Rewind... we have this:

It cannot. It attempts to talk about what's happening outside of your window, it intends to talk about what's happening outside of your window. It cannot actually do so directly because you do not have direct access to what's going on outside your window. — Isaac

Paraphrased, "It's raining" is hocus. "What's happening outside my window" is pocus. Hocus can't be pocus because I don't have "direct access" to pocus.

In theory, best I can tell from what you wrote, you're at least supposed to be arguing that pocus is a thing and hocus can't be pocus because of direct access. But:

I'm saying that the 'actual weather' you're referring to is inside your skull ie what you claim is the 'actual weather' in that sentence is, in fact, a belief about it inside your skull. — Isaac

"It's raining" is hocus. "The actual weather" is hocus. "It's raining" cannot be "the actual weather" because they're both hocus?

You claimed your expression was about the flower. I'm asking you what becomes of that claim? — Isaac

What flower? ...and no. I never claimed literally or any analog to the expression being about the flower. You're putting words in my mouth. Now, it is true that it's about a flower, but it's true in a different sense than anything discussed (with me at least) so far.

"Flower" is a noun; but "It's raining" is a proposition; as is "The flower is green". Propositions assert conditions about a part of the world. A statement being about a part of the world means there's a part of the world you can look at relevant to what the statement is asserting. "It's raining" and "the flower is green" are slightly different (aka, not truly analogous), but they both have parts of the world you can look at that are relevant.

Right, so, like Janus, you're happy with the notion that you don't know what your expressions are about when you utter them? — Isaac

It's not about being happy; it's a requirement. Not all claims are about something we believe or things we know exist. "Hat" in "Isaac's hat is a lovely shade of green today" may or may not have a referent; I don't particularly have any beliefs about it. Nevertheless, it means something; I know what to do to figure out if "hat" has a referent and, if it does, whether the claim is indeed true or not. I can simply, with your consent, head on over to your location and take a gander at your noggin. If there's a hat upon it, the statement asserts that it's green, and of a lovely shade. So should I find such hat, I just verify that it's green and that its shade is lovely. If there's no hat, that means there's nothing to assert the color of.

I've said all of this before, but what I'm highlighting here is that belief in the claim is completely irrelevant. I don't come into this with a belief that you're wearing a hat or it's green. And it would be a complete waste of time to take a survey to find someone who might believe such a thing, because that has nothing to do with what the statement is about (even if I find such a person, what then? What has that got to do with the hat on your head or its color?)

T0 - I show you a flower
T1 - you say "the flower is green"
T2 - I reveal that I had tricked you with a powerful hallucinogen and there was in fact no flower.
What was your statement at T1 about? — Isaac

I have no clue; how does one "trick me with a powerful hallucinogen" to say "the flower is green"? Also there's a contradiction; T0 and T2 cannot both be true. I'm guessing you don't literally mean both; and I'm supposed to per T2 infer that you did not in fact show me a flower, but in that case, what does that leave T0 as even saying then?

Are you trying to come up with a scenario where someone has a belief without being about a part of the world? Try this:
T0 - I had a hypnagogic experience of being held down by aliens.
T1 - I said "the aliens are gray"
T2 - Someone convinces me that this was just a hypnagogic experience
...even here, "the aliens are gray" is not about my belief; but my experience.

I don't see how to make it about a belief (in this form) other than to propose the belief was formed irrationally. That's certainly possible, but the entire exercise is fundamentally misguided... it is in essence an attempt to "find" a scenario where something is a belief, whereas you're allegedly trying to say it's always about beliefs. The phrase "cherry picking" comes to mind.

You can't just search high and low for some example where some mutation of a scenario is about belief and claim victory. You have to back up why "it's raining" in the scenario being discussed is about belief. And the fact that said claim is subject to revision counts dramatically against your argument, not for it as you claim (supposedly the doubt means we're not sure of the condition and that implies it's not about the condition; but quite contrarily, the fact that the belief is revised to match the information demonstrates exactly the opposite... that it's about the thing we're informed of, not the belief... were it about the belief, we would revise the information to match the belief).

Who said (2) is inside your skull? — Isaac

You've just said that you believe the actual weather you're referring to goes on outside of your skull. ==>I don't.<== — Isaac

We can just take that as a given. — Isaac

Not without begging the question.

If you believe in such a model and I do too, — Isaac

What model? You've given me nothing meeting the conditions I've outlined.

The flower you originally claimed you were talking about. — Isaac

The flower that is not inside the box?

"it's raining">"the weather is raining" — Isaac

...not just any weather. The weather as it is currently occurring outside my window.

You want to claim that "the weather is raining" is about the actual weather outside your skull (object), — Isaac

Yep.

So when you find out you were deceived and there was no flower, what do you do about your expression at T1? — Isaac

Nothing. The flower in the box does not exist.

Do you go back in time and change what it was about? — Isaac

Don't have to. I was just wrong about it at T1.

Do you not know what your expressions are about (only guess)? — Isaac

It's about what's in the box. That's why on finding the box empty at T2 I can say "I guess I was wrong. (because) There was no flower in the box." The lack of flowers in the box is why there is no referent to "the flower", which makes "The flower is green" false.

Do the outside-skull objects of your expressions blink in and out of existence depending on what's later believed about them? — Isaac

Nope. I don't say confused things like "The flower I knew was in the box that was green blinked out of existence and now retroactively I change my past knowledge to past non-knowledge". I don't say confused things like "At T1 I knew there was a flower in a box, but I was wrong". I just say "I thought I knew the flower (in the box) was green, but there wasn't even any flower there (in the box)".

And it doesn't depend on who believes in it. That's why I can test "the flower is green" by looking in the box, despite believing "The flower is green"... and why I change my beliefs on discovering the box is empty. My beliefs aren't authoritative because I'm not talking about the belief. My beliefs defer to what's actually in the box. Which is to say, "The flower is green" is about what's in the box, not about what I believe.

This is no different than a captain sailing a ship on the oceans using a map. The captain isn't traveling on a map; the captain is traveling on the ocean. So should the captain see an island that is not on the map, the island is there because it's the map that's wrong, not the island. Likewise should the captain not see an island that is on a map, the island isn't there because it's also the map that's wrong, not the location on the ocean.

You've just said that you believe the actual weather you're referring to goes on outside of your skull. I don't. — Isaac

That doesn't explain this:

It coveys (1) a belief about a weather condition, not (2) the actual weather condition (3) (which is composed of atmospheric molecules). — Isaac

If "it's raining" describes what's inside my skull, and (2) is inside my skull, and atmospheric molecules are inside my skull, then (1), (2), (3), and "it's raining" are all inside my skull. But what does "my skull" refer to? Per the logic, it only refers to my belief in my skull, which is in my skull. So if (1), (2), (3), and "it's raining" are in my skull, and my skull is in my skull, we must have an infinitely regressing series of skulls, and the actual weather can't be outside any of them.

None of this supports your idea that "it's raining" cannot convey "the actual weather condition"... both of those things are in the innermost core of this infinitely recursive solipsistic russian doll.

This explanation I'm afraid implodes upon itself. Maybe you want to think this through and try again. Why can "it's raining" not refer to the "actual weather condition" again?

At an absolute minimum, I expect some sort of explanation from you that achieves the goal of building a fence such that "it's raining" and "a belief about a weather condition" are on one side of the fence, and "the actual weather condition" is on the other (possibly because "atmospheric molecules" make "the actual weather condition"), such that you can say "it's raining" is on the side of the former and not the side of the latter. Because something like that is what you actually claimed.

I've gibven the argument that if it were the actual weather we were referring to we'd have to retrospectively change what we referred to if we found out we were being deceived so it makes more sense to say it's our belief about the weather that we refer to. — Isaac

It doesn't make any sense at all to me.

So you're claiming that the expression "the flower is green" is not about the flower? — Isaac

What flower?

