Why are scientists so certain about nondeterminism?
david fass
Consider the following quote from chapter 4 of Quine's "The Web of
Belief":
"Another limiting principle to view warily is 'Every event has a
cause.' As a philosopher's maxim it may seem safe enough if the
philosopher is willing to guide it around recalcitrant facts. But
this principle, in the face of quantum theory, needs extensive
guiding. Physicists tell us that individual electrons and other
elementary particles do not conform in their behavior to rigidly
determinate laws. A radioactive substance emits its particles at
random; it is impossible not only in practice but in principle to say
just which of its particles will be the next to depart, or just when."
My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
nondeterministic. Isn't it possible that we simply don't currently
understand the mechanism driving particle behavior? Why are we so
sure that there is *no* underlying mechanism?
Thanks for any answers.
-- Dave
Aaron-Dirk Boyden
> My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
> the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
> nondeterministic. Isn't it possible that we simply don't currently
> understand the mechanism driving particle behavior? Why are we so
> sure that there is *no* underlying mechanism?
That we don't currently understand the mechanism badly understates the
case. Our current theories give us excellent reason to believe that if
there is a mechanism, we can't ever understand it. Of course, that
doesn't mean there isn't a mechanism, but it means that postulating a
mechanism is a leap of faith. The usual scientific reason for assuming
determinism, that assuming it makes room for further study, doesn't
apply; there is no room for further study, whether you assume
determinism or not.
Of course, that only explains why determinism isn't assumed, not why
indeterminism is assumed. Probably the latter is a result of either
Popperian or positivist leanings on the part of physicists; if something
is in principle utterly unknowable, then for all practical purposes,
including all scientific purposes, it doesn't exist.
--
---
Aaron Boyden
"It is wrong always, everywhere and for anyone, to believe
anything upon insufficient evidence." W. K. Clifford
Bjoern Brembs
> "Another limiting principle to view warily is 'Every event has a
> cause.'
Try to think of something to happen "just so" without cause. You can't.
It's a predesposition that's probably innate. It's one of Kant's "a
priori" among which there is also time and space. It seems reasonable to
link it to our ability to learn. See: Denniston, Miller, Matute (1996):
Biological significance as a determinant of cue competition. Psychological
Science 7(6): 325-331
> Physicists tell us that individual electrons and other
> elementary particles do not conform in their behavior to rigidly
> determinate laws. A radioactive substance emits its particles at
> random; it is impossible not only in practice but in principle to say
> just which of its particles will be the next to depart, or just when."
<snip>
> My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
> the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
> nondeterministic.
Radioactive decay is a very nice example. Look up any physics textbook and
see how the law of radioactive decay is derived. It is a statistical law
accurately describing the temporal decay curve of a large number of atoms.
It is very deterministic on that level of observation. However, on the
level of the single atom, you can't determine it's behavior. It's like
human survival: on average we live some 70something years. Yet, many
people die in their infancy. You can't tell when a person wie die, can
you? When the rules of statistics apply, we define the such described
phenomenon as stochastic or non.deterministic.
Bjoern
http://brembs.net
la...@duphy4.physics.drexel.edu
> david fass wrote:
>
> > "Another limiting principle to view warily is 'Every event has a
> > cause.'
>
> Try to think of something to happen "just so" without cause. You can't.
> It's a predesposition that's probably innate.
> > My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
> > the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
> > nondeterministic.
>
> Radioactive decay is a very nice example. Look up any physics textbook and
> see how the law of radioactive decay is derived. It is a statistical law
> accurately describing the temporal decay curve of a large number of atoms.
> It is very deterministic on that level of observation. However, on the
> level of the single atom, you can't determine it's behavior.
Which is nice but doesn't quite answer the question.
You can create a "quantum-like" theory which is deterministic: the
apparant randomness is a result of what are called "hidden variables":
you can't observer them directly, but they determine when a particle will
decay, for example.
The problem is that if you have hidden variables, there are observable
consequences...subtle, but observable none the less. (cf. Bell's Theorem..
by the way, in physics when something is labelled a "theorem" rather
than a "theory", it means the result is general and well-nigh inescapable).
Experiments have been performed to look for hidden variable effects (cf.
the Aspect experiment). And the results indicate that there aren't any
hidden variables. As always, experiments have experimental error, but there
doesn't seem to be much wiggle room for a hidden variable theory to survive.
So the confidence comes from experiment, the "in principle" is from the
fact that with no hidden variables, then there is nothing to
determine (in the determinism/nondeterminism sense) the behavior of the
system.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
R. Knauer
wrote:
>My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
>the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
>nondeterministic. Isn't it possible that we simply don't currently
>understand the mechanism driving particle behavior? Why are we so
>sure that there is *no* underlying mechanism?
Whatever the underlying mechanism, obtaining knowledge about it
changes the system in such a way that you no longer possess that
knowledge in an up to date manner.
For example, if you could know everything about the state of the
Universe at any instant, you might be able to predict which
radioactive nucleus would decay next and when it would decay. But how
do you propose to know the state of the Universe? You would have to
perform measurements on it, and in the process of conducting those
measurements, you would change its state - and therefore your
knowledge acquired thru those measurements would no longer be valid.
There are things in reality that are intrinsically unknowable. For
example, you can never know if a computer program will halt or not in
general. You can run it, and if it indeed does halt, you can know that
it halts, but what if it does not halt? You run it a little longer and
if it halts, you know that it halts, but what if it does not halt? You
run it a little longer...
Unless it halts you can never know if it will halt or not. IOW, it is
intrinsically unknowable if it will halt or not, assuming it does not
halt. It could halt in one more attempt. On the other hand, if it does
not halt in one more attempt, then you cannot know if it will ever
halt or not.
Bob Knauer
European Parliament's Scientific and Technological Options Assessment,
Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control, including Mark-Free
Torture, implemented by the British military in Northern Ireland:
http://jya.com/stoa-atpc.htm
R. Knauer
wrote:
>The problem is that if you have hidden variables, there are observable
>consequences...subtle, but observable none the less. (cf. Bell's Theorem..
>by the way, in physics when something is labelled a "theorem" rather
>than a "theory", it means the result is general and well-nigh inescapable).
Just like Newton's Laws, general and well-nigh inescapable, eh.
And very wrong under certain conditions.
>Experiments have been performed to look for hidden variable effects (cf.
>the Aspect experiment). And the results indicate that there aren't any
>hidden variables. As always, experiments have experimental error, but there
>doesn't seem to be much wiggle room for a hidden variable theory to survive.
The plot thickens when you realize that Aspect's experiment revealed
non-local phenomena. The manner in which one of the pair of entangled
photons is measured on one side of the source determines how photons
on the other side of the source respond to measurement. Change the
angle of the polarizer on one side and it affects the measurement on
the other side.
>So the confidence comes from experiment, the "in principle" is from the
>fact that with no hidden variables, then there is nothing to
>determine (in the determinism/nondeterminism sense) the behavior of the
>system.
That is a bit stronger than I am willing to accept offhand. There
could still be some kind of mechanism in operation but whatever it is,
it is intrinsically unknowable to us. There is still the Law of
Causality which must be preserved, otherwise we would have no order in
the Universe and physics would become moot.
Nondeterminism does not imply anarchy. Anyway, there are other
instances of things in reality which are unknowable, yet they exist in
a cause and effect relationship with other things. Just because we
cannot know for certain whether any general computer program will halt
or not does not mean the program is chaotic.
<speculation mode on>
What if, for example, everything is entangled to some degree with
everything else in the Universe. You screw around with something on
one side of the Universe and it affects everything else in the entire
universe to some extent.
The decay of a radioisotope could be looked upon as being caused by
every other entity in the Universe to some extent. But we cannot know
the precise state of the Universe, since the act of measuring it
causes it to change. Therefore the decay of one particular nucleus
looks random to us.
True Randomness is a consequence of ignorance, not ignorance of what
can be known, but ignorance of what cannot be known. We cannot know
when a particular nucleus is going to decay, because such knowledge
would require measuring the state of the system, and that would change
the state of the system and make useless whatever knowledge we thought
we had just gained. The harder we try to determine when the nucleus is
going to decay, the less we know when it will actually decay.
The unitary transformation of the wave vector in Hilbert space is
completely deterministic - it is the result of the solution of the
Schrodinger equation for that system. That makes the temporal
evolution of a quantum system completely deterministic. It is the act
of measurement seen as a state transition that is nondeterministic.
But even that is being challenged by new theories, like those of Cerf
& Adami, Zurek and et al. Any guess what negative entropy means?
Bob Knauer
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged,
and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air,
however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
-- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
david fass
limitations of measurement, perception, cognition, etc. If you tell me
that WE cannot predict or measure the complete state of a particular
particle at a particular time because of Heisenberg's principle (or
whatever), I might go away happy.
But there seems to be a leap of logic that takes place whereby we take this
"inability to know" as an indication of the absence of a causal mechanism.
I'm not clear on the reasoning that allows us to take that step.
-- Dave
la...@duphy4.physics.drexel.edu
> On Fri, 23 Apr 1999 13:01:46 GMT, la...@duphy4.physics.drexel.edu
> wrote:
>
> >The problem is that if you have hidden variables, there are observable
> >consequences...subtle, but observable none the less. (cf. Bell's Theorem..
> >by the way, in physics when something is labelled a "theorem" rather
> >than a "theory", it means the result is general and well-nigh inescapable).
>
> Just like Newton's Laws, general and well-nigh inescapable, eh.
>
> And very wrong under certain conditions.
Much less escapable than Newton's laws...go take a look at Bell's theorem;
the assumptions are explicit, few, and pretty inarguable. It's more in the
realm of a mathematical proof than anything else.
> >Experiments have been performed to look for hidden variable effects (cf.
> >the Aspect experiment). And the results indicate that there aren't any
> >hidden variables. As always, experiments have experimental error, but there
> >doesn't seem to be much wiggle room for a hidden variable theory to survive.
>
> The plot thickens when you realize that Aspect's experiment revealed
> non-local phenomena. The manner in which one of the pair of entangled
> photons is measured on one side of the source determines how photons
> on the other side of the source respond to measurement. Change the
> angle of the polarizer on one side and it affects the measurement on
> the other side.
Which is exactly what ("nondeterministic") quantum mechanics predicts.
Peculiar and non-intuitive? Yes, of course. Who says that the universe
has to conform to your intuition?
> >So the confidence comes from experiment, the "in principle" is from the
> >fact that with no hidden variables, then there is nothing to
> >determine (in the determinism/nondeterminism sense) the behavior of the
> >system.
>
> That is a bit stronger than I am willing to accept offhand. There
> could still be some kind of mechanism in operation but whatever it is,
> it is intrinsically unknowable to us.
That's the whole point of "hidden" variables...you don't know *what* they are
or exactly *how* they affect things, but they somehow determine the results
you get out of quantum phenomena...that means determinant but unknown
wavefunctions (for hidden variable theories) rather than the superposition of
wavefunctions so that the state is indeterminant in standard QM. The
distinction is between what is "unknowable" (indeterminant) and "unknown"
(determinant but unobserved).
And, as I mentioned before, experiment seems to rule out the determinant
but unobserved case.
R. Knauer
wrote:
>I agree that there may be many things that we cannot know, do to
>limitations of measurement, perception, cognition, etc. If you tell me
>that WE cannot predict or measure the complete state of a particular
>particle at a particular time because of Heisenberg's principle (or
>whatever), I might go away happy.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is but one example of the intrinsic
unknowability of quantum systems.
>But there seems to be a leap of logic that takes place whereby we take this
>"inability to know" as an indication of the absence of a causal mechanism.
>I'm not clear on the reasoning that allows us to take that step.
I certainly did not mean to imply that nondeterminism & unknowability
resulted in a loss of causality.
There is no conflict between nondeterminism & unknowablilty, and the
principle of causality, none that I can see anyway, assuming the
worldview of realism. Even quantum entanglement does not violate any
principles of causality if you view the entire system as entangled,
which includes the measurement apparatus.
The apparent spooky nature of entanglement, with its super-luminal
transmission of information from one side of the experiment to the
other, only comes about when you try to isolate the measurement
apparatus from the source.
There is most definitely a cause for the decay of a radioisotope, even
if that cause is nondeterministic in terms of the exact time of the
decay event. Not knowing when it will happen in advance does not alter
the fact that something causes it to decay when it does. It is usually
blamed on quantum vacuum fluctuations, at least in orthodox QM.
This is a rather distant analogy, but perhaps it will help to get the
point across. Many people believe that the only way to solve a
mathematical problem is to employ an algorithmic procedure. Assuming
that a solution can be found, you set the problem up as an equation
and proceed to solve it, which gives you an algorithm with which to
calculate the answer deterministically. But that is by no means the
only way to do it.
You could find the answer nondeterministically by trial and error - by
using randomly selected trial solutions to test whether the equation
is correctly solved. If you do happen upon the correct solution by
this method, you can legitimately claim that you solved the problem by
a nondeterministic procedure, one that did not involve any algorithmic
calculation.
Of course, the price you pay is that you cannot know in advance when
you will find the solution.
Raja
Or are we lacking in data or other knowledge and understanding?
Prove we do not lack sufficent data or understanding.
Bjoern Brembs wrote:
>
> david fass wrote:
>
> > "Another limiting principle to view warily is 'Every event has a
> > cause.'
>
> Try to think of something to happen "just so" without cause. You can't.
> It's a predesposition that's probably innate. It's one of Kant's "a
> priori" among which there is also time and space. It seems reasonable to
> link it to our ability to learn. See: Denniston, Miller, Matute (1996):
> Biological significance as a determinant of cue competition. Psychological
> Science 7(6): 325-331
>
> > Physicists tell us that individual electrons and other
> > elementary particles do not conform in their behavior to rigidly
> > determinate laws. A radioactive substance emits its particles at
> > random; it is impossible not only in practice but in principle to say
> > just which of its particles will be the next to depart, or just when."
>
> <snip>
>
> > My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
> > the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
> > nondeterministic.
>
> Radioactive decay is a very nice example. Look up any physics textbook and
> see how the law of radioactive decay is derived. It is a statistical law
> accurately describing the temporal decay curve of a large number of atoms.
> It is very deterministic on that level of observation. However, on the
R. Knauer
>Again let us ask "do we have proof that it is non-deterministic"
Yes. For example, the time of decay of a radioisotope is completely
nondeterministic. There is no possible way to know that time in
advance.
>Or are we lacking in data or other knowledge and understanding?
There are two possible meanings of that statement:
1) We lack knowledge that can be acquired.
2) We lack knowledge that cannot be acquired.
It is in the latter sense that quantum physics is nondeterministic.
>Prove we do not lack sufficent data or understanding.
We cannot acquire the knowledge needed to determine the outcome of a
particular quantum measurement. If we attempt to acquire that
knowledge, we change the system so that such knowledge is no longer
meaningful.
If we could gain knowledge of all the factors which go into causing a
particular nucleus to decay at the instant in time that it does, we
would disrupt the system to such an extent that it would be
exceedingly unlikely to decay at that time.
The mystery is not so much that the world behaves quantum
mechanically; the mystery is that the world behaves classically.
Perhaps the resolution to that mystery lies in recognizing that
classical behavior is just an illusion covering up the underlying
quantum behavior of the world.
R. Knauer
wrote:
>> Just like Newton's Laws, general and well-nigh inescapable, eh.
>> And very wrong under certain conditions.
>Much less escapable than Newton's laws...go take a look at Bell's theorem;
I know about Bell's Theorem, and the experiment of Alain Aspect. It is
my understanding that there are many other similar experiments which
confirm the same basic thing as Aspect's experiment.
>the assumptions are explicit, few, and pretty inarguable. It's more in the
>realm of a mathematical proof than anything else.
It a mathematical consequence of quantum measurements in an EPR
environment.
>Which is exactly what ("nondeterministic") quantum mechanics predicts.
>Peculiar and non-intuitive? Yes, of course. Who says that the universe
>has to conform to your intuition?
Actually I do not find quantum physics to be all that peculiar and
non-intuitive. That is not to say that it is not a difficult subject -
it is an exceedingly difficult subject. But I think the mystique
surrounding QM is a bit overdone.
The fact that the Universe seems to behave classically is peculiar and
non-intuitive to me. I suspect that such classical behavior is just an
illusion covering up the intrinsic quantum nature of physical reality.
If you accept that physical reality is built on a foundation of
randomness and indeterminism, which is not all that difficult to
accept unless you are a very dogmatic person who cannot let go of
deterministic physics, then the consequences we see in quantum
mechanics follow rather straightforwardly.
Much of the confusion surrounding QM comes about when physicists like
Bohr try to play the metaphysical game. They are ill-trained to be
metaphysicians, and only mess things up when they venture into areas
they should have sense to stay away from.
Such excursions lead to insane pronouncements like with Schrodinger's
Cat, where the cat is supposedly in a state of superposed life and
death until the door is opened. That is completely psychotic.
Nathan Urban
> On Fri, 23 Apr 1999 12:08:43 -0400, Raja <Rlim...@visteon.com> wrote:
> >Again let us ask "do we have proof that it is non-deterministic"
> Yes. For example, the time of decay of a radioisotope is completely
> nondeterministic. There is no possible way to know that time in
> advance.
That's not a proof. It doesn't even rule out hidden-variables theories.
Jack Martinelli
la...@duphy4.physics.drexel.edu wrote in message
<7fqjdg$fsm$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>rckt...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>> On Fri, 23 Apr 1999 13:01:46 GMT, la...@duphy4.physics.drexel.edu
>> wrote:
>
>And, as I mentioned before, experiment seems to rule out the determinant
>but unobserved case.
Yes, given the assumptions contained in the theories and experiments.
I just read a review of 200 "unified" theories. Here's the abstract:
"Abstract. The construction of a consistent theory of quantum gravity is a
problem in theoretical physics that has so far defied all attempts at
resolution. One ansatz to try to obtain a non-trivial quantum theory
proceeds via a discretization of space-time and the Einstein action. I
review here three major areas of research: gauge-theoretic approaches, both
in a path-integral and a Hamiltonian formulation; quantum Regge calculus;
and the method of dynamical triangulations, confining attention to work that
is strictly four-dimensional, strictly discrete, and strictly quantum in
nature."
Given the shortcommings of quantum gravity -- so far -- in their
conclustions they write:
"One may of course take the attitude that something is fundamentally wrong
with trying to construct a theory of quantum gravity via a statistical field
theory approach, and that a different starting point is needed, an obvious
candidate being a non-perturbative theory of superstrings, or of more
general extended objects. "
You can find the article at:
http://www.livingreviews.org/Articles/Volume1/1998-13loll/
Its clear, I think, that because QM cannot give us gravity, that it is
incomplete. So I don't think we can conclude yet, that "hidden" variables
can be ruled out.
Regards
Jack Martinelli
RG
R. Knauer wrote:
>True Randomness is a consequence of ignorance, not ignorance of what
>can be known, but ignorance of what cannot be known. We cannot know
>when a particular nucleus is going to decay, because such knowledge
>would require measuring the state of the system, and that would change
>the state of the system and make useless whatever knowledge we thought
>we had just gained. The harder we try to determine when the nucleus is
>going to decay, the less we know when it will actually decay.
Bob, ...good comment!
R. Knauer
Urban) wrote:
>That's not a proof. It doesn't even rule out hidden-variables theories.
Then you are going to have to tell us what constitutes "proof" for
you.
R. Knauer
<ja...@martinelli.org> wrote:
>Its clear, I think, that because QM cannot give us gravity, that it is
>incomplete. So I don't think we can conclude yet, that "hidden" variables
>can be ruled out.
What makes you conclude that QM cannot give us gravity?
If anything, hidden variables have not given us QM, so it would be
safer to conclude that hidden variables is a bankrupt theory, not QM.
Nathan Urban
> On 23 Apr 1999 22:31:30 -0400, nur...@crib.corepower.com (Nathan Urban) wrote:
> >That's not a proof. It doesn't even rule out hidden-variables theories.
> Then you are going to have to tell us what constitutes "proof" for you.
Actually, all I have to do is produce a counterexample -- a deterministic
theory that produces the same results when it comes to radioactive decay.
I should first point out that no physical theory can be proven; all
you can do is demonstrate that the theory is consistent with all known
experiments to within experimental error.
But that aside, you're missing the point of hidden-variables theories,
in which things that _seem_ like they're non-deterministic are actually
deterministic, they just look non-deterministic because we don't have
full knowledge of the internal state of the system. Simply observing
random-seeming results as in radioactive decay is insufficient to rule
out the possibility that there is a hidden-variables theory at work.
Something like Bell's theorem in conjunction with Aspect's experiment
_is_ sufficient to rule out hidden-variables theories (assuming that the
other conditions of the theorem hold). That's why Aspect's experiment
needed to be done.
Jack Martinelli
R. Knauer wrote in message <3721cd5f...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
>On Fri, 23 Apr 1999 20:54:46 -0700, "Jack Martinelli"
><ja...@martinelli.org> wrote:
>
>>Its clear, I think, that because QM cannot give us gravity, that it is
>>incomplete. So I don't think we can conclude yet, that "hidden" variables
>>can be ruled out.
>
>What makes you conclude that QM cannot give us gravity?
I didn't conclude anything. I said:
>>I don't think we can conclude yet, that "hidden" variables
>>can be ruled out.
And meant that QM has not given us gravity. I don't know that it will or
will not.
>
>If anything, hidden variables have not given us QM, so it would be
>safer to conclude that hidden variables is a bankrupt theory, not QM.
What hidden variables? How do you know what you don't know?
Have you tried anything with topological quantum fields?
leste...@earthlink.net
reason we study them. Anyone who asserts that particles are non deterministic
in nature as a principle cannot know this: it is simply an assumption. To
know such a thing one would have to know why in mechanical terms, which would
be equivalent to knowing the structural reasons causing indeterminism.
Regards - Lester
david fass <df...@mathworks.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> Consider the following quote from chapter 4 of Quine's "The Web of
> Belief":
>
> "Another limiting principle to view warily is 'Every event has a
> cause.' As a philosopher's maxim it may seem safe enough if the
> philosopher is willing to guide it around recalcitrant facts. But
> this principle, in the face of quantum theory, needs extensive
> guiding. Physicists tell us that individual electrons and other
> elementary particles do not conform in their behavior to rigidly
> determinate laws. A radioactive substance emits its particles at
> random; it is impossible not only in practice but in principle to say
> just which of its particles will be the next to depart, or just when."
