Quote:The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a feature of nature itself, so not even God could ever know what we cannot. The Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics eliminates (not solves) only the wave-function collapse problem, but nature continues to be fundamentally non-deterministic (uncertain, thanks to the HUP), which simply eliminates the logical possibility of an omniscient God. The fact that the Many-Worlds interpretation requires a God (as it does) is just another clue of its internal inconsistency, since it requires what quantum physics prohibits.
Nobody here has denied the uncertainty principle. It makes complete sense that we should not be able to know the exact position and momentum of particles due to the obvious fact that we see things with light and light moves particles. This uncertainty inherent in nature by no means tells us that particles may not be governed by deterministic laws.
Quote:The wave function is not an attribute of the particle: it is the whole set of probabilities of observing that particle anywhere. You are thinking as if the particle actually existed when it is just a possibility: you are confusing possible existence with actual existence, then turning possible existence in an attribute of actual existence, as if the latter preceded the former. It is the other way around: possible existence (the wave function) precedes actual existence (the particle).
tomr wrote:I was not referring to the wave function as an attribute of the particle when I said:
Quote:In the wave attribute of the duality? But do those possible states (paths) of particles also have a dual wave attribute?
The meaning was the wave being one half of the description of the duality, the other being the particle. Also I am not thinking of the wave function as describing actualities, I am thinking of it as describing possibilities. Just because something is a possibility does not mean it does not have to contain information. This information must be stored somewhere and so where?
Possibilities are "stored" in the actual state of the world. In a sense, actualities are always possibilities: they "store" new possibilities. But you will never find a possibility "stored" inside an actuality as a physical object: it can only be described mathematically, by means of the wave function. If you try to find a possibility "stored" as a physical object inside an actuality, then you are just trying to make it an actuality, which it is not.
Quote:This monstrosity is just the consequence of the inversion in precedence between possibility and actuality.
No I have the same understanding as you do about the wave function as representing possibilities. But these possibilities if they are real possibilities must be complete with the total information about the particle path's that might created. This would include those to be created particle path's wave functions, etc....
I said this:
Quote:Because if I understand the way this works... when we observe something the possible states collapse to one observable one. Yet even the process of observation should be based on these same rules. And the wave function (all possible states) of the photon from the particle to be detected cannot be resolved by the wave function from particles in the retina. How can something that only describes the totality of possibilities pick anything?
And you reply:
Quote:That's the point: it can't. Nothing can: it is random (have you ever heard that word?). This is just chapter two of your confusion between possibility and actuality: you want possibility to be already actual, when it is not. Since possibility precedes actuality, they must be really different: you must accept the nature of possibility, which is precisely to be not actual, hence the nature of actuality as non-deterministic. This is the essence of non-determinism: the absence of any actuality to act as a determinant.
So when I ask you how we get from infinite possible options to one actuality, all you can tell me is that it is random or that is what true randomness is. What you do not realise is that you have explained nothing. How can one set of possibilities interacting with another set of possibilities produce one observation. You might as well throw your hands up and tell me you do not even know because randomness is not an explanation. I cannot describe a process by which many possibilities is reduced to one based on probabilities without using a function to sort the possibilities out. And neither can you. You cannot define the term randomness in any meaningful way. What is the random process that gets us from the wave function to the particle exactly? How does it get us from many possibilities to one? So how can you tell me that the uncertainty principle or any other experiment proves fundamental randomness when you cannot even define it? We must have functions or a process that picks from possibilities based on probabilities to get one result that can be understood. If we have no meaning for the random process, then we do not understand it and can not possibly use it to explain something else because we do not know what it means in the first place. And so to say that Quantum Mechanics is based fundamentally on randomness is equivalent to saying we do not know what we are basing these statistical descriptions on.
Quote:Wave functions and particles do not interact, because wave functions do not actually exist. This is something quantum physicists know exceedingly well. Wave functions are not physical objects: only particles are. If wave functions were particles, then there would be no wave/particle duality.
