RoR: Forum

Orion:

You put to Regi: >>I think that ultimately the issue here with quantum mechanics becomes: Is there an algorithm or equation that governs the apparently random behavior and popping-into-existence of quantum particles?<<

Have you ever read "Flatland"? It's a short book about a square living in a plane who had a happy life until he encountered a sphere. If so, you can glimpse how, if quantum space is hyper-dimensional, nothing is randomly popping in and out of existence but rather particles are passing in and out of observable three-dimensional space.

Think of the light of a lighthouse. From a distance you watch it wink in and out of existence, while in fact it is shining continuously as it rotates into and back out of your range of observation. If the light were instead a rotating buoy light bouncing atop of the waves, its behavior may indeed appear random when it is merely chaotic. However, your limited capacity to observe denies you the measurements you need to make the distinction between random and chaotic.

Only your knowledge that nothing can be truly random allows you to speculate as to what may be the mechanism behind this apparently random behavior. Hyper-dimensionality of quantum space in string theory is such a speculation.

Regards,
Bill

Post 21

Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 10:43pm

Rat,

You said:

Only your knowledge that nothing can be truly random allows you to speculate as to what may be the mechanism behind this apparently random behavior

First of all, such "knowledge" is based on most previous experiences, not all. So, I can have no such knowledge, nor can anybody else... the non-repeating digit set of the number pi is such an example: it follows no discernible pattern, and for all intents and purposes, is so far random.

So, that statement is false. I can have no such knowledge because it presumptuously projects into the future, into all possible future experiences, and declares that no such situations can exist. Again, past experience with the number pi disproves this.

Also, until you know for sure that quantum behavior is not random, you cannot in any truth presumptuously say that it is only "apparently random". That may never be substantiated.

To presume to know such things that have yet to be proved is courageous and somewhat understandable based on the things that we already know, but I think more than a bit overconfident... and that's putting it mildly.

I've noticed this attitude in other places, particularly in Peikoff's writing, and I'm not sure I'd call it arrogance or "presumptuous omniscience", but it seems to smack of that to me.

Post 22

Friday, July 23, 2004 - 7:22am

Hello, Orion.

If by random you mean chaotic or unpredictable, I agree with much of what you said.

However, by random I meant that which is not subject to cause-and-effect. For example, random means that sometimes 2+2=4 and sometimes 2+2=5 or anything in between. Random means the laws of nature do not operate uniformly upon the physical universe. Therefore, if quantum-scale phenomena are random, there can be no law defining their behavior.

So I don't believe I am saying anything courageous or arrogant when I say that there can be no randomness in the physical universe. If there were, there could be no identity, thus no existence.

Regards,
Bill

Post 23

Friday, July 23, 2004 - 7:50am

Orion,

If you mean by random, "unpredictable," (such as any irrational series) that is not the same thing as so called quantum randomness or what is usually meant by randomness. Irrationals series, the series of all primes, fractals, and strange attractors are all unpredictable only because we have never seen the series, but once we see one, it is always repeatable, and becomes perfectly predictable. Such series are usually called pseudo-random.

"True" randomness means, "events without any reason whatsoever;" it means an event that happens that has no relationship to anything else at all. That kind of randomness is impossible (or irrelevant).

Pi, is a good way of picturing the mistake of quantum uncertainty. We do not say, "there is no quantitive relationship between the circumference of a circle and its radius" because it is impossible mathematically represent that exact ratio. We know there is such a ratio, we just cannot say exactly what it is by means of mathematics.

That is exactly the case with quantum uncertainty. The events of reality to not occur willy-nilly, without any connection whatsoever, but not all relationships are measurable. The fact quantum behavior is described by means of fourier transforms, which cannot provide a means of "predicting" quantum phenomena in terms of both position and momentum is a limitation of the method, not the factual nature of the phenomena.

To say something is not determined causally because no mathematic method is capable to describing it is exactly the same kind of mistake it would be to say there is no relationship between the length of an isosceles right triangle and either leg because there is no number that represents it.

