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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (2929)	10/29/2000 11:04:23 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

I know these must seem comically simple minded questions to somebody who understands the principles at work, Not at all, E. The fact is that most physicists are repelled by this aspect of QM and are reluctant to discuss the metaphysical implications. I think Heisenberg said "anyone who doesn't feel fundamentally disturbed by the implications of QM doesn't understand it." Here is a quote I found: Max Born's colleague Pascual Jordan declared that observations not only disturb what has to be measured, they produce it. In a measurement, "the electron is forced to a decision. We compel it to assume a definite position; previously it was, in general, neither here nor there, it had not yet made its decision for a definite position....We ourselves produce the results of the measurement." (quoted by Max Jammer, The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics (New York: John Wiley, 1974)

To: E who wrote (2929)	10/30/2000 12:21:44 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

where does the randomness come from? I don't know. You see the whole concept of random is that it is completely unpredictable,not because it is too complex (that is chaos), but because it does not actually have a value until the action happens. For something to be completely unknowable it really can't have a cause, otherwise the cause itself would lead to predictions. Even the tiniest amount of randomness over time makes for a completely random future (although the part of the future nearer in time has greater statistical stability than the future farther out in time). If the universe is not random then all of the events were contained in the previous universe (whatever that is). A random universe does not require that the information be carried from one big bang to the next (or through one God's thoughts to his son or something). Does that mean that the reason for the randomness is because an atom is just spinning around any which way, and that kind of... nudges bigger stuff around a bit? This is a pretty good description of the phenomina known as chaos (which is a precise scientific term not to be confused with the general meaning of disorder). Chaos amplifies the effects of random changes. The randomness of quantum mechanics does happen at the smallest level of particles, but it happens a tiny bit to all particles and so ultimately affects all things from quarks to galaxies. TP

To: E who wrote (2929)	10/30/2000 12:32:28 AM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

You have posed some very interesting questions. My belief is that reality is like a lightning bolt. At first, there is just a distributed charge flow, then a cascade, followed by a huge rush that becomes the conduction channel. Up to the instant just before the plasma channel lights up, the charge is distributed, unconcentrated and uncertain. When the flood gate opens, the charge surges to create the lightning bolt, crystallizing it from potential realities to THE dominant reality. I've argued that reality follows a similar cascade moving forward. Imagine you are the bolt and the contact point is the future instant. You are initially driven forward in degrees, slipping from now to then. Soon, the then that was now becomes a thing of the past and the future becomes the now. This process is like a chaotic crashing forward that leaves abandoned branches of "realities not taken" along the way like so much roadside debris. There are in my life magical moments whose outcomes were substantial changes to my quantitative and qualitative reality. These are what I call "forks". Were these interventions or was I just lucky? My brother is a ICU nurse who has never had a patient die on his watch in 12 years. These odds of this are incredible considering the number and condition of his patients. He told me one time that a patient of his was so non-responsive that they didn't react to a corneal touch. The odds for someone coming out of this level of coma are incredible. The son said a few years earlier he'd won the lottery and that his family was really lucky. Because of this, he thought his dad would pull through. My brother thought, "Yeah, right!" He'd seen a lot of these and none ever "pulled-through". That night when walking by the door my brother said he saw what looked like a glowing figure reflected in the window, standing near the patient. He went in and saw no figure. There was only one entrance to the room. The event kind of creeped him out. Later that man regained consciousness and was able to leave the hospital. These types of miracles go into my "weird stuff can happen" category. I don't know how to explain it and I doubt anyone else does either. Somehow this is all part of the randomness, but how it fits is beyond me.