I know what a wave function is and so I know that they do not interact with particles. But I said wave/particle duality and being a determinist I have also studied classical physics where there is a wave aspect of the particle that does not necessarily mean wave function. Wave can refer to the actual wave-like behavior exhibited in the double-slit experiment and in the behavior of particle fields or electromagnetic fields. This is in fact the way the term was used before modern quantum mechanical interpretations ruined physics.
Quote:This is neither a decision nor a choice: it is a random event, and the fact that you don't like it doesn't create the logical necessity for either a decision or a selection.
Above I describe a logical necessity for a term that we can understand.
In order to play dice you would still need the Absolute rules of dicing...
That which must be relative, is in itself an Absolute !
Randomness is indeed a very poorly understood word...
Now, I am pretty certain that 90% of you, won´t get why this is important..."Bon Voyage" !
As I told you before, the HUP applies to all conjugate attributes, not only to position/momentum, and attributes in quantum physics always come in pairs.
Your understanding of the HUP, which is known as the "disturbance model" of quantum physics, was definitely ruled out by John Stuart bell in 1964. I do not blame you since there are many physicists today (of course not working in the field of quantum physics) that still explain quantum physics for themselves on the basis of the disturbance model, for their on philosophical comfort. Please read this:
http://www.basicincome.com/bp/bellstheorem.htm
One of the interpretations of quantum physics says that the particle takes all paths to its destination: it just happens that the majority of those paths cancel each other out -- since they are waves -- and only a few remain, which are the possibilities we must bother with. So you can take that explanation (which is as valid as any other) to free yourself from the need for a "storage." Such a storage could not exist anyway, since it would have to have an infinite capacity.
We are basing these statistical descriptions on experimental facts. And the facts have increasingly confirmed it in the last five decades or so, to an extent beyond the wildest dreams of its creators.
We do not explain randomness. It is the other way around: randomness explains events. Randomness is the "ultimate cause," which, by definition, cannot have a cause. This is the reason why determinism is doomed: randomness is the ultimate cause.
Sorry, you didn't. You are just rejecting the fact that the search for an ultimate cause will eventually reach a cause that has no cause -- that is, a cause of which the only "logical necessity" will be that it has itself no possible cause. Before quantum physics, we could say it is God. After quantum physics, if we say it is God, then we must say, against Einstein, that God is playing dice with the universe.
Quote:As I told you before, the HUP applies to all conjugate attributes, not only to position/momentum, and attributes in quantum physics always come in pairs.
Your understanding of the HUP, which is known as the "disturbance model" of quantum physics, was definitely ruled out by John Stuart bell in 1964. I do not blame you since there are many physicists today (of course not working in the field of quantum physics) that still explain quantum physics for themselves on the basis of the disturbance model, for their on philosophical comfort. Please read this:
http://www.basicincome.com/bp/bellstheorem.htm
Bell rules out the possibility of locality. Locality is something I have no need for. In my opinion locality has been dead since the conception of the field. I believe the experiments that describe entangled particles that seem to show the transfer of information at faster than light speed. But never is it said that light is the mediator in these cases. Yet particle's electric fields permeate all space and are ever present. And even if their spread is limited by Einstein's light constant, electric fields may be the cause of this faster than light effect because of the way fields might interact with each other and then with their respective particles transfering information faster than an electromagnetic wave could on its own. Though the way fields interact with each other is not that well understood because it is even harder to detect electric fields than electromagnetic fields (light) since the latter can be seen directly in experiments and the former cannot. Regardless of what was said about fields, if it is anywhere approaching the reality, I would much rather do away with Einstein's speed of light proposition and replace it with a more comprehensive model that also explains entanglement than accept a model that says the world is based on randomness which no one can define in a meaningful way.
By the way I did read your link and it was okay. But it has in no way changed my opinion on anything. It helped me understand what you were saying when you said disturbance model, but because that model assumes adhereing to locality it does not apply to my beliefs.
Quote:One of the interpretations of quantum physics says that the particle takes all paths to its destination: it just happens that the majority of those paths cancel each other out -- since they are waves -- and only a few remain, which are the possibilities we must bother with. So you can take that explanation (which is as valid as any other) to free yourself from the need for a "storage." Such a storage could not exist anyway, since it would have to have an infinite capacity.
