Predeterminism

[wookie]

Predeterminism assumes that there are unchanging laws from the very beginning of time to very the end of time. But it is possible that the constants of physics and therefore the laws of physics can change slightly over billions or millions of years. Hence the slight almost imperceptible changes, would allow for a small amount of indeterminism to exist.

The future would then not be predetermined.

Temporal fluctuatons at the extremely small distance scales below 10^(-33) cm entails the counterintuitive prospects of effects that precede causes. Also, effects and causes arising simultaneously. DXDP >= h

Where h is Planck's constant.

[Blair]

Is that so?

Define time.

[wookie]

Is that so?

Define time.

There are levels of reality where cause precedes effect and X = X.

Then there are levels of reality where casality and predeterminism appear to break down and X = not-X

Quantum Trickery

No, they were not sprawled along a sunny windowsill. To a physicist, a "cat state" is the condition of being two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white, up and down, or dead and alive.

These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time.

[wookie]

Causality and predeterminism can still be preserved with the many worlds hypothesis?

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/

The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is an approach to quantum mechanics according to which, in addition to the world we are aware of directly, there are many other similar worlds which exist in parallel at the same space and time. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness and action at a distance from quantum theory and thus from all physics.

[Kevin Solway]

Predeterminism assumes that there are unchanging laws from the very beginning of time to very the end of time.

It depends what laws you are talking about. The laws of physics might change, if they are predetermined to change. But the law of cause and effect will never change. So nothing can challenge the law of predetermination, since it only depends on cause and effect, and not the laws of physics.

Temporal fluctuatons at the extremely small distance scales below 10^(-33) cm entails the counterintuitive prospects of effects that precede causes. Also, effects and causes arising simultaneously. DXDP >= h

Cause and effect doesn't necessarily have to happen in time. A cause has an effect - that's all.

[Cory Duchesne]

Cause and effect doesn't necessarily have to happen in time. A cause has an effect - that's all.

I don't understand this. Cause and effect is limited to time.

The totality for instance is not in time, and thus it is not subject to cause and effect. The totality includes time within it, along with cause and effect, but cause and effect cannot happen anywhere but in time.

Kevin I'd appreciate if you would give me some examples of how cause and effect can happen without time.

[Kevin Solway]

Cause and effect is limited to time.

Let's say we create the concept "wrong". The very moment we create the concept "wrong" the concept "right", or "not wrong" automatically arises. "Not wrong" is an effect of creating "wrong", but there is no time lapse between the creation of "wrong" and the arisal of "not wrong".

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Let's say we create the concept "wrong". The very moment we create the concept "wrong" the concept "right", or "not wrong" automatically arises. "Not wrong" is an effect of creating "wrong", but there is no time lapse between the creation of "wrong" and the arisal of "not wrong".

Wouldn't the time factor then be "simultaneously" rather than not having a time component?

[Trevor Salyzyn]

w,

There are levels of reality where cause precedes effect and X = X.

Then there are levels of reality where casality and predeterminism appear to break down and X = not-X

The conclusion does not logically follow.

Invalid argument: there is an A, therefore there is a B.

Predeterminism assumes that there are unchanging laws from the very beginning of time to very the end of time.

No, this is incorrect. One conceivable result of predeterminism is that the state of the universe at any point in time could be calculated by observing the state of the universe at any other point in time. The laws of nature do not need to remain constant, so long as changes in those laws are also predictable.

But even if this result were completely disproven, that would not disprove predeterminism. The essential assumption of predeterminism is that the end conditions of the universe is entirely dependent on the initial conditions. Since there can be no changes in the universe without causes, and all causes result in their necessary effects, the final affected state of the universe (after all changes have occured) must be dependent on the initial conditions.

The future would then not be predetermined.

In your limited example, you have merely shown one more factor that could make predicting the future even more difficult. You have not shown an example of a non-predetermined universe.

Also, effects and causes arising simultaneously. DXDP >= h

Causes and effects always arise simultaneously. They are two sides of the same coin. I don't understand the formula you threw in there, but I don't think anything that involves Planck's constant will disprove causality or predeterminism. It is true that certain types of quantum physics ignore certain types of causality, but it should be stressed that that is not a disproof of causality. Quantum physics is not metaphysics, and any quantum physicist who believes otherwise (except as an exercise in imagination carried out for practical reasons because of the complexity of the empirical world) is wrong.



--

By the way, "wookiee" is spelled with two e's. Just a heads up.

[Tharan]

Is that so?

Define time.

There are levels of reality where cause precedes effect and X = X.

Then there are levels of reality where casality and predeterminism appear to break down and X = not-X

Quantum Trickery

No, they were not sprawled along a sunny windowsill. To a physicist, a "cat state" is the condition of being two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white, up and down, or dead and alive.

These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time.

And the purpose here is to turn common physics into metaphysics? Human perception is most likely barely relevant to the processes in question. To describe some inconsistency in human perception and extrapolate that out to some supernatural tendency in the realm of the very small seems silly to me. Maybe I just don't feel the magic.

And then there is the question of time and the very human definition of causal chains. Time is a completely subjective experience. We feel that we share it only because of our relative scale. When you change scale, you often lose the ability to make extrascalar comparisons; including the concepts of before and after. Einstein's thought experiment of two twins is a perfect example, again often misunderstood. The twin who travels near the speed of light really does experience a full life as does the one at relative rest. And yet the results are so (percievably) drastically different. Energy scales to mass, and the increased velocity of one twin equates to increased energy, and as such changes the scalar aspects of the object. Thus one experiences time differently when viewed objectively, but not when experienced subjectively. Everything feels normal for both subjects, even though the one at relative rest has aged dramatically when the two are brought back into scalar alignment.

