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The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that we cannot know certain things about subatomic particles, because of the nature of our perception.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

 

Many have taken this principle to mean that such things are really, causally indeterminate.  However, Leonard Peikoff at one point responded to that with:

"Even if it were true that owing to a lack of information we could never exactly predict a subatomic event- and this is highly debatable- it would not show that, in reality, the event was causeless."

 

It must be asked: what could possibly show that something in reality is causeless?

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We have evidence of things which do not behave predictably according to our average, commonsensical ideas about them.  Whenever we find such things which simply do not seem to behave, we can conclude either that such irregularities stem from our own ignorance, or that they are hardwired into that entity's actual behavior, in reality.

 

In short, when something seems random, we can attribute that to a lapse of causality itself or a lapse in our knowledge of it.

 

My question, which sounds infernally simple, is which should be used.

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The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that we cannot know certain things about subatomic particles, because of the nature of our perception.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

 

Many have taken this principle to mean that such things are really, causally indeterminate.  However, Leonard Peikoff at one point responded to that with:

"Even if it were true that owing to a lack of information we could never exactly predict a subatomic event- and this is highly debatable- it would not show that, in reality, the event was causeless."

 

It must be asked: what could possibly show that something in reality is causeless?

---

 

We have evidence of things which do not behave predictably according to our average, commonsensical ideas about them.  Whenever we find such things which simply do not seem to behave, we can conclude either that such irregularities stem from our own ignorance, or that they are hardwired into that entity's actual behavior, in reality.

 

In short, when something seems random, we can attribute that to a lapse of causality itself or a lapse in our knowledge of it.

 

My question, which sounds infernally simple, is which should be used.

 

I'm sorry I sort of abandoned the other thread on free will. I went away for the weekend and wasn't able to respond, although I've been thinking about the issues a lot lately. I will hopefully be returning to it soon.

 

But in response to this question, remember that the law of causality is a corollary of the law of identity. Your question is the same as the following: "Suppose we observe something which we don't understand. We can attribute the observation to a violation of the law of identity (ie. the idea that contradictions exist), or to a lack of knowledge. Which explanation should be used?"

 

Clearly, when phrased this way, we shouldn't throw up our hands in defeat when we don't understand something and claim that contradictions exist in reality. Similarly, when we observe a phenomenon which we did not predict or are ignorant of, we do not say that the law of causality has been sidestepped. We just acknowledge our current state of knowledge (or lack thereof). What would be the state of science if we attributed every unknown action to a violation of the law of causality? What would Galileo have been able to achieve if he had looked at the movement of the stars, and upon observing their unusual motion, concluded that the heavenly bodies are violating the law of causality?

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What would be the state of science if we attributed every unknown action to a violation of the law of causality? What would Galileo have been able to achieve if he had looked at the movement of the stars, and upon observing their unusual motion, concluded that the heavenly bodies are violating the law of causality?

 

Exactly my thoughts as well, but if so then the same would apply to the choice to focus.

 

Since it can't be predicted in advance, we can either think of the choice to focus as obeying a different sort of causality or we can think of our knowledge of it as necessarily incomplete.  There are obviously huge consequences to how we answer that question, and it seems to me that we should answer it in the same way that we answer every other such thing; that this should represent the application of some epistemological principle which I have yet to really grasp.

 

So yes; I completely agree at this point, but I'm hoping to see whether there's anything here that I've overlooked.

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The issue has more to do with the inherent limitations of any measurement.  A measurement of a thing is a thing itself - it is not THE thing.  Think of it this way.  If I hand you a brick and ask you to tell me it's length, you have to grab a tape measurer and hold it up to it.  If you tell me it's 7-5/8" long, I'd say, "Are you sure it's not 7-9/16?" Or, 7-17/32?"  This can go on ad infinitum because the measurement is an analog of the entity's length when compared to the tape measurer- it is not the entity's length per se. Also the lengths of both the metal tape measurer and brick change with temperature - things expand and contract with temperature, and metal expands at a different rate than clay bricks.  (Thermal expansion is a very real concern that can tear a building apart if not accounted for, so this issue is not academic).  Also if the brick absorbs moisture, it's weight will change. And there are inherent limitations in which ever scale you use to weigh something.  Have you asked yourself what does it mean to say that something weighs "exactly" 1 pound?  Or that it's 65 degrees today?  At 6 feet above the ground in your City in the shade?

