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Randomness just doesn't make sense to me. If we have exactly the same situation two times, perfectly and exactly, how could we expect a different outcome? The idea of hidden local or not-local variables makes a lot more intuitive sense. We can never predict it perfectly, of course, so from a practical standpoint it's random. Then again, maybe that's why I'm in mechanical rather than physics. Meh. Newtonian physics works just fine most of the time, I'm going to stick with it.
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Nov 23, 2015 07:56
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Karia posted:Randomness just doesn't make sense to me. If we have exactly the same situation two times, perfectly and exactly, how could we expect a different outcome? The idea of hidden local or not-local variables makes a lot more intuitive sense. We can never predict it perfectly, of course, so from a practical standpoint it's random. If you want to visualise it, it would be basically like a dice roll, only the dice roll is black box. You can't see any of the processes which produce the result because there aren't any.
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Nov 23, 2015 08:06
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We already tested the experimental predictions of quantum mechanics versus local hidden variables, and quantum mechanics won. Discounting the empirical experimental results of quantum physics because  my philosophy says the universe must work a different way is literally Ayn Rand's position yall. Let's not go with praxeological physics in the same thread we're mocking praxeological economics.
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Nov 23, 2015 |
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Nov 23, 2015 08:29
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Karia posted:If we have exactly the same situation two times, perfectly and exactly, how could we expect a different outcome? Because the universe is nondeterministic. quote:The idea of hidden local or not-local variables makes a lot more intuitive sense. Physics is non-intuitive. Our intuitions evolved to cope with medium-size objects moving at medium speeds, so it's no surprise that they fail when dealing with quantum-level events.
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Nov 23, 2015 11:21
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Oh are we talking quantum mechanics and thermodynamics? This poo poo be my wheelhouse. Just as a quick aside, "random" does not mean "unknowable." When you're looking at a random quantum event, you're usually looking at an ensemble of ~10^23 events, and statistically the confidence intervals at that sample size get very tight indeed. ToxicSlurpee posted:My understanding of it has to do with things like the laws of thermodynamics; in particular the second one. The short of it is "any level of entropy in a closed system will increase over time and cause catastrophic failure eventually." Any minute level of randomness fucks up everything. As science has peeled back the layers of the universe bit by bit it has found that seemingly random things weren't. That's... not the best summary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In fact, not only is randomness compatible with the Second Law, it can be used to derive it. And if all this is bringing you existential dread, don't worry! Science agrees. The founding figures of a lot of this stuff had an unnerving tendency to kill themselves. Goon Danton fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Nov 23, 2015 |
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Nov 23, 2015 14:13
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QuarkJets posted:To the best of our understanding, radioactive decay is provably random, and so are many other processes. I won't discount the possibility of discovering a deterministic process governing radioactive decay, but there's no guarantee of that happening; it might be (and probably is) truly random. And using your same line of reasoning (basically none at all), I could claim that any number of deterministic processes are simply the result of random processes that we simply can't comprehend yet. Not having a way to accurately simulate things at enough detail to determine what will happen doesn't make something known to be truly random. It simply makes it unpredictable by actual humans with less time than the lifespan of the universe to calculate things. It also, separately, makes those processes good things to use when you need "random" numbers for some manner of project. Systems being chaotic does not make them non-deterministic.
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Nov 23, 2015 15:21
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fishmech posted:Not having a way to accurately simulate things at enough detail to determine what will happen doesn't make something known to be truly random. It simply makes it unpredictable by actual humans with less time than the lifespan of the universe to calculate things. It also, separately, makes those processes good things to use when you need "random" numbers for some manner of project. Probabilistic theories are able to explain observable phenomena at the quantum level, and every deterministic theory put forward thusfar is not. If you want to argue against the current model, you need something beyond "I don't like it" on your side. Though I will admit, "I'm right and you're wrong, but your feeble human brains simply aren't able to conceive of my rightness yet" gives us a great segue back into talking about Austrian economics! 
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Nov 23, 2015 15:44
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Now let's talk about the loving butterfly effect
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Nov 23, 2015 16:20
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:Now let's talk about the loving butterfly effect Is that when two butterflies doing it causes a person to question his life choice that led him to watching two butterflies do it?
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Nov 23, 2015 16:46
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duz posted:Is that when two butterflies doing it causes a person to question his life choice that led him to watching two butterflies do it? It's what causes him to staunchly refuse to think about why he's so into watching two butterflies do it.