...is an argument. — Isaac

I think you have the wrong room. This is philosophy. The argument clinic is down the hall.

Here in the philosophy forum, you made an argument tracing back to this:

It coveys (1)a belief about a weather condition, not (2)the actual weather condition (3)(which is composed of atmospheric molecules). — Isaac

...to which I replied that (1) goes on in my skull, (2) and "it's raining" four feet in front, and (3) is just a model we use to explain (2).

I've seen two replies to this, but no responses. I don't know why you keep quoting me; you don't seem very interested in actually talking about this.

The point is that you only know that at T2 when you see the empty box. so at T1 you are making a statement whose proper referent you don't know. But your claim is that you do know the referent of "it's raining" - the rain, even at T1. — Isaac

You're very confused and I have no idea how to fix it. There's no green flower in my right shoe either, but a discovery of that fact at T2 wouldn't mean anything relevant. By contrast, the discovery that the box is empty does have relevance, as you implicitly acknowledge. The reason the latter is relevant whereas the former is irrelevant is because "The flower is green" is about the contents of the box, as opposed to having nothing to do with the contents of my right shoe. This isn't a new point; it's exactly the same point I was making with "it's raining" being about weather. But it has nothing to do with this confusion of what you imagined my claim was in your quote here.

Yeah, the 'it's just obvious to any right thinking person' argument. — Isaac

There was no argument in that cartoon... just as there was no argument in the thing it responded to. The cartoon was just a way to respond to the smoke you were blowing (you certainly weren't commenting on the actual contents of what you quoted).

Your claim is that your sentence is about an actual flower, — Isaac

Nope; not if there is no actual flower. But it is about the contents of that box. In this case, the truth value of "the flower is green" is undefined, as that statement has no referent, but the reason it has no referent is because that box doesn't have a flower in it.

No, the end is to become satiated, the means is by eating your lunch. Or the ends is to remain alive ..., the means is by satiating your hunger... we could go on all day. — Isaac

I don't disagree that you can go on all day, but none of your suggestions are related to how normal people use the terms "means" and "ends". None of this is relevant anyway, as having hunger and remaining alive aren't beliefs.

You said
"Most of the time, it's used to getinform the listener to believethat it's raining (by which I mean have a tendency to act as if it's rainingto convey information necessary for the listener to adapt to the rain - put a coat on to avoid getting wet, carry an umbrella to avoid getting wet, write a historically accurate poem about it...)." — InPitzotl
...in response — Isaac

FTFY.

You gave this father saying "it's raining" by way of example, so I'm expecting an example proving that we're not communicating beliefs. — Isaac

If you say so, but I'm not beholden to what you expect of me.

I thought Bell's inequality was about spooky action at a distance and not randomness — Gregory

Bell Inequalities are constraints on probabilities that you would expect given classical probability theory.

I gave an example in another thread of a card game, where I'm the dealer. There are black and red suited cards, but it's possible I'm dealing funny, so you can't go in and assume the probability of a B draw is 50%. Per the game I deal you three cards face down. You pick two and turn them over. You win if those two cards match colors; you lose otherwise. Given the constraints, the only possible combinations of cards is BBB, BBR, BRB, BRR, RBB, RBR, RRB, and RRR. In two of these combinations you'll win 100% of the time. In the other 6, assuming you pick randomly, you win 1/3 of the time. Given this, and the fact that you don't know the probabilities of these combinations, you still know that your probability of winning is greater-than-or-equal-to 1/3. That is a Bell Inequality.

A light year is a LOT longer distance to maintain underlying entanglement structure. — Enrique

Why?

You think a pilot wave can conjoin only a couple electrons at the scale of light years? — Enrique

I'm not committed to a QM interpretation, but there's no rule I know of that says that entangled particles can't be separated by a light year. There's no upper limit for classical entanglement; why would there be one for quantum entanglement?

Kind of farfetched. — Enrique

I think the distance just "sounds large" to you... that's part of the point. This drags the distances from something too small to imagine (in terms of the duration used for "light x") to something on human scales specifically so you can imagine it. I could give you an example story of, say, how a local interpretation of QM works with this Bob and Alice story.

And anyways, I chatted up the aether and that's just how aether rolls! (Perhaps someone will figure it out someday) — Enrique

That's fine, but I don't think you can have a theory explaining non-locality until you have your theory explain non-locality. It sounds to me like it's just a name so far, and some fuzzy ideas of what it might be like.

Already you're mixing up the mode of identity being used. "part 1 is something going on in my skull". No it isn't. part 1 is a statement, what's going on in your skull is firing neurons and neurotransmitters. What you mean to say is that part 1 is about what's going on in your skull. — Isaac

This is my takeaway from the above paragraph:

It cannot. It attempts to talk about what's happening outside of your window, it intends to talk about what's happening outside of your window. It cannot actually do so directly because you do not have direct access to what's going on outside your window. — Isaac

Your argument does nothing for me, because I disagree with the postulate that to talk about x, I must have "direct access" to x, whatever "direct access" means.

It's of no consequence in normal conversation, but it's clearly what we actually do when we say "it's raining". — Isaac

I have no idea what the antecedent to the underlined "it" is supposed to be.

Beliefs still seem to be the end point, — Isaac

What's an "end point"? The terms "means" and "ends" are used as pairs to refer to a main goal you're trying to achieve (the end) and a thing you're just using to get there (the means). In this case the end is obviously being able to eat my lunch. The attempt to induce false belief was a means.

...by getting her to believe it's raining. — Isaac

...which would make "getting her to believe it's raining" a means to the end of helping her prevent herself from getting wet by actual rain.

How do we navigate the world? — Isaac

By beliefs (see below), but also by attending, observing, modeling, reasoning, testing, reacting, and so on.

How do you even put one foot in front of another without a belief that doing so is an appropriate next step for you? — Isaac

Wrong question... the accusation here was that you were tunnel visioned, not blind.

"Let me know if you want a response to the rest. — InPitzotl"
It's what I'm here for, though I've hardly any time in the week at the moment, so responses may be few and far between. — Isaac

Ooookay. As for the delays, I'm a very patient little piggy. I'd prefer you take time to read what I write... it's not a speed contest for me.

But this is another long post, and I'm going to go into a bit of detail, so I'll just squirrel this away under another hide:

The Alice and Bob situation would probably be impossible — Enrique

Your explanation in my mind is defaulting on the promises. The huge distance versus the time scale involved is simply an example of non-locality. You promised to explain non-local effects predicted by QM, and even explicitly paid heed to delayed choice as an example of non-local effects happening. If your aether blows itself apart for experiments with second scales over distances of a light year, how can it explain experiments on the nanosecond scale with distances of 10 feet?

Still not getting what you're saying here, so I'll punt and try my best. There are three parts to this I'll highlight with underlines:

It coveys a belief about a weather condition, — Isaac

...that is part 1.

not the actual weather condition — Isaac

...that's part 2.

(which is composed of atmospheric molecules). — Isaac

...and that is part 3.

So whatever you're saying, you're trying to contrast whatever part 1 refers to with whatever part 2 refers to. And for some reason the fact that part 3 describes part 2 has to do with what you're contrasting. You're doing all of this to try to say that "it's raining" refers to something like what you're referring to by part 1, and not something like what you're referring to by part 2, presumably because part 2 is described by part 3.

If that's what you're trying to say, then it's hardly convincing. Part 1 is a belief; I believe with my mind, which is a product of my brain, which is in my skull; so part 1 is something going on in my skull. Part 2 is something that happens outside my window, which is about four feet in front of my skull. It doesn't rain in my skull; it rains outside my window. So "it's raining" does indeed talk about what's "outside my window", like that thing part 2 referred to, and not what's "inside my skull", like that thing part 1 referred to.

Part 3 is just a theoretical model we humans came up with to explain that stuff outside the window. The model exists in my skull; what it's about exists four feet in front.

