A delightful quirk of relativity theory • Hacker News Board

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#151

Post by SuoDuanDao » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #78

danbruc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rescuing free-will from the jaws of spacetime would be cool! Free will does not exist. It is logically inconsistent. Either your choice is some function of your current state and the environment you are in, then the choice is not free, or it is independent of your current state and the environment you are in, then it is not your choice in any meaningful way, it is just the result of a coin flip. You can do some menta…

A few issues with the “free will” debate. 1) Define “free” 2) How do you test your hypothesis? You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical debate. If you believe free will doesn’t exist, you can’t design an experiment that would invalidate that belief. And if your theory is untestable and unfalsifiable, then what good is it other than a creative exercise? However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics tha…

>So, perhaps the better question is: Does it serve you better to believe there is free will or no free will? And leave it at that.

From a pragmatic analysis the answer is pretty straightforward[1] (Spoiler, believing in free will is better if you value moral behaviour). Glad I chose to believe in free will!

[1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.200...

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#152

Post by parineum » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:41 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #109

irthomasthomas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think about this in the quantum-mechanical framework, it appears to contradict this free-will problem. In relativity, reality is a solid block, and future events are as immutable as past (no free-will). But in QM this statement would be expressing a level of certainty which violates the measurement problem and Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle. In Penrose's recent book he posits an interesting hypothesis on t…

To me the main reason quantum effects does not affect the free will argument is because one can - and probably should given that otherwise it makes QM keep coming up -, reframe it to not worry about absolute determinism and instead apply just probabilistic models. The real question becomes one of probabilities: Unless some entity is able to introduce measurable biases that deviates from predictable probabilistic dist…

> Unless some entity is able to introduce measurable biases that deviates from predictable probabilistic distribution

This is always the problem with arguments for free will or at least the idea that one "could have done something different" that try to use physics/science.

It requires metaphysical action, literally something that cannot be understood with physics. The whole purpose of physics is to define the universe as deterministic. Quantum randomness is exactly that, random. If it was influenceable in some way, it wouldn't be random. Furthermore, the decision to influence it would still be deterministic so the metaphysics doesn't even make sense.

Quantum magic is just the bleeding edge of woo.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#153

Post by phkahler » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #78

danbruc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rescuing free-will from the jaws of spacetime would be cool! Free will does not exist. It is logically inconsistent. Either your choice is some function of your current state and the environment you are in, then the choice is not free, or it is independent of your current state and the environment you are in, then it is not your choice in any meaningful way, it is just the result of a coin flip. You can do some menta…

A few issues with the “free will” debate. 1) Define “free” 2) How do you test your hypothesis? You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical debate. If you believe free will doesn’t exist, you can’t design an experiment that would invalidate that belief. And if your theory is untestable and unfalsifiable, then what good is it other than a creative exercise? However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics tha…

>> However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic

Do we? Quantum mechanics looks like there is genuine randomness, but one interpretation of experiments testing the Bell inequalities is non-locality. It could be completely deterministic, we just don't know what determines it.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#154

Post by SuoDuanDao » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #131

awb wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few issues with the “free will” debate. 1) Define “free” 2) How do you test your hypothesis? You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical debate. If you believe free will doesn’t exist, you can’t design an experiment that would invalidate that belief. And if your theory is untestable and unfalsifiable, then what good is it other than a creative exercise? However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics tha…

> However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic: This is not true, and there are consistent interpretations of QM that are fully deterministic (many worlds, superdeterminism, pilot wave). Still, probabilistic vs deterministic makes no difference. There is no free will in a throw of the dice, and no free will in the wave function collapse. On the other hand, the ma…

I find the most satisfying version of compatibilism one where an agent is mostly determined by 'state' (genes/experiences etc), but the subjective experience of expending mental effort (e.g. when overcoming an addiction) is the agent nudging the wave function collapse this way or that. Add in the ability to influence future 'states' and one has a model much more consistent with the subjective experience of making difficult choices.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#155

Post by danbruc » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:48 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #144

danbruc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rescuing free-will from the jaws of spacetime would be cool! Free will does not exist. It is logically inconsistent. Either your choice is some function of your current state and the environment you are in, then the choice is not free, or it is independent of your current state and the environment you are in, then it is not your choice in any meaningful way, it is just the result of a coin flip. You can do some menta…

You can dismiss them as “mental gymnastics” but defining the term is the heart of the discussion. Philosophers argued about gravity and heat a lot too before we settled on rigorous physical definitions that could be expressed mathematically. At a first approximation there are obviously limits to our “free” will as no one has yet been able to will themselves to float through the air without support, go without food or…

Mental gymnastics was probably not the best choice for the wording. What I really meant is defining free will as something that is in a certain sense trivial. If you want to call making choices according to your personal preferences free will, fine, but this is a triviality and we don't need to debate over this for centuries. And the next guy looks into the predictability of decisions and assigns free will to an entity if its future behavior can not be determined with certain resource constraints. Fine except that the term is now overloaded, you might have the first but not the second kind of free will and both properties are not well described by the term free will.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#156

Post by penteract » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #94

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason the scenario posits an invasion from so far away is that that's about how much distance it takes for a small speed difference here to translate into a day long time difference there.

That’s not how it works. But even beyond that you have the math wrong. Andromeda galaxy is only 2.5 million light-years from Earth. To get a 1 day difference in time dilation across 2.5 million years would take 1 in 913 million difference which someone traveling at even 100MPH (45m/s) isn’t going to see. (1 - (45^2/((3x10^8)^2))^0.5 simply isn’t enough.

