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Why Determinism could never be disproven or shown to be unlikely


Kriminal99

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i point you towards qm, which indicates that this belief of yours is false. since the universe is founded on chaotic, random events, rewinding the universe would give a different result every time.

 

 

 

i understand the theories of la place and his associates. i just think theyre completely wrong.

 

 

 

im afraid this passage shows your own complete ignorance of quantum mechanics. the behaviour of a particle in the future cant be predicted, not even in theory. its not a matter of building a bigger microscope, there is a theoretical limit on how well you can understand something. a limit imposed by the nature of reality itself. like many philosphers, i think you would benefit tremendously from studying scientific theories for a while, it would stop you building intellectual models on profoundly flawed premises.

Human behavior has absolutely nothing to do with quantum mechanics and I challenge you to support that it does with evidence. Behaviorism is a scientific theory that is fundamentally dependent on sociological determinism. Human beings behave based on genetic and sociological influences and there are volumes of scientific evidence to support that!

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Human behavior has absolutely nothing to do with quantum mechanics and I challenge you to support that it does with evidence.

Freddy,

 

QM deals with many things about the universe as a whole. If the theories hold merit, I'd suggest they also apply (although, it's possible only peripherally) to human behavior as well.

 

Let's just look at the firing of neural nets... The cascade is probability dependent on the reactions cascading prior. Some random neuron could be triggered by a neural net clear the other side of the body, and that randomness described by QM... Just a thought. You may not want to discount the connection out of hand.

 

 

Cheers. :turtle:

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Freddy,

 

QM deals with many things about the universe as a whole. If the theories hold merit, I'd suggest they also apply (although, it's possible only peripherally) to human behavior as well.

 

Let's just look at the firing of neural nets... The cascade is probability dependent on the reactions cascading prior. Some random neuron could be triggered by a neural net clear the other side of the body, and that randomness described by QM... Just a thought. You may not want to discount the connection out of hand.

 

 

Cheers. :turtle:

Where is the evidence for this? Point to science that has shown through experimentation that this process actually effects human behavior.

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Where is the evidence for this? Point to science that has shown through experimentation that this process actually effects human behavior.

 

I guess I'm somewhat confused by your request. Are you asking for evindence that humans behavior can be correlated through neural activity, and that the chemoelectric transmission of this activity can be described by QM? Clarify your question, and I'll do what I can to clarify my answer.

 

 

Cheers. :turtle:

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In the meantime, I've found a scientist who seems to study this exclusively. See Stapp 1993, as well as Stapp et. al.

 

Processes at the genetic and molecular level have direct influence on the states of the brain and contents of mind...Some authors, such as Penrose [28], Stapp [29] or Eccles [30] argue that without quantum mechanics we cannot understand the unity of human experience...

 

Anyway, I was suggesting that quantum computation could, in fact, be applied to human behavior. It was conjecture, and not intended to be a statement of fact, only what I interpret to be a highly likely possibility. :)

 

 

Enjoy. :cup:

 

 

UPDATE: I've found much more extensive research on the issue.

 

First, an article from a gentleman at MIT. He indicates that neural firing and brain processes are much more classical in nature, and studies on coherence and superposition of neural states seem to support this. However, he does mention that, despite the overall classical nature of of these macro processes, it would be inaccurate to argue from the stance that quantum level probabilites play no role in thoughts, consciousness, and behavior. :) It's a neat article if you want to launch the .pdf.

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/brain.pdf

 

And here's an awesome paper co-written by John Wheeler describing quantum phenomena which speaks slightly to the idea of quantum and mind.

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/quantum.pdf

The fact that neurons decohere much faster than they can process information (it takes them about [math]10^{-3}[/math] seconds to fire) means that if the complex neuron firing patterns in our brains have anything to do with consciousness, then decoherence in the brain will prevent us from perceiving weird superpositions.

 

As mentioned above, we perceive only those aspects of the world that are most robust against decoherence. Decoherence therefore selects what Zurek has termed a "pointer basis", basically the familiar quantities of classical physics, as special. Since all our observations are transmitted through neurons from our sensory organs, the fact that neurons decohere so fast makes them the ultimate pointer basis. As Zeh has stressed, this justifes using the textbook wave function collapse postulate as a useful "shut-up-and-calculate" recipe: compute probabilities as if the wave function collapses when we observe the object.

