But then the question arises: to what extent does something exist if we don’t (can’t) measure it? Is the cat alive or dead if we don’t look?
Of course you’d know that I’d say something stupid. I’m just saying that you couldn’t accurately predict when.
(& don’t say every time I open my mouth:))
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Myrr21 *
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It’s both, but don’t try to explain that to someone who doesn’t even believe in randomness.
I believe the oxygen molecules in this room are distributed in a random fashion. I believe they are not ordered. Whether or not I can plot each molecules’ exact location doesn’t enter into it, does it? It’s moot.
If, as gazpacho says, there’s a small amount of randomness, then there’s an infinite amount of randomness, too. You just have to slice it thinner 
If you think the oxygen molecules in my room are ordered, I’d say you have a really unique view of the universe. That’s something I’d have difficulty wrapping my head around.
I’d like to recommend Stuart Kauffman on the ‘spontaneous’ generation of order from chaos (which is the fancy dress name for randomness or not?). It’s called “At Home in the Universe.” Or, call up the Sante Fe Institute and tell their board that actually everything is (theoretically) determinable, and to quit barking up non-existent trees.
The universe is mostly disorder, randomness and chaos. Except for you and me, and THE THINGS IN OUR HEADS. What humans do, is make order out of disorder. I’m willing to bet it’s hardwired into our brains. A bunch of stars? No, a constellation. We MAKE STUFF UP. It’s a great survival technique – chunk similar phenomena, test, re-chunk…
Um, I seem to have wandered somewhat from the topic here… As an experiment, I will consciously try to live in a non-random universe for a week and report my results after Christmas.
All right - I’m sorry I’m jumping into this thread at this late stage, but since nobody seems to have mentioned him yet, somebody needs to throw old Kant into the mix.
1a. Experiencing something outside of space makes no sense to us (unless we get all mystical, but that isn't experience in the normal sense, now is it?).
2a. Therefore, if we came across something which was not in space, then we would either not experience it, or experience it as if it were in space (the third option is that we would have an experience which didn't make any sense, but this is pretty much not experiencing it.)
3a. From this we can conclude that we have no grounds on which to base the assertion that things actually are in space, because the effect would be (hypothetically) the same were they not in space. In other words, space is a fact about us, and not a fact about the world.
ok; not too bad yet, yes? Now it's time for the analogous case which actually has something to do with this thread.
1b. Experiencing an effect with no cause makes no sense to us; we always say that there must be some cause, even if we have no way of figuring out what it could be (Cf. Hasselhoff)
2b. Therefore we wouldn't know it if we came across an uncaused effect, as above, so ...
3b. We can conclude that causality is a fact about us, and not a fact about the world.
The belief that nothing could be random is one of our organizing principles which allows us to make sense of the world, and a pretty nifty evolutionary adaptation as well, for it moves us to develop strategy and technology. Of course, by 'random' in the above, I mean transcendentally undetermined, or, in other words, _really_really_ random, not just random until we have a complete computer model of the universe, butterfly wings and all, but just straight-up undetermined.
That's the Kantian line on this. Kant also believed that it's just as necessary for us to believe in the transcendentally undetermined as well, but that's a story for another day. For more info, battle through Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason."Heisenberg - The more accurately we know where something is the less acuratley we know how fast it is travelling, and vice versa.
As we measure position more accurately we need to project light with greater energy onto the particle, speeding it up.
So at a quantum level we can’t know anything about a particle exactly. Hence we have to use probablity to model behaviour of atoms. The key word here is model.
A divine being would ot see any randomness in the universe as he/she would have absolute knowledge about everything and could thus predict everything. They are also outside space and time.
Any ‘real’ being a). cannot measure things accurately enough and b). would somehow ‘mess up’ the measurements due to cause and effect, and the presence of the being.
Damn, this is tricky to put into words.
It is important not to confuse Chaos with Randomness. Chaos is ‘disorder’ or entropy if you like. It is how we perceive time to flow. It is not ‘random’ as has been said, just unpredictable to us.
Hope this helps. Anyone interested in this should really read ‘A Brief History of Time’ by Stephen Hawkins. Written for the layman (apparently!)
Just to be a pain in the ass stickler about these things, strictly speaking Heisenberg is position and momentum–which is related to velocity.
That’s not true. We can know some things to any limit of precision. In the case of Heisenberg, we can know one of the two to any arbitrary degree of precision–it’s just that the uncertainty in the other goes way up.
Y’know, quantum physics makes my head hurt enough, can we please leave hypothetical divine beings out of this? At least we sorta understand quantum theory…
this is an interesting subject that I recently spent a good deal of time thinking about.
first of all, we can’t assume our present knowledge of the universe to be total, and therefore must not mistake current theories (regardless of whether they work or not) as being a complete factual description of all reality.
The very essence of mystery, magic, and wonder comes through a lack of knowledge. The more we know, the less mysterious it becomes. If you create a “coin flipping machine” where you can control almost all of the influencing factors to a great level of accuracy, the mystery of whether you’re going to get a head or a tail will soon vanish.
