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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
The universe doesn't give a hoot about your best description of it.
What does anyone know about if/what the universe "gives a hoot about"?
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
That the vehicle of probability is so useful in our description of the universe doesn't mean "that uncertainty dominates the microscopic world". You shoulda said uncertainty dominates our understanding of the microscopic world.
OK, point well taken, but that implies that our understanding is uncertain, which is not the case. It is our understanding that uncertainty dominates the observable qualities of particles.
Our understanding is that complex wave functions describe probability distributions, which describe all observable information about a particle. These functions evolve over time in a way that is consistent with the evolution of waves over time. There are many coupled states for which one observable, say position, is the Fourier Transform of another observable, in this example momentum. The more localized the probability distribution is in either, the more non-localized the distribution becomes in the other. A decrease in the error bars on one results in an increase in the error bars on the other. This is not a mathematical error or a measurement error, it is intrinsic uncertainty in the nature of observable qualities.
While it is certain that our understanding is not perfect, any further knowledge of the underlying mechanism which presents itself to us as uncertainty, can only reveal the nature by which these complex probability waves are created and give more detail of what they're composed. If it doesn't support and explain the extremely well documented inherent uncertainty that is observed, then it can not be a "better" model. Just as if QM made predictions that were incompatible with Maxwell's equations and Thermodynamics, it would be a bad theory. The same is true for Einstein's General Relativity.
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
The difference is stark. On the one side is us and our brains and how they describe the universe and on the other is the universe and how it is carried across all that is.
OK, but now you're calling into question what can be considered knowledge. You're calling into question if observations of the universe can be independent of the true nature of the universe.
OK, I posit that there can be a process by which we, as humans, deal with the fact that we have no certainty that the universe will work tomorrow as it does today.
Let's call it science. The more we do science... the more observations that are collected by independent sources and examined collectively... the more we can find consistent statements. We require that those statement are of a form that they can be disproved, and we try our hardest to disprove them. When we cannot disprove them, after many, many observations, we call those statements knowledge.
Balls in your court on this one. I am no expert on information theory or on the philosophy of knowledge.
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
And don't think that I'm leading you with some argument. I'm standing in one spot.
Thank you. I'm sorry if I haven't taken you 100% seriously on all fronts.
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