GENIUS FORUMS

vicdan wrote:

David Quinn wrote:The weather on the 6th June, 2050, cannot be predicted by us in the here and now, but that doesn't mean it will be random.

No, it doesn't. Weather is deterministic but chaotic (it's not even pseudorandom). meaning, it can be predicted in theory, but the actual prediction algorithm is intractable.

Note however that chaotic systems can generally be predicted with great accuracy to a narrow limit -- e.g. we can very accurately predict weather one day in advance, because one day in advance the intractable chaos has not yet gone beyond the range of our predictive power.

This is in stark contrast with quantum non-determinism, where we cannot predict even a single quantum event. That's because, while weather is chaotic and thus predictable within narrow constraints, quantum events are truly random and thus aren't predictable. At all.

That is untrue. We can predict, for example, that a quantum event will indeed be a quantum event and not a macroscopic event. We know that it will be a particle decaying, or whatever, and not, say, a giraffe springing out of nowhere. We can also predict that each quantum event, once it occurs, will faithfully obey the well-known laws of quantum theory.

Indeed, if quantum events were truly unpredictable, then quantum mechanics wouldn't be able to work at all. It wouldn't be the powerful predictive tool that it is. So it is nonsesnical to say that quantum events are unpredictable. They are, for the most part, very predictable. It is just one or two aspects of their behaviour which we haven't yet found a way to predict to our satisfaction.

DQ: Quantum non-deterministic events might appear to be random (i.e. incapable of being predicted) to us in the here and now, but this could easily change with new theories in the future

Victor: Indeed. And bats could fly out of your ass in the future, too. Doesn't mean you should set up a bat trap in your chair, does it?

As best as we can determine, quantum events are truly random.

Ah, the ugly beast of interpretation is rearing its head again. No, at best, all we can say is that our current theories cannot make the necessary predictions - and that is all. To say anything more than this is to indulge in blind faith.

We know from observed evidence that they cannot be explained as non-random involved any local hidden variables. meaning, any hypothesis trying to conceive of quantum events as determinsitic, relying on local hidden variables, is automatically proven false by empirical evidence before it's even formulated.

Two things:

- Nothing is ever "proven false" by empirical observation. Just because we can't currently observe local hidden variables doesn't mean there aren't any.

- Determinism doesn't necessarily depend on the presence of local variables. David Bohm's interpretation, for example, is entirely deterministic even though it doesn't posit hidden local variables.

We do not have a prediction algorithm for quantum events, and AFAWCT, such an algorithm doesn't exist.

At the moment, Victor. At the moment.

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vicdan wrote:

David Quinn wrote:There are a lot of inconsistencies in Victor's discourse. For example, he says:

I am not a fan of any interpretation of QM. The mathematics of it are the whole content of quantum mechanics, AFAICT. Interpretations are just semantic sugar to make the pill easier to swallow (unless of course different interpretations make different empirical predictions which can be tested, in which case the distinction becomes meaningful). The most reasonable approach, IMO, is Feynman's "shut up and calculate". No 'interpretations'.

This is probably a good policy, but for some reason, having expounded the virtues of it, Victor suddenly abandons it in this thread and instead arbitrarily adopts one particular interpretation of QM and proceeds to pontificate how QM demonstrates non-determinism!

Wow. You just don't get it, huh?

The non-determinism is built in. The raw math offers us no way to predict the outcome of a quantum event -- only the probabilistic distribution. probabilistic distribution is the aspect of the math itself. A probabilistic distribution is non-deterministic by definition. it takes some pretty convoluted interpretations (such as Bohm's or many-worlds) to wave the non-determinism away, and even then, the deterministic interpretations still use the probabilistic distributions -- they just claim that those aren't really non-deterministic due to the non-local hidden variables and what-not.

You're contradicting yourself. If non-determinism really was built into the raw math, then it would be impossible for Bohm and others to wave it away.

DQ: To claim that QM demonstrates indeterminsim (or determinism, for that matter) is nonsense because such a claim necessarily involves adopting one particular interpretation over another. Proofs of determinism or indeterminism can't be found in the math of QM.

