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RE: Random Philosophical Question #1

in #questions7 years ago

Alright, since most of the current replies lean towards an unpredictable future, a devil's advocate might counter: "If the human traits of rationale and behavior are dictated by chemicals that follow the laws of physics, couldn't a computer theoretically be able to model the interaction of atomic and subatomic particles inside the human brain and body over extended periods of time, predicting what each person would think, feel and do?"

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Yeah, that's how I interpreted your question. Theoretically, since determinism is true, a computer could predict what we'll think, feel, and do. However, the computer doesn't have to know anything about the quantum world, if the behaviors that are being predicted belong to the macroworld. In practice, though, there's probably not enough atoms in the universe to give this computer the computational power it would need in order to predict everything.

That sounds like a sound argument. Can I ask what the quantam world is?

Well, to put it very generically (and perhaps falsely), the quantum world is everything you can't see (because it's too small). The macro world (the one in which we live in, let's say) is everything you can see around you. The laws of the quantum world don't affect the world we live in, which is governed by classical (deterministic) physics. In the quantum world there's strange (indeterministic) stuff happening, but those don't affect us.

Is it truly indeterministic or do we simply not have a causal model?

I believe it's the latter! So did Einstein! But that's just us!

can the computer theoretically predict the environment around the person? the environment (situation) changes, it might play a role in his behaviour (situation influences behaviour)?

Assuming the atomic and subatomic particles that form a human behave in the same way the particles that form its environment do, then it should be able to.