You're talking about two pretty different things. The butterfly thing is about chaos and how complex systems are extremely sensetive to small changes. Determinism is just the idea that a system can only follow one course through time. |
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They say, if you stop the waffery of a butterfly then the whole world has changed because there was no waft on a certain day. It's a model for determinism. It shows that everything is appart of a cause of something. Perhaps, that butterfly could of gone into someones car, and frightened them and they had a car crash. Not preferably a butterfly, but you get the point. |
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You're talking about two pretty different things. The butterfly thing is about chaos and how complex systems are extremely sensetive to small changes. Determinism is just the idea that a system can only follow one course through time. |
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I am a big believer in determinism, and I agree with the point of the scenario. Altering the course of the butterfly might not create a difference that is very noticeable to humans for a while, but it would definitely change the course of time permanently. I think that eventually the difference would lead to something so off the other course that we could see a huge difference if we could compare the two conceptual paths. Eventually, perhaps a butterfly offspring that would have otherwise been doesn't land on a window while a couple is talking, making it where their conversation doesn't go in the direction of insects, making it where the guy instead mentions somebody they didn't realize they both know, leading to calling that person to hang out with them that weekend, leading to that person meeting a friend of theirs and later marrying her. That perhaps affects the couple's blood line, and their great great great grandson might be an important politician who greatly changes national politics. There are all kinds of possibilities. What I am certain of is that the change would be permanent. |
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How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
Chaos theory is an extent of determinism. The thing about "stopping a butterfly" is just a model to help human minds comprehend the phenomenon. You can't really "stop the butterfly", because you're part of the system yourself. If you stopped the butterfly, it'd be because all the things previous to that action ended up making you do it -- aka determinism |
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Saying quantum physics explains cognitive processes is just like saying geology explains jurisprudence.
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I'm not a believer of determinism anymore. Ever since I found out that in quantum mechanics, when a quantum particle is in superposition it sort-of randomly chooses its actual position whenever a so-called "wave collapse" occurs. And random really means random here. This has some influence on the world. And since there's random influence on the world, it means that the world can't be deterministic. |
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I am 100% positive that the theory will eventually be shot down. I think quantum physicists have come to a point where they can't identify causes so they cop out and go, "Uh, it's random. We can't find the cause, so we theorize that there is not one." They are talking magic, like rabbits suddenly appearing out of hats and the Statue of Liberty suddenly disappearing. The requirement of cause is necessary for order. Without it, a hippo could crawl out of your sink and start humping Big Bird's leg. We would have an absurd universe. There would be so much stuff like that that our bodies would fall apart with Earth and everything else. The idea that anything could ever be uncaused is complete nonsense. Uncaused events are impossible. You can bet the farm on that. With a little more research, physicists are going to realize that they were talking out of their asses. Stay tuned. |
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How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
I'm really curious, but scared too. I was scared when I thought that the world was deterministic. It didn't seem like I had any sort of control. Whatever I did, it was meant to be. I could be lying in my bed all day all my life and it would simply be the only way things could possibly go. |
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Quantum physics doesn't suggest that things have no causes. In fact it describes an object known as a 'wavefunction' which describes possible events, which is exact and evolves in a deterministic manner, until it is observed. Probability does not infer chaos either. There are many real world or hypothetical examples you can easily come up with to show this. Nowhere does quantum physics predict macroscopic chaos like objects disappearing or our bodies randomly falling apart; quantum physics is consistent with the orderly universe we see. It does however predict microscopic chaos and if you do experiments on the microscopic world you find that is the case. |
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I know quantum physics doesn't predict the crazy events I talked about it. I was just taking its reasoning to the nth degree. If particles just act randomly without reason in any case at all, it is just as absurd as a hippo coming out of the sink and humping Big Bird's leg. It doesn't make sense. |
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How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
To you. |
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Last edited by Xaqaria; 03-21-2010 at 01:54 AM.
Art
The ability to happily respond to any adversity is the divine.
Dream Journal Shaman Apprentice Chronicles
... or to logic itself. |
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How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
I will give it a try. I won't say I am 100% sure of my perspective on it because I've only been studying it for a little under 10 years (privately and academically) so I can't possibly claim to understand it fully. I will say before I do that you would do much better to do research yourself. It is a difficult subject, and as Richard Feynmen is famous for saying, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." |
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Last edited by Xaqaria; 03-21-2010 at 02:22 AM.
Art
The ability to happily respond to any adversity is the divine.
Dream Journal Shaman Apprentice Chronicles
No, I don't mean explain the subject itself. Volumes of encyclopedias could be written on it and probably have. I raised very specific issues. Just explain where I am wrong on those, mainly my point about a particle doing A instead of B. If it does one instead of the other for no reason, it is a matter of an event coming from absolutely nowhere. It is something from nothing. That is irrational, and it is magic. That is the main thing I am asking for you to counter. |
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How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
Einstein disagreed with it and yet he contributed some of the most powerful theoretical evidence for it. As a matter of fact, I would say that Einstein contributed almost as much to quantum mechanics as he did to relativity, so to say that I trust Einstein over quantum mechanics would itself be illogical. As I said before, your presentation of the conclusions are wrong and it will take me awhile to write out exactly how wrong they are, why and how they are wrong and find all of the sources that will lend more credence to what I have to say. Saying that Particles do A instead of B implies that A and B are discrete and mutually exclusive outcomes. It also implies that it is indeed possible for something other than what happens to happen. These constitute the crux of where you are wrong. |
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Last edited by Xaqaria; 03-21-2010 at 02:34 AM.
Art
The ability to happily respond to any adversity is the divine.
Dream Journal Shaman Apprentice Chronicles
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I know I have gone over that before with Universal Mind, but he mostly just ignored it. There is a very logcal reason you can't compare microscopic particles with larger objects. Because the large objects are made from the a larger number of smaller particles and have extremely large margin of error. |
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No it wouldn't. He didn't agree with the totality of it. He agreed with some of the principles, but not the big picture. He said that randomness is a crock of shit. |
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Last edited by Universal Mind; 03-21-2010 at 03:20 AM.
How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
That's because there's no such thing as 'logical' at the lowest level of reductionism. It just is. |
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At least you admit that the idea is not logical. |
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How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
Art
The ability to happily respond to any adversity is the divine.
Dream Journal Shaman Apprentice Chronicles
Yeah Xaq said it. |
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The reason the wierd stuff doesn't happen, is because if it did it wouldn't be random. Trillions of particles changings or moving together as one, isn't random. That would be a precise and planned action. |
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You said this... |
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How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
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