Count Otto Black wrote:Or is it merely another way of saying incoherence at the macroscopic level?

This. Which is incidentally quite clearly enough explained in the links I gave previously in the thread. You know, the ones rainbow doesn't have the time to read for all his playing with Google and reading fascinating music reviews he finds with it.

But no worries, I can wait.

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:They sell the products at a higher price than their input costs.

But because of quantum uncertainty they can't know what the product will be.

Something about it doesn't make batches of strawberry jam, so it isn't random.

Fail. And you told be you understood it fully. What I was saying was that if chemical reactions are random you could get any product from a reaction.

I understand this perfectly.
It is patently absurd.
If random meant that any outcome was possible, we have to redefine the word.
If would also follow that your example would apply to any random event.
...so unless quantum mechanics is non-Random, we should be seeing strawberry jam flying out of every electronic transition.
...but we don't.

rainbow wrote:I understand this perfectly.
It is patently absurd.
If random meant that any outcome was possible, we have to redefine the word.
If would also follow that your example would apply to any random event.
...so unless quantum mechanics is non-Random, we should be seeing strawberry jam flying out of every eletronic transition.
...but we don't.

Ergo quantum mechanics is non-random?

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:I understand this perfectly.
It is patently absurd.
If random meant that any outcome was possible, we have to redefine the word.
If would also follow that your example would apply to any random event.
...so unless quantum mechanics is non-Random, we should be seeing strawberry jam flying out of every eletronic transition.
...but we don't.

Ergo quantum mechanics is non-random?

No, ergo your assertion is absurd.

rainbow wrote:
No, ergo your assertion is absurd.

The only assertion I made was that the Haber Process never turns out strawberry jam. Whilst I'm beginning to wish I'd never made that assertion to someone with no apparent grasp of irony, it remains completely and trivially true.

What you've consistently failed to understand is that if the underlying quantum events were random AND added up to random events on the macroscopic level, you could quite literally put anything in at one end and end up with anything coming out of the other because even the atomic structures themselves would be unstable. You wouldn't even know what elements would come out of the other end.

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:
No, ergo your assertion is absurd.

The only assertion I made was that the Haber Process never turns out strawberry jam. Whilst I'm beginning to wish I'd never made that assertion to someone with no apparent grasp of irony, it remains completely and trivially true.

What you've consistently failed to understand is that if the underlying quantum events were random AND added up to random events on the macroscopic level, you could quite literally put anything in at one end and end up with anything coming out of the other because even the atomic structures themselves would be unstable. You wouldn't even know what elements would come out of the other end.

This is meaningless, I explained how all this random stuff works earlier. Rainbow, chooses to ignore that. At this point you're merely feeding a troll

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:
No, ergo your assertion is absurd.

The only assertion I made was that the Haber Process never turns out strawberry jam. Whilst I'm beginning to wish I'd never made that assertion to someone with no apparent grasp of irony, it remains completely and trivially true.

What you've consistently failed to understand is that if the underlying quantum events were random AND added up to random events on the macroscopic level, you could quite literally put anything in at one end and end up with anything coming out of the other because even the atomic structures themselves would be unstable.

Yes, and since nobody but you has made that assertion, it remains an absurdity.
Random doesn't equal ANY outcome. It means an unpredictable outcome.
I've said this ages ago, but does anybody listen?

rainbow wrote:Yes, and since nobody but you has made that assertion, it remains an absurdity.

I haven't made that assertion either.

It means an unpredictable outcome.

Is a horse race random?

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:Yes, and since nobody but you has made that assertion, it remains an absurdity.

I haven't made that assertion either.

It means an unpredictable outcome.

Is a horse race random?

Only when the winner is a batch of strawberry jam.

rainbow wrote:

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:
No, ergo your assertion is absurd.

The only assertion I made was that the Haber Process never turns out strawberry jam. Whilst I'm beginning to wish I'd never made that assertion to someone with no apparent grasp of irony, it remains completely and trivially true.

What you've consistently failed to understand is that if the underlying quantum events were random AND added up to random events on the macroscopic level, you could quite literally put anything in at one end and end up with anything coming out of the other because even the atomic structures themselves would be unstable.

Yes, and since nobody but you has made that assertion, it remains an absurdity.
Random doesn't equal ANY outcome. It means an unpredictable outcome.
I've said this ages ago, but does anybody listen?

