Free Will

Isn't entropy the randomness or disorder of a system?

Isn't that what quanta is about anyway? If the objects have different quanta (assuming they're little bitty particles, and if not i guess they would have quanta matrices or something) they will act differently? So they're not identical? Or do I have that wrong?

Actually, Binny, you would have to improve your understanding of quanta for it to be good enough to be considered "wrong!"


Sorrrry 'bout that...but these opportunities don't come along that often.

Well, Frank, you'll be pleased to know I wasted an hour or two reading an essay on quantum mechanics for dummies, or some such, here.
Seems to me that the in double slit experiment with low light levels, the measurement of the photon was the clear culprit. Furthermore, they said it themselves, measuring which slit the photon went through caused it to act like the other slit was blocked off. I bet (and this is just my uneducated opinion) that the photon was ABSORBED by whatever detected it, and its true wave form (the form it takes while it travels, like through a vacuum or something) was destroyed, then reassembled and spat out the other end of whatever particle absorbed it toward the plate. But that's just my bet (I'd be more than happy to hear why that's wrong). Sounds a lot more logical to me than an obvious result of quantum mechanics near the end of the article, that you could have a cat in a box that may or may not be killed after a particle in the box decays, and instead of at any point after the time for expiration of the particle the cat being either dead or alive, it doesn't decide until you open the box to check on it. Like I say, I want my taxes to be done based on the idea that the cat is either dead or alive.

Ray, when you have a closed system, like a box of objects or something, and something happens in the box, like something hot in the box cools off (and lets just say the box is in space and surrounded by some super duper mirror that reflects all the radiation that tries to come off the objects in the box), we say that some of the energy in the box (involving the hot object) is made "inaccessible" by the cooling action, and given time, for instance, all the objects will be the same temperature. Of all the states the object has, this one will have the highest entropy, because the most energy is inaccessible.

However, it is my opinion (uneducated, maybe) that the idea of quantization of light (and therefore energy)(seems to me that mechanical energy like that contained in velocity is probably quantized the same way light is) defies this principle by allowing for the complete restoration of the system to its original state through the use of super tiny carnot cycles in the great future.

I'm impressed, Binny. Truly!

Actually...I don't know my elbow from a bump on a log when it comes to quantum mechanics myself...despite the fact that I've read a couple of books on the subject.

It seems to me, however, that if you have the discipline and willingness to do what you did here...you should have the discipline and willingness to acknowledge that categorically rejecting the notion of randomness being part of REALITY...is a stretch....and an illogical stretch at that.

But...I may be wrong.

Too bad we don't have a real expert in our midst! haha he could probably set me straight in a way I could understand with a single sentence!

But it's probably me who's wrong since you're the one with the scientific community (at least the whacked out physicists... have you seen them? like michio kaku or some others? ) on your side. But I just have my doubts

True wave form? Electrons have wavelenghts too you know.



Sounds more logical to me too. Seems to me the two theories produce identical predictions, so we should choose the simplest one.



Why would you care, you pay the same amount of taxes either way?

Well that may technically be true since I'm a college student bumming off of his parents, but in the near future, it won't be. I'd rather have a smarty finding all the ways they can save me a penny by claiming all my stuff than somebody that thinks the machine didn't actually chop off the cat's head at the moment it was programmed to possibly do that. (Read the link in the post above to get a more complete description of the cat thing)

The probability of the cat being dead at the time this becomes signifficant is the same in either case, so you would end up paying the same amount of taxes regardless of who was doing them.

But what about the cat?

Can IT tell the difference?

Indeed the probability for YOU may be the same, but the cat knows.

That's why the whole argument is such nonsense. If nothing happens until you open the box, the cat is CLEARLY alive. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not laying a finger on my taxes.

I would be inclined to agree with you. regarding the absurdity of the theory.

