olegt
Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006
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null's thread predictably brings up quality tard. Timaeus opines:
| Quote | The reason that people have come to interpret “random” as “causeless” is due to a certain interpretation of quantum physics, the so-called “Copenhagen interpretation,” which is the interpretation of the majority of physicists. According to this interpretation, there is *literally no reason* why one energy level rather than another is assumed by an electron at a given time, or why a radioactive particle is given off at time X rather than five minutes later. Only a statistical generalization can be made for these events; no sufficient cause can be given for any of them taken individually...
I happen to think that the Copenhagen interpretation is wrong; I think the physicists who hold to it are philosophical incompetents who don’t know what they are talking about. I think they have mistaken the human inability to specify causes for the absence of causes. I think they have mistaken mathematical randomness for ontological randomness. |
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Timaeus. Physicists have thought long and hard about this question. As David Mermin remarked, anybody who’s not bothered by Bell’s theorem has to have rocks in his head. There were great scientists on both sides of the issue (e.g., Einstein and Bohr) and the acceptance of ontological randomness in quantum physics was not easy. It was accepted only because all other options (such as nonlocal hidden variables) were even less appealing.
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