IAP Political Forum

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.

--Douglas Adams
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This is such a great quote I thought it would be interested to throw it around here. It is exactly the kind of thing I think Sci-Fi writers are great at, showing us the world in a way we almost never see. And it destroys the basic concept behind Creationsim :)

Destroys? Interesting, yes, but nothing more.

Oh, no, not again -a bowl of petunias facing a certain death. ;)

No it destroys the idea that because the universe suits us it must have been designed with us in mind.

It's kind of a roundabout version of the antrophic principle.

The universe suits us? Hmm, never heard that claim before.

It is a spectacularly weak analog.  A puddle (liquid water under the influence of gravity) fits anything it falls into equally well.  Life quite clearly does not. 

Compared to the claim that the explanation to the (too improbable complexity) of life is the (too improbable complexity^2) of an intelligent designer, it stands its humble ground well. ::)

All in all, puddles don't think, too. Yet probably everyone got the idea -it's easy to think it's the universe what fits you, and not the opposite, until the universe goes and destroys you without notice.

The quote dramatically downplays the reality of the number of conditions that all seem to be conspiring together to make life in this universe possible in the first place.  The quote makes it seem that the conditions for life are easy, like water fits a hole.  The reality is so far from that illustration, that it boggles the mind of anyone who takes the time to think about it.  The physical parameters that allow matter to freely interact in the nearly countless ways that it does is all required to ultimately allow these same materials to form up immensely complicated self-replicating polymers and the myriad of metabolic pathways.

The quote tries to make the point that life was and is a slam dunk.  Those who know better, know it is exactly the opposite.  They know that the number of conditions are so numerous, the opportunities for a chance wrong turn so great, that only intentional intervention could bring about the configuration we observe.  Without intervention, and with only the indeterminism of Quantum Mechanics, this universe should have been configured like the uncountable number of permutations that would not be capable of supporting self-polymerization and then life.  The ratio of failure configurations to successful ones has been estimated at 10 to the power of a number far greater than the number of all the atoms in this universe.  Chance cannot account for such events as this universe.

Oh, yes, even a ironical analogy by Douglas Adams (that famed scientist ::)) is evidence that ID is right... ::)

Have a look again at the commentary by the OP. The claim was that this quote demonstrates how one can destroy the basic concept of creationism.  The quote contains a weak analogy.  It does not accurately reflect the situation behind life and the origin of life.  Therefore it does not show the world for what it is and it does not destroy the basic concept behind creationism.

Matter interacts in countless ways.  Therefore the number of atoms is irrelevant.  What is important is the fact that the interractions resulted in this universe and this planet where life occured.  Boggled minds have nothing to do with it.  Given countless ways of interracting, and a huge number of atoms, what boggles the mind would be that life did NOT arise - at some stage in an infinite timespan.  It so happens that it was on Earth, 13 billion years after the start.  Maybe it could have been planet xyz after y years - and the developed organisms - if they survived - would probably have been boggled that they were there.  Chance may have started life - but the ongoing development, at least here, were in no way 'chance'.  They are the result of a principle that is within all life - to produce offspring better suited to the environment they come into.

Its odd that the OP mentioned Creationism and you going into the argument from design and ID.

Hmmmm, I thought ID and Creationism were unrelated?

Gotcha! ;)

Where did I mention ID? This is the religion section not the science section.  MLZ used the term ID when the OP had used creationism.  You caught MLZ mixing the terms.  Unlike him, I know the difference.

In this situation it makes for a good illustration of the magnitude of the number we are dealing with.


I doubt it.  I think you are making this up.  Please walk me through the science and formulas that demonstrate you are using logic and reason to come to this conclusion.


