The Problem of Evil

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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[quote]Grey Area wrote:
mertdawg: out of interest, do you have any knowledge of physics at all? You appear to have taken a couple of topics about which you know very little and completely misrepresented them. Quantum Mechanics says nothing about choice. It merely replaces mechanical determinism with probabilistic determinism. Chaos theory is about senstitive dependence on initial conditions. I’m not sure what you’re on about. [/quote]

Well, you have to decide if my experiences have given me any knowledge of physics at all. I do have a degree in biology with SEVERAL extra classes in physics, and was accepted to graduate school in physics. This doesn’t mean I know anything. I am a highschool science teacher and have taught physics, chem, and bio for the last 9 years, but there are certainly highschool science teachers who don’t know sh**. I have read about 100 books on theoretical physics and was fortunate enough to carpool with a physics PhD whose specialty was relative quantum dynamics, one of the top researchers at a now closed particle accelerator lab. He was also my next door neighbor. For 5 months and got a free 30 minute lesson 5 days a week for 5 months.

Your dead wrong about quantum physics and your description of chaos theory is shallow.

The keystone experimental fact of quantum physics is that light can act as a particle or a wave dependant ONLY on which experiment we choose to do. If you know anything about quantum physics you should know that. Also, the wave function of a system collapses to an “event” when it reaches a state of irreversability. One such event is human observation. Shrodinger’s cat doesn’t die (or not) until an intelligent creature performs a test to see if it is alive or dead. In the strict Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the “event” as witnessed by an intelligent creature is the fundamental unit of reality. Feynman said about a certain predicted but as of then yet undiscovered particle: “I do not know if this particle exists, but I have no doubt that it will soon!”

Chaos in a practical sense is about SDIC, but the deeper description of chaos theory is that the universe is fractal-has INFINITE details and so there is NO exact measurement of any value, therefore SDIC is real not just practical. This doesn’t mesh with the quantum description as we know it.

If you believe that Newton’s determinism has been replaced by probabilistic determinism then where is your mechanism of free will?

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[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Grey Area wrote:
…Quantum Mechanics says nothing about choice. It merely replaces mechanical determinism with probabilistic determinism…

[mertdawg:]
…Your dead wrong about quantum physics and your description of chaos theory is shallow.

The keystone experimental fact of quantum physics is that light can act as a particle or a wave dependant ONLY on which experiment we choose to do.

If you believe that Newton’s determinism has been replaced by probabilistic determinism then where is your mechanism of free will?

[/quote]

mertdawg, you obviously know your stuff at least as well as I do, but I still don’t understand how indeterminacy principles suggest freedom of the will.

After all, it is the acts of experimentation, and not the act of willing, that produces different results. It is not that our will determines the status of the quantum objects; rather, we decide to perform one experiment or another - either of our own free will or by means of a thought process determined necessarily - and then the experiment affects or determines the quantum objects’s status.

Is my understanding incorrect? Am I reasoning incorrectly?

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"The sum of human free will “events” has placed us in a particular quantum time (world) line that doesn’t happen to be the exact one that God intended. "

This has nothing to do with physics. It’s just the “free will” argument written oddly.

"Chaos theory suggests that we can’t humanly choose all the right actions for the world to be perfect. It can only be accomplished by aligning our wills to God’s. "

What the hell does this mean? How do we “align our wills to God’s?” And what has this got to do with chaos theory?

"Flesh (matter) has a world line bound inextricably to time. Being matter, we must experience time in sequence and at a limited pace. "

As opposed to infinitely fast?

"Light/pure energy has a world line that is not bound to time. "

This sentence is gibberish.

"Light has no mathematical frame of reference. "

What exactly is a “mathematical frame of reference” in this context? What does a “mathematical frame of reference” have to do with physical reality?

“Your atoms WILL eventually become something eternal/timeless. The only question is, can consciousness reside in unbound energy, or not.”

What do you class as eternal/timeless, or why will our atoms eventually become something of this type? What is “unbound energy?”

"Quantum mechanics explains how evil can be a mathematical possibility but not a necessary state in the universe. "

Mathematical possibility? Again, what does something being “mathematically possible” have to do with physical reality? Euclidean, spherical and hyperbolic geometry are all “mathematically possible” but this tells us nothing about reality.

"Human free will, not God’s action has made that mathematical possibility reality. "

This is once again just an assertion that “free will exists despite God’s omnipotence” and has nothing to do with the physics you’re mentioning, nor adds anything to the argument.

