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Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

nature.com

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Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#121
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a good documentary called "The Secret Life of Chaos" that has a fairly cool overview of this concept. Though it's just the beginning of a very deep rabbit hole, possibly unending. Here is a link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv1j0n

There's also a decent (not documentary) limited series that explores the idea of determinism. It's pretty good and may be of interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs_(TV_series)

Thanks for the suggestion, two episodes in so far, and it's really good.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#122

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…

I came to a very different conclusion on criminality in the absence of free will: compassion and understanding.

How often do children do shitty things, and then say "I don't know" when asked why they did it? I have personally had problems lashing out in anger and not even understanding why. Our brains put a lot of effort into keeping us away from painful thoughts and memories. All of that is to say that you don't have to invoke determinism or quantum mechanics to demonstrate that people aren't always consciously in control of their actions.

Some people are far more capable of compassion and forgiveness in the face of tragedy when they can see that a genuine accident occurred, or when they understand the generational trauma that laid the ground work for unthinkable choices. Why not take it one step further and recognize that we're all stuck on this involuntary ride and we all deserve a little grace because none of us could have chosen any differently?

Does this mean we expect the aggrieved to forgive the perpetrator? No. Does that mean we cease handing out jail sentences for dangerous crimes? No again. But if there is no free will in the choices we make, what's the point of punishing people? I get that people who hurt other people should feel remorse, and people who are dangerous should be isolated, but how can you say anyone deserves punishment when their actions are predetermined?

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#123
post #94

No new info. From the article: "So how deterministic is the Universe? The answer will depend on the final theory that bridges the divide between quantum physics and relativity — and that remains a far-off prospect." Unless physics is totally noise-free, with zero randomness, there is indeterminism. There are so many chaotic processes that amplify randomness that any randomness at all will cause wide divergence in out…

If you can't control the noise, there is no free will. If you could control the noise, that would be measurable. You need both to be able to control the noise and to not have that be a direct consequence of another physical process in order to demonstrate free will.

Determinisim is impossible because randomness is baked in; knowing position and momentum isnt a thing, and as far as we can tell the only closed systems are light cones.

Odd that the article didnt mention Heisenberg.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21253267

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#124
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People did horrible acts because they did want to do those acts to those other people. They picked a theory to justify them.

I don't know, there's many stories of modern soldiers doing terrible things, coming back to the civilized world and living horrible lives due to PTSD and not being able to parse what they did. Are you suggesting every one of those soldiers for example, go out to war with the intent of killing children? Are you not open to the idea that the sense of normalcy can be shifted by the environment and context? Are you famil…

I'm familiar with Milgram experiments. To refer to recent facts, hundreds of thousands of Russians fled the country after the start of the war in Ukraine [1] Reasons vary but I think both of us remember the wave of male migrants when Russia called for mobilization in October 2022. Some of them probably didn't want to get killed, others didn't want to kill people.

I'm not merciful about this: the people of a country are responsible for who governs them, sense of normalcy notwithstanding.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_emigration_following_t...

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#125

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…

> [If] they are predetermined to, the decision to rob the bank happened in their head.

That's nonsense. If they're predetermined, then the decision happened _outside_ their head. You might otherwise describe a river as its own source and tributary.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#126
Short answer: absolutely not.

The whole idea actually originated in wholly mistaken idea that Newtonian mechanics implied that the universe was a big clockwork, unfathomably complex but still predetermined. This rests on the false philosophic view that Newtonian mechanics are the only form of causality (or more broadly, that the laws of physics are the only form causality.)

Free will is a type of causality emerging from a particular kind of entity. It in no way violates any other type of causality, and vice-versa. Free will can't violate physics; you can't say "I have free will, therefore I can throw this ball to 50% of light speed." It pertains to an entity with free will making a choice among certain finite possible choices at any given time.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#127

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…

I like to ask people _how_ non-deterministic laws of nature would give rise to free will, and listen as they stumble toward the realization that determinism is orthogonal to the subject.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#128
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The move you pick is also deterministic, which is coming from the state of your neurons and how they have got to that place from studying so far and then getting the current input of the board to go through several cases to reach the output.

How do infusorias make choices? They don't even have brains.

How does a flame decide what to burn?

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#129
post #125

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…

> [If] they are predetermined to, the decision to rob the bank happened in their head. That's nonsense. If they're predetermined, then the decision happened _outside_ their head. You might otherwise describe a river as its own source and tributary.

If I build an AI that is biased toward creating malware, is it the AI's fault?

I say "maybe" because the calculations are performed by the AI, you say "maybe not" because of the creators' influence, but it still makes sense to me that we should debug/firewall/shut down that AI.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't control the noise, there is no free will. If you could control the noise, that would be measurable. You need both to be able to control the noise and to not have that be a direct consequence of another physical process in order to demonstrate free will.

Determinisim is impossible because randomness is baked in; knowing position and momentum isnt a thing, and as far as we can tell the only closed systems are light cones. Odd that the article didnt mention Heisenberg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21253267

Randomness doesn't imply free will. I was responding to the last paragraph of GGP's comment.
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