Chance is a major component in the narrative that is evolutionary theory.  Modification is by mutations and other chance processes act first before selection can do a thing.  If chance is incapable of producing useful new function as experiment and observation indicates and if there are no selectable evolutionary pathways from one actual genetic configuration to another then selection is impotent.  The evidence from our world is not change, it stasis.  Observations of evolution in progress shows that it is quite proficient at damaging function in response to selection pressure.  The observations do not show that evolution produces a progression of better suited offspring that could lead to the diversity we see before us.

Of course chance can account for it! You have just  admitted that the probability is non-zero, so obviously chance is a potential answer, especially since you have no idea what size the sample space is i.e. how many universes there are/have been, what conditions were in place pre-big bang or even if there was a before the big bang.

What we do know is that if the universe hadn't turned out to suit us then we wouldn't be here to realise it. All we can say is that, whatever started it, we are here because the universe is one which we can inhabit.

Don't be coy, you even allude to Dumbski's UPB.

The universal probability bound does not apply to events that transcend this universe.  I used the number of atoms as an illustration.  I am not being coy.

Our current knowledge of the physical constants and their relationships gives us no way other than imagination to infer anything other than one (this universe) in sample space.   One is insufficient to allow chance to account for observed configuration.  What happened to rules of logic and reason, IamMe? 

What number is that?

uh oh, here we go again in circles.... ::) :)

It's the motorbike tactic*.


*When a teenager wants that his parents buy him a motorbike, one of each two sentences he says will include the word "motorbike". Like: "Did you liked that?" "Yes mom, it ruled like a motorbike" "Go clean your room" "Later, I'll do it fast as a motorbike" "How was the test?" "I think i missed because I don't have a motorbike". Et cetera. 8)

I can recommend an article or book.  The observations that 30-40 physical constants are fine tuned to support life has been known for some time now.  Knowing your penchant for detail and supposing your motivations, I have no interest in a long and fruitless conversation about it.

Here Physicist Paul Davies, who is not a theist, writes that the consensus view is increasingly impressed with the evidence for “some sort of design” of the cosmos:

The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design, a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming. The belief that there is ‘something behind it all’ is one that I personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists.

I too think something is behind it all. You simply take many leaps of faith: it has intelligence, likes the smell of blood, cares about your penis, will torture people who don't like or obey him, etc.

The problem is in the weasel word: something. To you it means anything, especially the spontaneous existence of the most perfect and compex Something even concievable.

But yours is an argument from Authority.  I understand many scientists believe "something" is behind it. Some of them are trying to find out what it is. Either way, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I don't know much about Davies, but to say he's not a theist is odd considering, for example:

Davies, Paul C.W. [Physicist and Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of Adelaide], "The Christian perspective of a scientist."

First of all, you are assuming it happened either by chance or by design. There is of course a third option.

Also, logic and reason tell us that a non-zero probability is still a possibility.

And, since we do not know what (if anything) exists outside our universe of before the big bang, we can't say with any degree of certainty whether there is 1 universe or billions of universes or infinite universes. One universe is not the default option. Simply (and correctly) pointing out that we have no evidence on which to infer multiple universes does not mean that we assume only one universe until there is evidence to the contrary. Both are positive statements, so the burden of proof should be shared equally. The default position is don't know.

Correction:  YOUR 'knowledge'.
Correction 2:  ANY is sufficient to account for observed configuration.  See Major Zee Lees references to the anthropic principle.

'Fine-tuning' is simply a further attempt to project the theist view onto to the observable universe.  Rather like the circular reasoning if ID.  (I have decideed that god is the answer to everything, therefore everything I look at proves that god was its source)

I'd like to add something: Sure God explains everything (except the lack of evidence for his own existence) and that is exactly why the explanation is wrong. It's too easy. It's lazy. It avoids the important questions by simply attributing all unexplained events to a magic entity that can do anything.

It is interesting that you find God (an explanation that includes evidence that you seem to ignore), wrong, but three breaths earlier you find infinite universes (an explanation we all agree has no evidence) perfectly valid.

I completely agree that possibilities that offer no evidence are inferior to possibilities that include evidence and this is why infinite universes is inferior to one universe.   It is also why a creator is a viable explanation.

