Causality and Determinism

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bobmax
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Re: Causality and Determinism

Post by bobmax »

Sculptor wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:24 pm
bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:10 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:01 pm No. completely the reverse.
We are the result of a selection process.
Are you sure?

How does the selection process start, if not by chance?
There is a lot of literature on this.
Might I suggest you start with this...
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/fra ... type=image
Since when 80% of biological literature has been concerned with this, and if not mentioning it.

These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
I think I know something about the subject.
Where randomness is considered to be actually present in evolution.
As in "Chance and necessity" by Jaques Monod.

But my question was about how this process started.
Didn't it start by chance?
For what other reason?

And if it started by accident, as I believe, aren't we here now by chance?
Aren't we children of ramdomness?
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Sculptor
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Re: Causality and Determinism

Post by Sculptor »

bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 7:22 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:24 pm
bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 6:10 pm

Are you sure?

How does the selection process start, if not by chance?
There is a lot of literature on this.
Might I suggest you start with this...
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/fra ... type=image
Since when 80% of biological literature has been concerned with this, and if not mentioning it.

These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
I think I know something about the subject.
Where randomness is considered to be actually present in evolution.
As in "Chance and necessity" by Jaques Monod.
But randomness is not what you conceive it to be. You are trying to pretend it is ex nihilo.

But my question was about how this process started.
Didn't it start by chance?
For what other reason?
What makes you think these are reasonable questions.
Why would you think there is a reason. It sounds like childish teleology from a person who has not grown out of his childhood theism.

And if it started by accident, as I believe, aren't we here now by chance?
Aren't we children of ramdomness?
And what do you think "accident" means?
You might want to hold back on the poetic language too. I know my parents so I know whom I am the "child" of.
And has a I say randomness is simply the result of causes so complex they are hard to quantify.
Take a dice, there is only six outcomes. But there is no mystery here. It's all about the speed and vector of the throw, the air resitence, and bounce qualities of the table the reflective insidence, and the spin of the dice.

Where is the "authentic" randomness. And btw - you did not answer who was the "author"
bobmax
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Re: Causality and Determinism

Post by bobmax »

Sculptor wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 8:03 pm Take a dice, there is only six outcomes. But there is no mystery here. It's all about the speed and vector of the throw, the air resitence, and bounce qualities of the table the reflective insidence, and the spin of the dice.

Where is the "authentic" randomness. And btw - you did not answer who was the "author"
You are certainly right about throwing the dice.
The result depends on the causes of which it will be effect.
There is no actual randomness here.

Like in no other event, nothing is truly random.
We may not be able to determine what will happen, but only because we do not have the necessary information, the necessary computing power, not because it is truly random.

So we invented probability, which has nothing to do with chance.

Randomness doesn't have to be there! If there were, we would fall into the absurd.

However, now we are here. It is therefore natural to ask why, for what original cause.
And the cause can only be randomness, that is, Chaos.

Which has no author.
Because as soon as we postulate it, the question arises about the author of the author.
In a continuous endless reference, if not yet ending with chance.

The Cosmos can only be generated by Chaos.
That it is not something, and therefore it is the same Being and also the Nothingness.
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Sculptor
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Re: Causality and Determinism

Post by Sculptor »

bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 10:23 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 8:03 pm Take a dice, there is only six outcomes. But there is no mystery here. It's all about the speed and vector of the throw, the air resitence, and bounce qualities of the table the reflective insidence, and the spin of the dice.

Where is the "authentic" randomness. And btw - you did not answer who was the "author"
You are certainly right about throwing the dice.
The result depends on the causes of which it will be effect.
There is no actual randomness here.

Like in no other event, nothing is truly random.
We may not be able to determine what will happen, but only because we do not have the necessary information, the necessary computing power, not because it is truly random.

So we invented probability, which has nothing to do with chance.

Randomness doesn't have to be there! If there were, we would fall into the absurd.

However, now we are here. It is therefore natural to ask why, for what original cause.
And the cause can only be randomness, that is, Chaos.
No chaos is noting like randomness.
Chaos is the end of causality.
You have things precisely backwards.

Which has no author.
With no author there is no reason. Only minds reason.
Because as soon as we postulate it, the question arises about the author of the author.
In a continuous endless reference, if not yet ending with chance.

The Cosmos can only be generated by Chaos.
That it is not something, and therefore it is the same Being and also the Nothingness.
No the universe ends in Chaos. The heat death of the universe. Entropy is the cessation of causality.

