RE: Determinism, Free Will and Paradox
January 17, 2015 at 5:48 pm
(This post was last modified: January 17, 2015 at 5:49 pm by Alex K.)
(January 17, 2015 at 3:33 pm)Rhythm Wrote: "Random" in our everyday use of the term implies that any outcome is equally possible - that between two outcomes, it's 50/50 (so on and so forth). This is not at all what we see in QM. What we see instead, is that with a sufficient number QM experiments a range of probability arises. If you repeat the experiment again the same number of times the same range of probabilities will arise (if they didn't, we'd have no QM..it would be a big fat undefined from the floor up), where did all the randomness go? QM, at present, doesn't offer us any evidence either way when it comes to whether or not "the universe", at that level of interaction is just "random"......but that doesn't matter much in the context of a discussion about human beings...because up here, at this level, shit is demonstrably non-random...even if things are "truly" rather than "apparently" random..down there.
It's not your term (apparent randomness) that I disagree with at all, just cautioning against losing the subtlety of what it means -within QM- and what that doesn't mean with regards to us, or anything at our level of interaction. We'll exhaust my knowledge of the subject extremely quick...but I've never needed to know a whole lot to diffuse most "but QM" statements.
(also, durka durka...copenhagen jihad!)
Ok I didn't mean that all probabilities are 50/50, that wouldn't make sense.
I disagree though that this probabilistic nature of small scale stuff becomes irrelevant at macroscopic scales as it averages out. Chaotic systems blow up arbitrarily small perturbations exponentially until the whole thing goes in a completely different direction.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
