Well, ignoring how this applies to determinism for now, I’m still not sure how you arrive at that conclusion.
Say you know the exact state of the universe at some point in time, and also all the laws that govern it. Barring randomness or metaphysical interaction, you should theoretically be able to precisely predict the state of the universe at any future point.
Remember I’m speaking theoretically here, ignoring practical considerations such as the uncertainty principle.
Hm. Perhaps you could explain to me your definition of awareness, and how it differs from self awareness? We’ll see if I can’t think of some way to explain it 
Nope…I’m pretty much brand new to philosophy. So far I’m loving the debating though. 
The only ones we know of doing any predicting is us. To talk about predictability outside of our own ability to predict is like talking about whether or not God likes cats… (unless of course we had some evidence of the nature of prediction outside of our own ability to predict). This, I think, we can agree on.
“this suggests the existence of laws.” It suggests the things happen to move in a certain patterns, it suggests nothing about why… nothing of an existence of a controlling operator (a law)… it still has nothing to do with reason.
It is an indication that some of the patterns that the universe happens to match cannot be fully predicted or determined by abstract reductionist models of the universe, such as the usual, nonteleological idea of causality.
We have observed no such laws. These laws, these attempts to create abstract models of the universe have failed, and i think, will keep failing because of one huge mistake: the universe is not abstract.
I should point something out, especially because I was just over at the ai thread, seeing what you guys had talked about. I do believe we can make a conscious, self-aware computer. However, the behaviours of such a computer would cease to be, by necessity, predictable. This is not a simulation of conciousness, it is conciousness. A simulation of consciousness (a perfectly acurate one anyway) is impossible: it would no longer be a simulation. (I’m not just play word games: the only way to model consciousness would be a model that is conscious.) In fact, this is a big hobby of mine 
I mean, reading about and writing programs that attempt to get closer to this sort of thing. Hopefully gonna go into this stuff professionally
anyway, back to the discussion:
hey, maybe God’s up there ready smite us down for fuckin’ with his stuff 
But seriously, any physical observer (which is what we are, I assume), while observing, while taking in information, is sending out information as well (in the form of light, vibrations in particles, forces; reallyits all the same…) It has to, all physical things are sending out information, or else they wouldn’t be physical (I assume this anyway; who knows, we could be wrong about this too.)
yes they do.
hey, its been fun, by I have to call it a night. its almost 3 a.m. here, and I got to get up at like 6:30… besides which, I feel like my posts are making less and less sense… oh ya, by the way, by prime mover, I meant something that ensures things continue to happen, not necessarily start in the first place (well that too, but that’s not as important.) A reason, right now, the causality works… There is no reason why one action should cause another…
Soc:
I noticed your post while typing this one… I’m gonna have to get to it tomorrow. In short, your example (a good one, thanks for bringing it up, it should clarify things quite a bit) does not work out the way one might expect… it bottoms out into an explosion of paradoxes (i think, i’m really tired right now…) anyway, I’ll give you my reply tommorow hopefully
'night guys, its been fun
(damnit soc, you posted again… awareness is fun… so is GEB, right up your alley I think. It wouldn’t be surprising even you were a philosophy major that you hadnt read it… its much more cog sci than a lot of philosophy. Kinda recent too: 70s. Anyway, I’m really pretty new to this philosophy stuff too Read some plato, can spell nietzsche, and can pretend I know what I’m talking about when I reference hume )
The only “problems” true randomness presents are to your philosophies and world view. I’m not getting just what “problem” you percieve in the notion of randomness? 
It’s not such a threatening possibility. No one is saying the Universe is random at the General Relativity scale.
As far as whether free will is really free…well, isn’t that just counting angels on the head of a pin? Whether we’re freely choosing from a random stream of possibilities or are merely shoehorned into the quantum whim of the moment is unprovable, and ultimately irrelevant.
Phaedrus, explain how its possible to provide evidence for that which has no evidence to be provided. Thats the logical problem with randomness. The only possible way is process of elimination. But this would require a set of ALL knowledge out of which we can eliminate. If we knew all the reasons stuff happens we could look at an event and go through all the possible reasons, and if the event occurs for none of the possible reasons, than it could be said to happen for no reason. But we do not and I doubt we will ever have omnipotent knowledge of the reasons behind everything.
This, I don’t understand. The result of your assertion would be that if we ran our “simulation” on two separate computers side by side, each beginning at the same state, they could take different branches. In other words, if you paused them at some future point they may have differing states.
I fail to see how this is possible if the simulation laws are constant/non-random. See, computers compute deterministically. So I’m not sure what missing here.