We'll never really know about the "start" of the universe, Or whether it even makes sense to talk about a beginning.
And us little humans think ourselves so important but our entire history, science, civilisation aims and fears are not even a dot above an "i" in the huge books that is out galaxy in a library full of galaxies.
We cannot even see the page on which we are written, let alone the spine of the book.
bobmax
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Re: Causality and Determinism

Post by bobmax »

Sculptor wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:01 am With no author there is no reason.
Yes, there is no reason.

But does love have no reason but itself?

Likewise, Chaos has no reason.

Won't the Cosmos be just a gift of pure love?
A gift given to itself.

Because it is true that you are a grain of sand lost in the immensity of space and time.

But isn't it also true that this universe is here for you?

Aren't you right in the center of the universe?

And aren't you here right now, in the present?
And only the present really exists.
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Sculptor
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Re: Causality and Determinism

Post by Sculptor »

bobmax wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 6:56 am
Sculptor wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:01 am With no author there is no reason.
Yes, there is no reason.

But does love have no reason but itself?

Likewise, Chaos has no reason.

Won't the Cosmos be just a gift of pure love?
A gift given to itself.

Because it is true that you are a grain of sand lost in the immensity of space and time.

But isn't it also true that this universe is here for you?

Aren't you right in the center of the universe?

And aren't you here right now, in the present?
And only the present really exists.
You do not seem to defend any of your points.

Some answers.
There are types of reason, but they are all essentially human rationalisation to help us explain, or at least describe the reality we are born into, and the world we construct about us.
It can be useful to start with Aristotle.
1. Material cause: "that out of which" it is made.
2. Efficient Cause: the source of the objects principle of change or stability.
3. Formal Cause: the essence of the object.
4. Final Cause: the end/goal of the object, or what the object is good for.

Love is
1. A collection of hormones and neurones causing 2. a series of attractions inside living things to other things mostly other living things. And can be initiated by the presence of the other thing, often the sight or smell.
3. The formal cause maybe the image of beauty, or the recognition of great deeds.
4. This is capable of bring people and animals together in co-operation.

It is not a gift, since that implies a giver. Love has been provided by the process of evolution. But evolution is not a cause but an effect.
No the universe is not here for me? If anything that would be precisely backwards.

Every point in the expanding universe is all simultaneously the centre of the universe.
In our human centricity we tend to misconceive the very nature of centre.
puto
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Re: Causality and Determinism

Post by puto »

Having, taken a physics class, kudos for the accomplishment. Democritus and Leucippus, both circa 5 BCE. Necessity has a reason that was according to the Greek atomists. The Stoics, also believed, that every event had a cause, but had to be rational. Newton was a genius of physics and proposals. Quantum Mechanics is now the dominant physical theory of our time, but is it determinism? Free Will is a philosophical dispute according to Charles Arthur Campbell and is substantive question. Reid formulated the doctrine of causal determinism. Choice is not an escape from the causal chain. Cause, cause, cause.
bobmax
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Re: Causality and Determinism

Post by bobmax »

Sculptor wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:10 am You do not seem to defend any of your points.

Some answers.
There are types of reason, but they are all essentially human rationalisation to help us explain, or at least describe the reality we are born into, and the world we construct about us.
It can be useful to start with Aristotle.
1. Material cause: "that out of which" it is made.
2. Efficient Cause: the source of the objects principle of change or stability.
3. Formal Cause: the essence of the object.
4. Final Cause: the end/goal of the object, or what the object is good for.

Love is
1. A collection of hormones and neurones causing 2. a series of attractions inside living things to other things mostly other living things. And can be initiated by the presence of the other thing, often the sight or smell.
3. The formal cause maybe the image of beauty, or the recognition of great deeds.
4. This is capable of bring people and animals together in co-operation.

It is not a gift, since that implies a giver. Love has been provided by the process of evolution. But evolution is not a cause but an effect.
No the universe is not here for me? If anything that would be precisely backwards.

Every point in the expanding universe is all simultaneously the centre of the universe.
In our human centricity we tend to misconceive the very nature of centre.
You're right, I don't defend any of my points.

And I am not defending them precisely because I cannot follow any of the proceedings you list.
And your recommendations are correct. They are logical.

And yet they are useless for what I try to say.

Rather than Aristotle we should go a little further back.
Even before Plato, who, at the Parmenidean crossroads between the day and night path, took the latter. Aristotle then went there.

The West has set out there to be followed lately by the East after having spent a long time on the crossroads.
And it could only go like this.
It is the necessary evolution of logical-rational thought.

And your considerations are based on this rational thinking.
Even those that concern love.

Because rational thinking only considers what is something, which can therefore be logically defined.

But true love is not something at all, it cannot be harnessed by any logic.
So there is no proof that it really exists.

And yet, within us we can only agree with Dante:
"Love that moves the sun and the other stars".
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