We're talking about how quantum uncertainty could seep in to influence cognition
somehow.[/
For any particular configuration, we can say that the odds are overwhelming that it never occurred and will never, ever occur within humanity's lifespan. We aren't watching what happens when we shuffle a deck, we're trying to place a bet that some particular configuration will come out (or not).
Certainly. You will simply disregard any outcome that doesn't support your position.
Yes... which doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming, crushing majority of improbable events never happen. Which is why in dismissing them all, one will be wrong overwhelmingly, crushingly rarely.
Of course, you will also be dismissing reality along with all the other "crushingly" rare events.
Also, the difference between whether quantum fluctuations are part of cognition or not and the universe is the difference between an unsubstantiated hypothesis and observable evidence. We can't reject the latter (it's right here), but we can reject the former.
You are making a quantum leap right over logic.
Another huge difference is that despite the universe being "improbable", statistically, it meets the expectations. For example, take a sequence of 10 coin tosses.
That may be, but it has not been demonstrated. You seem to be holding your own reasoning to a lower standard than you demand of mine.
The sequence you will see will have had probability 1/2^10. But even though a specific normal looking sequence with 4 heads and 6 tails would have had the same probability as a sequence of 10 heads, in the latter case, you'd have a suspicion that the coin isn't fair. Thankfully, this is easy to test! You would make more trials. If the next 10 are approximately 50/50, and all the ones after that, you can suppose that the first 10 were a statistical fluke. It happens. Now if you throw it 1000 times and that it is 1000 times head, you'd have to be deranged not to call foul on this coin. Even though 1000 heads is just as likely as some particular trajectory with 490 heads and 510 tails, the distribution that one would calculate from the trial would deviate from the expected distribution by a staggering amount.
That your mind is boggled is not relevent. Intuition is not logic.
The overwhelming majority of possible results for 1000 coin tosses will give you a head/tails ratio close to what you would expect (1.0), and the difference would converge slowly to the right thing as you multiply the trials. Look at the universe like this and it's just fine - the statistics match.
Yes, indeed. But the precise state of the universe is staggeringly, crushingly improbable.
What you are proposing, on the other hand, would downright violate the laws of statistics by introducing systematic deviation from the norm.
Never did I make such a claim.
Perhaps you forgot, but the original point is, could quantum fluctuations play part in cognition. In order for this to be the case, the influence would have to happen frequently in each human brain.
It would have to happen once.
If a single occurrence of a synapse misfire because of a quantum fluctuation is 10^-167 and that this has to happen six billion times every second, you'll be looking at a figure whose probability decreases by a factor 10^(10^100) (I made that up but I'm sure it's frighteningly more) every second and (most importantly) which deviates from the expected distribution like a freight train to hell, whereas it should
converge quickly. At this rate, of course, the self-imposing conclusion would be that the 10^-167 figure is horribly wrong
10^-167 is the probability of any giving arrangement of 104 cards. If you use instead of 104 cards, the quantum state of every particle in the universe, the probability is "crushingly" less.
And if your point was that quantum fluctuations have an influence on cognition because the Earth (and the sentient beings on it) was "caused" by some fluctuation billions of years ago, see the last paragraph of my previous post that you didn't respond to. Too much causality is like no causality and chaotic systems are not causal in any meaningful sense.
You say it is not meaningful, but what you mean is you cannot perceive or understand it.
You can't pinpoint anything and say that it "caused" another event if it is through a chaotic system, because chances are that you can pinpoint everything that did or did not happen as causes on an equal footing. I mean, you could - but I think that it is meaningless and misleading.
Every event has a very great many causes. A cause, if removed, would eliminate the effect. I say again, just because you do not or cannot perceive or understand something, does not make it meaningless.