You seem to have just repeated what I said. Does a listener, sucessfully informed that it's raining, not now believe that it's raining? — Isaac

The focus is different, and what I said was distinct. A major difference is that what you said is consistent with manipulative behavior; I don't want you to eat my lunch so I say "that is a poisonous lab experiment". In this case, I'm not informing the listener; I'm attempting to manipulate the listener. Another difference is that I might inform the listener even if I have no reason to think the listener would believe me as a result (IOW, the answer to your question is "not really"). The point isn't so much that we don't tell people things to get them to believe it; but rather, that telling people things to get them to believe it isn't the point; beliefs aren't the ends you're making them out to be.

A mother asks a father before going outside what the weather's like. The father says "it's raining". The mother then gets her rain coat and umbrella, and puts a poncho and rain boots on her kids, then walks out the door. The father said something to the mother; but the mother didn't say anything to the kids, but these two acts are nevertheless quite similar. The father's information helps the mother prevent herself from actual wetness caused by the actual rain. The mother's dressing up the kids prevents the kids from actual wetness caused by the actual rain. We're not just speakers and believers; we're agents navigating a world. This is an extension of my complaint that you're tunnel visioned and too focused on belief; you're not seeing the bigger picture that beliefs are not the ends; they are just means.

This post is long enough; I'll end it here. Let me know if you want a response to the rest.

How can an expression convey a weather condition? — Isaac

By being about it? I honestly have no clue what you're trying to ask here.

Most of the time, it's used to get the listener to believe it's raining (by which I mean have a tendency to act as if it's raining - put a coat on, carry an umbrella, write a poem about it...). — Isaac

Most of the time, it's used to inform the listener that it's raining (by which I mean to convey information necessary for the listener to adapt to the rain - put a coat on to avoid getting wet, carry an umbrella to avoid getting wet, write a historically accurate poem about it...).

Rearranged for (hopefully) clarity:

We've gathered more justifications for believing it, but in JTB, we already have justifications and beliefs, the question is how to add the T. — Isaac

We don't add the T. The T is a relationship between the meaning of the claim and the state of affairs. The claim's meaning implies some truth conditions. The claim is true if the described state of affairs meet the truth conditions. A claim can be true even if nobody has any justifications for it.

Justifications are what you use to figure out what things are true.

But we haven't ascertained its veracity, you admit yourself, we could still be wrong. — Isaac

But "could be wrong" does not entail "being wrong". Assuming it's justified and believed, "being wrong" about its truth implies the claim is not true; that would make it a JFB. "Being right" implies the claim is true; that would make it a JTB.

You said
"I don't see what's stopping us from looking out windows. — InPitzotl"
in response to my reductio of "I know..." requiring the subject to be 'true'. — Isaac

More specifically I said that in response to this:

Either that or this ludicrous situation where a word refers to something we can't ever ascertain... — Isaac

...we can (aka "can ever") ascertain truth using justification.

We just gain more justification for our belief that it's raining. At no point do we find out that 'it's raining' is true, — Isaac

You apparently mean to talk about certainty (in a mathematical sense; philosophical sense?) that a thing is true, not "finding out". It's either raining or it's not raining. I "find out" whether it's raining or not raining by looking out the window.

Option (2) isn't about anything. It's part of a whole expression-act which is about the language game of quizzes. — Isaac

Isn't that a contradiction?

No, I'm arguing that what we can infer from a claim and what it means are intrinsically linked. The argument is to say that if they meant different things, then from where would a claim derive its 'meaning' if not from that which a language community can infer from its use? — Isaac

Your argument appears to contain the hidden and false premise that "it's raining" is used to convey to someone that the speaker believes that it's raining. The phrase "it's raining" does not require anyone to believe it beforehand to analyze its meaning or truth value. It may or may not be the case that someone believes it's raining; whether they do or don't is completely irrelevant to whether it is the case or not that it's raining (for this particular claim). What "it's raining" is used to convey is a weather condition.

Too focused for what? — Isaac

You're too focused on beliefs to analyze this properly; by which I mean you're being tunnel visioned. The fact that you've set up a scenario where the speaker believes it's raining simply reflects your bias to make the statement about beliefs. You didn't conclude that someone believes that it's raining from the statement "it's raining"; you concluded it from the fact that a person uttered that statement, and even then that is a fallible inference.

We could equally well consider this in the context of a quiz, something like:

Which of the following is true at your location right now?
(1) It's snowing
(2) It's raining
(3) None of the above

In this case, it would be erroneous to infer that the producer of the quiz believes that it's raining. This does not prevent us from analyzing the meaning of (2) or judging its truth value.

It's about what you would see if you look outside — InPitzotl

How can it be? If (A) I say "It's raining" when (B) it isn't then (C) what you would see when you look outside is (D) {a lack of rain} so (E) the expression "it's raining" is about {a lack of rain}? — Isaac

Actually, yes. The problem appears to be that you're misinterpreting what I mean by saying that (A) is about what's going on outside. You appear to surmise that this means that (A) is true; but that's incorrect. What it suggests is that what's going on outside is the test of A's truth.

For comparison, consider when (F) what I would taste when I sip from this soda can is (G) {ginger ale}. That (F) results in (G) does not say anything about whether (A) is true or not; (F) does not test (A). By contrast, (C) resulting in (D) does say something about whether (A) is true or not; this is simply the "not" case (which is equivalent to saying that (B) "it isn't [raining]" is true).

So once we've looked out of the window it definitely is raining? — Isaac

It no more follows that (A) being about what's going on outside means that once we've looked outside it is definitely raining than it follows that a person uttering A means that they definitely believe A.

What would you surmise option 2 in the quiz above is about?

Ascertained to be an independent fact. — Isaac

Let me fix that for you: "Ascertained its veracity".

If, rather, it turns out to be someone with a hose standing on the roof, then what? — Isaac

Then it's not raining. Unless it is. Regardless, the test of this would be to look outside. Again, it doesn't matter if this is your biased cherry picked scenario where the utterer of the statement believes it's raining, or if it is multiple choice option 2 on the quiz above. The statement is about the same thing either way.

An expression like "it's raining" can be used without the prefix " I think...", or "I believe", because it's part of the language game of making claims that it's taken as given — Isaac

You're confusing what you can infer from a claim with what a claim means. It does not entail that if you can infer y from a statement x that x means y. The statement "it's raining" is talking about what's happening outside. The statement "I believe it's raining" is talking about my belief. The addition/removal of "I believe" from these statements changes the meaning.

In the past one can reflect on the comparison between what one believed at the time and what one believes now, so a need for some prefix is required to distinguish which it is one means to claim. — Isaac

You're way too focused on beliefs. The statement "it's raining" is talking about what's happening outside. The gold standard for whether or not it's raining is baked into the intentionality of the claim; since the claim is describing what's happening outside, you verify it by looking outside. By contrast, "Joe believes John is a bachelor" is talking about what Joe believes of John. The gold standard for whether or not Joe believes John is a bachelor is to ask Joe.

Now, if I looked outside and saw that it was raining, that certainly should inform my belief that it's raining. But the statement "it's raining" isn't about what I believe; it's about what's happening outside. It's about what you would see if you look outside, not what I would say if you ask me. So yes, I use the outside world to inform my beliefs (i.e., my beliefs are informed by the actual state of affairs, best I can ascertain). But no, my beliefs are not the authority of what is true; the (described) actual state of affairs is. That's the entire reason we use justification.

Either that or this ludicrous situation where a word refers to something we can't ever ascertain... — Isaac

I don't see what's stopping us from looking out windows.