“We CAN’T measure aspects of the universe accurately enough to know the medium range pragmatic outcomes of our actions. We have to have a guide outside of ourselves and be open to that guide moment by moment.”

And how exactly do we let God tell us exactly what to do?

"There is a single perfect quantum state for the universe. "

What on earth does this mean? What do you mean by “perfect?” Why is there only one? Is this a wavefunction, or an eigenvector for the wavefunction, or what?

"We can call this the universe before the fall. Because of the sum total of sin, (actions, choices, quantum forks in the road) the universe we live in is many steps off of that ideal. "

What’re the “quantum fork in the road?”

"We can’t tell by intellect (exactly) which actions will move the universe back to the right path. "

So how else do we do it? All we have is our intellect.

"Again, killing Hitler would have prevented the birth of everyone on earth born perhaps more than 9-10 months afterword. "

I’m guessing you mean “could”.

"Quantum actually shows that their are myriad mathematically valid states for the universe to be in in the next second from now. They are equal in the laws of physics. This is why HUMAN free will is real. "

Why? As I mentioned earlier, you’ve just replaced mechanical determinism with probabilistic determinism.

“The keystone experimental fact of quantum physics is that light can act as a particle or a wave dependant ONLY on which experiment we choose to do. If you know anything about quantum physics you should know that. Also, the wave function of a system collapses to an “event” when it reaches a state of irreversability.”

What does this have to do with your previous comments?

If you’re as qualified/well read as you claim to be on the subject, then I’m at a loss to explain your sloppy terminology, ill-defined terms and general meaningless waffle.

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I should have said that one such cause of irreversability of a system is observation by an intelligent creature.

Also, you can prove that a deterministc universe can not be part of any valid scientific model. If the universe were deterministic then all of our theories would be non-falsefiable in principle. A valid scientific theory must be falsefiable in principle. If not, it may be accurate, but its not part of science.

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Could you elaborate on why “a deterministic universe could not be part of any valid scientific model”?

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[quote]
mertdawg, you obviously know your stuff at least as well as I do, but I still don’t understand how indeterminacy principles suggest freedom of the will.

After all, it is the acts of experimentation, and not the act of willing, that produces different results. It is not that our will determines the status of the quantum objects; rather, we decide to perform one experiment or another - either of our own free will or by means of a thought process determined necessarily - and then the experiment affects or determines the quantum objects’s status.

Is my understanding incorrect? Am I reasoning incorrectly?[/quote]

Your reasoning in my opinion is right, your understanding of how the experiment affect reality is still in question among theoretical physicist.

  1. What your saying is that our choice of experiment could be deterministic. Good logic. Probabalistic mechanics does not prove free will and it does give a mechanism for determinism within a probabilistic universe. However, if you can’t believe in free will and a deterministic universe in my opinion. That’s really my premise here. I would argue that the assumption that we don’t have free will can not be part of any valid scientific model based on the scientific AXIOM that theories must be falsefiable in principle. Believe it or not, the Catholic church had a 2 day meeting including several atheist scientists and philosopher to answer the question of whether Chaos theory could be used to prove human free will. Their conclusion was that it did not-it provided alternate deterministic models to answer questions which had previously appeared to be non-deterministic. Problem is, if the universe were deterministic then their conclusion was unavoidable and therefore non-falsefiable in principle.

  2. As to understanding how an experiment affects reality, one interpretation is that if you had an experimental apparatus which had assembled by chance in the universe somewhere without any intelligent creature, that the experiment would not produce a result. It would be in a dual state. Only if it was later discovered by an intelligent being would the wave function collapse to produce an event. The other interpretation is that the wave function could reach a state of irreversibility without an intelligent observer, it would then become an event. Although I do not know if the experimental setup ITSELF creates a situation of irreversibility. Interestingly, the “traditional” model of quantum physics would say that the universe did not exist until it was observed by an intelligent mind. Then it would turn from a wave function into an EVENT. Some (scientists) have really suggested that the universe, including its entire past history as we know it today become real when the first intelligent mind observed it. (to qualify, within a given light sphere. I can explain if it matters). Others have posited an outside observer. Their are other atheistic explanations, but they arose reactionarily to the theistic and human intelligence explanations.

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[quote]Grey Area wrote:
"The sum of human free will “events” has placed us in a particular quantum time (world) line that doesn’t happen to be the exact one that God intended. "

This has nothing to do with physics. It’s just the “free will” argument written oddly.

