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Why Quantum Mechanics?

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Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#31

Post by adrianN »

EMM_386 wrote: post #24
trixie_ wrote: post #11

Randomly found a link to this video on super determinism from his blog and found it super interesting. 100% agree, what is 'free will' anyways? A concept with no scientific definition. Why is it even used to explain anything in quantum mechanics? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytyjgIyegDI

I strongly feel that the mystery of consciousness is somehow deeply tied into why we have things like QM and not classical physics. If it was just classical physics, then you get yourself into the thinking that you can rewind time and all the "billiard balls" knock into each other the same way, which is why you order a soup and not a sandwich every single time on that day. That eliminate free will. There is something…

If you reduce free will to randomness, an electron has free will. If you don't, then you propose that free will is somehow disconnected from physical causality. That is at odds with our understanding of the universe.

Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#33

Post by adrianN »

srcreigh wrote: post #19
seiferteric wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question of free will is even simpler. It doesn't come down to determinism vs indeterminism because either way it's not "you" making a decision. At the lowest level (neuron or whatever) when a decision is "made" it is either deterministic (determinism) or probabilistic (indeterminism) based on physics but either way, where is the "you" in the process? Only way free will makes sense is if something superna…

Physics is based on what can be measured objectively. In other words the probability could be an approximate description of a real (and perhaps knowable) yet un-objectively-measurable process. The idea "everything that is natural can only be everything we can objectively measure" should be problematic right? Of course whatever out there that is unmeasurable is rife with confusion, messiness, lies etc but that shouldn…

You seem to suggest some kind of hidden variable theory for free will: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory. As far as I know they're not particularly popular among physicists, although we haven't (completely) ruled out such an explanation.

Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#34

Post by breuleux »

EMM_386 wrote: post #24
trixie_ wrote: post #11

Randomly found a link to this video on super determinism from his blog and found it super interesting. 100% agree, what is 'free will' anyways? A concept with no scientific definition. Why is it even used to explain anything in quantum mechanics? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytyjgIyegDI

I strongly feel that the mystery of consciousness is somehow deeply tied into why we have things like QM and not classical physics. If it was just classical physics, then you get yourself into the thinking that you can rewind time and all the "billiard balls" knock into each other the same way, which is why you order a soup and not a sandwich every single time on that day. That eliminate free will. There is something…

> If it was just classical physics, then you get yourself into the thinking that you can rewind time and all the "billiard balls" knock into each other the same way, which is why you order a soup and not a sandwich every single time on that day.

I don't understand this line of reasoning. If I ordered a soup for lunch, and then time is rewound and I order a sandwich instead, it would appear that my choice is in fact random and therefore I most definitely do not have free will. If rewinding time is sufficient to change my past choices, doesn't that utterly demean them? I might as well flip a coin.

Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#35

Post by cblconfederate »

He should consider the neuroscientific answer: The brain is a limited capacity model maker in a world that is only partially sensed. It was evolved to predict food and survival along the time dimension, not much more. Its model making is limited to extrapolating linearly (infinities) or nonlinearly (quanta) from initial conditions, and there is no guarantee it can make a full consistent theoretic universe. Even its notion of information is limited. It ponders many questions, mostly out of inertia, but not all questions are going to lead to useful answers, even the question 'why quanta'

Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#36

Post by raindeer2 »

seiferteric wrote: post #25
guerrilla wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the lowest level (neuron or whatever) when a decision is "made" it is either deterministic (determinism) or probabilistic (indeterminism) based on physics but either way, where is the "you" in the process? It's a matter of scale. At the highest level, of the individual, if you present them with two options, they will chose one of the options. At that level, the question is a trivial: yes, obviously they have "th…

It's not satisfying that it would be considered free will if the outcome is based on the result of a probabilistic random number generator but perhaps that's what they mean... As for moral responsibility, essential no, it cannot exist again unless supernatural is involved for the same reasons outlined above, there is no "you" making a decision, just a process. As for whether you should feel guilty... well again I am…

"moral responsibility, essential no, it cannot exist again unless supernatural is involved for the same reasons outlined above, there is no "you" making a decision, just a process."

