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God doesn't play dice.....meaning


Kizzi

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No Buffy! Me no call dem "Yous", me call dem "You selves"! :D

 

Now of course each of them experiences no other path than its own, unlike the OV, as you call the deus ex machina. But what does this mean? Whether you talk about your selves or the paths, it's Copenhagen to each of them whereas probability exists not to the OV/DEM. But this ain't physics. Beyond epistemology, you're in metaphysics.

 

which is--as you admit--still equivalent.
Hmmm, perhaps it was the Jericho Canyon that was taking effect! ;)

 

Naw, its a result (and an outlier at that! :hihi: ): I'm sure some of my diehard Democratic friends here in multiverse path 185638356453764538764 are wishing Simon was right and that they could be their replicates over on the Busty-won subtree.
Off track from my Grand Design! Wrong ramifications! Your diehard Democratic friends are pining for a different percentage of votes, but I was talking about some fixed one; to be specific, let's say 57%. So, how could Schwarzy's multiverse be made into Schwarzy's Copenhagen? It would be necessary to (just slightly) tweak the way of chusing the Californian executive. In what cases is all that set theory calculus describing probability calculus?

 

I've been wondering if Qfwfq and I are really on such solid ground - and might even be protesting too much. :hihi:
Solid? :hihi:

 

The multiverse can be seen as the working solution to that argument - one that would have allowed Einstein to have his cake and eat it. It redefined the probabilities of quantum theory as a collection of definite outcomes - while still dubiously referring to them as probabilities. Thus revised, it became totally compatible with a fixed 'spacetime' - albeit one that required five dimensions instead of four.
Einstein believed in hidden variables and I wouldn't quite imagine him agreeing with the multiverse.

 

Only five dimensions? Only one extra one?

 

Past and future have no meaning - except as 'ad hoc' adjectives applied to points on the map.
Actually they do, and despite PCT. Now the problem here is still that of not distinguishing the physics from the math.
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I think this discussion is straying into confusing semantic territory because it has not, up front, emphasized the distinction in physics between a theory and an interpretation.

 

A theory, to borrow a phrase from wikipedia, is “a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable” – in other words, a set or rules for making predictions, in the case of physics, about physical reality. Quantum physics is a theory.

 

An interpretation, on the other hand, is not a formal system, but an expression, typically in a natural language, narative form, that attempts to make a theory more intuitively understandable. The Copenhagen and many-worlds interpretations of quantum physics are interpretations.

 

By definition, two interpretations of the same theory must agree on any particular prediction. If an interpretation suggests a prediction that disagrees with the theory, the theory must be modified, and the interpretation now be of the modified theory. To my knowledge, the Copenhagen and MW interpretation have never suggested different modifications to quantum physics.

 

This is not to say that interpretations are less valuable to science than theories. Although theories are (ideally) formal systems, the process by which they are modified is not. Like hearing speech interpreted from a language we don’t know into one that we do, interpretations of theories allow us to think more intuitively and creatively about theories, driving this process. However, IMHO, it’s important not to confuse theory with interpretation, and to have a clear understanding of their differing roles in the scientific process.

 

I’d say the Copenhagen and MWI are both useful interpretations, each with strengths and weaknesses that lend it to a particular audience and activity.

  • For the practical making of predictions for experiments in quantum physics, which is done mostly by professional physicists, the Copenhagen, with its “renormalization” operation, is tops.
  • For reminding the science enthusiast that quantum physics predicts, in essence, that “everything that can happen does”, the MWI offers a much more facile picture, without the need for the mathematics of wave functions, which are largely impenetrable to this audience.

It’s essential, though, to remember that both interpretations are of the same theory.

 

PS: Copenhagen vs. MWI was discussed (some my say to the point of abuse :hihi:) in the thread 10106.

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Einstein believed in hidden variables and I wouldn't quite imagine him agreeing with the multiverse.

 

Of course Einstein beleived in hidden variables. The observations of quantum mechanics made them undeniable. Nevertheless, he was committed to finding an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation - one that would be consistent with and an extension of his flagship theory of a fixed spacetime. I submit that the Many Worlds interpretation qualifies as a working alternative, though I can neither confirm or deny whether he would have agreed. If the multiverse does exist, he would have done both. :hihi:

 

Only five dimensions? Only one extra one?

 

I make no statement about how many dimensions there actually are. I only suggest the following. For a Copengagen spacetime, no more than four is required. For a Multiverse spacetime, no more than five is required.

 

The problem here is still that of not distinguishing the physics from the math.

 

The problem is taking two events and being able to say there is an arrow of time pointing between the two. I'm not arguing against such a notion. I simply say that its existence is not revealed on any map of spacetime.

