RE: [asa] Review of Behe in Books and Culture

The many-world interpretation of quantum mechanics avoids the notion of the collapse of the wave function. However, it may have its own unpleasantness.

 
Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Iain Strachan
Sent: Thu 7/12/2007 8:34 AM
To: Don Winterstein
Cc: asa
Subject: Re: [asa] Review of Behe in Books and Culture

The collapse of the wave function is one of those deep philosophical questions that are unresolved.

Some hold that it is to do with consciousness. The collapse (or partial collapse) of the wave function would correspond to a sampling of the probability distribution at any given time. But that sampling and what is sampled depends on the observer. In the Schrodinger's cat paradox, if a person inside the room opens the door and observes the state of the cat (dead or alive) then for that observer, the wave function has collapsed. But for a person outside the room in which the person is observing the cat, the wave function has not yet collapsed.

I suppose one might say that if there is an objective reality at all, it might correspond to an omnipotent observer sampling the probability distribution of the entire universe? But I must admit the subject is very confusing. Is it God who seeds the random number generator that samples the distribution to give the state of the universe as it is? If so, then if so desired, the omnipotent sampler could make anything happen, no matter how improbable, provided the probability was finite.

Iain

On 7/12/07, Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com> wrote:

        "...The underlying Schrodinger equation for the wave function IS completely deterministic...."
         
        Solutions to the Schroedinger equation give the wave functions but say nothing about how the wave functions collapse in particular cases. What this means, according to the accepted interpretation, is that the probability distribution is indeed strictly determined, but how the event turns out is undetermined: Where the event will lie on the probability distribution cannot be predicted.
         
        It's the probability distribution that is determined, not the outcome of a given event.
         
        The argument is that God can then force an outcome--cause the event to lie at a location he desires--without violating any law of physics. Those who prefer that God restrict his activity to this sort of manipulation do so because they like to have God controlling outcomes but don't like to have him violating laws of nature.
        
         
        Don
         

                
                ----- Original Message -----
                From: Iain Strachan <mailto:igd.strachan@gmail.com>
                To: Michael Roberts <mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
                Cc: Ted Davis <mailto:TDavis@messiah.edu> ; asa <mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Louise Margaret Freeman <mailto:lfreeman@mbc.edu>
                Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 1:11 PM
                Subject: Re: [asa] Review of Behe in Books and Culture

                I must say I have a problem with this idea of God intervening "at the quantum level" - perhaps subtly biassing the dice throws in ways we can't detect.
                
                Despite the fact that from the observer's point of view it looks like the collapse of the wave function is probabilistic, nonetheless the underlying Schrodinger equation for the wave function IS completely deterministic (it's just a second order PDE) and it could therefore be argued that the time-evolution of the wave-function of the universe is not subject to being tweaked.
                
                Iain
                
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