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Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

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Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#101

Post by jddj »

FredPret wrote: post #96

I always see references to free will when certain people start talking about quantum mechanics. Why do people care if free will exists or not? It doesn't seem to affect anything I can think of. - It feels like it exists; it feels like I'm making my decisions. Even if my whole life is a series of decisions calculated by me in some inevitable way, the calculations still had to happen in my head, and the experience of d…

>For that reason, a criminal is just as guilty of their crime, whether they spiritually willed themselves to rob the bank, or whether they are predetermined to. The decision to rob the bank happened in their head.

> Punishment for a crime makes just as much sense either way and for the same reason. Seeing criminals get punished will affect the calculations happening in nearby brains,

This could be a local maxima. I'm not sure there is a reason (other than us having arrived at it, which does count for something) why blaming, and particularly hating/attributing evilness to people for performing a certain act while operating under an imagined agency is more effective than some alternative.

It's possible that there could be a means of dissuading others from the behaviour without that illusion/emotional baggage.

It could arrive at the same conclusion (incarceration, for example) but more compassionately. Does that matter? For the bigger picture arguably not, but for the human experience maybe.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#102

Post by hnthrowaway0328 »

digging wrote: post #38
DebtDeflation wrote: post #6

I think, ultimately, there are only 3 possible explanations for the paradoxes of the quantum world. 1) superdeterminism (everything including our choices in quantum experiments today were fully determined at the instant of the Big Bang), 2) something "outside" our observable reality acting as a global hidden variable (whether something like the bulk in brane cosmology or whatever is running the simulation in simulati…

Actually, how are 1 and 2 different? If 2 simply refers to another layer of reality, don't we still have to figure out if it's deterministic or not? I suppose if it has its own completely different (or slightly different[1]) physics, we'd be starting over, but we'd still work our way back to the question of top-level determinism eventually). [1] Referring to cosmological natural selection as a theory of the "fine-tun…

I have been thinking about this. Definitely not a Physicist or even a Scientist, but how do we figure out the world that the simulation occurs?

I think one lead we can have is that simulations are called simulations because they try to emulate the real world (the one simulations are running). By observing from inside the simulation what kind of input and reaction the "God" people has when we output something, we might be able to understand the "real" world better. It's like the "people" in the Sims game -- given they are of their own mind, they can figure out some rules of our world.

But then how can we jump out of simulation to really really figure it out?

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#103

Post by featuregag »

dotsam wrote: post #86
nwiswell wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there is any guiding light to the randomness, any pattern to how the random choices come out, then it's not really random, is it? Well, yeah, that's the point. By definition, a deterministic model of reality means there is no room for a free agent to make decisions: things couldn't have worked out another way. But a mechanism that appears random provides at least the potential for a free agent, since randomness…

I find the idea of computational irreducibility useful for rescuing a type of free will in a fully determined world. Computationally irreducible programs are perfectly deterministic, yet you can't predict the output before you run them, and nor are there any shortcuts to get there before running them for the first time. The program running in our brains for 'free will' can be computationally irreducible in this way.…

This interpretation is very interesting to me. Do you know of any other philosophical or scientific research into the relationship between computational complexity / reducibility and free will?

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#104

Post by fo76yo »

thefaux wrote: post #87
broscillator wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But sometimes, people tend to conflate a materialistic world view (maybe even strong determinism) with believing in the scientific method. I would say more than sometimes. It seems that if you're not like that, you're immediately labeled religious.

Religious is also a modern pejorative. It's pretty silly the way it's used given that extreme atheism is just as dogmatic as so called religious faith.

Disbelief in specific magical thinking of ancient people and belief in the magical thinking of ancient peoples are not all that similar.

Though I see how they can look that way when you intentionally omit details about the claims of either side, as human discourse is reduced to Tweet size comments of negligible value.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#105

Post by nwiswell »

akomtu wrote: post #97
munch117 wrote: post #44

Appealing to quantum theory to defend free will does not make sense. If the quantum randomness is fundamental, and reality is stochastic at heart, that makes it non-deterministic, but it doesn't make it any less mechanical. It's in the name, after all: Quantum mechanics . If there is any guiding light to the randomness, any pattern to how the random choices come out, then it's not really random, is it? So, if you thi…

The universe can be deterministic without infringing on free will. The game of chess is deterministic, but free will is expressed in picking the moves.

