'Quantum free will' vs determinism
In 1920's 'they' found out that the idea of determinism is not right due to the discovery of quantum physics. So how do quantum physics give the Universe 'free will'? Or is quantum physics just an other thing we have yet to fully understand and is determinism still right?
Comments (207)
However, it says nothing about choice. Depending upon interpretations of what it all means, it does leave open the possibility for conscious choice. But all of this is metaphysical, not science. Science is simply the Schrodinger's wave equation and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Quantum randomness wouldn't achieve free-will. It merely would mess-up, make less effective, your choices, with regard to your more basic unchanging purposes and needs.
But if, by whatever reason, randomness occurs to some small extent, to some small degree that doesn't countermand basic important goals, needs and purposes, some randomness might not be a bad thing.
But it just means that the determinism is partly determined randomly. It wouldn't mean that there isn't determinism.
You still can't will what to will. You still can't want or not want something because you want to want or not want it.
As for "free-will", our choices are obviously deterministic, even from our own point of view. ...meaning that there isn't free will.
Michael Ossipoff
There is no quantum randomness. It is probabilistic. If it was random, then the Schrodinger equation would be worthless.
I have no idea what is free will. Humans have a choice in the direction of action they would like to try to take.
I won't try to understand the rest: random determinism?? Anyway, do what you have to do to convince yourself that your life is fated. If you need more arguments in your favor, I would recommend Calvinism.
The majority of physicists favor the "statistical in-determinism" interpretations.
Quantum indeterminism can be shown to creep into the macro world.
If the universe is not "deterministic" then there is metaphysical space for "efficacy" of the will.
Quantum mechanics does not provide any kind of explanation for "free" will.
I'd said:
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You said:
Dice are probabilistic and random. Random doesn’t mean that all outcomes are equally probable.
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Anyway, I didn’t introduce the phrase “quantum randomness”.
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…without being able to choose what they would like.
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Ok, it wouldn’t strictly be pure determinism. But I made it clear that I was talking about determinism modified by only a very slight and limited degree of randomization, not enough to countermand the important feelings, goals, purposes or needs.
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Thanks for your advice. But save it, troll.
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And that advice comes from someone who believes that he’s controlled by a disembodied, distributed Rupert-Sheldrake holographic quantum Mind-Repository.
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Michael Ossipoff
Which interpretation would this be? I know of no such interpretation, since inherently the Schrodinger equation (which is Quantum physics) is probabilistic. There is no getting away from this.
You can't build computers based upon a random roll like a die. You can build one based upon Schrodinger's equations. There is a big difference.
As far as randomness in determinism, it's quite your invention. Just one random event pretty much destroys all of determinism, but keep trying. A review of Calvinism, which is in total agreement with your philosophy is one avenue for further explanation. Just, whenever they use the word God, you should use the Laws of Nature.
Why are they probabilistic and random? The statistical definition of random is that they are equally probable. In my opinion there is no such thing as random. I think random is used to explain situations in which humans can't evaluate the probabilities of something. I believe that everything in the known universe exists only as a probabilities. Our choices and thoughts. The coin that is flipped in a bet. No choices or randomness. Just probabilities playing out based on original configurations. Not our choice, or the universes "determinism". Just probabilities. Interested to see what everyone thinks. Take care all!
The Schrodinger equation is deterministic. From SEP:
"Given the state of a system at t and the forces and constraints to which it is subject, there is an equation, ‘Schrödinger's equation’, that gives the state at any other time U|vt> ? |vt?>. The important properties of U for our purposes are that it is deterministic, which is to say that it takes the state of a system at one time into a unique state at any other, ..."
The Everett (Many Worlds) interpretation is based solely on the above dynamics and so is a deterministic interpretation.
As for we as SEP IRA concerned, it looks like they just redefine determinism which is something that philosophers and scientists do when they become goal oriented.
BTW, I took the time to read the SEP version of Bergson and I would characterize it as goofy.
Here is another quote, and I can pull out thousands like it:
"Quantum mechanics is indeterministic, "
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-physics-free-will/
The real question is why do scientists, particularly those involved with neurology so dead set on making us into robots? It is really the question that should be explored.
That's a quote specifically about measurement, not the Schrodinger equation. In that same article the author says, "Also, at a deep level, quantum mechanics is not random at all. Schrödinger’s equation is completely deterministic and time-symmetric."
As it happens, the De Broglie–Bohm theory is also deterministic. Here's a quote from David Bohm:
Quoting David Bohm
"Although the interpretation is termed causal (his italics), this should not be taken as implying a form of complete determinism. Indeed it will be shown that this interpretation opens the door for the [i]creative operation[/i (my italics)] of underlying, and yet subtler, levels of reality."
Bohm and Bergson were on the same track including the concept that in some way the universe was holographic. Bohm's book is entirely about how quantum theory supports the notion of creative intelligence. Of course, all of this is ignored by those who wish to turn Bohm's equations into some deterministic theory, while it clearly cannot be. His equation uses a probabilistic function. It has to.
Bohm's requesting, the quantum potential, is and has to be probabilistic, thus allowing for creativity and choice, which also supports every day experience of every human being. The life we experience, filled with choices, is not an illusion concocted by some Laws of Nature nor the gods of Hinduism.
P.70 of the Oxford Handbook of Free Will completely supports my position on Bohm, and on determinism and quantum physics, particularly in light of the work by Conway and Kochen. However, scientists such as Hooft desperately keep seeking for ways to resuscitate determinism, even to the point of outlandish super-determinism. Why? Why are scientists so goal directed? This is an important question to ask since it provides insight into the science industry.
Dice are known as a "randomizing-device", one among many.
There isn't a very "big difference" between randomizing-devices. They all achieve the same thing.
Computers commonly use pseudorandom algorithms, because that doesn't require special hardware, though, as you may know, pseudorandom algorithms aren't reliably random.
You could say that about some genuine randomizing-devices too. I once statistically-tested an inexpensive die, and found the expected statistically-significant departures from randomness, the departures that one would expect due to the die's asymmetric mass-distribution.
But, for the purpose of games, even gambling, that die would be adequate. Most sidewalk craps-games probably use such dice, and no one has a problem with their nonrandomness.
Of course casino dice have "pips" (spots) consisting of, filled with, the same material (or at least an equally-dense material) as the rest of the die, though the pips are dyed a different color. That avoids the gross departures from randomness that I measured.
By the way, a perfect die is completely random, with all of its final-orientation outcomes being equally likely. But, even with the best pair of dice, the game-relevant outcomes aren't equally likely. Casino craps, sidewalk-craps, and most boardgames are based on dice-outcomes consisting of the the total number of pips showing when two dice are thrown. Those outcomes are not equally likely, even with the best dice. A seven is much more likely than a two or a twelve.
It can be heard as a contradiction in terms. That's why I said that it wasn't a good way to say what I meant.
Here's what I meant:
Though randomness, any degree of it, is the opposite of pre-determination...
Suppose that quantum-effects (or something else) add some randomness to your choices. In that case, that random effect is making you act contrary to how you'd have wanted to act before that randomizing effect. It will, more often than not, make you act contrary to your longterm goals, purposes and principles. ...and produce a result that you later don't like.
It means that, to some extent, your actions are being determined for you, instead of by you..
That was what I meant. Sure, "deterministic" wasn't the right word, because "deterministic" implies pre-determined.
Incorrect. Not if the randomizing influence only has a small role, &/or only happens occasionally, or in limited choice-domains.
Keep talking like the troll that you are, Rich.
...a troll who believes that he's controlled by a disembodied, distributed Rupert-Sheldrake holographic quantum Mind-repository.
Michael Ossipoff
I'd said:
You replied:
Yes. In that sense, a perfect die is completely random, because all of the outcome-numbers from 1 to 6 are equally probably.
But a pair of dice is probabilistic too, because, if the outcomes consist of the number of pips showing when the dice come to rest, then those outcomes have different probabilities.
That was what I meant.
A perfect die would be random. The best dice, the ones used in casinos, closely approach that ideal.
Sure, but also to describe situations in which the outomes really are equiprobable, or nearly so.
And "random" is reasonably used for devices and situations in which the outcome is probabilistic instead of deterministic. Such devices and situations are reasonably said to have a random element.
Our choices and thoughts might seem that way because we don't have detailed information about what determines them.
