Tuesday, November 24, 2009

What is in a name?

“It would not contradict the laws of nature, if this piece of wood should lift itself into the air without any ostensible cause. According to the mechanical aspect of nature such a miracle, being a reversion of the opposite process, would not be impossible but only extremely unlikely.

Fritz Hasenoehrl quoted in Science Theory and Man by Erwin Schrodinger

I read this quote the other day and it got me to thinking. Part of that thinking produced the experiment known as Quantum Peculiar of which I will try to explain in the most round about way possible. Hold on for the most convoluted explanation of naming a blog as possible!

An anonymous reader posted that quantum are the singular particles being measured that are part of a larger whole called quanta. If you consider humanity as quanta, a single person as a quantum what does this say? Well first what are the qualities of quantum physics that would make a respected scientist make a quote like that listed above? Oddly enough this quote argues for the legitimacy of miracles. Miracles are time events that cannot be consistently tested or shown to be applicable over a wider range, but an event that is still valid. You would do better to call them outliers. They are legitimate, but don’t necessarily fit into the average data as a whole. You don’t negate a hole in one or the Big Bang because it cannot be consistently reproduced. We would all agree that there is more than one way to understand and explore the universe and truth. One way is to test something over and over again under the same conditions to “prove” that it is correct. This is known as the scientific method, or inductive reasoning. It is a set of specific facts or a principle that results in a general conclusion. You pick up an object and drop it. It falls. You do this over and over again and attempt to make a general conclusion from your data. Aristotle said that things fall because they are trying to return from where they originated. Wood falls because it is trying to get back to the roots of a tree. Newton called it gravity and produced a mathematical equation to measure how fast something falls and how long it takes. Both arguments of Aristotle and Newton are conclusions from data. Data is neutral. It is conclusions that are biased. We say Newton was “right” and Aristotle “wrong”, but a better way to think would be to say that “Newton’s conclusion is valid because it fits the data and subsequent alternate testing data better”. As we know, even Newton's conclusion from the data were incomplete in the extremely micro and extremely macro scale. Good conclusions from a data set but not perfect. This is one way to find truth.

Another way to find truth is to look at things proceeding from a general principle or observation to a specific conclusion. This is what is also known as the legal method. You cannot scientifically prove (if someone is dead) that they were ever alive. Why? It is no longer testable! I cannot poke and prod and test a dead body and ever “prove” that it was once alive. I can on the other hand go from a general principle “people can be alive” and make observations the “prove” that someone was once alive. I can talk to people that saw them alive, I can see things that they made, I can read things they wrote, I can watch video that shows them walking and talking. This general principle “people can be alive” I apply to a specific conclusion that Robert Browning was once alive. Someone else could come along and look at the data and say Robert Browning was actually a zombie who looked alive, but really wasn’t. This is an alternate conclusion based on the same data set. Data is neutral. Which conclusion best fits the data? I think many would agree that Robert Browning was alive based on the data set since we don't see many zombies that write poetry and produce children. This is another way to find truth.

Now in debate often times a dirty trick people will use is to say that someone’s conclusion is not “scientific” and then go on to counter with an idea that is also not scientific, but only perceived to be. Two ideas of how the universe started are that: 1. God created it out of nothing. 2. There was nothing then a big bang happened and all the matter in the universe appeared. Both are unscientific. You cannot repeat the experiment. I can’t go back and ask God to recreate the universe over and over to compile data. I cannot go back and ask the Big Bang to happen over and over so I can measure it. Both ideas are actually deductive arguments and both are equally unprovable with the scientific method. So if you post or argue with people be consistent. Compare apples with apples and cars with cars. Don’t compare apples and cars. This isn’t the SAT (although this one is free); apple is to car as Inductive is to Deductive. Both are ways of thinking and finding truth, but must be compared within themselves. OK, this next part is really going to bake your noodle later on!

The uncertainty principle states that even if you take and repeat an experiment many times under the exact same conditions the results will not always be the same for minute particles. This really messed with the minds of determinists. (You can try this yourself! Take ten things that are exactly the same (coffee mugs, plates, bowls, etc) and set up an experiment to drop and break them. Will all the pieces break off in exactly the same manner, same direction and same speed? Why? All conditions being the same can you predict the location of all the broken pieces? Why or why not?) Another way to think about it is imagine millions of atoms in a gas. We can measure the average of all those tiny parts as a pressure, but are all the atoms providing equal pressures at all points on all surfaces? Maybe several of them are traveling faster, some slower, some putting more pressure, some less. What we measure on a macro scale is accurate, but it is an accurate assessment of a normal statistical average of many tiny things.

