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Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested that a sufficiently powerful intellect could, if it knew the position and velocity of every particle at a given time, along with the laws of nature, calculate the position of any particle at any other time:
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.
— Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Introduction. 1814A philosophical look at two things. The Theory of Everything and touching on the idea of an all knowing intellect.
Quote (t8 @ Dec. 04 2009,10:34) Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested that a sufficiently powerful intellect could, if it knew the position and velocity of every particle at a given time, along with the laws of nature, calculate the position of any particle at any other time: 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.
— Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Introduction. 1814A philosophical look at two things. The Theory of Everything and touching on the idea of an all knowing intellect.
On the first, he had not heard of quantum theory.On the second, he used the word if (or si, probably), which indicates that he did not think there is any such entity that can conceive of the positions of all particles, and although he “was born and died Catholic” according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he saw himself as essentially an atheist, as can be seen in the way he embraced causal determinism and its consequential materialism (although from the point of modern physics it is easier to disagree with this simplistic determinism).
In fact the “intellect” referred to is called Laplace's demon by others, and I suppose you could also call it Laplace's megacomputer.
As for it being a god, would the god have to know the motions of its own particles? Are gods made of particles?
The very possibility of any gods of a Judeo-christian kind are called into question by the ideas of Laplace.
Stuart
Oh yeah. Quantum theory disowns any predictions that could be made.
He did say “could know all forces that set nature in motion”. So that would include Quantum even if he didn't know about the laws that dictate the smallest things.On the theory of Everything did you here about a surfer who has come up with a theory of everything that also explains gravity.
This story isn't from the Onion either.
Quote (Stu @ Dec. 05 2009,07:01) As for it being a god, would the god have to know the motions of its own particles? Are gods made of particles?
He he. You cannot elevate your thinking beyond the physical realm.Obviously the creator would be outside of his creation just as a programmer sits outside his creations.
There are probably more dimensions than 3 Stu. The creator would be even beyond E8. He wouldn't be made up of particles just as a programmer is not made up of binary.
Quote (t8 @ Dec. 05 2009,08:10) Quote (Stu @ Dec. 05 2009,07:01) As for it being a god, would the god have to know the motions of its own particles? Are gods made of particles?
He he. You cannot elevate your thinking beyond the physical realm.Obviously the creator would be outside of his creation just as a programmer sits outside his creations.
There are probably more dimensions than 3 Stu. The creator would be even beyond E8. He wouldn't be made up of particles just as a programmer is not made up of binary.
Of what is your god made? I say neural connections only.If your god is not made of matter, by what mechanism has it influenced matter?
Stuart
Quote (terraricca @ Dec. 05 2009,11:57) hi all
this is a stupid philosophy,you have to accepted first the lie propost.
IF.
What is a stupid philosophy?Your realise that Laplace's 'demon' is like Maxwell's demon, which sat between two flasks, distinguishing between individual molecules…
(from the Holy Wikipedia):
… if we conceive of a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are as essentially finite as our own, would be able to do what is impossible to us. For we have seen that molecules in a vessel full of air at uniform temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though the mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost exactly uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics…
Actually it is only t8 who is trying to force his god into this situation. He would make a good Catholic apologist actually, if that is not a oxymoron.
Stuart
a philosophy thats make you start to accept the “IF”first and thats were all the principal foundation lays.
Quote (terraricca @ Dec. 05 2009,19:19) a philosophy thats make you start to accept the “IF”first and thats were all the principal foundation lays.
It is a great piece of thought experiment, one that makes us consider the behaviour of matter, and still does to this day regardless of subsequent advances like quantum mechanics.It is not a stupid philosophy, but the beginnings of a brilliant one, that ends with an explanation, for example, for why soup can be cooled by blowing on it (the layer of faster moving molecules that have escaped the liquid surface, the ones carrying the greatest heat energy, have been removed and cannot return to the soup to maintain the original temperature).
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ Dec. 05 2009,19:13) Quote (terraricca @ Dec. 05 2009,11:57) hi all
this is a stupid philosophy,you have to accepted first the lie propost.
IF.
What is a stupid philosophy?Your realise that Laplace's 'demon' is like Maxwell's demon, which sat between two flasks, distinguishing between individual molecules…
(from the Holy Wikipedia):
… if we conceive of a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are as essentially finite as our own, would be able to do what is impossible to us. For we have seen that molecules in a vessel full of air at uniform temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though the mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost exactly uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics…
Actually it is only t8 who is trying to force his god into this situation. He would make a good Catholic apologist actually, if that is not a oxymoron.
Stuart
It just struck me that opening and closing the hole isn't entirely consistent with zero expenditure of work?There are some interesting things that can alter the temperature of fluids in this sort of way, though I suspect they still require expenditure of work and therefore comply with the rather unyielding laws of thermodynamics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube
I haven't thought this all the way through but isn't that a little like the postulated demon? (except I doubt it contravenes thermodynamics)
Quote (Stu @ Dec. 05 2009,07:01) Quote (t8 @ Dec. 04 2009,10:34) Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested that a sufficiently powerful intellect could, if it knew the position and velocity of every particle at a given time, along with the laws of nature, calculate the position of any particle at any other time: 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.
— Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Introduction. 1814A philosophical look at two things. The Theory of Everything and touching on the idea of an all knowing intellect.
On the first, he had not heard of quantum theory.On the second, he used the word if (or si, probably), which indicates that he did not think there is any such entity that can conceive of the positions of all particles, and although he “was born and died Catholic” according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he saw himself as essentially an atheist, as can be seen in the way he embraced causal determinism and its consequential materialism (although from the point of modern physics it is easier to disagree with this simplistic determinism).
