The
Scholastic principle of causality states
that any potential, if actualized, must be actualized by something already
actual. (It is also sometimes formulated
as the thesis that whatever is moved is
moved by another or whatever is
changed is changed by another. But
the more technical way of stating it is less potentially misleading for readers
unacquainted with Scholastic thinking, who are bound to read things into terms
like “motion” or “change” that Scholastic writers do not intend.)
In an
earlier post I responded to an objection to the principle raised by
physicist Robert Oerter, who has, at his blog, been writing up a
series of critical posts on my book The
Last Superstition. Oerter has
now posted two further installments in his series, which develop and defend his
criticism of the principle of causality.
Let’s take a look.
Quantum mechanics and causality
Recall that
in an earlier post Oerter claimed that quantum mechanics casts doubt on the
principle of causality insofar as it describes “systems that change from one state to another without any apparent physical ‘trigger.’” Recall also that I pointed out that it is simply
a fallacy to infer from the premise that QM describes such-and-such a state
without describing its cause to the conclusion that QM shows that such-and-such
a state has no cause.
In the
first of the two further installments he’s posted since my response, Oerter
replies to this sort of objection as follows:
This is a valid point. Just because quantum mechanics… is the most amazingly well-tested, most
accurate, most far-reaching description of the universe that we have ever
produced, we can't just conclude that it's the end of the story. Maybe quantum mechanics is incomplete - maybe
there is some further, more precise, theory that will tell us about the causes
of electron transitions and radioactive decay…
This very point was raised in a
famous paper by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, who argued in 1935 that quantum
mechanics must be incomplete… An [sic] major advance came in 1964, when John
Bell showed that (under a very general set of assumptions) any attempt to
“complete” quantum mechanics would end up making predictions that differed from those of QM. This led to a
series of experiments designed to look for such differences. The upshot: quantum mechanics has come out the
winner in every test to date…
[A]ny additional “causes” added to quantum
mechanics will result in violations of quantum mechanical predictions.
Let's suppose that there is some
physical property - something not included in the quantum mechanical
description - that determines for each atom exactly when the electron will
decay. Call it property A. Since property A is a physical property, it
must have some physical effect. If it
has some physical effect, then it must be possible to separate out systems with
one value of property A from systems with some other value. That is, we can use property A as a filter…
Applying this filter, we separate out
a subset from our original set of identically prepared atoms. This subset, having a physical difference
from the original set, will have a measurably different set of physical properties… Thus, this subset will violate the
rules of quantum mechanics.
Now, I put it to you that the
100-year history of successful predictions of quantum mechanics strongly
suggests that there are no such additional physical
properties…
End
quote. Now, to see what is wrong with
this, recall the analogy I drew in my previous post with Kepler’s laws of
planetary motion. I noted that it would
be fallacious to argue from the premise that Kepler’s laws describe the orbits of the planets without making
reference to any cause of those orbits to the conclusion that Kepler’s laws show that the orbits of the
planets have no cause. And it would
remain fallacious whatever you think
about Kepler’s laws and whether or not you
think the orbits of the planets have a cause.
For the point has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of either the premise or the conclusion. It has to do instead with the logical relationship between the premise
and conclusion. The premise doesn’t
entail the conclusion, and it doesn’t even make the conclusion more
probable. It is evidentially irrelevant to the conclusion.
Hence,
suppose someone who insisted that Kepler’s laws do show that the planetary orbits have no cause responded to
criticism of this fallacious inference by saying: “That’s a valid point. Even though Kepler’s laws have had tremendous
predictive success, they may not be the end of the story. Maybe some future theory will posit some
heretofore unknown massive bodies additional to the ones we already know about (the
sun, planets, asteroids, etc.), which make the planets orbit the sun in just
the way they do. But the problem is that
if there were such further bodies, they would influence the ones we do know
about in such a way that their behavior would not match Kepler’s
predictions. So the success of Kepler’s
laws strongly suggests that there are no such additional bodies. So Kepler’s laws really do give us reason to
doubt that the orbits of the planets have any cause.”
Such a
response would, of course, completely miss the point. For the point has nothing at all to do with the
empirical question of whether there exist some heretofore unknown bodies
additional to the sun, planets, asteroids, etc. which exert a causal influence
on the rest of the solar system. The
point is much simpler (though also much deeper) than that sort of issue. It is not a point about the existence of
causes of this or that particular kind,
but a point about causality as such. And the point is that Kepler’s laws, which
merely describe the behavior of the
planets, tell you nothing one way or the other about why the planets behave that way.
They are not even addressing that question. Hence they cannot answer that question. Nor (we might note for those who eschew
metaphysics) can they tell you whether the question is a good question, whether
it has any answer in the first place, etc.
To the issue at hand, they are simply
irrelevant.
Now the same
thing is true of the relationship between QM and the principle of
causality. To point out that it is fallacious
to infer from the premise that QM describes such-and-such a state without
describing its cause to the
conclusion that QM shows that such-and-such a state has no cause, is not
to say that for all we know there may be some heretofore undiscovered physical
property which exerts an influence on the energy level of the electron (or
whatever). The point is much simpler
(though also much deeper) than that sort of issue. It is that QM, which merely describes
the behavior of a system, tells you nothing one way or the other about why
the system behaves that way. It also tells
you nothing one way or the other about whether the question of why it behaves that
way is a good question, whether it has any answer in the first place, etc. To the issue at hand, QM is simply
irrelevant.
This naturally
brings us to another objection to his position that Oerter considers in his
recent post, to the effect that the principle of causality is “a metaphysical premise that can't be
contradicted by any possible set of observations.” Oerter’s reply is that to insist, on
metaphysical grounds, that the actualization of a potential must always have a
cause is either to beg the question against him, or to rest one’s position on
definitions of the key terms (“actuality,” “potentiality,” “change,” etc.)
without giving any reason to think that the terms so defined really capture
anything in the real world.
