Chaos Theory - Not a problem for a deterministic world view

I believe that our universe is deterministic, everything that happens has a preceeding cause, including our thoughts and behavior. Now many people object to this view on the basis of pure intuition i.e. it certainly feels as if I have free will therefore it must be so, but for reasons I will not write about now this is really a poor argument...


There are other less non-sensical arguments against the idea that the universe is determined and that there hence is no such thing as "free will" (depending on how you define that of course). One argument that I would not be able to meet completely is that at the quatum level there is the uncertainty principle according to which we cannot know the speed and the position of an electron simultaneously. All I can say is that I don't think this uncertainty translates into free will for human beings...

Another argument against free will is based on chaos theory. Chaos theory states that there are systems in the world which are unpredictable. At least that is what many people think chaos theory states, but this is not entirely true, rather chaos theory states that in some systems, more information about different variables will only make your predictions a tiny winy bit better... Let me explain.

The last couple of decades computers have become alot better and a lot faster. In spite of this fantastic development we have not seen a marked increase in weather predictions even though weather predictions are made by some quite powerful computers. This is because weather is a chaotic system. Very subtle differences in certain variables (humidity, winds and what not), can have huge effects in how the weather turns out. The old way of predicting the weather, "the weather tomorrow will be like the weather today", still comes close to the predictions of the best supercomputers.

Nevertheless, if Laplace's demon did exist i.e. if we knew the exact position of all particles in the universe and their velocity, if we did know that we would be able to predict the weather for as long as we wanted to and thus there is really no contradiction with a deterministic world view. All that chaos thery really means is that some systems are very sensitive to initial conditions and we are not well enough equipped to see these differences...


I have as some of you may have noticed not written for quite some time, the reason is that I have become a father. My daughter Lola was born on january 13th and me and my wife have been very busy taking care of her. We will see how much I write the coming months but my blog is not dead...

Deepak Chopra, “quantum”, and Ig Nobel prizes

For all science fans out there who have not heard about the Ig Nobel prizes yet, I hereby order you to go and buy the book: The Ig Nobel Prizes: The Annals of Improbable Research! The Ig Nobel prizes are dealt out annually at Harvard University, for indisputably ingenious research. Forget stem cells and neutrinos, and instead read about how pigeons have been trained to discriminate between paintings by Picasso and Monet, how scientist have created a computer program that detects when your cat walks on your keyboard, the optimal way of dunking your biscuit, or about solid evidence for the already well known fact that if you drop your sandwich it will fall with the butter side down!

One man who has been honored with an Ig Nobel Prize is my great idol, Deepak Chopra. The official statement said the following: "Deepak Chopra of the Chopra center for well being, La Jolla, California, for his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness".

Physicists stand beside with saliva dripping out of their mouths while Deepak take their theories to new unimaginable heights. Here are a few quotations that illustrate the creativity of Deepak Chopra when it comes to the implications of quantum physics.

(1) "The most important routine to follow is transcending: the act of getting in touch with the quantum level of yourself"

(2) "Quantum health is based on the idea that we are always, forever, in transition.

(3) "The universe consists of a "field of all possibilities" called the "field of pure potentiality", and also the "quantum soup"

Deepak Chopra has also founded the American academy of quantum medicine where he educates his victims in "quantum nutrition". On a blog to which he contributes Deepak himself has observed that "Skeptics generally leap to the conclusion that I am naive, self-deluded, or simply unread in the sciences", and that "Skeptics believe that doubt is a positive attribute". I would sign under to both of these statements. Doubt is a valuable virtue when people like Chopra are inventing (and earning tons of money on) concepts such as "quantum nutrition", "quantum health", or the "quantum level of yourself".

I find this to be an ideal place to quote Carl Sagan, a man who can hardly be accused of being narrow minded: "Be open-minded, but not so open minded that your brains fall out"

Pragmatism

If you would press me I would have to admit to being a pragmatic. It is, if you will, my preferred philosophy of science. Pragmatism in a nutshell simply says that if a theory is good at predicting the world as we perceive it and if it is useful in the sense that it allows us to create new technologies, then we will accept that theory and use it as if it was true.

Sometimes pragmatic theories are false even though they are pragmatic. Take Newtonian physics for example. Newton's laws can explain an almost limitless amount of experimental observations. The only problem is that it is false. Experiments which are designed so that one outcome would support Newton's theory and the other outcome Einstein's theory shows clearly that the latter set of laws provide you with the more accurate predictions. Yet, because they are so practical, we still use Newton's much less confusing laws for a lot of approximations. So in this case we say that because Newton's laws works really well for almost any calculations we don't care that they are not really true.

What then are we to make of the completely absurd and mind twisting theories of quantum physics, dark energy and the like? These theories, may I remind you, shape the foundation of most new technologies today, and the accuracy of predictions derived from quantum physics is equivalent to measuring the width of the United States with an error margin of about the width of a human hair!!! However, quantum physics also predicts that if there is a cat in a box (Schrödinger's cat, see above), it can be dead and alive at the same time!? To me this sounds like nonsense. I have certainly never seen a cat that is both dead and alive and if someone would say to me that they had seen such a cat I would feel obliged to call a mental institution. In my opinion, the only sensible conclusion is to say that, yes these are absurd theories, but they are indeed incredibly practical, so lets just use them as if they were true until we find something better (if we ever will that is).

I don't think that I am contradicting myself when I say that I also believe and care about what is true in an objective sense. Being a pragmatist, I think, is a progressive way of thinking. After all, if a theory was true in the objective sense then all predictions derived from that theory would also have to be true. To put it another way, the most practical theory of all would be the one that got it right…

I am personally hoping that some day a theory that I can understand and which does not make my head hurt, will come and replace quantum physics, dark energy and other similar theories. But for now I will accept these theories because of the fact that they are practical.