MigL

The point is you don't have to wait for the bullet ( let's call it an electron, shall we ?) to have completely 'arrived' at the detector before firing the next. Just do it once. You will get ONE spot on the detector. Now put a transpaent film on the detector face and mark that spot with a marker. While you are doing this, have a couple of hundred of your friends do the exact same experiment in different cities all around the world. They will ALL have a resultant transparency with ONE spot on it. When they come visit you at your house, you will take ALL the transparencies, stack them one on top of the other such that all the single spots are visible, and look at the image. You will see a pixellated INTERFERENCE PATTERN, where all the single spots are individual pixels. This is experimental observation, and it agrees with the mathematics. Does it agree with you verbal, 'human terms' description ?

On the other hand, nice pictures.

Vert interested in the ancient geology, Mike. But what I really want to know about are your paintings It looks like watercolor ( or acrylic ) on the screen. Is this a hobby, do you do it professionally, does it help clear your mind ? I used to do watercolor ( my favourite medium ) myself until I ran out of time and gave it up. I've been meaning to get back into it, but its like working out, I always say to myself "I'll re-start tomorrow".

Probably not worded properly, Dimreepr. Even a person with a genetic abnormality knows the difference between right and wrong ( unless insane ) and can choose to act accordingly ( free will ). But at least we agree on the main point I was trying to make.

I don't know Eise. I have commented on how QM removes the notion of determinism from classical ( Newtonian clockwork) Physics. It will take a better mind than mine to relate free will to probability.

Cuisine Royston ??? Distinct in Wales, Scotland, N.Ireland and England ? Definitely not ! It is all similarily bad,

Solar sails/ion thrusters to accelerate out of the solar system, and to interstellar space ( and a speed ) where the Bussard ramjet will take over.

No apology needed Ten oz. Like I have previously stated, I enjoy discussion, the more passionate the better. Its always been civil. We've never stooped to insults/name calling ( well OK, maybe a few times under my breath as I was typing ). I'm just 'expanding' into other areas of the forum, and maybe sometimes I take a controversial viewpoint to generate discussion.

A quantum particle is not a classical particle nor a wave. Those are models that we can use to describe certain situations. A quantum particle and its properties, whether a photon, electron, proton, atom or even some molecules, cannot be described in 'human terms', it must be described mathematically. Again, a single quantum particle, going through a single slit does not produce an interference pattern, but a single spot. Repeat the process many times, and all the single spots will, like a newsprint picture, form the image of an interference pattern. Care to explain that in human terms ? I don't know how else to make quantum probabilistic nature more evident to you.

Maximum PC magazine does a yearly round-up and test of pay-for and free anti-virus programs. Check it out ( don't know if the rules allow me to mention their on-line site ). Keep your browser and OS software up to date and use either AVG, Avira or Avast free versions. If you must go to questionable sites, pirate, torrent or porn, use a dedicated machine which can be re-loaded or re-imaged, such as a cheap netbook ( $100 ). Keep valuable data on your good machine. Apple products are status symbols, you pay three times as much for the same hardware, and OS/X 'hand-cuffs' you. They get viruses also, although not as many. Phones/tablets also get viruses, but the ratios are reversed iPhone/android get way more than my win8 phone. The percentage of malicious users is always the same, but the total number of users varies with platform. Incidentally Windows hasn't been DOS based since WindowsME. Have been using micro-computers since 1979 ( TRS80 model I with 16 kB memory controlling the laser for my undergrad thesis ) and building since 1980 ( Sinclair ZX-81 kit ) and still will not do banking on-line.

The cpu temperature is the on-die temperature, it is covered by a heat sink and fan to channel away the heat. The plastic (case ) temperature is nowhere near that. The hard drive temperature is the bearing temperature of the HD spindle. It does rotate at 5400 rpm, or if not the original HD, maybe 7200 rpm. The razor blade noise you hear is more than likely the HD head stepper motor which becomes active on start-up or resume from 'sleep'. The cpu heat sink on laptops is almost always finely finned copper. The fine fins catch 'dust bunnies' and cat hair ( I have two cats and 12 multi-core laptops one of which is a Macbook, don't ask me why about either ), if this isn't cleaned out regularly, it will give off a burning smell. But it is not burning plastic. This applies to desktops also, but the heat sink is much larger and easier to get at ( I have two 4-core, one 8-core and did I mention, two cats ). As someone has already mentioned, modern cpu, throttle down and even shut down at high temps. Your Intel cpu has this feature. If the battery should catch fire ( there have been recalls on some Sony models amongst others ) don't put water on it. Batteries contain Lithium. You'll only make things worse.

