Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 2763041" data-attributes="member: 177">*shrug*.&nbsp; It wasn't the one my philosophy profs used.&nbsp; But perhaps they weren't &quot;standard&quot;.&nbsp; I find it hard to merit a definition that says &quot;it is deterministic, though the result cannot, even in theory, be determined beforehand&quot;.Geh.&nbsp; That way lies nihilism and a number of other philosopies I find unsavory.&nbsp; If there's only one possible future, there's not a whole lot of point to the exercise.&nbsp; But, of course, if there's only one possible future, whether or not I commit suicide in despair has already been writ, so what I think about it matters little, I guess <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />&nbsp; We can certainly build macroscopic items that do display QM indeterminism.&nbsp; For the most part, on the macro-scale it all comes out in the statistical wash, but, as you say, if the system is highly sensitive to initial conditions, amplification can happen.&nbsp; If it'll work with a geiger-counter on a computer, it'll work for a brain.&nbsp; That's good enough for me <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Where I come from &quot;Determinism&quot; is a matter of &quot;can it be done, in theory&quot; rather than &quot;can I do it now, with the tools at hand&quot;.&nbsp; A deterministic system can be predicted, in theory.&nbsp; A system that is mathematically chaotic is (be definition) entirely deterministic.&nbsp; The question is whether we know the conditions and rules to high enough precision.&nbsp; Humans are either non-deterministic, or chaotic, but there's no way to tell at the moment which is the case.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 2763041, member: 177"] *shrug*. It wasn't the one my philosophy profs used. But perhaps they weren't "standard". I find it hard to merit a definition that says "it is deterministic, though the result cannot, even in theory, be determined beforehand". Geh. That way lies nihilism and a number of other philosopies I find unsavory. If there's only one possible future, there's not a whole lot of point to the exercise. But, of course, if there's only one possible future, whether or not I commit suicide in despair has already been writ, so what I think about it matters little, I guess :) We can certainly build macroscopic items that do display QM indeterminism. For the most part, on the macro-scale it all comes out in the statistical wash, but, as you say, if the system is highly sensitive to initial conditions, amplification can happen. If it'll work with a geiger-counter on a computer, it'll work for a brain. That's good enough for me :) Where I come from "Determinism" is a matter of "can it be done, in theory" rather than "can I do it now, with the tools at hand". A deterministic system can be predicted, in theory. A system that is mathematically chaotic is (be definition) entirely deterministic. The question is whether we know the conditions and rules to high enough precision. Humans are either non-deterministic, or chaotic, but there's no way to tell at the moment which is the case. [/QUOTE]

Verification