Quantum Randomness Requires Non-random Parameters

Foundations of physics and/or philosophy of physics, and in particular, posts on unresolved or controversial issues

Quantum Randomness Requires Non-random Parameters

Postby RArvay » Tue Aug 26, 2014 4:28 pm

Not being a physicist, I confine my comments to those of a layman.

Here is a trick question that pertains to quantum randomness.
What is the chance that a random die roll will land "six?"

Since I have already said that it is a trick question, I won't take up your time with semantics.
Most people (I think) will quickly answer that there is one chance in six that the die roll will land with the "six" facing up.

But the trick to the question is that it did not specify that the die has six sides. It could have twelve sides. It might have four. The die roll may be random, but the die itself does not have a random number of sides. Nor, and this may seem unimportant, but it is vital—we must not only specify that we are calculating the odds of a six-sided die roll, but also, we must specify that we are dealing with a die, and not with cards or lottery tickets. There could be potentially infinite numbers of parameters.

Only after the nonrandom parameters have been specified, can questions of randomness have any meaning. This is of the utmost significance, but it is often overlooked.

Let’s illustrate all this by applying it to an exotic subject in physics and cosmology.

You are no doubt familiar with the concept of the Fine Tuning of the universe, but for the sake of organizing this post, I will briefly summarize it for the benefit of any other non-physicists present. There are some 26 or 27 mathematical constants that determine the properties of our universe (speed of light, gravitational constant, etc.). These constants were supposedly “set” at the moment of the Big Bang, give or take a Planck instant or two.

Each and every one of these constants must fall within narrow parameters in order for our universe to produce stars, atoms, microbes and technological civilization (an eclectic panoply, is it not?).

The narrowest of the known parameters is the “cosmological” constant. Were it to differ from its present value by one part in ten to the 120th power, the universe would either collapse into a big crunch, or else spray outward into a mist, but in neither case would it produce the eclectic list of phenomena it supports.

Because this constant is so unimaginably precise, the question arose, could the universe have come into being as it did through a random process?

To say that it did would be akin to supposing that your local library came into being as the result of an explosion in a print shop, to borrow from the proverbial.

Since it was considered unreasonable to attribute the fine tuning of our universe to chance alone, some other explanation was needed.

One hypothesis that seems, at first, to solve the dilemma is MUH, the multi-universe-hypothesis. MUH, if true, would make the unlikely likely. If there are sufficient numbers of universes, each one with its constants randomly determined, then the minuscule chance of one in 10 to the 120 becomes a near certainty.

However, MUH suffers some fatal flaws. For one, it does not address the question of why there are 27 constants (or however many more may be discovered). Nor does it address the question of how the multi-universe (MU) came into being with the properties it has—specifically the ability to produce bubble universes.

What constants govern the MU? How are those constants set? What are the nonrandom parameters of the MU? How did those nonrandom parameters come into being?

In other words, the MUH does not solve the dilemma of explaining fine tuning. It only kicks the can down the road.

I have addressed these and many related questions in my writings elsewhere, but because of fears of being accused of spamming, I will not post the links unless requested and permitted.

One idea that continually recurs in my writings is this: the basis of physical reality cannot itself be physical. That would seem to defy logic. There must be a higher order, nonrandom reality, and I doubt that the MUH fills the bill.

If there is an infinite hierarchy of ever higher mega-verses, then it seems to me that physics could not hope to grapple with that.
RArvay
 
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