The universe is deterministic by nature. We all know of Edward Lorenz’s butterfly effect where he created a simulation of a complex weather system. When time was rewound, and a tiny change was made to the starting conditions, the end results were drastically different.
The important lesson that is missed here, is that if the starting conditions, and all other factors are the same, the end result will be the same. (Remember all those movies where you could go back in time, as long as you didn’t change anything?!?)
People seem to act randomly, but every action is the combination of 2 sets of ingredients; the external context, and the inner mind. When they are combined, one choice will rise above the others as being the most favorable. If we had an infinite knowledge of these conditions, the person’s behaviour would be no more random and mysterious than a computer program that you wrote!
It is true that the laws of quantum mechanics predict uncertainty, but it’s also true that we know so very little of what there is. As David Bohm pointed out, “the smallest detectable distance in physical experiments is about 10(-17) centimeters, (cm), whereas the smallest distance beyond which space no longer has any meaning is an extremely tiny 10(-33) cm. This leaves an unknown realm that spans sixteen orders of magnitude in relative size, which is comparable to the size difference between our ordinary macroscopic world and the smallest detectable physical distance [10(-17) cm]”.
Where am I?
There is randomness because regardless of the level of determinism in the universe there are things that can not be predicted regardless of the level of understanding of the starting place.
The universe may be 100% deterministic and pre-ordained, but that does not mean that no randomness exists within it.
Radioactive decay follows very precise rules but it is not possible to pre-determine when any particular atom will decay.
to say that is like saying that our present level of knowledge of the universe is all that there is. Radioactive decay is a great example, but it does not illustrate randomness at all. If it did, there would be no such thing as a “half-life”, ie: the rate of decay would constantly fluctuate.
It does, however, illustrate that there is a deeper connection between seemingly seperate entities in the universe. Quantum entaglement also shows this. The very fact that these phenomena exist beyond our power of explanation, is proof of how little we know. The fact that we can see the tip of the “iceburg of uncertainty”, means we cannot make absolute judgements about the submerged area unseen to us.
no area of the universe can be a mystery to the universe itself
I would have to disagree. Just because one choice is more favorable does not mean that the person will choose it. Even if we knew everything about the person, we would be able to guess at what the person was going to do, but not to 100% certainty, even if you knew everything about the universe. The key word here is predict. If I have infinite knowledge of all conditions, I can tell you everything about them. But what about 1 second from now? 10 minutes? Just because you know all the conditions doesn’t mean that there would be any order to them.
Also, (according to my current understanding) the continued decimal of Pi is random. Computers have calculated it out to the umpteenth decimal, with no discernable pattern or repitition. If I knew everything about the universe, would I be able to tell you the final digit?
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to say that is like saying that our present level of knowledge of the universe is all that there is. Radioactive decay is a great example, but it does not illustrate randomness at all. If it did, there would be no such thing as a “half-life”, ie: the rate of decay would constantly fluctuate.
My comments --------
The half life means that for a given atom there is a 50% chance the atom will decay in the given amomunt of time. Your argument is like saying flipping a coin is not random because there is a 50% chance of heads.
no no, the choice that gets chosen is the most favorable. Our minds are no more than extremely complex computers.
Infinite knowledge of a system means that you know everything about it. Knowing everything about it also includes knowing exactly how it will respond to any given input. Knowing exactly how it’s going to respond means it’s not random.
Pi is not random either, it’s a measurement.
a half life is the amount of time it takes for half of a given quantity to decay.
G, you are making blanket statements that are rather misleading. FOr example, pi is not random–it has a meaning. The digits of pi are random, in that–while there is a true value–there is no way to predict it.
Radioactive decay is random in that you can in now way predict which atom will decay next, only that one will. SO the fact that some atom decays at a given time (giving rise to half-life) is not random; which one it is that decays is.
G
If 1 atom has a 50% change of decaying in a year. If you have 200 million of such atoms and wait a year the odds that you have 100 million ± 10,000 is greater than 99%. The odds of getting very nearly half go up as you increase the number of atoms. 200 million atoms is really a very little amount of stuff. My statement about what a half life means and your statement are pretty much equivilent.
You apparently are advocating that there is some deterministic mechanism for radio active decay. My arguments do not invalidate that they mearly show that assuming random radio active decay fits with our understanding of the universe.
Myrr21, I don’t believe I’ve made any generalizations at all.
On the issue of pi: I really think you’re looking for an answer in the wrong place. It may be true that there is no correlation between the individual digits that make pi, but why should there be? It’s just the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.
the ratio of a square’s side to its diagonal bisector is root 2 ~= 1.414213562373095048801…
should we be surprised that there the digits do not provide some sort of sequence?
It is also very important to note that base 10 was an arbitrary decision. If humans had 6 fingers on each hand, we would most likely work in base 12, which would mean pi would be represented by a totally different set of digits.
You’re missing the point. THe point is that the digits are random, no matter what base we work in, or what irrational number we use. In base 12, the digits of pi are no less random than they are in base 10–just different.
yeah, but my point is “so what?”
as I pointed out, there are many series of numbers that exist without correlating patterns. They are measurements, and measurements can be anything. This doesn’t proove, or disproove anything.