Now just a note about the wave/particle duality. The wave nature of light fits the view of light as part of the electo-megnetic spectrum and is verified by double-slit experiments. The particle nature of light is Einsteins interpretation/explanation for the quantized nature of the photo-eletric effect. There is no explanation for the fact the photo-electric effect only occurs at discrete levels of "light " energy, only the observation that it does, and these levels are called Planck's constant, and that is the "quantizing" factor of quantum mechanics.

Light, as currently understood, is a complex metaphor attributing to the same thing attributes of waves (which require a medium) and particles (which a medium would only interfere with). The metaphor is obviously incorrect. It is not the nature of light, which does have the properties the experiments (double-slit, photo-electric) demonstrate that is wrong, but the metaphor which attempts to make those observations understandable in term of properties only physical entities have. There is no reason light has to be either a wave or particle. It is enough to describe its observed properties. The "picture" or " model" is fine, but it must be remembered it is only a picture.

Regi

Post 24

Friday, July 23, 2004 - 10:52am

Rat,

Okay, I just read your post, and this is where I do some very important clarification...

First of all, when you say:

when I say that there can be no randomness in the physical universe. If there were, there could be no identity, thus no existence.

Okay; this I can work with.

First of all, according to the best evidence we currently have, this is not true, but I understand why you, me, and most people initially think it. Until we study quantum nature, that is.

I'm going to ask you to indulge me for a few moments and despite any possible difference in our ages let me hopefully non-presumptuously play "teacher" here; if you already know these things, I apologize for boring you.

Let me very compactly illustrate what I have learned about how fundamental particles behave in nature, as determined by what scientists observe as they probe and study them in the laboratory, and I'm going to ask you to picture or draw something as I explain it.

If you picture a bell-shaped curve, that's more or less the essence of things with fundamental particles, except in the case of quantum particles, it would more aptly be called a "tendency to actualize" curve. In other words, the shape of the curve dictates that these particles don't actually have a definite existence anywhere or anywhen, but they're not completely indefinite, either.

Basically, when you say that there can be "no randomness", what IS true is that there can be no total or pure randomness. However, you could have a universe based upon tendencies of definiteness, and that is precisely what it turns out that you have, and when you really sit back and think about it, it makes perfect sense.

As is the case with genetics, where there isn't at least some minor probability of freaky things happening, there is no ingenuity, for better or worse. You can liken it to Richard Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" metaphor. And it turns out that this is how the universe achieves creativity, through normally-distributed, or "tendency-distributed" randomness.

When you think back to the curve again, the middle bulk of it indicates high incidence, and is where things, for the most part, tend to happen, so that means that there is a high, healthy degree of certainty and predictability in things... However, the very low tail ends of that curve illustrate the low, rare incidence that the particle might happen to pop into existence in a region that no one expects.

This sort of thing has to have existed from the beginning, or we would live in a universe where nothing ever changes and, in truth, where nothing could really ever get the ball rolling.

Now, this "hedged randomness" is counterbalanced by such balancing, order-inducing phenomena as particle-antiparticle annihilation, instantaneous spin balancing of common origin particles (so-called "action at a distance"), gravity, and so on.

As I see it, it all boils down to the necessity that for our universe to exist and continue to exist, there must always be this sort of "dance" between creative chaos and harmonizing order, but never either in pure form. With pure chaos (randomness), nothing could ever form, and with pure order, nothing could ever change or begin in the first place.

I think that's basically the way it goes.

(Edited by Orion Reasoner on 7/23, 10:56am)

Post 25

Friday, July 23, 2004 - 11:59am

Orion:

>>As I see it, it all boils down to the necessity that for our universe to exist and continue to exist, there must always be this sort of "dance" between creative chaos and harmonizing order, but never either in pure form. With pure chaos (randomness), nothing could ever form, and with pure order, nothing could ever change or begin in the first place.<<

I would phrase this differently, but I take your point -- and it is an excellent one.

