If you are a materialist must you also be a hard determinist?

>reading comprehension

So consciousness is an illusion created by neurons like the macro universe is an illusion created by the quantum universe?

It just means that the property of a system is not necessarily applicable to any or all of the component parts in isolation. To say that neurons are concious because brains are, or that the QM world is deterministic because the macroscopic world appears to be, is to commit the fallacy of division.

>Quantum mechanics must necessarily be deterministic, because the material world at the macro-level is.

Not true. The macro world merely appears deterministic because of the law of large numbers. If you flip a coin, it's 50/50 heads/tails. If you flip a coin a billion times, you can be very very very close to 100% certain that close to 50% will be heads and 50% will be tails.

>The macro world merely appears deterministic

lol

Negative. Quantum randomness disproves hard determinism

t. Ex determinist

It is effectively deterministic for just about every single practical purpose, except for satisfying the exact philosophical definition.

Yeah but the point is that determinism is not subject to our ability to measure something.

Just because quantum mechanics is extremely mysterious and seems random, in part because of the observer effect, does not mean subatomic particles don't follow physical laws that make the process deterministic.

Yes, and one of the physical laws QM phenomena would appear to follow (and is predicted by the models) is random behaviour in specific circumstances. That this doesn't mesh well with our intuitive macroscopic understanding of the world is irrelevant.

If quantum particles are the fundamental makeup of macroscopic reality, how can you apply a top down view of principles from the macroscopic world as a proof of the way quantum mechanics "should" behave? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

It seems like you're putting the cart before the horse.

Yeah, maybe I spoke too soon, but what I meant was it makes literally zero intuitive or rational sense that a system that is intrinsically indeterministic suddenly can behave deterministically as long as you introduce *more numbers*, e.g more particles.

How do you square that?

>lol

Not an argument. You're laughing at what is literally correct.

t. physics grad student

>t. physics grad student

lol

The motion of any one isolated particle of dye in a container of water is random. The motion of many of them measured together trends towards an even distribution throughout the beaker.

Not a perfect analogy, but you probably get the idea. Taken together, there appears to be a deterministic universe, but each individual component is acting in certain random ways.

>in certain random ways.

Actually random ways, or do we call it random because we cannot know it's position, momentum and energy at the same time?

Yeah I'm sure you know better.

Most believe actually random.

>Yeah I'm sure you know better.

At least I don't think my merits constitute an argument on a Chinese origami folding forum.

The dye molecules follow electrochemical principles, which we can measure to some extent, but the vast amount of interactions doesn't direct any one particle to any one specific outcome that can be predicted in any meaningful fashion.

So the particles could be argued as deterministic since they obviously follow the laws of physics, but said laws don't really tell us anything about how any one of the particles will behave on its own, so we could call it random, if going solely by the definition of unpredictability. Only upon observing many of said interactions do we begin to see a pattern, and thus see the appearance of determinism.

If we could know every facet of every single interaction of every atom in the universe, then it might be possible to put this argument to rest, but obviously that's not possible.

So do some research yourself then you idiot.

I may be wrong but is not the case that technically the macroscopic world behaves the same way the quantum does, indeterministically, but the aggregate probabilities are so astronomically in favor of certain outcomes it's only effectively deterministic? Like at any given moment there could be a 1/gorillion zillion chance a few atoms could spontaneously phase through one another or something like that but basically we'd have to live millennia and scour every inch of the universe to see something as significant as even that?

Yes that is correct. If you run at a brick wall, there is a nonzero probability that you will pass through unharmed. Just like there is a nonzero probability of rolling a million dice and getting all fives. i.e. technically possible as a result of individually ordinary events, which taken in aggregate are so unlikely that we can be sure it won't happen ever.

No.
I long for material things but I'm a NEET which is the feathered thing from being determined.

Because the macro behaves according to those same principles as its essence, the micro, material existence is entirely deterministic. That mankind could even build the machines to answer these questions is proof that with infinite time and infinite resources we could answer every question.