The issue is that if the universe is deterministic, so is the brain.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#106

Post by FredPret »

jddj wrote: post #101
FredPret wrote: post #96

I always see references to free will when certain people start talking about quantum mechanics. Why do people care if free will exists or not? It doesn't seem to affect anything I can think of. - It feels like it exists; it feels like I'm making my decisions. Even if my whole life is a series of decisions calculated by me in some inevitable way, the calculations still had to happen in my head, and the experience of d…

>For that reason, a criminal is just as guilty of their crime, whether they spiritually willed themselves to rob the bank, or whether they are predetermined to. The decision to rob the bank happened in their head. > Punishment for a crime makes just as much sense either way and for the same reason. Seeing criminals get punished will affect the calculations happening in nearby brains, This could be a local maxima. I'm…

It could be more or less compassionate - if we say "this unit is faulty, put it in a firewalled environment with the others" it might encourage us to be nicer to the criminal, especially for minor misbehaviors. But we might also conclude "this unit only churns out malware" and that might encourage us to end all further processing, or to banish it forever to some lonely, inescapable cell.

Edit: now that I think about it, this way of thinking might actually predispose us to try debugging first.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#107

Post by jddj »

FredPret wrote: post #106
jddj wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For that reason, a criminal is just as guilty of their crime, whether they spiritually willed themselves to rob the bank, or whether they are predetermined to. The decision to rob the bank happened in their head. > Punishment for a crime makes just as much sense either way and for the same reason. Seeing criminals get punished will affect the calculations happening in nearby brains, This could be a local maxima. I'm…

It could be more or less compassionate - if we say "this unit is faulty, put it in a firewalled environment with the others" it might encourage us to be nicer to the criminal, especially for minor misbehaviors. But we might also conclude "this unit only churns out malware" and that might encourage us to end all further processing, or to banish it forever to some lonely, inescapable cell. Edit: now that I think about…

It may be true that a part of the population already (privately?) thinks more like that. Some members of the justice system perhaps - criminal lawyers, charitably, and associated medical professionals.

These moments of "what if it wasn't like this?" always tend to lead me to ESS and fizzle out. The status quo which I called a local maxima is likely much less well defined and homogeneous than I speculated and where we find ourselves is just what you get when you mix hate / compassion / firewall / dispose / debug in today's specific concentrations

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#108

Post by mewpmewp2 »

FredPret wrote: post #96

I always see references to free will when certain people start talking about quantum mechanics. Why do people care if free will exists or not? It doesn't seem to affect anything I can think of. - It feels like it exists; it feels like I'm making my decisions. Even if my whole life is a series of decisions calculated by me in some inevitable way, the calculations still had to happen in my head, and the experience of d…

We are all using mechanisms that developed throughout evolution to peform as well as we could in order to spread our genes. That is it. Free will doesn't matter, you are right. As a society we try to align incentives so that everyone would do as good as possible for the group, because throughout evolution the groups who did that were more likely to survive. And, yes it is all pre determined.

The reason to praise or condemn is because these are the pre determined things we are bound to do because it increases our odds of survival.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#109

Post by dist-epoch »

karaterobot wrote: post #82

I have not heard a convincing explanation of how the universe could produce the Monorail episode of The Simpsons merely by a certain configuration of energies in the first moment of the big bang, and the consequences of thereof. The most obvious argument is that the Monorail episode of The Simpsons is not only possible in at least one of the infinitude of quantum, deterministic universes, but inevitable, and that the…

I have a similar problem as you, I just can't understand how determinism makes the lion's atoms move exactly in the direction of the gazelle's atoms.

At the same time, I also can't ignore the large number of very famous and accomplished physicists which take determinism very seriously.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#110

Post by mewpmewp2 »

twiceaday wrote: post #89
karaterobot wrote: post #82

I have not heard a convincing explanation of how the universe could produce the Monorail episode of The Simpsons merely by a certain configuration of energies in the first moment of the big bang, and the consequences of thereof. The most obvious argument is that the Monorail episode of The Simpsons is not only possible in at least one of the infinitude of quantum, deterministic universes, but inevitable, and that the…

The three body problem is impossible to solve analytically. The state space is clearly all connected but in a way that cannot be short-cut. You have to walk it deterministically one state at a time. Once you reach some interesting state, you know that you will always reach it from your initial state. It is inevitable but in general impossible to predict. There is no simple story to tell as to why you'd end up there,…

It was inevitable, there is nothing else it could have been. How could it have been something else? What would have had to make it something else and if there was randomness why would it matter?
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