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Nov 23, 2015 16:57
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Empirical testing of Bell's Inequality showed that theories of local hidden variables are inconsistent with experimental results whereas quantum mechanics matches perfectly? Well quantum mechanicailures you're just not smart enough to find the hidden variables, heh, take that science 
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Nov 23, 2015 17:03
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bokkibear posted:Because the universe is nondeterministic. But that means that time-travel movies are scientifically inaccurate because if you go back in time the universe may go in a different direction. How could we live in such a world?
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Nov 23, 2015 17:24
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Karia posted:But that means that time-travel movies are scientifically inaccurate because if you go back in time the universe may go in a different direction. How could we live in such a world? They are scientifically inaccurate because you'd have to remake the universe as it was, which would involve violating a bunch of very basic rules about reality. March only forward to the promised land of time travelling to the future, young man
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Nov 23, 2015 18:20
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VitalSigns posted:Empirical testing of Bell's Inequality showed that theories of local hidden variables are inconsistent with experimental results whereas quantum mechanics matches perfectly? Fishmechology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is Karia posted:But that means that time-travel movies are scientifically inaccurate because if you go back in time the universe may go in a different direction. How could we live in such a world? That simply splits the universe in infinite directions, and we can just choose to hop to our old one. For more info, check out the science documentary Rick and Morty.
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Nov 23, 2015 18:38
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Nolanar posted:It's what causes him to staunchly refuse to think about why he's so into watching two butterflies do it. This right here
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Nov 23, 2015 19:19
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Nolanar posted:Desperate people turning to pseudo-legal theories (Sovereign Citizens, Freemen on the Land, Moorish Law) makes a certain amount of sense. A person in a ton of debt looks at the world, and sees large companies splitting their debt off into a separate corporation, or claiming to be Irish for tax purposes, or claiming that all the people in their factories are actually independent contractors and not employees. Rich people can pay Senators to do what they want, and it isn't bribery because they called it a campaign donation. In an environment where people are able to say all that stuff and get away with it, why shouldn't you be allowed to be dead or a boat when the taxman comes? You just need to know the right words to say to the judge. And here comes a smart man in a good suit who says he'll teach you the right words, and says that it's worked countless times before. And if it doesn't work for you, you must have messed it up, because all those corporate cases say that it must work if you do it right. Otherwise it would mean that the legal system is blatantly tilted in favor of the rich and powerful, and that simply can't be true. QuarkJets posted:And for extra idiocy some sovcits believe that the government opens a bank account for each "legal entity" with millions of dollars in it, and if you say the right magic words then you can access those funds somehow. I don't know the specific line of bullshit reasoning behind this one but it's pretty funny nonetheless  standard, it pledged its citizens as collateral. Therefore there's a secret account associated with your name that you can redeem by casting the right legal spells.
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Nov 23, 2015 20:05
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True randomness is God. Fishmech is correct, not yet knowing how something works is not proof it can't be understood.
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Nov 24, 2015 05:32
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These conversations are always weird. You have people casually dismissing out of hand some of the most rigorous physics experiments in history because they don't like the results and the possibility of a nondeterministic universe makes them feel sad, while accusing the foremost scientific authorities on earth of arguing from ignorance and being too lazy to figure out the truth (ie confirm my physical inuition that evolved figuring out how to duck predators and catch swinging branches). Sorry, if you're not even familiar enough with the subject matter to even mention experiments that were done decades ago before handwaving away a hundred years of research, you really have no business telling physicists which theories to rule out. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 06:48
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fishmech posted:Not having a way to accurately simulate things at enough detail to determine what will happen doesn't make something known to be truly random. It simply makes it unpredictable by actual humans with less time than the lifespan of the universe to calculate things. It also, separately, makes those processes good things to use when you need "random" numbers for some manner of project. We actually have many ways of accurately simulating things at really fine detail, particle physicists regularly simulate sub-atomic interactions with great success. The problem is that these physical interactions are better described as random processes than deterministic ones, and the only way to create a functioning deterministic quantum theory is to make the most nihilistic philosophical argument imaginable (which also happens to result in a model with as much predictive power as a shoulder shrug) asdf32 posted:Fishmech is correct, not yet knowing how something works is not proof it can't be understood. We know how many of these processes work, they are random processes
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Nov 24, 2015 06:56
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fishmech posted:Systems being chaotic does not make them non-deterministic. You're definitely right about that, but maybe not in a way that you'd like. Throwing a billiard ball at a bunch of other billiard balls is a chaotic process. Shooting a proton at a bunch of other protons is a non-deterministic process.
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Nov 24, 2015 07:03
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I say, when I get off the train at Piccadilly station, my pocketwatch agrees as exactly with the train schedule as it did that morning when I set it according to the church bells as I left my country home. The very idear that a slowing of the clock occurs just because I am speeding through the countryside at the terrifying velocity of 32 miles per hour is absolutely preposterous. I do wish these scientists would stop playing God: only the Almighty Himself could change the time. It would suit me better if they'd sit down and work out the real reason for Mercury's orbit, rather than engaging in these flights of fancy to hide that they simply don't know and wo'n't try.