And yet since the outcome of a vast range of chemical reactions can be predicted with certainty, the mind boggles that you even started this thread.

rainbow wrote:

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:Yes, and since nobody but you has made that assertion, it remains an absurdity.

I haven't made that assertion either.

It means an unpredictable outcome.

Is a horse race random?

Only when the winner is a batch of strawberry jam.

We know the starting position of each horse and their direction and their destination. We might know their form in previous races, their age and the weight they'll be carrying. Is the outcome predictable?

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:Yes, and since nobody but you has made that assertion, it remains an absurdity.

I haven't made that assertion either.

It means an unpredictable outcome.

Is a horse race random?

Only when the winner is a batch of strawberry jam.

We know the starting position of each horse and their direction and their destination. We might know their form in previous races, their age and the weight they'll be carrying. Is the outcome predictable?

Yes.
Is the next number on a roulette wheel predictable?

rainbow wrote:

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:Yes, and since nobody but you has made that assertion, it remains an absurdity.

I haven't made that assertion either.

It means an unpredictable outcome.

Is a horse race random?

Only when the winner is a batch of strawberry jam.

We know the starting position of each horse and their direction and their destination. We might know their form in previous races, their age and the weight they'll be carrying. Is the outcome predictable?

Yes.

A one word answer? Could you elucidate?

You would need very sensitive measuring equipment to detect the distance the ball will travel relative to the backward movement of the wheel but in principle it ought to be possible (though you'd struggle to do it in a casino).

Count Otto Black wrote:

A one word answer?

It would appear so.

Could you elucidate?

Nope. I'm still waiting for your answer to my Yes/No question.

You would need very sensitive measuring equipment to detect the distance the ball will travel relative to the backward movement of the wheel but in principle it ought to be possible (though you'd struggle to do it in a casino).

"Yes"" or "No"?

rainbow wrote:It would appear so.

If a horse race is predictable, why do people bet on them?

Nope. I'm still waiting for your answer to my Yes/No question.

The answer was "no".

"Yes"" or "No"?

Yes.

This is much easier.

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:It would appear so.

If a horse race is predictable, why do people bet on them?

They think they can beat the odds.
What has this to do with Chemistry?

rainbow wrote:They think they can beat the odds.

This explains precisely nothing. If the outcome is predictable then they should all bet on the winning horse. I say the horse race is neither random nor predictable (by the punters at any rate).

What has this to do with Chemistry?

It's what's known as an analogy. What I'm hoping (against hope) to tease out here is exactly what you mean by 'predictable' and what your idea of 'random' is.

Count Otto Black wrote:

rainbow wrote:They think they can beat the odds.

This explains precisely nothing. If the outcome is predictable then they should all bet on the winning horse. I say the horse race is neither random nor predictable (by the punters at any rate).

Yes, but then you believe that 'macroscopic incoherence' is a commonly used scientific term even though there are only 3 references to it and the context is rather dodgy. But hey, we're all entitled to our views.

What has this to do with Chemistry?

It's what's known as an analogy. What I'm hoping (against hope) to tease out here is exactly what you mean by 'predictable' and what your idea of 'random' is.

Oh I know what an analogy is. I've already told you what I mean.

rainbow wrote:Yes, but then you believe that 'macroscopic incoherence' is a commonly used scientific term even though there are only 3 references to it and the context is rather dodgy. But hey, we're all entitled to our views.

Actually my last answer to that was "no". We can't describe it as commonly used in science just as we can't say that the term Quercus robustus is commonly used in science - it's probably not even commonly used in botany despite it being a scientific name.

What has this to do with Chemistry?

It's what's known as an analogy. What I'm hoping (against hope) to tease out here is exactly what you mean by 'predictable' and what your idea of 'random' is.

Oh I know what an analogy is. I've already told you what I mean.[/quote]

You told us that random meant something with an unpredictable outcome. A horse race isn't random and yet the outcome isn't predictable. The favourite doesn't always win.

Try this

An example of a stochastic process in the natural world is pressure in a gas as modeled by the Wiener process. Even though (classically speaking) each molecule is moving in a deterministic path, the motion of a collection of them is computationally and practically unpredictable. A large enough set of molecules will exhibit stochastic characteristics, such as filling the container, exerting equal pressure, diffusing along concentration gradients, etc. These are emergent properties of the systems.
[edit]

There are still bounds in chaotic systems - Schroedinger comes to mind