Still the two theories produce the same bottom line, and the same taxes, in any imaginable scenario.

binnyboy

I think you are mixing two different things. In our past, there is only one linear chain of events, because things occur the way they did from your present point of view.
But speaking about future it's different: you cannot predict the weather situation in New York in 2006. It is impossible because of the number of variants.
We can only make predictions about linear systems (like the movement of earth). But most systems are not linear.
How can you predict the disposition of the traffic in a motorway. Surely patterns will be established, because even non-linear events tend to organize themselves. The problem is that you cannot predict how they will organize.
I think you gave a newtonian interpretation of modern physics, totally innacceptable.

As far as my newtonian interpretation goes, I invite you to show me where I'm wrong... I've explained my opinion clearly. It can't be acceptable or unacceptable to you until you know (or think you know)(that's not meant to be insulting, only realistic... we all just go on what we think we know) where I'm wrong.

And as far as nonlinear systems goes, just because you can't predict things and I can't predict things doesn't mean that if we had all the facts, the things could not be predicted (assuming we were very very good at predicting things). Let me illustrate. In caveman times, cavemen would herd mammoths off cliffs. When said mammoths plummeted to earth, they fell with a certain acceleration function (the constant acceleration we all know modified by air resistance and a trillion other little tiny factors). Nowadays, we can predict (pretty closely, using just the acceleration and air resistance portions of the acceleration function) how long it would take the mammoths to fall to earth, if we knew enough about the situation (ie, height of cliff, weight and planar surface area of mammoth, density function of atmosphere in that area, etc). But the cavemen couldn't. Clearly. But we could only predict the time of impact to a certain number of digits. That number (the number of digits we can predict) is greater than one (which the cavemen might have been able to predict, maybe, given very smart cavemen and also given they know the concept of about how long a second is) and less than infinity, necessarily. Furthermore in our future, that number will increase, given new methods of calculation and new laws/theories that will be discovered after this date. So this just shows that our ability to predict things is getting better. This means our ability to predict things is approaching (or at least getting closer to) perfection and is not at perfection. So to say that we cannot predict the weather in 2006 is accurate but misleading. We can't. but who is to say the people (there actually will not be people at this time) of 20004 would not be able to predict the weather of 20006? Would the cavemen have been able to conceive that we would be able to predict the time of mammoth impact to several digits (assuming they understood what digits are)? So you can't just name something we can't currently predict and say we can't predict this, so some things can never be predicted.

A much shorter explanation is: I believe the following axiom:
Things happen for reasons.
You could alternately say:
Effects have causes.

This notion specifically denies the entire foundation of quantum mechanics, which is built upon that double slit experiment I linked to earlier. The EXPERIMENTAL result the whole science is built on is that when a photon passes through one of the slits unmeasured, it interferes with itself on the other side of the slit-board. When the photon is detected when passing through a slit (to determine which slit it went through)(note that they CLAIM the detection of the photon does not affect the photon in any way... that is THEIR axiom... if you can find a proof of it, I'll completely apologize for my ignorance), it becomes as if the second slit is not there, and there is no interference like there is in the undetected case. So their conclusion, and the basis of quantum mechanics, is that the detecting of the photon (which they claim doesn't affect the photon... it was done in a passive way, so they say)causes the photon to go through just one slit (the one that detected it) in particle form whereas if it weren't detected, it would go through both slits in wave form. This means the act of passively detecting the course of the photon changes its course because you knowing makes a difference. To be more precise, it's not you knowing, but you being able to know (since they ACTUALLY TRIED just doing it again with the detectors and not looking at the readout from the detectors. Read the link above. You'll see I'm just parroting the paper.
Passive means being acted upon without acting upon. So if we passively detect which slit the photon went through, we haven't acted upon the photon. Yet quantum mechanics says our passive detection affects the photon. Clearly, then, we have affected the photon without acting upon it in any way. So we have caused an effect that has no cause. Not only does this defy my axiom, it defies logic itself.

