A revolution in thought

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I don't think you have the education, training, experience or specialize knowledge in the subject matter either, so you have no room to talk.

Read my post, in which I expressly acknowledged having no education, training, experience or specialized knowledge in the subject matter. That's why I don't go around blabbering about quantum mechanics. My goodness, you're simple.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by GdB

No body here, in this forum. Why discuss a topic with people who don't take that stance?

Others have already commented on your free waving function. Oh, no, your free functioning wave. Whatever. Why don't you just say that you do not understand QM? You don't have to if you are discussing with compatibilists, because they think that we need determinism to be free. On very good grounds...

You are using a definition of "free" so that it is made to look compatible with determinism. It's all smoke and mirrors.

The Problem with Compatibilist Qualifiers

It is interesting the hoops compatibilists will jump through in order to qualify their definition of free will in an attempt to make it coherent given any number of counter-points. These qualifiers almost always miss the point entirely.

If you are unfamiliar with the term compatibilist, it’s just someone who thinks “free will” is compatible with determinism. In other words, regardless if the universe is entirely deterministic, or has some indeterminism, free will is something that is entirely compatible with causal processes. Compatibilists build this compatibility by a semantic shift, meaning they change the definition of free will to something that is actually compatible with determinism. Some compatibilists might argue that they have the “true” version of free will, but when they do this, it is done ignoring the abilities the common layperson actually thinks they and others have.

cont. at: No Free Will Blog

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I answered that question already.

Really? Why don't you link us to your "answer?"

You know, so all the lurkers can see, the nonexistent people here who you think support you but are too afraid to join the conversation because of us big meanies.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Read my post, in which I expressly acknowledged having no education, training, experience or specialized knowledge in the subject matter. That's why I don't go around blabbering about quantum mechanics. My goodness, you're simple.

That's why I'm referring to someone who IS qualified to show why Quantum probability does not save free will. I have read enough of his work to understand his explanation, and it is quite compelling.

[Vivisectus]

A conclusion you came to without knowing even the basic rudiments of QM.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by davidm

Really? Why don't you link us to your "answer?"

You know, so all the lurkers can see, the nonexistent people here who you think support you but are too afraid to join the conversation because of us big meanies.

It'll have to wait. peacegirl's imaginary lurkers are on an imaginary booze cruise with Lessans' imaginary rabbis.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's why I'm referring to someone who IS qualified to show why Quantum probability does not save free will.

Excellent. So you, like me, recognize that you lack the basic foundation necessary to participate meaningfully in a discussion of quantum mechanics and its interplay with determinism.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I have read enough of his work to understand his explanation, and it is quite compelling.

Or maybe you don't recognize that.

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I meant that the positioning of two telescopes millions of miles from each other can be enough to pick up a slight difference in the location of the dot on Jupiter.

The positioning can be enough to pick up a difference..

That doesn't make much sense. Try again.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

The positioning can be enough to pick up a difference..

That doesn't make much sense. Try again.

It makes sense to me.

[But]

That sentence is gibberish. Try again.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

That sentence is gibberish. Try again.

I don't feel like playing this game. Tell me why you believe this disproves his claim, and I will either agree or disagree.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I meant that the positioning of two telescopes millions of miles from each other can be enough to pick up a slight difference in the location of the dot on Jupiter.

You really think that the astronomers are so stupid that they can't account for the different angles of the cameras and determine the position of the Red Spot in the photo. And you think that you are smart enough to see such an obvious error on their part, you are just as arrogant as your father was.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I don't feel like playing this game. Tell me why you believe this disproves his claim, and I will either agree or disagree.

The Spots were in the same relative position in the photos taken at a time that would account for the time it takes for the light to travel from Jupiter to Earth. The photos prove that we don't see in real time, because photos taken at the same time in both locations would show the Spot in the same relative position if we saw in real time. But the photos prove that there was a time delay in the photos, from the photos taken by the probe at Jupiter, and the photos taken by a telescope on Earth.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

It makes sense to me.

It would.

[ChuckF]

Maybe the Wave malfunctioned, you guys, and the telescope was in an indeterministic state at the time the pixels were at the ozone layer.

[Stephen Maturin]

Well, that would explain the lack of oxygen in our blood.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by ChuckF

Maybe the Wave malfunctioned, you guys, and the telescope was in an indeterministic state at the time the pixels were at the ozone layer.

Damned Ozone, screws up everything.

Maybe that is why Peacegirl believes what is written in her daddy's book, her brain is deprived of oxygen, due to the messed up Ozone layer.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Well, that would explain the lack of oxygen in Peacegirl's blood.

That and the alcohol.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I answered that question already. He doesn't like the answer so he repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats and REPEATS!

Wow. Which question are you here claiming to have answered, you stupid lying fuck? Show me the answer you think you have given and that you think I don't like. Apparently you have no conscience at all and think you can just lie your ass off with impunity.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

Bump.

Which of these do you think you answered?

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I don't think you have the education, training, experience or specialize knowledge in the subject matter either, so you have no room to talk.

I don't think you have the education, training, or experience to tie your own shoelaces. Thank God for velcro, eh PG.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by ChuckF

Maybe the Wave malfunctioned, you guys, and the telescope was in an indeterministic state at the time the pixels were at the ozone layer.

