On 4/15/2013 10:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 12 Apr 2013, at 17:39, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Richard Ruquist <yann...@gmail.com> wrote:
Telmo,

I can only give you my opinion.

Thanks Richard.

You are of course referring to the double
slit experiment where one photon can follow at least two different paths,
and potentially an infinite number of paths.

But even diffraction of a single photon will do that: in the simplest case
send a photon on to a semi-infinite metallic plane and the photon
potentially scatters into an infinite number of paths from the edge of the
plane. We only know which path when the photon reaches a detector plane on
the far side. The actual deterministic diffraction pattern only emerges when
the number of photons sent approaches infinity in plane waves. The actual
path of a single photon is random within the constraints of the
infinite-photon diffraction pattern.

So I say the way to deal with that is to propagate a large number of photons
or do an EM wave calculation for the diffraction pattern.

But then we're still left without a theory that could explain the
behaviour of a single photon without resorting to randomness, correct?

I wonder how comp treats such single photon instances. Does it use
algorithms that are random number generators?

I'll leave this one for Bruno, of course. My understanding is that
it's consistent with the MWI and also with what Russel proposes in his
book: everything happens but each observer only perceives one of the
outcomes.

This seems highly unintuitive to a lot of people, but it seems more
reasonable to me than the idea that there is just one Telmo with one
personal diary. If there are infinitely many, each one with his own
personal diary, the world still looks exactly like it does to this
particular instance of me, and we do not have to resort to any
randomness magic.

It's tempting for me to extend this idea to everyone and not just
Telmos, at the risk of sounding a bit new-agey.

I don't yet understand how an algorithm could be a random number
generator (non-pseudo), but I think Bruno has more to say here.


In math, there is many randomness. Diagonal argument can easily prove most real or decimal infinite expansions are random, in the strongest form of randomness.

Some simple programs can generate strings passing all the usual test of randomness, like just counting

012345678910111213141516..... 7500008956790021176043275260881 ....

You said to John Clark that you don't believe in physical randomness. Me too. As you say it is easier to explain it by the FPI on some domain, like Everett universal wave or on arithmetic with comp. I am with you and Einstein on this :) All physical events have a determinist cause and reason. I think Einstein said he would prefer to be a plumber if that was not the case.

But as logician, I can't exclude completely a (comp) physics with non causal events, as the physics extracted from comp is only in its infancy, to say the least. Even in that case the non physical cause will have an arithmetical reason, and that non cause would emerge from the first person (plural) indeterminacy on the UD* or (sigma1) arithmetic. No need of unnecessary magic.

I would expect that in comp the same event would have arbitrarily many 
different causes.

Brent

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