What evidence? The apparent improbability of our universe is equally well explained by the existence of a creator or the existence of a large number or an infinite number of universes.

The evidence from historical and documents and literary analysis are the most glaring examples you ignore.

You are correct that those who suggest an intelligent agent as a creator have  a easier explanation than materialists because any prospective explanation must be internally consistent with the overall premise and in your case postulating infinite universes is not consistent with what we know about matter and space and time and energy.  Because of this and until the boundary conditions are resolved you alternative is inferior.

The funny thing is, is that RF still doesn't see the error of his fallacy. He has invested so much time on trying to understand it, he can't let it go.

1. He thinks that the universe is designed, but has no evidence of a designer which would have had to be more "designed" in order to create a design such like the universe. Meanwhile, the physical properties of the universe explain virtually everything quite nicely - not bad for only about 300 years of work. (as opposed to 10K's of religious thinking).

2. He suggests that the "fine-tuned" aspect of the universe is so precise that any change would render life impossible.
a.  How does he know? Has he twiddled with the knobs?
b.  If that is the case, then I'd appreciate an account of how a designer had life before the conditions of life were available?

Its obvious that RF expects reality to conform to his theology, just like Paul Davies, who, despite the ham-handed attempt by RF to claim that Davies "isn't a Theist" (as if he should be heeded because he's not a supernatural dogmatist) IS a Deist and apologist for the Xian religion.

Basically, there haven't been any new arguments for a god in 800 years, and yet plenty new ones against god that have gone unanswered, or have retreated to "you have to take it on faith".

RF may feel that faith is an important tool for knowledge - that he takes both his religion and science on faith, but he needn't speak for the rest of us, nor try to confuse the issue with his personal belief system.

(a) The "evidence" you allude to is not evidence.  There is nothing special about it - many societies have holy books and myths.  They vary.  Each can be subjected to 'literary analysis' and yield similar results.

(b)  Sometimes your arrogance overwhelms.  Those who conjecture (yes, we can happily use that term - those who cleave to absolutes find it self-incriminating, those who have open minds find it honest) the possibility of a multiverse know more than you (or I) will EVER now know about "matter and space and time and energy".  Those who so conjecture are not tacky philosophy board posters who think that throwing out ideas is a good way of undermining an 'opponents' case - regardless of what it says of ones own. You cite undigested phrases from poorly understood inconclusive critical works (like 'QM operators', 'boundary conditions') and feel you have made telling points.  You have only in fact indirectly referred to some text you once read - which offers no support to your pov, but is referred to solely as a destructive attempt.

(c)  I certainly agree that internal consistency is a necessary condition of any explanation - but there are many other conditions (there is a whole literature devoted to what makes a good explanation - best bet is that it is a cluster-concept, with a strong relativistic tendency).   As I never tire of pointing out, the world of Harry Potter is strongly internally consistent: maybe you should become a Potterist.

What a strange mishmash of half understood ideas you offer.

Yes, that is a summary of what I just said.  Thank you.

Not ignore. I have thought about them quite a bit.


Bla bla bla - I've heard this all before from you. How exactly are infinite universes internally inconsistent?

Also, we don't need an infinite number, just a large finite number to overcome the improbability (in fact we only need 1 in order for it to be possible).

I suggest you look into probability theory.  My explanations don't seem to do much for you.

Meh. If you don't want to explain I don't see why I should bother.

I suggested that I could give you reading material and you rejected it. You have generally insisted on people giving their own account (and then you cut and paste uncited work frequently).

What game are you playing, RF? ::)

Indeed. He's supposed to be a scientist. he should be able to explain/understand basic probability (i.e. if P(E) > 0 then E is possible)

 

IamMe complained (admitted actually) that he has heard my explanations before and implied that he was not enamored by them.  I suggested he take up some outside research in that case.

