Re: The Road with no Branches argument

From: Milan (mtklima_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 10/29/04 

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 20:35:34 +0100

"Mike Oliver" <mike_lists@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:2uch49F283o8hU1@uni-berlin.de...
> Anthony Cerrato wrote:
>
> > "Mike Oliver" <mike_lists@verizon.net> wrote in message
> > news:2u8gdvF288ii4U1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> >>I don't have anywhere close to enough knowledge of atmospheric
> >>physics to make a defensible estimate, but it wouldn't much
> >>surprise me to learn that the entire information content of the
> >>universe is insufficient, even in principle, to predict the
> >>weather in Dallas one year from tonight. But maybe it's
> >>five years, or fifty or five hundred: The point stands. There
> >>is no division into the ordinary macroscopic deterministic world
> >>and "that quantum stuff". The whole world is quantum, and
> >>indeterministic.
> >
> >
> > You have a mistaken idea of what determinism is. It has
> > nothing to do with predictibility or computability.
>
> When I said "insufficient even in principle to predict", I
> wasn't restricting myself in any way to *computable* predictions.
> I meant that the entire current quantum state of the universe
> is consistent with it raining in Dallas (x) years from tonight,
> or with it not raining. Value of x to be determined.
>
> > As for weather science, the models you speak of fall under
> > the field of nonlinear dynamics, also called, chaos theory.
> > Chaos thy is completely deterministic, mathematically
> > speaking, although it can as you say lead to
> > unpredictability at times in the real world.
>
> Deterministic chaos is certainly difficult to distinguish
> observationally from genuine indeterminism, but that's beside
> the point. My thesis is that the *real* quantum indeterminism
> at the microscopic level is chaotically *amplified* to an
> observable scale. The amplification process can be as deterministic
> as you like, and it doesn't change the fact that the final
> outcome is truly non-determined.

Chaos is a classical theory with classical equations which posits that
certain events that are crucially dependent on initial conditions are
unpredictable. The idea that chaos in some way derives from quantum effects
which are "amplified" is rather peculiar and is certainly not an integral
part of chaos theory. It would be interesting to know why -as you suggest-
quantum effects which are only manifested at the subatomic level are
"amplified" by phenomena like the weather, but -on the other hand- not
amplified by so many other macroscopic phenomena which behave in a
deterministic and predictable manner.

regards
Milan

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