At which point it's no longer true that your entire language community believes John is a bachelor. — Isaac

As I've said, quite a few times now, I'm not making any claims at all about what's actually the case, only about what claims that something is the case mean, claims such as "John knows x". — Isaac

But there's a problem here. Imagine Joe is part of this community and is one of the persons that have been corrected; and he was corrected today. Yesterday, Joe may very well have said, "I know John is a bachelor". You're paying heed to the fact that today, John changes his mind; he will now say: "I know John is not a bachelor". But what you're missing is that today, Joe will not say: "I knew John was a bachelor yesterday, but I was wrong", because that statement is a contradiction. The reason that statement is a contradiction is because Joe recognizes that "to know x" requires x to actually be the case. If "to know x" only required x to be believed, there would be no problem with Joe saying "I knew John was a bachelor yesterday, but I was wrong."

But we don't talk that way, not in English. Once Joe learns that it's not the case that Joe is a bachelor, he instantly revises his past claims to know Joe was one. (This analysis requires the thing being discussed to not change, but, that applies here, and it makes the point).

True, Bell's experiments rule out classical locality, so nonlocality still appears to obtain. — Enrique

It would be more accurate to simply say that they demonstrate Bell's Theorem to be true, and to interpret that to mean that there are no classical HVT's.

My aether idea ... — Enrique

I cannot comment on that; I asked about this in the prior post, but didn't get a response. What is your aether idea exactly? How does it explain entanglement? I started a story about Alice and Bob and entangled electrons for you... can you use your aether to finish it?

My aether idea and Bohmian mechanics in a much more developed way suggest nonclassical locality to explain observations of nonlocality. Apparent nonlocality is basically a given that has to be accounted for with a nonclassical model, but I think some kind of unintuitive locality must be found to obtain beneath it all. — Enrique

I can't comment on your aether theory; you didn't explain how it worked. Bohmian mechanics as I understand is not local.

It has been proven that entanglement still holds, so whatever goes on is beyond what relativity can model. — Enrique

Why do you surmise that entanglement holding implies something is going on beyond what relativity can model?

I'm claiming relativity theory is its own reference frame, making the assumption that matter cannot interact faster than light speed, and the aether hypothesis is one way of subverting those assumptions. — Enrique

How does the aether resolve this? What does your aether do to resolve it?

Essentially, the statistical results of Bell's experiment rule out local hidden variables, a property of the particles themselves determining probabilistic outcome, verifying nonlocality in quantum mechanics. — Enrique

Not really. Fundamentally speaking, the experiments you're describing are those for which QM predicts outcomes that violate Bell inequalities. They rule out precisely the types of theories that suggest Bell inequalities should hold; that is, classical realist local theories. But that does not suffice to verify nonlocality.

The delayed choice experiment which developed out of Einstein's EPR paradox paper seems to contradict nonlocal hidden variables of a kind consistent with relativity unless viewing the detectors as separate reference frames, and this doesn't explain anything beyond correcting some calculative imprecision between clocks etc., basically not a realist account. — Enrique

Tossing this in:

The aether proposal explains why quantum entanglement can appear to transcend the speed of light while general relativity and nonlocal quantum mechanics still hold, and does not entail the controversial issues of observer and measurement dependence that I think are a metaphysical illusion of logic and woo chasing its tail. — Enrique

I'm not sure I understand how it does this. Bob has a clock. Alice has a clock. Alice takes a very long trip; once she is a light year away, she sets up a station. Bob generates two electrons whose spin are entangled; they spin in opposite directions. He sends one to Alice. By Bob's clock, he measures the spin of his electron at t=0. By Alice's clock, she measures the spin of her electron at t=0. Tell me the rest of the story.

Wrong scale:

TL;DR, Conservation of Energy always applies and is never violated, period!

...unless time translation symmetry doesn't apply.

The simpler the explanation, the better. — god must be atheist

Okay. You're the immigrant.

But I think we need a tad bit more explanation than that.

your friend Potzli used it as a "partly uncaused", that is, partly not doing any causing. — god must be atheist

Wrong... those are completely different... let's talk about the immigrant:

You were probably vaguely thinking of "I am interesting in buying this car" in which sentence used by many immigrants they mix up the past participle with the present participle. — god must be atheist

Wrong:
I am interesting in buying the car.

Right:
I am interested in buying the car.

But why?:

The car is what does the interesting (active voice):
The car interests the immigrant.

We flip this with passive voice:
The immigrant is interested in the car.

And that's why interested works above when interesting doesn't. The immigrant is the object of "to interest"; so we need passive voice. The past form of a verb is used to convey passive tense both directly and in participles.

X causes Y. X is the cause; Y is the effect.

X is doing the causing of Y.
But:
Y is caused by X.
Y is caused.

"Partly caused" means being Y-like, not X-like. Y is partly caused because there's an X that causes Y. "Partly uncaused" means there's a Y-like role for which there's no X. For example, "There's nothing you can add in your box along with the 217Pb atom to make it decay into a 217Bi in the next 20 seconds."

Because what InPotzl said is nonsense. — god must be atheist

The "gmba's the immigrant" theory works much better than the "everyone's fault but gmba" theory here:

your friend Potzli used it as a "partly uncaused", that is, partly not doing any causing. — god must be atheist

Partly uncaused is talking about Y's that have some aspect that cannot be explained by an X that makes them exist (cf the OP). That's what I said, that's what EricH said, and that's even what you said (at least, it's what you said when you were talking about cars interesting immigrants). So that explains why all three of us are correct. Your misphrasing of this as if it had to do with partly not causing had to do with your poor mastery of English; and there is exactly the -ing versus the -ed forms that you whined about regarding the immigrant showing up right there in your confusion.

I am yanking your chain, of course, I am only joking. But you need to clear up your text, please, I think, you are at best ambiguous at most times, and at others, incomprehensible. Not your fault, your thoughts are most likely clear, but it's a special skill to write philosophy. You can't lead your audience astray, because then they will turn on you and bite you. — god must be atheist

...two posts later:

I don't know why people stoop so low on this site and resort to insult others here by pre-judging the others' abilities and ranking them low in a type of skill in which they certainly do not lack. — god must be atheist

The definition of free will I will be using here comes from Trick Slattery. Free will is the ability to choose between more than one viable option or action, in which the choice is “up to the chooser”. — Paul Michael

I'll be granting this definition.

However, it’s never possible for you to have more than one viable option to choose between for your next thought. — Paul Michael

I think you're concluding this prematurely.

To illustrate this, let’s say you want to freely will your next thought. You would have to think of the options yourself, as they couldn’t just present themselves to you externally or in any other way. But as soon as you think of the first option, you’ve already thought your next thought. — Paul Michael

Here you are introducing a hidden premise that the viable option being selected must be the content of the next thought. I don't think this is justified.

In actual practice among us humans, there are non-normative conditions such as intrusive thoughts and inattention. They highlight that in the normative case (to contrast with such non-normative cases), focus is a meaningful human capability. If we take the feeling seriously and convert it into a position, a person who feels like they are in control of their thoughts feels like that they have control over what they focus on. This implies there are things they may choose not to focus on, which implies that there are viable options to choose from, and that the person with focus is selecting from one of those viable options of what type of thing to focus on.

By the given definition of free will, this choice of what to focus on meets the choice condition, but does not require a person to think their thought before they think it. Rather, the person chooses what kind of thing to direct their thinking towards, and the thoughts that happen (assuming their choice is attained) are about that kind of thing. Since this matches your definition of free will over what thoughts they have, and does not require the person to think the thought before they have the thought, it follows that you're wrong about their having to think their thought before they thought it in order for their thought to be a result of free will by the definition you have given.

Your thoughts initiate your deliberate actions, whether the thoughts be fully conscious or subconscious. If you can’t freely will any of your thoughts, how can you freely will any of your actions which are based on and initiated by your thoughts? — Paul Michael

It appears that the logic you're employing here is that if Y follows from X; and X is not a selection from a viable set of options, then Y is not a selection from a viable set of options. This does not seem to follow.

