News Item: : Determinism vs Randomness
(Category: Misc)
Posted by UG
Friday 29 January 2010 - 13:26:25
{NEWSICON}"Had a few different cards been dealt, I could ..." When I read that sentence yesterday evening in my bed, as good my novel is (and it is), I stopped and looked at my ceiling (it's a beautiful one, I painted it myself). As every time I come across similar sentences, I thought of the old fight between determinism and randomness. When I was younger, I once came to the conclusion that:
Yes, I know, I already talked about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which destroys this theory I thought was mine (cf my rule#6 previous post).
I always wondered why no one ever thought of that before me... Well today, thanks again Wikipedia, I found out that this theory of mine... is in fact not mine at all. Or at least I wasn't the first
A guy by the name of Pierre-Simon Laplace (cocorico, a frog), brillantly said in 1814:
Oh my god, had this fellow countryman lived *after* me I would have suspect him of mental theft!
Maybe he's one of my ancestors...
I have to admit that despite Heisenberg's principle, I still deeply believe in determinism, at least in a cold unhearty scientific approach.
Yes, I know that perhaps it's also due to the fact that believing in determinism is quite reassuring: "What ever I do, I can't change the future".
Well, after a second thought, that ain't as reassuring as much as I primarily thought.
In the end, what really annoys me isn't if it's true or not, it's that I'll never know whether my mental ancestor and I were right or not.
(perhaps I'll get a beyond death e-mail)
(that would be great)
(anyone has ever thought of that concept?)
This news item is from Unexpected Guest
( http://www.unexpectedguest.com/blog/news.php?extend.35 )
(Category: Misc)
Posted by UG
Friday 29 January 2010 - 13:26:25
{NEWSICON}"Had a few different cards been dealt, I could ..." When I read that sentence yesterday evening in my bed, as good my novel is (and it is), I stopped and looked at my ceiling (it's a beautiful one, I painted it myself). As every time I come across similar sentences, I thought of the old fight between determinism and randomness. When I was younger, I once came to the conclusion that:
Randomness does not exist. It only describes our inability to embrace the complexity of the universe. By knowing at a given moment every particle position and speed, we could simply foresee the future.
Yes, I know, I already talked about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which destroys this theory I thought was mine (cf my rule#6 previous post).
I always wondered why no one ever thought of that before me... Well today, thanks again Wikipedia, I found out that this theory of mine... is in fact not mine at all. Or at least I wasn't the first
A guy by the name of Pierre-Simon Laplace (cocorico, a frog), brillantly said in 1814:
We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.
Oh my god, had this fellow countryman lived *after* me I would have suspect him of mental theft!
Maybe he's one of my ancestors...
I have to admit that despite Heisenberg's principle, I still deeply believe in determinism, at least in a cold unhearty scientific approach.
Yes, I know that perhaps it's also due to the fact that believing in determinism is quite reassuring: "What ever I do, I can't change the future".
Well, after a second thought, that ain't as reassuring as much as I primarily thought.
In the end, what really annoys me isn't if it's true or not, it's that I'll never know whether my mental ancestor and I were right or not.
(perhaps I'll get a beyond death e-mail)
(that would be great)
(anyone has ever thought of that concept?)
This news item is from Unexpected Guest
( http://www.unexpectedguest.com/blog/news.php?extend.35 )