"Chaos theory suggests that we can’t humanly choose all the right actions for the world to be perfect. It can only be accomplished by aligning our wills to God’s. "

What the hell does this mean? How do we “align our wills to God’s?” And what has this got to do with chaos theory?

"Flesh (matter) has a world line bound inextricably to time. Being matter, we must experience time in sequence and at a limited pace. "

As opposed to infinitely fast?

"Light/pure energy has a world line that is not bound to time. "

This sentence is gibberish.

"Light has no mathematical frame of reference. "

What exactly is a “mathematical frame of reference” in this context? What does a “mathematical frame of reference” have to do with physical reality?

“Your atoms WILL eventually become something eternal/timeless. The only question is, can consciousness reside in unbound energy, or not.”

What do you class as eternal/timeless, or why will our atoms eventually become something of this type? What is “unbound energy?”

"Quantum mechanics explains how evil can be a mathematical possibility but not a necessary state in the universe. "

Mathematical possibility? Again, what does something being “mathematically possible” have to do with physical reality? Euclidean, spherical and hyperbolic geometry are all “mathematically possible” but this tells us nothing about reality.

"Human free will, not God’s action has made that mathematical possibility reality. "

This is once again just an assertion that “free will exists despite God’s omnipotence” and has nothing to do with the physics you’re mentioning, nor adds anything to the argument.

“We CAN’T measure aspects of the universe accurately enough to know the medium range pragmatic outcomes of our actions. We have to have a guide outside of ourselves and be open to that guide moment by moment.”

And how exactly do we let God tell us exactly what to do?

"There is a single perfect quantum state for the universe. "

What on earth does this mean? What do you mean by “perfect?” Why is there only one? Is this a wavefunction, or an eigenvector for the wavefunction, or what?

"We can call this the universe before the fall. Because of the sum total of sin, (actions, choices, quantum forks in the road) the universe we live in is many steps off of that ideal. "

What’re the “quantum fork in the road?”

"We can’t tell by intellect (exactly) which actions will move the universe back to the right path. "

So how else do we do it? All we have is our intellect.

"Again, killing Hitler would have prevented the birth of everyone on earth born perhaps more than 9-10 months afterword. "

I’m guessing you mean “could”.

"Quantum actually shows that their are myriad mathematically valid states for the universe to be in in the next second from now. They are equal in the laws of physics. This is why HUMAN free will is real. "

Why? As I mentioned earlier, you’ve just replaced mechanical determinism with probabilistic determinism.

“The keystone experimental fact of quantum physics is that light can act as a particle or a wave dependant ONLY on which experiment we choose to do. If you know anything about quantum physics you should know that. Also, the wave function of a system collapses to an “event” when it reaches a state of irreversability.”

What does this have to do with your previous comments?

If you’re as qualified/well read as you claim to be on the subject, then I’m at a loss to explain your sloppy terminology, ill-defined terms and general meaningless waffle.
[/quote]

Sorry about the “aligning our will” stuff, and what “God intended”. This was a conjecture for the theists in the discusion to consider. I will try to qualify conjectures, and those intended for theists in the discussion. We really have 2 or maybe 3 things going on here.

228

[quote]Grey Area wrote:
"The sum of human free will “events” has placed us in a particular quantum time (world) line that doesn’t happen to be the exact one that God intended. "

This has nothing to do with physics. It’s just the “free will” argument written oddly.

"Chaos theory suggests that we can’t humanly choose all the right actions for the world to be perfect. It can only be accomplished by aligning our wills to God’s. "

What the hell does this mean? How do we “align our wills to God’s?” And what has this got to do with chaos theory?

"Flesh (matter) has a world line bound inextricably to time. Being matter, we must experience time in sequence and at a limited pace. "

As opposed to infinitely fast?

"Light/pure energy has a world line that is not bound to time. "

This sentence is gibberish.

"Light has no mathematical frame of reference. "

What exactly is a “mathematical frame of reference” in this context? What does a “mathematical frame of reference” have to do with physical reality?

“Your atoms WILL eventually become something eternal/timeless. The only question is, can consciousness reside in unbound energy, or not.”

What do you class as eternal/timeless, or why will our atoms eventually become something of this type? What is “unbound energy?”

