Everything after time T is determined

[Treedbear]

...
Now just extrapolate one frame equaling one particle (or, rather, one particle’s given state) and you’ve got infinite stand alone “frames” of a film that only seem to be connected by the act of measuring “similarities” (which are actually, ironically, differences).

Iow, nothing is “determined” since everything simply exists in all possible states. We don’t notice it because our brains aren’t capable of processing that much information, so we instead see a blur of activity instead of the individual states of the hummingbird’ wings.
...

That sounds like a version of Zeno's paradox. I still think that above quantum dimensions space-time is determinate.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Feel free to get into the grit of this debate, or instead read the extensive number of threads we've already made by going into advanced search, and searching on free will by thread title.

Why I'm actually making this thread isn't to debate, it's to create a poll on this statement:

'Everything after time T is determined'

Things are physically deterministic + random. That's how quantum mechanics works. So no. Almost... but no cigar.

 

[Gun Nut]

"Other"

Some things are determined and some things are not. Anything that follows Newtonian rules are determined. That which follows quantum field rules is not determined.
While the Newtonian things are made up from quantum things, at that scale the statistics of large numbers (the sheer number of quantum particles involved) provide predictability. like flipping a coin 5 times may indicate chaos (total randomness). Flipping a coin 100 trillion times will come out very predictably 50/50 with an infinitesimal margin of error.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Feel free to get into the grit of this debate, or instead read the extensive number of threads we've already made by going into advanced search, and searching on free will by thread title.

Why I'm actually making this thread isn't to debate, it's to create a poll on this statement:

'Everything after time T is determined'

Things are physically deterministic + random. That's how quantum mechanics works. So no. Almost... but no cigar.

^This.

 

[Wiploc]

That sounds like a version of Zeno's paradox. I still think that above quantum dimensions space-time is determinate.

That's what the Schroding's cat mind-experiment is about. It demonstrates that small causes can have big effects, that uncaused quantum events can change macroscopic things.

Also, when T equaled zero, everything was small. If you wanted to argue that things became determinate after things got big enough, you would have to pick a time later than T=0.

---

(Note: I'm assuming that "time T" in the OP is a reference to the beginning of time, to T=0.)

 

[Treedbear]

...
(Note: I'm assuming that "time T" in the OP is a reference to the beginning of time, to T=0.)

We may never know. Seems rousseau has fled the scene.

 

[Wiploc]

Some things are determined and some things are not. Anything that follows Newtonian rules are determined. That which follows quantum field rules is not determined.
While the Newtonian things are made up from quantum things, at that scale the statistics of large numbers (the sheer number of quantum particles involved) provide predictability. like flipping a coin 5 times may indicate chaos (total randomness). Flipping a coin 100 trillion times will come out very predictably 50/50 with an infinitesimal margin of error.

The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the mistaken belief that, if something happens more frequently than normal during a given period, it will happen less frequently in the future (or vice versa).
-- Wikipedia

If you're going to flip a coin 100 trillion times--and you haven't flipped the first coin yet--the expected result will be 50/50. But if you've flipped once and gotten heads, then the expected result is one more heads than tails. If you get heads on the first five flips, then the expected result is five more heads than tails.

Whatever chaotic thing happens in your first five flips will influence the outcome of 100 trillion flips. There is no natural pressure for an early heads to be countered by a later tails.

 

[Treedbear]

That sounds like a version of Zeno's paradox. I still think that above quantum dimensions space-time is determinate.

That's what the Schroding's cat mind-experiment is about. It demonstrates that small causes can have big effects, that uncaused quantum events can change macroscopic things. ...

I'm curious. Has anyone ever performed the Schrödinger's cat experiment for real? Has the effect actually been demonstrated?

Oh, and then I found this:

The Zeno effect is known to cause delays to any changes from the initial state.

On the other hand, the anti-Zeno effect accelerates the changes. For example, if you peek a look into the cat box frequently you may either cause delays to the fateful choice or, conversely, accelerate it. Both the Zeno effect and the anti-Zeno effect are real and known to happen to real atoms. The quantum system being measured must be strongly coupled to the surrounding environment (in this case to the apparatus, the experiment room ... etc.) in order to obtain more accurate information. But while there is no information passed to the outside world, it is considered to be a quasi-measurement, but as soon as the information about the cat's well-being is passed on to the outside world (by peeking into the box) quasi-measurement turns into measurement. Quasi-measurements, like measurements, cause the Zeno effects. Zeno effects teach us that even without peeking into the box, the death of the cat would have been delayed or accelerated anyway due to its environment.

