Does quantum physics end the free will debate?

[hacbad macbar]

His presentation of the arguments on either side is asinine. Physicists should stick with science

And what we're here for? A Scientific Inquisition?

I believe in free will because when I consciously chose to change my habit patterns my fate is altered.

Sort of.

Take a coin:

• If the outcome is tails, go outside for a walk of fresh air.
• If the outcome is heads, continue to browse the forums.

Right now you are in a state of uncertainty - your choice is yet to be determined. Now throw it.


Did you make that choice?

How am I in a state of uncertainty if I determine initial conditions?

Quite so.

Quantum mechanics deals with the almost infinitely tiny, while free will deals with homo sapiens, almost infinitely larger than the quantum.

So, Homo Sapiens is not from the same universe like the infinitely small?

 

[hacbad macbar]

In my opinion, using the probabilistic nature of QM to argue for the existence of free will does not make sense at all because this indeterminacy is just as incompatible with the idea of free will as the determinism of classical mechanics.

I think Kaku uses a some kind of dialectical approach.

 

[GarrotTheThief]

Quite so.

Quantum mechanics deals with the almost infinitely tiny, while free will deals with homo sapiens, almost infinitely larger than the quantum. The almost infinitely tiny and homo sapiens are in two quite different worlds, operating by different rules. And those who derive free will from quantum mechanics have no intellectual shame.

but what happens when we split tiny atoms? Sometimes the things that are particularly small are insanely powerful.

 

[hacbad macbar]

An interesting documentary about interconectedness of everything

Excrpt: The following documentary presents new developments in neuroscience and a solution to the many current unsolved problems in phisics.

Сhapter 1

God Is In The Neurons

The human brain is a network of approximately one hundred billion neurons. Different experiences create different neural connections which bring about different emotions.

And depending on which neurons get stimulated, certain connections become stronger and more efficient, while others may become weaker. This is what`s called neyroplasticity.

Someone who trains to be a musician will create stronger neural connections that link the two hemispheres of the brain in order to be musically creative.


Etc.

The rest of the trancsript via this site

 

[uumlau]

And what we're here for? A Scientific Inquisition?

You asked if he were correct. In the spirit of Wolfgang Pauli, I replied, essentially, that he's "not even wrong." Not even wrong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Newtonian physics does not imply a lack of free will, nor does quantum physics imply that free will must exist. One can postulate free will in a Newtonian or QM universe, and one can postulate determinism in a Newtonian or QM universe. His reasoning is a bunch of hand-waving nonsense, as it tries to take scientific understandings of the world around us and pretend that they imply something about the mysteries of human consciousness.

 

[Mole]

but what happens when we split tiny atoms? Sometimes the things that are particularly small are insanely powerful.

This is true but the way atoms behave and the way the brain behaves are not connected. The brain and atoms are in radically different worlds.

 

[Mane]

Take a coin:

• If the outcome is tails, go outside for a walk of fresh air.
• If the outcome is heads, continue to browse the forums.

Right now you are in a state of uncertainty - your choice is yet to be determined. Now throw it.


Did you make that choice?

How am I in a state of uncertainty if I determine initial conditions?

You are certain what will happen in either of the possible outcomes, you are uncertain on which outcome will apply. Uncertainty does not require perfect ignorance over all variables within a system.

 

[hacbad macbar]

You are certain what will happen in either of the possible outcomes, you are uncertain on which outcome will apply.

So, I'm certainly uncertain?

 

[Mane]

So, I'm certainly uncertain?

Yes. You seem to be very uncertain about how certain you are of your lack of certainty, so I'll help: Even when measuring a quantum state of a particle, you know what will show up on your computer depending on which state it's in, you can be certain about the results of any state (the interface displaying the information), and you can be certain those results will reflect on your retina and reach your brain and trigger neural pathways, and you can even be certain that unless something kills you straight after making the measurement, you will need to to pee at some point after. Uncertainty about a variable or condition in a system doesn't require perfect ignorance about all the variables and conditions in that system.

 

[johnnyyukon]

This video doesn't seem to argue free will or not as much as it argues uncertainty.

I don't see NO free will (or Determinism) as having your future already laid out.

The guy in the video says being around electrons changes them. Is that some big revelation? Just me posting in this thread has changed it, even if it's by a small degree. And what happens next is causal determinism.


But to me, the question of "Do we have Free Will?" is just as ultimately unanswerable as "Is there a God?" And both have probably been debated for just as long.

 

[INTP]

I believe in free will because when I consciously chose to change my habit patterns my fate is altered. How do I know this? Scientific method. By determining that certain behaviors are correlated to certain outcomes I can chose other behaviors which result in other outcomes or chose to maintain the same behaviors and suffer or reap the benefits of the same outcomes.

