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Is human thought deterministic or probabilistic?

Asked by ETpro (34605points) September 6th, 2011

Recent research on the human mind suggests that it may operate at the quantum mechanics level rater than the deterministic classical mechanics one that controls objects above the subatomic range. This is not so hard to grasp, given that the brain’s neural ganglia, while definitely above the subatomic level, work by passing electrons across the synapses, and electrons are subatomic particles.

Subatomic particles behave in a probabilistic manner instead of a deterministic one. We may wish to force determinism into the equation, postulating that while the behavior and nature of a particle can’t be determined until it is measured, the properties it exhibits at measurement were determined at the moment of the big bang by the initial conditions set at that moment. But is that even possible? If that is true, the information contained in the initial condition would have to be infinite. This is true not only because of the enormous number of particles generated by the big bang, but because the initial conditions would need to predetermine every single particles behavior for every moment in all of time. Since time can be infinitely divided, even predetermining every particles behavior at every femtosecond of all eternity would not be a fine enough granularity to accomplish pure determinism. Femtoseconds can be divided to infinitely smaller units of time, and the initial conditions would have had to account for infinite possibilities over infinite moments in time applied to a near infinite number of particles.

So is human thought quantum thought? This should be a pretty deterministic thing to consider. :-)

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