The fact that your observation/interaction changes the probability distribution means you CAN affect change. The fact that this change is also probabilistic is of no importance. You have still affected change and removed determinism. Notice that this is my definition of determinism ( which we agreed was not the philosophical definition ). And that is ALL I claimed QM does. Removes determinism. I made no mention of responsibility, nor did I differentiate between intended or spontaneous ( random ) change, as in a neuron 'twitch'.

I would agree with Ten oz. Although sometimes justice can be restitution. For example, fining a thief so that restitution can be made to the victim of his theft. I just don't see how taking the life of, or incarcerating a murderer does any justice or restitution to the victim. It may however, prevent the murderer from doing further harm to society.

Again, "I thought I would ask other's opinions as to the cause, or even it it's factual", relating to iNow's post. What part of this do you not understand ???

Whoah ! Cyrillic ?!?! The anthropic principle is a cop-out as it can be applied to any system. Things are like this otherwise we wouldn't be here to observe things being like this, can be applied to anything because ALL things are exactly as we measure/observe them. It also explains absolutely nothing.

Not necessarily randomness, it is the probabilistic nature that defines QM ( the two are different ). If I can change the chances of an event happening by observing, i.e. interacting, then I can affect the outcome according to my will. Is that not you second formulation ? Or are we going around in circles ?

Like I said re-read my post. Covering one of the slits gives a single slit experiment. Passing a single quantum particle through that slit produces one spot on the detector. Repeating this numerous times gives numerous spots. Repeat it enough times and the spots will form the familiar diffraction pattern. Just because R. Feynman didn't elaborate, doesn't mean it doesn't happen, b3a26c ( too long, had to shorten it ). And tar, the situation can be described and has been described. By the math ! What you should have written is that it is impossible to describe by comparing it linguistically to familiar or common macroscopic occurrences.

I beg to differ. Any photon emerging from the event horizon of a black hole has exactly zero energy. Hah-Hah !

Hey, John and Del, why don't you guys just buy the same dictionary ?

If you are at all 'suspicious' of my intent Ten oz, we can have another full page discussion about me ( off topic ). I would rather forgive, forget and move on. Obviously I'm more tolerant of your ideas than you of mine. I clearly state in post #86 that I'm looking at black incarceration numbers. And you are right ,iNow, I was only looking at the first four age groupings, not all six. The reason I asked instead of looking up incarceration numbers myself, is because iNow's post shows a decline for that demographic, in a specific time range, and, this being a discussion forum ( not an assuming or suspecting forum, Ten oz ), I thought I would ask other's opinions as to the cause or even if it's factual

YIPPEEE !!

OK, so should this thread, then, try to define 'free will', before getting too far ahead of ourselves ?

Thanks for the info, swansont.

My previous post gives an example using a single slit or hole, so you can always determine which slit or hole the quantum particle went through, as there is only one. A single quantum particle results in one spot on the detector. A large number of quantum particles passed through the single slit, one at a time, results in an interference pattern. Re-read post # 39 because you don't.

Did you know, tar, that you can pass a single quantum particle through one slit and get a single spot on the detector ? Did you know that you can repeat the same process hundreds of times and all the individual single spots on the detector will line up and arrange themselves into an interference pattern ? Did you know that you can repeat the single process in hundreds of different experiments with hundreds of slit screens and hundreds of detectors in hundreds of different cities around the world and get that same single spot on the detector ? Yet when you stack the transparencies with the single spot from each of the hundreds of different detectors, they will line up and arrange themselves into an interference pattern ? What is interfering with what ? Or are you just seeing the probabilistic true nature of a quantum particle ?