[extropy-chat] Note on "Random (effects without a cause)" comment

[scerir]

"Jeff Medina" 
> > A lack of knowledge of a deterministic model of a
> > physical system does not entail a lack of the
> > existence of a deterministic process
> > underlying that system.
 
"John K Clark" 
> A tiny minority of Physicists have been singing 
> that tired old song for about 80 years now, [...]


There are different definitions of 'determinism'. 
One sometimes speaks of states that evolve 
deterministically in time (or space-time) as opposed 
to other states that evolve stochastically.

But one can also speak about determinism in the 
sense that the predicted outcome of a possible measurement 
performed on a system - while it is in a given state - are 
definite, in the sense that the range of the probability 
function is the set [0 or 1] (or are not definite, 
in the sense that the range of the probability function 
is a larger set).

It is possible to show (papers by Jarrett, Shimony, 
Ghirardi, Howard, Eberhard, Cushing, etc.) that a
a deterministic theory - one in which the range of any 
probability distribution of outcomes is the set [0 or 1] 
- REPRODUCING ALL THE PREDICTIONS OF QM allows, 
or implies, FTL signals.

So, what do we prefer? A deterministic theory 
which completely violates SR or an indeterministic 
theory that coexists with SR?