And also state the confidence interval. I have seen very little concerning a confidence interval for all of this.

IamMe I walked you through basic probability several months ago.  When evaluating the ability and reasonableness for chance or constrained chance processes to explain an event, one compares the probability against the number of opportunities for chance to act to derive the overall probability.  If this overall probability is less than a threshold, then we can reasonably infer that some other process or mode accounts for the event.  Take for example the observation that 50 coins are laying on a table all heads up.  The unreasonable and irrational person might say that since it is possible that chance could have accounted for the event that person will choose to believe that pure chance does account for the event.  However the reasoned person will note that the odds of all heads is 2^50 and even if someone were to somehow flip the coins once every 5 seconds for about 150 million years the odds will still be just about even that all heads would come up one or more times.  This reasoned person will infer that chance cannot account for this event and someone must have intentionally placed the coins heads up.


Confidence Intervals apply to statistical analysis of empirical data sets.  Perhaps you can explain how confidence intervals apply to pure probability and permutation examples such as these chance hypotheses for chemic generation of life from non-life.

RF, you have tried to sell ID for years and have been rebutted and refuted. You are a broken record.  You seem to have taken a page out of Dembski's M.O. and ignore the troublesome parts to your hypothesis and harp on the gaps in evolutionary theory.

BTW, have you proven that the pathways are impossible?  Or do you simply use the argument from Personal Incredulity still?

The ID premise has not been properly (according to rules of the scientific method) rebutted or refuted.  You offer nothing whatsoever to falsify it or to demonstrate that the premise is not properly formed or supported.


You have yet to demonstrate any valid "troublesome parts".  I assume that troublesome would refer to some sort of incongruence.


Given our most recent understanding of how biochemical processes work, probability theory, information theory and thermodynamic theory collectively provides the basis to show why the materialistic processes of necessity and chance are insufficient to account for these presumed evolutionary pathways.  Your difficulty and the difficulty of those who cling to materialism is that you hold out hope that life overcame dumb luck, no matter how slim the odds and despite the evidence to the contrary.

I understand that. In the coins example we're talking about the probability of the event happening within our universe. Other universes are not relevant.

With life, we are talking about the probability of life coming about in any universe. Therefore, any other universes that might exist are also in play and add to the probabilistic resources. And since even you would not be so arrogant as to claim that you know exactly what exists outside our own universe you must concede that you have no idea what probabilstic resources are in play.

Also, you have created a false dichotomy between blind chance and design. The process that created the universe may have been partly or wholly deterministic without a god being involved.

Perhaps you are right, my study of statistics has mostly focused on imperial data.

You'll understand I'm skeptical though, when constant reference is made to probability and the math behind it is not presented.

Concur.



No, with life we are also talking about this universe.  Even if other universes exist, the resources they bring cannot influence the odds in this universe.  When you appeal to unknown universes you are inventing probabilistic resources without justification.  You are illogically supporting dumb luck with resources that can't improve the odds.  You are doing nothing more than talking yourself into an unsupportable and illogical position.


To better demonstrate the foolishness of your claim that other universes add to the pool of resources useful to explain events in our universe, I return to the coins example.  By your logic, with infinite universes it is possible that not only is this universe one of the lucky ones that overcame the odds and produced life materialistically from non-life, but also it is one of the even fewer universes where when 50 coins are found on a table face up, although in the past it is not known to have happened, now that we are discussing it, materialistic mechanisms do account for it.

edit:  If yours were a valid argument a defense attorney could successfully appeal to multiple universes to substantiate a claim that it is possible that other humans besides his client have identical DNA markers and therefore the DNA evidence should be dismissed.


Like your previous just so stories, this is more of the same.  Quantum Mechanics provides the basis to conclude that most events in this universe are not deterministic.  There are no universal theorems to suggest the physical constants are related.  There seems not to be anything to constrain them.  Since the degrees of freedom is unimaginably vast and since the range of permutations is astonishingly large, except for an unsubstantiated a priori commitment to materialism, anyone who reviews the evidence in this area would immediately infer that the values were purposefully set.  It is this a priori commitment that allows people who do know better to persist in the kind of just so stories you repeat no matter how counterintuitive the claim.