 

At the quantum level there are no rulers - the realm is too small.  The math that is currently used in quantum mechanics is "probabilistic" - but this does not mean that it's non-objective.  But it holds too at the quantum level, that a measurement of position or velocity of a particle is still an analog of the event - subject to inherent limitations of any measurement.

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At the quantum level there are no rulers - the realm is too small.  The math that is currently used in quantum mechanics is "probabilistic" - but this does not mean that it's non-objective.  But it holds too at the quantum level, that a measurement of position or velocity of a particle is still an analog of the event - subject to inherent limitations of any measurement.

 

Thank you so much for bringing up the points you did. 

 

Just because something is probabilistic does not mean that it is unobjective. Similarly, just because something is uncertain, does not mean that it is a contradiction.

 

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, as I understand it - which is from a relatively elementary level, as I'm still taking early chemistry and physics courses in college - deals with the fact that it's not possible to measure both the momentum and position of a particle at the same time. Here's the issue: when we measure an object, we take advantage of several properties of larger objects, including the properties of light. Photons bounce off of an object and allow us to view that object, thereby measuring it. Well, when you observe an electron, electrons are small enough that the mere interaction of measuring the electrons momentum or position is enough to change the properties of the electron being measured. UC Davis' chemistry wiki summarizes the idea pretty well:

 

 

Therefore, in principle, one can determine the position as accurately as one wishes by using light of very high frequency, or short wave-lengths. However, the collision between such high energy photons of light with the extremely small electron causes the momentum of the electron to be disturbed.

 
Thus, increasing the energy of the light (and increasing the accuracy of the electron's position measurement), increases such a deviation in momentum. Conversely, if a photon has low energy the collision does not disturb the electron, yet the position cannot be accurately determined.

 

 

Thus, the uncertainty principle isn't some violation of metaphysics or epistemology. It's a fairly simple fact of reality - that when you interact with any object, that object is in some way affected. In macroscopic objects, our interactions are minute enough by comparison to the size of the object to not have a significant enough effect that it offsets our measurements. But with objects as tiny as electrons and other particles, the very act of measurement is an interaction great enough to offset the other measurements of the object.

 

 

From the OP:

 

 

 

Many have taken this principle to mean that such things are really, causally indeterminate.  

 

The people who interpret the principle as such are wrong. That's all that needs to be said about this really. 

 

 

 

 

It must be asked: what could possibly show that something in reality is causeless?

 

I don't know that anything could. In my understanding of modern physics - which, again, is very limited - there is still nothing that inherently defies causality. Because of the nature of quantum physics, causality has had to be clarified, but that makes sense - when dealing with ideas as precise and unintuitive as quantum physics, it is necessary to have very specific formulations of the ideas involved.

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Thus, the uncertainty principle isn't some violation of metaphysics or epistemology. It's a fairly simple fact of reality - that when you interact with any object, that object is in some way affected. In macroscopic objects, our interactions are minute enough by comparison to the size of the object to not have a significant enough effect that it offsets our measurements. But with objects as tiny as electrons and other particles, the very act of measurement is an interaction great enough to offset the other measurements of the object.

 I would say that there is more to the issue than meets the eye, and that Objectivism can contribute to clarifying, not just quantum mechanics, but mathematical foundationalism and all measurement/observation issues.

 

Running throughout quantum mechanics (and mathematics in general) is a great deal of German dialectic, transcendental mysticism - such as the belief that "observing" an event (at both micro and macro levels) is "interference" -- which ties into Rand's criticism of Kant along the lines of "because I have eyes, I cannot see....".

 

The notion that when we view an event, we "collapse" the possible states is pure German, bullshit mysticism at it's worst.  It posits that we should somehow be able to gain information by means other than a "process" i.e. the establishment of an epistemic standard of measurement, taking the measurement, and then some how pretending that the measurement itself, is not a causal existent.

 

Information exists, it is measurable, and quantifiable (amplitude over time).

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Thus, the uncertainty principle isn't some violation of metaphysics or epistemology. It's a fairly simple fact of reality - that when you interact with any object, that object is in some way affected.

 

Well, while it's simple enough to grasp, it does amount to being 'blind because of our eyes'.

 

It posits that we should somehow be able to gain information by means other than a "process" i.e. the establishment of an epistemic standard of measurement, taking the measurement, and then some how pretending that the measurement itself, is not a causal existent.

