Can Quantum Weirdness Be Logically Predicted?

[David Sklansky]

One of the reasons I and many others reject the "just look around you" argument of Not Ready and others as some type of evidence for a superior being, is that we know that (aside from possibly human consciousness)the seeming magnificence of the Earth is mainly a simple consequence of Newton's laws and fractal geometry.

Furthermore, there is no reason to claim that Newton's Laws were created by this superior being. Because they are basically pure logical common sense. The Inverse Square law, the Law of the Lever, d=gtsquared, F= ma. All these experimental results are not the least bit surprising if you use logical thought. Even much of Einstein's stuff, I believe is a pretty straightforward deduction from the fact that the speed of light is constant.

What I would like to know however is if the strange things about particles that our experiments show, is a logical consequence of anything that makes common sense. I know the equations of quantum theory predict these results. But is their some underlying logical basis for them? In other words was there any way to logically guess that light would behave as a particle when observed but not otherwise or that a radioctive particle would have a 50% chance of decaying in x years regardless of how long it has already gone without decaying. Do results like these follow straighjtforwardly from any assumptions that are commonsensically reasonable? (For example might quantum randumness be necessary for humans to have free will?)

[halt i am reptar]

[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, there is no reason to claim that Newton's Laws were created by this superior being. Because they are basically pure logical common sense. The Inverse Square law, the Law of the Lever, d=gtsquared, F= ma. All these experimental results are not the least bit surprising if you use logical thought

[/ QUOTE ]

I see it as the inverse. Those laws have always been constant to us, before we even knew conscious reasoning, and thus it is now "common sense."

[David Sklansky]

I don't want to get into a religious debate about whether God created the laws of logic. My question is about quantum theory. If in fact it doesn't follow logically from anything reasonable, you could use that fact much more forcefully in any god exists arguments, than simply asserting that he created math and logic.

[halt i am reptar]

You're right. And I definitely did not mean to imply that I am saying God made logic/order, and I am not trying to spark another religious debate. I'm sorry to have taken away from the question at hand.

My guess is that a logical conclusion of these properties exists, just has not yet been found. Dipping into another thread, these underlying causes give great moment to studying extremely advanced physical sciences before we even fully grasp them. I think that these studies are just so young that we don't see an easy deduction yet. What were people thinking 500 years ago when gravity was first being explored and defined (differing masses falling at the same rate!)? Unbeknownst to the people of the times, the mass of the earth is so immense, that the relative mass of the other bodies was negligible (ha, I think, right?). I feel like we'll fall into that category once we have unveiled more completely what governs quantum physics.

[LuckOfTheDraw]

David,

What I believe (and what I think reptar was trying to say) is that the actual physics of our macro world are the basis for both scientific laws (ie Newton's and Einstein's laws) and human common sense. In other words, our scientific observations and henceforth laws of physics are consistent with logical common sense because they are both dervied from what surrounds us and is obvious.

On the other hand, most modern physicists agree that the governing phsycical rules of the quantum world are radically different than the rules of our macro world. So, to answer your question, while I think there should be reasoning to quantum mechanics, it probably won't coincide with our notions of logic and common sense.

[LuckOfTheDraw]

[ QUOTE ]
What were people thinking 500 years ago when gravity was first being explored and defined (differing masses falling at the same rate!)? Unbeknownst to the people of the times, the mass of the earth is so immense, that the relative mass of the other bodies was negligible (ha, I think, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, no.
F=ma
F(of gravity on falling object) = m(of falling object) a(acceleration of falling object)

F(of gravity on falling object) = g(gravitational constant)*M(of earth)*m(of falling object)/d(distance between center of gravities)^2

set F = F

g*M*m/d^2 = ma

m = mass of the falling object is on both sides of the equation and cancels itself out.

[halt i am reptar]

check.

[JMAnon]

[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, there is no reason to claim that Newton's Laws were created by this superior being. Because they are basically pure logical common sense. The Inverse Square law, the Law of the Lever, d=gtsquared, F= ma. All these experimental results are not the least bit surprising if you use logical thought.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know this isn't the thrust of your post, but I don't follow your point. Newton's laws can't be derived from pure logic; they are the result of logic applied to sensory experience. Newton's laws work to describe what we observe in our physical universe. But there is no logical reason why the universe couldn't have different physical properties.

For example, why is gravity "common sense?" I can imagine a universe in which massive objects repel each other at a distance rather than attract each other. I can also imagine a universe in which massive objects have no effect on each other from a distance. Maybe intelligent beings could not exist in such universes, but there is no logical reason why the universes themselves couldn't exist. We don't know why gravity exists in this universe; we just know that it does. In other words, pure logic does not tell us that there must be gravity in our universe, only that there is gravity based on what we see happening around us. If you think about it, gravity is quite wierd. Why do massive objects affect each other at a distance, even with a vacuum in between? Gravity only seems like common sense because we learned of it as children and it comports with our experiences.

Quantum wierdness is no different than gravity, in my view. We just have less experience with it. We have had the technological capability to observe tiny particles for only a relatively short time. As we continue to apply logic to our experiences with tiny particles, our understanding will grow, and their behavior will begin to seem every bit as much "common sense" as gravity seems to us now.

[GMontag]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What were people thinking 500 years ago when gravity was first being explored and defined (differing masses falling at the same rate!)? Unbeknownst to the people of the times, the mass of the earth is so immense, that the relative mass of the other bodies was negligible (ha, I think, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, no.
F=ma
F(of gravity on falling object) = m(of falling object) a(acceleration of falling object)

F(of gravity on falling object) = g(gravitational constant)*M(of earth)*m(of falling object)/d(distance between center of gravities)^2

set F = F

g*M*m/d^2 = ma

m = mass of the falling object is on both sides of the equation and cancels itself out.

[/ QUOTE ]

The OP was right. Your equations only work when one object is much smaller than the other and can ignore the acceleration of the larger object (i.e the Earth). Otherwise you have to add in the acceleration of the Earth from the gravity of the object.

The equation ends up being G(M+m)/d^2 = a, where a is the acceleration of one object as seen from the surface of the other object.

[Matt R.]

Meh. I was hoping someone would respond to David's questions about QM, as I've been wondering this myself for quite some time. I made a post sometime back positing this:

"(For example might quantum randumness be necessary for humans to have free will?)"

but got no reply. Well, I got 2 replies, but they seemed to think that the reverse was true -- the weirdness of QM negates free will. There was no discussion and I don't understand how they came to this conclusion. I find the topic fascinating and I hope someone can address this.

I think it has been posted on here (I didn't actually read the paper that was linked) that a lot of the non-deterministic nature of quantum mechanics isn't due to some fundamental property of nature, but rather a consequence of our measurements. I think the gist of it was that if we could somehow perfectly measure everything about a quantum system, it would be fundamentally deterministic just like the macroscopic world that we observe. I think Metric was the first person to bring this up on here. Of course this is one of many interpretations of QM, and I haven't studied the subject in depth so I can't give an opinion on which I think is right.

Actually, I would speculate that we would need some sort of accurate unified field theory before we can truly speculate on whether quantum mechanics can be derived logically, or it just "is". From my perspective, it seems to be more of the latter; it just seems too weird to me, and I would think that you cannot "look deeper" than fundamental particles to somehow predict how they should act. Basically, you have to start your assumptions about physical law from somewhere, and elementary particle physics would seem to be the logical choice. I'm definitely rambling right now though, and I don't really know enough on the subject to give any definite opinion.