"Quantum mechanics explains how evil can be a mathematical possibility but not a necessary state in the universe. "

Mathematical possibility? Again, what does something being “mathematically possible” have to do with physical reality? Euclidean, spherical and hyperbolic geometry are all “mathematically possible” but this tells us nothing about reality.

"Human free will, not God’s action has made that mathematical possibility reality. "

This is once again just an assertion that “free will exists despite God’s omnipotence” and has nothing to do with the physics you’re mentioning, nor adds anything to the argument.

“We CAN’T measure aspects of the universe accurately enough to know the medium range pragmatic outcomes of our actions. We have to have a guide outside of ourselves and be open to that guide moment by moment.”

And how exactly do we let God tell us exactly what to do?

"There is a single perfect quantum state for the universe. "

What on earth does this mean? What do you mean by “perfect?” Why is there only one? Is this a wavefunction, or an eigenvector for the wavefunction, or what?

"We can call this the universe before the fall. Because of the sum total of sin, (actions, choices, quantum forks in the road) the universe we live in is many steps off of that ideal. "

What’re the “quantum fork in the road?”

"We can’t tell by intellect (exactly) which actions will move the universe back to the right path. "

So how else do we do it? All we have is our intellect.

"Again, killing Hitler would have prevented the birth of everyone on earth born perhaps more than 9-10 months afterword. "

I’m guessing you mean “could”.

"Quantum actually shows that their are myriad mathematically valid states for the universe to be in in the next second from now. They are equal in the laws of physics. This is why HUMAN free will is real. "

Why? As I mentioned earlier, you’ve just replaced mechanical determinism with probabilistic determinism.

“The keystone experimental fact of quantum physics is that light can act as a particle or a wave dependant ONLY on which experiment we choose to do. If you know anything about quantum physics you should know that. Also, the wave function of a system collapses to an “event” when it reaches a state of irreversability.”

What does this have to do with your previous comments?

If you’re as qualified/well read as you claim to be on the subject, then I’m at a loss to explain your sloppy terminology, ill-defined terms and general meaningless waffle.
[/quote]

In the theory of relativity, matter moves through space and time in conjunction at a finite rate. The faster matter moves, the less time passes. Light has no reference frame.

Light/pure energy has a world line that is not bound to time.

You called this gibberish. It is straight up definitions of the theory of relativity. Time is not a variable for a beam of light. Time has become completely space-like (again are you familiar with the term space-like from the theory of relativity?

Light has no mathematical frame of reference. What does that mean?
If you use the equations of general relativity to calculate the reference frame of a beam of light, the answer is undefined.

Matter/particles are composed of light which is bound by a force. There is a general tendancy in the universe for this light to become unbound. Once it becomes light, its reference frame is undefined and time ceases to be a valid variable for it.

Mathematical possibility…
The universe could have progressed in such a manner that it would be in a different quantum state today than it is. Why it is in one state rather than another is independant of the laws of physics. Its like a chip in the price is right game plinko, if you can imagine a perfectly symmetrical plinko board and perfectly round chip. You can’t explain by the laws of physics why it ended up falling into one slot rather than another. They are all equally valid solutions. It must, however fall into one of them. I have to say that chaos theory gives a deterministic explanation-imperceptable details in the system determine where it falls, but Chaos theory in this sense, and quantum theory can not both be true.

If Hitler hadn’t come to power, we wouldn’t have been born.

Yes possibly we wouldn’t have been born, but based on SDIC “possibly” would in fact mean “almost certainly” The chance that any of us would have been born had Hitler not come to power would be in fact almost nothing. You may want to read the “Millions of Sperm” post earlier in this thread.

A quantum fork in the road. Every planck time unit that passes, the universe could be move into any of about 10^192 - 10^198 different quantum states (depending on the true size of the universe which we aren’t sure of) It only moves into ONE of them.

I made a mistake. Quantum uncertainty does not prove human free will. It does say that our quantum state for the universe is special, or that there are 10^192 - 10^198 different forms of the universe which are all REAL.

True, our choice to do a certain experiment may be deterministic. I made a logical error.

I posit that free will is an unstated (and sometimes forgotten) axiom of science. Challenge it (if you choose to!) If the universe is deterministic, then the answers we will get from all of our questions is already set: right or wrong, and the Axiom that a scientific theory must be IN PRINCIPLE falsifiable is not true.

The rest of my comments were again conjectures for theists in the discussion.