Victor: What do you think a probabilistic distribution is, kiddo? it's non-deterministic by its nature. The 'raw math' entails non-determinism.

And yet, above, you said that Bohm and others interpret the probabilistic distribution as being deterministic.

DQ: That's right. There are both deterministic and indeterministic interpretations which are consistent with the data and consistent with the math of QM.

Victor: yeah, 'consistent with the math'. Just as the local gravity field distortion hypothesis is consistent with the observed fact of your bathroom scales indicating a 10lbs increase.

The most common deterministic interpretations (Bohm's and many-worlds) both posit real entities which are in principle unobservable

They only seem "unobservable in principle" when viewed from a particular interpretation of QM. I'm sure Bohm and co. are hopeful that these entities will one day be observed.

Throughout this discussion, you are underhandedly flitting between your interpretation of QM and the raw math to make you points, while pretending not to.

The most common deterministic interpretations (Bohm's and many-worlds) both posit real entities which are in principle unobservable -- the sub-quantum particle position relations for Bohm, unobservable other universes for many-worlds. Both do that because they have to deal with the inherent non-determinism of the math, by tucking it away into metaphysical contortionism. They invoke the equivalent of Santa Claus in order to make the non-determinism seem determinsitic.

What is regarded as "Santa Claus" in these matters is also a matter of interpretation. Bohm would regard indeterministic models to be far closer to Santa Claus than deterministic models, even when the deterministic models in question are convoluted. And it's hard to fault him.

DQ: Unlike Aristotle, I'm not engaging in any scientific or empirical theorizing. I'm simply distinguishing between what can be resolved empirically and what can only be resolved logically.

Victor: hahaha. Dude, you are so far out in the left field, you are on another continent entirely.

You see, this is exactly the problem I had pointed out before. You start out with common words drafted to serve as your own terms, defined in complete disconnect from the real world, and you come up with some conclusion about those private definitions of the words; but then you assume that your conclusion can be applied to the common meanings of the words.

For example, you claim that non-determinism is impossible, and you specifically relate that to the common meaning of 'determinism' as evidenced by your references to QM interpretations, based on the argument you had made which supposedly demonstrates that everything has a cause -- but of course that argument used your own private definitions of 'thing', 'cause', etc. which have nothing to do with the empirical world.

You are exactly falling into the trap i had pointed out to you many times before -- because you dishonestly re-use common words, you arrive at conclusions which are trivial and meaningless when taken in terms of your custom-defined terms, but appear profound when considered in common English -- and this is exactly the bait-n-switch you are doing right now.

That's funny, because that is precisley the same view I have of you, and of scientists in general. Scientists have taken a perfectly good word like "determinism" (meaning all things have causes), redefined it to mean something more specialized (e.g. capable of being predicted), used their current inability to make satisfactory predictions in the quantum realm to conclude that the quantum realm is indeterministic, and then misled everyone into believing that quantum events don't have causes.

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I wish the arguments didn't keep going back to Quantum Physics. Quantum Physics are just physics with some misunderstandings. Once you remove zero from math's, realise what electrons, and photons actually do, add the aether, and realise that electrons are very much like lightening that strikes certain objects with a message stored as a portion of energy, then Quantum Physics follows the same rules as Physics. Plus, there is no Particle wave duality, just particles travelling through a winding road. So it's no use saying that Quantum Physics is unpredictable, because it is easily predictable.

The only time that Quantum Physics creates an unpredictable event is when particles are entangled. Now you have a set of rules that are new to science. Now you seem to get true random events, dualistic in nature, spooky effects at a distance, and instant travel.

Quantum Physics is not unpredictable, but entangled particles are.

When I read some of these posts I read it like this...

Bob "I am going on a mountain biking holiday."

Ron "Really?"

Bob "Yes. Mountain Bikes are especially made for mountains."

Ron "Only 4 wheel drive offroad vehicles are made for mountains."

Burt "Actually, both of those things can travel on any surface. It is only the horse that climb mountain paths, because it has been observed that they have hooves."

