PJPSYCO

Absorptions are readily known. You learn about them in spectroscopy 101. Visible and ultra violet absorptions are changes in electronic states. Infrared absorptions are atomic vibrations. Far infrared is the rotations of small molecules(2 atoms), and microwaves are the rotations of polyatomic molecules(3 or more atoms).

As a note: Einstein is not a leading scientist. He has not been since he died in 1955. Science has come a long way since then.

Also, you should note that extraneoues to the fact that you have shown severe lacking of knowledge of the material. Your theory is being rejected on its own merit. Science is to quesiton. Your theory was questioned and you said that you were unwilling to answer the quesitons because from what I understand from what you said, you can't.

Normal

What does that have to do with casuality reduced to indeterminism?

I was giving a well known example of a scientist who had a problem with the implications of quantum mechanics.

Just one question: What question were you asking me?

PJPSYCO

You asked how atoms make something blue. You stated that we did not know how. I gave the how. It had nothing to do with the rest of it.

I understand what you were doing with Einstein, however, it went far to prove your point since he is not the ultimate authority on quantum. In addition to that there is an excessive amount of data that he never had. So, he is not a good example. Since of course your inferring that we all are of the same level as him, and that is questionable if you have kept up to date on the current papers.

I asked you how this "god" worked. If it was more that just that force you said. The sentiment was repeated by Jinto. You ignored me, and you started arguing with Jinto about it by switching the argument about the defintion of a chair. So Jinto gave up, and did your suggestion and infered the defintion of a god like he would a chair. You said that he was wrong. I would infer the same concept of a god if told to. You won't redefine it so that we know what you are babling about. So, the simple inference is that you don't even know what you are balbing about. You seem to know very little about the supernatural.

Your cloud example is good to show where your theories are lacking.

You said: "You ultimately have no reason to believe that cloud will rain because it is fundamentally uncaused."

That is wrong, rain is caused by salt content in the cloud. When the salt content gets high enough it rains. This is becuase the water droplets are now heavy enough to have gravity be a stronger force than density organisation. This is not even hard information to get. Most meterologists can inform you of this fact. It is why they seed clouds. To seed a cloud is to send a cloud of salt particles into it to make it rain.

You say that quantum effects are uncaused. You sighted the color of a material, which I just explained to you how that works. I, and a number of others in this thread explained HUP a number of times.

However, when I ask how your god works, you, as I said, ignored me.

Normal

Sorry for ignoring this comment, I looked back in the thread and found this:

I don't demand you accept anything as truth. I wasn't trying to "prove god" in this thread, I was trying to show an inconsistancy in eliminating god due to parsimony.

No, I said we do know how blue can be reduced to atoms. I specifically said we do know how blue can be reduced to colorless atoms. Here's what I said:

The "how" is not missing for color, so it is appropriate to reduce color to colorless.

Of course we have progressed, in certain areas. There have been many developments on the theory since 1955. As it stands however, indeterminism is still apparent at the quantum level. The Many-World interpretation claims to eliminate this, but there really is no reason to believe that it is.

I made a deal with Jinto. He provides an sufficient definition of chair and I'd provide a definition of god. The one he provided was absurd, as I parodied it, and he hasn’t put forward an alternate definition since. To expect me to define something so that it won’t come under scrutiny when he can’t is special pleading.

Those are all the apparent causes, but ultimately they reduce to indeterminate processes at the quantum level, and therefore are fundamentally uncaused.

You stop your explaination at the last level that you can explain, that is, salt content and water droplets.

I know how the HUP works. It's function does not help answer the question.

Sorry again for ignoring you. Again: The point of this thread was not for me to define god, but to point out an inconsistancy in using parsimony to remove god.

ComestibleVenom

Normal,
First of all, your attack is based in a misconception. You have made absolutely no attempt to address this crucial failure. Secondly, you have in no way defended God via your mistaken attack on science.

