Determinism vs chance

I don't think there is a scrap of evidence or theory, except maybe in the realm of gravity, that anything in the universe is "determined" at all, in any way, self or otherwise.

Steven Wolfram has offered us a reasonable attempt at a mechanism ( cellular automata ), or possibility of a kind of mechanism, potentially adequate for basing such a theory and guiding investigation into such a "physical" realm of evidence, but it remains AFAIK an interesting speculation at this time.

 

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Well... i thank my conclusons are dew to the combinaton of my genes an envroment (jus iike everbody elses) sinse thats the only 2 causal factors i know of... but many other people have beleifs that magic/Gods play a roll in ther thankin... but i will wate for verifiable evidence for such thangs cause i ant into "beleifs".!!!

 

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Why would it mean little to you if they are in fact determined by you?

I've said this many times (perhaps not to you but), free will is your part of the determining process, however minute that is, the free will you experience is the freedom you have.

Free will is also a part of the "determination", so to speak.

 

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Whats an esample of this minute free will we esperience.???

 

From my own research I have come to understand that this is in fact correct, though not in a way that is commonly thought of.
The notion of free will with in an absolutely deterministic universe is at first indicating a direct contradiction or paradox. How can free will exist in a fully determined environment?

In the end it all boils down to opening the mind to the vastness of concepts like infinity and zero.

So with out getting bogged down into the freewill debate according to my understanding yes there are indeed infinite futures to choose from at any given moment and yet still within an absolutely determined universe.

 

yes , yes , yes!

When you consider infinity as being INFINITE with a capital "I" you can see there is plenty of room both concepts to co-exist.

 

Any ways...the main purpose of this thread was to prove the notion of randomness and chance as unproven concepts commonly used by science as a convenient way to explain events not able to be determined due to lack of resource.
In doing so this leaves only one other option and that is that the universe is fully self determined in that Cause and effect, then effect becoming cause for subsequent effects and so on, is the golden rule of all interactions and progressions in time.

Then once we seriously consider this universe as fully self determined and note the incredible intelligence we witness in it's evolution one can quite readilly conclude that that cause and effect determinism must have an intelligent bias in the least as the universe has certainly acheived greater complexity and diversity as it has evolved.
This can then be very suggestive that the universe as a whole is quite an intelligent and rather clever entity or "machine" if you like. That all it's evolution is guided by a form of instinctive or naturally derived intelligence that is free of volition yet has allowed itself to evolve volition via the humanoid and other organic structures.

Impressive to say the least IMO.

But to arrive at this point one has to fully discount notions of mythical randomness and chance as these two notions remove the notion of "intelligence" or in the least render that intelligence as insane/chaos. That the laws of Physics are fully determined by the universe and not some freakish chance or random occurance.

So the good news is :
"We are not an Accident!"

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however
"We were not conceived deliberately either!"

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I have a sneeky feeling we are at cross purposes...care to explain what you are referring to as determinism?
Regarding this thread it is simply cause leading to effect, then the effect becoming a cause for future effects.

An amazing infinite and eternal butterfly effect.

 

That's what I'm talking about.

"Cause and effect" is a very useful mental abstraction, a more or less necessary simplification and mental synopsis, on the same basic philosophical footing as "chance" except without even that slight backing in evidence or theory.

There's no harm in it, as long as one does not naively extend the concept to scales of time and space for which it is unsuited.

 

QQ,

You've got some problems here.
As you've seen, your conclusion re. determinism has been viewed (and correctly so) as highly improbable, if not downright incorrect.

The problem is that firstly, you don't know whether or not you're dealing with two mutually exclusive concepts. So, to conclude that, if X is false, then Y must be true, is just simply fallacious.

Secondly, the two concepts in question are so difficult to define that, for all intents and purposes, each and every one of us here could be thinking of completely differing notions when we use the terms.

Thirdly, if you go so far as to accept that Randomness is an abstraction, then you're similarly obliged to recognize that Determinism is also an abstraction. Now, given that, in either case, you're dealing with a tautology, and therefore, the entire line of thought here is vacuous, at best.

Again, this refers back to my second point above. It's all in the definitions people.