 

 Could you clarify what it means for a measurement to be a causal existent?

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And let me clarify something, briefly.

 

When I say "causality" I mean, in part, that a thing in one set of circumstances will act in exactly one way.  And I would further posit that's what everyone else intuitively means by it, too.

 

Now, whether that idea applies to every thing in the world or not, is part of my question.  That's what I mean by obeying a "different sort of causality" or a "lapse of causality".

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Could you clarify what it means for a measurement to be a causal existent?

If you attend a football game and I asked you to write down what you perceived, your words on the page would be a "causal existent" of your observations - but they would not BE the football game.  Your written words would be an existential, analog recording of the game that could be photocopied, distributed and read by others.

 

Furthermore, your observation of the football game would not be omniscient.  If you attended the game with a friend - who happened to be sitting on the opposite side of the field from you - you would each see the game from a different, but wholly objective, perspective.  If after the game you both tried to explain to me what you saw, each description would be analogs of your observations, but from unique perspectives - but each perspective would be objective and exist.

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In order to predict an outcome, you need to know some starting variables. My understanding is that the problem with trying to make predictions on the quantum scale is that any attempt to ascertain the starting variables will necessarily change the starting variables. It doesn't have anything to do with a different sort of causality being at play on the quantum level.

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Harrison, I posted my  #9 before reading your post #8.

 

Where you state, "When I say "causality" I mean, in part, that a thing in one set of circumstances will act in exactly one way."  My arguments are that your concept of "exactly" needs to be reconsidered, as I hope I clarified in my other posts.  The concept of "exactly" has quantifiable limits....

Edited by New Buddha
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Well, while it's simple enough to grasp, it does amount to being 'blind because of our eyes'.

 

 

I'm not sure that I'd phrase it that way. We are dealing with a fact of reality here - in order to measure a thing, we must interact with that thing. That is the nature of measurement. At the least, photons must interact with that thing, and those photons must then interact with us. By some series of events, direct or indirect, we must interact with an object in order to measure it.

 

Unfortunately, in the case of very small particles, the level of interaction required to measure them necessarily causes a change in those particles. I wouldn't really phrase that as "blind because of our eyes" - our means of measurement work fantastically on a macroscopic scale. They're just not suitable for a particle-level scale.

 

 

 

 

When I say "causality" I mean, in part, that a thing in one set of circumstances will act in exactly one way. 

 

 

I'm not really seeing how any of this contradicts that definition of causality.

 

 

 

Now, whether that idea applies to every thing in the world or not, is part of my question.  That's what I mean by obeying a "different sort of causality" or a "lapse of causality".

 

In the sense that physics uses it, as far as I can tell, physicists do typically use a very specific and narrowly defined definition of causality. From wikipedia:

 

 

 

In modern physics, the notion of causality had to be clarified. The insights of the theory of special relativity confirmed the assumption of causality, but they made the meaning of the word "simultaneous" observer-dependent.[5]Consequently, the relativistic principle of causality says that the cause must precede its effect according to all inertial observers. This is equivalent to the statement that the cause and its effect are separated by a timelike interval, and the effect belongs to the future of its cause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(physics)

 

I don't see how any of that is an issue, however. It doesn't seem to contradict our notion of causality, merely clarify it in the very specific context of quantum physics.

Edited by Iudicious
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It is my understanding that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle was spawned, so to speak, by the discovery of our inability to predict all of the actions of subatomic particles. It is also my understanding that we discovered this inability through tests that, in order for us to "see" any results, it was required that we change these particles by bombarding them with great force.

 

So, my simple minded conclusion is that we cannot "see" subatomic particles in their natural state, and consequently must change them to see them. My next simple conclusion from the foregoing is that it is not reality or causality that is in question, but rather the primitive state of our capacity to see particles as they naturally exist. Perhaps as our grasp of the small world we are trying to know improves, we will come to understand quantum physics without uncertainty.

 

I mean, before the microscope, we could not see or understand the world of bacteria, yet we could sense that something was going on beyond our ability to witness first hand this small world, because of effects in the real world that we could see. I guess in those days, we blamed our shortcomings on demons, witches or gods. To me, the Uncertainty Principle has taken the place of those demons and such, and contributes no more to our knowledge than they did.

 

Now, since I am not a physicist, I suspect I may be about to get an education refuting what I've stated above. As a life-long seeker of truth, I welcome that education.

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And let me clarify something, briefly.