That's what I am reading when you use Random Quantum Physics as a seperate entity to Random Physics, because I understand that Quantum Physics is predictable.

Just use entangled particles instead. It is much harder to understand them. They can do 2 things at once.

Anyway, I think that the words Quantum Physics will be faded out once science understands the principals. Quantum Physics is actually Physics... just smaller. Whereas entangled particles seem to have had some of their physical properties changed in a way that they are not truly physical at all.

The Vedas have the idea that you are the only sentient being, and that what you are doing is pretending that you do not know what will happen so that you can play the Kharma/Dharma game. There is no actual randomness; you are just turning a blind eye to the numbers so you can have some "unknown" forces to deal with.

I am just another avatar on the set of the video game, put here to appear to present a challenge, of no more substance than any other monster.

daybrown wrote:The Vedas have the idea that you are the only sentient being, and that what you are doing is pretending that you do not know what will happen so that you can play the Kharma/Dharma game. There is no actual randomness; you are just turning a blind eye to the numbers so you can have some "unknown" forces to deal with.

I am just another avatar on the set of the video game, put here to appear to present a challenge, of no more substance than any other monster.

If that's an example of randomness, it is a very good one! :)

David Quinn wrote:That is untrue. We can predict, for example, that a quantum event will indeed be a quantum event and not a macroscopic event.

Dude, you are truly descending into the deepest pits of intellectual dishonesty.

Your thesis is that there is no such thing as non-determinism. For this thesis to be disproven, even one non-deterministic event will suffice.

My thesis is that some events are non-deterministic. For this thesis to be disproven, every single event must be deterministic.

Which is to say, saying "quantum events are predictable in some ways does exactly nothing to support your position or assail mine. if anything, you are conceding that quantum events have some random properties, which casts your thesis down.

They are, for the most part, very predictable. It is just one or two aspects of their behaviour which we haven't yet found a way to predict to our satisfaction.

But of course one aspect is all it takes -- and you are being monumentally dishonest when you paint this as 'just one or two aspects' which cannot be predicted. The point is that even those interpretations which are determinsitic are 'true' (a meaningless statement about unobservable and unfalsifiable model), quantum vents will still be unpredictable, because all the extant deterministic QM models posit the deterministic mechanisms of QM as being fundamentally unobservable. Bohm's interpretation has its unobservable particles and unobservable particle characteristics, and many-worlds interpretation has unobservable universes. Both of those interpretation essentially posit metaphysical fairy dust in order to 'vanish' non-determinism.

Ah, the ugly beast of interpretation is rearing its head again. No, at best, all we can say is that our current theories cannot make the necessary predictions - and that is all. To say anything more than this is to indulge in blind faith.

No, to say more is to make a reasonable extrapolation fromw hat we know.

Under Newtonian mechanics, we could reasonably extrapolate that newtonian physics under mundane conditions would not be violated -- and in fact it hasn't, as relativistic equations reduce to classical equations in low-curvature spacetime. Similarly, there is nothing remotely faith-like about sayign that, in all likelihood, non-determinism is here to stay.

Contrawise, to decisively reject determinism as you do, you must engage in blind faith of the rankest sort.

- Nothing is ever "proven false" by empirical observation. Just because we can't currently observe local hidden variables doesn't mean there aren't any.

Actually it does, idiot -- at least under any reasonable empirical interpretation of 'proven false'. See, the problem with local variables is not that they have not been observed, but that Bell had proven that if local hidden variables exist, certain empirical outcomes will be observed -- and incompatible outcomes have been observed instead. Thus, we do not merely say that local hidden variables have not been observed, but that they cannot exist, in the same way we can say with all possible empirical certainty, upon searching an empty 12x12x12 root, that there is no elephant in it (because had the elephant been int he room, we would havd predicted certain observations to obtain, and they didn't).

- Determinism doesn't necessarily depend on the presence of local variables. David Bohm's interpretation, for example, is entirely deterministic even though it doesn't posit hidden local variables.

