"New" (2006) Q&A thread
- Thread starter Magrathean
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A: No. We can't predict evolution if we don't know the exact position and properties of every single particle to a very large (millions of light-years) radius.
Q: Agree?
Q: Agree?
6 Stringed Fingers
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A: No, because there will always be something of pure random nature. We can't ever know the outcomes of that before the outcomes come to be. Like predicting the on/off of a light bulb switched to infinity.
Q: [Insert counter-argument here]
Q: [Insert counter-argument here]
A: I wrote my counter-argument on some other thread. You might remember it; it was something about the inexistence of randomness.
Q: Same.
Q: Same.
6 Stringed Fingers
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A: I would need a link to that counter-argument.
Q: If I imagined correctly, you've found a way to predict the aliveness of the Schrodinger's cat?
Q: If I imagined correctly, you've found a way to predict the aliveness of the Schrodinger's cat?
A/Q: I have no idea what you are talking about. Mind explaining me?
Eh, i might write it again. I'm too lazy to dig up that days-old post.
Eh, i might write it again. I'm too lazy to dig up that days-old post.
6 Stringed Fingers
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A: I'm using something similar to demonstrate the existence of randomness. Say you have a light bulb, and an on/off switch. You turn the light bulb on and off to infinity, the light bulb will eventually be on or off, but it's a completely random process, and you have no way of knowing the outcome before you finish switching.
Q: So?
Q: So?
A: There's no "eventually" because infinity never ends. The bulb would keep switching on and off, and you'd never reach an "eventually" in which it would be either on or off. In that sense, infinity is indeed the absurd, as your poem says.
Q: So what's that about the cat?
Q: So what's that about the cat?
6 Stringed Fingers
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A: It's a cat whose life depends on the direction in which eletron spinning around the atom. Clockwise it dies, the other way it lives. The cat itself in placed in a bag. So you'll know its aliveliness when you open the bag. And by opening the bag, you let light in and thus change the way the eletron will spin. So you can only guess if the cat is still alive.
Q: What do you think?
Q: What do you think?
A: I think that that's merely a problem that illustrates our lack of capacity to predict situations when we don't have enough knowledge and can't acquire knowledge without changing the system under study, but it doesn't prove the existence of randomness.
Q: So?
Q: So?
6 Stringed Fingers
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A: God can create creatures with free-will. Free-will = capable of making random decisions. 
Q: Was that good enough?
Q: Was that good enough?
A: No. First, to be able to be convinced by such an argument i'd have to believe in some kind of god, and i don't. Second, free will doesn't equal randomness; it equals electrochemical reactions at neurological level, molecules and electrons interacting with other molecules and electrons to produce action/thought.
Q: Any other counter-argument left?
Q: Any other counter-argument left?
6 Stringed Fingers
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A: But electrochemical reactions are the governed and not the governing, humans have the ability to chose independently from their bodies. The brain uses these reactions to make the decisions and not referring to them to decide.
Q: What do you think?
Q: What do you think?
A: I think that the issue here is interpretation. See, i believe that when we "choose" or "think" all we're doing is having specific electrochemical activity in our brains (i.e. choice A is one brain activity pattern and choice B is another, both at the same brain region -- the relevant region for the kind of choice/action/whatever). So our brains are nothing more than neural networks, i.e. a lot of neurons connected in a specific way and interacting with each other in specific ways and moments. A thought implies a certain activity (electrical charge, exchange of chemicals, whatever). Now, to connect this with the inexistence of free will or randomness, think about any basic chemical process. We all know, for instance, that when sodium ions and chlorine ions interact they inevitably form sodium chloride (a.k.a. common salt). Why? Because there are rules, things that inevitably happen because the way the universe works can't have it any other way, so to speak. In this example, Na+ ions are attracted to Cl- ions to form NaCl because of their electrical charge and electron configuration, and it can't be any other way. And such is the case with all processes (all biology is chemistry (almost all organic), and all chemistry is molecular physics). So our brain processes also obey the laws of matter/energy/whatever, and certain things cause certain reactions. Thus, nthing that has ever happened, is happening or will ever happen could have been or be different. Thus, there is no randomness.
Q: Like my view? My guess is no. Nobody likes to think of the possibility of the inexistence of free will.
Q: Like my view? My guess is no.
Nobody likes to think of the possibility of the inexistence of free will.
6 Stringed Fingers
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Zack
charting my way to top :)
- Feb 9, 2005
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A: I do I can't discuss it though because this whole idea of no such thing as random is completely new to me, and I'm still looking at that shuffle button on itunes thinking, "You fake piece of shit"
Q: Now how about 6sf?
Wow, I thought I was a fast typer Beaten by 2 people...
I can't discuss it though because this whole idea of no such thing as random is completely new to me, and I'm still looking at that shuffle button on itunes thinking, "You fake piece of shit"Q: Now how about 6sf?
Wow, I thought I was a fast typer
Beaten by 2 people...
6 Stringed Fingers
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