Also, my terminology is not sloppy. I have in fact gone out of my way to use terms exactly as they are defined in the theories from which they developed. Scientist do often chose terms which sound ambiguous or sloppy. It’s not my fault.

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[quote]mertdawg wrote:
OK Lothario. The reason that almost all moral choices fall into the Gray area. There is a single perfect quantum state for the universe. We can call this the universe before the fall. Because of the sum total of sin, (actions, choices, quantum forks in the road) the universe we live in is many steps off of that ideal. We can’t tell by intellect (exactly) which actions will move the universe back to the right path. Again, killing Hitler would have prevented the birth of everyone on earth born perhaps more than 9-10 months afterword. Its the butterfly effect and Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Your biological conception was the
result of 1 of millions of sperm by (at least one) man swimming upstream, and one of those sperm beating another one by a millisecond to the party. Change the temperature by a couple of degrees, the “position,” the time by a fraction of a second… …shake things up a little bit… and a different sperm wins the race and your only a quantum mathematical possibility. Yes, we are incapable of distinguishing the finer details of right and wrong. We can only know some general rules. Thats why, for someone to take the next moral step, they have to be open to the will of something that has a perfect will. [/quote]

I understand what you’re getting at. You explain the existence of evil as a result of human error (sin). You are also ascribing our differing views as a function of our imperfection. Cool.

Your theory of sin causing a tsunami is a bit far-fetched, and I’d like to address that real quick. The basis of superstition is believing a link between an unrelated cause and effect exists. For example: if I break a mirror, I will have seven years of bad luck. This is very similar to sin causing a hurricane. SDIC and chaos theory aren’t the problem here, it’s the importance you attach to the human factor (sin) as a contributor to the myriad number of factors which bring about a storm. We are talking about a very large and complex system here (weather) and any human influence must by necessity be considered extremely minor. Did the butterfly CAUSE the hurricane, or would it be better to say that the butterfly contributed to it in some tiny, miniscule, almost insignificant way? When you are analyzing a system as complex as global weather, there are just so many variables involved that it is preposterous to claim that sin is the “cause”. I know that you’re trying to say that without that tiny human input, the tsunami wouldn’t have happened per SDIC, but I would imagine that the system we’re talking about is not in a state to be sensitive to extremely minor input. If I blow against a gust of wind, it still rushes past me and races through the trees, etc.

Now take a different system, such as a certain interaction between me and somebody else’s wife. There you will find that your definition of sin to be much more of a cause. :slight_smile:

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[quote]Your theory of sin causing a tsunami is a bit far-fetched, and I’d like to address that real quick. The basis of superstition is believing a link between an unrelated cause and effect exists. For example: if I break a mirror, I will have seven years of bad luck. This is very similar to sin causing a hurricane. SDIC and chaos theory aren’t the problem here, it’s the importance you attach to the human factor (sin) as a contributor to the myriad number of factors which bring about a storm. We are talking about a very large and complex system here (weather) and any human influence must by necessity be considered extremely minor. Did the butterfly CAUSE the hurricane, or would it be better to say that the butterfly contributed to it in some tiny, miniscule, almost insignificant way? When you are analyzing a system as complex as global weather, there are just so many variables involved that it is preposterous to claim that sin is the “cause”. I know that you’re trying to say that without that tiny human input, the tsunami wouldn’t have happened per SDIC, but I would imagine that the system we’re talking about is not in a state to be sensitive to extremely minor input. If I blow against a gust of wind, it still rushes past me and races through the trees, etc.

Now take a different system, such as a certain interaction between me and somebody else’s wife. There you will find that your definition of sin to be much more of a cause. :slight_smile:
[/quote]

I agree with all of this except equating my argument with superstition. It’s really a question of what you mean by cause. Your actions today participate in determining who and when everyone from this day forward will be concieved and die. That doesn’t make you their killer. The Tsunami existed in a universe in which people had acted certain ways. If people had acted differently, it could have happened at a different time. In geological terms, 1000 years ago say, and perhaps no-one would have died. It could have happened at a different scale, and it could have happened not at all. That doesn’t make each of us the cause of the Tsunami, but it is also not superstition.

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By the way, is there anyone out there who is seriously arguing that we don’t have free will. If we have free will, then the definition of “determinism” is different than it used to be right.

And Lothario, I would say that the tsunami being “connected” by SDIC to human actions is equivalent to “original sin” ie the fallen state of the cosmos/guiltless sin, while the other scenario was personal sin, but that explanation is a little too religious for me.