(2019-01-01, 10:50 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I don't think those two things are equivalent though? The "randomness" is causal power within the particle, this seems different than a structured loop made in time.
I don't say they're exactly equivalent. But there appears to be an assumption of determinism underlying Feser's argument, which seems at odds with what quantum physics tells us.
(2019-01-01, 11:02 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]I don't say they're exactly equivalent. But there appears to be an assumption of determinism underlying Feser's argument, which seems at odds with what quantum physics tells us.
Isn't it the time-loop what makes things deterministic? Or do you think it's more there is a murky future (and possibly murky past) that exist which we detect, and that causes the loop?
If so to me that seems like scanning possibilities than a loop that always exists? Perhaps we are thinking along similar lines but using different words?
p.s. An aside, but Feser isn't a determinist.
(2019-01-01, 06:27 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]I haven't finished Wargo's book yet, but I think he is allowing for the kind of situation you've described, in which information is reaching the past from the future through retro-causation, and getting from the past to the future in the conventional way.
With regard to paradoxes, I think the idea is essentially that they just don't happen because the universe has to remain consistent. So circumstances that involve inconsistency occur with zero probability. If people really could go back in time to try to kill their grandfathers, something would always happen to prevent their doing so.
Then the particular sort of retro-causation that we are most interested in, the possible introduction of new biological systems and structures into the past, is prevented by the Universe since the new complex specified information would certainly introduce an "inconsistency" or paradox. In fact, any retro-causative information transfer into the past that could make a change that makes a difference in our reality would somehow be prevented because it would inevitably create some sort of paradox. If retro-causative events can happen but only if they don't really make any difference, then they really don't matter.
Anyway, the underlying principle seems to me to be that the essence, of the new complex specified information that corresponds to new biological systems and structures, is mind or the properties of mind. And invoking retro-causation, even if it didn't create impossible contradictions and paradoxes, would just obfuscate the inevitable necessity of there having been, in the origin of this new information, the operation of some sort of mental entities in some time and place.
(2019-01-01, 11:40 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Isn't it the time-loop what makes things deterministic? Or do you think it's more there is a murky future (and possibly murky past) that exist which we detect, and that causes the loop?
Obviously if retro-causation exists we don't understand the mechanism. I don't see why it needs to be deterministic - though in a world with retro-causation we probably need to think very carefully about what we mean by determinism anyway.
(2019-01-02, 02:47 AM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Then the particular sort of retro-causation that we are most interested in, the possible introduction of new biological systems and structures into the past, is prevented by the Universe since the new complex specified information would certainly introduce an "inconsistency" or paradox. In fact, any retro-causative information transfer into the past that could make a change that makes a difference in our reality would somehow be prevented because it would inevitably create some sort of paradox. If retro-causative events can happen but only if they don't really make any difference, then they really don't matter.
The idea is that there can be causal loops that are consistent, and therefore not paradoxical. Consistency doesn't mean that they don't make a difference, though it's not really right to talk about a difference, because if we're talking about time loops there can't be any question of comparing "before" and "after", or "with" and "without" - except in terms of what would have happened in a different universe with no retro-causation. As I understand it, Wargo's argument isn't that retro-causation exists but is insignificant, but that it's fundamental to the way the world works.
(2019-01-01, 09:05 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]Out of all the people with a novel idea who encounter resistance, how are we meant to pick out the handful who happen to be right beforehand, so as not to give them any resistance and forego the "evidence" requirement?
Linda
Was this your effort to contribute to the retro-causality discussion?
My understanding of the history of the recent conversion of a failed theory of evolution, to one that is tractable, is not in synch with yours. The answers creating the advancements were - and still are - synonymous with the rise of bioinformatics. The apologists, like Myers, Dawkins and others - are going silent - or going in other directions. They imagined genes working in ways that are now proven wrong! What they wrote for decades are mostly "Rosanna Dana" never-minds.