But often we do. Often we do know why we make the choices that we make. That's so, often enough, that I suggest that the determinism of our choices is obvious, even from our own point of view.
In the case of a flipped-coin, the two outcomes are genuinely equiprobable. We hear mention of a "fair-coin". Have you ever seen or heard of a coin that isn't a "fair-coin"? ...unless it's a two-headed or two-tailed coin.
...equiprobable because it's entirely impossible for anyone to control the outcome of a reasonably high coin-flip.
Michael Ossipoff
That's not what I mean. I said build computers (solid state electronics) not program computers. If the world was random, the Internet would fall into chaos.
Look at your messages on the topic. Your belief in determinism is entirely based upon faith. There is not one shred of evidence anywhere to support such a philosophical view. It is exactly, precisely, a religion in all shape and form. It is dogma.
Quantum entanglement does injury to locality and/or causality, even space and time.
Either way the notion of determinism gives way to structured or ordered with some degrees of freedom or non computability, non predictability.
Complex systems have always been non predictable, determinism was always only a theory.
Even proponents of "determinism" and lack of "free will" do not live as though it were true, one can't. When philosophical theory contradicts the requirements of living, one should reconsider the theory.
All those long range space exploration satellites have course correction or they would never reach their targets.
Metaphysical Determinism is bad science and bad philosophy, it is a useless theory.
I don't disagree with that, but, sometimes, to the extent that something is probabilistic, it's said to have some randomness. ...even if all outcomes aren't equiprobable.
Michael Ossipoff
We've been over this. I admit that there could be small probabilistic influences, randomizing influences on human behavior. But we're mostly deterministic, with built-in and acquired inclinations and predispositions. ...responding, of course, to environmental conditions.
Natural-selection made us that way, because the individuals that successfully rear more offspring will, obviously have their traits represented more in the population. And no, that isn't a religion. it's just a blatantly obvious fact.
Michael Ossipoff
Sure. We have habits - which can be disrupted by choice. Just one choice destroys determinism. If it can be done once it can be done again and again. There is no such thing as kind-of-determinism.
Agreed, if quantum-effects, or anything else, introduces a small probabilistic influence in human-behavior, then our choices aren't entirely deterministic. For my answer to that, I refer you to my post just before this one.
I'll take your word for that one, because I'm not quite sure how it affects our choices.
Yes, to the extent that, and if, there's some probabilistic influence on our choices and behavior. ...due to quantum-effects, or some other reason.
Maybe we're meaning different things by "determinism". If our choices are determined by physical influences that are too complex to predict, they're still determined by those influences, even if they can't be predicted.
But people are largely predictable, even by other fallible people.
i predict that you aren't going to quit your job
and take up cave-diving tomorrow.
I predict that humans will never have a good society.
...like evolution?
As I said, there might be slight probabilistic influences, from one cause or another. So then our choices wouldn't be entirely deterministic.
How so? Can you show that we don't mostly act according to our inclinations, predispositions and our surroundings?
You've said that it contradicts them, but you haven't shown that.
Their human controllers made the course-corrections, in keeping with their desire to send the probe to the planet. ...an inclination resulting from built-in and acquired predispositions and inclinations, and influences in those humans' surroundings, throughout their lives.
Of course humans, like all animals, can adapt to their surroundings, by acquiring inclinations, predispositions and intentions based on events and conditions in their surroundings ...in addition to their built-in predispositions and inclinations.
See above.
Michael Ossipoff
Of course we make choices. ...choices that are mostly, almost entirely, or entirely determined by our prior inclinations and predispositions, and events and conditions in our surroundings.
Those choices don't destroy determinism.
Is there maybe sometimes some physically-caused small probabilistic influence on our behavior and choices? Maybe. I've admitted that,to that small extent, then, some of our choices couldn't be called entirely deterministic.
Sometimes, of course, we don't know which choices, decisions or feelings those are. But sometimes we know that we make a choice or decision because of a long-felt strong inclination that doesn't change, or because of an inclination known to be instinctive.
Michael Ossipoff
There is nothing more beautiful than a kind-of-determinism that rests on the kind-of-things that determine bound together and neatly packaged by a whole bunch of choices. Is there such a thing as Muddy Philosophy?
Anyway, you're happy with it, so who am I to argue.
In short: determinism might be right to due some kind of hidden non-local variable we have yet to discover. But, quantum uncertainty in the "spin" of quantum particles like electrons certainly does not give us free will unless you can presuppose some sort of connection between the inherent unpredictability of electrons and human behavior.
It would look something like this: a quantum fluctiation in the electromagnetic field of an electron changes, which triggers a wider re-positioning of particles, which then triggers a change in atomic states of the molecules within a neuron (let's say a neuro-chemical breaks down?) and then subsequently causes that neuron to not fire where it otherwise might have fired, which then has a small impact on the actual thought processes of the brain which contains the neuron. Is that free will? Seems more like random will to me...
Equally so we may discover proof of God. Faith is something to cherish. However, zero evidence of snow kind and with contrary evidence pretty much the foundation of modern physics, let's just bury determinism and give it the funeral it deserves.
As for choice, science is certainly free to continue to call it an illusion. Heck, 10s of millions of Hindus will agree. Hindus believe a god creates the illusion. Similar for science?
The evidence that refutes determinism must come in the form of evidence which proves some kind randomness necessarily exists, but again, quantum uncertainty does not equate to free will. Let's just bury free will and give it the funeral it deserves.
Quantum says that there is no determined outcome - not until the observer gets in the act. I know it must be difficult for people of such deep deterministic faith but there is always Calvinism. Of course there is always the possibility of resurrection with hidden variables.
Anyway, I respect faith. Such is the nature of religion.
It states that the outcome is not knowable prior to checking it, but also states that the results will tend to resolve based on a particular distribution of results (a particular probability).
The "observer getting in the act" doesn't determine the initial result, but it is necessary for us to have access to information about a particles spin...
If you compare belief in determinism to religion, then belief in free will must be like outright cult worship...
Check out Calvinism. I believe you will find it quite appealing.
I believe in the pervasiveness of causality because everything I experience seems to have an imminent cause. We experience causality everyday, and so it's actually quite easy to maintain belief in it.
I cannot recall encountering an un-caused event though, such as you suppose free will to be...
The choices our minds are making and the will it is generating to action its choices are causing tons of casual non-deterministic events every day. There is no need to appeal to a supernatural God (Calvinism) or the equivalent supernatural Laws of Nature (Determinism) that are making the choices for us. If you believe your life is fated by either of these undefinable, unknowable forces, that is a matter of faith and religious in nature.
As I stated initially some sort of non-local hidden variable theory might be the case, which can explain the chance element in the spin and position of quantum particles, and it can also frame the collapsing wave function as a determined event in regards to double slit tests. Again, we are unable to know the orientation of the electromagnetic field of a quantum particle until we check it; prior to measurement all we know are the probabilities of finding various magnitudes of deviation from it's prepared state. This doesn't however mean that the results we get when we check for them are not subject to determinism, it could be we're just unable to know prior to checking.
If we suppose that unobserved quantum events are themselves a predetermined range of states, (i.e, in double slit tests the electron interacts with itself in a predictable manner when the particle wave is un-collapsed (unmeasured)) it's possible to view the particle-wave behavior as itself another causal aspect in a pre-determined universe. Which particle-waves collapse, due to some kind of measurement, could be pre-determined, and what they collapse to could also be predetermined (again, thanks to some sort of non-local hidden variable theory).
Unfortunately determinism cannot be destroyed. It cannot be destroyed because we cannot rewind time to conduct perfectly controlled experiments (i.e: negate hidden variables) and because we don't have enough data or understanding to test bona fide deterministic predictions. You would suggest that determinism is like a god of the gaps argument, but in reality free will is much more aptly so named. Everyone used to believe in hard free will (and god) as really nobody knew better or could present a sensical alternative. With the advent of neuroscience and psychology we've learned that what we think and how we think is actually due to how genes, hormones, and the environment impacts neural networks in our brains. What we used to ascribe to an impulse of free will now can be described to a spike in blood-sugar (for example). The more physics and science we discover the more we're able to predict; determinism grows and in-determinism shrinks back into any remaining gaps in knowledge. The more we understand about evolution and human behavior the smaller free will becomes, shrinking, like god and indeterminism, back into some darkened crevasse where it's naked absurdity cannot be shamed by the laughing masses.
