Does True Randomness Actually Exist? ( ^&*#^%$&#% )

keep going i-day..i luvit !

just a few words because this thread has already been resolved a long time ago.

The truth is that determinism and the flip side of it, True-randomness, is just another open question for QM philosophers and enthusiastics to ponder about.

In other words.. according to our current knowledge, science is yet to provide us with a definite answer on the subject, and it all comes down to what beliefs one adopt.

this is not my opinion. I'm just echoing what the most objective qualified professionals conclude, and here's a quote directly from Stanford university encyclopedia..  

Quote: 

"QM is widely thought to be a strongly non-deterministic theory. Popular belief (even among most physicists) holds that phenomena such as radioactive decay, photon emission and absorption, and many others are such that only a probabilistic description of them can be given. The theory does not say what happens in a given case, but only says what the probabilities of various results are. So, for example, according to QM the fullest description possible of a radium atom (or a chunk of radium, for that matter), does not suffice to determine when a given atom will decay, nor how many atoms in the chunk will have decayed at any given time. The theory gives only the probabilities for a decay (or a number of decays) to happen within a given span of time. Einstein and others perhaps thought that this was a defect of the theory that should eventually be removed, by a supplemental hidden variable theory[6] that restores determinism; but subsequent work showed that no such hidden variables account could exist. At the microscopic level the world is ultimately mysterious and chancy.

So goes the story; but like much popular wisdom, it is partly mistaken and/or misleading. Ironically, quantum mechanics is one of the best prospects for a genuinely deterministic theory in modern times! Everything hinges on what interpretational and philosophical decisions one adopts. The fundamental law at the heart of non-relativistic QM is the Schrödinger equation. The evolution of a wavefunction describing a physical system under this equation is normally taken to be perfectly deterministic.[7] If one adopts an interpretation of QM according to which that's it—i.e., nothing ever interrupts Schrödinger evolution, and the wavefunctions governed by the equation tell the complete physical story—then quantum mechanics is a perfectly deterministic theory."

Right, so no interactions every occur. Very handy in you live in a Universe where that is true. It seems necessary that the role of physics is to predict what happens in our Universe. Predicting what happens in all Universes with no information about which is ours is weaker.

Note carefully that just because something is a "popular belief" does not mean it is solely a popular belief. It is a popular belief among physicists that if you let go a weight it falls to the ground. It also happens to be true, like many popular beliefs.

A deterministic model of our Universe would mean that for every event, information exists in the past of that event that would determine that event precisely.  

All physicists should know that the empirical results of Bell's experiments combined with the principle of causality imply that a deterministic model of what happens in our Universe (the entire domain of science) does not exist. [I say "should" for reasons that may be clear].

The reason is that you can't get the statistics that you do with any deterministic model. To be even more precise, if you have a deterministic model of the measurement you will get at one arm of the Bell's experiment apparatus, this model can only be compatible with some choices of measurement at the other arm, not with all of them.  Thus if local independent choices of measurement can be made (a global conspiracy is required to stop this being so), the data falsifies determinism (of events in our Universe, which is literally _everything_ that matters to us).

Those who claim the superdeterminism of the Everett interpretation means physics (the behaviour of the real world) is deterministic should go to a casino and use that determinism to win lots of money. Unfortunately when they try, someone in some parallel Universe runs off with the money.

I have no personal ambitions here - my sole interest in discussion is as a stimulation to better understanding for myself and others. Ideally for everyone (so I have no better understanding than anyone else) but that is not entirely within my control.  I acknowledge that some others are more motivated by ego and are unable to understand my attitude, but again I can't help that.

It's worth mentioning that this disagreement is mere fluff - semantics. Substantial disagreements involve what is true about the real world. On the positive side, I believe we are in agreement about what happens in our Universe (I hope) and have a common understanding of the hypothetical multiverse.

Randomness (in our Universe) is a conclusion of (all interpretations of) quantum mechanics. No-one should be disagreeing with this (as they would be disagreeing with reality).

Real Bell's experiment confirm the exact consequences of quantum mechanics which lead to this conclusion. (Again no-one should be disagreeing with the body of research).

