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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?

#161

Post by GoblinSlayer »

Jensson wrote: post #32
PheonixPharts wrote: post #15

"Random" is a property of your mind, not of the world. If I shuffle a deck of cards in a way that you don't know about, then the next card I pull is "random" to you even though, obviously, if one were to turn the cards face up nothing would have changed about the order of the cards, but now the next card would be fully deterministic. I could likewise sort the deck with an algorithm completely unknown to you. I could…

> Heisenberg uncertainty principle is more a statement about the limits of knowledge than about "God throwing dice". This isn't what physicists believe though, Heisenberg uncertainty principle is about a wave not having both a well defined position and velocity. They either drift apart (undefined velocity) or they are spread apart (undefined position). Then the wave collapse keeps the wave together over time by rando…

In many worlds selection isn't random, but bayesian - really deterministic that can be subjectively interpreted as random.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#162

Post by amai »

As the flow of a river on the big scale the flow of the universe might be entirely predictable. But we are living on the smallest scales of the universe. So we might simply not experience this determinism of the universe, as a molecule in the river might not notice that the river is flowing into the sea.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#163

Post by pshirshov »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #143
radiojosh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

> But if there is no free will in the choices we make, what's the point of punishing people What's the point of hitting a ball to score a goal if the ball had no free will and it was moving deterministically? You punish people in order to provide incentives for people that would align with society's goals. Human being, having the input and knowledge that they would get punished, would make them avoid doing certain th…

> You punish people in order to provide incentives for people that would align with society's goals.

If everything is determenistic, there is no "you" and "you" aren't doing anything.

What happened always was the only possible outcome. There is nothing to worry about. If someone eats someone else it was predetermined. If we don't punish the cannibal - well, that was predetermined as well.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#164

Post by mewpmewp2 »

pshirshov wrote: post #163
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if there is no free will in the choices we make, what's the point of punishing people What's the point of hitting a ball to score a goal if the ball had no free will and it was moving deterministically? You punish people in order to provide incentives for people that would align with society's goals. Human being, having the input and knowledge that they would get punished, would make them avoid doing certain th…

> You punish people in order to provide incentives for people that would align with society's goals. If everything is determenistic, there is no "you" and "you" aren't doing anything. What happened always was the only possible outcome. There is nothing to worry about. If someone eats someone else it was predetermined. If we don't punish the cannibal - well, that was predetermined as well.

Yes, but this type of behaviour occurred logically from emergent behaviour because it performed well throughout evolution. Groups who were able to keep their members in check were the groups who won out. So we have the inherent motivation and desire to punish others to keep them in check.

There's ever lasting power balance within a group, where group will perform well if everyone does well for the group, leading to this prisoner's dilemma situation where a sole bad actor could still outperform everyone in the group that otherwise works together, so these incentives must be set in such a way that it wouldn't be beneficial for bad actors to take advantage of the rest of the group.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#165

Post by GoblinSlayer »

cb321 wrote: post #43
nyssos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't. What we know is that we can't have all of 1. locality (no backwards causation / FTL information transfer) 2. determinism 3. counterfactual definiteness (unperformed measurements still have single definite results: we can talk meaningfully about what we would have seen had we done a different experiment) 4. QM gives correct predictions. Objective-collapse interpretations (like the version of Copenhagen descr…

Bricmont does a good job of discussing entropy, arrow-of-time, and irreversibility, information and probability in a purely classical statistical mechanics setting in https://arxiv.org/abs/chao-dyn/9603009 . Bricmont has continued to write/expound upon these ideas ever since and more recently "come out" as a non-local hidden variables proponent of the de Broglie/Bohm variety which rejects your (1. locality) for which…

They have to choose preferred reference frame to dodge special theory of relativity, but this produces antirealism: the preferred reference frame have stronger reality than other frames.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#166

Post by broscillator »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #158
broscillator wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that it's the simplest explanation. The starting point is the mind, because it's what asks the question. The physical world may or may not exist out there entirely independent of mind phenomena but the physical laws are a mental model in order to understand the world, the physical laws arise out of the interaction between the physical world and the mind. The operating order is like this: there is mind -> m…

The observed world looks materialistic, but such appearance is not required by idealism, and you will need to somehow explain this fine tuning.

That's if you take an either or approach. One could also take the view that they're interdependent, there's no "mind causes matter" nor is there "matter causes mind" (or alternatively, both are simultaneously true).

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#167

Post by broscillator »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #150
broscillator wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays there's many believers of simulation theory, which is pretty much magical thinking.

And like religion that belief is based on social memes, not on science.

Right but people are complex beings susceptible to social memes. Science fundamentally is a tool, but so is writing, which was used to establish and disseminate religion (in the beginning was the Word). The bible might contain wisdom and good lessons, but it's value is obfuscated and degraded by fundamentalist fanatics. The same can happen with the products of science.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#168

Post by sonicanatidae »

radiojosh wrote: post #122
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…

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 hav…

This is a grand idea and I wish the world was capable of it, but it isn't.

With humans specifically, there is ALWAYS an asshole. Always.

There is always someone that will see a community, think those people are idiots, marks, suckers, etc. and will do whatever they can to take things from them, like their property, or their lives, because they look different, worship a different god, talk differently, etc. In other cases, it's a power thing. They will lie about whatever they need to, so assume control, then shit on everyone around them, for their own "betterment".

Humans will always be the absolute worst enemy of humans.

Again, I wish we lived in a world where your idea could work. It would be a much, much better place.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#169

Post by qingcharles »

ewhanley wrote: post #9
aeonik wrote: 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)

Highly recommend Devs as an intro to a deterministic universe.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#170

Post by pshirshov »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #164
pshirshov wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You punish people in order to provide incentives for people that would align with society's goals. If everything is determenistic, there is no "you" and "you" aren't doing anything. What happened always was the only possible outcome. There is nothing to worry about. If someone eats someone else it was predetermined. If we don't punish the cannibal - well, that was predetermined as well.

Yes, but this type of behaviour occurred logically from emergent behaviour because it performed well throughout evolution. Groups who were able to keep their members in check were the groups who won out. So we have the inherent motivation and desire to punish others to keep them in check. There's ever lasting power balance within a group, where group will perform well if everyone does well for the group, leading to t…

You can't have desires or motivation in a determenistic world.
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