QM concludes no such thing, especially if you accept the wave function as real.

Since this has not been established one way or another (and your whole argument rests on this), you are jumping the gun to say it "provides the basis to conclude".

No, it actually suggests that everything is deterministc.

I'll tell you RF, I don't like the idea of Determinism, but it is probably the hardest nut to crack in philosophy and as empirical data goes.

For you to claim some strong possiblity that deteminism is not true is taking a bold step into la-la land, especially since you are not a quantum physicist and are leaning on it so heavily to make your point.

I will stress that if QM is random and natural, it still holds in the deterministic world view: that is, QM affects things and we react (possibly - if the quantum world is shown to have a real impact on the macro).

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Let's see barney.  You are an architect with no formal training in physical chemistry.  I am a chemical engineer with multiple years of formal training in physics, chemistry and physical chemistry including QM.  Your claim that QM does not demonstrate that much of the base level interaction is not deterministic is simply and flatly false.

Furthermore you have, as usual, departed from the argument I was making against IamMe's just so story about how something could have deterministically set the physical parameters just the way they are.  It is typical for you to change the argument when you don't have an answer for the current point.

String theory works to attempt to explain the physical parameters being set the way they are and relies heavily on the knowledge that QM is not deterministic to even provide the basis to suggest a material mechanism for the parameters to be set the way they are.  If QM is deterministic as you now claim is plausible, then you have just thrown string theory out the window.

I do not have years of training in QM either, and, like most us, can only rely on what I read around.  I am happy to be instructed by a quantum mechanical chemical engineer - but not at a simple sweeping soundbite level.  I have come across a statement that the Bohmian interpretation of 'quantum' phenomena is essentially deterministic, in the way that we understand 'laws of nature' to be so.  It was also suggested that such an interpretation was not inconsistent with other theories that leant on Bohrian QM - string, superstring and inflationary theories.    Given that I claim no expertise here, perhaps you could explain why - in what I can only see as an open field, but one with some sort of 'zeroing-in' on a viable fundamental theory - you feel so adamant about the 'rightness' of your own views?   To be sure, I think most posters here would feel privileged to hear from someone with so many years of training....  and why you are right over and above others with (maybe) more years in hand?

You ask for an explanation far longer than most posters seem interested.  The web is full of explanations as to why QM demonstrates indeterminism and likewise how advocates of determinism tweak the interpretations and add imaginative conditions (the most common is the idea of parallel worlds/multiverses where simultaneously, all possible outcomes are actualized, how is that for fantastic imagination!) to revive their philosophically based prejudices.  The problem of course is that when you are willing to mess around in metaphysics you can get any result you like!  In the case of these many-world scenarios where determinism is purchased back at a huge cost of vastly inflated ontology, not only does the data argue against this inflation, but also the data in principal can never help us to select among such theories because the theories don't offer the opportunities to collect enough data.  By these theories, we are separated from the data we need to validate them.

So how do we decide between the minimalist interpretation of QM stressing indeterminism that I hold and the ontologically inflated many-worlds interpretation that stresses determinism? One way is by the empirical data that demonstrates the priority of probabilities in quantum mechanics and how we generally make sense of them.  QM has its roots in empirical observation of the uncertainties involved in describing the full state of a particle and the probabilities associated with understanding of the state equation.  The minimalist approach makes sense of and comes to terms with this reality.  The many-worlds interpretation begins with these same probabilities and then explains them away only to recover them (as it must) for use in actual QM experiments.  I find this decisive in its error in that the many-worlds interpretation is parasitic of the minimalist approach and in that it is not clear that a many-worlds interpretation even allows for coherent recovery of probabilities in this universe.  The state equations offered don't demonstrate how this is so.  Here is what Michael Dickson, in 'Quantum Chance and Non-Locality', (1998 Cambridge University Press) observes about this issue:


In any case have a look at this article (http://pericson.com/etc/indeterminism-and-the-bohm-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics/), it may help get you started.

