: You're saying that if information can travel faster than
: light then determinism fails anyway. Maybe, maybe not.
: You'd have to add something more to the picture. What
: you've presented there isn't persuasive, because,
: again, simply our not being able to detect all the
: influences on something doesn't mean determinism
: fails. Stuff can be influenced at faster-than-light
: speed and still be deterministic.
: The trick is you've switched from talking about the way
: the world is to the way we know about the world, This
: is a common sleight-of-hand in discussion of QM, or so
: I have found, as a curious non-expert.
Hey, I certainly didn't start it. :-) We've been switching back and forth between functional determinism (can people come up with a theory they can use to predict stuff?) and absolute determinism (are there lists of numbers which correspond to all universal phenomena) throughout the thread.
Truthfully, this is Einstein's fault. He assumed locality--that is, that no influence travels faster than light--so when he presented the EPR paradox, he characterized it as "We know locality holds, so either QM is incomplete or ABSOLUTE determinism is invalid--and since that's almost inconceivable, QM must be incomplete." So he brought absolute determinism in. When Bell's theorem formalized the matter and QM was vindicated, people still weren't really sure what it would mean to invalidate absolute determinism--it seemed more reasonable to throw out locality instead. Which invalidated functional determinism, but preserved the absolute form.
So there's always been this switchover, and I apologize that I didn't try to be more clear. Bell's theorem and experimental data indicate that either absolute determinism is invalid, or locality (and therefore functional determinism) is invalid. At present, we have no idea how we'd go about figuring out which form of determinism is out the door. But either's invalidity precludes us from creating a determinist theory, which is what you've been asking for all along.
: [I've spent the last 24 hours or so puzzling over the
: idea of information traveling at v>c. It seems that
: our belief that nothing travels faster than light is
: based on the idea that as things travel faster they
: gain more mass, and the limit as v-->c has mass
: going to infinity. But while all information is
: represented physically, it's not fundamentally
: physical, is it? I think there's a distinction to be
: drawn between the information and any instantiation of
: it, although whether this helps any is unclear to me,
: since information traveling outside of an
: instantiation is difficult to imagine. But then again,
: we're at the edge of imagination here, and many of the
: properties ascribed to sub-atomic particles are
: similarly hard to imagine. This is a trade-off game,
: after all. Anything QM isn't going to fit nicely with
: our macro-level intuitions. I think the question is
: which micro-level choices percolate up and infect the
: macro-level most?]
Many of the arguments against information traveling faster than light are based on, as you say, difficulties in seeing how the encoding medium could beat lightspeed. Most of the others are based around time travel--if information can travel faster than light, then there's always some valid reference frame in which it's traveling backwards in time, with all the attendant causation and paradox problems.
Certainly you're right that these don't constitute proofs; all we can say is that so far all the ingenious ways of beating lightspeed limits (tunneling, entangled particles, simply sweeping a lightbeam across the sky so that its reflection moves across the surface of the moon, say, at faster than lightspeed) contain pitfalls which prevent you from transmitting information that way. Which makes it seem like the universe is against the idea. But maybe it's allowed...QM certainly doesn't prohibit it.
: I agree wholeheartedly! That would definitely be
: cheating. What's funny to me is that this move you've
: suggested and excluded is precisely analogous to how I
: take the interpretation of QM you're pushing. We don't
: have to take 'maybe' as a definite answer, and I'm not
: prepared to do so yet.
I haven't excluded it at all. Quantum-inspired logics are extremely useful and most likely we'll all switch to them someday when describing quantum phenomena and many areas of mathematics. I'm just saying it doesn't help you if you want functional determinism.
: But more to the point on logic--is it terribly surprising
: that logic might fail when presented with such bizarre
: properties as electron spin? Not at all, it seems to
: me. Logic is nothing more than a codification of our
: process of reasoning. It's a tool to help you identify
: what follows from what's taken for granted, based on
: agreed upon rules of transformation. Our tools of
: reasoning were clearly not developed in perception of
: properties like electron spin.
: It could be that putting basic first-order logic to work
: on QM is just asking for trouble. It's taking a set of
: tools designed in one space to work in another. A
: paradox occurring is no great surprise.
: At least not when you're weighing your options: Let's
: see, Bell's theorem forces me to conclude at least one
: of the following: a) information travels faster than
: light; b) first-order logic fails on properties like
: electron spin or c) the world's fundamentally
: indeterministic. I can't see that c) is the clear
: winner here. I'd say determinism is a more fundamental
: part of the web of belief (see below) than a) and b).
