Re: [asa] Random and design

Let me try to clarify further. My comments below were not intended to elucidate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, although that principle applies to any particle for which one is calculating a probability distribution function (PDF). George Murphy has by now adequately discussed the uncertainty principle.

Common examples of PDFs would be one for an electron in the ground state of the hydrogen atom, and one for the interference pattern of a double-slit experiment. If you could do a large number of measurements of the position of such electron in a H atom, you'd come up with a distribution that looked like the PDF. But it would be impossible to predict the result of any of your measurements. Likewise, if you sent electrons through an appropriate double slit one at a time, you'd eventually wind up with a distribution that looked like the predicted interference pattern. But it would be impossible to predict the trajectory of any particular electron. Note that the measurements of both these experiments would precisely determine quantity q but would leave p completely unknown. That's how the uncertainty principle would apply here.

Early investigators of QM, including Erwin Schroedinger and Pascual Jordan, recognized the spookiness of the subject and wrote books giving views on how it might somehow elucidate mental processes, etc. (Don't recall the details right off.) This kind of application remains a tantalizing possibility, but so far no one's ideas on the subject have been able to win anything like general acceptance. (When I told an old professor at the U of Michigan about Pascual Jordan's ideas, he sneered, "Jordan obviously was getting senile.") It's much easier to speculate than to demonstrate, and without demonstrating there's no convincing.

Fact is, if God can determine why an electron "decides" to go to one location on the interference pattern rather than to another, he must be able to read the electron's "mind" in maybe a picosecond. If the electron doesn't have a mind but just responds in knee-jerk fashion, ..well, it's all so hard to comprehend. We don't know how to think like particles. Nevertheless, it still seems reasonable to me that God would be able to extensively influence the development of the world by manipulating particles within their probability distributions, all without violating any physical law.

But as for whether physicists now acknowledge hard limits--no one I've heard of. What they're likely to readily acknowledge is that the world is far stranger than our predecessors knew. And it is experiment, often suggested and illuminated by theory, that tells us this.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: mrb22667@kansas.net<mailto:mrb22667@kansas.net>
  To: Don Winterstein<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 9:46 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Random and design

  Thanks for this clarification. This is exactly what I have not been able to
  grasp, and perhaps you can further assist. (highschool science teachers don't
  get to spend much time at this level.)

  So which way is the correct way to teach the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?
  Is it a limitation of our knowledge only? I.e. an electron can have a definite
  position & velocity but we just will never be able to measure both? OR is it a
  limitation on the reality of an electron itself? I.e. there is no exact
  location or velocity for this wave-like thing in the first place for anybody
  (even God) to know. There is a difference between these to my way of thinking.

  To allow a total non-causality (in theory & philosophy no less) seems
  indistinguishable from "supernatural" --albeit subatomic. Do quantum
  physisicsts acknowledge, then that science has reached its permanent boundary?

  I realize these are nearly century old questions, but they still blow my mind,
  and your patiently educating me in this is appreciated.

  --merv

  Quoting Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>>:

> Despite the limitations on our
> predictive knowledge imposed by quantum indeterminancy and the error
> amplification from chaos theory, every event is still assumed to have natural
>
> causal links according to scientific thought & investigation (M.N). So
> "randomness" then is no more than our perspective from ignorance.
>
> (My highlighting.) This is not what quantum mechanics teaches. QM assigns
> probability distribution functions (e.g., Gaussians) to physical phenomena.
> A distribution of events for a given kind of phenomenon after a large number
> of measurements will look like the applicable distribution function.
> Randomness means that the location of a particular event on its distribution
> function is unpredictable, and unpredictable in this case means there is no
> physical cause. QM predicts only probabilities and claims that more detailed
> predictions are not possible.
>
> So why does a particular particle do what it does? We can assume God knows,
> but we can't know. Particles act as if they have minds of their own. Many
> experiments support this.
>
> In hard science, in the environment I was in, random always meant the
> inability to predict the location of a particular event on its distribution
> function. On this list random means lots of different things, so there's a
> need to define the word here before using it.
>
> Don
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: mrb22667@kansas.net<mailto:mrb22667@kansas.net<mailto:mrb22667@kansas.net<mailto:mrb22667@kansas.net>>
> To: David Opderbeck<mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com<mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>>
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>>
> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 1:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Random and design
>
>
> Quoting David Opderbeck
> <dopderbeck@gmail.com<mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com<mailto:dopderbeck@gmailcom<mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>>>:
>
> ..
> > Maybe another way to frame this is as an epistemic issue: is something
> > "random" merely because it *appears* random to us? Do we allow that
> there
> > might be causes that are beyond our capability to perceive that, if
> known,
> > would demonstrate seemingly random events to in fact be caused? Or,
> stated
> > theologically, isn't the operation of providence often a mystery to us?
> >
> > I'm not sure what you mean by "if a random systems shows no evidence of
> > being guided naturally." I understand, in a very basic way, the notion
> of
> > quantum indeterminacy. I guess I would distinguish between "guided" and
> > "determined." At the quantum level, things aren't "determined," but
> they
> > are "guided" by deep fundamental laws. A wide variety of things can
> happen
> > at the quantum level, but not just *anything* can happen.
> >
> ..
>
> I share in the skepticism (if I understand your comments correctly)
> regarding
> the term "randomness" and the casual way in which we throw it around in
> science
> and math as if it had no philosophical implication. The quotation marks
> ought
> to be a permanent part of that word IMO. Despite the limitations on our
> predictive knowledge imposed by quantum indeterminancy and the error
> amplification from chaos theory, every event is still assumed to have
> natural
> causal links according to scientific thought & investigation (M.N). So
> "randomness" then is no more than our perspective from ignorance. Just as
> we
> easily recognize the pseudorandom status of the determined output from a
> random
> number generator, so also the status of natural events as "random" begins
> to
> unravel as our knowledge of the causal effects increases -- or so goes the
> scientific credo. For the scientifically minded to depart from this item
> of
> faith would be truly bizarre, would it not? And if there is no such thing
> as
> true randomness, how could anything ever be distinguished as unguided?
> (or
> guided?) The whole question becomes a meaningless semantic except as an
> article of faith.
>
> --merv
>
>
>
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Received on Sat Nov 18 01:33:03 2006