From the article you cite:


this is your powerful argument against determinism in QM? ::)

These are not my words.  My argument is contained in my post.  The article was intended for those genuinely interested in an introduction to the source of the concept of indeterminism in QM, the motivations of Bohm and how even Bohm's interpretation is not fundamentally and exclusively deterministic.  barney if you insist on playing this game, I can take you a lot farther into QM than I am sure you are willing to go.  The result will be that you will come across being woefully ignorant on this topic. 

RF, there is no concensus, you are just making a claim that can't be substantiated no matter how much you think you know, or how little you think I know.  Why is this so difficult for you to recognize?

Can't you see how hard you struggle to pull out little bits of information to support your god hypothesis?

There is a consensus (and certainly a majority) among all but those who hold a prior commitment to determinism and allow their imaginations get away from them despite the inability to bring the state equations back into this world to make sense of them and to apply the probability and uncertainty we observe when conducting empirical experiments.  When a theory does not match empirical observations, we generally reject it unless we have a prior commitment.

So if you are happy with an ever growing number of barneys and RF's running around in parallel worlds behaving completely bizarre even by your standards, so be it.  Join those with vivid (deterministic) imaginations, but please stop pretending to be guided by logic, reason and empirical information.  What you are doing is building straw man on straw man just to satisfy your intellect and in an irrational attempt to hold up the materialistic house of cards.

At some point barney, you are going to have to admit that you take materialism on faith.  At some point you are going to have to admit that you are not so different than those people you seem to despise.

It seems that your main response was aimed at an inappropriate strawman.

Ericson's paper didn't strike me as being terribly convincingly argued.  The attempt to put forward a principle that the totality of reality is more than either mechanistic views we may take of it, since abstractions can never equal the whole from which they abstract is unargued and a rather shallow gloss.   As you do, he darkly hints at prior positions affecting the theoreticians conclusions, yet is quite content to include...
  So he expresses a distaste for determinism, for reasons that are not related to the question under consideration....  Its very like your own attacks on determinism for precisely the same reasons.

Given that he is arguing that Bohm really, deep-down accepts his QM interpretation admits of indeterminism as well as determinism, his presuppostion that determinism is "gloomy", the whole structure of his argument is vitiated.

Thanks for the reference though, it has added to my understanding. 

Edit to add..... I came across this in someone else's stuff


A bit deep for me, but I see a suggestion here that the metaphysics of QM is still an open field.  (BTW I do not share your view that you can get anything you want from metaphysics... or maybe you can)

I assumed you would understand where I used the antrophic principle with out my having to spell it out. I guess I overestimated you.

So, spelling it out: In the coins example only our universe is relevant since we only exist in this universe. We can only observe coins in this universe. Other universes don't affect our perception of the coins in any way.

However, in the case of life we are the subject of the question - we are the coins on the table. All potential universes are in play because whatever universe we end up in must be suited to our existence otherwise we could not be there. The probability of our existence in this universe is vanishingly small but if there are other universe they could have turned out like ours instead. If they had we would be there not here. They are relevant to the question (if they exist).

Bohm's interpretation alone is not very popular because without the many-worlds view, the state equation collapses when applied to the universe as a whole.  This is unappealing because mathematically unappealing because it gives up on full deterministic causality.  So while Bohm's model partially works at the metaphysical level it does not completely work out mathematically without many-worlds.  The writer of the article took a different approach to pointing out that Bohm's model is not purely deterministic.  This is why I did not consider Bohm's pure interpretation a valid consideration.


