Probabilities in Quantum Mechanics and in general tells us there's no randomness

The universe seems to evolve in a very specific non random way. This is because the probabilities that can occur are fine tuned and restrained. This is also why math can describe certain features of nature with accuracy and our theories can explain these things. When you look at Quantum Mechanics, we can accurately predict the evolution of the wave function until a measurement occurs. Even then we can predict which outcomes can occur and assign those outcomes probabilities.

This isn't randomness.

When you roll a pair of dice, play poker or watch a football game, things only appear random but they're truly controlled by restrained probabilities. You can only roll a 2-12 with a pair of dice. The outcome of each roll may be random but what outcomes can occur isn't random. The same with Poker or with the rules of a Football game. You can play these things ad infinitum and the same things will happen over and over again because the probabilities that can occur are restrained and were designed by an intelligent mind.

I think this actually points to a Designer of the universe. An Intelligence that understands and controls everything. That intelligence is manifested through us.

I also think this points to parallel universes. That's because there has to be something behind the probabilities. You never hear many Scientist talk about why these probabilities. We know probabilities occur because there's a combination that makes one event more likely than another event.

So with dice, you have 36 total probable states that can occur. So the outcome is limited to those 36 states. We can say the probability to roll a 7 is 16.7% because there's 6/36 ways or combinations that will give you a 7. The probabilities are restrained and put in place by an intelligent mind that created the pair of dice and therefore we can make accurate predictions about the outcomes that can occur.

The reason I say this points to parallel universes is because there has to be a reason why there could be a 66% chance of spin up or a 34% chance of spin down. Both of these probabilities have to exist as underlying realities in order for them to have the possibility of occurring. They also have to be associated with restrained probabilities that say there's more ways you can get spin up than there is you can get spin down in this scenario.

We know hidden variables are looking unlikely because with each experiment locality is being violated. So there has to be something that restrains the probabilities that can occur. It also assigns probabilities as to the chances of each of these events occurring. So the universe is like the dice in a sense because we can accurately predict these things and because we can make these predictions we have the modern technology that drives the world today.

I believe this points to the wave function being a real entity that underlies everything. The reason we can only predict restrained probabilities is because we don't know the state of the global wave function.

If we knew the state of the global wave function, we could say why we get these probabilities because there's more combinations that give us spin up than there is that gives us spind down and we can know what these combinations are and we could predict the evolution of the global wave function. So the wave function contains both probabilities just like a pair of dice contains the possibilty of rolling a 7 or a 2. We can just measure 1 of these states at a time but it doesn't mean the other states don't exist. We call this local ignorance randomness but it's not randomness at all.

a reply to: neoholographic

I'm not sure I agree with you thinking. There may be constraints on what is possible with any given single measurement, but what happens over time can vary a great deal. Unless you can explain away the source of experimental error or the origin of rogue waves then your theories will always contain the potential for non-compliance.

I think it becomes an information problem at some point. There just isn't enough measurement power to accurately capture what is happening in reality. Although within very well defined context, we have mathematics that accurately represent natures behaviors, our mathematics does not completely represent natures behaviors.

I do know one thing about nature. Nature always turns out to be so much stranger than anything we could have ever imagined.

a reply to: dfnj2015

You said:

There may be constraints on what is possible with any given single measurement, but what happens over time can vary a great deal.

It doesn't vary a great deal. In fact, it's very predictable. This is why we can put satellites in the sky and use them for GPS or we can detect gravity waves. It's because probabilities are restrained and things are very predictable.

You get stars, planets and galaxies forming over and over again because probabilities are restrained and these things are predictable. There's nothing new under the sun.

This is because we're a manifestation of the same intelligence that created all things. That encoded sequence with information that convey's a message and meaning we can understand.

I can encode sequence with information that can be decoded by another intelligent mind.

So I can take 3 rocks and say if the middle rock is in a higher position than the outer two rocks, meet me at Subway. If the middle rock is lower than the outer two rocks than meet me at Rite Aid. I have just encoded sequence with information that can convey that message to another intelligent mind if they have the understanding to decode it.

This is the universe. The universe is an expression of intelligence and we're a manifestation of this intelligence. This is what we call Science. We can decode the information that was encoded by the intelligence of the universe and that restrained the probabilities that can occur which makes things so predictable.

My view on this is a bit different. First up, it is always easier for me to explain this with spatially extended wave functions rather than spin, and my favorite example is the two slit experiment.

In the two slit experiment, photons first impinge upon a wall containing two separated slits and, in the parlance I learned some decades ago, the photons then "interact" with both slits, with their "particle nature" buried somewhere within the wave-function. My thinking is simpler, as I believe a single photon just goes through both slits. That is - the wave-function of the photon (a real entity of finite, not point-like, dimension) passes through both slits. When this occurs, there is a collapse of the wave-function to the region of the two slits only. Other possible collapses could occur on the wall containing the slits, and in those cases the collapse is to a very small, almost point-like, region of the wall containing the slits. But for our case, we now have a wave-function collapsed to the two slits.

