Determinism vs chance

Strawman.
Glaucon has already pointed out that YOUR claim of how science regards randomness is not the actual view.

Here.

So effectively you're arguing against a claim that only you have made. Nice one...

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so it would be quite ok with you and scientific fraternity for me and others to say that randomness is total bunk? I think not!

You guys have got the whole erudite world believing in randomness as a reality and now you want to say that they are just "inductively generalised theorums".

So which is it we are talking about reality or inductively generalise theorums?

especially as the theorum in question has just been proved invalid in logic.

 

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Put it this way:
"If you prove an "inductively generalised theorum" logically inconsistant in a significant and key part of that theorum what happens normally to that theorum?"
I can see your point of view quite easilly but wonder whether you can see mine?

 

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Given that you have no evidence that gravity is not quantized as everything else is, and given that even if it were the sole "force" not assimilable in quantum theory the probablity terms in QED yet remain, unremovable and central to the most fundamental theory we have, governing every known physical event,

your conception of "reality" seems to be missing most of twentieth century physics as well as logical consistency (you accept "cause and effect", which are established by various probabilities, but reject "chance" and "randomness", which are simultaneously established by the very same probabilities).

There si a third approach - free will is only an illusion if it is imagined to be "free" of physical substrate or basis - magical. Magic is an illusion, in other words.

But as Dennett and many others (Bateson before him, even some of the old Greek and Chinese philosophers) have pointed out, another conception of freedom of the will is available, in which the causes of one's ideas and thereby motivated actions are noticed to be other ideas, other mental events on that high level. Ideas cause ideas. In consequence, the observation that some people have more freedom of their will than others (not being, say, drug addicted) has a solid basis in reality as we have described it most rigorously.

That follows the well established pattern of finding and naming "cause" at its appropriate level, the level at which the concept has meaning for the effect being discussed. Substrates upon which patterns form do not "cause" those patterns, in other words. The pattern of a snowflake is not "caused" or "determined", in any meaningful sense, by the quantum electromagnetic properties of the electrons in the constituent atoms of the water molecules that make up the flake. You can neither predict nor describe the formation of a snowflake at that level.

Substrates may constrain, they do not cause.

And that is one of the central insights available from Darwinian evolutionary theory - yet another example of the profundity of that particular intellectual accomplishment.

 

I never considered it 'dire'. I've been posting back and forth with Glaucon for a while and my guess was he would see problems with mixing moral claims and most versions of determinism. Should and deserve are kinds of moral claims.

and me too. But 'should' and determinism don't fit together.

I apologize for sloppily quoting you. But you seem to have taken my mentioning this to Glaucon the way I did as if I thought I had caught you out on some horrible position - ethically or otherwise. Your ideas on punishment are ones I even agree with. glaucon asked me what kinds of contradictions being a determinist could lead to. So I indicated that one about 'should'.

 

An interesting angle to this issue occurred to me over night which I thought I'd share.

take the Number Pi.
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510 ~
if we assume for a moment we are unfamiliar with the formula that generates this series of numbers we can in no way predict the subsequent numbers.
For all intents and purposes the decimal places appear entirely random and free of any constraint except that "they be free of predictability"

141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609~

yet the entire number is entirely determined. Every time you calculate Pi the exact same effectively infinte string of digits will appear exactly.

So we have an entirely determined series of "random" numbers.....with out any chance involved at all...

Say we take a random sample of the digits out of context :
4821339360726024914127372458700?
and enquire into them regarding randomness and we should, if I am not mistaken fail to find any form of determning function what so ever.
We would declare a random set of numbers and fail to make any worthwhile predictions of the number "?" based on that knowledge.
Yet the entire sequence was or should I say is entirely determined by pi.
and the "?" equals the digit "6" with 100% certainty.


So which part of the "pi" are you! [chuckle]

"Ahh Archimedes, you've done it again!"

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Perhaps you believe this, and perhaps the majority of the lay world does, but any mathematician or scientist certainly does not.

Now you're finally getting the point: scientists can (and do) only talk about "inductively derived theorems"...

Not only has it not been, it's impossible to do so.
(Again, for reasons already mentioned..)

 

Two points:

Firstly, you cannot formally prove such a theorem to be logically inconsistent.
Secondly (and probably what you're really trying to say...), any theorem is always held to be contingent upon the possibility of further data that may contradict it. In that possible case, the theory is discarded in favour of a theory that can account for the anomaly and previous data.


Mod note:

We seriously have to get this thread back on topic.

QQ, you're grasping at straws here to maintain your tenuous grip on some sort of position that runs counter to all commonly accepted understanding of the two elemants of topical concern. If you wish to continue in a discussion of this sort, it falls to you to not only support your abberant position, but also to resond directly to any and all critiques that come your way.
As I've said to EFOC many times, simly saying that "X" is so, doesn't make it so.

 

And, as has been pointed out multitudinous times, no one claims that they do represent "reality".