 

When I say "causality" I mean, in part, that a thing in one set of circumstances will act in exactly one way.  And I would further posit that's what everyone else intuitively means by it, too.

 

Now, whether that idea applies to every thing in the world or not, is part of my question.  That's what I mean by obeying a "different sort of causality" or a "lapse of causality".

 

Philosophically, I don't think it's right to formulate the law of causality in those terms, specifically the 'exactly one way' part. The law of identity says that to be is to be something, or in other words, to exist is to have a finite identity. How does one get from that to, 'a thing in one set of circumstances will act in exactly one way'? It's clear to me how you would get from 'to exist is to have a finite identity' to 'no actions taken by an entity will contradict the identity of the entity', or as John Galt puts it, "The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act".

 

I think that your formulation there, while intuitive, smuggles in a (valid) induction regarding physical matter. Namely, the fact that all matter, in the same circumstances, acts in the same way.

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Where you state, "When I say "causality" I mean, in part, that a thing in one set of circumstances will act in exactly one way."  My arguments are that your concept of "exactly" needs to be reconsidered, as I hope I clarified in my other posts.  The concept of "exactly" has quantifiable limits....

 

I'm not referring to a measurement, though; I'm referring to an aspect of reality (whether I'm ultimately right or wrong about that), regardless of how or even whether we're aware of it.

 

Philosophically, I don't think it's right to formulate the law of causality in those terms, specifically the 'exactly one way' part. The law of identity says that to be is to be something, or in other words, to exist is to have a finite identity. How does one get from that to, 'a thing in one set of circumstances will act in exactly one way'?

 

Because every thing is exactly one thing; itself, and no more and no less.

 

Namely, the fact that all matter, in the same circumstances, acts in the same way.

Not quite.

 

Helium is a type of 'matter' which doesn't behave the same way that Carbon Dioxide does, nor water vapor, nor lead; each of them behaves according to its own particular rules.  However, our knowledge of such a thing as 'Helium' would have been impossible to gain without the assumption that everything must do exactly those things that it does; nothing more and nothing less.

 

Imagine what modern chemistry would look like if the first pioneers of that field had found certain gasses which behaved differently from air, and chalked them all up to various whims that the air might have.

 

I believe that without that guiding principle, modern chemistry would resemble quantum physics.

 

If you attend a football game and I asked you to write down what you perceived, your words on the page would be a "causal existent" of your observations - but they would not BE the football game.  Your written words would be an existential, analog recording of the game that could be photocopied, distributed and read by others.

That might clarify more than one thing; I'll have to think about it some more.  Thank you.

 

It doesn't have anything to do with a different sort of causality being at play on the quantum level.

 

Unless the subatomic particles themselves did not behave in any particular manner, when we weren't looking.  Now, that seems to me like rank Primacy of Consciousness, but that's what I understand the alternative conception to be.

 

I'm not really seeing how any of this contradicts that definition of causality.

Because man has free will, no human choice—and no phenomenon which is a product of human choice—is metaphysically necessary. In regard to any man-made fact, it is valid to claim that man has chosen thus, but it was not inherent in the nature of existence for him to have done so: he could have chosen otherwise.

-Leonard Peikoff

 

He goes on to say, in the very next sentence, that "Choice, however, is not chance. Volition is not an exception to the Law of Causality; it is a type of causation."

 

This means that "causality" means something totally different from "metaphysical necessity" (which is explicitly asserted elsewhere, by Binswanger) and I'm having a very difficult time thinking of "metaphysical freedom" as the same sort of causality I reason with on a daily basis, in order to do literally anything.

 

What it really seems like to me is a contradiction.  That's the crux of my issue.

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He goes on to say, in the very next sentence, that "Choice, however, is not chance. Volition is not an exception to the Law of Causality; it is a type of causation."

 

This means that "causality" means something totally different from "metaphysical necessity" (which is explicitly asserted elsewhere, by Binswanger) and I'm having a very difficult time thinking of "metaphysical freedom" as the same sort of causality I reason with on a daily basis, in order to do literally anything.

 

What it really seems like to me is a contradiction.  That's the crux of my issue.

Are you trying to isolate and analyze volition qua volition? The law of causality states that entities act, a causal link between an entity and its actions. The law of identity says that a man is a man. Man has a nature. He is a volitional, conceptual being. Stepping off the edge of a building, the metaphysical necessity of falling requires no choice, but to take the step does. The step did not have to occur. We move our fingers. Our mind directs the fingers movements over the keyboard. The electrical impulses that move the muscles, the muscular reactions to the impulses are of metaphysical necessity, but we did not have to will the typing to occur.

