My thoughts on randomness and luck

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Inexorable Again's picture
Why do you say Im trolling?

Why do you say Im trolling? Cause you don’t like or agree with what I say?

Dave Matson's picture
Inexorable again,

Inexorable again,

Totally delusional! Obviously, there is no point in attempting to carry on a rational discussion with you.

Inexorable Again's picture
That is you being intolerant

That is you being intolerant and shutting your ears to reality!!

Inexorable Again's picture
So you guys ban my other

So you guys ban my other account because logic is to offensive for this site? Just like I suspected!! You guys like to beat straw men but are too fragile to face a real live rational one. Before you ban this account too, think deeply about how diluted you all are thinking to have rational arguments and then banning any one who opposes your logic with truth and science. Gather up your yes men and stay in your fictional world while accusing christians of being bias and irrational. Sounds like the intolerant and dilusional people are of your own kind.

CyberLN's picture
Now, a warning...if you have

Now, a warning...if you have an issue with how your account is being managed, take it up with me via PM. Stop this public flame war or you will be gone again, permanently

dogalmighty's picture
Might I suggest that you not

Might I suggest that you not hijack Michaels thread, and post a topic under the debate section of this forum, and present a cogent question or statement on topic. Topic being atheism or belief in god. That might be a way to circumvent the wrath of the forum moderators.

Inexorable Again's picture
By the way Nyarlathoteps

By the way Nyarlathoteps argument is totally illogical. He just described the definition of insanity and called it rational. To keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is the definition of insanity not a logical argument for the universe. Wow you guys are really twisted in here.

Nyarlathotep's picture
So I decided to write a

So I decided to write a little bit about randomness because of complaints like yours:

The simplest example of randomness in the natural world that I can think of involves the measurement of the magnetic moment of an electron. First off, the phrase “magnetic moment” isn’t as scary as it sounds. If you consider a compass needle on the Earth, it has a magnetic north and south, which are of course in opposite directions. When it is in a exterior magnetic field (say the Earth), the south end of the needle will be attracted to the Earth’s north pole. This misalignment is excess energy the system has, and it will dissipate it. The compass needle does this by swinging itself towards the Earth’s magnetic north pole. But now it has kinetic energy (the energy involved in the swinging motion). Eventually this kinetic energy will be dissipated through friction (as heat) and the needle will come to rest pointing at the Earth’s magnetic north pole.

In most ways (the difference between them is the import part), the electron behaves this way as well. The electron has a magnetic moment, which means it has a north and south pole (in opposite directions), just like the compass needle. If you put the electron in a strong exterior magnetic field (just imagine a huge magnet near it), you will quickly find that the electron’s south pole is aligned with the magnet’s north pole. Here is our first important difference. Friction does not exist on the microscopic scale. So the electron can not dissipate this extra energy from the misalignment through friction. Instead it emits a single photon (a particle of light) that carries away all of this extra energy.

If you are familiar with the subject, you can calculate the angle of the misalignment based on the energy contained in the photon. Here is the heart of the problem. Empirically, this experiment only has 2 possible outcomes. Either:

  1. You receive a photon of exactly the strength associated with the south pole of the electron being perfectly misaligned (implying that the south pole of the electron was perfectly aligned with the south pole of the magnet). That is, you find there is a misalignment of exactly 180 degrees
  2. You receive no photon at all (implying the south pole of the electron was perfectly aligned with the north pole of the magnet). That is, you find there is a misalignment of exactly 0 degrees.

