.
And the point you're making is....?
Quote from: Archie on August 10, 2013, 06:34:06 PM
Regarding the article, you continue to confuse determinism with probability (or human ignorance if you will) of the quantum state.
Oh well, at least I'm in good company. It seems that Einstein didn't get it either - what a dummy!
Not that I'm particularly a fan of Einstein. He's one of the reasons why modern physics has lost its way IMO. Instead of real science, it's all about coming up with the most imaginative theory, then using complex mathematics and ad-hockery to patch up the inconsistencies. Hence string theory, multiverses, black holes etc. Then you get all the woo-pedlars riding on the back of that with quantum mysticism and movies like "what the bleep do we know".
New series of Through The Wormhole on Sky tonight
should be interesting
The only problem with TV science like Horizon etc is that they have 3 mins of new info and stretch it out into 1 hour with long corridor shots and massive telescope doors opening for 4 mins...interviews with scientific talking heads...and the long stare shots when introducing a new talking head. Goes on for ages.
yes Turner you are right
but I like all that stuff lol
I agree Turner.
TV science will always be just "entertainment science" but I'm a sucker for all that type of thing.
Who would watch a 3 minute programme? On second thoughts isn't that about the modern attention span?
Trebor
In the absence of Archie's reply to my earlier question, let me propose the whole point of this thread...
It's for you all to find Schrödinger's cat so it can work out your bets for you.
That's the purrfect solution.
A catastrophe when it loses.
But you'll be feline good when it wins -- more money in the kitty.
...............and gives us more 'pause' for thought then eh.
[reveal]
paws
[/reveal]
We may need more than 9 lives to survive though! lol
Quote from: Archie on August 10, 2013, 06:34:06 PM
Anyway, the argument that randomness doesn't exist, that "admits the concept by denial".
I'd like to know your definition of randomess. The only definition that makes sense is that it means lack of knowledge, or ignorance. To say that something is
inherently random is meaningless (you might as well say that it
did gire and gimble in the wabe - to quote Lewis Carroll), and the proposition that "it is meaningless to ascribe any properties or even existence to anything that has not been measured" is self-refuting because the proposition itself cannot be measured and is therefore meaningless on its own terms (logical positivism).
Or, you can appeal to statistics, as in the wiki entry on probability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability):
In a deterministic universe, based on Newtonian concepts, there would be no probability if all conditions are known (Laplace's demon), (but there are situations in which sensitivity to initial conditions exceeds our ability to measure them, i.e. know them). In the case of a roulette wheel, if the force of the hand and the period of that force are known, the number on which the ball will stop would be a certainty (though as a practical matter, this would likely be true only of a roulette wheel that had not been exactly levelled — as Thomas A. Bass' Newtonian Casino revealed). Of course, this also assumes knowledge of inertia and friction of the wheel, weight, smoothness and roundness of the ball, variations in hand speed during the turning and so forth. A probabilistic description can thus be more useful than Newtonian mechanics for analyzing the pattern of outcomes of repeated rolls of roulette wheel. Physicists face the same situation in kinetic theory of gases, where the system, while deterministic in principle, is so complex (with the number of molecules typically the order of magnitude of Avogadro constant 6.02·1023) that only statistical description of its properties is feasible.
Probability theory is required to describe quantum phenomena.[22] A revolutionary discovery of early 20th century physics was the random character of all physical processes that occur at sub-atomic scales and are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. The objective wave function evolves deterministically but, according to the Copenhagen interpretation, it deals with probabilities of observing, the outcome being explained by a wave function collapse when an observation is made. However, the loss of determinism for the sake of instrumentalism did not meet with universal approval. Albert Einstein famously remarked in a letter to Max Born: "I am convinced that God does not play dice".[23] Like Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, who discovered the wave function, believed quantum mechanics is a statistical approximation of an underlying deterministic reality.[24] In modern interpretations, quantum decoherence accounts for subjectively probabilistic behavior.
Its shrodingers birthay today
"Einstein disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk"
(Bob Dylan)
Bayes
If I read your second sentence correctly, you are saying <If you believe in random, you are uneducated>. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.
"In a deterministic universe, based on Newtonian concepts, there would be no probability if all conditions are known (Laplace's demon)".
How do you get past that red "if"?
Reminds me of the old saying: IF we had some ham, we'd have some ham and eggs--IF we had some eggs.
So roulette is NOT random if you know all the variables, but you CAN'T know all the variables. So what does that make our real, not theoretical, game of roulette? Random!!
TwoCat
Quote from: TwoCatSam on August 12, 2013, 12:45:20 PM
So roulette is NOT random if you know all the variables, but you CAN'T know all the variables. So what does that make our real, not theoretical, game of roulette? Random!!
I don't know much about quantum physics but I do know what makes game real for me...
You don't need to know ALL possible variables of the game at the moment of playing ( I hardly believe that is even possible), but speaking of variables, I consider one would be more successful if he would more pay attention to some
money management variables at the moment of playing...
On our luck variables in random do have some limits, so find the ones which are most suitable for you to use them and together with the ones from your MM will make game pleasantly real.[smiley]aes/rose.png[/smiley]
Best
Drazen
Quote from: TwoCatSam on August 12, 2013, 12:45:20 PM
If I read your second sentence correctly, you are saying <If you believe in random, you are uneducated>. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.
Sam,
No, that's not at all what I meant. I'm using "ignorance" simply to mean that you don't have knowledge of why an event occurs (nothing to do with not being educated in the wider sense, and it certainly wasn't meant to be derogatory).
