Randomness refers to thought. Generally, randomness designates the ignorance of order. Specifically, it is the logical process of defining a population or set of new sets based on the composition, i.e. the probabilities, of a logical source set. In contrast, if reality were materially random, i.e. lacking order at the level of materiality, experimental science would be impossible.
Philosophical conclusions are popularly judged not to be based on reason and reality, but to be matters of irrational belief, with the possible exception of atheism, which is sometimes viewed as scientific. This essay is an evaluation of the argument that atheism is a scientific conclusion based on the proposal of speciation by random mutation and natural selection.
The essay purports to demonstrate that integral to the argument, there is a commonly accepted series of equivocations in the use of the word, random, which renders the conclusion of atheism a tenet for belief and not a scientific conclusion.
Analysis of the Argument in Outline
In its initially apparent meaning in the proposal of random mutation and natural selection, random is fully consonant with the abstract, mathematical concept of randomness. When myopically envisioned in a material context, the meaning of random via equivocation morphs into a materially random event.
The next equivocation morphs the meaning of random from a materially random event into an adequate explanation of a material event.
The next equivocation morphs random from adequate explanation into ultimate explanation. In other words randomness is taken as an uncaused cause at the material level of existence.
This last equivocation having established the material existence of uncaused causes, thereby ‘scientifically’ removes any philosophical need for deducing the existence of an Uncaused Cause at the non-material level.
The Analysis in Detail
Randomness and probability are solely concerned with the quantity of logical elements, completely ignoring their nominal material properties. Probability is the fractional concentration of an element in a logical set. It is a value in the range of zero to one, without any regard to material properties.
The material properties, associated with the IDs of the logical elements are irrelevant to the mathematics. The random formation of new sets is totally independent of material properties. The mathematical definitions of randomness and probability remove material causality from mental consideration. Material causality cannot be removed by human thought from the material world.
Material causality is the reality that material properties determine material outcomes through material processes. Material causality renders science possible.
The application of the mathematics of randomness and probability to material elements is analogical and requires our ignorance of the material processes, which produce the outcomes. It requires our ignorance of those material processes, which we seek to understand through scientific investigation. It is a utility designed to compensate for our ignorance not to resolve it.
The shuffling of a deck of cards, e.g., is judged to be an emulation of randomness resulting in a sequence of the deck as a random outcome. If we knew in detail the beginning sequence and the material forces to which the cards were subjected during shuffling we would not view the shuffling or the outcome as random. It is only in ignorance that we can use the word, random, in a material context.
The completely valid discussion of randomness and probability in terms of random mutations is a mental abstraction from material reality and is no justification for the equivocal use of the term, random mutation, as a material reality. In fact, the existence of materially random events renders science impossible.
Positing a material event as materially random denies that material outcomes are due to material properties and material processes, which are the stuff of science. It is a claim that a material outcome can be totally independent of material circumstances. The error of positing a materially random event, identifying randomness with its materiality rather than with human thought, is the failure to understand the meaning of mathematical randomness, which is an abstract concept that has no correspondence to material things except in our ignorance of them in detail. In its analogical application to material reality, mathematical randomness suspends knowledge of scientific factors. Material randomness denies their existence.
Thus, starting with the mathematical definition of randomness as informing the expression, random mutation, and then understanding random mutation as a materially random event is committing the logical error of equivocation. If we view this as science rather than as an error in logic, the next equivocation is easy.
It morphs the meaning of random from a materially random event into an adequate scientific explanation of a material event. The final equivocation in the above list is another slalom gate marking one’s descent down the slippery slope of equivocation. That equivocation changes the meaning from a scientifically adequate explanation to the ultimate explanation.
It is Equivocation
The randomness of biological mutation is presented as both important and scientific. It cannot be either trivial or non-scientific. However, upon examination, if the meaning of random refers to mathematical randomness, the theory is trivial, and if the meaning of random refers to material randomness, the theory is not scientific. In order for random mutation to appear to be both important and scientific, random must be understood equivocally.