In fact the “intellect” referred to is called Laplace's demon by others, and I suppose you could also call it Laplace's megacomputer.
As for it being a god, would the god have to know the motions of its own particles? Are gods made of particles?
The very possibility of any gods of a Judeo-christian kind are called into question by the ideas of Laplace.
Stuart
Going to wade a little out of my depth here, not being a quantum physicist, but does quantum mechanics necessarily say the position and speed are not certain?See, as I understand Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, it says we can't know the speed and position of a particle at the same time. I thought though that it was because we can't take the measurement without changing the state of the system we're trying to measure – not because there is fundamental uncertainty to the particle itself.
Is position a quantum attribute, or not? Even if it is, shoudn't a particle still be in a definite quantum state – just one we can't observe without interfering with it?
Isn't that where you come up with Schrodingers cat? It's a black box and we don't know what is going on inside it, so we have to say it is uncertain and the cat has an ambiguous wave function permitting it to be both alive and dead, which is collapsed when we observe it? Now, the cat knows it's alive or dead and in actual fact inside the box it will be one or the other. To require conscious observation to collapse a wave function and select a probability doesn't really make intuitive sense to me – I think the universe has a damn good idea what's going on, the only issue that then causes is that it renders free will an illusion and gives you a predetermined universe where theoretically a computer larger than the universe itself could model it (impossible if you accept the usual definition of the universe as strictly universal and encompassing everything).
I'd hate to commit that all intelligent entities in the whole universe must be strictly particle based but I would go so far to agree that any entity exhibiting memory and intelligence necessarily requires mechanisms of some sort for both computation and data storage. For the entity to exist, so those structures would need to.
Oh and obviously for communication to occur with the physical universe, you must be able to produce some sort of measureable physical affect – even if it's a very small and weak one (the minimum I can think of offhand would be to be able to selectively stimulate specific neurons within a human brain)
Incidentally all my teachers ever taught me was that the uncertainty is fundamental – but none of them ever managed to explain to me why that was necessarily so. It had the odour of people dressing ignorance up as fact and I didn't manage to validate it as something to accept as a fact yet.
Quote (t8 @ Dec. 04 2009,10:34) Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested that a sufficiently powerful intellect could, if it knew the position and velocity of every particle at a given time, along with the laws of nature, calculate the position of any particle at any other time: 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.
— Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Introduction. 1814A philosophical look at two things. The Theory of Everything and touching on the idea of an all knowing intellect.
And wouldn't total knowledge and strict pre-destination make it all totally pointless?Besides when you're talking about things as big as universes, it's absurd to claim that us humans are especially important on a scale that large (even more at the level of the individual).
It did occur to me that if we could find a way to send information back in time we could transmit information only with no currently existing structures to people.
I don't think I subscribe to time travel though. I don't think the past and future exist – only the present. Even if time can proceed at different relative rates around the universe – I don't think it's a fourth dimension in which movement is freely possible as with the 3 we definitely inhabit.
One theory out there that explains Quantum Mechanics being so weird compared to what we observe at our scale is that the universe is not all that exists but is one Big Bang or whatever in a larger construct. Just as planets and galaxies collide so is our universe colliding with another. Except the laws in this other universe are different to ours and hence why we see things that are hard to explain given our laws.
Imagination of course like a lot of science is when it comes to explaining origins and laws of everything.
And possibly not provable as the scale could be way beyond anything we have to see it or prove it.
Douglas
Re Heisenberg, I have had the same experience of being presented with a dogma that just says you can’t know the speed and position of a particle at the same time, but I think that is because it would require actually doing the maths for the collapse of the wavefunction to see how it works. Maybe it can be considered in simpler terms by the idea that if the wave is located at a determinable position then the wave is so compressed that it carries no useful information for the observer on the momentum of the particle, and conversely if you know which of the component sine waves describes the momentum most accurately you cannot know where within the wave packet (probability distribution I suppose if we are talking about electrons around atoms) the particle is at that moment.
If we are applying t8’s divine interpretation of Laplace to Heisenberg, the question would become ‘can god break Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle?’. As there is no reason to think any gods exist at all, I wonder if this would not be the omniscience-believing fundamentalist running before he could walk.
Re Demons, in practice you are right that there is no contravention of thermodynamics in any of these examples, specifically the decrease in entropy in the gas system being controlled by Maxwell’s Demon is compensated for by the overall entropy increase that must result from measuring molecular speeds and physically acting as a valve.
Stuart
hi st
it seems to me you know everything ,i know i dont know much,but i have seen the most brilliant of brains on the planet (according to the world)recand there understanding ,there theorise are like walking in the dark, and teach other to follow themQuote (t8 @ Dec. 06 2009,15:03) One theory out there that explains Quantum Mechanics being so weird compared to what we observe at our scale is that the universe is not all that exists but is one Big Bang or whatever in a larger construct. Just as planets and galaxies collide so is our universe colliding with another. Except the laws in this other universe are different to ours and hence why we see things that are hard to explain given our laws. Imagination of course like a lot of science is when it comes to explaining origins and laws of everything.
And possibly not provable as the scale could be way beyond anything we have to see it or prove it.
But, despite these kinds of difficulties, it is possible to know with absolute certainty that there is a god that no one has ever seen, and is on a scale far beyond us, and uses laws that we cannot understand.Stuart
Quote (terraricca @ Dec. 07 2009,09:00) hi stu
you know that the word BUT stands for SHOVEL OFF'
In what language.
Tim
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