I was curious if anyone who has more knowledge of physics than I, and has read Mises’ Theory and History in particular chapter five where he discusses quantum physics could gie their impressions on Mises’ descriptions and thought therin laid out.
I haven’t gone to chapter 5, but Mises tacked QP in the introduction and from what I know of QP, I must say it makes little sense.
All the time Mises is saying that there is at all times a single causal chain of events, of which even human though is part, and that this chain drives the physical world. Than he goes on to state that, even QP can fit inside this framework. Now, QP says, among other BS, that from the same initial state and the same impulses, a system can develop in several ways! That is a clear breach of the causality principle. Bur Mises here tries to salvage QP by saying that QP does not hold that causality does not exist, but that instead of every cause bringing about an effect, what happens is that every cause brings about a probability distribution of effects.
This seems a poor makeshift to me: saying that if I hit the same ball in exactly the same way, 50% of the time it will go right, and 50% left is again a breach of the causality principle. Perhaps it would have been better to just say that QP is just a makeshift set of pseudo rules that seem to work right now, and will be replaced with actual science once we get to know the subatomic world better.
So you’re in agreement with Einstein? Does this mean you outright reject the uncertainty principle?
So you’re in agreement with Einstein? Does this mean you outright reject the uncertainty principle?
The uncertainty principle simply states that we cannon know both position and velocity for a particle, and that is fine. To know where a particle is, you must send at least a photon towards it (to see it), and that will change the velocity of the particle. So, its not that a particle actually can be in two places at once, but that we haven’t the technology to check both velocity and position at once. Its just practicality, not physics. The whole of QS is like that: a set of practical rules pending the development of a decent theory. But that an electron can be around the atom but really be nowhere in particular?! Come on, that’s silly.
The relevant passages are too long to quote here, but that’s not really how I interpreted it. Causality is not an absolute fact about the world, but merely an epistemic requirement; For the context of praxeology, in order for acting beings to attempt to choose means which suit their ends, they need to have the sense that certain actions will have certain consequences. If they do not, then such decisions are impossible. It really doesn’t matter whether the world really is deterministic or not, acting man has to plan under the assumption that it is anyway.
The relevant passages are too long to quote here, but that’s not really how I interpreted it. Causality is not an absolute fact about the world, but merely an epistemic requirement; For the context of praxeology, in order for acting beings to attempt to choose means which suit their ends, they need to have the sense that certain actions will have certain consequences. If they do not, then such decisions are impossible. It really doesn’t matter whether the world really is deterministic or not, acting man has to plan under the assumption that it is anyway.
Seen like that, it does indeed make much more sense. “QP is BS, but as long as computers work, than the assumption that QP works is good enough”. After all, as long as our information of causality chains is very incomplete, we often end up using probability to determine the outcomes of our actions anyway. But to take that principle seriously, i.e. the world is probabilistic, would seem preposterous to me.
You would be wrong. It has been confirmed by experiments for about 50 years.
Assume we’re debating a so-called “quantum Monte Carlos’s” theory. You say that throwing a regular dice many times gives you each number roughly 1/6 of the time. This is ‘the law” you’ve discovered. I say, no man, the dice can be predicted with 100% accuracy if you have the ability to compute minute changes in the force and direction of the throw, wind, gravity, the face its standing on before being thrown and all this stuff. So, I say the dice is fully predictable and your ‘probabilitarian theory’ is BS.
And you say: “My theory has been proven by 200 years of experiments!”
Now, I don’t thing you doubt that throwing a dice could be fully predictable if we took the pain of measuring every input. But as we don’t do that, a probabilistic approach is simpler and good enough for us. It’s the same with the electron. It moves according to very defined laws, can be only at one place at a time, has a velocity which is knowable along with its position and all. But we just don’t have the correct theory to predict all these things yet, so we stick to a “there’s an x% chance that the electron will be here 2 milliseconds after the TV is on”. Its just a shortcut, do not mistake that with the truth. Its not that x% of the electro will be here, and the remaining (1-x)% will be somewhere else!
It would be impossible to predict the course of the die because it is literally impossible to have all of the relevant factors. Chaos theory has shown the absolute impossibility of predicting the outcomes of complex systems.
No, it really isn’t about “technology”; the kind of “knowing” you’re talking about precludes “the universe” (or “God” if you want) knowing, too: i.e., it really doesn’t have a unique position-and-velocity. (That’s why you get an interference pattern in the Young (“2 slit”) experiment when you send individual particles through the slits. If it was just a “technology” issue, that wouldn’t happen: the particle would go through one slit or the other (or, more likely, neither), and there’d be no pattern)
It’s only silly if you think of an electron as something like a very tiny billiard ball. So don’t do that, then!
“If put a cupful of water in a bowl, it shapes itself to the bowl? Come on, that’s silly.”
I never said experiments proved anything.
But you’re still wrong, as was Einstein. Determinism is contradicted by evidence.
PS: Yes, what Paul said.
It would be impossible to predict the course of the die because it is literally impossible to have all of the relevant factors. Chaos theory has shown the absolute impossibility of predicting the outcomes of complex systems.