I did the calculations from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity#Lorentz_tra... and it comes to ~0.25 years if the person in the car is moving towards Andromeda at 30m/s. γ is indeed very close to 1, so the humans' watches would still agree closely after 2.5 million years, but the humans would be a quarter of a light year apart at that point, so they need to disagree about something to get the same observed speed of light from Andromeda.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#157

Post by danbruc » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #151

awb wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few issues with the “free will” debate. 1) Define “free” 2) How do you test your hypothesis? You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical debate. If you believe free will doesn’t exist, you can’t design an experiment that would invalidate that belief. And if your theory is untestable and unfalsifiable, then what good is it other than a creative exercise? However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics tha…

>So, perhaps the better question is: Does it serve you better to believe there is free will or no free will? And leave it at that. From a pragmatic analysis the answer is pretty straightforward[1] (Spoiler, believing in free will is better if you value moral behaviour). Glad I chose to believe in free will! [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.200...

I don't think that would be the best option. There is nothing wrong with figuring out that we don't have true free will - however you want to define it - and still behave in everyday life as if we have it. It might just be a useful abstraction.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#158

Post by tshaddox » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #78

danbruc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rescuing free-will from the jaws of spacetime would be cool! Free will does not exist. It is logically inconsistent. Either your choice is some function of your current state and the environment you are in, then the choice is not free, or it is independent of your current state and the environment you are in, then it is not your choice in any meaningful way, it is just the result of a coin flip. You can do some menta…

A few issues with the “free will” debate. 1) Define “free” 2) How do you test your hypothesis? You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical debate. If you believe free will doesn’t exist, you can’t design an experiment that would invalidate that belief. And if your theory is untestable and unfalsifiable, then what good is it other than a creative exercise? However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics tha…

> 1) Define “free”

It doesn't seem worth spending much time here, lest the entire argument becomes nothing more than a semantic one. If your definition of "free will" is "this thing that I undeniably feel" then sure, you've made it undeniable by definition.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#159

Post by kybernetikos » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #149

kybernetikos wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you genuinely believe the notion that we have free will is nonsense (and I do), then the logical extension is to be very uncomfortable with the notion of e.g. prison used for vengeance or anything at all other than to the bare minimal extent required to protect others Not really. You can view it as a game theoretic situation. Will the use of prison likely produce a good outcome or a bad outcome? Whether or not t…

This is what I mean by setting vengeance up vs. "the bare mininal extent required to protect others". I agree that there are still people who needs to be locked up, including under possibly brutal sentencing terms. E.g. Anders Behring Breivik who carried out the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway is up on a parole hearing today - if he gets out (it'd take a miracle) it doesn't matter if it's free will (in any sense of…

It seems that we agree that taking a game theoretic view can justify more than just 'the bare minimal extent required to protect others' as it can also include questions of setting examples and letting justice be seen to be done that can form part of the decisions of other future potential criminals, or victims who might feel like taking the law into their own hands.

So, as to 'they chose this themselves', that's begging the question a little - as we've already seen I think that believing in determinism doesn't stop you from believing that people can choose things. As to 'they deserve it', questions of what people deserve is a huge other topic, and I think it's most likely possible to define desert in terms that fit within a deterministic viewpoint.

However, perhaps you're right about its effect since I do in fact think that vengeance is a thoroughly dumb rationale for treating people badly. This is to such an extent that I'd feel surprised to find anyone seriously try to justify it, which is why I didn't really engage with your apparent suggestion that it was an important justification. There are lots of ways you can try to justify criminal punishment in my view but 'vengeance' doesn't fit into any moral system I consider valuable unless it's actually being used as a code for game theoretic concerns or rehabilitation.

But I don't feel so strange thinking this, since most people I know think the same, even those who don't share my views on free will and I'm pretty sure I believed it before I came to that conclusion on free will.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#160

Post by awb » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 7:11 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #116

awb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is reversing the burden of proof. No, in response to someone vaguely mentioning the words “free will”, you made the claim: “Free will does not exist.” The burden of proof is now on you to provide evidence of your claim as well as on you to define the terms contained within your claim. I am not arguing the “free will” debate either way for the reasons mentioned previously and do not care to define the terms as…

Russel's teapot. If I claim Russel's teapot doesn't exist, the burden of proof is on you to prove it exists if you disagree with me, not me, because the set of claims that are so poorly defined and unlikely as to make it an unjustified burden to expect anyone to caveat the claims to make them technically correct is infinite - someone who makes an extraordinary claim without being able to provide a justification there…

The difference between free will and Russell’s teapot IMO is that free will to many is an internal, subjective, untestable experience whereas Russell’s teapot is an external object that is theoretically existent or non-existent for everyone regardless of their internal experience.

If someone says they experienced free will today when they chose to stand up, it’s on you to disprove that it couldn’t possibly happen to anyone ever, or come up with a definition of free will that means they couldn’t possibly experience what they claim to be experiencing. To them their experience is real. You’re claiming it’s not, so I don’t think Russell’s teapot applies here. I think you have set forth a bold claim that someone is not experiencing what they report they are experiencing.

> I'd argue that "free will" would require an entity to be able to do something which cannot be explained by the combination of determinism and randomness

What is your benchmark for determinism? No technology we have can predict or determine a human action. While it’s reasonable to assume that humans are deterministic, it’s still just a theory at this point. If I put the onus on you to prove determinisms in humans, you’d certainly win the Nobel as well.

That’s kind of my point is that both sides of the free will debate are a far cry from having enough evidence or the ability to conduct an experiment to settle the issue. Yet many believe they experience free will everyday and many don’t, because it’s a subjective experience.