You seem like you really want to believe in free will... Why else would you say "The choices our minds are making and the will it is generating to action its choices are causing tons of casual non-deterministic events every day" as if particle-wave behavior of individual quantum particles in your brain somehow constitutes your your free will...
You have recommended Calvinism, now allow me to recommend "compatibilism". You don't need to believe in indeterminism in order to make sense of things...
As for me, my beliefs stem from everyday experiences. I am choosing and outcomes are always unpredictable. And there is no mystical Laws if Nature that have revealed themselves to me or to anyone else. I choose to believe in the universe I am observing and not one that I desire. To buy into your view of the universe would be tantamount to embracing Calvinism and I have no interest in such religions.
Forgive me, but is pontificating about faith and experience the best way to conduct this debate? If I have faith in determinism, then you have faith in in-determinism. So what? I've brought up some fairly specific points which I'd like you to address directly. If you don't want to continue this argument, that's fine. If you're unable to continue this argument, that's also fine.
If you wish to actually defend your notion of free will against my criticisms, please do so! Your argument that probabilistic collapse of the wave-function of quantum particles in your brain gives you free will is extremely weak given that you cannot show how this collapse leads to changes in brain states, and even if you could all you would be demonstrating is random/probabilistic will which you are not yourself in control of, which is the kind of free will that everyone seems to care most deeply about. Everything that science can demonstrate about the predictability of human behavior is not exactly a faith based argument, but the quantum bits of freedom you're grasping at in order to justify free will seems downright faith based to me...
Wrong. I have everyday experience to support my views and there is nothing in science that stands in opposition to free choice. Any interpretation of quantum physics is non-deterministic which means there is nothing that is determined. Nothing.
So determinists come in with this story that I am not making choices but some Laws of Nature are doing it all. Where did this come from?? Determinism has zero evidence. There is absolutely nothing to support the notion that everything is determined or anything it's determined and the choices we make are either governed by some supernatural God or Laws of Nature which in turn are mystically creating the illusion of choice.
Why do people embrace such faith in a fated universe? Why do people wish to transfer their lives to God or to the Laws of Nature? This is the key question. I believe it has most to do with hope, which is the business of those who sell faith. Do such people have faith that science or God will fix everything? Faith is interesting.
Alack, alas. How could i ever compete with the ultimate standard of "your everyday experience".
If you wish to hold faith in the idea that your brain is exempt from causation, so be it. Until you put forward some evidence for your claims or address my criticisms, there's nothing left to say...
I agree. Events are not pre-determined - they unfold according to a multitude of causal factors, including choices made by living things. We make choices according to desired outcomes, the expected probability of which is based on previous experience. Previous experience is built on past choices and outcomes. At the root though, are all factors over which you had no control - genetic make-up, parenting, societal influences. So while it feels like you have created yourself and your will to choose, you really had no control over the initial inputs that formed the basis of your first choice.
Not necessarily true. The Copenhagen interpretation of QM says that there is indeterminism, but there also exist other interpretations as well that say there are hidden variables which support a causal view of nature, such as the Bohm interpretation. In fact, there are plenty of interpretations, some of which are deterministic but some aren't, and there doesn't seem to be any consensus agreement that any one is true, so the question of determinism is up for grabs.
As for the implications of this quantum indeterminism on free will if such indeterminism does exist, whether or not this grants us "free will" depends on what you want to get out of the idea. If by "free" you are just looking for us to make decisions that are unhinged by any sort of deterministic influence (simply making choices that are uncaused), then we can technically have free will if we can draw a clear line linking the decision making processes in our minds and the quantum process of the subatomic world. In theory, this seems possible, as the former is reducible to the latter, but it seems like a very rare occurrence even if it does occur. Of course, if you're looking for anything more substantial than that (or somehow less "chaotic") than that, then I don't think you can get that from QM.
The fact is, QM isn't really the best theory we have, since it doesn't mesh well with GR, and vice versa for GR. We are still looking for a theory of Quantum Gravity so it's likely that one or both will be replaced in the future. How this all will mesh with determinism isn't really clear, but it seems like alot of different ideas are on the table with respect to a theory of QG (continuity, the multiverse and the existence of higher dimensions being some examples), so it's debatable which ones are right and which are wrong.
You figure God/Laws of Nature did the writing and posting?
Yes, but your decision to respond and your decision to even use those words was all based on what came before, at the root of which you had no control.
Yeah, determinism has zero evidence, apart from the fact that we find that pretty much everything in the physical universe is determined by the laws of nature. That's what science is all about.
Do you think random/probabilistic quantum fluctuations did the writing?
Well that is a mouthful. Unfortunately for your purposes:
1) There is no such thing as the Laws of Nature. It is a made up please with no definition. It is precisely equivalent to God and has its roots in religion.
2) Science says that events are non-deterministic. If they were we could throw out Schrodinger's equation and replace it with Newton's. But, alas, science decided 100 years ago that Newton's Laws do not correspond to experimental evidence including Bell's Inequality which demonstrate non-locality.
So if you want to be a a determinist, go right ahead but science says no and everyday experience says no.
In the end I accepted gravity because that's what the evidence pointed to, and because it's experimental reliability is unblemished.
Why do you reject gravity as made up?
P.S minds and natural physical laws are not mutually exclusive
Then what are the scientists looking for if not laws that describe how our world works?
Quoting Rich
This is the listing of all of the interpretations of QM (there are probably more but this is most of them). Realize that not all of them are indeterministic:
The Schrodinger Equation works, certainly. It's been experimentally verified time and time again by science. How we choose to interpret that is a whole other matter.
Yeah, I originally meant to say that the vast majority of our scientific theories (barring QM which is debatable) are and have been deterministic and operate on deterministic mechanisms. That's clearly evidence of determinism and not zero evidence.
Quoting Barry
Like I told Rich and the OP, there are different interpretations of QM, and not all of them are deterministic. A deterministic worldview is just as compatible with the science as any.
It's tough arguing with the faithful, so let's call it quits. Really, there is no discussion when it comes to faith.
Do you have any idea what the ontological ramifications are off the Many-World Interpretation? How everyone is smeared across an infinite number of imaginary worlds creating and equally imaginary meta-mega-world. Is this your ontological construct? No matter, in this world, in this universe, the one we love and love in, all remains probabilistic. I'll let the science fiction writers deal with the infinite worlds interpretation. But if that is your belief, so be it. You don't have choices but you are smeared across an infinite number of ever growing worlds. To each his own.
Schrodinger's equations are probabilistic in this world and this universe. There is plenty of evidence to support Bohm's interpretation (verification of Bells Theorem), zero for the Many-Many-Infinite-Many-Worlds interpretation.
Not really. The only stretch is the Many-Many-Infinity-Many-Worlds for which there is zero evidence and forever will be zero evidence. That is what Determinism had evolved into.
What's the difference? Is causal compatible with uncaused indeterminism?
Quoting Rich
I'm sorry, but it's actually common knowledge that the Bohm interpretation is deterministic. It's a non-local hidden variables theory. The only person I've heard that seems to be suggesting otherwise is you. Of course I don't have the technical know-how to understand the details of the Bohm Interpretation myself (and it'd be impractical of me to learn about it on the fly) so I can only put your word against theirs.
There is a cause but outcomes are probabilistic not deterministic.
Quoting Mr Bee
You mean it is a common mistake. Bohm himself stated otherwise as his model, the Implicate Order, actually incorporates creative novelty, a concept that Bohm cherished. He wrote an excellent essay on the nature of creative intuition and novelty.
Quoting Mr Bee
I just told you my source is Bohm himself. Read the source and not some chart. That is what I did.
Then perhaps you can show me a quote where he specifically says that his Bohmian theory is indeterministic.
"Although the interpretation is termed causal, this should not be taken as implying a form of complete determinism. Indeed it will be shown that this interpretation opens the door for the creative operation of underlying, and yet subtler, levels of reality."
You are choosing the words, but you are choosing based on all of your previous choices and experiences. Your first choice ever was based on your biological instincts, the environment into which you were born, and other factors that you didn't choose. So yes, you are able to make choices that will affect your future, but you shouldn't take credit or accept blame for the choices or the results. That being said, in the absence of any learned or physiological dysfunction of the brain, a person will be motivated to make choices that make life a more positive experience.