 

Craig said:

I’d say the Copenhagen and MWI are both useful interpretations, each with strengths and weaknesses that lend it to a particular audience and activity. For the practical making of predictions for experiments in quantum physics, which is done mostly by professional physicists, the Copenhagen, with its “renormalization” operation, is tops.

For reminding the science enthusiast that quantum physics predicts, in essence, that “everything that can happen does”, the MWI offers a much more facile picture, without the need for the mathematics of wave functions, which are largely impenetrable to this audience. It’s essential, though, to remember that both interpretations are of the same theory.

 

I accept that distinction absolutely. There are some who say that interpretations don't matter, only the theory itself. I'm not one of them. I would add that Copenhagen and MW both offer different explanations behind the same mathematics of wave functions. (I see no reason to suggest that those equations are ignored by MW.)

 

Do descriptions of reality matter? I would say yes. There were once competing views about whether the Sun orbited the Earth or vice versa. Both 'interpetations' were consistent with a theory that simply made predictions about the cyles of day and night or the changing seasons. Eventually, one of those interpretations got a serious promotion. :hihi:

 

Much earlier in this thread, last year, I said:

The many worlds view hasn't acheived the status of propositions such as "the Earth orbits the Sun"...

 

Whether there are grounds to 'promote' MW or Copenhagen remains to be seen.

 

The three-way debate that evolved here has been about the actual existence of probability, which is usually considered the 'sine qua non' of Quantum Theory. Qfwfq argued that the Copenhagen interpretation uses probability whereas the MW interpretation does not. This begs the question whether the concept of probability is even applicable to Quantum Theory or whether it simply belongs to those interpretations that use it.

 

Simon

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I think this discussion is straying into confusing semantic territory because it has not, up front, emphasized the distinction in physics between a theory and an interpretation.
Actually that's sorta what I've been getting at, just without spelling it out so cold and hard :hyper: especially as there's plenty of subtlety involved.

 

For one thing, the community talks about "hidden variable theories" although these are attempts at making sense of (i. e. interpreting) quantum formalism. For instance Bohm's interpretation is an example of such, in the simple case of a single scalar particle, and is fully a theory with its guiding wave equation and all. The matter of whether or not interpretations of quantum formalism may be distinguished experimentally is highly subtle and still under much investigation. I do however consider the multiverse interpretation to be fully beyond modern epistemology, completely in the realm of metaphysics; that's why I like to say deus ex machina rather than outside observer.

 

Now in mathematics the distinction between "theory" and semantics can be very slim, as in the case of the definitions of probability theory and measure theory, which in turn is a rather simple definition on set theory. In a purely mathematical sense, the only diffference between these two is that, to call it a probability, the measure must equal exactly 1 for the whole set (sample space). The semantic point I was after, concerning multiverse vs. Copenhagen, is exactly the meaning of probability as a physical notion. So, it's clear that in my example Schwarzy doesn't have "a 57% chance" of becoming governor, but it's helpful to reflect on exactly what is lacking (in the method of chusing the executive) to make it be so.

 

Of course Einstein beleived in hidden variables. The observations of quantum mechanics made them undeniable.
To say that QM makes hidden variables undeniable is a very unconventional claim, which you are not supporting at all. In these forums you should state it as being an opinion, either yours or of some specified people.

 

Nevertheless, he was committed to finding an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation
I wouldn't say "nevertheless" at all, since his alternative was the idea itself of hidden variables. While he thought this would solve things without contradicting special relativity, Bell disequalities show this isn't so and their violations suggest something very subtle about local causality.

 

I make no statement about how many dimensions there actually are. I only suggest the following. For a Copengagen spacetime, no more than four is required. For a Multiverse spacetime, no more than five is required.
At least you put this as a suggestion, anyway I have misgivings about the possibility of mapping every possible multiverse scenario using only one extra dimension. At the very least, it's a matter of mapping tensor products of any distributions onto the real axis. To be fair now, mappings exist between [math]\norm\mathbb{R}^n[/math] and [math]\norm\mathbb{R}[/math]... at least mathematically, but these are hardly what you would think of as being something physical.

 

The problem is taking two events and being able to say there is an arrow of time pointing between the two. I'm not arguing against such a notion. I simply say that its existence is not revealed on any map of spacetime.
The Minkowski metric distiguishes between spacelike, null and timelike intervals and for the latter it makes sense to say which event is previous, for any observer.

