Another way to say this is, is anything ever REALLY random? Isn’t it true that everything is caused, even if we can’t know the causes.
Example: are the particles that appear out of empty space really random? Wouldn’t there be some kind of cause, even if it’s unknowable or unmeasurable? I have trouble with the idea of effect without cause. Are even the quantum effects truly uncaused? Aren’t there conditions that cause even those things, even if they are unknowable?
Yes, this thought is caused by reading Phillip Johnson. I’m now thinking that he’s misdefining “random”, because he keeps indicating that it means “appearing out of nowhere”. It wouldn’t be the first thing he’s been fundamentally wrong on.
In quantum mechanics, saying that quantum randomness has a deeper cause is called a “hidden variables” theory. Einstein’s famous quote about God not playing dice with the universe was about just this issue: does quantum randomness just appear without cause, as if god was flipping a coin? Or is there a lower level mechanism that provides seeming randomness (and another mechanism below that, and another below that, etc., turtles all the way down, with no origin of randomness down through infinite levels.)
For several decades physicists thought Einstein was wrong; that “hidden variables” theories had been proven impossible. But the disproof turned out to be a mistake. (One article points out that the mistake was simple and embarassing, and could have been caught by any student who actually worked through the proof, but apparently nobody ever did so until recently.)
PS
If quantum randomness has no cause, then real-world randomness also has no cause, since Chaotic processes amplify small errors. If a flapping butterfly wing can determine whether a hurricane forms or not, the same is true of photons emitted in one direction or another. The quantum randomness gets amplified up into the real world because of the “Sensitive dependence on initial conditions” effect.
This article makes the claim that Bell’s theorem is based on dubious initial assumptions, as bbeaty mentioned. That claim is disputed in this article by Gill et al.
Well, that article is over my head. I’m interested in this kind of thing, but I’m not a physics grad. Could someone summarize it, or indicate if there is a concesus on the issue? Is it still in great debate? I’ll send this to my phyics grad brother, too.
If time and space are a contimuun, then “the future” has already happened. We just haven’t gotten there yet. What we are doing right this moment was “preordained” five minutes ago, because we’re doing it now.
Of course, IANA physicist. I could be completely wrong.
In defence of several generations of physicists, let me point out that the error was made by John von Neumann who was probably the smartest person of the 20th century, and arguably of all time. Who would have believed that there was a simple mistake underlying the work of this super genius?
Well, using the assumption that dice fall randomly, i. e. all faces are equally likely to be up, you can compute the distribution of the totals for the throw of two dice. I think the fact that when you do the experiment of actually throwing two dice a great number of times the resulting distribution is what you computed to within a very small error, indicates that your initial assumption of randomness was pretty good.
Firstly, I hate to say it but I really think this belongs in GD. Secondly, causation has been proven to an appreciable extent, and lack of cause has really not. The reason for this is that you cannot prove that something doesn’t exist, realistically. You just haven’t found it yet, or explained what caused said event. When dice are rolled (I may be crucified for this) there is a definite explaination for why a certain number is reached. Physics dictates that the combination of velocity, weight, fulcrum of the die, vector of the die, and surface of the table will all act according to the laws of physics. The fact that tossing a die is not repeatable, is where the “chance” factor enters. So many variables such as wind resistance, atmospheric pressure, variations in friction, all compound to make the out come absolutely unknowable. One can’t explain specifically why the die ended up reading 3, but one knows what forces acted upon the die in order for it to reach that result,just not in known amounts.
Chance can never be proven. How could one prove that an event “was in no way influenced by any other events past or present, and has absolutely no explainable reason for having happened at all”. You can’t prove that. Theorize all you want, what is fate, why are we here, none of it is answerable.
If I understand that Johnson does really mean that he thinks that evolutionists mean “this just happened, period”, then he doesn’t understand the debate. No one really means that, right? Because even if they thought that might be true, the honest ones would admit that they can’t prove it, because it’s unprovable.
Oh yes I can, and quite easily. I can prove that a ratio of two whole numbers, a/b, reduced to lowest terms that is equal to the square root of 2 does not exist.
Dice are very sensitive to initial conditions. So even a small variation in, say, the height they’re dropped from can make a big variation in how the dice land. Theoretically, you could make really good “dice”, that were so sensitive to initial conditions that variations on the quantum scale affected the outcome. If quantum effects are truly random, then these dice would be truly random as well. Right?
Causation, as I’ve described it here is Cau*sa"tion, n. The act of causing; also the act or agency by which an effect is produced. meaning the known cause for an effect. Effects have been proven to have a known cause, that is why I stated that causation has been proven. Lack of cause has not and IMO cannot be “proven”.
Your theory of quantum dice is interesting, however I did not, nor do I intend to adress it, since I have no expertise in that field.
I submit that randomness is not a creatable, repeatable, phenomenon. Reapeatable, that sounds like a contradiction. In order to generate something, a process must be initiated, that process has rules, therfore the oucome cannot be totally random as it is governed.
Your use of “random” kind of goes back to my point about misunderstandings, though. Random has a few definitions:
Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective: random movements. See Synonyms at chance.
Mathematics & Statistics. Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution.
Of or relating to an event in which all outcomes are equally likely, as in the testing of a blood sample for the presence of a substance.
None of these mean “just happened, just because it did.” The closest thing I can think of is the concept of free will. I think we’d admit that even animals have some amount of actual free will. Different animals will decide to do different things, and I’m not at all sure that you can write it off to some super-SKinnerian cause like today’s brain chemistry.
Other than something like free will, is there anything that is even being seriously debated as “just happening”?