If these possibilities are paths then they must have something to them. Even if they are the faintest possibility. If something has no information (even a possibility or possible path) it must not exist. I find it very hard to have a possibility and that possibility have nothing to it. I do not know how to store infinities but I do not think this should be overlooked as so many things are taken for granted in quantum mechanics.
Quote:We are basing these statistical descriptions on experimental facts. And the facts have increasingly confirmed it in the last five decades or so, to an extent beyond the wildest dreams of its creators.
We do not explain randomness. It is the other way around: randomness explains events. Randomness is the "ultimate cause," which, by definition, cannot have a cause. This is the reason why determinism is doomed: randomness is the ultimate cause.
A meaningless word can explain nothing. You have defined randomness as not having a cause. Yet a cause deals in things. Something caused Something else to happen. Cause is used to link the two occurances. It is a term used to show a relationship between events, but then uncaused must be the opposite. No relationship and no connection between things. Yet you are trying to use this idea, randomness, as a way to connect "many possibilities" to "one thing". So can I really use your definition to get from "many possibilities" to " one thing"? Of course not, because to be uncaused is to have no connection. In addition to this, what about the probabilities used in quantum mechanics. Are they not a factor in making "one thing" happen out of "many possibilities". And in part, at least, could we not say the occurance of "one thing" was influenced by probabilities. So your randomness is partially uncaused (really a useless term) and partially caused (influenced by probabilities).
Also, there is a difference between "ultimate cause" and an "ultimate uncause". The first does not have a cause and makes sense, the second is really what randomness is for quantum mechanics and does not make sense, but in the confusion randomness causes, the word does work to hinder any real progression to a more fundamental understanding of the world.
Quote:Sorry, you didn't. You are just rejecting the fact that the search for an ultimate cause will eventually reach a cause that has no cause -- that is, a cause of which the only "logical necessity" will be that it has itself no possible cause. Before quantum physics, we could say it is God. After quantum physics, if we say it is God, then we must say, against Einstein, that God is playing dice with the universe.
I am fine with the idea of an ultimate cause its just that the ultimate cause must actually be described correctly. If that most basic understanding is discovered, we will never be able to know something more fundamental, but when an ultimate cause is defined in a way that it cannot do the job it needs to do, such as getting "one thing" from "many possibilities", then it surely cannot be the correct explanation.
I will agree that God may play dice with the universe. But he will be using his deterministic dice, and He always knows the outcome.
Quote:As I told you before, the HUP applies to all conjugate attributes, not only to position/momentum, and attributes in quantum physics always come in pairs.
Your understanding of the HUP, which is known as the "disturbance model" of quantum physics, was definitely ruled out by John Stuart bell in 1964. I do not blame you since there are many physicists today (of course not working in the field of quantum physics) that still explain quantum physics for themselves on the basis of the disturbance model, for their on philosophical comfort. Please read this:
http://www.basicincome.com/bp/bellstheorem.htm
Bell rules out the possibility of locality. Locality is something I have no need for. In my opinion locality has been dead since the conception of the field.
I believe the experiments that describe entangled particles that seem to show the transfer of information at faster than light speed.
But never is it said that light is the mediator in these cases.
Yet particle's electric fields permeate all space and are ever present.
And even if their spread is limited by Einstein's light constant, electric fields may be the cause of this faster than light effect because of the way fields might interact with each other and then with their respective particles transfering information faster than an electromagnetic wave could on its own.
Though the way fields interact with each other is not that well understood [...]
[...] because it is even harder to detect electric fields than electromagnetic fields (light) since the latter can be seen directly in experiments and the former cannot.
Regardless of what was said about fields, if it is anywhere approaching the reality, I would much rather do away with Einstein's speed of light proposition and replace it with a more comprehensive model that also explains entanglement than accept a model that says the world is based on randomness which no one can define in a meaningful way.