The rise of life has little to do with random accidents in chemistry and has everything to do with the rise of biological communication. DNA/RNA/Ribosome systems have defined language as a functional requirement. Chemistry doesn't measure or observe language. Information science tools like Biosemiotics and pattern recognition software do!!!
(2019-01-02, 02:56 PM)stephenw Wrote: [ -> ]My understanding of the history of the recent conversion of a failed theory of evolution, to one that is tractable, is not in synch with yours. The answers creating the advancements were - and still are - synonymous with the rise of bioinformatics. The apologists, like Myers, Dawkins and others - are going silent - or going in other directions. They imagined genes working in ways that are now proven wrong! What they wrote for decades are mostly "Rosanna Dana" never-minds.
The rise of life has little to do with random accidents in chemistry and has everything to do with the rise of biological communication. DNA/RNA/Ribosome systems have defined language as a functional requirement. Chemistry doesn't measure or observe language. Information science tools like Biosemiotics and pattern recognition software do!!!
Well said!
The more I look at the poor state of science with regards to Evolution and the Origin of Life, the more I resign myself to the currently superior theories only being truly accepted when the proponents of the current stagnated theories die.
As Max Planck famously stated:
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
(2019-01-02, 09:40 AM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]The idea is that there can be causal loops that are consistent, and therefore not paradoxical. Consistency doesn't mean that they don't make a difference, though it's not really right to talk about a difference, because if we're talking about time loops there can't be any question of comparing "before" and "after", or "with" and "without" - except in terms of what would have happened in a different universe with no retro-causation. As I understand it, Wargo's argument isn't that retro-causation exists but is insignificant, but that it's fundamental to the way the world works.
The question most of concern at this point in this thread is how retro-causation could be an underlying mechanism for innovation in evolution. It seems to me that this can't be the case. This is because for any retro-causal introduction of the complex specified genetic information for intricate new biological structures and systems to make a difference in evolution, the subsequent outworking of evolution would have been fundamentally changed. After hundreds of millions of years the effects of the interference would radiate outward to affect virtually everything in Earth life.
These uncountable changes would include making virtually all presently alive humans nonexistent, since the whole structure of human ancestry would fundamentally change. Also, whatever process or mechanism was responsible for the retro-causative information transfer event would itself be changed by the interference in the past. But that would presumably change the nature of the interference or even prevent it from ever happening. An "inconsistency". So a time travel paradox is created. So presumably it couldn't happen - the retro-causal information transfer in evolution would be prevented from ever occurring.
And also, as I mentioned previously, such retro-causation in evolution just "kicks the can down the road" so to speak, since it still doesn't explain the actual origin of the complex specified information for the new biological systems.
(2019-01-02, 02:56 PM)stephenw Wrote: [ -> ]Was this your effort to contribute to the retro-causality discussion?
My understanding of the history of the recent conversion of a failed theory of evolution, to one that is tractable, is not in synch with yours. The answers creating the advancements were - and still are - synonymous with the rise of bioinformatics. The apologists, like Myers, Dawkins and others - are going silent - or going in other directions. They imagined genes working in ways that are now proven wrong! What they wrote for decades are mostly "Rosanna Dana" never-minds.
The rise of life has little to do with random accidents in chemistry and has everything to do with the rise of biological communication. DNA/RNA/Ribosome systems have defined language as a functional requirement. Chemistry doesn't measure or observe language. Information science tools like Biosemiotics and pattern recognition software do!!!
Is the apologist you mention, Stephen Myers, the intelligent design guy?
nbtruthman
The idea isn't that time goes along and then some retrocausation occurs and after that the past is different from what it was previously. What would it mean for something that happened last week to be different from what it was yesterday? It doesn't make sense.
The idea is not that the past is "changed" by the retrocausal influence, but that it's shaped by it - and always has been. And because the universe must remain consistent, there are constraints on the effect of that influence, which necessarily prevent paradoxes from arising.
Retro-causation may indeed kick the can down the road, but that's a different question from paradoxes.
For the avoidance of doubt - I'm not saying I accept these ideas, I'm just trying to explain my understanding of them.