To see what is wrong with this response, consider once again the
fallacious inference from the premise that Kepler’s laws
describe the orbits of the planets without making reference to any cause of
those orbits to the conclusion that Kepler’s
laws show that the orbits of the planets have no cause. Suppose that when you pointed out the
fallaciousness of this inference to someone who made it, he replied: “Your position
either begs the question against me or rests on arbitrary definitions!” Obviously this too would simply miss the point,
since the criticism of the inference in question was not: “The orbits of the
planets do have a cause, here’s my theory about what that cause is, here are
the technical terms my theory makes use of, etc.” The criticism was rather: “Whether or not the
orbits of the planets really do have a cause, the inference you are making is
fallacious, because Kepler’s laws by themselves aren’t even relevant to that
particular question.” Similarly, the
inference from the premise that QM describes such-and-such a state without
describing its cause to the
conclusion that QM shows that such-and-such a state has no cause is
fallacious, and it remains fallacious whether or not the principle of
causality is true, whether or not the definitions of its key terms have any
application to reality, etc. Even if the Aristotelian position turned
out to be false, quantum mechanics
wouldn’t be what falsifies it.
Oerter also
addresses another potential objection to his position, to the effect that “the laws of quantum mechanics are the cause
of the change [i.e. the change described in examples of the sort Oerter appeals
to].” The first part of Oerter’s
response is as follows:
This objection can be dismissed
easily. The question is what causes the
change to happen at the particular time it happens. QM is silent on this question.
Further, in most philosophical views
of physical laws, the laws have no causal efficacy. For instance, we might think of laws as just
descriptions of the way things actually behave. But a description of how something happens is
not a cause of it happening. So, the
moon's orbit around the earth isn't caused by the law of gravity. It's caused by the actual gravity of the
actual earth.
Now as it
happens I more or less agree with what Oerter says here. Indeed, it is ironic that he should say it,
because it actually supports my position rather than his. Oerter writes that “we might think of laws as
just descriptions of the way things actually behave.” Exactly.
Laws -- including the laws enshrined in QM -- are descriptive. They tell you what happens, but they do not tell you why it happens that way. They may, of course, make reference to
particular sorts of causal factors --
gravitation, mass, charge, etc. -- but the explication of these factors itself
simply amounts to a further description of what
these causes do, not why they do it. Indeed, the causality as such of gravitation, mass, etc. is, strictly speaking,
irrelevant to the laws. That A and B
will behave in such-and-such a way is all the law qua law commits you to; that A is the cause of B drops out as irrelevant.
That is why Newton’s law of universal gravitation was so useful even
when we had no clear idea of what gravity was or how it worked. And that is why positivists could hold that
causality was a pre-scientific holdover which could be dispensed with. They were wrong
to hold this, but the point is that they could hold it with a straight face in
the first place only because the status of causality
as such -- its nature and even its existence -- is something about which the
laws of physics themselves (including
the laws of QM) are silent.
But the
status of causality as such is precisely what the principle of causality is
about. And that is why QM has nothing to
tell us about the principle of causality.
They are simply not addressing the same question. Given that you have already determined on independent
grounds whether or not the principle of causality is true, QM may raise
questions about how it is to be understood in contexts like that of the
hydrogen atom (to allude to Oerter’s example).
But there is nothing special about QM in that regard. One billiard ball knocking into another,
melting and freezing, electromagnetism, gravitational attraction, plant and
animal growth, volitional behavior, divine creation, all involve very different
sorts of efficient causality. There are
also distinctions to be drawn between essentially ordered and accidentally
ordered causes, between causes that contain what is in their effects formally
and those that contain what is in their effects only virtually, between total
causes and partial causes, between the causality of substances and that of
accidents, and so forth. If you think that all efficient
causality reduces to some crude, deterministic billiard-ball model, then QM might seem to be a challenge to the very notion of causality. (“Look, there’s no little billiard ball
deterministically pushing the electron into a higher energy level! Causality itself crumbles!”) But no Aristotelian or Scholastic would buy
this simplistic conception of efficient causality in the first place. (Naturalist critics of Aristotelian-Scholastic
arguments rarely beg one question at a time.
They beg whole books full of questions.)
The
principle of causality itself does
not make any claim about how exactly
efficient causes operate in all of these diverse cases. It just tells us that whatever the details
turn out to be, any potential will only be actualized by something already
actual. How does this work out in the
case of QM? This brings us to the second
part of Oerter’s response to the claim that the laws of QM are the cause of
change. He writes:
Finally, even if we think of physical
laws as having some sort of actual existence and causal efficacy, well, the
laws of QM exist right at the moment the electron is excited, so by this view the
electron should immediately decay. In
Aristotelian terms, we are looking for the efficient cause: the thing that brings about the change at the instant it occurs. The laws of physics apply equally to all
times; they can't be the reason something happens at some particular time.
(It seems to me that the laws of
physics could be considered the formal cause in Aristotelian language. But
Feser says that modern philosophers have abandoned formal (as well as final)
causes. Does anyone know if laws can, or
cannot, be considered formal causes?)
The answer
to this latter question is: No, laws are not formal causes. Nor do laws have any sort of independent
existence or efficacy as efficient causes.
The correct thing to say from an Aristotelian point of view is rather
something like this: Natural substances have essences or substantial forms that
ground their characteristic patterns of operation. For instance, it is in virtue of the
substantial form of a tree that it tends to sink roots and grow branches; it is
in virtue of the substantial form of water that it tends to freeze at one
temperature and boil at another temperature; it is in virtue of something
common to the substantial forms of material objects in general that they exert
a gravitational pull on each other; and so forth. Now a “law of nature” is a description of
these patterns, a description of how things will tend to operate given their
natures, essences, or substantial forms.
The existence and operation of laws of nature thus presupposes the
existence and operation of concrete natural substances. Indeed, strictly speaking it is not the laws that exist and operate; “laws” are
mere abstractions from the concrete substances.
What exist and operate are the concrete substances themselves. The laws are not even formal causes but
rather mere descriptions of how things operate given their formal causes, i.e. their substantial forms. (See chapter 6 of David Oderberg’s Real
Essentialism for an important recent treatment of laws of nature from
an Aristotelian-Thomistic point of view.)