The theory proposes a contrast in two processes, biological generation and biological survival. The contrast is that generation of variants is random, while their differential survival is natural. First, consider that random refers to mathematical randomness. The theory would then be that both biological generation and biological survival are natural processes, and therefore, subject to scientific investigation, but whereas the mathematics of randomness can be readily applied to generation, it cannot be applied to survival. This is obviously not true.
Natural selection implies mathematical randomness in that the mathematical probability of survival is proposed by the theory to be 1/N where, due to the material forces of the biosphere affecting survival, one biological form survives out of N variant biological forms. Similarly, the probability of the generation of the survivable variant is 1/N. If random means mathematically random, then there is no contrast between generation and survival with respect to being natural processes or with respect to the possibility of applying the mathematics of randomness to the one and not to the other. Thus, the theory would be trivial.
However, the theory itself implies that randomness is material randomness. This can be seen by examining the theory in its reciprocal formulation. By examining the reciprocal formulation, it will be evident that random refers to material randomness, which is non-scientific. It is this non-scientific character from which arises the importance of the theory of random mutation in generation and natural selection in survival with its conclusion of atheism.
The reciprocal theory: The biological generation of variants is due to natural mutation while their differential survival is due to random selection. Taking randomness as mathematical, the reciprocal theory would be that the mathematics of randomness is applicable to survival but not to generation.
But this cannot be so by the same rationale cited above, namely that mathematical randomness can be applied to both processes and therefore does not offer any contrast between the processes of generation and survival. If random refers to mathematical randomness the initial theory and the reciprocal theory would be only grammatically distinguishable from one another. Both theories would have the exact same meaning.
However, the spontaneous criticism of the reciprocal theory would be to state (1) that survival was obviously due to the natural forces of the biosphere and therefore could not be random and (2) that random survival would place the biological process of survival beyond the scope of scientific investigation as a scientifically intractable mystery. These statements are true only for material randomness.
Mathematical randomness erects only a logical barrier to scientific knowledge. It suspends knowledge of the material processes underlying material outcomes, while allowing those processes to exist as natural and scientific. In contrast, material randomness places a biological process beyond the scope of scientific investigation. Thus, the intention of materially random mutation would render the theory of random mutation important precisely because it rendered it non-scientific.
Thus, if random mutation in the generation of biological variants and natural selection in their differential survival, is to be understood as both scientific and important, the word, random, must be understood equivocally as alleged.
In What Sense is this Superstition?
Having abandoned the understanding of mathematics with the first equivocation how is the result, a materially random event, necessarily a belief? The answer lies in the universal recognition that intellectual assent to the occurrence of creative material events or creative material mutations is an act of belief, whether rational or irrational.
It is belief because by definition a creative material event/mutation is one that is materially, i.e. scientifically, inexplicable. However, this is the identical characterization of a materially random event/mutation. A materially random event/mutation is one that is materially, i.e. scientifically, inexplicable.
Experimentation would be folly in a material world in which either random events or creative events were commonly occurring. Both are scientifically, i.e. materially, inexplicable. There can be no objective criteria for distinguishing a random material event from a creative material event, since both are scientifically intractable mysteries. The distinction depends upon whether one believes in the one or the other.
Belief in the occurrence of creative material events throughout human experience, continuing through the present and on into the future renders science impossible. Belief in the occurrence of random material events throughout human experience, continuing through the present and on into the future renders science impossible.
The passing of the term, random mutation, from a mathematical discussion of randomness through the twilight zone of the logical error of equivocation into the real world of material causality results in the devolution of a mathematical discussion into an imaginative saga. The story of random mutation in the real world of material reality is simply an imaginative description of a series of hypothetical random material events in the past, which projects this continual unfolding mystery of randomness through the present and into the future.
This is superstition. It is superstition because it claims that material outcomes are not dependent upon material properties and material processes, but upon an inexplicable unfolding mystery. In contrast, the Jewish and Christian Faiths believe material creation ceased with the creation of man, rendering experimental science possible throughout human existence.
