On 12/9/2013 12:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 12:57 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

    On 12/9/2013 12:44 AM, LizR wrote:
    On 9 December 2013 20:56, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
    <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

        On 12/8/2013 4:36 PM, LizR wrote:
        On 9 December 2013 07:41, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com
        <mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com>> wrote:

            On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com
            <mailto:jasonre...@gmail.com>> wrote:

                    >> Determinism is far from "well established".


                > It's a basic assumption in almost every scientific theory.


            In the most important theory in physics, Quantum Mechanics, no such
            assumption is made, and despite a century of trying no experiment 
has ever
            been performed that even hinted such a deterministic assumption 
should be
            added in.


        I believe the two-slit experiment hints that QM is deterministic by 
implying
        the existence of a multiverse.
        Wasn't it you, Liz, that pointed out this was circular.  Everett 
assumes a
        multiverse in order to make QM determinsitic.

    I did say something like that, didn't I? [insert embarrassed emoticon here].

    I think I was saying that it was too strong to say that QM "follows the 
principle
    of determinism" (or something like that) because it appears to be 
indeterminate and
    only becomes deterministic thanks to Everett. However, the two-slit 
experiment does
    /suggest/ the multiverse as a valid explanation, in that any other 
explanation
    requires other principles to be violated (causality, locality...)

    I think I was attempting to position myself between John and Jason - to say 
that
    determinism is reasonably well established, but only as a result of a long 
and
    winding process of experiment, conjecture and so on.


    But it isn't.  As Roland Omnes says, quantum mechanics is a probabilistic 
theory so
    it predicts probabilities - what did you expect?  Among apostles of Everett 
there's
    a lot of trashing of Copenhagen.  But Bohr's idea was that the classical 
world,
    where things happened and results were recorded, was *logically* prior to 
the
    quantum mechanics.  QM was a way of making predictions about what could 
done and
    observed.  Today what might be termed neo-Copenhagen is advocated by Chris 
Fuchs and
    maybe Scott Aronson.  I highly recommend Scott's book "Quantum Computing 
Since
    Democritus".  It's kind of heavy going in the middle, but if you're just 
interested
    in the philosophical implications you can skip to the last chapters.  
Violation of
    Bell's inequality can be used to guarantee the randomness of numbers,
    http://arxiv.org/pdf/0911.3427v3.pdf, assuming only locality.



Bell's theorm proves that local hidden variables are impossible which leaves only two remaining explanations that explain the EPR paradox:

1. Non-local, faster-than-light, relativity violating effects

That's non-local hidden variable - which is exactly what a parallel universe is.

Brent

2. Measurements have more than one outcome

In light of Bell's theorem, either special relativity is false or many-world's 
is true.

Jason

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