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Author | Topic: Chance moves in mysterious ways. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
Is randomness the God of Science?
I believe randomness is the God of Science in the sense that it is used to account for observable phenomena which science is unable to predict. "Randomness done it" is as rigorous as "God done it". Scientists argue that existence of god is not scientifically verified because there are no repeatable laboratory experiments to support the claim. Scientists also argue that existence of god is not scientifically falsifiable because god is, by definition, not testable. (My assumption here is that scientifically recordable properties do not apply to god, by definition). Therefore existence of god is not a scientific proposition. It is neither verified nor falsifiable. Many scientific theories, including Darwin's theory of evolution, depend on the existence of randomness. Is the existence of randomness verified and falsifiable? I believe the existence of randomness is neither verified nor falsifiable. Furthermore, I do not believe it is verifiable. This thread is intended for the science section. Edited by sinequanon, : My own opinions and target section added as requested by admin.
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
Thank you, AdminPhat. It did cross my mind that I was taking a small liberty as a newbie, but enthusiasm got the better of me. There will be a decent gap in future before I submit a proposal.
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
Any chance hypothesis is falsifiable. Thank you, PaulK. I do agree with this. Equally, a "god hypothesis", which claims that god caused an experimental result, is also falsifiable. But the existence of god is not. I claim that the existence of randomness is also not falsifiable.
Mutations are random in that there is no good connection between the factors relevant to biology and the particular mutations that occur. Does this mean that science has found no connection or that science has found that there is no connection?
Radioactive half-lives and gas pressures are two examples where the numbers add up to results that appear deterministic. I agree that a random element need not mean that all predictability is obliterated.
Chance IS the absence of a usable non-chance model. Does this always mean science is saying, "we don't know how it works precisely, yet"/"we know precisely how it works, but we don't have the processing power"? OR is science sometimes postulating that no deterministic model could exists in the particular instance.
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
The chance hypothesis is falsified by statistical tests. How would you falsify the "God hypothesis" ? Doesn't God "move in mysterious ways" ? I take your point, and I refer specifically to scientific falsification. That is to say, you could, and therefore should, dispense with a god hypothesis by demonstrating a scientific model that predicts the phenomenon in question.
That depends on what you mean by "the existence of randomness". If chance is regarded as the absence of any usable deterministic models then it seems silly to say that it does not exist. It will "exist" unless or until we DO have usable deterministic models for everything. (At a deeper philosophical level it is possible that the universe is deterministic, but that's a quite different issue). I did not want to foreclose, in the title, any debate about the meaning of the word randomness. As you have mentioned, there are cases where a statistical model is preferred to describe complex deterministic phenomena. However, there are other cases in which the phenomenon itself is regarded as non-deterministic, and demands a statistical model. You mention the "connection between selective pressures and the mutations", another that springs to mind is quantum state transitions of a particle. If randomness exists, surely this means the universe cannot be wholly deterministic. To me, this is about the deeper question of a deterministic universe. However, I do not see this as a philosophical issue at all. Surely, given the examples mentioned above and by implication of the consistency of scientific theory, the universe cannot be deterministic. Why would that fact be consigned to the obscurity of philosophy?
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
The best science can ever say is that no connection has been found (between any two variable in question) untill a connection (correlation, causal link what have you) is found. One cannot conclude anything as proven with the scientific method. Science could also give an indication as to the confidence with which any connection is likely to be found. Science could then propound or conclude, in the normal way and within the normal rigorous constraints, a scientific theory regarding the existence of connection.
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
Surely that only refutes that idea that God specifically intervened in a particular case, but not in others. How could you refute the idea that God consistently intervenes in a particular way ? In the normal way of repeating the experiment until confidence is established. If the necessity of the "god hypothesis" can be disproved within standard scientific confidence margins, I assume the hypothesis to be successfully refuted.
That's a bit confused. We regard mutations as random because there is no identifiable casual connection. We don't model the casual connection because there isn't one (that we can find). The problem I am having is that the concept of "identifiable" and "identified" seem to be being used interchangeably. I see a similar ambivalence in your use of brackets round "that we can find". I wonder if you could please spell it out. Are we talking of things that no one has found, or things that we have evidence will never be found?
Because we can never be sure. We can't tell the difference between a causal factor that is invisible to us and the absence of any causal factors. It's quite easy for something that is not really random to appear random. How do you interpret the uncertainty principle in quantum particle physics? It is an inherently probabilistic model that cannot have a deterministic equivalent?
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
But if God consistently intervenes the experiment will reliably produce the same results. So you are arguing that data consistent with the hypothesis actually refutes it. (My assumption in post#1 is that god is not governed by any law) Should god choosing to consistently intervene be treated any differently from god being governed by the consistent pattern? I am arguing that consistency of results builds confidence that some law or consistent pattern is governing the experiment.
...or even that they do not exist and the particle is "smeared" across space ? That is the line with which I am more familiar. It would be interesting to hear exactly how this "smearing" affects repeatability of measurement, and what any single physical measurement for a particle, in a bubble chamber say, actually represents.
