Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Siquo]

That's a good density

To make things even more difficult for you: Isn't conservation of information breached when you can get two initial states to produce the same result state in a determistic system? It completely depends on the rules you use, whether a state can have multiple previous states. There's probably even names for them. But there can be only one result state, that's kind of the definition of deterministic, isn't it?

[smigenboger]

Citation needed.

"During his many years, working for Bloggs & Sons, Jeremy has been a stalwart fixture in the accounts department, as well as treasurer of the Christmas Club.  A valued member of the firm's 5-A-Side football team, championship-winning darts player in the Bigbury And District Corporate Enterprises Darts League and regularly running marathons wearing the company's mascot costume... which he thankfully also arranges the dry cleaning for <pause for laughter>.... I think we are all aware of the contribution he has made to this traditional family firm, much apart from being a loving husband and father to my darling daughter, Poppy and grandchildren Michael, Rufus, Anthony, Fiona, Anabell, the twins Peter and Jacky, little Clöe and not forgetting their adopted children Lin-You, François, Petra, Meredith and Hank.  So, it is my greatest honour to present him with this token of esteem, a magnificent gold-plated ..."

...what?  Not that kind of citation?

What a pal. There's no way I'm running marathons if I'm old enough to have grandchildren.

[Muz]

There's no talk of atheism here. I know we've 'discussed' just about everything, but it's kinda.. odd having a derailed religion thread.

[Siquo]

It'll rerail again, inevitably. It has done so for aeons, and will for ages to come.

[Andir]

It's re-railed already!

It's an atheist thread that talks about stuff that ... is not religion!  How much more on topic can you be?  Off-topic would be talking about that which we reject.

[Grakelin]

Not from the point of view of the OP, who argued against Atheism.

[Makbeth]

It's a theory.  Which hasn't really worked for me for philosophical reasons. 

Aw, I thought you were above falling into that trap.  It doesn't matter whether it agrees with your philosophy or not, QM is very, very good at what it does.  Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is confirmed, so are the quantized orbitals of electrons in atoms.  Quantum Mechanics may be so unintuitive that they say that if you think you understand it you don't, but its predictions have been so astonishingly accurate that even the physicists who were dead set against the idea all had to admit it was real, no matter how badly they wanted the universe to be deterministic.

[Areyar]

Like the number 42! )

heh. the universal seed number.

[Siquo]

Aw, I thought you were above falling into that trap.  It doesn't matter whether it agrees with your philosophy or not, QM is very, very good at what it does.  Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is confirmed, so are the quantized orbitals of electrons in atoms.  Quantum Mechanics may be so unintuitive that they say that if you think you understand it you don't, but its predictions have been so astonishingly accurate that even the physicists who were dead set against the idea all had to admit it was real, no matter how badly they wanted the universe to be deterministic.

Still, he is right in that the "hidden variable" theory is viable. It just might still be deterministic. There's no evidence for it, but that's why he calls it a philosophy

And well, I kind of lean that way as well. The thing is, with everything I learned of Physics, every single topic clicks into place in my mind (eventually  ). Except QM. That one, as you pointed out, fails to click in most people. As most physics does, and this one single theory (set of theories) doesn't, it's the odd one out, and it's the only one (or maybe just the first one) that's counter-intuitive.

Or we have just reached the maximum of our understanding, and our brains are incapable of completely grasping anything deeper than this.

[Il Palazzo]

it's the odd one out, and it's the only one (or maybe just the first one) that's counter-intuitive.

Earth is round.

Or we have just reached the maximum of our understanding, and our brains are incapable of completely grasping anything deeper than this.

Yeah, I'm inclined to think that too. After all, nobody said we will ever be able to understand it(i.e.the world) completely.

[Siquo]

it's the odd one out, and it's the only one (or maybe just the first one) that's counter-intuitive.

Earth is round.

Touche. And you have a point, is our paradigm so deterministic that something completely-yet-not random throws us off so much?
What makes QM so difficult to understand? Is it because (like the round earth) it's just our paradigms that need shifting?

[Sowelu]

Or we have just reached the maximum of our understanding, and our brains are incapable of completely grasping anything deeper than this.

Yeah, I'm inclined to think that too. After all, nobody said we will ever be able to understand it(i.e.the world) completely.

Pff.  That's what computers and strong AI are for.

[Bauglir]

it's the odd one out, and it's the only one (or maybe just the first one) that's counter-intuitive.

Earth is round.

Touche. And you have a point, is our paradigm so deterministic that something completely-yet-not random throws us off so much?
What makes QM so difficult to understand? Is it because (like the round earth) it's just our paradigms that need shifting?

That one's actually pretty intuitive, depending on where you live, but I suppose it might count.

[Leafsnail]

Well, there's no reason why small stuff needs to behave like big stuff.  Really, we only find QM strange because we live (and were evolved to live) on the scale we do.  We have a fairly intuitive knowledge of what happens on this scale, which breaks down once you start increasing (general relativity) or decreasing (quantum mechanics) it a lot.

[Andir]

Or we have just reached the maximum of our understanding, and our brains are incapable of completely grasping anything deeper than this.

Yeah, I'm inclined to think that too. After all, nobody said we will ever be able to understand it(i.e.the world) completely.

Pff.  That's what computers and strong AI are for.

There's not a computer powerful enough to figure out why I was stuck in non-moving traffic today.  Sometimes I have a hard time comprehending why people feel the need to slow down and look at an accident causing miles of rubber band braking.  If only I had the omnipotent power to whip those people into the sun...