Now if your mind is not blown, you need to re-read the last paragraph, again and again if you have too. Because that information alone is enough to guarantee the world is random. Consider the following experiment:

Someone gives you an electron, you don’t know which way it is pointing. You put it into your huge magnetic field which lets say has the exterior magnets field “up”. You detect a photon is emitted. Now you know the electron’s south pole is pointed up. Now you rotate your exterior magnet 90 degrees so the exterior magnet’s south pole is “left”, and put the electron back in. By classical logic it should now emit a photon associated with a 90 degree misalignment. But no! As the previous paragraph states, you will either find 180 degree misalignment or 0 misalignment. If you repeat the experiment over and over, you will find that the probability of finding a 0 degree misalignment (no photon) is [cosine(θ/2)]²; where θ is the angle between the south pole of the electron and the north pole of the magnet. This gives the following conclusions:

  1. If you first align the electron with the south pole facing up, and the magnet with its north pole “up” this difference in the angle is 0 degrees giving: [cosine(0/2)]² = 0. You will never find a photon when the alignment is off by an angle of 0.
  2. If you first align the electron with the south pole facing “left”, and the magnet with its north pole “up” this difference in the angle is 90 degrees giving: [cosine(90/2)]² = 0.5; There is a 50% chance to not find a photon.
  3. If you align them at 45 degrees giving: [cosine(45/2)]² ≈ 0.85; there is about a 85% chance to not find a photon.
  4. If you align them at 135 degrees giving: [cosine(135/2)]² ≈ 0.15; there is about a 15% chance to not find a photon.
  5. If you align them at 180 degrees giving: [cosine(180/2)]² = 1; there is a 0% chance to not find a photon.

Summary for those who have fallen asleep:
The above was in pretty precise language, the following summary is not: we find that the electron is either perfectly aligned with any magnet or perfectly anti-aligned. There is no in-between (this is why the word quantum is used, it seems the electron can only point in one of two directions, instead of just any old direction). It seems the electron “snaps” into one of these configuration when we do the experiment. With the distribution of the snaps being determined our simple equation above; yet the outcome of any given snap is random. This is an example of the randomness that can never be avoided. You might notice it has nothing to do with being smart, or having better equipment. In fact, the better equipment you use, the closer and closer your data will replicated [cosine(θ/2)]². Or in other words, the more precise you do the measurement, the more random it becomes. This is why you can never escape randomness, it is cooked into the system from the beginning.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I patiently await the standard "nuh-uh" responses, signaling to me that I have wasted my time.

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
@ Nyar

@ Nyar
Thank you for an explanation that I can actually comprehend! Clean, clear and concise. I can only reply "got it!" . Thanks again.

Tin-Man's picture
By golly, Nyar, I love it

By golly, Nyar, I love it when you talk technical. *grin*

LogicFTW's picture
Thanks nylar I learned

Thanks nylar I learned something really useful today. I will probably need to re-read it a few times to fully grasp it :)

To bad the folks that really need to read and grasp things like this will likely refuse and shut their minds to it. Or simply not read it. Oh well, I appreciate it.

Inexorable Again's picture
If I get banned again for

If I get banned again for speaking truth so be it. Not here to play the game according to your “rules”. If speaking truth bothers you so much at least have the gal to be frank about it. Don’t claim you are banning me for trolling or spamming! You are banning me because, as Jack Nicolsen said, “You can’t handle the truth”!!

Inexorable Again's picture
Ok so basically what you are

Ok so basically what you are telling us is that you are getting teo different results and you “DON’T KNOW WHY”. This is hardly an argument to prove your point. Actually it proves mine. You are still ignorant of all the facts.

Inexorable Again's picture
Or are you telling us that

Or are you telling us that you are doing the same thing over and over again and getting different results? (Remember this is the defination of insanity) you are either insane or you think we are all as gullible as old man!!!

Nyarlathotep's picture
Inexorable again - Or are you

Inexorable again - Or are you telling us that you are doing the same thing over and over again and getting different results?

That is exactly what I am telling you; and it shows that you did get the point! That is the summary of 100 years of empirical results. Reality is not a reasonable thing in the classical sense.

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
@ Inex A

@ Inex A

"r are you telling us that you are doing the same thing over and over again and getting different results? (Remember this is the defination of insanity) you are either insane or you think we are all as gullible as old man!!!"

Actually the phrase is "repeating the same actions and expecting different results" whereas Nyar is saying that repeating the same actions in this case DOES indeed give different results.
And it does not matter whether you label the results "random" and leave it at that, (which in essence they appear to be) or "random" pending further investigation.
Only a poorly educated person would say "random" (we do not know why this occurs), ergo god/creator/designer exists. That would be a supposition and a false conclusion, e.g god of the gaps.

