Is Everything Predetermined?

[Reiku]

Well... What can i say? You wanted an extra source, i provided it. Now you are dismissing it, so that is nothing short of being dogmatic and narrow-minded.

 

[Read-Only]

Well... What can i say? You wanted an extra source, i provided it. Now you are dismissing it, so that is nothing short of being dogmatic and narrow-minded.

No, not at all. All you really gave me amounted to nothing more than someone else's opinion. I'm looking for solid evidence - proof of the claim, not second or third opinions.

Care to try again? Seriously - all I'm asking for is something that prooves the idea is real.

 

[Reiku]

Really?
You don't think that because ''i knew it'' and also just shown that a Ph.D professor known it, you are still defiant of the obvious logical truth here... that its true? That is narrow. Sorry.

 

[Billy T]

I just read your excerpt Billy, and again, it is highlighting the diverse problamatics which are invariantly due to our lack of the understanding of physics (or at least some people).
From my experience, quantum mechanics actually has (as you briefly mentioned), the problem of uncertainty. Whilst many people find it an intrinsic property of matter (which it is), but i feel it might be very misnderstood. I was speaking to Dr. Wolf the other day, and we agreed that quantum uncertainty is definately misunderstood, not that the technical side of it is misunderstood, but rather that we apply it the wrong discription: Afterall is it not this uncertainty which brings rise to the certainty in life > in macroscopic entities? I've decided to answer this by saying that consciousness and understanding, even though they might consist of tiny averages, are actually a by-product of one system that is macroscopic in nature. Perhaps, if we where tiny atoms, the macroscopic world would seem very uncertain to us, just as we complex-thinking machines find their world very confusing. It is a lack of knowledge, me thinks. Reiku

Not completely sure of your point here. There seems to be two.

One concerns our knowledge and the other (I think) is the idea that despite millions of uncertain quantum events, the macro-level could be determined - sort of the same logic an insurance company uses to set the rate to charge on a life insurance policy (They have no idea when any particular customer will die, but a very good idea when the average of his class will.)

Even if this second idea is generally true, the quantum uncertainity does make the future indeterminate. Proof: Assume I have a weak radioactive source inside a box with detector A at one end and detector B at the other. Also assume I am a crazy physicist (should not be hard to imagine either )
I have decided to send you a check for $100,000 if after 12Noon tomorrow detector A fires before detector B. But as you could have nothing to lose if that were all, I have also decided to give $50,000 now to a "hit man" and the other $50,000 when he prooves he has killed you, if B fires first.

Here ONE quamtum even is "amplified" to have great inpact upon you (Perhaps the entire world if you live and use the $50K to find the cure for cancer.) There can be no argument about the answer to the thread's question. It is "No," unless Einstein's "hidden variables" exist (and are determinate). This possibility has been tightly constrained by experiments and ___________'s inequality (name escapes me just now.) The constraint envolves "locality" and one can, I think, force the uncertainity in properly chosen set-up. Perhaps with quantum coupled objects, one observed far from you etc.

The "knowledge" concern is pointless. Man does not even need to exist, much less have any knowlege of how nature works, if natural process do have at least some fundamentally random results, such as is thought to be the case in "quantum theory" Then the answer to thread's question is still "No" despite total ignorance or the absence of man (a conditon certainly prevailing in at least 99.99999999999999% of the universe.) For example, the exact timiming of a super nova may be very important to the primative plant life on one side of a distant spinning planet as the X-ray only kill those on that side. I strongly doubt that precisely WHEN a star goes super nova is "PREDETERMINED" down to a one minute window, yet this is a life or death factor for some of those plants.

Hope I correctly guessed at what you were saying, or at least my comments are responsive to it.

 

[Reiku]

''Even if this second idea is generally true, the quantum uncertainity does make the future indeterminate. Proof: Assume I have a weak radioactive source inside a box with detector A at one end and detector B at the other. Also assume I am a crazy physicist (should not be hard to imagine either)''

Now that your saying that Billy, did you read my thread titled ''two new principles"? I'm stating something similar to what your saying here... totally understanding you. In the thread, i show a three-way function, displaying future as totally undeterminate and unpredictable. Toatlly unknowable in short.

And the rest i'll need to sit back and digest. It was probably one of the more depthly answers i've had here. I want to make sure i'm understanding everything properly... will get back.

 

[Reiku]

''The "knowledge" concern is pointless. Man does not even need to exist, much less have any knowlege of how nature works, if natural process do have at least some fundamentally random results, such as is thought to be the case in "quantum theory" Then the answer to thread's question is still "No" despite total ignorance or the absence of man (a conditon certainly prevailing in at least 99.99999999999999% of the universe.)''

Strange... When i first read this, is was like something i would have read from The Restaurant at The End of The Universe... That's a compliment by the by... It was one of the best books ever written. I love how you are showing that the thought of man weighs in a massive amount, a totally obsurd answer (possibly true true though) of 99.99999999999999%...

''It is known that there an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of the universe can be said to be zero. From this then it follows, that the population of the whole univese is also said to be zero, and that people you may meet from time to time are merely propducts of a deranged imagination.''

''For example, the exact timiming of a super nova may be very important to the primative plant life on one side of a distant spinning planet as the X-ray only kill those on that side. I strongly doubt that precisely WHEN a star goes super nova is "PREDETERMINED" down to a one minute window, yet this is a life or death factor for some of those plants.''

This is sightful.

''Hope I correctly guessed at what you were saying, or at least my comments are responsive to it.''

Actually, you didn't... but i'm glad so. Because you've highlighted perhaps more things that may harm predetermination, but also premote it. Was this what you meant>?