Honestly, how do you expect to have a debate on a topic who's basic terms you don't understand?
Determinism: "given complete knowledge of the state and physical rules at a given point in time, all future events are uniquely determined by past events." This is the standard definition of determinism.
In an indeterministic system, [/b]the rules may be fully known[/b]: Given knowledge of a state and the rules of physics, future events are not uniquely determined by past events.
This is the proper distinction between an indeterminstic and deterministic. Knowledge of the rules has nothing to do with the distinction.
I suggest you read Daniel Dennett's essay "Real Patterns" which I think can be found in his book Brain Children. It asks the question "just what is a REAL pattern". The answer is simple: the reality of fit between a pattern and description can only be evaluated as a spectrum. Newtonian mechanics undeniably predicts and describes an enormous amount about our universe. Correspondingly, there is a great deal outside it's scope.
Your contention that there is no extent to which it is true is baldly false. Once you accept that there can be extents of truth, you cannot ignore the fact that causal descriptions are a paradigmatic example of this sort of thing.
The fact that stochastic elements can combine to produce reliable regularities is no mystery, and the reason for it is compelling and it has been repeated numerous times in numerous places along this thread. Not once have you given the slightest sign that this has penetrated into your brain.
You can in fact derive from QM (to whatever extent is computationally possible at this time) the sort of macroscopic-like properties which drive us to 'reduce' classical physics to quantum mechanics. We can describe macroscopic properties of a compass needle in quantum mechanical terms. There is no missing step, reduction does not require the logical or perfect structural compatibility of theories.
Taken from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Intentionality is the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs."
My answer is then of the utmost simplicity. A structure/process (such as a quantum mechanical system, such as a newtonian system...) is not intentional where it is not a representational system. Once again, representational systems have to evolve. They don't get that way by fluke.
Complex and useless = God.
And you are absolutely, right. God-theory can hardly said to be parsimonious. That's exactly what I would claim.
Originally posted by ComestibleVenom
it's not an addition to our ontology but a simplification for our scientific practice.

I don't know of any physicist or philosopher who would agree with you. There is no such thing as classical causation or it's like independent of quantum mechanical systems.
Your claim that causation is unparsimonious depends upon your confused assumption that it is both. But it is not both, and naturalists do not believe that it is both. Thus, your argument has done nothing but impugn your own understanding rather than demonstrating a fundamental flaw in science.

Normal

Could I ask you to point out this misconception?

I don't know why you continue to harp on this subtle point. The temporal relationship is exactly what I'm talking about when I say "rules".

There is a sense in which it is explanatory. It makes things simpler, even. But it is an excessive fiction, when looking at the world with quantum knowledge, making it unparsimonious.

You're wrong here. Logical deduction does require compatibility, ie. black cat to colorless atoms. But this line of thought also betrays another point: it is also a problem of induction, ie causeless foundations to unparsimonious conclusions.

So the question then becomes, since quantum mechanical systems are a representation of reality, is reality intentional?

Based on what? Induction via newtonian mechanics?

There is no flaw in science, but a flaw in logic. Specifically, the parsimony stance against god.

ComestibleVenom

"Is this perhaps a case in which holding out for perfection - a job-related disability in philosophers- conceals the best path?" -Daniel Dennett "Freedom Evolves"

Normal,

Your claim has been that causation is logically incompatible with Quantum Mechanics and cannot be reduced to it. The naturalist, in accepting causation into his scientific discourse is actually committing to an unparsimonious theory. Thus, the claim goes, atheistic criticism of God based upon the idea of parsimony is foiled by cases where the atheist falls prey to his own argument.

Is the above a fair representation of your argument?

The main thesis I am positing is twofold: heuristic models, "inferior" scientific models stripped down to simple functionality are not, in any relevant sense, optional for human understanding. When reduced models are recognized as such, no new, particle, no new physical process, no new dimension is required to integrate them into your epistemological framework. No ontological addition is involved, and the functional efficacy and speed of scientific investigation can be vastly increased.

