Why Quantum Theory Is So Misunderstood

[Deva]

Blackpuddn,

 

I first heard of The Butterfly Effect in a short story by Ray Bradbury.

 

In the 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury, "A Sound of Thunder", the killing of a butterfly during the time of dinosaurs causes the future to change in subtle but meaningful ways: e.g., the spelling of English and the outcome of a political election.

http://en.wikipedia....ature_and_print

 

Basically in the story some time travelers go back to the dinosaur age and accidentally kill a butterfly although they have been cautioned not to do anything in the past. When they get back to the future, the world is changed. I think this is an illustration of the interconnectedness of everything. Every action, no matter how seemingly small, changes events.

 

However, I don't really know how it relates to quantum theory.

[blackpudd1n]

Blackpuddn,

 

I first heard of The Butterfly Effect in a short story by Ray Bradbury.

 

In the 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury, "A Sound of Thunder", the killing of a butterfly during the time of dinosaurs causes the future to change in subtle but meaningful ways: e.g., the spelling of English and the outcome of a political election.

http://en.wikipedia....ature_and_print

 

Basically in the story some time travelers go back to the dinosaur age and accidentally kill a butterfly although they have been cautioned not to do anything in the past. When they get back to the future, the world is changed. I think this is an illustration of the interconnectedness of everything. Every action, no matter how seemingly small, changes events.

 

However, I don't really know how it relates to quantum theory.

 

I don't either, to be honest. I wish I did understand more. It's ironic- lost my faith and now I see just how little I really know.

[VacuumFlux]

I don't understand anything at all about quantum theory. I didn't understand the article, either- I guess it was written with people with a basic understanding of the theory in mind.

 

But I did want to ask about something.

 

Years ago, I read a book called Butterfly Economics by Paul Ormerod. Or maybe I read part of it- I'm not sure now, I was still a teenager when I read it. Anyway, the premise of the book was based on the metaphor that a butterfly flaps its wings on one saide of the world, causing an earthquake/tsunami (it's been a while, remember) on the other side of the world, and it applied this metaphor to modern economics and the impact of globalisation on individual countries.

 

So my question is, this metaphor about the butterfly, is that kind of the idea behind quantum theory? I'm sorry if I've gotten it all mixed up, but it was the closest thing to what I thought the article was talking about that I could think of.

 

I guess the butterfly story could relate to quantum entanglement, but I wouldn't consider that to be the main idea behind quantum. But this is an interesting question; the other day, a non-scientist asked me "what is quantum mechanics?" in a casual conversation, and I realized that it's hard to give a short answer. But here's my attempt, and then I'll go back and relate that to the butterfly thing.

 

The main concept that separates quantum mechanics from classical is that matter is not as absolute/deterministic as we'd thought. A classical object has distinct edges; a quantum object is fuzzy. In classical mechanics, you can make an object smaller and smaller. But quantum mechanics tells us that the more precisely you know (where "know" is a funny term, too) where something is, the less you know about where it is going. That's not because it's hard to measure something that small, but rather that's a fundamental property of the universe that position and momentum combined have a certain level of uncertainty (and so do other pairs of properties), so when you measure one of those variables, you're just moving the uncertainty into the other variable. For something big, the uncertainty is really tiny compared to the size of the object, but for really small things, the uncertainty in the position is bigger than the object itself.

 

Where the butterfly effect and entanglement come into this is that since quantum objects don't have as distinct of boundary lines as classical ones, objects overlap more than you'd expect. Since they overlap, then can affect each other. It gets even weirder... objects that are really far apart can affect each other if they're entangled. One common example of this is particles that have a spin. Electrons have spins. You can't put two identical electrons in exactly the same location or they will cancel each other out (because they are waves) unless they have the opposite spin (there are only two possible spins; this means they're not exactly the same, so it's ok to put them in the same place). If you then take this pair of electrons that you know have opposite spins but don't know exactly what those spins are, and send them far away from each other, no matter how far apart they get they will never measure as having the same spin. You could send them to opposite sides of the world and measure each one, and every time, the spins will be opposite. But the thing is, with the uncertainty stuff, the electrons didn't really "know" which one had which spin before you sent them away from each other, just that they were opposites. But then when you measure the spin on one of them, it forces the other one to have the opposite spin even though it's on the other side of the world. How did that information get to the other electron without violating the speed of light? That's where the phrase "spooky action at a distance" came from. There are some ways to explain this without violating the speed of light, but I don't know which ones are the currently accepted answers, so I'm not going to make things up.

