Laurel or Yanny? - Page 5 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Laurel
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Yanny
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#14917280
Rugoz wrote:Which is frankly irrelevant mumbo-jumbo.


The correct term is logic, but we all make mistakes. ;)

Rugoz wrote:All that matters is that I know when I do something, it leads to something else, and that's what observation can provide.


Correct, which only means that people observe correlations and sequences, not causes. Nothing more and nothing less. :eh:

Congrats, you have advanced nothing.

Rugoz wrote:I can see the problem, but I would argue there are definitely sensations that are felt and expressed almost equally by everyone. Needless to say an equal brain at an equal state would always report the same sensation.


Besides the fact you cannot prove this as an absolute, but only by induction (which is also a fallacy arguing from part-to-whole), it is still quite irrelevant to the problem that you and everyone else can see. No causal relationship between brains and thought can be established from observation and this is ultimately because the constituent elements of phenomenal states (the mental) are irreducible and our knowledge of physical properties reduces to our observation of said-properties (the mental/phenomenal).

Essentially, everyone is trying to put the cart-before-horse in trying to reduce the irreducible mental-content/sensations, etc to physical properties (which are in fact reducible to the mental/sensations). They do this because they are not willing to accept the philosophical conclusion demanded by logic.

Which is that the scientific worldview of physicalism is an abject failure and that the Occamist worldview of Berkeley remains what it has always been: irrefutable and (for some unknown reason) unpopular.



[Berkeley's arguments] "admit of no answer and produce no conviction."

- David Hume.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14917288
Rugoz wrote:That's a good point. Looks like acceleration is needed.

At least we're making some progress.... :roll:

But even if we have an acceleration, what is 'causing' that acceleration? The best candidate is the 'force' acting on the system. But does this actually 'cause' the acceleration? Both the force and the acceleration occur simultaneously, and it would be logically just as correct to say that the acceleration 'causes' the force. Every element in the cosmos is part of a complex inter-related 'dance' with every other element. There are certain regularities in this dance, which we call 'laws of physics', and which we can express in mathematical form. But these regularities are time-reversible, and have nothing whatever to do with causality.

You can derive a solution for position at any time by integrating the equation of motion, but an integral is just a sum of changes. Many differential equations don't have a closed-form solution anyway and can only be solved numerically (e.g. 3-body problem).

Yes. So? :eh:

Point is, if time moves in one direction (either forward or backward), and the current state can only be expressed in changes from an original state, that implies causation for me.

Maybe it does, but that tells us more about you than it does about the physical universe. The point is that if we mentally reverse the arrow of time, then the laws of motion look the same and we still have changes from a 'previous', or prior, state. But we can have changes without necessarily having any causality, as this thought-experiment demonstrates.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14917300
@Rugoz

It's just occurred to me that what you refer to as 'causality' is what is more properly called 'the principle of determinism' - the idea that any given physical state of a system must give rise necessarily to only one possible successor state of that system. In that sense the previous state of the system as a whole can be said to be the necessary and sufficient condition for its succeeding states. This is not the same thing as causality - Newton's laws of motion are deterministic without being conceptually based on causality. But not even the principle of determinism is true, as the Young two-slit experiment demonstrates. Repeating the same experiment with the apparatus in the same physical state as before can give rise to completely different observations - where exactly on the screen the electron will be observed is random. So, either way, you're still wrong. Lol.
#14917302
Potemkin wrote:So, either way, you're still wrong. Lol.


:lol:
By Decky
#14917310
If nothing is predetermined then why is just going going for "a drink" always at least 4 drinks and going for "a few" drinks is always somewhere is always in the region of 8-10 and going on a session is always a nice big messy night.
User avatar
By Rugoz
#14917316
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Congrats, you have advanced nothing.


:eh: Have you?

Victoribus Spolia wrote:They do this because they are not willing to accept the philosophical conclusion demanded by logic.


Which are?

Potemkin wrote:It's just occurred to me that what you refer to as 'causality' is what is more properly called 'the principle of determinism' - the idea that any given physical state of a system must give rise necessarily to only one possible successor state of that system. In that sense the previous state of the system as a whole can be said to be the necessary and sufficient cause of its succeeding states. This is not the same thing as causality - Newton's laws of motion are deterministic without being conceptually based on causality. But not even the principle of determinism is true, as the Young two-slit experiment demonstrates. Repeating the same experiment with the apparatus in the same physical state as before can give rise to completely different observations - where exactly on the screen the electron will be observed is random. So, either way, you're still wrong. Lol.


Why has determinism nothing to do with causality? There's even a term called "causal determinism".

Regarding Quantum mechanics. The fact that the observations were different doesn't mean they weren't statistically determined. If you repeat the experiment you will get exactly the predicted distribution of observations. In other words, you can exactly predict the probability for an observation to fall within any interval.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14917325
Rugoz wrote:Why has determinism nothing to do with causality? There's even a term called "causal determinism".