You bloody idiot, do you read anything I write? i have been talking about Bohm's interpretation all this time! The problem with it is exactly that it posits what amounts to metaphysical fairy dust -- fundamentally unobservable entities and properties which nonetheless exist.

At the moment, Victor. At the moment.

yeah, and we also have no evidence for young-earth creationism -- at the moment.

You're contradicting yourself. If non-determinism really was built into the raw math, then it would be impossible for Bohm and others to wave it away.

Sure it's possible -- just as you can wave away the obvious instrumental evidence of your weight gain by appropriately adjusting your measurement model.

This is Quine-Duhem thesis, idiot. You know, one of those 20th century philosophy things which you are clueless about. Evidence never compels a conclusion. it's only a question of how perverse you wish to be in interpreting evidence away.

And yet, above, you said that Bohm and others interpret the probabilistic distribution as being deterministic.

Yup. Just like Ptolemaios explained away observed planetary motion via spheres and epicycles and shit within the geocentric model, even though heliocentric model would have explained things much more straighforwardly. Just like young-earth creationists engage in incredible mental contortionism in order to explain away the evidence, rather than simply accept evolution.

Any evidence can be explained away. it's just the question of how intellectually perverse you wish to be. Positing magical unobservable fairy dust is pretty damn perverse.

They only seem "unobservable in principle" when viewed from a particular interpretation of QM. I'm sure Bohm and co. are hopeful that these entities will one day be observed.

I don't think so. Both Bohm's and many-worlds interpretations pose entities or properties which are fundamentally unobservable. Bohm himself agreed that his particles are unobservable.

Bohm would regard indeterministic models to be far closer to Santa Claus than deterministic models

Oh? And you surely have evidence for this claim, don't you?.. or is this yet another thing you can logically prove from your own private re-definitions of common terms?

The important thing to remember is that "indeterminism" in Science means "we cannot determine". It doesn't mean that events are not fully determined by Nature.

Therefore determinism in philosophy and indeterminism in science are talking about completely different things. They have no relationship to each other whatsoever.

Victor and David

I think that you are discussing things unrelated to inherent randomness of QM.

The local variable theory refers to the EPR paradox, in which an entangled pair of particles are assumed to have a common hidden variable, accounting for spooky at a distance action.

Quantum randomness would be illustrated by something like the decay of a particle, so that we cannot predict when a single particle will decay but can only provide a probability density function. Thus two identical alpha particles under the same experimental conditions decay at different times, and we cannot say when the particle will decay, but a large number of them will behave predictably due to the law of large numbers.

According to David there is some hidden cause because of which a given particle decays at a particular time. According to Victor there is no such reason for suspecting such a cause and the time of decay is inherently random.

The difference between the two is that the non-deterministic position is simply the direct take on the math, while the deterministic position , in Quinn's case, is guided by aprioristic, rationalistic prejudice. his mind is made up, and he won't be confused with facts.

I'm definitely with David again on this one.

I see everything as not being matter, but as being two causal forces. Matter is the inbetweenness of these forces - the point where these opposites meet in the middle. Therefore the content and pattern of everything is of the nature of a force. It permanently acts to cause everything that makes up the totality. Forces are non-linear entities, and in being non-linear, randomness cannot arise. Randomness as a fundamental concept makes no sense at all. It is OK is relation to humans and their lack of ability to fully measure the relativity fluctuations of the entire universe, but in real terms it is simply not possible.

QM matter just appears in a certain manner when the causal circumstances are right. Nothing random about it. Every quantum thing evolves directly from space, not from some inane singularity, however for QM shit to make its appearance in some spatial area, there must be an inequality of one of the two forces in that area. However, that spatial area is infinitely relative to all parts of the totality in an infinite range of layers of power equalisation or resistence (the part within the part, within the part, within the part, ad infinitum), so it becomes nigh on impossible to predict just how or when QM stuff will appear to an observer. A “part” is just a structure with some form of equalisation of the two forces, and this equalisation is generally centralised, and surrounded by non-equalised forces. This is what causes the spirals, circles and orbits we see most commonly in things.

