Hi Lloyd,

I've been taking a vacation from the deeper aspects of our world as I sometimes do. It might take me a little bit to get my mind back in synch with such conversations. I've often made mention that even though my mind is very inclined to thinking in absolute terms and such, it would seem that the default state of most minds is to just wrap itself within the fabric of existence rather than to examine how such fabric is woven together. My mind is subject to this very thing as any break from such conversations often finds my attention drifting back to the day to day grind of merely making a living rather than questioning life.

Anyways, as you well know, my views on the mechanics of the universe are just that, strictly mechanical. So, determinism and randomness are reduced to more of an accuracy of cause and effect at the micro resolution. When we make ever further reductions from the macro inward towards the fabric of the micro and then search for the fundamental aspects from which all other phenomena flourish, we then find that for the most part, most phenomena can be encompassed within an overall mechanical system operating within certain parameters from which the very laws of physics emerge. At this point we must distinguish between the determinism and uncertainty of the observer peering inward vs that of the universe merely operating locally and nonlocally with and amongst itself. Is there a degree of uncertainty and chance relative to our perspective as the observer? Of course, and there always will be because the very fundamental processes which compound to form our composite instruments, bodies and thoughts are operating at scales and intervals far removed from the fundamental resolution at which such an argument must ultimately arrive at to find truth one way or the other. Is there a degree of uncertainty and chance within the fundamental interactions and mechanics? Well, this is more of a philosophical question not in the sense that it doesn't fall under the aspects or hand of science, but in the sense that it doesn't fall under the reach of science. I can imagine and perhaps logically infer a high degree of precision amongst interactions at such scales but admit that knowing just how much is impossible and perhaps irrelevant. It is from these scales that all further scales and resolutions emerge, thus such micro interactions are the very definitions of deterministic precision along with any degree of chance. Even with such concepts as elastic collisions and such many of our further concepts of angles, degrees, etc, perhaps have no meaning at such scales just yet, but become apparent as composite parameters of the more macro realms. Perhaps there is minor or major variances in interactions at such scales, which are so small they become meaningless over the great time and distances it takes for information to be processed at even the shortest distances and time intervals which we can observe. There's also the possibility of the eternal aspect of the interactions taking place, whereby the overlapping of cause and effect, even at a high degree of deterministic precision within spatial coordinates is null and void due to the temporal aspect of eternal process resonating throughout, whereby a reverberation of some aspect never has a precise moment of cause, thus there is no distinction between determinism and chance.

I don't think such aspects can be approached philosophically head on with science as with trying to resolve this by way of coin tosses or further investigations. If there is a resolution to such, I would presume it to come by way of questioning the very mechanics by which we think, and explore the perhaps impossibility of our thoughts and logic to reveal to us that we are within a deterministic system if they too be an algorithm of such. I don't know that such concepts gets us any closer to a self satisfying answer, but I see no possibility of a head on physical approach to such conversations any longer. At best, I see no way of declaring a truly absolute deterministic system other than implying a high degree of such being geo required. Perhaps all that is left is a logical philosophical argument upon the inability for a brain operating within such parameters to resolve past a certain resolution, whereby only proving that even if within such a deterministic system, we will never know either way. This in itself is an answer, even if seemingly not being the one we search for and discuss. Perhaps the final frontier of science is playing the mind against the the very universe which constructed it through the eons of time and infinite expanses of space whereby reaching philosophical ground which we before have been unable to explore. There is much to be considered when exploring the aspects of the objective classic mechanical observer independent universe contrasted with the more subjective observer dependent aspects of RM and QM. The point at which the fabric is woven to peer back into its own design and texture whereby the universe reaches a local state of evolved interactions to produce life, thought, imagination, etc, is the very essence of how fundamental simplicity which still exists at the most micro of scales is masked by the macro complexity of mere scale and resolution of such interactions taking place through eons and infinities. Such a high order arrangement as the body and brain may have only been around for a universal second, but we have the entire age and expanse of the universe behind our emergence here. It's obviously taken the right circumstances to be met along with the systems building the systems which build the systems e.g. atoms, galaxies, stars, planets, DNA, etc, for us to awaken into this world in which we now look back within and upon and question from where we came.

later,

Tim