Normal

Cause and effect is a fiction. Modern science discovered a quantum mechanic system, upon which everything is built, that points to randomness. One effect does not happen through one cause by anything other then coincidental phenomena.

This leads me to the most common objection to god's existence from atheists.

There is no evidence for god's existence.

How strikely parsimonious.

Upon what is this conclusion drawn?

Upon the very unparsimonious and fictional system of cause and effect. The definition of evidence (A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment) is in fact a side effect of the cause and effect system. Science is forced to invoke this unparsimonious system, because recognizing chaos for what it is would be very counter-productive.

So here is the question atheists tend to ignore: What is the true, parsimonious reason for apparent order from underlying chaos?

ComestibleVenom

Causation is commonly construed to be the transfer of energy and thus remains an accurate description notwithstanding QM's stochastic structure.

Insofar as it is 'unparsimonious' perhaps you'd be so kind as to develop a heuristic that is more parsimonious and I'm sure the relevant disciplines would put that system to use. Until then, there is nothing uniquely atheistic about the fact that different domains of discourse require different ways of conceptualizing the world for different purposes.

Jamie_L

Well, I'm no quantum physicist, but I think this is an oversimplification.

It's like saying that we never physically touch anything. This whole perception of physical contact is bogus. It's all an interaction of forces. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, fat consolation that is after you get punched in the nose.

The differences in how things behave at a quantum level and a macro level aren't illusions. It's not like when I throw a ball it will land in a completely random location. It's pretty darn deterministic.

The fact that the physical laws of the universe provide a relationship from the apparent chaos to the apparent order? The universe is what it is. That's parsimonious.

Jamie

Asha'man

Utterly untrue.

At the quantum scale, causes are not required, some effects are randomly triggered.

However, that certainly does not say that causes do not exist. All macroscopic events are the statistical summation of enormous numbers of quantum particles. Large numbers of particles don't move in a consistent pattern without a cause. At the macroscopic scale, all of the randomness is averaged out, and the only things that are visible are causes and effects.

Lobstrosity

No, our classical, "intuitive" notions of cause and effect derived from observations in the macroscopic world are fiction with regards to what really happens in the microscopic world. This does not mean that there is no longer any order, that everything that happens is completely and uniformly random. There is still cause and effect; it is just no longer as simple as claiming that performing A with perfect precision will infallibly result time and time again in outcome B.

Quantum processes are inherently random, but the outcomes fall within predictable, measurable probability distributions. This means that the average behavior of a quantum ensemble is fundamentally non-random. This is why macroscopic accumulations of microscopic particles show no signs of the random fluctuations experienced by their constituents. Randomness that conforms to predictable, understandable probability distributions is not equivalent to chaos, which is characterized by complete unpredictability on any level.

You should note that physicists do not postulate that QM requires the existence of a God in order to fend off chaos. God is not part of the theory--it is wholly naturalistic. Now, let's think about this: if the naturalistic theory of QM implied a chaotic, unpredictable universe, it wouldn't be much of a theory, would it? The very fact that it's a theory should reveal the folly of your assertion that such consequences are somehow mysteriously ignored.

Jobar

Not so. Cause and effect seen from a quantum-mechanical viewpoint are not as clear and distinct as they appeared from a classical viewpoint. But at the scale our unaided senses detect, the universe unfailingly behaves according to straightforward physical patterns.

Modern science discovered a quantum mechanic system, upon which everything is built, that points to randomness. One effect does not happen through one cause by anything other then coincidental phenomena.

As Asha'man says, that's wrong. The randomness and unpredictability at very small scales averages out to predictability at the macro scale.

This leads me to the most common objection to god's existence from atheists.

There is no evidence for god's existence.

OK, you have that right.

The definition of evidence (A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment) is in fact a side effect of the cause and effect system. Science is forced to invoke this unparsimonious system, because recognizing chaos for what it is would be very counter-productive.

So here is the question atheists tend to ignore: What is the true, parsimonious reason for apparent order from underlying chaos?

Well, the true answer to this is, we don't know. YET.
We do not claim to know everything, Normal. However, the history of science and human knowledge indicates that we have a good chance of figuring these things out in ways which do not require any god or gods. Even if we *never* discover precise physical theories which explain the "apparent order from underlying chaos" we know right now that simply falling back on 'goddidit' is not an answer. That's just a confused, and confusing, way to say 'we don't know'.

Normal

If the microscopic domain is telling you things are uncaused, and everything at the macroscopic level is made of things from the microscopic level, how do you justify extrapolating a cause and effect system to explain evidence?

You don't have to be a quantum physicist, you just have to know that events at the quantum level are uncaused.

Modern quantum theory would argue it's not deterministic at all. Einstien spent his life trying to find a deterministic solution to quantum mechanics, he failed.

The relationship is an illusion. The universe is what it is, but that doesn't answer the question of your explanation for why it is the way it is when the underlying components are purely chaotic.

All effects are randomly triggered. ALL of them. You cannot predict the momentum and position of a single electron. Not one of them.

Actually, yes it does. There is no cause for an electron to take a certain path, it's random.

Randomness is not "averaged out". If randomness meets more randomness, the result isn't a cancelling out, it's compounded randomness.

Yes, there is still apparent order. I'm asking what's the reason for order when the underlying components are ALL random, keeping in mind the cause and effect system is a fiction.

The electrons fall within predictable distributions, but you still cannot predict a single one of them. This implies that you cannot predict a single cause, because no cause exists, it's random. So again, what is the reason for apparant order with underlying chaos?

They don't postulate anything for the reason of order from chaos. "It's natural" is strangely unsatisfying.

And this is a bit of a paradox, isn't it?

I fail to see how randomness combined with more randomness averages out to less randomness, especially when at the macro scale an arbitrarily large amount of randomness is made up of any given event.

How do you know, your "faith" in naturalism? Which, btw, is based largely on the fictious cause and effect system.

Of course I realize no one knows all the answers. But the thing to realize is that "lack of evidence for god" is based on an unparsimonious system as it is. You aren't being more parsimonious by taking out a system which is based on an already unparsimonious conclusion.

Vorkosigan

I suppose, then, we could deploy your argument against all the theists who claim that since the universe is rational, god must exist.....

Vorkosigan

Bookwyrm

I don't know much about quantum physics, so I have no idea if this is the right answer, but I would imagine it would be similar to the way that when you roll one six sided die you can't predict whether you're going to get a six or a one, but when you roll an arbitrarily large number of dice you know that the mean will be 3.5.

triplew00t

The quantum randomness is still bound by regularity within a macrocosm. We may not know where any given electron is, but we know that it is within a probability field, and that stimulation of that field can increase the chance of finding it in any given area. It may be randomly between point a and point b, but it IS within that area of probability. Therefore, it IS deterministic, but QM allows a wide range of randomness, but not complete chaos.

-Nero