So do I. You can't deny you wrote this: — god must be atheist

This fails as a gotcha. I'm not denying I wrote that. What I'm denying is that it contains your unique brand of confusion about this:

2. It is partially caused by another event and partially uncaused by some other event still.
3. The other part of the causes of the event are other causes and other parts of the uncaused whole are other uncausing events. — god must be atheist

You are the first person I have ever heard of to suggest that "uncaused" requires an "uncauser" that is "uncausing" the events. To the rest of us, all "uncaused" means is that there isn't an antecedent cause.

You have used "uncausing" and "uncaused" prolifically before the discussion between you and me. You now deny that it means anything. — god must be atheist

Wrong. I have used "uncaused" before the discussion between you and me, but I've never used "uncausing". I've searched all 15 pages of this thread, and the first usage of the term "uncausing" (by anyone) was in this post. This uncausing idea is unique to you.

I will not bend or break. Only under the weight of reason do I bend or break. — god must be atheist

Apparently not. You're chasing windmills, Don Quixote.

So explain what you mean by that, with special emphasis on the "be uncaused". — god must be atheist

s/be uncaused/partially be uncaused/:

And that's where the possibilities diverge. We can have an event partially have a cause and partially be uncaused. So there's your other possibility. — InPitzotl

In the normal English speaking world, "uncaused" means "have no antecedent cause". A partial cause is something that brings about an effect, but is not sufficient to bring about an effect; that is, sometimes the effect occurs given the partial cause, and sometimes it doesn't. The insufficiency could be accounted for by other causes, such as in the car example. But it's not necessary that there be other causes; in the case that there are no other causes sufficient to explain the event (i.e., if given any set of causes, sometimes the event occurs, and sometimes it doesn't), then the event is partially uncaused (i.e., there's some aspect which cannot be explained by an antecedent cause).

I've drawn you a picture to help:

The correct answer here is C. There's no contradiction in saying C is the correct answer. Given C is the correct answer, we only have one more question to address... is there some other cause that we could shove into the quiz, to disambiguate this? Something to where we can answer if A or B happens? If you think there is, you're introducing an unproven premise (equivalent to presuming determinism). If there isn't, that's what it means for whatever does happen to be partially uncaused.

This above was supposed to explain your position on "uncausing". — god must be atheist

Nope. There's no such thing as uncausing; that thing you introduced in this post. What I explained there was what I meant by partially being uncaused; that thing I actually did talk about here:

And that's where the possibilities diverge. We can have an event partially have a cause and partially be uncaused. So there's your other possibility. — InPitzotl

You now deny that it means anything. — god must be atheist

There has never been a change in my position. I have never discussed uncausing. I never mentioned an event uncausing another event.

I mentioned an event partially being uncaused. And I gave that atom example a long, long time before you arrived. But you're not talking about anything in this example; you're instead trying your damndest to pin me to this uncauser thing you invented.

That's another thing you can't do in normal discussion, let alone in a discussion where reason is trump. — god must be atheist

Building straw men and playing gotcha is not reasoning. If we were having a real meaningful discussion, you would address what I actually did talk about. Let's try that. Tell me why, in the picture, C isn't the correct answer; or why there has to be something that tells you whether A is going to happen in 20 seconds or B is going to happen in 20 seconds. If you can do that, you've addressed what I actually talked about. Barring that, you're just chasing windmills.

But you need to clear up your text, please, I think, you are at best ambiguous at most times, and at others, incomprehensible. Not your fault, your thoughts are most likely clear, but it's a special skill to write philosophy. — god must be atheist

I cry foul.

You didn't understand what I was saying. But instead of asking a question, you presumed to pretend you did understand, and tied me to some nonsense having nothing to do with what I said. When I corrected you, you started blaming me for not understanding. I'm being unclear. I'm being ambiguous. I'm being incomprehensible. The problem is, you could have chosen to just ask questions; I did that of Philosophim throughout this thread.

I don't buy your narrative that it's my fault you didn't understand. It looks to me like you're just posturing:

Even after several explanations I can't comprehend what you mean by uncausing. — god must be atheist

"Uncaused" means "not caused"; as in an event happens, and there isn't a cause for it. There is no such thing as "uncausing"... the act of not causing an event.

I am a lost cause as far as uncausation is concerned, so please don't take it on your self to explain it yet a third time. — god must be atheist

Okay, but it's okay to not understand something. I gave you an example of what I was talking about, and there's no "uncausing" happening there. There is no event "uncausing" another event there. There's just a part that has no cause; since it has no cause, we call it "uncaused". So don't pin your "uncausing" on me.

I have no clue what an uncausing is in relation to causality. But you used it, and I thought YOU knew what you were saying. — god must be atheist

I did no such thing. I mentioned a partially caused, partially uncaused event. I mentioned that causality isn't linear, but branches. But I didn't mention any "event uncausing another event" nonsense; that notion came entirely from you.

And that's where the possibilities diverge. We can have an event partially have a cause and partially be uncaused. So there's your other possibility. — InPitzotl

Yes. But let's break that conjunction apart. "Have a cause" is on the left; so there's an event that "has a cause"... that cause we could call an event, so this would be an event (the cause) causing an event (the effect). But on the right side of the conjunction, there's just "partially be uncaused". It's a "god must be atheist" invention that "be uncaused" means there's an event that is the uncauser, and that's kind of ridiculous. But that's the direction you took it.

I have no clue what an uncausing is in relation to causality. — god must be atheist

So let's go back to starting my car as an example. I put the key in the ignition and turn it, and the car starts up. Wonderful! But that's not the whole story. The car doesn't always start up when I turn the key. Turning the key is critical, but not sufficient. So we can say that turning the key causes it to start, but it's not the complete explanation. This is a partial cause. In this case, there are reasons why the car might not start if I turn the key... among those are: there's not enough gas to start, there isn't enough battery to crank it, and the spark plug is too gunked up to fire properly. For discussion purposes let's pretend this is complete. Then if we meet all of these prerequisites and the key is turned, the car will always start; collectively all of the causes are sufficient.

By contrast, we can have things such as the 217Pb atom I keep mentioning here, that during a particular 20 second period (span 1) does not decay, but during another (span 2) decays into a 217Bi atom. If we explore the cause of the existence of the 217Bi atom, that has an explanation; there's a prior 217Pb atom... and 217Pb's are known to decay into 217Bi's with a half life of about 20 seconds. So we can call this a cause. But it is not a sufficient cause, as proven by span 1. Not all 217Pb's decay into 217Bi's in a 20 second time span; about 50% of them do. But there need be no set of causes that collectively are sufficient to explain this decay; there need be no answer to the question of why the atom decayed in span 2 as opposed to not decaying in span 1.

This isn't a situation of some other "event" "uncausing" the decay, whatever (if anything) that might mean. It's a situation of there being no other event that causally explains it. It's a situation where there are causal priors, but collectively they are insufficient to explain the event (i.e., were all causes present, the event would not always happen).

It is partially caused by another event and partially uncaused by some other event still. — god must be atheist

I don't know what "uncaused by some other event" means.

1. An event is caused.
2. It is partially caused by another event and partially uncaused by some other event still.
3. The other part of the causes of the event are other causes and other parts of the uncaused whole are other uncausing events. — god must be atheist

2 and 3 refer to events that are... uncausing the event? An uncaused whole? Uncausing events?

4. Therefore the event has been in its totality caused and uncaused (by distinct and discretely separate events or causes) and there is nothing in its post-caused behaviour therefore that is not caused and not uncaused. — god must be atheist

I can't reach this conclusion, because I cannot make sense of an event uncausing another event. It sounds like gibberish to me. What does it mean for an event to uncause another event? 1 makes sense. I have no idea what 2 and 3 are. Can you illustrate what you mean by an example?

Are you saying that there could be more than 1 first cause? Care to share why exactly? — TheMadFool

If there can be one, why can't there be more than one?

