As I said, it’s an interesting question! I think I’ve found a paper describing something like the scenario you mentioned (Dhar, A. (1993). Nonuniqueness in the solutions of Newton’s equation of motion. American Journal of Physics, 61(1), 58–61. doi:10.1119/1.17411). It’s a apparently shows that for certain conditions (such as the balanced knife you mentioned, or a particle in a field that would accelerate it away from the origin proportionally to it’s distance) Newton’s equations of motion have non-unique solutions, although I confess that the author rather lost me during some of his leaps in mathematics. The discussion section is interesting, a couple of key conclusions stood out to me: ‘In this sense we may say that Newton’s equation has a unique solution even for singular forces like x1/3 but x(0)=0 and derivative(x(0))=0 in such cases do not uniquely specify the initial state.’ and ‘Infinitesimal disturbance in position or velocity will change the state and one of the other solutions will become effective.’
From what I have understood from the paper, the author seems to be mostly pointing out that there are certain conditions under which Newton’s equations do not have a unique solution, but that in reality a deterministic, but chaotic, outcome will occur due to infinitesimal disturbances. Ultimately, no matter how carefully you balance the knife, it’s going to fall over, and the direction it falls will be determined by a multitude of forces rather than pure chance.
@bunchberry@lemmy.world has also made a thoughtful reply regarding quantum field theory and it’s implications on determinism, and I need to respond to that too as it’s a fascinating, if baffling, topic.
Your question about predicting your own future is interesting; you’re making the assumption that a prediction must continue to be true after the point at which it is made, but I would suggest that you can resolve the apparent contradiction by considering that any prediction of the future is only true at the instant it is made. After all, if someone else predicted your future, wrote it down, but did not tell you, you would eat the avocado, however seen as you changed the conditions of your future by gaining additional information the result changed. If you predicted your future a second time, directly after having resolved to not eat the avocado, the prediction would have you not eating it.
If we assume the universe is deterministic, and that we have the ability to perfectly replicate it and run that replica forward in time without time passing in our universe it would seem that we could accurately predict the future of our universe just be seeing what happened in the replica. However, that would involve the replica creating it’s own replica as it would evolve in exactly the same way as our universe. That replica would create it’s own replica, and so on. I’m not quite sure of what the implications of that are, and it’s late here, so I’m going to have to call it a night, but if if could be done it would be a clear way to distinguish between a random or non-deterministic universe and a chaotic one. If the predictions sometimes proved incorrect it would suggest true randomness rather than just a chaotic system.
It’s a really interesting question actually. In my previous answer I was alluding to the fact that computers typically use pseudorandom number generators, whose output appears random but is actually entirely deterministic.
In real life I think a similar situation holds. First we have to make a distinction between a system having randomness; a completely unpredictable outcome and being chaotic; where the outcome is theoretically predictable but varies significantly with even tiny changes in input.
For instance, most people would say a dice roll is random, but physics would suggest it is chaotic instead. If you could role the dice twice in exactly the same way, you’d get the same result both times as there is nothing that could change the outcome.
For there to be true randomness, something would have to change the energy level of the dice, and we’ve controlled for that by requiring both throws to be exactly the same.
However, you cannot role the dice exactly the same way twice as exactly means having the entire universe the same, which is obviously impossible.
Applying this reasoning to everything leads to the conclusions that a) there is no randomness, just chaotic results, and b) that this is indistinguishable from true randomness as we cannot determine the starting condition of any chaotic system accurately enough to predict its outcome.
I know that quantum physics has something to say about this, but I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable to fully grasp what it is saying.
So, ultimately I don’t believe in ‘true randomness’, but in a chaotic universe instead.
You’ve probably just got a really long period pseudorandom number generator. No need to flaunt it, not all of us are so blessed! ;)
Are we truly not all just meat robots, controlled by meat computers? Why must our silicon brethren judge us so harshly?
Most people buy with a mortgage, so that is functionally exactly the situation they are in. Most property transactions are part of a chain, and if any link in that chain fails, the entire thing, which can be many links long, comes to a screeching halt and possibly collapses.
Then I guess I’m one of today’s luck 10k, it’s the first time I’ve seen it.
Wait, it purged the entire ecosystem except trout, so what are the trout eating? Don’t tell me we now have nuclear powered fish, the implications are terrifying. What happens if you’re bitten by a radioactive trout? Do we get troutman, the superhero we neither want, need or deserve?
Hunting for bugs as in entomology, or hunting for bugs as in testing software? I’m down for either, I just need to know whether I need a magnifying glass or a console and vim.
I just wanted to say ‘well done’ for going over what you said, realizing how it could be interpreted adversely, and admitting it. Not enough people are willing to do that, so well done!
I reckon it won’t be long before we can just replace these sorts of inages with a short prompt and just have an AI generate the image on demand. We can swap bandwidth usage for energy usage instead. I’m not sure that’s a good trade, but with the way the internet is going that just makes it more likely to happen.
You shall be my first disciple. Go forth and spread the good word of 122L! Soon all who read it shall know it’s true meaning.
:)
I was going to roll my eyes at another “is this loss?” comment and move on, but then I looked at the strip again, and yes ot is. How did it get everywhere like this?
We could save so much bandwidth by replacing all loss graphics with the string “122L” and a short explanation of the specific circumstances.
NaevaTheRat? You’re not really a rat are you? You’re a Drop Bear. This is exactly the sort of thing a Drop Bear would post to entice more victims people to come to Australia.
Seriously though it’s a country I’d love to visit one day.
If you enjoy spicy foods (not necessarily hot, but richly flavoured) have a look at Indian cuisine. If you dodge the dishes that are more westernised most things are made with vegetables, and delicious. There’s a lot of variation between regions, so there should be plenty to keep you interested.
I’m guessing that was their last post.