By the way I did read your link and it was okay. But it has in no way changed my opinion on anything. It helped me understand what you were saying when you said disturbance model, but because that model assumes adhereing to locality it does not apply to my beliefs.
Quote:One of the interpretations of quantum physics says that the particle takes all paths to its destination: it just happens that the majority of those paths cancel each other out -- since they are waves -- and only a few remain, which are the possibilities we must bother with. So you can take that explanation (which is as valid as any other) to free yourself from the need for a "storage." Such a storage could not exist anyway, since it would have to have an infinite capacity.
If these possibilities are paths then they must have something to them. Even if they are the faintest possibility. If something has no information (even a possibility or possible path) it must not exist. I find it very hard to have a possibility and that possibility have nothing to it. I do not know how to store infinities but I do not think this should be overlooked as so many things are taken for granted in quantum mechanics.
Quote:We are basing these statistical descriptions on experimental facts. And the facts have increasingly confirmed it in the last five decades or so, to an extent beyond the wildest dreams of its creators.
We do not explain randomness. It is the other way around: randomness explains events. Randomness is the "ultimate cause," which, by definition, cannot have a cause. This is the reason why determinism is doomed: randomness is the ultimate cause.
A meaningless word can explain nothing.
You have defined randomness as not having a cause. Yet a cause deals in things. Something caused Something else to happen. Cause is used to link the two occurances. It is a term used to show a relationship between events, but then uncaused must be the opposite. No relationship and no connection between things. Yet you are trying to use this idea, randomness, as a way to connect "many possibilities" to "one thing".
So can I really use your definition to get from "many possibilities" to " one thing"?
Of course not, because to be uncaused is to have no connection.
In addition to this, what about the probabilities used in quantum mechanics. Are they not a factor in making "one thing" happen out of "many possibilities". And in part, at least, could we not say the occurance of "one thing" was influenced by probabilities. So your randomness is partially uncaused (really a useless term) and partially caused (influenced by probabilities).
Also, there is a difference between "ultimate cause" and an "ultimate uncause". The first does not have a cause and makes sense, the second is really what randomness is for quantum mechanics and does not make sense, but in the confusion randomness causes, the word does work to hinder any real progression to a more fundamental understanding of the world.
Quote:Sorry, you didn't. You are just rejecting the fact that the search for an ultimate cause will eventually reach a cause that has no cause -- that is, a cause of which the only "logical necessity" will be that it has itself no possible cause. Before quantum physics, we could say it is God. After quantum physics, if we say it is God, then we must say, against Einstein, that God is playing dice with the universe.
I am fine with the idea of an ultimate cause its just that the ultimate cause must actually be described correctly. If that most basic understanding is discovered, we will never be able to know something more fundamental, but when an ultimate cause is defined in a way that it cannot do the job it needs to do, such as getting "one thing" from "many possibilities", then it surely cannot be the correct explanation.
I will agree that God may play dice with the universe. But he will be using his deterministic dice, and He always knows the outcome.
1 - What has no cause it is not Random, there´s nothing else there in Order to be...
2 - "God" cannot want other then what he knows just given what he is...
..."God" wants is part of "God" being... which is the same to say that you don´t get to get out of yourself...Time is meaningless.
Which opens up the field to rhetoric.
This is not a matter of opinion, this is science. John Stuart Bell provided the only way known to prove locality untenable by means of scientific experiment. Before him, the EPR paradox had no solution and haunted physicists for decades. Fields interact with particles in a classical way, so they have no means of ruling out locality. Einstein was the men of the field par excellence, and unsurprisingly the hero of locality as well.
There is no transfer of information: it is impossible to use entanglement to transfer information.
Entanglement does not depend on any kind of field.
The visible light is just a very tiny fraction of the electromagnetic field scope: most electromagnetic fields must be detected by instruments. Today no experiment depends directly in our vision anymore.