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Because every thing is exactly one thing; itself, and no more and no less.

 

Not quite.

 

Helium is a type of 'matter' which doesn't behave the same way that Carbon Dioxide does, nor water vapor, nor lead; each of them behaves according to its own particular rules.  However, our knowledge of such a thing as 'Helium' would have been impossible to gain without the assumption that everything must do exactly those things that it does; nothing more and nothing less.

 

Imagine what modern chemistry would look like if the first pioneers of that field had found certain gasses which behaved differently from air, and chalked them all up to various whims that the air might have.

 

I believe that without that guiding principle, modern chemistry would resemble quantum physics.

 

 

I think that you've misunderstood my point due to my poor wording. Causality says, an entity can only act in accordance with its nature. Suppose that an entity could act in two different ways (and only those two ways) under the same circumstances. It would not be a violation of the law of causality. The way you're formulating causality, as 'an entity has to act in the same exact way given the same exact circumstances', is actually the law of causality plus an induction made regarding physical matter. When I said that all matter acts the same way in the same circumstances I did not mean to imply that helium acts the same as carbon dioxide. Rather I meant to say that carbon dioxide, under the same circumstances, will always act in the exact same way. And separately, helium, under the same circumstances, will always act in exactly the same way. This is true of all physical matter, but this fact is an induction and does not follow as a corollary from 'to be is to be something' (identity). You cannot specify the number of ways in which something can act in the same circumstances merely from the law of identity. 

 

This is Binswanger's point regarding consciousness. Consciousness does not violate the law of causality because man MUST choose. This is the nature of his identity. But he can choose to focus or not and does not have to choose the same thing in two different circumstances. Consciousness is an irreducible phenomenon and it is not matter. It therefore does not fall under the induction which is applicable to matter. Remember that first quote from Binswanger that William cited in the other thread:

 

 

 

To insist that consciousness must be governed by the specific form of causality exhibited by matter is to approach man with an arbitrary, a priori commitment to materialism.

 

This is what Binswanger meant (I believe) by 'the specific form of causality exhibited by matter'. And what Rand was saying in her extemporaneous discussion on the issue:

 

 

 

"The appearance of a conflict between causality and free will is due to taking causality to be only that which governs the material world. Consciousness is an existent having a nature different from that of matter. The law of causality implies, accordingly, that the type of action consciousness can take will be different." 

 

Edit: With respect to your comment about what chemistry would look like if people accepted that physical matter could act in more than one way under the same circumstances, I agree with you. That a given piece of matter acts in one way and one way only is true, which is why denying it would cause disaster in the physical sciences. But that does not mean that the induction, which again can only be made by observing reality- not as a corollary of identity, applies to consciousness which is a non-material, irreducible phenomenon. I point you back to Rand's quote above. I can't remember if the metaphor came from someone in the previous thread or from How We Know or from my head, but I remember someone likening it to a magnetic field: An electrically induced magnetic field is dependent on the electrons flowing through a wire (as consciousness is dependent on the brain), but it does not follow that the magnetic field is the same as electricity (that consciousness is matter). I would not push this metaphor too far but I think it illustrates the point.

Edited by CriticalThinker2000
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I'm not referring to a measurement, though; I'm referring to an aspect of reality (whether I'm ultimately right or wrong about that), regardless of how or even whether we're aware of it.

Any observation is an analog form of measurement, and is governed by the limits of our perceptual organs.  When you see something, you only see the frequencies that your eyes are tuned to receive.  You don't see the ultraviolet, infrared, alpha and gamma frequencies.  When you hear things, you hear only frequencies between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz.

 

We can build apparatuses that are capable of perceiving beyond our limited ranges, but those apparatuses must convert, as analogs, the frequencies into such things as visual graphs that we can perceive within our frequencies.

 

I believe your notion that "regardless of how...we're aware of it.", very much resembles Kant's "because we have eyes, we are blind." 

 

Awareness (measurement) is quantifiable, and has very real limitations - you cannot enjoy the luxury of discounting "how we're aware of it".  You need to be aware of your perceptual limitations in order to overcome them.

 

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Are you trying to isolate and analyze volition qua volition?