[This is, by
the way, why “laws of nature” don’t really explain anything, at least not
ultimately. The very idea is a holdover
from a time when Descartes, Newton, and Co. wanted to chuck out the
Aristotelian framework, and replaced the idea that things operate according to intrinsic natures or substantial forms
with the idea of operation according to externally
imposed divine commands or “laws.”
Stripped of this theological context, the notion of a “law” must either
be cashed out in Aristotelian terms of the kind suggested above, or in other
metaphysical terms equally unwelcome to the naturalist, or -- as
Nancy Cartwright has pointed out -- collapse into incoherence. It is ironic that atheists so unreflectively
help themselves to an inherently theological idea, albeit an idea derived from
modernist rather than Scholastic theology.]
In the case
of the hydrogen atom (once again to appeal to Oerter’s example), what we have
is a concrete system that behaves in the way described by QM. Now as I have noted before, whether to give
QM a realist (as opposed to an instrumentalist) interpretation in the first
place is itself a vexed metaphysical question.
And since it is a metaphysical question, it is precisely the sort of
question to which we can legitimately bring to bear considerations like the
principle of causality. So even if there
were some conflict between that
principle and QM (which, as I have argued, there is not) it wouldn’t follow
that we’d have to give up either. If (as
I would claim) we have independent reason to affirm the principle of causality,
what would follow from such a conflict is that we should take an
instrumentalist rather than realist view of QM -- a position some philosophers
and scientists with no Aristotelian ax to grind would adopt in any case.
An
interpretation of QM that is both Aristotelian and realist will, naturally, insist that it is not the laws of QM themselves
that cause anything, since they are mere abstractions from concrete systems
operating in accordance with their substantial forms. Hence it is in virtue of the substantial form
of a hydrogen atom that it will behave in the manner described by QM, just as
it is by virtue of the substantial forms of material things in general that
they will exert a gravitational attraction on one another. Now for the Aristotelian, the substantial
form of an inanimate substance is not the efficient cause of its natural operations;
rather, those operations flow “spontaneously” from it, precisely because it is
in the nature of the substance to operate in those ways. (See James Weisheipl’s Nature and Motion in the Middle Ages for an important treatment of
the subject.) Hence that a planet exerts
a gravitational pull is just something it does by virtue of its nature or
substantial form; it does not need a continuously operating efficient cause to
make it exert such a pull. That does not
mean that there is in no sense an
efficient cause of a thing’s natural operations, but that efficient cause is
just that which gave the substance in question its substantial form in the
first place, i.e. that which generated the substance or brought it into
being. It is not something that needs continuously to operate after the thing is brought into
being. Hence the efficient cause of a
planet’s exerting a gravitational pull on other objects is just whatever
natural processes brought that planet into existence millions of years ago,
thereby giving it the nature or substantial form it has. Its exerting that pull is now something it
just does “spontaneously,” by virtue of its nature. (Mind you, that does not mean that it can exist or operate even for a moment without a
divine sustaining cause; it cannot do
so, for reasons I spell out in my ACPQ
article “Existential
Inertia and the Five Ways.” But that
is a separate issue. What I am talking
about here is whether there needs to be some efficient cause alongside it within the natural order that causes it
to exert a gravitational pull.)
Now, along
the same lines, we might say that the hydrogen atom also behaves as it does
“spontaneously,” simply by virtue of having the substantial form it does. Why do the electron transitions occur in just
the pattern they do? Because that’s the
sort of thing that happens in anything having the substantial form of a
hydrogen atom, just as gravitational attraction is the sort of thing that
naturally happens in anything having a substantial form of the sort typical of
material objects. What is the efficient
cause of this pattern? The efficient
cause is whatever brought a particular hydrogen atom into existence, just as
the efficient cause of gravitational attraction is whatever brought a
particular material object into existence.
That is one way, anyway, of giving an Aristotelian interpretation of QM
phenomena of the sort cited by Oerter, and it is intended only as a sketch made
for purposes of illustration rather than a completely worked out account. But it shows how QM can be naturally fitted
into the Aristotelian framework using concepts that already exist within the
latter.
Of course,
critics of Aristotelianism will reject this way of interpreting what is going
on. Fine and dandy. (Though please
don’t waste everyone’s time with sophomoric Molière-style “dormitive virtue”
objections to substantial forms. I have explained
why this objection is no good in The Last
Superstition and Aquinas.) The point is that QM itself gives one no reason whatsoever to reject it. If the critics of the Aristotelian position are
to find rational grounds for rejecting it, they must look elsewhere.
Newton and local motion
In the
second of the two installments he’s posted since my initial response to him,
Oerter raises the hoary objection from Newton’s law of inertia against the
principle that whatever is moved is moved by another. Now, as I have already noted, the less
misleading way of stating the principle is as the thesis that any potential, if
actualized, must be actualized by something already actual. And when it is put that way, it is less
obvious that there is any conflict with Newton’s law. After all, Newton’s law tells us that every body continues in its state of rest or
of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that
state by forces impressed upon it.
And how, exactly, does this
contradict the thesis that any potential,
if actualized, must be actualized by something already actual?
The answer
is that there is no conflict at all, because (once again) the principle of
causality and the laws of physics are not even addressing the same question. Now I discussed this issue briefly in The Last Superstition, and it is to what
I said there that Oerter is responding.
But I addressed the issue at greater length in Aquinas
(at pp. 76-79), which it seems Oerter has not read. And I address it at much greater length still
in my paper “The medieval principle of motion and the modern principle of
inertia,” which is forthcoming in the Proceedings of the
Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics (and which, when it appears,
should be available online as well as in print).
I’m not going
to repeat everything I’ve said in Aquinas
or preempt what I say in the forthcoming paper, but some general remarks should
suffice for present purposes. There are
five general reasons why the purported conflict between Newton’s law and the
principle of causality is illusory (reasons I develop at length in the
paper). First, there would be no formal
contradiction between the two even if they were using “motion” in the same
sense. For like Kepler’s laws and the
laws of QM, Newton’s law is descriptive. It tells us how a body behaves, but not why
it behaves that way. Thus the law does
not rule out the thesis that the reason a body so behaves is because of a “mover”
which actualizes its potencies for motion.