 

The problem with the butterfly principle is that even though at the quantum scale particles can do really weird and unpredictable things, they do so based on very measurable probabilities. So even if one particle does something crazy in one direction, another particle might do something crazy in the other direction. When you get to human scale objects, the there are gigantic numbers of quantum particles doing their thing, so the craziness averages out and the world around us acts in a rather predictable manner.

[Noggy]

science is such an inadequate tool to describe why

 

I've always felt that "why" is the wrong question to ask. It implies intention and is thus a form of anthropomorphizing. I am reminded of Douglas Adam's book, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", where they ask they supercomputer "Deep Thought" what the answer to life, the universe and everything is and the computer replies "42". The computer explains that to understand to the answer you have to ask the right question.

 

The right question isn't "why", it's "how".

 

Assuming there is no intention is an odd thing.

 

How is that odd?

 

Being such a good little skeptic as yourself, shouldn't you be skeptical of everything? Making any kind of assumption would imply a leap of faith.

[blackpudd1n]

I guess the butterfly story could relate to quantum entanglement, but I wouldn't consider that to be the main idea behind quantum. But this is an interesting question; the other day, a non-scientist asked me "what is quantum mechanics?" in a casual conversation, and I realized that it's hard to give a short answer. But here's my attempt, and then I'll go back and relate that to the butterfly thing.

 

The main concept that separates quantum mechanics from classical is that matter is not as absolute/deterministic as we'd thought. A classical object has distinct edges; a quantum object is fuzzy. In classical mechanics, you can make an object smaller and smaller. But quantum mechanics tells us that the more precisely you know (where "know" is a funny term, too) where something is, the less you know about where it is going. That's not because it's hard to measure something that small, but rather that's a fundamental property of the universe that position and momentum combined have a certain level of uncertainty (and so do other pairs of properties), so when you measure one of those variables, you're just moving the uncertainty into the other variable. For something big, the uncertainty is really tiny compared to the size of the object, but for really small things, the uncertainty in the position is bigger than the object itself.

 

Where the butterfly effect and entanglement come into this is that since quantum objects don't have as distinct of boundary lines as classical ones, objects overlap more than you'd expect. Since they overlap, then can affect each other. It gets even weirder... objects that are really far apart can affect each other if they're entangled. One common example of this is particles that have a spin. Electrons have spins. You can't put two identical electrons in exactly the same location or they will cancel each other out (because they are waves) unless they have the opposite spin (there are only two possible spins; this means they're not exactly the same, so it's ok to put them in the same place). If you then take this pair of electrons that you know have opposite spins but don't know exactly what those spins are, and send them far away from each other, no matter how far apart they get they will never measure as having the same spin. You could send them to opposite sides of the world and measure each one, and every time, the spins will be opposite. But the thing is, with the uncertainty stuff, the electrons didn't really "know" which one had which spin before you sent them away from each other, just that they were opposites. But then when you measure the spin on one of them, it forces the other one to have the opposite spin even though it's on the other side of the world. How did that information get to the other electron without violating the speed of light? That's where the phrase "spooky action at a distance" came from. There are some ways to explain this without violating the speed of light, but I don't know which ones are the currently accepted answers, so I'm not going to make things up.

 

The problem with the butterfly principle is that even though at the quantum scale particles can do really weird and unpredictable things, they do so based on very measurable probabilities. So even if one particle does something crazy in one direction, another particle might do something crazy in the other direction. When you get to human scale objects, the there are gigantic numbers of quantum particles doing their thing, so the craziness averages out and the world around us acts in a rather predictable manner.

 

Hey VacuumFlux,

 

Thanks for taking the time to write out this explanation. I really wish I could say that I understand now, but I just read through your post twice, and unfortunately I don't

 

All these concepts are so mind boggling, I guess it will take a while to understand. I'll keep at it, though

 

Could I ask you, though, what quantum theory is used for? Maybe that will help me to understand a bit.

 

Thanks again, I'm really sorry I don't get it yet. One day I will, like most scientific stuff.

[BrotherJosh]

Could I ask you, though, what quantum theory is used for? Maybe that will help me to understand a bit.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=everyday-quantum-physics

[VacuumFlux]

Could I ask you, though, what quantum theory is used for? Maybe that will help me to understand a bit.

