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| Determinism argument was favored by Einstein |
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| Opinion | |||
| Written by Brian McCauley | |||
| Wednesday, 31 December 2008 08:00 | |||
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Last time we introduced many quandaries and mysteries for which we did not suggest a solution. It is not the purpose of this series of articles to present solutions, but rather to discuss and introduce our many puzzles and quandaries with which we must live in the hope of achieving at least some illumination and to join in the difficulty of living in a world that we only partially understand. We have discussed in previous articles the problem of determinism, and this concept will continue to arise because it underlays many of the concepts of physics that were extent until quantum theory was developed. We have already discussed the religious parallel concept of predestination, so this time we will enlarge the determinism argument, which Einstein favored so strongly. Einstein’s theories were about large-scale phenomenon, and he felt there was a definite chain of causation that explained all events. This idea is labeled determinism. His most radical change in the concepts of physics was his discovery that time, instead of being constant, as had been thought, was actually relative at high speeds, although not noticeable at velocities usually experienced by humans, and that the speed of light was constant at 186,000 miles per second. While he was developing his theories, others were pondering the quantum theory, which concentrated on extremely small scale-events and, at that level, the behavior of small particles such as a photon, which is the particle of light, was that of both a wave and a particle. This discovery, in the early part of the 20th century, was the first demonstration that in the world of the extremely small determinism was proven to be in question. It was then found that if one were to measure the velocity of a photon, one could not measure its position, and that if one could measure its position, one could not measure its velocity at the same time. This concept is called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle after the researcher who discovered it... It was the frustration of this discovery that caused Einstein to declare that the finding could not be true because “God did not play dice.” It is important that we realize that this kind of research is going on because it has some interesting scientific, philosophical and religious implications. The religious implication is particularly interesting because of the mystery of freedom of thought, the opposite concept to predestination. Most religions and philosophies think that some type of free thought occurs, some sort of creativity whereby we can originate new ideas. Otherwise, how would we compose music or write poetry or novels, or for that matter how would we sin. A behavior everyone seems to agree does occur. What is seldom discussed is that fact that we do not know the answer to this question. Much research is being done on this subject and there are some new enlightening concepts in the field as science strives to answer this age old question. This activity will be the subject of the next few articles.
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