Free will
in [Lisp]
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From: Nick Keighley on 25 May 2010 08:40 On 24 May, 16:38, RG <rNOSPA...(a)flownet.com> wrote: > In article > <6faa7082-ae7f-4740-9779-18b0c9735...(a)q13g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>, > Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nos...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > On 23 May, 18:03, RG <rNOSPA...(a)flownet.com> wrote: > > > In article <htbh72$vk...(a)news.eternal-september.org>, > > > Raffael Cavallaro > > > <raffaelcavall...(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > > > > On 2010-05-22 12:20:24 -0400, RG said: <snip> > > > > What we call objective data are nothing more > > > > than subjective experiences that correlate well between individuals - > > > > i.e., subjective observations that can be replicated are objective > > > > data. So far from being unreal, subjective awareness is a fundamental > > > > ontological category of existence. No matter how complex the apparatus > > > > of a scientific experiment, there is no observation until a person or > > > > persons become aware of the output or result of that apparatus.[1] > > > ... > > > > [1] yes, this also includes thought-experiment robots capable of > > > > recapitulating all of science from scratch. Their results are not > > > > results until you or I or some other person is aware of these results. > > > > No, you are simply flat-out wrong about this, but according to some of the things you pointed to there are no meaningful physical properties except in terms of the measurement in some experiment. > > I'm glad to hear it, it always sounded like rubbish. So is the > > Copenhagen interpretation dead or did it just never say what some > > people claimed it did? I could never understand how human conciousness > > could have some sort of magic effect on the world around us. And > > wonder of wonders all those dodgy books linking QM with eastern > > mysticism were (as i suspected all along), bollocks. > > Copenhagen was never really alive. See: > > http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/ > > section 5. ah! a real zombie. The so-called Copenhagen was never really articulated by Bohr but cobblec together by other people later. I liked the bit "...Bohr's statements are intelligible only if we presume that he was a radical operationalist or a simple-minded positivist." > BTW, despite the fact that an all-or-nothing "collapse" of the wave > function is untenable, the links between QM and eastern religions are > not all bollocks. They are mostly bollocks, but not all. The fact of > the matter is that the theory that there exists a single classical > universe is in fact scientifically untenable. ok... It's been obvious there isn't a classical universe for a while > There are either an > infinite number (the current mainstream view, a.k.a. the "many-world" > interpretation) or zero (the quantum-information-theoretical view, which > I personally subscribe to). eek! multi-worlds is mainstream? When did that happen? *Why* did it happen?! slightly on-topic Quantum Boggum Sort: Q1. use a source of quantum noise (eg. radioactive decay) to randomly permutate an array. Q2. if the array is not ordered, destroy the universe (*) Q3. if you reached this step your universe has sorted the array in O(n) time. (*) [100] this is left as an exercise > > > at least from the point of > > > view of contemporary science. It's ironic that you, who stand so > > > strongly on scientific principle, should be advancing a point of view > > > that has been so thoroughly discredited by science. The idea that > > > humans have some sort of privileged status in the scheme of things, even > > > in the quantum mechanical scheme of things, has been discredited every > > > bit as thoroughly as creationism. > > > how? I mean I'm glad to hear it but it always seemed a bit like "if a > > tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it actually fall?". > > "does the wave form collapse if no one is observing it?". How do you > > *prove* this is nonsense? Or is that this position simply has no > > observable consequences. Are we in EPR and Bell territory now? > > It's actually very easy to prove that it's nonsense. See: > > http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf > for a QIT take on it, I'm not sure anything having PSIs in it is /very/ easy. Very nice link. For brief instance I thought I understood stuff. This normally leaks away after a while. ok section 5. Entaglement *is* Observation. And whilst a naive view is that observation is easy to understood (even though it's not explained exactly what it is) and entanglement is really hard. They are the same thing. So there are no particles only probability waves. Hence no objects. And no randomness. "randomness is not an essential cornerstone of quantum measurement but rather an illusion created by it." Now I have a headache. > or Deuetsch's book for a many-worlds take. I think I prefer QIT. > > Wasn't Penrose "the emporer's new mind" arguing relativly recently > > that there *was* something special about human conciousness? > > Yes, but he was almost certainly wrong. But but he's a Famous Mathematician! He's got a tiling and everything! > > > > This is why your argument about the spatiotemporal asymmetry of > > > > subjective experience being at odds with other physical laws is > > > > unnecessary - we never get science started without