- #71
Royce
- 1,539
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moving finger said:Hi Royce
Second installment
Firstly, how do you define “truly random” in this case? Epistemically random, or ontically random?
I would have thought by now that that was obvious and the word truly was added only to add emphasis. If something is random it must be ontologically so. I cannot imagine anything that could be epistemologically random and not ontologically random.
If you mean epistemically, then existing computer RNGs ARE epistemically random (assuming that the user does not know the algorithm, which is normally the case).
If the algorithm is knowable then the results are not random either epistemologically or ontologically. Again if something is random then it must be ontologically random and the term epistemologically random has no meaning. While they are big words and I know that you like using them I don't think that you have a really good understanding of there meaning and implication.
If you mean ontically, then I would say this is the whole crux of our debate – one can never KNOW for sure if something is ontically random or not! How would you find out?
I don't know. Possibly a mathematician would be able to prove something is random but I doubt it.
The whole point of the RNG example is that the RNG is epistemically random. Do you agree that it is possible to have an epistemically random RNG? (To ensure we both understand what this means it means simply this : An epistemically random RNG is an RNG which APPEARS to produce random numbers; it is in practice not possible for us to predict what numbers it will produce, but it NEED NOT be ontically random).
I understand what you are saying. I just don't think that your choice of word is very good. "epistemically random" has no real meaning. Just as RNG is a misnomer. They ain't random but for all practical purposes they are nearly so and can be used under most circumstances in place of random numbers.
(as an example but completely aside, back in the 286 computer days of MSDOS prior to MS WINDOWS there were a number of very simple games such as card games that asked the player to pick a number 1-9999 to seed the RNG. I wrote a card shuffling program in BASIC to attach to these programs using the RNG to "randomly" select the card value and place it in a "random" position it the deck data base file. Even if you had the program shuffle the deck 7 times, if you used the same number to seed the RNG you got the same deck. I think that at that time they (MS) simply used the decimal places of Pi and the seed number was just where the RNG started in the chain.)
I dispute this statement (that it has been “showed” (showed?)…. that “particles do not possesses a distinct momentum and position”). Please produce the evidence.
Electrons have a significant wave function and as such have no definite position as in a point particle which is is not. One of the main findings of Quantum Physics is that there is no such thing as a point particle. As far a no definite momentum I have read this before in other Quantum works but have no good understanding of it. I'm still trying to figure out how a massless photon can have momentum
All that has been "showed" (sic) is that the momentum and position cannot both be measured accurately at the same time - these two properties are what Bohr referred to as complementary properties. But as I have pointed out again and again and again, "what we can measure" is not synonymous with "what is".
I agree with all that you say except that it is a theoretical fact that they cannot be measured at the same time ontologically not just epistemologically.
If you would read more modern works on QM and someone other than Bohr you would find out more about what QM is. Of course I only know what I have read, but a number of different PHD physicist authors have all said the same thing. Don't put your faith is an undergraduate physics text. They all lie a lot for simplicity and understanding's sake
Incorrect conclusion! I have highlighted the important word in the above - knowledge. The author explicitly refers to the fact that complete knowledge is impossible, and then INCORRECTLY infers from this that the universe is indeterministic! This is incorrect logic at its most basic. Our inability to KNOW the reality of the world is an epistemic property, it simply shows that the world is INDETERMINABLE, it DOES NOT show that the world is necessarily INDETERMINISTIC.
There is a difference!
Funny, I read "complete knowledge is impossible" as ontologically impossible as in unknowable. Which is the same thing that I am saying. Even in Chaos theory the results are predictable only it all of the variable inputs are known,
If the inputs are unknowable (ontologically unknowable) the the results are indeterministic.