Kalam Cosmological argument

Craig's argument that an "actual infinite" doesn't exist is that he finds Hilbert's Hotel Paradox problematic. Err, so??? I find the Times Crossword problematic but it doesn't lead me to conclude it doesn't exist. If you think that forms a proof of anything, then you are sadly mistaken.But Craig's biggest problem is his antiquarian view of time, as if events in time are somehow ticked off. He is suffering from the very human conceptualisation of time of which you outrageously accused me

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The future is potentially infinite, since it does not exist; but the past is actual in a way the future is not, as evidenced by the fact that we have traces of the past in the present, but no traces of the future. Hence, if the series of past events never began to exist, there must have been an actually infinite number of past events.

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Thus speaks the man with no clue as to the nature of relativity and space-time.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

But you are good enough still to say it and it allows me to be more precise in my reply. And it's also just the way I teach, despite it infuriating most of my students. Actually, "because of" rather than "despite" First off, let's not conflate issues: knowing momentum and position of a particle is a different concept to the deacy and spin. It is not that the momentum and position are simultaneously unknowable - the actual concept does not exist. And this has nothing to do with this "cause" discussion we are having.Not knowing the moment of radioactive decay or the spin of an electron is only a case of unknowable from the POV of random "collapse" of the WF. There is no collapse in decoherence, just interaction between the WFs of the object under scrutiny, its environment, and the observer, which successively narrow the WF until we call it a collapse. This is deterministic, essentially obeying the SE just as in normal QM.

Ah, well, here we have a problem. If you want to use commonly accepted layperson translations of quantum theory to extrapolate to discussions of the "beginning of the universe" then you may as well skip off into la-la land. As I often repeat, you cannot do physics with analogies - you cannot extrapolate layperson understanding. You just end up talking nonsense.If you would rather me not interject when I detect such bullsh..., er, extrapolations, just say the word and I'll leave you all to wallow in talking crap. No, not really. I just get itchy when I see either side starts using invalid layperson knowledge to "prove" a point. I say, "no that's invalid", and the inevitable response is "why?". Some are interested in delving deeper, others are not. NO. THERE IS NO COLLAPSE IN DECOHERENCE. It is all deterministic. That is the point...Now decogerence is not cut and dry, but it is a very respectable possibility. Thus we cannot claim with certainty that there are
uncaused occurances.

You're kidding, right? Have you read any of the BB&C threads in which I've participated? If so, how can you possibly write this? It's all I try and do... that and bash anti-cosmology YECs. Remember that time I spent trying to explain cosmological red-shifts... and what do you think I've been doing in these last few posts with you?Perhaps I missed off one too many smilies as you seem to have taken umbridge at something. I can assure you nothing was written suggesting you should know better, other than when you started getting testy.Of course there are approaches but it just requires flexibility on the part of the layperson to realise and accept that things are not necessarily so clear cut as the layperson interpretation would have them believe. And it takes some effort to digest the ideas.And in a thread like this, where in-depth discussions of quantum physics is sort-of OT, I'll simply butt-in and point out that such and such is not really valid. And I simply pointed out that things are not so simple, and thus the rebuttal fails. In the same way that as soon as someone mentions virtual particles in the context of the universe-from-nothing, I jump in and point out that this is bogus.If you want a thread on modern quantum ideas, you only have to say Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Ahhh, I see that was a royal "you". As in, the Copenhagen Interpretation (CI) presents the probability as a be-all and end-all and hence we sit in ignorance of the true cause. Poor phrasing on my part I guess... you should learn to understand what I mean, not what I write Rarely. The simplifications typically are too great. Is this surprising? The analogies/pictures can certainly bring understanding, but so much is missing that extrapolation is bound to go wrong sooner rather than later. It doesn't take long to see the shortcomings of a first order approximation to a parabola...I personally think hat most common layman descriptions are fairly hopeless. You may have noticed that my own style is quite different, and I strive to explain things in a way that gives a bit better than a first order approximation, that does enable some level of putting 2 and 2 together and getting close to 4. I certainly see this is numerous other posters' comments in BB&C. I don't make "assertions", Percy, I tell it as it is. I have no allegiance here other than to an accurate portrayel of physics/mathematics. I don't back-up "assertions". I explain the background of my comments if asked.In this case, I already have done so, though obviouly not clearly enough. The "collapse" portion of the CI is a bugbear, a cludge that does not really fit. This has been recognised since its inception. In decoherence and similar mechanisms, there is no collapse. What we think of collapse is just the observable's wavefunction becoming more and more sharply peaked (i.e. approaching what we would call a definite state - decohering) through interaction with the wavefunctions of its environment and that of the observing apparatus. We think that gravitons play a large role in this decoherence.As there is no collapse, there is just deterministic evolution of the wavefunctions. And hence there are no uncaused actions.

