Rob,

I agree with your comment that 'a little a priori knowledge goes a long way.' However, I find your a priori comment then contradicts your earlier comment:

"I think I do understand your position, I just don't find it enlightening."

The importance of, or shall I say, the lack of a priori knowledge is why this competition exits in the first place. We think that a posteriori knowledge (effects) supersedes a priori knowledge (cause). This same attitude and perspective is why physics is more about subjectivity than objectivity. We actually think our opinions matter when it comes down to understanding nature. How much more 'enlightening' can you get then to realize that if we do not factor the two types of selection events being used in scientific experiments then all we are doing is making highly calculated guesses without knowing why that is so.

If you want to know what happens when science holds a posteriori knowledge, i.e., effectual casualty - how effects causing effects, as superior over that of a priori knowledge then you may find my previous findings of interest:

"Assumed Higgs Boson Discovery Proved Einstein Right"

As I have said before, nature is not about our opinons, yet here we are?

Manuel

Manuel,

"We actually think our opinions matter when it comes down to understanding nature", because they do matter, at least with regards to our understanding. However, I believe, and it appears that you also believe, that our options, beliefs and understanding of nature, has little influence on nature, apart from our earth-bound technology (Which is mostly about how to cause various, desirable effects.) Nature is indeed not about our options, but our opinions about nature cannot be separated from our understanding of nature.

I'm not quite sure what you mean be highly *calculated* guesses. But consider the following rewording of your statement: "all we are doing is making highly accurate guesses without knowing why that is so."

If I could accurately guess which stocks will go up each day, I would soon be the richest man on earth. If I could accurately guess which chemicals would cure cancer, I could add many years of life to millions of people. Even if I have no idea why it works, it may nevertheless, be very beneficial to many people. That is the primary reason people seek to find causes for desirable effects. For the intellectually curious, it would be nice to gain an understanding of why and how each of these causes produce the desired effect. But benefits exists, even in the total absence of any such understanding.

When looked at in this way, there seems to be a clear distinction between technology and science. The first is satisfied with simply obtaining the benefit. The second seeks to understand why and how each newly discovered cause produces the effect. But the distinction is not really so clear. If one could guess the form of a new theory of everything, that was subsequently verified to actually work, no one would care that the theory was obtained via a guess - you would get a Nobel Prize regardless.

Personally, I do not view the role of science to be that of "explaining nature." It cannot do so. Its role is to describe nature. But that includes describing how to bring about (cause) any desired effect, including the ability to predict the future behavior of physical systems, via deductive logic.

Rob McEachern

Manuel: "We actually think our opinions matter when it comes down to understanding nature"

Rob: ... because they do matter, at least with regards to our understanding.

I have found that our perception/understanding of nature, that which we call reality, is the root of the problem preventing us from obtaining the Theory of Everything. Our opinion matters to us so much so that it prevents us from understanding nature on 'its' terms. We want the fundamental interaction of our existence to be a particle that gives rise to the existence of the universe. In doing so, we bypass what caused the 'effect' of this interaction to occur in the first place. No selection = no interaction = no existence.

I have found that our focus on effectual states (elementary particles) causing effectual states (nucleus of an atom) is why this contest exist in the first place. We insist on a 'something' (bit) to cause a something (it). The fundamental flaw with this paradox is that it does not tell us anything about what caused the initial 'something' to exist in the first place. So here we are... expressing our opinions as if they actually matter.

"The fundamental flaw with this paradox is that it does not tell us anything about what caused the initial 'something' to exist in the first place"

That is True. And nothing ever will. Not Science. Not Religion. Nothing. And that is why Science (as opposed to scientists) does not even try to determine a "first cause". Science is content to merely find causes for desired effects.

Rob McEachern

    Rob,

    Your comment, "That is True. And nothing ever will. Not Science. Not Religion. Nothing. And that is why Science (as opposed to scientists) does not even try to determine a "first cause."" I find to be a paradoxical.

    Without first cause, your comment infers that an experimenter can indeed conduct an experiment without 'first' making a selection. Then you go on to say that, "Science is content to merely find causes for desired effects." How can science find 'causes' when you have clearly stated it cannot even try to do so?

    Perhaps at this point we should agree to disagree and leave it at that.

    Best wishes,

    Manuel

    Manuel,

    Conduct the following experiment: Try to cause your car to start, by direct selection of your house key, to plug into the ignition. Then select your car key and try again. You can learn how to cause your car to start, without ever having to learn what caused you, the keys, the cars, the cosmos, or anything else.

    Rob McEachern

    "You can learn how to cause your car to start, without ever having to learn what caused you, the keys, the cars, the cosmos, or anything else."

    You are correct Rob, if and only if, they exist in the first place. Thus you are talking about effectual causality, i.e., how observed or measured effects (keys) cause effects (start a car). I am talking about true (first) causality. You continue to miss this point time and time again? I do however, appreciate you trying to understand the findings.

    Manuel

    You are correct Manuel. You are talking about a first cause. My point is that the first cause has been talked about for thousands of years. All talk and no action; after all of that time, no one, including you, has ever even succeeded in producing a logical demonstration that such a cause even exists, much less identified what it is.