Let's start with perfect order. This is why the Big Bang, as conventionally viewed as the explosion of a singularity, is false. If initial conditions are perfectly ordered, such as in a singularity, then the immutable laws of physics would not permit anything but a perfectly uniform explosion. Under such conditions, nothing could ever coalesce to produce the particles, atoms, stars and planets, and galaxies that make up the universe.

So perfect order (in initial conditions) is out. However, if initial conditions are not perfectly ordered, then the uniform action of the physical laws upon those conditions can account for all variations in the universe without the element of randomness. Granted the complexity of this action is beyond our ability to sort it out. Most of it is chaotic. But that which is chaotic -- e.g., the mutation of genes -- is still deterministic, just not predictable. The lack of predictability gives the illusion of randomness, but in fact cause-and-effect accounts for everything.

In this sense of the word, I agree with you that randomness, like perfect order, is also out.

Regards,
Bill

Post 26

Friday, July 23, 2004 - 2:48pm

Rat,

I read everything you said, but you still keep insisting on the concept of "the illusion of randomness", and referring to chaos theory to explain that what seems random is really pseudorandom, and actually has an underlying logic/order to it.

But that's just it... There is no reason why quantum behavior is not truly random, incomprehensible as that seems.

Based on real-world experience, you are imparting a conviction that now borders on faith that what is going on on the quantum level isn't really random but that has some logical algorithm driving it.

But what I've been saying -- over and over and over again -- is that no matter how much prior experience you have with randomness being only apparent, that does not mean that true randomness could not perhaps exist. And that's me being delicate, because it really seems to exist!

I would ask you to first get ahold of a copy of this book, and read it, to fully understand the point I'm trying to make. You have to actually "witness" the experiments that have been done, to really appreciate just how strange it is, and unlike anything you have ever known.

Post 27

Friday, July 23, 2004 - 9:46pm

2 potentially-relevant thought experiments - for anyone interested:

Experiment 1
You have 2 air-tight rooms separated by a sealed door. The 2 rooms differ in temperature by 20 degrees. You open the door and - to your amazement - the warmer room gets even warmer by a few degrees.

Is it time to throw out the "molecular motion" theory of heat? No. Is it time to through out identity and causality (of the particles moving within and between the rooms)? No.

You've merely witnessed an event with occurrence odds of less than one-in-a-trillion, that's all. Identity and causality remain intact, and this uncharacteristic behavior is explainable within the paradigm with which you are working.

Experiment 2
You come across a substance which is ice. You compare it to "another" substance which is water. You initially distinguish them as 2 unique identities. Later, you find that a certain molecule is common to both and that the only difference between these 2 types of "substances" is the molecular motion of that one-and-the-same ingredient: H20.

What appeared to be 2 unique things (2 classes or kinds of things) is now seen as one thing in 2 contexts. What you need to do in order to predict the state of H20 (which has a unique and permanent identity) is to relate it to the context.

Another way to say this is that this self-same substance is invariant under the appropriate transformation (it will be "water" at appropriate temperature, pressure, and solution; it will be ice at different variations or transformations of contextual variables).

We can "know how it will behave" after we've identified its relevant properties, which are nothing other than a predictable variation under determinate transformation.
This transformation however - this relation to the motion of the constituent molecules - must be discovered before any skeptic coming along decides that we've seen enough to invalidate identity and causality (before we should rationally embrace the easiest, but historically mystical, solution: randomness).

Ed

Post 28

Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 7:37am

Orion:

>>But that's just it... There is no reason why quantum behavior is not truly random, incomprehensible as that seems.<<

You're correct. None of us can experience reality in its totality. Therefore it is possible for phenomena radically different from our experience to exist -- e.g., quantum-level randomness. That said, here are a few thoughts I ask you to consider:

[1] If quantum behavior were random, then there could be no laws to describe it.
[2] Because the physical universe is reducible to the quantum level, then the laws of physics would describe only probable outcomes, not absolute ones, for any given set of circumstances.
[3] If the physical universe is not strictly causal, then Objectivist metaphysics is invalid.
[4] If randomness is possible in the universe, why isn't God also possible?

