Tenek

Your coin toss example brings us to the next point - probability of heads < 0.5, probability of tails < 0.5, probability of edge > 0. Anything can happen, including inexplicable hovering and hen noises.

yguy

That's just your way of saying you don't know whether any one coin flip will be heads or tails.

Not totally ignorant? Find that consoling do you? We're not totally ignorant of what goes on in the universe either. We may know as much as a trillionth of a trillionth of one percent of it.

I said nothing about QM per se. I said there are no events which are BASED on probability, which is nothing more than a mental construct. You might just as well say the existence of God is based on whether we think there is one.

Coragyps

Now you're talkin'!

Jesse

yguy:
I said there are no events which are BASED on probability, which is nothing more than a mental construct.

It might help if you would actually defend this point of view instead of just asserting it. Is there anything self-contradictory or logically impossible about the notion of inherently probabalistic events?

ex-xian

But I know it will be either heads or tails. It won't turn up spades.

What does consoling have to do with anything? I'm talking about empirical science--you're talking about subjective emotive responses.
Yeah, what he (Jesse) said.

yguy

Forgotten this, have you?

You think probability is something other than a mental construct?

Jesse

yguy:
Forgotten this, have you?

I didn't see anywhere in that thread where you attempted to show there was anything self-contradictory about the notion of inherently probabilistic events either--just more assertions. If you think you did try to show this, perhaps you could quote a particular post where you did so.

yguy:
You think probability is something other than a mental construct?

I don't claim to know whether our world is ultimately probabilistic or deterministic. You're the one making a positive assertion that it can't be probabilistic though, so you should be the one defending that assertion.

yguy

That doesn't answer the question. However, to say our world is ultimately probablistic is to say it is based on we know not what. It's uttery meaningless.

Look, if I flip a coin, and it comes up heads 50 times out of 100, did that probability MAKE the coin do that? Obviously not - I did. Why then, if you don't know where a particle is at any point in time, would you say that probability determines where it is? How is that different from saying you don't KNOW where exactly where it is? It's exactly somewhere, isn't it?

Coragyps

Not in the quantum realm, it isn't: a proton is "near here. with this probability." A bowling ball is more massive, so it's "VERY near there, with that probability." It's not a matter of measurement, but of fundamental uncertainty - Heisenberg wasn't just foolin' around with equations.

Jesse

yguy:
That doesn't answer the question. However, to say our world is ultimately probablistic is to say it is based on we know not what. It's uttery meaningless.

I see--you don't in fact have any actual arguments about why there is anything illogical or self-contradictory about the idea of an inherently probabilistic phenomenon. Just more assertions, like "it's meaningless".

yguy:
Look, if I flip a coin, and it comes up heads 50 times out of 100, did that probability MAKE the coin do that? Obviously not - I did.

In the case of a coin, we know that whether it land heads or tails probably follows in a deterministic way from things like it's initial trajectory, the surface it's landing on, the motion of the air during its fall, etc. So in that case your choice of how and when to flip it may have determined the outcome (although this could lead into a discussion of whether your own choices were themselves determined, or whether they contained a random element or are a product of 'free will', which would be a side-track from this discussion about whether it would be logically possible to have an inherently probabilistic phenomenon).

In any case, providing a single example of a phenomenon that is sometimes called "random" but we know is ultimately deterministic does not prove that the same must be true of all phenomena we describe as "random".

yguy:
Why then, if you don't know where a particle is at any point in time, would you say that probability determines where it is? How is that different from saying you don't KNOW where exactly where it is? It's exactly somewhere, isn't it?

That's not obvious at all. To say "it's exactly somewhere" is to endorse a hidden-variables theory of quantum mechanics, which is only possible if you're willing to accept other strange assumptions like faster-than-light signalling between particles so they can conspire to violate Bell's inequality. See my first two posts on God and uncertainty for more details.

In any case, getting into the question of hidden variables in quantum mechanics isn't necessary when discussing whether it is logically possible for a phenomenon to be inherently probabilistic. Suppose we lived in a world where there was no uncertainty principle and we could measure the exact position and momentum of a particle at any given moment, but the particle's movements over time seemed to contain a random element--say in a given interval of time there'd be a 50% chance it'd swerve left and a 50% chance it'd swerve right. You still haven't offered a single actual argument about why people in such a universe should feel absolutely certain that there must be a hidden cause behind its behavior.