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Nov 24, 2015 07:16
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QuarkJets posted:We actually have many ways of accurately simulating things at really fine detail, particle physicists regularly simulate sub-atomic interactions with great success. The problem is that these physical interactions are better described as random processes than deterministic ones, and the only way to create a functioning deterministic quantum theory is to make the most nihilistic philosophical argument imaginable (which also happens to result in a model with as much predictive power as a shoulder shrug) You admit you can't rule out that a deterministic model may be invented (like 2 posts ago). So that's case closed on the issue. If a deterministic model may be discovered then it's not provably random.
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Nov 24, 2015 07:57
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Okay one minute you're saying nondeterminism is completely impossible and is the same as saying goddidit so we need to rule it out and find the "real" deterministic answer, now you're saying only that nondeterminism has never been proven true (a meaningless claim, as no scientific theory has been or can ever be proven true, it can only have its predictions confirmed over and over through experiments, which quantum mechanics has)
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 08:16
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asdf32 posted:You admit you can't rule out that a deterministic model may be invented (like 2 posts ago). So that's case closed on the issue. If a deterministic model may be discovered then it's not provably random. No, the argument is that all physical processes are deterministic. Those same processes that are not provably random are not provably deterministic, either e: You're misconstruing cautious scientific optimism as an admission that random processes are actually deterministic, which is stupid and wrong QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 08:16
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asdf32 posted:You admit you can't rule out that a deterministic model may be invented (like 2 posts ago). So that's case closed on the issue. If a deterministic model may be discovered then it's not provably random. It might also be discovered that the universe was actually created about 7000 years ago and all the evidence to the contrary was planted by Satan to mislead mankind, but until it does our best models show that some physical processes are in fact non-deterministic. And since the alternative models are all vastly less likely to be true, we can even say for a fact that the universe is not deterministic. Also natural science doesn't work by proving negatives, because that's empirically impossible. It's honestly kind of baffling to see people unironically argue, in the liberitarian mock thread of all places, that non-deterministic models must be wrong because they don't like the implications, because actual physicists mostly stopped doing that about half a century ago and one would think that the info would have filtered down by now. Halloween Jack posted:Thing is, a lot of these people seem quite aware that the system is a big conspiracy against them, the honest private citizen, they just misapprehend the why and how like all conspiracy theorists. Yet they somehow believe that the policeman and the judge will say "Welp, ya got me, you don't really have to be licensed, registered, insured, or sober to drive" if they say the right words. It's blatantly magical thinking, to the point that that Canadian justice was at a loss to describe their methods as anything but attempts to cast legal magic spells. Especially since they start from the premise that the state and the courts are terrible and evil oppressors. One would think that this is kind of irreconcilable with the idea that these terrrible oppressors have to follow the rules if you know the right magic words, unlike all oppressive systems in recorded human history, but no.
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Nov 24, 2015 12:22
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Cerebral Bore posted:Especially since they start from the premise that the state and the courts are terrible and evil oppressors. One would think that this is kind of irreconcilable with the idea that these terrrible oppressors have to follow the rules if you know the right magic words, unlike all oppressive systems in recorded human history, but no. That's because sovcit, like all conspiracy theories, is for powerless people who want to feel powerful. They know that the rich and powerful can game the system, and they are ready to believe anyone who comes along and offers them some secret knowledge that will put them in control of events and systems they feel powerless to affect. Asking why the Federal Reserve would steal all our gold and turn us into debt slaves and lie endlessly about what they did, yet are bizarrely honorable enough to set aside a gold account for us that they'll turn over if we ask just right is as pointless as asking how the masterminds of 9/11 could execute a plot involving thousands of people and lying witnesses and faked footage while being reckless or arrogant enough to advertise the plot on album covers and US currency and whatever else so the man on the street can figure it out if he knows where to look. No one who believes it, believes it because it makes sense. They believe it because it lets them feel in control of their lives and the world around them.
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Nov 24, 2015 13:05
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asdf32 posted:You admit you can't rule out that a deterministic model may be invented (like 2 posts ago). So that's case closed on the issue. If a deterministic model may be discovered then it's not provably random. You can't definitively prove that someone might come up with a better theory later, therefore you're wrong and I'm right. I am a scientist. *Flies away using own farts as thrust* There's no rigorous proof in science. We don't get to check our answers in the back of the textbook. You can't just say "I think you're wrong in nonspecific ways, disprove your wrongness." That's Ludwig von Mises Ken Hamm Gene Ray bullshit.