Bridging theories built around inter-theoretic reductions (or other theoretical comparisons) provide the means of thinking about reduction that permits the use of simplified models (r) like the bohrs atomic model without actually positing structures, processes or patterns not subsumed by underlying reducing theories. (R) (No neat atomic rings around the nucleus.)

The bridging principles provide the toolbox giving us the medium language for specifying which aspects of a putative pattern are versimilous. If well constructed, it also provides information on how we may be mislead when the modest scope of the theory is misapplied.

We look at how light is scattered or absorbed by the material of the cat and at how the human perceptual system is set up to discriminate between colours. This sort of informations relies on numerous mid- and high-level theories and is quite simply beyond human reach otherwise.

High-level considerations (like cheating on lab results, a class of behavior you can't really characterize in quantum mechanical terms. This behavior can, however be characterized in terms of human behavior which can subsequently be described in terms of muscles and bones which reduces to protein then to atoms then quarks... ) can even lead to changes to our underlying theories. Not bad for mere fictions!


The exclusive use of low-level theories would result in the greatest and most expensive difficulty being required to answer utterly simple questions. (Forget looking at the shape of the doll's joints, a mere 100,000 years of calculation is much more "parsimonious" way to find which direction the doll will flop.)

You again misuse the term parsimony in your claim that causation is unparsimonious. (ie. the theory invokes more complex systems in the world without a corresponding gain in explanatory power.) Causal (geological, evolutionary, social...) explanations require no extra process or particle in addition to the underlying physical substructure upon which social, evolutionary, geological and yes, causal phenomenon depend.

Originally posted by ComestibleVenom
"God-theory can hardly said to be parsimonious."
Normal replied:
Based on the properties attributed to God such as unlimited power, intelligence and being an irreducible fundament of the universe. Whatever reasons there are to believe in God - comfort, social acceptance or fear - epistemological virtue is not among them.


Normal,(actually you can to a well defined extent.)

There's no mystery in the fact that regularities can exist in stochastic (random or pseudo-random) systems. Whether the roulette table or nuclear decay randomizes the casino game, the house always wins in the end.


ComestibleVenom

Normal

I'd say you put it pretty well.

NOw I see your argument which you clearly outlined as well, that the system of causation is an addition, but it offers some degree of explanatory power within it's limits. I'd agree with this, but that does not make it suddenly parsimonious. If we could predict each electrons successive state, we could know the state of the whole system (the universe) at any future state. The predictive power of this is staggering and well beyond the possibilities for Newtonian mechanics. Quantum mechanics tells us that there should be errors, or at least inconsistancies, in the macroscopic world, do to the fundamentally uncaused nature of it. Being able to predict successive states would remove any doubt of these inconsistancies, because we would understand the whole system.

I understand your point about brigding theories, but it also reveals my point as well. The Bohr model has explanatory power for describing what an atom looks like, but the strict orbitals are unrealistic. There is some predictive power in the model itself, but there is more in other models. The same can be said of Newtonian heuristics. It offers some predictive power, but only within it's limits.

You say:

But now we are talking about the scope of the universe, and fundamental existence. We must use the broadest possible theory when making conclusions about such a question.

Within one hueristic, yes. Within another, the outcome may yet be uncertain.

ComestibleVenom

Originally posted by Normal
And the broadest, most effective, ultimately most reliable possible theory framework involves huge chunks of the whole scope of human discourse. The physical sciences play an important role, but they are very far from the whole. That is my point, and that is why causation is a legitimate part of that system. Atheists have not in fact ignored such questions because it is at the heart of what it means to be human.

Normal

So now it's down to proving based on what is most important to be human? Can't say I can argue at all

CV - It has been a pleasure debating with you. I must commend you for your politeness throughout. I'm going to be returning to university soon and won't be able to post here for a while. I must say our debate provoked at least a few not minor questions for myself.