Quantum prediction.

[tbourner]

Thanks to Tannhauser's quote in my sig, and the thread it relates to, I've been thinking about predeterminism again.

Basically I'm pretty certain that you can predetermine EVERYTHING. If we had the knowledge and computational power we could work out exactly what was going to happen in the future at any point. Reasons for this include the fact that if we knew exactly what goes on in every cell of the human brain and every chemical reaction etc. we could predict a persons movements indefinitely into the future, and if we knew everything about the forces exerted on a dice at the point it was thrown we could predict where it would land - in fact linking the two we could predict that a person at birth would eventually roll a dice and would exert a certain force on it and it would land in a particular way!!!!!!

Obviously that's an obscene amount of information required, far more than we can even imagine, and computational power so immense I don't think we'll ever be able to do it, but is the theory sound?

 

Problems I can see are:

1) Is there anything truly random in the universe (Quantum physics)?

1b) Is it only random as far as we know at the moment - ie: will we ever be able to predict quantum movements of particles? Or can we now?

2) How about predicting that a person will have a baby that will also produce offspring that will eventually roll a dice and exert a certain amount of force on it for it to land in a particular way? Is there anything random in the decision for a particular sperm to make it to the egg, and the layout of the womb to produce a certain embryo, and the cell multiplication to go a certain way that we could predict exactly what the person will eventually turn out like - when they will have children, which of their partners sperm (or theirs) will get to the egg etc. I'm sure this isn't just about solving all the questions with DNA but a lot more besides.

3) The human soul. Is there such a thing? If we could replace one brain cell with a nanobot that does EXACTLY the same job - produces the right chemicals, transfers energy, gives out electrical signals or whatever, could we stick it in the brain and the person would still be the same? How about if we produced nanobots for EVERY type of brain cell, and replaced them all one by one, until the person had a COMPLETELY robotic brain - would they still be the same person? Whether this is a question of if it's possible to replace a brain cell with a machine or not ie: can a natural process actually BE replicated, or whether it's a question of something 'else' being in control of all those seperate cells I don't know. So assuming there is no soul, we should be able to precisely predict the chemical production, energy transfers, electrical signals etc. of a human brain and be able to predict the future decisions of that person?

 

 

 

Aside: Bloke at work says I'm very strange for wanting to learn quantum physics and astro-physics and stuff. He said "You'll never get a job in that field so why learn about it?" Am I strange for wanting to learn something because I'm interested with no plans to make money from it? I think he's strange for NOT wanting to learn something outside his little working-life world!!

[Jas]

up until recently it was believed that no - nothing is truely random, it is just our limitations on predicting outcomes which gives the impression of randomness in a system. this was the deterministic view of the universe.

 

quantam machanics has changed this view. quantum physics is inherently stochastic. it says the the existance, position and velocity of quantums are inherently random and therefore can only be predicted with probablistic confidence. in a nut shell, things are 'truely' random at subattomic level. it is not down to our computational limitations at all.

 

and no you are not starange. quantum machanics is mind blowingly fasinating!. i recommend you read up about quantum entaglement, or the photon slit experiment and its implications. if you can work through the maths to see why its so bonkers then even better. it opens your mind to the wierd and wonderfull universe around us. IMO.

[TTRickeh]

It's not strange I find all this stuff very interesting too. I've typed up a couple of replies but deleted them, all I seem to have done is given myself a head ache. Basically... we don't know enough yet, and with things like human brain and the subject of personality/something that is potentially unexplainable by science I find it difficult to believe we ever will. I don't think that should stop us from trying though.

[Paul]

Bloke at work says I'm very strange

 

I think he may well have a point

[tony tt]

You lost me at quantum! Please dont make me read it im happy being a mushroom

[sdistc]

up until recently it was believed that no - nothing is truely random, it is just our limitations on predicting outcomes which gives the impression of randomness in a system. this was the deterministic view of the universe.

 

quantam machanics has changed this view. quantum physics is inherently stochastic. it says the the existance, position and velocity of quantums are inherently random and therefore can only be predicted with probablistic confidence. in a nut shell, things are 'truely' random at subattomic level. it is not down to our computational limitations at all.

 

and no you are not starange. quantum machanics is mind blowingly fasinating!. i recommend you read up about quantum entaglement, or the photon slit experiment and its implications. if you can work through the maths to see why its so bonkers then even better. it opens your mind to the wierd and wonderfull universe around us. IMO.