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im afraid this passage shows your own complete ignorance of quantum mechanics. the behaviour of a particle in the future cant be predicted, not even in theory. its not a matter of building a bigger microscope, there is a theoretical limit on how well you can understand something. a limit imposed by the nature of reality itself. like many philosphers, i think you would benefit tremendously from studying scientific theories for a while, it would stop you building intellectual models on profoundly flawed premises.

 

While it might be convenient to your emotions and your beliefs if that was the case, sadly it is not. You demonstrate ignorance by assuming that someone disagreeing with your point of view means they do not understand it or have not been exposed to all the details, when you have no clue that it is not in fact you who do not understand mine. Additionaly you yourself do not know how to respond to my arguments, so you proclaim out of ignorance that someone else would. Two argument fallacies that preclude your statements from having any meaning.

 

The things that quantum scientists label "trivial assumptions" (when in fact no assumption is trivial when dealing with a situation so completely removed from all of your experience) are where the objections of philosophers are realized. It is nothing more than the self importance of scientists that would ever drive them to contradict statements like these when they really have no evidence to back up their claims.

 

Philosophy includes the study of human knowledge, and therefore quantum physics is a subset of philosophy. A result in philosophy CANNOT be contradicted in quantum physics. What such people have created is merely a play on words. IE IF A if B if C if D if E then noone could ever predict the actions of quantum particles, even if they were omnipotent or whatever else. Well guess what... if pigs could fly the world would make no sense.

 

Scientists ignorant of philosophy come around all the time and attempt to contradict its results. What they fail to understand is how those results are realized in their own discipline. They can argue with philosopher after philosopher thinking they know what they are talking about, and then one day a slightly less ignorant scientist comes along and puts the philosopher's objections in scientific language and finally they understand. They may not even recognize the connection between the "scientific objection" and the philosophical result, they might proceed to do the very same thing all over the next month. I don't care - people like that are blind and stupid.

 

What if special relativity was only true prior to a certain amount of "absolute speed" something that doesn't seem to exist until one of its boundaries is reached? What if the universe is really discrete? Why does the bell inequality even apply to QM considering that it is based on experience from non QM situations? Nobobdy knows anything about quantum mechanics. All we have are assumptions, piled upon assumptions, piled upon more assumptions.

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Following the above logic to fruition, we do not know ANYTHING at all. :rainumbrella:

 

No that is not true. This crackerjack response to philisophical claims was a good argument once in a very specific situation, and it was responsible for producing the result that every person should look for information that contradicts their own beliefs in order to have the best knowledge a person is capable of.

 

The reason it was so easily defeated in that case is that our whole lives are based on the information we have so far, and to throw all of that out based on the possibility of evidence we have yet to obtain would leave us with nothing. Therefore we have no choice but to hold what we believe as knowledge as long as we keep an open mind and look for alternatives.

 

This has nothing to do with QM. We have a negiligable amount of information regarding QM, and all of our instincts, intuitions, our whole lives are based on the macro world. I am not saying that noone should attempt to use what little information we have access to to try and determine what is going on in the quantum world. What I am saying is that no quantum physicist is in the position to make wide sweeping claims about anything based on their findings.

 

Only reasoning based on evidence sampled from dealings with quantum particles can be used to qualify other evidence regarding quantum particles. Anything that we believe may hold true for the macro world but not for quantum particles without needing some supernatural explanation for why this is the case. Rather all that is needed is an explanation that we do not yet know. To look at it in this fashion does not require us to throw out all knowledge.

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:shade:

 

What I am saying is that no quantum physicist is in the position to make wide sweeping claims about anything based on their findings.

