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Old 05-05-2008, 05:53 PM   #18 (permalink)
Nick Treklis
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Originally Posted by Og View Post
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Originally Posted by Nick Treklis View Post
I don't see how this proves causality to be false. If anything it confirms causality because the photon emission is the cause of you taking one particular action over another meaning the entire scenario is completely deterministic and at the same time unpredictable from the point of the observer.
But the causal chain only goes back to the emission of the photon. Not "the result of infinite causes stretching back endlessly into time"...
There's an uncountable number of causes that contributed to that particular photon emission. The fact that the one photon was previously formed together with the rest of that element in the past, that fact the sun didn't explode incinerating the entire solar system, the fact that another galaxy didn't turn into a giant monster and eat up our galaxy, and of course the fact that that photon is in fact that photon and not anything else in the universe. Indeed everything else in the universe besides that photon is a past cause to it's current state of being. Even the photons past state of being is a cause of its present state of being. Just because the photon is emitted in a way that we can't observe a billiard ball type chain reaction causing it does not mean it wasn't caused.

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Originally Posted by Og View Post
You're saying that photon counters, silicon transistors, and other experimental apparatus for measurement of quantum phenomena represent subjective measurements? Again, check Bell's theorem before going down the path of hidden variable theory.
Absolutely. That equipment is designed the observe the universe in one particular way which leaves out all the other numerous ways in which the universe could potentially be viewed. It's the same way our bodies have evolved to only allow so much information to be picked up by our sense, such as sound, sight, touch, taste, and scent. The Totality can not be viewed in its entirety, in fact it can't be viewed at all. It's objectively formless, all we can do is view infinitely small pieces of it with our senses and the equipment we invent, and even then that equipment only relays the information back to us in a way that our senses can perceive it. Part of being a conscious being means we are inherently limited when viewing the physical universe. If we were constantly being bombarded with an infinite amount of information in infinitely small increments of time for eternity we would not be conscious. One would need a mind that was essentially Nature itself, but as you can see this is logically impossible.

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Originally Posted by Og View Post
You should review the uncertainty principle (another one of those pesky observation based products of science) before banging your head against a wall while seeking absolute certainty.
I stopped banging my head a while ago. There are many things I am absolutely certain of as you should be able to tell from my respones in our discussion.

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Originally Posted by Og View Post
There's nothing naive about my statements. The nature of science prevents corruption by money/status/etc. If you falsify your data, you can/will be thrown out of the scientific community. If you do not show well documented controls and a well thought out process of experiment development, your paper will not be published.

It's a negative feedback control system. All of the practitioners of science regulate science independently and compete. All of them attempt to destroy their colleagues' work and in the process, prevent corruption of individuals and leave only well supported work standing.

Most scientists I know let the observation do the direction. They develop strong theories because of a volume of work on a topic that gives them an understanding of the mechanics of a system. It's got nothing to do with working to prove a theory right.
For most sciences there is not a direct public demand for them in every day life. Many sciences require government subsidies for the continued existence. Think about the cult of man made global warming. These scientists are running in circles trying to prove that man is causing the warming of our planet when in fact Earth has gone through many warming and cooling periods. And the thing is, the carbon cycle follows suit with the climate, not the other way around. Any scientist that disagrees with the man made global warming theory is ostracized and considering a loony, but the real motivation for this behavior is that their institutions and continued research rely on the special interest dictated government money that is given to them for the specific purpose of proving the man made global warming theory true. To this day they have done nothing of the sort.

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Originally Posted by Og View Post
Ever heard of Spectroscopy? Semiconductors? These (and many others) are quantum properties of bulk materials. Want to know what something is made of? Look at it's emission spectrum. Quantum mechanics scales up to properly describe the bulk properties of matter (one of the requisites for a theory).

Mass? Number of atoms * atomic weight of each. There are certainly shortcuts for mass measurement, but if you want to be extremely accurate, you use strict quantum theory. Just because you use a shortcut (like comparing it to another mass on a scale or displacing water with it), doesn't mean that you're in some other "realm" of physics.
And like I said, all of this quantum measurement is done at the sub atomic, i.e quantum level, hence the label Quantum Mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Og View Post
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Originally Posted by Nick Treklis
All Schroedinger's cat does is show the inherent limitations of quantum theory when it is applied beyond the subatomic level. Which if it is applied beyond that level means that something can be two different things simultaneously violating the law of identity, or A=A. It certainly doesn't discredit the fact that all finite phenomena have been infinitely determined.
No. It says that the state of the system is undefined and is described by a probability distribution (i.e. it has a probability associated with each of a spectrum of states). In fact, the system is all of these states weighted with a given probability. This is the meaning of the spherical and other odd-shaped "orbitals" of electrons. They are probability functions. It's not that the particle "exists somewhere in there and we just don't know it." What's the case is that the particle is described by that probability distribution function and it's behavior is indeterminant.
What this shows is that people are taking quantum mechanics and trying to apply it on a universal level which will always lead to illogical conclusions such as an object being two different objects simultaneously. Like I said earlier, just because we can't currently observe a billiard ball type chain reaction going on doesn't mean there aren't causes, such as the examples I provided. Quantum theory ought to remain in it's particular scientific niche otherwise it begins to lose its meaning.

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Originally Posted by Og View Post
A=A does not apply ultimately. There is no exact and absolute identity of a particle. Uncertainty principle makes this clear. If it did, you couldn't get quantum tunneling or state transitions (which produce spectroscopy and semiconductors).
A, which can be substituted with any phenomena will always equal A in any scenario based on what the observer is currently witnessing. It is a logical impossibility for it to be otherwise. Although if you think you have a legitimate example I'd love to hear it. FYI Shroedinger's cat is not a legitimate example. As I've already logically proved it isn't the result of a logical proof demonstrated through quantum mechanics, but a result of quantum mechanics being streched beyond its limits into areas where it can only produce illogical and incoherent conclusions.

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Originally Posted by Og View Post
Don't let what you call "logic" drive you down some path that doesn't match observation. Proofs are based on axioms. The axioms are assumed to be true by definition. But they can never be proved absolutely to be true. That requires science and science doesn't even go that far.
So how did you achieve absolute certainty that these axioms can never be proved absolutely true? Either we accept this axiom at face value and come to terms with fact that it is absolutely true, or we recognize that it is a walking contradiction and therefore meaningless which means it is absolutely false, in turn showing us the real Absolute Truth of the matter. Any way you slice it this logically proves the existence of Absolute Truth that can be understood by us through the use of logic.
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