 

There were once competing views about whether the Sun orbited the Earth or vice versa. Both 'interpetations' were consistent with a theory that simply made predictions about the cyles of day and night or the changing seasons. Eventually, one of those interpretations got a serious promotion. :naughty:
In a sense, Galileo was right in saying that only the Almighty Creator knows whether it's Earth or Sun that moves. That "promotion" is a very subtle matter. If one only loosely talks about "which one moves" there's no promotion for either. IMV, concerning the analogy, the multiverse is more like being geocentric than heliocentric, or even than choosing co-moving coordinates in cosmology. :shrug:
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I read "The universe next door" by Marcus Chown a few years ago, in which he (among other things) discussed the Many Worlds theory (or should that be the many Many Worlds Theory theories now?).

 

I considered it hogwash then, and I consider it hogwash now. From a scientific point of view, I'd say that sure, there can exist such a thing as a "multiverse". However, given the fairly poor understanding we have of the current universe (like, what is time?), how can we even begin to claim to understand how other universes "branch out" at every possible quantum event?

 

It's not only the 37 "yous" that is the problem here - it is the entire universe, from the moment it was brought into existence (by whatever god or natural process we choose to believe in), and how it has split into multiple paths through every single quantum decision.

 

Thus there not only must exist countless parallell universes in a given dimension, but there must exist countless parallell universes where the laws of physics are different from ours - yet they are almost identical twins to our universe. Why? Because the universes have branched off from the one we currently reside in, even during the time when it was pure energy and before the laws of nature as we intepret them condensed out of the soup.

 

As a philosophical question I am sure it boggles many minds, and it is sure interesting to think that in a parallell universe my decision to leave my desk 5 minutes ago and have a beer, which was decided against with a flip of a coin, actually happened. But on my way there (or not-there), a few trillion trillion trillion trillion quantum events happened which branched off other countless universes - thus I am at the moment both enjoying endless amounts of beer, and, (sadly), not.

 

No matter how many arguments we can posit for the Many Worlds theories, the fact that it is unprovable using current physics places the theory fairly deep in the shelf of quasi science.

 

But who knows. Quantum physics resided there for a while, too. I (all of me) may be very wrong. But at the same time I *must* be right, right?

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But on my way there (or not-there), a few trillion trillion trillion trillion quantum events happened which branched off other countless universes - thus I am at the moment both enjoying endless amounts of beer, and, (sadly), not.
...and that's the one thing that philosophically and psychologically I like about MWI: it gives me the motivation to work really hard *not* to be the Buffy that is missing out on sitting on the beach with a margarita on one side and a cute guy on the other! :)

 

Cheers! :eek:

Buffy

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...and that's the one thing that philosophically and psychologically I like about MWI: it gives me the motivation to work really hard *not* to be the Buffy that is missing out on sitting on the beach with a margarita on one side and a cute guy on the other! ;)
I think the idea Buffy’s describing is what NewAgers (eg: Starhawk, in “The Fifth Sacred Thing” (1993)) refer to as the magical principle of el mundo bueno/el mundo malo (good world/bad world). The basic idea is that it is possible, through conscious, often ritualized mental effort, to select from a range of MWI worlds, some of which are good (full of love, happiness, etc.) others bad (full of hate, misery, etc.). According to its many modern proponents, good world/bad world is an ancient, or at least several centuries old, principle.

 

Much as I enjoy Starhawk, as a writer and a person, I must recognize that this idea is mystical, not scientific (as well as be skeptical of claims of its antiquity). Other than phenomena such as Diffraction pattern, no scientifically credible MWI variant or other quantum physics interpretation suggests any mechanism in which different worlds interact. Science doesn’t suggest that a human being can travel from one world to another, or select the world-path she follows, other than via the usual, mundane method (eg: turn left/turn right; pick up a stone/leave it lie). Although visualizing a better world can be a powerful mental tool for guiding one’s actions, it is merely the use of a mental model, existing within one’s brain within one’s world, not an example of contact with or travel to other worlds.

 

The only scientifically plausible (very tentatively, as the theoretical basis of time travel, let alone the practical engineering, is controversial and only slightly developed) scenario I know that allows one to sample and choose worlds (eg: one in which life is fine and on the beach, vs. downtrodded in a hovel) is to use some technological means of traveling into the past to “do over” ordinary decisions (eg: kill Hitler, save Kennedy, prevent Chernobyl, kiss/don’t kiss the girl), rather like systematically reading a very complicate “Choose Your Own Adventure” book to find a desired ending.

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So randomness equates to free will, Determinism equates to no free will?

 

But surely if God doesn't play dice we have no free will ........ because unless God plays dice he would have thrown the outcome! Surely he want's us to determine our outcome - so he plays dice.

 

So when Einstein said "God does not play dice" he meant ~people have no free will~.... it was determined by God!

