God does not throw dice.

[Hustler]

To me, this is one of the most misunderstood quotations of modern science. What does it mean to you? Do you think Einstein was right? Will we ever know one way or the other? I think I'm with Einstein on this one.

If you don't know what it's in reference to or what it means, you can start here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr–Einstein_debates).

[Ferrus]

I thought it simply was a repudiation of the probabilistic interpretation of the Copenhagen interpretation. I believe he was using idiomatic ('The Lord... etc.') German to express his devout instinct towards a deterministic universe. The promulgation of the EPR paradox was perfectly in line with that.

[Hustler]

I thought it simply was a repudiation of the probabilistic interpretation of the Copenhagen interpretation. I believe he was using idiomatic ('The Lord... etc.') German to express his devout instinct towards a deterministic universe. The promulgation of the EPR paradox was perfectly in line with that.

Yes, it is such a repudiation. Which camp are you in?

[Ferrus]

Yes, it is such a repudiation. Which camp are you in?
Well, the Copehagen interpretation has the virtue of being an interpretation most in line with direct empirical experience of quantum phenomenon. It strikes me that either:

a) there is an irreducible probability at the heart of the universe or
b) there is a form of determinism beyond human understanding

But yet I think a) is becoming most probable, it seems increasingly to describe cosmic phenomenon (i.e. Hawking radiation), and an acceptance of that quantum foam in the spirit of open-mindedness over an attempt to reduce it to something equivalent to our present experiences. I think the probabilistic camp's strongest evidence lies within the clumped distribution of matter within the universe we find today. Only quantum fluctuations could have caused such (initially) localised distributions of mass - naturally these same fluctuations could have been caused by a baroque determinism, but Ockham's razor suggests, for now, a universe underlaid with fundamental probabilities is the best model.

There is a little irony though here for a student of philosophy such as myself - Hume all along stated quite convincingly that all of our experiences which we dub causality are, to great and infinitesimally lesser extents matters of probability within our minds anyway (and our brain's processing of concepts in the world seems to run on vaguely Bayesian principles) - induction as a line of reasoning always failing to secure absolute truth. To that extent - although speaking of greatly different levels of physical reality - the idea does not seem as alien to me as perhaps it is to many.

[Hustler]

Well, the Copehagen interpretation has the virtue of being an interpretation most in line with direct empirical experience of quantum phenomenon. It strikes me that either:

a) there is an irreducible probability at the heart of the universe or
b) there is a form of determinism beyond human understanding

Consider the analogy between Newtonian gravity and General Relativity. At one point, GR was beyond human understanding and, for a very long time Newtonian gravity was completely in line with direct empirical observation. All GR was was a geometric refinement of physical theory. It introduced a higher dimensionality to explain things that Newtonian gravity could not. So, too, do I understand Einstein's perspective that a more complex geometry with an even higher dimensionality could explain things deterministically that appear now to be random fluctuations. Furthermore, despite higher dimension geometry being evermore mentally demanding, it still is in keeping with Occam's razor in that the idea itself is quite simple. I would not agree that quantum mechanical ideas are so simple.

[dissonance]

^That sums up my stance on the issue as well.

Kinda doesn't matter, though, as both hypotheses are consistent with our present set of data.