I don’t think your view makes much sense. But even if it did, your argument against “perfect knowledge” applies equally to nonrandomness, as well as randomness. I’m certainly not qualified to present the evidence that compells physicists to believe certain quantum actions are essentially “random”, and even if I was you probably wouldn’t understand it, anyway. Hell, I don’t! 
Of course it’s possible that the things they think are random will turn out to merely follow a set of laws we don’t comprehend yet. But to me, the idea of a Universe where nothing is random is the thing that doesn’t make sense.
BTW, why is this thread not in the Natural Science section?
This interests me. I’ve always been fascinated by the phenomena of random events normalising at the macro scale (or after many repetitions). The why of it is unfathomable (at least to me), hence the attraction. Perhaps this phenomena allows for randomness at the (very) micro scale, and order/predictability at the macro scale.
You’re right in that it’s ultimately irrelevant. But you know, that doesn’t diminish the desire to know the truth
I find that fascinating, too. If you really wanna make your head swim, consider this- scientists now say that matter can arise out of pure, unadulterated nothingness, provided the matter is temporary (something along the lines of billionths of a second). Supposedly, another anti-partical basically must annihilate it almost instantly to “balance the books” on a quantum level. In this manner, matter can “sublimate” out of a black hole; for all intents and purposes, it can simply evaporate over time! 
Freaky!
Hm. I’m pretty sure matter and antimatter combine to produce a bunch of energy. Not sure how that fits with the idea you were talking about.
Regarding the “matter from nothing” idea in general though, I think it’s possible that at the very lowest level matter is simply patterns in some cosmic fabric, or maybe it’s just pure information. We have this concept of matter being solid and real, but I guess that’s just our perception. I hope this isn’t too off the topic.
Quibles,
These patterns ARE the laws I speak of. Gravity. Electromagnetic Forces. Laws of thermodynamics. These are patterns that suggest causal relationships. For some reason, it happens that mass attracts mass. We dont know the intricicies of the reason, but we call it gravity.
“It is an indication that some of the patterns that the universe happens to match cannot be fully predicted or determined by abstract reductionist models of the universe, such as the usual, nonteleological idea of causality.”
No, it doesn’t indicate this at all. It merely means either A or B.
A: Your statement
B: We just havn’t found a model of the universe that works.
Which of the above is more likely? Neither… We just dont know.
I dont know what you mean by abstract, but I do not see how they have failed. Newtonian Physics is still accurate. Its not a model of the universe, but it does what it says it does. Newtonian Physics does not dwell in the Quantum realm. It is a law about the macro interactions of physical objects. And it works. One would hope a law would come about that describes the actions of every physical realm, the universal law you speak of. But our tremendous ability to predict based on the laws we have is definatly an indication of causal relationships, you must admit more so than NOT an indication of causal relationships at least.
I will explain observation later, after some deliberation, but I am convinced that our presence as observers does not compromise our observations.
Phaedrus, I dont believe the evidence provided by quantum physics suggests “TRULY RANDOM” occurences. Like I have said and like you yourself say, its possible that we just dont know the actuall laws behind the actions, Quantum Physics does not show things happening for NO reason, but for no APPARENT reason.
"But to me, the idea of a Universe where nothing is random is the thing that doesn’t make sense. "
Dictionary.com definition of “sense”: Something sound or reasonable
My definition of “True Randomness”: Having no reason.
How can something having no reason sound reasonable to you?
I am a strong believer in logic, and I think scientists often abandon logic even when it’s not necessary to do so. Here are two examples: the speed of light as the universal constant and the Uncertanity Principle as describing absolute randomness.
First, conserning the speed of light. From my understanding, every observation and all the knowledge we have of light would be exactly the same if it moved at 0.9999999999999C rather than 1C. Why is that significant? Because it resolves many logical problems as I see it. If the speed of light were 0.9999999999999C it would have rest-mass, not measurable, but a mass nevertheless. This makes sense of the energy of light, as the velocity can be multiplied with a mass constant to derive the amount of energy of a photon. I know that they use a different formula for the energy of a photon than in general, but I think that formula is superfluous.
Also the sub-C speed of light would not require light to be in every place at the same time, as C literally moves at speed infinity (and can therefore only be a potential, like the concept of infinity itself). How can the position of a photon be measured in time if its everywhere along its path at the same time? I know that the infinite speed of C is supposedly only infinite from its own perspective, but I don’t see how an infinite speed can in any way be relative – as no matter how you add, substract, multiply and devide it, the value would still be infinite. Physicists say that I should not put myself in the photons place, that it’s meaningless to make the anologies that I’m making. But why is it meaningless? I would rather say that it is meaningless to say with certanity that the speed of light is the universal constant, in stead of saying that for all we know it could be – and if not, it must be so close in a relative sense that we can measure no difference.
