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#51
11-06-2005, 03:43 AM
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Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
I'm not sure if this post further flushes out the topic at hand or if it merely obfuscates the truth of the situation. end discalimer.
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] I guess unpredictability given infinite knowledge is what I'm talking about. I don't think such a thing exists. I think the entire outcome of all the particles in the universe has already been determined. We certainly don't have the knowledge to predict that outcome, but hypothetically, the answer exists. [/ QUOTE ] Infinite knowledge is not possible. We know this to be true. Infinite knowledge, of course, would forbid randomness. Your problem is not with randomness but your belief that infinite knowledge is possible. [/ QUOTE ] This is a very interesting point, but I'm not sure that I agree with your conclusion. It's reasonable to assume infinite knowledge is not possible to obtain. I'm not sure what infinite knowledge entails. Let's make a bold assumption (that almost certainly isn't true) that the universe is nothing but an infinite number of locations, and those locations either have or don't have the smallest possible unit of matter. The amount of matter in the universe is finite, so if we simply map out all the known peices of matter in the universe, we are working on a finite scale. Obviously we cannot do this for every particle in the universe, but theoretically, we could do it for any particle in the universe. If every particle is mappable, that means that the information that would lead to infinite knowledge is out there. It wouldbe impossible for humans to ever obtain all of that data, but it's out there. I dont think that whether or not we can gather all of the information is relevant. The point is that it's out there. I oversimplified things w/ my false assumption, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say. I'm not sure how to phrase it better. [/ QUOTE ]The problem is not that we can not know the location of all the matter. It's that we cannot know, amongst other things, the location and the speed of an object at the same time. Uncertainty Principle or Quatum indeterminancy may help to clarify the impossibility of infinite knowledge. Now it's also important that I bring up a physcological arguement that I like to call "The all the worlds a" problem. The human mind is very well equiped to learn something and then apply that to all the world. One learns of general physics and then says All the worlds a deterministic thing. We have these great theories that can give us increadible close aproxiamtions of observable outcomes, and we then applies them to all of the world. Hence, free will is thought to be non existant. The problem is that a theory that is useful for describing planets and Galaxies, or a theory that is useful to describe the realy small, aren't neccessarily the ones you wish to use regarding people. Many great thinking minds have made this mistake. Ok but your post wasn't really about free will vs determinism but was about randomness. And you are correct that if it was possible to know everything about a system nothing would be random. Randomness is almost excluded by definition when one uses the term infinite knowledge. The universe just doesn't work that way. It doesn't let you know everything about a system. Other things exist mereley as a probablity. I'm not a good scientist so I won't go into these things, other than that what we know about is that the process is random. Genetic mutation, radio active decay, the path of traveling light, the digits of Pi, I wish to add some decision making processes(the rest of the world hasn't yet decided that) are examples of random processes. [ QUOTE ] I dont think that whether or not we can gather all of the information is relevant. The point is that it's out there. [/ QUOTE ] Quoted again because I'm not sure if my post answers this point. Just because we can't know the exact speed when we know the exact location, does it follow nessesary that it doensn't have an exact speed? I don't know, but it appears there are other types of randomness that don't depend on the uncertainty princple. Is radio active decay determined by quatum indertimanacy? What is the principle that makes Pi's digits random? 
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#53
11-06-2005, 04:44 AM
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Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] I think of the universe the same way I think of a computer program. The universe has a set of laws [/ QUOTE ] Who wrote the universe program? [/ QUOTE ] What created the thing that wrote the Universe Program? (Can we please not have a discussion about God thrown into the mix?) What Quantam Theory says is that there is no perfect knowledge (as far as we know). It is impossible to tell the location and momentum of the object at the same time, no matter how accurate your measuring tools are. Of course, if you could see in more than 4 dimensions, or find a hidden variable that we don't know of, randomness ceases to exist, but for now, the best physics believes that it does.
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#54
11-06-2005, 06:39 AM
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Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
Any given particle has both a location and a velocity. As the uncertainty principle states, we cannot measure these precisely, but the particle still has a location and velocity whether or not humans can map them.
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#55
11-06-2005, 07:03 AM
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Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
[ QUOTE ]
Any given particle has both a location and a velocity. As the uncertainty principle states, we cannot measure these precisely, but the particle still has a location and velocity whether or not humans can map them. [/ QUOTE ]I make it to easy when I bring up a correct counter arguement to my own arguement. But lets examine light. Keep in mind that we always know the exact speed of light. What do you think that that does to the location of the light? Well it turns out the light while moving, is travelling thru all possible paths at the same time. When we stop it to look at it, it randomly decoheres(sp) to a precise location. So at least the case with light is that it doesn't have an exact location while it's moving. It's not that we just can't measure it, it truely behaves as if it is in all possible locations.
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#56
11-06-2005, 07:09 AM
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Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
[ QUOTE ]
Any given particle has both a location and a velocity. As the uncertainty principle states, we cannot measure these precisely, but the particle still has a location and velocity whether or not humans can map them. [/ QUOTE ] This almost certainly isn't right, The particle does not take these values until the measurement is made, until then its a probability distribution. All this is still only about whether the universe appears to behave in random way and nothing to do with whether true randomness exists. Also infinite knowledge has nothing to do with it unless you're talking about some god-like infinite knowledge of the future. chez
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#57
11-06-2005, 07:22 AM
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Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
[ QUOTE ]
All this is still only about whether the universe appears to behave in random way and nothing to do with whether true randomness exists. [/ QUOTE ] What would get to the point about whether true randomness exists or not?
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#58
11-06-2005, 07:31 AM
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Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] All this is still only about whether the universe appears to behave in random way and nothing to do with whether true randomness exists. [/ QUOTE ] What would get to the point about whether true randomness exists or not? [/ QUOTE ] as I said before its a metaphysical question so nothing will get to the point [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] If you produce any model of the universe that is random then you can remodel it in a deterministic fashion and vice-verca. Science can show that things behave in a random way and cannot be determined, but leaps beyond that are not science. chez
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#59
11-06-2005, 11:11 AM
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Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
"Who wrote the universe program?"
A god far different than the one you believe in. Not one who merely "speaks" things into existence. Or who punishes you based on your beliefs about a nice Jewish boy who charlatans later on wrote fraudelant stories about.
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