    The problem is, that deductive logic, the only type known to be capable of producing *certain* conclusions, given a starting premise, cannot be used to prove the premise. Hence, all "well reasoned" logical arguments, can only be demonstrated to be wrong or questionable, by demonstrating that the premise is false or dubious. Your starting premise, namely that a first cause exists, has been shown to be dubious; it cannot be shown to be true and it cannot be shown to be false - it is thus rendered dubious.

    You stated that "You are correct Rob, if and only if, they exist in the first place" . That is indeed true, but it is just the Anthropic principle. All it really says is that something, your car key, can exist if and only if whatever was necessary for it to exist also existed. It is logically possible for there to be an infinite regression of such things, and thus no "first". It is also logically possible for there to a a circular chain of causes, rather than a linear one, so again, there is no "first", there is just an endless cycle. And that, of course, is why it is possible to debate the "first cause" in an endless cycle. Consequently, we do not need to agree to disagree, in order to break-out of this cycle. We only need to agree to break-out. Which is exactly my point. We do *not* need to directly select a "cause" or "reason" for the break-out, such as agreeing to disagree. We only have to directly select the break-out itself.

    I shall.

    Rob McEachern

    Rob,

    If you did conduct the Final Selection Experiment yet continued to exist without making any direct selections (or not have someone else make indirect selections for you), then and only then would your assumption of the lack of first cause be correct.

    However, since you nor anyone else on this planet 'cannot' exist without the ability to select, then your argument is mute for it has been falsified thus the break-out is complete.

    Best wishes,

    Manuel

    Dear Manual,

    There is a concept, well known to the quantum information community, that

    determines in what precise sense there is no destiny

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

    Mutually unbiased bases play a fundamental role in many tasks of quantum information processing. There is no cause, just a set of possibilities with equal probability as soon as you select a mesaurement base uncorrelated (unbiased) to your previous choices.

    I suspect that this concept may be useful for you.

    In my essay, I am working at something quite different but structurally related, that you may wish to read.

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1789

    Best wishes,

    Michel

      Michel,

      I agree there is no destiny as commonly understood as the findings from a 12 year experiment clearly show. I also agree that counterfactual definiteness is indeed not causal and the main reason for subjectivity in quantum physics. The question I have for you is what caused the quantum states we hold so dear to exist to begin with? The answer to this question is what the empirical evidence obtained from this experiment has revealed.

      Destiny is a theory that events or series of events are predetermined, and since events are moments of physical energy, then fundamentally destiny is a physical theory. Historically it is commonly assumed that if everything is predetermined (cause) then that must mean that everything is certain (effect). But what if this is not about predetermined certainty? What if this is about 'how' determinism is predetermined? If we understand that determinism simply means that a physical system behaves the same each time it is "replayed" from its original state, then this means that our focus on the effects of the original state has been in error.

      May I humbly ask that you please take the time to review my essay in its entirety? There you will find that absolute determinism is also inclusive of states of counterfactual definiteness where we find that QM is indeed valid as a 'partial' description of the dichotomy we call reality.

      Bottom line for followers of the uncertainty principle is that 'uncertainty without certainty makes uncertainty as certainty.'

      BTW - Michel, I did find your essay most worthy of merit and rated it highly on Jun 28, 2013. In hindsight, now that I see how things have played out in this 'competition', I should have rated you at 10 so that it would have helped you over the duration of this competition. My apologies, the exceptional insight and analysis you have exhibited in your essay deserves to be rated even higher than it currently is.

      I truly hope you make it to the finals where I believe your work will be better able to stand on its own.

      Manuel

      Dear Manual,

      I red your paper another time. While I more or less agree with the first part

      "the universal acts of selection are the fundamental causal

      variables of our existence for we must first make a selection (cause) in order to observe (effect)", (although it is not related to entanglement), I don't understand the second part "Unification of Cause and Effect With The Four Forces".

      What you say about selection is perfectly in agreement with quantum measurements (the relative position of Stern-Gerlach measurements of spin for example, see the book of Asher Peres for the 'classical' paradoxes it implies). In my essay, I am just analyzing these observables/selections as a whole, they have to be mutually commutative/compatible. This is also well in the spirit of Whheler's viewpoint.

      Your second part is much more radical and I don't see how it fits the existing knowledge about the 3+1 forces. The spin is not a force, I agree that spins have to do with the selections but I don't understand your point with the forces. The quarks (strong force) have spin 1/2, the electrons (electromagnetic force force) have spin 1/2, W and Z bosons have spin 1 (weak force), the graviton has spin 2, one selects such spins in measurements but not thei masses for example.

      Thank you for you interest in my opinion. But may be I still have to learn more from you.

      Best wishes,

      Michel

        Manual,

        Your discussion on cause and effect is very interesting. Your essay deserves a very high rating.

        I believe in cause before effect. My theory posits that absolute motion is the true cause of all the forces and all the processes of nature. In addition absolute motion can explain the weird results of the double-slit experiment. A paper on this is available in the following link:

        http://www.modelmechanics.org/2011experiment.pdf

        Good luck with your essay.

        Regards,

        Ken