But that's just my uneducated opinion.

binnyboy

Sorry, but I think you didn't understand what a non-linear system is.
See this famous example, that deals with the rise of the population:

p1 = p0 + r p0 (1-p0), where p0 is the initial population, R represents the variation of the rise. Give P0 the numeric value of 0,01 and R the numeric value of 3.
In the first generation, P1 = 0,0397.
Then repeat the calculation to the 2nd generation. P0 being now P1, P2will be 0,154.
If you are using two different calculators -in the example of Peigten, a CASIO and a HEWLETT-PACKARD - and make no interruptions in the operation, in the 10th generation you see that in CASIO calculator P10 = 0,7229143012 and in PACKARD P10 = 0,722914301711. And in 40th generation the values are:
CASIO PACKARD
P40 = 0,0021143643 P40 = 0,143971503996.
The reason of the disparity is due to the number of decimals in each calculator. But you can't have a calculator with all decimals: sooner or later you will find an infinite number of decimals.
So, you can't calculate the exact population in, let's say, 40 generations. That is not a question of knowledge, it is an arithmetical impossibility.

The problem with non-linear systems is in the fact that the variants tend to be infinite. Each new variant originates new bifurcations until a point - the constant of Freigenbaum - where the situation becomes chaotic.
The greatest part of the events in our experience are non-linear. They are called "dissipative structures", systems that are open to mass, energy and information exchanges with their environment. That dynamic prevents them to reach the perpetual equilibrium of closed systems. That doesn't mean they don't organize themselves. That self-organization of the dissipative structures can be described, but not predicted.
I invite you to read two excellent books about this question:
"Chaos and fractals" of H. Peigten, and "Malicorne" of Hubert Reeves.

Well val, My TI89 made it all the way up to p9 in exact mode before it had an overflow. Alls ya gots to do is have a calculator (or computer program) that doesn't have a machine precision. Just don't set it up like that, and you can easily get to p40. Beats me how big of a computer something as arbitrary as p40 will require... Deep Blue could probably do it if it were programmed with the same real number software as my TI89, but maybe it would take a much more powerful computer. But one could be built. Clearly. NOT an arithmetical impossibility. The answer to your problem is going to be a 1099511627776-degree polynomial with natural number coefficients with (0.01) plugged into it. Maybe you should be more careful saying something like that is impossible.

And I think you will probably be able to find quite a few scientists that are under the impression that the ENTIRE UNIVERSE is a finite closed system.

Even if you don't like that, look at it this way:
For any situation you want to find, I can find an open system so enormously big that no external impesions (sorry I made up a word) upon the system could affect the outcome for any given time frame.

binnyboy

I don't know if I understand the last part of your reply.
You talk about a "system so enormously big that no external "impesions" upon the system could affect the outcome for any given time frame".
But, in this case, that system would be the cause of itself. I mean, it would be it's own cause and effect. Such a system would create the original conditions of all relations that occur within it, but, since it cannot interact with external "impesions" - I like the word - the all system would be "causa sui". Something like the theological God.
Is this what I can't understand, because you assumed a deterministic position.

You need photons or some type of interactions to passively observe the motion and thus it will nevertheless affect the experiment because you applying the interactions to observe it would have an effect on the system.

I'm saying, let's say we have a space. Like the size of our galaxy. And which indeed is the space containing our galaxy. Then in that space exist objects in certain positions and with certain momenta and such. And light waves are there too, in certain places and in certain states. Maybe we don't know what they are but they're there. Beats me what you mean by it being its "own cause and effect". Alls I'm sayin is:
Given initial conditions, subsequent conditions follow. Necessarily. Do deny this is to deny that there are initial conditions. And I can't bring myself to do that. I just made it an open system because indeed, things outside the space could enter the space and wreak havoc. But it would take some time (probably something to do with 2*c) for anything external to affect what's going on in our frame. So for any time frame, alls we gots to do is make our frame bigger, and we can say that for that time frame, there is only one possible future for our localized area.

Ray, I think we can be part of the system. But maybe there's a flaw in that thought.

BTW sorry if I was rude... I get carried away I guess

And I'm just saying what I think anyway, I don't have a bunch of smart people's opinions behind me