OK, but if we can't determine it, then we can't say anything about it. It wouldn't be scientific to.
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Anonymous2007-01-01 22:11
>>42
We can't determine something specific in practice, such as the cat being alive or dead, but we can enounce laws of Physics which govern the cat and decide whether he's dead or not. Again, the fact we can't determine one particular variable in a real case doesn't mean we should call it a non-deterministic system.
This reminds me of electron clouds: the electron cloud is not the electron itself! Regardless of if we talk of electron clouds because we don't know where each is, and it's more useful to know where it's probable to be found, the electron exists and it's in one point.
No, we can't declare anything about what is happening outside of our ability to observe. It's like something outside of the universe -- because we can't observe anything outside of our universe, we can't say anything about it. Yes, it's a little different for QM, but that's the basic principle behind it's non-determinism.
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Anonymous2007-01-02 18:34
QM may be the current best model we have, but how does it relate to what the black man must deal with today in America?
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Anonymous2007-01-09 9:10
this thread is relevent to my internets
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4tran2007-01-11 17:03
I agree that QM is bullshit, but it remains empirically accurate, which troubles me to no end... I really hope that someday this crap will get thrown out the window like Aristotelian physix.
QM isn’t bullshit. But I think we are interpreting it wrong on a very basic level.
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Anonymous2007-01-13 10:32
I farted on the flux capacitor at 88 mph, now I'm stuck in 1721
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Anonymous2007-01-13 15:34
"We could still imagine that there is a set of laws that determines events completely for some supernatural being, who could observe the present state of the universe without disturbing it. However, such models are not of much interest to us ordinary mortals."
Stephen Hawking
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Anonymous2007-01-13 15:57
>>51
They are very much of interest to us, because they're likely to be simpler and easier to work with.
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Anonymous2007-01-13 18:27
>>52
Except for the part where they'd be completely useless since we can't observe the state of the universe without disturbing it.
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Anonymous2007-01-13 21:12
>>53
You don't need to observe anything, you could use them to get exact masses for fundamental particles, to understand what happens inside a black hole, etc.
You want us to do science without observation? How progressive of you!
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Anonymous2007-01-13 22:49
>>55
Were getting good at infering. Can you observe a black hole for me? Can you observe some macro-evolution for me?
Science dosn't always need observation.
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Anonymous2007-01-13 23:13
>>55
Well, I mean you can still get predictions without plugging in any kind of observations first.
Then to verify to some degree of confidence whether you really have the correct rules, compare the predictions with reality. You don't need to measure reality exactly for that.
>>58
Didn't claim it did; I was just responding to >>51.
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Anonymous2007-01-14 1:19
Well, theory is all well and good, but until you find evidence of a theory in the real world, it's crap. You wanna know why string theory is under attack by so many physicists right now? Because it's CRAP until someone finds evidence of those little vibrating strings. And sure, we can THEORETICALLY predict what's happening inside a black hole, but until we can somehow poke and prod inside one, it doesn't matter.
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Anonymous2007-01-14 2:25
>>60 I am anonymous teenager authority. Hear me roar!
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Anonymous2007-01-14 4:34
>>61 I have no concept of the scientific method. Hear me bitch about it!
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Anonymous2007-01-14 10:12
>>60
String theory is under attack because it doesn't really (currently) make any testable predictions.
If you have an elegant (ie. relatively simple) theory that makes testable predictions that work out, and it also gives some explanation of what happens inside a black hole (which we will probably never be able to test), then we can reasonably assume that explanation to be correct.
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Anonymous2007-01-14 11:18
>>63
Little known fact: Black holes are actually the bubble habitats of the Bubblonians. The event horizon is actually a protective shield.
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Anonymous2007-01-15 20:28
For the OP and anyone else who's skeptical:
Here, read this. I don't know if it will help you or not, but it's worth a try, damn-it!
Quantum Mechanics is fully deterministic. If you know the Hamiltonian, the time evolution of the wave function can be calculated exactly at any point and any time, given any particular initial conditions.