(To be sure, the law does rule out any scenario where a body continues
at rest or uniform rectilinear motion while
acted upon by physical forces impressed upon it. But -- to appeal once again to the analogy
with Kepler’s laws -- the principle of causality no more requires that what
actualizes a potency is, specifically, a physical force of this sort than to
affirm a cause of the orbits of the planets requires positing a special kind of
massive body additional to the sun, planets, asteroids, etc.)
Second,
Newton’s law and the principle of causality are not in fact using “motion” in precisely the same sense in the first
place. Newton’s law pertains to local
motion specifically, i.e. change with respect to place. The principle of causality applies to change
of any kind, which includes not only local motion but change with respect to
quantity, change with respect to quality, and change from one substance to another. Now some might object that these other sorts
of change can all be reduced to local motion.
I think that is quite false, but that is neither here nor there for
present purposes. For the deeper point
is that when the principle of causality speaks of motion (local or otherwise)
what it is talking about is the actualization
of potentials. And Newton’s law
simply has nothing whatsoever to say about that. In particular, when Newton’s law says that a
body in motion will tend to stay in motion, it is not asserting that a
potential which is being actualized will continue being actualized. Even if it were suggested that Newton’s law entails this, the point is that that isn’t
what the principle of inertia itself, as understood within physics, is saying.
Indeed, the whole aim of early modern physics of the sort practiced by
Newton was to provide a description of nature that sidestepped the whole
Aristotelian-Scholastic apparatus of actuality and potentiality, substantial
forms, and the like. Modern physics didn’t
offer different answers to the questions the Scholastics were asking. It simply changed the subject.
A third
point is that Newtonian inertial motion is often characterized as a “state” --
that is, as the absence of any real change. Now if such motion really is a state, then there is no conflict with the principle of
causality, for if inertial motion involves no real change, than it involves no
actualization of potential -- in which case, obviously, it involves no
actualization of a potential without a cause.
Indeed, since Newton’s law says that a genuine change in an object’s
local motion can occur only if a force
acts upon it, the law implicitly affirms
the principle of causality! Hence if
inertial motion really is a “state,” then what Newton and his Aristotelian
predecessors disagreed about was not
whether genuine change requires a cause, but only about whether local motion of
a uniform rectilinear sort counts as
genuine change.
A fourth
point is that those who assert a conflict between Newton and Aristotle often
direct their attacks at a straw man. In
particular, it is sometimes thought that Aristotle and Aquinas maintained that
no object can persist in any local motion unless some mover is continuously
conjoined to it as an efficient cause.
But in fact they denied this; their
view was that an object will tend to move toward its “natural place” simply by
virtue of its substantial form, and will do so even in the absence of that
which imparted this form, and thus in the absence of that which is the efficient
cause of their local motion. (This is
related to the point made earlier about the operations that a substance will
carry out “spontaneously” given its substantial form. And here too, Weisheipl’s book is the place
to look for a detailed treatment of the subject.) To be sure, the idea of “natural place” is a
piece of Aristotelian physics (as opposed to metaphysics) that is obsolete; and
the violent (as opposed to natural) motions of objects were thought to require some conjoined mover. But all of that is beside the point. For the point
is that Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s principle of causality in fact did not presuppose that local motion as such requires a continuously
conjoined physical cause.
Finally, and
as all of this indicates, there can be no conflict between Newton’s law and the
principle of causality because the former is a thesis of natural science and the latter a thesis of metaphysics -- or more precisely, of that branch of metaphysics known
as the philosophy of nature. As Bertrand Russell and others with no
Aristotelian or theological ax to grind have emphasized, what physics gives us
is really only the abstract mathematical structure of the material world. It does not tell us what fills out that structure, does not tell us the intrinsic nature of the material world. But that is
what metaphysics, and in particular the philosophy of nature, are concerned with. Moreover, the philosophy of nature, as modern
Scholastics have understood it, tells us what the natural world must be like whatever the specific laws of physics,
chemistry, etc. turn out to be. And the
Scholastic position is that the distinction between actuality and potentiality,
the principle of causality, and other fundamental elements of the Aristotelian conception
of nature are among the preconditions of any possible material world
susceptible of scientific study.
That is why
no findings of empirical science can undermine the claims of metaphysics and
the philosophy of nature. It is also why
no findings of empirical science can undermine the Aristotelian-Thomistic
arguments for the existence of God, for these are grounded in premises drawn,
not from natural science, but from metaphysics and the philosophy of
nature. Now that does not mean that these arguments of natural
theology are not susceptible of rational evaluation and criticism. What it means is that such evaluation and
criticism will have to be philosophical and metaphysical, rather than empirical,
in nature. Nor is natural theology in
this regard at all different from atheism.
Atheists who think they are arguing from “purely scientific” premises never
really are. They are, without exception,
arguing from metaphysical assumptions
-- and usually unexamined ones at that -- that are first read into empirical science and then read back out, like the rabbit the magician can pull out of the hat
only because he’s first hidden it there.
Readers who
disagree with these claims are cordially invited to refute them -- without either begging the question or
smuggling in metaphysical assumptions of precisely the sort they deny making. Good luck with that.
goddinpotty -
ReplyDeleteFor all numbers a and b, a^2 - b^2 = (a+b)(a-b); therefore, substantial forms exist.
Reply!
GIP,
ReplyDeleteI love dialectic. What I do not love is when someone makes fallacy-ridden arguments, never listens to advice or instruction, never admits defeat and is only interested in winning. This is you. If you were actually debating in good faith and admitting when your (weak) arguments lost to stronger ones, you would be able to improve--and everyone would respect you more. Instead, you present us with "Tlaloc" and automatically assume that Feser and everyone else here is wrong. Present a serious challenge without committing a fallacy, and people will pay attention.