The short answer is: none. Alas, you're fighting against nothing, as no one has claimed any such 'universal' system.

Also, there's nothing illogical about conceptions of randomness...

 

My thoughts on Evoloution.
I think that chance does not happen with nature, nature and evolution are too precise to leave things to the roll of a dice.

Take for example, Birds.
Im afraid i cant remember the species of bird, but its a big subject in the theory of evolution.
A bird, living in one country has a long thin beak so it can pick the stems of flowers and such.
The exact same species of bird in another country has a beak differently shaped to be able to open seeds and nuts.

That's not about chance is it? that's design.
Nature adapts, over hundreds of thousands of years it adapts creatures to be optimal for the environment they live in.


Again, forgive my lack of knowledge on the birds, its just memories from a book i read.

 

edited for accuracy in reference, sorry about that

Uh, you take a random sample out of some sequence, you are kinda apt to get some randomness in your sample. Just a guess. How'd you do that, btw?

Your sample was determined by some unspecified "random" selection process - not pi. There are stretches of pi that will give any sequence you want.

Not to mention the fact that the degree to which an infinite sequence is "determined" by any finite subsequence of it is a bit obscure. If we are determining pi by the standard Monte Carlo method, for example, are the yet unspecified numerals of its sequence "determined"? Does it matter what base we are using, in our little philosophical discussion?

 

exactly and a point that every one should take note of.

Science is stating that randomness exists [ in theorum ] and has failed to prove such and "just saying so does not make it so"
I have tendered my post on Pi as a potential refutation...care to discuss?

Using the number Pi as an example of how a fully determined universe could be concievably generated from an innitial condition and appear to be entirely random.
Is that appropriate to this threads topic?

When it comes to logic I personally don't Kotow to popular belief. If it is illogical then it is illogical regardless of how many people believe it to be otherwise.

Ice Ara has made one point I find value in [ which I thank him/her for ] that being how substrates do not necessasrilly determine outcomes....in other words "the substrate of the determiner Gravity may not influence the outcomes"
This finally, is a valid possible refutation to my point which I have countered with the use of the "potential substrate" of Pi where by the substrate determines the out come.

Is this appropriate given the threads topic?

To indicate that determinism can indeed generate apparent randomness I would consider very relevant to the topic.

Do you agree as to it's relevance?

 

please correct your post to reflect the correct name of the poster quoted if you could... poster 786 might get upset at being misrepresented.

 

I find it strange that new theories always seem to come up that explains everything. I guess soon a theory will come up that contradicts all common sense...simply because the universe is that strange, but that is another thread...

I can help you get this thread back on track, was it that 'randomness' doesn't exist?

I've been following this thread and the general idea seems to be that randomness is understood to not actually be 'random' in the pure sense that it implies, but rather that it is random to the object that is influenced by it. The wind is random to the stone since the stone has little to do with it (or something in line with that), if the stone is disturbed from its position then that position change is considered to be a random event (right?), which is irrelevant to the general theory of why stones move sometimes (yeah, I know I'm stretching it).

But scientists do say that there are pure random events, like the radiation of an atom, is it valid to say that scientists believe that the internal factors of the atom isn't sufficient to explain the radiation without resorting to randomness?

If so, then I would go in line with Quantum Quack and say that there is indeed some kind of method of which the atom radiates that doesn't depend on pure randomness (but rather hidden variables). (randomness sounds like "...and then a miracle happens!")

 

Danny, Thanks for posting.

 

nah just lazy and simply picked/selected for covenience...any selection of the digits would have sufficed....

yet I feel you have missed the point I was making...

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have I made my point or do I have to dig further...

Just look up any description of evolution and the words random will be used frequently. Science does claim that "they" represent reality. That randomnss IS real and not a mere observation qualifier.

Humor:

except that, using Cyperiums words, it relies on a miracle which is sort of funny in a way. Science is now believeing in "miracles" as randomness must have no determining factors therefore it can not have material causation.

In other words science is claiming "God" to be a random element...[ironic chuckle]

 

The number Pi presents us with an supposedly infinite series of "random data" yet that data is fully determined by Pi.

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Contention:
Random data presented above is fully determined by Pi.

Claim:
That random data can indeed be fully determined. [ no Miracles/God needed!

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]

is this a reasonable claim?

 

As you note: in theory (which is to say, in a qualified sense, i.e., not absolute).
One is not required to "prove" such a concept. In fact, such a concept cannot be "proven". Observation that agrees with definition is sufficient.

Technically incorrect. But that's another discussion entirely...

Of course. Note your usage of the term "apparent". Finally, you're beginning to see...

 

Hard to tell so far, but I believe that that is QQ's contention.

Again, no they don't say that there are "pure random events".
You, like QQ, are forgetting that such assertions are always specific to particular models. Within the context of a given model, one may reasonably assert that randomness applies. This is not the same thing as saying that 'pure randomness exists'...