One more time, Sysiphus

Trapped in the Purgatory of an Endlessly Repeated ongoing conversation:

Dear Dr Andreassen, Out of a spirit of charity, despite the fact that you will not hear me this time any more than you heard me the last countless number of times, I will explain again.

I never disagreed with the idea that atomic motions can be predicted. That idea is absurd.

You say I did disagree. I assume this is because you classify the deliberate motions of Shakespeare’s body to be an atomic motion. In your words “ To wit, you disagreed that the motion of Shakespeare’s atoms can be predicted using only physical information. Which is not the same as saying they can’t be predicted, period…”

Your article of faith (it is not a position you have ever defended, only asserted) is that in the same way a carbon-14 atom in the stomach of Shakespeare has a rate of decay that can be predicted, or has four covalent bonds to form predictable chemical compounds, in just such a way as that, the motions of his pen hand and hence whether the play is a tragedy or comedy can be predicted.

Your thought is not only in error, it is unrelated to reality. No one in physics has ever put forward a theory of animate motions of playwrights. Physicists, including Newton, have put forward theories of celestial and atomic motions. Indeed, it was Newton’s great contribution to science that he combined the theory of ballistics, collisions  and planetary motion in to one theory of gravity.

So, you are arguing only that the motions of the hand are predictable in principle.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.