taking awareness as > > > > axiomatic; we have QM because it is built on the logical foundation of > > > > subjective experience. Since you don't need to/can't prove an axiom of > > > > a logical system, you don't need to/can't prove awareness exists. Nor, > > > > having assumed it does exist to get things rolling, can you disprove > > > > it. At most you can show that the whole system is logically > > > > inconsistent, but this would bring all of science down, not subjective > > > > awareness. > > > > No, no, and no. All you need to do science is classically correlated > > > measurements, which includes the states of computing machines and > > > reports of subjective experience by humans. And classically correlated > > > measurements arise as a nearly exact approximation to quantum theory > > > when dealing with large systems of mutually entangled particles. There > > > is no need to get metaphysical to do science, just as there is no need > > > to get metaphysical to advance you political agenda. > > > But you at least have to accept there's a universe out there to > > observe. A pretty reasonable assumption in my view and descriptions of > > the physical universe then follow on from that. > > Yeah, you'd think that would be a reasonable assumption. But it turns > out to be demonstrably untrue. There is in fact not *a* (classical) > universe out there. There are either infinitely many, or zero. well ok not a classical universe. A QIT universe? > Oh, the speed of light is constant in all reference frames too. :-) oh goody at least we can depend on something. -- Nick Keighley I don't like [quantum mechanics], and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. --Erwin Schrödinger
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 25 May 2010 09:29 On 2010-05-24 23:23:38 -0400, Don Geddis said: > They may well attribute free will to souls. So what? So what *they* mean (not you or other compatibilists) when they say "free will" is something involving a soul, something that is *not* determined. Determined means precisely "not free." What you and other compatibilists mean by "free will" is, as Ron pointed out, "a very convincing illusion of free will that is really deterministic." This is emphatically *not* what Roman Catholics, for example, believe. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 25 May 2010 09:30 On 2010-05-25 04:28:35 -0400, Vend said: > Calvinists, for instance, believe in soul but not in free will. Compare the numbers of Calvinists in this world, and the number of Roman Catholics for example; we are talking about what "most people" believe, not what one small sect believes. The Calvinist notion of predestination is so noteworthy precisely because it is as odds with traditional christian doctrine. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Bob Felts on 25 May 2010 09:31 Don Geddis <don(a)geddis.org> wrote: [...] > > That has been my main point. That the thing people mean when they use > the phrase "free will" is an interesting thing, and in fact it does not > require the soul that most people believe it requires. > True. What is also interesting is that nobody can seem to agree on what "free will" means. Pascal, for example, says that free will deals with the amount of control one agent has on the will of another agent. By this, he doesn't mean external control, but internal control, using the analogy of changing a computer's state between "clock cycles". Ron, I think, defines free will in terms of information assymetry between two agents. And, if I read you correctly, you define it in terms of information assymetry between the agent itself, i.e., the agent is free since the agent doesn't necessarily know what he/she/it will choose. Now, if I understand both you and Ron correctly, it seems odd to define freedom in terms of knowledge; especially since theologians have shown that foreknowledge is not predestination; i.e. knowledge is not control. I can understand why theists would want to grapple with the issue of the freedom of the will. What I don't understand is why non-theists even care. Shouldn't it be a non-issue? The will is just another phenomena like the color of the sky. Freedom, or the lack thereof, shouldn't enter the picture. Or am I missing something?
From: Bob Felts on 25 May 2010 09:41
Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > On 2010-05-25 04:28:35 -0400, Vend said: > > > Calvinists, for instance, believe in soul but not in free will. > > Compare the numbers of Calvinists in this world, and the number of > Roman Catholics for example; Just curious, but why? Truth isn't decided by numbers, is it? > we are talking about what "most people" believe, not what one small sect > believes. The Calvinist notion of predestination is so noteworthy > precisely because it is as odds with traditional christian doctrine. I'm not Lutheran, so I hesitate speaking for them, but they, like Calvinists, don't subscribe to free will, either. In any case, the arguments for free will in a theological sense typically come down to two issues: 1) The desire to be free; i.e. not under the control of someone, or Someone, else. As the poem Invictus says, "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." 2) The notion that moral responsibility requires moral freedom. It isn't hard to see how the first arises; our wetware is geared toward self. But where in the world does #2 come from? How can that possibly be shown to be true? |