<p>"I realize that in theory, communism has merit. It's just in practice -- when the "state" becomes all-powerful -- that problems arise."</p>
<p>Communism hasnt been tried in practice because Stalin took the country in a different path</p>
<p>And the reason it's never been truly tried is that no attempt at communism has come out of a properly industrialized society as Marx and Engels suggested. Instead, Russia, China, and the other (smaller) communist nations tried to skip the capitalism step and go directly from agri and poverty to communism. Not that I think it'd work if they <em>did</em> do it "right", but ...</p>
<p>you make a prediction just by saying you cant predict anything.</p>
<p>about communism - lenin got it right. but his ideals were never really followed. human nature interfered and the reins of a communist nation were taken over by lesser men. humans arent ready for communism - not yet, atleast. And democracy is reaching the end of it's day - the population is too damn large for true democracy. the efficiency of government is dropping rapidly and will continue to drop until changes are made.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Are you sure it is really acuurate to define it as a strong "nuclear" force,i think its too specific.
[/quote]
Its called the nuclear force because the name refers to a manifestation of force which can act on very short ranges only. The only time particles are that close to each other is in the nucleus.</p>
<p>Where is this thread leading to? Communism? Forces? Stalinism? Democracy? Just fun?
Well, think of this. How can u define something to be not deterministic? If we cant determine it or describe it's processes? Even here its only WE who cant do all these. But even that electron at a particular position must have a moementum, velocity, accelereation etc. even though it is impossible to find out all these simultaneously. Determining the motion etc of electrons is similar to someone the size of our galaxy to describe the motion of the planets. It would be impossible to that person to find out this. Next, it will be impossible for him to think about sometyhing smaller than what he would be able to experience. So, w3e sould actually first find out the smallest individual species of matter. maybe the photon or something?? I dont really know.</p>
<p><em>refrains from classing the thread as deterministic or not</em>
it appears to be going wherever we kick it.</p>
<p>whether a system is deterministic or not is independent of the ability of any specific observer to find values, so long as some observer can (even a hypothetical one). if preparing identical systems with identical initial conditions and then allowing them to evolve yields identical systems (to each other, not to the initial system) at the same later time, then a process is deterministic; for given initial conditions, the time evolution can be traced. if the result is a set of non-identical systems, which would come from the intercession of something, um, non-physically-described (like a miracle, for lack of better terms), then knowledge of initial conditions doesn't allow prediction of future behavior.</p>
<p>it's really the difference between randomness you can predict to within a certain limit (heisenberg uncertainty) and randomness you really have no clue about (god playing roulette). note that even a photon is subject to quantum-scale uncertainty; going smaller doesn't help when you hit that limit. non-determinism is defined by no one, not even the most advanced species in the universe, being able to have complete knowledge of a system, b/c things are going on that aren't contained in the physics.</p>
<p>"about communism - lenin got it right."</p>
<p>Why do you think so? What about the NEP in 1921?</p>
<p>"And the reason it's never been truly tried is that no attempt at communism has come out of a properly industrialized society as Marx and Engels suggested."</p>
<p>Even if it did, the "withering away" of the proletariat dictatorship seems almost ridiculous. The society that would be left after this, as Marx envisioned it, was highly idealistic and uncharacteristic of him.</p>
<p>Ridiculing people is just ... so "intellectual," you know?</p>
<p>i am privy to hearing pseudo-intellectuals getting into "heated arguments" like this in my physics class
maybe by pointing this out more pseudo-intellectuals (read: geeks and nerds) will realize that their "arguments" are primitive and uneducated</p>
<p>My parents taught me that politics and religion are inappropriate topics for polite conversation. But I (rebel that I am) think that you can talk about anything as long as you show respect.</p>
<p>A Stalinesque dictatorship would send those (brilliant scientists?) believing in God to the gulag. A fanatical religious regime would send those (brilliant scientists?) NOT believing in their version of God to be executed and/or have various body parts cut off. </p>
<p>Either way, there is something in human nature that wants to be like god (I'll use a lower case letter here) and control their little section of the universe. But ... there is no way to account for and completely control the thoughts, words and actions of people. Not even God (with a capital "G" -- assuming the existence of a higher being) can do that. (Can't even make "psuedo-intellectuals" like me shut up.) </p>
<p>There is a free will, a randomness, a open door for miracles, if you will ... that is beyond our comprehension. </p>
<p>Well, best to you all ... maybe someone else can do a better job in addressing the worthy questions of the OP or tying the disparate aspects of this thread together.