Similarly for the Many-World interpretation the key is to understand the ontological implications of an Infinite World Meta-World and deciding whether it has any ontological meaning in the world and universe we live in - it doesn't.
The words are influenced by memory but my mind makes the decision in what words to use and how to use them into sentences. If you don't believe me, I'll construct the same idea in a different sentence. Exactly what do you believe is creating these sentences?
1. The Schrodinger equation uniquely determines a system's quantum state at a future time. It is instead measurements of the system that are (sometimes) uncertain. The relationship between the determined quantum state and measurement uncertainty is the interpretational issue.
2. Bell's inequalites actually demonstrate that counterfactual definiteness and locality can't both be true. So locality can still be true if counterfactual definiteness is false.
The Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment shows how both of those points play out. When the reflection and transmission paths between the beam splitters are the same length, a single photon directed through the interferometer will always arrive at detector 1 and never at detector 2.
This is easily explained in local, deterministic terms. But can you (or anyone else) explain the result in terms of probabilities or non-determinism?
To be frank, I am still skeptical that many people, including physicists who should know better, are prone to this error. Some part of me suspects that there are different versions of Bohmian Mechanics, one which is commonly known to be deterministic and one which, according to Bohm, is not (this is what he calls the "Causal Interpretation"). Bohm apparently has gone through different phases in his thinking over the course of his life, having taken a mystical approach in his later years. The fact is, he did explicitly describe the Bohm interpretation as being deterministic when he introduced it in the 50s, your quote having been made in the late 80s. This would explain his spiritual sounding language in your quote, but this is just speculation from a lay reader who currently can't really determine the technical details of it all.
Either way, I have not mentioned this earlier, but you have only responded to two-three of the seven interpretations which allow for determinism. You still haven't demonstrated that QM is inherently indeterministic. And no, the Bell Inequality Tests do not demonstrate indeterminism, only the falsity of local realism.
Quantum state??? And how does that figure into determinism? You mean that state that is spread out as a probabilistic wave function?
Quoting Andrew M
What you are omitting, conveniently is what happens when an additional slit is opened after the photon passes through the first slot. I've experiment doesn't make determinism. However, one experiment does destroy it. Determinism is all our nothing.
Are you figuring on proving that Quantum is deterministic and local in this thread?
They don't study Bohm, instead they just copy errors. Bell actually took the time to study the equations and came up with a way of understanding it better. Bell favored Bohm's approach. Of course others later on tested Bell's equation later in the laboratory.
As I have said in other thread, scientists are human and they are full of biases. Bohm should have received a Nobel Prize for doing the impossible, but instead he was ostracized and marginalized - by everyone except Bell.
I count four deterministic interpretations. Bohm no. Many-Worlds, Many-Mind, still probabilistic in our world and universe. And the last one I never heard of.
I would like you to consider the silliness of Many-Minds. Observe to what extent scientists will go to deny choice in humans. It's bizarre.
Via Active Information?", By Basil Hiley who worked with Bohm and coauthered several books and papers with him. In it, he describes the problems of consciousness and how "active information" can affect processes. It's a good read and it's from the source, not from some lazy scientist who throws off labels such as mysticism.
The quantum state is analogous to the classical state in Newtonian Mechanics. Quantum states evolve deterministically according to the Schrodinger equation. Do you dispute this?
The wave function describes states that produce real interference effects such as the states describing the two paths in the the Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment. Mere probabilistic states cannot interfere.
Quoting Rich
All experiments have a deterministic explanation if quantum states are physically real.
Quoting Rich
No, only that a coherent explanation is available. Do you have an explanation of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer result in non-deterministic terms?
As if Bell and Bohm were the only Bohmians around. And everyone else is simply biased against Bohm? I'm sorry, but there have been plenty of physicists who have written papers analyzing Bohmian Mechanics in detail and a number of them that I've glanced over acknowledge that they are discussing it as a deterministic interpretation.
Quoting Rich
There are also the agnostic ones as well. Like I said all of these positions are compatible with a deterministic position.
Quoting Rich
Your arguments against MW and MM apparently stem from it's non-intuitiveness. However, for one, intuition is rarely a good guide to understanding reality, so you need something more substantial than that. In addition, it's hard to single out the strangeness of MWI when pretty much every interpretation suffers from a certain degree of non-intuitiveness itself.
Yes, I dispute this.
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae392.cfm
They aren't close to being analogous. It's like saying a jump rope is analogous to baseball.
Exactly what are you trying to prove here? That waves are the same as baseballs?
Future scientist.
Okay, let's agree that they are different. Do you agree that quantum states evolve deterministically according to the Schrodinger equation?
You are using quantum states as if they are baseballs. Are you being deliberately disingenuous? I'm only interested in learning more about nature, not playing games. You know what quantum states are and they have nothing to do with determinism. The only way to bring determinism back is in what Bell described as the "extravagant" Many-Worlds Interpretation, which still leaves us in a probabilistic world only now "we" have been also smeared over an infinite, every growing number of worlds. Everett's interpretation makes Copenhagen downright sensible.
The reason I am ending out discussion is because while I go through all of the effort of providing you with source information, you just recite to me articles of your faith. I'm tired and I don't really care if you believe your whole life is fated. Sit back, observe, and enjoy the life that God has laid out for you.
Actually baseballs are described by quantum states (just as photons are).
Quoting Rich
There's no need for an infinite number of worlds. The Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment can be explained by two relative states (or worlds). The states don't continue to split but instead merge into a single state at detector 1 which is why the photon is detected there with certainty.
You might not like it, but it is a coherent explanation. As opposed to the Copenhagen interpretation which doesn't offer an explanation at all.
It's not a proof but it is a possible explanation.
Can you (or anyone else) outline a non-deterministic process that explains the Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment?
In the Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment there's no slit, only two beam splitters, two mirrors and two detectors.
In a single beam-splitter experiment, a photon that is directed through the beam splitter is detected on either the reflection or transmission path with 50% probability of each.
For a one-world explanation of the MZI experiment, there must be a photon that passes through the second beam splitter either from the left path or from the lower path. Yet the photon always arrives at detector 1 and never at detector 2. So the second beam splitter doesn't seem to be behaving like a beam splitter.
How does quantum potential or information fluctuations explain the above discrepancy? Do the photons always choose to go to detector 1 despite the presence of the beam splitter?
This paper discusses a way to analyze the experiment utilizing the concept of quantum erasing. No deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics is required.
Single photon quantum erasing: a demonstration experiment
T L Dimitrova1 and A Weis
The MZI experiment is a simple and crystal-clear demonstration of quantum behavior without any stochastic elements. The point is that introducing stochasticity or indeterminism into a theory doesn't actually help explain quantum behavior.
Quoting Rich
The paper doesn't describe any mechanism by which the experiment works (which wasn't the purpose of the paper, it was only to demonstrate the phenomenon of single photon quantum erasing which all interpretations would accept anyway).
It is not. I've read enough about it to understand there are lots of questions and issues to consider when using the apparatus and setting up the device depending upon what the experimenter is studying. But for some reason, you are using this as evidence of what??
In any case MZI is just an apparatus, not an experiment.
How can you know what choice you will make before you actually make it (hint: you can't). Once you've made a choice, how do you know that some component of hard free will could have allowed you to choose otherwise? (this differs from the compatibilist sense of having options and being un-coerced)...
Everyone feels they are making choices every day of their lives.
Then the determinists come along and claim, no it's all an illusion (Hinduism retread), that there are Natural Laws (the Calvinist God) making all the decisions for you, and your entire existence is fated through some space-time come (Einstein Relativity forbids any preferred frame of reference). As for evidence of this very religious, biblical like story: none, zero, zilch.
Take you pick. And if one chooses the religious option, just let things happen and enjoy life. It's all in the hands of the gods.
Ok, everything is fated but it isn't. Some call this compatibilism, others call it having your cake and eat it, yet others might call it muddy and strange. No doubt, others think it is absolutely brilliant. If you are satisfied, may the gods be kind to you.
When I think of something being fated, I think of someone saying 'It was meant to be'. As in: It was fate that I met my girlfriend. I relate it to there being an overarching storybook reason for why something happens, as opposed to just being dependent on what came before it.
