From: Chris Cogan <ccogan@telepath.com>
>At 11:37 PM 08/31/2000, you wrote:
>>From: Susan Brassfield Cogan <Susan-Brassfield@ou.edu>
>>[...]
>> >"evolutionist" is fine. Evolutionary biology cannot detect the
>> >supernatural. Therefore it has nothing much to say on the subject except
>> >"get your religious beliefs out of my face." Life did not arise
>> >"accidentally" from inert chemicals. Physics is not accidental which is
why
>> >people refer to "laws" of physics.
>
>Richard
>>I think this is misleading. Our present understanding (based on quantum
>>physics and chaos theory) is that physical laws do give rise to true
>>randomness. Thus the origin of life probably was a random event, i.e.
>>"accidental". But random does not mean unlikely or without cause.
>
>Chris
>Although I agree with the "accidental" nature of the origin and evolution
>of life, quantum mechanics does not require indeterminism and thus true
>randomness. Certain interpretations of the mathematical descriptions do
>(most notably, the "Copenhagen" interpretation), but those are essentially
>*philosophical* claims, because there is no way to establish indeterminism
>empirically, even in principle.
Interesting point. I suppose that, ultimately, there's no way to establish
either determinism or indeterminism empirically, since there might always be
another layer of causal explanation beneath the lowest one we know. Perhaps
one might argue that determinism should be the default interpretation, since
it operates at all the levels we can test, and that the indeterministic
interpretation of quantum mechanics is a kind of god-of-the-gaps
explanation. I must admit I know very little about quantum mechanics, so I
don't know why the indeterministic interpretation has been widely accepted.
I'll add that to my list of subjects to read about when I have time!
>Chaos theory allows deterministic things to *appear* indeterministic, but
>does not actually require that anything *be* indeterministic.
I agree. Chaos does not itself create indeterminism, but can extend the
indeterminism of quantum mechanics (if it exists) up to the macrosopic
world.
>What does it mean for something to appear deterministic? Simply that we
>don't see a causal pattern (or actual causes). It is an argument from
>ignorance.
For all practical purposes, yes. But we cannot exclude the possibility of
true randomness/determinism, and that possibility seems to be widely
accepted by physicists. Until I've read about the subject further, I'm
inclined to go along with that view.
>There is not, even in principle, a means of conclusively
>eliminating possible determining factors.
>
>Nevertheless, as is easy to show, even a strictly deterministic world can
>be *effectively* random in certain respects, because of extreme sensitivity
>to slight variations in initial conditions, and because of the richness of
>those initial conditions. Thus, even in something as relatively simple as a
>spherical container full of some gas (at one atmosphere, say), we cannot
>measure the positions and velocities of molecules with sufficient accuracy
>to predict their locations with precision for even a quite small fraction
>of a *second*. Thus, for nearly any purpose we might wish, we can use such
>a setup, with some sort of molecule detector, as the basis of a
>random-number generator.
Again, for all practical purposes, I agree. However, the issue of true
determinism has theological significance. If determinism is true, then a God
with unlimited computing power could fix the initial conditions so as to
ensure any particular result that he wants, without any subsequent
intervention.
>That is, even though it might be (and is, in my view) absolutely
>deterministic, it may as well be indeterministic as far as such uses are
>concerned.
>
>This, I think, is just as bothersome to people like Bertvan, who require
>that the Universe be warm and fuzzy, as true randomness would be. And yet,
>the people who most reject randomness in the world are often the first to
>assert it in human beings (in the form of indeterministic free will). Chaos
>theory shows that we don't need indeterminism as an actual explanatory
>"mechanism" (or *lack* of mechanism) in either case; the world is rich
>enough to provide us with all the explanatory lack of (known) mechanism we
>could want -- and then some.
I personally don't reject the possibility of true free will. I remain open
to a trichotomy of causes: deterministic, random and volitional. But I don't
claim to have any explanation for how free will could operate. (And I note
that, as far as I'm aware, theists don't have an explanation either.)
Richard Wein (Tich)
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