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From: crm@duke.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: non-determinism
Message-ID: <3535@duke.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Sep-83 00:36:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: duke.3535
Posted: Wed Sep 14 00:36:12 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Sep-83 04:29:40 EDT
Lines: 40

This is addressed to the net in reply to McEwan's question (sorry I
lost your first name already) about non-determinism...

The suggestion that you make (just because we can't figure it out
doesn't mean it isn't determined) is really an example of the argument
against non-determinism that is generally called the 'hidden variable'
argument.  You're are in good company on this one -- it is a favorite of
a number of determinists, among them Albert Einstein.  (I want to ask
him NOW!)

The problem is that modern QM *seems* to suggest a much stronger result:
that being that the universe is not simply not determined by anything
that we know, but that the universe simply cannot *both* work as we
understand *and* be deterministic.  In other words, not a lack of data,
but data that *contradicts* the hypothesis that the universe is deterministic.

The big problem with the "hidden variable" in my mind is that the
argument seems to be circular: we want to believe that the universe is
firmly deterministic, so when we see evidence that suggests otherwise,
we say "yeah, but if we knew more about it, we'd see that it's
completely determined anyway."

The two Einstein quotations that are used in reference to all this are:
"God is subtle, but he is not malicious" and "God doesn't play dice with
the Universe."  I see this as a couple of suggestions that AE was firmly
*faithful* in his belief that the universe was deterministic.  The
problem is -- as we have seen on the net in other settings, say for
example the Book of Mormon controversy -- once a person developes
*faith* in a concept, it seems to eliminate the consideration of the evidence.

You know, this net stuff is fun -- I've probably managed to offend
religious types, determinists, Einstein fans and physicists all in one
little buffer.

This is a philosopher's answer, not a physicist's.  Are there any
physics people out there that want to *defend* the non-deterministic view?

Charlie Martin

...!duke!crm