Actually, the electron does not have a definite location at all--the waveform is entirely distinct from any of the possible places the electron can be. This is demonstrated by the fact that "exclusive" possibilities nevertheless affect each other--something that would be impossible if the electron actually had a location at all (canonically, the crests in the waveforms shown in the pattern produced by the double slit experiment, where no electrons (or whatever particle you're using) hit even when sent through one at a time--even though if you cover up either slit, the electrons suddenly appear there).
The purpose of the wave function is to model this, and how these "exclusive" possibilities as a whole effect each other. The wave function represents something more fundamental than the possibilities in this regards.
This stuff is difficult to talk about because in the chaos of imprecise and conflated language coupled with the fact that no one really knows what quantum mechanics represents in reality, any given statement can be picked apart. Suffice it to say that I meant to speak of things like electrons as having locations in so far as fields such as chemistry need to talk about the behavor of such entities, which are not dissimilar from another other bits of matter. If one wants to figure out the "shape" of hybridized bond orbitals, wave functions are what they'll use. (Obviously, most chemists don't need to perform such math, but work from short-cut methods that are known to agress with such an analysis.) Regardless, there is need speak of things like electrons as having something that best translates as a region of influence. Call it location, position, whatever -- point is, wave functions can be used to acurately determine where the action is and isn't. And those functions are based on probability out of necessity.
I don't think you disagree with any of that and I think you understand that I was only using it as an analogy anyway. Probably a bad analogy at that. My general point was and remains that in the case of things that have definate values (such as universal constants), any analysis based purely on probability can lose sight of the fact the value on the face of a tossed die or coin is the result the physical dynamics involved, that the ultimate result was in cards (to bring in more gambling devices) long before it landed.
I'm not really sure what this has to do with the FT... perhaps I'm missing some context.
Singularitarian invoked the "wave function of the universe" on a previous page and tried to use it to justify something to the effect of a superposition of all possible universes from which one emerged. This sort of thinking is ultimately (if not precisely) what gives credence to wondering why "of the possible universes" we have the one we have. I mean, we have pretty much zero idea why the universal constants we have are what they are, and here we are assuming that other ones are possible and assigning
probabilities to them. It's absurd.
My primary point in this thread is this: the most parsimonious answer to the question of the probability that the universe has the constant parameters it has is 100%, because those constants -- if the sum total of all previous observations of causation will hold -- are determined and therefore the only
possibility under consideration. In a deterministic universe, if it isn't determined, it's not a possibility.
(I don't think there's any credible reason to suggest that we're in anything other than a deterministic universe. Rather than derail this thread with it, however, if anyone wants to discuss it, I'd love to see a thread dedicated to it in the Science section.)