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Nov 24, 2015 14:03
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QuarkJets posted:No, the argument is that all physical processes are deterministic. Those same processes that are not provably random are not provably deterministic, either quote:We know how many of these processes work, they are random processes Mr science, random processes have not been proven to exist so I suggest you clarify why your use of that phrase suggests you think they do. I absolutely did not do that. God (a force unaccountable to known laws of nature) has absolutely not been disproven.
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Nov 24, 2015 14:18
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asdf32 posted:Mr science, random processes have not been proven to exist so I suggest you clarify why your use of that phrase suggests you think they do. Wait, are you actually Ken Ham?
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Nov 24, 2015 14:20
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asdf32 posted:Mr science, random processes have not been proven to exist so I suggest you clarify why your use of that phrase suggests you think they do. Your heart pumping because of invisible, ethereal pixies punching it also hasn't been disproved, what's your point?
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Nov 24, 2015 14:54
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asdf32 posted:Mr science, random processes have not been proven to exist so I suggest you clarify why your use of that phrase suggests you think they do. I know gently caress-all about physics, but I know enough about methodology to know that if recent studies show that current deterministic models don't adequately describe phenomena but models including randomness do, then to the best of our current understanding the universe has a degree of randomness to it. I also know enough to say that a statement like "the universe is definitely random" or "the universe is definitely deterministic" is dumb.
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Nov 24, 2015 14:58
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asdf32 posted:Mr science, random processes have not been proven to exist so I suggest you clarify why your use of that phrase suggests you think they do. He is saying that experiment has confirmed the predictions of quantum mechanics (and falsified the predictions of local realism), which is the standard by which we accept scientific theories. Yes, tomorrow that might be completely revolutionized by some new experimental results, but this is true for all scientific theories. If I say "we know masses attract each other gravitationally" I'm obviously speaking within the context of present knowledge, and deliberately misinterpreting me and retorting "well what if someone finds a better theory tomorrow, what now scientists?" is, well, pretty much a pointless waste of time. By the way, random processes are not "unaccountable to known laws of nature", as far as we know nature actually operates in a nondeterministic way and quantum mechanics can predict the aggregate outcomes of experiments with greater accuracy than any other theory in the history of the world, notably better than classical local determinism which was already experimentally found to be inferior to quantum mechanics in the 1970s and has only been confirmed to greater degrees of accuracy since then. If you're wedded to determinism though and the idea of random outcomes makes you uncomfy, you're free to give up locality and assume that whatever hidden variable was responsible for the correlations in the Bell's Inequality experiments has the ability to instantaneously affect measurements at other locations regardless of distance, as far as I know (and I don't know much), no one has been able to design an experiment to rule that out. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 15:00
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Treating the universe as if it is deterministic is definitely the more practical option for a lot of applied science and 99.9% of daily life, but it's a far cry from there to saying that the universe absolutely is deterministic.
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Nov 24, 2015 15:20
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guys holy poo poo shut up
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Nov 24, 2015 15:33
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I keep thinking new jrod poo poo is happening and instead it's all this meaning of life and quantum mechanics this is a thread for shitposting about libertarians, not substantive discussion
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Nov 24, 2015 15:34
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now, did we ever get a confirmation of that watermelon's status vis a vis getting hosed by jrod
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Nov 24, 2015 15:35
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Haven't you heard, jrod has a new thread now where you can go learn about how slavery in the Gulf states is nothing but whining proles trying to get out of an honest day's work, not real slavery like my tax return.
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Nov 24, 2015 15:41
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:now, did we ever get a confirmation of that watermelon's status vis a vis getting hosed It has never been definitively proven that he hasn't, so we are forced to accept the fact that he did.
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Nov 24, 2015 15:42
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asdf32 posted:True randomness is God. Fishmech is correct, not yet knowing how something works is not proof it can't be understood. Except even true randomness tends to express patterns, chaos tends not to be as random as people think, its just a lot less ordered. asdf32 posted:Mr science, random processes have not been proven to exist so I suggest you clarify why your use of that phrase suggests you think they do. Nor has he been proven. He's an unknown, if he does exist, but statistically? Unlikely. No, science is not going to prove/disprove god. But nor is god an unaccountable force because he's a force that has ZERO impact, so he might as well be fiction.
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Nov 24, 2015 16:28
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CommieGIR posted:Nor has he been proven. He's an unknown, if he does exist, but statistically? Unlikely. Only statistically unlikely in that we can't form any sort of probability of a god's existence, because we have no baseline with which to do a comparison.
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Nov 24, 2015 16:36
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