I have to agree with iceaura here: from cosmologists to physicists, the concept of determinism is, at best, made use of in models as kind of a poor man's 'causality' notion (given that causality is such a muddled notion itself...).This utility speaks little, if anything, on whether or not it is 'real' (whatever that might be...). I think that you would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of scientists who would take the position that there's sufficient evidenciary support for determinism. Rather, the weight of evidence seems to fall in support of randomness...

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I don't mean to come across as being harsh; on the contrary, I appreciate your delving into issues like these. I've been there myself...
It's just that I don't quite understand what it is you're getting at here.


Either randomness or determinism are (in some sense) 'Real', in which case, pragmatically, we will never be able to determine which, or we concede that the two are simply human abstractions based upon observation, in which case it goes without saying that both of them serve as descriptive tools, and therefore cannot be taken as to be making any statement whatsoever about the 'Real' world.
In either case... the point is moot.

 

The last paragraph I find the most appealing and yes ultimately everything is moot!

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I guess it is just a matter of how deep you wish to ponder....

I shall respond more so later as I have a city appointment to attend. [ not that there is much more to be said... without clear definitions beig stated and agreed to.

 

Do you thank the universe was created by an intelegent entity... an if so... what do you thank its purpos for creatin the universe was.???

 

Hey QQ,

I'm glad you enjoyed it. It took me some time to wrap my head around how to logically construct that thought.

Again, I hope you took no offense to my comments; I'm just trying to understand.

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Though that line of thought is related, lets try to refrain from pursuing it too much. That could easily lead us far offtopic....

 

[/b]Quantum Quack: [/b] The first of the following two statements presents an unsupported opinion as a fact. The second is an invalid statement.

Radioactive decay & many processes at the quantum level are associated with random data. How can you state that randomness has never been seen in nature when radioactive decay is a well known process which is associated with random data?

BTW: Random is a term which is highly ambiguous & misunderstood by most people. It is better to use terms like probability or probabilistic. The term random is meaningless in the absence of the description of a process or a reference to a probability distribution.

For your benefit, an explanation seems necessary, since you seem to know very little about either probability or processes like radioactive decay.

Given a kilogram or so of a radioactive substance with a half life of one year, the following is the expected outcome (observable facta based on much experimental data).

• Almost exactly half the atoms will have decayed in one year & ½ will remain.
  
  
• After two years, 3/4 of the atoms will have decayed & 1/4 will remain.
  
  
• After 3 years, 7/8 of the atoms will have decayed & 1/8 will remain.
  
  
• After 4 years, 15/16 of the atoms will have decayed & 1/16 will remain.

From the above, the rate of decay (measured in atoms decayed) halves each year. At first glance, this seems a bit strange.

Consider modeling the atoms by “true probabilistic coins” which are flipped once per year. The coins which land heads are discarded, while the coins which land tails are kept for the next year. The numerical results for the coins is the same as the results for the atoms: After 4 years 1/16 remain.

The above is a description of a random process. Id est: There are processes in nature known to be random in the sense that the data associated with such processes mirror probability calculations.

If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, & quacks like a duck a sensible person believes that it is a duck until there is very good evidence to believe otherwise.

If the data associated with a process matches probability calculations, a reasonable person assumes that the process is governed by probabilistic laws until there is very good evidence to believe otherwise. Id Est: Such a process is random, a term I hate to use because it is much misunderstood.

Until the development of Quantum Theory, probability theory was considered a practical alternative to using deterministic laws which were impossible to apply. For example: It was not possible to measure the position & velocity of all the atoms in a container filled with gas. Even if such values were available, it would take perhaps billions of years to do calculations using classical laws of mechanics. Hence probability laws were used as the mathematics of thermodynamics.

Until the development of quantum theory, almost all physicists believed that (in principle) the laws of physics were deterministic & probability calculations were used due to either ignorance of the pertinent deterministic laws or due to the impracticality of applying such laws. Such a view came to be considered naive by the end of the 20th century (if not many decades earlier).

In the 21st century, hardly any physicists who consider the issue believe in deterministic laws, accepting that the world of our senses is based on the Quantum level world governed by probabilistic laws.

The nature of quantum processes & the Uncertainty Principle negate determinism. Deterministic laws require that exact measurements be possible in principle. The UC states that a quantum entity cannot have an exact position & an exact momentum at the same time. It is not a statement about limitations on the precision of measurement technology.

 

the universe itself as a whole is that intelligent entity IMO. self determied and selfcreating.
There is no entity to stand aloof to the universe and say "I created that" IMO
this was answered in post 47 any way.
Again remember it is only an opinion and that is all.

