Posted: Aug 03, 2019 12:06 pm
ughaibu wrote:Of course I don't mean that!GrahamH wrote:6. therefore, if the theory is correct, for all procedures A and B, the result must be such that it is recorded by C
Since you seem to mean that C determines a result not correlated with the specific experiment that makes no sense.
At time zero, by assumption, all future actions of human beings are mathematically entailed by laws of chemistry/physics. This means that all facts about what any human being will be doing at time one are mathematically entailed by laws of chemistry/physics at time zero, and all facts about what any human being will be doing at time two are mathematically entailed by laws of chemistry/physics at both times zero and time one, and all facts about what any human being will be doing at time three are mathematically entailed by laws of chemistry/physics at all times zero, one and two, etc. Do you understand this?
Therefore, if the behaviour of the researcher, at time three is a mathematically entailed fact at time three, then the researcher will enact that behaviour regardless of what happens at times one or two. Do you understand this?
But, science requires that researchers must be able to accurately record their observations on almost all occasions. So, if a behaviour at time three has been defined as the recording procedure for two different possible observations, one made at time one and the other made at time two, then the observations made at those times must be those that will be recorded in the way defined. Do you understand this?
If the two observations cannot both be recorded by the same action, then either one of them cannot be recorded or the action for recording that observation was not entailed at time zero. Do you understand this?
Going along with your thought experiment of a fully determinate universe, the assumption is that everything in that universe, not just humans, is mathematically entailed from time zero. OK, a human’s behaviour at time 3 is fully determined and would not change, but the behaviour of everything, human or non-human, at times 1 and 2 is also fully determined by the mathematical laws of physics and chemistry, and cannot change. Since, if determinism is the case, there's no possibility of alternative events at times 1 or 2, determinism would not decouple the recorder’s behaviour from prior events in the way you suggest.
(I think I’m repeating the point made by GrahamH in post #13606 above: “There is no reason to suppose that human behaviour is uniquely and independently entailed by initial conditions and laws”?)