: Part I
: I care a lot more about 'absolute' randomness rather than
: 'functional' randomness. I think this is the
: conclusion many people draw from QM, that it implies
: 'absolute' randomness. Is this not a fair
: characterization of Archer's complaints that got the
: ball rolling? To me, allowing the possibility of
: absolute determinism but functional indeterminism
: completely takes away the bite of Schroedinger's Cat,
: for instance. It's supposed to shake you because it's
: supposed to be talking about reality and not the
: limits of rationality. At least that's the way I took
: the point. I think it's at most a footnote if it
: wasn't meant like that, wouldn't you agree? What's so
: paradoxical about being in superposition with respect
: to the ability to KNOW if a cat is alive or dead?
: 'Absolute' randomness is what bugs people about QM. But
: it's not a forced move, not even from accepting Bell.
: Wrong, What I'm arguing for is what you're calling
: absolute determinism. Rather, I'm arguing for NOT (
: NOT (absolute determinism) ), which is close to
: equivalent except in the burden of proof department.
: I'm arguing for the possibility of absolute
: determinism. You can throw functional determinism out
: the door, and probably even before Bell and his
: theorem, as far as I'm concerned.
: Although this does explain why we seem to be talking past
: each other. What makes you think I'm interested in
: (full) functional determinism? As I take it, Archer's
: concerns are allayed if QM is silent on absolute
: determinism. Many people at least talk as if
: QM-->absolute indeterminism. Or don't you think so?
I think most people who talk about QM aren't sufficiently informed/haven't thought about it long enough to make a clear distinction. My main reason for responding to Archer in the first place was to point out that most of the statements which caused him concern were not accurate representations of quantum theory.
I'd say that yeah, a lot of physicists infer absolute indeterminism from QM, for simplicity's sake--if you can't observe something, why bother assuming it exists? But this is a personal philosophical choice, and most physicists are pretty good about emphasizing that fact. The problem arises when 2nd- or 3rd-hand reports of what they say begin to mix the philosophy and the science.
Earlier posts--one in particular--suggested that you were interested in functional determinism:
"Presented with observations, what conclusion do you draw? That there's more observing to be done, or that there's no more to be done, and stuff's just random like that?
"I'm not sure why it counts as a victory for QM to say things like, "we just can't know!" It sounds like giving up to me."
"Sure indeterminacy sounds good compared to that. My claim is that there is in principle a way to determine reliably the roll of a die or the flip of a coin."
If these were merely posed as possibilities or as consequences of classical rather than quantum physics, then I misjudged your position and we may close this aspect of the argument. :-)
: Part II
: I may have overstated my case when I said I didn't like
: those terms ('simple', 'pretty'). I was thinking
: primarily that they are often misleading. So pretend I
: didn't say that--because now THAT'S confusing the
: issue.
Pretending as ordered. :-)
: Anyway, for clarification's sake, MY POSITION (I didn't
: think it even worth mentioning until hearing you speak
: ("reading you write"?) about science):
: Science is more than truth. Scientific knowledge is
: more than true belief. It's true belief PLUS
: something: a justifier, a maker-so. People's
: expectations of science do matter because science is a
: human endeavor, an element of human behavior. And
: scientific explanation is a psychological phenomenon,
: as I said earlier. People's expectations come in not
: on the 'truth' side, but on the 'justifier' side--the
: logos side.
Science is indeed a human endeavor, and humans tell stories...but a single human product need not contain aspects of the entirety of human existence. Novels don't require equations, and scientific theories don't require stories.
That doesn't mean that story-telling isn't invaluable to science, as I told Archer. It helps humans come up with theories, and it helps other humans wrap their heads around those theories. But the story isn't really part of the theory, and if the theory can't stand without the story in the end, there's something wrong.
: There are plenty of famous counterexamples to science
: simply being truth, but from what I've heard from you
: already I take it you'd resist them, so this point
: will probably be the end of it. I'm not sure there's
: any sense in trying to convince you that science is
: more than truth if you want to claim otherwise. At
: that point we're clearly talking about different
: things--you truth and me truth plus a logos.
I never said science was simply truth. This whole discussion started because you argued--with reference to my number-list example--that a theory can't be scientific unless it has a story. I take exception to that, but that doesn't mean I don't think stories are part of science. Science, the human endeavor, contains more than theories.
If you try to persuade me that scientific theories require stories, then yes, I'll resist. Don't try longer than is entertaining for you. :-)
I hope that throughout this you were using "truth" as shorthand for "apparent truth given the validity of the inductive principle," btw.
--SiliconDream