If you have followed me this far you may wonder where I am going with this. Go back and read the first quote and then read on. Don’t worry I’ll wait. Now as a quantum in society, we are small bits of a larger whole. Six billion or so last time I checked. Sociologists and anthropologists have noted that groups of human society tend to have similar actions even though when asked about specific actions they might deny acting in that way. We are, as people, peculiar quantum particles in society, but where are we going? We all contribute to a quantifiable average, but what is that average? If we are tied to the Second Law of Thermodynamics as a society of people on earth we are going to always be worse off before. It may be very slowly and almost imperceptible, because you must realize you are one tiny particle! If I drop a pad of paper the statistical average is that all the particles in that paper are influenced by the force of gravity. There were some though that went up, there were some that went sideways, but as whole they “all” fell. Have you ever noticed bad things still happen? Why is that if we are improving as people? Are we as society cheating the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Are we quantum peculiar? We need to explore this question because the answer is important.

It has been presented quite often that science and the belief in God are opposed. This is not really the case they are just different conclusions from the same data set. People believe in God because they ask the questions above and choose to believe in outliers like, miracles, Jesus, angels, etc. People believe in science because they ask the questions above and choose to believe in outliers like, evolution, the Big Bang, etc. Both are untestable conclusions based on deductive reasoning. There is a certain amount of faith in something that cannot be rigorously tested. Cool thing is there is more than one way to go about ascertaining the truth.
That is why I named this blog the way I did. It is about the big questions in life. Why are we here? Are we good, bad, amoral? Is there a purpose? What conclusions best fit the data set? Are we asking the wrong questions? Which direction are we going and why? All these questions and more are part of being human or rather – quantum peculiar.


Challenge: Why do you believe what you believe? How did you come to that conclusion? Is it a consistent and good fit for the data set? Why?

Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Beginning

Greetings to all who are reading this blog. It has been some time since I have written in some type of public forum, and although my posts were not widely read I found some solace in writing as I always have. Since leaving the military and a certain community contingent I have explored, grown, been challenged, and experienced an overall good life change. I haven't written about any of it and so I feel I have lost some of the good that can come when sharing with others. A friend of mine once said, "I would give up occasional epiphany for life long consistency". It was a good thought and while I used to think he was right in the either/or sense, I now believe in a both/and construct. I think that by living consistently you can have constant epiphany. This thought has stuck with me for quite a while and brought about what you are now reading.

I feel distracted above all things and often wonder what greater good I have given up by constantly being pulled in twenty different directions instead of just focusing on one thing. Right now I am a dim light bulb, instead of a sharply focused laser. Yes, It may have made me a better conversationalist, but it has also created in my heart and mind a feeling of unfinished business in everything I do. I feel like I cheat others of something excellent I could produce, I cheat myself by not finding satisfaction in being an excellent finisher, and I cheat God by not working for His glory. This writing is dedicated to focusing on doing what I love to do (write) to the glory of God and do it consistently. The goal is to post at least one thoughtful piece each week for a minimum of a year that follows three criteria:

1. The post must convey a sense of exploration in walking with the eternal God (real relationship) without the trappings of religion (lifeless rules).
2. The post must have a focus on love instead of self.
3. The post must contain at least one action associated with it.

I want this to be a positive output because I often fall into the trap of listing things I am against versus what I am for. As a Christian I want to be know as being for an eternal, perfect, loving, father God instead of just a rules based guy who is against certain things. This outlook seems to create a more positive outflow of writing for me, instead of sarcastic, critical, rants against things. I also want this to be a positive thing for people to read. More often then not I think we read and listen to "news" for entertainment. Most of it is bleak or an attack on something, or someone. As the news agencies like to say "If it bleeds it leads!" When was the last time a news article or blog prompted you to think differently, do something differently, or change something in your life? If you can't think of one then let me be the first. For those of you who read, if you decide to comment, a good place to start would be letting me know if I am meeting the three criteria listed above. Also if there is a challenge let me know how it worked out for you, or what you learned.

I also believe that the written word can change people's, thoughts, minds and hearts, that what we input has a direct relationship to what is produced (GIGO, fruit, and Pareto). By restructuring inputs, quality, and focus I want to produce something worth writing! I also want you, gentle reader, to be reading something worth thinking about, something of quality, something that challenges you. There will be a variety of topics from politics, economics, health, management, God, writing, science, games, books, poetry, sports, movies, music, etc. Hopefully I can keep it organized by topic using the Labels feature, but we'll see!

The grand experiment has begun!

Andrew


Next post: Why I called this blog Quantum Peculiar.