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How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

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Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#41

Post by drjesusphd »

stOneskull wrote: post #33
koverstreet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the one talking about purpose. The rest of us are talking about mechanism. You're handwaving away the problem, but that doesn't mean there still isn't a problem there we don't understand yet.

what is the problem?

It's The Hard Problem.

Suppose we eventually know everything about the body and mind, that some day science can simulate and predict the motion of every atom in your body. Thus, all your behavior is deterministic. That still doesn't explain why there's an "ego" there to experience it all.

Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#42

Post by qntty »

zuiper wrote: post #14

Is this contest even worth entering as an autodidact? Looking at past contest winners, the majority seem to hold a PhD.

If you're interested in the question, it's probably worth writing the essay even if you think you have no chance of winning.

Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#44

Post by wyager »

mathgenius wrote: post #19
beat wrote: post #8

The theme seems weirdly phrased. It's like asking "How can a tree give rise to the color green?" Their attempt to clarify didn't really clarify. They're looking for a causal relationship between physical law and thought process (because "aims and intention" are thoughts ). Perhaps causality itself is the wrong tool to apply here. Thanks to various readings over the past year, I'm starting to believe causality as an a…

> various readings over the past year Yes, what were these? I tend to agree with you about causality. The attempts to understand how the classical world arises from quantum laws seem particularly boneheaded to me. I guess people (scientists) don't want to let go of causality because who knows what chaos and mayhem will befall the world if we give up on this. And the philosophers have a term "causal closure" which see…

> The attempts to understand how the classical world arises from quantum laws seem particularly boneheaded to me.

Why? They have been completely successful. The reduction from QM to newtonian mechanics is very easy; you just turn the action way up so that you can't see the quantization gaps between actions anymore.

QM is not acausal. Even in QFT where we have interactions that look time-reversed, they still aren't acausal.

Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#45

Post by cicero »

visarga wrote: post #24
koverstreet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying "How do computers compute?" "Well, because we built these giant fabs and factories to build them". You're answering the wrong question.

No, there is no difference between human survival/replication and purpose. That's the recurrence, the reentrant loop that bootstraps humans. Of course individual humans might make their own values and act on them, but they only exist as a byproduct of the survival/reproduction process, and are formed by this process.

The question is why did survival and replication arise? Rocks don't try to survive or replicate.

Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#46

Post by criddell »

koverstreet wrote: post #34
criddell wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You take "determinism" too hard. Isn't he just really claiming that there's no room for free will? Is ever a state where the next immediate thing to happen is not determined by that state.

No, I'm not really claiming anything about free will. The problem of free will is mostly just how to define it in a way that makes any sense at all. But to the degree that it does make sense I would say we clearly have it. What else does it mean for something to have the ability to decide?

> What else does it mean for something to have the ability to decide?

Is there any evidence for free will? Or maybe actual free will vs perceived free will is meaningless.

Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#47

Post by mathgenius »

niels_olson wrote: post #38
mathgenius wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> various readings over the past year Yes, what were these? I tend to agree with you about causality. The attempts to understand how the classical world arises from quantum laws seem particularly boneheaded to me. I guess people (scientists) don't want to let go of causality because who knows what chaos and mayhem will befall the world if we give up on this. And the philosophers have a term "causal closure" which see…

> how the classical world arises from quantum laws seem particularly boneheaded What classical world do you refer to? Newtonian physics? That's well understood, the general area of study is called thermal physics. Are you talking about how the brain works? The biologists understand the meso-scale structures and the microscale structures, and the wiring. What they lack is a certified, detailed diagram, which is admitt…

> That's well understood, the general area of study is called thermal physics.

I don't agree at all. Thermal (classical) physics may be consistent with quantum physics but this does not at all show how a classical world arises from the quantum.

Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#48

Post by mathgenius »

wyager wrote: post #44
mathgenius wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> various readings over the past year Yes, what were these? I tend to agree with you about causality. The attempts to understand how the classical world arises from quantum laws seem particularly boneheaded to me. I guess people (scientists) don't want to let go of causality because who knows what chaos and mayhem will befall the world if we give up on this. And the philosophers have a term "causal closure" which see…

> The attempts to understand how the classical world arises from quantum laws seem particularly boneheaded to me. Why? They have been completely successful. The reduction from QM to newtonian mechanics is very easy; you just turn the action way up so that you can't see the quantization gaps between actions anymore. QM is not acausal. Even in QFT where we have interactions that look time-reversed, they still aren't ac…

> The reduction from QM to newtonian mechanics is very easy

This is just not true. For example when enanglement is involved all of this goes out the window. Indeed, the next few decades of quantum computing is going to be completely non-reducible to newtownian mechanics.

> QM is not acausal.

I disagree entirely. QM is exactly acausal. Also known as the measurement problem.

Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#49

Post by niels_olson »

mathgenius wrote: post #47
niels_olson wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how the classical world arises from quantum laws seem particularly boneheaded What classical world do you refer to? Newtonian physics? That's well understood, the general area of study is called thermal physics. Are you talking about how the brain works? The biologists understand the meso-scale structures and the microscale structures, and the wiring. What they lack is a certified, detailed diagram, which is admitt…

> That's well understood, the general area of study is called thermal physics. I don't agree at all. Thermal (classical) physics may be consistent with quantum physics but this does not at all show how a classical world arises from the quantum.

Not thermodynamics, thermal physics. You very literally start from quantum states and work you're way up to large collections about which you make estimates which are highly consistent with the real world. Perhaps "statistical mechanics" is a better term.

Re: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?

#50

Post by wyager »

mathgenius wrote: post #48
wyager wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The attempts to understand how the classical world arises from quantum laws seem particularly boneheaded to me. Why? They have been completely successful. The reduction from QM to newtonian mechanics is very easy; you just turn the action way up so that you can't see the quantization gaps between actions anymore. QM is not acausal. Even in QFT where we have interactions that look time-reversed, they still aren't ac…

> The reduction from QM to newtonian mechanics is very easy This is just not true. For example when enanglement is involved all of this goes out the window. Indeed, the next few decades of quantum computing is going to be completely non-reducible to newtownian mechanics. > QM is not acausal. I disagree entirely. QM is exactly acausal. Also known as the measurement problem.

> For example when enanglement is involved all of this goes out the window.

Fair enough, this is sort of a counter example to the "increase the action" trick, but it does work for any local effects.

> Also known as the measurement problem.

There is no need to violate causality to solve the measurement problem. Even superluminal solutions don't allow for the superluminal transmission of information, so causality is preserved. There are huge families of solutions that don't require superluminality at all (einselection, many worlds, etc.).

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