Regards,
Bill

Post 29

Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 6:13pm

(just thinking aloud) ...

My 2nd thought experiment seems ripe with insight and explanation over whether or not it is - at this juncture - prudent to embrace pure randomness as a fundamental constituent of reality.

If a researcher from a secluded tropical island had extensively studied water - but had never seen or created ice - was suddenly given a block of ice and told that it's molecular base was identical to the stuff (liquid water) he has been working with, then he would be perplexed.

He would be tempted to throw out the concept "identity" because of the essential characteristics that he has discovered about water (molecular composition: H2O, "natural" state: liquid).

What he needs to do to resolve this artificial, epistemological paradox is simply to understand it on a new, higher level.

He needs to recognize the how context "informs or transforms" the epistemological essence of H2O (leaving the metaphysical essence intact). And that's all he needs to do.

Ed

Post 30

Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 7:15pm

Orion, Bill,

I have started to respond to your mutual disagreement several times, but realized each time the problem is much more difficult than could possibly be addressed in a single post.

The only way such questions can be addressed is by reducing them to manageable chunks. Without realizing it, you are both attempting to deal with a very complex question all in one piece, and I do not think it can be addressed that way.

I would like to begin with a single issue: what is randomness?

I am not going to attempt to answer the question, but am going to make some statements that I would like to get your comments on.

1. Scientists define randomness as any series of numbers that exhibits no repeatable pattern, cannot be compressed, and for which there is no formula or equation which will produce the series.

2. Randomness does not mean undetermined. There are physical random number generators whose behavior is totally determined. The most common example is the "coin toss."

3. Fractals and strange attractors can both be used to produce series of numbers that are totally random. Even though these streams of numbers are produced by a known equation, with known variables, if the random series is all that is known, it is not possible to derive the original equation or the variables from that series. In other words, if a random series of numbers is encountered, it is impossible to determine why it is random, because it is indistinguishable from the product of a "chaos" equation. Any apparently random event may actually be determined by causes which are "chaotic" (meaning by an equation that produces random results, like fractals).

The most important point here is that randomness does not mean undetermined.

Regi

Post 31

Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 9:24pm

Regi,

No. No. No.

What we call "random" as in "random number generators" is our usurping of a term that does not mean what we call it. When we create "random" anything, we are really creating "pseudo-random" things. That's all we can do.

So, you repeatedly say "random" when you mean "pseudorandom". But yes, you are correct in saying that it is such, because it appears random.

And the point that I keep trying to make over and over again, is that we human beings have no way so far to understand why quantum events happen as they do. Therefore, until we do, they are truly random.

If and when we ever do discover that there is some sort of algorithm behind these events, then we can rightly call them pseudorandom events.

In other words, what I'm saying here is a very controlled semantic statement: We are only ever justified in using the term "random" to describe incomprehensible, unpredictable events before we know the algorithm that drives them. Once we actually discover the code, then we can no longer pretend like it's still mysterious to us, and then we are only justified in calling them pseudorandom.

Did I explain that well?

Post 32

Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 9:48pm

Rat,

You said the following:

[1] If quantum behavior were random, then there could be no laws to describe it.
[2] Because the physical universe is reducible to the quantum level, then the laws of physics would describe only probable outcomes, not absolute ones, for any given set of circumstances.
[3] If the physical universe is not strictly causal, then Objectivist metaphysics is invalid.
[4] If randomness is possible in the universe, why isn't God also possible?

Okay, let me respond to each of those.

1) Not true. Well, not as you describe it, anyway. I am not talking about totally random here, as in "all events having equal chance of happening". That's been my whole point all along. There is a TENDENCY curve at work here, which says that it's somewhere between being totally random and totally certain. Such-and-such will TEND to happen... and so therefore when you say "there could be no laws to describe it", that is false.