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
But it is an assumption, The point is, that to falsify the idea that God is doing something you have to know what God will do (and show that it doesn't happen). If God does intervene in experiments (and why would He ?) then why wouldn't He intervene consistently ? It's not as if it takes any significant effort on His part. Yes, I have stated as an assumption that, by God, we mean an entity not governed by any law. Perhaps a believer in God could disagree with this assumption. I would then ask them which laws control God. It would be a very interesting discussion.
That isn't really random - it's just a deviation from the classical behaviour. So far as I know the bubble chamber rack is the after-effects of interactions with a particle, scaled up to the macroscopic level and the measurement uncertainties of the apparatus mask the uncertainty effects that we're talking about. Yes, I understand we are talking about a refinement of classical behaviour observable at nuclear scales, and which tends to classical behaviour at ordinary scales. The point I am making is that single measurements exist but clearly do not fully describe the observable. The observable is in some way represented by the full set of measurements, which follows a random distribution. The random distribution becomes an intrinsic part of the full measurement. If a mechanism existed whereby you could obtain a repeatable value for a single measurement wouldn't the whole concept fall apart?
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
Hi Sinquanon. Not really sure what the thrust of your post is but "randomness" has its own branch of mathematics. Hi, iceage. When something unexplained happens science does not accept the explanation "God done it". This thread is to examine why science accepts the explanation "Randomness done it".
Random processes can be modeled and described with detail. Therefore I can't buy "Randomness done it" is like saying "God done it". Take the very simple quantum physics example of bound states of a particle in a square potential well. Quantum theory predicts a probability distribution for the particle's position in the well, and this is supported by experiment. I perform an experiment and get a value for the particle's position.I repeat the experiment and get a different value, any value in the range of the well. There is no way of determining what the next value will be. Several repeats may reveal a pattern, but there is no model for the order in which the pattern of values arises. So we have an unexplained phenomenon with consequence. What caused the values to be different? God or randomness? Is "randomness" a backdoor by which God can work his magic unscrutinized?
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
That would be why. Preference of one form of non-repeatable "magic" over another?
He's fooling physicists by making quantum mechanics look non-deterministic. Are you suggesting that quantum mechanics is deterministic? Have you found a way of making repeatable single measurements?
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
That really doesn't deal with the point. Indeed since there's no "law" forbidding God from intervening consistently you're still back to having to predict what God would do. You are making a separate point. My point makes the assumption. I am making a valid argument, not necessarily a sound one. In the absence of the assumption, the corollary would be that, if god exists, a scientifically proven law demonstrates that god is consistent with that law. You can then pose the question, "is god consistent with any law?"
Not exactly, because there are limits on the measurements. All we can do is narrow down the measurements to a limited range - which represents the "smearing". I'm not completely sure what you are saying here, but I do not think it is what the principles of quantum mechanics are saying. It is not a question of accuracy.
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
No, we're talking about the same thing - how to rule out "goddunit". Now you are confusing a specific point with the overall argument. The specific point is a valid argument with a clearly stated premise. The truth of the premise is a separate point about the soundness of the argument. I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this.
You would have to assume that God exists to reach that "corollary". Which rather spoils the point of a "God of the Gaps" argument. I think you have a preconceived argument in your head and you are trying to match it to this one.
Well that's odd, because it agrees with your understanding of the Uncertainty Principle - as you've expressed it here. The Uncertainty Principle is all about precision (the more correct term than accuracy). You've misunderstood my understanding and, it would appear, the uncertainty principle. Edited by sinequanon, : No reason given.
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
Not really. I had to point out that you were relying on the assumption that God would not consistently intervene. Then, for whatever reason, you were pointing out the premise I made in the OP. Do you understand what a premise is?
I'm not the one who misunderstands the Uncertainty Principle. The Uncertainty Principle is a limit on the precision with which position and momentum can be simultaneously determined. If you don't understand that then you simply don't have a clue about the Uncertainty Principle. Unfortunately, it's a bit more subtle than that. Even though you are able to state the principle, you still seem to have a classical concept of what is meant by precision.
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
No, for the reason which I actually gave, namely that the predictions of the theory are confirmed by experiments which are, in fact, repeatable. Fire a single particle through a slit at a sensitive screen. It makes a dot on the screen. In what sense can you repeat that experiment and get the same single result?
I thought that's what you were doing. I was being sarcastic. Best understand the issue before getting sarcastic, eh?
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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
It's not mentioned in the OP. Look again!
Scientists also argue that existence of god is not scientifically falsifiable because god is, by definition, not testable. (My assumption here is that scientifically recordable properties do not apply to god, by definition). Is consistency with a law a scientifically recordable property, or not?
I'm using the mathematical concept of precision. Whether there is a precise value that cannot be discovered or - as we've been agreeing on this thread no precise value to discovered makes no difference to that. Wrong. That is your own conclusion based on your classical understanding of an observable. I have not agreed with you.
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