@Michael Brazier
ReplyDeleteAll integers are bootstrapped out of emptiness by the operation of the mind. They have no 'substantial' existence outside the mind and its operations: http://www.mathpath.org/concepts/number.htm
@Michael Brazier -- define "exist". IOW, I have a fairly good sense in which, say, a chair either exists or does not exist. I also feel like I have a good intuitive sense of what a number is, but I don't know what it means to say "3" exists or does not exist. And I truly have no idea what it means for a substantial form to exist or not exist.
ReplyDeleteActually, don't bother, because I have a new policy of checking out of these comment threads once they get past 200 comments. See you in the next one, perhaps.
@rank sophist -- the Tlaloc example was an analogy to illustrate a particular pattern of inference, and as such can only be apt or not; it is not a deduction or argument so it can't be fallacious. The entire point of that seems to have escaped you and I'm not in a mood to try to explain it.
the Tlaloc example was an analogy to illustrate a particular pattern of inference, and as such can only be apt or not; it is not a deduction or argument so it can't be fallacious. The entire point of that seems to have escaped you and I'm not in a mood to try to explain it.
ReplyDeleteYour unsubstantiated claim that it actually illustrated that certain pattern of inference was what begged the question, since your intention was to use our answers to prove a point. But I can see that you have no plans to change your position as someone who "makes fallacy-ridden arguments, never listens to advice or instruction, never admits defeat and is only interested in winning"; so I have no interest in talking to you further.
Potty... HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!!!
ReplyDeleteYup, he picked an arbitrary amount of posts to act as a threshold for decamping from the thread in order to turn tail and run. I wish that I could call the man a sophist -- but that would be too flattering: he lacks the intelligence to think coherently.
ReplyDeleteThe pseudonymous blogger Bonald, an astrophysicist, showed a while back that QM doesn't in fact contradict our common understanding of causality: http://bonald.wordpress.com/in-defense-of-religion/finite-and-unlimited-being/7/#religion9.
ReplyDelete"If things like that could happen, the universe would be completely unintelligible. It would not evolve according to regular laws, as it seems to. How do we explain this? First, let me note two explanations that won’t do. First, we can’t explain why things don’t pop into existence by invoking a law of physics: conservation of mass or energy, symmetries in a Lagrangian, a divergence-free stress-energy tensor, etc. These are just mathematical restatements of the fact that things don’t just pop into existence. Second, we can’t get away with saying that things can pop into existence, but that they probability for its occurrence is low (like quantum tunneling across a high energy barrier), so that it happens sufficiently rarely that it is unnoticed. Suppose this were true, and a certain non-existent object had a certain low probability of popping into existence. I could always imagine another object, no more nonexistent than the first, with all of the same properties but a very high probability of popping. All nonexistent beings are equally nonexistent, so this second kind of object is as valid as the first. If we say that the probability of popping is set by some other object that actually does exist, than that object would be the cause of the other thing’s coming into being. We would have a case of one being acting to cause another, something that doesn’t raise any problems for the intelligibility of the universe. It seems that this type of coming into existence, that of being caused by something that existed already, is the only way that finite beings can come to exist.
"One might object that things popping into existence uncaused must be possible, because physicists sometimes assert that such things happen: virtual particle-antiparticle pairs pop into and out of existence out of nothing, and the universe itself is said to have popped into existence during the big bang. No doubt physicists do make such claims in popular expositions of their work, but it’s a very sloppy description of the actual theories. I once attended a colloquium at which a string theorist boasted that it had been proven that the universe came into existence out of nothing, but that “nothing” has a structure which they’re still working out. Now, of course, if something has a structure, one with causal effects on the actual universe, it’s most certainly not “nothing”. Similarly, the picture of particles popping into existence uncaused is not a tenable interpretation of quantum field theory. First of all, it’s not just anything, but standard-model particles in particular combinations that are said to populate the vacuum. If this really were uncaused creation, any particle one could imagine might pop into existence, the popping wouldn’t satisfy any conservation laws (like charge or lepton number), and so forth. Of course, this doesn’t happen. What does happen is limited by the standard-model Lagrangian. Why? It must be because this Lagrangian reflects the nature of something—a field, a collection of fields, or a medium of which the known particles are oscillations—that actually exists prior to the particle creation and, being its cause, fixes what can even temporarily come into being. Avoiding the metaphysical impossibility of uncaused creation is the very condition for having a sensible interpretation of these or any other physical theories."
The "problem" with an appeal to substantial forms, rhetorically, is that it seems unsatisfying to a scientist trying to find a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. I'm not trying to use the "dormitive virtue" critique (I've read the book!), but just saying "the hydrogen atom behaves in this way because this is just the way hydrogen atoms behave" might tend to close off investigation prematurely.
ReplyDeleteUsually, we think we understand a hydrogen atom's behavior by looking at the character of its consituent parts, their states, and interactions, to see if we can understand how the relationships between the components give rise to the behavior in question. And this is not necessarily an attempt to be reductionist - this is an honest attempt to connect our understanding about an entity to an understanding of the behavior of its parts.
Ed, perhaps you can do a post explaining how a non-reductionist A-T researcher might "correctly" connect explanations of the inner workings of the hydrogen atom to effects produced by the atom due to its substantial form?
Eduardo said...
ReplyDeletePotty... HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!!!
May 24, 2012 7:00 PM "
For the moment apparently.
But before he did so he usefully clarified several matters, and gave strong indications on some others.
For instance we now know through his own words that "In answer to some Anonymous who wondered why I post here -- it's simple, I like to argue."
Now, he does claim that that is in furtherance of a dialectical honing and testing of his own ideas. And there might be some truth in that rationalization. But what we also note is that clashing rhetorical swords in comment boxes is not precisely the same thing as seeking out objective truth, if one even admits of such a concept.
And, I think that we now know that as far as Potty is officially concerned there is no socially non-specific objective truth somewhere available for arbitration when it comes to determining the soundness of evaluative statements, whether moral or otherwise.