>
> My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
> the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
> nondeterministic. Isn't it possible that we simply don't currently
> understand the mechanism driving particle behavior? Why are we so
> sure that there is *no* underlying mechanism?
>
> Thanks for any answers.
>
> -- Dave
>
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
R. Knauer
Urban) wrote:
>Actually, all I have to do is produce a counterexample -- a deterministic
>theory that produces the same results when it comes to radioactive decay.
If it can outperform orthodox QM, then best get your tux ready for the
trip to Stockholm.
>I should first point out that no physical theory can be proven; all
>you can do is demonstrate that the theory is consistent with all known
>experiments to within experimental error.
You seem to be ruling out inductive theories, for example the
inductive theory that all electrons in the Universe have the same
electric charge and magnetic moment. If they don't, then a lot of
astromomers are in a heap of trouble.
>But that aside, you're missing the point of hidden-variables theories,
>in which things that _seem_ like they're non-deterministic are actually
>deterministic,
Spontaneous radioactive decay is governed by second order perturbation
theory which produces a Lorentzian energy spectrum whose Fourier
transform to the time domain is a simple exponential, which results in
a constant per unit time probability for a decay transition.
A constant per unit time probability is the essence of a true random
process, namely the decay for any given nucleus can happen any time
with equal probability. The Lorentzian line shape has been directly
observed experimentally in the Mossbauer Effect and so has the
exponential in time. That puts the theory on solid experimental
ground.
>they just look non-deterministic because we don't have
>full knowledge of the internal state of the system.
But you can never have full knowledge of the internal state of the
system, because it changes as a result of being measured, even for
hidden variable theories. That leave the question of what value would
a hidden variable theory have, even conceptually?
How can one talk about the deterministic behavior of a system that one
can never know anything about - a system that changes each time you
try to know something about it? How can that be modeled
deterministically?
> Simply observing
>random-seeming results as in radioactive decay is insufficient to rule
>out the possibility that there is a hidden-variables theory at work.
I do not believe I ever claimed it was. My claim is that after nearly
a full century of investigation by the brightest minds in physics,
from de Broglie who first proposed hidden variables to the present
time, no one has formulated a hidden variable theory that can be
considered a serious competitor to orthodox QM.
The inescapable conclusion is that God indeed does play dice with the
universe, and it's a good thing He does too - because as Heinz Pagels
points out, a universe with randomness at its base is the most robust
universe possible.
>Something like Bell's theorem in conjunction with Aspect's experiment
>_is_ sufficient to rule out hidden-variables theories (assuming that the
>other conditions of the theorem hold). That's why Aspect's experiment
>needed to be done.
Yet there are still some questions about that:
http://www.desy.de/user/projects/Physics/bells_inequality.html
Hey - where's that counterexample you promised me -- "a deterministic
theory that produces the same results when it comes to radioactive
decay". I really would like to see that.
I suppose you could rig up a really good pseudorandom number generator
and fake me out with a simulation, but that's not fair.
You have to come up with a real physical model for the spontaneous
decay process, one based on a deterministic interaction of nuclear
particles with the electromagnetic field (for the case of gamma
decay).
Please hurry - I am too excited for words to wait much longer.
R. Knauer
<ja...@martinelli.org> wrote:
>And meant that QM has not given us gravity. I don't know that it will or
>will not.
Then why even bring it up?
I know you are trying to make a point, but I don't know exactly what
it is. The fact that QM has yet to give us gravity is certainly not
prima facie evidence that QM is invalid.
>How do you know what you don't know?
I know that I don't know. And I don't know any about hidden variable
theory in strong contention with orthodox QM.
>Have you tried anything with topological quantum fields?
Nope. What are they?
R. Knauer
>Bob, ...good comment!
Thanks for the kind statement.
Now the question is: "Is it really true"? It sure seems to be true
based on nearly a century of experimental observation. Nothing has
been observed that circumvents orthodox QM, not even quantum
entanglement.
There are some new approaches to QM in the area of the Physics Of
Information which might shed light on why QM acts the way it does. But
I suspect that the intrinsic unknowabilty of quantum processes is a
permanent feature of the material world.
Unknowability is cropping up all over the place. First there was
Godel's Theorem, then Turing's Halting Problem, and now there is
Chaitin Indeterminancy - and in arithmetic of all places!
As I mentioned earlier, the mystery is not so much the indeterminancy
of the quantum world, but the determinancy of the classical world. I
suspect that classical determinism is just an illusion. For example, a
classical particle moving along a classical trajectory must pass thru
an infinite number of locations, each differing by an infinitesimal
amount.
Most of those locations cannot even be calculated since they belong to
the set of uncomputable numbers that Turing discovered. Yet we are to
believe that the classical particle passes thru all those uncomputable
locations in a manner which we can determine algorithmically.
Even classical theory has its indeterminancy in terms of computation.
R. Knauer
>Of course, particles have a definite deterministic structure. That's the only
>reason we study them.
Particles do not have any structure we know about. All we can do is
model the effects of their interactions. We don't even know if there
are such things as actual particles. What we call particles could be
dense concentrations of waves at particular locations.
I believe it was Cerf & Adami who claimed that only the wave theory of
matter is valid and the particle theory was invalid. If that is so,
then wave-particle duality is an illusion.
The non-locality of quantum entanglement seems to point in the
direction of a wave theory and away from a particle theory, since for
a particle theory you would seem to need super-luminal communication
whereas for a wave theory only the wave packet needs to obey
relativity constraints.
>Anyone who asserts that particles are non deterministic
>in nature as a principle cannot know this: it is simply an assumption.
I do not believe that people are claiming that particles themselves
are nondeterministic (whatever that means). I believe that people are
claiming that the processes we measure are nondeterministic.
Radioactive decay is not a particle - it is a process. The fact that
it is intrinsically unknowable in terms of when a particular nucleus
will decay is what is meant by the indeterminancy of that process.
>To know such a thing one would have to know why in mechanical terms, which would
>be equivalent to knowing the structural reasons causing indeterminism.
What reason is there for having to know something in mechanical terms?
I can know that radioactive decay is random without knowing the
details of the mechanism producing it. For example, I can measure the
Mossbauer Effect energy spectrum and see that it fits a Lorentzian
line shape. From that I can infer a simple exponential decay process
in the time domain, which implies that the probabilty for decay is
flat over time. That is the essence of randomness and it is confirmed
experimentally to great precision.
Bjoern Brembs
> I can know that radioactive decay is random without knowing the
> details of the mechanism producing it. For example, I can measure the
> Mossbauer Effect energy spectrum and see that it fits a Lorentzian
> line shape. From that I can infer a simple exponential decay process
> in the time domain, which implies that the probabilty for decay is
> flat over time. That is the essence of randomness and it is confirmed
> experimentally to great precision.
That's what I tried to say in my first post to this thread. Why does it sound so much
better the way you put it ? :-)
Just derive the equations yourself and you'll see that non-determinism is the only
reasonable explanation.
Bjoern
R. Knauer
wrote:
>"R. Knauer" wrote:
>> I can know that radioactive decay is random without knowing the
>> details of the mechanism producing it. For example, I can measure the
>> Mossbauer Effect energy spectrum and see that it fits a Lorentzian
>> line shape. From that I can infer a simple exponential decay process
>> in the time domain, which implies that the probabilty for decay is
>> flat over time. That is the essence of randomness and it is confirmed
>> experimentally to great precision.
>That's what I tried to say in my first post to this thread. Why does it sound so much
>better the way you put it ? :-)
Thank you for the compliment. <blush>
When you visit Houston, I will buy you a beer.
>Just derive the equations yourself and you'll see that non-determinism is the only
>reasonable explanation.
So fundamentally true, isn't it.
Look at Godel and his Incompleteness Theorem, which shocked the
mathematical world. Herman Weil suffered from depression as a result.
Then came Turing and his Halting Problem and uncomputable numbers.
Then comes Greg Chaitin recently, who has added more fuel to the fire
with his Algorithmic Indeterminancy. Even arithmetic is indeterminant
- the stuff of " 1 + 1 = 2 " is indeterminant.
I have to say it again: I am mystifed that the classical world works
at all. Reality is intrinsically nondeterministic. Classical
determinism is an illusion of incredible proportion, right there along
with the illusion of Platonic Idealism and all of its offshoots, Kant
et al.
There is no such thing as a Perfect Circle, not just because matter
cannot be gathered precisely on the locus of all points equidistant
from one point, but because those points cannot even be calculated for
the most part.
As Billingsley says in his book on Probability and Measure, the number
of points that can be so measured is "Negligible". Therefore the
definition of a Perfect Circle is based on a Negligible number of
points. It is therefore an illusion - a handy illusion when it comes
time to build a wheel, but one without any substance. We are clearly
being deceived.
God throws dice alright, and that results in the most Robust Universe
possible. Not the Best Uninverse, but the one where anything can
happen that is consistent with Reality. To borrow an expression from
the philospher Archie Bunker, that's your "Basic Universe".
Any other universe, and we would not be here because we are creatures
of indeterminism. We are creatures who can survive, as a species,
under the extreme condition of raw contingent existence. No patty
cakes for us - we are a race of survivors under the exigency of being.
We can be - and in fact, we are. That takes a Robust Universe to
happen. The Best Universe would have no place for us. We could not
exist in the Best Universe. Only God can exist in the Best Universe.
Determinism is a genetic defect that will be removed from the gene
pool in the next major paradigm shift of human existence, which is
underway now. But the result will not be godless collectivism (which
is tyranny in disguise) - it will be the awakening of the intrinsic
interdependency of humanity.
Call it: "Quantum Human Entanglement". After all, our brains are
quantum devices, and that is how we are linked to one another,
although it is not apparent to everyone.
Every evil act performed by each of us affects all of us - we are
entangled in that sense - probabilistically entangled. If I perform an
evil act it has repercussions, and so do any evil acts that you
perform. They affect me.
Evil is the lack of good, therefore failing to promote the good - the
Truth - is the consummate evil act. We sin by failing to promote the
Truth. That is all God can ask of us - to promote the Truth, and if we
fail to do it, we sin.
Maybe now that we have the Internet, we can seek our redemption by
promoting the Truth. God does not forsake his creatures. We are now
Internet Enabled.
I leave you with a quote from the author of Dune. I do not completely
agree with him, but then life is not Perfect, eh. But I do agree with
him enough to present it for the record of my existence.
Bob Knauer
+++++
From Appendix II: The Religion of Dune.
When the councils of the universe attempted to consolidate their
religious systems, they promulgated this statement:
"All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and
honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's
universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of
Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.
"Much that was called religion has carried an unconsicous attitude of
hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled
with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is
empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and
rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease.
You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that
sensation which tells you this is something you've always known."
That statement caused a hostile reaction among the various nations,
which led to this comment by the chief religious leader:
"We should not have created new symbols. We should've realized we
weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that
we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are daily
confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we
permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more
conforming and oppressive. What is this shadow across the highway of
Divine Command? It is a warning that institutions endure, that symbols
endure when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all
attainable knowledge.
"Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themsleves, 'I
am not the kind of person I want to be'. It must never sink into an
assemblage of the self-satisfied."
+++++
Jacques M. Mallah
It depends which interprtation of QM you favor. See 'interpretation of
QM' on my web site.
- - - - - - -
Jacques Mallah (jqm...@is2.nyu.edu)
Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
R. Knauer
Mallah) wrote:
> Some scientists (e.g. me) are rather certain about determinism.
>It depends which interprtation of QM you favor. See 'interpretation of
>QM' on my web site.
You discuss "computationalism", yet even in mathematics there is
indeterminancy.
Bob Knauer
Bjoern Brembs
> When you visit Houston, I will buy you a beer.
That might actually happen this year...
> I have to say it again: I am mystifed that the classical world works
> at all. Reality is intrinsically nondeterministic. Classical
> determinism is an illusion of incredible proportion, right there along
> with the illusion of Platonic Idealism and all of its offshoots, Kant
> et al.
<snip>
> We are clearly being deceived.
You might want to read
Denniston, Miller, Matute (1996): Biological significance as a determinant of cue
competition. Psychological Science 7(6): 325-331
and references therein, whom I quoted in my first post to this thread. It might give you
some insight on just why we want to see things causal and deterministic. Why thinking
deterministically works is rather easy: the statistical law of large numbers.
Indeterminism is something that only becomes strikingly clear on a level where it would
never become evolutionary important to take indeterminism into account. That's why we have
to think causally and deterministically. It's astonishing Kant noticed that restraint
already 200 years ago!
<snip>
> Any other universe, and we would not be here because we are creatures
> of indeterminism. We are creatures who can survive, as a species,
> under the extreme condition of raw contingent existence. No patty
> cakes for us - we are a race of survivors under the exigency of being.
And apparently it paid to think deterministically in this exigency.
<snip>
> Determinism is a genetic defect that will be removed from the gene
> pool in the next major paradigm shift of human existence, which is
> underway now. But the result will not be godless collectivism (which
> is tyranny in disguise) - it will be the awakening of the intrinsic
> interdependency of humanity.
That is a bold prediction! (indeed a very reckless prediction for an indeterminist, I
might add :-)
<snip>
> Every evil act performed by each of us affects all of us - we are
> entangled in that sense - probabilistically entangled. If I perform an
> evil act it has repercussions, and so do any evil acts that you
> perform. They affect me.
>
> Evil is the lack of good, therefore failing to promote the good - the
> Truth - is the consummate evil act. We sin by failing to promote the
> Truth. That is all God can ask of us - to promote the Truth, and if we
> fail to do it, we sin.
<huge snip>
Do you mean scientific or religious truth? Or any other? Which truth do you mean? Isn't
truth a matter of convention?
And as for good and evil: what is that? How do you define that? Isn't that something
rather fuzzy and relative as well?
Are you sure you're not blending science and religion together? I don't think you'll be
getting very far if you do.
Bjoern
http://brembs.net
R. Knauer
wrote:
>That might actually happen this year...
That's a rather nondeterministic statement. :-)
>You might want to read
>Denniston, Miller, Matute (1996): Biological significance as a determinant of cue
>competition. Psychological Science 7(6): 325-331
>and references therein, whom I quoted in my first post to this thread. It might give you
>some insight on just why we want to see things causal and deterministic. Why thinking
>deterministically works is rather easy: the statistical law of large numbers.
Speaking of numbers, how about the fact that monkeys can learn how to
think mathematically, at least in terms of arithmetic. You can easily
imagine the tremendous survival advantage to being able to reason
mathematically, even if it is only to be able to do primitive
arithmetic. If a monkey sees 5 predators go into a cave and then sees
only 4 of them come out at various times, it knows that there is still
one in there. That comes in real handy when deciding whether to go
into the cave or not.
>Indeterminism is something that only becomes strikingly clear on a level where it would
>never become evolutionary important to take indeterminism into account. That's why we have
>to think causally and deterministically. It's astonishing Kant noticed that restraint
>already 200 years ago!
Nondeterminism is handy too - to provide solutions to problems that do
not admit a deterministic solution. Early man had to have benefitted
from nondeterministic hunches - those moments of lucidity that defy
deterministic explanation. We tend to hide such behavior under the
guise of "instinct", but that cannot be the only explanation.
A particular man's decision to mate a particiular female is not based
on any instinct - it is based on a nondeterministic hunch that such
activity will be beneficial. When we say that beauty is in the eye of
the beholder, we are saying that each person judges beauty
nondeterministically - that there is no deterministic reason for it.
There is a theory advanced in "Physics from Fisher Information : A
Unification" by B. Roy Frieden. I have not read it since it has not
made it to the libraries yet. Here is the description from
amazon.com:
"This book contains a development of most known physics from a
unifying principle of information extremization. The principle states
that when knowledge is sought by a person, the act of seeking creates
for that observer the physical law that gives rise to the knowledge.
For example, in making a measurement of position, the observer locally
creates quantum mechanics--the physical law that gives rise to such a
measurement. In this way, man creates his own local reality. For
observations that do not involve time directly, the act of seeking
such knowledge amounts to a game of information hoarding between the
observer and nature. The payoff of the game is the law of physics in
question. "
That sounds a lot like Idealism to me. Western scientists are forced
by professional integrity to reject any worldview that is different
from Realism - at least while they are acting as physical scientists -
so the notion that we create our own local reality based on how we
measure that reality is not going to hold well with western
scientists.
>Do you mean scientific or religious truth? Or any other? Which truth do you mean? Isn't
>truth a matter of convention?
Truth is the expression of that which is. What difference does it make
how it is acquired?
If you claim that truth is only valid when it is acquired by
scientific deduction, then I would remind you of Godel's
Incompleteness in formal axiomatic systems. What do you do about truth
that cannot be acquired by deduction? Are the Godel propositions not
truth just because they cannot be deduced formally?
There are truths peculiar to science, and truths peculiar to religion.
I am not in a position to decide which kind of truth is a priori
better without engaging in philosophical critique, which itself
depends crucially on which worldview one adopts.
>And as for good and evil: what is that? How do you define that? Isn't that something
>rather fuzzy and relative as well?
Sane people know that murder is evil because they themselves do not
want to be murdered. If someone comes up to you and says that murder
is good, you would then ask if it is OK for you to murder him, and he
would say that it is not, if he is sane. Therefore he knows that
murder is not good after all.
If, on the other hand, that person said that it would be OK for you to
murder him, you would have every justification to declare that he is
insane - because sane people do not invite others to murder them.
Therefore we conclude that there is an absolute character to the
sanction against murder, one that is almost universally recognized by
mankind, which has as its underpinnings the denial of human life. Life
is the thing that is good, and murder is evil because it is an act
which causes lack of that good.
>Are you sure you're not blending science and religion together? I don't think you'll be
>getting very far if you do.
Define "getting very far". If anything, it is physical science that
can only get so far.
And science has a lot of room to criticize religion at the
metaphysical level, what with its half-alive, half-dead cats and
mysterious forces like gravity which have alluded description on a
first principles basis for centuries.
To listen to western scientists when they attempt metaphysics is not
any different from listening to an ashram full of eastern mystics. At
least the mystics burn incense to hide the odor of their nonsense.
Bob Knauer
Nathan Urban
> On 24 Apr 1999 11:29:20 -0400, nur...@crib.corepower.com (Nathan
> Urban) wrote:
> >Actually, all I have to do is produce a counterexample -- a deterministic
> >theory that produces the same results when it comes to radioactive decay.
> If it can outperform orthodox QM, then best get your tux ready for the
> trip to Stockholm.
Um, that's precisely what hidden-variables QM does. Radioactive decay
doesn't fully test Bell's inequalities; it it did, then Aspect's
experiments would have been unnecessary.
> >I should first point out that no physical theory can be proven; all
> >you can do is demonstrate that the theory is consistent with all known
> >experiments to within experimental error.
> You seem to be ruling out inductive theories, for example the
> inductive theory that all electrons in the Universe have the same
> electric charge and magnetic moment. If they don't, then a lot of
> astromomers are in a heap of trouble.
Inductive generalizations like that are not provable. We don't KNOW that
every electron in the universe has the same charge and magnetic moment.
Thus, we cannot PROVE that theory correct. As I said, all we can do
is state that it is consistent with all known experiments to within
experimental error.
> >But that aside, you're missing the point of hidden-variables theories,
> >in which things that _seem_ like they're non-deterministic are actually
> >deterministic, they just look non-deterministic because we don't have
> >full knowledge of the internal state of the system.
> But you can never have full knowledge of the internal state of the
> system, because it changes as a result of being measured, even for
> hidden variable theories. That leave the question of what value would
> a hidden variable theory have, even conceptually?
I'm not talking about the metaphysical attractiveness of hidden-variables
theories, I am pointing out that they are intrinsically deterministic
theories that replicate a lot of results that would appear
non-deterministic to us. Yes, the variables are hidden, we have no
way of knowing what's going on internally, yet that doesn't mean that
a universe can't be described by such a theory or that such a universe
is not deterministic.
> >Simply observing
> >random-seeming results as in radioactive decay is insufficient to rule
> >out the possibility that there is a hidden-variables theory at work.
> I do not believe I ever claimed it was. My claim is that after nearly
> a full century of investigation by the brightest minds in physics,
> from de Broglie who first proposed hidden variables to the present
> time, no one has formulated a hidden variable theory that can be
> considered a serious competitor to orthodox QM.
No, what you claimed was that radioactive decay alone is sufficient to
prove that the universe is non-deterministic. And I said that you have
to go beyond that in order to rule out all deterministic hidden-variables
theories.
Bjoern Brembs
> A particular man's decision to mate a particiular female is not based
> on any instinct - it is based on a nondeterministic hunch that such
> activity will be beneficial. When we say that beauty is in the eye of
> the beholder, we are saying that each person judges beauty
> nondeterministically - that there is no deterministic reason for it.
Excellent point!
At our department we are developing a behavioral theory (or rather brain theory) which is based
on non-determinism and initial activity of the brain. You might want some references on the
more scientific part of the non-deterministic brain?
> That sounds a lot like Idealism to me. Western scientists are forced
> by professional integrity to reject any worldview that is different
> from Realism - at least while they are acting as physical scientists -
> so the notion that we create our own local reality based on how we
> measure that reality is not going to hold well with western
> scientists.
I think naive realism is a good working hypothesis as long as you can stick to it. Once you
consider the basis of your knowledge or find serious contradictions to the objectivist/realist
credo, you might find solipsistic or constructivistic ideas more satisfying. Pragmatism
sometimes damands relative viewpoints and attitudes :-)
> >Do you mean scientific or religious truth? Or any other? Which truth do you mean? Isn't
> >truth a matter of convention?
>
> Truth is the expression of that which is. What difference does it make
> how it is acquired?
I think it is easier to define truth as it is commonly defined: the accordance of a statement
with its fact. In that way you just have to agree upon when you call a phenomenon a fact.
Whether any statement you make is in accordance with any fact can then easily be found out.
If you agree with that, you'll see that the way you observe a phenomenon is of outmost
importance when you have to agree with others upon it being a fact or not. It even becomes
important what you define a phenomenon and whether it necessarily has to be observable at all.