 

So Einstein believed God determines the outcome of everything leaving nothing to chance!

 

Also, am I correct in saying Einstein believed in God?

 

(I've always had a problem understanding things, ...... need clarification)

 

KiZzI :)

 

wow. sometimes people take the ball and run......in the wrong direction.

Einstein did not believe in God. You will find his quotes in atheist forums/pages everywhere, although he was not an atheist, he felt strongly that theism was wrong. His belief lies somewhere more in the middle.

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I disagree with the idea that somehow random quantum events leads to free will. As Daniel Dennet pointed out in his book "Freedom Evolves", a decision making process that at some point has it's results derailed at random is not any type of free will that we would want. It could easily be deadly. Any process that produces what our intuition would recognize as 'free will' will be deterministic.

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I think the idea Buffy’s describing is what NewAgers (eg: Starhawk, in “The Fifth Sacred Thing” (1993)) refer to as the magical principle of el mundo bueno/el mundo malo (good world/bad world). The basic idea is that it is possible, through conscious, often ritualized mental effort, to select from a range of MWI worlds, some of which are good (full of love, happiness, etc.) others bad (full of hate, misery, etc.)...Much as I enjoy Starhawk, as a writer and a person, I must recognize that this idea is mystical, not scientific...

Sure, but one can always hope! Even if you believe in Karma, you have to assume that at the branch point, then next 37 You's all have the same amount going in....

 

So, this does have an impact in this post:

I disagree with the idea that somehow random quantum events leads to free will. As Daniel Dennet pointed out in his book "Freedom Evolves", a decision making process that at some point has it's results derailed at random is not any type of free will that we would want. It could easily be deadly. Any process that produces what our intuition would recognize as 'free will' will be deterministic.
...the whole notion of which branch "you" end up on is by definition (as quibbled about above), random! And it would seem since "determinism" is valid looking *backwards* that you can indeed lay the fault of the branching to a great extent on random quantum events!

 

Now at the same time, this sentiment of random events being undesireable or deadly, while true, is also tempered by the *systems* in which they exist. That is, your decision making will be logical and not radically depart from norms, until it gets down to the basic elements where *logically* there is a coin toss that is thrown into the logic....the world is not *completely* arbitrary, but its not necessarily predictable. What this says about "free will" is that you can define these "coin toss" operations as free will without violating anything about the logic of your mental processes.

 

Strawberry or Pistachio, :(

Buffy

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  • 1 month later...
So randomness equates to free will, Determinism equates to no free will?

 

But surely if God doesn't play dice we have no free will ........ because unless God plays dice he would have thrown the outcome! Surely he want's us to determine our outcome - so he plays dice.

 

So when Einstein said "God does not play dice" he meant ~people have no free will~.... it was determined by God!

 

So Einstein believed God determines the outcome of everything leaving nothing to chance!

 

 

KiZzI ;)

 

Randomness does not equal free will, it diminishes it, since a chosen action will not necessarily produce a desired result, and this is what Einstein meant by his comment. That the physical world is ruled by cause and effect does not necessitate that God or human beings cannot possess free will, as long as it's accepted that the sum of what they are is more than their physical components.

 

Rich

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Personally I think quantum indeterminism does not equal free will

and classical determinism is probably right but at quantum levels there is just no way you can measure if you are right or not it's just not physically possible all you can do is assign probabilities that you are right.

 

I personally don't think God plays dice it's more like Bridge or Chess, its just she hides away the cards or pieces so you can't see what she is up to.

 

Einstein-Bose condensates are interesting in that QM holds for these weird atoms, even though it shouldnt.

 

But God isnt a gambler she is just very very sneaky.

 

Cheers

;)

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  • 2 months later...

I believe he meant that quantum indeterminism is false. This statement does not require there to actually be a god.

 

It simply means that someone could know the whole outcome of everything, just not us now.

 

It would take a computational machine larger than the universe itself to calculate the outcome of the universe. So what? Use another universe to create it. A few even. Rather than bothering with such details, one could just say god since god would know using a computational machine that took up no space in this universe. Because he is god - the infinite potential to overcome problems. The point is simply that the outcome is determined even if no one can see it.

 

Looking changes the outcome. So what? Don't look, just know. Or find a way to look without changing. Again whether you can see it or not does not change whether or not the outcome was determined. God knows and he doesn't even have to look the way you are thinking - perhaps using the aforementioned as of yet undiscovered method of looking without changing.

 

It is important to morality that determinism be preserved. There is no evidence whatsoever that it is not in quantum phenomenon. There is simply evidence that we can not see all the causes.

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