Quantum Mechanics and the Incompetence of Atheism.

[Braunwyn]

You're not missing something; you're correct.

So, if it's uncertain than how can a person have faith that it will arrive in an area with certainty? eta: I'm not following that.

 

[Maximum]

An atheist is someone who has no belief in gods. Not someone who has no faith (in anything). One doesn't have to believe in a god to consider QM as a valid scientific theory and therefore atheists who accept QM will still be atheists.

 

[Deamiter]

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.

Why would you have faith that it'd hit a certain predetermined area? Your faith would be utterly unjustified because there is a chance that it could hit ANY are on the screen or miss the screen altogether. Are you honestly using the word 'faith' to mean "accepts the probability calculations of quantum mechanics?"

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...

Perhaps you haven't adequately explained your point because nobody else seems to get it. How about THIS question: what does all this have to do with ATHEISM since you seem to think it makes atheism incompetent (though that's not grammatically correct I think the implication is clear enough).

Heck, I'd suggest a CHRISTIAN was mistaken if they put their faith in a particle hitting a particular part of a screen much less an atheist! You seem to take the opposite tack and claim that people are incompetent if they DON'T play the faith-lottery and pick a spot on the screen to 'believe in' though QM suggests that no one spot is certain to be hit.

 

[Deamiter]

If they said, "How does uncertainty prove the existence of G-d?" I can only answer like I've answered umpteen times before: this thread does not serve the purpose of proving G-d's existence. It serves only to highlite a fundamental problem related to what I call the Fundamental Principle of Atheism. The Principle states that G-d does not exist, because no evidence is available to support an idea that He exists. I contend that if Atheists reject G-d based on lack-of-evidence, tehn Atheists must, by default, reject any and all concepts that inherently have uncertainty-of-existence at their core.

Ah this is key! You're confusing uncertainty in quantum mechanics with lack of evidence. The two are not synonymous. Further, QM does not suggest 'uncertainty of existence' as you claim, only a limit to the precision of certain measurements. There's actually a whole lot of evidence backing QM so it doesn't even relate to your argument about atheists rejecting God.

In short, QM has evidence and does not include fundamental uncertainty in the existence of anything. Therefore, it does not relate (or at least you have not shown that it relates) to the claim that without evidence we should not believe something.

 

[Chalnoth]

If we emit many photons on the screen, uncertainty gives way to certainty and the screen shows the interference pattern in a classical manner. Since we're emitting many photons, the experiment goes from quantum in nature to classical in nature.

We must only consider one photon instead of many photons, because the topic calls for quantum mechanics, not classical mechanics.

Heh. This isn't the classical limit. To illustrate this, just do the two-slit experiment with electrons instead. Classically, electrons would produce no interference pattern. And yet they do.

The Atheist must have faith that this photon will land on a predetermined area (we all must have faith in this regard), thus he has to reject QM as a valid branch of science, because faith separates him from both beliefs. Faith defines the Atheists beliefs: if it requires faith, it is not to be believed. If it doesn't require faith, it is to be believed.

Nonsense. All that I need to do is be aware of the probability distribution of observable outcomes. That probability distribution is what quantum mechanics predicts, and repeating the experiment many, many times verifies that the probability distribution is recovered.

If the Atheist can accept the photon reaching the screen with no evidence of the path taken by the photon, then there is nothing stopping him from having the faith in G-d, even though there's no evidence of his direct existence.

Wow. You've really gone off the deep end here.

We can collect plenty of evidence as to the path taken by the photon. First we have the hits on the screen. Then we can place instruments along the path of the photon anywhere we like. These instruments will prevent the interference pattern from appearing, of course, but they can be used to show what the probability distribution of the photon's position is at any point along the way. Furthermore, we can take the state at one point in the experiment, a state which is either prepared by the apparatus of the experiment or measured directly, or both, and then see if the equations we use properly evolve the system forward in time to get the measured output.

No need for faith here, just theories to interpret evidence.