> If you claim that truth is only valid when it is acquired by
> scientific deduction,
I'd never deify science! It's just that there are religious truths, scientific truths,
cultural, social and god-knows-what-else truths. Which of them one likes/believes more is
probably often a matter of taste.
> There are truths peculiar to science, and truths peculiar to religion.
That's what I say.
> I am not in a position to decide which kind of truth is a priori
> better without engaging in philosophical critique, which itself
> depends crucially on which worldview one adopts.
Agreed. See above.
> Sane people know that murder is evil because they themselves do not
> want to be murdered. If someone comes up to you and says that murder
> is good, you would then ask if it is OK for you to murder him, and he
> would say that it is not, if he is sane. Therefore he knows that
> murder is not good after all.
How evil is murdering you or me as opposed to murdering, say, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam,
Milosevic etc.? Is it always either good or evil? Or are there things inbetween. If so, how do
you measure evil?
> Life is the thing that is good, and murder is evil because it is an act
> which causes lack of that good.
That's one good definition. It wasn't always defined like that, nor is it likely that all agree
upon it (though I would wish that), nor is it likely that it will receive wide-spread
acceptance in the future. Don't you think good and evil are rather relative things and one
(among many) purposes religion serves is to slow down any change that is inevitably to occur
due to the concept's relativity?
> Define "getting very far". If anything, it is physical science that
> can only get so far.
Getting far in terms of arguing for your worldview. I think you'll start having deep problems
in constructing a logical reality/worldview inside your head once you start using the same
terminology and definitions for areas of knowledge that are intrinsically different.
> To listen to western scientists when they attempt metaphysics is not
> any different from listening to an ashram full of eastern mystics. At
> least the mystics burn incense to hide the odor of their nonsense.
True. Good point! :-)
If I'd be a mysticist I'd probably say scientists hide in peer-review to obscure the
subjectivity of their nonsense :-) If I said it as the scientist I claim to be I'd probably get
fired :-)
Björn
R. Knauer
wrote:
>At our department we are developing a behavioral theory (or rather brain theory) which is based
>on non-determinism and initial activity of the brain. You might want some references on the
>more scientific part of the non-deterministic brain?
If they are web-based, please pass them along.
About 30 years ago I read a book by Stephen Rose at Trinity College in
England called "The Conscious Brain". In the book, he discussed the
suggestion that the brain was a quantum mechanical device, but dropped
it supposedly because the brain is a macroscopic object subject only
to the laws of classical physics. I did not buy into that because as
someone who published in the area of solid state physics, I was well
aware of bulk quantum effects.
Fast forward to the 1990s and Roger Penrose puts out his book on
"Correct Quantum Gravity", wherein he argues that the brain is a
quantum device. Never mind that he went into the weeds with his
microtubules, the basic notions are still intact.
From there I began wondering what advantage the brain would have if it
operated on the basis of quantum indeterminancy. The general (vague)
answer is that it can solve certain problems that cannot be solved
deterministically, at least not in polynomial time. This is discussed
in Williams & Clearwater's book on quantum computing. To see the
relationship of indeterminancy in arithmetic, see Greg Chaitin's work:
http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/
So now I maintain the (highly speculative) position that the brain is
a quantum device capable of nondeterministic operation and that is why
humans can, among other things, engage in the kinds of mental activity
that cannot be formally characterized as deterministic, such as
intuition.
>I think naive realism is a good working hypothesis as long as you can stick to it. Once you
>consider the basis of your knowledge or find serious contradictions to the objectivist/realist
>credo, you might find solipsistic or constructivistic ideas more satisfying. Pragmatism
>sometimes damands relative viewpoints and attitudes :-)
As an erstwhile practicing physicist I could never adopt any worldview
other than Realism. In fact, I am convinced that if you adopt any
other worldview, you will be forced to conclude that the world does
not exist.
>If you agree with that, you'll see that the way you observe a phenomenon is of outmost
>importance when you have to agree with others upon it being a fact or not. It even becomes
>important what you define a phenomenon and whether it necessarily has to be observable at all.
That kind of thinking would not get very far in physics. If I tried to
publish an article that claimed that the experimental results I am
presenting depend on my point of view, I do not think it would get
published.
Idealism-based worldviews like Phenomenology are not the kind of
epistemologies that work in physics. Physics is inherently a
Realism-based science.
>How evil is murdering you or me as opposed to murdering, say, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam,
>Milosevic etc.? Is it always either good or evil? Or are there things inbetween.
Who said that killing these tyrants is murder? Or if you definition of
murder is overly broad, then call what I have been calling murder
"unjustified murder".
>If so, how do you measure evil?
You measure evil metaphysically by the lack of good.
>That's one good definition. It wasn't always defined like that, nor is it likely that all agree
>upon it (though I would wish that), nor is it likely that it will receive wide-spread
>acceptance in the future.
Perhaps, but most sane people know what murder is.
>Don't you think good and evil are rather relative things and one
>(among many) purposes religion serves is to slow down any change that is inevitably to occur
>due to the concept's relativity?
I do not believe that metaphysical good is relative. As a Realist, I
am forced by reason to accept the existence of a Supreme Being which
is the embodiment of all that is good. That posits an absolute
standard against which to measure good metaphysically.
For example, we human beings get our existence from the Supreme Being,
since we cannot have existence as part of our essence. Therefore, any
act which illegitimately removes existence from a human being (which
we call a murderous act) is an evil act in an absolute sense.
>Getting far in terms of arguing for your worldview. I think you'll start having deep problems
>in constructing a logical reality/worldview inside your head once you start using the same
>terminology and definitions for areas of knowledge that are intrinsically different.
I would not attempt to construct a worldview in my head - the entire
notion is completely foreign to Realism. I reject such a project as
having no ontological value - just some mind game people play for
amusement or to sit around a university at taxpayer expense.
>If I'd be a mysticist I'd probably say scientists hide in peer-review to obscure the
>subjectivity of their nonsense :-)
There sure is an awful lot of pure crap floating around out there, eh.
That's what happens when physical scientists attempt to become
metaphysicians with no formal training in the subject. Most of them
wouldn't know Aristitole if he hit them straight over the head with
his "Metaphysics".
And I am certain most scientists don't know the first thing about the
other Realist philosophers like Averroes, Avicenna, Albertus Magnus,
Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, et al - yet they depend on them and
Aristotle for the philosophical basis of their epistemology. Some have
heard of William of Occam, who was also a Realist philosopher but that
is about it.
One of the biggest farces of 20th century science has been physical
scientists attempting to practice metaphysics. The only other thing
that could be more ridiculous would be if they skated their way thru
an original rendition of the Ring Operas On Ice - with Edwin
Schrodinger as Seigfried, Neils Bohr as Wotan and Marie Currie as
Brunhilda. Die Gotterdammerung would end with the 1928 Solvay
Conference in Valhala on the banks of the Rhine.
There was even a recent lampoon of that which really pissed off some
overblown egos in the halls of establishment science.
>If I said it as the scientist I claim to be I'd probably get fired :-)
Then quit being a scientist so you can be free to discover the truth.
R. Knauer
Urban) wrote:
>No, what you claimed was that radioactive decay alone is sufficient to
>prove that the universe is non-deterministic.
I don't believe I went that far. But if it works for you, it works for
me.
>And I said that you have
>to go beyond that in order to rule out all deterministic hidden-variables
>theories.
Hey - where's that deterministic model of radioactive decay you
promised us?
Nathan Urban
> On 25 Apr 1999 13:01:24 -0400, nur...@crib.corepower.com (Nathan
> Urban) wrote:
> >No, what you claimed was that radioactive decay alone is sufficient to
> >prove that the universe is non-deterministic.
> I don't believe I went that far.
What a convenient memory lapse. The original question was,
"Do we have proof that [the behavior of elementary particles] is
non-deterministic?" to which you replied, "Yes. For example, the time
of decay of a radioisotope is completely nondeterministic." Which is
obviously false in a deterministic theory.
> >And I said that you have
> >to go beyond that in order to rule out all deterministic hidden-variables
> >theories.
> Hey - where's that deterministic model of radioactive decay you promised us?
How many times do I have to repeat myself? This is precisely what
hidden-variables theories were designed to do. e.g., Bohmian quantum
mechanics.
Bjoern Brembs
> >You might want some references on the
> >more scientific part of the non-deterministic brain?
>
> If they are web-based, please pass them along.
Only one so far (and that one only implicitly deals with the idea).
http://www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/genetics/behavior/learning/opactiv.html
The ones dealing explicitly with initial activity are on paper.
> http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/
That was an interesting resource!
> As an erstwhile practicing physicist I could never adopt any worldview
> other than Realism. In fact, I am convinced that if you adopt any
> other worldview, you will be forced to conclude that the world does
> not exist.
Maybe. If you admit that the existence of reality is an hypothesis (please prove the contrary :-),
you'll also have to admit that we can not decide whether there is a reality or not. Thus, assuming
there is no reality is just as religious a belief as naively stating there is such a thing.
Nevertheless, it has proven rather practicable to stick to the idea that reality exists. It has also
proven quite practical to use Newtonian physics.
> That kind of thinking would not get very far in physics. If I tried to
> publish an article that claimed that the experimental results I am
> presenting depend on my point of view, I do not think it would get
> published.
Well, whether a "piece of energy" is a wave or a particle depends strongly on your perspective :-)
But that's not what I mean. I mean in every science you have different definitions of truth. In
mathematics you can prove statements. In the natural sciences you can only falsify statements. In
the natural sciences, you agree upon reproducibility as the prime criterion for truth, in English
law, they decree that truth is what a jury unanimously agrees with, and is agreed to by subsequent
jurists and in katholic theology they agree that what the pope says is true. So from a
meta-perspective (after all, we're in alt.philosophy.meta) truth is in the eye of the scientist. Of
course _within_ each science, you have to homogeneously stick to one truth.
> Who said that killing these tyrants is murder? Or if you definition of
> murder is overly broad, then call what I have been calling murder
> "unjustified murder".
But that only shifts the discussion one level! I referred to murder as a behavior, namely to kill
another person. Ethics can only value behaviors, acts. If you name the same behavior (e.g. killing a
person) differently, you only shift the discussion and make it more complicated. If you say "don't
murder" you have to argue what murder is. If you say "don't take anybody's life" you leave out one
level of complexity and thus reduce the object in question to its essence.
> Perhaps, but most sane people know what murder is.
Well, you have seen that I thought of murder as killing somebody. I included kiling tyrants (in
German the technical term for killing tyrants is "Tyrannenmord").
> I do not believe that metaphysical good is relative. As a Realist, I
> am forced by reason to accept the existence of a Supreme Being which
> is the embodiment of all that is good.
In practical terms, I call myself a realist, too, but I do not feel forced to believe the way you
do. But that is another thread.
> That posits an absolute
> standard against which to measure good metaphysically.
> For example, we human beings get our existence from the Supreme Being,
I got my existence from my parents, and those from their ancestors and those from amoebas and those
from RNA's and those from early earth and it from the big bang (or something like that, eventually).
If you argue that way, you are not allowed to kill any living thing. I think Mahatma Ghandi argued
that way. We constantly sin by living.
> since we cannot have existence as part of our essence. Therefore, any
> act which illegitimately removes existence from a human being (which
> we call a murderous act) is an evil act in an absolute sense.
So everything culminates in the word illegitimately. So you shift the discussion from discussing
behavioral acts to whether they are legitimate or not. Very well. Shift my arguments to the same
level. They do not lose any of their plausibility.
> I would not attempt to construct a worldview in my head - the entire
> notion is completely foreign to Realism. I reject such a project as
> having no ontological value - just some mind game people play for
> amusement or to sit around a university at taxpayer expense.
If you are doing brain research, there might be a heuristical value in constructivism (especiall if
you're working with animals): maybe our idea of a
representation of an outside world is not at all manifested in the brain, since
a representation is not required. The brain was made to survive, not to
represent an outside world. You may argue that an organism will only survive if
it correctly represents the outside world, but sensory illusions prove the
contrary. Moreover, it might well be that an organism survives pretty well
without proper representation. All it needs is a behavioral repertoire that
generates the right behavior in the right state of sensory input (i.e.
circumstances).
Thus, what we call reality when we talk about what constitutes a construct from our sensory input
woven together by some logic might well not be what you (or me) think it is.
If you do not recognize this, you might end up in dead ends or looking for things that just aren't
there.
Was I clear?
> That's what happens when physical scientists attempt to become
> metaphysicians with no formal training in the subject. Most of them
> wouldn't know Aristitole if he hit them straight over the head with
> his "Metaphysics".
:-)
> And I am certain most scientists don't know the first thing about the
> other Realist philosophers like Averroes, Avicenna, Albertus Magnus,
> Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, et al - yet they depend on them and
> Aristotle for the philosophical basis of their epistemology. Some have
> heard of William of Occam, who was also a Realist philosopher but that
> is about it.
I admit I've only read about 50% of them :-)
> One of the biggest farces of 20th century science has been physical
> scientists attempting to practice metaphysics. The only other thing
> that could be more ridiculous would be if they skated their way thru
> an original rendition of the Ring Operas On Ice - with Edwin
> Schrodinger as Seigfried, Neils Bohr as Wotan and Marie Currie as
> Brunhilda. Die Gotterdammerung would end with the 1928 Solvay
> Conference in Valhala on the banks of the Rhine.
:-) You do have a good sense of satire and polemics! :-) Don't waste it! Use it!
I tend to deem it rather sad that ingenious thinkers like outstanding physicists do not take the
time to look up what others have thought before them. They couldn't survive in physics if they did
that in their fields.
> >If I said it as the scientist I claim to be I'd probably get fired :-)
>
> Then quit being a scientist so you can be free to discover the truth.
But the scientific truth is one of the truths I like most (personal preference). Clost second is
Mathematics, but I'm so poor in mathematics. :-)
Bjoern
Raja
>
> In article <3721cc8b...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, rckt...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>
> > On 23 Apr 1999 22:31:30 -0400, nur...@crib.corepower.com (Nathan Urban) wrote:
>
> > >That's not a proof. It doesn't even rule out hidden-variables theories.
>
> > Then you are going to have to tell us what constitutes "proof" for you.
>
> theory that produces the same results when it comes to radioactive decay.
>
> you can do is demonstrate that the theory is consistent with all known
> experiments to within experimental error.
>
> in which things that _seem_ like they're non-deterministic are actually
> deterministic, they just look non-deterministic because we don't have
> full knowledge of the internal state of the system.
With out full knowledge how can you make absolute statements??
Simply observing
> random-seeming
random-seeming or random?
results as in radioactive decay is insufficient to rule
> out the possibility that there is a hidden-variables theory at work.
> Something like Bell's theorem in conjunction with Aspect's experiment
> _is_ sufficient to rule out hidden-variables theories (assuming that the
> other conditions of the theorem hold).
Assuming dosen't sound absolute!
Nathan Urban
> Nathan Urban wrote:
> > But that aside, you're missing the point of hidden-variables theories,
> > in which things that _seem_ like they're non-deterministic are actually
> > deterministic, they just look non-deterministic because we don't have
> > full knowledge of the internal state of the system.
> With out full knowledge how can you make absolute statements??
I'm not making an absolute staement. I am saying that there exist
completely deterministic theories whose observational results can mimic
those of non-deterministic theories.
> > Simply observing random-seeming
> random-seeming or random?
How can you tell the difference between "truly random" and "seemingly
random"? Maybe it's not random, and you just don't know everything
about the system.
> > Something like Bell's theorem in conjunction with Aspect's experiment
> > _is_ sufficient to rule out hidden-variables theories (assuming that the
> > other conditions of the theorem hold).
> Assuming dosen't sound absolute!
Would you _please_ point out to me the place where I said anything about
"absolute"??
david fass
be understood by a non-scientist?
-- Dave
Nathan Urban wrote:
> In article <3721cc8b...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, rckt...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>
> > On 23 Apr 1999 22:31:30 -0400, nur...@crib.corepower.com (Nathan Urban) wrote:
>
> > >That's not a proof. It doesn't even rule out hidden-variables theories.
>
> > Then you are going to have to tell us what constitutes "proof" for you.
>
> Actually, all I have to do is produce a counterexample -- a deterministic
> theory that produces the same results when it comes to radioactive decay.
>
> I should first point out that no physical theory can be proven; all
> you can do is demonstrate that the theory is consistent with all known
> experiments to within experimental error.
>
> But that aside, you're missing the point of hidden-variables theories,
> in which things that _seem_ like they're non-deterministic are actually
> deterministic, they just look non-deterministic because we don't have
> full knowledge of the internal state of the system. Simply observing
> random-seeming results as in radioactive decay is insufficient to rule
> out the possibility that there is a hidden-variables theory at work.
> Something like Bell's theorem in conjunction with Aspect's experiment
> _is_ sufficient to rule out hidden-variables theories (assuming that the
> other conditions of the theorem hold). That's why Aspect's experiment
> needed to be done.
Nathan Urban
> Is there an overview of the Bell experiment (somewhere on the web, perhaps)
> that can be understood by a non-scientist?
Bell's theorem, or the Aspect (or related) experiments?
There's a discussion of the former (and a mention of the latter) in the
Physics FAQ:
http://www.corepower.com/~relfaq/bells_inequality.html
It does get into technical details, but I think you should be able to
get the gist of it.
R. Knauer
wrote:
>Only one so far (and that one only implicitly deals with the idea).
>http://www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/genetics/behavior/learning/opactiv.html
I will have a look at it.
I am not much of a psychologist type - I am still trying to figure out
the significance of the Milgram Experiments regarding the human
condition.
Until I come to grips with that, I will have to suspect that man in
general is a bloody lunatic.
>The ones dealing explicitly with initial activity are on paper.
How provincial - paper. :-)
>> http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/
>That was an interesting resource!
Yes, Chaitin is accessible. His concept of the "unknowable" in
mathematics is quite fascinating.
>Maybe. If you admit that the existence of reality is an hypothesis (please prove the contrary :-),
Define "existence" and define "reality" in metaphysical terms.
I am currently reading a book someone recommended here by Etienne
Gilson called "Being and Some Philosophers". He traces the
metaphysical notions of "being", "existence" and "essence" - the key
concepts of existential metaphysics - from Aristotle thru Aquinas and
the Scholastics and beyond to Descartes, Spinoza and Kant (I am not
finished so I do not know where he is going with the rest of the
book.)
As I read the book, I see the utter confusion over those terms. Nobody
can seem to agree on what they mean. Each distinct worldview is based
on yet another set of definitions. Even when the Scholastics attempted
to put out the ultimate metaphysics dictionary, they got them
confused.
Realism takes as self evident the existence of "things out there".
That is based on the "authority of the senses". If I cannot trust my
senses to report to my intellect the data of external reality, then I
am forced to lapse into mysticism, something a Western scientist is
unwilling to do if he is true to his profession.
From that epistemological foundation, the metaphysics of Realism can
be formulated, but it is littered with the corpses of vague
statements. You must be exceedingly careful what you mean by such
metaphysical concepts as "existence", "being", "essence", "actual",
"potential", "substance", "accident", etc.
For the "modern" philosophers, beginning with Descarte and Kant, such
metaphysical considerations are not wothwhile. Kant was so bold as to
declare the formal death of Scholastic metaphysics. So, instead they
embrace Idealism and you can see what results - an epistemology that
is based on things which exist only in the mind.
If you take that worldview to its logical conclusion, as Bertrand
Russell is reported to have done, you will be forced as he was to
conclude that the objective world does not exist as our senses report
it to our intellect.
That is completely unacceptable to a physicist. When I conduct an
experiment in the external world, I am learning about the properties
of real objects, not some illusion fabricated by my mind.
>you'll also have to admit that we can not decide whether there is a reality or not.
I would never give into a word game like that. That is the doublespeak
of Phenomenology, a form of Idealism.
>Thus, assuming
>there is no reality is just as religious a belief as naively stating there is such a thing.
There is nothing "naive" about accepting the reality of the external
world. If you do not accept the reality of the external world, then
the world does not exist, in which case you do not exist. Since I know
for certain that I exist, I must not fall prey to any worldview that
claims that external reality does not exist.
Notice that I am not saying what Descartes said, namely that the I
exist because I can sense the external world. In fact, I am claiming
the opposite. I know for certain that I exist, and therefore the
external world of which I am a part must exist. If the external world
does not exist, I do not exist. If I do not exist, then who the hell
is typing this stuff into the post for the forum?
>Nevertheless, it has proven rather practicable to stick to the idea that reality exists. It has also
>proven quite practical to use Newtonian physics.
It is also quite practical to accept the objective reality of the
external world.
>Well, whether a "piece of energy" is a wave or a particle depends strongly on your perspective :-)
Yes, the wave-particle duality has been a sticking point in QM for as
long as it has been around. But there may now be a bias towards the
wave picture, since quantum entanglement experiments show that
non-local effects are present.
If you are to preserve Special Relativity (and with it the law of
causality), you cannot have a particle picture where super-luminal
effects predominate. With the wave picture you can circumvent
super-luminal transport of information by realizing that the phase
velocity is not the same as the particle velocity.
My belief is that the wave picture will overtake the particle picture.
Particles will be seen as certain kinds of manifestations of wave
behavior, like group properties, but will otherwise be illusions -
models of wave behavior.
>But that's not what I mean. I mean in every science you have different definitions of truth. In
>mathematics you can prove statements.
Yet there are things in mathematics that cannot be proven, and cannot
be known.
>In the natural sciences you can only falsify statements.
I do not accept that as being correct for a Realist worldview.
>in English
>law, they decree that truth is what a jury unanimously agrees with, and is agreed to by subsequent
>jurists
Yet jury nullification is under severe attack right now. To hear it
from the statists, the jury has no legitimate power to declare a
particular law null and void.
When was the last time we saw that in action?
>and in katholic theology they agree that what the pope says is true. So from a
>meta-perspective (after all, we're in alt.philosophy.meta) truth is in the eye of the scientist. Of
>course _within_ each science, you have to homogeneously stick to one truth.
Truth has an absolute character about it, and is not dependent on the
beholder for its validity, any more than the correct specification for
a perfect circle depends on the person enunciating it. The fact that
people disagree about it or mis-state it, is not an indictment of its
absolute character.