My knee jerk reaction is that I was never religious (spiritual yes) and no reason to start now just because someone has come up with a new story of how our lives are fated. Suits lots of people though, but usually they want God and not Natural Laws. It's a question of taste. As for me, I continue to make choices in my life as I bring creativity into my experiences.
Quoting Rich
But don't you cling to the notion of hard free will like a religious person when presented with evidence that diminishes it? (hormones impacting decision making for instance).
I don't actually claim to know that determinism is true, in fact I tentatively accept it not only because there is some good evidence for it, but also because there are several moral upshots in doing so (and with no apparent downside). Since I accept determinism I'm able to view moral failings of individuals as the fault of uncontrollable circumstances rather than applying some form of inherent moral guilt. What this does to moral reactions to crime (for instance) is to remove "revenge and punishment for the sake of punishment" as a reason or goal of incarceration. Incarceration then becomes a tool to separate dangerous individuals from society for our protection, and (ideally) a place which can rehabilitate them (remedy whatever factors it is that lead them to crime in the first place). Forgiving people is a very easy thing to do for a determinist because no individual can be blamed. In life we need to hold dangerous individuals pragmatically accountable for their actions, but we do not need to misunderstand their nature and torture them because of that misunderstanding as current penal systems tend to do...
What I do know is true as a determinist that it would make no difference whether or actions come from determined physical interactions in the brain and body or from quantum indeterminacy of particles in the brain, "free-will" such as you would like it to exist has not been established. Behaving according to some wave property or the changing spin of a quantum particle isn't free will, it's some kind of quantum-random will whose actual mechanics you cannot explain.
There is zero evidence for determinism other than the cute story cooked up a couple of hundred years ago which was in turn decimated by quantum physics much to Einstein's chagrin.
As for me, I am quite comfortable making choices in my life. If your comfortable with a gated life, go for it, just don't try to use it v as an excuse, that's all. It's never worked.
The evidence for determinism is every physical law we have been accurately able to describe.
They don't. They fail in unpredictable ways all the time. That is why computer systems have backups.
No, only a quantum computer would be affected by this...
Hint: the human brain is not a quantum computer.
Quantum is the substrate of all events and we continue to use other theories as a matter of convenience. Computer technology developed around quantum theory. Events aren't random, they are probabilistic because the universe has habits. Events are unpredictable. If you don't believe me, go to Amazon reviews.
I would very much you to explain how the wave property of quantum particles causes "free" behavior in computers, OR, i would very much like you to explain how the wave property of quantum particles causes you to have "free will".
hint: "try making a decision and see what happens..." is obviously unpersuasive...
Sending a photon through the MZI is the experiment.
The main issue to consider is that the photon always ends up at detector 1. With certainty. This result has no classical explanation.
It also cannot be explained by supposing that the relative quantum states describing each photon path are mere possibilities, since possible states cannot cause real interference effects.
So the experiment is evidence that the relative quantum states described by the Schrodinger equation have physically real referents.
Provide references and I'll see if I have the time to study it. Still, quantum theory remains probabilistic though in Bohm's model there are real causal agents - including "information".
Can you tell me on what you based your last major decision?
In this case, perhaps the short response time was based on your desire to prove your point. The words you chose were those you expected to have the best chance of proving your point. Maybe you have a need to be right that is based in the human need for dominance, or because your parents never took you seriously.
The point is that everything that went into your decision is based on something that existed prior to the decision. Even seemingly random events have a preceding chain of events leading up to them.
Listen, quantum theory says that unpredictably is inherent in the universe. All you are doing is parroting some ancient story that was concocted as cute theory which never had a scintilla of evidence to support it.
I can't argue with faith. No one can and shouldn't. Now, why don't you pray to the Laws of Nature that I am saved and see the light? Discussion is useless. My fate has been sealed since the Genesis of the Big Bang.
So you're for Determinism now?
Determinism is the exact equivalent to Calvinism. Simply replacing God with the phrase Natural Laws does not make a religion different.
As for me, I don't have a need for God or Natural Laws to define my life. I have a creative mind that makes choices.
https://www.quora.com/Does-Bohmian-Mechanics-claim-quantum-randomness-is-really-deterministic-chaos
So you can admit that there is memory built from the experiential results of choices, on which future choices are based. Yet you seem to insist on there being this other source of creative intelligence that somehow influences decision-making and generates ideas out of nowhere.
To me, there doesn't need to be an additional source - everything required for decision-making and idea creation is accounted for by memory and instinct. The value you place on this source of creative intelligence seems god-like and ego-based - needing to be more than the intelligent animal that you are, and needing to believe that you are more than just a sum of your past experiences and biological beginnings.
It is exactly, precisely, without and additions or substractions, the way we experience it in every day life. There is no supernatural God or supernatural Laws of Nature. There is our memory, our creative mind (making choices and introducing novelty), and our will (effecting choices). I am sorry if existence is not a huge philosophical tome, but it is fun and interesting if one chooses to be creative.
Bottom line, life is exactly what one experiences.
Every time I make a choice, I am considering past choices, results, and experiences. Basic instincts also weigh in to the decision. All of these things are pre-existing - there is no factor x that pushes me one way or another. So the choice, though sometimes highly unpredictable, is determined by everything that came before it.
I tell you what. Give yourself about one lifetime to ruminate over 'I am considering" and then get back to this thread.
We start taking time to consider as we gain life experience, because we learn that snap decisions based on instinct and emotion aren't always the best ones. This time spent considering doesn't mean that the eventual choice isn't dependent on preceding factors - it just means that the alternatives are judged as nearly equal in value.
What I am suggesting to you, and do what you choose, is to ruminate on "I am considering". But there is nothing wrong with games, it's just that I'm not into it right now.
Here's a talk by David Wallace (philosopher of physics) where he gives the reasoning for treating quantum states as real with reference to the MZI experiments. It's aimed at a general audience.
Here's a longer and more technical version of the above talk that gets into the math and philosophical/foundational issues. He discusses ontology (first video), Occam's razor (at 48 mins) and probability (second video).
Quoting Rich
There are similarly real causal agents in Many-Worlds. Quantum mechanics describes and predicts the behavior of quantum systems, it doesn't prescribe it.
However, there were some interesting comments about how this whole theory of infinite worlds is entirely faith base - and it is and always will. It is fundamentally impossible to test just like God.
Wittgenstein once asked a colleague: "Why were people so surprised to discover that the Earth is spinning and not that the Sun goes around the Earth?" His colleague replied that, well, it kind of looks like the Sun goes around the Earth, doesn't it? To which Wittgenstein shot back: "Well, what would it look like if it looked like the Earth was spinning?"
And the answer, of course, is that it would look like exactly like it does look like, exactly like it looked like back when people thought that the Sun was going around the Earth.
So I want to ask you. You keep saying that the Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment would be inexplicable under any interpretation other than the Everett interpretation. So what do you think the result of the experiment would look like if the Bohm or the Copenhagen interpretation was true?
My argument using the MZI experiment is against non-deterministic interpretations.
According to such interpretations, the photon always turns up at the same detector (with certainty), but without a sufficient cause. So God not only plays dice but he always rolls a six.
The result of the experiment would look the same. But the result would be inexplicable.
Perhaps you can work an example in one of these interpretations and show where exactly the problem lies.
Every interpretation uses the Schrodinger equation or equivalent (Bohmian is equivalent).
They all would necessarily predict the same results. Bohmian is causal but not deterministic but no different in results.
Are you suggesting that there is an interpretation that doesn't use the same Schrodinger/Bohmian equations and is getting better predictions?
I listened to the lecture. Other than pushing his open interpretation, which sounds great in a lecture because who doesn't love an infinite worlds model with all like the science fiction possibilities, there was nothing new.
No. It is in principle possible that Alice could roll a dice a million times and get a six every time. That result is no less likely than any other string of results for a million rolls. But her non-random-looking result begs for an explanation in a way that random-looking results don't.
So the Copenhagen interpretation correctly predicts that a photon in the standard MZI experiment will always end up at the first detector despite passing through beam splitters. But that raises the question as to why. What is the causal explanation for that non-random-looking result?
For the Copenhagen interpretation, the Schrodinger equation is equivalent to asserting that Alice just always rolls sixes. Each formalism gives the correct predictions and no causal explanation exists.
The problem is with the plausibility of that idea.
