|
Kremlin
life in E minor
Registered: 06/07/01
Posts: 1,860
Loc: /export/home/Kremlin
Last seen: 4 years, 3 months
|
causal closure
#2411769 - 03/09/04 05:46 PM (20 years, 23 days ago) |
|
|
So i've been reading about this causal closure of the physical world.
What do you guys think about it?
Quote:
Any physical event at time t has a physical cause at t. This is the assumption that if we trace the causal ancestry of a physical event, we need never go outside the physical domain. To deny this assumption is to accept the Cartesian idea that some physical events have only nonphysical causes, and if this is true there can be in principle no complete & self-sufficient physical theory of the physical domain
--Kremlin
--------------------
"Human suffering has been caused because all too many of us cannot grasp that words are only tools for our use, and that the mere presence of a word in the dictionary does not mean it necessarily refers to something definitive in the real world" --Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene" "It is the mind which creates the world about us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours." -George Gissing "Without a firm idea of himself and the purpose of his life, man cannot live, and would sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if he was surrounded by bread." --Fyodor Dostoevsky
|
zappaisgod
horrid asshole
Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
|
Re: causal closure [Re: Kremlin]
#2411814 - 03/09/04 05:57 PM (20 years, 23 days ago) |
|
|
Certainly true given a large enough set of elements. Causality breaks down somewhat at a subatomic level. The concept of the Preservation of Information disappears when something falls into a black hole.
--------------------
|
Kremlin
life in E minor
Registered: 06/07/01
Posts: 1,860
Loc: /export/home/Kremlin
Last seen: 4 years, 3 months
|
|
this is true,
but causal closure of the physical world in this context refers to substances & existence. IE the cartesian debate on mind/body.
--Kremlin
--------------------
"Human suffering has been caused because all too many of us cannot grasp that words are only tools for our use, and that the mere presence of a word in the dictionary does not mean it necessarily refers to something definitive in the real world" --Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene" "It is the mind which creates the world about us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours." -George Gissing "Without a firm idea of himself and the purpose of his life, man cannot live, and would sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if he was surrounded by bread." --Fyodor Dostoevsky
|
The_Visionaire
Torch
Registered: 02/16/04
Posts: 111
Loc: Indra's Net
Last seen: 16 years, 1 month
|
Re: causal closure [Re: Kremlin]
#2413861 - 03/10/04 06:40 AM (20 years, 22 days ago) |
|
|
See the thread: Logic, Emotion, Mathematics, and the Universe for my views on this subject. I think this view reconciles the opposing stands.
All is causal within a certain level, but there are an infinite of such levels. I.e. quantum mechanical effects can be considered acausal within the framework of newtonian mechanics, but if you follow the order of quantum mechanics this order is causal within its respective framework.
But there is no reason to postulate that QM is the final order of the universe. Thought is an order i.e. that QM can not presently explain (or it is explained by the strange assumption, that thought does not really exist, but is an illusion or a projection of matter when matter is organized within certain constellations. What ever happened to "cogito ergo sum"?)
-------------------- There are no differences between men and gods, one blends softly causal into the other. -Frank Herbert, Dune.
|
|