RandomGuyOnCouch wrote:The Mad Hatter wrote:RandomGuyOnCouch wrote:The Mad Hatter wrote:Depending upon your view of the term 'preordained'.
There is a pattern (behaviour of particles etc.), but it is so complex that we are incapable of working it out, and so we label it 'random', and then there's the possibility of 'probable futures' as opposed to 'set paths', with each being likely but with different values of probability...
Are you suggesting that the universe remains Newtonian and deterministic even as our understanding of quantum mechanics expands?
Actually, our understanding of Quantum so far asserts that we're determining history as we observe the present.
My understanding is that a Newtonian universe is deterministic and causal, thus, easily predicted. "Preordained" could exist in this sense without some kind of supernatural force ordaining events simply by following a cause-effect chain to it's conclusion. A quantum universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic because sometimes things (and by "things" I mostly mean "electrons") will exhibit behavior contrary to a deterministic chain. If something is not certain, it cannot be "preordained" in any sense of the word.
Yet in large enough numbers, those particles are among the most predictable things we encounter. Also, as far as I know, we do not know for sure that the goings on at that level are truly unmoved motions or if they have causes that we do not know about. As it stands, we can predict on a big scale but not on a small scale.
Likewise, looking at a evolution on a large enough time scale you should be able to make fairly accurate predictions about what sort of genes would dominate the pool of a species and which species will dominate the ecology if only you knew enough about the environment the organisms are in. However, once you throw a large scale arbitrary disruption of the environment in there, it becomes much harder to predict what will happen. Some species and varieties will just get lucky, just as sometimes an individual organism will produce offspring or not out of sheer luck.
I can has published in peer reviewed journals now?
What I've found with a few discussions I've had lately is this self-satisfaction that people express with their proffessed open mindedness. In realty it ammounts to wilful ignorance and intellectual cowardice as they are choosing to not form any sort of opinion on a particular topic. Basically "I don't know and I'm not going to look at any evidence because I'm quite happy on this fence."
-Mr P
The Net is best considered analogous to communication with disincarnate intelligences. As any neophyte would tell you. Do not invoke that which you have no facility to banish.
Audley Strange