A team of gods? — TheMadFool

Must a first cause be a god?

It seems a bit too extravagant; it's more than some of us can handle. — TheMadFool

If you can handle one first cause, what's the problem with handling any arbitrary number? Is there some rule you're applying where you'll "allow" one first cause "but no more"? Why should the universe care about such a rule?

Unicorns are caused - they are by our brains/minds depending on your philosophy. — TheMadFool

Confusing the concept with the thing? "What caused my car to start" my brains/minds depending on my philosophy?

As uncaused, nothing is a candidate for the title of a first cause with respect to being uncaused. — TheMadFool

Apparently not... it can't cause:

Likewise, nothing can't cause for there's nothing to cause — InPitzotl
Yup! — TheMadFool

I don't understand the question. — TheMadFool

Presumably there's at least one, if it's a first cause.

The rest of your post doesn't make sense. — TheMadFool

I'm just using your argument to derive the impossibility of a South Pole like you're using it to derive the impossibility of a first cause.

Ignoratio elenchi! — TheMadFool

I quoted you! You're also obviously reacting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense

If nothing is being reified and seeing that it's true that nothing is uncaused, — TheMadFool

Nothing is uncaused like unicorns are uncaused. But unicorns being uncaused have nothing to do with anything; they're uncaused because they don't exist.

the problem then lies in the first cause argument - it necessitates a reification of nothing. — TheMadFool

It has nothing to do with "the first cause argument". Unicorns are uncaused therefore the first cause argument reifies nothing?

Plus, you seem to be implying nothing is just a concept. Are you sure? — TheMadFool

How many nothings are there?

Nothing can't be caused for there's nothing to cause. — TheMadFool

Likewise, nothing can't cause for there's nothing to cause.

Both the first cause and nothing are uncaused. — TheMadFool

So? Both the south pole and the color red don't have points south of them; the south pole because it's the southernmost point, the color red vacuously because it's nonsense to say something is south of it.

In terms of a prior cause, the first cause and anothing are identical — TheMadFool

No, they aren't identical. They're like the south pole and the color red here. I can make sense of the south pole having no points south of it. I can't make sense of the color red being south of the south pole; it's just nonsense.

I am sorry, TheMadFool, but I cannot accept The Chewbacca Defense as a valid way to derive what exists or not.

Premise 1 can't be denied. — TheMadFool

Except there could be multiple first causes.

Is this version of my argument more reasonable? — TheMadFool

I see a problem with it:

2. Nothing has no cause — TheMadFool

"Nothing" is being reified here. Think of "south" as a prior on a globe. There are a lot of points on the globe, and they have points south of them, but there's a special place on the globe which has no points south of it: the South Pole. Yet that is itself a point. You are saying something silly, like there's a south to the South Pole that has no points on it. The way you phrase it is, nothing has no south to it. Either way, you're reifying. There's no such thing as a "nothing-place" that is south of the South Pole.

There's a second mistake being made here as well. To point that out, let's consider proof by contradictions generically. You start with some set of premises P={P1,P2,...}. From there you proceed with an argument that arrives at a contradiction: P⊢⊥. But from this, you only get to conclude that at least one of your premises is false.

And, to top it all off the assumption was if it's something then it has a cause. — TheMadFool

...that would be a premise. The premise can be wrong; after all, you have a proof by contradiction and this is one of your premises.

To avoid this contradiction, a way out of this quagmire, is to say that the first cause = nothing (no infinite regress & no contradiction). — TheMadFool

...and that's just introducing a reification.

It's not really a contradiction that a cardinal direction cannot infinitely regress (a cone with its point being a north pole has an infinite regression of south points), but the globe itself doesn't infinitely regress southward. But we need not hold the premise that there is such a thing as a place with no points that is south of a South Pole just to maintain that all points have a point south of them. We could simply reject the notion that all points have a point south of them (i.e., the South Pole has no point south of it).

Does it matter to my argument? — TheMadFool

What, this one?:

1. The first cause has to be uncaused.
2. Only nothing has no cause.
Ergo,
3. The first cause is nothing.
4. Nothing can't cause anything
Ergo,
5. The notion of a first cause makes zero sense. — TheMadFool

No... that argument makes no sense anyway. It doesn't even allow for the uncaused possibility, much less the partially caused and uncaused. Furthermore, it kind of concludes the notion of a first cause it itself introduced (the one "only nothing" can be) does not make sense, making the entire argument a bit moot.

But it does matter to the thing I quoted, which claims to exhaust possibilities when the possibilities were not in fact exhausted.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to establish. You're arguing first causes don't make sense because nothingness is the only thing that cannot be caused; then you're saying something about caused and uncaused exhausting possibilities, and now you're saying partially caused and partially uncaused things don't matter. Weird.

How about you taking the question I asked about the 217Pb atom that, during a particular 20 second time span (span 1), remains a 217Pb atom, and in another 20 second time span (span 2), decays into a 217Bi atom. Regarding this, the question is whether the 217Bi atom is caused or uncaused. It certainly had a prior; the 217Pb atom, which has a property that it has a half life of 20 seconds. But there's no explanation for why this atom would decay in span 2 versus span 1, so we can't fully account for the cause of 217Bi. I'm not sure where your "nothing" would be in this example, unless you want to reify it to explain the decay during span 2, but said reification isn't interesting.

Non sequitur! — TheMadFool

A non sequitur is something that does not follow.

Caused and uncaused exhausts all possibilities. — TheMadFool

I have presented another possibility (partially caused, partially uncaused). It therefore does follow that you haven't exhausted all possibilities.

Caused and uncaused exhausts all possibilities. — TheMadFool

Does it though?

A common mistake with causality is to attribute singular causes in a causal line. We might think of it like I hit a cue ball, and that strikes a 7 ball causing it to go along a certain path, which then hits the 3 ball causing it to go along a certain path, each collision also affecting the colliding ball. So the question "why is the 3 ball going this way" is traced to the 7 ball collision, and "why did the 7 ball go that way" to the cue stick. I imagine something like this is going on in the thought process here.

But this isn't really how causal chains work. Events can and often do have multiple causes. My car started because I turned the key... and, because it had gas in it... and, because the battery was charged... and, because the spark plug worked, etc. This atom is moving this way because it bounced off of that atom... and, because it has this charge and there is this particular field on it... and, because it's weakly tugged this way by space time due to a gravitational field... etc. Basically, all sorts of fields around the atom affect its movements, and those fields are a reflection of a large number of things around it. So causal chains don't really trace back along lines, but rather along branches.

And that's where the possibilities diverge. We can have an event partially have a cause and partially be uncaused. So there's your other possibility.

The premises of the OP are not logically necessary. — Philosophim

Hmmm...
1. ¬□P

It is the conclusion that is logically necessary if the premises are true. — Philosophim

Hmmm...
2. ( P ∧ □(P⇒C))⇒□C

That doesn't work. ( P ∧ □(P⇒C))⇒C works, and ( □P ∧ □(P⇒C))⇒□C works, but not ( P ∧ □(P⇒C))⇒□C.

Imagine it this way. Let's say "a world" is a day. Let's say, it's necessarily true that IF it rains on some day, THEN the ground will wet that day:
□(P⇒C)
(P is "it rains", C is "ground is wet"; "a day" is our model of "a world").

So it rained last Wednesday. We can then say that the ground was wet last Wednesday:
( P ∧ □(P⇒C))⇒C
...but we cannot say that because it rained last Wednesday, and □(P⇒C), that the ground is necessarily wet:
( P ∧ □(P⇒C))⇒□C
...it doesn't have to be, for example, wet today just because it rained last Wednesday.

Now if it rained every day (it necessarily rains), then the ground would be necessarily wet:
( □P ∧ □(P⇒C))⇒□C

...but it doesn't follow that the ground is necessarily wet just because on some day it rained and it's wet.