>But that only shifts the discussion one level! I referred to murder as a behavior, namely to kill
>another person.
That is not murder per se - that is homicide.
Murder is unjustified willful homicide. All three elements must be
present: unjustified, willful and homicide.
>Ethics can only value behaviors, acts. If you name the same behavior (e.g. killing a
>person) differently, you only shift the discussion and make it more complicated. If you say "don't
>murder" you have to argue what murder is.
There is no argument about what murder is, because if I say: "Don't
Murder", then I would define murder to be unjustified, willful
homicide. Therefore what I am really saying is: "Don't commit
unjustified, willful homicide."
>If you say "don't take anybody's life" you leave out one
>level of complexity and thus reduce the object in question to its essence.
I would never say something like that, certainly not as a Texan.
If you break into my home and I am there, you face the very certain
prospect of having to deal with me, armed with a firearm when I
confront you. If I am forced to use deadly force to save my life or
the life of the occupants of my home, you can count on with absolute
certainty that I will employ the necessary reasonable level of deadly
force to accomplish that. The members of my family are also trained to
use deadly force if reasonable necessity forces them to, so it is not
just me you would have to deal with.
Nowhere in that statement is there any desire to commit unjustified
willful homicide (murder). In Texas one can use deadly force under
certain circumstances, and home invasion is one of the most justified
of them. The Harris County District Attorney will usually not return
an indictment to the Grand Jury if deadly force is used to prevent
harm in a home invasion.
So there is a very important distinction that makes murder one very
specific thing, at least in the eyes of the law, namely that it must
be unjustified willful homicide.
>> Perhaps, but most sane people know what murder is.
>Well, you have seen that I thought of murder as killing somebody.
Killing someone is not murder - it is homicide. For it to be murder,
it has to be unjusitifed and willful.
>I included kiling tyrants (in
>German the technical term for killing tyrants is "Tyrannenmord").
Tyrannicide was taught by the scholastic philosophers, including
political philosophers like Thomas Aquinas, and later by the British
political philosopher John Locke. In fact, they argued that from
natural law, people have a moral obligation to remove tyrants by any
means possible, in which case tyrannicide was the last resort.
The US Constitution was set up on the premise of tyrannicide - that is
what the 2nd Amendment is all about. The militia was charged with the
responsibility of preserving the security of the free state, and that
is why the keeping and bearing of arms is required.
Is it then any wonder that present day tyrants in govt work so hard to
disarm the people - people who make up the (unorganized) militia. In
fact, when was the last time we saw that happen - tyrants taking guns
away from law-abiding citizens? Just look for genocide and you will
find the answer.
>In practical terms, I call myself a realist, too, but I do not feel forced to believe the way you
>do. But that is another thread.
Why another thread? Why not this thread? The necessity of the
existence of the Supreme Being is very important to the discussion of
nondeterminism in science. Just realize that the Supreme Being of
metaphysics is not the God of religion.
>I got my existence from my parents, and those from their ancestors and those from amoebas and those
>from RNA's and those from early earth and it from the big bang (or something like that, eventually).
You get your essence from those creatures, but not your existence.
They do not have existence to impart to you, since they are not
necessary beings. Because they are not necessary beings, they do not
have existence as part of their essence - otherwise they would of
necessity *always* be what they are, which we know is not the case.
Your existence, as well as theirs, has to come from a source whose
essence is existence - the being who necessarily exists. That we call
the Supreme Being, a purely metaphysical construct.
>If you argue that way, you are not allowed to kill any living thing.
That is incorrect. I am justified to kill anyone who attempts to kill
or harm me, or someone near me. I can even use deadly force at night
in Texas to prevent property crime (Texas is the only state that
allows that). It is not unusual to hear about some repo man getting
killed as he tries to reposses someone's vehicle at night without the
proper authority.
Repossession is governed by law, and that includes filing the proper
papers with the county clerk. If someone takes the law into their own
hands and illegally attempts to "repossess" (steal) someone's vehicle,
then they subject themselves to the very real possibility of being
shot.
That's why the famous saying is so true: "Don't Fuck With Texas!"
>I think Mahatma Ghandi argued that way. We constantly sin by living.
Ghandi was not a metaphysician. If we are going to listen to mystics,
we just as well listen to Bart Simpson.
>So everything culminates in the word illegitimately. So you shift the discussion from discussing
>behavioral acts to whether they are legitimate or not. Very well. Shift my arguments to the same
>level. They do not lose any of their plausibility.
The concept of legitimacy comes from natural law.
>If you are doing brain research, there might be a heuristical value in constructivism (especiall if
>you're working with animals): maybe our idea of a
>representation of an outside world is not at all manifested in the brain, since
>a representation is not required.
I believe that a representation of reality is required for the
survival of some life forms. At least there is this unmistakeable
correlation between brain size and intelligence, which in turn leads
to some kind of survival characteristic.
>The brain was made to survive, not to
>represent an outside world.
Then where is the seat of intelligence, if not the brain?
>You may argue that an organism will only survive if
>it correctly represents the outside world, but sensory illusions prove the
>contrary.
I would not go quite that far. I would claim that the ability to
represent (model) the external world in the brain confers advantages
for survival. Look upon it as the house edge at Las Vegas - the fact
that there are 0 and 00 on the roulette wheel gives the house an edge
which does not tell you what any one spin of the wheel will do, but
does tell you what many spins of the wheel will do, namely make the
house rich.
>Moreover, it might well be that an organism survives pretty well
>without proper representation. All it needs is a behavioral repertoire that
>generates the right behavior in the right state of sensory input (i.e.
>circumstances).
That is a very deteministic statement which leaves out such mental
activity as intuition.
>Thus, what we call reality when we talk about what constitutes a construct from our sensory input
>woven together by some logic might well not be what you (or me) think it is.
I never claimed that man was all that good at modeling reality in
analytical terms. But the data of the external world are correctly
presented to the brain, and these data result in decisions being made
which have survival value.
Here is my point: If man is not capable of modeling reality correctly
(in fact, it may be impossible to do it), then the data of his sense
experience cannot be used *deterministically* for survival purposes
because the models fail to give meaningful input. Yet man does
survive, so there must be some other kind of mechanism, a
nondeterministic one, in operation which cause the data of sense
experience to be valuable for purposes of survival.
Take the monkey who has exhibited the ability to do primitive
arithmetic. He can now count how many predators go into a cave and how
many come out, and if there are more that went in than came out, he
can infer that there must be predators still left in the cave. That is
of tremendous survival value compared to the monkey who cannot reason
in that way.
Yet our monkey knows nothing about number theory. He has never studied
formal mathematics, so how does he "know" that what he has just
concluded about predators still in the cave is true? What mechanism is
active in his brain that allows him to make the leap from counting
predators to the existence of a predator in the cave?
Whatever it is, it is not deterministic. I would call it "intuition"
and I believe (in a higly speculative manner) that it is the result of
the monkey's brain being a quantum device. That quantum brain taps
into the "quantum field" where physical reality resides. The "quantum
field" is where material creation and destruction occurs. (It is
variously called different things, including the "quantum vacuum" or
more recently the "quantum foam".)
So the monkey does this calculation in its quantum brain, and when the
result manifests itself in quantum reality - the realm of all real
possibilities - that quantum reality respondes in a completely
nondeterministic manner with the vert strong possibility that there is
still a predator in the cave - something of obvious survival value.
There is no other way to explain such intuitive behavior of higher
animals with brains. When you are driving on the street and sense that
someone in another car is staring at you, without fail when you look
over you find that someone indeed is staring at you. You will never
get that sensation when someone is not staring at you, although you
will not always get it when someone is.
How do you account for that? It is certainly not a statistical
phenomenon, since every time you get that sensation there is actually
someone staring at you. I will leave it to the reader to speculate
what quantum entanglement might be trying to tell us about brain
activity in this context.
>If you do not recognize this, you might end up in dead ends or looking for things that just aren't
>there.
>Was I clear?
You have set the stage by declaring that Realism is not valid. From
that position you can prove whatever you want, but I am not accepting
it because I do not buy non-Realism worldviews.
>:-) You do have a good sense of satire and polemics! :-)
That's what one gets by having been a practicing physicist and formal
training by the Jesuits in existential metaphysics.
Greg Chaitin says that physicists as a group have a healthy sense of
humor, whereas mathematicians have none at all.
>Don't waste it! Use it!
I thought someone from Deutchland would appreciate that metaphor. If I
do not get my periodic dose of Hildegard Behrens as Brunhilde and
Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegfried in closing scenes of Die
Gotterdammerung, I could not survive the insanity of the real world.
Wagner was a genius of impossible proportion - more evidence of
nondeterminism in action.
>I tend to deem it rather sad that ingenious thinkers like outstanding physicists do not take the
>time to look up what others have thought before them. They couldn't survive in physics if they did
>that in their fields.
They were groping to understand why their beloved classical physics
had just laid an egg, and such a strange one indeed.
As I understand it, Schrodinger proposed his famous cat as a kind of
lampoon on the Copenhagen school. But people then took it seriously,
even though is had no metaphysical significance whatsoever.
The notion of a half-live, half-dead cat in a closed box which
spontanteously "collapses" to one or the other state when the door
opens is testimony to a serious human brain disorder if I ever saw
one.
>But the scientific truth is one of the truths I like most (personal preference).
But who says that you have to be a practicing scientist to pursue
scientific truth?
Bob Knauer
"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity."
-- Sigmund Freud
R. Knauer
Urban) wrote:
>> I don't believe I went that far.
>What a convenient memory lapse.
Now it's ad hominems, eh.
>> Hey - where's that deterministic model of radioactive decay you promised us?
>How many times do I have to repeat myself?
As many times as it takes you to make good on your claim.
>This is precisely what
>hidden-variables theories were designed to do. e.g., Bohmian quantum
>mechanics.
Well, then let's see that explicit model - or at least provide the
reference to it.
Is there an explicit deterministic model for radioactive decay, one
where I can calculate when a given nucleus will decay to within an
acceptable error? If so let's see it. If it does not exist, then you
cannot claim that it exists.
david fass
other quantum event), but this cause cannot be manifested in a deterministic
manner.
I have difficulty with this idea, especially if what we're calling a cause is
merely a correlation with some other event (like "quantum vacuum fluctuations").
I would guess that Hume would have been happy enough with this, since he thought
that a correlation is the best we can ever do, but to me it seems lacking.
For something to be called a "cause" I would want to see some demonstration of
the necessity, based on lower-level concepts or phenomena, of the second event
following from the first. Perhaps there is such a necessary connection between
quantum fluctuations and particle decay, but this merely moves the search for a
"cause" back another level -- to what is the cause of the fluctuations, or of
whatever new entities have been introduced to cement the causal relationship.
This thinking is what leads people back to the First Cause proposition, which
makes as little sense to me as the "in principle" fundamental randomness we're
talking about here.
But beyond that, I can't think of how to disentwine "cause" from "determinism"
if we think of determinism in the strongest sense (not just as knowability or
predictability). For whatever reason, I would much prefer that scientists say
"we can't get at the underlying mechanism" rather than "there is no underlying
mechanism," if in fact the first statement could be considered accurate. It
does not bother me that the practice of science would be indifferent to the
choice.
It's possible that the identification of "cause" is one of cognition's a priori
concepts, in which case some difficulties vanish. But new ones appear to
replace them, no?
-- Dave
"R. Knauer" wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Apr 1999 12:04:05 -0400, david fass <df...@mathworks.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I agree that there may be many things that we cannot know, do to
> >limitations of measurement, perception, cognition, etc. If you tell me
> >that WE cannot predict or measure the complete state of a particular
> >particle at a particular time because of Heisenberg's principle (or
> >whatever), I might go away happy.
>
> Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is but one example of the intrinsic
> unknowability of quantum systems.
>
> >But there seems to be a leap of logic that takes place whereby we take this
> >"inability to know" as an indication of the absence of a causal mechanism.
> >I'm not clear on the reasoning that allows us to take that step.
>
> I certainly did not mean to imply that nondeterminism & unknowability
> resulted in a loss of causality.
>
> There is no conflict between nondeterminism & unknowablilty, and the
> principle of causality, none that I can see anyway, assuming the
> worldview of realism. Even quantum entanglement does not violate any
> principles of causality if you view the entire system as entangled,
> which includes the measurement apparatus.
>
> The apparent spooky nature of entanglement, with its super-luminal
> transmission of information from one side of the experiment to the
> other, only comes about when you try to isolate the measurement
> apparatus from the source.
>
> There is most definitely a cause for the decay of a radioisotope, even
> if that cause is nondeterministic in terms of the exact time of the
> decay event. Not knowing when it will happen in advance does not alter
> the fact that something causes it to decay when it does. It is usually
> blamed on quantum vacuum fluctuations, at least in orthodox QM.
>
> This is a rather distant analogy, but perhaps it will help to get the
> point across. Many people believe that the only way to solve a
> mathematical problem is to employ an algorithmic procedure. Assuming
> that a solution can be found, you set the problem up as an equation
> and proceed to solve it, which gives you an algorithm with which to
> calculate the answer deterministically. But that is by no means the
> only way to do it.
>
> You could find the answer nondeterministically by trial and error - by
> using randomly selected trial solutions to test whether the equation
> is correctly solved. If you do happen upon the correct solution by
> this method, you can legitimately claim that you solved the problem by
> a nondeterministic procedure, one that did not involve any algorithmic
> calculation.
>
> Of course, the price you pay is that you cannot know in advance when
> you will find the solution.
R. Knauer
wrote:
>So let me see if I get this... There CAN be a cause for a nuclear decay (or
>other quantum event), but this cause cannot be manifested in a deterministic
>manner.
That is the tenent of orthodox QM. Spontaneous Emission is the
consequence of Vacuum Fluctuations, the repository of all possible
particles in the Universe. Hidden variable theories try to do away
with the Vacuum, but have not been successful to date.
>the cause of the fluctuations, or of
>whatever new entities have been introduced to cement the causal relationship.
It is a tenent of orthodox QM that vacuum fluctuations arise because
of zero point energy of the quantum field. If there were no particles
in the Universe, there would still be the Vacuum with its quantum
fluctuations serving as the place from where all physical reality
issues.
>This thinking is what leads people back to the First Cause proposition, which
>makes as little sense to me as the "in principle" fundamental randomness we're
>talking about here.
I do not see how accepting the existence of the quantum vacuum leads
to the proposition of a First Cause. That is what Descarte tried to do
with classical physics, and I consider his attempt to be just as much
a failure as any attempt today.
Quantum fluctuations are on the physical level of being, whereas the
existence of the Supreme Being is on the metaphysical level of being.
There is no validity to claiming that some physical consideration
points to the necessity of any "First Cause" on the physical level of
being.
The fact that we realize that the Universe does not contain the reason
for its own existence is something that is found in metaphysics, not
physics. In fact, physics does not even ask the reason why the
Universe exists, only how it exists. To answer the question "WHY?",
one must move up to the metaphysical level, the level of pure being.
Once again, physicists have tried their hand at metaphysics without
knowing anything about metaphysics. The metaphysical necessity of the
Supreme Being does not arise from any physical necessity based on
physical considerations alone.
When Aquinas presented his famous Five Ways in his Summa Theologica,
he was not arguing their merit metaphysically, only presenting them as
part of his compendium - his "Summa". He reserved the metaphysical
discussions of pure being to other works not related to theology, such
as his "On Being And Essence".
>But beyond that, I can't think of how to disentwine "cause" from "determinism"
>if we think of determinism in the strongest sense (not just as knowability or
>predictability).
There can be real nondeterministic causes. What separates them from
determinism is that we have no mechanism for knowing them formally -
they are completely unknowable formally. But this should not come as
any surprise, especially in light of Godel Incompleteness, Turing's
Halting Problem and Chaitin's Mathematical Indeterminancy - to name
just three examples of complete unknowability outside QM.
>For whatever reason, I would much prefer that scientists say
>"we can't get at the underlying mechanism" rather than "there is no underlying
>mechanism,"
You are misinterpreting the meaning of "nondeterminism". No one is
claiming that nondeterminism means a lack of efficient cause. What is
being claimed is that whatever the real mechanism is, it is formally
unknowable, just like the the truth of the Godel Proposition is
formally unknowable in a given axiomatic system, or the Turing Halting
Problem is unsolvable in an formal algorithmic manner, or the bits of
Chaitin's Omega are formally unknowable.
To understand the essence of nondeterminism, you must understand
"Unknowability". Unknowability refers to the *Information* content of
a process, not its causal link to another process. The cause of
radioactive decay is quantum vacuum fluctuations, which are unknowable
since if you try to measure the state of the system in order to know
the condition of the vacuum, you will change the system to a different
state which in turn makes your measurements no longer valid. Quantum
nondeterministic processes are formally unknowable. There is no
algorithm for the time of a radioactive decay, any more than there is
an algorithm for deciding whether a given computer program will halt
or an algorithm for computing the bits of Chaitin's Omega.
I recommend you read those papers and books by Chaitin to gain an
awareness of what is being said about nondeterminism:
http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/
>It's possible that the identification of "cause" is one of cognition's a priori
>concepts, in which case some difficulties vanish. But new ones appear to
>replace them, no?
That is just more phenomenological psychobabble. Read John Searle's
scathing critique of these vacuous epistemologies in his book "The
Rediscovery Of Mind".
The law of causality in physics has absolutely nothing to do with any
"cognition's a priori concepts". Objective physical reality gets along
quite well in spite of our "cognitive a priori concepts".
There was a very funny cartoon in Physics Today a while back that
really pissed off some of the pompous egos in the physics
establishment. It showed several erudite looking heads bobbing up and
down in a clould-like mass, dressed up with Groucho Marx bushy
eyesbrows and glasses, with beanie propeller hats, and the caption:
"Quantum Particles Contemplating The Existence Of Particle
Physicists."
david fass
> That is the tenent of orthodox QM. Spontaneous Emission is the
> consequence of Vacuum Fluctuations, the repository of all possible
> particles in the Universe. Hidden variable theories try to do away
> with the Vacuum, but have not been successful to date.
What do you mean by "tenet"?
> I do not see how accepting the existence of the quantum vacuum leads
> to the proposition of a First Cause. That is what Descarte tried to do
> with classical physics, and I consider his attempt to be just as much
> a failure as any attempt today.
What I meant was that if the vacuum fluctuations are the "cause" of particle events,
then I am immediately drawn to ask "What is the cause of vacuum fluctuations" and so
on. You might either answer this by saying that "there is no further cause" or that
"we cannot know the cause." The first answer was the one whose solidity I was
questioning in the first place. The second is the one whose reasonableness I'm
trying to assess.
> >But beyond that, I can't think of how to disentwine "cause" from "determinism"
> >if we think of determinism in the strongest sense (not just as knowability or
> >predictability).
>
> There can be real nondeterministic causes. What separates them from
> determinism is that we have no mechanism for knowing them formally -
> they are completely unknowable formally. But this should not come as
> any surprise, especially in light of Godel Incompleteness, Turing's
> Halting Problem and Chaitin's Mathematical Indeterminancy - to name
> just three examples of complete unknowability outside QM.
So it seems to me you're saying that the appropriate position to embrace is that "we
cannot know the cause" rather than "there is no cause". This is what I was after.
It seems to me that in the absence of knowledge, we should grant ourselves only the
liberty of refraining from belief, not of forming a negative belief (as in "there is
no cause").
> You are misinterpreting the meaning of "nondeterminism". No one is
> claiming that nondeterminism means a lack of efficient cause. What is
> being claimed is that whatever the real mechanism is, it is formally
> unknowable, just like the the truth of the Godel Proposition is
> formally unknowable in a given axiomatic system, or the Turing Halting
> Problem is unsolvable in an formal algorithmic manner, or the bits of
> Chaitin's Omega are formally unknowable.
>
> To understand the essence of nondeterminism, you must understand
> "Unknowability". Unknowability refers to the *Information* content of
> a process, not its causal link to another process. The cause of
> radioactive decay is quantum vacuum fluctuations, which are unknowable
> since if you try to measure the state of the system in order to know
> the condition of the vacuum, you will change the system to a different
> state which in turn makes your measurements no longer valid. Quantum
> nondeterministic processes are formally unknowable. There is no
> algorithm for the time of a radioactive decay, any more than there is
> an algorithm for deciding whether a given computer program will halt
> or an algorithm for computing the bits of Chaitin's Omega.
Is nondeterminism usually defined in terms of unknowability? Can you point me to a
book that uses this definition? On the surface, they appear to be distinct issues.
> >It's possible that the identification of "cause" is one of cognition's a priori
> >concepts, in which case some difficulties vanish. But new ones appear to
> >replace them, no?
>
> That is just more phenomenological psychobabble. Read John Searle's
> scathing critique of these vacuous epistemologies in his book "The
> Rediscovery Of Mind".
>
> The law of causality in physics has absolutely nothing to do with any
> "cognition's a priori concepts". Objective physical reality gets along
> quite well in spite of our "cognitive a priori concepts".
I will check out the books you recommend, but I don't see why issues of "mind" would
be considered psychobabble, or why they would be irrelevant to our understanding of
the physical universe.
-- Dave
Nathan Urban
> On 25 Apr 1999 22:45:11 -0400, nur...@crib.corepower.com (Nathan
> Urban) wrote:
> >> I don't believe I went that far.
> >What a convenient memory lapse.
> Now it's ad hominems, eh.
Considering the fact that you said one thing and then later claimed you
didn't say it, exactly what conclusion am I supposed to reach? I note,
incidentally, that you chose to change the subject and accuse me of ad
hominem attacks rather than demonstrate that you didn't experience a
convenient memory lapse.
> >This is precisely what
> >hidden-variables theories were designed to do. e.g., Bohmian quantum
> >mechanics.
> Well, then let's see that explicit model - or at least provide the
> reference to it.
Bohm, D., Phys. Rev. 85, 166 (1952). I don't know if he treats
radioactive decay explicitly in that paper (though there is a companion
paper for which I don't have the reference), but from quotes of the
paper I do know that his model does not obey the two assumptions he
describes as standard quantum mechanics:
1. The wave function with its probability interpretation determines
the most complete possible specification of the state of an
individual system.