Experiments with entanglement suggest that the change of a QM particle in a location will produce an opposite change in the nearest location that it can (otherwise entanglement would be random, and the chances of observing such entanglement if it occurred anywhere in the universe rather than close by, would be negligible). Entanglement suggests that one of the two forces has no separation, that it is a causal aether affected by a force that is divisible. Such a relationship at the fundamental level provides for “paths of least resistance”, which then allows QM particles to form from what appears to us to be nothingness. It is bit like say, a very tightly filled water balloon tighly packed in a cube full of holes - poke your finger in one of the holes and some of the balloon will be caused to extrude from one of the other holes in the cube. Sometimes where you poke your finger will tear the balloon, sometimes it won't. It is pretty much the same with the the so called randomness of QM activity. Schrodingers cat.

Evidence never compels a conclusion.

Lol. So if you looked at your hand as evidence of something existing in a physical sense, that evidence would not compel you to reach a conclusion that there was something physical there.

[I’m not expecting a response Victor, and don’t actually want one anyway as I'm sure you won't understand my fairly poorly expressed conceptualisations]

Jamesh wrote:Lol. So if you looked at your hand as evidence of something existing in a physical sense, that evidence would not compel you to reach a conclusion that there was something physical there.

No, it would not compel that conclusion. You could avoid it, for example, by positing some sort of hallucination, or brain-in-a-vat scenario.

[I’m not expecting a response Victor, and don’t actually want one anyway

Then don't post, moron.

as I'm sure you won't understand my fairly poorly expressed conceptualisations]

I understand it just fine -- and it is indeed both poorly expressed, and poor in quality. You, just like QRS, would greatly benefit from the work of great thinkers who came before you.

Why don't you read Quine's work on epistemology? if you can understand it, it will greatly expand your mind.

The key point of Quine's argument is that evidence is never evaluated by itself, but as a part of the web of predictive and instrumental theories, and any new observation can be made to fit by altering some other aspects of this holistic web of theories.

Pincho Paxton wrote:

daybrown wrote:The Vedas have the idea that you are the only sentient being, and that what you are doing is pretending that you do not know what will happen so that you can play the Kharma/Dharma game. There is no actual randomness; you are just turning a blind eye to the numbers so you can have some "unknown" forces to deal with.

I am just another avatar on the set of the video game, put here to appear to present a challenge, of no more substance than any other monster.

If that's an example of randomness, it is a very good one! :)

It seems to work for some. Sheldrake, in "The Presence of the Past" goes on about "morphic fields", which are related to a point in this thread about "spooky effects" of connectivity at a distance between observed events.

If you exist on some kind of projected matrix, then there is no such thing as 'solid matter', only the effect of forces at certain 'pixels' of what passes for reality. Now, those forces would be the result of software algorithms, with a "morphic field" being one example. Therefore, there is a subroutine for the constuction of snowflakes that permeates the projected matrix, and whenever the other correct conditions are present, that pattern imposes some degree of order on the other forces at any given point in the Matrix that starts the water molecules to arrange themselves.

Since Sheldrake published, the idea of "methyl tags" has been, quite literally, applied to DNA molecules in similar, I dare say, "morphic field" ways causing the tags to attach to the DNA only at certain points. And once a pattern is, for whatever reason, established at any one point, it does so because of a subroutine in the Matrix projection software, and continually gets called on to cause methyl tags to be similarly attached to similar strands of the DNA molecule. Even tho, as mentioned in this thread, when the molecules affected in this way are no where near each other. Damned spooky.

From what Sheldrake has to say, and what the methyl tag data says, this is responsible for dominance or recession in genes. Even tho the DNA is the same, the methyl tags empower, or disempower the ability of the DNA to produce the appropriate proteins.

The software subroutines which produces the morphic fields which in turn determine where methyl tags will attach is not entirely bug free. Now, whether this is due to random quantum effects in the distribution of the 'pixels' of reality, or whether this is determined in order to fulfill Kharma, is a damn moot point. I dont see how to tell, but maybe you can tell where you are.

