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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: ROSEN vs Wishful Thinkers (?) - (Scientification)
Message-ID: <690@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 21:45:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.690
Posted: Mon Sep 23 21:45:44 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 06:36:32 EDT
References: <253@yetti.UUCP> <1727@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 44
Keywords: science, wishful, etc.
Summary: Quantum uncertainty is for real


[Not food]

In article <1727@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>I'll summarize this:  it's amazing how you speak of me being wrong for
>believing in the work of science, yet it is all right for YOU to claim
>"science has shown that classical determinism is dead, which is a point
>for me, so I'll believe THAT one".  Funny, isn't that a perfect example
>of having anthropocentric faith in science which you and others like you
>accuse me of:  "WE, the great all powerful humans, cannot determine a
>determining cause here, thus there MUST be no cause and no determinism!!!
>YAY!!!!!"

Your are revealing your ignorance of physics here.  The evidence for
quantum uncertainty is stronger than just "we can determine no cause".
This is not the place and I don't have the time to go into it (there was
a Scientific American article dealing with some of the issues a couple of
years back).  But if you really believe in determinism, you are being every
bit as unscientific as the creationists -- the theory is overwhelmingly
accepted by those in the field.

I don't accept the argument that quantum uncertainty is real, but not
reflected in macro structures, such as the brain.  The brain is exactly
the kind of macro structure in which small random events can have an
effect.  Specifically, it has a very large number of threshhold events --
the firing or non-firing of a neuron is a relatively large event, which
happens or does not happen based on differences which are often quite small.
Such events turn micro effects into macro effects.  And there are a
tremendous number of neuron firings in the human brain -- enough, I believe,
to make up for the tremendously small size of the primitive random events.

>No.  It would not.  If no one gave any substantive recommendation for it,
>or no information about it was forthcoming, I would have no pressing
>reason to read it.  Likewise, if the information I got about it was that it
>was
>uninteresting (or, for a non-fiction book, counterfactual), I would see even
>less than no reason to read it.

There is a difference between rejecting a book and not reading it.  Your
original comment suggested that you rejected the book (decided that it was
wrong, for a non-fiction book) based on the cover.  Maybe you didn't, but
that was the impression you gave.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108


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