This is not because as logical positivists might have it, that no prescriptive moral statement can be logically derived from a fact description, nor any imperative from an indicative (despite Ayer's later ends-directed hedging); but rather, because in Potty's view values derive their sole legitimacy from categories which have no ontological status distinct or apart from their status as a socially conventional act of categorization employed by some number of categorizers within a given network of associations.
So, in answer to anonymous' question to Potty: No - as emotionally upset as Potty might personally be by gay-bashing - Potty could not logically or at least consistently say that it was "really" wrong prior to some number of people announcing that it was wrong.
A parakeet apparently, or certainly a baboon at least, has the same ontological status and hence claim to being *human* as Matthew Shepard did, until such time as someone chose to include Matthew within their circle of concern.
Short version: Your right to be considered human is like your right to collect social security payments - subject to legislative definition or change, and nothing more is to be said about it.
It's all a matter of stipulation and the magic power of naming, not of discovery.
At least that is the gist of and fallout from what Potty has said so far.
Whether he really believes it, is anyone's guess.
Dr. Feser, it is clear that Dr. Oerter's philosophical writing is homlier than yours. To your credit, you do not seek to take advantage of this, a refraining refreshing to see on the "win"ternet.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me, however, that you have missed a point of Oerter's, a
point not as crisply presented as it might have been.
Your argument here would be damning if it were simply the case that causality can be left out of the quantum picture. But reading Oerter's arguments several times (I am certainly not a physicist), it becomes clear that he has not leaving causality out. Rather, he says in effect that if we have causality, we have inaccurate observations; we do not have inaccurate observations, therefore we do not have causality.
As to whether this argument is sound, I do not know, but it is a valid argument.
So, at this (very early) point in my reading of the various arguments, I am not convinced that Dr. Oerter's conclusion does not follow from his arguments.
At any rate, thanks to both of you for your delightful exchange of ideas.
"Rather, he says in effect that if we have causality, we have inaccurate observations; we do not have inaccurate observations, therefore we do not have causality."
ReplyDeleteYou can see the problems with this kind of reasoning through the very comments here. Ed responded to this in part, I believe, by noting that a particular type or instance of causality is what is incompatible with quantum physics. The reply has been to point out that, in the senses relative to the metaphysics Ed is supposing (and to questions of causality in general), that particular type of causality is not the only one available, or the only one thomists rely on.
The short version is that in all the relevant senses, there are causality-compatible readings of quantum data, just as there are multiple interpretations of the formalism (even Oerter will admit this.) Sure, you can interpret the data of quantum physics in a way that rejects causality. You can also interpret non-quantum data if you so choose. In both cases, there's just no need to do so, and powerful reasons to avoid that move.
Anonymous, firstly I would like to compliment you on your numberless wonderful paintings over the centuries- great work! The obscene telephone calls and tip-offs to the KGB have got to stop, though, shame on you.
ReplyDeleteYes, we could posit "other kinds of cause and effect", but Oerter's argument does not address these mysterious processes. His is an argument which, whether ultimately sound or not, is valid in "the world as we understand it today". This is appropriate for a scientist.
Those bringing up mysterious varieties of cause and effect proffer their backs to the burden of proof. Please, describe these "other kinds" of cause and effect.
This is not as difficult for Feser, I think, because the concept of potential actualized is more flexible than that of cause and effect. A potential could conceivably be actualized by an absence, for example.
@DNW
ReplyDeleteAbout his dialectical search. Personally I don't see it. I bet I know how he feels about certain stuff and in this case about Thomism.
Some things we are open to discuss, and learn more about that, but certain things we are pathiological skeptics, we use any and all excuses to deny arguments or ideas we don't like.
I bet he doesn't care, there is no need to believe in principles and stick to them for whatever reason, all it matters is that you feel really nice about how you think and feel about the world. I think his morals are just whatever he feels it is moral at that moment, not much different from most people I see, but not rational to any extent.
Sort of funny the principles you get from what he says huh? Being human is nothing more but a argument of authority or whatever you desire to be human.
I stil stick to the convenience principle behind this type of thinking... You just start from whatever you believe and create principles or rules so that belief is chosen automatically as the only or the best possible belief. And no need to test your principles, who cares if they don't work XD
"Those bringing up mysterious varieties of cause and effect proffer their backs to the burden of proof. Please, describe these "other kinds" of cause and effect."
ReplyDeleteYou could try reading Ed's post where he goes into the discussion of what he (and other Thomists) mean when they discuss causality, and what Oerter is limited to discussing as a scientist.
You could also try looking at the multitude of interpretations of quantum mechanics, and seeing how each of them in turn account for the formality. You'd also do well to realize that interpretations of quantum mechanics are not themselves "science". They are non-scientific interpretations of equations and data.
Finally, keep in mind that Oerter is describing a kind of "causality" that is singular in science, and in fact antithetical to science (which seeks to describe causes. Oerter is saying that "no cause whatsoever" is an acceptable description.) The evidence he produces is trivially matched and even exceeded: propose any weird idea you want (it was a non-material cause. The universe is a simulation. It was retrocausal/the cause traverses time.)
I think it's obvious to see why Oerter's objection fails to blunt Ed's arguments, and also why his objection is not scientific, but a pretty old metaphysical claim. It's an interpretation, not an observation, he offers.
Yes, we could posit "other kinds of cause and effect", but Oerter's argument does not address these mysterious processes. His is an argument which, whether ultimately sound or not, is valid in "the world as we understand it today". This is appropriate for a scientist.
ReplyDeleteThose bringing up mysterious varieties of cause and effect proffer their backs to the burden of proof. Please, describe these "other kinds" of cause and effect.
This is not as difficult for Feser, I think, because the concept of potential actualized is more flexible than that of cause and effect. A potential could conceivably be actualized by an absence, for example.
None of us are QM specialists, but I'd imagine that some would propose non-local hidden variable theories. For all of its problems, the De Broglie-Bohm interpretation seems vastly preferable to the metaphysically ignorant "uncaused" versions of Copenhagen.