This is not religion, politics or sports: this is science. This is not about what you "would much rather do." Besides, quantum physics does not imply that the world is based on randomness: it implies that the selection of an event among a range of possibilities (given by the wave function) is random: full randomness would be the occurrence of any event at all, which is not the case. Such randomness is being used to generate truly random numbers right now:
There is no need to "link" the possibility of something to that something: they are linked "by definition." And if we were to link them, it would certainly not be via causation. It makes absolutely no sense to say that the possibility of something "causes" its occurrence.
Those paths are possible paths, not actual ones. They are waves made of possibility, which is the only reason they can cancel each other out. If they had the "faintest" actuality, that cancelling would no longer be possible.
If these possibilities are paths then they must have something to them. Even if they are the faintest possibility. If something has no information (even a possibility or possible path) it must not exist. I find it very hard to have a possibility and that possibility have nothing to it. I do not know how to store infinities but I do not think this should be overlooked as so many things are taken for granted in quantum mechanics.
Random is not a meaningless word: it means, precisely, that the selection of an event among a range of possibilities has no cause. That's a very precise meaning.
What a misunderstanding of probabilities, and not only in the realm of quantum physics: events are not "influenced" by probabilities, they obey them. There is no "causation" or "influence" between the wave function and observed particles, just because the wave function does not exist physically, and whatever does not have a physical existence cannot "influence" or "cause" anything. The wave function, or probabilities, govern the statistical distribution of observed particle events, as the mathematical law of that statistical distribution -- without a single miss in decades -- that's all.
There is no God, and "playing dice" is just a metaphor.
Quote:This is not a matter of opinion, this is science. John Stuart Bell provided the only way known to prove locality untenable by means of scientific experiment. Before him, the EPR paradox had no solution and haunted physicists for decades. Fields interact with particles in a classical way, so they have no means of ruling out locality. Einstein was the men of the field par excellence, and unsurprisingly the hero of locality as well.
This is a more complicated issue than you seem to make it. Science is an ongoing exercise. Even Bell was not without doubt about a deterministic loophole:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism
Other examples exist that find loopholes in the experimental apparatus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopholes_in_Bell_test_experiments
All entangled experiments are based on an emission source that we must make assumptions about and the detection of properties like spin which we do not really understand. And the idea of fields are never considered in these experiments though they are constantly present. In experiments where particles like ions or electrons are emitted and sent in opposite directions at detectors, fields are everywhere. The field of one particle (even if these fields are limited to the speed of light) must overtake the other particle traveling in the opposite direction(because it is limited to less than light speed). If we start both particles at the same location, the emision source, and race the field of one particle, moving in all directions at lightspeed, against that other particle,moving in one direction at less than the limit, the detector will be influenced by both the particle and field of the other particle. Bell's inequality assumes all unknown elements are accounted for but fields are not even considered when making the inequality.
Salart et al. (2008) Separation in a Bell Test
This experiment filled a loophole by providing an 18 km separation between detectors, which is sufficient to allow the completion of the quantum state measurements before any information could have traveled between the two detectors.
Quote:There is no transfer of information: it is impossible to use entanglement to transfer information.
This is also a clue. Curiously entanglement does not violate relativity. I think it seems more likely that we do not understand the complexity of what we are dealing with and the simplification Bell made is flawed somewhere. (But of course, I am only assuming this.)
Quote:Entanglement does not depend on any kind of field.
Surely you do not know this.
Quote:The visible light is just a very tiny fraction of the electromagnetic field scope: most electromagnetic fields must be detected by instruments. Today no experiment depends directly in our vision anymore.
Forgive me. I should not have said "see" I should have said seen in a test like the double slit experiment on a film that detects something like the interference pattern. Or that electric fields are not seen to influence the energy levels of electrons in atoms and thereby re-emit light.
Quote:This is not religion, politics or sports: this is science. This is not about what you "would much rather do." Besides, quantum physics does not imply that the world is based on randomness: it implies that the selection of an event among a range of possibilities (given by the wave function) is random: full randomness would be the occurrence of any event at all, which is not the case. Such randomness is being used to generate truly random numbers right now:
So are you kind of backing away from randomness? It is weird that you would use selection and random in the same sentence as part of the same process. I thought you had already said to me that nothing picks from the wave function, a "range of possibilities", since the event happens randomly it is uncaused (whatever that means). But a "range of possibilities" by itself really can make nothing happen. Its almost as if a selection is needed.