Pincho Paxton wrote:

daybrown wrote:The Vedas have the idea that you are the only sentient being, and that what you are doing is pretending that you do not know what will happen so that you can play the Kharma/Dharma game. There is no actual randomness; you are just turning a blind eye to the numbers so you can have some "unknown" forces to deal with.

I am just another avatar on the set of the video game, put here to appear to present a challenge, of no more substance than any other monster.

If that's an example of randomness, it is a very good one! :)

LOL.

Being intelligent, informed and totally random

Edit:

daybrown wrote:Now, whether this is due to random quantum effects in the distribution of the 'pixels' of reality, or whether this is determined in order to fulfill Kharma, is a damn moot point

God does not play dice - Albert Einstein <- There is order in the Chaos. Call it God, call it nature.. it's there. < Yes, vic... because I am an Idiot.>

God does not play dice - Albert Einstein <- There is order in the Chaos. Call it God, call it nature.. it's there.

From a man who so far had managed to find order in everything.. this comment would make sense. If the same man then found something without order he might believe that some day he would find order in it. But Einstein believed in time travel, and time travel can put order into randomness. For example.. suddenly a cup appears on your table, without time travel it is random. With time travel someone can put it there, and then go to a different time.

That is what entangled particles are like. They can suddenly appear, they can do two things at once, like spin in two directions at once, and they communicate over any distance. It's like time travel, or it's like randomness.

Now.. I don't believe that time travel is possible. The universe would take infinity to get going with all possibilities built into the Big Bang all happening at once.

My theory is that everything is built in the universe at the same time. Everything except entangled particles that are built just before everything else. Because most things are in pairs, and have to be built twice, so it takes two ticks. But I think that entangled particles have had one of their pairs removed, and therefore take just one tick to be built. Being as entangled particles are built twice as fast as everything else, they can do two things at once. In our two tick timeline, it would mean that they are TRULY random.

Victor wrote

The key point of Quine's argument is that evidence is never evaluated by itself, but as a part of the web of predictive and instrumental theories, and any new observation can be made to fit by altering some other aspects of this holistic web of theories.

Well I can’t really argue with that. That is how truths are developed and opinions changed.

It would therefore seem advisable to have some "aspects" within this web, exist as essentially non-alterable theories. Beliefs backed by strong faith, faith just being the feeling of certainty.

As anything I have ever observed has been, and will be, found to have been determined by certain preceding conditions, then surely it would seem logical to make this a non-negotiable truth, that does not change according to new observations? So Determinism becomes an absolute truth, as does the face value of pretty well all of what the QRS regard as absolute truths.

My arguments with them tend to be about the fact that any face value has another side that is equally correct but opposite in nature to the face value.

There are plenty of religious folk, jew haters and nutters who "make new observations fit by altering some other aspects of their holistic web of theories", but whose non-negotiable truths are blatantly unjustifiable. Surely they deserve your abuse more than us. Mind you the QRS do often speak of truth, in a by inferenece way - not directly, as if it had some kind of objective existence outside of their individual subjective minds. Extreme faith makes one word things in certain ways that glorify the belief.

Look I haven't read this thread, just scanned it. So might be missing the point. Was really just commenting on the determinism aspect. It would be a wrongness to my mind if you convinced anyone that determinism was not absolute, and therefore that any instance of reality-randomness was possible.

Why don't you read Quine's work on epistemology? if you can understand it, it will greatly expand your mind.

Mostly when I try and read academic philosophy I don't understand a bar of it. I mean wtf is this article http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epist ... turalized/ talking about? When nothing leaps out at you that is of any interest, one couldn't be bothered studying it to see if the whole story is actually saying something. For this reason, I really couldn't care less about epistemology. My own mind will determine how much faith I place in certain concepts, not some convoluted philosophy rant from an egghead. I'm not particularly interested in how peoples subjectively caused conceptual definitions of some word, categorisation or "thing" differ from one person or group to another, which is what most of the modern day philosophers seem believe is of most importance.

Of course I am a little curious that there might be some hidden truth-that-will-matter-to-me that I don't already know. Quine's Two Doggies was somewhat of a disappointment.

