What materialists sometimes miss about Occam's principle

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Athetotheist
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What materialists sometimes miss about Occam's principle

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Post by Athetotheist »

I was recently going through a thread from a while back in which a few of us were discussing the origin of the universe. Another poster took the position that it was possible for the universe to spring into being from nothing, as nothing has the potential to "act like something", while I was trying to explain why I find that position logically untenable. One argument the other poster kept coming back to was that their conclusion was more likely correct because it posited fewer entites than mine (granted, I was positing the existence of a cosmic creator).

Here we have to remember something important about Occam's principle. Occam's principle does not tell us to avoid multiplying entities; it tells us to avoid multiplying entities beyond necessity. Since it stands to reason that nothing could not produce something (by definition, there being nothing would mean no mechanism by which to produce anything----if there were such a mechanism there wouldn't be nothing), the postulation of something to produce something is necessary. The assumption of "something from nothing", therefore, fails to come out on top. To one extent or another, sometimes entities have to be multiplied.

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Re: What materialists sometimes miss about Occam's principle

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Post by Athetotheist »

Goat wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 12:01 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 11:38 am [Replying to Goat in post #68

Competing interpretations aside, maybe this is what I should have asked in the first place:

What causes quantum non-causality?
There is no cause to quantum non-causality. It's probability, not ca-usual.

Give me a prediction when a single atom will decay.
Give me a prediction when a six will come up on the die.

Do we know when the atom will decay? No.

Since the atom has an excess of energy which makes it unstable, do we know that the atom will decay? Yes.

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Re: What materialists sometimes miss about Occam's principle

Post #72

Post by Goat »

Athetotheist wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 2:37 pm
Goat wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 12:01 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 11:38 am [Replying to Goat in post #68

Competing interpretations aside, maybe this is what I should have asked in the first place:

What causes quantum non-causality?
There is no cause to quantum non-causality. It's probability, not ca-usual.

Give me a prediction when a single atom will decay.
Give me a prediction when a six will come up on the die.

Do we know when the atom will decay? No.

Since the atom has an excess of energy which makes it unstable, do we know that the atom will decay? Yes.
And, that shows that the atoms decay is probabilistic.
“What do you think science is? There is nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. So which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?�

Steven Novella

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Re: What materialists sometimes miss about Occam's principle

Post #73

Post by Athetotheist »

Goat wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 3:09 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 2:37 pm
Goat wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 12:01 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 11:38 am [Replying to Goat in post #68

Competing interpretations aside, maybe this is what I should have asked in the first place:

What causes quantum non-causality?
There is no cause to quantum non-causality. It's probability, not ca-usual.

Give me a prediction when a single atom will decay.
Give me a prediction when a six will come up on the die.

Do we know when the atom will decay? No.

Since the atom has an excess of energy which makes it unstable, do we know that the atom will decay? Yes.
And, that shows that the atoms decay is probabilistic.
If stable atoms don't decay and unstable atoms decay until they become stable, doesn't that suggest that decay is caused by instability?

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Re: What materialists sometimes miss about Occam's principle

Post #74

Post by Difflugia »

Athetotheist wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 6:42 pmIf stable atoms don't decay and unstable atoms decay until they become stable, doesn't that suggest that decay is caused by instability?
"Unstable" just means that it's liable to decay. That's a definition, not a cause. That's like saying that the pie's aroma was caused by how it smelled or the Sun's light was caused by its brightness.
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Re: What materialists sometimes miss about Occam's principle

Post #75

Post by Kylie »

Athetotheist wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 8:48 am [Replying to Kylie in post #66
I just looked back at your posts in this thread and I didn't see them. Could you provide the links again, or tell me which post numbers you cited them in?
#53 & #61. See also my citation of a third article in #64.
The article in post 53 does not say that we can look at a particular atom and predict when it will decay. We can't look at an atom and say, "The forces are becoming more and more unbalanced, this atom will decay in ten seconds." And that is the whole point of what I and others are trying to tell you.

You can watch an atom as closely as you want until it decays. And once it has decayed, you can look back over whatever studies ytou made of it. But there will be NOTHING that happens to it to indicate that it is about to decay until it actually decays.
So you can't point to a specific event which causes the atom to decay. Which is exactly what we've been telling you.
Think back to the dice analogy in the article you cited in post #56. Each time I roll a die, the combination of force and angle brings up a certain number. If I keep rolling long enough, a 6 will eventually come up. I can't predict exactly when that will happen, but when it does it will be because of a particular combination of force and angle which won't bring up any other number.
No. This is expecting a quantum level event to behave the same as a macroscopic level event. It doesn't work that way.

If you were watching the dice, you'd be able to tell once it started moving that it would land on a 6. You could say, "This dice is about to land on a 6" before it actually landed. You can't do that with atomic decay. You can't tell that an atom is about to decay. And even if you know it is coming because you are watching a recording of an atom, there will be no evidence that it is about to decay until it actually decays.

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Re: What materialists sometimes miss about Occam's principle

Post #76

Post by Athetotheist »

Difflugia wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 7:19 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 6:42 pmIf stable atoms don't decay and unstable atoms decay until they become stable, doesn't that suggest that decay is caused by instability?
"Unstable" just means that it's liable to decay. That's a definition, not a cause. That's like saying that the pie's aroma was caused by how it smelled or the Sun's light was caused by its brightness.
Then why don't stable atoms decay along with unstable ones? Statistically, they should----if decay requires no cause.

The pie's aroma and how it smells are the same thing. The sun's light and its brightness are the same thing. An atom's instability precedes decay, and the decay stops when the atom is no longer unstable. "Unstable" isn't a definition; it's a condition.

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