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Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

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Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#181

Post by ajuc »

coldtea wrote: post #160
ajuc wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So those measures can't be said to have dropped crime (since it could never be anything else). That's redefining words to the extreme. A rock has dropped because of gravity and lack of support. It doesn't matter that in this universe with the starting conditions as they are - the rock had to drop. It still dropped. Homo sapiens (or whatever ancestor it was when it happened) - evolved to punish crimes. It lowered th…

> That's redefining words to the extreme. The fact that crime can't drop or rise depending on prior decisions, and will always be what it's predetermined to be at any point in the future is pretty non-controversial if you accept determinism. And requires not "redefining" at all. When we say "we've dropped crime" we don't just describe a casual relationship, but that we achieved something that otherwise would not be.…

> It wasn't preserved because of any beneficial effects (which weren't a concern at all). It was preserved because initial conditions were so and so.

This again. This is basic logic.

a imply b imply c imply d

Does c imply d?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#182

Post by naasking »

adrianN wrote: post #179
naasking wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's a boring theory that doesn't pass Ockham's razor. For the universe to be superdeterministic you'd have to encode its whole evolution somewhere The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, by 't Hooft https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548

That's really interesting, I like CAs a lot. However the author himself states in the introduction that Bell's inequality and related theorems very strongly suggest that his theory is not correct.

> However the author himself states in the introduction that Bell's inequality and related theorems very strongly suggest that his theory is not correct.

It's widely believed that Bell's theorem and other no-go theorems preclude a local, hidden variable interpretation of QM. The author merely mentions that he can reconcile existing results with this local, hidden variable interpretation via "superdeterminism".

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#183

Post by cthalupa »

coldtea wrote: post #163
cthalupa wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those things are true, and I don't need them to be untrue to assign the largest share of responsibility to the thief. Having laws (and the enforcement of laws) in place is something we believe to be the most effective input in causing the Bad Things to not happen. As such, having them and enforcing them is purely logical. We have decided that having someone "broken" in such a manner that these inputs are not e…

> Having laws (and the enforcement of laws) in place is something we believe to be the most effective input in causing the Bad Things to not happen. As such, having them and enforcing them is purely logical. It's only logical assuming free willing agents making logical choices. Else, it's only automatic and predetermined, like everything else. > Either you have negative stimuli to it from something more direct, such…

The lack of free will doesn't eliminate consciousness and intelligence. We're veering into deconstructionism here.

Yes, everything is largely deterministic (quantum effects have impact, and may or may not be deterministic, but that impact is still bound by the laws of physics), and the universe will someday reach maximum entropy. On the scale of the universe and its lifespan, morality obviously doesn't exist.

I've been reading some of your responses to various other people, so I'll respond to some of the ideas your arguing in general, rather than just specifically what you've type in this comment.

We'll skip through the causal chain of the universe to get to modern humanity with laws. It may be pre-determined and automatic that we would become such that we dislike the things that we make laws about. But it is still causal that creating these laws prevents some people from doing actions that they otherwise would without repercussions.

The fact that it is predetermined and automatic doesn't change the causality. If anything, it enforces it. You don't remove the cause-effect of everything in the middle of the chain just because the end was known from the start.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#184

Post by jobigoud »

axilmar wrote: post #156

To me, articles like these are littered with logical fallacies. I truly wonder if the quoted scientists really meant what the article says. For example: "And if our measurements are random, there is no way for the photons to know ahead of time which orientation will be measured. So, there can’t be any hidden variable to determine the outcome. Whether we get the left or right shoe, or the left or right glove, the resu…

> Maybe there are no hidden variables, and maybe there is no communication, but these properties are simply encoded into the light particles, by the way they are created.

I believe this is exactly what "hidden variables" means. Some unknown property that would be present in both particles before we measure it and constraint the possible outcomes. This is inconsistent with experiments, it was shown there is no such properties.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#185

Post by dubya23 »

naasking wrote: post #85
intralizee wrote: post #12

I’m a person who acknowledges everything is deterministic and free will is a facade. The two types of people I’ve encountered who desire the notion of free will: 1) Person with ego who needs to have a belief in free will. 2) Persons who has ego, gets annoyed by free will being a facade and refuses to think about it because “it doesn’t matter” to this person. I’m perplexed if the problem is singular between the two ty…

> The two types of people I’ve encountered who desire the notion of free will: 1) Person with ego who needs to have a belief in free will. 2) Persons who has ego, gets annoyed by free will being a facade and refuses to think about it because “it doesn’t matter” to this person. This is a complete straw man. Let me describe the contrary claim: in my experience, the type of person who desire giving up free will either a…

[dead]