: There's a prima facie case, at least, which is all I'm
: trying to show--there are alternative interpretations
: of QM experimental results.
: I have no problem on 'effectively' random. But the
: question of whether at bottom all is random is
: untouched by investigations of 'effectively' random.
: As I argued earlier, I doubt we have any decent proof
: of absolute randomness at all.
And as I said above, that's fine. It's functional randomness I'm talking about here. A randomness that can't ever be beaten by humans, whether or not it can be beaten in principle by a godlike entity.
: I like a portion of what Archer has to say below in
: response to this comment. I disagree, however, that
: Ockham's Razor is a terribly effective method for
: getting at the truth. It seems to me more of a rule of
: thumb, a way to get through the wilderness, an
: agreement on how to play the 'science game.'
: "We might as well try the simplest explanation first
: and then move up in complexity from there." If
: that's what you mean by Ockham's Razor, fine. If you
: think that the simplest explanation carries more of
: the weight of truth with it, I'd disagree, if for no
: other reason than what counts as simplest is a human
: convention.
: I also certainly agree with the position that the same
: phenomena can be described by an infinite, or at least
: indefinitely large, number of expressions. This
: doesn't mean that each one is as good as the next.
: More thoroughly, take Quine's idea of the web of belief.
: Our scientific theories and ideas can be imagined as
: scattered out on a table, with lines showing
: dependance drawn from idea to idea. Each and every
: scientific principle can be overthrown, but some are
: connected to more beliefs than others, and so some are
: more valuable, more destructive if they are removed.
: Some beliefs are more easily disposed of than others.
: Now, you can't go changing languages each time you move
: from belief to belief, so the more fundamental ideas
: begin to constrain sorts of ways you talk about the
: dependent ideas. This rules out a great number of
: 'alternative formulations'. Or rather, they become
: intellectual exercises, but not a full-fledged member
: of the web of belief. Next, many of the alternative
: formulations will turn out to be simple translations
: that reduce to the agreed upon way of describing the
: event. With the competitors that remain, it's possible
: to choose a 'best', 'most explanatory', or perhaps, at
: this stage, 'prettiest' theory to run with.
: Here's part of the problem: proof and truth are epistemic
: properties, while explanation is a psychological one.
: If something's proven to be true, it's true all
: around. There's no 'true for me, not true for you'. On
: the other hand, what counts as an explanation for one
: person very often does not for the next. Science is
: not just in the business of proving truths, but of
: explaning. And it counts against a scientific theory
: if, despite getting the details right and being simple
: and pretty, it doesn't gibe with any other theories in
: any other way, and we don't understand WHY it should
: be that way. Conversely, it adds support to scientific
: theories when they are reduced to more fundamental
: theories--if chemical properties are discovered to be
: based on physical properties; if multiple forces are
: found to be versions of a single force; if strange
: phenomena are found to fit in with the web of belief
: instead of requiring a revamped web.
: If science were merely a game of truth-discovery, then
: your 'write down a bunch of numbers' theory would be
: fine. But science is in fact more than that.
: Better--the fact that people would never rely on such
: a theory is evidence that people expect more from a
: scientific theory! [And if the 'write it down' theory
: worked, mirabile dictu, I submit that anyone relying
: on it would suppose something-I-know-not-what behind
: the scenes guaranteeing its success, if they bothered
: to consider it at all, which I take it I'm allowed to
: suppose. If we allowed for the possibility of
: 'recurring, dependable miracles', then I think laws of
: nature are right out!]
Certainly people expect more from a scientific theory. But what people expect is hardly connected to truth, is it? If you don't like terms like "simplest" and "prettiest," you should hardly be prepared to take human expectations into account.
When you say you can't go changing languages when you move between theoretical structures: sure you can. No one's stopping you. Why don't we? Because it's inconvenient, and because we prefer the simplest explanation, and because we hope that the inductive principle is strong enough that the simplest explanation will generally be true. Simplicity and prettiness rule all. Whether you take them as being guidelines to an ultimate truth, or simply as aides in helping limited humans understand the world, they're still what we rely on.
: NOW, as to where this all fits in, as at least one person
: is wondering, I'm merely looking to establish that
: results of QM experiments are one thing and
: interpretation another. This all started when Archer
: resisted some of the common conclusions of QM and
: SiliconDream pushed them.
: Accepting that the world is fundamentally indeterministic
: is not a forced move from accepting the results of QM
: experiments, I say.
And no one disagrees. :-)
--SiliconDream
