I don't understand how anyone could arrive at a conclusion that true randomness exists anywhere. Or rather, I do understand it, but I think it is rather stupid. I guess a common misconception is that QM proves determinism is impossible, but that's not true at all. The only thing it proves is that some things are beyond our ability to measure; the underlying mechanism can still be fully pre-determined (in fact, this is the only logically consistent position).
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ozwash!9Yp0F0tOG62005-06-07 23:33
There has been studies that have shown that the human brain can manipulate random events.
Now if only I could get more 100 rolls in WoW
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Anonymous2005-06-08 0:45
... but if the brain is manipulating them, how can they be random?
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Anonymous2005-06-10 9:44
>>3
The idea is that the mind is changing the probability density function. That is, say you flip a coin 100 times. You have pretty much a binomial probability distribution. That is, you have the largest chance of getting 50 heads and 50 tails, but even 40 and 60 would not be remarkable. Now, the idea is that with the mind, you could change the probability distribution to having 55/45 be the most likely result. It's not changing any particular event, which is therefore still random, but does change the overall statistics.
The study refered to involves a black box spitting out random numbers, 1s and 0s. When a group of people focus on changing the numbers, there appear to be more of one number than the other compared to when nobody is thinking about it. These "eggs" as they are called similarly changed their patterns just before 9/11 and other major events. Of course, all one can conclude is that something somewhere did something to the eggs, but we can't tell what. It's very strange, but there are serious scientific investigations into the matter.
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Mothra2005-06-13 1:44
>>4
I've heard of those studies, but I distrust them. Sounds too much like new-age silliness. I'd want a study with continuous data over years before I'd trust it. Besides, machines can't produce true randomness.
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Anonymous2005-06-19 23:26 (sage)
Sure they can. Just tune a radio to static.
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Anonymous2005-06-20 21:20
Its only random because your too stupid to find the pattern.
Technically, that's not a machine producing the randomness, it's the comsic microwave background radiation doing it. The radio's just converting it into sound.
Actually, the "underlying mechanism" is what is semi-probabilistic, and there's no real logical inconsistencies. Indeed Bell's Inequality refutes the empirical existence of any such hidden structure:
>>2 >>4
Get the fuck back to /x/ with your bullshit. The only thing worse than voodoo "science" is the retards who hear about it and parrot it off as fact without looking into the matter any further.
There are two relevant "studies" that are commonly cited when this shit comes up. Both are universally criticized and have been shown to be downright fraudulent in their methodologies.
The first is the one you mentioned and is the work of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab.
Now, there is an apparent trend that the underlying cause for the action of all molecular structures results from interaction between the information in the surrounding environment.
So this would suggest at complete determinism if we don't know any better.
However OP, we fully have the capability to measure some things on the quantum level, and from what we see physical logic works radically differently for quanta than on the molecular level.
So I don't think there is sufficient reason to believe that simply because it seems most things we can observe have a measurable cause, there must be particles at the most fundamental level whose actions are deterministic.
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Anonymous2011-02-28 3:19
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Anonymous2011-02-28 15:04
Wow! I mean...I just....wow!
First off, determinism isn't something that humans can experience. We can conceive of what it might be, but the conception is far removed from the reality. The facts are simple; 1) humans have only so-much accumulated knowledge which actually hinders any possibility of perceiving anything determinately. At best, a educated-guess would suffice. That's why free-will can exist at a human level, but determinism is something that only a being, far above and removed from what it means to be human, can experience.
Now, I realize this sounds like I'm putting down philosophers that hold determinism in high regard, but I have to exclaim, "Are they paying attention to the human condition and taking IT into account in order to reach this conclusion of the possibility of determinism perceivable by humans?" You can't! It's far beyond human capacity to perceive determinism directly. If anything, it's an illusion distracting you from what is human. If I had to put it theologically, it's a God-trait, not a human trait. No manner of science will ever penetrate the veil of determinism just as no human being will ever be immortal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc.