I note that while you and barney took issue with the web paper intended primarily as an introduction and an explanation of issues with Bohm's interpretation, you left my critique of the deterministic view of QM untouched.  Now you say the metaphysics of QM is still an open field but one interpretation enjoys the benefit of corroboration with empirical evidence while the other relies on imagination.  Applying reason and logic would have us fall on which side, the one with evidence or the one without?  Which side do you take Callum?

You cannot be so selective with your just so stories. If infinite universes accounts for the slim probabilities associated with physical laws and likewise life from non-life then it also applies to the coins.  There is no justification to arbitrarily cut it off at life.  If it applies to one event in this universe, then it applies to all.

Sure.  I have said that I don't have any deep understanding of QM.  I can however look at a paper giving basic concepts and trying to derive conclusions.  And Ericsons paper didn't stand up well as far as I could see.  I noted particularly that he criticised Bohm for having a prejudice for determinism, while displaying openly (honestly, good for him!) his own prejudice against it.  I also pointed out how this is exactly your position - which you ignored (dishonestly, bad for you!).


You are confusing (as usual) different things.  The physical interpretation of the evidence is one thing, the metaphysics behind it is another.  I realise that you don't pretend to be a philosopher, but there is a recent book (I haven't read it yet, though its amongst the legacy papers I have) concerning the fundamental entitities of the universe entitled 'Every thing must go'.  The main argument is that of Ontic Structuralism that proposes that entities do not exist except as nexi of relationships....  This is in fact drawn from the very 'bizarreness' of QM entities, an extrapolation you could say, that fits entirely with the 'empirical evidence'.  What do you say, RF?   Just a bit of imagination, or acorroborated interpretation?  I think your either-for-or-against approach is a little black and white - deterministic even  :)

Now, you are dismayed that I do not approach your critique of a deterministic view of QM.  I'll do what I can...

Firstly, you came out with some Pat Robertson-isms...


I think barney typifies this as the Argument from Personal Incredulity - it sounds silly to you, therefore it must be silly.  Well, the rhetioric sounded silly to me, so I took your lead and ignored it.

You follow with...

the ontology is not inflated - there is a type of thing called a universe.  We know of one token, there could be more without 'inflating' the number of types of things.


so, the data argues against, but the data is insufficient. Make up your mind.  Also, on this basis, could you give your view of superstring theory - the existence of the multiple dimensions in excess of empirical spacetime is impossible to verify.  Do you mean that any theory that postulates an non-empirically verifiable entity is a non-starter?

[/quote]So how do we decide between the minimalist interpretation of QM stressing indeterminism that I hold and the ontologically inflated many-worlds interpretation that stresses determinism? [/quote]

I don't think the connection between deterministic QM and a many-worlds theory has been established.


Even Ericsons paper explained how the uncertainties were generat-able from the very process of measurement.  Heisenberg offered his principle as an explanation of the difficulties of measurement: apparently Bohm offered another.  Both address the empirical evidence.


I don't see that using probabilities in experiments in THIS actuality, but explaining their deterministic nature across ALL actualities to be  'decisive in its error'.   The apparent regularities of the macroscopic world are explained away by the agglomeration of enormously large numbers of probabalistic quantum events - is this a 'decisive' count against the theory?

You did not find time to reply to the quote from Ted Honderich, so I'll give you the main point (metaphysical, I'm afraid)

Simple question... there you have a list of possibilities of just WHAT we are talking about when we look at your state equations (italicised) - so what are the referents of the maths, please?     

I did provide justification (anthrophic principle) and you seem to have no answer.

And I didn't say infinite - just lots - though infinite is also possible.

A not too imaginative way to avoid the question.


Not intended to say it is silly, just an introduction to put it into perspective.  Your complaint is petty.


Perhaps you don't understand the many-worlds model.  In many-worlds, for each quantum event every permutation plays out in these evergrowing numbers of parallel universes.  The ontology indeed is inflated and continues to do so as the many-worlds inflate