It was no malfunction. I saw a bunch of dogs messing with the levers. They ran off as soon as they recognized my face.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

They ran off as soon as they recognized my face.

But not by sight alone, right?

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

But not by sight alone, right?

Hard to say. While most ran off, a couple tried to lick my face while another offered me a 'first blow'. I explained I wasn't really into that sort of thing, and tried to wave for the attention of a nearby police officer. Sadly the wave malfunctioned and collapsed.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

Are you perhaps mistaking scantily clad, very young boys and goils looking to fall in love with one another's junk for dogs? It's a common error.

[davidm]

Here are a few things to get peacegirl’s dander up. This is always fun, of course. Those of us here who have been sufficiently stalwart to follow her sojourn into the endless muck of dishonest idiocy over the last 5 + years will not fail to recall how she went bananas when it dawned on her, at least dimly, what relativity theory implied. She then went on a months-long copy-pasta binge in which she dredged up every subnormal kook she could find online in an effort to discredit relativity theory, including a truly outstanding loon who maintains that the value of pi is 4. I think we can all agree those were good times indeed.

Should she ever grok what quantum mechanics says or implies, since it is far weirder than relativity theory, I think it’s safe to say we can expect another vivifying copy-pasta binge. I look forward with keen anticipation to the kooks she’ll dig up this time.

I only glossed Slattery’s stuff, but he seems to be saying that the inderterminism of QM is only apparent. If that’s his position, it would put him in the “hidden variables” camp of Einstein. A quick summary:

Bell’s Theorem of 1964, subsequently experimentally checked numerous times, rules out local hidden variables. (It does not rule out non-local hidden variables — see Bohm). So on this finding, QM is truly indeterministic, not just apparently so. A 2013 conference of top quantum physicists and mathematicians find zero (0) percent support for “hidden determinism” in QM.

A loophole, which I think Bell himself first raised, is that the experimental results on the theorem would be consistent with something called superdeterminism. However, superdeterminism has wildly implausible implications; in any event, I’m given to understand that an experiment is in the works to close the superdeterminist loophole.

Absent superdeterminism, the Strong Free Will Theorem states that any freely chosen experimental setup will not be influenced by anything in the past; and the subject of the experiment will also be free of past influences. If this is correct, then compatibilist free will is ruled out, and libertarian free will is real.

However, as with anything in QM, the situation is complicated. The major fly in the ointment of indeterministic QM, the Strong Free Will Theorem, and the results of the Bell experiments, is that they all depend on acceptance of the Copenhagen interpretation of QM. If instead you adopt the Everettian approach (which makes exactly the same successful predictions as Copenhagen), all the weirdness of QM vanishes like a water mirage on the highway: Under Everett, QM is fully deterministic and all causal influences are local; moreover there is no need for hidden variables. But of course under Everett you have to accept that the result of every choice ever made is actually real (multivalued): Seymour Lessans wrote a stupid book, but he also wrote a brilliant book. Can you guess which branch of the universal wave function those us of posting here are on?

If Everett’s Many Worlds approach is right, can we have free will if I choose every possible outcome? If Lessans chose to write a shitty book but he also chose to write a wise one, and both outcomes are actually real (the different worlds do not interact after the “split” which is why we do not notice them), in what sense did Seymour freely choose?

I think the situation for free will in a multiverse is no different than it would be in a single universe: It is compatibilist free will, which is restored in place of the libertarianism implied by the Strong Free Will Theorem, since that theorem has no validity in an Everettian multiverse.

As Michael Clive Price writes at the Everett FAQ:

Many-Worlds, whilst deterministic on the objective universal level, is indeterministic on the subjective level so the situation is certainly no better or worse for free-will than in the Copenhagen view. Traditional Copenhagen indeterministic quantum mechanics only slightly weakens the case for free-will. In quantum terms each neuron is an essentially classical object. Consequently quantum noise in the brain is at such a low level that it probably doesn't often alter, except very rarely, the critical mechanistic behaviour of sufficient neurons to cause a decision to be different than we might otherwise expect. The consensus view amongst experts is that free-will is the consequence of the mechanistic operation of our brains, the firing of neurons, discharging across synapses etc. and fully compatible with the determinism of classical physics. Free-will is the inability of an intelligent, self-aware mechanism to predict its own future actions due to the logical impossibility of any mechanism containing a complete internal model of itself rather than any inherent indeterminism in the mechanism's operation.

Nevertheless, some people find that with all possible decisions being realised in different worlds that the prima face situation for free-will looks quite difficult. Does this multiplicity of outcomes destroy free-will? If both sides of a choice are selected in different worlds why bother to spend time weighing the evidence before selecting? The answer is that whilst all decisions are realised, some are realised more often than others - or to put to more precisely each branch of a decision has its own weighting or measure which enforces the usual laws of quantum statistics.

This measure is supplied by the mathematical structure of the Hilbert spaces. Every Hilbert space has a norm, constructed from the inner product, - which we can think of as analogous to a volume - which weights each world or collection of worlds. A world of zero volume is never realised. Worlds in which the conventional statistical predictions consistently break down have zero volume and so are never realised. (See "How do probabilities emerge within many-worlds?")

Thus our actions, as expressions of our will, correlate with the weights associated with worlds. This, of course, matches our subjective experience of being able to exercise our will, form moral judgements and be held responsible for our actions.

Hope that helps, peacegirl.