Conclusion
Belief in materially random mutation in biological generation in contrast to natural selection in the differential survival of the mutations, is consonant with atheism as the conclusion of an argument of equivocation and superstition. Belief in materially random events is an anti-scientific fantasy.
54 thoughts on “When Randomness Becomes Superstition”
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Bob and the two Howards, I just wanted to chime in and say I have been lurking and reading this fascinating discussion. Keep up the good work, this is riveting!!
I think Stephen J. Gould was also very nuanced in his distinctions about chance, probability, and randomness but I can’t recall the details.
If we get any more Howards in these discussions I will have to add my middle name to my avatar.
Wow, Bob. I have to read this a couple of more times. I personally think that if we could first make everyone an atheist with no preconceived religious beliefs, we could then turn them into believers in an order to this universe that has to be the work of a superhuman intelligence which we could agree to call God. Instead of seeing events as random occurrences, we would see them as happening in accordance to the parameters of a kind of operating system similar to PS2 or XBox only infinitely more complex. At that point, I don’t think we would have any need for traditional religion. There really is nothing to worship.
Its inherent intelligibility explains everything about material reality except for existence.
In what you can conceptualize, why do you rely on the writings of ancient Near East scribes to better understand it. What did they know?
I think I understand the basic idea that mathematics in itself does not have a direct connection with the material world so the randomness seen in math cannot be found in nature.
I really don’t see that randomness in math is really anything except picking numbers via causality, manipulating numbers, without attaching a meaning to the process. How can a “random” result be obtained without a progression of steps? Of course the result is conceptual.
The distinction is between the reality and the model. Einstein’s lecture “Geometry and Experience” speaks to this point, and to the implied necessity to avoid assuming that the universe is the way we think it “must” be. There was a real irony in this: on the one hand, Einstein was overturning the traditional attachment to Euclidean geometry, but on the other, much of the appeal of his theory lay in its elegance. There had been some experimental support by 1921, and a great deal more has followed, but much of the appeal had to do with ideas of beauty based in simplicity and symmetry.
I think we are saying the same thing when I said math and the material world and when you mention reality and model .
The interesting thing to me is that I agree with Bob’s first sentence and later he seems to be saying that it’s proper understanding is not used even in the scientific area. I don’t agree with randomness at all as it is commonly used – the appearance of result without bias in the process. Cause and effect would have to be suspended and a result magically appear to not have to recognize need for a progression of events that lead to result in math or nature; even if the actual events themselves cannot be recognized.
“I don’t agree with randomness at all as it is commonly used – the appearance of result without bias in the process.” It is one thing to find such a prospect distasteful; I think just about everyone agrees that it is. It is another thing, though, to say that because something is distasteful, it is impossible.
Let’s say that you perform the Stern-Gerlach experiment and measure the y-component of the spin of a silver atom and find, for instance, that it has a spin of + hbar/2. Then you measure the x-component of the atom’s spin. According to quantum mechanics, it has a 50% chance of being + hbar/2 and a 50% chance of being – hbar/2, and there is nothing about either the atom itself or the experimental setup that tips the balance one way or another. This randomness is inherent in nature.
Of course, it would be much less distasteful if there were something small and perhaps overlooked in the silver atom that determined whether it would return a measurement of + or – hbar/2. This idea is called hidden variable theory, because the variable that determines + or – cannot be any of the obvious variables (momentum, for example). The obvious variables can be ruled out very quickly by experiments; the only hope is a hidden variable.
To make a long story short, there have been a number of very clever experiments designed to compare quantum mechanics with hidden variable theory, and they have ruled out the simplest forms of hidden variable theories. Some forms of hidden variable theory have not yet been ruled out, but these are distasteful in their own right, to such a degree that they really do not help your cause.