So I'm saying that when you say that something is "random", this SHOULD say something about your knowledge (or lack of it), rather than the event itself. It's simply a shorthand way of admitting that you don't know. You don't know which slot the ball will land in, or whether the coin will land heads or tails up, so you say it's "random". On the other hand, some think that this is far too subjective (and it implies that "everything is relative"); they want "randomness" to be an objective thing because it's more "scientific" (but it isn't, it just seems that way until you look at it carefully).
Now you might be impatient with this and say it's just a silly argument about semantics. As you point out, if it's not possible to know all the variables then you might just as well go ahead and call it "random" for all practical purposes. It might seem like philosophical nit-picking, but it does have practical consequences in the field of statistics. There is a very long running and bitter argument between scientists and philosophers about what probability actually means (and this is closely connected to what "random" means). One view (which has been the dominant one in the 20th century, but is now starting to give way to the alternative interpretation) says that probability is just the long-run measurement of frequencies, and leads to statistical techniques which are almost impossible to understand and don't make much sense. Unfortunately this methodology has been forced on students for the last 60-80 years, which is why pretty much everyone hates the subject.
Still, the basic mathematical laws of probability are the same for both views (as mentioned in the Wiki article).
Bayes
Will Rogers, Oklahoma's favorite son, made this statement: Everyone is ignorant, just on different subjects. I am ignorant as to how to perform brain surgery! I am not offended. Stupid offends me. [smiley]aes/devil.png[/smiley]
It seems this argument is academic; no place for a Redneck like me!! I'll just call it random and do my thing.
Some days my thing works very, very well!!
Sam
Quote from: Bayes on August 12, 2013, 02:06:09 PM
Sam,
No, that's not at all what I meant. I'm using "ignorance" simply to mean that you don't have knowledge of why an event occurs (nothing to do with not being educated in the wider sense, and it's certainly wasn't meant to be derogatory).
So I'm saying that when you say that something is "random", this SHOULD say something about your knowledge (or lack of it), rather than the event itself. It's simply a shorthand way of admitting that you don't know. You don't know which slot the ball will land in, or whether the coin will land heads or tails up, so you say it's "random". On the other hand, some think that this is far too subjective (and it implies that "everything is relative"); they want "randomness" to be an objective thing because it's more "scientific" (but it isn't, it just seems that way until you look at it carefully).
Now you might be impatient with this and say it's just a silly argument about semantics. As you point out, if it's not possible to know all the variables then you might just as well go ahead and call it "random" for all practical purposes. It might seem like philosophical nit-picking, but it does have practical consequences in the field of statistics. There is a very long running and bitter argument between scientists and philosophers about what probability actually means (and this is closely connected to what "random" means). One view (which has been the dominant one in the 20th century, but is now starting to give way to the alternative interpretation) says that probability is just the long-run measurement of frequencies, and leads to statistical techniques which are almost impossible to understand and don't make much sense. Unfortunately this methodology has been forced on students for the last 60-80 years, which is why pretty much everyone hates the subject.
Still, the basic mathematical laws of probability are the same for both views (as mentioned in the Wiki article).
I am sure that you know this: "Everything is relative" did NOT come from Einstein.
As a true "Dylananiac" I quoted something from Desolation Row. I read somewhere that Bob Dylan was inspired by an old cartoon drawing showing Einstein and the Danish Niels Bohr disguised as Robin Hood and the monk.
Many people know Einstein´s statement from a heated discussion with Bohr: "GOD DOES NOT PLAY DICE". Bohr answered that we should not interfere with what God might or might not do. At least this is what I have heard.
Maybe the gods or the Laws of Nature do not permit gamblers to grow into Heaven?
Some utopian gurus maintained, that we ought to contact GUF ("Grand Unified Field" in Quantum Machanics) and experience the deepest level through meditation and live in accordance with all the Laws of Nature. Sooner of later we´ll have enough of such statements and might prefer an ironic approach. So I once wrote a short story (in Danish) to a local chess magazine. In my story a mad professor had found out, that the Universe is like a chess board.
Time to look at application to betting before everyone falls asleep!
1 Consider this interesting quote:
However quantum physics gives us a strategy that, in a sense, guarantees we will win every single time...If we act based on the outcome of a random quantum event then there is an alternate reality in which we make each possible choice. The difference between a classical random number generator (e.g., coin-flipping) and a quantum random number generator is that the former is fundamentally deterministic. I.e., there is no reason to believe that when a coin comes up tails there is an alternate universe in which at the same moment it came up heads. In contrast, an unbiased quantum flip truly does come up both heads and tails in "alternate realities."
I think the world would be a better place if I had a lot more money under my control. So I will select 28 random qubits and spend $1 to play PowerBall. I know that at the end of the game there exists exactly one reality in which I am an instant multimillionaire. Granted, that is one of only 146MM alternate realities. But if I don't undertake this exercise I would expect exactly zero realities in which I am much richer next week.
If we incorporated random qubits into our large-scale activity, instead of waiting for the effects of quantum probabilities to ooze up from the atomic level, the "multiverse" would be a much more diverse place!
[http://federalist.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/win-at-gambling-using-quantum-physics/ (http://federalist.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/win-at-gambling-using-quantum-physics/)]
And this:
2 http://www.randomnumbers.info/content/Generating.htm (http://www.randomnumbers.info/content/Generating.htm)
Plus physicists have already built a quantum gambling machine. [An answer to RNG 'fiddling'...perhaps...??]
3 http://phys.org/news128773803.html (http://phys.org/news128773803.html)