Do you believe in casuality in real life?

[Pyrotex]

Just because we cannot know a particle's position and velocity at the same time does not mean that casuality does not exist - the Uncertainty Principle is, at its core, a human limitation - particles have a position and velocity similtaneously.

Schroedinger, Pauli, Heisenberg and others (the "fathers" of quantum physics) would disagree with you. The human limitation is in the concepts of "position" and "velocity". They are human approximations that apply only to macro aggregates of matter. At the atomic level, they have limited validity--like the fragrance of the number 7, or the mass of Love.

[pgrmdave]

I know they would disagree with me, but I still stick to what I think. My question to you is - can particles collide? If so, then each particle must 'know' the other particle's position at the time (same as it's own) and must 'know' the other particle's velocity at the time (as it reacts to it).

[Pyrotex]

I know they would disagree with me, but I still stick to what I think. My question to you is - can particles collide? If so, then each particle must 'know' the other particle's position at the time (same as it's own) and must 'know' the other particle's velocity at the time (as it reacts to it).

Yes, they can collide. But not in YOUR sense. You assume an aggregate matter collision with aggregate matter rules. You assume aggregate matter position, and so on and so on. The 'rules' at the quantum level have nothing to do with "position", "velocity", "collisions", "reactions" or any other every-day mundane human conception.

 

And we know this because of the contra-intuitive results we obtain from quantum experiments.

 

You would be right IF and ONLY IF matter and energy were smoothly continuous all the way down to infinitesimal zeros. Reality isn't continuous. All the physics rules you are familiar with cease to be of any application at all once you get down to the realm of the discrete quanta.

[IDMclean]

All the physics rules you are familiar with cease to be of any application at all once you get down to the realm of the discrete quanta.

 

I disagree with this, as I understand it the Physics merely shift gradually as you get further and further down in a very odd way. There would be no search for GUT if what you say is true.

 

I would ask that you provide evidence of your remark.

[Pyrotex]

...I disagree with this, as I understand it the Physics merely shift gradually as you get further and further down in a very odd way. There would be no search for GUT if what you say is true. I would ask that you provide evidence of your remark.

My evidence is: Principles of Quantum Mechanics by R. Shankar, by far the most popularly acclaimed QM textbook currently in existence. The chapter on how QM effects become "visible" at the very small and supplant mundane macro mechanics is especially revealing.

 

Basically, macro mechanics is an emergent phenomenon that arises as the amount of matter (charge, whatever) becomes large enough that the underlying QM effects "average out", revealing the macro effects as the "corporate" behavior. There is no gradual change of law. Macro mechanics applies only to macro aggregates of matter, charge, whatever; the behavior of macro mechanics only arises AFTER you have enough matter, charge, whatever, to cause this new behavior to "emerge" as if out of nothing.

 

The QM laws are fully relevant at ALL scales, but quickly average out effectively to zero unless you are dealing only with a very few "particles" (or even just one). This can give the illusion that as you get smaller and smaller, the laws change from MM to QM. Not so.

 

It's like the movement of a flock of birds. This requires more than one bird for the "flocking behavior" to be evident at all. One bird does what one bird does--but what one bird does is not "flocking". The "flock" behavior only arises AFTER you have enough birds to cause the new behavior to "emerge" as if out of nothing.

[IDMclean]

There is no gradual change of law.

 

Never said that. Merely stated that Physics Changes as it gets to the microscopic level, not that it disappears altogether.

[Pyrotex]

Never said that. Merely stated that Physics Changes as it gets to the microscopic level, not that it disappears altogether.

aaaahhhh, KAC. :cup: I did not intend to say that THAT was YOUR point of view. Rather, it is MY POV.

 

The laws of Physics we all know and love are emergent phenomenon (laws) that rise out of the aggregate of matter. Down at the microscopic level, they DO disappear. They vanish as if they never were. They describe ONLY aggregate matter. Below that, there IS NO aggregate behavior--because there is no aggregated matter.

 

And underneath where the macro mechanics laws had been (and now are vanished)...are the laws of quanta, particles, photons, now revealed in the absence of macro mechanics. The quantum laws that were ALWAYS there, but obscured and hidden by the behavior of aggregated matter.

[cwes99_03]

So anywho, Pyro, would you agree with my understanding of the idea of causality?

 

That if everything in the universe were causal there would be no free will.

[Pyrotex]

So anywho, Pyro, would you agree with my understanding of the idea of causality? That if everything in the universe were causal there would be no free will.

If everything were totally causal and not dependent upon inherent probabilities (uncertainties)... then... hmmmmm... Yes. There would technically (!?!) be no Free Will. However, our behavior would still NOT be predictable, insofar as we can never, ever, NEVER have infinite knowledge of the state of a person.

[hallenrm]

If we believe that there can be causes for any event, even those whose cause we donot know. Then it is quite plausible that the positions of planets etc. may be useful to predict the future of human beings as I had reasoned out in an earlier thread.

[cwes99_03]

TY, thusly I don't believe in strict causality.

[IDMclean]

How about, Locally determined Causuality? In which each piece of the universe (each particle) is it's own local causuality. Other causualities can come into another's and generate a given effect, but the system is inherently delocalized, such that it is on a whole indeterminate...

[cwes99_03]

That is an interesting idea. What causes you to postulate this theory?

 

I believe that there is free will. Thus I believe that there are chains of cause and effect and that these chains very in length, but that any one person can decide to break that chain, if even by happenstance that they choose to do something such as glue a ball on the pool table down so that other balls cannot move it.

[pgrmdave]

How does thought occur?

[IDMclean]

Prgmdave, That is the greatest question that I have encountered yet. It would take a great deal to solve that.

 

I have encountered somethings that throw into doubt the brain-mind-thought origin theorm.

 

The most convincing so far, is the one I know the least about. That plants may very well think. I have studied their anatomy, they don't have a nervous system, or at least a conventional nervous system. They have not a brain, yet they seem to respond to stimulae.

[hallenrm]

How does thought occur?

 

Haven't you gone through my thread, "what is thought"?

[IDMclean]

The Secret Life of Plants

 

My mom is going to lend this to me soon, it should be interesting.