Whatever you're about to say didn't make me less confused. - by Tonamel
SD on 19/11/2010 at 18:11
Yeah, it makes my head hurt too. I don't know how people think this stuff up in the first place. Now see why I pussied out and chose the easy course of biological sciences :sweat:
Chimpy Chompy on 19/11/2010 at 19:20
I did Physics, but barely scraped a 2:2. And was too busy stressing over doing the math of QM (crank the handle, produce the answer) to really ponder the implications of what it meant for reality.
A book I'd definitely recommend is In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by john gribbins, it's a great introduction to quantum mechanics and the history of how the theories came about.
MsLedd on 22/11/2010 at 02:02
I know you believe you understood what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Renzatic on 22/11/2010 at 02:53
Quote Posted by SD
Don't patronise me. I don't profess to be a physicist or a philosopher. I just see a universe with immutable physical laws set in motion by the Big Bang, and I don't see where randomness (chaos or whatever you want to call it) comes into it - or, indeed,
why randomness would come into it at all.
If everything does indeed adhere perfectly to an immutable set of physical laws, then randomness would be the definition of something that's impossible to predict the end outcome of because it could follow one of near infinite amounts of variables. In other words, it's not actually random, but because one action could have 2.6 billion different reactions, and another 2.6 billion reactions to that reaction...well...you might as well call it randomness.
Or at least that's my understanding of chaos theory, determinism, and other things I don't understand.