[Everyone should be able to understand that the question "will this tritium nucleus decay in the next 12.3 years?" is a valid question in the scope of physics. Deterministic physics (the study of physical behaviour in our Universe) would allow a yes or no answer, given some information in our Universe.  No-one should believe that the answer "there are many Universes and in half of them, parallel copies of this nucleus will decay and in the other half they won't" provides determinism in a model of physics].

opti.."It's my belief that we have to accept that "reality" is made up with determined and random elements"

we share a similar belief with one twist.. i think that reality is made of determined and possibly "other ingredients" but not randomness. and i rather leave it at it because i don't have the time or passion to discuss my personal views here. objectively speaking.. everything is on the table.

@elroch, the reason so many physicists (which i highly regard) adopted those beliefs, is because QM interweaved physics and philosophy in a way we never seen before. and unfortunately physicists are not trained in QM philosophy, this is why we have QM philosophers with the expertly of both the physics and the philosophy.
and im a bit shy to say this, but you make a freshman fallacies. for example the ability of predictions in a casino to have anything to do with determinism.

also i start to think that you should be blocked from posting here for your continual ranting and falsehood spreading. do you really believe that your opinion count more than the experts? (probably so.. lol)

freshman fallacies

burst !

It is valid to believe that the non-removable randomness we find in our Universe is a mere facsimile of randomness. But the cost of this viewpoint is extremely high. It requires that the fundamental structure stops us from making genuinely independent choices even at two points in space-time which are not causally related (i.e. their relationship is space-like rather than time-like. Anyone who doesn't understand that terminology, pipe up and I will explain).

This is a hard pill to swallow, since it is easy to think of extremely strong ways to randomly pick choices (for example, two independent radioactive sources, where the number of emissions at each is counted and the count used to make a decision). Or the least significant bits of analog to digital convertors measuring random fluctuations in temperature at a very small scale.

Yes, Bercher's head seemed to explode there, when he referred to (with all due humility) a Cambridge Wrangler with many years experience working on stochastic systems a "freshman". Projection is so common from egotists in discussions.

..and i didn't say you are a freshman. but the fallacy you made is a typical freshman fallacy. kinda surprising coming from Cambridge graduate. 

It's worth emphasising that literally all interpretations of quantum mechanics have the same scientific status since they possess the exact same predictive capabilities. Since I possess subjective preference for some interpretations (Everett interpretation, Information interpretation) and dislike of others, I am not in a position to object to that!

What I was describing was a range of artificial interpretations which achieve the observed behaviour in the real world in a very ugly way (pretty much by the entire Universe we see being determined and fixed, but designed in such a way as to pretend that quantum mechanics is correct.  The extreme artificiality of this makes me give it very little credence, but by design it has the exact predictions of quantum mechanics (explaining them by the results being predetermined so as to appear to be those of quantum mechanics).

That better explains what I was pedantically referring to.

[Just checking through Bercher's contributions, they contain very little but (1) unreasoned deprecation of others (2) self-congratulation

This contrasts strongly with good posts that are filled with detached reasoning about concepts and facts].

Since an earlier point of mine was not responded to, I would request from other participants (including @Bercher, @Optimissed) an answer to a key question: 

Do you feel you have any disagreement about what happens in the Universe?  Any disagreement that could ever be tested by any means?

elroch: "It's worth emphasising that literally all interpretations of quantum mechanics have the same scientific status since they possess the exact same predictive capabilities. Since I possess subjective preference for some interpretations (Everett interpretation, Information interpretation) and dislike of others, I am not in a position to object to that!"

so we are finally on the same page about the scientific status of determinism. nice.

If you understand that our Universe is not deterministic (because it is impossible to predict a future branch using past information), we are.

The Everett interpretation of course implies this lack of determinism of future events.

If being specific helps, a scientific question is "will this nucleus decay in the next year?". This is an example of an undetermined event.

I hope you can understand that the answer "it decays in some branches and not in others" does not change that.

I strongly disagree with you. but dont want to get into it. at least for now.

how about the pilot wave?

Really low down on my subjective list. The picture makes no sense to me. But I am told it can be used to get the right predictions, so I acknowledge it is a valid interpretation.

It could be that my negative view is due to never having been motivated to study how it works in detail (I just have an informal description of it).

Yes but you are able to say with confidence that half the nuclei will decay within the half life?  Like I have said in the past science teaches determinism in that all thing tend towards entropy.  This is at least determinism light right?

if you acknowledge that, than we should be able to say that objectively speaking we are in agreement that determinism is a valid proposition. right?