 

Essentially.  I'm trying to isolate exactly that part of volition that seems wrong to me and approach it from a relatively new angle.

 

 

I believe your notion that "regardless of how...we're aware of it.", very much resembles Kant's "because we have eyes, we are blind." 

How so?

 

Awareness (measurement) is quantifiable, and has very real limitations - you cannot enjoy the luxury of discounting "how we're aware of it".  You need to be aware of your perceptual limitations in order to overcome them.

Okay.  I don't disagree with that (it seems especially relevant to fallibility) but what about the quantification of that quantification?

 

Let's say I take a pile of pennies and count them; eventually concluding that I have 247 pennies.  If I understand you correctly, you're saying that it's important to gauge that conclusion itself; call it perhaps 247 pennies, plus or minus fifteen that I may have counted twice.

But if that's necessary then why shouldn't it be necessary to say that I have 247 pennies, with a margin of fifteen pennies for possible errors, with another margin on top of that for the possibility of being wrong about my own margin for error?  And so on and so forth until our bones turn to dust.

 

Again, I don't disagree; I'm not sure I entirely agree, though.  I'm still working on that angle.

 

The way you're formulating causality, as 'an entity has to act in the same exact way given the same exact circumstances', is actually the law of causality plus an induction made regarding physical matter.

Induced from what?

 

Let's suppose that I really and truly believed that any type of matter, in any situation, could behave in any way that it wanted to.  Now let's suppose that I toss two objects, a piece of wood and a brick, into my bathtub; proceeding then to observe that one of them floats and one of them sinks.

 

On what basis could I induct anything at all about the ways in which solids and/or liquids can intermittently behave?

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Suppose that an entity could act in two different ways (and only those two ways) under the same circumstances.

Why only two?  What if an entity could do literally anything, at any moment?

 

How do you know that they can't???

 

Since you've only ever seen a tiny fraction of the entities in the universe, the only way to know that would be to apply some generalization to every particular entity that exists.  But you can't induce metaphysical necessity, nor metaphysical freedom; those are the basis of causal induction.

 

So on what basis can we say that any conceivable possibility is physically impossible, if not "causality" as formulated here?

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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Let's say I take a pile of pennies and count them; eventually concluding that I have 247 pennies.  If I understand you correctly, you're saying that it's important to gauge that conclusion itself; call it perhaps 247 pennies, plus or minus fifteen that I may have counted twice.

But if that's necessary then why shouldn't it be necessary to say that I have 247 pennies, with a margin of fifteen pennies for possible errors, with another margin on top of that for the possibility of being wrong about my own margin for error?  And so on and so forth until our bones turn to dust.

My example was not about making an error in measurement (which is a possibility).  My example was to illustrate that you need to establish a UNIT of measure prior to taking a measurement.

 

In your example the unit of measure is the coin's denomination.  All that is required for you to regard it as one (1) unit of a group of 247 objects is it's denomination.

 

As an example to illustrate this a little more clearly, suppose I asked you to tell me how many pennies you have that were minted before 1998, minted in the year 1998, and minted after 1998.  You could determine (possible counting errors aside) that you have 150 pennies minted before 1998, 97 minted after 1998 and 0 pennies minted in 1998.  Do you really have 0 pennies minted in 1998?  No, because the unit of measure is not just it's denomination but also it's year and how you've chosen to separate them into groups.

 

The coins denomination might be an essential characteristic in the right context.  But you could also separate a random assortment of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters by year, in which case the denomination is not essential.

 

In my length example, all you need to do to make an objective measurement is decide: nearest inch, 1/8 inch, 1/16 inch?  For your purposes (say quality control) measuring a brick to 1/8 inch might be fine.

Edited by New Buddha
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Where you state, "When I say "causality" I mean, in part, that a thing in one set of circumstances will act in exactly one way."  My arguments are that your concept of "exactly" needs to be reconsidered, as I hope I clarified in my other posts.  The concept of "exactly" has quantifiable limits....

I'm not referring to a measurement, though; I'm referring to an aspect of reality (whether I'm ultimately right or wrong about that), regardless of how or even whether we're aware of it.

Awareness (measurement) is quantifiable, and has very real limitations - you cannot enjoy the luxury of discounting "how we're aware of it".  You need to be aware of your perceptual limitations in order to overcome them.

