Me and Blake had a discussion on the ontological principle "whatever begins to exist has a cause for it's existence" which he attempted to give either evidence against or possibilities for the principle to be flawed.
The reason I'm making a separate thread is because this has nothing at all to do with God - in fact, it's a million miles away from the other thread. This has to do with the principle and nothing else. I thought this section of the discussion worthy enough to continue.
I typed to Blake, basically that:
"It's impossible for the principle to be flawed. How can something begin to exist without some sort of productive, sustaining cause? The only alternative is that it came into existence uncaused from and by pure nothingness, which is absurdity".
Blake gave this as an example from something existing without a cause:
> "the example that comes to my mind is the hyperfine
> (or spin-flip)
> transition
> that occurs in hydrogen gas in nebulae. The gas is
> thin enough that atoms
> rarely collide, so if an electron gets knocked up to
> a higher energy state,
> it
> will often stay there for millions of years until
> [without a cause], it
> simply
> falls back down. This gives the 21 cm (if I'm
> remembering the number right)
> emission line which we can use to look at the
> interiors of nebulae"
I've talked with several friends about this (in particular, the editor for LeadershipU) and we've come to this conclusion:
The situation you describe concerning the hydrogen spin flip (21-cm) radiation occurs in very cold regions of space. The spin-flip is a very low energy transition which can only occur in the coldest of regions. Hydrogen, in any of the excited states, can absorb energy from the environment causing the electron to jump to a higher state. While it is true that the nebular regions are very low density of matter, it is not interactions with matter that cause atoms to transition into higher states. An electron in a hydrogen atom must absorb energy in the form of a photon to become excited. The regions of nebulae are intermixed with stars that pump out lots of photons with which hydrogen atoms can absorb.
Once an atom becomes excited, its natural tendency is to be at the lowest level of energy. If an atom absorbs a photon to become excited, if no other energy is available to keep it excited, it will give off energy and fall to a lower energy state (or even to ground state). If it helps, you can think of it as you holding a rubber band in the stretched state. The longer you hold it, the more tired you get. Eventually, you'll let go and the rubber band will return to its unstretched position (its ground state). It will stay there unless more energy is available to excite theatom. The amount of radiation that it gives off is dependent on which excited state it jumps from (each state from ground to first excited to second excited, etc.) is a different amount. In the coldest regions of space, hydrogen can experience the spin-flip transition in which the electron achieves that lowest level of energy in the ground state (yes, quantum mechanics allows for 2 ground states).
So, in short, there actually is a cause. The cause is
the electron achieving the lowest energy level allowed
in the conditions where the electron exists.
ConclusionI think it's best to stick with the ontological principle. As C.S. Lewis writes,
"There never was a time when nothing existed; otherwise nothing would exist now."
We should stick with "whatever begins to exist
must have a cause for it's existence".
Comments/Criticisms 
Show Posts
