Consider the converse. When you comprehend some physical evolution, is
it essential that it be deterministic. Every event has many causes, do
you have to know every one of them to comprehend it? Think of all the
things you would have to say did NOT happen in order that your
comprehension be complete. The way I look at it, we call classical
mechanics deterministic only because /most of the time/ there are a few
(not a bazillion) factors we can /approximately determine/ in advance,
so that an/almost/ certain prediction, /within a range of uncertainty/,
is possible. Even within strict determinism there are at this very
moment gamma rays from distant supernova approaching you and which
cannot be predicted but which might influence your thoughts and instruments.
Brent
On 4/16/2022 5:08 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
I think you're fooling yourself if you think a non-determinsitic
process is comprehensible. AG
On Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 5:46:09 PM UTC-6 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/16/2022 4:24 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
On Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 5:03:55 PM UTC-6
meeke...@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/16/2022 2:58 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
On Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 1:44:09 PM UTC-6
meeke...@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/16/2022 8:34 AM, Alan Grayson wrote:
Of course I favour the first version of the
argument, using the many-world formulation of
collapse, to avoid the "God plays dice" nightmare.
Why this fear of true randomness? We have all kinds
of classical randomness we just attributed to
"historical accident". Would it really make any
difference it were due to inherent quantum
randomness? Albrect and Phillips have made an
argument that there is quantum randomness even
nominally classical dynamics.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0953v3
True randomness implies *unintelligibility*; that is,
no existing physical process for *causing *the results
of measurements. AG
"It happened at random in accordance with a Poisson
process with rate parameter 0.123" seems perfectly
intelligible to me. There is a physical description of
the system with allows you to predict that, including
the value of the rate parameter. It only differs from
deterministic physics in that it doesn't say when the
event happens.
I always wonder if people who have this dogmatic
rejection of randomness understand that quantum
randomness is very narrow. Planck's constant is very
small and it introduces randomness, but with a definite
distribution and on certain variables. It's not
"anything can happen" as it seems some people fear.
Brent
Every single trial is unintelligible. AG
I find that remark unintelligble. I don't think
"intelligble" means what you think it means.
Brent
It means there exists no definable physical process to account
for the outcome of a single trial. AG
That's what is usually called "non-deterministic". "Unintelligble"
means not understandable or incomprehensible.
Brent
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