Destiny and quantum behaviour?

Question

First off im a complete amateur in this area so feel free to shoot me down.

okay. so quantum behaviour posesses certain random elements such as the uncertainty principal and that on a quantum scale certain events are simply impossible to predict unlike lets say predicting the outcome of a pool game if you had all the data on the forces, masses,humidity etc. and a supercomputer to number crunch.

But on the quantum scale is everything really that uncertain and random? Surely this disproves destiny and determinism as it shows that scientifically everything on a quantum scale gets kinda grubby.

So is quantum behaviour un determined and therefore random? Or is it determined but just impossible to predict therefore giving rise to apparent randomness and uncertainty?

Answer 1

No, quantum behaviour is not random. The uncertainty principle is simply a statement that there are two elements when considering a particles state - Velocity, and position, and that the measurement of either will have an unknown effect on the other. The more accurate the measurement, the more the UNKNOWN effect on the other property will be. This is also known as the 'observer effect'. It basically means that when you measure the velocity, the position changes, and if you measure the position, the velocity changes. The problem with the current measurement technique is that to obtain a more accurate figure for either measurement requires that the other property is affected proportionally more, rendering the accuracy of both no better, and thus all we can ascertain are probabilities within defined ranges.



Therefore, it is impossible for humans to measure both at this point in time, but that doesn't mean they are 'random'.



You could argue that it is 'random' - since in my view, 'random' isn't a scientific term - it is simply a label given to the limit of human predictions. All random means is that we are unable to predict it at this time.



To quote Einstein - 'God does not play dice with the universe' (Although scientists such as Hawking have recently claimed events were random at the beginning of the universe). Again though, dice are not random - they are just beyond our calculations in the scenario we usually roll them, and therefore god DOES play dice with the universe.

Answer 2

In the world of the very small.. like an electron, the best way to describe its behaviour is via the SSWE..Dirac et al showed that particles had wave properties, just as Einstein and Planck showed that waves could behave as discrete particles.

The SWE is similar to the ordinary wave equation of a stretched string..of the form ..dPhi/dt=(grad)^2Phi+(E-V)*Phi

where 'Phi' is the wave function of the particle.

If you want to make measurements on the position, energy momentum etc of the wave function you have to operate on phi using various 'hamiltonians' (u could actually use other H-ops..but that is another story). The solutions to the wave equn given these operats correspond to probabilities for the momentum, position, energy of the particle (or more exactly the squares of these values as the probabilities actually have imaginary values). The result is u can specify a probable orbital cloud for the position of an electron in the vicinity of a proton for example which varies in amplitude according to energy (hence giving the shape of the various s,p,d,f orbitals etc). Also what emerges naturally from the SWE formulation is that quantities like momentum and position are non-commutative and that thhe product of the probality variances like delta(p)*delta(x)=h/2pi.. This leads to the HU principle.

Our knowledge of conjug8 quantities like this are uncertain but precisely uncertain. We live in a non-deterministic universe. On the other hand according to Louiville theory of divergence of flux of a vector..classical mechanics predicts a non-deterministic universe too!

Answer 3

For the sake of survival & prosperity, people type society. Society demands justice or fairness. Socialized people start to think of there is a few form of intrinsic fairness in the international, like Karma or a God that ensures justice would be executed. So as quickly as we see somebody screwed over via undesirable luck, we construe the concept that their misfortune replaced into genuinely some form of Karmic/Deistic justice, perhaps from a prior existence we've with ease forgotten. yet logically conversing there is no compelling reason to have faith destiny or previous lives exist. Justice is synthetic. it is not a state we've fallen from, this is what we could gain if we are VERY careful & even then sh!t happens. recognition according to se is irrelevant. You try for what you pick, and someplace between solid making plans and undesirable luck, is what you land up with. Blaming your formative years is senseless & blaming previous lives is senseless & stupid.

Answer 4

i think as far as people can tell, it is 'random'



if there was a known mechanism that determines the outcomes of single quatum events with certainty, QM would become obsolete quite quickly





so it may seem random now, but the progress of science may show something else in the future

Answer 5

Quantum mechanics reduces everything to probabilities on the smallest scales. But when you start to put a bunch of small particles together, they act very predictably simply because of the laws of probability. Things can seem to act 'randomly' on small scales, but scales get big very very quickly. It doesn't effect your life.

Answer 6

Okay- first off, don't say Okay. What is evidently uncertain is your grasp of what you have been reading. You see, a particle can be in two places at once: very like a man cheating on his wife. Not only that, it can be this or that or maybe both. It's a random thing, like ERNIE who btw, hasn't coughed up anything in my direction since 1960. Luckily Quantum Mechanics is only a theory, like the 'Big Bang' so we can all go back to sleep.

Answer 7

Quantum physics is great. It denies atoms existence and exercises the mind into different areas of what its all about.



Do as Socrates did, and question everything!



No brain could ever decode mine.