 

http://www.scientifi...quantum-physics

 

That link mentions a few technologies that use quantum, so I'll just give more of a "what it means to me" reply.

 

I started out as a chemistry major, but eventually changed to physics. There's a lot of weird stuff in chemistry, or even in single atoms. Really basic things that you just kinda have to take on faith and get the real answer several years later in your education. Freshman year, my honors general chemistry teacher started the year with the statement "Everything I am going to teach you this year is a lie. But they are useful lies, and you need to understand them before you can understand the truth." A better way to phrase that would be "We are teaching you simple models this year that ignore all sorts of nuances. We'll get to the details later." The stuff you just have to accept are things like why the orbitals are funky shaped, and why only two electrons can fit into one orbital. But when I got to quantum class in physics, all of these questions had VERY simple answers (for certain values of simple). Here's one that the math might be simple enough to communicate:

 

When you are doing math on two quantum particles, you multiply the two wavefunctions (ok, here I am asking you to just trust me on this, lol). So if you've got two particles, A and B, you'd describe their combined wavefunction as AB. But wait! Quantum particles are identical in a way that classical particles are not, and this isn't the sort of multiplication you're familiar with (AB != BA), so you can't just talk about AB, you have to talk about BA as well. So how do you combine the two? It turns out, after some experiments, that there are two kinds of particles: bosons and fermions.

 

Combining two bosons: AB + BA

Combining two fermions: AB - BA

 

So what happens if you have two identical particles sitting in the same place, or B = A?

 

Identical bosons: AA + AA = 2 bosons

Identical fermions: AA - AA = 0 fermions

 

That second line about fermions is the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Electrons are fermions. You cannot put two identical electrons in the same place or you'd have zero electrons. Therefore, in one orbital, you can fit one spin up electron and one spin down and no more (there are no other ways for electrons to be different from each other). Just because of some simple arithmetic rules that I learned in elementary school!

[blackpudd1n]

Could I ask you, though, what quantum theory is used for? Maybe that will help me to understand a bit.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=everyday-quantum-physics

 

Thanks for the article, Brother Josh- fascinating stuff! I'm going to get a copy of that book, I'd like to read it

[blackpudd1n]

Could I ask you, though, what quantum theory is used for? Maybe that will help me to understand a bit.

http://www.scientifi...quantum-physics

That link mentions a few technologies that use quantum, so I'll just give more of a "what it means to me" reply. I started out as a chemistry major, but eventually changed to physics. There's a lot of weird stuff in chemistry, or even in single atoms. Really basic things that you just kinda have to take on faith and get the real answer several years later in your education. Freshman year, my honors general chemistry teacher started the year with the statement "Everything I am going to teach you this year is a lie. But they are useful lies, and you need to understand them before you can understand the truth." A better way to phrase that would be "We are teaching you simple models this year that ignore all sorts of nuances. We'll get to the details later." The stuff you just have to accept are things like why the orbitals are funky shaped, and why only two electrons can fit into one orbital. But when I got to quantum class in physics, all of these questions had VERY simple answers (for certain values of simple). Here's one that the math might be simple enough to communicate: When you are doing math on two quantum particles, you multiply the two wavefunctions (ok, here I am asking you to just trust me on this, lol). So if you've got two particles, A and B, you'd describe their combined wavefunction as AB. But wait! Quantum particles are identical in a way that classical particles are not, and this isn't the sort of multiplication you're familiar with (AB != BA), so you can't just talk about AB, you have to talk about BA as well. So how do you combine the two? It turns out, after some experiments, that there are two kinds of particles: bosons and fermions. Combining two bosons: AB + BA Combining two fermions: AB - BA So what happens if you have two identical particles sitting in the same place, or B = A? Identical bosons: AA + AA = 2 bosons Identical fermions: AA - AA = 0 fermions That second line about fermions is the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Electrons are fermions. You cannot put two identical electrons in the same place or you'd have zero electrons. Therefore, in one orbital, you can fit one spin up electron and one spin down and no more (there are no other ways for electrons to be different from each other). Just because of some simple arithmetic rules that I learned in elementary school!

