(December 27, 2008 at 3:04 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote:(December 20, 2008 at 1:26 pm)josef rosenkranz Wrote: Is it possible to think that some genius could formulate a system of mathematical equations which shall point to the fall of the meteorite in a certain date in the live of Earth ?That's precisely the claim of determinists. In fact it has been called Laplace's Demon. While since Laplace several small and big 'refinements' to the Newtonian laws have been made, it doesn't change the argument. Still all causation is subject to strict laws of nature. Whether quantummechanical uncertainty spoils the argument remains to be seen. So without quantum mechanics the fall of the meteorite is subject to strict and arbitrarily precise laws. Given those laws and a specific start situation with all its variables determined, the fall of the meteorite can be predicted by Laplace's Demon with millimeter and nanosecond precision. Bottomline: the fall of the meteorite is not random at all but follows from the strict nature of the laws of nature. There is no room for free will.
Also observe that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle may add fuzzyness to the picture, the fuzzyness in itself does not give room for intelligent intervention in the laws of nature.
There is a most essential difference between our both views about the problem.
You exclude random based on ,I would say,hypotetical presumption that all laws of nature are causal linked between them.You affirm contrary to every ones deep feelings that there is no free will. Only that you can by no means present a complete system of equations which shall demonstrate ,not the fall of the meteorite or the free will which are most complicated things, but even a more simpler task as for instance the correct meteo prediction which no one, even with the most sophisticated computers, is able to solve.
I don't deny the objective existence of the laws of nature but I say the following:
1) The Heisenberg uncertainity principle ,which was extended by Stephen Hawking from the sub atomic domain to that of Black holes,add to that the "genetic drift" and other examples, could be marginalized from the general picture of laws of nature or on the contrary could be located in the center of it.Scientist are still debating about it without a final conclusion.
2)The famous physicist Lord Kelvin said that if you have a theory which you can express in measurable units and numbers then you know something about it but if not then your knowledge of the problem is poor and unsatisfactory.
I say, as paraphrase to it,that if you have a finite number of equations to solve a physical existing parameter then you can demonstrate it's causality.But if you are not able to compound such a system due to an indefinable number of parameters,of an indefinable multitude, then your causal proof is poor and unsatisfactory.
3) I have brought in other posts examples of indefinite numbers used as concrete definitions in basical mathemathics.
4)Every physical law expressed as a mathemathic formula has its conventional limits so that if you try to deepen the law beyond those
limits you most probable will be trapped in uncertainity .
5) Every statistical law has by definition two areas : one at the core which expresses a certain law and the other at it's margins where the law becommes more and more blurred till to indefinition i.e.indeterminism.