2. The process of transfer of a single quantum from observed system
to measuring apparatus is inherently unpredictable, uncontrollable,
and unanalyzable.
It seems to me that radioactive decay counts as "transfer of a single
quantum from observed system to measuring apparatus", hence in Bohm's
model radioactive decay is not inherently unpredictable, etc. I know for
a fact that regardless of what it says about radioactive decay, there
are processes that seem non-deterministically random to us that are in
actuality completely deterministic in hidden-variables theories, because,
as I said, that's exactly why hidden-variables theories were invented --
to produce an alternative that doesn't have the inherent non-determinism
of standard quantum mechanics, yet they appear to be non-deterministic to
us (due to our incomplete knowledge of the internal state of the system)
and hence agree with experiment. It amazes me that you continue to
make claims about the determinism or lack thereof of quantum mechanics
without understanding even the most basic implications of hidden-variables
theories, or why tests of Bell's inequalities were needed.
david fass
> I would not answer in that way. I do not know what the cause of the
> Vaccum is - maybe there is a deeper physical reality or maybe it is
> the ultimate basis of physical reality.
>
> If it is the latter, then one must go to metaphysics for an answer to
> the question of its cause, since obviously there is no further
> underlying cause at the physical level.
>
> The physical universe does not have the cause of its own existence. If
> it did, it would not be mutable - it would just be.
>
I think I basically understand your point of view.
Just out of curiosity, why make a distinction between metaphysics and physics in this
way? Why not just say that there is part of the the world that we do understand, and
part of the world that we don't? Like a video game that keeps getting harder ad
infinitum -- at some point the bad guys just come too fast, and your gun just shoots to
slow. You never get past that screen, man, you never do. You consider yourself lucky
just to hang in there for a while. Is the cosmos like this?
I also don't understand you there at the end. Why can't the physical universe have the
cause of it's own existence? And how do you define "physical"? And could that
definition change in the next half-century?
Thanks.
-- Dave
R. Knauer
wrote:
>What do you mean by "tenet"?
From Websters Online: http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm
tenet: a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true;
especially : one held in common by members of an organization,
movement, or profession.
>What I meant was that if the vacuum fluctuations are the "cause" of particle events,
>then I am immediately drawn to ask "What is the cause of vacuum fluctuations" and so
>on. You might either answer this by saying that "there is no further cause" or that
>"we cannot know the cause." The first answer was the one whose solidity I was
>questioning in the first place. The second is the one whose reasonableness I'm
>trying to assess.
I would not answer in that way. I do not know what the cause of the
Vaccum is - maybe there is a deeper physical reality or maybe it is
the ultimate basis of physical reality.
If it is the latter, then one must go to metaphysics for an answer to
the question of its cause, since obviously there is no further
underlying cause at the physical level.
The physical universe does not have the cause of its own existence. If
it did, it would not be mutable - it would just be.
>So it seems to me you're saying that the appropriate position to embrace is that "we
>cannot know the cause" rather than "there is no cause".
I do not believe that I said that. We can know the cause of
radioactivity - it is the quantum vacuum. Nondeterminism states that
we cannot have sufficient knowledge of the details of the process to
be able to predict its outcome.
You seem to be trapped in the determinist dilemna. Unless a process is
deterministic, you will not accept that it can be the efficient cause
of something. That is incorrect thinking.
>It seems to me that in the absence of knowledge, we should grant ourselves only the
>liberty of refraining from belief, not of forming a negative belief (as in "there is
>no cause").
There is no "belief" involved. Radioactive decay is a real thing, yet
we cannot predict it. Our inability to predict it does not make it
unreal, nor does it mean that there are not real causes for it.
>Is nondeterminism usually defined in terms of unknowability? Can you point me to a
>book that uses this definition? On the surface, they appear to be distinct issues.
The concept of unknowability is inherent to QM. And standard reference
works would suffice. But if you want to get in tune with some of the
more contemporary works, I can recommend Penrose and Chaitin.
>I will check out the books you recommend, but I don't see why issues of "mind" would
>be considered psychobabble, or why they would be irrelevant to our understanding of
>the physical universe.
The bottom line is that our minds do not shape external reality. To
imagine that they do is to succumb to the snake oil of Idealism in one
of its many forms.
We humans tend to indulge in the exhaltation of our minds in being
able to grasp external reality and the ability to model it with some
precision. We then foolishly extrapolate that to epistemological
excess.
Yet external reality does not obey our models except in approximation.
The planets do not revolve in elliptical orbits - that is only an
illusion, however convenient. There is no such thing as a perfect
circle, not even in mathematics - it too is an illusion.
I will leave it to you to explain why we indulge in these illusions,
these mental constructs that have no reality outside our minds other
than as models of external reality.
Bjoern Brembs
> Until I come to grips with that, I will have to suspect that man in
> general is a bloody lunatic.
That's probably not too far off...
> Define "existence" and define "reality" in metaphysical terms.
Hmm. Got me. I probably can't. But it was you who started the idea of a reality existing somewhere. I
guess I just used the terms in the same way you used them. :-) I'll rephrase my question below.
> As I read the book, I see the utter confusion over those terms. Nobody
> can seem to agree on what they mean. Each distinct worldview is based
> on yet another set of definitions. Even when the Scholastics attempted
> to put out the ultimate metaphysics dictionary, they got them
> confused.
I think as laymen (at least I consider myself one) we'll have to stick with the intuitive notion then,
eh?
> Realism takes as self evident the existence of "things out there".
> That is based on the "authority of the senses". If I cannot trust my
> senses to report to my intellect the data of external reality, then I
> am forced to lapse into mysticism, something a Western scientist is
> unwilling to do if he is true to his profession.
The rephrasing of my question above: what other than practical reasons do you have to trust your senses?
> For the "modern" philosophers, beginning with Descarte and Kant, such
> metaphysical considerations are not wothwhile. Kant was so bold as to
> declare the formal death of Scholastic metaphysics. So, instead they
> embrace Idealism and you can see what results - an epistemology that
> is based on things which exist only in the mind.
Aren't those the things you can be really sure of? Isn't all other stuff barely probabilistic? And those
people are only talking about knowledge that is 100% secure. Nothing else.
This might be our point of deviation?
> If you take that worldview to its logical conclusion, as Bertrand
> Russell is reported to have done, you will be forced as he was to
> conclude that the objective world does not exist as our senses report
> it to our intellect.
I think nobody can deny that if there is a reality it is definitely different than our senses report it
to our intellect. I suppose you mean something more profound? Or where did I miss you?
> There is nothing "naive" about accepting the reality of the external
> world. If you do not accept the reality of the external world, then
> the world does not exist, in which case you do not exist. Since I know
> for certain that I exist, I must not fall prey to any worldview that
> claims that external reality does not exist.
Are you really sure it's only one way or the other? I think there are three possibilities to decide: 1)
There is reality. 2) There is no reality 3) There might or might not be reality. I will never be able to
tell. The best I can do is guess.
In my case, I'd adopt 3) and would guess that there might be a reality, for reasons you could probably
count more than I could.
> Notice that I am not saying what Descartes said, namely that the I
> exist because I can sense the external world. In fact, I am claiming
> the opposite. I know for certain that I exist, and therefore the
> external world of which I am a part must exist.
What is your reason to believe there must be a world you are part of?
> If the external world
> does not exist, I do not exist.
Why not? It could be only you and nothing else (solipsism).
> If I do not exist, then who the hell
> is typing this stuff into the post for the forum?
I'm not dead sure I'm not only imagining this. However, I'm about as sure as I can get :-)
> My belief is that the wave picture will overtake the particle picture.
I've alway liked the wave-equations better...
> Particles will be seen as certain kinds of manifestations of wave
> behavior, like group properties, but will otherwise be illusions -
> models of wave behavior.
That's what I think, too.
> Truth has an absolute character about it, and is not dependent on the
> beholder for its validity, any more than the correct specification for
> a perfect circle depends on the person enunciating it. The fact that
> people disagree about it or mis-state it, is not an indictment of its
> absolute character.
In my opinion, the fact that there is argument over what is truth contradicts the idea of absolute truth.
I'd need a counter-example: another absolute entity that is nevertheless discussed.
> That is not murder per se - that is homicide.
I'm not into jurisprudence (the quote above was from a post in a different thread) so that destiction was
not apparent to me. The word homicide is not used in germen everyday language.
> >Ethics can only value behaviors, acts. If you name the same behavior (e.g. killing a
> >person) differently, you only shift the discussion and make it more complicated. If you say "don't
> >murder" you have to argue what murder is.
>
> There is no argument about what murder is, because if I say: "Don't
> Murder", then I would define murder to be unjustified, willful
> homicide. Therefore what I am really saying is: "Don't commit
> unjustified, willful homicide."
Ooops. What I was tryinbg to say: once you have the behavior (killing a person), you have to decide: is
it justified (that means define justified) and willful (definition). In other words you have to
categorize the one behavior. Suddenly, killing a person can be either good or bad, depending on wat
definitions you use, what person you kill and so on (more examples needed?). That starts to get rather
arbitrary in my eyes. I think this arbitrariness shows that you have to agree on what is good or bad and
that this agreement is bound to change over time.
> If you break into my home and I am there, you face the very certain
> prospect of having to deal with me, armed with a firearm when I
> confront you. If I am forced to use deadly force to save my life or
> the life of the occupants of my home, you can count on with absolute
> certainty that I will employ the necessary reasonable level of deadly
> force to accomplish that. The members of my family are also trained to
> use deadly force if reasonable necessity forces them to, so it is not
> just me you would have to deal with.
Reckon you're not going to turn the other cheek, eh?
Pardon my personal question (don't answer it, if you don't want): do you go to church? (I suppose I
should ask whether you _still_ go to church as you have aparently brought up by Jesuits).
> So there is a very important distinction that makes murder one very
> specific thing, at least in the eyes of the law, namely that it must
> be unjustified willful homicide.
I think we both agree upon that law and ethics are two entirely different things. And my commment on you
shifting levels was aimed at that distinction and an effort to keep you on the subject, if you allow.
> The US Constitution was set up on the premise of tyrannicide - that is
> what the 2nd Amendment is all about. The militia was charged with the
> responsibility of preserving the security of the free state, and that
> is why the keeping and bearing of arms is required.
That's where we are miles apart. I have to assert that the right to use force is by the state only. In my
eyes, violence among people is never justified.
> In fact, when was the last time we saw that happen - tyrants taking guns
> away from law-abiding citizens?
Oh, you mean those citizens that "accidentally" kill Japanese schoolboys asking for the way? I have to
say I'm glad to live in a place where I can't get away unpunished if I shoot a
schoolboy that knocks on my front door.
And to your previous remark, what do you do if the guy coming into your house is likely wearing an
armoured vest of some sort? or a better gun than you? Buy a bazooka? A tank? A cruise missile? An atomic
bomb? Who's to end this circle and where?
> You get your essence from those creatures, but not your existence.
> They do not have existence to impart to you, since they are not
> necessary beings.
I don't see myself as a necessary being either... rather as a product of chance _and_ necessity. So are
all other evolved creatures.
> Because they are not necessary beings, they do not
> have existence as part of their essence - otherwise they would of
> necessity *always* be what they are, which we know is not the case.
Where does existence start: at my parents? at their ancestors? at Cro Magnon or Neanderthal? At
Australopithecus?
> Your existence, as well as theirs, has to come from a source whose
> essence is existence - the being who necessarily exists. That we call
> the Supreme Being, a purely metaphysical construct.
Ah, I'm starting to get what you mean. You're arguing form a midieval scholastic point of view. I vaguely
remember something of that, but it's remote. I think such thinking is so antique. I've always had
problems with this kind of pyramidal thinking. Too much teleology for my liking. Can't argue with you on
that ground. When I learned about this old stuff it seemed I had more problems understanding it than it
solved for me. So I abandoned it. Scholasticism never quite adressed the questions in an (for me)
appropriate way.
> That is incorrect. I am justified to kill anyone who attempts to kill
> or harm me, or someone near me. I can even use deadly force at night
> in Texas to prevent property crime (Texas is the only state that
> allows that). It is not unusual to hear about some repo man getting
> killed as he tries to reposses someone's vehicle at night without the
> proper authority.
Well then I'm really glad I don't live in Texas. Too violent a place for me. Where I live you neither
have to be afraid that someone will come into your house with a gun to shoot you nor do you have to be
afraid to be shot down by a gunslinger that thought you wanted his precious car. What kind of a place is
it, where property is worth more than a human life? I want to be put in a hospital if I shoot someone
that is steeling my 20 year old car. It's really no wonder that the states is the only place on earth
where kids use machine guns in High shools...
> Repossession is governed by law, and that includes filing the proper
> papers with the county clerk. If someone takes the law into their own
> hands and illegally attempts to "repossess" (steal) someone's vehicle,
> then they subject themselves to the very real possibility of being
> shot.
I pity you...
> That's why the famous saying is so true: "Don't Fuck With Texas!"
Yeah. I'm working with flies (Drosophila). They also build up territories and defend them against
intruders (other flies). Interesting to hear there are people around that haven't gotten much further.
> I believe that a representation of reality is required for the
> survival of some life forms. At least there is this unmistakeable
> correlation between brain size and intelligence, which in turn leads
> to some kind of survival characteristic.
That's not right (the correlation between brain size and intelligence). Read S.J. Gould "The mismeasure
of man" for more information on this.
> >Moreover, it might well be that an organism survives pretty well
> >without proper representation. All it needs is a behavioral repertoire that
> >generates the right behavior in the right state of sensory input (i.e.
> >circumstances).
>
> That is a very deteministic statement which leaves out such mental
> activity as intuition.
I'm not arguing in favor of a stimulus-response chain here. Simply that in a certain situation, the
organism has a behavioral repertoire that allows it to survive this situation (and so on for all other
situatuions). It is _one_ solution to "represent" the situation(s) inside the brain, but by far neither
the only one nor necessarily the best.
> I never claimed that man was all that good at modeling reality in
> analytical terms. But the data of the external world are correctly
> presented to the brain, and these data result in decisions being made
> which have survival value.
agreed. Sensory data enter the brain and lead to the selection of an adaptive behavior.
> Here is my point: If man is not capable of modeling reality correctly
> (in fact, it may be impossible to do it), then the data of his sense
> experience cannot be used *deterministically* for survival purposes
> because the models fail to give meaningful input. Yet man does
> survive, so there must be some other kind of mechanism, a
> nondeterministic one, in operation which cause the data of sense
> experience to be valuable for purposes of survival.
That's a very good way of putting it. Agreed (at least insofar as the origin of sensory input remains
open :-)
> Take the monkey who has exhibited the ability to do primitive
> arithmetic. He can now count how many predators go into a cave and how
> many come out, and if there are more that went in than came out, he
> can infer that there must be predators still left in the cave. That is
> of tremendous survival value compared to the monkey who cannot reason
> in that way.
>
> Yet our monkey knows nothing about number theory. He has never studied
> formal mathematics, so how does he "know" that what he has just
> concluded about predators still in the cave is true? What mechanism is
> active in his brain that allows him to make the leap from counting
> predators to the existence of a predator in the cave?
It suffices for the brain to order its carrier (the monkey) not to enter the cave. You can easily omit
the logic behind it. The brain could use a rule such as: "Store the relative coordinates of all predators
you perceive. If there is a discrepancy between what you actually perveive now and what you have stored
in memory before, exclude the coordinate you last perceived the predator(s) from your activity schedule."
This is not an objection to non-determinism in the brain, but rather to the idea of representation of
numbers or "worlds" inside the brain.
> There is no other way to explain such intuitive behavior of higher
> animals with brains. When you are driving on the street and sense that
> someone in another car is staring at you, without fail when you look
> over you find that someone indeed is staring at you. You will never
> get that sensation when someone is not staring at you, although you
> will not always get it when someone is.
Have you counted that? Or do you only remember those instances better? Try to keep track of all such
turns you make (write them down). I doubt you will see any more turns with a stare than without.
> How do you account for that? It is certainly not a statistical
> phenomenon, since every time you get that sensation there is actually
> someone staring at you. I will leave it to the reader to speculate
> what quantum entanglement might be trying to tell us about brain
> activity in this context.
See above.
> That's what one gets by having been a practicing physicist and formal
> training by the Jesuits in existential metaphysics.
AAhh! That's where your scholastics come from! Now everything gets a lot clearer. I admit that as being
an agnostic I could never follow scholastic reasoning. It's just too different from the way I think.
> Greg Chaitin says that physicists as a group have a healthy sense of
> humor, whereas mathematicians have none at all.
Sounds familiar. "I'm a liar?"
> As I understand it, Schrodinger proposed his famous cat as a kind of
> lampoon on the Copenhagen school. But people then took it seriously,
> even though is had no metaphysical significance whatsoever.
> The notion of a half-live, half-dead cat in a closed box which
> spontanteously "collapses" to one or the other state when the door
> opens is testimony to a serious human brain disorder if I ever saw
> one.
I never took that stuff seriously either.
> But who says that you have to be a practicing scientist to pursue
> scientific truth?
Give me enough money and I'll build my own institution :-) And besides, with peer review it's probably
the same as with democracy: it's a really poor system with many flaws, but so far no-one has been able to
think of a better one :-) So even if I had my own institution, it probably wouldn't become any better
there either, unfortunately.
Bjoern
R. Knauer
wrote:
>I think I basically understand your point of view.
Good, maybe now you can explain it to me. :-)
>Just out of curiosity, why make a distinction between metaphysics and physics in this
>way?
Physics studies the physical world. Metaphysics studies being, which
is not necessarily limited to the physical world. If you attempt to
deny the existence of the spiritual (non-material) world, then you are
going to have a very difficult time explaining human thought in any
rational manner.
For example, consider the absurdity of trying to explain the
non-existence of spritual reality using you mind, which has a
spiritual component to its reality.
>I also don't understand you there at the end. Why can't the physical universe have the
>cause of it's own existence?
The reason is because the physical universe is mutable (changeable).
If an object is mutable, then it cannot have existence in its essence.
If a being has existence in its essence, then it cannot change - it
will always be what it is and nothing else. Since you, for example, as
a substance consisting of the essence of mankind and matter, are
contingent, your essence cannot have existence in it.
You therefore get your existence from an external source, from that
being whose essence is pure existence. That being necessarily exists
immutably. Such a being cannot be physical.
>And how do you define "physical"?
Aristotle defined it as substance based on matter. Modern terminology
would include energy as a form of matter.
>And could that
>definition change in the next half-century?
Not and keep its meaning. If you are going to let the term "physical"
embrace things that are not physical, then the term is no longer
meaningful.
R. Knauer
Urban) wrote:
>Considering the fact that you said one thing and then later claimed you
>didn't say it, exactly what conclusion am I supposed to reach?
Any conclusion you want. But when you start attacking me instead of my
arguments you are engaging in ad hominem attacks.
>I note,
>incidentally, that you chose to change the subject and accuse me of ad
>hominem attacks rather than demonstrate that you didn't experience a
>convenient memory lapse.
It is my custom not to answer ad hominem attacks, other than to point
them out.
>Bohm, D., Phys. Rev. 85, 166 (1952). I don't know if he treats
>radioactive decay explicitly in that paper (though there is a companion
>paper for which I don't have the reference),
Then that does not suffice to meet the promise you made to supply us
with an explicit deterministic model for radioactive decay based on
first principles.
Or is it YOU who is about to suffer from a "convenient memory lapse",
now that it has become rather obvious that you cannot come up with
that deterministic model you said you had?
[NB: It is not unusual for people who are trying to repress troubling
material to project their mental state onto others. For example, if
someone is trying to have a "convenient memory lapse" himself, he will
first accuse someone else of having it so as to cover up when he has
his it himself, to attempt to get out of the troubled condition he
finds himself in. Projection is a frail coping mechanism, however,
because it usually does not work if the person it is being used on
knows anything about Freudian psychology.]
>but from quotes of the paper
What "quotes of the paper"? Did you not read the paper for yourself?
>I do know that his model does not obey the two assumptions he
>describes as standard quantum mechanics:
How do you know that? On what basis are you claiming to know that?
>It seems to me that radioactive decay counts as "transfer of a single
>quantum from observed system to measuring apparatus",
If by that you mean that the decay process involves a state
transition, then that is correct. The fact that spontaneous emission
is modeled as a second order perturbative process tells you that.
>hence in Bohm's
>model radioactive decay is not inherently unpredictable, etc.
Until you present that model, your comment is just idle speculation.
Show us why you believe that radioactive decay is not inherently
unpredictable by giving us a deterministic model to predict it with.
>I know for
>a fact that regardless of what it says about radioactive decay,
Just what does it say about radioactive decay? If it doesn't say
anything explicit, in the form of a model, then the assertions you
have been making about the predictability of radioactive decay are
specious.
>there
>are processes that seem non-deterministically random to us that are in
>actuality completely deterministic in hidden-variables theories, because,
>as I said, that's exactly why hidden-variables theories were invented --
I detect some circular reasoning here: Hidden variables result in
deterministic QM because they were invented to result in deterministic
QM.
>to produce an alternative that doesn't have the inherent non-determinism
>of standard quantum mechanics, yet they appear to be non-deterministic to
>us (due to our incomplete knowledge of the internal state of the system)
A knowledge we cannot acquire even in principle. If we attempt to
acquire that knowledge thru direct measurement, then we will distrub
the system to the extent that our knowledge is no longer valid.
>and hence agree with experiment. It amazes me that you continue to
>make claims about the determinism or lack thereof of quantum mechanics
>without understanding even the most basic implications of hidden-variables
>theories, or why tests of Bell's inequalities were needed.
It amazes me that you have not presented your deterministic model for
radioactive decay, especially since you said there was one that you
could present.
We're still waiting.
david fass
> So now I maintain the (highly speculative) position that the brain is
> a quantum device capable of nondeterministic operation and that is why
> humans can, among other things, engage in the kinds of mental activity
> that cannot be formally characterized as deterministic, such as
> intuition.
>
Why is intuition not deterministic?
-- Dave
R. Knauer
wrote:
>I think as laymen (at least I consider myself one) we'll have to stick with the intuitive notion then,
>eh?
Which one?
>The rephrasing of my question above: what other than practical reasons do you have to trust your senses?