How do you know that the decisions you make(about changing habits for example) are not merely your brains reacting to your environment? Now if this same thing has happened since your birth, that would mean lack of free will. You say that you can choose different behaviors that result in other outcomes, but if you make a decision for example to turn left, making that decision to turn left makes the decision to turn right impossible, since you cant simultaneously turn to two opposite directions = only the decision that you make is possible, because thats what you end up doing. Now the question is that if you could had taken the other direction, but then we are back on my first argument.

 

[PocketFullOf]

"what we do and who we will be is not set in stone"

Yes I agree, we can be familiar with who a person has been but there is no way to guarantee that what we think will become of them is 100% correct. It seems pretty obvious tbh. I'm not saying it's not worth going to lengths to prove an idea that was generally accepted as a rule, in fact I think the thirst for scientific knowledge is essential and have made it my purpose in life to an extent, but it just goes to show that our perception of reality, while it can be "factually" very complicated, is actually, in essence, quite simple.

 

[Ene]

We or the universe has been in the form of mass or energy for only 13.8 billion years. 13.8 billion years is far short of always.

That is the generally assumed and suggested age, but even that does not offer conclusive proof that we have not always been present in one form or another. In this context the age of the universe is irrelevant, the fact of its existence is not. Something cannot come from nothing, that is provable. So the essence of what is must have always been...in some form. My point is that humanity's limited capacity to grasp the concept of timelessness does not make it less possible.

Anyway, that wasn't really my point in responding. This is:

Anyway this always is merely a New Age conceit and has no basis in astonomy or physics.

You make an implied assumption here that my reasoning lacks scientific quality. Fine. I'm not a science major (although I made high marks in all my university science courses, including astronomy and physics). That doesn't really bother me.

However, there is one thing I would like to clear up for the sake of everyone who reads my posts, I am not a New Ager and nothing I write comes from that standpoint. Non-Native Americans often equate our views with New Agers. I think that for you to assume that my use of the term "always" is a New Age "conceit" implies that you have made an assumption based on insufficient evidence.

So, I merely want to set the record straight, and to advise you to be careful about assumptions not based in evidence. Until you have *worn my moccasins (cliche, I know) and lived in my world, don't assume you know anything about where my views come from (or anyone else's for that matter.)

Carry on.

*it's a metaphor

 

[INTP]

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, if mass and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and if we are composed of mass and energy, then we have always been in one form or another.

Mass is energy that has a certain form, this form can be destroyed but the energy that makes the mass cant be destroyed.

For example in this feynman diagram, an electron and positron(antimatter form of electron) collide and out comes a photon, so the mass is destroyed in the process, but the energy remains, then the photon turns into quark and anti-quark and the anti-quark spits out a gluon in the process:

Similarly if you take any particle and anti-particle of the same form(which are basically the same, but mirror images of each others) and collide them, they get destroyed and turn into photon.

What comes to creating mass, well this whole higgs thing you might have heard of is responsible, but its true that humans arent capable of creating mass(at least as far as i know).

 

[Ene]

Mass is energy that has a certain form, this form can be destroyed but the energy that makes the mass cant be destroyed.

For example in this feynman diagram, an electron and positron(antimatter form of electron) collide and out comes a photon, so the mass is destroyed in the process, but the energy remains, then the photon turns into quark and anti-quark and the anti-quark spits out a gluon in the process:

Similarly if you take any particle and anti-particle of the same form(which are basically the same, but mirror images of each others) and collide them, they get destroyed and turn into photon.

What comes to creating mass, well this whole higgs thing you might have heard of is responsible, but its true that humans arent capable of creating mass(at least as far as i know).

Thanks, INTP. This a great post.

Indeed, I have heard of the higgs thing.

 

[johnnyyukon]

"what we do and who we will be is not set in stone"

Yes I agree, we can be familiar with who a person has been but there is no way to guarantee that what we think will become of them is 100% correct. It seems pretty obvious tbh. I'm not saying it's not worth going to lengths to prove an idea that was generally accepted as a rule, in fact I think the thirst for scientific knowledge is essential and have made it my purpose in life to an extent, but it just goes to show that our perception of reality, while it can be "factually" very complicated, is actually, in essence, quite simple.

 

[PocketFullOf]

apparently lol

 

[Mane]

Ok, seems like the point wasn't obvious, I'll try again:

Take a coin:

• If the outcome is tails, go outside for a walk of fresh air.
• If the outcome is heads, continue to browse the forums.

Right now you are in a state of uncertainty - your choice is yet to be determined. Now throw it.