In any case, you are right that act/potency can easily be applied to QM. Far more easily, in fact, than a mechanistic conception of cause and effect.
goddinpotty said... It's difficult to say what that something else is
ReplyDeleteIt's very easy to say: it's Christianity. And, slowly but surely, it "expands the circle of empathy" because it defines an essence for being human, which doesn't depend on your sex or skin color or so on. It does therefore also define what it is to be a good human or a bad human, but people don't like being told that certain behaviors are intrinsically wrong (or even extrinsically wrong), which is why its progress is slower than it could be. But truth will out.
@rank sophist:
ReplyDelete"None of us are QM specialists, but I'd imagine that some would propose non-local hidden variable theories."
This is not the only option. The Bell inequalities (That Prof. Oerter so much enjoys invoking) are actually a red herring as explained by Prof. Feser, but for some reason, some people just don't get it, so let me take a stab at it from the physics angle. First, the proof of Bell's inequalities has some hypothesis. Hypothesis are loopholes. For example, we could deny conterfactual definiteness and appeal to superdeterminism. But since, to borrow from a gentleman that will go unnamed, I believe that people who deny Free Will are either stupid, wicked or insane (more probably, a combination of all three), that is not a road I want to pursue.
We can also jettison Boolean logic. And by this I do not mean embracing the quantum logic of Birkhoff and Von-Neumann. As far as I know not much has come from that corner of the world and there are even good reasons to doubt that quantum logic qualifies as a logic given the several negative results, starting with those of Jauch and Piron, lack of distributivity, the difficulties in defining an implication operator, etc. (although Pavicic, Megill and some others have argued otherwise). What I am talking about here is weakening classical Boolean logic to intuitionistic logic. We do *not* have to accept the intuitionist philosophical baggage along with it and instead adopt a practical stance: we are simply introducing a finer-grained distinction for statements, that of being provably true and constructively, provably true and reinterpret the logical connectives along this axis. The adverb "constructively" meshes well with how we understand physical theories. After all, their job is to correctly predict the measured correlations in experiments, so they have to take into account, directly or indirectly, the limitations of the measurement process. And this is where the program of C. Isham and collaborators comes in; they take ideas from topos theory (a topos is a universe of mathematical discourse but whose internal logic is intuitionistic. Standard ZFC gives a Boolean topos) to construct types of physical theories. If anyone is interested, What is a thing? is a starting point. And why is C. Isham tackling the foundations of QM? Because he is interested in Quantum Gravity, and if you want to do QG, the standard Copenhagen interpretation of QM *must* be tossed out because, among other things, no sense can be made of an observer external to the universe. Will it pan out? Only time will tell. Either way, I am not a physicist so I am not competent to judge.
@rank sophist (continued):
ReplyDeleteRejecting the above two paths in my previous post (for whatever reasons), can we make sense of Bell's theorem? There are at least three ways to rationalize its conclusions while keeping a realist interpretation:
1. Non-local causes: this is the route you mentioned. It keeps the possibility of science and rationality intact and in fact I have a lot of sympathy for it. For if Quantum Mechanics is telling an approximately correct picture of reality then non-locality is just about inevitable. In CI it is located in the state vectors that are inherently non-local (straightforward consequence of Heisenberg's principle). CI salvages the mess by stating that state vectors are not directly observable and are something like a purely theoretical construct. Of course the lump was just shifted to a different place and it reappears in "spooky action at a distance" phenomena. The problem with non-local variables is that it opens a *nasty* can of worms and does not bode well for the intelligibility of the universe.
I should add that there are other causal, purely deterministic interpretations of QM, but either they are completely mad (many-worlds interpretation) or I do not understand them (Ahoronov's time symmetric theories). And there are interpretations that are agnostic on the issue (M. Born's ensemble interpretation and consistent histories). Not *one* of the traffickers in uncaused events has bothered to explain why we should prefer one interpretation to any other, especially when the empirical data cannot decide the matter. So what are they appealing to? Their own ignorance?
We can also:
2. Posit a non-natural cause, like God.
This is occasionalism in disguise and a hard pill to swallow for both atheists and Thomists.
3. Posit a cause that cannot be described in mathematical terms, meaning it cannot be described as a random sample drawn from a probability space with a well-defined probability and expectation value. The cause in question could still be local, natural and real, but just not describable by mathematical formalisms, and concomitantly by the empirical sciences. Something like a "nature that actualizes its perfection" -- that Aquinas dude was onto something.
I can already imagine the indignant response to 3. Something like "Hey you are cheating!" by appealing to non-measurable causes, and thus not amenable to scientific treatment. But pray, someone enlighten me how is it different from the *blatant* cheating in assuming an equally non-empirically falsifiable absence of causes? What is good for the goose is good for the gander and all that. Not that the peddlers in uncaused events have deigned to define causality writ large for us; they can hardly say what it is, but by God they know it is violated. But this just highlights the main lesson of this discussion. The debate is ultimately metaphysical; it is not that input from the hard empirical sciences is irrelevant to it, is that it *alone* cannot decide the issue, not even in principle.
"standard ZFC gives a Boolean topos) to construct types of physical theories. If anyone is interested, *What is a thing?* is a starting point. And why is C. Isham tackling the foundations of QM? Because ..."
ReplyDeleteHuh ... I was tempted to make a crack invoking the name of Heidegger, and thought better of it, clicking the link instead ...
@grodrigues,
ReplyDeletepurely as a formality, I would like to lodge the anticipated objection against unmeasurable causes.
My reason is as follows :
if I admit of an unmeasurable cause to a measurable effect then the function from cause to effect must also be unmeasurable.
This would mean that if I asked the question "why do I think that A caused B, and not something else" I could not expect an answer. Since a deduction from A to B would induce a measurable function.
We hold the idea of causality because it helps us make sense of the world. A cause that makes no sense is no cause at all.
Thank you for the link to the quantum topos logic work. I will never have the time to read it, but it is nice to know that it exists.
grodrigues,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your massive posts, but a lot of the information went over my head. However, I get the general picture: there are countless options, most of which aren't empirically more likely than the others. Uncaused-Copenhagen is an unargued assumption.
if I admit of an unmeasurable cause to a measurable effect then the function from cause to effect must also be unmeasurable.