Not being a physicist I don’t have a cause to promote. I have never even heard of the hidden variable theory, but isn’t it exactly what I proposed. It isn’t a matter of an idea being distasteful, but being unreasonable. Distasteful makes me think that you want me to swallow a bad tasting medicine that is really good for me; a bias perhaps? Those who agree that a variable is a possibility or even a necessity, apparently are still investigating.
Data is only data. Poorly done or well done, experiments always bring on human conclusions. If one relies on consensus for a comfortable conclusion it is not really science is it?
Just as strange as quantum superposition seems, and I am aware of the work done at Santa Barbara with super cooling a computer to try and take advantage of this property, a definitive answer as to WHY this behavior appears is not present. To say that it just is, sounds to me more like a science of the gaps answer.
There is a difference between something being unreasonable in itself and seeming unreasonable to you. Unfamiliarity can make many things seem unreasonable. Non-Euclidean geometry is an example. It is extremely counter-intuitive and difficult to work with, but it has been rigorously proven to be just as mathematically valid as Euclidean geometry. You don’t like the randomness inherent in quantum mechanics because it does not seem to square with the picture of the universe you have from everyday life. Fair enough; but whatever made you think that your experiences gave you perfect insight into how God made the world? You have no personal experience of quantum-mechanical experiments, so you have no card to play there. Nor have you shown the idea to be inconsistent. If you can’t show that it contradicts itself, and you can’t show that it contradicts experiments, all your left with is that it contradicts the way you think God must have made the world. Certain passages from Job come to mind in response.
Let me recommend this article on local realism, because it is a fair compromise between precision and readability.
There is a difference between something being unreasonable in itself and seeming unreasonable to you.
The opposite is also true. An idea seeming reasonable or unreasonable is also an obvious feature of human thinking that is an absolute necessity in science otherwise testing would not be necessary. We begin with thought, as Prof. Einstein began his career. And continue with thought, as Prof. Einstein ended his career.
I don’t think that an appeal to my humanness using words such as “distasteful” and “seeming unreasonable” will push me to a complete acceptance of your preferred method of viewing of the world. We are individuals in the local sense but our spins are not necessarily complimentary.
In the article you linked, as with the others, you will read references to consistency in nature, the law of non-contradiction for example. This is on-going experimentation and the WHY question has not been answered in full.
My interest is not in spinning particles in which order is shown, but in randomness.
Quantum mechanics does not contradict itself. If it does, please demonstrate this, and you will win a Nobel prize.
Quantum mechanics also does not contradict experiment. On the contrary, the only reason it is accepted is because it is the only way known to avoid contradicting experiment.
Randomness is an inescapable feature of quantum mechanics.
You have made it clear that you do not like randomness.
Unless you can give a reason for your rejection of randomness as a possible part of the natural world, you are just being willful and arrogant. You might have created a world without randomness, if you were God, but you are NOT God, so your preference is of no importance to anyone who is not you. And your reason will need to be something better than making your conclusion an axiom.
Were did you get the impression that I believed that QM contradicts itself?
It is a rush to judgment to confuse skepticism with arrogance. The same as trying to immortalize preliminary scientific inquiry as law.
My point has been that cause exists. Prove to me that cause is absent in nature, you word and passion alone are not enough.
I would like to interject my perspective.
Plato thought that intelligibility was completely external to material reality. By observing material change, Aristotle recognized that material reality was inherently intelligible because material entities were composed of a principle of intelligibility and a principle of particularity. This renders science possible.
The expression, mathematical modeling, too strongly emphasizes human input, as if science were imposed upon reality, while deemphasizing the inference of the
mathematical relationships from material reality.
The application of the mathematical concepts of randomness and probability to material reality in any area of science imposes limits on intelligibility. These limits characterize human thought. They do not characterize the intelligibility of material reality.
I appreciate these thoughts but my interest is still in the question of randomness in math. I view it as not without cause. Sure, a number can be selected within a set without caring what number is produced. The method though is not without causal steps. This is my disbelief. In a sense the result is given before the problem is solved.
