cardboard adolescent

there are several interpretations of quantum mechanics that retain causality, so it's not quite time to throw it out the window. however, even if you say quantum processes are indeterminate, that's still indeterminate as opposed to... which is to say, now the universe has another neat duality: impulsive randomness on a small scale, continuous interconnectedness on a large scale. of course, you can't say that a quantum event happens 'for no reason,' you can only realize that on a certain level we no longer have the capacity to trace the 'cause' with reason.

the very fact that habit forms out of chaos might imply some sort of guiding force? is that so absurd?

Guybrush

I agree with you and you'll see that I used terms like "as far as we think we know today" and "seems to just happen" meaning of course we don't know/have any good explanations and base this on observation, but we might know better in the future.

edit :

What do you mean by the way by interpretations of quantum mechanics that retain causality? I assume you mean stuff like String theory?

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cardboard adolescent

the two big ones i was thinking of are bohmian mechanics (which tries to give an actual particle trajectory account of quantum observations, even gets around Bell's theorem by giving up locality) and many-worlds interpretation. if einstein's response to qm is "god does not play dice," many-worlds' retort is, "yes he does, but when he rolls them all faces present themselves"

Guybrush

Bohmian mechanics are very controversial and has some evidence against it I think because of it's reliance on hidden variables that have so far proven undetectable, although I'm no expert on that subject. Of course, maybe we just don't know.

String theory I think says that tiny particles could move around in more dimensions than the traditional 4 but that we are not able to percieve these extra dimensions. As such, it can also potentially explain these paradoxes that quantum physics deal with.

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cardboard adolescent

at the cost of a brand new paradox: living in an unimaginable universe.

also, the deal with hidden variables is that for the most part bell's theorem rules them out, but bohmian mechanics gets around that by giving up locality. according to its proponents, it's empirically identical to cophenhagen interpretation. of course, there's probably only a handful of people who could actually prove that.

Kamikazi Kat

Hmmm... If the explanation for the universe is God, then the explanation for the existance of God is something, and the explanation to the existance of that something is something else, and the explanation to that something else could be a different something, and the explanation for the existance of the previous something could be something else, and the explanation for that could be something else, ect, ect.

You know what, screw this.

Freebase Dali

You already did.

But to Tore, I understand what you mean when you speak of probabilities and randomness in regard to quantum physics. But I have trouble accepting that it's not possible that we just don't currently know the causality behind the unexplainable happenings in quantum sciences. This is to say that there could be a rational cause to the effects we're looking at as random.
Regardless of how far we think we are and how much we think we know, there is invariably a perception-changing discovery around every corner.

I mean that to tie into the cosmological argument for causality. It seems natural to me to assume that something exists because there were two things prior: The condition for something to exist, and the physical creation of its existence, by whatever means fitting.

Although I do not apply laws of physics that are native to our reality when viewing possible processes taking place prior to the creation of the universe, I do apply logic to the overall understanding of what I observe and learn as a reasoning human being.

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cardboard adolescent

^^ i would recommend reading into bell's theorem if you want to understand the possibility of regaining causality in quantum mechanics. due to quantum entanglement and what einstein called "action at a distance," there is a genuine logical limit to causality which we can't simply think around.

Guybrush

I feel the same way, actually, I think it might seem random because we don't know what causes it, but we might in the future. However, I also do think that the causal argument is unsatisfying because it is limitless. If everything is a consequence of something before it, then you believe in a chain of events - cause and consequence - that stretches into infinity. To me, that's unsatisfactory. As such, I'm open to the idea that that at some point, stuff might just happen. If you wanna claim that I don't know what to believe, well, you'd be right.

(I'm also unsatisfied with the many worlds theory that seems to give a reason to such events, but that reason is that it took place here because it didn't take place in any of the other worlds.)

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Freebase Dali

Ah yes, you mean the theory of multiple universes?
Yea, that seems like a way to get as far away from intelligent design as possible. I fall somewhere in the middle of that whole rift.
It's hard to say, really, when I don't know as much as the guys who're proposing these theories to begin with.

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