I seem to be answering my own questions:

The experiment as described is a purely theoretical one, and the machine proposed is not known to have been constructed. However, successful experiments involving similar principles, e.g. superpositions of relatively large (by the standards of quantum physics) objects have been performed. These experiments do not show that a cat-sized object can be superposed, but the known upper limit on "cat states" has been pushed upwards by them. In many cases the state is short-lived, even when cooled to near absolute zero.

 

[steve_bank]

I think it is more cvausal plus probabilistic that deterministic plus probabilistic.

From the last systems book I read the top level system catecory is chaotic. Ubder chaotic is deterministic and probabilistic.

At all timers the air temperature is a series of causal chains over a small volume to known basic physics. What makes weather chaotic is the number and precision of all the variables needed to quantify.

I watched a video of a chaos experiment. There are three fixed magnets on a table in a triangle. A metal suspended ball is released by a mechanism. The ball starts moving around the magnets and the trajectory mapped.

Repeat the experiment and on different trials the path the ball takes starts out the same but over time diverge. Deterministic electromagnetics but unpredictable over time.

For a deterministic system plug values into functions and the path will be the same every time. The diffence is in the variables, very small uncertanties in variables over time have a big effect.

I expect that is why scientists at NIST spend careers adding a decimal point to a constant.

Given our laws of science it would seem that at any given point in time there are a limited number of future possibilities. Rerun the BB and maybe Erath exists but no life evolved.

 

[DBT]

Entropy adding an element of randomness, perhaps.

 

[Gun Nut]

The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the mistaken belief that, if something happens more frequently than normal during a given period, it will happen less frequently in the future (or vice versa).
-- Wikipedia

If you're going to flip a coin 100 trillion times--and you haven't flipped the first coin yet--the expected result will be 50/50. But if you've flipped once and gotten heads, then the expected result is one more heads than tails. If you get heads on the first five flips, then the expected result is five more heads than tails.

Whatever chaotic thing happens in your first five flips will influence the outcome of 100 trillion flips. There is no natural pressure for an early heads to be countered by a later tails.

No that's not the point I was making... I was saying that statistics don't "work" on small sets.
A better way of me saying what I am tying to say might be that if you flip a coin 2 times, and both times you get heads, you simply cannot say that "flipping a coin will always result in heads 100% of the time" - because you basically got "2 more heads than tails". If you flip a coin 1 trillion times, and you get 499 billion heads and 501 billion tails, you can calculate the odds as 499 to 501: 50/50 with a 0.004% variance... yet, you got 1 billion more tails than heads. That's a shit-ton more tails than heads!

Statistics need large numbers to work, and the universe provides it. it's only 1 moon orbiting that planet. But how many quantum particles make up that moon? There may be complete chaotic randomness in what makes up that moon, but the Newtonian principles are operating on 1 thing... that 1 thing is the average of all the small things that operate predictably in large numbers, but not in small numbers.... just like coins.

 

[Treedbear]

This silence only acts to encourage me so I'll continue along former lines while raising the ante. I imagine that everything is determinate after time zero and also before time zero. You can use any moment and every moment as t=0. In other words, everything is determinate as time moves forwards and well as when it moves backwards. That's an extension of the idea that the laws of physics work equally well going in either direction temporally. The objection always centers on the idea that time can only move forward due to entropy, or else that there's just no source of momentum to drive events in the reverse direction. But when it comes down to it, time moving backwards simply means that it retraces events in reverse. No problem conceptually, except for the sticky issue of the missing momentum. But it seems to me this can be neglected if (due to the constancy of the speed of light) we bring in the relative nature of time. When something accelerates with respect to something else its rate of time slows. We don't normally consider this as moving backwards in time (things still age but at a slower rate), but if we shift perspective and look at the state of events in that time frame it might be said that it represents what would have otherwise taken place sooner (with respect to events at the stationary reference point). And as time progresses it moves further and further back for the stationary object's now (where t=0). In other words the state of the accelerated thing's events are moving backwards in time relative to t=0, and so cause and effect must work in both directions. Past events must follow from future events in order to actually exist. Think of it in terms of the MWI, where all possible realities exist in parallel nows and there is no call for indeterminacy, to just one reality that survives (if you will draw the similarity to Darwinian evolution) due to the need to satisfy a strictly determinate reality between all exisitng relativistic frames of reference. This is (it seems to me) what is meant by entanglement.

ETA - Importantly, it explains not just such effects as the delayed-choice quantum eraser experiment concerning the relationship between past, present, and future, but also concerns of scale such as that of macro-world observers on quantum-world events as in the double-slit experiment.

 

[fromderinside]

So if you were writing a predictive algorithm for a random time varying variable would it take as initial best guess same as last, more than last, or less than last. If it take same as last one can argue it isn't predicting at all just repeating present state. As for the others they have happened in the past so .....