We CAN describe these things, but with probability curves that get higher, the higher the probability of them happening is. We know what will TEND to happen, but not perfectly what will DEFINITELY happen. It's not black and white, it's a graduation between the two extremes.

2) You are close to being totally right on this, but not totally. The laws of quantum physics only deal with probable outcomes on the quantum scale, as they rightly should... however, on the macro, "you and me" scale, something interesting happens: the tendency waves of all those quantum particles resonate with each other and the tendencies become CERTAINTIES.... the low probability areas reinforce their low values until they become not just improbable but actually impossible, and the high probability areas reinforce their high values until they become not just probable but basically certain. That's why objects are solid at our level, and not flickering phantoms.

3) If, like me, you believe that true Objectivism is about discovering and accepting objective truth no matter how bizarre, then no, quantum happenings do not invalidate Objectivism. Causality still does exist on the quantum level, just not PERFECT causality. True causality only comes to exist on our human and macro scale, as those tendency curves overlap into certainties.

4) I love this question. It all depends on how you define God, I guess. Because quite frankly, this whole system is the perfect answer to how to generate a creative universe that moves like clockwork. It is quasi-random in a way that is perfectly fine-tuned to allow both consistency and predictability, yet also quirks, changes, and possible opportunistic innovations. Maybe the universe is a dream; maybe we're all existing in a pseudo-random virtual reality simulation created by some intelligence, somehow. But frankly, I have no clue and most likely, no way to know in the near future.

Post 33

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 5:11am

Orion,

What we call "random" as in "random number generators" is our usurping of a term that does not mean what we call it. When we create "random" anything, we are really creating "pseudo-random" things. That's all we can do.

Who is "we?" The word random had a perfectly well understood meaning long before the concept of a "pseudo-random" number generator was ever thought of. I intentionally avoided the term pseudo-random, because it is a subset of the concept we are trying to get at. If there is any "usurping" being done it is done by those who pervert the original concept of random.

And that is the point I am trying to make. Until we know what we mean by random, there is no point in shouting "No, no, no," and insisting things are random. So far, I have no idea what you mean by that word.

So let me ask some specific questions:

Do you mean by random, "uncaused?"

Do you mean by random, "caused, but you do not know how?"

Can something have a "pattern" and still be random?

Can events that do have a cause still be random?

What do you mean by "cause?"

A couple of comments:

By the way, there are true [not "pseudo-"] mechanical random number generators.

A coin toss is not "pseudo-random."

You said, When we create "random" anything, we are really creating "pseudo-random" things. That's all we can do.

So when we create a physical random number generator such as an optical quantum random number generator, it is only pseudo-random? Who creates those generators, if it is not "we".

When "we" have created one of those generators, how do "we" know the output is truly random? Since the output of such a generator is the result of so-called quantum randomness, if that output cannot be proved to be truly random, quantum randomness itself cannot be proved. In fact, proving randomness is, for all practical purposes, impossible.

For all the hysterical insistence those who deny randomness at the quantum level just do not understand science, or mathematics, or something the insisters presume they do understand, randomness must be assumed, because randomness cannot be proved.

(If we could stand back far enough, the whole universe may just turn out to be, even at the quantum level, just one big paisley print.)

Regi

Post 34

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 8:53am

Here are some "Random" thoughts on the subject of randomness and determinism.

Discussions on determinism often start with examples of being able to predict the trajectory of a cannonball, given the initial conditions of velocity and angle of inclination of the cannon barrel, or the final resting place of billiard balls after being struck. But it can be said, categorically, that these predictions are never correct, in a strict sense. Measurements such as the diameter or center of a billiard ball have no meaning except as a statistical average. If we look at the surface of the billiard ball with a sufficiently high powered microscope and slow time down it is really a seething mass of vibrating atoms and there is no discrete static boundary that can be described as a convex hull. All the atoms within the ball are similarly agitated. Thus the location of the center of the ball is constantly varying (and relative to what?) Any reference grid is also vibrating and inconstant. Moreover, the billiard ball is being constantly bombarded by influences that are normally disregarded � air molecules and atoms, the atoms from the table supporting the ball, sub-atomic particles, photons, varying gravitational forces, and on and on.

