although the chance that it will tunnel through the target are small enough that it'd take longer than the age of the universe of automatic fire to observe such an event.

Again, the absence of faith in classical physics is not because we thought we could predict the future (though many did assuming we knew the initial conditions) but because having faith that the bullet will hit the target adds nothing to the classical calculations of the bullet's trajectory.

 

[Cabal]

Knowing all that, we have revealed something about physical reality. And that is this: We have to go by faith that the photon will reach a certain part of the screen. This is something we did not have to go by prior to Heisenberg. In fact, if we were to repeat the experiment in a classical manner, using classical emitters, we will know exactly where the particle will end up after leaving the aperture.

I hardly think this is 0% certainty, 100% faith when single photon diffraction results in a characteristic output distribution every single time you do this experiment, and the distribution itself is an empirically observable result of the uncertainty relation. God doesn't have that kind of reproducibility.

Still waiting for your thoughts on my previous analysis, HR (although if you want to speed things up, it's summarised in the above point). I'd hate to think you'd forgotten about it, or couldn't answer it.

Oh, and did you manage to report your big list ok?

 

[thaumaturgy]

My G-d, we ahve a paranoid streak in us, now don't we?

Don't mean to be too nit-picky but isn't rather ironic that HR writes "G-d" in order to keep the holy name from later being desecrated, all while seeming to take the lord's name in vain?

 

[Deamiter]

Don't mean to be too nit-picky but isn't rather ironic that HR writes "G-d" in order to keep the holy name from later being desecrated, all while seeming to take the lord's name in vain?

Ironic, yes. On topic...

 

[Paconious]

I havent read the whole thread and i apologize for that. However, i have a few things to ask.

How is it that the uncertainty of quantum mechanics proves that there is at least a god? How can you be sure an absolute (god) with the uncertainty that is the world of quantum mechanics? If anything; the nature of quatum mechanics completly destroys the assumption of an omniscient, all knowing, all powerful being. QM is too chaotic.

 

[Belk]

The fundament of quantum mechanics is uncertainty. That is, the more the apparatus measures position, the less the apparatus can be certain of momentum--hence, uncertainty.
This necessarily means that there will be factors related to physical reality that cannot be determined by the empirical observation. In fact, Heisenberg's uncertainty relation all but guarantees the lid on observing quantum phenomena be closed, and that no experimental apparatus deviseable by man can ever open it.

There will be the interesting implications of uncertainty, of course, such as the entanglement of photons, and quantum tunneling. Like the actions of the Holy Spirit Himself, only the effects of quantum phenomena can be observed.

This places the Atheist ('A' capitalized out of respect for the Atheist religion) in a difficult bind; a bind he cannot get out of. It necessarily means he has to admit that there is at least one characteristic of physical reality (in this instance, quantum mechanics) that he can only explain away by means of faith--faith in the unobservable, ethereal mechanics of uncertainty. Faith that this uncertainty will bring about a certain, cause-and-effect outcome to phenomena in physical reality.

Hmmm. Where else do we see this Faith?...

OK, I'm confused. Because certain parts of QM are untestable (I'll have to take your word on that, I have limited knowledge of QM) I am somehow incompetent? How does that follow? My atheism is in no way predicated on QM to begin with.

 

[Naraoia]

I havent read the whole thread and i apologize for that. However, i have a few things to ask.

How is it that the uncertainty of quantum mechanics proves that there is at least a god? How can you be sure an absolute (god) with the uncertainty that is the world of quantum mechanics? If anything; the nature of quatum mechanics completly destroys the assumption of an omniscient, all knowing, all powerful being. QM is too chaotic.

In a sense, something "chaotic" would support God more than a nicely repeatable and predictable phenomenon. God supposedly can do anything, he isn't constrained by such worldly things as natural laws. Unfortunately for Roller, QM isn't "chaotic" in that sense. Uncertainty is uncertain in very predictable ways. That's what I understand from the debate here, anyway.

 

[Bombila]

"Uncertainty QM is uncertain" - what is this, Lolphysics?

 

[Holy Roller]

Eh? We know LESS, if anything, about what causes gravity than how particles have wave functions. In both cases, we have a whole lot of evidence that something repeatable happens, and mathematical models that seem to reproduce our observations, but very little to verify that our models are correct.