What is the difference between causal and deterministic here? Is there a sufficient cause for the photon always ending up at detector 1? Or is it just a chance occurrence in each instance?
Quoting Rich
No.
Bohm realized there are initial causes (e.g. the mind) but the results were probabilistic not determined. On only had to look at the equations to understand this. As for where the photon end up is predicted by either the Schrodinger equation its Bohmian mechanics counterpart. Both are the equivalent.
There is nothing in the video that contradicts any aspect of quantum theory, he was just making a pitch for his theory and based upon the comments some see it as faith (as I do) and others view it as speculation (that is unverifiable).
I don't know why you keep referring to the Schrodinger equations as random when they are clearly probabilistic (if they were random, then the equation would be useless, one might as well throw dice). Why do you continue to insist that quantum theory = randomness? It's really strange.
I'm not saying that at all. On the Everett interpretation, the quantum state contains the complete information about the system and that state evolves deterministically.
On the standard de Broglie-Bohm interpretation, the quantum state does not contain the complete information about the system. Nonetheless a photon has a specific position and momentum and follows one specific trajectory as governed by the pilot wave.
Is that your view?
Bohm does not use the concept of a pilot wave. This concept is ancient as far as Bohm's interpretation is concerned. It is the quantum potential that is real and the electron can be considered a perturbation in this potential. There is no specific position and momentum because the potential is subject to "new information", such as an observation.
It is necessary to discard the concept of "things" (as determinists continue to insist on) and treat quantum as a process that is in continuous flux. How does a process become a thing? That is exactly the role of the mind as it seeks to create a canvas to create on.
It is true that an infinite sequence of sixes is a possible outcome of an infinite sequence of die rolls. But that doesn't change the fact that the probability of each such roll is given as 1/6 by the theory that the die is fair.
In the MZI experiment the standard quantum mechanics calculation gives the probabilities at the detectors as 0 and 1. Any interpretation of quantum mechanics had better yield the same probabilities, otherwise it doesn't even qualify as an interpretation. Are you saying that the Copenhagen interpretation predicts probabilities other than 0 and 1 in this case, or fails to predict anything specific?
(As an aside, this very special case where probabilities neatly collapse into all or nothing is uniquely favorable to the Everett interpretation, which otherwise faces a prima facie problem with specific observed frequencies of outcomes. In contrast to the Copenhagen interpretation, which happily assumes the reality of probabilistic outcomes as a matter of principle, the Born rule is difficult to justify in the context of Many Worlds. When they are not making popular presentations, like the one by David Wallace that you linked, Everettians tie themselves into knots trying to make sense of these probabilities. And this is where, I am afraid, the prima facie appeal of the MWI as the "no-interpretation" interpretation dissipates.)
We perceive things that emerge as the result of dynamic processes. So we may more-or-less agree here.
Also, it seems to me that what you mean by non-determinism isn't an absence of sufficient causality (since you deny randomness), but simply that causal agents can exercise autonomy. Which I agree with.
If we do agree, then our substantial difference is really over whether actions in the universe can be non-local. But I'll leave it there for now.
The Copenhagen interpretation makes the same prediction but it denies that there is a causal explanation for the probabilities. But, if causality is assumed, then the MZI experiment shows that a beam splitter cannot be sending a photon exclusively one way or the other with 0.5 probability (or else a photon would arrive at either detector with 0.5 probability, not 0 and 1). So there must be some underlying causal factor operating in beam splitters in the same way that there must be some underlying causal factor operating in Alice (or her die) such that she always rolls sixes.
Quoting SophistiCat
I don't think it follows from "no-interpretation" that the natural interpretation should be trivial and obvious. A case in point is that it was decades before the Everett interpretation arrived on the scene.
Anyway, the partial Everettian answer is that the probability describes a system's self-locating uncertainty when it interacts with another system (e.g., whether a photon finds itself in the reflection path or transmission path of the beam splitter). So it is directly related to the physical processes of splitting and interference. This is nicely characterized by the second beam splitter in the MZI experiment where both processes are involved.
You do not need to assume causality, or anything else besides the operation of standard quantum mechanics, in order to obtain that result. You said so yourself: the Copenhagen interpretation makes the same prediction. It follows the standard solution all the way up to the moment of detection, at which point it says that the superposition state collapses into one of the eigenstates - acausally, as you say, but following the Born rule for probabilities. And since in this case the superposition is degenerate, the result is perfectly predictable, even assuming the Copenhagen interpretation: the wavefunction has to collapse into one particular position eigenstate with probability 1, simply because there is only one non-zero eigenvalue. So where do you get probability 0.5? And what does this have to do with causality? I don't understand.
And you know that how?
But try to think of an idea you've had that was completely brand new, and not based on a combination of knowledge and experience of past events...
I do it all the time. That is what I got paid for when I was a consultant. Past experiences (memory) ? Creativity and Influence ? Determine.
An example of creative: the idea that there are natural laws determining everything. That is a completely creative thought (a few hundred years old) that was derivative of an omnipotent God, but the creative idea was to simply replace natural laws for the word God. This is how the creative mind works. The goal of course was to give atheists something that they could believe in, and they do. It really is a matter of faith.
Einstein did believe quite fervently in natural laws which is why he said "God does not play dice"., If you catch my drift?
I agree with all you say above but would add that the probabilities themselves also have no causal explanation under the Copenhagen interpretation (i.e., the Born rule is postulated).
Quoting SophistiCat
This is when considering a single beam splitter in isolation. When one photon is sent into a beam splitter, there are two position eigenstates - one for the reflection path and one for the transmission path with 0.5 probability for each.
The MZI experiment shows that this cannot be the scenario at the second beam splitter. If only one photon were entering the second beam splitter, then a photon should be found at the second detector half the time. But it's not. This is what I was trying to convey with the "Alice rolling sixes" analogy. It is highly improbable that on multiple runs a single photon entering the second beam splitter would always be found at the first detector purely by chance.
But this is what the Copenhagen interpretation is committed to by denying causality. The results that it predicts are inherently inexplicable on its own premise.
So, if not one photon, then what is entering the second beam splitter? Well, the wave function tells us exactly what is happening. It says there is a photon entering a beam splitter from the upper path and a photon entering a beam splitter from the lower path. Those states in turn split, two of the states destructively interfere and the other two states constructively interfere resulting in a final state with probability 1.
That there was a preceding chain of events is obvious, but that doesn't mean the earlier state caused the subsequent state. That is, universe at state A doesn't physically entail state B.
Regardless, whether a choice were determined or random, in neither event is the agent reponsible for it.
I don't know about that, but ideas are certainly usually expressed in some familiar language, whether linguistic, visual, or auditory.
That's true. But having postulates is no sin in itself: any theory relies on some postulates. The important thing is that the Born rule postulate in the Copenhagen interpretation does not clash with its narrative.
Quoting Andrew M
No, this is what we would be committed to if we interpreted light as a flow of classical particles. But the Copenhagen interpretation does not do that. It is committed to the same thing that the fully-quantum theory is committed to, plus a little extra - but that extra does not show up until the measurement occurs at the detectors, at which point the "extra" makes no observable difference.
Let's look at a relatively simple example of seemingly random behavior and freedom of choice.
Someone asks you to pick a random number between one and a thousand.
You first need knowledge of numbers in order to do so. If you have such knowledge, you then begin the mental process of selecting a 'random' number. But does it end up being truly random? Or is it based on all exposure to numbers (and possibly other experiences) leading up to that choice. Numbers quickly come to mind, and you select from the options presented by your brain, based on the strongest sense of suggestion. Surely this sense is dependent on the way numerical information has been stored in the brain, and how it is accessed.
If we could exactly model how information is stored and accessed in the human brain, we should be able to accurately predict what random number a person would select at any given moment, based on the brain's configuration immediately preceding the question.
Ultimately, with consideration of all of the influences, the mind had to make the choice out of specific attention to the matter or out of habit. Just ruminate over how you formed your post. You decided on the words to use.
Suppose you created a random number generator that was affected by the position of an electron on the quantum level. It's exact position is indeterminate, so we could not know what random number was going to be selected. When speaking of true randomness (as opposed to simply lacking sufficient information), we are saying that State A will not yield State B in all instances, but it will unpredictably vary.
Regardless, the question of determinism versus indeterminism doesn't address the question of free will. In either event, there are things beyond your control that are affecting an occurrence. If I choose to sit down due to predetermined causes or due to a random event, in neither event do I bear responsibility for it.