Let me explain the EPR paradox for the benefit of people here.
We can prepare a pair of particles in an entangled state, which implies that if we measure the polarization of one photon the other photon would be found to be in the same polarization.

You can say that well it could be that polarization is set when the particles are created and we cannot just observe it, so we posit it as random, let us say that initial polarization is theta.

When you want to observe the polarization you place a polarizing glass in front of one of the photons, at angle alpha. The probability that it passes through the glass is cos^2(theta-alpha), and when it passes through the glass its polarization changes to alpha. If not its polarization changes to 90-alpha and it bounces off the glass.

Now if after making this measurement you place a glass in front of the second particle at angle alpha, it would always pass through the glass, or be reflected, as the first particle behaved, there is no probability here. It means that the particles exchanged information about their state instantaneously. This violation of locality is known as the EPR paradox. This also shows that the initial intuition about the particles sharing a hidden fixed theta is wrong, since if this was so, then the second particle should have behaved probabilistically with the second glass too, which it does not, thus it is better to assume that initial theta was random, and is set at the point of measurement.

Thus many Quantum physicists now assume randomness is built in the fabric of the universe.

Why don't the admins branch this discussion off to a new thread on QM.

hsandman wrote:God does not play dice - Albert Einstein <- There is order in the Chaos.

Funny you should use Eintein to make your point. This is wrong on many levels.

First of all, Einstein basically lost the debate over this issue with Bohr. Non-determinism exists.

Secondly, Einstein eventually regretted his aprioristic rejection of evidence, and came to recognize QM as the best theory we got, though he never accepted it as complete.

Thirdly, his grand attempt to rebut QM was the EPR paradox, which in his interpretation basically amounted to saying "either the world is spooky due to non-locality, or QM is incomplete [and there are local hidden variables]"; Einstein held the 'spooky' option to be self-evidently wrong, and was a strong proponent of local hidden variables. As I had already mentioned, the experimental evidence showed that there cannot be local hidden variables, so Einstein managed to be wrong on two counts simultaneously -- the world is 'spooky' (quantum non-locality), and local variables cannot account for quantum behavior.

i find it funny when ignoramuses grab an acontextual quote from an authority, and assume that it's unassailable merely because an authority said it.

< Yes, vic... because I am an Idiot.>

Indeed. I am glad you are coming to accept this, though your idiotic color tricks are completely juvenile and ineffectual.

Jamesh wrote:As anything I have ever observed has been, and will be, found to have been determined by certain preceding conditions, then surely it would seem logical to make this a non-negotiable truth, that does not change according to new observations?

Don't you see the abject idiocy here?

1) 'As anything I have ever observed has been' -- you have observed a minute, minuscule slice of the Universe. You had never observed spacetime around giant stars, you have never observed quantum interactions, you probably have never even observed vacuum, China, or harmonic vibrations; yet you assume that the whole world behaves in the same way your tiny observable sliver of the Universe does? That's like assuming that the whole world speaks English, because you grew up in an anglophone culture.

2) 'surely it would seem logical' -- ahem, moron, do you have any idea what logic is? 'Surely it would seem' is not in logic's lexicon. You are simply piling your ignorant provincial prejudices up.

3) 'make this a non-negotiable truth, that does not change according to new observations' -- this is the ultimate idiocy. You just said that you would draw this conclusion based on anything you have ever observed -- yet you would disallow new observations to contradict your previous observations? That's essentially saying that your observations so far have delivered to you the complete exhaustive picture of the world, and any new contradictory evidence must be wrong. This is so dumb, I can't even describe it properly.

So Determinism becomes an absolute truth, as does the face value of pretty well all of what the QRS regard as absolute truths.

You are so fucking dumb, i can't even come up with an adequate adjective to describe it.

Mostly when I try and read academic philosophy I don't understand a bar of it.

yeah, i figured as much. hence my qwualifier. You seem too stupid to actually understand it.

I mean wtf is this article http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epist ... turalized/ talking about?

if you can't understand it, why don't you occupy yourself with picking your bellybutton lint, rather than bloviate about things utterly beyond your comprehension?

