[ExI] Probability mind benders

[scerir]

> As for "true" quantum randomness, it's not clear that this distinction
> makes a difference.  
- Jef

Also regarding quantum stuff (quantum randomness in particular)
there is an "ignorance interpretation" essentially due to Einstein
and, later, to Leslie E. Ballentine (sometimes it is called "statistical
interpretation" and not "ignorance interpretation"). Also the late
P.A.M. Dirac seemed to like a sort of "ignorance" interpretation,
meaning here that we still do not know what should be the ultimate
true quantum formalism.

Of course one should also remember that according to the early
P.A.M. Dirac quantum randomness is "in re ipsa", and has nothing to
do with observers, or humans. One should also remember that according
to W. Heisenberg and J. von Neumann there is a psychophysical parallelism
between the physical event and the consciousness of the observer,
so it is not so clear (at least to me) whether the supposed randomness
resides in the consciousness or "in re" or in both.  

Not to mention here the relation between Bayes and quantum probability. 
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bayes.html
http://info.phys.unm.edu/papers/2001/Schack2001a.pdf
http://info.phys.unm.edu/~caves/thoughts2.2.pdf

Also notice that it is hard to find an easy experimental difference 
between quantum and non-quantum randomness. 
http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.1521
http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.4379
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0611029

Quite frankly I think that quantum randomness is something deeper
than any "ignorance" interpretation. More than that it should be interesting
to study in much detail the (possible) relation between quantum randomness 
(whatever this means) and quantum non-locality and quantum non-separability.
That is, a relation between the algebraic quantum formalism (superposition, 
linearity,
entanglement, non-commutativity) and the geometric (or space-time) 
consequences
of the quantum formalism. It is (perhaps) possible to see that quantum 
randomness
(whatever this means) protects the principle of relativity (no FTL signals), 
at least in
certain cases. On the contrary, a deterministic (say, hidden variable) quantum 
theory 
would allow FTL signaling. (Yes, Bohmian mechanics is a sort of hidden 
variable 
deterministic quantum mechanics, but it is not fully deterministic).
See Seevinck's long paper (268 pages) at
http://philsci-archive.pitt.
edu/archive/00004583/01/DissertationMPSeevinck_philsci2.pdf
For another p.o.v., see the following papers by Travis Norsen,
http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.2178
http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.0401
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0601205
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0607057

There is a similar old issue in a classical context: Is it possible that if I 
rise
my hand (or my arm) while the roulette is spinning, and the ball is still 
moving,
this fact may influence .....   :-)))