There is zero evidence that such a model can be created it that such a model would yield the results you are suggesting. Where is there any evidence that the mind acts in a manner that can be modeled?
There is a huge difference between a computer and the mind that created it. In fact there are quite literally zero similarities.
It seems evident that quantum theory does away with the old Newtonian form of determinism in which all atomic movements etc are ordained since the birth of the universe (and probably before) but, whilst providing a platform for Alternate Possibilites, this does nothing to address the issue of Ultimate Responsibility.
If X has two potential courses of action open to them at T, X must have some kind of reason for favoring one course over the other or his decision to do one or the other would be random. If X does have a reason to favour one over the other then this must be related to some form of past experience which leads us to an infinite regress and back to a parallel determinism (albeit not of the Newtonian variety).
What is the way out of this?
Everyone should just read and ruminate over their own posts.
X's mind decides for some reason. It is the mind that is deciding for its own reasons. Who the heck do determinists think is reasoning and choosing? Some angels??
That is, a living and mindful system is modelling its relation with the world informationally or symbolically - through a system of interpretive signs.
The disconnect or epistemic cut is clear to see in computation. The hardware takes away the physics essentially. There is still an energetic cost to powering the circuits. But the cost of any operation is made the same. And so physics drops out of the equation as a causal constraint. The software is then left free to symbolise any state of affairs. It is free in an absolute way to be anything it likes. It can invent its own private system of causality, like the logic of a programme that computes.
Now of course computation is just a machine. The epistemic cut is rather too complete. A computer is utterly severed from the world. And so human have to write the programs, build the hardware, act as a connection between the realms of material physics and immaterial information.
But organisms - life and mind in general - have an epistemic cut which is also then the basis of a lived entropic interaction. First, the physics and the information are separated. Organisms have various forms of memory that sit back from the metabolic whirl of dissipative physical action, like genes and neurons. But then this separate realm of information is embedded in an active modelling relation with the physical world. All the information is controlling physical processes, directing them towards desired ends.
So there is a tight feedback loop that spans the physics~information divide that has been constructed. Unlike computation, there is a two-way street where the information may live in its own physics-free environment, but it still has to build its own hardware, pay for its own entropic expenditure. Life doesn't have anyone to plug it into a wall socket. It has to also own the means of self-construction and self-perpetuation.
But when it comes to freewill debates, the essential point is that there is this basic epistemic cut which makes physics not matter. A zone of freedom is created by setting up an informational realm of causality.
Now that freedom is then tied back to the general purpose of being a self-sustaining autonomous or autopoietic system. So it is not the absolute freedom of computation, which has no embedded purpose. But it is the practical freedom that is what it is like to be a human concerned with getting by in the world, making smart choices about physical actions that will perpetuate our existence. It is freewill as the modelling relation that allows us to be plugged into the world we are making for ourselves, individually and collectively.
So really, when it comes to the physics, it makes no difference if that physics is understood as fundamentally deterministic or probabilistic. The epistemic cut upon which life and mind is based already filters that issue out. All that matters is that memory mechanisms can be constructed and material processes thus regulated via a modelling relation.
All that explanation does is raises far more questions. Among them:
- what is 'mind'?
- how does the 'mind' decide?
- once decided, how does this 'mind' instigate the action in the physical world?
Please answer these.
They are both composed of matter.
For those who are having trouble recognizing the differences, a brief experiment of placing a rock next to a plant might be quite elucidating. A gardener easily distinguishes between the two.
I agree that is true.
Quoting SophistiCat
There still remains the issue that the probabilities that the Copenhagen interpretation predicts are inexplicable since it rejects causality. They are simply a brute fact about the universe.
It seems an unnecessary bullet to bite, especially when there are live causal alternatives.
I'll ask once again - of what substance is the 'fundamental mind' made of and how (specifically) does it interact with the physical world?
And if you want to get nasty, I'll just stop answering your repetitive questions. Mind is fundamental. Got it?
You are exploiting hanovers interpretation of the word machine, without having defined nature your self, what is nature? My point is that being super stingy about peoples definitions gets us no where in a philisophical conversation. As wittgenstein says words can only refer to othere words.
My best guess is that mind creates a vibrational field that it senses. The greater the vibrational frequency, the more "substantial" the field "feels". This is the qualia question. Memory, ideas, emotions, color, sound, will, are least substantial. They create more substantial which we see as more physical.
We understand this conversation from energy to matter, but the exact process I understand as increasing vibrational substantiality.
In case I wasn't clear, there is literally zero, zilch, negative infinity similarities between that which is living and that which isn't. One needs water, air, and food and the other doesn't. Anyone here water their computer and breast feed it when it was purchased?
If there are no similarities between dead things and living things, then if I die, how would you know it was me who died? Probably you'd know by noticing I look really similar to when I was alive.
I'm with you on this one. The decision is made based on instinct, and anticipated outcome based on past experience. The instincts and experiences exist prior to the decision, and 'mind' is nothing more than the central processing unit that factors in all the variables, before arriving at the choice it determines will have the best chance of producing the desired outcome.
Ultimately a persons current action is always in some way going to be 'determined' by the past. I see no way out of this unless we find a way to remove all kinds of prior causation in such a way as to retain Ultimate Responsibility for our actions (i.e. Keep the actions driven by 'us' as opposed to random atomic movement).
"Some way"??! The deterministic trick of transforming "influenced" into "determined" with zero evidence of such other than the determinists' own faith in such an idea.
If any atheist ever wants to fully understand the nature of religious faith, such a person need only to look no further than their own faith in determinism. The leap from influenced to determined is breathtaking.
Why do determinists and those of faith make such a leap? My guess is that fundamental to all faith is the hope that something greater than themselves is determining everything for them and priests/science will somehow guide them to the greater truth. It is obviously a big part of the human psyche and probably useful in some way for those of faith.
The mind that chooses and creates. There is no faith involved. It is what everyone experiences as life. It is the denial of such, for whatever reason a person may have, and then replacing it with something else (God, Laws of Nature, etc.) that brings upon the great leap of faith.
Experience life.
Unfortunately there is no such thing, no more than the proofs of God offered by religions. Determinism is a philosophical concept not a scientific one, a concept with zero evidence of any sort. Your leap from influenced to determined is quite literally a leap of faith, the argument being "it's scientific" without any foundation to back up such a claim - or would you care to use quantum theory as your starting point?
The explanation Is that is the mind. It is irreducible and fundamental to life. No faith involved. It is everyone's experience of choosing and creating.
Calling something fundamental and irreducible is quite a leap of faith, Rich. More likely, the mind (our central processing unit) is just not well enough understood yet. As technology continues to advance, the complexities of the brain will be unwoven, probably to the point where we will be able to 'see' a decision being made.
If you can find something that is lower than the mind that doesn't require a leap of faith then go for it. It is there in everyone's lives, it is learning, it is creating, and it is evolving and it is not only fundamental to existence, it is existence.
Quoting CasKev
Now we are entering into faith and religion. Using words like technology, CPU, etc. doesn't make it scientific, though it might make you feel like it does. As with all an anthropomorphic gods, all you have done is created one more - The Computer Brain, that determinists worship. It's a religious story.
There are mountains of evidence suggesting that if you damage the brain, you alter the mind. We know that thought somehow emerges from networks of connected neurons, so you might say "a neuron is 'lower' than the brain".
But you've been constantly projecting the "it's religious" angle here in this thread... You're free to believe in magical free will and all that, but you should be aware that possessing belief in something you have no (good) evidence for is exactly the kind of faith you accuse determinists of having.
Yes, there is a mountain of evidence that if you damage a TV circuit, it will alter the picture not the TV studio where shows are actually produced. The religion of course lies in the unshakable faith that all of this is fated. It's actually rather amusing and ironic how Determinism is merely a religious off-shoot of Calvinism. Determinists adopted the faith in fate without the God. In God's stead, naturally, there is Natural Laws.
Actually my, tentative acceptance of determinism is an off-shoot of science. It's kind of like the assumption that gravity is all pervasive; an assumption made easy by a massive pile of evidence, the cumulative argument, that indicates it is the case. But instead of addressing that pile, you keep bringing up Calvinism as if I care that it could be some vague progenitor of ideas that bear some similarity to my own, while not actually recognizing or addressing my position (sitting on top of the pile).