Concerning the Uncertanity Principle, I agree with Russiantank. I have spoken with people who say that it’s absolutely impossible that there can be any hidden variables, or whatever we should call them. But I also know there are physicists that believe that there are (or have other ways of “rescuing” determinism). I have heard no good arguments why there can’t possibly be other reasons than pure randomness. I think scientists are actually taking the scientific method a bit to far here, to put it that way, because thay claim something must be random just because it’s observed as such. However, I observe raindrops as landing completely at random – but that only seems random because of a lack of information.
When thinking about it, both of my examples are, in my opinion, results of taking current scientific results to seriously. Scientists should really learn some humility from the past, because also then the truth were absolutely “known”, but was later found to be wrong. Perhaps I should learn som humility myself, as I’m the layman here – criticising the experts. It’s just that I often find experts to be to specialised, and unable to look beyond their own narrow field of study.
If there are any physicists out there who believe/know I am wrong, please stand up and ridicule my views. I would honestly be grateful, as I’m simply seeking to understand.
How can it not? When reality and your limited notion of what’s “reasonable” meet, it’s your preconceptions that have to give. You’re still trying to tell the Universe what to do!
Again Phaedrus, you act as if Quantum Physics makes it clear to us that an action can occur without a cause. I have already explained that quantum physics does no such thing, and that no such thing is even possible. Let me give you the only example I know of science labeling something as truly random. Spontanious Creation, the idea that life just randomly jumped out of mud. What possible reason did anyone ever have of making this conclusion? What EVIDENCE did they ever have to suggest this conclusion? All they had is a lack of evidence. They didn’t know. And they took an easy way out. Just called it random. How far did that theory get phaedrus? Now I really dont see ANY diffirence between this situation and that. What makes the Quantum Physicists suggest the non-existence of reason? All they have is a lack of reason, maybe thats all they will ever have, but what EVIDENCE do they have that suggests the conlusion of random? They call it the UNCERTAINTY principle. Not the RANDOM principle. Theres a BIG diffirence, if you dont understand the distinction between uncertain and random, I will gladly clarify for you.
Phaedrus, when presented with theorys and ideas that lack any evidence, one leaves it up to uncertainty. One must be a skeptic. There is no evidence that Quantum Particles act randomly, just as there is no evidence that they act for any reason. Thus neither of these scenarios are any more likely than the other, so how can you say it makes sense to just choose one? That is irrational. Its no diffirent than believing in God. There can be so many other possibilities other than God, and God has no evidence as support, and yet so many choose to believe it. They are irrational. As are you for choosing to believe in a theory with no evidence. But my statements are simple deduction. I can logicly say that randomness makes no sense, and is illogical. Im working with definitions here. For something to make sense and be logical, it must have reasons, by definition. Randomness has no reasons. Thus randomness is illogical by definition.
Oh boy, lot to respond to. Hope I can get to it all right now.
First, damnit Phaedrus, you’re too good for us Seriously though, your wisdom and openness are refeshing. I just love how unassuming, yet experienced you are!
I was trying to avoid these sort of nihilist-sounding approaches (though that is certainly related), so pardon me for not responding directly to your posts I think I’m goin’ for a more (meta)physical approach… anyway
Ok, let’s see if I can address everything at once…
First and foremost is what exactly I’m argueing against (and for, but that’s later).
Abstract reductionism: that’s what science is often viewed as. More accurately, number system, logic (especially deduction), etc. It is reductionism (explaining something by the interactions the systems that compose it. i.e. describing animals on a cellular level, describing objects on an atomic or quantum level, etc.) for obvious reasons; that’s kinda what physics is… Its abstract because it is not dealing solely with the objects in question themselves; it is trying to repressent these objects with mathematic or logical models. This takes the form of formulas, simulations, laws, theories, etc… anything theoretical basically.
When someone argues for determinism, like you (RT especially, soc to a lesser extent), it is usually because they say the universe can be (theoretically) modeled and predicted through these sorts of abstractions, declaring that these abstractions, if all data is present, would perfectly predict everything. This is what you’re saying. This is what I am argueing against. Not necessarily causality. I’m just causality doesn’t like it works out the way you expect.
