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To: Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
Falsification is a subset of deductive reasoning, LG.

I agree. Do you disagree with my statement that you can't prove a scientific theory, you can only falsify it?

The double-slit experiment is widely open to interpretation with respect to its implications for causality, and most interested parties don't share the conclusions that you seem to think are set in stone.

Well then use the particle - anti particle spontaneous creation example, or the quantum eraser, or the Theory of Relativity. I especially like the Theory of Relativity with events happening in different orders depending on your frame of reference : ) That really messes with causality.

Even if your thesis were correct, it still wouldn't get you off the arche problem hook.

Arche problem?

262 posted on 01/12/2009 3:13:20 PM PST by LeGrande (I once heard a smart man say that you canÂ’t reason someone out of something that they didnÂ’t reaso)
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To: LeGrande
I agree. Do you disagree with my statement that you can't prove a scientific theory, you can only falsify it?

Of course, because it's not your statement - it's something any freshman science major hears in their one-credit hour philosophy of science seminar course.

Well then use the particle - anti particle spontaneous creation example, or the quantum eraser, or the Theory of Relativity. I especially like the Theory of Relativity with events happening in different orders depending on your frame of reference : ) That really messes with causality.

Same issue here - your assuming that these necessarily destroy causality when that is only one of many possible interpretations. With the ToR, the issue isn't so much causality being messed with, but time itself, IIRC.

Anywise, if I press the button to summon the lift, and the lift comes to my floor, that is causality. If I press the button to summon the lift, and the lift doesn't come to my floor, this isn't necessarily proof that "causality has broken down". It's merely indicative of a deeper, nested causality that I may currently be unaware of. So also with the "breakdowns of causality" which you suppose are shown by QM - that intepretation is unlikely, and certainly doesn't even begin to address the causality issue of the creation of the universe (a macroscopic event to which QM doesn't apply). This is true whether one posits the creation of the universe by an intelligent Creator, or whether one posits its creation through random, materialistic forces.

Arche problem?

The problem of first cause - what we've been discussing already, under a different name.

719 posted on 01/14/2009 10:51:53 AM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Nihil utile nisi quod honestum - Marcus Tullius Cicero)
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