Taking Down Determinism

[Bill Thompson 75]

So, from my above cite, Hawking does not believe this:

Thus, the future of the universe is not completely determined by the laws of science, and its present state, as Laplace thought. - Stephen Hawking​

Is there anyone who believes this now?

Or is "Taking down Determinism" akin to "Taking down Phlogiston"?

See the Interpretations of QM above.
See the interview reference below.

 

[Robin]

So what is the difference between "X determines Y" and "X causes Y"?

Determinism implies a sequence of states, each of which is causally determined by the previous state.
"X determines Y" refers to causality from one state to the next.
There can be causation from outside this sequence of states.

So you are saying that the next state cannot be determined by anything outside of the sequence of states?

It is a clarification necessary to understand my argument.

A new and entirely unfamiliar usage of the word "clarification".

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Really?

"The traditional conception of cause and effect is one which modern science shows to be fundamentally erroneous, and requiring to be replaced by a quite different notion, that of LAWS OF CHANGE. "​

I am not sure how much clearer he could have been about that.

What he called the traditional conception of cause and effect was not even a common scientific view of cause and effect in his time.
His Laws of Change merely formalized his view of cause and effect.

 

[Robin]

That particular quote is from an interview:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article657706.ece

Your cite is not from an interview. It is from an article that repeats the same quote without a cite.

Where is the quote from so that I can find the context?

 

[Robin]

See the Interpretations of QM above.
See the interview reference below.

So a quote from a lecture delivered by Stephen Hawking and sourced from his website concluding that "the future of the universe is not completely determined by the laws of science, and its present state" is not sufficient evidence that Hawking does not believe that the future of the universe is completely determined by the laws of science and it's present state?

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

So you are saying that the next state cannot be determined by anything outside of the sequence of states?

That would be inconsistent with my definition of determinism.
A state can affected by factors outside the sequence of states.

A new and entirely unfamiliar usage of the word "clarification".

I was rephrasing your comment to make it applicable to my argument.

 

[The Man]

I would dig out my books if I thought this was relevant to my post, but I will let you do your own homework.

You made the claim that Hawking held a particular view and I challenged you to back it up.

You gave a broad brush cite that this claim is backed up somewhere within the pages of "A Brief History of Time".

I challenge you to be more specific and you give excuses.

I am pretty sure that Hawking does not make that claim anywhere in "A Brief History of Time"

Why did you make the claim in the first place if it was not relevant?

No problem, I’m quite familiar with the book and I’ve got it right here. So either my library is smaller or just better organized than Bill‘s. From the index, determinism is referenced on three pages 53, 55 and 172.

From page 53 the beginning of chapter titled “The Uncertainty Principle”

After referring to “Newton’s laws to calculate the state at any other time”

Determinism seems fairly obvious in this case, but Laplace went further to assume that there were similar laws governing everything else , including human behavior.

Ok so Laplace supported determinism.

To continue

The doctrine of scientific determinism was strongly resisted by many people, who felt it infringed on God’s freedom to intervene in the world,…

Ok so God and some people (speaking perhaps in god’s stead) didn’t support “The doctrine of scientific determinism” at that time.

To continue again

…but it remained the standard assumption of science until the early years of this century.

What this?!! The assertion that the assumption had changed about a hundred years ago, and that’s just in the first reference. Who would have guessed the assertions and assumptions of science change?

Still no assertion of Professor Hawking’s own opinion of the subject.

Perhaps the next reference (in the same chapter), page 55.

The uncertainty principle signaled an end to Laplace’s dream of a theory of science, a model of the universe that would be completely deterministic: One certainly can not predict future events exactly if one cannot even measure the present state of the universe precisely!

Poor Laplace.

Still no assertion of Professor Hawking’s own opinion of the subject.

Let’s try page 172, second page of the chapter titled “Conclusion” 3rd paragraph

Laplace’s determinism was incomplete in two ways, it did not say how the laws should be chosen and it did not specify the initial configuration of the universe. These were left to God. God would choose how the universe began and what laws it obeyed, but he would not intervene in the universe once it had started. In effect, God was confined to the areas that nineteenth-century science did not understand.

We now know that Laplace’s determinism cannot be realized, at least in the terms he had in mind.

Ouch, another slam for Laplace.

From the last paragraph on that page. After referring to the wave aspect of quantum mechanics.

These quantum theories are deterministic in the sense that they give laws for the evolution of the wave with time.

The next paragraph on page 173.

In effect, we have redefined the task of science to be the discovery of laws that will enable us to predict events up to the limits set by the uncertainty principle. The question remains, however: How or why were the laws and the initial state of the universe chosen?

Oops, still no support of a completely deterministic universe, (except for poor Laplace), in fact quite the opposite.

Sorry for any mistyping.


How about that definition of a cause for some information that you consider to be deterministic, Bill Thompson 75?

 

[H'ethetheth]

All I can say is that this is absolutely wrong.



Deduce the value of Pi with a syllogism.

I am not sure how else you could deduce the value of Pi than with a process of symbolic logic.

The claim was put forth that Pi can be deduced as a syllogism.

It can be calculated with symbolic logic, if you are placing mathematics within the sphere of symbolic logic.

I cannot imagine how the value could be deduced without math.

You say pi can be deduced by math.
That is, starting from axioms, one can arrive at the value of pi by a series of purely deductive arguments.
How is this different, in principle, from arriving at Socrates' mortality, starting from premises, and following purely deductive reasoning?