Once our photon leaves the two slits, each slit will form a source, and we can calculate the observed interference pattern on a second downstream wall. That is, we can calculate the spatial density distribution function at that second wall. Indeed, when our photon hits that second wall, we will see a very small impact point (a speck of light) and the probability of any point being hit is the square of the wave-function that we calculated.

However in my description above, I have not mentioned any multiple universes. I envision one universe only, with three spatial and one temporal dimension, just as the classical physicists did prior to Einstein. The bounding of possibilities you mention simply comes from the prior interactions of our photon, first at the source, then at the slits. No other universe is needed.

One other caveat is that I don't believe it is "a measurement" that causes the collapse, but rather simply an interaction. My proposal is that wave-functions will physically collapse to a size dx = hbar/2dp, where dp is the momentum exchanged during the interaction. And if a situation presents itself that can allow either an interaction or no interaction at all, the wave function collapses either to one of the places where an interaction is required or to the entire region where no collapse is required. To my knowledge no experiment violates this simple understanding.

I believe the above description provides a very simple, common sense, underlying understanding of quantum mechanics. The entire problem with this simple approach is that it violates relativity, since it involves the non-local step of an instantaneous collapse of a spatially extended wave function. But we have no problems at all if we simply return to Lorentz for kinematics, and note that both Einstein and Lorentz use "the Lorentz Equations" in their description of nature, so I believe all is well.

a reply to: neoholographic

This is because we're a manifestation of the same intelligence that created all things. That encoded sequence with information that convey's a message and meaning we can understand.

I've a theory that this 'intelligence that created all things' isn't energy, or consciousness, but information.

Perhaps information didn't create all things, but simply is all things. It seems that consciousness is a big factor in the creation of things.

originally posted by: neoholographic

This is because we're a manifestation of the same intelligence that created all things. That encoded sequence with information that convey's a message and meaning we can understand.

You mean an intelligence that created all things other than itself.

What I mean is, if there is an intelligence who created our universe, then where did that intelligence originate? What led to that creator being created? Where was that creator created?

If the answer is that the creator is in another universe, then where did that other universe come from?

a reply to: Box of Rain

Why would it need to create itself?

You make the assumption that intelligence needs to be created and what's that based on?

Intelligence is something that can be calculated and we see this with artificial intelligence. M.I.T. Professor Seth Lloyd says the universe is a quantum computer. At the heart of everything from the holographic principle to entanglement is information. So if the universe is processing vast amounts of information, why would intelligence need to be created?

Intelligence will always exist because the universe is always calculating itself.

So again I ask. Why does intelligence need to be created?

I used to think the same thing but there is an error in that thinking. Just because the probability is constrained doesn't mean that any events within the constraints are not random.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: neoholographic

This is because we're a manifestation of the same intelligence that created all things. That encoded sequence with information that convey's a message and meaning we can understand.

I've a theory that this 'intelligence that created all things' isn't energy, or consciousness, but information.

Perhaps information didn't create all things, but simply is all things. It seems that consciousness is a big factor in the creation of things.

Good points and when I say created all things, I'm talking about the universe as we see it and decode it. I can say I created a log cabin but that doesn't mean I created the logs, it just means I put the logs in a sequence that can be decoded by intelligence as a log cabin.

So the universe is an expression of intelligence than can be decoded by intelligence.

Let's say I created a hypothetical 3 rock universe. The people who live in this universe would say the middle rock being higher or lower than the outer rocks has meaning therefore it's a law of the universe.

A materialist would say the random motion of the rocks somehow gave meaning to the sequence the rocks are in. That's just Asinine but that's materialism. An idealist or some who believe in panpsychism would say intelligence or mind gave the sequence meaning and therefore the people in the universe who are manifestations of this mind can decode the sequence.

That's because there has to be something behind the probabilities

But isn't that something, the known forces that regulates all probabilities. If so, the question then becomes, what defines the forces of nature. Why is the strength of gravity eerily gauged to allow life to exist. We know if the strength of gravity was only a bit stronger or weaker, stars couldn't form. Heavy elements produced by stars wouldn't exist. The universe would have been, all for nought.

I think this actually points to a Designer of the universe. An Intelligence that understands and controls everything. That intelligence is manifested through us.

The forces of nature might be seen as the operating system that allows all probabilities to exist but I suspect life itself is driven by something totally unknown to modern science. In Hinduism, Shiva the cosmic dancer has a damaru (a small drum) from which comes the cosmic sound of AUM that can be heard in deep meditation. Its said to be the intelligent energy that allows all life to exist. Without that energy, you could shake a vial of atoms for billions of years and never create a human being that says, I AM.