In mathematics the ‘selection’ of a number at random from a logical set, such as the set of integers 1 and 2, is in no sense material. The sole objective is to define or identify a population of new sets based on the probabilities, i.e. the fractional concentrations, of the elements in the source set. For example, the population of sets of three elements each, based on the probabilities of the source set of 1 and 2 defines a population of eight sets of three elements each. One set is three 1’s. One set is three 2’s. Three sets are one 1 and two 2’s and three sets are one 2 and two 1’s. The topic is solely the identification of the composition of logical sets. We can emulate these logical concepts by flipping a coin as the generation of a random number to the base two. Flipping a coin results in a good or poor material approximation of what is purely logical. There is nothing random in the flipping of a coin. The result is entirely due to physical factors.
Yes I understand that there is not an intrinsic connection with the material world only a possible representational one or an artificial one. What intrigues me is that “random” in math is really the result of method – cause. As soon as you define the method you have produced the answer unless a variable is introduced that is not associated with the problem.
I completely agree with you. Mathematics is
algorithmic, so in what sense is the mathematics of randomness random? When a
set is treated as random, the IDs of the elements are treated as purely
nominal. Typically, the set of integers 1 through 6 are considered an ordered
set in which 6 is twice the magnitude of 3. When the set is treated as random,
6 and 3 are treated as equal elements of the set, i.e. as only nominally
distinct.
The same goes for getting a “random” number in computer programming. A seed is necessary and you have the option of repeating the sequence. Repeating a random sequence? Proof right there.
This is why some have so much trouble understanding the difference between free will and what they would like to see in the material world – free will among rocks.
Where did you get the impression that I have the impression that you believe QM contradicts itself? I only said that it does not contradict itself because if it did, there would be a valid reason to reject it.
“My point has been that cause exists. Prove to me that cause is absent in nature….” You presumably know that not all the actions of a human being have a cause that lies in his material nature. That is not a problem, because you accept that human nature contains a non-material component that is purposeful — a spirit. Well, all the evidence is that even inanimate nature has a non-material component that chooses without purpose, but according to the mathematics of probability. This would neither be matter nor spirit; it is probably best described as chance. You already accept two kinds of cause — mindless material interaction and the purposeful action of spirit; why is it so difficult to accept the possibility of a third kind?
Then why the Nobel Prize sarcasm?
Do you bring up Christianity to support your “proof” or is it just at attempt to reason on my turf. God has explained how things are made and the material world was not made in His image – nor were animals.
I do not say “purpose” I say cause. A rock cannot have a purpose it is an
non-thinking object. I does have a cause that has determined it’s direction in
space and it‘s properties.
Accepting possibility is easy, it only has to be a conceptual exercise. Does a particular possibility prove to be true is the quest.
You are convinced of something ellusive, maybe it would make it easier if you
defined random as you understand it.
“God has explained how things are made and the material world was not made in His image – nor were animals.”
On the contrary, the Heavens declare the glory of God. Not only are you arguing from silence, you’re also arguing only from the silence of one particular passage. I’d also include Romans 1:18-20.
I’ll get back to this later.
God is indeed glorious and he has revealed his existence when creating the material world as Romans 1:18 says – but man is unique.
As long as were are using scripture I will quote the greatest source of scriptural exegisis ever, the Catholic Church:
CCC 299 Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered: “You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight.” The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the “image of the invisible God,” is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the “image of God” and called to a personal relationship with God. Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work.Because creation comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares in that goodness — “And God saw that it was good… very good”—for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world
CCC 2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.
God gives man all the nut bearing trees and herbs to be his food. Then man decided to manage his diet to the contrary. Stewardship did not include eating which was entrusted for safekeeping. God should not be invoked in this debate
by souls that have not lived up to His image..
