RE: Chaos theory
July 14, 2014 at 9:44 am
(This post was last modified: July 14, 2014 at 9:47 am by bennyboy.)
(July 14, 2014 at 5:47 am)FreeTony Wrote: I'm quite not sure what this sentence means, but given that in weather forecasting, there might be a weather station every 50km, that can measure temperature/pressure to the nearest degree/millibar, worrying about quantum effects to the order of 10^-34 is really of no consequence.Yes, it does. If the fundamental building blocks of the universe aren't truly deterministic, then determinism isn't really true except in the coursest sense. You might want to say that the sum of the particles in a fluid can be treated as a singular mathematical entity, but you'd be wrong-- specifically, you'd be wrong be an increasing degree as time progressed, until your predictions melted into statistical meaninglessness.
Quote:The mathematics of these systems is totally deterministic. If I know the initial starting conditions, I know the outcome. Not believing in chaos theory means not believing in differential equations and very basic laws of physics.I'm not a big fan of being expected to "believe in" anything, especially a philosophical assertion (i.e. about determinism) masked as science. Science is not religion, and doesn't require my loyalty or willing belief. Now, show me that we CAN encapsulate initial starting conditions, and show that we CAN consistently predict the weather, and I'll start to believe what you're saying.