 

I think I'm going to have to go and do some research into bosons and fermions to get a better understanding of what you just wrote. Sigh. I'm getting the impression here that there's a lot of maths involved in this stuff- I'm not sure what AB != BA means. Thank you for trying with me- I will keep trying to understand. Do you know of a book of science fundamentals that you could refer me to? It might be a good idea, I'm thinking, to go back to the beginning and start from scratch, then try and build on that. I think I'm way over my head here :/

[VacuumFlux]

I think I'm going to have to go and do some research into bosons and fermions to get a better understanding of what you just wrote. Sigh. I'm getting the impression here that there's a lot of maths involved in this stuff- I'm not sure what AB != BA means. Thank you for trying with me- I will keep trying to understand. Do you know of a book of science fundamentals that you could refer me to? It might be a good idea, I'm thinking, to go back to the beginning and start from scratch, then try and build on that. I think I'm way over my head here :/

 

AB != BA means "A times B is not equal to B times A". In fancy words, that means that quantum "multiplication" does not commute. Normal multiplication and addition do; 5+3 = 3+5 = 8, and 3*5 = 5*3 = 15. But normal subtraction and division do not; 5-3 = 2 but 3-5 = -2, and 5/3 > 1, but 3/5 < 1.

 

As for bosons and fermions, they're fun to read about, but don't be too upset if you don't understand everything you read. I certainly don't (I can't even get a quarter of the way through most Wikipedia pages about quantum stuff without giving up). One way to think about them is that fermions tend to make up matter, what we think of as physical stuff. Protons, neutrons, and electrons, the components of atoms, are all fermions. Bosons are often force carriers (all force carriers are bosons, not all bosons are force carriers). The one force carrier that you are familiar with is light. Light is electromagnetic radiation, so a photon of light carries the electromagnetic force (carries in the sense of a phonon is a particle of radiation, not that it contains some). The weak and strong forces that hold atoms together are carries in bosons (the strong force's carrier particle is called a "gluon" because it "glues" quarks into protons and neutrons). Even gravity might be made out of bosons, but gravity is really weak so it's hard to measure and we're not sure yet.

 

I'm not sure about a good book on science fundamentals. I was lucky enough to get a decent science education in high school, so I've paid more attention to more advanced popular science books. You'll probably want to find a few popular science books on various topics; it would be hard to cover everything all at once. And don't start with quantum, it's too weird. Is there anything you're particularly interested in, like bikes, cars, baseball, radio, etc? There's all sort of "The physics of..." type books, which might be nice if there's something you're already familiar with that would be easy to relate to. Or just wander the local public library and find something that looks interesting. Flip through the book and see how much math is in there, and if there is, see if it makes any sense to you. If a flip through shows all sorts of math that you can't follow, find a different book. Math is great once you already have some idea of what's going on, but when you're trying to get the basics, too much unfamiliar math is distracting and frustrating.

 

I've really enjoyed reading historical books about science because it helps to see how we know what we know; I've read some really interesting books on the transition from alchemy to chemistry, and one about how Einstein's work fit into the context of the era he lived in. There's a lot of humanity in those, not just science, and it's fascinating to see how it all works out. I can't remember the name of the alchemy book, but the other one was called Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps (which discusses all sorts of historical stuff like the fights over establishing time zones, train wrecks due to mismatched clocks, and imperialist Britain and France arguing over whether cutting your enemy's telegraph lines in times of war is playing too dirty). Those won't give you the latest on modern science, but they are excellent at explaining why the scientific method matters and how politics and science interact.

[skepticalme]

science is such an inadequate tool to describe why

 

I've always felt that "why" is the wrong question to ask. It implies intention and is thus a form of anthropomorphizing. I am reminded of Douglas Adam's book, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", where they ask they supercomputer "Deep Thought" what the answer to life, the universe and everything is and the computer replies "42". The computer explains that to understand to the answer you have to ask the right question.

 

The right question isn't "why", it's "how".

 

Assuming there is no intention is an odd thing.

 

How is that odd?

 

Being such a good little skeptic as yourself, shouldn't you be skeptical of everything? Making any kind of assumption would imply a leap of faith.

 

Unless you except the scientific principle of a "null hypothesis". The null hypothesis is the reason why many agnostics consider themselves atheist. If you have a question with two unproven answers, your "default" position should be the one that is falsifiable. You cannot prove that there is no intention to the universe because, for starters, proving a negative is virtually impossible. Therefore your default position should be a negative hypothesis because evidence for intention could be found.