One way of putting: when you say determinism, a natural question is ‘determinism by what’? meaning it could be determinism by prediction (even if only theoretical), determinism by a God-like figure (which I think both of us reject equally), or determinism by reason (as in teleological reason, a will might go into this category. God could too, but I think they are different in many ways.) I’m argueing against determinism by prediction. Here’s why:
A few different approaches are possible (which is one of the main reasons why I believe this).
First off, the observer-observed thing. Basically, to observe a system, one becomes part of that system. The only way we can observe anything in the universe is by being a part of that universe and thus having an effect on it (as everything effects everything else, ‘chaos’ theory style; if you disagree here, i can talk more about it, but i suspect you won’t). soc’s example works great here:
Indeed, barring metaphysical interaction, and randomness. In such a situation, one would have to also be aware of their own awareness (or else they wouldn’t know everything and wouldn’t be able to accurately predict) and the effects of their awareness on the universe (as that awareness must exist in matter and thus affect the rest of matter; I am definitely taking a monist view; are you?). As their universe is what they are observing, they must also be observing their own observation, and observing the observation of the observation, and… etc. When one starts observing their own observation, since observer affects the observed, well, we hit a paradox. Thus such a state of awareness (assuming the absence of a God-like being) is impossible.
Method two, the logical route. Time for some Godel.
Godel proved (as in really proved; one can actually prove things in formal logic and number theory. its applying it that’s the problem.) that any system sufficiently powerful enough to repressent a number system cannot prove both its consistency and its completeness. Its one or the other. A system is either consistent and incomplete (well, we can’t be sure of its completeness, and if we’re talking about absolute prediction here, we have to be sure; else it wouldn’t be an accurate prediction now would it?) or its complete but inconsistent (and therefore flawed and invalid from a logical standpoint.) Godel is misused all the time, and I’m probably misusing him on some level right now (correct me if I’m wrong on anything; also, I’d love to see how he actually did this…) but the idea stays the same.
It makes sense too. It is a funamental problem we run into all the time. For instance, with logic itself, one can either assume its complete and inconsistent (most people opt out of this one) or consistent and incomplete (which is what you and everyone else does). If its incomplete, then it can’t take into account all the information in the universe and therefore can’t predict accurately. Oh ya, but I gotta prove it to you. If logic is meant to determine the validity of any given system (logical system that is) then what determines the validity of logic? If you answer logic, then logic is inconsistent because thats a circular statement. If you you just assume that it does validate things (validation in a any meaningful way, usefull to actually understanding the universe that is) then it is obviously incomplete. This is a shorthand way of doing, and I’m sure there’s lots of technicalities, but again, the idea remains the same.
This is remarkably similar to the problem we ran into with the know-everything thing…
Finally, the infamous infinite divisibility. If are to take a reductionist stand (which it seems you are), then everything is direct result of the interactions of its composition (correct?). As such, matter can then be divided infinitely, then prediction is impossible because we have nowhere to start from! The system is incomplete, because it has no information from which to start, or, we could assume there is a fundamental particle, but then the system is system is inconsistent.
Ok, I have to go now, but that’s something to play with for now!
oh ya, crap a lot more to write about, in terms of matter being created/destroyed, randomness leading to structure, awareness, and all that… uh well I’ll get to it tonight…
Yeah, not really consistent with the (other, not the one you quoted) thought experiment I proposed. In that one, the universe is represented as a model on a computer, and the observer is not a part of it. I see your point about the infinite loop of complexity, however that only applies if the observer is within the observed system.
I understand your point about logic, but I’m not sure how it applies here. I mean, we’re using logic to argue, sure. But that’s kind of unavoidable. Also I’m not going to try to argue the validity of your application of Godel’s ideas here because to be honest I know nothing about them besides what you’ve said there.
Now, does the point you’re making hinge on the consistent/complete tradeoff idea? As in, a computer system cannot be both and thus cannot represent the universe?
If so, then I would assert that any “computer” mentioned in an argument like this can be assumed to be both finite, and consistent. I think finite is interchangeable with incomplete in this case. It seems to satisfy this idea of Godel’s. As to whether a finite computer can represent the universe, well, see below.
I’ll assert that both finitely divisible and infinitely divisible systems are predictable. Finite systems being predictable is pretty easy (for now ignoring your other objections) so let’s look at an infinite system.
Let’s say the matter in the universe is infinitely divisible. Now let’s say we’ve decided to represent all the infinite complexity below the level of atoms as simply atoms. In other words, we’ve said for simplicity that atoms are the base particle. If we know how atoms behave then we can predict what they’ll do. Now, say we decide to consider an increase in complexity, and we begin to consider subatomic particles. Suppose we know exactly how subatomic particles behave - then we can predict their behaviour. So, if you know exactly how a group of particles together will behave you can consider them as the one particle. This gets around the problem of an infinite system, allowing you to represent it on a finite system such as a computer.