Quoting Rich
What does this mean? You think your consciousness or free-will is beamed into you over some remote broadcasting network? Is this what you thought Einstein meant when he said "spooky action at a distance"?
Quoting Rich
Well I can pretty much demonstrate that most of it is fated. All the successful predictions enabled by various scientific theories gives powerfully strong indication that there is consistency in a causal mechanism that governs most or all matter and energy. Even when it comes to the human consciousness there are demonstrable causal connections between brain health and how the consciousness it produces might behave. Losing neurons or neural connections (see Alzheimer's disease) prevents you from accessing the data (memories) stored in those neurons. Damage to certain lobes can radically alter the "good or bad" aspect of human consciousness (i.E: a tumor or brain injury to specific areas of the brain can make people do things that they before they considered to be immoral). A brain injury can do more than just alter picture quality, it can change the programming (the content) entirely.
What meaningful remote transmission is your brain receiving that is more important than your instinctive moral compass and the memories which define your life and knowledge about yourself and the world? (These are things we can be reasonably sure are contained within neural networks and the hard biological wiring of the brain because of the actual evidence (case studies in brain disease and brain trauma)).
No, it is still offshoot of Calvinism that was concocted to push a particular economic interests knowing full well the psychology of their target market (audience). Of course, true believers never really question their faith in what they want to believe.
To understand faith one has to go no further than the atheists who embrace Determinism. It is exactly, precisely the same.
The rest of your story reads like a TV repair manual but has just about as much evidence for determinism as Genesis. But you believe in it unquestionably. That is the nature of faith.
How do you know the origin of how i came to pragmatically or tentatively accept that determinism is the case?
Proposing an economically motivated conspiracy of mass delusion is quite an interesting theory... Who facilitated the spread of this propaganda? Is it global?
The difference between "faith" and an evidence based argument is exactly the evidence. Faith based belief requires no evidence...
Say you wanted to criticize the position that the force of gravity is a consistent aspect of causation which creates predictable and reliable results... How would you do it? Would you crack a joke about apples falling on my head, drag me down to the level of "faith", and go on about Calvinism some more?
It's not like I'm asking for you to produce a flying pig (that would suffice though), all I want is for you to challenge the evidence directly. Was Newton just confused about the apple because the earth is flat and it is constantly accelerating upward (simulating gravity via momentum)? Yea that must be it...
As to why people gravitate to ideas of faith, it is hope, something to grasp on to. For atheists it is the Laws of Nature that has fated their lives. It is a religion in so many words.
Causality (what the laws of physics seek to describe) has to do with determinism because it "determines" how matter and energy behaves.
Experiments must be above all repeatable in order to show that the results of the experiment are adequately guaranteed ("determined") by the theory which explains/predicts them.
I'm a bit fuzzy on the true meaning of determinism-mas though. Could you enlighten me?
The only scientific equation that we have that speaks to causality is quantum theory. It is probabilistic. Nothing is repeatable. Some much, much less so than others. Every event is different and measurements are always approximate and that is only for those events that can actually be measured.
If you need enlightenment, go read Daniel Dennet. He is about as close to a prophet as you are going to find for the determinism religion. Now, I know what it means to talk to people of faith, so this is going to get us no where, so let's call it an end. Otherwise it gets silly.
There is consistency in Newtonian scales and experiments are eminently repeatable. That said, experiments on the quantum scale are also repeatable (this is how we know what we know about it).
One curious experiment goes as follows: we "prepare" the spin of a group of electrons into a certain configuration (via powerful magnets) and then we begin checking the "spin" (the orientation of the EM field of the electron that was configured by the magnets) of individual electrons one by one. Some we find up, some we might find down (we can only check one direction at a time, and the "probability" of an electron matching that direction depends on how far removed that direction is from it's prepared state) but as we continue to test more and more of these electrons we see that the percentage of them which are "up" corresponds better and better to how close the direction we check is to the direction we prepared initially.
If we prepare the state of an electron along a particular axis (called up) and then we check the "up" direction, there will be a 100% chance that the electron is in the up position.
That's a repeatable experiment that actually gives us insight into why things on Newtonian scales are consistent; because the "probabilistic" nature of quantum events causes them to behave in patterned and partially predictable ways. In other-words, cumulatively, quantum events adhere to a distribution pattern which renders overall consistency.
If quantum experiments were not repeatable, we wouldn't have any reliable knowledge or data concerning them...
They are repeatable only to the extent that there always had to be an aspect of the experiment that is unknown. Heisenberg Principal. Hence the information is good enough for all practical purposes but necessarily unknown as far as completeness is concerned.
Determinists are always mixing up precision with good enough FAPP. It is the difference between the two that makes Determinism obsolete and Determinism good enough for the faithful.
Really, you want to make Quantum deterministic? Well the only way is to explore the Infinite Worlds of Everett's Mega-World Many Worlds. First you have to devise a experiment that crosses into the Infinite Worlds. I would say Occam's Razor would implore the Calvinist version of fate and Heaven. Far easier with the same results.
When we measure an electron, we cause it's "wave-property" to collapse. This experiment isn't affected by the Heisenberg principle because what it measures is precisely the likelihood that we will observe an electron with a spin along a particular axis when we collapse it's wave function from a previously "prepared state". This experiment is one of the reasons we know that the Hiesenberg uncertainty principle isn't just a matter of problematic instruments taking impactful measurements, but an inherently probabilistic aspect of quantum wave-particles.
Quoting Rich
Collapsing wave functions and determinism are not mutually exclusive...
Quoting Rich
I have no interest in dictating what "Quantum" should be. Instead of prattling on about faith and Calvinism you should take the time to actually read my posts and thoroughly explain your position. My tentative and evidence oriented acceptance of determinism doesn't amount to a fundamental belief about the way things are, it's a pragmatic assumption about, at the very least, the way almost everything is. As far as scientists are concerned, overwhelming and inescapable consistency in the causal forces remains despite discovering quantum indeterminacy. The only relevant implications of my acceptance of determinism (which for me is precisely the relinquishing of the free will delusion, which is really what this thread is about) are the implications that it has on moral blame, guilt, and subsequently understanding, forgiveness and rehabilitation as opposed to hatred and revenge.
We both still live with the illusion of free will, and must pragmatically behave as such (mostly), but only one of us lives with the delusion of free will. I don't hold it against you though, I blame causation. All I ask is that when you judge others, try not to envision some kind of inherently evil soul or malevolent will as being the source of their behavior, and instead extend to them as many excuses as you do to yourself when justifying your own failures.
An interesting turn of phrase.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
No but probabilistic wave functions and determined are. I can't believe the twisting and turning that you are willing to go through to get to your goal. Just forget the justification. You want your life to be fated? You believe in it deeply? Then just go for it. Nothing wrong with faith unless you make it wrong.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Except that everything is fundamentally dependent on quantum interactions. A minor point I'm sure that can be quickly shunted aside if you move through the sentence quick enough.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Zero precision. All measurements necessarily are approximate and incomplete. You really are in a hurry to get to your goal. Quoting VagabondSpectre
No, I have choices. You prefer to believe in a God that has fated you. You have tons of company. Lots of good religious books and literature on the subject. All fated religions have the same problem of maintaining supremacy of their God while acknowledge the everyday experience of Choice. In your case, you simply make it an illusion. Not novel but sufficient for your intended purpose. I hope you are not disappointed when you find Calvinists agree with your whole system they are just more comfortable with the word God than you are. Natural Laws does sound a whole lot more scientific.
The more electrons we check in the experiment I described, the closer and closer the results correspond to our predictions based on past experience.
Determinism is still not disproven by our inability to predict how the wave property of a given electron will break, but this clearly isn't what you're so passionate about. You desire to nest free will inside of this wave property, but you still have not explained how quantum fluctuations (or whatever you have in mind) actually impacts your free will. You maintain that free will exists in the mind because quantum mechanics negates determinism, but you cannot explain how, and won't say anything about why "quantum fluctuating will" (or whatever) is any more in your control (your free will) than classical Newtonian mechanics.
Quoting Rich
Zero precision huh?
No. They correspond to the probabilistic wave equations. There is zero determinism anywhere, yet you struggle to find some. Why struggle? Just allow for your faith. Believe me it's OK.