Tin-Man's picture
@Inex Re: "....or you think

@Inex Re: "....or you think we are all as gullible as old man!!!"

Hey, Inex! Since you have determined Old Man to be such a gullible ol' fart, then maybe you could help me in selling him a prime piece of beach-front property in South Dakota. Pretty sure we can get a good chunk of change out of him, and I'll split the profits with you 70/30. (The 70 being for me, of course.) You can do all the smooth talking (since you are obviously a pro at that), and I'll draw up the sales contract for him to sign. How 'bout it? I have no doubt Old Man would fall for it. We could get rich quick.

Inexorable Again's picture
The fact that you use

The fact that you use scientific terms does not absolve you from being rational dude. Only people you can fool with that are those who are not willing to take you to task in order to avoid using big terms. Those don’t impress me. Logic is true even at a micro level.

Nyarlathotep's picture
Inexorable again - Logic is

Inexorable again - Logic is true even at a micro level.

Again, it seems you kind of did get the point. Classical logic is violated quite badly at the microscopic level. A new logic was forced upon us.

Inexorable Again's picture
2+2 always equals 4

2+2 always equals 4 Nayrlathotep even when you make it small. Logic is not circumvented because you are probing microbes. The fact is that your study proves that science has a lot to learn about the things that are yet unknown. You are trying to sell unreasonableness and Old man is buying, so maybe you and Tin man canjoin forces on selling him that beach front property. I ain’t buying. You are the smooth talker here but your logic does not square up to reason.

LostLocke's picture
"Probing microbes"??

"Probing microbes"??
We're talking waaaaay smaller than microbes here. Microbes would be massive giants in this case.

Inexorable Again's picture
There is something definitely

There is something definitely happening to those particles and the fact that you still don’t know what it is, and want to sprinkle some of that randomness majic dust is on it, is fine with some who are obviously bias towards your view, but not for any other coherent and logical person who is actually looking for answers.

Dave Matson's picture
Inexorable again,

Inexorable again,

Since you know absolutely nothing about the quantum world, most everything you say is looking kind of stupid! Maybe you shouldn't pontificate on something you know nothing about. That is what fools do.

Inexorable Again's picture
“Randomness” has become the

“Randomness” has become the god of your gaps.

Nyarlathotep's picture
First off, this isn't my

This isn't my argument. This isn't my experiment (although I have done it). This was all figured out decades before I was born. I'm just relating the results in a form I hope most people can grasp, who haven't had the luxury of an education in the field; but without overly simplifying it and losing the message in the process (which is what you get in those popularization of science publications).

Inexorable Again's picture
I say yours because you

I say yours because you brought it up, not because you are the originator of it. Now you are saying that because it’s older than you, it is true? This is laughable at best. I don’t care if the test was done 2 years ago, the end result is not a contradiction in logic, it is an indicator of ignorance. That’s all you’ve proven with it.

Inexorable Again's picture
If a bioengineer tells you

If a bioengineer tells you that 2+2 equals 3 would you believe it based on the fact that he is an expert in his field? Of course not! At least I wouldn’t. Maybe old man would! The fact is that as math applies anywhere in the universe so does logic. Every professional has a right to speak authoritatively in his field. A biochemist can speak about chemistry but is not an authority in logic. And if you think that because someone has a degree in biology or any of the other natural sciences he is an expert in everything, than Tin Man would like to sell you something.

Sheldon's picture
It's creationists who cite so

It's creationists who cite so called experts on evolution that turn out to have no expertise or credentials in the field of biology.

Evolution is a scientific fact. Creationism is an unevidenced religious belief. It's a no brainer...

Also why did you have extra sock puppet accounts? That's pretty sad if you ask me.

Cognostic's picture
Heads; I create a 3 page

Heads; I create a 3 page response. Tails: I find something more interesting to comment on.

Inexorable Again's picture
Only alternative when you

Only alternative when you have no answers is to run or boot me! Either way, you’re still wrong!!

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