At 05:12 PM 07/16/2000, you wrote:
>Chris:
> >Ultimately, *disorder* is logically impossible. In a sense, there is no
> >such thing as true disorder. There is only order that is too complex for
>us
> >to understand, or order that we might understand but which is not
> >sufficiently significant to us for us to bother to come to understand
>it.
>
>Bill
>Then there is no such thing as a random event? With respect to half life
>of radioactive materials, there is a physical reason why one atom kicks
>off and not the one next to it?
Chris
I think the constant jittering of the "quantum foam" and it's interactions
with matter ultimately determines when such decays happen. But, even if
that is not the explanation, I don't think that such events are truly
metaphysically random.
My reason for saying that true disorder is logically impossible is the
relationship between identity (what a thing is) and causation (what a thing
does or can do). What a thing is is expressed in what it does. Since
nothingness has no causal power of its own, only the nature of what a thing
is can determine what it does. Events occurring without cause would be even
more "magical" than magic itself (i.e., magic without the wand or
incantation or magic words, etc.).
This is probably *way* too short an exposition even to make much sense
without a lot of background, but I hope there's enough to give you at least
a hint.
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