Because we can conduct experiments which are repeatable and which
confirm useful models of physical reality. If it weren't for that I
would likely consider external reality a complete illusion. But
illusions do not behave in an objective manner, at least not for a
large number of different people.
The fact that you and I can separately conduct experiments and come up
with essentially the results time and time again tells me that the
objective physical world is real and not just some phenomenological
aberration that my conscious mind fabricates for whatever reason.
When you get 5 billion such experiments to agree - like the
observation that the sun is going to rise tomorrow - then it is time
to take objective physical reality seriously.
>Aren't those the things you can be really sure of? Isn't all other stuff barely probabilistic? And those
>people are only talking about knowledge that is 100% secure. Nothing else.
>This might be our point of deviation?
Throughout the metaphysical debate from Parmenides thru Plato and
Aristotle thru the Scholastic like Aquinas to the modern philosophers
beginning with Descarte, there has been a single thread - the question
of the reality of existence versus essence.
>I think nobody can deny that if there is a reality it is definitely different than our senses report it
>to our intellect.
On what basis do you make that statement?
>I suppose you mean something more profound? Or where did I miss you?
I do not know if what I mean is more profound. Maybe this business of
metaphysics is not as profound as metaphysicians would make it out. On
the other hand, maybe the skeptics are correct, and we can never know
what really constitutes reality.
It is a tenet of existentialism that reality obeys its own uncertainty
principle in that as you attempt to contemplate pure being, you deny
your own existence.
I believe that the best you can do is adopt a particular worldview
(epistemology) and work out the consequences metaphysically. I happen
to subscribe to the worldview called Classical Realism, the one first
formulated by Aristotle and refined significantly by Aquinas - and
then promptly forgotten after Descarte messed things up with his
radical Idealism.
>Are you really sure it's only one way or the other? I think there are three possibilities to decide: 1)
>There is reality. 2) There is no reality 3) There might or might not be reality. I will never be able to
>tell. The best I can do is guess.
Then what is your best guess? I would pick the one which gave me the
best results. Classical Realism gives the best results in terms of how
we report our experiences and use them to model what we experience.
I observe the sun rising each morning and ask if that is an externally
real event or just probabilistically real. After many years of
witnessing the same event, and reading how others also witnessed that
event for the past 6 millennia of recorded history, and knowing that I
can model such reality with great predictive capability (IOW, I know
that the sun will rise tomorrow with exceedingly high certainty) -
after all that, I conclude that the worldview of Classical Realism has
a much better way of presenting reality to me than any Idealism could
ever have.
The sun does not rise because of some mental fabrication in my mind,
nor does it rise because of some eternal essence called "sun-ness"
that Idealists would propose. It rises because it exists that way. The
reason that it exists that way has nothing to do with my perception of
its existence.
>What is your reason to believe there must be a world you are part of?
Because I adopt the worldview of Realism.
>Why not? It could be only you and nothing else (solipsism).
It could not be only me. I am manifestly finite and mutable. My
essence does not contain my existence, otherwise I would always be the
thing that I am and that would make me immutable, which I am not.
Therefore, there necessarily exists at least one other being that is
the cause of my existence. That other being cannot exist in the
material world, otherwise it too would be mutable, and could not have
existence as its essence, which is required if it is to be the source
of my existence.
>In my opinion, the fact that there is argument over what is truth contradicts the idea of absolute truth.
>I'd need a counter-example: another absolute entity that is nevertheless discussed.
Yet there are some basic truths of existence that almost everyone can
agree on - like the fact that the sun rises every day.
>> That is not murder per se - that is homicide.
>I'm not into jurisprudence (the quote above was from a post in a different thread) so that destiction was
>not apparent to me. The word homicide is not used in germen everyday language.
homicide: a killing of one human being by another
>Ooops. What I was tryinbg to say: once you have the behavior (killing a person), you have to decide: is
>it justified (that means define justified) and willful (definition). In other words you have to
>categorize the one behavior. Suddenly, killing a person can be either good or bad, depending on wat
>definitions you use, what person you kill and so on (more examples needed?). That starts to get rather
>arbitrary in my eyes. I think this arbitrariness shows that you have to agree on what is good or bad and
>that this agreement is bound to change over time.
I see no arbitrariness at all. Murder is unjustified, willful
homicide. It couldn't be any clearer.
>Reckon you're not going to turn the other cheek, eh?
That statement by Christ is one of the most misinterpreted in all of
scripture. He was making a flip remark, advising people to shrug off
nonsense from others. He just as well could have said:
"Don't waste your time in pissing contests with skunks".
But the religious establishment, as agents of the state, deliberately
interpreted it to mean that people are supposed to be willing victims
of violent aggression. Nothing could have been farther from the truth
for a Hebrew like Christ, where the ancient scriptures taught the
absolute moral necessity of self protection.
Recall that this the same Christ who told his disciples to sell their
garments and buy weapons to protect themselves the day the Romans were
to come and take him away. It's right there in Luke.
>Pardon my personal question (don't answer it, if you don't want): do you go to church? (I suppose I
>should ask whether you _still_ go to church as you have aparently brought up by Jesuits).
I am not a staunch supporter of the organized religious establishment,
since I am convinced that it has entered into the age of apostacy. But
don't take my word for it - read Malachi Martin. I would think that
Satanic worship in the Vatican is a bit on the side of apostacy,
wouldn't you?
>I think we both agree upon that law and ethics are two entirely different things. And my commment on you
>shifting levels was aimed at that distinction and an effort to keep you on the subject, if you allow.
The purpose of common law and jury nullification was to bring ethics
and law closer. Now that is being thwarted by govt because it
threatens to turn political power back over to the people, where it
belongs.
>That's where we are miles apart. I have to assert that the right to use force is by the state only. In my
>eyes, violence among people is never justified.
What if you are being attacked in a violent manner, one in which you
must use deadly force to protect yourself from serious harm, possibly
death? Do you not have the moral obligation to resist it by all
reasonable necessary means?
I simply cannot understand the mindset of someone who is willing to be
a victim of violence. I suspect there is a significant component of
masochism present, but then I am not a psychologist so I do not really
know why someone would be willing to let themselves be harmed.
It serves absolutely no purpose to let yourself be a victim, and it
causes damage beyond you - your family, your friends, your associates,
your business partners, the community in which you live that has to
pay the cost of taking care of your familly - all these people suffer
along with the victim. And for what possible reason - because the
aggressor must be permitted to exert his violence on you.
Sorry, dude - that is completely irrational, completely insane, from
my perspective. And if you ever live in Texas, you will discover
almost immediuately that the vast majority of Texans agree with me
fully.
In a recent survey which asked if gun manufacturers should be held
accountable for gun violence, 94% of Texans said absolutely not. In
fact, our state legislature is about to pass a law that prohibits
lawsuits against gun makers by cities.
>Oh, you mean those citizens that "accidentally" kill Japanese schoolboys asking for the way?
You simply are misinformed about that incident in Baton Rouge. Your
pinko commie media, in an attempt to direct attention away from the
filth and violence it foists off on society, has demonized a gun owner
who had a legitimate reason to stop what he reasonable perceived as an
act of aggression. You might want to get the facts before you jump to
conclusions.
>I have to
>say I'm glad to live in a place where I can't get away unpunished if I shoot a
>schoolboy that knocks on my front door.
What if that person, dressed in a mask, is trying to get into your
garage and won't leave when directed to? Are you willing to take the
considerable risk that it is a just some innocent schoolboy (which in
this instance it turned out to be)? How about if he is the kind of
schoolboy like those kids in Denver, Colorado? Are you willing to let
your family get shot up and blown to bits? I'm not.
>And to your previous remark, what do you do if the guy coming into your house is likely wearing an
>armoured vest of some sort?
You learn to take the proper shots in police defensive handgun
courses. I know because I took such a course.
>or a better gun than you?
The most under-rated weapon for home defense is the 12 ga shotgun.
Just the appearance of that gun is enough to make an armed home
invader turn and run. If you are forced to empty a 12 ga on someone,
it is extremely unlikely that they will be able to continue their
aggression, no matter what body armor they have on or what gun they
are carrying.
>Buy a bazooka? A tank? A cruise missile? An >atomic bomb? Who's to end this circle and where?
Please, take a few deep breaths and calm down. You are behaving in a
very hysterical manner. Nobody is advocating the use of any such
weapons. You are erecting straw men.
>I don't see myself as a necessary being either... rather as a product of chance _and_ necessity. So are
>all other evolved creatures.
That still does not account for the fact that you are not the source
of your existence.
>Where does existence start: at my parents? at their ancestors? at Cro Magnon or Neanderthal? At
>Australopithecus?
The source of existence is not in this material world. It cannot be
material. Material objects are mutable, and therefore cannot be the
source of existence.
>Ah, I'm starting to get what you mean. You're arguing form a midieval scholastic point of view.
Yep, Aquinas was one of those medieval scholastics.
>I vaguely remember something of that, but it's remote. I think such thinking is so antique.
If you have not studied it, how can you claim to be an authority? If
you are not an authority, then your opinion above is mere prejudice.
>I've always had problems with this kind of pyramidal thinking.
What "pyramid thinking"?
>Too much teleology for my liking.
What teleology?
>Can't argue with you on
>that ground. When I learned about this old stuff it seemed I had more problems understanding it than it
>solved for me. So I abandoned it. Scholasticism never quite adressed the questions in an (for me)
>appropriate way.
I suspect that you did not study it adequately. But then the same
could be said of me with regard to competing systems of metaphysics.
If you ever feel the urge to study it, I recommend the works of
Etienne Gilson. He is the premier Thomisitc commentator of this
century. And he is quite accessible too.
>Well then I'm really glad I don't live in Texas. Too violent a place for me.
Actually it is very non-violent. An armed society is a polite society.
>It's really no wonder that the states is the only place on earth
>where kids use machine guns in High schools...
That's really a very strange statement coming from someone who lives
in the very place where social outcasts were systematically murdered
by the state.
BTW, our school where my children attend has armed guards present in
the form of campus security police. If anyone ever attempted what
those kids in Denver did, they would be dead before they could get
very far.
>I pity you...
I refuse to be a victim of crime. No need to pity me.
Because you are willing to become the victim of crime, it is you who
must be pitied.
>Yeah. I'm working with flies (Drosophila).
I wrote a term paper in freshman English about the genetics of the
Drosophila Melanogaster many years ago. The instructor did not have a
clue what I was writing about.
>They also build up territories and defend them against
>intruders (other flies). Interesting to hear there are people around that haven't gotten much further.
Interesting to hear that a basic fact of reality has been programmed
into life forms. Must be that the reason we are here is due in large
part to our ability to defend ourselves against predators.
Your social philosophy would result in the extinction of your
followers in just a few generations, unless you were able to live in
some pastoral setting far removed from the rest of the world.
I do not care to exit the real world for the drudgery of some
half-baked utopia. Therefore I must accept the fact that predation is
an ever present reality - and take the reasonable, effective means of
dealing with it.
I am glad to know that delf defense is in my genetic makeup. It means
I have a better chance of passing my personal genes on to my
offspring, and they the same.
>That's not right (the correlation between brain size and intelligence). Read S.J. Gould "The mismeasure
>of man" for more information on this.
I meant in general terms regarding the size of the cortex. I should
have been more explicit.
I realize that individual brain cortex size and intelligence are not
perfectly correlated. But that does not change the rather obvious fact
that man's intelligence scales with his brain cortex size when
compared to the other organisms on earth.
Or am I simply wrong - and the brain cortex of an elephant or a
dinosaur is significantly larger than in man?
>Have you counted that? Or do you only remember those instances better? Try to keep track of all such
>turns you make (write them down). I doubt you will see any more turns with a stare than without.
The turns have to be of a certain kind. Turning to look at the source
of street noise does not count. It has to be accompanied with that
feeling that you are being looked at.
I am aware of experiments in artificial settings which do not confirm
this phenomenon. But then it is a bit uncanny that it happens at all.
>AAhh! That's where your scholastics come from! Now everything gets a lot clearer. I admit that as being
>an agnostic I could never follow scholastic reasoning. It's just too different from the way I think.
That's because you have not studied it formally.
>Give me enough money and I'll build my own institution :-) And besides, with peer review it's probably
>the same as with democracy: it's a really poor system with many flaws, but so far no-one has been able >to think of a better one :-)
Actually, that is not true with regard to democracy.
The Founding Fathers formed America as a Constitutional Republic, not
a strict Democracy. In fact, if you read the documents of that period,
they despised democracy just as Plato despised it. They, like he, saw
that it as one step from tyranny (Cf. Plato's Republic, Book XIII).
Limited democracy works somewhat in very small social units (like the
nuclear family) where there is close communication between the
participants. Once it leaves the local setting, it becomes fatally
detached from the communication that it so critically depends on. That
is when demagoguery sets in.
R. Knauer
wrote:
>Why is intuition not deterministic?
Because no reason can be given for it.
There are other manifestations of nondeterministic brain activity. For
example, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much psychobabble
you heap on the pile, you cannot offer a deterministic reason for why
you decide to do some things in life - such as get married to a
particular spouse.
If you try to determine why you did, you will find may paths you
crossed in a manner that cannot be explained deterministically. You
would likely say: "I don't know - I just did it for no reason at all."
If you try to explain away that nondeterminism with the equivalent of
hidden variables, like "instinct", then you will have to explain those
instincts of yours - and why you go counter to them sometimes.
Many of our decisions in life have a component of randomness to them,
as if we flipped a coin to get over some gap that could not be
surmounted deterministically.
If you were the Supreme Being and you had to decide what kind of a
deterministic universe to create, you would never get the project off
the ground because you would spend all eternity trying to decide which
one to create. The only way to break that deadlock is to build one
that can be all possible things on a nondeterministic basis, and let
randomness at the foundation of physical reality take over, consistent
with the laws of order you impose. You must impose some laws of order
if the universe is to evolve in the direction you want. A completely
nondeterministic universe would remain random forever.
There is a class of problems in mathematics called NP, which means
that they can only be solved in "nondeterministic polynomial" time.
That is, they cannot be solved in deterministic polynomial time in an
algorithmic manner. Nondeterministic in this context means that the
computer, a so-called Non-Deterministic Turing Machine (NDTM),
operates as a lucky guess computer. You submit the NP problem and it
gets the correct answer on the first try.
Before you say that such machines does not exist, keep in mind that a
quantum computer is a form of nondeterministic computer, in that all
possible solutions are tried in parallel and the correct one comes out
as the only one which satisfies the problem.
So a NDTM could be one which attempts all possible solutions
simultaneously and therefore finds the correct answer on the first try
by deciding on which one satisfies the problem. One example would be
factoring the product of two very large prime numbers.
That is an example of an NP problem because the effort to solve it
grows exponentially large as the numbers get larger. But it can be
solved in polynomial time if you can try all possible prime factors
simultaneously and select the answer as the two which result in the
product.
The machine would work by first assembling all possible prime factor
in all possible pair-wise combinations and in one big keerunch all
products would be formed. The product that matches the original number
is the one that points to the two prime factors.
Admittedly very general and sketchy (and even possibly flawed in some
non-essential detail), but I think you can grasp from it some of the
essentials of nondeterministic computing. There is a nook I can
recommend if you are interested in this topic:
Williams & Clearwater, "Exploration in Quantum Computing".
Bob Knauer
Guns don't cause violence - violence causes violence. Gratuitous violence
in the media/entertainment industry causes violence. Government sponsored
violence like at the Waco Massacre causes violence. Quit blaming law abiding
citizens for the violence in America, and blame the real sources of violence:
the federal government and the media/entertainment industry.
Bjoern Brembs
> >I think as laymen (at least I consider myself one) we'll have to stick with the intuitive notion then,
> >eh?
>
> Which one?
Very trivially: existence is the word describing the presence of something and reality is the cause for our sensory input. Trivial
indeed. (don't nail me down on that one :-)
> >The rephrasing of my question above: what other than practical reasons do you have to trust your senses?
>
> Because we can conduct experiments which are repeatable and which
> confirm useful models of physical reality.
The results of which enter your brain via your senses.
> If it weren't for that I
> would likely consider external reality a complete illusion. But
> illusions do not behave in an objective manner, at least not for a
> large number of different people.
The presence of all the different people enters your brain via your senses.
> The fact that you and I can separately conduct experiments and come up
> with essentially the results time and time again tells me that the
> objective physical world is real and not just some phenomenological
> aberration that my conscious mind fabricates for whatever reason.
You happen to have a brain that likes repeatable (logic) sensory input.
> When you get 5 billion such experiments to agree - like the
> observation that the sun is going to rise tomorrow - then it is time
> to take objective physical reality seriously.
The light of the sun enters your brain via your senses.
I take all your arguments as corroboration that you hypothesize reality for practical reasons. So do I.
> >I think nobody can deny that if there is a reality it is definitely different than our senses report it
> >to our intellect.
>
> On what basis do you make that statement?
Supposing what we perceive were truely reality. Then at least many animals perceive reality differently from how it really is. Bees for
example can see UV but lack red. In analogy, I think it is a little arrogant to say that it is us that perceives reality as it really is.
This is so obvious that I don't think you meant that.
> I do not know if what I mean is more profound. Maybe this business of
> metaphysics is not as profound as metaphysicians would make it out. On
> the other hand, maybe the skeptics are correct, and we can never know
> what really constitutes reality.
We can make educated guesses, but never know.
> >Are you really sure it's only one way or the other? I think there are three possibilities to decide: 1)
> >There is reality. 2) There is no reality 3) There might or might not be reality. I will never be able to
> >tell. The best I can do is guess.
>
> Then what is your best guess? I would pick the one which gave me the
> best results. Classical Realism gives the best results in terms of how
> we report our experiences and use them to model what we experience.
So if you also subscribe to 3) (the last two sentences also belonged to point three) your realism is not classical (that's the one which
is - by concurrent theorists - described as naive) but hypothetical.
> I observe the sun rising each morning and ask if that is an externally
> real event or just probabilistically real. After many years of
> witnessing the same event, and reading how others also witnessed that
> event for the past 6 millennia of recorded history, and knowing that I
> can model such reality with great predictive capability (IOW, I know
> that the sun will rise tomorrow with exceedingly high certainty) -
> after all that, I conclude that the worldview of Classical Realism has
> a much better way of presenting reality to me than any Idealism could
> ever have.
That's Hume. Almost by the word. I got him at:
http://brembs.net/metabiology/enquiry.html
Not too difficult to read for such an old guy :-)
> >What is your reason to believe there must be a world you are part of?
>
> Because I adopt the worldview of Realism.
So we don't have to agree on that and that considerably weakens your argument (to say the least).
> >In my opinion, the fact that there is argument over what is truth contradicts the idea of absolute truth.
> >I'd need a counter-example: another absolute entity that is nevertheless discussed.
>
> Yet there are some basic truths of existence that almost everyone can
> agree on - like the fact that the sun rises every day.
So no counter-example?
> I see no arbitrariness at all. Murder is unjustified, willful
> homicide. It couldn't be any clearer.
I bet in most cases we don't agree on "unjustified". E.g. I'd never call a killing of somebody who steals my car justified. IOW: If I
kill somebody who steals my old, rusty 100$ car I did a terrible, condemnable, evil act. You wouldn't mind if I killed someone for 100$
in Texas, would you? So what's so clear?
<SNIP lots of violence rant>
(1) I hope I would not defend myself if attacked (although I'm probably not strong enough to do that). Why? I despice violence as being
primitive (to use the least insulting word I can think of). If I let myself be forced to also use violence, I let myself be pulled down
on the same primitive level as the aggressor. This means that I have lost in intellectual terms. If I am forced to resort to violence, I
have thus lost in several ways: I could not avoid the situation, I did not have the force to resist archaic self-defence instincts and
let myself down on an beastly level. An intellectual defeat appears allways worse to me than a physical defeat (fits with my valuing of
intellectual vs. physical properties).
(2) However, I can not impose this attitude on others (most people probably would subscribe to non-violence, but not consequently). That
means that I have to accept my failure if there are others present that I have to help. The well-being of others is allways more
important than my own well-being. There are many ways of helping others without violence, though.
(3) Kant says that you should behave such that the maxime of your acting could constitute the basis for a legislature. According to this,
if I use firearms, everyone should. If everyone carries firearms, someone that is trying to be aggressive will have better firearms or
protection or whatever. I can see no value whatsoever in such an arms race. Therefore, no firearms. Very logical and straight forward.
But that was definitely already too long for this thread (and for my time).
> >Ah, I'm starting to get what you mean. You're arguing form a midieval scholastic point of view.
>
> Yep, Aquinas was one of those medieval scholastics.
I'm supposed to know quite something about him :-) forgot most of it, though...:-(
> >I vaguely remember something of that, but it's remote. I think such thinking is so antique.
>
> If you have not studied it, how can you claim to be an authority? If
> you are not an authority, then your opinion above is mere prejudice.
I heard lectures (is that studied? No, not at all). To me it's antique, because other/later ways of thinking address the same problems
more according to my personal liking.
> >I've always had problems with this kind of pyramidal thinking.
>
> What "pyramid thinking"?
One guy on the top and perfect order beneath (that's a picture from the blackboard during a lecture). That's so midieval and seems so
anachronistic to me.
> >Too much teleology for my liking.
>
> What teleology?
Everything serves a purpose. Aristotle said the world looks as if there was a purpose to it. The midieval scholastics dropped the "as
if". (Hey, I checked back on my old notes, see :-)
> If you ever feel the urge to study it, I recommend the works of
> Etienne Gilson. He is the premier Thomisitc commentator of this
> century. And he is quite accessible too.
I looked it up on amazon. Is it "The spirit of midieval philosophy" (1991)?
> Actually it is very non-violent. An armed society is a polite society.
Probably because everyone is scared to death of being shot if they aren't?
> >It's really no wonder that the states is the only place on earth
> >where kids use machine guns in High schools...
>
> That's really a very strange statement coming from someone who lives
> in the very place where social outcasts were systematically murdered
> by the state.
I've heard there once was a native people in your country? I'm talking about presence. Don't change the subject.
> BTW, our school where my children attend has armed guards present in
> the form of campus security police.