Let's say I take a pile of pennies and count them; eventually concluding that I have 247 pennies.  If I understand you correctly, you're saying that it's important to gauge that conclusion itself; call it perhaps 247 pennies, plus or minus fifteen that I may have counted twice.

But if that's necessary then why shouldn't it be necessary to say that I have 247 pennies, with a margin of fifteen pennies for possible errors, with another margin on top of that for the possibility of being wrong about my own margin for error?  And so on and so forth until our bones turn to dust.

My example was not about making an error in measurement (which is a possibility).  My example was to illustrate that you need to establish a UNIT of measure prior to taking a measurement.

 

The precision of any measurement has quantifiable limits, which must be taken into account when discussing metaphysics, and measurements must be taken according to some previously-established unit?

I'm sorry; I think you may have lost me.  Why can't something as abstract as this be discussed without the relevant measurements?

 

I mean, you may be right; it would make sense in its own way to talk about metaphysics through the lens of 'how we know about it.'  . . .  Is that what you're driving at?

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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 Why can't something as abstract as this be discussed without the relevant measurements?

This ties into Rand's understanding that when forming abstractions, you can objectively omit specific measurements - but you must still be very aware that specific measurements do exist, and that they have specific units i.e. inches, pounds, etc.

 

When you are observing a specific event and/or object with the intent of quantifying your observation, for say, the purposes of engineering or product quality control, you must re-introduce the Unit in order to actually produce an actual measurement.  And you must specify the acceptable level of accuracy i.e. 1/2 inch, 1/4 inch, denomination, date of mint, etc.

 

The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. are abstractions of 1 pound, 2 pounds.... 1 inch, 2 inches, 1 penny, 2 pennies, etc. and inches and pounds and pennies are epistemic standards that must accompany your actual measurement of pounds, inches, pennies.

 

Add Edit:

 

The concept "Penny" is an abstraction.  But each and every one of your 247 pennies is a unique existent.

Edited by New Buddha
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This ties into Rand's understanding that when forming abstractions, you can objectively omit specific measurements - but you must still be very aware that specific measurements do exist, and that they have specific units i.e. inches, pounds, etc.

 

When you are observing a specific event and/or object with the intent of quantifying your observation, for say, the purposes of engineering or product quality control, you must re-introduce the Unit in order to actually produce an actual measurement.  And you must specify the acceptable level of accuracy i.e. 1/2 inch, 1/4 inch, denomination, date of mint, etc.

 

The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. are abstractions of 1 pound, 2 pounds.... 1 inch, 2 inches, 1 penny, 2 pennies, etc. and inches and pounds and pennies are epistemic standards that must accompany your actual measurement of pounds, inches, pennies.

 

Add Edit:

 

The concept "Penny" is an abstraction.  But each and every one of your 247 pennies is a unique existent.

A difference that exists between forming concepts of concrete particulars and concepts of consciousness is one omits cardinally specified while the other omits on the ordinal axis. A ball and block can have their specifications delineated along size, material, weight etc. How is this done with volition, or freedom? One can speak of degrees of freedom, in the end, one is either free, or is not.

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Why only two?  What if an entity could do literally anything, at any moment?

 

How do you know that they can't???

 

Since you've only ever seen a tiny fraction of the entities in the universe, the only way to know that would be to apply some generalization to every particular entity that exists.  But you can't induce metaphysical necessity, nor metaphysical freedom; those are the basis of causal induction.

 

So on what basis can we say that any conceivable possibility is physically impossible, if not "causality" as formulated here?

 

Because by 'only two', it means that the entity still maintains identity. Something that could literally do anything, at any moment, is not real. It lacks identity. I'm saying that you're offering a false alternative, either something acts in one and only one way or it acts in any way and has no identity. If that's the alternative then of course you choose the alternative that's consistent with identity, but that's not the only alternative. This formulation of causality, that an entity must act in one way and one way only under the same circumstances, just doesn't follow from the law of identity. I'm not saying it's not true, with respect to the material world, I'm just saying it's not axiomatic or a corollary of an axiom.

 

You definitely can induce that the material world follows a mechanistic form of causality. I agree that to induce higher truths you need to have already recognized this generalization, but that doesn't mean that it's not induced. It just means that it's low in the hierarchy of knowledge. You asked "how do we know they can't" act any way at any time. We know they can't because that would violate the law of identity. We also know that the material can act in one way only under the same circumstances because we have made the generalization properly and we can apply it to each new observed instance, just like other inductions we make.

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