If we look at the conclusion of the OP, it fits logical necessity under your definition. — Philosophim

Nope.

If I assume everything has a prior cause for its existence, I run into a contradiction. — Philosophim

Not really.

If infinite regress exists, what caused there to be infinite regressive causality in existence? — Philosophim

The sequence S1={0.5, 0.25, 0.125, 0.0625, ...} is infinitely decreasing. But the entire sequence has a prior... 0. Also -1, -2, and so on. By contrast, the sequence S2={-1, -2, -3, -4, ...} is also infinitely decreasing. But this sequence has no prior. Both of these are logically possible. This might make your head asplode, but it's not something you can derive falsum from using logical operations.

Just because you can ask your question doesn't mean it need have an answer; or that if it has no answer there must be a contradiction. Questions can be the problem too. Here:

You can't say, "Something else", because the question continues. — Philosophim

Actually, I can. Infinitely regressing sets can have priors; S1 does for example.

It only ends with, "It must not have a prior cause for its existence." — Philosophim

Also possible; see S2. Infinitely regressing sets can have no priors. In this case, your question is basically asking what's smaller than the smallest negative number, which is a question that has a problem since there is no such thing as the smallest negative number.

This is why I also keep saying BT does not contradict the conclusion. — Philosophim

BT isn't supposed to "contradict the conclusion". You're trying to argue that on every day, the ground is wet. BT is analogously a demonstration that maybe on some days the ground is dry. For your argument to hold, you basically have to show it can't possibly ever be dry. If I can see how it might possibly ever be dry, you haven't shown it can't possibly ever be dry.

What I'm saying is I don't see any evidence of it being something which has no prior explanation for its being. — Philosophim

Let's assume that the ground is dry one single day, maybe in the far future. Now let's run through your argument... did you rule out my assumption? Can your argument derive falsum from my assumption that one single day in the far future it's dry? If not, you haven't demonstrated this assumption is a contradiction. And if you haven't done that, you haven't shown your conclusion is logically necessary.

Yes, and a cause is an explanation for an effect. — Philosophim

Okay, then causes are not logically necessary.

In the end, I think Bob Ross successfully countered the notion that the argument is logically necessary. I would read our discussion to see the results. — Philosophim

I'm not quite sure I have to read it... it seems apparent to me.

We don't know. Remember, I'm not claiming the existence of any one alpha. All I'm claiming is that it is necessary that there be at least one. — Philosophim

The question isn't about the number of alphas, it's about whether or not this particular thing is one.

All I'm claiming is that it is necessary that there be at least one. — Philosophim

For the fourth time, you are (or at least were) claiming that it is logically necessary that there be at least one. That's vastly different than claiming that it is merely necessary. The former has a burden the latter lacks.

As I noted earlier, BT does not claim that there cannot be any explanation for its results. — Philosophim

But for re-emphasis, regarding the claim that it is logically necessary, BT demonstrates how it is logically possible that there cannot be any explanation for the results. If it's logically possible X is false, it cannot be logically necessary X is true.

But is BT provable epistemically? — Philosophim

You mean MWI? It's not just MWI being referred to; it's a local interpretation of MWI. But again for re-emphasis, your question is misguided. Local interpretations of MWI need not be proven to challenge logical necessity; it suffices that local interpretations of MWI are logically possible. If it is logically possible X is false, it cannot be logically necessary X is true. (Not that I understand how challenging local interpretations helps you).

Let me back up. To me, "logically possible" means that if you assume something to be true, you do not get a contradiction. "Logically necessary" means that if you assume something to be false, you do get a contradiction (e.g., it contradicts the argument for it being logically necessary). Logical possibility doesn't mean something is the case; it could be wrong, but still be logically consistent. So you don't need to test if something is true to demonstrate it's logically possible.

So I think the confusion you have with the OP is you think its trying to posit a specific first cause. — Philosophim

Why would you think that? I don't understand how you get from my asking you a question about whether a 217Bi atom (as a decay product of 217Pb) is or isn't an alpha to my confusing you as saying there's only one specific alpha. Apparently that's where you got the impression, but I cannot see how you drew that connection.

If my premises are all correct, I am meeting the burden of logical necessity. Either everything has a prior explanation, or there are things that do not have a prior explanation. — Philosophim

That's not your stated premise. This is your stated premise:

1. Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which a chain of events follows. — Philosophim

If BT allows that there are things that have no prior explanation, then that is consistent with the OP, and its conclusions. — Philosophim

Sorry, you still don't get the question.

217Pb will decay in about 20 seconds to 217Bi. For said 217Bi to be made, you need a prior of 217Pb. But 217Bi may or may not result from 217Pb in any given 20 second life span.

So a decay product 217Bi does have a prior (217Pb, which will also emit a Beta particle). So it can be explained as having a prior cause (217Pb). And also, it does not have an explanation ("why did the 217Pb decay into 217Bi during this 20 second span and not the one before it?" has no answer).

So the question I ask you, yet again, is which is it? Is 217Bi an alpha? Or a result of a causal chain?

You keep saying this doesn't disprove causality, but that's not the question. I want to know what causality even means here. You suddenly jump from causality to explanations, and I have to admit, that change in wording is the very first thing I notice. Are you talking about first causes, or explainability? From the OP it sure sounds like you're talking about first causes. But if you want to talk about explainability, how do your premises then handle partial explainability?

Maybe part of the problem is that you are imagining that I'm arguing 217Bi is a first cause, and you're saying, aha! I have those things in my theory. Let me dissuade you of that notion. Your proposal is that things are either first causes or parts of causal chains. I propose that 217Bi is both a first cause and part of a causal chain (whatever that means; it's just a dialectic position). So why am I wrong? That is what I'm asking you when I ask you which it is.

Yes it does. If you are not going to explain why it doesn't, — Philosophim

Excuse me? You just quoted me explaining why it doesn't. Incidentally, see also the edit.

I quoted a reference to Bell himself, because that is the theory you cited. — Philosophim

But you didn't understand it.

So read it from your own source:
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Bell%27s_theorem#Many-worlds_and_relational_interpretations_of_quantum_theory

(Recall that in Section 6, in order to apply Bell's definition of locality to the type of experiment considered in Section 5, we assumed that the outcomes A1 and A2 were functions of the local beables in regions 1 and 2, respectively.)'
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However, there exists one fairly popular interpretation of quantum theory that does deny that one has (after the experiments are concluded) a well-defined physically real ±1-valued outcome on each side: the many-worlds interpretation.
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MWI admits a local explanation that does not violate BT; your source explains why. Note that I'm specifically invoking a local interpretation of MWI, and your source specifically has a section on that very thing.

You are incorrect here. BT does not posit that there is no explanation. — Philosophim

For the third time in a row, I'm reminding you that you are not meeting the burden of logical necessity. BT is logically consistent with the premise that there is no explanation.

It replaces it with the idea of action at a distance, like gravity. — Philosophim

No it doesn't.

Here are a few links to back my claims: — Philosophim

(Edited, after having enough time to quickly scan your source a bit more): There are local theories of MWI that do not violate BT. These theories would give up realism; they would e.g. in our card trick predict the probability as 1/4. Since there's at least one local theory consistent with BT, it cannot be said that BT replaces locality with action at a distance. It certainly doesn't in the BT-consistent local MWI, where no such replacement exists.

This is actually mentioned in your source; in fact, there's an entire section on it specifically: "Many-worlds and relational interpretations of quantum theory". I'm not sure why you're trying to engage with this, seeing as how twice you said you didn't want to debate this.

So again, BT is not claiming that cause and effect is destroyed — Philosophim

You still didn't answer the question I asked you.

But that doesn't negate cause and effect. — Philosophim

We've been over this Philosophim; it was in the previous post again. That's not what our interchanges are about. I'm asking you about your concept of cause and effect.