One could argue (falsely) that if we had a computer sufficiently powerful then we could take all these influences into account. But how are we to know what the simultaneous initial conditions of all the particles and influences are? Firstly, if we are to believe Heisenberg, we can't even know those conditions of even a single sub-atomic particle. Moreover, because every physical 'thing' is subject to interaction with every other physical 'thing' in the universe, trying to analyse the simplest 'thing' equates to analysing the whole universe.

I think that we can visualize a universe devoid of any organic material capable of having free will or consciousness. For the purposes of argument let's dispense with life forms that might exist based on silicon, also. We can, I think, agree that this would be completely deterministic. But how would be be able to prove it? We would have to enter that universe as observers with our organic tools of observation, violate the premise, and because everything interacts with everything else, we would be contaminating the results.

Furthermore, because everything interacts with everything else, we would have to have perfect knowledge of what is going on in our own brains and have instantaneous, conscious knowledge of our knowledge. This is the perennial problem of self reference. This argument is equally valid for computers. No matter how huge the computers are they cannot deal with that level of complexity, because they would have to analyse each and every particle in their own circuitry, infinitely fast.

The point I'm getting to with respect to randomness is that the complexity of the universe prevents us from being able to predict anything with absolute accuracy and to some degree everything is random. This is not to say that in our everyday lives that we should view events as out of our control. We live our lives at the macro level and we know by experience that certain actions lead to (almost) reliable results.

Post 35

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 9:38am

Hello, Orion.

Me: >>[1] If quantum behavior were random, then there could be no laws to describe it.<<

You: >>Not true. ... We know what will TEND to happen, but not perfectly what will DEFINITELY happen. It's not black and white, it's a graduation between the two extremes.<<

OK, but we have chaos theory to explain the unpredictability of natural phenomena within a range or across a bell curve. I'm sure we all agree that we cannot measure the initial conditions of any quantum event. So why isn't chaos sufficient to account for the apparent randomness of quantum behavior?

Me: >>[2] Because the physical universe is reducible to the quantum level, then the laws of physics would describe only probable outcomes, not absolute ones, for any given set of circumstances.<<

You: >>You are close to being totally right on this, but not totally. ... That's why objects are solid at our level, and not flickering phantoms.<<

I agree that quantum behavior is not strictly scalable, whether random or chaotic, because its tendencies become certainities at hadronic scales and larger. However, the macro-scale world is not totally immune from quantum-scale variations, however small the probabilities are.

Me: >>[3] If the physical universe is not strictly causal, then Objectivist metaphysics is invalid.<<

You: >>If, like me, you believe that true Objectivism is about discovering and accepting objective truth no matter how bizarre, then no, quantum happenings do not invalidate Objectivism. Causality still does exist on the quantum level, just not PERFECT causality. True causality only comes to exist on our human and macro scale, as those tendency curves overlap into certainties.<<

I think you have the right attitude towards Objectivism -- an unflinching embrace of the truth no matter how unpleasant, unsettling, or just plain weird it may be. Because I am not an Objectivist, I do not wish to appear as a guardian of its first principles. Nevertheless, I was curious as to how you are squaring quantum-level non-causality (i.e., randomness) with "A is A". I understand your argument that quantum randomness is not scalable to the macro-level, but I wonder: Doesn't Occam's razor suggest we do not need such a radical and essentially unknowable phenomenon as randomness to explain what chaos can?

Me: >>[4] If randomness is possible in the universe, why isn't God also possible?<<

You: >>I love this question. It all depends on how you define God, I guess. Because quite frankly, this whole system is the perfect answer to how to generate a creative universe that moves like clockwork. It is quasi-random in a way that is perfectly fine-tuned to allow both consistency and predictability, yet also quirks, changes, and possible opportunistic innovations.<<

I agree that our clockwork universe with its chaotic distribution of matter and energy cannot be explained by a perfect set of initial conditions upon which the laws of physics have perfectly acted upon. One or other the other needs to lack perfection. As it is our observation the laws of physics have operated without variation, then it would seem the initial conditions of the universe were not perfectly ordered (such as a Big Bang singularity).

