John Page

Starboy:
...then it wouldn't be random!
But they do not prove it.
We did this already... it appears to be random.

QM is certainly a fascinating topic, but I don't think it has any bearing on the free will/determinism debate. I think the quote below from Kharakov best sums up why:
In the context of this debate, my hunch is that we should look for explanations of how we are "self-determined", emergent from our ability to recognize and free ourselves from influences/biases.

In an effort to bring some holiday humor into the conversation, perhaps we should form the religion Quantianity where we subscribe to the view that god comprises fundamental particles and acts at random through the sub-atomic soup. The god of Quantianity is thus unknowable and its acts can only predicted statistically. Unfortunately, the laws of QM, handed down on a wooden plank, take over, for any prediction that can be made will immediately render itself invalid due to the true and absolute randomness of Quantianity's god's actions. Unless, of course, you know better....

Happy Holidays, John

[ December 22, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

Beoran

I think a little example could help here. If you roll one die, you have 1/6 chance to roll any number of eyes between 1 and 6. (Let us assume that the dice is truly random.) However, when you roll two dice at the same time, then the chance that you'll roll a 7 is much greater than the chance you'll roll a 2. The fact that the quantum microcosm seems consistent is based on a similar distribution of randomness. However, in this case, we don't take one or two dice, but millions of millions of atoms.