As far as natural constants are concerned, it is not the idea of a constant that drives the reality of constants. Humans tend to get so anthropomorphic at times. One can think of a mathematical constant as similiar to an eddy in a stream. That is the reason for the consistent readings by our instruments and sensors, and the happy results of our pencil scribblings. It would not surprise me one bit were we to discover that, when reexamined closely, most of nature's constants are in fact estimates, with some small actual fluctuation.

I remember reading something back in high school by Robert Anton Wilson about his youthful chemistry experiments. At the time, I was also in Chemistry classes at school (oooh, synchronicity). He said something like "Everytime I would do an experiment: mix 6 mgs of X with 3 mgs of Y, burn off and reduce, and the result will be 4mgs of Z. But I always ended up getting 3.8mgs of Z or 4.1mgs. Rarely 4.0 mgs. Any answer in the range of a few tenths was acceptable, as it was most likely due to humidity, human error, instrument insensitivity, the alignment of Mars, etc. After a time, I began to realize that the answer I got was EXACTLY the answer I should have gotten. There actually were no mistakes. It fundamentally changed my perspective."

What do you think he saw?

[Cory Duchesne]

Kevin wrote:

Let's say we create the concept "wrong". The very moment we create the concept "wrong" the concept "right", or "not wrong" automatically arises. "Not wrong" is an effect of creating "wrong", but there is no time lapse between the creation of "wrong" and the arisal of "not wrong".

Ah, that is actually quite hard for me to refute. It seems quite true.

[wookie]

Let's say we create the concept "wrong". The very moment we create the concept "wrong" the concept "right", or "not wrong" automatically arises. "Not wrong" is an effect of creating "wrong", but there is no time lapse between the creation of "wrong" and the arisal of "not wrong".

When the concept "the glass is half full of water" is created, then is the concept "half empty" simultaneously created?

Since all things have a cause, that means "not-cause" cannot exist. Unless one is specifying a particular causal mechanism as not being THE cause per se.

If every particular thing has A cause, then what is THE one cause of everything? That is to say, what is the cause of all causes?

[wookie]

w,

There are levels of reality where cause precedes effect and X = X.

Then there are levels of reality where casality and predeterminism appear to break down and X = not-X

The conclusion does not logically follow.

Invalid argument: there is an A, therefore there is a B.

Pardox is of the form X = not-X

When the hypothetical time traveler goes back to the past and kills his grandfather, the stage is set for a surreal violation of the concept of causality. How can the time traveler go back to the past and kill his grandfather if he was never born?

Thanks for the heads up.

sincerely,

wookie

[Tharan]

The grandson can kill his grandfather for the simple reason that he travels backward in time and the grandfather doesn't. There is no paradox. The time frame in which he was born was not the same time frame in which he encounters his grandfather in the act of murder. It is a comparison of apples and oranges. The error is in assuming the objective, unbreakable causal chain, when in fact time is a subjective experience.

[wookie]

http://www.rationality.net/freewill.htm ... 0Causality

Some persons may argue that, if only we had total and complete knowledge of all minuscule causal factors influencing the fall of a die, we could use a supercomputer to analyze all such factors and their cause/effect relationships. We would thus be in a position to predetermine the outcome of each throw of the dice. This, too, is a fallacy.

If the universe follows strict causality, all causal events in the universe are interconnected. A computer memory requires more than one atom to represent the position and momentum of an atom in the system under investigation, not to mention subatomic particles.

Therefore, the volume of numerical sequences and information stored in numbers must necessarily be larger than the universe itself. This limit inherently prevents even the most advanced supercomputer from observing or predicting individual particles.
A super-computer, able to account for the causal chains of all events in the universe, would need to exceed the universe in complexity and information storage. The computer must fit inside the universe, and yet be larger and more complex than the universe itself.

The story of "Maxwell’s Demon" further illustrates this conundrum. James Maxwell was a prominent physicist of the 19th century. His little demon is in charge of determining the movements and attributes of all subatomic particles within a given container.

In order to determine a sequence of events on the subatomic level, Maxwell’s little demon cannot use telepathy but must be in physical interaction with all particles in his environment. He must also store information about the properties of each particle. However, at some finite point in time, the demon will lack further storage for this information and he must delete some previously gathered information. The loss of this information prevents the demon from taking into account all properties of all the particles and he will thus be unable to predict the behavior of any particular particle.

[wookie]

The grandson can kill his grandfather for the simple reason that he travels backward in time and the grandfather doesn't. There is no paradox. The time frame in which he was born was not the same time frame in which he encounters his grandfather in the act of murder. It is a comparison of apples and oranges. The error is in assuming the objective, unbreakable causal chain, when in fact time is a subjective experience.

What you are saying could be true, if, by going back in time a branch timeline is created, or caused to exist, in a multiverse of all possible universes.

[Tharan]

You are continuing to draw structures where none is necessary. The unstructured timeframe has a preponderance of evidence while the idea of mutiverses has exactly zero.

[wookie]

You are continuing to draw structures where none is necessary. The unstructured timeframe has a preponderance of evidence while the idea of mutiverses has exactly zero.

You don't understand the paradox then ;)

[Tharan]

I understand that paradoxes exist only when an individual expects a certain outcome.