 

In a nutshell, a skeptic takes the position that CAN be proven wrong so that if we are wrong, we could one day find out.

[blackpudd1n]

I've really enjoyed reading historical books about science because it helps to see how we know what we know; I've read some really interesting books on the transition from alchemy to chemistry, and one about how Einstein's work fit into the context of the era he lived in. There's a lot of humanity in those, not just science, and it's fascinating to see how it all works out. I can't remember the name of the alchemy book, but the other one was called Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps (which discusses all sorts of historical stuff like the fights over establishing time zones, train wrecks due to mismatched clocks, and imperialist Britain and France arguing over whether cutting your enemy's telegraph lines in times of war is playing too dirty). Those won't give you the latest on modern science, but they are excellent at explaining why the scientific method matters and how politics and science interact.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on the books- the historical aspect certainly does sound interesting, I'll have a look into it.

 

Basically anything to do with maths is out of the question for me- I passed Year 11 maths with a mark of 51%, and I'm pretty sure I was only passed so my teacher didn't have to see me again! I drove every single one of my maths teachers nuts. I couldn't leave out a single step of working out, or else I would get the answer wrong. They would make me skip "unnecessary lines", and I'd get it wrong. So they had to just deal with my "unnecessary lines" of working out. And I thought differently. In Year 7, I was given a number sequence to do. My teacher caught me doodling. He was like, why aren't you doing your work? I told him I was thinking of the answer to the question, which had just occured to me. And he was like, yeah, and what is it? I told him that you had to multiply the last number by two, and add the last number again, and you got the next number... Which would mean that I was multiplying by 3, but my mind didn't work like that. He gave a weird look and walked off. Oh, and I managed to go all the way through school without ever learning my times tables. Yet, I somehow managed to end up working in accounts, contra-ing in three different currencies, and then working in forex. Gotta love calculators!!

 

And I whenever I see the words fermions and bosons, for some reason the phrase "feminist bosoms" keeps coming to mind!!!

[VacuumFlux]

Basically anything to do with maths is out of the question for me- I passed Year 11 maths with a mark of 51%, and I'm pretty sure I was only passed so my teacher didn't have to see me again! I drove every single one of my maths teachers nuts. I couldn't leave out a single step of working out, or else I would get the answer wrong. They would make me skip "unnecessary lines", and I'd get it wrong. So they had to just deal with my "unnecessary lines" of working out. And I thought differently. In Year 7, I was given a number sequence to do. My teacher caught me doodling. He was like, why aren't you doing your work? I told him I was thinking of the answer to the question, which had just occured to me. And he was like, yeah, and what is it? I told him that you had to multiply the last number by two, and add the last number again, and you got the next number... Which would mean that I was multiplying by 3, but my mind didn't work like that. He gave a weird look and walked off. Oh, and I managed to go all the way through school without ever learning my times tables. Yet, I somehow managed to end up working in accounts, contra-ing in three different currencies, and then working in forex. Gotta love calculators!!

 

So it's not that you can't do math, it that you can't do math the same way everyone else does and your teachers were idiots for trying to enforce conformity instead of helping you learn. I get rather annoyed at those sorts of stories because I think math is fun and provides a whole new, easier way to understand things and so many people miss out on that not because they suck at math, but because their teachers failed them. (I am slightly surprised that your teachers told you to leave out lines; I always hated math homework because I didn't need to show as much work as they demanded and writing out all the obvious stuff was time consuming.)

 

And I whenever I see the words fermions and bosons, for some reason the phrase "feminist bosoms" keeps coming to mind!!!

 

LOL. Now I'm going to spend all day trying to figure out how to work that into a conversation.

[Noggy]

Unless you except the scientific principle of a "null hypothesis". The null hypothesis is the reason why many agnostics consider themselves atheist. If you have a question with two unproven answers, your "default" position should be the one that is falsifiable. You cannot prove that there is no intention to the universe because, for starters, proving a negative is virtually impossible. Therefore your default position should be a negative hypothesis because evidence for intention could be found.

 

In a nutshell, a skeptic takes the position that CAN be proven wrong so that if we are wrong, we could one day find out.

 

That makes sense, but I guess I disagree with your semantics. To me skepticism is bent towards not excluding or including either until valid information is found one way or the other.

