- #1
The Adversary
- 11
- 0
I recently had a discussion with someone about Quantum Mechanics. His story was confusing to me but I could detect that he made an error in his thinking
which I proceeded to explain :
You are trying to reason from the idea that the 'collapse of the wave-function', which precedes the measurement, is something you can reason about in the
first place. The wave-function allows us to determine the probability of detecting a particle in a certain place and time. It's a probability distribution
function which means the reason a particle appears, is measured, in a certain place and time is determined by pure chance only. It's just that the
chance can vary from place to place and in some places the chance might be zero. So reasoning about how the wave-function 'collapses' equates to reasoning
about something that per definition is determined by pure chance only. This is invalid, since pure chance cannot be defined. Hence, you end up with paradox galore.
My question is, doesn't that mean that physics, once it exposes this 'problem' of pure chance ultimately determining everything, has reached its philosophical
limit already at that moment, since once it reaches pure chance, it has basically reached undefinability.
Doesn't it just stop there? No matter which way you shake it, you always have to make the assumption that you can still 'get' something from pure chance,
which is invalid per definition. Or you could assume that it's not pure chance, but why the hell are you using a probability distribution function then?
Ideas?
which I proceeded to explain :
You are trying to reason from the idea that the 'collapse of the wave-function', which precedes the measurement, is something you can reason about in the
first place. The wave-function allows us to determine the probability of detecting a particle in a certain place and time. It's a probability distribution
function which means the reason a particle appears, is measured, in a certain place and time is determined by pure chance only. It's just that the
chance can vary from place to place and in some places the chance might be zero. So reasoning about how the wave-function 'collapses' equates to reasoning
about something that per definition is determined by pure chance only. This is invalid, since pure chance cannot be defined. Hence, you end up with paradox galore.
My question is, doesn't that mean that physics, once it exposes this 'problem' of pure chance ultimately determining everything, has reached its philosophical
limit already at that moment, since once it reaches pure chance, it has basically reached undefinability.
Doesn't it just stop there? No matter which way you shake it, you always have to make the assumption that you can still 'get' something from pure chance,
which is invalid per definition. Or you could assume that it's not pure chance, but why the hell are you using a probability distribution function then?
Ideas?