Hi,
I was interested in your input here.
I agree that using words like "prefer" has an animistic flavour. But the
concept of "causation" is barely more developed.
Karl Popper talked about the dubiousness of the notion that the universe was
governed by "push causality" - where 'cause' precedes 'effect' (temporally).
And certainly, for a quite significant component of the universe - organic
life- this model is inadequate, in the sense that for many organisms, much
of the time, 'effect' does precede 'cause'; and that's what is meant by
"prefer", I venture to offer. In other words, humans (and other organisms)
do not merely operate according to a deterministic principle (but in such a
complex manner that they are apparently non-deterministic), but rather,
through 'needs' and 'wants' (future-based causes) demonstrate the existence
of a fundamentally different principle, which is nevertheless an important
part of the universe. This is not easily to be argued as a divergent
principle which has somehow been 'stuck on' to the 'physical universe', and
without which the universe wuld actually conform to classical physical
notions; such an argument is theoretical at best (and specious at worst).
Happily, the argument can be addressed by considering the notion of
"absolute" or "exact". Platonic higher forms aside, for a moment, (!),
NObody has yet been able to "prove" the existence of ANY absolute, whether
thinking of time, space, matter, energy, 'exact' measurements, and so on.
Actually, to be fair, this is cheating a bit; as Popper pointed out,
'science' does not 'prove' at all; it is an instrument designed to test by
DISproving. Science does not even propoese the hypotheses it strives to
disprove (though admittedly scient -ists generally do, but that's not the
same thing)
The point is, that ONLY in mathematics are there such things as 'exact'
values. Everywhere else, the best you can get is maybe 99.9999%(recurring)
probability. This in itself might be thought of as the most economic
argument for explaining the concurrence of 'unpredictability' and
'determinism', but think about it for a minute: you can't have 'pure'
determinism based on imprecise values, and 'impure' determinism is no
determinism at all! - in other words, determinism as a concept IS absolute,
but empirically, the X% deterministic universe must actually be operating in
some other way.
And this is why Animism still echoed down the ages as far as Newton's
"force" of gravity - because describing the universe in terms of 'beings'
who 'prefer' actually works fairly well because it's an open-ended scheme,
in that it incorporates the possibility of the unpredictable (un-knowable)
without the scheme ( :cosmology) falling apart - it doesn't actually need
'proofs'.
There is a way to incorporate the primitive approach above into the realm of
science, without trying to make a square peg fit...etc. -Popper (again!)
proposed the concept of "propensities" as a replacement for the previous
scheme of "possibilities" and "probabilities". I can't go into it at length,
but basically, we are getting a bit close to "preference" here,in that we
have the notion of weighted possibilities ( :probabilities) combined with a
notion of causality which incorporates the notion of 'future staes having
the tendency to manifest themselves' - sort of statistical norms which
inhere in the nature of the universe. So we have a concept of causality
which seems to have a component 'outside' temporal flow as we presently
think of it. Of course, this is very definitely non-deterministic.
Forgive me for paraphrasing, but it's a long time since I had Popper's
"World Of Propensities" to hand.
Lastly, I should just point out that, when explaining magnetism to my 4-year
old, the animistic explanation didn't work; when I said that "this end
(north pole) of this magnet "wanted" to move toward this end (south ) of
this one, he very patiently pointed out that they were made of metal , and
couldn't think. And if they couldn't think, they couldn't want, could
they? -so I'm buggered if I'm going to try to explain 'propensities'!
regards,
ppl
----- Original Message -----
From: "rv" <rv@moo.kcc.hawaii.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: 26 January 2000 02:41
>
> Hi all,
> I'm new to this list, but would like to give my inputs on QM.
> Aloha,
> -rv,
>
>
> >---------------------
> >PIRSIG:
> >In classical science it was supposed that the world always works in terms
> of
> >absolute certainty and that ^cause^ is the more appropriate word to
> describe
> >it. But in modern quantum physics all that is changed. Particles ^PREFER^
> >to do what they do. (Lila, Chap. 8, emphasis added)
>
> >PLATT:
> >PREFER presupposes CHOICE. Bertrand Russell confirms Pirsig^s insight.
