?
Because they are continually interacting with each other, *i.e.[/] are “observed,” and are thus in a determinate and not an indeterminate state.
That doesn’t make any sense. It’s like saying that a particle accelerator can’t work for the same reason. Quantum phenomena occur all the time despite that there is a macro world overlying all of them. It is entirely possible that some of the particles that comprise you are not here right now, but in China, or for that matter, Andromeda. And it won’t make any difference if someone is looking at you. Maybe we can use a Von Neumann interpretation, and assume that you MUST at some point go through a wall. Since interpretations of QM are untestable, why is one more valid than another?
Then the designer is no where.
Monavis
Where is natural selection?
It’s pretty much in your face, isn’t it?
While a designer is nowhere to be seen.
So, we have a system that works without the need for a designer.
There is no designer in sight.
Why would we still want to search for a designer?
Be that in the natural or the non-natural world.
It looks to me like the natural world is the non-designed place, while the non- natural world does have a designer. Namely Homo Sapiens Sapiens’ fantasy.
Too weak to deserve substantive comment. When come back, bring argument.
In a particle accelerator the particles are individual, isolated quantum objects that are not interacting with the particles of that enormous outside world until the collision at which time they become physical objects and pieces resulting from the interaction fly in all directions.
In order to be assured that particles from me or you are not in Andromeda I think you have to understand Linus Pauling’s The Nature of The Chemical Bond (1939) which demonstrated that because of a resonance effect, two atoms in combination with each other could form a more stable wave arrangement than either could separately. I believe this model of the chemical bond is now the standard explanation and it is based on quantum mechanics. And, by the way, the preceding is all I know about the subject and I’m not even sure I know all of it.
And QM interpretations are untestable? What in the world are you talking about? QM interpretations resulting in some pretty bizzare conclustions are tested regularly and so far they confirm QM right down the line.
All QM interpretations imply conclusions that are testable (and that, not coincidentally, suggest the same data). But the interpretations in se are not testable, just as the underlying interpretation of science — falsifiability — is not itself falsifiable. Quantum interpretations may be expressed in almost any context, including logical modality.
And I understand what you’re saying about the more stable wave arrangement of large masses, but in some interpretations there is no qualitative difference between your feet and your shoes. And yet, miraculously, your shoes slide on and off your feet. In other words, although it is true that forces among neighboring particles dissuade tunneling by statistical weight, they do not prohibit it. As Heisenberg put it, “The atoms or the elementary particles are not real; they form a world of potentialities and possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”
I think that what Heisenberg said is that the atoms are not real but only probablitites when they are in isolation.
However once an atom is observed it assumes a determined existence. When an atom combines with other atoms in a molecule it is continually ‘observed’ and assumes a continued, determined existence as long as the molecule lasts and QM rules are not applicable any longer.
By “quantum rules”, do you mean uncertainty? Consider the correspondence between our experience and formalism. Is it not self-evident that a thing is essentially the quantum state of its particles, rather than the particles themselves? It isn’t that uncertainty no longer applies, but that uncertainty is zero. In fact, the entire Many Worlds interpretation is built around the premise, suggested by the aforementioned correspondence, that classically described states correspond to orthogonal quantum states. That is, even the universe itself has a quantum state. So do molecules.
On the contrary, the natural world does appear to be designed (how often have we been compared to machines in our construction?). However, the point that materialists make is that the designer, in this case, is not consicious or intelligent – the “designer” is simply the sum of forces acting probablistically. Natural selection is, as Liberal implied (though perhaps not with the same argumentative intent…), a capable designer, lacking in intelligent input or direction. Something like the Grand Canyon having been designed by forces of erosion.
Very well said. I don’t know why natural selection is just about the most difficult thing there is to resist reifying. But it is a truism that man tends to see whatever it is that he is looking for.
“What we are observing is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our type of question.” — Arthur Eddington
I’m bemused. You started off saying that it’s possible that you could suddenly find yourself on the other side of a wall, or words to that effect. And you wind up talking about individual atoms. DIfferent animals entirely.
Yes, it’s possible, in fact I guess it is certain that from time to time an electron tunnels out of you and me to appear as a wave function, until it is observed at which time it becomes a particle. There is non-zero a probability that electron might appear on the other side of a wall, although once an electron turns into a wave and then the wave turns into an electron it’s a little hard to say that it is the same electron.
None of that has anything to do with the corporal you suddenly passing to the other side of the wall.
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And it is possible that every electron might spontaneously do the same. An electron is an electron. You are not identified by having particular electrons, but by their states. You cannot say with a certainty what state any of them will have at any point in time; therefore, it is both an epistemic possibility and a metaphysical possibility that you, as a whole, will disappear and reappear elsewhere. Your besumement notwithstanding, I have spoken of everything from an electron to the universe. It is all same same — distributions of probabilities.
It is in place,we can see nature; nature is place which contains people and things.
Monavis
monavis, I’m really not sure what you are arguing toward. Liberal has addressed two specific logical points in this thread, but he is not making an argument for a scientific acceptance of Intelligent Design. I suspect you may be reading too much into his actual statements and will find yourself in the frustrating position of tilting at phantoms. Take a look at his specific statements in context rather than latching on to phrases that have the appearance of an argument he is not actually stating.
I’m glad you explained that, Tom. It isn’t whereness or some reification that makes natural selection scientific; it is the ability to falsify the hypothesis that posits natural selection that makes it scientific. Likewise, it is a waste of time to attack ID as though one were attacking a scientific model. ID should be attacked analytically.