 

[Cabal]

So, Holy Roller, I take it you agree you've mischaracterised atheism on that the fact that (among other reasons) the effects of quantum uncertainty are fully evidenced and reproducible (as compared to the effects of God?) Your last proper post to me implied that they were equivalent, but failed to demonstrate this.

Please answer this soon, I'm getting tired of asking, and I really would hate to think you couldn't answer this simple question.

 

[Naraoia]

I think you're in the right track,

Wheee!

and understandably, you're troubled by that fact that no evidence is offered for G-d's existence.

Troubled is not the word I would use. I'm pretty content with my atheism and really don't care about others' religious views for the most part. I just expect people who claim such evidence exists to present it. It appears you aren't one of them, though.

You will likely never get that evidence unless you have a Damascus Road Experience...

Which isn't evidence any more than a half-asleep hallucination is evidence that very scary creatures hang around in my room at night. The human mind is very easy to trick (and prone to trick itself), so such an experience in itself is worth precisely nothing.

Anyway, I dimly recall this thread was about quantum mechanics

/derail

 

[thaumaturgy]

The good news is you're now understanding where I'm coming from, and the nature of this thread.

And ironically you seem to be making no effort to understand what others are saying to you. Too bad for us that the only person who matters in this discussion is you.

The bad news is you want to place an even greater burden on the thread by having me go off-topic

I suppose if you'd actually read my post for content you could be expected to understand what I was talking about there. But if you wish to have the discussion solely with yourself in which everyone's point is subservient to your strawmen, then you are free to do so.

and discuss proofs of Creator G-d. Sorry, but we can't do it.

So you are saying that you are not going to actually discuss the real issues behind atheism? You are the "Atheist Hunter" but you ain't got no gun, friend. You are hunting tigers with a butterfly net.

As many of us have shown you, atheism really does require some amount of thinking to understand it. You can't simply decree your point and expect everyone to fall over and become theists because the great "Atheist Hunter" has waddled into view and waved his buttefly net.

Maybe if you bothered to understand what it takes to "hunt atheists" you'd have a better level of success.

The bible says we have to walk by faith and not by sight, which means, like matters of quantum phenomena, G-d is off-limits as far as the experiment is concerned.

Unfalsifiability. Even the Double Slit experiment can be run. But you are establishing an unfalsifiable God. Welcome to non-science.

Thanks for putting thru the psychic effort necessary to understand the nature and purpose of this thread.

Thanks for not reading my post for content.

Might I recommend you read Luke 6:31? (That's in the bible.)

 

[thaumaturgy]

I think you're in the right track, and understandably, you're troubled by that fact that no evidence is offered for G-d's existence. You will likely never get that evidence unless you have a Damascus Road Experience...

Maybe you need to deal with the much more immediate problem of Falsifiability Criterion, dread "Atheist Hunter", before you wander off into Quantum Mechanics.

 

[Paconious]

What does this mean? It means that the Atheist can accept something like light coming out of a flashlight with good batteries, but he cannot accept the quantum explination of blackbody radiation, because blackbody radiation is uncertain.

There is no certainty on this universe, therefore god exists. Nicely done

Lets chaulk this one up as the 571th proof of gods existance.

I think you will find the 60th proof to be better suited to your "logic."

 

[Holy Roller]

So, if it's uncertain than how can a person have faith that it will arrive in an area with certainty? eta: I'm not following that.

I have to have faith that a photon will land on a predetermined area of the screen because of uncertainty.
If I draw a small bullseye on the screen, I have to have faith the photon will hit that bullseye after having left the aperture.
Because of the uncertain nature, I have to have faith.

Likewise. I have to have faith in G-d. G-d offers no evidence; He did this on purpose to identify people who have the spiritual strength to keep and maintain this gift.
There is only uncertainty to G-d's existence. Thus, as with the uncertain photon, I have to have faith.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Likewise. I have to have faith in G-d. G-d offers no evidence; He did this on purpose to identify people who have the spiritual strength to keep and maintain this gift.

So if I offer to sell you a miracle cure for something but I offer no evidence, does that make you a less savvy individual for not buying it from me?

There is only uncertainty to G-d's existence.

How do you "know" this? Is it because there's no evidence for it, ergo you unilaterally decree this is something unique about God?

