Starboy

K, there are some tricky issues regarding entangled states and causality. I am not up on them but is that what you are talking about.

Starboy

K

RJS:

You also might want to search on Black Body Radiation, Wave Particle Duality, and DeBroglie Waves.

Quantum mechanics is extremely counter-intuitive for macroscopic being like ourselves. But a good primer can walk you through the basics. Many people don't have the mathematical background to solve Schroedinger's Wave Equation (it's been well over a decade since I've had the pleasure). But even without that level of detail, the plausibility of quantum mechanics becomes readily apparent when viewed in light of some of the early experiments that led to its development.

K

Starboy:

I'm talking about even simpler things than that (I assume you're talking about Bell's Theorem). I'm only referencing a quantum superposition of states. At quantum decoherence, the resultant state will be a random selection (bad word I know) of one of the allowed states. The final state is therefore a noncausal change to the superposition.

Starboy

K,

Yes, the strange world of wave/particle duality.

Starboy

Shadowy Man

It's not strange at all. Only our understanding of it is strange.

K

RJS:

I'm not sure you've had time to look at any of the q.m. stuff yet, but can you see how it would wreak havok with the First Cause defense?

RJS

Looked, read some of it, read this thread....still thinking

I likely have an issue with the whole concept of since we cant know the exact position or momentum of a given particle at a given time, then its movements are uncaused. Seems like a leap of faith to me And I certainly am not qualified to debate it! Heck, if Einstein had issues with it for many years, what can I expect

It reminds me of the other theory that talks about time and the 10 to the -47 of a second of time being the smallest measurable amount of time. Therefore we can trace all the way back to 10 to the -47th of a second after the Big Bang, but since we cant measure anything smaller, it makes no sense to ask what caused the Big Bang (or something along those lines). It seems like a scientific excuse for avoiding the really really big questions.

jmho.

Liquidrage

K,

I suggest you look into EPR and even perhaps hidden variables before stating that the quantum world does not adhere to causality.

It is a highly debated topic in physics right now.
I also don't believe the issues are related. The quantum world is a result of a first cause (if a first cause even is a reality which it might not be) not the trigger. Though you can apply it to inflation, but inflationary theories do not start at a first cause.

Edited to add.
Your first cause definition will not suffice. Simply saying "outside the universe" is not enough. First Cause requires a cause that was uncaused. It doesn't matter where the cause comes from, simply saying "outside the universe" does not in any way imply that the cause was the first. Nor do I believe in the term "outside the universe". The universe doesn't need a board and anything you label "outside" I can rightfully say is "inside".

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: Liquidrage ]</p>

K

Liquidrage:

I agree that the non-causality of quantum mechanics is not an absolute proven - nothing in physics or any science ever is. However, the non-causal assumption has (to this point anyway) been more accepted. If I remember correctly attempts at hidden variables have resulted in extremely complex and unworkable solutions that come nowhere close to the grace and elegance of simple non-causality. This certainly doesn't mean that quantum mechanics guarantees non-causality. But it does suggest it very strongly.

My point was not to say that quantum mechanics is an explanation for the universe coming into existence. My point was that the premise, "Every event in the universe has a cause," is on extremely shaky ground. To invalidate a proof, it is only necessary to invalidate a premise - it is not necessary to provide an alternate explanation.

Axiom of Choice

Shadowy Man,
In fact we can tell whether events in quantum mechanics have some unknown cause or not. What you are referring to is the theory of hidden variables, which was conclusively ruled out some years ago (I think it was Bell's inequality, which someone else here referred to, but I could be mistaken on that). Basically, the idea is that if there are hidden variables, you see events with different long term probabilities than if there aren't. Since we don't see the predicted probabilities of the hidden variable theory, there aren't any hidden variables. So certain events in the universe are indeed uncaused by anything.

You are certainly right about our thinking on the wave particle duality though. It is a artifact of the mathematics used to describe them: we use wave equations sometimes, and equations for particles other times. The usage persists because the math is so damn useful. Plus, saying a photon is a wave or a particle depending on the circumstances is alot more descriptively useful than saying that a photon is a photon. We already knew that.