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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?

#71

Post by digging »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #66
digging wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the question or how it relates to my comment, can you elaborate what you mean by "plane of existence"?

When you imagine from your minds eye, that is a plane of some sort. If we understood exactly where or how this plane exists and for whom, we could arbitrarily place objects and ideas in this plane. Eg force someone to think of a red ball bouncing, or pull imagined objects forcefully out of the plane.

You're asking me to define the physical nature of thought? Of subjective experience? I can't. No one can.

As I already said, though, that doesn't mean we should assume there's something metaphysical going on. When I think of a red ball neurons fire. We have no reason to believe there is anything else going on because we have no evidence one way or the other. The experience of thinking of a red ball is not evidence that there's anything supernatural going on.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#72

Post by moritzwarhier »

MrGinkgo wrote: post #61

Not sure if this is just a moot point, but I'll say it because I'm genuinely curious to hear what people have to say. Anytime I hear theories like this, I feel wary of accepting it as an air-tight reliable outlook because of human limitations. Like, our understanding of quantum physics and all natural laws come from what we can percieve and measure, but there's bound to be phenomena which we can't percieve or measure…

Very well put!

> I don't necessarily see science as trivial pursuit because of our human limitations

Me neither, quite the opposite, but the problem you are describing has always been a problem when discussing metaphysics, as it is commonly called.

Science is aware of its limitations, that's what makes it science.

But sometimes, people tend to conflate a materialistic world view (maybe even strong determinism) with believing in the scientific method.

The "belief" I mean here is strongly tied to assigning the appropriate role in ones thinking to scientific facts.

Proving an all-encompassing scientific world view is a logical paradox.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#73

Post by at_a_remove »

I've never seen some consensus as to the definition of free will to the extent that it was testable. As in, "What experiment can we perform to show this thing has free will?" or "Define free will in such a fashion that a universe with free will is notably and different from a universe without free will, in a manner we can detect."

If we cannot do that, I am not even sure what the point is of discussing the concept. It is like some box we are told lies sealed in a distant continent, and we argue about what is in the box. Why? We'll never know, and the answer doesn't seem to change anything.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#74

Post by dotsam »

MrGinkgo wrote: post #61

Not sure if this is just a moot point, but I'll say it because I'm genuinely curious to hear what people have to say. Anytime I hear theories like this, I feel wary of accepting it as an air-tight reliable outlook because of human limitations. Like, our understanding of quantum physics and all natural laws come from what we can percieve and measure, but there's bound to be phenomena which we can't percieve or measure…

Scientific knowledge, like all knowledge, is fallible. All we can hope to do is correct errors and generate better explanations.

There is no "ultimate truth" or airtight reliable outlook at which we can stop and say we know everything there is to know -- that would be a dogmatic assertion, and it is false.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#75

Post by phkahler »

losvedir wrote: post #29
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…

I'm not an expert, but I think the "orthodox" understanding is that quantum mechanics is fundamentally rooted in probabilities at the lowest level. The position you're taking, that quantum uncertainty isn't inherent in the system, but just related to us not knowing enough about it, is considered a "hidden variables" hypothesis. And I think those have been ruled out by Bell's Theorem, or at least implies other very co…

>> And I think those have been ruled out by Bell's Theorem, or at least implies other very counterintuitive things have to be true instead.

Non locality seems less weird to me than any of the other interpretations of quantum mechanics. But I feel like I'm in a small minority with this. Besides, what we think about it isn't really relevant.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#76

Post by broscillator »

MrGinkgo wrote: post #61

Not sure if this is just a moot point, but I'll say it because I'm genuinely curious to hear what people have to say. Anytime I hear theories like this, I feel wary of accepting it as an air-tight reliable outlook because of human limitations. Like, our understanding of quantum physics and all natural laws come from what we can percieve and measure, but there's bound to be phenomena which we can't percieve or measure…

I think you're just describing human nature. We can look back and see how incomplete theories about the world led to horrible acts, or to averting our eyes from those acts because we thought it was justified, or because we thought there was no better way, or out of fear.

Yet there's the prevalent sense of "this time we're getting it right".

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#77

Post by coderenegade »

Filligree wrote: post #42
DebtDeflation wrote: post #6

I think, ultimately, there are only 3 possible explanations for the paradoxes of the quantum world. 1) superdeterminism (everything including our choices in quantum experiments today were fully determined at the instant of the Big Bang), 2) something "outside" our observable reality acting as a global hidden variable (whether something like the bulk in brane cosmology or whatever is running the simulation in simulati…

Many-Worlds? Or does that fall under #2 for you?

Many worlds is really just another form of determinism. If everything that can happen does, no one in any of the individual universes has free will.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#78

Post by broscillator »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #72
MrGinkgo wrote: post #61

Not sure if this is just a moot point, but I'll say it because I'm genuinely curious to hear what people have to say. Anytime I hear theories like this, I feel wary of accepting it as an air-tight reliable outlook because of human limitations. Like, our understanding of quantum physics and all natural laws come from what we can percieve and measure, but there's bound to be phenomena which we can't percieve or measure…

Very well put! > I don't necessarily see science as trivial pursuit because of our human limitations Me neither, quite the opposite, but the problem you are describing has always been a problem when discussing metaphysics, as it is commonly called. Science is aware of its limitations, that's what makes it science. But sometimes, people tend to conflate a materialistic world view (maybe even strong determinism) with b…

> But sometimes, people tend to conflate a materialistic world view (maybe even strong determinism) with believing in the scientific method.

I would say more than sometimes. It seems that if you're not like that, you're immediately labeled religious.

Re: Does quantum theory imply the universe is preordained?

#79

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #6

I think, ultimately, there are only 3 possible explanations for the paradoxes of the quantum world. 1) superdeterminism (everything including our choices in quantum experiments today were fully determined at the instant of the Big Bang), 2) something "outside" our observable reality acting as a global hidden variable (whether something like the bulk in brane cosmology or whatever is running the simulation in simulati…

Superdeterminism on its own doesn't explain why quantum phenomena are statistical, not deterministic.

It seems strange that a superdeterministic universe constrains certain kinds of phenomena to statistical distributions for no obvious reason.

Free choice is a completely different issue, and I'm not even sure it requires quantum theory. Clearly we have the illusion of free choice, but just as obviously our choices are very heavily constrained. In fact the constraints pretty much determine personality. And there's plenty of evidence from psychology that if you you have an accurate model of personality you can manipulate someone's choices without them being aware of it.

So I'm not seeing what quantum theory adds to this. It seems to assume consciousness is quantum and works back from there. Which is a weak argument (IMO).

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