From: Steve Peterson (speterson@fast.net)
Date: Wed Oct 30 2002 - 00:17:14 GMT
>
> Platt,
>
>> Yes. Science runs smack into a monster self-contradiction by ascribing
>>
>> cause and effect explanations to all phenomena except what they claim
>> occurs by chance. For instance, the Big Bang is explained as a
>> causeless "fluctuation" in the quantum soup. So succeeding events fall
>> into causation patterns for no cause whatsoever, a case of having your
>> cake and eating it, too. For a discipline that prides itself on its
>> logic,
>> you would think they'd recognize and want to do something about this
>> metaphysical dilemma.
>
> Does this mean you don't think 'chance' exists? That you NOT winning the
> lottery is -well, not DETERMINED, because you seem to disbelieve in this
> too- but is some Quality or Purpose event? Hm... determinism vs. chance.
> Indeed, those are huge meta-concepts in science. But I see something of
> the MoQ-perspective here. Thanks.
>
> Greetings, Patrick.
>
Platt also wrote:
Science is blind to the force of "will" or intent because it can't be
measured. To say that the dice have no intention is an assumption, not
a provable scientific fact. What science can't explain or predict it
attributes to chance. Chance really means, "We don't know."
Steve writes:
I also wanted to get to Platt's statement about randomness. This is an
issue that I have wrestled with for a long time (since I am a statistics
teacher) and I am hopeful that moq can clear it up as it has done for other
Platypi.
Let me distinguish for the sake of the discussion the classical (as apposed
to Bayesian) view of the difference between "not knowing" and
"chance"--between uncertain and unknown. (It seems to be Platt's contention
that the distinction I'm about to make doesn't exist.)
Here goes. I stand in front of you and I flip a coin. While it spins in
the air I think of its future outcome as uncertain or random. I catch the
coin with one hand and turn it onto the back of my other hand. I peek at
it, but don't let you see it. Then I ask, "what is the probability that the
coin landed "heads"?
The answer is, "mu." Under the classical interpretation of probability the
question I just asked is not a probability question at all. It already
landed. The outcome has already been determined. From your perspective it
is unknown, but not uncertain (no longer random) since the coin has either
landed one way or the other.
One could argue that if we could measure the initial conditions of the coin
and how it was flipped well enough, the outcome could have been determined
before it landed and so the outcome was never really uncertain just unknown.
The outcome was determined by the way it was flipped. Probability is merely
a concept--a way of understanding the world that is not actually manifest in
the world.
It may be that it is practically impossible to measure the initial
conditions or do the calculations required to the degree of precision
necessary to make the prediction, and so from your perspective the concept
of randomness fits your experience, but it is not theoretically impossible
to predict the outcome...errr, well, unless the degree of precision in
measurement requires us to measure the initial conditions on the subatomic
level. Now we come up against a theoretical wall.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says there is a veil behind which we
can't look. But is this veil like my hand covering up the coin?--a
determined outcome that we just can't know--or is it true randomness behind
this veil? For that matter, has every outcome already been determined?
What about free will?
I understand that this dilemma is a result of subject-object thinking, but
can moq sort it out?
Steve
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