I mean wtf is this article http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epist... turalized/ talking about?

Way too complex for what it is... I can just about read it.

To reiterate, science has nothing to say about determinism. It only speaks of "indeterminism", which is something altogether different.

Something is "indeterminate" when we cannot determine something. That's what indeterminism is about.

In sharp contrast, determinism is about the fact that all things (ie, once we have drawn their boundaries) are determined by other things. This has nothing whatsoever to do with science.

So for someone to say that determinism is wrong from the perspective of science, then they are simply speaking nonsense.

1) 'As anything I have ever observed has been' -- you have observed a minute, minuscule slice of the Universe. You had never observed spacetime around giant stars, you have never observed quantum interactions, you probably have never even observed vacuum, China, or harmonic vibrations; yet you assume that the whole world behaves in the same way your tiny observable sliver of the Universe does? That's like assuming that the whole world speaks English, because you grew up in an anglophone culture.

Don’t see any need to. There is virtually no mystery out there for me, just some interesting forms, some structural differences.

I KNOW the process of the totality is the same everywhere. It cannot be otherwise as that would require some third party from outside the universe, inducing different rules. Non-determination is essentially no fucking different than creationism. Not that you understand that.

2) 'surely it would seem logical' -- ahem, moron, do you have any idea what logic is? 'Surely it would seem' is not in logic's lexicon. You are simply piling your ignorant provincial prejudices up.

A petty argument, from a person who clearly seeks argument for arguments sake.

3) 'make this a non-negotiable truth, that does not change according to new observations' -- this is the ultimate idiocy. You just said that you would draw this conclusion based on anything you have ever observed -- yet you would disallow new observations to contradict your previous observations? That's essentially saying that your observations so far have delivered to you the complete exhaustive picture of the world, and any new contradictory evidence must be wrong. This is so dumb, I can't even describe it properly.

Ok, that wasn’t quite worded correctly. I was referring to beliefs for which to date there have been no observations that would induce a collapse of the concrete truth.

Nothing in the QM world satisfies me that determination should be considered realistic [edit: oops I meant unrealistic]. If you want to base your beliefs on a few limited experiments, by people who do not have a holistic philosophical knowledge of how everything fits together go ahead and place your faith in others.

Anyway Mister Tourettes infestation. I'm done conversing with you. Get back on the long Congo line of academic suckholes, where you belong. Haven’t you got arses to lick somewhere?

Pincho, I found this one much easier to understand.
http://www.tabvlarasa.de/21/graf.php

vicdan wrote:

David Quinn wrote:That is untrue. We can predict, for example, that a quantum event will indeed be a quantum event and not a macroscopic event.

Dude, you are truly descending into the deepest pits of intellectual dishonesty.

Your thesis is that there is no such thing as non-determinism. For this thesis to be disproven, even one non-deterministic event will suffice.

My thesis is that some events are non-deterministic. For this thesis to be disproven, every single event must be deterministic.

In reference to what Kevin said, what exactly do you mean by "indeterminism"? Events arising completely without cause? Or events arising that we currently find unpredictable?

Which is to say, saying "quantum events are predictable in some ways does exactly nothing to support your position or assail mine. if anything, you are conceding that quantum events have some random properties, which casts your thesis down.

If indeterminism means events arising that we currently find unpredictable, then the fact that quantum events are predictable in some ways certainly proves that they are not indeterministic.

I can't really respond to the rest of your post without knowing more specifically what you mean by indeterminism.

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Jamesh wrote:Don’t see any need to. There is virtually no mystery out there for me

Well, this just about cinches it, doesn't it? You are a complete and utter idiot.

Nothing in the QM world satisfies me that determination should be considered realistic. If you want to base your beliefs on a few limited experiments, by people who do not have a holistic philosophical knowledge of how everything fits together go ahead and place your faith in others.

hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Jamesh wrote:Pincho, I found this one much easier to understand.
http://www.tabvlarasa.de/21/graf.php

That makes it alot clearer,cheers for posting it.

I'd certainly be interested in vicdans argument against that article.(I don't currently have a solid view either way)