Did you make that choice?

• In predetermined world, every state you are in is a result of the predictable attributes and motion of particles.
• In an uncertain world, the state you are in might be influenced by unpredictable motions & states of particles.

All you've done is replace one master with another - throwing a dice to make a decision for you does not mean you are the wind rolling the dice. Likewise, your consciousness is not the magical spirit guiding the random quantum states any more then it is the chain of causality from the big bang, you might redefine yourself to encompass all of those, but you can not extend your conscious will to incorporate them.

"What if there is a soul?", the answer underlines the very fact the question exists:
To answer the question, all it has done is moved your consciousness into an organ we can not see existing on a medium we can not know. You would be just as bound by the mechanics of that medium, predetermined or random, and those will still not be part of your consciousness. But the answer is in what the question demonstrates - the underlining mechanic at work here is that we gain the sense of freewill by making the mechanics of our will unknowable, we attribute our sense of self to the unknown, because that IS where our experience of free will comes from.

From the moment we ask ourselves the question and throw the coin in the air, to the moment the coin falls to the floor and we get our answer, our own will is a mystery for us. It is that mystery, the fact we don't know what our future choices will be, that give us the experience of freewill. Free will can not be an objective reality, but it is insuperable from the subjective experience.

(How was that not implied by the coin experiment? Jesus people...)

 

[sprinkles]

All things are co-arising such that a cause is an effect and an effect is a cause, simultaneously. So it is neither determinism nor indeterminism, and it's also both.

Also consider the butterfly effect, or chaos theory. Can a butterfly flapping its wings alter the course of a hurricane? Maybe, but usually not. Why not though? Consider the concept of thresholds. There are many many cases where applying force doesn't cause a textbook reaction, so the force of the butterfly wings doesn't necessarily effect the hurricane just like your pushing on a mountain doesn't move it. In many cases, friction, resistance, molecular bonds etc are so strong that the chain reaction one would expect in theory does not take place, because all work gets wasted as heat for example. Of course the heat does something, but that ALSO has its limits on what it can effect in a chain reaction.

So in summary, what you end up with are a lot of microcosms which depend on each other in some way but the interaction is not 100% certain or deterministic, yet determination can certainly exist locally.

 

[GarrotTheThief]

All things are co-arising such that a cause is an effect and an effect is a cause, simultaneously. So it is neither determinism nor indeterminism, and it's also both.

Also consider the butterfly effect, or chaos theory. Can a butterfly flapping its wings alter the course of a hurricane? Maybe, but usually not. Why not though? Consider the concept of thresholds. There are many many cases where applying force doesn't cause a textbook reaction, so the force of the butterfly wings doesn't necessarily effect the hurricane just like your pushing on a mountain doesn't move it. In many cases, friction, resistance, molecular bonds etc are so strong that the chain reaction one would expect in theory does not take place, because all work gets wasted as heat for example. Of course the heat does something, but that ALSO has its limits on what it can effect in a chain reaction.

So in summary, what you end up with are a lot of microcosms which depend on each other in some way but the interaction is not 100% certain or deterministic, yet determination can certainly exist locally.

I would go even further and say that certain relationships in one microcosm are governed by a microcosm of laws that pervade multiple microcosms but not necessarily the linear progression of macrocosms outside of microcosms or vice versa - assuming that each threshold and scale could be likened to a Russian Doll metaphor. This is why string theory works based on my limited understanding and why reality is a weave of interconnections. I see it empirically so when the fractalized mathematics between a galaxy and the neurons in our brains are so similar to the highways and road systems on the surface of the planet?

How do I know? Pictorially speaking all that is required is vague generalized similarities in order to notice any universal pattern since a picture is always equivalent to an equation and vice versa - that and it has been confirmed by scientists. there are only three general types of systems that all systems and sub systems could possibly be...based on an article I recently read.

This is why it's possible to determine how many trees of a certain length are in a forest simply by measuring how many twigs are on the branch of a single tree in terms of length and with an additional variable from the atmosphere of the forest.

These two seemingly disparate variables are interconnected and highly correlated and therefore we can use them to extrapolate in conjunction with computers and fractal mathmatics.

Same thing is true with the different thresholds and scales. Changing a variable on a quantum level may not impact the macro level as in our every day lives, but it may as well change an entire galaxy - we do not know, but such an occurrence may occur if we break a threshold on the quantum level. When we separate atoms using fusion and fission we release great forces. I'm not a physist but I wonder if this pattern would continue beyond the higgs field.

Hopefully my limited understanding does not offend.

And this is why I believe in free will. I believe the system of the universe relies on us being free to be determinant - a paradox whereby both are true.