How can it be? Where does the non-determinism creep in if there is no "collapse"?

You haven't, you're presenting the standard Copenhagen Interpretation... no problem at all. Except that these days, the CI is not necessarily the end of the story. Yes, standard wave mechanics. This is "collapse of the wave-function" according to the CI.This two-fold nature of QM (wave-mechanics and collapse) has always been a sticking point. In decoherence, the "collapse" is done away with, leaving a much more elegant theory and regaining determinism.In the case of your electron, the superposed wavefunction evolves deterministically (or decoheres) towards a Spin-Up wavefunction or Spin-Down wavefunction, depending upon the environment in which it interacts. This environment necessarily includes the observer. To keep the mixed state, you have to protect it from the environment. To observe it, you must necessarily interact with it and hence start the process of decoherence. This is why we have a quantum scale and a classical scale, the classical scale is just where it is too damn hard to protect a state from the environment, other than for staggeringly short time-scales. In the middle, you have the atomic scale where you can keep states from decohering for just a little while.It is still impossible to calculate which state the electron will end up in - there are billions of interactions at play in the underlying fields.Yes, it is much more complex than this. I apologise. And I'm sorry if my explanations don't do it justice. But if someone states something based upon a layperson understanding of science that is incorrect, or not necessarily true, I will continue to point that out irrespective of the ease or difficulty of explaining why that is the case. But in all cases, if someone wants to know why, I will attempt to explain...

Yes, that's right - IF we accept decoherence as the principle behind QM. But it has yet to be established... the problem is it doesn't actually make any difference to 99.9% of practitioners who use QM. No, not wrong at all. I'm just trying to explain that the idea of non-determinism isn't so clear cut. I'm simply saying we can't be so dogmatic about your list of uncaused actions. It is worth being cautious. Not for the first time You'll just have to wait for my book to come out... Decoherence is sufficiently new, still being developed, not known or understood by the popularisers, and it is always safer to play the party line. I'm not trying to say they are wrong and decoherence is correct. I'm simply pointing out that a very sound alternative to the CI exists, and is still being developed.

Yes, this can be your layman inspired response, Percy. It demonstrates your ignorance of quantum and relativistic research over the past twenty years. It also demonstrates your ignorance of the state of thought concerning "collapse" and the CI amongst quantum theoreticians over the past eighty years. Not that you can be blamed for such ignornace, because you are not a research quantum/relativistic physicist... why should you know? But your response is still one from ignornace. As you should know, I'm not saying this becasue I've read it somewhere, but because I used to live and work in the centre of all this.A much more reasonable comparison would be with the singularity of the Big Bang. It is taught ad-nauseam in popular science. Would I ever criticise someone for mentioning it? No. If someone used its presence as a rebut to an argument, would I complain? Yes. It is part of the Standard Model, but we all know it is not the end of the story. I would not allow any dogmatic argument that depended on its presence nor one that depended upon its absence. The speed of light is a completely different situation.Try popping over to xxx.lanl.gov and searching on decoherence amongst all physics lists over all time (lanl goes back to about 1989-90). Have a flick through the reams of papers listed. Have a look at some of the journal titles. Have a look at some of the authors.I also have just found this for you: intro to decoherence. It is not easy, but it skip reads quite
well over the quantum mathematics. There is lots of background there, and it actually starts precisely with your example of superposition. How would you know, Percy? Twenty years after the fact when you read it in a layman book? Or perhaps from a board such as EvC when someone who has a clue takes the time to tell you that this is how many (tentatively a large majority) of respectable QM theoreticians view the quantum-to-classical transition.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Any recording device. You should like this because it really does take the mystical out of QM and helps regain the magic of a reality based upon wave-mechanics.Here's the link again that I passed to Percy above: intro to decoherence Not easy reading to a non-graduate physicist, but you will be rewarded with the texty parts if you stick with it.

