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Originally Posted by Robert Tulip
It seems a rather simple piece of logic to say that if a particle is real then it is in a location and is moving in a direction at a speed.
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That depends entirely on the definition of particle-- some definitions imply those things, some do not, and both types of definitions are used in various physical theories. But what really matters is not the definition of particle, it is the source of that definition: us. Reality does not define our terms, we do that. Yes, we try to use definitions that work in reality, but that is all that can be said about our definitions.
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Heisenberg’s discovery that we cannot have access to this information is irrelevant to whether it is true or not.
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Again, this statement is irrefutable, because no one can speak meaningfully about information that we have no access to, except to say that information we have no access to would not fit various forms of definitions of the word information (and might fit other definitions). Which definition of informaiton are you using, and why did you select that definition? While you're at it, provide your definition of "true", and why you chose that one too. Those are the relevant questions. If you take the scientific meanings of those words, then they do not support the argument you are making.
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Your description of position as “a certain notion” seems absurdly idealist – as though the location of the quarks in an object is an abstract concept rather than a property of the thing itself.
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There are few definitions of "position" that are not "abstract concepts", and none of those non-abstract definitions (say, empirical ones) are what you mean by the term. So what do you mean by a position that is a "property of the thing itself"? How is this property established, and what are you imagining that it means physically? Are you not simply idealizing some simplified notion that is actually quite a vague concept?
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The particles that make up an object are in the object, not somewhere else.
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It seems to me that the sole way that you are deciding what particles "make up" the object are that they must be "in the object". Your words are just two ways of saying the same thing, but it begs the question, because somehow we have found a way to identify what particles "make up" an object without specifying any exact positions for them.
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By looking at smaller and smaller objects we can, logically if not empirically, narrow down the position of any one particle precisely.
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That is not an example of logic, because it is simply an assertion. Logic requires that you state your assumptions and demonstrate how a logical process connects them to your conclusions. I would in particular point to your use of the word "can" in that statement-- what is your definition of that word that actually makes sense in that statement?
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Your statement that the purpose of the idea is its usefulness seems equally suspect. After all, we study astronomy to find out the nature of the universe, not primarily for utility.
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The usefulness of astronomy
is in how it gives us a sense of understanding the nature of the universe, that is its utility. But conveying that sense to us is hardly the same thing as actually establishing the nature of the universe, as the history of science has quite clearly demonstrated over and over.
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Quantum mechanics is the same, we primarily want to find out the nature of reality, and any use the knowledge may have is secondary.
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The concept of application is not what I intended in my use of the term usefulness. If we primarily want to make models that we can successfully imagine convey the nature of things to us, and which pass various empirical tests, then that is the usefulness of those models, as usefulness is defined in science.
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Determinism is more a logical concept than a scientific one. Heisenberg proved that science cannot be deterministic because some information is beyond our perception.
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The latter sentence I agree with, but not the former. It is not logic to claim something must be true even though one cannot present any argument that it is true, other than the claim itself. Is that what logic has become now?
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However, if we say that a particle is a thing that obeys the laws of physics, determinism seems to flow as a necessary consequence.
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That statement is only logical solid if one includes determinism as a law of physics. But then of course we fall again into tautology: the argument is nothing other than: if particles are deterministic, then they are deterministic.
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In the mechanistic Newtonian sense postulated by Laplace, at any given instant all particles have position, direction and momentum, determining their position, direction and momentum at the next instant, and logically implying similar causality for each successive instant, and so that all future events in the universe are ultimately determined by cause and effect.
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But of course the key word in that sentence is "postulate". So the question should be asked, at what point does something that is postulated in the human mind become a logical imperative for reality to obey? At no point, that is simply not the connection between logic and reality, according to that same logic.