So long as science is a construct used to reveal a happening in nature, so too is the language a construct upon which science is built. These constructs blind us from what is really there by cookie-cutting (categorizing) the true potentialities of existence as human beings see fit. It's not only a painful fact, but what makes it harder to accept is that some constructs need to be re-assessed and changed in order to account for future findings. It's a sweeping-shot-in-the-dark method to finding the truth. But so long as science cookie-cuts what it perceives as reality it will miss the point of it altogether.
You should know that "to err is human" and that is no exclusion in science. In order to exclude human err you must account for it. How many scientists account for their own human conditions at the time of scientific discoveries? You'll find a glaring discrepancy.
Until human beings find a way to look beyond what they know, they'll never understand what they see.
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Laplace Demon2011-03-01 0:09
I know who you are.
I know what your bank account is.
I know when you fap.
I know where you live.
I see all and know all.
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Anonymous2011-03-01 5:00
How does a pear?
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Anonymous2011-03-01 19:25
>>17
Four hundred thousand miles an hour, with the family dog rolled all the way open.
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Anonymous2011-03-07 18:10
See Bell's Inequality
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Anonymous2011-03-07 20:01
>>11,19
Educamate yourselves: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/142461/files/198009299.pdf It is important to note that to the limited degree to which determinism plays a role in the EPR argument, it is not assumed but inferred. What is held sacred is the principle of "local causality" - or "no action at a distance." Of course, mere correlation between distant events does not by itself imply action at a distance, but only correlation between the signals reaching the two places. These signals, in the idealized example of Bohm, must be sufficient to determine whether the particles go up or down. For any residual undeterminism could only spoil the perfect correlation.
It is remarkably difficult to get this point across, that determinism is not a presupposition of the analysis. There is a widespread and erroneous conviction that for Einstein determinism was always the sacred principle. The quotability of his famous "God does not play dice" has not helped in this respect. Among those who had great difficulty in seeing Einstein's position was Born. Pauli tried to help him in a letter of 1954:
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4tran2011-03-08 1:38
>>20
I suppose there are more than 1 interpretations to the analysis. My approach is:
Proof by contradiction
1) assume local determinism
2) arrive at inequality
3) do experiment
4) experiment violates inequality by > 50 std deviations
5) contradiction
6) either locality or determinism (or both) is not true
I recall Einstein wanting both, but my impression was that he valued locality more. I think both are violated slightly.
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4tran2011-03-08 3:54
While we're on the subject, is the Leggett–Garg inequality related in any way, or some other constraint on QM?
in b4 read the wiki
I think you're wrong, although my reason depends on what you mean by determinism. I see 2 possibilities in the context of your post:
1) Simply that the state of a system is characterized/determined by some mathematical structure describing the outcome probabilites for any measurement on that system.
2) All real states are deterministic on measurement outcomes - as opposed to probabilistic. That is to say, an electron is "really" either spin up or spin down and it's our ignorance of affairs that introduces probabilities.
We'd be in deep water if we dropped assumption 1, so I don't think it's even at stake. Assumption 2 is not required for violation of Bell-type inequalities (I'm thinking specifically of CHSH, since I'm not up to scratch on what assumptions Bell originally made).
In my opinion, violation of CHSH equalities rules out the prospect of any local theory, period.
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Anonymous2011-03-10 7:32
>>21
Determinism isn't an assumption of the analysis, so it's not an "intepretation" to say that Bell's theorem refutes determinism; it's just wrong. And you forgot to mention counterfactual definiteness, which, like locality, is an assumption of the analysis. Although I don't know how to even formulate the notion of locality if counterfactual reasoning isn't valid. Also, the experiments don't violate CHSH; they violate CHSH + the fair sampling assumption. Although I fully expect that when detectors improve to the point where we can do the real experiment, quantum mechanics will still be accurate.
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Anonymous2011-03-16 5:35
Reality is Nondeterministic and nondeterministic systems are truly random when inspected from a deterministic viewpoint. Probably.
unsound as some ideas may be under scrutiny - they are very entertaining and relaxing - to some degree thought provoking - to some may be even enlightening
OP is right on the money... Non-determinism just seems to be nonsense drivel driven by a deep seated fear that everything you do and say is predetermined and therefore irrelevant.
Just because we can't see the way things are determined doesn't mean that reality stops working...