The Law Causality

still i think which atom is affected is irrelevent as long as the action has a cause

Not in a discussion about universal causality. Either causality applies to everything, or it doesn't. Does causality apply to that one atom?

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"however why would you want to live in a universe that there is no Causality. "WANT? What does WANT have to do with it? The universer we inhabit either is, or is not; our aesthetic opinions about the matter make not a jot of difference. Why does "want" even enter the picture?

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still i think which atom is affected is irrelevent as long as the action has a cause

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But how can you know it has a cause? How can you know for sure that a cause and effect relationship exists between any two things?

Ever heard of heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The universe is a probability distribution steve.

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why would you want to live in a universe that there is no Causality

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dunno. How does that change anything?

okay "marovingian..."You say we live in a deterministic universe where the big bang initially set up the laws and the rest is just the playing out of the particles. The problem with that is that - like crashfrog said: quantum theory is a theory based on probability. so yes you could say I will probably click the submit reply button but there is a possibility that i won't. The world is moving in a probable direction however, the random movements of particles results in a universe that is not deterministic.------------------
it would come out insightful or brave or smooth or charming.

As fruitless as it is to discuss the Matrix, which doesn't exist, one wonderes nonetheless - is the Matrix a deterministic reality? Or does the ability of the humans in it to bend the rules make it non-deterministic? Is it that the human mind rejects a deterministic reality no matter what?Is any of this worth talking about? It's just a movie, I guess.

Gzus...heisenburg's theory does not pertain to the universe, it is a quantum law and refers to electrons, and as some will argue, some quantum laws only hold water on the quantum level. It basically states that we can know either the position(location) or the speed, but not both at any one point in time. So I don't think this is relevant in this particular topic.The relevant topic is causality, Rrhain has stated in another thread that causality does not hold up in QM. He says that some objects can cause themselves, and I don't know if he was talking about the casimir effect, as he never specified. But to my limited knowledge I am unaware of any case where this is so.The casimir effect refers to a small attractive force which acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates due to quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. When people use this casimir effect in a causality argument they are referring to the virtual particles that occur from photons via the perturbation theory which states that systems can go through intermediate "virtual states" that normally have energies different from that of the initial and final states.Ergo there is no contradiction to causality in this example.[This message has been edited by baileyr25, 10-20-2003]

No, Bailey that is not so. Heisenberg's principle applies at all size scales. You cannot know the precise location and speed of a football anymore than an electron. Of course, for a football, the margin of inaccuracy is small compared to the size of the football.Note also, that Heisenberg's is not a statement about what we can know, it's a statement about what is. An electron does not have a precise velocity, or location. Heisenberg's also extends to various other couplets, although I forget most of the examples, time and energy is one (hence Quantum Vacuum effects).

baileyr25 writes:

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The casimir effect refers to a small attractive force which acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates due to quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field.

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Um, bailey?Where does the fluctuation come from?That's right...it causes itself.That's one of the jiggy things about QM: Things happen not because something made them happen but because there's no reason for them not to happen. There is a probability that a particle will be somewhere and every now and then you win the lottery and it shows up.There is a non-zero chance that you will simply re-materialize one foot to the left. Not because anything made you but because there's no reason for you not to.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!