Hidden Variables

Aether theories gave way to general relativity but in a GR universe of universal speed/time limits, is not GR an aether theory in denial. Perhaps our three-dimensional universe exists within a brane described by string theory with forces like gravity, nothing more than the elasticity, of that brane. With matter being knotted brane material etc. So variables may not be hidden as such but exists in the nature of the fabric that underlies matter itself.

a reply to: neoholographic

You are delusional. The information is there but it is beyond comprehension. You are projecting an understanding of something you do not have the capacity to measure.

a reply to: dfnj2015

"You are projecting an understanding of something you do not have the capacity to measure"

We all are. act accordingly.

a reply to: neoholographic

Until we know which interpretation of QM is correct then all of this is just guesswork. Also the probabilities aren't magical numbers, they arise naturally from the energy states of particles and interference of wave functions, there's nothing to indicate the probabilities were intelligently chosen. If you want to talk about fine tuning in our universe then all you need to do is look at things like dark energy or nuclear forces, if they were even slightly different our universe would be completely different and not capable of supporting life. That doesn't indicate to me that our universe was fine tuned however, it indicates to me that a possibly infinite number of universes with different laws exist and we just happen to be in one which is capable of supporting life.

a reply to: dfnj2015

You said:

You are delusional.

Translation: I don't know what I'm talking about and I can't refute anything that's being said so I will use the word delusional in hopes nobody realizes that I don't have a clue.

Everything I'm saying is backed up by Science and just basic common sense.

Here's M.I.T. Professor Seth Lloyd saying the universe is a quantum computer.



Here's Professor Susskind talking about the Holographic Universe.



At the heart of these things is information. Here's a recent paper about the Wave Function being real but not physical.

The wave-function is real but nonphysical: A view from counterfactual quantum cryptography

Counterfactual quantum cryptography (CQC) is used here as a tool to assess the status of the quantum state: Is it real/ontic (an objective state of Nature) or epistemic (a state of the observer's knowledge)? In contrast to recent approaches to wave function ontology, that are based on realist models of quantum theory, here we recast the question as a problem of communication between a sender (Bob), who uses interaction-free measurements, and a receiver (Alice), who observes an interference pattern in a Mach-Zehnder set-up. An advantage of our approach is that it allows us to define the concept of "physical", apart from "real". In instances of counterfactual quantum communication, reality is ascribed to the interaction-freely measured wave function (ψ) because Alice deterministically infers Bob's measurement. On the other hand, ψ does not correspond to the physical transmission of a particle because it produced no detection on Bob's apparatus. We therefore conclude that the wave function in this case (and by extension, generally) is real, but not physical. Characteristically for classical phenomena, the reality and physicality of objects are equivalent, whereas for quantum phenomena, the former is strictly weaker. As a concrete application of this idea, the nonphysical reality of the wavefunction is shown to be the basic nonclassical phenomenon that underlies the security of CQC.

arxiv.org...

When you read the paper, it talks about how information is being transmitted from point A to point B without a physical medium.

Here's a recent talk that asks is space-time an error correcting code and further research connects this to quantum entanglement.



Again, the error correcting code part is very important because it ties into entanglement. Error correcting codes on a quantum computer is tied to entanglement which protects quantum information.

So the universe is intelligent. Why wouldn't it be? The universe processes vast amounts of information so why wouldn't it calculate intelligence?

a reply to: neoholographic You speak the truth. However you speak of nothing new, neo-pythagorean ideas have been around for quite some time

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Is there anything truly random?

No. Randomness is what we call it when the cause is so far removed as to be incalculable. You're right that it is impossible to generate a truly random number. Any number generator will have as it basis either physical form or a mathematical rule both of which renders it not totally random. The concept of randomness is that something will appear without any known cause and free of any bias. Since nothing physical can occur this way, then randomness, as an ideal concept, cannot exist nor can it exist mathematically because it has to begin somewhere.

answers.yahoo.com...

a reply to: Kashai

My teenage daughter often speaks and acts randomly.

As far as I can tell.

a reply to: Phage


Yes but if you knew every possible permutation in relation to ,"Fantasy Football"?

I seriously recommend a garage for that Lamborghini and Veyron to avoid wear due to the elements.

Granted in comparison counting cards in poker et.., would be Childs play by comparison but in a similar vein.

a reply to: Kashai

My best friend owns a Pantera.

Looks like rain tonight.

a reply to: Phage


My best friend was a Marine Master Sargent who survived the incident/conflict in Lebanon under then President Ronald Regan (1981-1984).

He was in the "#" over the part where 241 US military service men were killed in action rather quickly.

Potentially, "so far removed as to be incalculable", does not necessarily mean he was just lucky.