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#186

Post by ajuc »

coldtea wrote: post #166
ajuc wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you differentiate these two scenarios without free will? Circumstances change the moral evaluation of actions, it doesn't matter if it was a blackmail, or a hurricane (which doesn't have a free will) - still people would be more lenient on the guy that stole a car to save his wife. And the guy still made a choice (or had the illusion of making a choice), just with different circumstances. And still the ex…

> still people would be more lenient on the guy that stole a car to save his wife No, people will be just as lenient as their puppet like automatic responses to chains of events created at the Big Bang dictate. All of those being set in stone in advance. > If the free will doesn't exist - people can still evaluate what is good and bad using the concept of free will. Evaluate means a process that examines the facts an…

You start with

> No

and then repeat what I said, stressing the fact that people are puppets in this scenario. Yes they are, and it doesn't matter, they will still do the exact same thing as if they weren't puppets. That's the point.

> without free will [...] there's no this or that result: just whatever is destined to be

So what? This line of code evaluates distance between two points and prints "Boom" if it's smaller than 10.0.

    if (sqrt((x0-x1)*(x0-x1) + (y0-y1)*(y0-y1))
Doesn't seem to need a free will to do all of that :)

> Which would make their morality meaningless. And so would the non-existence of free will.

No it wouldn't. Provide arguments if you think otherwise.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#187

Post by cthalupa »

naasking wrote: post #178
cthalupa wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're evading the question. The point of moral dilemmas is to highlight the qualities that meaningfully affect the outcome. We have here two scenarios, one in which the thief would be held responsible, and one in which he would not. Free will easily distinguishes these two scenarios, and since you claim we don't need free will to make such judgments, let's hear how you distinguish these. Someone kidnapped my wife s…

> Someone kidnapped my wife so I stole a car is not a valid legal defense That's not the scenario I posed, although perhaps the presentation wasn't clear. So to be perfectly clear so there are no misunderstandings, the thief was told to steal your car or his wife would be executed. Clearly he's morally culpable for stealing the car in one scenario and not in the other. This distinction can be clearly made using free…

I get your point - where does the distinction lie? At what point does responsibility shift? And I understand that you argue free will is necessary to make that distinction.

But you don't need free will to do that. You need a system of inputs that result in an output, with that output being the decision. It's still all a matter of causality. We've evolved in such a way that we want to stay alive, and that the vast majority of people value being alive over having a replaceable object. Or, I suppose in this example, their spouse being alive. Our collective morality is the result of that system of inputs.

If you get right down to it, it's a value judgment on life vs. property. Those values are shaped based off of our past.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#189

Post by ajuc »

naasking wrote: post #178
cthalupa wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're evading the question. The point of moral dilemmas is to highlight the qualities that meaningfully affect the outcome. We have here two scenarios, one in which the thief would be held responsible, and one in which he would not. Free will easily distinguishes these two scenarios, and since you claim we don't need free will to make such judgments, let's hear how you distinguish these. Someone kidnapped my wife s…

> Someone kidnapped my wife so I stole a car is not a valid legal defense That's not the scenario I posed, although perhaps the presentation wasn't clear. So to be perfectly clear so there are no misunderstandings, the thief was told to steal your car or his wife would be executed. Clearly he's morally culpable for stealing the car in one scenario and not in the other. This distinction can be clearly made using free…

He is responsible for stealing the car in both situations. He has an excuse in one, but excuse doesn't stop responsibility, and both doesn't require a free will to exist.

To provide better example - one guy blackmails you to kill me, or he will kill your whole family. You still have a choice.

You make your choice or it's predetermined cause no free will - it doesn't matter.

You are responsible for your choice, and the blackmailer is responsible for the blackmail. You have an excuse why you choose the way you did, and it may be decided to be a good thing to do or evil, depending on the morality of particular person (basically the trolley problem).

With car the responsibility for stealing compared to the responsibility for a murder is negligible, so people focus on the second one. But both are still there, they don't cancel out.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#190

Post by kenmicklas »

jobigoud wrote: post #184
axilmar wrote: post #156

To me, articles like these are littered with logical fallacies. I truly wonder if the quoted scientists really meant what the article says. For example: "And if our measurements are random, there is no way for the photons to know ahead of time which orientation will be measured. So, there can’t be any hidden variable to determine the outcome. Whether we get the left or right shoe, or the left or right glove, the resu…

> Maybe there are no hidden variables, and maybe there is no communication, but these properties are simply encoded into the light particles, by the way they are created. I believe this is exactly what "hidden variables" means. Some unknown property that would be present in both particles before we measure it and constraint the possible outcomes. This is inconsistent with experiments, it was shown there is no such pr…

It's only inconsistent if you assume information can't travel faster than the speed of light, for which there is no basis besides gospel.
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