Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mmintl.UUCP
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: <705@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 09:58:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.705
Posted: Tue Oct  1 09:58:25 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 04:26:30 EDT
References: <253@yetti.UUCP> <1727@pyuxd.UUCP> <690@mmintl.UUCP> <759@utastro.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 34

In article <759@utastro.UUCP> padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) writes:
>> ...  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.
>
>Quantum mechanics is a theory of measurement. As far as I know it only says
>that there are limitations on the precision to which events can be measured,
>i.e. there is an uncertainty associated with certain types of measurement.
>This is not the same as saying that indeterminism is correct, only that
>we can not measure a system and conclude that it is deterministic. The
>system may be, but we cannot in practice ascertain that fact.

Your knowledge is incomplete.  First of all, quantum mechanics is a theory
of how particles behave.  There are results from quantum mechanics
which are not explainable by *any* deterministic theory unless special
relativity is wrong, and the speed of light is not a limit; indeed, there
can be no limit to communications speeds.  But the Lorentz transformations
would still apply (they have been experimentally validated).  The result
would be causally linked events where depending on one's frame of reference,
one or the other may be the first to occur.  (Any possible joint cause
would have to happen after one of the events in some frames of reference.)

It might be possible to get some form of determinism out of such a theory,
but only by severely stretching the meaning of determinism.

This explanation is vastly oversimplified; the full explanation is if
anything even wierder.

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


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com