 

What he said. Brownian motion, genetic mutations and numerous other phenomena are "random" - and it doesn't necessarily relate to our computational limitations or understanding.

[Gerry]

Basically I'm pretty certain that you can predetermine EVERYTHING. If we had the knowledge and computational power we could work out exactly what was going to happen in the future at any point. Reasons for this include the fact that if we knew exactly what goes on in every cell of the human brain and every chemical reaction etc. we could predict a persons movements indefinitely into the future,

 

Yes, but what about woman ???

 

[tbourner]

I have (tried to) read up on quantum theories, I've looked into the basics of it and the double slit experiments and wave/particle duality etc. I've tried to understand quantum tunneling and how electrons emit photons when they jump up and down into neighbouring orbits (?), something to do with how lasers work?

I'd still like to learn it properly just don't have the time or money to put into it. I feel like I'm getting too old to learn new things now as well .

 

Anyway, the lack of a theory of everything still makes me think we're at the 'Earth is flat' stage and there's a breakthrough coming that will change all our ideas.

[Jas]

i agree. i dont think we are even yet scratching the surface of how complex the workings of the universe are.

 

i think it will probably take a complete rething at some point of the way we use mathermatics and percieve logic and reason before we could ever even get close to understanding the true nature of our surroundings. the scientific journey is facinating though.

[sdistc]

Not to be a partypooper or anything, but I think we need to consider the (likely?) possibility we (humans) are too limited intellectually to ever actually *understand* fully the workings of the universe.

[Jas]

I have (tried to) read up on quantum theories, I've looked into the basics of it and the double slit experiments and wave/particle duality etc. I've tried to understand quantum tunneling and how electrons emit photons when they jump up and down into neighbouring orbits (?), something to do with how lasers work?

I'd still like to learn it properly just don't have the time or money to put into it. I feel like I'm getting too old to learn new things now as well .

 

Anyway, the lack of a theory of everything still makes me think we're at the 'Earth is flat' stage and there's a breakthrough coming that will change all our ideas.

 

 

if you ever have any questions on stuff you read id be happy to share my (finite) understanding. i have done quiet a bit of reading on this topic and worked through allot of the maths, so although i am by no means an expert (by any account) i do have a baisic grasp of some of the issues involved.

[Jas]

Not to be a partypooper or anything, but I think we need to consider the (likely?) possibility we (humans) are too limited intellectually to ever actually *understand* fully the workings of the universe.

 

absolutely- and it probably is the case but it shouldnt stop us trying to understand all that we can. after all if we dont all we will be left with is religion!

 

anyway who knows, we may evolve over time and get cleverer?

[tbourner]

I think we're destined to become more mechanically biased, maybe including robotic implants and being able to link with machines. Maybe this will be the next evolution. Maybe that will give us more ability to think outside the box (or the dimension).

[RiceRocket]

me think we're at the 'Earth is flat' stage

 

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[add heywood]

yes but what would happen if a plane tries to take off on a treadmill....

[stevie_b]

Good thread Trev, I love this stuff.

 

It reminds me of a previous thread (the one that has Tannhauser's mind-melting post in it I think) where pre-determinism was discussed. In that, Tannhauser raised some good points about the interface between physical science (what people are made of chemically, down to every last atom) and social science (would 2 identical collection of living, breathing atoms make the same decisions as each other?).

 

Maybe I'm a dinosaur stuck in a world of Newtonian physics, but I can't let go of the idea that everything is deterministic. I know you said this in your first post, but let me re-iterate that being able to predict events in the future is and probably always will be beyond what humans can compute with the tools available to them.

 

My personal view is that everything is deterministic, even events at the quantum level. I think our maths isn't advanced enough to model it though: I don't just mean lack of computing power, I mean actual pure maths techniques. A good example is that some of the ancient civilisations (possibly the Romans, but I'm not sure) had no maths for negative numbers. Their maths was based on counting what you've got (money, possessions, wives), and so a negative number was an absurd idea to them. Jumping forward a couple of thousand years, complex numbers pop up in mathematics which are based on the concept of the square root of -1. These seem quite strange and are not very intuitive, not at first anyway. But they haven't just been dreamed up by bored mathematicians, they tie in with other branches of maths.

 

What he said. Brownian motion, genetic mutations and numerous other phenomena are "random" - and it doesn't necessarily relate to our computational limitations or understanding.

Brownian motion isn't random: it appears to be because there are so many molecules in the container you're considering, but they all follow the laws of classical physics.