So you are suggesting that if one has faith in God, they cannot have certainty in their salvation? That's a false dichotomy if I ever saw one -- it might be right, but certainty and faith isn't a zero-sum situation and can't be treated as such!

Anyway, there's a problem with your use of 'faith.' You say you need faith that the photon will hit "a certain part of the screen." But which part of the screen should you put your faith in? In fact, if you have faith that it will hit any particular position, your faith will almost certainly be unjustified! In this case, faith is no different from wave-function calculations. If you claim you know where the particle will hit or have faith where the particle will hit you are wrong. So can you have faith that the particle will MOST LIKELY hit where wave-function equations suggest? Sure, but that faith adds nothing to the equations. This is how I compare it to gravity -- sure, you can have 'faith' that the equations will be just as accurate as the last time you used them, but most scientists think of that as just a basic assumption -- that an observation in the past stays valid for those past conditions.

You say without deterministic certainty, you must have faith. I say that even WITHOUT deterministic certainty, adding faith doesn't improve on quantum mechanics. If it doesn't help with the prediction, how is it somehow necessary?

Of course, you could repeat the experiment with a bullet, but if you extrapolated the result of the bullets' flight to a particle you'd be wrong. Why? Not because of anything to do with faith, but because classical physics is only an approximation that works on medium scales. In fact, QM suggests that you CANNOT be 100% certain that the bullet will hit the target, although the chance that it will tunnel through the target are small enough that it'd take longer than the age of the universe of automatic fire to observe such an event.

Again, the absence of faith in classical physics is not because we thought we could predict the future (though many did assuming we knew the initial conditions) but because having faith that the bullet will hit the target adds nothing to the classical calculations of the bullet's trajectory.

You're saying, "having faith won't change or affect any physical process." And I'm saying, "Of course not. I never said it did. I did say, however, that I'd have to have faith that a photon will strike a certain predetermined area on the screen." That's it.

If you say something like, "But H/R, what does that have to do with the proof that G-d exists?" or "H/R, what does that have to do with the Miracles in the Bible?" or some other irrelevancy, then you're missing the point.

...And around and around we go...

 

[Holy Roller]

I havent read the whole thread and i apologize for that. However, i have a few things to ask.

How is it that the uncertainty of quantum mechanics proves that there is at least a god? How can you be sure an absolute (god) with the uncertainty that is the world of quantum mechanics? If anything; the nature of quatum mechanics completly destroys the assumption of an omniscient, all knowing, all powerful being. QM is too chaotic.

Why do Atheists always wanna destroy G-d?

 

[Holy Roller]

Posting in this thread is kinda like riding on this device:

 

[Paconious]

In a sense, something "chaotic" would support God more than a nicely repeatable and predictable phenomenon. God supposedly can do anything, he isn't constrained by such worldly things as natural laws Unfortunately for Roller, QM isn't "chaotic" in that sense. Uncertainty is uncertain in very predictable ways. That's what I understand from the debate here, anyway.

I understand that very well. From my brief physics background, we know that an electron will be in their respective orbital 90% of the time. The rest of the time its uncertain. Now, i'm still trying to wrap my head araound exactly how it is that this proves the existance of god? Is there a 10% chance that god exists because we dont know (for now) where that electron is? God takes that electron 10% of the time? whats the arguement here?

I hope you dont think i'm picking on you Naraoia, i'm directing the question at you because Holly Rollers logic is a tad too infantile for me. I'm still wondering how an alleged physist believes in magic.

 

[Cabal]

Posting in this thread is kinda like riding on this device:

And posts like this always ameliorate the situation.

Still waiting for a response: -> http://christianforums.com/showpost.php?p=48490256&postcount=89

 

[Braunwyn]

I understand that very well. From my brief physics background, we know that an electron will be in their respective orbital 90% of the time. The rest of the time its uncertain. Now, i'm still trying to wrap my head araound exactly how it is that this proves the existance of god? Is there a 10% chance that god exists because we dont know (for now) where that electron is? God takes that electron 10% of the time? whats the arguement here?

Good questions. HR, you have readers awaiting answers to these questions.

I hope you dont think i'm picking on you Naraoia, i'm directing the question at you because Holly Rollers logic is a tad too infantile for me. I'm still wondering how an alleged physist believes in magic.

Who? I though HR was a trader...not a scientist.