"True randomness" based on infinite possibilities having equal probabilities of selection and the "randomness" of the range of possibilities given by the wavefunction are only different because of range and probability distribution. But both can be explained, as Bell knew, by a large number number of small effects governed by deterministic law (countless unmeasurable atoms, light, or particles that cannot be kept track of not only due to their numbers but also the uncertainty principle.)
Quote:There is no need to "link" the possibility of something to that something: they are linked "by definition." And if we were to link them, it would certainly not be via causation. It makes absolutely no sense to say that the possibility of something "causes" its occurrence.
Yes but the wave function outputs many possibilities not just one. And these possibilities must not all be realized.
So how can randomness, which by your definition is no cause, get from these many possibilities to the one possibility that is realized. Then if all particles are described by wave functions, a "range of possibilities", how can the interaction of two groups of possibilities, make one event without a selection or a cause. So either you have a contradiction where you say there is no connection between the "range of possibilities" and that realized possibility, or you must admit you do not really know what you mean by random and as a consequence you cannot show that any experiment proves randomness(in the way it used to describe the wave function not "true randomness) is the fundamental interpretation of quantum mechanics because you cannot prove something you cannot define.
Quote:Those paths are possible paths, not actual ones. They are waves made of possibility, which is the only reason they can cancel each other out. If they had the "faintest" actuality, that cancelling would no longer be possible.
Why do you quote me wrongly? I said:
Quote:If these possibilities are paths then they must have something to them. Even if they are the faintest possibility. If something has no information (even a possibility or possible path) it must not exist. I find it very hard to have a possibility and that possibility have nothing to it. I do not know how to store infinities but I do not think this should be overlooked as so many things are taken for granted in quantum mechanics.
Specifically, I said " Even if they are the faintest possibility". I do not mean "actuality" if that is what you assume. An actually and a possibility must contain information to exist. Both of them. Everyday possibilities that are thoughts in our heads are still thoughts that are stored. There must be something to the possibilities described by the wave function, some information, where is it?
Quote:Random is not a meaningless word: it means, precisely, that the selection of an event among a range of possibilities has no cause. That's a very precise meaning.
The definition you just gave is vague. But the point is in the context you use it in. You try to explain that a "range of possibilities" goes to a realized possibility but there is no cause. So finish this thought and describe how we get from "range of possibilities" to the realized possibility without cause, describe the random process. In determinism there are no possibilities, and cause follows from the "instructions" built into elements that make up reality where under certain conditions certain instructions are followed creating events out of previous events. If you want to believe in possibilities you must deal with them, I do not need to. But if you cannot explain, even to yourself, how a "range of possibilities" is reduced then you should take this as another clue that the understanding you have is incomplete.
Quote:What a misunderstanding of probabilities, and not only in the realm of quantum physics: events are not "influenced" by probabilities, they obey them. There is no "causation" or "influence" between the wave function and observed particles, just because the wave function does not exist physically, and whatever does not have a physical existence cannot "influence" or "cause" anything. The wave function, or probabilities, govern the statistical distribution of observed particle events, as the mathematical law of that statistical distribution -- without a single miss in decades -- that's all.
You are touchy when it comes to probabilities. But I do understand them just fine. I have already told you I am fully aware that the wave function is an actual mathematical function. So I certainly know it is not some physical object out there we are debating about. We have the exact same understanding of the wave function and how it works.
Quote:There is no God, and "playing dice" is just a metaphor.
There is no God, no free will, and I already knew about the metaphor.
I would but entanglement is so important a concept yet I do not think any of us really know enough about the experiments and the mathematics to really come up with any outstanding arguments for or against locality based on this. It really makes me want to take the time and get a degree in quantum mechanics. Maybe we should cut the debate for a year or so until we all have our doctorates in quantum mechanics/entanglement and then finish it up.