 

[steve_bank]

Way back I did simplye stuff when learning statistics. Flipping coins and dies. Picking colored chips out of a box. Given enough samples the actual odds approach theoretical. The problem is creating truly random sequences. You can buy USB random number generators that use electronic noise. Cosmic radiation has been used.

Random variable means events are not correlated. Regardless of history the odds of flipping a coin is always 50/50.When I was dealing with large data sets by hand at first I swore I could see patterns.

 

[bilby]

Quantum mechanics ensures that...

On a topic this difficult for mere humans to perceive and are likely to be extraordinarily ignorant about, I do think that statements like reach a bit too far. A much more modest statement would be "At our present time, our understanding suggests that..."

In the poll I voted for hard determinism, largely because that would be synchronous with the trend throughout history. We find things that we cannot find explanations for at the present time (and then some attribute there being no cause at all or a supernatural cause), when really the cause/effect relationship was present but we were just ignorant of it at the time. After advances in technology and gathering of more scientific data we may be able to better identify the causes for the phenomenon we witness.

A person may be ignorant, but people are not. Quantum theory is the best tested model of reality in human history.

It's possible (even easy) for someone to be wrong about what quantum theory says; But there's no more reason to hedge a true statement of what quantum theory says than there is to hedge any other claim.

Modesty is therefore misplaced in this context, unless you are a fan of statements like, "At our present time, our understanding suggests that the Earth isn't flat", or "At our present time, our understanding suggests that the Moon may not be made from dairy products".

Or unless you are simply accusing SLD of being ignorant of what quantum theory says.

 

[bilby]

I'm curious. Has anyone ever performed the Schrödinger's cat experiment for real? Has the effect actually been demonstrated?

Attempts to do so have met with resistance from ethics committees, and even more furious resistance from cats, who it turns out are armed with five independently targetable weapons systems.

 

[steve_bank]

As I understand it Schroding's cat was intende to show the kind of absurd interpretations that can be made of QM.

How do I know the refrigerators light goes off when I close the door?

 

[skepticalbip]

I'm curious. Has anyone ever performed the Schrödinger's cat experiment for real? Has the effect actually been demonstrated?

Such an experiment really wouldn't illustrate anything meaningful. When the box was opened, the cat would be either dead or it would be alive. The thought experiment was intended as a criticism of the Copenhagen interpretation that quantum events remain indeterminate until they are observed. There is no way to know if the cat was in an indeterminate state before determining its state. Schrodinger assumed that the idea of a cat being both alive and dead would be a reasonable argument against the Copenhagen interpretation.

 

[bilby]

I'm curious. Has anyone ever performed the Schrödinger's cat experiment for real? Has the effect actually been demonstrated?

Such an experiment really wouldn't illustrate anything meaningful. When the box was opened, the cat would be either dead or it would be alive. The thought experiment was intended as a criticism of the Copenhagen interpretation that quantum events remain indeterminate until they are observed. There is no way to know if the cat was in an indeterminate state before determining its state. Schrodinger assumed that the idea of a cat being both alive and dead would be a reasonable argument against the Copenhagen interpretation.

The question is, does a cat count as an observer? If it does, then it's collapsing it's own wave function. The box does nothing to conceal the result from an observer inside the box.

It's probably also, as Terry Pratchett pointed out, bloody furious.

 

[DBT]

Why Current Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics are Deficient
Elliott Tammaro
(Submitted on 9 Aug 2014 (v1), last revised 15 Aug 2014 (this version, v2))

''Quantum mechanics under the Copenhagen interpretation is one of the most experimentally well verified formalisms. However, it is known that the interpretation makes explicit reference to external observation or "measurement." One says that the Copenhagen interpretation suffers from the measurement problem. This deficiency of the interpretation excludes it as a viable fundamental formalism and prevents the use of standard quantum mechanics in discussions of quantum cosmology. Numerous alternative interpretations have been developed with the goals of reproducing its predictive success while obviating the measurement problem. While several interpretations make distinct, falsifiable, predictions, many claim to precisely reproduce the results of standard quantum mechanics. The sheer number of interpretations raises several issues. If the experimental predictions are identical, how are they to be assessed? On what grounds can an interpretation be said to trump another? Without recourse to experimental findings, one may continue to assess an interpretation on its logical structure, self-consistency, and simplicity (number and plausibility of its assumptions). We argue, and where possible, demonstrate, that all common interpretations have unresolved deficiencies. Among these deficiencies are failures to resolve the measurement problem, fine-tuning problems, logical/mathematical inconsistencies, disagreement with experiment, and others. Shortcomings as severe as these call into question the viability of any of the common interpretations. When appropriate, we indicate where future work may resolve some of these issues.''