No, really? How terrible! You mean actually like in a prison? With guns and everything? But I hope the kids don't play marbles with
bullets. No way I'd ever put my kids in such a school. And we in Germany are worried about our kids fist or knife-fighting more than in
former times....
> Or am I simply wrong - and the brain cortex of an elephant or a
> dinosaur is significantly larger than in man?
That's what I meant. I'd have to look up the animal (it's definitely not the dinosaur, though :-). I'd even have to look up whether it
was larger or equally sized. I just memorized that size is not an adequate measure. Get that book. It's worth it. In all terms.
> That's because you have not studied it formally.
Probably. Admitted.
Bjoern
P.S.: I just noticed something after re-reading this post. It seems to me that for your worldview, you're not only relying on midieval
scholastics but also on social darwinism (I snipped your reply to my Drosophila example, sorry) from early this century. I think our
dispute is largely that you are conservatively sticking to old ideas and I am (as probably being considerably younger than you) thinking
in newer ways?
ron...@hotmail.com
> My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
> the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
> nondeterministic. Isn't it possible that we simply don't currently
> understand the mechanism driving particle behavior? Why are we so
> sure that there is *no* underlying mechanism?
>
> Thanks for any answers.
>
> -- Dave
>
======================================================================= I
don't really understand your question: On one hand you claim physicist says
that elementry particles have randomal behavior, on the other hand you claim
that you can have some quontitive knolage about their behavior so it is
(patially) deterministic. So, as things are now, for now, and I mean RIGHT
now the only mathematic model which can handle the behavior of elemantry
particles is random, no one says there will not ever be another understanding
for it. The whole concept of being a scientist is being uncertain with the
current knolage and looking for better undestanding.
Ronen, Israel
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
R. Knauer
wrote:
>Very trivially: existence is the word describing the presence of something and reality is the cause for our sensory input. Trivial
>indeed. (don't nail me down on that one :-)
But - that "nail down" is where all the trouble begins. I am about to
finish that book by Etienne Gilson, "Being and Other Philosophers",
and all he has talked about in it are the troubles with trying to nail
down such concepts.
>I take all your arguments as corroboration that you hypothesize reality for practical reasons. So do I.
Define "practical" in that context.
>So if you also subscribe to 3) (the last two sentences also belonged to point three) your realism is not classical (that's the one which
>is - by concurrent theorists - described as naive) but hypothetical.
>That's Hume. Almost by the word.
Physicists are indeed empricists. But that does not make them
metaphysicians. All I was trying to say is that the worldview of
Realism is supported by physics. Without it, physics is a farce.
BTW, it is interesting to note that there is a very strong cleavage
between realist metaphysicians and idealist philosophers (I do not
consider Idealism supportive of a metaphysics, so I relegate it to
being supportive of merely another philosophy).
It is not apparent at the outset which camp a particular person falls
into, but as Gilson penetrates their notions at a critical level, he
is able to pronounce them to be in one or the other fundamental
category at the end of the analysis.
> I got him at: http://brembs.net/metabiology/enquiry.html
All I got at that site was a dark blue background. I trieds three
separate times. The HTML download hangs for a long time and then times
out.
If you are using JavaScript or Cookies or other web toys, you need to
give a warning because I am running InterMute and it filters those
nuisances.
NB: I just shut InterMute off and sure enough the page did download. I
suggest you let people know that they cannot filter things out.
>So no counter-example?
I realize that men can become confused, and that counter examples
abound. But that does not mean they invalidate Realism or validate
Idealism.
>I bet in most cases we don't agree on "unjustified". E.g. I'd never call a killing of somebody who steals my car justified. IOW: If I kill somebody who steals my old, rusty 100$ car I did a terrible, condemnable, evil act. You wouldn't mind if I killed someone for 100$ in Texas, would you? So what's so clear?
I am not saying I agree fully with that particular aspect of the law.
But don't overlook the fact that the crime is being perpetrated at
nighttime, a time when people are very vulnerable to violence. The law
is just giving people the benefit of the doubt, since it nearly
impossible for them to assess the real risk at nighttime.
Realize this - nobody is forcing anyone to commit a crime at night.
What they are saying is that if you do, because nighttime is a very
vulnerable time, people are going to treat crime in a special manner -
with the full prejudice of deadly force. The obvious solution to
preventing the use of deadly force at night is for no one to commit a
crime at night.
BTW, that law came straight from the Bible and Hebrew Law, so I will
leave it to you to figure out the reasons for it. All I am trying to
point out is that if you want to be a Thief In The Night (TM), you
might want to consider doing it somewhere other than Texas, because if
you do it here you take a significant risk that you will pay for it
with your life.
>If I let myself be forced to also use violence, I let myself be pulled down on the same primitive level as the >aggressor.
And if you do not, he will pull you down even farther than that - down
to the abyss of death.
Look, dude - no one here is trying to sanctify violence, even in self
defense. But if you are forced by circumstances to defend yourself,
then you have no reasonable choice but to use it, since the
alternative is far worse.
>An intellectual defeat appears allways worse to me than a physical defeat (fits with my valuing of
>intellectual vs. physical properties).
Not if in losing your physical properties you also lose your
intellectual ones.
If you really valued intellectual properties, you would do what is
reasonably necessary to protect them. By becoming a willing victim,
you are telling us that you do not really value your intellectual
properties.
>(3) Kant says that you should behave such that the maxime of your acting could constitute the basis for a legislature. According to this, if I use firearms, everyone should. If everyone carries firearms, someone that is trying to be aggressive will have better firearms or protection or whatever. I can see no value whatsoever in such an arms race. Therefore, no firearms. Very logical and straight forward.
Your thesis is not correct, either in principle or in practice.
If everyone is armed, then the bad guys will be significantly
deterred. On the practical level, what if I told you there is a city
with a decent sized population which is an embedded suburb of the
capital of gun violence, Atlanta, Gerogia, and there is a city
ordinance that all homes must have a gun. The ordinance is not
enforced, and there is a conscientious objector provision.
Nevertheless that ordinance has a profound impact on the rate of
violent crime, including gun crime.
That city is named Kennesaw, and since the ordinance was enacted in
1982, some 17 years ago (enacted as a reaction to the Morton Grove
[Chicago] ordinance that banned all gun ownership), there have been NO
gun murders. ZERO, ZIP, NADA, NULL. And there have only been 2
homicides committed, by outsiders with knives. All violent crime has
dropped precipitously since the enactment of that ordinance.
You can read about it at: http://www.aimtec.com/rkba/kennesaw.html
Take careful note of the fact that Kennesaw is part of a gun violence
region in the US, and that every homeowner is armed - yet there is no
gun violence inside Kennesaw city limits.
The hoplophobe position is based on an irrational fear that the
hoplophobe suffers from - a mental illness whereby the thought of
being around guns triggers a violent psychological reaction. The
hoplophobe imagines that if he had a gun, he would use it to do evil
things.
So he projects this mental condition onto others and imagines that if
other people had guns that they too would be compelled like him to do
evil things.
For a writeup on Hoplophobia: http://www.aimtec.com/rkba/hoplo.html
I have been around guns all my life, and around other people who have
been around guns all their lives too. And not one of us has ever had a
violent thought when we are around guns, because we are not mentally
ill people.
We have mature psychological defense mechanisms to handle human
aggression. If anything, when we are around guns we stress safety. We
are not afraid of guns - we respect the inherent dangers of guns, so
we treat them with proper respect. When I taught my children about
guns, the first thing I taught them was gun safety. We even did drills
on proper handling techniques.
If you go hunting with my son and even accidentally point a gun at
him, he will leave immediately and never go hunting with you again.
You get no second chance to injure him.
>But that was definitely already too long for this thread (and for my time).
I agree. There is no reply required to my comments above.
Nevertheless, you might want to ask yourself why you have such an
irrational reaction to guns. You seem to be attributing to them some
kind of magical powers that cause people to become violent like an
evil talisman.
I suppose that makes my guns defective, since they never invoke that
kind of reaction in anyone I know.
>> Yep, Aquinas was one of those medieval scholastics.
>I'm supposed to know quite something about him :-) forgot most of it, though...:-(
Unfortunately I did not forget any of it. Just like physics and
mathematics, I have retained most of the fundamentals over all these
35 years.
When the Jesuits brainwash you, you get brainwashed by the best in the
world.
>I heard lectures (is that studied? No, not at all). To me it's antique, because other/later ways of thinking >address the same problems more according to my personal liking.
I have studied these new ways of thinking, and they run counter to my
worldview as an erstwhile physicist.
But I can almost buy into existentialism of the Kirkegaard variety.
But then existentialism as espoused by him, Sartre and even Camus is
not really as much a metaphysics, or even an epistemoology, as it is a
psychology.
Yet I do agree with all of them that the world *seems* absurd when
studied in itself - that the world is a collection of inpenetrable
contradictions. Yet amid all the confusion, some small rationality
squeezes thru to burst the bubble of existential despair. Lucidity is
one thing, recognizing the order in the world is another.
As far as all the rest of the philosophies, I don't think they are
worth the powder to blow them all to Hell. To a man, their
philosophies are all superficial when critiqued carefully. There is
always some kind of confusion at the ourset which invalidates them.
It's as if they are considering something that is absurd from the
outset just to see where it will lead them. Let's see, today we will
consider a circle with four equal sides at right angles. Let's call it
the Square Circle. Now our circle must exist because I can just
described it, and since it is a modern concept, it has to be better
than those old Classical Medieval Circles without any sides.
>One guy on the top and perfect order beneath (that's a picture from the blackboard during a lecture). >That's so midieval and seems so anachronistic to me.
And it is also not what the existential metaphysics of Aquinas is
saying. You are harboring a bunch of straw men in your mind.
>Everything serves a purpose. Aristotle said the world looks as if there was a purpose to it. The midieval >scholastics dropped the "as if". (Hey, I checked back on my old notes, see :-)
First, I point out that the scholastics were in strong disagreement
about metaphysics even among themselves themselves.
I take as the reference standard for metaphysics that metaphysics of
Aquinas, and if you look closely he is in a world of his own. His
medieval pals, the scholastics, largely ignored him, and the moderns
completely disregard him. Yet his work endures and is still being
studied (and misinterpreted) by contemporary neo-thomistic
philosophers.
The notions of existence, being and essence are incredibly obscure
concepts, rivaling quantum mechanics and realtivity theory. Just as I
am convinced that only a handful of physicists really understand what
there is to understand about modern physics in general, I am convinced
that there are only a handful of philosophers who understand Aquinas.
I am not among those in either group. Feynmann is one who really
understood QM, Hawking is one who really understands relativity theory
and Gilson is one who really understood Thomistic metaphysics.
>I looked it up on amazon. Is it "The spirit of midieval philosophy" (1991)?
Yes, an excellent book. But hardly the only one. I think you would not
be disappointed reading any of them. But here are my favorites, not in
any particular order:
The Spirit of Medieval Philospophy
God and Philosophy
The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas
Thomist Realism and the Critique of Knowledge
Being and Other Philosophers
>Probably because everyone is scared to death of being shot if they aren't?
I would not use the loaded term "scared to death". I would use the
phrase "aware that doing something wrong could be detrimental".
When I drive on the highway, I am aware that if I do something wrong,
like swerve in front of an 18 wheel truck, I take a significant risk
of something detrimental coming to me. But that does not make me
"scared to death" to drive on the highway.
Knowing that about 1% of the population of Texas is carrying concealed
handguns gives me an additional feeling of safety because I realize
that criminals know that and are somewhat deterred by it, and because
I realize that if something violent did happen there would be an armed
citizen nearby to stop it.
>I've heard there once was a native people in your country? I'm talking about presence. Don't change the subject.
You have your share of violence, school and otherwise, just like we
do, regardless of your past hetitage.
>No, really? How terrible! You mean actually like in a prison? With guns and everything? But I hope the >kids don't play marbles with bullets. No way I'd ever put my kids in such a school. And we in Germany are >worried about our kids fist or knife-fighting more than in former times....
You are acting hysterical - a common hoplophobe trait.
>P.S.: I just noticed something after re-reading this post. It seems to me that for your worldview, you're not only relying on midieval scholastics but also on social darwinism (I snipped your reply to my Drosophila example, sorry) from early this century. I think our dispute is largely that you are conservatively sticking to old ideas and I am (as probably being considerably younger than you) thinking in newer ways?
When ideas are correct and pass the test of time, why not stick with
them? Should I abandon geometry just because the Greeks invented it
several millennia ago? Should I abandon Realism just because it was
first espoused by Aristotle?
PS: Could you adjust the word wrap on your news poster - the lines are
way too long. Try something like 60-65 characters per line, which
leaves ample room for nested attributions. Thanks.
Bjoern Brembs
> But - that "nail down" is where all the trouble begins. I am about to
> finish that book by Etienne Gilson, "Being and Other Philosophers",
> and all he has talked about in it are the troubles with trying to nail
> down such concepts.
Definitely. That's why I suggested to stick to the trivial, intutive ones and see how far we come.
> >I take all your arguments as corroboration that you hypothesize reality for practical reasons. So do I.
> Define "practical" in that context.
Saving energy. Act according to instinct, intuition. Not questioning _every_thing. Easier. Simpler. Not keeping you from more important things (e.g. like survival).
> > I got him at: http://brembs.net/metabiology/enquiry.html
>
> All I got at that site was a dark blue background. I trieds three
> separate times. The HTML download hangs for a long time and then times
> out.
>
> If you are using JavaScript or Cookies or other web toys, you need to
> give a warning because I am running InterMute and it filters those
> nuisances.
>
> NB: I just shut InterMute off and sure enough the page did download. I
> suggest you let people know that they cannot filter things out.
That's really strange! It's straight html; no java-script or java or cookies or nothing. It's just a long text. I might consider breaking it down to smaller pieces. Our server isn't supposed to time out either. I'll talk to the administrator. Good to get feedback! Thanks.
> >An intellectual defeat appears allways worse to me than a physical defeat (fits with my valuing of
> >intellectual vs. physical properties).
>
> Not if in losing your physical properties you also lose your
> intellectual ones.
I did not mean property in the sense of land or goods. I meant it in the sense of attribute, quality, characteristic. If I lose my life in such a battle I also lose my intellect, true. But intellectually I am superior to the violent person who killed me. What does that help me? Physically, very little, apparently :-) Intellectually, not much more, to be honest. Only the satisfaction (only until the very end) not to have
given in. To have been stronger than my beastly instincts. To have reached a higher level (I admit I doubt I'll be that strong but I'll try as hard as I can). That is, of course, very little comfort when you're dead :-) I suppose it's how inferior, weak and inhumane I would feel if I gave in and submitted to violence and survived. Being a human (and we agreed that average humans probably are lunatics) I would probably
get over it very soon. That prospect makes the idea even more deterring. I am depressed by the thought of how hard it is to reach a higher level. Nevertheless, I'll try as hard as I can.
I totally agree that my notion on violence is very subjective, but so is yours and probably everybody's. And of course I agree that it is emotionally controlled. That's exactly my point. There is no last reason for social values. They are not absolute. You'll have to find a way to agree on what is good and what is evil and than don't change that as long as you don't have to. Isn't such indeterminism appealing to you too?
(see, I managed to get the thread back. Hurray to me! :-)
> Nevertheless, you might want to ask yourself why you have such an
> irrational reaction to guns. You seem to be attributing to them some
> kind of magical powers that cause people to become violent like an
> evil talisman.
No. I think they act like a magnifying glass. People are agressive. They defend themselves and try to take from others (fitness maximation). You agreed that this is in the genes and thought that as positive (obviously I don't think it is positive). Firearms tend to render the effects of that agression more severe. They enlarge something that is inherently there and can only be diminished by education or gene therapy.
They don't make people aggressive. They don't have to. It's just so much less unpleasant to meet a guy who is unarmed and aggressive than a guy that is armed and aggressive (if I really have to meet one, that is).
I totally agree I react emotionally (i.e. irrationally - per definitionem) toward violence. I fear it. I don't fear weapons. I fear the people who are carrying them more than unarmed people. If I'm lucky, I can run away from unarmed people (I do sports). No training can ever make me run faster than a bullet.
> And it is also not what the existential metaphysics of Aquinas is
> saying. You are harboring a bunch of straw men in your mind.
Possible. I'm definitely oversimplifying things. See below.
> The notions of existence, being and essence are incredibly obscure
> concepts, rivaling quantum mechanics and realtivity theory. Just as I
> am convinced that only a handful of physicists really understand what
> there is to understand about modern physics in general, I am convinced
> that there are only a handful of philosophers who understand Aquinas.
I agree. I have already admitted I never got into their way of thinking. It has alway been too remote. Other ideas were simply more attractive (especially in the lack of any arguments why I should study scholastics at all). I'll try to check up on that book and see if I really missed out on something.
> When I drive on the highway, I am aware that if I do something wrong,
> like swerve in front of an 18 wheel truck, I take a significant risk
> of something detrimental coming to me. But that does not make me
> "scared to death" to drive on the highway.
We have no speed limit on our Autobahns (which is stupid). Often I'm _really_ scared to death to drive there!
> When ideas are correct and pass the test of time, why not stick with
> them? Should I abandon geometry just because the Greeks invented it
> several millennia ago? Should I abandon Realism just because it was
> first espoused by Aristotle?
That's one nice thing with philosophy: more often than not there is just no convincing experimental evidence that forces you to let go of old, well protected and well probed (is that the proper word?) theory :-)
Tell me about how hard that can be in science :-)
In fact, I believe many progressive youngsters tend to become conservative elders. I hope that never happens to me :-)
> PS: Could you adjust the word wrap on your news poster - the lines are
> way too long. Try something like 60-65 characters per line, which
> leaves ample room for nested attributions. Thanks.
I've got it on 50 for the last couple of years. I've set it to 40 now. Let me know if anything changed. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Could it depend on the viewer?
Bjoern
ludo
A very good reference to this question is David Bohm's "Causalty & Chance
in Modern Physics".
The author explains how it is possible to go beyond the limitations of
non-determinism arising from quantum physics.
Even if the book dates from 1957 and thus some arguments may have been
proven wrong, I think that the best scientific position one can have is
not to believe that the current theories are the fundamental and that no
other theory will be more fundamental. History as shown that this position
is not an advantage (think about Lord Kelvin).
If anyone else has read this book, I would like to discuss their point of
views.
Laurent
R. Knauer
wrote:
>I've got it on 50 for the last couple of years. I've set it to 40 now. Let me know if anything changed. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
It is working better now.
> Could it depend on the viewer?
Nope. I rarely have any problem with long lines.
Bob Knauer
Guns don't cause violence - violence causes violence. Gratuitous violence
in the media/entertainment industry causes violence. Government sponsored
violence like the Waco Massacre causes violence. Quit blaming law abiding
Jacques M. Mallah
> On Sun, 25 Apr 1999 04:46:11 GMT, jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M.
> Mallah) wrote:
>
> > Some scientists (e.g. me) are rather certain about determinism.
> >It depends which interprtation of QM you favor. See 'interpretation of
> >QM' on my web site.
>
> You discuss "computationalism", yet even in mathematics there is
> indeterminancy.
Did you try to communicate some kind of point? I don't see one.
Sure, there are some things in math that we can't determine. So what? No
computer can know everything.
There are several interpretations of QM which are completely
deterministic. The most well known are the many worlds interpretation
(MWI), and the pilot wave (non-local hidden variables) interpretation of
David Bohm. My site describes my own computationalist take on the
MWI, and I also describe other interpretations in the 'historical
interpretations' appendix.
- - - - - - -
Jacques Mallah (jqm...@is2.nyu.edu)
Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Lapidary
leste...@earthlink.net wrote:
> Of course, particles have a definite deterministic structure.
Structure =/= beahviour.
> That's the only
> reason we study them. Anyone who asserts that particles are non deterministic
> in nature as a principle cannot know this: it is simply an assumption.
The assumption is that fundamental particles have no substructure;
therefore the random behaviour they display cannot result from mechanical
complexity; therefore it must be instrinsic.
> To
> know such a thing one would have to know why in mechanical terms, which would
> be equivalent to knowing the structural reasons causing indeterminism.
>
"Knowing why in mechanical terms" means knowing that particles have
insufficient structure to allow apparent randomness to emerge from underlying
determinsim-- so randomness must be intrinsic.
--
Regards,
Peter D Jones
Lapidary
david fass <df...@mathworks.com> wrote:
> "R. Knauer" wrote:
>
> > So now I maintain the (highly speculative) position that the brain is
> > a quantum device capable of nondeterministic operation and that is why
> > humans can, among other things, engage in the kinds of mental activity
> > that cannot be formally characterized as deterministic, such as
> > intuition.
> >
>
a) Because people can solve problems that are known to be insoluble by
algorithmic methods.
b) Because the burden of proof is on those who believe human behaviour
*is* deterministic -- no-one has succeeded in predicting exactly how someone
will behave.
R. Knauer
Mallah) wrote:
> Did you try to communicate some kind of point? I don't see one.
Look harder next time.
>Sure, there are some things in math that we can't determine. So what? No
>computer can know everything.
Who said anything about computers?
There are things in mathematics that even humans cannot decide.
> There are several interpretations of QM which are completely
>deterministic.
And all of them wrong.
>The most well known are the many worlds interpretation (MWI),
Which only gets better the more dope you smoke.
>and the pilot wave (non-local hidden variables) interpretation of
>David Bohm.
Which has gotten nowhere in decades.
>My site describes my own computationalist take on the
>MWI, and I also describe other interpretations in the 'historical
>interpretations' appendix.
If you enjoy delving into mysticism, that's you pregrogative.
Torkel Franzen
>a) Because people can solve problems that are known to be insoluble by
>algorithmic methods.
Really? What problems would that be?
Aaron-Dirk Boyden
> a) Because people can solve problems that are known to be insoluble by
> algorithmic methods.
If I understand you correctly, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. However,
before I go off on a rant, I want to be sure I understand you
correctly. What sorts of problems are you thinking of? Are you
thinking of consequences of Goedel's first incompleteness theorem, or of
some other issues?