If causality and determinism were the same thing, then there would be no need to qualify the word 'determinism' with the word 'causal', would there? :)

Regarding Quantum mechanics. The fact that the observations were different doesn't mean they weren't statistically determined. If you repeat the experiment you will get exactly the predicted distribution of observations. In other words, you can exactly predict the probability for an observation to fall within any interval.

In other words, the probability wave is described using a deterministic equation (the Schroedinger equation). This is true, but it is still a fact that the actual observations in any given experiment are random. This randomness seems to be built into the very nature of physical reality itself, and is irreducible to any 'underlying' deterministic mechanism (pace the 'hidden variables' theories). In other words, the principle of determinism is flat-out wrong.
#14917327
Rugoz wrote:Have you?


Sure, that there is no cause that can be inferred from observation.

Rugoz wrote:Which are?


Read the following paragraph in that post. Obviously. :eh:
By Sivad
#14917444
Potemkin wrote:Indeed. Aside from having a certain heuristic value, the concept of causality is of limited value in modern (by which I mean post-Newtonian) physics. Newton's great conceptual breakthrough was to stop thinking in terms of causality and start thinking in terms of abstract rules which Nature must obey, and which can be expressed mathematically. Your view of science seems to be Aristotelian.


No Place for Causes?
Assessing Causal Skepticism in Physics


User avatar
By Rugoz
#14917517
Sivad wrote:No Place for Causes?
Assessing Causal Skepticism in Physics


Thanks. Very useful.

Potemkin wrote:In other words, the probability wave is described using a deterministic equation (the Schroedinger equation). This is true, but it is still a fact that the actual observations in any given experiment are random. This randomness seems to be built into the very nature of physical reality itself, and is irreducible to any 'underlying' deterministic mechanism (pace the 'hidden variables' theories). In other words, the principle of determinism is flat-out wrong.


I think it's safe to say I reject any non-deterministic interpretation of quantum theory (with my limited knowledge of it). Wave function collapse is super fishy.

Either way, your claim was that causation plays no role in modern physics, of which classical mechanics is a part of. So ultimately I still need an answer to the question why there should be no link between determinism and causality, because it seems intuitively obvious to me.

Edit: From Sivad's paper:
And determinism together with a temporal asymmetry constitute what Niels Bohr called a “causal description” and which rests on the “assumption
that the knowledge of the state of a material subsystem at a given time permits the prediction of its state at
any subsequent time” (Bohr 1948).


Victoribus Spolia wrote:Sure, that there is no cause that can be inferred from observation.


Which is trivial and irrelevant.

Victoribus Spolia wrote:Read the following paragraph in that post. Obviously.


This one?

Victoribus Spolia wrote:Which is that the scientific worldview of physicalism is an abject failure and that the Occamist worldview of Berkeley remains what it has always been: irrefutable and (for some unknown reason) unpopular.


I don't know what you mean.
By Sivad
#14917530
Rugoz wrote: I think it's safe to say I reject any non-deterministic interpretation of quantum theory (with my limited knowledge of it). Wave function collapse is super fishy.


Image
This book presents the deterministic view of quantum mechanics developed by Nobel Laureate Gerard 't Hooft.

Dissatisfied with the uncomfortable gaps in the way conventional quantum mechanics meshes with the classical world, 't Hooft has revived the old hidden variable ideas, but now in a much more systematic way than usual. In this, quantum mechanics is viewed as a tool rather than a theory.

The author gives examples of models that are classical in essence, but can be analysed by the use of quantum techniques, and argues that even the Standard Model, together with gravitational interactions, might be viewed as a quantum mechanical approach to analysing a system that could be classical at its core. He shows how this approach, even though it is based on hidden variables, can be plausibly reconciled with Bell's theorem, and how the usual objections voiced against the idea of ‘superdeterminism' can be overcome, at least in principle.

This framework elegantly explains - and automatically cures - the problems of the wave function collapse and the measurement problem. Even the existence of an “arrow of time" can perhaps be explained in a more elegant way than usual. As well as reviewing the author’s earlier work in the field, the book also contains many new observations and calculations. It provides stimulating reading for all physicists working on the foundations of quantum theory.
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319412849


User avatar
By Potemkin
#14917675
Rugoz wrote:I think it's safe to say I reject any non-deterministic interpretation of quantum theory (with my limited knowledge of it). Wave function collapse is super fishy.

Agreed. The main problem with it is that it's not time-reversible. Nevertheless, the standard interpretation of quantum theory is non-deterministic, in the sense that although the wavefunction evolves according to a deterministic equation, any actual observed value (e.g., of position) is random. This is, after all, just what we mean by a 'probability' wave.

Either way, your claim was that causation plays no role in modern physics, of which classical mechanics is a part of. So ultimately I still need an answer to the question why there should be no link between determinism and causality, because it seems intuitively obvious to me.

Look at it this way: imagine a universe consisting of only a finite number of bodies moving in space, none of which ever collide with each other (e.g., they follow parallel or diverging worldlines). Such a universe would be deterministic, but acausal. We can therefore have determinism without causality.
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