Problems you might have with this are the idea that the behaviour of an intermediate meta-particle that we choose would have infinite complexity. However intuitively I’d reckon that the behaviour of the infinite number of sub-particles that comprised our meta-particle would “even out” and become predictable at the macro level. This would allow us to formulate finite laws that approximated its behaviour to arbitrary precision. My assumption that we know exactly how the base particles behave (for a finite system) could be read as “we can have an arbitrarily precise description of the behaviour of any meta-particle we propose, said particle consisting of an infinite number of actual sub-particles” (for an infinite system). If we have that information, we can theoretically model and predict the universe with arbitrary precision.
There’s probably holes in that, I haven’t really thought it through - I’m basically making this shit up on the fly. Refute away
Haha! that’s the spirit! you’re fun to argue with because you don’t get pissy and melancholy when someone questions your ideas you admit you might be wrong.
Yep, my argument has holes in it too (obviously). Afterall, this is an exploration, not a cock fight…
Anywho, on to the whole debating thing:
But the observer would be part of it. That’s the point. The observer has to be, no exceptions (minus God-like/incomprehensible metaphysical beings). If you running a simulation of the universe on a computer, the computer, first of all, is still part of the universe you’re trying to simulate! second, the state of the computer affects the outcome of the simulation. This is kind of a weird idea because we usually we think of computers as a totally abstract, input/output, totally deterministic kind of machine, dealing with ‘pure information’ so to speak. But this is not true! The only reason a computer is capable of running a simulation of anything (or doing anything at all for that matter) is because its based on matter. The state of that matter will affect, in fact, it is what affects the outcome of the simulation. If a computer crashes while running a simulation of the universe, then you better be damned sure its going to affect the output of your simulation. While that’s an overobvious example, the same idea works, practicalities aside. a simulation of matter based in matter…
My argument is against abstract/reductionist models of anything real. Strict logic is the primary reason people tend to go this route, because that’s how logic works. Logic is flawed also, but that’s a side issue here (as you said, what else do we have?). The important piece is that the universe does not operate in a strictly abstract/logical way.
Ah, here’s where QM comes into play. Our current base particles (accepted ones anyway) do not act in a predictable way.
But there’s a larger issue here:
Ya, makes sense. If you I gave you an infinite series of random integers from 1 to 10, most likely they even out and average to about 5… However, if we live in a causal universe (which we’re assuming, else we can’t really talk about anything. of course, i don’t think its the traditional sense of causal…) then thats not how how ‘randomness’ (causal universe and randomness? shutup, you know what I mean. kinda like with QM and GR) would work. The ‘randomness’, while unpredictable, would be to some degree based off the previous events. for instance, if you had a circle of a certain radius and chose a random point inside of it and then used that point for the center of your next circle and used the last point as your radius, it is completely unpredictable how it would work out in the long run (what the ‘average point’ would be).
Actually, not completely unpredictable. Obviously, the points are following some rules. We know that the radius of a circle can never be larger than the radius of the previous circle, so it would probably eventually settle down to microscopic alterations around some point. But never-the-less, not enough to be able for the kind of accuracy we’re looking for. This is, I think, to some degree how the universe operates. There are certainly general trends (GR) that are very precise and seemingly accurate. This is similar to the points settling down at some location. But then again, it leaves a a lot of unanswered questions. (especially when we get down to the level of our brains or a computer; that’s getting closer to the quantum level).
Of course, I’m just speculating. also I’m not argueing for a random universe, only an unpredictable one (though these anologies still work I think).
Oh ya, fun tid bit about matter doing weird stuff, in QM experiments (confirming predictions), I believe they witnessed electrons essentially jumping in and out of reality seemingly randomly! I’m not really sure though…
One more thing before I shutup and let someone else post:
One could never have two identical simulations running side by side (or really far away, or at different times, etc.) because they are in different positions. The position of the computer affects its relationship with the rest of the universe, which affects how the computer runs (as computers are material objects) which affects the outcome of the simulations.
You don’t even need the ‘conscious simulator’ kind of computers I’m talking about to do this. This would happen with any procedure on any computer built on matter over a long enough timeline. (I’m using both GR and ‘chaos’ theory, fyi.)
If two computers truly started in the same state, then you would not have two computers, you would only have one. They would have to be one and the same computer to be identical in everyway.