--
---
Aaron Boyden
"It is wrong always, everywhere and for anyone, to believe
anything upon insufficient evidence." W. K. Clifford
Aaron-Dirk Boyden
> Godel's Incompleteness is an example of how formal axiomatic systems
> cannot yield proofs of certain self-referential propositions. But
> there are other instances of nondeterminism. [much stuff snipped]
I guess I wasn't sufficiently clear, though I didn't think I was that
unclear. I'm not questioning that there are problems unsolvable by
algorithmic means; I'm quite familiar with Goedel's first incompleteness
theorem and with the halting problem. You said something much more
controversial, and the stuff I snipped in no way addressed the
controversial element. You said that there were problems unsolvable by
algorithmic means *which could be solved by humans*. I know of no such
problems personally, and I find it hard to imagine how there could be
any such problems without generating a counter-example to Church's
thesis (briefly, that any function which is intuitively computable is
Turing computable). I'm sure if anyone had discovered such a
counter-example, I would have heard of it.
R. Knauer
<Aaron-Di...@brown.edu> wrote:
>You said that there were problems unsolvable by
>algorithmic means *which could be solved by humans*. I know of no such
>problems personally, and I find it hard to imagine how there could be
>any such problems without generating a counter-example to Church's
>thesis (briefly, that any function which is intuitively computable is
>Turing computable). I'm sure if anyone had discovered such a
>counter-example, I would have heard of it.
As an instance of a problem that cannot be solved algorithmically but
can be solved by the human mind, I submit this simple computer
program:
+++++
void main( void ) {
While (1);
exit(0);
}
+++++
The problem is to decide if that program will ever halt or not.
NB: The exit(0) statement is not absolutely necessary, since main( )
will terminate on its own if program flow reaches the end of the
block, but I put it in there to be explicit.
There is no algorithm to decide if that program will halt or not. But
using my mind I can tell you with complete certainty that it will
never halt.
Bob Knauer
"There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions
of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."
-- Oscar Wilde
eisn...@idt.net
<df...@mathworks.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> Consider the following quote from chapter 4 of Quine's "The Web of
> Belief":
>
> "Another limiting principle to view warily is 'Every event has a
> cause.' As a philosopher's maxim it may seem safe enough if the
> philosopher is willing to guide it around recalcitrant facts. But
> this principle, in the face of quantum theory, needs extensive
> guiding. Physicists tell us that individual electrons and other
> elementary particles do not conform in their behavior to rigidly
> determinate laws. A radioactive substance emits its particles at
> random; it is impossible not only in practice but in principle to say
> just which of its particles will be the next to depart, or just when."
>
> My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
> the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
> nondeterministic. Isn't it possible that we simply don't currently
> understand the mechanism driving particle behavior? Why are we so
> sure that there is *no* underlying mechanism?
>
> Thanks for any answers.
>
> -- Dave
Every time that God rolls the dice they are different dice with a
different loading!
Steve
--
To get random signatures put text files into a folder called ³Random Signatures² into your Preferences folder.
Aaron-Dirk Boyden
> As an instance of a problem that cannot be solved algorithmically but
> can be solved by the human mind, I submit this simple computer
> program:
>
> +++++
> void main( void ) {
> While (1);
> exit(0);
> }
> +++++
>
> The problem is to decide if that program will ever halt or not.
>
> NB: The exit(0) statement is not absolutely necessary, since main( )
> will terminate on its own if program flow reaches the end of the
> block, but I put it in there to be explicit.
>
> There is no algorithm to decide if that program will halt or not. But
> using my mind I can tell you with complete certainty that it will
> never halt.
What is the basis for your absurd assertion here? There are countless
algorithms which could tell you that this program won't halt. If your
reason for thinking there aren't is the halting problem, then you're
sufficiently confused about the halting problem for me to be unsure how
to begin explaining. Still, I'll give it a shot.
The halting problem says that there is no Turing machine which can
identify halters and non-halters in general. There cannot be such a
machine, because it would generate contradictions when applied to its
own case. There is no problem making a Turing machine which can
identify halters and non-halters in a restricted domain of Turing
machines; indeed, that domain can be quite vast, provided the
identifying machine itself is not in the domain in question. There is
certainly no reason you couldn't make a machine to identify halters and
non-halters whose domain included your program.
R. Knauer
<Aaron-Di...@brown.edu> wrote:
>> +++++
>> void main( void ) {
>> While (1);
>> exit(0);
>> }
>> +++++
>What is the basis for your absurd assertion here? There are countless
>algorithms which could tell you that this program won't halt.
"Countless"?
>If your
>reason for thinking there aren't is the halting problem, then you're
>sufficiently confused about the halting problem for me to be unsure how
>to begin explaining. Still, I'll give it a shot.
Your ad hominem merely exposes your justified inferiority complex. You
should strive better to conceal it.
Why is it that almost all instances of snotty people are at
universities? Is that all they teach there - how to be a dickhead?
>The halting problem says that there is no Turing machine which can
>identify halters and non-halters in general. There cannot be such a
>machine, because it would generate contradictions when applied to its
>own case. There is no problem making a Turing machine which can
>identify halters and non-halters in a restricted domain of Turing
>machines; indeed, that domain can be quite vast, provided the
>identifying machine itself is not in the domain in question. There is
>certainly no reason you couldn't make a machine to identify halters and
>non-halters whose domain included your program.
Well then let's just use one of those "countless" algorithms of yours
to find out if that program above halts or not - we will call it
"test( )".
We then apply test ( ) to the program above, made into a function, it
comes back telling us that the program will definitely not halt, in
which case we then branch to the halt instruction. If it catches onto
that by inspecting the code which branches to this halt instruction,
we then branch to an infinite loop. If it catches onto that then it
will report that the program will never halt, in which case we have
that covered by the branch to the halt instruction above.
Either way, the test( ) algorithm can be thwarted.
Torkel Franzen
> Why is it that almost all instances of snotty people are at
> universities? Is that all they teach there - how to be a dickhead?
Arrant nonsense, such as your comments on the halting problem, tends
to provoke a certain amount of snottiness when produced with an air
of brash confidence.
Aaron-Dirk Boyden
> Your ad hominem merely exposes your justified inferiority complex. You
> should strive better to conceal it.
>
> Why is it that almost all instances of snotty people are at
> universities? Is that all they teach there - how to be a dickhead?
Nah. I knew that before I ever entered a university. However, studying
at a university has enabled me to learn about Church's thesis, which, as
I mentioned last time, has no known counter-examples, and which would
entail that test Bob can't do any better than a suitably designed test
() at distinguishing halters from non-halters.
> Well then let's just use one of those "countless" algorithms of yours
> to find out if that program above halts or not - we will call it
> "test( )".
>
> We then apply test ( ) to the program above, made into a function, it
> comes back telling us that the program will definitely not halt, in
> which case we then branch to the halt instruction. If it catches onto
> that by inspecting the code which branches to this halt instruction,
> we then branch to an infinite loop. If it catches onto that then it
> will report that the program will never halt, in which case we have
> that covered by the branch to the halt instruction above.
>
> Either way, the test( ) algorithm can be thwarted.
All right. Suppose we apply test Bob to the machine. Bob decides that
it definitely won't halt, so we branch to the halt instruction. Bob,
being clever, catches on to this, an examines the code which branches to
this halt instruction. Then branch to an infinite loop, foiling him
again. Why isn't test Bob as thoroughly foiled as the test ()
algorithm?
Oh, and I have a suggestion for test (); see if you can design a machine
that will foil it. Test () runs a given machine through n operations,
where n is some finite number. It's a thought experiment machine, so
let's go hog wild and say for the sake of argument that n is a googol.
If the tested machine halts before executing that many steps, then test
() reports that it's a halter. If the tested machine is ever in exactly
the same state twice in the course of the googol steps, then test ()
reports that it's a non-halter (it contains a loop). If it runs through
a googol steps without either result, test () reports that it can't
tell. Test () will catch your machine in a heartbeat. Applied to
itself, for some inputs, test () will fail to get a result. However,
I'd bet a lot of money that any machine you could devise which is such
that test Bob can tell whether it's going to halt or not, test () can do
as well, if not in an unmodified state, then after a trivial
modification (one could design a machine to execute a googol plus one
steps and then halt; obviously, one could modify test () to catch such a
tricky machine by simply increasing the value n).
UH Library User
>
> On Sat, 01 May 1999 00:28:08 +0200, Thomas Lefort
> <tle...@ens.insa-rennes> wrote:
>
> >To set an end to the debate, i'm gonna answer the question. 'Scientists'
> >- physicists in fact - are so certain about non-determinism because
> >non-determinism is actually the current paradigm in their field ! If the
> >question has become 'is our universe determinist', why don't just start
> >a new thread ?
>
> We will collectively decide when we want to end this discussion, if
> you don't mind.
>
Many of the essentials in elementary physics are neo-chaotic
(non-deterministic):
For example:
The closer an electron (hyperbolic) passes a proton, the wider its
angular deflection.
Not unlike the uncertainty principle:
The more accurately you point your pin, the less certain you can measure
its outcome.
(in quantities you get entropic arguments: but that's chemistry or
fluid dynamics &c.)
However, electrons are not provenly point sources:
ultimately precisely you penetrate the electron shell, and get new
physics results.
Only if you had an infinite-mass electron, could it have infinitesmal
shell-radius.
"non-deterministic" is like saying:
1) Finitesmals approximate, but never fully explain infinitesmal
(behavior).
2) System, does not include a description of what it (any system) shall
become.
3) Human learning shall never cease: never achieve the infinite
understanding -
however well-covered, humanly.
R. Knauer
wrote:
> > Why is it that almost all instances of snotty people are at
> > universities? Is that all they teach there - how to be a dickhead?
> Arrant nonsense, such as your comments on the halting problem,
There is no such thing coming from me.
>tends to provoke a certain amount of snottiness when produced with an air
>of brash confidence.
Is it any wonder why the vast majority of people have no use for
academics.
R. Knauer
<Aaron-Di...@brown.edu> wrote:
>> Why is it that almost all instances of snotty people are at
>> universities? Is that all they teach there - how to be a dickhead?
>Nah. I knew that before I ever entered a university.
Birds of a feather, eh.
Torkel Franzen
> > Arrant nonsense, such as your comments on the halting problem,
>
> There is no such thing coming from me.
Aha, but that's not really relevant. To explain what you regard as
snottiness it's enough to point out that your comments are *perceived* by
the academics as nonsense, spouted with brash confidence. Even you
yourself might be thought "snotty" by, say, an importunate peddler of
miraculous elixirs, who can't understand why you take such a dim view
of his product.
Jim Carr
Usually one sees this topic in sci.physics where it is more
on topic -- since quantum mechanics is not limited to particle
physics. But it is here....
david fass <df...@mathworks.com> wrote:
}
} My question is this: Why are physicists so confident in claiming that
} the behavior of elementary particles is "in principle"
} nondeterministic.
The degree of confidence is a personal matter, and not all
physicists are as confident of this as others. What confidence
there is, is based on the gradual build up of experimental
results that support a variety of the "weird" predictions
made by quantum mechanics. Recent experiments that close some
loopholes in the original experiments have increased the degree
of confidence of some and probably exclude completely some of
the popular alternatives to quantum mechanics.
} Isn't it possible that we simply don't currently
} understand the mechanism driving particle behavior? Why are we so
} sure that there is *no* underlying mechanism?
In article <37206835...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
rckt...@ix.netcom.com writes:
>
>Whatever the underlying mechanism, obtaining knowledge about it
>changes the system in such a way that you no longer possess that
>knowledge in an up to date manner.
This confuses the question I saw asked, which is really about
the distinction between "proof" in physics and math (physics
tests theories by doing experiments designed to see if a result
derived from a theory by a rigorous proof agrees with what
nature says, and as a result can never say that there is no
other explanation possible), with what I call the 'measurement'
version of the uncertainty principle.
In the latter case, the question as to whether there is an intrinsic
uncertainty as quantum mechanics assumes, or a deterministic system
that is perturbed by our trying to study it, one can derive rigorous
results such as the Bell inequality that distinquish the two cases
under some simple conditions, and test the result by experiment.
>For example, if you could know everything about the state of the
>Universe at any instant, you might be able to predict which
>radioactive nucleus would decay next and when it would decay. But how
>do you propose to know the state of the Universe? You would have to
>perform measurements on it, and in the process of conducting those
>measurements, you would change its state - and therefore your
>knowledge acquired thru those measurements would no longer be valid.
What you say here does not keep the so-called Bell tests from
excluding a certain (large) class of deterministic theories and
showing that quantum mechanics is, again, not wrong.
--
James A. Carr <j...@scri.fsu.edu> | Commercial e-mail is _NOT_
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/ | desired to this or any address
Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | that resolves to my account
Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | for any reason at any time.
Jim Carr
}
} Experiments have been performed to look for hidden variable effects (cf.
} the Aspect experiment). And the results indicate that there aren't any
} hidden variables. As always, experiments have experimental error, but there
} doesn't seem to be much wiggle room for a hidden variable theory to survive.
In article <37208a1b...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
rckt...@ix.netcom.com writes:
>
>The plot thickens when you realize that Aspect's experiment revealed
>non-local phenomena.
Not necessarily, to both statements. (And Aspect's experiment was not
the definitive one; that was done only recently.) The results do not
exclude *all* hidden variable theories, just those that are local
and deterministic. Similarly, non-locality is not required unless
you insist on one of the other assumptions that gives the Bell
inequality. Or just stick with quantum mechanics and argue about
which interpretation you prefer (preferably in sci.physics, where
that is a frequent topic).
Jim Carr
rckt...@ix.netcom.com writes:
}
}Bjoern Brembs <bjo...@brembs.net> wrote:
}>At our department we are developing a behavioral theory ...
}
}If they are web-based, please pass them along.
}
}About 30 years ago I read a book by Stephen Rose at Trinity College in
}England called "The Conscious Brain". ...
Quite off topic in sci.physics.particle, even if the brain is
being modeled using non-relativistic quantum mechanics.
Note followups.
Jim Carr
}
... editting of Urban's remarks noted ...
}
} > I don't believe I went that far.
}
} What a convenient memory lapse.
In article <3724991b...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
rckt...@ix.netcom.com writes:
>
>Now it's ad hominems, eh.
Didn't look like an attack on the man to me; it looked like a
fairly charitable observation as to a possible cause for your
clearly self-contradictory remarks.
What I noted was that the full answer to your comment above was
already anticipated and supplied in Urban's article: a logical
analysis of your earlier remarks showing the contradiction. For
some reason, that part of what Urban wrote is missing from your
quotation of his article.
} > Hey - where's that deterministic model of radioactive decay you promised us?
}
} How many times do I have to repeat myself?
>As many times as it takes you to make good on your claim.
He did not claim to have one of his own, only that they exist.
It happens that he provided one in the very next sentence:
} This is precisely what
} hidden-variables theories were designed to do. e.g., Bohmian quantum
} mechanics.
If you had read the entire paragraph, this would have been clear,
just as it was clearly stated in his earlier comments. It seems
that the problem is not that Urban did not provide a model, but
that you are not familiar with Bohmian QM.
Jim Carr
rckt...@ix.netcom.com writes:
>
>Or is it YOU who is about to suffer from a "convenient memory lapse",
>now that it has become rather obvious that you cannot come up with
>that deterministic model you said you had?
You don't answer what you consider ad hominem attacks, but ...
What I missed was your answer to Urban's analysis of your
self-contradiction, along with your careful documentation
via dejanews citations that he promised what you claim he
promised, although I did see him answer a question that had
not been asked. Possibly you are confused about what he
claimed was necessary to do if you wanted to rule out hidden
variable theories based on radioactive decay data, as you
did in http://www.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=470128848.
Jim Carr
}
} Of course, particles have a definite deterministic structure. That's the
A particle physics context seems implied by this, hence followups
and the assumptions made in my remarks below.
In article <37221f3f...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
rckt...@ix.netcom.com writes:
>
>Particles do not have any structure we know about.
Sure they do. For example, they have mass and size. Now you can
deny that a stone has a mass or size we can know about, but that
would take you outside science to a subject not on topic in the
newsgroup I am reading this in -- because it examines assumptions
that are held in common by all theories and experiments in particle
physics, and science in general.
>All we can do is
>model the effects of their interactions.
That is what is how we know about their structure, by using
experiments that measure "effects" to validate a model of
the structure and the interactions. (You cannot assume that
the interactions are somehow a given, they are modeled also.)
>We don't even know if there
>are such things as actual particles. What we call particles could be
>dense concentrations of waves at particular locations.
That would be the structure of that "particle". In principle,
such a question is decidable by experiment if you have a model
that says this is what particle really are. Indeed, that would
probably be what "lesterzick" meant, possibly thinking about what
might be done to test the predictions of string theory once it
has some concerning particle structure.
>I believe it was Cerf & Adami who claimed that only the wave theory of
>matter is valid and the particle theory was invalid. If that is so,
>then wave-particle duality is an illusion.
>
>The non-locality of quantum entanglement seems to point in the
>direction of a wave theory and away from a particle theory, since for
>a particle theory you would seem to need super-luminal communication
>whereas for a wave theory only the wave packet needs to obey
>relativity constraints.
The problem with this assertion is that the observations used
in those experiments are of highly localized individual particles.
Perhaps you overlooked that the packet is of a probability
amplitude, not a soliton in a water canal, in the QM model that
I assume is being discussed here.
} Anyone who asserts that particles are non deterministic
} in nature as a principle cannot know this: it is simply an assumption.
>I do not believe that people are claiming that particles themselves
>are nondeterministic (whatever that means). I believe that people are
>claiming that the processes we measure are nondeterministic.
I would say that they are talking about the mechanics that
models the events we measure.
>Radioactive decay is not a particle - it is a process.
That process is a model; we observe the event.
>What reason is there for having to know something in mechanical terms?
So that practical use can be made of that knowledge.
Jim Carr
david fass <df...@mathworks.com> writes:
>
>So let me see if I get this... There CAN be a cause for a nuclear decay (or
>other quantum event), but this cause cannot be manifested in a deterministic
>manner.
Yes. There was a detailed discussion of this in sci.physics (and
possibly sci.physics.relativity) in the past few months -- with
some careful attention paid to the definition of "causal" and
"deterministic". Looking it up on dejanews might be helpful.
R. Knauer
>>So let me see if I get this... There CAN be a cause for a nuclear decay (or
>>other quantum event), but this cause cannot be manifested in a deterministic
>>manner.
> Yes. There was a detailed discussion of this in sci.physics (and
> possibly sci.physics.relativity) in the past few months -- with
> some careful attention paid to the definition of "causal" and
> "deterministic". Looking it up on dejanews might be helpful.
Well, this is not sci.physics and possibly sci.physics.relativity,
therefore there is no reason to look back into any archives from those
forums.
If you claim to be an expert on "causal" and "deterministic", you can
state your comments here even if they are a repetition of a previous
discussion from another forum.
Jim Carr
... note followups ...
In article <7ft5uk$idj$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
leste...@earthlink.net wrote:
}
} Of course, particles have a definite deterministic structure.
In article <7gbv65$cf0$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
Lapidary (Peter D Jones) <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>Structure =/= beahviour.
I'm not sure what point you are making here. Particle structure
has observable consequences (the proton structure function, for
example) that show up in scattering experiments. One might say
that how electrons scatter from protons says something about how
protons "behave", at least physicist might say that, but how you
would use the term is unclear to me.
} That's the only
} reason we study them. Anyone who asserts that particles are non deterministic
} in nature as a principle cannot know this: it is simply an assumption.
>The assumption is that fundamental particles have no substructure;
>therefore the random behaviour they display cannot result from mechanical
>complexity; therefore it must be instrinsic.
This seems to mix two different issues, although again I am unclear
what you mean by behavior. Presumably you mean quantum effects here.
A neutron, which is not an elementary particle and has substructure,
still shows quantum effects. My favorite example: interferometry
where the gravitational potential produces a fringe shift. This
sort of thing is not what I thought lesterzick was talking about.
At one time it was assumed that a proton had no substructure. This
was tested by experiment. It is currently thought that quarks have
no substructure, but that did not stop people from looking and, at
one time, claiming they had found it. Turned out to be fluctuations
in the low statistics data, but the search continues.
The assumptions about the structure of a particle, and saying it
has a point structure function is just as much a statement about
structure as saying it has an extended one, are part of a theory
that is subject to test -- just as the axioms of QM were being
tested in the latest round of EPR experiments.
Jim Carr
... note followups ...
R. Knauer wrote:
|
| Thomas Lefort <tle...@ens.insa-rennes> wrote:
| >To set an end to the debate, i'm gonna answer the question. 'Scientists'
| >- physicists in fact - are so certain about non-determinism because
| >non-determinism is actually the current paradigm in their field ! If the
| >question has become 'is our universe determinist', why don't just start
| >a new thread ?
|
| We will collectively decide when we want to end this discussion, if
| you don't mind.
In article <372DDD...@hawaii.edu>
UH Library User <librar...@hawaii.edu> writes:
>
>Many of the essentials in elementary physics are neo-chaotic
>(non-deterministic):
There is a difference, since there can be quantum chaos as
well as classical chaos, and classical chaos is deterministic.
Poor distinction.
>For example:
>The closer an electron (hyperbolic) passes a proton, the wider its
>angular deflection.
>Not unlike the uncertainty principle:
>The more accurately you point your pin, the less certain you can measure
>its outcome.
Quite unlike the uncertainty principle, because the scattering
angle is determined classically. The uncertainty principle
fuzzes it out.
Jim Carr
|
| >So let me see if I get this... There CAN be a cause for a nuclear decay (or
| >other quantum event), but this cause cannot be manifested in a deterministic
| >manner.
|
| Yes. There was a detailed discussion of this in sci.physics (and
| possibly sci.physics.relativity) in the past few months -- with
| some careful attention paid to the definition of "causal" and
| "deterministic". Looking it up on dejanews might be helpful.
In article <373583db...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
rckt...@ix.netcom.com writes:
>
>Well, this is not sci.physics and possibly sci.physics.relativity,
>therefore there is no reason to look back into any archives from those
>forums.
Sure there is, if you are interested in an answer. After all, this
is not the sci.answer.questions.just.for.rcktexas newsgroup either.
This is particularly true because the discussion appeared in a
newsgroup where the subject of measurement theory is seldom if
ever discussed, whereas that topic appears quite regularly in
the two newsgroups I named and thus your chance of finding some
interested parties is higher.