> >He said, ^So far as quantum theory can say at present, atoms might as
> well
> >be possessed of free will, limited, however to one of several possible
> >choices^.
> >--------------------
>
> as far as I know there is no theories that dare burden an electron or an
> atom
> with such thing as free will; they don't prefer either, but only acts due
> to interactions with other particles, fields or even themselves in some
> cases.
>
> >Quantum physics has not changed the most appropriate word from 'cause' to
> >'prefer' this is absolute nonsense. Quantum physics (in this context)
> says nothing
> > more than that we cannot have a complete
> >scientific picture of the world because we cannot (in principle and
> practice)
> >measure it. As Stephen Hawking says,
>
> I believe this has nothing to do with QM. Scientists already have this
> concept of
> not being able to measure with exact precision; an example is the number
> pi, or
> simply the concept of derivative in its limit form. The number pi the
> ratio of the
> circumference with the diameter. But we can never make those two
> measurements
> with exact precision. Otherwise, we would be able to predict pi with exact
> precision.
> This has been proven mathematically for the case of pi, that it can't be
> expressed as a ratio
> of two numbers. In QM it is possible to measure
> some observables with exact precision if those observables are eigenvalues
> of defined
> eigenstates. One can perform as many time the experiment as one wishes,
> measurements
> of those eigenvalues will always be the SAME measurements.
> Also, we have to be careful saying that "we cannot (in principle and
> practice) measure it"
> For the practice case, probably. But for the principle case, QM doesn't
> say we can't, QM just says
> That there are SOME characteristics of a particle that we can't observe
> with exact
> precision . This is very different: if those two operators, which
> represent our observables
> commute with each other, it is perfectly possible to measure them
> simultaneously, the
> Heisenberg uncertainty does NOT apply and therefore there is no
> uncertainty in the measurement.
>
> >"We can 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." (A
> >Brief History of Time 1988 pg 55)
>
> I do not see the link between the above claim and the idea that this is
> supposed to backup.
>
> >"Since the universe contains some deterministic and some
> non-deterministic
> >systems it means that
> >parts of it are unpredictable (even without quantum theory). However, it
> does
> >not mean that they are
> >not governed by deterministic processes - in fact this characteristic is
> often
> >referred to as
> >deterministic chaos. The point is that all measurements have some error
> >associated with them."
> >(Frontiers; Twentieth Century Physics 2000 pg 421)
>
> I completely agree with this.
>
> >The scientific view is that non-deterministic systems evolve, out of
> underlying
> >deterministic
> >processes. Furthermore, if they are not observed they behave
> deterministically.
> >Of course there is
> >no empirical evidence for this but it has been proved mathematically with
> >Schrodingers equation,
> >which I can't write out here due to lack of special characters, and it is
> the
> >accepted position of
> >almost every physicist. There is no 'preference,' the particles just do
> it in
> >the same way as my x
> >key produces an x on the screen whenx I prxessx itxx.
>
> >" Furthermore, if they are not observed they behave deterministically."
>
> ????
> I wish there would be more explanation/backup for this one.
> As far as the Schrodinger's equation goes, I don't see how either the time
> dependent
> or non-dependent one can prove mathematically anything. Schrodinger's
> equation is at
> QM what is second Newton's law for classical systems. It has never been
> proven, and does
> Not prove anything either. It is only used to describe a system, which is
> most of the time
> unsolvable analytically unless clever approximation are made. Hence, for
> every system, the
> Schrodinger's equation will be different (potential energy varies
> according to the number or
> elements, and their dependence with the rest of the system).
>
>
> Trying to match science to metaphysics or philosophy is great but one has
> to be very careful
> with interpretation of QM, especially due to the fact that our vocabulary
> is not well adapted to
> the concepts underlying this theory. There is a good book that deal with
> this issue by Dr. Stenger
> ("The Unconscious Quantum"), or QM from Heisenberg.
>
> Aloha,
> -rv,
>
>
>
>
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