 

QQ's point is that we are using the term "random" here because we do not yet fully understand why radioactive decay happens when it happens. Our observation, therefore, based on this incomplete picture, is one of randomness, yet we might merely be missing a piece of the picture that would precisely determine when decay occurs.

If you look at random number generators in computers, for example, these use algorithms... the output appears random (as designed to appear so), so if that (the output) was all you saw you would think it governed by randomness.
Only when you have observation of the algorithm can you see that it is in fact "determined" (within the context of the example).

So it is that QQ, as I understand him, is saying that what we see as "random" might merely be due to a lack of understanding of the underlying process.

Basically he is saying that there is, as yet, no answer to the question: "Why is [e.g. radioactive decay] random?" When we can answer such a question we might well see that it is not "random" but merely a deterministic-process that has an output that appears "random".

Or something like that.

 

Dinasaur,

Firstly thanks for your post it was most informative and I would posit that it was also a correct description of the current state of play.
I was going to offer a solution to the atomic decay routine over 4 years but shall refrain from doing so mainly because I wait for evidence that could be used to support it.
The fact that decay halves every year sampled is not at all strange to me as I have reason to believe that all years of decay maintain their relationship even though we may describe them as being independent of each other.

The statement that I am waiting for evidence to support goes like this
"For absolutely nothing [ zero] to no-exist absolutely everything must be in a relationship with absolutely everything all the time and for all of time"

or

"It is only when absolutely everything is dependant on absolutely everything that absolute zero [ nothing ] can no-exist"

Therefore the toss of two separate coin throws is indeed related in very real physics yet to be evidenced adequately to be published and the atomic decay scenario is indeed fully determined by that inter-relationship. [ linked to the underpinning mechanism and nature of inertia ~ as a hint]

So with out going into details prematurely I have reason to hold to the notion of a fully deterministic universe. However reasons that are not ready to be published due to the evidential requirements.

However regardless of the above your point stands as valid due to the lack of said evidence.

When starting this thread The use of the word deterministic was more in a generic sense . That being the common and probably popular position that the past determines the future. That past events lead to future events and so on. Nothing too dramatic.
Simple example: man could not have got to the moon for a landing if generated electricity hadn't been discovered so many years earlier etc... do I need to labor this point?
Another: the Luna eclipse occurring over Cairns Australia later this year will only occur is there is no change of significance to the predicted orbit of the moon.... and so on.
In this sense the use of randomness in nature is unclear and imprecise where as events certainly can be prov-en to have causation even if we do not know the complete cause due to the material limitations of the U.C.P.

Given then that the notion of randomness is more probabilistic than random we have a potential to state that the universe is indeed fully determined by it's past and inevitable futures.
In saying this or at least holding the hypothetical for a moment and noting the obvious intelligence in evolved design of what we observe we can conclude hypothetically that that determinism has an intelligent property or quality to it and thus the human genome,life and our abilities to perceive and comprehend etc etc have evolved by the most incredible journey through time.
It would not have happened with out the intelligent bias with in the cause and effect determinism occurring. IMO
and I guess that is what I wanted to discuss above all else was the nature of an evolved instinctive intelligence that the universe appears to have unto itself.

 

yep... you have more or less got it ....

I guess what causes me some grief and something I have yet to come to terms with is when Science or any one for that matter makes the presumption of absolute knowledge. This is something that I find disagreeable and something I personally have to somehow deal with.

 

The other point (opinion) I wished to make to Dinasaur is this:
another test statement:
"It only takes One thing to remain absolutely constant in a ocean of chaos and order will be the inevitable result"
In physics that constant is gravity. In mathematics that constant is zero. It is not subject to randomness nor is it probabilitic [ unless I am terribly misinformed ` which is probable

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]
If Randomness exists in nature any where then it must impinge on the constant of gravity somehow and zero becomes some sort of floating variable.

As gravity is supposedly absolutely constant universally, exactly constant, the laws of physics can be then said to hold true through out that universe. If randomness existed and gravity was not constant then the laws of physics themselves would also not be constant. Therefore we would have no science to tell us that radioactive decay was random as the bench mark used for relative assessment would be random as well.
e.g. If General Relativity had to include the possibility of randomness poor old Mercury would probably fly straight....[chuckle]