[blackpudd1n]

Basically anything to do with maths is out of the question for me- I passed Year 11 maths with a mark of 51%, and I'm pretty sure I was only passed so my teacher didn't have to see me again! I drove every single one of my maths teachers nuts. I couldn't leave out a single step of working out, or else I would get the answer wrong. They would make me skip "unnecessary lines", and I'd get it wrong. So they had to just deal with my "unnecessary lines" of working out. And I thought differently. In Year 7, I was given a number sequence to do. My teacher caught me doodling. He was like, why aren't you doing your work? I told him I was thinking of the answer to the question, which had just occured to me. And he was like, yeah, and what is it? I told him that you had to multiply the last number by two, and add the last number again, and you got the next number... Which would mean that I was multiplying by 3, but my mind didn't work like that. He gave a weird look and walked off. Oh, and I managed to go all the way through school without ever learning my times tables. Yet, I somehow managed to end up working in accounts, contra-ing in three different currencies, and then working in forex. Gotta love calculators!!

 

So it's not that you can't do math, it that you can't do math the same way everyone else does and your teachers were idiots for trying to enforce conformity instead of helping you learn. I get rather annoyed at those sorts of stories because I think math is fun and provides a whole new, easier way to understand things and so many people miss out on that not because they suck at math, but because their teachers failed them. (I am slightly surprised that your teachers told you to leave out lines; I always hated math homework because I didn't need to show as much work as they demanded and writing out all the obvious stuff was time consuming.)

 

And I whenever I see the words fermions and bosons, for some reason the phrase "feminist bosoms" keeps coming to mind!!!

 

LOL. Now I'm going to spend all day trying to figure out how to work that into a conversation.

 

With the maths, I just needed to do everything in a very methodical way. *My* very methodical way. Didn't help me much in school, but it did when I ended up working in accounts, because my boss was very much the same.

 

And good luck working feminist bosoms into a conversation! LOL

[midniterider]

Great article by Brian Cox, I thought...

 

 

This statement received some criticism in scientific circles. Not because it’s wrong, because it isn’t; without this behavior, we wouldn’t be able to explain the bonds that hold molecules together. The problem is that it sounds like woo woo, and quantum theory attracts woo-woo merde-merchants like the pronouncements of New Age mystics attract flies – metaphorically speaking

 

http://blogs.wsj.com...-misunderstood/

 

Wow, a physics professor apparently taken by the woo-woo. http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness/

Ruh roh, another physicist sucked into the woo-woo. http://www.amitgoswami.org/

 

We must fight the woo with every fiber of our being! lol.

[BrotherJosh]

 

Point? Or can you express it beyond, "lol"?

[skepticalme]

Unless you except the scientific principle of a "null hypothesis". The null hypothesis is the reason why many agnostics consider themselves atheist. If you have a question with two unproven answers, your "default" position should be the one that is falsifiable. You cannot prove that there is no intention to the universe because, for starters, proving a negative is virtually impossible. Therefore your default position should be a negative hypothesis because evidence for intention could be found.

 

In a nutshell, a skeptic takes the position that CAN be proven wrong so that if we are wrong, we could one day find out.

 

That makes sense, but I guess I disagree with your semantics. To me skepticism is bent towards not excluding or including either until valid information is found one way or the other.

 

Idealy that would be the case. However, not all propositions are falsifiable. The existance of god is one of them. It is impossible to prove that god doesn't exist. Even if you could know everything there was to know about the universe and could conclude that the universe was completely natural, that doesn't exclude the possibility that a god simply created a natural universe or one that appeared natural on any level we could observe it. There is no experiment that can be done that proves the existance of god, one way or the other. However a god, if one exist, could present themselves or make their existance known one day. Thus, the null hypothesis on this question would be atheism, since it is the only falsifiable position.

[blackpudd1n]

To me skepticism is bent towards not excluding or including either until valid information is found one way or the other.

 

Sorry to butt in, but I was just wondering (honestly, and without sarcasm)- is it actually possible to do this?

 

It just seems to me that you would never be able to hold an opinion, even an informed opinion, because knowledge is constantly in a state of change, constantly being built upon as we learn more and build upon what we know as technology changes and we do further reserach, and it is all happening so quickly... That it just seems to me that if someone were to take this stance, that they could never have an opinion on anything. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds more like a state of not thinking and constant confusion more than anything else. In order to prove or refute something, don't we have to start with some form of a premise first, and just be open to that premise being proven or refuted, and then change our stance accordingly?