Ever used a computer? QM makes it, and LOTS of other things you see as an everyday convenience, possible. Your broad sweeping claim above is what's fallacious. :rainumbrella:

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Quantum particles make everything possible. The study Quantum particles does not. People who study quantum particles do not understand everything about how they realize the world we live in. At best they might be able to see a connection between some of the effects of these particles behavior and what occurs on the macro level. They do not have enough information to even qualify the things that they see with any kind of confidence. Computers were invented long before the discipline quantum mechanics.

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Computers were invented long before the discipline quantum mechanics.

 

No...computers (as in calculating machines) were realized about the same time that quantum mechanics were founded as a discipline. After that, it took a long time for computers to be anything but huge machines that turned wheels and caused glass tubes to blow up.

 

With quantum physics it became possible to create the microchip.

 

The fact that quantum mechanics apply to all particles, means that it also applies to our neurons and synapses. Therefore a signal from a nerve might never reach the brain due to a random quantum event. This is difficult to prove *when* it happens because we can't observe it both happening and not happening at the same time (as that would require two different outcomes of the same event) - but the quantum effect, as in Brownian motion, is well documented and quite well understood. It applies to human beings because it applies to the particles we are built from.

 

Brownian motion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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To start off, let's make sure that we're discussing the same determinism:

 

From Wikipedia:

What it is:

"Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. It holds that no random, spontaneous, mysterious, or miraculous events occur."

 

And why it's important: (Finding additional reasons is left as an exercise for the reader :cup:

"The principal consequence of the deterministic claim is that it poses a challenge to the existence of free will."

 

That said, I have a pretty simple view on determinism:

1. All systems based on rules are deterministic

2. The universe is a system based on rules

3. Therefore the universe is deterministic

 

(If nothing else you can mock me with simple number references)

 

Nothing wrong with the logic. So let's move onto the premises:

 

However, I hear you say, should't point 1 read:

1b. All systems based on deterministic rules are deterministic

 

This would be a logical amendment. I simply believe that you cannot get non-deterministic rules. I also believe that the apparent non-deterministic nature of Quantum Mechanics is merely the macro result of deterministic micro processes. While I have no proof of this I do believe it to be true.

 

It may be interesting to note that I don't like determinism and wish the universe was not deterministic but, alas, I do believe that it is.

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To start off, let's make sure that we're discussing the same determinism:

 

From Wikipedia:

What it is:

"Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. It holds that no random, spontaneous, mysterious, or miraculous events occur."

 

 

but qm indicates preciesly that random events DO occur. thus, determinism is false. i dont see why this is difficult to see.

 

also, just because the universe is not strictly deterministic, doesnt mean free will exists. behaviourism could still be true. it just means the universe is not predictable, there is no grand plan or pre-determined path of reality, the universe makes it up as it goes.

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but qm indicates preciesly that random events DO occur. thus, determinism is false. i dont see why this is difficult to see.

See my point on:

"I also believe that the apparent non-deterministic nature of Quantum Mechanics is merely the macro result of deterministic micro processes."

 

If this statement is true then what you are describing is simply the result of a lack of information. You cannot logically say that you know this not to be the case and nor can I. My argument is valid and, if the premises are true, is correct.

 

Important note to clarify: Determinism is sometimes misinterpreted as relying on the ability for something to be determined. This is not true of determinism.

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"I also believe that the apparent non-deterministic nature of Quantum Mechanics is merely the macro result of deterministic micro processes."
That's an interesting "belief"! The problem is that randomness is mathematically definable, and it can be shown that deterministic functions are spectacular failures at replicating randomness.

 

So how do you justify this "belief?"

Important note to clarify: Determinism is sometimes misinterpreted as relying on the ability for something to be determined. This is not true of determinism.
That's only true insofar as you are recognizing limitations of current knowledge or technology. If you don't this statement is completely non-sensical: "Deterministic" by *definition* means that the outcome can be predetermined given enough information...

 

As a general comment, I always find it fascinating how "Fear of Randomness" drives people to seek determininsm in Nature. Fear of the unknown is natural I suppose--its not fun to know that "bad luck" could strike any minute--but it does seem to lead to a tremendous desire--both unhealthy and undesirable in my view--to turn it into something that should be eschewed, and to work hard to make it unnecessary or even to define it away as "an illusion."

 

Naturally Random,

Buffy

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