This would mean that if I asked the question "why do I think that A caused B, and not something else" I could not expect an answer. Since a deduction from A to B would induce a measurable function.
This does not apply under Aristotelian logic. Final causality (directedness) is not measurable nor explicable by empirical science, and yet it can be used in "A causes B" formulations. Consider this recent example: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/04/5119. You can measure the effect of the directedness, but not the directedness itself.
Yes, you did. No one else in this conversation was talking about it whatsoever, but you suddenly blurted it out unprovoked. It says a lot.
ReplyDeleteCalls to mind the old saying, "Heresy begins below the belt."
Pardon my ignorance, because this is a very basic question on causality.
ReplyDeleteIf the universe (as in space-time) began to exist, then there was no "time" before time's existence. I find this hard to comprehend: how can time have a beginning whereas "beginning" presupposes the existence of time. I mean, how can anything happen "outside" time? It seems logically incomprehensible. Any act (whether doing something physical or just "thinking") seems to be in the confines of "time".
And if there is no time before the existence of time, then can it be the reason the universe doesn't need a cause?
" I find this hard to comprehend: how can time have a beginning whereas "beginning" presupposes the existence of time."
ReplyDeleteWell if time or space-time was formed at the Big Bang that you had indeed a beginning of time itself.
Let's say, you have a rod. The rod has a beginning and an end or at least extremities. It is futile to speak of the rod outside the rod, there there is no rod.
Time can in theory be treated as any dimention, and it does not have to be infinite at any one of its ends.
" I mean, how can anything happen "outside" time? It seems logically incomprehensible."
That is only if you interpret as something happening as something that happens in time with accidental causes that follow in time.
Althouh it is hard to imagine, there can be events ans causes outside of time, even some physicists claim that.
Some physicists claim even that time is just an illusion and does not exist.
This is of course very abstract.
I mean yo ualso have mathematics in INFINITE DIMENSIONS. You can have "spheres" with 34 dimensions(instead of 3) and calculate their 'hypervolume' in 34-D and their "hypersurface" in 33-D.
Try to visualize a sphere in just 4 dimensions... impossible. Yet you can conceive it mathematically.
Some very abstract things we can't just visualize or 'imagine' but we can reason about.
You do not even have to go as far as weird mathematical entities:
the very Quantum Mechanics core is hard to picture or imagine!
Imagine an electron? What is it? Not a particle. Not a wave... something in between we cannto fathom.
----
"And if there is no time before the existence of time, then can it be the reason the universe doesn't need a cause?"
As said not all acts and causes need to be inside time.
Also if time began to exist at some point there must be a cause. It would be actually irrational to think otherwise.
I think the main failure of Oerter is to fail to distinguish between 'causality' and 'determinism'.
ReplyDeleteThe hidden-variable problem he talks about regards NOT causality, but indeed the stochastic nature of QM, rather than the deterministic nature we know from classical mechanics.
HERE indeed is Oerter's flaw:
Let's suppose that there is some physical property - something not included in the quantum mechanical description - that determines for each atom exactly when the electron will decay.
Here the problem is NOT causality, but DETERMINISM.
Those are two very different things.
Oerter is also assuming that the only causes that exist are 'efficient causes' and perhaps he goes beyond, that the only causes are 'deterministic causes'.
That is like saying:
"the only way to tavel from New York to Paris is by car (or bike).
Since you cannot go to Paris from NY by car, cars do not exist".
The very fact is that electrons or other onjects at a quantum level DO follow a set of rules,
EG: Take an electron excited by e photon that then decays emitting a photon. A typical 'pump-probe' experiment with a laser excitinbg a sample and measuring it's fluorescence.
Sure the time when ONE electron decays is indeterminate, but if you take 1 trillion electrons, they will all decay with the same pattern, like an exponential function with a defined 'half time'.
The fact is that if I do a pump probe experiment on the same molecule, I will obtain always the same result.
The very fact that repeating such experiments on the very same system reproduces always the very same exponential function (forgetting about noise and changes in the system due to the influence of the measurement itself) indicates that the elctrons DO follow some 'rules' when decaying.
indeed the decay half time indicates a CAUSE. An ensemble of electrons when measuring an ensemble of molecules(ie liquid benzene) will decay differently than another molecule or in different conditions (eg aniline or pentacene or benzene mixed with some non-fluorescent apolar solvent)
This does not mean such causes or rules requires 'determinism', nor do they entail that QM is 'incompletete' or we need to invoke 'hidden variables'.
So the problem has never been causality in QM (unless you think only of deterministic efficient causes) but determinism!
I think ANY phisicists who interprets Quantum Mechanics correctly will disagree with Oerter.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately DOING QM is very different than INTERPRETING QM. I do NOT mean interpretation of the experiments to get the results (i.e. a given energy) but rather understanding QM at a fundamental level.
Most textbooks (and I mean graduate level text books, not some pop-science book) do NOT take a anti-causality approach, also they affirm that 'understanding QM' is impossible, we can only 'DO' QM (ie. calculations and experiments). Although if really understanding QM is impossible or not is debatable and there are many interpretations of QM.
I mean pick up for example (these are undergraduate-graduate level textbooks, some of the best IMO):
Greiner - "Quantum mechanics. An introduction"
or
Griffiths - "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics"
and read the last chapters (althoug I recomend reading the first chapters that give the theoretical and mathematical basis first!) and you'll see what I mean.
You're missing the point with the Bell's theorem objection. Oerter is not inferring from the premise "QM describes such-and-such a state without describing its cause" to "QM shows that such-and-such a state has no cause". He is inferring the latter statement from Bell's Theorem, which proves that there cannot be a hidden cause of quantum mechanical events (under certain assumptions, as he says). For all that you accuse your opponents of misrepresenting you (usually due to wording that is seemingly intentionally vague), you're making a total strawman here.
ReplyDelete