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Your cite is not from an interview. It is from an article that repeats the same quote without a cite.

Where is the quote from so that I can find the context?

The author of the article (Bryan Appleyard) has not published or posted the entire interview as far as I know. You may doubt his veracity, but I do not know what his motivation would be for lying about interviewing Stephen Hawking.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

So a quote from a lecture delivered by Stephen Hawking and sourced from his website concluding that "the future of the universe is not completely determined by the laws of science, and its present state" is not sufficient evidence that Hawking does not believe that the future of the universe is completely determined by the laws of science and it's present state?

Not if he has also said what is fundamentally the opposite.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

No problem, I’m quite familiar with the book and I’ve got it right here. So either my library is smaller or just better organized than Bill‘s. From the index, determinism is referenced on three pages 53, 55 and 172.

The last quote was basically a recognition of determinism down to the quantum scale of the universe. And in the quote before that he recognizes that QM leaves room for a deterministic interpretation.

 

[Robin]

The author of the article (Bryan Appleyard) has not published or posted the entire interview as far as I know. You may doubt his veracity, but I do not know what his motivation would be for lying about interviewing Stephen Hawking.

I am pretty sure I did not accuse anybody of lying. I said I would like to read it in context.

 

[Robin]

Not if he has also said what is fundamentally the opposite.

One is a hearsay fragment of a discussion.

The other is a closely argued lecture published on his website.

I don't think the choice is rocket science.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

You say pi can be deduced by math.
That is, starting from axioms, one can arrive at the value of pi by a series of purely deductive arguments.
How is this different, in principle, from arriving at Socrates' mortality, starting from premises, and following purely deductive reasoning?

I explicitly said it can be calculated with math.
If you form a deductive argument it will require mathematical constructs.
In principle it may not be different, but the simple syllogism as presented would need to be amplified with logical forms that were not recognized by Socrates.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

One is a hearsay fragment of a discussion.

The other is a closely argued lecture published on his website.

I don't think the choice is rocket science.

I am pretty sure this is equivalent to accusing somebody of lying.

 

[laca]

The author of the article (Bryan Appleyard) has not published or posted the entire interview as far as I know. You may doubt his veracity, but I do not know what his motivation would be for lying about interviewing Stephen Hawking.

First of all, the author does not claim that all quotes from the article stem from an interview he did with Hawking. That particular quote does not have any indication of coming from an interview the author had with Hawking.

Second, I've been able to find a podcast where the host plays a part of a tape of an interview Hawking apparently did for some Israeli TV in 2006, it starts around 12:00.

http://www.onpointradio.org/media-p...7;s+Grand+Design&pubdate=2010-09-09&segment=2

Here's what can be heard from the podcast:

The basic assumption of science is scientific determinism. The laws of science determine the evolution of the universe, given its state at one time. These laws may, or may not, have been decreed by God, but he cannot intervene to break the laws, or they would not be laws. That leaves God with the freedom to choose the initial state of the universe, but even here, it seems, there may be laws. So God would have no freedom at all.

The crucial parts have been either edited out by the podcaster, or they have not been said by Hawking. The two quotes seem similar enough that I think it's the origin of the quote from the article. YMMV.

ETA: The full interview can be found here, with the full quote. Seems the podcasters edited the tape...
ETA2: Starts at 4:40.

 

[Robin]

I am pretty sure this is equivalent to accusing somebody of lying.

No, as I have said, it is the equivalent of saying that we can't tell anything without context. Appleyard does not even state that the quote is from the interview he did. He has quotes from elsewhere.

Appleyard could simply have gotten it wrong. People do get things wrong you know.

We have Hawking's considered, closely argued opinion on the subject in a lecture on his website.

It represents his considered view, it has context and it is not in any way ambiguous.

 

[H'ethetheth]

I explicitly said it can be calculated with math.
If you form a deductive argument it will require mathematical constructs.
In principle it may not be different, but the simple syllogism as presented would need to be amplified with logical forms that were not recognized by Socrates.

Er...
So, both are conclusions of purely deductive reasoning based on axioms, but somehow that makes them completely different in terms of this discussion, because of the "mathematical constructs", and "amplified logical forms"?

I'd like to give it a try to deduce pi from euclidean axioms, but I'm afraid it might take more time than I should spend on this.

 

[Robin]

I explicitly said it can be calculated with math.
If you form a deductive argument it will require mathematical constructs.
In principle it may not be different, but the simple syllogism as presented would need to be amplified with logical forms that were not recognized by Socrates.

Socrates???

 

[The Man]

Determinism implies a sequence of states, each of which is causally determined by the previous state.
"X determines Y" refers to causality from one state to the next.
There can be causation from outside this sequence of states.

Again if your going to consider some possible outcome state of the universe you must consider all the possible outcome states, initialy. Quantum mechanics demonstrates that the outcome state is only one of the possible states already in superposition, before the outcome. Your argument seems to stem from some particular limitation that you evidently want to impose upon the universe. That amounts to ‘What happened in the toilet (or the bathroom universe) was not causally related to me eating, because I had eaten and decided to take a dump while I was in the kitchen (a different universe). Thus the “information” that was introduced into the toilet (and the bathroom universe) is “non-deterministic” (toilet and bathroom universe) “information“’.

It is a clarification necessary to understand my argument.

Evidently, you don’t understand your own argument.