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A delightful quirk of relativity theory

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Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#201

Post by hsn915 »

danbruc wrote: post #124
hsn915 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either your choice is some function of your current state and the environment you are in, then the choice is not free This is as free as you can get and I don't think anyone ever posited "free will" as something other than this.

This is as free as you can get and I don't think anyone ever posited "free will" as something other than this. I would not call this free, it's a choice completely determined by you and the environment. Same situation, same resulting choice. Every single time. And people have certainly used free will to mean many different things.

People mean that if you go back to the past knowing something you didn't know the first time around you would have the ability to make the "better" choice the second time around because of the new information.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#202

Post by stevenhuang »

phkahler wrote: post #153
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 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.

Furthermore, even granting that, one should realize that _random_ will is not _free_ will.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#203

Post by stevenhuang »

JackFr wrote: post #170
vidarh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I'm happy with other definitions, not because I feel I'm doing mental gymnastics, but because the version you give is clearly not what normal people mean by it when they refer to it. It might well be related to what philosophers argue about, but normal people who offer you a 'free choice' or who say that you did something 'of your own free will' do not mean anything like 'your choice was not a function o…

> if you genuinely believe the notion that we have free will is nonsense (and I do) Then you need to genuinely accept that you're not right, you're not making a cogent argument, you're just a fly buzzing around a giant turd. Or rather you don't, cause you can't.

I believe this kind of response is exactly the defensive, strongly held belief sort as mentioned by OP.

What, specifically, is not cogent about his argument?

I think you'll find that if you think about it rationally, there really is no other conclusion without invoking mysticism.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#204

Post by stevenhuang »

vnorilo wrote: post #180
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…

What is free will but an experience? I think it is completely plausible that organisms that exist in a fully deterministic physical reality still have the experience of free will. Or vice versa for that matter. Why do "I" have this experience of having a viewpoint and making decisions? That is a mystery that I am not close to solving. However why would any of that define how the universe must work? Much like a finite…

This comes to the definition of terms that much of the free will debate wastes cycles on.

Those that deny the concept of free will do not deny the subjective experience of free will. The subjective experience of free will was never under question.

The debate has always been about 'hard' free will, i.e., if the universe is fully deterministic, if 'choice' is an illusion.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#205

Post by SavantIdiot »

Now I don't know what "rotation" means. After reading that thread, the phrase "rotating through spacetime" is still just gibberish. It sounds like he's trying to solve a physics problem backwards by making the units match: because the Lorentz transformation is a hyperbolic rotation matrix with a trig property applied, somehow it is a rotation? That just perverts the word "rotation".

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#206

Post by SuoDuanDao »

tsimionescu wrote: post #176
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dif…

That's not compatibilism - as long as "will" can influence the physical world, you have a non-materialist philosophy. Nothing wrong with that, but it's very strange to call it compatibilism. For what it's worth, I don't see any reason to imagine that hard decisions are of any other quality than easy decisions. It's part of my history and experience just as much that I prefer to eat salty foods than sweet ones as it i…

Good to know - from the context I thought compatibilism simply meant that 'will' could influence the physical world and the physical world got to have a say as well.

But I'm not sure what to make of your second paragraph - doesn't saying there are hard and easy decisions require there be a difference of quality between the categories?

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#207

Post by phkahler »

stevenhuang wrote: post #202
phkahler wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Furthermore, even granting that, one should realize that _random_ will is not _free_ will.

Or maybe it is. Didn't some big name physicists "prove" that if humans have free will then so do electrons? Not sure why it has to be an inherent property rather than an emergent property, but I just read the summary.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#208

Post by omazurov »

danbruc wrote: post #42
irthomasthomas wrote: post #21

This would be more fun in a blog post. Twitter is a fucking horrible format for a complex analysis of special relativity. That aside, my favourite quirk from relativity is this: "The more you move in space, the less you move in time." Like relativity in general, it sounds simple enough, but it's consequences are profoundly shocking. (That is, if you take the time to understand it, and don't leap to the conclusion tha…

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…

> Free will does not exist. It is logically inconsistent...

That line of argument makes no difference between the free will of humans and that of animals, insects, bacteria or rocks. But that can't possibly be true: we humans invented free will after all. That's the mental gymnastics that keeps me mentally strong. No beast, nor angel. "Freedom evolves" (DD).

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#209

Post by JackFr »

stevenhuang wrote: post #203
JackFr wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you genuinely believe the notion that we have free will is nonsense (and I do) Then you need to genuinely accept that you're not right, you're not making a cogent argument, you're just a fly buzzing around a giant turd. Or rather you don't, cause you can't.

I believe this kind of response is exactly the defensive, strongly held belief sort as mentioned by OP. What, specifically, is not cogent about his argument? I think you'll find that if you think about it rationally, there really is no other conclusion without invoking mysticism.

I suppose I have two points.

First is that while an argument is being made, absent subjective agency on his part he is no more than a candle flame illuminating the room. The candle once lit must illuminate - it cannot do anything else. And so I grant in the sense of a flame burns, he makes an argument - but without subjective agency, while an argument us being made I’m not sure what precisely we mean by he.

Second absent free will, truth seeking has no more transcendent meaning or inherent value than a fly’s turd seeking. Love, wisdom, justice simply are, and are no better or worse than hate, ignorance or cruelty.

Re: A delightful quirk of relativity theory

#210

Post by tsimionescu »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #206
tsimionescu wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not compatibilism - as long as "will" can influence the physical world, you have a non-materialist philosophy. Nothing wrong with that, but it's very strange to call it compatibilism. For what it's worth, I don't see any reason to imagine that hard decisions are of any other quality than easy decisions. It's part of my history and experience just as much that I prefer to eat salty foods than sweet ones as it i…

Good to know - from the context I thought compatibilism simply meant that 'will' could influence the physical world and the physical world got to have a say as well. But I'm not sure what to make of your second paragraph - doesn't saying there are hard and easy decisions require there be a difference of quality between the categories?

Compatibilism refers to the position that "free will" can be meaningfully accepted to exist in a purely deterministic world. It is the position that even if we accept that your actions 10 years from now could have been predicted with 100% accuracy the very second the Big Bang happened, we can still hold that you have free will in a meaningful sense. The name refers to the idea that free will is compatible with a perfectly determined future.

> doesn't saying there are hard and easy decisions require there be a difference of quality between the categories?

Not necessarily. There is a difference of "quantity" if you want, but not quality. It's like the following model: it's easy to compute 1+1, and it's hard to compute 19312123+123468. But they are not qualitatively different, they don't need different explanations: they both have the same nature, they use the same algorithm, one is just a bigger amount of state than the other.

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