This view is based on a misunderstanding of what moral responsibility is. Moral responsibility is essentially credit assignment [1]. It exists as a concept not because it matters whether or not you actually could have done differently before, but rather as a mechanism to teach you to do differently in a similar situation in the future. "You" is just a machine making decisions. When you make a bad decision, according to the other machines surrounding you (society) or your own brain's reward system, you are assigned blame or feel guilty because you should avoid making the same decision again in a similar situation.

To say that moral responsibility requires something supernatural doesn't make sense, since we successfully use the concept all the time. Its a mechanism for multi-agent learning.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.08435

Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#37

Post by liamwire »

trixie_ wrote: post #11

Randomly found a link to this video on super determinism from his blog and found it super interesting. 100% agree, what is 'free will' anyways? A concept with no scientific definition. Why is it even used to explain anything in quantum mechanics? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytyjgIyegDI

I found Sam Harris’ book on Free Will, named as such, to be extraordinarily compelling. It’s short, at 96 pages, and I feel worth the read.

Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#38

Post by rep_lodsb »

EMM_386 wrote: post #24
trixie_ wrote: post #11

Randomly found a link to this video on super determinism from his blog and found it super interesting. 100% agree, what is 'free will' anyways? A concept with no scientific definition. Why is it even used to explain anything in quantum mechanics? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytyjgIyegDI

I strongly feel that the mystery of consciousness is somehow deeply tied into why we have things like QM and not classical physics. If it was just classical physics, then you get yourself into the thinking that you can rewind time and all the "billiard balls" knock into each other the same way, which is why you order a soup and not a sandwich every single time on that day. That eliminate free will. There is something…

IMO the concept of free will doesn't make sense, at least not without also believing in the existence of a soul.

If you were to make a decision that is not in some sense pre-determined by the structure of your brain (as shaped by biology and past experiences), it would be essentially random and just as meaningless as an uranium atom "deciding" to decay at some specific moment and not another.

Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#39

Post by seiferteric »

raindeer2 wrote: post #36
seiferteric wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not satisfying that it would be considered free will if the outcome is based on the result of a probabilistic random number generator but perhaps that's what they mean... As for moral responsibility, essential no, it cannot exist again unless supernatural is involved for the same reasons outlined above, there is no "you" making a decision, just a process. As for whether you should feel guilty... well again I am…

"moral responsibility, essential no, it cannot exist again unless supernatural is involved for the same reasons outlined above, there is no "you" making a decision, just a process." This view is based on a misunderstanding of what moral responsibility is. Moral responsibility is essentially credit assignment [1]. It exists as a concept not because it matters whether or not you actually could have done differently bef…

> When you make a bad decision, according to the other machines surrounding you (society) or your own brain's reward system, you are assigned blame or feel guilty because you should avoid making the same decision again in a similar situation.

But if free will does not exist then other machines (humans) aren't making these decisions either... it's turtles all the way down so to speak. You could go on to say that the entire system (of humans, society etc) is either determined or probabilistic, but still no free will exists. It is meaningless to say whether you should feel guilty or not etc. as it is just part of a system no one has any control over...

Edit:

What I meant to say is that moral responsibility exists like natural selection in evolution, it is there but we don't choose it to be there, it is part of the natural system we find our selves in.

Re: Why Quantum Mechanics?

#40

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

sam-2727 wrote: post #18
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #8

> why complex values amplitudes? If you multiply the left and right sides of schrodingers equation by its complex conjugate, do you still get an equation that the real valued square of the wave function solves? Can you do QM with just the real valued probability distribution? If you can, why not say that that’s the “real” thing, and factoring it is just a convenient way to solve it, same as imaginary solutions to qua…

> Can you do QM with just the real valued probability distribution? You can't. The key fact is that other observables, such as momentum, depend on the complex part of the wave function.

But those have real valued probability distributions too, right? Does modeling the evolution of the joint distribution of all the observables not count?
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