I'm not here to argue whether BT is correct or not. — Philosophim

That's not the issue. The issue isn't whether BT is correct or not; the issue is what BT is. It is that your description of atomic decay conflated QM probability with classical probability games (you started to lecture me about what probability was about; remember?)

This leaves your initial response in default. You owe me a description of this.

Stating that hidden variables cannot exist as the cause of an effect is not a refutation of cause and effect. — Philosophim

It's not meant to be, but buddy, we've just been over this. You are biting off of the apple of logical necessity. You don't seem to grasp what burden this demands of you. You're burden is "I'm necessarily not wrong", not "I'm not necessarily wrong". If I were trying to refute you, I need not demonstrate something correct; it suffices to simply demonstrate something is logically possible.

BT isn't presented for you to debate; it's presented for you to understand the question and why you defaulted on it. You owe me an explanation.

A first cause has no prior explanation for its existence. If you posit that there are known entities that have no prior explanation for your existence, you're not countering the OP, you are affirming its logical necessity with its existence in reality. — Philosophim

Okay, but that still does not answer the question. Does the atomic decay in time span 2 as opposed to the lack of atomic decay in time span 1 have an explanation for its existence?

In order for that atom to decay, there must be a prior... the atom must exist. At the same time, there is no explanation for why it decayed versus did not decay; any explanation given for why it decayed in time span 2 would have to describe why it didn't decay in time span 1. And according to BT, there really isn't a "fact of the matter", at least classically, at least under some "sane assumptions", that would explain the decay in span 2 (and I'm actually agnostic on those sane assumptions; but you're biting off logical necessity, so you had better be consistent with any set of sane assumptions).

So which is it? Is this atomic decay an alpha, or part of a chain of causes? It doesn't appear to me to be either; it partially requires a prior, but partially has no explanation. But this is your concept. So you explain it to me.

First, Bell's Theorem does not violate causality. Bell's Theorem lent credence to a theory that the idea of locality did not apply to entangled electrons. — Philosophim

That's kind of a narrative on Bell's Theorem. BT demonstrates that there can be no classical sufficient explanations of QM given certain "sane assumptions". Locality is simply a particular such sane assumption.

The observation was that — Philosophim

There's a prediction before the observation though. BT is based on the concept of Bell Inequalities, which are based on ordinary probability theory. Bell showed that QM makes predictions of probability that violate Bell Inequalities. That is the interesting thing here.

First, Bell's Theorem does not violate causality. — Philosophim

Okay...

Bell's Theorem lent credence to a theory that the idea of locality did not apply to entangled electrons. — Philosophim

...this is too restricted. Bell's Theorem is an argument against Hidden Variable Theories under certain assumptions (locality, realism, etc).

We don't have to use any math to understand it. — Philosophim

I blatantly disagree. If you don't understand the math, you have no clue what I'm talking about. It's not that hard, so here it is again.

Assuming there's some classical fact of the matter as to what the cards are before you turn them over, then there are only 8 possible arrangements of said cards: BBB, BBR, BRB, BRR, RBB, RBR, RRB, or RRR. If you turn over two of the cards in each of these arrangements, the probability they would match are respectively 1, 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, and 1. Given any possible scenario where there would be some classical fact of the matter as to what the cards are before you turn them over, the probability you get a match must be at least 1/3. QM predicts this probability to be 1/4. Experiment demonstrates that the probability is in fact 1/4. Therefore, there is no classical fact of the matter as to what the cards are before you flip them over.

There is an effect, and one cause was proposed. Assuming that locality was true, one proposal was to place an unknown variable within consideration. — Philosophim

Sure.

I'm no advanced physicist, but I don't have to understand the equation completely. — Philosophim

But you do have to understand the problem; else you cannot comment on it.

I only have to understand one thing, this was an attempt to provide a cause for a consistent, and repeatable observed effect. — Philosophim

Okay, sure.

So what causes the electrons to respond over large distances? The cause that is proposed is that it is a non-local influence. — Philosophim

But you're arguing for logical necessity, so you cannot add assumptions. If therefore you are to propose something, to meet your burden, you must derive your proposition. So if you want to propose the underlined thing, you need to show it's logically necessary. Failing that, you failed to demonstrate your argument is logically necessary.

But I'm not asking about electrons responding over large distances anyway. I'm asking about an atom decaying in a particular time span of duration x, after having not decayed in a previous time span of duration x.

What I'm asking about is how you account for a state that cannot be fully accounted for from priors. I can logically entertain theories of physics that have such states. If your analysis holds under such theories, it should describe them. If it does not hold, you should explain why it's logically impossible to hold such theories; otherwise, you did not demonstrate logical necessity.

Action at a distance is not new in physics. Newton proposed that gravity violated locality as well. — Philosophim

Again, this is not meeting your burden. I can logically entertain local theories. Apply the same criteria as above.

Incidentally I'm still trying to boil down your concept of causality, but it's specifically a question about states that are not completely explained by their priors (i.e.., it could have been another way given the same priors).

Fair, I have no idea what I'm talking about then, and am not interested in getting further away from the OP at this point. To that end, do you have enough information now to understand how I view causality? — Philosophim

No. You defaulted on your explanation. Specifically, I gave this example:

We have an atom that can, in a duration of time x, decay with 50% probability. Between times t0 and t1=t0+x, it did not decay. Between times t1 and t2=t1+x, it decayed. Let's call the time from t0 to t1 time span 1, and from t1 to t2 time span 2. Can we describe the cause of the decay in time span 2 as opposed to the lack of decay in time span 1? Can we say this cause in time span 2 is attributed to the properties contributing to 50% decay rate, and also that the cause of it not decaying in time span 1 is attributed to the properties contributing to 50% decay rate? — InPitzotl

And I met this request:

If that did not explain what you were asking, please try to rephrase the question with a deck of cards example. — Philosophim

...by giving you an example "card trick", which is a rephrasing of Bell's Theorem.

The problem with BT, for you, is that it refutes the idea that there is a causal story that would explain why the atom decayed in time span 2 as opposed to not decaying in time span 1. In particular, this is refuted:

Lets remember what odds are first however. Odds are a predictive model we use when we are limited in knowing particular information. — Philosophim

Quantum mechanics gives probabilistic predictions (such as, in the card trick example, that the probability of a match is 1/4) that cannot be accounted for with simple lack of information (classical probability theory mathematically constraints the probability to at least 1/3).

HVT's are still strictly allowed, but only if you give up certain "sane assumptions". But that is not what is being presented in this thread; rather, in this thread you're arguing that something is logically necessary. If there is a logical way in which it is violated (e.g., make these sane assumptions), then you don't have logical necessity. You started running for such a thing (a silly choice at that; superdeterminism), but this was the wrong approach to support your argument.

Your argument therefore has a hole in it. You need to explain how your argument addresses the notion that there can be states which are not fully explained by priors (at least with "classical" stories; but those are the types we tend to deal with when discussing causality; e.g., cards, billiard balls). This was the question asked of you with atomic decay.

Maybe you can call such decay "alphas", but it would be weird. Surely it would have to at least be some particular radioactive atom before it can decay; so it's at least partially caused by a prior. But that doesn't explain decay versus non-decay, which cannot be explained as caused by a prior.

I don't understand why you are telling me that, as if it was a point against me. — Daemon

Because you keep asking about being an entity, but you're not accounting for the number here. But you keep saying that I haven't accounted for things.

I don't understand why you are asking me that. — Daemon

Because we can indeed tell by her behaviors. The subject talking to us is behaving as if her alien hand is a stranger. And you aren't diagnosing her alien hand by counting how many "experiences" there are. Her behavior is distinct from a normative case, but also distinct from someone who has half their body paralyzed after a stroke. There's still agency in there, just not integrated. Apparently you think that's a bad description; but it's kind of definitive of the condition.