Thus, as with the uncertain photon, I have to have faith.

Do you have faith that the Uncertainty Principle will hold in all given circumstances where it is applicable in the quantum state? Or do we know it's a valid principle because it is positively proven time and again by things like electron differaction and allows the mathematics to work?

What if someone tried to tell you the Uncertainty Principle but never bothered to provide proof or even a reasonably coherent explanation of what it entailed to any detail? Would you believe it?

How about this: Do you believe in Thaumaturgy's Exclusionary Wafflism Principle? Why not? It's patently obvious that no two quantum-level hyper-waffleirons (pan-dimensional items that fulfill whatever it is I want them to at any given time and are completely untestable) can simultaneously entangle their breakfast-signals and be seen to thurmulgate through n-dimensional pyrotronizators.

If you fail to believe in this, does that mean you believe it is NOT true! How dare you? What kind of 'thinker' are you that you would hold a negative belief about this?

 

[Holy Roller]

Ah this is key! You're confusing uncertainty in quantum mechanics with lack of evidence. The two are not synonymous. Further, QM does not suggest 'uncertainty of existence' as you claim, only a limit to the precision of certain measurements. There's actually a whole lot of evidence backing QM so it doesn't even relate to your argument about atheists rejecting God.

In short, QM has evidence and does not include fundamental uncertainty in the existence of anything. Therefore, it does not relate (or at least you have not shown that it relates) to the claim that without evidence we should not believe something.

A particle's wavefunction is abstract, becoming known only after the wavefunction is measured. But what about before the measurement is taken? What is the nature of the particle?
According to various interpretations no one knows.
Consider this: it's possible for us to create a double-slit, send a photon thru the double-slit, aim the system into interstellar space, and send the photon off into space. What's remarkeable is we have no way of knowing the phase or angle at which the photon left the slit, meaning the photon can be traveling thru space for many light years without us ever knowing anything about it.
Let us assume we will wait at least 100 years before we even attempt a measurement on this photon.

According to QM, when we do come around to measuring the photon, it may be at one place, and having a certain phase.
Or, some time later, we can measure the photon, but find it may be elsewhere that's so far away from what the first measurement obtained that it can be regarded as a different photon emitted from a different slit altogether.

If we measure the characteristics of that photon, its wavefunction collapses and its characteristics become known. QM tells us that that if we were to go back in time and repeat the experiment, we may find a different-looking photon in a completly different region of space, even though we emitted the photon only once (when we went back in time to repeat the measurement, we went far enough back in time--before the first measurement was taken. Thus we measured it only once.).

This is because when we measure something its characteristice become known because the wavefunction collapses. Before its wavefunction collapses, we are in doubt with regard to the certanty and cahracteristics of that something.

We can, therefore, remain in doubt with regards to our photon we sent off into interstellar space; we don't even know if it exists until we actually perform our measurement. And since the photon was emitted from the double-slit some time ago, a very long time may elapse before we can even make a determination about its very existence!

If I were to ask you to gather evidence about the characteristics of this photon, how would you go about doing it? You could measure the photon--its wavefunction would collapse and you'd know everything there is to know about the photon. You can then send me the data as evidence regarding its characteristics. But, if I were to ask you to get evidence of the photon under the restriction that you cannot measure it, but must do whatever it takes using as much time as needed, with as much knowledge about the photon as is already known (wavelength, what direction it was aimed going into the double-slit, etc.), there is no way you can provide me any with evidence regarding that photon--you must measure it directly.

This was fundamental to the Atheists problem: that the Atheist cannot know anything about that photon; he is uncertain about whether the photon even exists and he will remain uncertain about existence throughout his entire lifetime (we agreed not to measure the photon for at least 100 yers). Even if he makes his best prediction about the photon, his prediction will fail, due to the uncertainty of physical reality.

 

[Maximum]

This was fundamental to the Atheists problem: that the Atheist cannot know anything about that photon; he is uncertain about whether the photon even exists and he will remain uncertain about existence throughout his entire lifetime (we agreed not to measure the photon for at least 100 yers). Even if he makes his best prediction about the photon, his prediction will fail, due to the uncertainty of physical reality.

