Why Is There Something, Rather Than Nothing?--Sean M. Carroll

Dutch Uncle said:
My apologies for appearing otherwise.

The variables in relativity are the speed of light and gravity. Note that in the different frames of reference that one is the actual truth and the other is the perception.

As mentioned with Dr. Semmelweis earlier, he perceived that the infant mortality rate wasn't simply random bad luck. He perceived that it was the difference between how newborns were treated in each wing. Randomness = an unknown variable. Solve for X.

Please name an instance where Randomness is truly and completely unpredictable. Something that matters to humans, not just particles acting oddly.

"A difference that makes no difference is no difference"...well, except to quantum physicists. LOL
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I think I answered all your question. You don't agree, that is fine.
 
BidenPresident said:
The word uncertainty is used a lot in quantum mechanics. One school of thought is that this means there’s something out there in the world that we are uncertain about. But most physicists believe nature itself is uncertain.

Intrinsic uncertainty was central to the way German physicist Werner Heisenberg, one of the originators of modern quantum mechanics, presented the theory.

He put forward the Uncertainty Principle that showed we can never know all the properties of a particle at the same time.

https://theconversation.com/quantum...t-about-uncertainty-in-a-certain-sense-118456
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Okay. I'll take your word on the quantum and physics stuff.

Please allow me to take the position of an average human being and ask "So what? How does that affect me? Why should I give a damn?" TIA
 
BidenPresident said:
It was Leibniz, in the eighteenth century, who first explicitly asked “Why is there something rather than nothing?” in the context of discussing his Principle of Sufficient Reason (“nothing is without a ground or reason why it is”) [5]. By way of an answer, Leibniz appealed to what has become a popular strategy: God is the reason the universe exists, but God’s existence is its own reason, since God exists necessarily. (There is a parallel with Aristotle’s much earlier invocation of an unmoved mover, responsible for motion in the universe without itself being moved by anything else.)

https://authors.library.caltech.edu/84903/1/1802.02231.pdf

Carroll concludes that the universe is just a brute fact. Have to agree. Leibniz tried to use God as a necessary cause, but this fails.
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I don't agree with Leibniz, nor many 18th century scholars on this subject, but what does that have to do with quantum mechanics?

This magical randomness factor you keep mentioning. What is it? Why can't it be measured? Seen?

Isn't it a little fatalest to claim there's a random bullet flying out there that can never, ever be avoided? Never measured? Never predicted?
 
BidenPresident said:
I mean, if physical theory does not matter to you, why would I want to convince you otherwise?
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Physical theory does matter such as in Battlebots were the bots truly autonomous. It's the human facter, the perceptual factor that can change how events unfold.

Consider 1/6. Is that a predictable event? I believe it was. Evidence seems to prove it was a planned event for a rally followed by directing about 20,000 Americans to the Capitol. Imbedded with agitators and trained militia, Trump successfully turned a rally into a riot assaulting the Capitol in an effort to overthrow the election and take the White House by force. They failed.

What elements were foreseeable? Which were not? Which can be prevented? Which cannot? Is there a randomness factor that can never be changed?
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Physical theory does matter such as in Battlebots were the bots truly autonomous. It's the human facter, the perceptual factor that can change how events unfold.

Consider 1/6. Is that a predictable event? I believe it was. Evidence seems to prove it was a planned event for a rally followed by directing about 20,000 Americans to the Capitol. Imbedded with agitators and trained militia, Trump successfully turned a rally into a riot assaulting the Capitol in an effort to overthrow the election and take the White House by force. They failed.

What elements were foreseeable? Which were not? Which can be prevented? Which cannot? Is there a randomness factor that can never be changed?
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What predicted the exact movement of every single person? No such thing.

By the way, a physical law only expressed the ideal limit of an event. It does not describe actual events.
 
BidenPresident said:
Nothing to do with magic. It is empirical.
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I completely agree it's all empirical. 100%.

There is nothing in the entire link below that requires our lives to kneel before the God of Randomness. There are no unknowable parts of the physical universe. Random = Here there be dragons. It's just the unknown.

https://www.livescience.com/21456-empirical-evidence-a-definition.html
Empirical evidence is information acquired by observation or experimentation. Scientists record and analyze this data. The process is a central part of the scientific method.

"Randomness" is not a requirement to existence.
 
BidenPresident said:
What predicted the exact movement of every single person? No such thing.

By the way, a physical law only expressed the ideal limit of an event. It does not describe actual events.
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Agreed. Each human being is an X factor. The physical motions can be measured and even predicted, but the thinking part is a lot trickier.

Still, behavioral profiling is a science. Where do you want to go with this? I'm interested and curious on what you are thinking.
 
BidenPresident said:
There is no God of randomness. Just a physical reality.
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Agreed 100% again! :clink:

All physical reality can be measured and, therefore, predicted. Saying it is one thing, doing it is another. At best we can take educated guesses when it comes to people.

Example; crowd control. Controlling an aggressive group of people is one thing. It's another to have a large group of fans pumped up with violent rhetoric. The IQ of a mob drops by the larger size of the mob. Having inside agitators/leaders...most of them put up on Facebook LOL....helps manipulate the mob. It doesn't take much to stampede a herd once you have it pointed directly at focal point.

That's a little bit of physics and a whole lot of manipulation of crowds. Demagogues can't control individuals, but they can control large groups. The agitators (militia and other leaders) are shepards for the flock to the slaughter.

Behavioral psychology is pretty cool, eh? LOL

6d6e1e5a5a241088b8a04547950ec9c1--psychology-memes-behavioral-psychology.jpg
 
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Dutch Uncle said:
Agreed. Each human being is an X factor. The physical motions can be measured and even predicted, but the thinking part is a lot trickier.

Still, behavioral profiling is a science.
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Laws of physics are statements of the ideal limits of behavior. A law is not a description of a behavior. A city may know a certain intersection has high number of accidents and assigns police to patrol. But the prediction is only a pattern, not a description of a particular car at a certain time.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Agreed 100% again! :clink:

All physical reality can be measured and, therefore, predicted. Saying it is one thing, doing it is another. At best we can take educated guesses when it comes to people.
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No difference between particles and people. Randomness is a property of the universe.
 
BidenPresident said:
Laws of physics are statements of the ideal limits of behavior. A law is not a description of a behavior. A city may know a certain intersection has high number of accidents and assigns police to patrol. But the prediction is only a pattern, not a description of a particular car at a certain time.
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Agreed again! There are physical laws and psychological behaviors. Do you agree that the differences between US and UK citizen can be measured? I do.

Notice in the link below that the differences are purely perceptual and not necessarily accurate.

https://tollfreeforwarding.com/blog/uk-vs-us-understanding-communication-differences-at-work/

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