Disagree how? That there isn't a huge research area called decoherence which is one of the primary ways of viewing QM post CI? Or do you mean my understanding of decoherence is flawed? Or that the CI isn't viewed as dissatisfactory amongst quantum theorists?And can you name these scientists who disagree? And can we see their publsihed papers where they raise their objections to decoherence? Bullshit Percy. The ignorance was your claim that the concepts around decoherence were at the level of FTL claims. It is the taking of a dogmatic position based upon layman understanding that is ignorant.If I fail to make myself sufficiently intelligible, then it is my fault (lack of ability or difficulty of task). But in this case, you don't care about the explanation. I have tried to explain but you have ignored those parts of the posts and based your rebuttal on the fact that you haven't read about this in popular science literature.At the end of the day, I am simply trying to present a view of some of our current understanding. As I have said, I have no agenda other than a desire to pass on knowledge. If you don't wish to learn, and would prefer to rely on your books and magazines, then so be it. It is your loss.When I talk about having researched and taught in this area, I am simply trying to say that you can trust me to give a fair and balanced view on the subject. If I have personal biases, I will try to present both them and the other side. If I don't know what I'm talking about, I will admit as such. So what am I doing? Making it all up? Did you make that search on decoherence? Did you look up that book pdf I presented? Or are you simply clinging to your layman guides? Of course it is. Popular science jumps on sexy sounding ideas, it clings to the mysteries of QM, that is what makes them money. Decoherence sounds very dull in comparison. The conventional picture sounds more exciting. But I would hope by now that you would have learned that what you read there must be taken with a very large pinch of salt, and you certainly get no more than a partial view of the picture.I'm just trying to give you a bit more of that picture...[ABE having seen AdminNWRs comment]...so you can appreciate why I regard your assertion of uncaused actions as not necessarily valid.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.Edited by cavediver, : having seen AdminNWRs comment

Ok, fair enough. I will still point out FYI that 4) is in a different category to the other four. The latter are all valid examples of what you are talking about. Virtual particles on the other hand do not actually exist as such. You cannot really talk about a particular pair coming into existence, as you cannot detect them. They are an accounting device to deal with vacuum fluctuations within the quantum fields. The underlying effect is real as witnessed by the Casimir Effect.Now, accepting your argument, I will just race ahead and say that even if these are examples of causeless effects, they all take place in a background of quantum fields, and more importantly, a set of physical laws. You cannot extrapolate from these to the universe as a whole (fallacy of composition) - not that anyone has tried to do this yet...Quite why I am doing N_J's work, God only knows...

In decoherence, we don't talk about collapse. Collapse is one way of getting to the classical regime from the quantum, decoherence is another. But in effect, yes, it is interaction from the environment that pushes the quantum state towards what we would consider a classical state. If there is an observing device, it is going to be an extreme form of environment, in that it is forcing itself into interaction with whatever you are observing.There are still mystical elements: you can start to consider the joint wave-function of the electron, apparatus and your mind, and you can end up with superpositions of your mind: one in which you observe up and one in which you observe down. This is usually known as many-minds, sort of related to Everett's many-worlds.

Absolutely. This is the critical point. Fallacy of composition and all that. If you can identify the cause then you can surely extend your definition of the universe to include the cause, and now you are back to square one!However, I do get nervous when we start talking about the universe NOT having a cause after mention of virtual particles, quantum theory, and the like. The idea that the universe may have just blipped into existence, or tunnelled its way from nothing is just as bad. All these phenomena require existing laws, so again we just extend our definition of the boundary of the universe to include this pre-universe where such laws exist, and again we have the same problem.The Universe just is. Whether finite or infinite, that is it.

How so? Every observed cause and effect are intrinsically tied to time. Time is an internal property of the Universe. You cannot use induction to leap from processes that are bound to time, to something for which time is but a constituent part. You could postulate that time preceeds the universe, but we simply widen the definition of universe to include that pre-time. You could postulate a separate external time dimension, but again, we just widen our definition of universe. True. It is simply a statement of all that we can say at the moment, given our understanding of General Relativity and hints shown through possible higher theories such as Strings, M, Loop, etc. The meta-physical question is "if it just is, then why is it?" This is what we search for in a TOE. But even if it has all the qualities you describe, we may still be left with "but why is it here?". I'm not sure we will ever get to the point where we will know why there is something rather than nothing. Or why the equations "fly".