(Not that they need to be tied, really ... another impossible task.)</p>
<p>So, goddess, all u have said pertains to the observer. The idea of deterministic or non deterministic universe was brought about by man. When man cant thoroughly predict something he calls it random. U may call the dice rolling as random but if u know the initial force applied to the dice, the angle withwhich it lands on the ground, friction, air resistance etc u can perfectly predict the result. Because humans cannot roll dies with any accurate force in accurate angles etc, it seems to be a random event.
Anyway what is the base behind heisenberg's uncertainity princilple. Only we are uncertain about these things. Humans are random because they are too complex and they have brains. Electrons have no brains or free will, they are subject to forces and move accordingly. So, why cant they have accurate momentum at a particular position? Any piece of matter occupying space at a given instant must have definite position, velocity, acceleration etc. Or else how can its state be defined? We dont have the technology or knowledge to determine these values. So, it must be due to its small size, speed etc. If deterministic universe depends upon human observations and technology it is non deterministic now but may be more deterministic later.</p>
<p>what i meant is that the universe is deterministic in an absolute sense. however, it is not possible for a finite intellect to take into consideration the complete state of the system. when we say deterministic universe, we(most people) generally mean it it a reductionist sort of way - assuming constancy of the environment and focussing on specific system properties. this wont work. because we cant define every single attribute which affects the system. what we can do, on the other hand, is observe the net effect of all these, without knowing what the individual characteristics are even how many there are. even this gives us only a good approximation. thus the universe is deterministic in the same way the carnot engine is real. both obey the laws of physics but cant be attained by us.</p>
<p>
[quote]
about communism - lenin got it right."</p>
<p>Why do you think so? What about the NEP in 1921?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>i meant lenin's initial ideas, about government run by people dedicated to the cause. and i also meant it in reference to an ideal world. ours is not. (ofcourse, i am not the one to decide which world is ideal). also, lenins communism hasnt been seen by the world yet. what little of his ideals showed up in the government that did form while he was in exile was cancelled out by the systematic defamation program carried out by the capitalist government. </p>
<p>
[quote]
b/c things are going on that aren't contained in the physics.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>physics is a definition made by man.</p>
<p>i honestly can't believe MIT is considered one of the "smartest" universities in the world if people like the posters on this thread go there</p>
<p>"the universe is deterministic in an absolute sense. however, it is not possible for a finite intellect to take into consideration the complete state of the system."</p>
<p>Accepted.</p>
<p>"what we can do, on the other hand, is observe the net effect of all these, without knowing what the individual characteristics are even how many there are. even this gives us only a good approximation."</p>
<p>This is what we've been doing for centuries. Newton's laws, Classical physics etc are all based on this fact. Even Bohr's atomic model is partially based on this. Only when we enter quantum physics do we find this problem of determinstic universe.</p>
<p>Even the heisenberg's uncertainity principle is based on the fact that nature isn't helping us find the truth. The wavelength of light is 500 nm. So, even with light we can only measure stuff to an accuracy of 500 nm. And when light gets reflected off an electron there is a possibility of it transferring some of its momentum to it. That is why we cant be certain about the position and velocity of an electron. We would need a wave of wavelength 100 times smaller than the electron and 100 times faster. That is when we can get a fairly accurate sense of its movement and position. That is very difficult almost impossible. </p>
<p>And if we cannot rule out very small inaccuracies then almost everything we see is inaccurate. If we see something a metre in front of us moving, its position when we see it is actually its position 1/(3*10^8) seconds ago. Larger the distance more inaccurate we are. So, we have to accept a few inaccuracies.</p>
<p>"i honestly can't believe MIT is considered one of the "smartest" universities in the world if people like the posters on this thread go there"</p>
<p>Well, we must all bow before your supreme genius after the great ideas you've offered. Please, bless us with more of your insight, oh great one.</p>
<p>
[quote]
i am privy to hearing pseudo-intellectuals getting into "heated arguments" like this in my physics class
maybe by pointing this out more pseudo-intellectuals (read: geeks and nerds) will realize that their "arguments" are primitive and uneducated
[/quote]
That is how anything begins. You don't wait until you are "educated"... else you lose out on a lot of stuff.</p>
<p>--
I usually ignore posts like yours, but I thought I'd chip in anyway..</p>
<p>Samwise: Calling ideas garbage gets you nowhere. If you are so sure of the position you take on this issue, shouldn't you be able to pull out a nice argument convince everyone here?</p>
<p>Who's ideas did I call garbage?</p>
<p>by glancing through this thread i see "heisenburg", "lenin", "einstein" in almost every post</p>
<p>does anyone actually have original ideas here? or this is 8th grade summer camp metaphysics</p>
<p>this thread is garbage</p>
<p>"Who's ideas did I call garbage?" - oh noes!!! I meant fae, not you. I was just ****ed, so I saw your name on screen, and typed it, w/o thinking. Truly sorry bout that. Another reason why I won't get into MIT... :'-(</p>