Even *IF* that assertion is true, how does it prove that he, the atheist, believes in a god?

 

[atomweaver]

I have to have faith that a photon will land on a predetermined area of the screen because of uncertainty.If I draw a small bullseye on the screen, I have to have faith the photon will hit that bullseye after having left the aperture.
Because of the uncertain nature, I have to have faith.

If you have to have 'faith' because of the uncertain outcome of the test, why is a screen of finite dimensions adequate for detecting the photon? It seems to me that your 'uncertainty' and 'faith' are both a consequence of the (arbitrary) size of your bullseye. Make your bullseye the same size as the screen, and what happens to your faith requirement? Requirement reduces to zero. Why? Because as another poster (Cabal, I think) mentions, the wavefunction describes with accuracy.

You didn't need faith to decide which side of the double aperture to put your screen on.
You didn't need faith to decide how big to make the screen.
You just needed to know your instrumentation, and QM.

Here, have some more 80's newwave lyrics;

"I feel like I'm pounding on a big door
No one can hear me knocking
I feel like I'm falling flat to the floor
No one can catch me from falling
The hourglass has no more grains of sand
My watch has stopped no more turning hands
The crew have abandoned ship
The lights are on but no one is in"*

Squeeze - Hourglass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4U8RCN1kfU

 

[Cabal]

If you have to have 'faith' because of the uncertain outcome of the test, why is a screen of finite dimensions adequate for detecting the photon? It seems to me that your 'uncertainty' and 'faith' are both a consequence of the (arbitrary) size of your bullseye. Make your bullseye the same size as the screen, and what happens to your faith requirement? Requirement reduces to zero. Why? Because as another poster (Cabal, I think) mentions, the wavefunction describes with accuracy.

You didn't need faith to decide which side of the double aperture to put your screen on.
You didn't need faith to decide how big to make the screen.
You just needed to know your instrumentation, and QM.

That's right, and even though there's debate as to whether wavefunctions exist or not, there is no debate on whether quanta exist or not. Quanta were fine and dandy and accepted for almost 20 years before Born started describing quanta in terms of wavefunctions. I definitely think that the existence of the quanta is taken as a given, i.e, the probability density being normalised to 1 over all space is essentially a statement saying, "there exists a quantum."

 

[Deamiter]

Sorry, but I don't agree that this type of 'uncertainty of existence' is fundamental to QM. It's no different from classical physics -- if you send a ball off into space and don't look at it for 100 years, you don't REALLY know it's there. Similarly, there's nothing fundamental about QM that suggests a particle you send off will not continue to propagate.

You're building an argument based on the philosophical claim that we can't know anything until we measure it. Your conclusions are based on this assumption, not on anything related to quatum mechanics.

Either way, it seems the 'problem' is just as much a problem for Christianity as atheism. If you can't prove that God exists, why believe in God? That question has exactly the same bases as what you're asking: "if you can't know everything, how can you know God doesn't exist."

Of course, most atheists are weak atheists anyway and don't claim God CAN'T exist, but just that there's no REASON to posit a God without evidence.

 

[EnemyPartyII]

I have to have faith that a photon will land on a predetermined area of the screen because of uncertainty.
If I draw a small bullseye on the screen, I have to have faith the photon will hit that bullseye after having left the aperture.
Because of the uncertain nature, I have to have faith.

Likewise. I have to have faith in G-d. G-d offers no evidence; He did this on purpose to identify people who have the spiritual strength to keep and maintain this gift.
There is only uncertainty to G-d's existence. Thus, as with the uncertain photon, I have to have faith.

I don't get your point...

The photon would hit the screen whether you have faith in it or not.

 

[atomweaver]

I don't get your point...

The photon would hit the screen whether you have faith in it or not.

Thou unbeliever...! But, fear not!11!one!1! 80's lyrics will make everything clear to you;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSvHpvHFXU0

 

[Holy Roller]

I don't get your point...

The photon would hit the screen whether you have faith in it or not.

"Pre-determined area of the screen."