Is the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics caused by the inherent inability to accurately measure sub-atomic events?
Yes - We can’t accurately measure it, and it is really determinate
No - We can’t accurately measure it, but it is still really indeterminate
No - We can accurately measure it, and it is really determinate
No - We can accurately measure it, but it is still really indeterminate
Other - Please explain
0voters
Is the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics caused by the inherent inability to accurately measure sub-atomic events?
From my research into the Quantum Mechanics assertion that indeterminacy is an ontological reality, I have determined that the belief is based upon the inability to measure sub-atomic events accurately.
So I thought I would run a poll to see what percentage of people agree, and if anyone can convince us (me) otherwise.
As far as I can tell, the QM “indeterminists” are making the ontological claim “If we can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist” which to me is a weaker belief than the belief “Things exist which we can’t measure” (thus allowing for the existence of a determinism behind that which appears indeterminate).
I haven’t heard or read anything except the assertion that “sub-atomic events are indeterminate due to our inability to accurately measure sub-atomic events”. If someone can disprove this, please do.
To show the choices again (in case something gets cut off)
Is the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics caused by the inherent inability to accurately measure sub-atomic events?
Yes - We can’t accurately measure it, and it is really determinate
No - We can’t accurately measure it, but it is still really indeterminate
No - We can accurately measure it, and it is really determinate
No - We can accurately measure it, but it is still really indeterminate
Other - Please explain
I voted for the second option. This is because I don’t believe in logic, which says that units and/or unities exist. To be determinate, things must have an exact size/length/charge/etc. But there are no “things”. To be determinate, there must be particles (classical mechanics) or charges that behave as particles (quantum mechanics), i.e., unities or units. These don’t exist. Even the 1s and 0s of binary computer language do not signify “presence of electricity” and “absence of electricity” respectively - not absolutes -, but relative amounts of charge (too small for the computer to register or large enough - who draws the line? Does the computer register the impulse at a value of 100 and not at 99? Is there an exact 1? Is there a “point”, of definite size? I think not).
I always understood it as being something of an either-or when you boiled it down to the heisenburg level.
You can either know where it is at any given moment in time or you can know how it is moving.
That said, it is worth noting that the it we are talking about is a wave-form equation.
Basically, we don’t know what the hell we are talking about right now, because our tools aren’t refined enough. Give it a couple of decades. Right now all we’ve got is a bunch of math, but we’re very short on good experimental data.
Math proved that both Luther and Leo X were the Antichrist. Should we understand this as a quantum wave-form where they were both and both not the antichrist. . . or accept that the mathmatical tools used to prove those assertions were flawed?
Math models reality. It can, occasionally, be used to predict reality, but those predictions need to be proven before too much faith can be put in them.
Other - We can’t accurately measure it, and I’m not going to say one way or the other whether it is determinate or indeterminate
?
My argument against that would be the evidence of determinism that we see everywhere else, and the ease of attributing determinism as a behind-the-scenes influence.
But please vote for “Other” if that is appropriate.
Sauwelios: There do not have to be definites to be determinate or indeterminate. You speak of relatives: That’s enough. Are those relatives determined or aren’t they? Is there a matter of fact that x is relatively larger than y?
Xunzian: The body of experimental results on this issue is enormous. The experiments have been done. They indicate that reality is indeterminate. Click. That’s one example.
Original topic: I clicked the first option, though apparently I might have picked ‘other’. I think nature is determined, but I don’t know if it matters, given that it is theoretically impossible to know (a theory that is well supported by evidence). I use different reasoning than you, Membrane, to conclude as I do. I figure that the idea of randomness doesn’t make sense: our concept of random events is a result of our ignorance, and I’m not convinced that randomness is a coherent concept from a omnicient perspective (I also don’t really buy time or cause and effect, and without those randomness is impossible).
But ultimately, given our perspective, it may be functional to treat the world as actually indeterminate, because as far as we’ll ever be able to see it is. Xunzian, I don’t think years or decades will aleviate the problem. If you consider that our brain is simply a part of the system, and that our experience must be limited, and that we are trying to observe the same stuffs that make up what is doing the observing, it seems rational to conclude that there is a point beyond which we cannot know.
I’m reading about this now, because I don’t feel that I know enough to have an adequately informed opinion. (The book I’m reading is really good so far, though I’m only about a quarter through it. In Search of Shrodinger’s Cat by John Gribbin. It’s about 20 years out of date, but it’s as good a place to start as any.)
I once reasoned, with my Newtonian physics, that this is because at any given “moment”, everything stands still, whereas in any given period of time, nothing has one exact location. But this was waved away on a Physics forum, though without any arguments.
Here’s the excerpt that addresses the deterministic “basic fundamental physical laws” that have been proven for centuries:
(quote)
“It starts to look like all your decisions are really just a charade. Think about how it happens, there’s some electrical activity in your brain, your neurons fire, they send a signal down into your nervous system, it passes along down into your muscle fibers, they twitch, you might say reach out your arm. Looks like it’s a free action on your part, but every one of those, every part of that process, is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws, and so on. So now it just looks like the big bang set up the initial conditions and the whole rest of our history, the whole rest of human history and even before, is just sort of playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws.”
(end quote)
The point I think is that things look deterministic everywhere. All of science supported that, until quantum mechanic physicists made the assertion of ontological indeterminacy (which appears to be an inherent inability to accurately measure sub-atomic particles).
But “physical laws, chemical laws, electrical laws” have been proven a hundred times over.
I’ll just point out that “Bell’s Theorem” (where the link goes) has a quote that says:
“The inequalities concern measurements made by observers…”
Which is, as I have said, seems to be the truth about QM: inaccurate measurement. No where do I find a rationale for pushing the belief of indeterminacy into the ontological realm except for personal preference.
Even after the Bell theory, it still looks to me like it is just replaying Heisenburg. But the math is beyond my ken, so I could have misunderstood that.
In my case, it is based on reason. Determinism presupposes absolute indivisible unities - particles. Particles that cannot be subdivided. Otherwise, where will you draw the line? If you can’t say, "this particle is still on this side of the line (still belongs to this “thing”), whereas the next one is on the other side (belongs to another “thing”), how can you measure anything exactly?
One way to see it is to see our perceptions (measurements) as flawed but recognize that the entities themselves have a “perfect” exact size/length/charge that is independent of our flawed measurements.