The point I was getting at about God, is that if non-causality is essential to explain the universe, what isn't possible?

Regards,
Bill

Post 36

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 9:53am

Hello, Ed.

>>This transformation however - this relation to the motion of the constituent molecules - must be discovered before any skeptic coming along decides that we've seen enough to invalidate identity and causality (before we should rationally embrace the easiest, but historically mystical, solution: randomness).<<

Well, I agree. We should apply known principles to a problem before developing new ones to explain something. Orion objected to the certitude with which I stated that we know there is no such thing as randomness. I'm not precisely clear if he was defining the word in the same narrow way I was -- non-causality -- but his point that we should not exclude an explanation because it is outside of our experience is valid.

Nevertheless, we should take a hard look at whether old explanations suffice before embracing new ones. To wit, the apparent randomness of the quantum world. Chaos theory certainly tells us how results can vary wildly from minute changes in initial conditions. Because we cannot take measurements at the quantum-scale, we cannot know what the initial conditions ever are. So it would only be our lack knowledge that makes the quantum world appear random. We need not posit non-causality, which has never been observed in the physical universe (indeed, how could it?), as an explanation.

Furthermore, if string theory has any validity, then the existence of hyper-dimensional space explains much. We can only observe quantum behavior occuring in the first three flat spatial dimensions, but not in the higher curved ones. Here again, we already know spatial dimensions exist, and we are using the explanation of additional ones to account for the apparent inexplicability of the quantum world.

Regards,
Bill

Post 37

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 10:23am

Hello, Regi & Sam.

Regi: >>For all the hysterical insistence those who deny randomness at the quantum level just do not understand science, or mathematics, or something the insisters presume they do understand, randomness must be assumed, because randomness cannot be proved.<<

You've got me confused by this statement. I agree that randomness (the absence of causality, hence that which is non-deterministic) cannot be proved, because the cause of an event may not be observable. However, I do not see why this precludes denying randomness when other explanations are available. For example, chaos theory and our inability to measure initial conditions at the quantum-level explain unpredictability there. As Sam argues in the post following yours, we need not embrace a fundamental and nondeterministic element to account for the physical universe.

I think we all agree that which is unpredictable can still be deterministic. The results of a flip of a coin or the turn of the roulette wheel are strictly determined by the forces acting upon the coin or the wheel. This interaction is extremely complex and small variations in those forces and other conditions will lead to different results. It is only our lack of knowledge of what are the initial conditions of the coin flip or the turn of the wheel that makes the outcome of these events unpredictable. So, they are chaotic, but not random.

Therefore, I am not sure why you would deny randomness at the quantum level, unless I'm missing something (which believe it or not, Regi, has happened before ;).

Regards,
Bill

[P.S. Regi, I read your posts out of order. Having read the one you addressed to Orion and me, I don't think we differ regarding what is merely chaotic and what would be random in the non-causal sense. Also, I liked the way you explained how the results of chaotic functions cannot be worked backwards to produce those functions. This accords with a fundamental aspect of our universe, the arrow of time (which, slightly off-topic, is one reason why time, as you say, is not the fourth dimension except in the strictly mathematical sense of being one of four elements of an equation). It's the reason why Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again.]

(Edited by Citizen Rat on 7/26, 10:35am)

Post 38

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 10:40am

Following from my previous argument, not only are the initial conditions at the quantum level unknowable, but also at the macro level. If you agree that the center of a billiard ball is unknowable to a precise degree of certitude then you must agree that the velocity also cannot be adequately known. The velocity can only be found by observing the location of its center at two different times � and the markings on the measuring stick are also varying in their precise locations.

It's all a matter of precision.

Sam

Post 39

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 10:57am