Is the universe alive?

[Dukat]

Underpinning even the atomic scale is the quantum world and down there things stop being so predictable and become probabilistic - see the Schrodingers Cat mind experiment. It has been experimentally verified in relation to light.

Are you trying to tell me I can get fraction-aids?!

I was right, maths IS bad for your health.

More to the point - ok, so if you're talking about quantum physics then that's still physics, right? matter, etc? I know little about it but you're still talking about 'matter' in one state or another?

Aren't we in danger of getting into a discussion more on 'what is existence' rather than what is 'alive'?

Are they the same question?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address!

 

[Dukat]

How can you say that. It's always a laugh to watch a group of random people without Physics backgrounds trying to explain Quantum Mechanics.

The more you observe the thread the less they seem to actually know. Hmm, a pretty good analogy for QM afterall

A more interesting study would be on whether the ones who give strong implication they are subject matter experts yet say nothing are worse than those who are just honestly discussing to the best of thier ability, limited or otherwise?

 

[rynnor]

Aren't we in danger of getting into a discussion more on 'what is existence' rather than what is 'alive'?

Are they the same question?

Depends on your definition of life

 

[Dukat]

Depends on your definition of life

That's not a postcard!!!

Or is it?!

 

[Billargh]

This thread, I don't even...

 

[Dukat]

This thread, I don't even...

Or do you?!?

 

[Scouse]

in the same way we can detect probabilities through machines

No. Not the same way at all.

You can detect probabilities by the flipping of coins. The coins are "real" - the probabilities are abstract.

Underpinning even the atomic scale is the quantum world and down there things stop being so predictable and become probabilistic

Probabilistic isn't a physical state, it's a method of predicting outcomes.


Not sure if you're trolling now 'cause you're cleverer than this...

 

[Billargh]

Or do you?!?

Stoping bringing me back here! I can't ignore someone who's been awol for so long

 

[Scouse]

I was the same about that Billargh: does Dukat actually exist, or is he just a probability.

 

[Dukat]

I was the same about that Billargh: does Dukat actually exist, or is he just a probability.

It's not like I actually am, I only probably are!

 

[Job]

Alive is just what we call complexity.

 

[Zarjazz]

Probabilistic isn't a physical state, it's a method of predicting outcomes.

While that is true for something like the properties of gases, the equations of which are just the statistics for lots & lots of atoms whizzing around, it's not technically true for quantum mechanics. Any physical state is described by something called it's quantum wave function and any measurable results from that (physical quantities) are inherently random. Many Physicists believe the wave function isn't just a mathematical construct that gives us the right answers (like the Boltzman equation for gases) but it's a description of reality at a fundamental level.

 

[Raven]

No, no it isn't.

 

[rynnor]

Probabilistic isn't a physical state, it's a method of predicting outcomes.

I'm afraid not - even Einstein resisted quantum mechanics 'God doesn't play dice!' I think he commented but even he had to admit defeat in the end - he found the insights in this new science profoundly uncomfortable so you are in good company. It's so alien from our lifetimes experience of the macro world that it is hard to take.

 

[Scouse]

he found the insights in this new science profoundly uncomfortable so you are in good company

I don't find anything about quantum mechanics even slightly uncomfortable. I enjoy it and it's probabilistically-calculated nature.

 

[Chilly]

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
The universe is dead,
Fuck you.

 

[Scouse]

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
The universe is dead,
Fuck you.

It's clearly not. It wrote that witty yet innacurate poem

 

[Job]

I think probability actually is existance..its the most fundamentally confusing notion to my mind..the fact that the lottery balls dont know what came out last week blows circuits in my brain.