“Massively complex” fine, but “impossible”? I find it hard to even grasp the full logical conclusions of that. I would say that there is nothing that theoretically cannot be predicted else nothing would be. But than again, I’m no expert in math of physics. Just amateurish ramblings.
That’s why you get an interference pattern in the Young (“2 slit”) experiment when you send individual particles through the slits. If it was just a “technology” issue, that wouldn’t happen: the particle would go through one slit or the other (or, more likely, neither), and there’d be no pattern
That is just the Copenhagen Interpretation of the experiment. To have an interpretation of that experiment, you need to define what is a field and what is a wave. As the whole idea is to pinpoint what the field-matter-wave concoction is, and to what extend it holds, it’s a strange praxis, if youask me, trying to clarify that by actually assuming the electron to be a wave. QP is just a set of rules that fit, while the Copenhagen Interpretation is just the branch of QP that pretends to be actual science. Let it be said that this is far from accepted among physicists. So take that with a gram of salt.
To make my point, form the Wiki article of the ERP Paradox linked by Scineram(emphasis mine):
The EPR paradox is a paradox in the following sense: if one adds to quantum mechanics some seemingly reasonable but apparently otherwise hidden variables that supposedly express the concept of local realism… then one obtains a contradiction. However, quantum mechanics by itself, without the Copenhagen interpretation, does not appear to be internally inconsistent, nor — as it turns out — does it contradict causality, though enthusiasts of the Bell persuasion assert that it does so, on the basis of the EPR paradox. Some physicists today] regard the EPR paradox as an illustration of how quantum mechanics violates classicalintuitions.
You’re trying to disproove an epistemological/meta-quantum physics proposition by pointing out the results of some experiment. But, of course you need an epistemological theory to interpret any experiment in the first place. So first you need to point out which opposing theory is correct, and than explain how the experiment fits your theory, but not his.
Concepts such as particle, position, and velocity are aprioristic and necessary to even interpret the results of experiments in the first place, and to say that we ought to regard electrons as non-particles without unique positions and velocities at a given moment in time demonstrates confusion. Besides, the double slit experiment is done with light, not electrons. Sub-atomic particles moving at relativistic speeds have wavelike properties. And light, evidently an self reiforcing electro-magnetic wave, has particle properties. So, I’m not really sure what you are trying to get at when you bring up the experiment.
@ the OP. Mises’ point in that section of Theory and History is to correct alot of bad epistemology on the part of many quantum physicists. They wrongly assume that the uncertainty principles, which states the limits to which we can accurately measure all physical variables in the universe, implies that the universe is indeterministic. Mises is a determinist. He argues that the category of causality, presupposed by action, implies that acting man must assume the universe is deterministic. He is reconciling the uncertainty principle with determinism. He merely points out that from the fact that we do not know the causes in sufficient detail to accurately predict outcomes, it does not follow that the underlying causal structure is inherently random in and of itself. The randomness/uncertainty is a feature of our state of knowledge, and not of the universe.
I’m no expert!
I feel like Mises is using it as an example that thought over time can change.
I feel quantum physics is a marvelous defense of individualism. Particle physics tends to make scientists question their own input on phenomena. Perhaps there is a praxeological field of physics, yet to be delved, that can aid this study?
Been a couple since I read T&H, but I’ll read chapter 5 later and try to be of some use I hope.
Good day.
Good post, Paul.
Nevertheless, those concepts might not apply as well when trying to understand the “true nature” of the quantum world. We understand the universe in terms of time, space, positiion, velocity, etc… But the quantum world might work in an enitrely different way. We can know the visible macro world directly. It appears that we cannot know the quantum world directly. Clearing the “uncertainty” inherent in the system isn’t necessarily a matter of figuring out how to better locate a sub-atomic particle or how to better track it. It could just be that our ideas of “time” and “space” that we are so used to just don’t apply as well in the world of QP. It might be other, possibly inconceiveable phenomena that drives causality here.
It appears that we cannot know the quantum world directly. Clearing the “uncertainty” inherent in the system isn’t necessarily a matter of figuring out how to better locate a sub-atomic particle or how to better track it. It could just be that our ideas of “time” and “space” that we are so used to just don’t apply as well in the world of QP. It might be other, possibly inconceiveable phenomena that drives causality here.
As long as its deterministic its fine. When people pretend that subatomic particles are not deterministic but probabilistic, this just seems a plain surrender of reason.
I don’t even have to click that link. It is nonsense to argue that “[d]eterminism is contradicted by evidence”. It is nonsense to question whether the world is “deterministic” or not. We can’t know whether it is or isn’t. Nothing observable lets us distinguish between these two situations, (1) just a shortcoming of us knowing what the causal connections between the two things are, and (2) in fact an absence of any causal connections whatever between those two things.
Which means that determinism is a requirement for “free will”. Which should alert us to what nonsense the debate between the “determinism” people and the “free will” people is.
Free will does not require determinism. I can choose freely a path which’s end I cannot know, as for example I’d be doing if willingly downing my plane on a desert island. For all I know, there is no determinism in an action which’s effects are unknown, and yet I can make the decision to embark on it.
Sure, choice without knowledge of effect would be hard, but again not impossible. So there can be, and indeed there is, a major debate between free will and determinism.