Check Genesis 9:3
Sacre Bleu ! This god is bi-polar. I wonder if He
knew this was the beginning of a sect that would
be called Jehovah Witnesses who refuse to have
blood transfusions. Thanks, Howard
LOL
If you want to insist that randomness does not directly act on the material world, I can agree — but only to the extent that “greenness”, or any other Platonic ideal, does not directly act on the material world. Because there is green light that DOES directly act on the material world, though, I would object to the statement that there is no greenness in the world. Such a statement is both unnecessary and misleading.
Like greenness, randomness does not act directly on the material world, but by their properties material objects may partake of it. As with greenness, the evidence is that they do. Specifically, the evidence is that it is the nature of material objects (most noticeably on the subatomic scale) to (under certain circumstances) behave in a way that cannot be predicted with certainty from any information about their prior state or environment. If you want to know why the electron’s x-component of spin is +hbar/2 with 50% probability and -hbar/2 with 50% probability, it is because that is the nature of electrons. If you want to know why in a specific measurement it came out to be +hbar/2 instead of -hbar/2, you can either accept (in anthropomorphic terms that run the risk of being slightly misleading) that this is the value that the electron “chose”, or you will have to make do with no answer at all, or you can supply your own answer, which will be wrong.
I have no idea why you went on your “man is unique” rant yesterday. Angels and demons are also rational beings who make decisions of moral import, and *if* you are a Christian (no, I do not hold you to be a Saint so that Christianity is “your ground” in some special way), you should know that. The question about the electron is analogous to (not identical to) the question about why Satan fell. Did Satan fall because his environment compelled it? No. Did Satan fall because there was some flaw in his created nature that predisposed him to fall? No. Why then did he fall? Well, it is a part of the nature of all rational beings to choose for or against God, and he chose against God. If you look for an answer other than that it was his own free choice, you will either have to do without, or you will give an erroneous answer.
Let me supply you with another answer in which “will be wrong”. More precisely, further explanation.
I did not mean for you to understand that “randomness” is something in itself which does not act on the material world, I meant you to understand that mathematics ITSELF, in it’s entirety, does not act directly on the material world. It is a concept only. There is obviously a connection, but not a physical one – especially in one particular direction.
An example:
I looked into my wallet and found $12.
I placed the money on the table in front of me.
Now, if someone adds $1 more, mathematics DEMANDS, thru it’s conceptual connection, that there are now bills worth $13 on my table.
Here is the best part.
Please take the number $12 and add one million dollars to it. If you are correct that there is a connection to the material world (which you seem to be saying)with math then we will both be ecstatic because I will admit total defeat and probably not be on the internet the rest of ……,
The same experiment can be used for the
laws of physics and the material world.
The material universe and Platonic ideals may both be “real”, but in different senses of the word. Is that all that you were saying? That is true, but obvious and of little consequence. Heck, the Law of Noncontradiction is not “real” in the same sense that this keyboard is “real”.
Again you substitute my words for your own.
I said mathematics and I did not refer to “real”.
There is a difference that is of the greatest importance. Which controls? Which has the power? Not insignificant at all. It is a matter of priority and place. Master and servant.
Which WHAT?
**IF** you are asking whether Platonic ideals “control” material objects, or material objects “control” Platonic ideals, the answer is neither.
Again I never mentioned “Platonic ideals”. You are talking to yourself.
I have explained myself in great detail. You have not. At least anyone who stumbles on this blog will see that philosophical ideas pulled out of a hat are neither uncontested nor Catholic Teaching, “Catholic Stand” or not. Anything more would be a waste of time.
Sorry that you give up so easily Howard we were just getting to the most important part.
Bull. If you could not get to the important part in 2 days and a dozen posts, you were never going to say anything important.
8 seconds is mandatory, but no one has ever subdued a bull in that insufficient length of time.
You said, “matter nor spirit”. You brought up spirit. Where did it come from? God.
Non-organic objects have no spirit. My best source is scripture. Do you disagree?
If free choice is not given to these, then, we are left with cause not purpose. I have not spoken of purpose here, only cause. God speaks of purpose.
