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So do you critics of the article adhere to the belief that the current state of the universe is predictable from the initial state and the laws of physics? Doe

So do you critics of the article adhere to the belief that the current state of the universe is predictable from the initial state and the laws of physics? Does that prediction take time? If it doesn't, if it is instantaneous, it's just a hand-waving god. If the prediction for any given instant takes trillions of years, it's meaningless. How am I supposed to see it as anything other than an obstinate adherence to a principle, an unfalsifiable dogma?

adjkant 6y ago
1. Yes > Does that prediction take time? Of course it takes an understanding of the entire universe, which we don't have. > If it doesn't, if it is instantaneous, it's just a hand-waving god. If the prediction for any given instant takes trillions of years, it's meaningless. The lack of ability to predict does not change the facts of determinism one way or the other, and that concept alone changes many things about the world, which is why we should care about it 100%. Since I think it will be most helpful to your line of questioning, here's a simplistic but concrete example: Without formal free will, responsibility takes a very different form, and that alone can be used in arguments such as punishment vs rehabilitation, levels of societal equality, and human rights arguments.
analog31 6y ago
In my view, that's a straw man. I don't think physicists believe that. I think that most physicists are comfortable treating some phenomena such as nuclear decay and shot noise as truly random. Whether that's a useful model or a fundamental truth is actually something that's not of practical interest outside of perhaps a very small cadre of theoreticians. But one of my physics professors had an amusing comment: We can't calculate the energy levels of the hydrogen atom in years of CPU time, but the hydrogen atom can compute its own wavefunction in a femtosecond. Aside from microscopic phenomena, at least macroscopic systems can compute their own future just fine. My own view is that free will is a theological / philosophical solution in search of a scientific problem.
- jbay808 6y ago
  I agree that nuclear decay is random, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily an example of non-determinism in the universe. As a subscriber to multiverse theory, I'd say that the appearance of random outcomes is just the way it feels to be a human in a quantum superposition.
jbay808 6y ago
As a critic of the article, I'll answer. When you ask if the current state of the universe is "predictable", I'd say not by any machine or device that could ever be made, even in principle, that is a part of the system it's predicting. Almost anything you put together from atoms will have less memory and predicting power than would be required to predict the future state of that system, let alone the rest of the universe (else we could solve the halting problem, among many other things). No "devs project". That's not really what we tend to mean when we say deterministic or predictable, which is more like, could the future of the system be predicted by some unbounded machine that lives outside of the system, but is magically supplied with information about the system. As such, the "time" taken to make the prediction is also kind of irrelevant, because if that system even has a notion of time, it's on a different axis than our time. It would be like a piece on a checkerboard asking its neighbour how many turns it takes for a human to decide its opening move... human time just can't be observed by the checkers pieces who count the passage of time in checkers-turns. Nobody expects to see such a prediction made, but it's not a meaningless property.
jddj 6y ago
It's meaningful in the same way that the illusion of free will is meaningful. It provides a lense through which to view the world. For instance, take a heinous crime and assess it first through the lense of free will, and then swap in a deterministic universe and watch the criminals become victims.
GoblinSlayer 6y ago
Universe is deterministic because the known laws of nature are deterministic to our best knowledge. If you disprove our knowledge of the laws of nature, you will disprove determinism.

adjkant 6y ago

1. Yes > Does that prediction take time? Of course it takes an understanding of the entire universe, which we don't have. > If it doesn't, if it is instantaneous, it's just a hand-waving god. If the prediction for any given instant takes trillions of years, it's meaningless. The lack of ability to predict does not change the facts of determinism one way or the other, and that concept alone changes many things about the world, which is why we should care about it 100%. Since I think it will be most helpful to your line of questioning, here's a simplistic but concrete example: Without formal free will, responsibility takes a very different form, and that alone can be used in arguments such as punishment vs rehabilitation, levels of societal equality, and human rights arguments.

analog31 6y ago

In my view, that's a straw man. I don't think physicists believe that. I think that most physicists are comfortable treating some phenomena such as nuclear decay and shot noise as truly random. Whether that's a useful model or a fundamental truth is actually something that's not of practical interest outside of perhaps a very small cadre of theoreticians. But one of my physics professors had an amusing comment: We can't calculate the energy levels of the hydrogen atom in years of CPU time, but the hydrogen atom can compute its own wavefunction in a femtosecond. Aside from microscopic phenomena, at least macroscopic systems can compute their own future just fine. My own view is that free will is a theological / philosophical solution in search of a scientific problem.

jbay808 6y ago
I agree that nuclear decay is random, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily an example of non-determinism in the universe. As a subscriber to multiverse theory, I'd say that the appearance of random outcomes is just the way it feels to be a human in a quantum superposition.

jbay808 6y ago

As a critic of the article, I'll answer. When you ask if the current state of the universe is "predictable", I'd say not by any machine or device that could ever be made, even in principle, that is a part of the system it's predicting. Almost anything you put together from atoms will have less memory and predicting power than would be required to predict the future state of that system, let alone the rest of the universe (else we could solve the halting problem, among many other things). No "devs project". That's not really what we tend to mean when we say deterministic or predictable, which is more like, could the future of the system be predicted by some unbounded machine that lives outside of the system, but is magically supplied with information about the system. As such, the "time" taken to make the prediction is also kind of irrelevant, because if that system even has a notion of time, it's on a different axis than our time. It would be like a piece on a checkerboard asking its neighbour how many turns it takes for a human to decide its opening move... human time just can't be observed by the checkers pieces who count the passage of time in checkers-turns. Nobody expects to see such a prediction made, but it's not a meaningless property.

jddj 6y ago

It's meaningful in the same way that the illusion of free will is meaningful. It provides a lense through which to view the world. For instance, take a heinous crime and assess it first through the lense of free will, and then swap in a deterministic universe and watch the criminals become victims.

GoblinSlayer 6y ago

Universe is deterministic because the known laws of nature are deterministic to our best knowledge. If you disprove our knowledge of the laws of nature, you will disprove determinism.