 

Not to be a partypooper or anything, but I think we need to consider the (likely?) possibility we (humans) are too limited intellectually to ever actually *understand* fully the workings of the universe.

You may be onto something there. It reminds me of Digsy's recent post in the afterlife thread, the one about a bookworm in a book in a shelf of books, within a library full of shelves within a street full of libraries within a town full of library-streets within collection of librarial towns within.....

 

Quantum physics can tell us that there is a probability of certain events from happening. Schrodinger's Cat illustrates the paradox between probablistic outcomes and binary (yes/no, on/off) outcomes quite nicely.

[tbourner]

Quantum physics can tell us that there is a probability of certain events from happening. Schrodinger's Cat illustrates the paradox between probablistic outcomes and binary (yes/no, on/off) outcomes quite nicely.

 

Aha, and here is the crux of my questions, doesn't quantum physics revolve mainly around things being a probability? The 'wave' part of a wave particle duality thingy is a probability graph of some kind? Isn't that how the infinite probability drive works in Hitchikers Guide?

If that's all true and we're correct in our workings then there is always a probability, no matter how small, of something unpredicted happening, and therefore it's literally impossible to predict the future?

[stevie_b]

Aha, and here is the crux of my questions, doesn't quantum physics revolve mainly around things being a probability? The 'wave' part of a wave particle duality thingy is a probability graph of some kind? Isn't that how the infinite probability drive works in Hitchikers Guide?

If that's all true and we're correct in our workings then there is always a probability, no matter how small, of something unpredicted happening, and therefore it's literally impossible to predict the future?

My belief is that although quantum physics is based on the probability of things happening, the parameters upon which it is decided which of the probablistic events actually happen (or more accurately, how many of each of the probablistic events happen to a given sample) are not random. For example, given a choice of 2 possible quantum events (A and B), whether event A or event B actually occurs is decided not by pure chance, but by input variables that, given sufficient knowledge and computing power, we would be able to process. This may be where our knowledge of maths is insufficient to handle this.

 

Edit: hang on. Have I just written complete tosh? This is confusing stuff!

[Supra Size Me]

Strange, I predetermined you'd create this thread .....

 

and the answer is : There is no spoon !

 

HTH

[stevie_b]

I think it boils down to "are there any events (including quatum ones) that are truly, properly random? Or do they all happen for a reason ,an external stimulus?"

 

If there are random events, then we can't predict the outcome of those (hence can't predict the future in general), only the probability that a certain outcome will occur a certain percentage of times given a sufficiently large sample.

[martini]

up until recently it was believed that no - nothing is truely random, it is just our limitations on predicting outcomes which gives the impression of randomness in a system. this was the deterministic view of the universe.

 

quantam machanics has changed this view. quantum physics is inherently stochastic. it says the the existance, position and velocity of quantums are inherently random and therefore can only be predicted with probablistic confidence. in a nut shell, things are 'truely' random at subattomic level. it is not down to our computational limitations at all.

 

and no you are not starange. quantum machanics is mind blowingly fasinating!. i recommend you read up about quantum entaglement, or the photon slit experiment and its implications. if you can work through the maths to see why its so bonkers then even better. it opens your mind to the wierd and wonderfull universe around us. IMO.

 

Well said.

 

Schrodinger's cat is another good read

 

I think it boils down to "are there any events (including quatum ones) that are truly, properly random? Or do they all happen for a reason ,an external stimulus?"

 

If there are random events, then we can't predict the outcome of those (hence can't predict the future in general), only the probability that a certain outcome will occur a certain percentage of times given a sufficiently large sample.

 

Exactly. You're basically end up with a prediction that is a PDF. You would have a peak and a standard deviation of 'chance' around that peak for each eventuality.

[stevie_b]

Of course, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Priniciple states that we can't know everything about stuff to an infinitely precise degree. This would probably scupper attempts at predicting what happens in the future.

[tbourner]

Of course, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Priniciple states that we can't know everything about stuff to an infinitely precise degree. This would probably scupper attempts at predicting what happens in the future.

 

Aah, but Bourner's Uncertainty Principle states that principles and proofs are only correct at the time of going to print, and may be surpassed by any future discovery or proof.

How's that for a paradox.

[martini]

Aah, but Bourner's Uncertainty Principle states that principles and proofs are only correct at the time of going to print, and may be surpassed by any future discovery or proof.

How's that for a paradox.

 

Almost as good as the Einstein "twin paradox".