I challenge you to find either “organic” or “non-organic” in the Christian Scriptures.
You won’t find “inorganic” either. The Church had not promoted science yet and chemistry had not been developed until way after the 1st century – we humans are slow to catch on but quick to forget. I referred you to the best authority on creation already.
Regarding angels and demons, created spirits:
CCC392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This “fall” consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter’s words to our first parents: “You will be like God.” The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies.
I understand mathematical probability pretty well, but I am not at all sure what you are talking about when you start talking about “equivocations”. It would help if you would be more clear and explicit.
Let me take this up from the other side, though. A large class of superstitions consists precisely of assigning meaning where meaning meaning (at least of that kind) is absent. “Reading tea leaves” is a classic example. Of course there is a cause for why the leaves settle in a particular pattern, but that cause (1) does not guarantee that there is any MEANING in the pattern and (2) certainly does not guarantee that if there is a meaning, it is a meaning someone will find interesting. The same is true if I were to carefully watch the flight of birds. It might actually tell me something, like if there is a cat or other predator nearby, or that the seasons are changing, because those are contributing causes to why the birds might be flying in the first place. If I expect it to tell me who will win a close election tomorrow, though, I am merely being superstitious. In other words, the flight of the birds may not be random with respect to things like the motions of things that might make a bird nervous, but it is random with respect to the election.
If you replace the word, order, in the first paragraph of the essay with causality, I hope the theme of the essay will be clear. In spite of the utility of the mathematics of randomness, it is equivocation to use the word, random, to mean the suspension of the knowledge of material causality, which is valid, and the denial of the existence of material causality, which is false.
I can agree with your last sentence within the context of biological evolution. If you mean to apply it to quantum mechanics, on the other hand, you are almost certainly wrong — depending on what ideas you are including as a part of “material causality”.
Science is the inference of mathematical relationships among the measureable properties of material reality. In
contrast, the utilitarian application of the mathematics of randomness and probability is not the inference of material randomness. Mendel’s classic application of the mathematics to sexual inheritance of flower color in peas did not demonstrate that inheritance was materially random. Rather, the inference was that the process of inheritance involved the binary division of genetic material and its recombination. Similarly, the application of the mathematics of randomness and probability in physics, including quantum mechanics, does not result in the inference of material randomness. Apropos is this quote of a physicist by a physicist, “Fr. Stanley L. Jaki has noted that ‘It was largely overlooked that Heisenberg’s principle states only the inevitable imprecision of measurements on the atomic level. From that principle one can proceed only by an elementary disregard of logic to the inference that an interaction that cannot be measured exactly, cannot take place exactly’ (Miracles and Physics, pp. 47).” http://www.ignitumtoday.com/2014/10/14/hawking-heavens/
I’m not sure if we have not had this disagreement before.
Unfortunately, you appear to be engaged in a simple case of wishful thinking. You really should learn physics so that you can understand both the mathematics and the experiments that constrain our current understanding of the real world. Unless you understand what it is that you have to explain, your explanations are, to be blunt, worthless. Quoting Fr. Jaki does not substitute for understanding physics.
This would be only mildly annoying if that were as far as it goes. The problem comes when you post such ideas on a site called “Catholic Stand”, which tends to confuse your speculations with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Bob, how does fractal mathematics enter into your discussion? Is it a scientific recognition of the lack of material randomness?
Fractals may or may not be random. A Sierpinski triangle, for example, is fractal, but its construction is completely deterministic.
Because material processes appear to us to be random and to emulate the mathematics of randomness, doesn’t mean they are materially random in the sense of lacking causality at the material level. Ignorance of causality is not the denial of causality. The sums of two rolled dice as random numbers generators to the base six, are typically a good emulation of the population distribution of mathematical randomness. The mathematics of randomness is a useful tool. My essay simply cautions us to be aware of what we mean by random.
More to the point, for something to be truly fractal, it has to have certain properties on all length scales. Eventually, though, these properties are lost in material objects made of atoms.
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