[MD] Static latching & faith

[Scott Roberts]

DMB,

This reply is just, as you request, to stick to this issue.

Scott replied:
But we do not KNOW that their behavior is non-lawlike. Further investigation
may show that it is lawlike. No observation we can make at present tells us
that the behavior of particles is in fact non-lawlike. We simply do not at
present know, and no observation we know how to make can tell us.

dmb says:
What could you possibly mean? You're asking for evidence that "no
observation we know how to make can tell us"?

Scott:
No, I am saying that we do not at present have any evidence to say that the 
behavior of particles is in fact lawlike or non-lawlike.

DMB continued:
 All this seems to imply that
you think Pirsig is making mighty big claims. Ae you taking this
"preference" idea too literally and then asking for evidence that the
particles have some kind of tiny subatomic consciousness were they ponder
the options like a subjective self or what?

Scott:
No. I am pointing out that it is possible that the behavior of particles is 
lawlike, but that at present we do not know what those laws are. This is the 
position of Einstein, Shroedinger, DeBroglie, Bohm and many others. They 
would agree that the old Newtonian determinism doesn't work, but they argue 
that a non-local determinism could work. Bohm in particular worked out a 
non-local deterministic model. However, there is no evidence for that model, 
just as there is no evidence for a non-deterministic (e.g. preference) 
model.

DMB continue:
 In any case, I think you're
asking for impossibe evidence to back up claims that have not been made in
the first place. I mean, these objections don't make no sense. You say that
"we don't KNOW that their behavior is non-lawlike", for example. I don't get
that AT ALL so let me break it down a little...

OK, let's say you're a scientist and are otherwise in a postition to observe
the behaviour of particles. And because you're a traditional scientist you
hope to discover the "laws" of the subatomic realm. But when you watch them
you see that sometimes they do one thing and sometimes they do another. A
certain percentage will do this and the rest do that, but you can never tell
when or where or why - or which ones. About the thing you know for sure is
that they behave in non-lawlike ways!

Scott:
False. What is known for sure at this point is that we do not know of any 
laws that they might be obeying, which leaves open the possibility that 
their behavior is non-lawlike, but that is only a possibility.

DMB continued:
 If they acted according to causal
laws, they would do the same thing ever time. They would always obey the
laws, otherwise you can't really call them laws. Not in physics anyway.

Scott:
Rolls of dice do not do the same thing every time, but we regard their 
behavior as lawlike. Now the situation with particles is different from 
rolls of dice, since we have a good idea that we could in theory predict the 
rolls of dice using Newtonian causality and complete knowledge of initial 
conditions. We don't have that knowledge of the subatomic realm, but it is 
theoretically possible that with additional knowledge of the subatomic 
realm, we could learn to predict individual particle behavior.

DMB continued:
That's it, Scott. That's all Pirsig claims in his preference model. No big
deal. Very simple. So let me ask you about the perference model again. Why
does the actual observation of this non-lawlike behavior fail to count as
evidence for the preference model?

Scott:
Because, as explained above, there is no actual observation of non-lawlike 
behavior. Observation, at our current level of knowledge, cannot say whether 
the behavior is lawlike or non-lawlike. Thus, Bohr said we should make no 
hypothesis about what is "really going on". Both the preference model and 
Bohm's non-local deterministic model are hypotheses of "what is really going 
on" (along with a bunch of other hypotheses, such as the many-world 
hypothesis, which is also causal). All of them are empirically consistent 
with the data, but none of them have an empirical edge over the others.

DMB continued:
 If the preference model is based on this
observation, then in what sense is it not empirically based?

Scott:
In the sense that the hypothesis of lawlike behavior is just as empirical as 
the hypothesis of non-lawlike behavior -- which is to say, neither 
hypothesis is empirically based.

DMB continued:
And I ask you
to stick to this issue without confusing mysticism and radical empiricism
into questions and statements about this issue. Like I said last time,
"empirical justification for the mystical will be found in the observation
of states of consciousness, not subatomic particles" and vice versa.

Scott:
Ok, I've stuck to this issue. And I agree with that last sentence.

- Scott