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Old 07-05-2002, 05:57 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally posted by Answerer:
<strong>

Well Beau, apparently, you are trying to link science and your religious beliefs together but this isn't the way science works and its best if you keep them apart.</strong>
I don't have religious beliefs - I would describe myself as an agnostic.

But I think your argument doesn't work because it is based on a misunderstanding of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. There are no local hidden variables to know, so not knowing them cannot be evidence against omniscience or omnipotence. I don't have to believe in either omniscience or omnipotence to hold that opinion.

[ July 05, 2002: Message edited by: beausoleil ]</p>
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Old 07-05-2002, 10:04 AM   #22
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Well, according to the Old Testament, I forget the exact passage, God could not completely destroy the Egyptians, because they had chariots of iron!

And this is the inspired holy word of God, so God cannot destroy iron!
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Old 07-05-2002, 10:47 AM   #23
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Quote:
Originally posted by Radcliffe Emerson:
<strong>Well, according to the Old Testament, I forget the exact passage, God could not completely destroy the Egyptians, because they had chariots of iron!

And this is the inspired holy word of God, so God cannot destroy iron! </strong>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Judg.i:19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the ountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron.

But then,
Jos.17:18 But the mountains shall be thine....
for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots...

So somewhere between Judges and Joshua someone found out that iron chariots were not invincible.
Since Joshua comes before Judges in the OT, there is little chronological sense.
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Old 07-05-2002, 01:11 PM   #24
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...and it wasn't the Egyptians. Still, the two passages show they were the beliefs of man, not divinely inspired events.
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Old 07-05-2002, 05:55 PM   #25
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Quote:
Originally posted by beausoleil:
<strong>

I don't have religious beliefs - I would describe myself as an agnostic.

But I think your argument doesn't work because it is based on a misunderstanding of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. There are no local hidden variables to know, so not knowing them cannot be evidence against omniscience or omnipotence. I don't have to believe in either omniscience or omnipotence to hold that opinion.

[ July 05, 2002: Message edited by: beausoleil ]</strong>
Yeah, you are right in saying that I don't understand quantum mechanics well enough but who in this world, will claim to have understood QM very well, not even its creator, Heisenberg and Schrodinger had full understanding of their creations.
Until a better tool or 'language' than present QM is created and verified, I see no reason not to stick to usual concepts of the quantum world like 'momentum', 'position'
and 'randomness'.
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Old 07-06-2002, 02:01 PM   #26
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The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a consequence of wave-particle duality. Mathematically, the momentum of a particle is associated with the wavelength of its wavefunction and the position of a particle is associated with the location of its wavefunction. One can visualize the uncertainty principle by considering a wave traveling down a string. If the waveform traveling town the string is in the form of a narrow pulse, the wave on the string will have a well defined position but not a well defined wavelength. If the waveform takes on the form of a sine wave, then there is a well defined wavelength but not a well defined position. There is a precise mathematical tradeoff between how well the position of a wave can be defined and how well its wavelength can be defined; this is the origin of the uncertainty principle.

In light of this, I think it is clear that the fact that God does not know the precise position and momentum of a particle simultaneously is no challenge to His omnipotence or omniscience. Saying God does not know the “exact position” of a sine wave traveling down a string is equivalent to saying that a sine wave has no “exact position” and, as such, poses no problem for God’s omniscience or omnipotence. By mathematically equivalent analogy, saying that God does not know the precise position or momentum of a particle is equivalent to saying that particle has no precise position or momentum and is also no challenge to God’s omniscience or omnipotence.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ July 06, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>
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Old 07-06-2002, 05:03 PM   #27
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Absolutely what I was getting at. Good luck!
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Old 07-06-2002, 06:30 PM   #28
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Sounds clear to me.

But thinking about it further....since the problem depends on taking the action of measuring....could one argue that god, in his omniscience, would know the results of any measurement Kenny was going to make?

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Old 07-07-2002, 03:10 AM   #29
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Quote:
Originally posted by Vorkosigan:
<strong>Sounds clear to me.

But thinking about it further....since the problem depends on taking the action of measuring....could one argue that god, in his omniscience, would know the results of any measurement Kenny was going to make?

Vorkosigan</strong>
Yes, but it's not clear to me that there is a problem with this. If I toss a coin presumably God could know in advance whether it was going to be heads or tails.

Here's an interesting experiment if God would cooperate. Set up pairs of entangled particles with the usual measurement apparatus. When each particle 1 is half way to the detector, get God to tell you (correctly) what the measurement will be. Ensure particle 2 arrives at its detector before particle 1. Now, are the results from detector 2 consistent with particle 1's having been measured or not?

[ July 07, 2002: Message edited by: beausoleil ]</p>
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Old 07-07-2002, 02:38 PM   #30
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It would not be inconsistent with what we know of QM to suppose that God directly determines the outcome of each QM measurement in such a way that is consistent with QM statistics. So, no, there is no difficulty in God knowing the outcomes of various QM measurements.

God Bless,
Kenny
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